Conspirators!

PART ONE

ALARM

CHAPTER ONE

The Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met at the Old Anglers’ Inn on MacArthur Boulevard in Potomac, west of Georgetown outside the District of Columbia.

In advance of the meeting, Colonel Marc Davila met with the couple who owned andmanaged the Inn and made the necessary arrangements. The managers knew and understood Marc’s business. He was French and she Belgian. Over the years they had accommodated ’s request without asking him about the strange groups he brought there, despite their curiosity. For years he let Marc to use the Inn for clandestine meetings, including some that on the surface appeared to be romantic interludes. The couple graciously offered Marc an isolated private area on the large patio on the side of the Inn farthest from the Boulevard, and agreed to close that part of the restaurant to the public for that afternoon.

The Inn was in a lovely two-storied house built over a hundred years ago. The two floors comprised first-class dining areas that made for a warm, welcoming environment. The top floor was accessible by a circular staircase of the type you see in old black-and-white movies over the Turner Classic Movies network. The ground floor was furnished with comfortable cushioned oversized chairs and loveseats that faced an inviting fireplace that was always burning during the cold Maryland winters.

The invitees arrived on time.

The Senate Majority Leader Senator Henry Cabot-Lewis of Massachusetts, General Mario Bueno of the Army Special Forces the Green Berets, Congresswoman Dani Moureaux of Louisiana, recently appointed by the Speaker as Chair the House Armed Forces mmittee,Admiral Andre Constantine, Retired former Director of Logistics in the Joint Staff, William F. Thompson, a black four-star Navy Admiral, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Lt General James Gresham, Director of the Joint Staff and Natasha a former scalp-hunter and now an international politico-military affairs analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency well-known to the attendees and Marc’s long-time close friend and intelligence colleague.

Each of them anxious but projecting very little or no sign of their anxiety.

The guests used various methods of subterfuge to remain incognito and not draw any unwanted attention, the Capital of the Nation being what it was. There were no security personnel, nor did the military guests wear uniforms. All used their personal cars. Thecircumstances demanded nothing less.

Lunch was served at 2:00 pm: A delectable timbale of fresh Maryland crabmeat and artichoke mousse, followed by a salad of fresh spring lettuce, sliced red pears and walnuts. The main course was an excellent Chateaubriand served medium rare, with wild mushrooms ragout over grilled polenta. The dessert was white chocolate mousse with pureed raspberries. The winethat accompanied the main course was a vintage Opus One – on the house!

The matter of Marc’s retirement was resolved when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, following the Speaker’s suggestion and to avoid de jure complications, recalled Marc back to active duty.

The Speaker addressed the group.

For a while she had been holding her hands on her lap, opening and closing them without realizing how wet they’d become. She was tense, as were the several politicians around the table, but their military counterparts were calm offering in their discreet way the strength they all needed to confront their dilemma. Especially reassuring were Marc, Bueno and Natasha who projected the self-confidence and skill that would be the crutch for all of them they all needed in this moment in history.

Well, then! Shall we begin? Marc tell us about this thing.

Marc, following her direction and facing the attendees, began a measured statement. "Your inclusion, Madame Speaker – indeed the inclusion of everyone else in this meeting – in my opinion – can be interpreted as a conspiracy to carry out a coup d’etat. We’re embarking on a highly dangerous cruise involving a grave risk to our reputations and our lives, and to the United States Government, and, many other governments. From this point on, there is no return unless you specifically abandon what we’re about to do, and your withdrawal has to be immediate.

If we’ve made a miscalculation, God help us! But I believe, as most of you do, that the circumstances demand that we take this risk. Madame Speaker, your involvement is imperative. You’re third in the line of succession to the Presidency. The facts have demonstrated that the President has abdicated his responsibilities, as has the Vice-President. Neither can be trusted. Those conditions require a transition in the government, and that includes the prospect of your succession to the Presidency.

General Bueno, a long -time friend of Marc’s, expert on the psychology of warfare andpolitics spoke. Out-of –turn perhaps, but with enormous sincerity.

