“I’m sorry to hear that,” Kay noted. “We’ll have to do something to cheer him up.”
“Meanwhile, I’ve introduced Jack to the joys of winemaking. If his new business venture succeeds, maybe he’ll buy a vineyard of his own one day.”
Nagy laughed and slathered ripe cheese onto another chunk of baguette.
“Gabrielle grew up on a vineyard. She’d be delighted to give it a try.”
“Does your girlfriend have any children who’ll work on the cheap?”
“Two grown daughters. I have high hopes for them and their husbands. We’ll see.”
“How about your own children, Jack?” Kay asked with a concerned look. “Any news from Carol since we talked last?”
“Not a word. I was waiting at the gate when they let her out of prison. She wouldn’t even look at me.”
“Didn’t she understand that you’re the one who arranged for her early release?” Zorn asked, his eyes expressing both sympathy and confusion.
“She knew. But to Carol, I’m an enemy of the people. Her brain is saturated with Marxist hogwash. Sometimes I wonder if she’ll ever snap out of it. Carol will always be my daughter, and I’ll never stop loving her. But I have to let her go or the heartache is just too much.”
“And now you have a business to tend to,” Kay said, trying to be positive. “Since you moved to Toulouse, we hardly see you. So tell me, Jack, what is your new venture all about? Or is it a secret, like Roger’s work used to be?”
"Actually, what I’m doing is the polar opposite of secret,” Nagy replied, his eyes brightening. “Our company develops countersurveillance applications for private clients. No government contracts. The mission is to defend customers’ privacy against every kind of intrusion.”
“Jack has a great deal of experience with government surveillance,” Zorn noted with an understated smile.
“In both directions,” Nagy added.
But before anyone could say more, Zorn’s cell phone rang. He glanced at the screen and looked up with eyes narrowed.
“Excuse me. But I’ve got to take this.
“Would you like some privacy?” Kay asked, having become accustomed to her husband receiving all sorts of mysterious phone calls.
“No, please stay where you are. You might find this interesting.”
Then Zorn stood up and paced up and down the patio as he spoke into the phone.
“Hello, Nelson. Hey, do you mind if I put you on speaker so I can have my hands free? I’ve got company coming over in a few minutes for drinks and I promised my wife I’d set things up here on the patio.”
As if to demonstrate, Zorn made chopping noises with a knife against the charcuterie board. His wife cast an amused glance at Jack Nagy and rolled her eyes. In the next instant, a man’s voice came through the speakerphone. It was confident and clear, with a faint Southern drawl.
“No, that’s fine, Roger. And excuse me for calling you late in the day. My reason for the call is to thank you for the materials you sent me last year through Audrey Lamb. I sincerely regret how long it’s taken me, but I’m sure you can appreciate the reasons.”
“I do, and you’re welcome. I’m happy to see you put my information to good use.”
“I believe we did. And your associate Mr. Nagy was also very helpful. Please convey my thanks to him. I understand he’s gone to work for you in France. Is that right?”
Nagy raised an eyebrow at Kay, who leaned over and whispered into his ear.
“I think it’s someone from the White House.”
Zorn responded to Nelson Blackburn’s question with a genial laugh.
“No, Jack has launched his own business over here. I’ve enjoyed helping him out from time to time, but I’m fully retired now.”
“Would his work be anything we ought to look at? A follow-on to Triage, maybe?”
“I don’t think so. Jack sells his products to private citizens, not state organs.”
“What a pity,” Blackburn answered with an audible sigh. “Threats keep popping up all the time. We need to stay ahead of them.”
“Of course you do,” Zorn said with a chill in his voice. But then he went on in a more gracious tone.
“By the way, Nelson. I see you’ve been promoted to national security advisor. Congratulations. I’d say it’s a well-earned reward for your having cleaned up the ESM mess so quickly. And for so neatly pinning the blame on Charlie Scudder.”
“Well, who else if not Charlie?” Blackburn answered in a languid voice. “After all, he was the highest-ranking official in charge.”
“Other than you.”
“Not true,” Blackburn snapped. “I was never in ESM’s direct chain of command.”
“If you say so. May I conclude then that the ESM program no longer exists?”
“That’s correct. The day I received your dossier, I took it straight to the vice president. He called a meeting of the National Security Council, which terminated the program forthwith. But they allowed us sixty days to wrap it up. So by the time the scandal broke, all Tetra’s overseas sites had been shut down.”
“After which you declared total victory over the intifada.”
“Yes. And I thank you for your contribution.”
Zorn let out a laugh that was anything but mirthful.
“Contribution, did you say? After accusing me in the media of being the evil mastermind behind the ESM program?”
“Oh, please, Roger. You hardly have grounds to complain, having profited handsomely from your merger with Tetra. Besides, all publicity is good publicity. Now that the Zorn name has become a household word, why not put it to good use?”
Suddenly Zorn caught his breath.
