The Patriot Threat

by Steve Berry

  “I know you’re pissed. But I had to do it on this one.”

  “So help me, Joe. You’re going to explain yourself or I’m going straight to the White House.”

  Now Stephanie realized why her boss had included her. It was no secret that the president showed the Magellan Billet favor. Her agents had been involved with all of the hot issues from the past few years, including a foiled assassination attempt on Danny Daniels himself. So her just being here was enough for the secretary of Treasury to know that whatever he expected to remain secret was about to change.

  “We both seem to have stumbled onto the same players, only in a different game,” he said. “We’ve been watching Larks and Kim Yong Jin for a couple of months now.”

  “You monitored their calls?” Harriett asked.

  The secretary nodded. “We started with domestic warrants on Larks’ phone. But once Kim made contact from overseas, we obtained more warrants. They’ve been communicating regularly, and all of this involves that fugitive your U.S. attorney in Alabama is searching for.”

  “How do you know about Howell?”

  “I read the Magellan Billet reports.”

  “Which you could have simply asked for,” Stephanie said.

  The secretary tossed her a glare. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t.”

  She wasn’t going to relent. “Yet here we are, talking about all of it now.”

  Annoyance flooded the man’s face, but he kept his cool. “That’s right. I admit, I have a problem. Some of our long-lost secrets have found the light of day.”

  “I hope you’re going to explain more than that,” Harriett said.

  “Follow me.”

  He led them down the hall to a wood-paneled door. Inside was a brightly lit conference room adorned with a long dark table lined on all sides with black leather chairs.

  “The judge is waiting on me. We have a surveillance-warrant application that we need processed tonight. I told him the attorney general herself would be coming by and I had to speak to her first. He agreed to give us a little time. You should read something.”

  The secretary motioned to the table where two piles of paper lay. A title sheet atop both read in bold letters, THE PATRIOT THREAT BY ANAN WAYNE HOWELL.

  “It’s a printed copy of an ebook Howell published a couple of years ago. Just after his conviction.”

  “About what?” Harriett asked.

  “Taxes. What else? Howell fashions himself an expert on our system.”

  “You don’t agree?” Stephanie asked.

  “He’s a conspiratorialist and paranoid. Most of what’s in that book is garbage. But there are some tidbits that bear noting. I made two copies and marked the important passages.”

  Stephanie glanced at Harriett. What choice did they have? They’d demanded an explanation and now they were being provided one. But Stephanie had a few more questions. “How did you know Malone was on that ship?”

  “Like I said, I read his reports.”

  “That’s not good enough. You came just after that cruise left port. You knew to come looking for those reports. How did you know Cotton was there in the first place?”

  “You do realize that you’re interrogating a cabinet-level official.”

  “Who broke myriad laws, all of which carry a prison sentence.”

  “Answer the question,” Harriett said.

  “Eyes on the ground, there to watch Larks, but we spotted Malone. So I sent some people over to learn what they could from your files. Hopefully, without drawing attention. But that part didn’t work out. As to those laws I broke, I considered the risk worth taking.”

  She knew that Joe Levy had certainly never been in a fight like this before. His background was law and money. To Stephanie’s knowledge he’d never served in the military and had no training in intelligence operations. He was definitely in way over his head. So what had prompted him to take such chances?

  “Are you’re managing this all on your own?” she asked. “An international intelligence operation run by Treasury agents?”

  “I thought it best to keep it internally contained. Paul Larks gave me little choice. Neither did Kim Yong Jin.”

  “Kim’s a nothing,” Stephanie said. “How’s he a problem?”

  “He can read.”

  An odd response.

  Then she got it.

  The paper stacks on the table.

  “There’s also one other reason why I’ve chosen to involve you,” the secretary said. “This whole matter is … complicated. It has to be kept here, among us. After you read some of Howell’s book, I’ll explain further and hope that you agree.”

