Читать книгу A Patriotic Nightmare - Don E. Post - Страница 8

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WASHINGTON, D.C.

Monday, February 3

While an arms transaction was taking place in Tunisia, 36-year-old Darren Hopkins slowly trudged up the stairs of the west entrance to the old executive office building in Washington, D.C. It was a few minutes after seven in the morning, and the worst snowstorm of the season ravaged the nation’s capitol. Old timers bitterly complained, and everyone admitted tiring of the dark, cold winter days.

The icy wind whipped the wet snow down Seventeenth Street, penetrating Darren’s bones in spite of his new coat. “Why don’t they shut down this whole city until this storm blows over? It takes a moron to be out in weather like this!”

He quickly looked around to make sure no one heard him. “No one’s dumb enough to be out this early on such an atrocious day but me,” he said aloud. At last he reached the sanctity of the foyer. He stomped snow off his shoes and then made his way to the elevator and the second-floor cubbyhole he called an office. The room, adjacent to the suite occupied by his boss, General George Burcks, a retired Marine, had grown cramped, but Darren managed. Burcks, chairman of President Carl Evans’ National Security Council (NSC), wore four stars, was in his mid-sixties, stood a trim, athletic, six feet three inches tall, and sported silky white hair. His decorations reflected major roles in every war and skirmish since Korea.

As he entered the elevator, Darren reflected on the weird process that brought him to Washington a year ago, which now seemed like decades. Many of the factors still eluded him. He did not know Burcks nor had he ever worked in government. And he had never worked in D.C. Never wanted to. He grew up in Texas but spent some of his childhood in Latin America and Asia. His parents, both medical doctors, spent a great deal of time assisting international health organizations. Two sisters practiced law in Houston and Austin. Darren landed a job with Global Analysis, a California international think-tank, after graduating from the University of Texas in nineteen eighty-five with a degree in international relations. Political risk analysis, business development tasks, and marketing research had kept him in Asia and the Mideast over the years. The move to the National Security Council began in Singapore, and he vividly remembers Ms. Clark’s phone call.

He had just pulled himself out of bed that fateful Wednesday morning at Singapore’s Hyatt Regency Hotel and sat on the edge of the bed worrying about losing some of his 240 pounds, when the phone rang.

“Mr. Hopkins, I’m Jo Clark, administrative assistant to General George Burcks who chairs the President’s National Security Council. The general would like to talk to you about a senior research analyst’s job.”

“Well,” he stammered in his sleepy condition, “you caught me on my blindside.” He could hear her laugh.

“I understand,” she said. “There’s a high degree of urgency in getting this position filled, so he hopes you’ll at least be willing to come to Washington at our expense to discuss it.”

“Uh, gosh,” he replied as he fought to shake the fog out of his head. “I’ve got a number of appointments set up over here, and I’d have to talk to my boss before I could agree to do that.”

“The President of Global Analysis has already given General Burcks permission to bring you to Washington. And, if things work out and you join us, your Global Analysis job will be waiting for you when you decide to return. You can’t top that can you?

“Wow. I’m impressed!”

“Can you postpone your meetings?”

“I suppose so,” Darren said slowly. His mind tried to process what had happened as rapidly as possible.

“Good. You need to catch an immediate flight to Washington. Can you arrange those flights or shall we?”

“Wait, let’s back up one step. How much time do I have to consider this?”

“The general wants an answer by noon our time. Again, remember, this is just an interview.”

“Well, I need to get the cobwebs out of my head before I answer.”

“Of course,” Ms. Clark said softly. “I’ll call you back in two hours. Is that okay?”

“I guess so.” He stared at the Singapore skyline from his twelfth floor window for several minutes after Ms. Clark hung up. Wow, he thought. The National Security Council? I don’t even know what the hell it does. His curiosity got the upper hand. He wanted to talk to General Burcks.

Whoops! The elevator opened on the second floor and Darren, so engrossed in the trip down memory lane, almost missed his floor. He headed down the musty corridor to his office, hung up his coat, and went to the kitchen off Ms. Clark’s office to prepare a pot of coffee. Letting the coffee perk, he returned to his office. At least the office is warm and cozy, he thought. The fierce wind rattled the old windows. He walked over and stood watching the snow pile up in Lafayette Park. His mind returned to that initial trip from Singapore to Burcks’ office.