“Not in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine becoming more notorious than my father. But now that I am, I can see where you’re going with this. You didn’t call to thank me. You called to ask me a favor. Me, the person who got you promoted to NSC advisor. And whom you promptly threw under the bus. So, Mr. Blackburn, how else can I help you today?”
“Bitterness doesn’t become you, Roger,” Blackburn parried. “Yes, I do want to ask you for something. But it’s not a personal favor. It’s a service to your country.”
“Oh, that’s rich. Do tell.”
“I’m asking you to help us end the country’s polarization over the ESM affair. Are you familiar with the new legislation to create a National Truth and Reconciliation Commission?”
“More or less.”
“What are your thoughts?”
“I haven’t read the bill,” Zorn said. “But I’m familiar with the countries where the idea’s been tried. Not very promising, if you ask me.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, the president has thrown his weight behind it and we’d like your support.”
“My support? What on earth for? What would it achieve, other than a kumbaya moment for the media and more public bashing for me? Will your commission bring the dead back to life? Will it send senior DHS people to prison? Or will it end in the usual whitewash?
“That remains to be seen,” Blackburn evaded. “The bill hasn’t passed yet.”
“And if it does, how long do expect your truth and reconciliation process to take? Months? Years?”
“Hearings will take place all across the country for the next year.”
“I expect it’ll drag on a lot longer than that,” Zorn harrumphed. “It sounds to me like a scheme to distract voters ahead of the next election.”
“I understand your reluctance, Roger. But if you expected the real architects of ESM to be punished, I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
A feeling of disgust washed over Zorn.
“To think Margaret ever trusted you! Don't tell me you didn't know exactly what DHS and Tetra were up to. Why else would you organize the Middleburg conference?”
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken on that,” Blackburn replied in an icy voice. “The conference you refer to never happened. And I suggest you never mention it again.”
<
br /> “Is that a threat?”
“Not at all. But let’s get back to the main point of my call, since you said you’re expecting visitors. What we want is your public support for the T&R bill so we can win back the segment of the president’s base that supported ESM most heavily at the outset. If you’ll write an op-ed piece, we’ll get it placed. If you agree to an interview, we’ll get you into the studio. We think your endorsement would help a great deal to pass the bill. Failure to get it through Congress could cost us the next election and erase all the gains this administration has achieved to date.”
“And why should American voters listen to me?”
“Because the T&R process offers amnesty and a path toward rehabilitation not just for senior people like you and Pat Craven, but for all the low-level Triage operators and aircrews who took part in ESM. It also gives them legal cover to reveal what they know about the missing detainees, so that families of the disappeared can find out what happened to them.”
“So your idea is to put ESM behind us and let bygones be bygones? Move on from yet another failed war while the guilty go unpunished?”
“Your words, not mine,” Blackburn answered in a distracted voice, as if he had grown weary of the call and was ready for it to end. “Anyway, Roger, please give my proposal serious thought. I’ll get back to you soon to see what can work out.”
“I’ve already decided. Count me out.”
“Please, Roger. Don’t be hasty,” Blackburn answered in a strained voice. “There’s no need to give your final answer just yet.”
“But I have. The answer is no.”
Then, with a flourish clearly intended for his wife, Zorn held his phone in one hand and let the index finger of the other swoop in to end the call.
“Wow. I wish I’d told Blackburn off like that when I had the chance,” Nagy said, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “What a snake.”
“Let’s drink to endings, happy or otherwise!” Zorn replied, picking up his wine glass. “Salut!”
But the wine went down with a sour taste because Zorn couldn’t help thinking of how Margaret Slattery had met her end. He rose to fetch another bottle from the cooler but at that moment Walter Lang strolled onto the patio, impeccably dressed in a tweed sport jacket, gray flannel trousers, and a bright silk ascot tucked into his starched white shirt. If Lang was having money troubles, he certainly wasn’t letting it show.
“What are we celebrating?” the old man asked, smiling as if he were already clued into whatever the joke might be. “Is your new vintage showing promise?”
“It’s not about the wine, Walter,” Kay explained as she poured her new guest a glass of rosé. “Roger just received a call from the White House and told them to go to hell.”
“What on earth would those people want?” Lang asked in alarm. “They didn’t ask Roger to go back to work for them, did they?”
“Not exactly,” Zorn laughed. “They wanted me to say something nice about their new Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I declined.”
“Then you’re not returning to Washington?” Lang asked with a look of relief.
“My god, not if I can help it.”
“Very good, Roger,” Lang replied with a note of relief. “Because I have a proposition that may interest you. Surely you don’t intend to devote all your energies to making wine, do you? You’re still a young man, at the peak of your powers!”
Kay let out a snort.
“It may seem like that to an eighty-year-old,” she told the older man. “But excuse me while I laugh.”
“So what would you have me do that’s more important than making wine? Out with it, Walter.”