"Americans are frightened. They believe events in New York will be repeated elsewhere. That fear is particularly pronounced in the West Coast – in the Bay area and in Southern Cal, and in the mid-west, in Chicago. All over. Fear, in my experience, is a solid political strategy. Fear is a tool to achieve totaliarism. It can be used to manipulate the population and gain dominance over them. I believe we’re looking here at fear as a political strategy to gain that dominance over the population here in our country. I’m concerned about all of this! If we examine one factor, the influence of religious fundamentalism today in com- pounding these fears, we are confronted with something far more complex. I don’t think religious leaders are the controlling component in promoting this fear. What I do believe is that the religious sector is being manipulated to strengthen the hand of the leaders who are causing these fears by design. A carefully planned strategy to gain political control over the United States of America. What I perceive is the return of good old US Puritan-Calvinist influences which were the lynchpin of our diplomacy some years back. But in a more pronounced and overt manner. And this is happening in the military and other sectors of US society. I’ll step off my soap-box,

Madam Speaker, and I do apologize.

The Speaker picked up the discussion. No need to. I think what you’ve said merits our attention. For now, let’s keep it in the back of our minds. We know why we’re here. The question we need to ask ourselves is, what are we all prepared to do?

The group nodded in concurrence.

Admiral Thompson confided that Vice-President Wennestrom had called him several times during the preceding two weeks, after the New York attacks.

He appeared to be addressing mundane stuff, but my instincts tell me that the son-of-a-bitch was fishing for something. It was like he expected me to blurt something out. I don’t know what it was he expected. From the nature of his questions, I sensed that it had to do with whether we knew something about an impending ground attack on the United States. After the calls, I brought it up with General Gresham and his intelligence director. Jim, you remember that, don’t you?

General Gresham nodded in the affirmative.

The Chairman went on. Both also raised the issue of calls from the Vice-President that they considered unusual because they were outside the chain-of-command.

Congresswoman Moureaux repeated the comments she had made to Marc at a meeting they had at the Willard Hotel a while back concerning relations between The White House and several southern states, particularly Louisiana during the Katrina disaster. The Congresswoman represented the district that included New Orleans.

But she added something that made everyone around the table cringe.

"A couple of you know that my legislative assistant was having a to-do with a junior counsel for the VP. She had a final encounter with lover-boy some weeks-or-so ago. He gaveher some startling news that scared the hell out of her. And out of me. She became so scared that she stopped seeing him.

"Here’s what!

"Lover-boy said that President Gordon was not part of any moves by the people around the VP. Their intentions were, as I had told some of you, to suspend the next national elections. Kind of a flexing of the muscles. Gordon is then to be sequestered and placed in an ‘undisclosed, secured’ facility outside the Capital. We all know he’s a recovering alcoholic. Well, Gordon, lover-boy said, had resumed drinking. His current drink of choice was vodka. Lover-boy told her that his behavior had become more erratic. He was to be taken to a rehab facility – all in secret – somewhere in Nebraska outside Omaha, not far from Offutt Air Force Base where the US Strategic Command is headquartered. Then, a grave national crisis would beannounced. Gordon would be removed under the pretext that he is holed up in a ‘secured,undisclosed location. We all know that’s how that phrase was used after the attack on the World Trade Center!

Wennestrom would remain in the capital area.

The diners were in a trance, A brief moment of disbelief.

The Speaker was on the verge of excusing herself to go to the powder room to throw up, but her intestinal fortitude was stronger than she gave herself credit for. She asserted, "I’ll keep an open mind and, perhaps, a more open set of eyes and ears! The people at 1600 don’t see things the way we, and as the rest of Americans, do. Wennestrom called me two days ago to‘advise’ me that The White House is going to make an announcement this Friday at 6:00 pm. The text of the announcement will be the next presidential election scheduled in seventeen months is going to be suspended due to a ‘national emergency’ caused by the attacks on Metro New York.

And! Oh, yes! I DID react! I warned him that the House would not supporthim on any initiative to suspend the election. After the call, I contacted the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee. After describing the conversation I’d just had, I instructed her to hold an emergency session of her Committee at 6:00 am tomorrow to begin drafting a petition to impeach the President and the Vice-President.

Senator Cabot-Lewis spoke up.

"I received a similar call from Wennestrom. I warned him to back off. Just in case, though, after the call, I alerted the Senate Judiciary, Intelligence and Armed Forces Committees. The Chairs of those Committees are standing by until they hear from me.

Ladies, and Gentlemen, I believe we are confronted with a grave national security and political crisis. We need to take Wennestrom very seriously. Following those conversations, I telephoned Admiral Thompson and told him of these events. He advised me of the calls he had gotten and the reports of his people and his own concerns. I decided against calling the SECDEF for the obvious reasons – I think, as I think all of you do – that he’s part of the cabal. . Admiral Thompson nodded in agreement.