The Singapore Airlines 747 taxied to the gate at Dulles International Airport at around ten a.m., Thursday, thirty hours after Ms. Clark’s phone call. Two Marines met Darren as he came down the ramp and entered the airport lounge. He still remembered his disbelief. The encounter went something like this:

“Sir, General Burcks sent us to pick you up. Come with us.”

Before Darren could get a response out of his mouth, they whisked him through a nearby door, down two flights of stairs, out another door and into a gray Mercury Marquis. One man loaded Darren’s suitcase in the trunk, jumped into the driver’s seat and shot off the tarmac so fast Darren grabbed for something to hang on to. As they sped through airport security gates and east on the Dulles Toll Road, the other marine, a major, asked, “Sir, may I have your passport?

“I guess,” Darren said, as he handed it over.

The major handed the passport to a young lieutenant, and then turned to Darren and said, “Sir, your passport will be processed and delivered to your hotel room later this evening.”

“Well, thanks, that’s great service.” Darren began to feel a mounting apprehension, much like that experienced by pets owned by taxidermists!

The car finally entered an unmarked drive at the old executive office building next to the White House and parked in an underground garage with a musty odor. The major escorted him to the elevator and General Burcks’ office on the second floor. Washington’s cold but sunny weather invigorated him after the humid ambience of Southeast Asia. Thankfully he brought a light coat.

Ms. Clark greeted him warmly, took his coat and asked that he be seated while the general finished his phone conversation with the President. Wow, heady stuff, Darren recalled thinking. A few minutes later Ms. Clark escorted Darren into the office, introduced him and stood by for further orders.

“Darren, glad to finally meet you. I hope you had a pleasant trip,” Burcks said, rising to shake Darren’s hand.

“I slept most of the way. Thanks for asking.”

“Let’s get our luncheon order in before we start.” As the General relayed their request to Ms. Clark, Darren scanned Burcks’ office, noting pictures of several U.S. presidents and numerous notables as well as an unimpeded view of the White House and Lafayette Square.

Burcks wasted no time on pleasantries. Darren could feel his heart racing lickity-split. Sweat built up in his armpits.

“Darren, your boss at Global Analysis, Faulk Landrum, is an old friend of mine. Your name came up in a recent conversation as one whom we’d like to have working with us.”

“Ahhh, so he triggered this?” Darren said with a slight smile and a nod of his head.

“He and another friend of mine at Pentagon named Al Olsen. I’ve known Olsen for years and also value his counsel. And we’ve talked with dozens of people who have known you over the years. I think our research has been pretty thorough.”

Caught off guard, blushing slightly, Darren sputtered, “Really?

“Really.” Burcks got out of his chair, stared at Darren with fire in his narrowed eyes. Then, in a voice that would have made Moses proud, he said, “Since September eleventh, two-thousand-two, times have been tough. We are scouring the landscape to find the best talent. To date I’ve found nothing in your background that would be either a security risk or embarrass the present administration, but is there anything in your background that our investigation did not find that could prove to be embarrassing to you, me or the administration? If there is, tell me now and we won’t waste each other’s time. If you don’t tell me and the issue crops up to bloody my nose, I will be very unhappy. Am I clear?”

“General, my life has been embarrassingly plain vanilla! Anyone looking at my life would be bored to tears. And,” he emphasized, shaking his head back and forth as he said, “there’s not a thing in my background to embarrass anyone. Well, maybe a bad grade in high school English, but nothing more profound than that.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Sir, I am sure.” Darren shifted the focus as he leaned forward and asked, “But what do you think I can do for you? Washington is awash with talented Wannabies. I’ve never worked in government and may end up being a square peg in a round hole. If I am, that will be embarrassing to both of us.”