“Are you following the disturbances that broke out this morning in Paris? They’ve spread to Marseille and Toulouse.”
“So? Youth riots in the bainlieues have been a regular event for years.”
“Well, I received a phone call this afternoon from the Minister of the Interior. The government has decided at last to take decisive action.”
“Decisive action?” Zorn scoffed. “What sort of action could possibly turn the tide now, with our Muslim population at five million and breeding like rabbits? Let’s face it, Walter: the France we grew up in is gone.”
Lang looked around the table and stopped at Nagy.
“May I speak in confidence?”
He had met Nagy on several occasions and knew of the man’s past intelligence work and assistance to Zorn, but Lang always erred toward caution.
“Of course,” Zorn replied. “What did the minister tell you?”
“The French government has decided to launch its own campaign of emergency security measures, patterned on the American model, now that Washington has shown how to do it. And the Interior Ministry has engaged Tetra Corporation to help them carry it out!”
Zorn swallowed hard. Was the ESM program to be resurrected in France?
“Since the minister is aware of our experience in America’s emergency program and the role that Triage played in it, he wants to hire you and me as his personal consultants!”
“Consultants on what, in heaven’s name?”
“Consultants on a project to massively expand Triage capacity throughout France!”
“And what answer did you give, if I’m permitted to ask?”
“I accepted, of course. But I couldn’t answer for you until we had a chance to talk.”
Zorn glanced at his wife, then at Nagy, with a bemused expression.
“So how about it, Roger?” Lang pressed on. “This new campaign to restore order shows every sign of being France’s most fateful conflict since Algeria, a fight for the very survival of the republic! As your father said to me sixty years ago in Algiers: ‘The crisis is upon us. Will you march with the paratroopers and save France in her hour of need?’”
The old man awaited the answer with bated breath. Zorn replied at once.
“Please tell the minister that I respectfully decline. If the paratroopers must march, let them go without me.”
––END––
Author's Biographical Note
I wrote Dynamite Fishermen and Bride of a Bygone War to clear my head after eleven years of government service in places like Beirut, Cairo, Tunis, Jeddah, and Amman.
I had already decided to write novels at age fourteen, during my first year as a boarding student at Exeter. My English instructor, a World War II combat veteran, advised those of us who wanted to follow the path of Melville, Conrad and Hemingway to first go out and live some adventures so that we would have stories that people might want to read.
My adventures started in the Middle East and continued in Washington, Europe, the Russian Far East, Maui, Utah, New York and Boston. Particularly in the Middle East and Russia, I saw failed states and failed societies but was often surprised at how much their people had in common with Americans.
This made me think about whether America might someday suffer its own breed of societal failure. During the 1930’s, Americans watched Germany, Italy and Russia and asked, “Could it happen here?”
Today, one might look around and ask the same. In writing Forty Days at Kamas, Star Chamber Brotherhood and Exile Hunter, my greatest concern was that the novels gain a readership before the events they describe come to pass.
In writing Maid of Baikal, I wanted to look on the positive side and show how a single enlightened and charismatic figure might inspire a country’s political and military elite to become worthy of governing, and thus lead their country forward to freedom and prosperity. In the historical figure of Joan of Arc, I found a template for how this might be achieved, even under the most adverse conditions. I pray that America will never fall so low as to require an American Joan to ride to its rescue.
Root and Branch describes the danger of excesses from the country’s national security establishment in the event of a catastrophic national emergency. While the scenario described in Root and Branch is a narrow one, I believe that the novel illustrates how the rights and libe
rties of American citizens and legal residents might be placed at risk under a variety of scenarios.
A FINAL WORD: When you turn the page, Kindle’s “Before You Go” feature will give you the opportunity to rate this book and share your rating and comments on Facebook and Twitter. If you enjoyed the book, please take a moment to let your friends know about it. Better yet, post a Reader Review on Amazon.com, or on Goodreads.com or LibraryThing.com. If the book gives others a few evenings of enjoyment, they’ll be grateful that you reached out to them. As will I.
Please also keep in touch with me and learn about my upcoming novels by following Preston Fleming on BookBub.com and Facebook.com.
With best wishes, Preston Fleming
Notes
Chapter Two: American Intifada
1 An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is a short burst of electromagnetic energy, either natural (e.g., from lightning) or man-made (e.g., from a nuclear explosion or a powerful generator), capable of disrupting or damaging electronic equipment and/or the electric power grid.
2 North Koreans.
3 Any suburb of a French city, but often referring to a suburb that is economically depressed and harbors a large immigrant population.
4 Arabic word literally meaning “youth” but often carrying the pejorative connotation of “idle young men on the street.”
5 Department of Homeland Security, a cabinet department that manages the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (CIS), Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Coast Guard and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
6 Request For Proposal, a document that solicits a commercial proposal, usually at an early stage in a bidding process, and is issued by a company or agency intending to procure some product or service.
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