  FIFTEEN

  VENICE

  Kim lay in the bed, the heavy gold curtains drawn, but his mind would not surrender to sleep. He sensed that he was closing in on his goal, the truth perhaps no longer out of reach. When he’d first stumbled upon Howell’s website he’d thought the whole idea fantastical. And his first email to Howell had gone unanswered.

  His second, though, brought a reply.

  So good to hear from a fellow sufferer. Sorry to learn, though, of your arrest. It’s a great injustice our country heaps on us. I was tried and convicted without me being there. I chose to leave the country before they could get to me. It’s a shame we have to pick between our freedom and our country. But the fight must continue and it can’t be waged from jail. That’s why I wrote my book, which outlines everything I believe. This quandary began long ago, in a different time, when some amazing things happened. Read the book and let me know if it proves helpful.

  To garner a reply, he’d changed tack and posed as someone charged with tax evasion, thinking that the ruse might open the door to Howell.

  And it had.

  So he’d sent more questions, as Peter From Europe, all of which Howell answered. In his undergraduate studies, Kim had majored in world history and economics. Both subjects interested him. American history, though, was definitely something new, and he’d spent the past few months reading, readying himself for this moment. Unlike what his father may have thought, he was neither stupid nor lazy. Howell was right. Monumental things might indeed have happened long ago, the seeds of that conflict sown by a man named Andrew Mellon.

  Whom he’d learned all about.

  Thomas Mellon, a Scots Irish, immigrated to the United States from Ireland in 1818. There he set his sights high and attended college, then read law and became a successful Pittsburgh lawyer. In 1859 he was elected a local judge, a position in which he both excelled and profited. Ultimately he founded T. Mellon & Sons, a private banking concern in Pittsburgh. He fathered eight children, the sixth a boy named Andrew, a contemplative lad possessed of an undeniable confidence.

  At age twenty-seven Andrew assumed leadership of his father’s bank. Over the next two decades he acquired control of more banks and insurance companies. He then branched into natural gas and aluminum, where he financed the creation of Alcoa. Energy was big business in Mellon’s day, and his venture into that realm became known as Gulf Oil. By 1910 the family fortune was over $2 trillion in today’s money.

  Mellon was a shy, silent, astute man. Those closest to him said he had a dry sense of humor and an infectious laugh, both sparingly shown. He cultivated few friends, but those that he did remained so for life. He smartly recognized early on the value of political influence and became a huge donor to the Republican party. In 1920 one of his closest friends, Philander Knox, a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, convinced newly elected president Warren Harding to appoint Mellon secretary of Treasury. He served from 1921 to 1932, through three presidents. Calvin Coolidge proclaimed that the business of America is business, and the country certainly prospered. Spending and taxes were cut, while budget surpluses abounded. America in the 1920s became the world’s banker, with Mellon at the national helm. He could virtually do no wrong. But the 1929 stock market crash changed that perception, and the Great Depression ended Mellon’s reign. Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal hated anyt
hing and everything about Mellon and his policies. Roosevelt was so repulsed that he brought charges of tax evasion, but Mellon was exonerated in 1937, three months after his death.

  His lifetime achievements were amazing.

  Second only to J. P. Morgan as a financier. On par with Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller as an industrialist. He created five Fortune 500 companies and endowed a foundation that continues to this day to dole out millions in contributions annually.

  But his greatest achievement may have yet to be revealed.

  Howell had enticed Kim with that last part. So he’d taken the bait and asked for more, learning from another email that Mellon’s secret legacy might not be so easily found.

  Suffice it to say Mellon was both ruthless and brilliant. He understood how to both acquire and keep power. But he was fortunate. He ran our economy at a time when things were good. His policies of low taxes and less regulation worked. I feel for your situation, Peter From Europe. I haven’t filed a tax return in a long time. I sincerely believe that the law does not require me to. Nor do I believe your American companies have to pay corporate income taxes, either. It’s a shame they are being bilked by the government. My lawyer tried to make the argument at my trial that the income tax is illegal but, unfortunately, proof of that may not exist anymore. That’s why I fled, and I would encourage you to stay hidden, too. It’s the safest course. That way we can keep looking. I’ve researched this for a long time and I’m convinced I’m right. The proof does exist. Stay vigilant and keep in touch. One day we may find what we’re looking for. Thank God for the Internet.