Burcks Leaned back in his chair and said, “Yes, there is a lot of talent in D.C. I’ve talked to many. Wannabies are a dime a dozen here. But, frankly, I don’t want a wannabies. I want a ratherbie, as in ‘I’d rather be somewhere else.’ Someone untainted by government service, a self-starter, a doer and most important, someone with international experience beyond just tourist crap. This person has got to be smart enough to know a problem when hit in the face with it and guts enough to pursue the fixes. Above all, I’ve gotta have loyalty. One hundred ten-percent loyalty.”

Silence descended. Burcks stared at Darren with an intensity that made Darren uncomfortable.

Burcks continued, “I like the fact that you don’t have an ego that needs the limelight. We’ve got too many of those in government now. Also this is a fairly hectic place. We spend most of our time reacting to fires around the world. The White House pressures me, I pressure my staff and” after a slight pause, Burcks said, “Well, I suggest you get a punching bag you can whup-up on. If we can reach an agreement, that is.” Burcks again leaned back in his chair, waiting for Darren’s response.

Darren’s lips curled slightly and he let the silence linger. He raised his head and let each word trickle out, “General Burcks, someone may outthink me from time to time, but no one outworks me.” Burcks nodded, but said nothing. Darren continued, “Could you be more specific? What would I be doing?”

“Whatever task I assign you.”

“You must have something in mind for a starter,” Darren said.

“Yes, in fact I do. I’ll want you to help analyze our international reports. We need a new perspective. And you’ve not only got the international academic studies, but you also have years of work experience in dozens of countries. I also like that you can speak several languages.”

“My language skills are only as good as the amount of time I’ve been in that country. In other words, I’m not that fluent.”

Burcks nodded understanding, pushed his chair back, and said, “I get worried. The CIA and embassy staff around the world feed off each other. Hell, with all our intelligence gathering around the world, we didn’t know that the Shah of Iran had lost all chances of holding on, that the Soviet Union and East Germany had called it quits, that the students in the People’s Republic of China planned a revolution, and we sure didn’t have a clue that some Arab terrorists were planning to fly our own commercial aircraft into the World Trade Center. Since nine-eleven things seem to have improved in that area, but I still worry.”

“Yeah, that all looked pretty bad,” Darren said.

Burcks shook his head from side to side as he said, “By and large our agents are good people. And it’s true that budget cuts during the nineties left us wanting in our espionage efforts. But I also suspect many are afraid to pass bad news to their superiors. Or they’ve gotten too cozy with their foreign contacts and have been compromised. Good lord, we’ve even found agents sleeping with the enemy.”

“Yeah, I guess it’s easy to get comfortable and careless,” added Darren.

“I don’t want to be too harsh here,” Burcks said, as his voice softened and he threw his arms up and locked his hands behind his head. “Some congressional hearings suggest that correct information is often sent up the line, but the reports get trashed by some senior level analyst because they don’t support his or her views.”

“Okay. What else would I be doing?” Darren asked.

Both men sat quietly for a few moments. Burcks started drumming the desk with the eraser end of a pencil as he pondered how to answer Darren.

Darren broke the silence, “I have a suspicion there’s something lurking in the bushes. Or another shoe to fall, as they say.” Burcks smiled as he glanced up.

“You have good instincts. Yeah, we’ve got a major problem emerging. In addition to the Osama and a lot of angry Arabs, we’ve an increasing number of new American super patriots who may want to use the current state of fear and instability to establish their own political agenda. State militias have been cropping up like Johnson grass. Extremism seems to spread like a virus. Some of these nuts may eventually connect with foreign terrorists, if they haven’t already. We have to contain this thing before it gets out of hand.”

“Yeah, unfortunately Ruby Ridge and Waco created waves,” Darren recalled stating.

“Yeah. Well, whatever. Darren, I don’t know if this is as serious as some think. America has always had a fringe bunch like the John Birchers or the KKK. But we can’t take chances. There are reports that there are sleeper cells out there composed of domestic and foreign terrorists. I would like you to quietly focus on these kooky people. We want to know who the leaders are, what they’re thinking and planning. And, most important, if they’ve had any contact with Arab terrorists.”

“I understand. But I’ll need some time to think about all this.”

“You’ve got two hours. Use the office across the hall from Ms. Clark. Use the phone. Call anyone you need to. Let me have your decision at once. I have a narrow window of time to act on this.”

Stunned, Darren got up to leave, then turned and asked, “General, do you think some of our domestic terrorists were responsible for the outbreak of anthrax after the World Trade Center catastrophe?”

“We don’t know.” Then, as an aside he added, “But I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Darren turned and exited as ordered. He pondered his situation as he stood at the window watching the heavy traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Finally, Ms. Clark stuck her head in and beckoned him. “Ready?”

“Shocked that his time was up, Darren’s eyes widened. He sucked in his breath, exhaled, then whispered, “Yes.”

“Go on into the General’s office. He’s waiting.”

The wood floor squeaked slightly as Darren strode across the wide hall, through Ms. Clark’s office and into Burcks’. He knocked on the doorjamb at the open doorway and peeked inside. Burcks motioned him in as he finished signing some papers and stacked them in an out-basket.

Leaning back in his chair, he asked, “Well, did you decide?”

Quietly, Darren said, “I’ll take a shot.”

“Well, don’t look so forlorn! We’re not going to put you against a wall and shoot you,” laughed Burcks. “At least not now!”

“I know. Sorry about that. A change of this magnitude is always difficult.”

Burcks rose from his desk, came around and shook Darren’s hand as he said with a serious frown, “Sure it is. Welcome aboard!” He took Darren’s right elbow and gently ushered him toward the door as he continued, “The security check is done, so you can start immediately. Ms. Clark has arranged a car to take you to your hotel. Let her know your transition travel plans and she’ll arrange the tickets and have them delivered to your hotel tonight. She’ll fill you in. Again, good to have you aboard.”

The smell of freshly brewed coffee brought Darren back to the present. He poured a cup and returned to his office. He sat at the round table next to the windows. The snowstorm mesmerized him as he waited for Ms. Clark and Burcks. He reflected on his recent experiences at the NSC. After almost a year in the belly of the whale, as Darren dubbed the federal bureaucracy, he learned that one’s Washington career does, in fact, revolve around who you know and not what you know. He tired of the phonies and psychos seeking positions of power to placate their weak egos. The frantic bureaucratic activity over the months changed him, made him heartless and angry. If not for his affection for his boss and a growing concern over the increasing terrorist activities, he would prefer to return to Global Analysis.

While the Arab terrorists had been pretty quiet since the Afghan and Iraqi wars, the number of criminal acts committed by domestic super patriots had steadily increased. They seem to have taken some pages from Al-Qaida’s playbook. Indiscriminate bombings, assassinations, young men flying private planes into tall buildings, counterfeiting, bank robberies and hooliganism in general had become weekly events.

Darren had followed the tragic events at Ruby Ridge, Waco, Oklahoma City, the burning of Afro-American churches, the attempted killing of children at a Jewish daycare facility in Los Angeles, the refusal of many people to pay income taxes, register their cars, or see themselves as citizens of the United States. Frighteningly, militia groups began conducting their own “Peoples’ Courts.” Using these contrived courts, the patriots threatened to execute U.S. congressmen, judges and law enforcement officials.

That so many marginalized or disenfranchised citizens viewed government employees as pawns in the hands of either a universal conspiracy by a few elite Jewish families or some insidious power clique within the United Nations seemed incredulous to Darren. Many believed these sinister forces resulted in The Brady Bill, the assault weapons ban, and the heightened security since nine-eleven. Especially disturbing was the movement from within the conservative evangelical wing of Christianity who believed their faith to be the national religion. Many Christian fundamentalists viewed Ruby Ridge, Waco, the World Trade Center destruction, and war in the Middle East as apocalyptic signs. Some even believed that the World Trade Center tragedy was a Jewish conspiracy to force the U.S. into a war with the Arab states. Christian fundamentalists had become as big a threat as Muslim extremists. The more he had heard from fundamentalists, the more Darren saw their kinship with the Osama bin Ladens of the world. All were constipated in faith and theology.