  He thought Andrew Mellon sounded a lot like his own father. A cold, practical, indifferent man focused on one thing. For Mellon it was making money. For his father? Unfettered, unrestricted, unlimited power—the ability to control, without question, the fates of tens of millions.

  He had to admit, it was a potent aphrodisiac.

  As was proving his father wrong.

  He would enjoy the day when his half brother fell from grace, when the lackeys in military uniforms pleaded for him to lead. No confidence in him? He’d have them all shot. Because on that day he would have accomplished what no one inside North Korea had ever thought possible, including his father.

  He was no paper tiger.

  The mountains of North Korea were home to many tigers, their bodies brown with long black lines. Myth said that long ago a tiger and a bear wanted to become human. God told them to stay in a cave for a hundred days eating only garlic and mugwort. The bear stayed the required time and became a woman, but the tiger could not endure the wait and left, remaining a wild animal. Later the bear who became a woman married God’s son and gave birth to a son of her own, who became the founder of Korea.

  Tigers were courageous, fearless, and majestic. Many North Koreans decorated their front gates with pictures of them. The top of a bride’s carriage was draped with a tiger blanket to protect the newlyweds from evil spirits. Women wore a decorative brooch with tiger claws to fend off bad spirits. Rich patriarchs once sat on pillows embroidered with tiger images.

  Tigers meant power and courage.

  If you talk about the tiger, the tiger will appear. And if you want to catch a tiger, you have to go to the tiger’s cave.

  His mother taught him those wisdoms.

  And he knew what she meant.

  The word tiger stood for “adversary.” Or “challenge.” Or anything that seemed out of reach. What a wonderful woman. She’d loved him for who he truly was, unlike his father who wanted him to be something else. He’d spent a lifetime cultivating a worldly personality that seemed unfazed by politics. Few to none knew what he thought or who he was. For him causes would not be taken up with the apparent randomness his family liked to show. His words would not be laughed at or ignored. On its current path North Korea seemed doomed to end by either coup, revolution, or mere ineffectiveness.

  He would break the cycle of ridicule and failure.

  And be something the world would rightly fear.

  SIXTEEN

  WASHINGTON, DC

  Stephanie sat at the conference table, Harriett across from her, the hard copies of The Patriot Threat left them by the secretary of Treasury spread out before them.

  “I’m going to have a long talk with our U.S. attorney in Alabama,” Harriett said. “He never mentioned that this fugitive was a writer.”

  “And you never mentioned anything about Kim or that Treasury specifically wanted Cotton at that money transfer.”

  “Which, as I’ve already said, was a big mistake on my part.”

  “You have to realize your silence placed Cotton Malone in unnecessary danger.”

  “Are you always so impertinent to your bosses?”

  “Only when my people are on the line.”

  Harriett smiled. “I assure you. I learned my lesson.”

  It was approaching midnight in DC, which meant dawn would be coming to Italy soon. Luke had reported that Cotton wanted him back at 7:00 A.M. The cruise ship debarkation could be their break.

  She shuffled through the pages, the book’s introduction promising “amazing and startling revelations.” A quick glance at the table of contents revealed a few chapter titles. “Historical Non-Perspectives.” “Can the Courts Be That Stupid?” “A Warning to the IRS.” “Political Questions No One Wants to Answer.”

  “This is some kind of tax evader’s manifesto,” she said. “Which makes sense, considering Howell’s criminal problems. But the copyright date is after his conviction. So he wrote this while a fugitive.”

  Several spots were marked with paper clips. She found the first tagged section and read.