“Ahhh,” he sighed. So much for the trip down memory lane. I better get ready to see Burcks. He carried his files into Jo Clark’s office. Jo, an attractive woman, had lost her husband in Vietnam. She raised their two boys with help from her parents who lived on a farm near Shelton, Nebraska. A quiet and efficient person, Jo became Burcks’ administrative assistant four years ago. She took care of the general from the time he stepped out his front door until his driver dropped him off again at night. He never went anywhere without Jo’s direction. Since coming to NSC from the Pentagon, she had reviewed all the files and knew all the processes and key issues.

Burcks would certainly be concerned with his new findings. Bombs exploded in towns and cities across America on a weekly basis, killing innocent people. An internal FBI report linked ninety-six bank robberies over the last twelve months to these new super patriots. Many state and local governmental officials seem afraid to act. Some enforcement officers and judges sympathized with the movement, a few others had joined the patriot organizations, and the rest didn’t have sufficient evidence to arrest and convict.

Darren opened a large manila folder and pulled out some high altitude pictures of what the FBI had labeled extremist settlements. He had studied them carefully. Ten people in the picture clearly carried rifles. The agency said that many of the groups maintained warehouse facilities loaded with arms and ammunition. A few sites even had tanks. Now Darren had to tell Burcks that some of the patriots had met with Mideast terrorists in Thailand.

Darren had recorded last night’s phone call from Vasin Boonchanta, a Thai friend from the University of Texas days. He replayed the tape.

Darren, given your new position with the U.S. government, I thought you might want to know about a strange group of guys who took over the Chaing Mai Sports Club back in early January.”

“Of course. Where’s the Sports Club?”

“The club is in an isolated valley about seven kilometers from the city of Chaing Mai.”

“Does your family still have the computer store up there?”

“Yes. In Chaing Mai. And it’s making good money.”

“Great. Send me some!” Both laughed. “I assume you went to the Sports Club to play golf. Correct?”

“Right as usual. They wouldn’t let us play. In fact, we had a difficult time getting in to see the manager, who’s a friend of my dad.”

“Wow, they really had it shut down. Your country’s overrun with tourists, so what’s the big deal?”

“This group stood out from all the others. They had men from Mideast countries, Australia, United States, Canada, England, Germany, Russia and even Japan. The hotel staff figured another sex tour had taken over the hotel. But they never even asked about women. They never went out. Just stayed in the hotel the entire week.”

“Maybe they tried to work out some business deals. Did they represent one company?

“No. Not at all. According to the hotel staff, they acted very secretive, but no company connection existed as far as any staff member I talked to could find. Some identified their nationality to staff and taxi drivers through brief conversations that always turned to politics. They made critical remarks about our king to staff members. They said the Thai should rise up and take control of their own lives. The Thai were unnerved by this rudeness.”

“Yeah,” Darren said. “That didn’t show good taste. But that’s not unusual for Americans or Europeans, is it?”

“Let me finish.”

“Sorry.”

“We’re used to tourists asking about shopping, local foods, and similar subjects. And, as you know, big men’s groups are generally tours. These guys didn’t care about that stuff.”

“Okay.”

“Not only did they seem preoccupied with government, but rarely strayed from their private conference rooms. Staff left food on serving carts in the hall adjacent to the elevator. The staff had never encountered anything as crazy as that.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet that got their attention. What happened when they went to clean the dishes off the tables?”

“They couldn’t,” Vasin said laughingly. “Someone would call from the conference hall and inform the kitchen staff that the dirty dishes and remaining food could be picked up.”

Uhmmm,” groaned Darren as he wandered where all this would lead.

“Big guys guarded the outside doors to the conference and dining rooms, according to one of the Thai waiters I talked with. They said some of these guys searched all the rooms two or three times a day using hand-held devices.”

“Well, makes sense to me,” Darren said.

“But some of the other bellhops chimed in and said that other conferees said they didn’t have any products and didn’t come on any kind of company business. There was one American man registered as Reverend John Chudders from Fort Davis, Texas.”

“I’d say you just got my undivided attention!” Darren said.” Go on.”

“The staff said that all the men seemed odd.”

“And what does that mean?”

“They had never seen people dress so funny. They’re used to the Arab abas. Many had shaved heads, tattoos and layers of gold earrings and necklaces. All dressed shabbily, even the older guys.

“That’s terrible. I’m afraid shabby dress has become an American tradition.”

Vasin continued, “One of the bellhops met several of the bald, tattooed young men in the lobby when they checked out. He asked them if they planned to be Buddhist monks. The young guys smirked and skulked off.”

“The group certainly does sound strange. What do you think they were doing?”

“Oh, I think they’re bad guys. The manager of the club told us they acted like thugs.”

“And how did he define a thug?”

“As a terrorist. His fear prevented him from saying too much, but he did finally whisper to my dad that they talked about getting millions of U.S. dollars worth of guns.”

“And John Chudders attended!” Darren said aloud.

Darren couldn’t sleep after Vasin’s call. The more he thought about the meeting, the more it seemed that the patriots were, in fact, setting up a support network among the world’s politically disgruntled. In his seventies, John Chudders had become a key spokesman for America’s Christian identity movement, a loose-knit organization of right-wing extremist groups. Darren wanted to know who else attended that meeting. At 11:00 p.m. he grabbed the phone and called a friend in U.S. Immigration Services.

“Bob? Darren Hopkins here. Sorry to bother you so late. I need help. Can you go into your database and find some folks traveling to Thailand back in January? Probably left around January third.”

“Sure. How soon do you need it?”

“Well, can you get me something by eight in the morning?”

“I assume this is really important.”

“I promise you it is,” Darren said.

“Okay. But you owe me big time.”

“Okay. Anytime. Send me the info by email.” Darren gave him Chudder’s name and a list of another twenty-five key patriots that came off the top of his head. The FBI had aerial photos of Chudders’ community, hidden away and heavily fortified in the Davis Mountains of West Texas. Some photos showed armaments being unloaded over many months. And Darren’s reporter friend in Austin hinted that Chudders’ group derailed Amtrak’s Sunset Limited in the early morning of October 9, 1995. The wreck claimed the life of one Amtrak employee and injured hundreds of passengers. The reporter refused to share his source.

The FBI also had photos, phone messages and other evidence showing religious zealots traveling between Chudders’ Davis Mountain enclave and other extremists’ encampments, such as the Aryan Nation’s hide-away in Idaho and groups in Washington, Montana, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona, to name a few of the most infamous.

The skinheads probably came from Germany, he mused. Darren had a New York Times article from April, 1995, in which a former German neo-Nazi leader with strong skinhead affiliations, stated that their racist propaganda and military training manuals came from right-wing groups in the United States.

A noise in the hall roused Darren from his memories. He looked up to see Jo racing into the office dusting the snow off her hat, scarf and coat as she hung them in the closet.

“Darren, you’re here earlier than usual.”

“I really need to see Burcks before he gets tied up,” Darren answered.

Just as Darren finished that statement, Burcks entered the office. He said, “You two seem to be in a good mood this morning.” Burcks put his hand on the doorjamb, turned back to Darren and said, “Let’s talk!”

“Of course, I’ve been waiting to catch you.” Darren grimaced, grabbing his coffee cup and following the general to his office. He whispered to Jo, “I hope he’s not in a bad mood!”

Burcks watched silently as Darren seated himself to the right of his desk. This morning Burcks seemed soft and extremely thoughtful. He almost whispered, and the usual hard look had disappeared. Darren had rarely seen him in such a relaxed mood. As Darren sat down, Burcks smiled slightly, and then said, “I went over that lengthy report you laid on my desk a few days ago. Seems like the crazies are up to something.”

“General, I have a chilling update. We have evidence that our super patriots are getting outside help.”

Burcks said, “How so?”

“A Thai friend called last night. Some of our domestic dissenters have had a meeting with Islamic fundamentalists in northern Thailand in early January. Maybe they only shared strategies. But they may be setting up arms purchases. Maybe even coordinating terrorist acts on a global scale.”

Burcks’ soft demeanor vanished. As he spoke, Darren noted the hard set jaw, the furrowed brow and narrowed eyelids. Burcks said, “That earlier report gave me heart burn.” He sighed, and in a more relaxed tone, said, “Okay, give me the whole story.”