  One of the mysteries of the 1920s was how Andrew Mellon managed to remain Secretary of the Treasury for nearly eleven years, through three different presidencies. One line of thought deals with the fact that Mellon was the first public official to actively engage the Internal Revenue Service as a weapon against political enemies. Audits were routinely conducted to harass opponents. Criminal charges were sometimes brought, as were civil trials in administrative tax courts, all designed to pressure Mellon’s enemies. Perhaps he was deft enough at retaliation that even presidents feared him. A modern-day analogy would be J. Edgar Hoover, who managed to retain control of the FBI through six administrations. Some say Hoover’s infamous secret files played a major role. Just as with Hoover, several investigations into Mellon’s activities ensued and there were even calls for his impeachment, but none ever materialized to anything substantive.

  One story persists, though. Which may, more than anything else, explain Mellon’s longevity. In February 1913 Philander Knox was the outgoing Secretary of State. A month later a new president (Woodrow Wilson) would appoint his successor. In 1916, Knox was elected to the Senate from Pennsylvania. He was also a candidate for president in the 1920 election, but was defeated for the nomination at the Republican Party convention, eventually working hard to elect Warren Harding. Knox and Mellon were close friends, both from Pittsburgh, and it was Knox who urged Harding to appoint Mellon Secretary of Treasury. The incoming president, like most people in the country, had never heard of Mellon. To that point, he’d kept a low profile. Knox first described him to Harding as a “Pittsburgh banker, highly regarded in Pennsylvania” and active in providing large amounts of money for Harding’s election. Which may have been the only criterion that really mattered. Mellon was selected and took office in March 1921. Knox died in October 1921. Some say that, before his death, Knox passed a great secret on to Mellon and it was this secret that provided the real reason for his longevity.

  “I’ve never heard this before,” Harriett said.

  “Which means it could all be a figment of Howell’s imagination. I read the appellate court’s opinion on his conviction. His appointed trial lawyer tried to present some crazy arguments that the 16th Amendment was not legal. The secretary was right. Howell’s a wild conspiratorialist. He sees things that simply don’t exist.”

 
“I’m beginning to wonder just exactly what does exist.”

  Stephanie agreed.

  So they kept reading.

  A fair question would be: Why would Philander Knox give Andrew Mellon anything that might be harmful to the United States? Something that Mellon could use to his political advantage. By all accounts, Knox was a lifelong patriot. He served in three presidents’ cabinets, twice as Attorney General (for McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt) and once as Secretary of State (for Taft). Three times he was chosen to serve in the United States Senate from Pennsylvania. By anyone’s measure that kind of career would be termed a great success. But to Knox it proved not enough. He was a wildly ambitious man who coveted being president.

  Unfortunately, as one contemporary described, “He wants to soar like an eagle, but has the wings of a sparrow.” He was generally regarded as intellectually brilliant, but his incisive tongue and pompous attitude made him few friends. Another contemporary said, “He served with distinction, but achieved none.” His reputation was mainly confined to Pittsburgh, where he was a favorite among that city’s rich elite. Men like Andrew Carnegie, Henry Frick, and Mellon himself regarded him as a friend. President Harding shunned him for selection to his new Republican cabinet in March 1921, which Knox openly resented. He continued, though, to serve in the Senate, representing Pennsylvania for another seven months before dying.

  “It seems politics then was not so different than now,” Harriett said. “The Senate is still filled with people who want to be president.”

  “You included?”

  “I was the exception. I just wanted to be attorney general.”

  “Why this job?”

  Her boss shrugged. “My time in the Senate was over, and I wanted to have some say in who succeeded me, so moving over here for the last year of my career seemed like a good idea. It gave the governor an appointment to fill my unexpired term. Luckily he listened to me and chose the right person.”

  “But you’ll serve here only a short time.”

  Harriett smiled. “Not necessarily. Maybe I’ll be like Knox and Mellon and another president will keep me on.”