Darren reported his conversation with Vasin and the U.S. immigration report that twelve key super patriots left the country on January second and third. Reading from the email his friend in Immigration sent, Darren said, “They departed L.A. International en route to Hong Kong in teams of two over a two-day period. They spent one night at the Holiday Inn Harbor View in Kowloon. Then they vanished. I have yet to trace their travel from Hong Kong to Chiang Mai.” Darren shifted in his chair, looked up to make sure he had Burcks’ full attention. He continued, “They show back up in Hong Kong on January eleventh. This time they checked into the Holiday Inn. Again, they split into pairs and returned via Los Angeles airport on different flights.”

“Let’s not waste time worrying about how these misfits got from Hong Kong to Chiang Mai,” the General said. “We need to know the results of the meeting. Let’s see if any of the other agencies have anything. We must be very, very careful how we proceed. Although this is certainly a national security issue, it has now taken an international tinge. As you know, these extremists have friends in high places. While not all are disloyal Americans, too many harbor hatreds and heretical religious views that often lead to a host of unnecessary deaths. There’ll probably be more federal building bombings. More day-care centers and churches blown up. God help us.”

“Yeah,” Darren echoed.

General Burcks continued, “We can’t gather up everyone we define as troublemakers, nuts and wackos, and put them in prison. Everyone’s waiting for us to make the slightest mistake. We look like a bunch of gutless, whimpering dummies right now. But we’ve got to follow the law to the letter.”

“Yes, sir. It’s a difficult situation.”

“What I wouldn’t give for an old fashion foreign conflict. Those were easier to deal with, at least in hindsight. See if you can find out the details of that meeting in Thailand?” softly asked the General.

“Yes sir.”

“And, by the way, you need to be sitting in on sessions of the new interagency domestic counter-terrorism task force run by F.B.I. Agents Wade and Carlson. We’ll share some of our data, but not all until we see how trustworthy the group is.”

“Yes sir.”

After a few moments Burcks softly asked, “How about that reporter friend of yours in Austin? He seems to have an interest in these crazies. Is he any help?”

“He seems to keep up with a lot of these people, but I’ve promised him anonymity.”

“That’s not a problem. Don’t forget to use the special phone number I gave you months ago to call me. It’s totally secure. A news media leak is the last thing we need.”

“Yes sir.”

“Uh, Darren, I think you ought to know that your friend Ann Jones is missing.”

A knot developed in the pit of Darren’s stomach as Burcks’ words sank in. “What do you mean?”

“I got a call from the Thailand CIA Station Chief last night. He informed me that they’ve lost touch with her. They’re concerned that she is not communicating through agreed upon channels. They know of your relationship and wanted to know if you’ve heard from her lately?”

“Yes. She left a message on my answering machine last night.”

“What did she say?”

“She said she missed me, but couldn’t be in touch with me for an indeterminate time. She said some strange things were happening and she hoped my work was challenging.”

Burcks said, “She didn’t say where she was calling from?”

“No sir.”

“How long has she been with Army intelligence?” Burcks asked.

“About ten years.”

“Can you tell me about the relationship?” Burcks asked.

“Of course. We’ve seen each other as work permitted over the last five years. I guess if I had to get married right now it would be to Ann.” Then, as an after thought he smiled and added, “If she’d have me.”

Burcks cracked a brief smile, and then said, “Well, the problem is probably not as bad as it may seem. Let’s give her time to surface. Let me know when you hear from her again. Okay?”

“Yes sir.”

Darren left Burcks’ office that cold wintry day feeling like he had been hit with a sledgehammer. Before he shut the General’s office door, he glanced back to see Burcks rubbing his forehead with both hands, eyes closed. Darren went to his office, feeling guilty for not telling Burcks of his relationship with Ann. But he had only taken a few steps when Burcks’ voice stopped him dead in his tracks.

“Darren!”

Darren turned and walked back to the door of Burcks’ office. Yes sir?”

“I almost forgot. There’s one of those super patriots meetings out in Bellingham next Monday night. The Bureau is sending an agent to the meeting, but I’d like you to be there.”

“Yes sir.” At that, Burcks returned to his desk, and Darren shut the door and headed back to his office to prepare for the Bellingham meeting. Ann was still on his mind.