The Speaker had some final words. "This is a first in history. We either add to our fine history or screw it up for good. So, put your thinking caps on! We may have to come up with a middle-ground decision to address the matter head on and without delay. For now, we stay cool, calm and collected.

I don’t think these guys are going to go away quietly!

CHAPTER TWO

FOUR WEEKS EARLIER -- AUGUST

NEW YORK CITY

At 5:00 am Juan Miranda walked on 2nd Avenue north of 72nd Street on East Side New York. A series of explosions ahead of him, about a half-a-block on the right side of the avenue – exactly where he could not fix – shake the ground and everything around him. He falls on the cement and flattens himself on the sidewalk away from the curb. Debris flies around him. He is more scared than he has ever been in his life. Although he is a Gulf War Army veteran, he is shaken to the bone – and frightened like hell. He has never experienced anything like this – not in his hometown, not in New York City. As he stands up, hugging the building, a large-sized navy-blue or black SUV – a GMC he thinks – speeds by heading south, then turns west on 72nd Street. The SUV moves too fast for him to see inside. He tries to read the rear plate but it is covered by some material he could not see through.

As she prepares to walk her two dogs before going to work at a fashion magazine inmidtown Manhattan, Janice Warburg, a woman in her early-thirties, hears loud explosions. Her apartment on Madison Avenue, near 75th Street, is suddenly dark. She is frightened, thinking that New York is being rocked by an earthquake or, worse, is again the target of aterrorist attack. She looks out the windows of her 33rd floor coop and sees nothing but darkness.

The skyscrapers are dark shadows.

At the Gracie Mansion on the East side of Manhattan, Aaron Myers, the Mayor of New York City, wakes from a deep sleep. He hears the explosions and attempts to make a call from a landline next to his bed. No dial tone.

West of Manhattan, across the Hudson River in North Bergen, New Jersey, young Jim Donohue, a newspaper delivery boy picks up his stack, and prepares to deliver the dailies on his route. The Mayor, known for his cockiness and perhaps being somewhat naïve about the real world, thinks nothing of it. But then he sees he power plant not far from where he’s standing collapse after loud explosions that shake the ground and buildings around him. Very quickly, after the explosion, he sees a large dark-colored SUV, speed away from the direction of the explosion and go past him.

Everything in the neighborhood is dark.

***

Over twenty-seven explosions in various parts of New York City and New Jersey shock the early-risers. They hear intermittent gunfire from large caliber rifles and a heavier weapons – grenades or rocket launchers and shoulder-launched missiles. Four security guards in the various plants are fatally shot, and dozens of night shift employees are killed or wounded.

The explosions are all in electrical power plants or stations. The attacks cause widespread paralysis in the entire New York City metropolitan area. Public transportation and communi-cations come to a halt. Traffic lights are out, as is everything that depends on electrical power. Water mains are damaged, and the streets and sidewalks are flooded. On this hot August day air conditioners stop working.

Numerous vehicles are found charred to a crisp in or near the facilities. Huge buildings are destroyed or severely damaged, including commercial storefronts and the lower floors of several residential buildings. When people realize their powerlessness, panic ensues. Anger and suspicion surface.

Seven witnesses – insomniacs, earlier risers, and people returning from night shiftwork – maintained that they saw three – some said four – vehicles in the vicinity of several of the power plants prior to the explosions. They claim that at least one of the vehicles was a large SUV. Two witnesses saw six persons alight from each of the vehicles. One of the witnesses saw three females alight from one of the vehicles. All said that the persons they saw wore hooded military-style fatigues and caps.

***

A police cruiser with two officers arrives at the 2nd Avenue plant. The two officers draw weapons as they exit their cruiser. They see a body of a male face down on the ground. and observe multiple bullet wounds around his torso. After the first officer turns the body over, he searches the inside of his fatigue jacket and pulls out a wallet. The officer, whose speech has a pronounced Brooklyn affectation, tells his partner, Alabama driver’s license. James McBeth. An address in Birmingham.

The first officer goes to a dash-top computer in his police cruiser and searches the name.He calls his partner and tells him, This guy is some piece of work. White supremacist. United Klans of Alabama. Kicked out of the Marines. Sociopath.

The partner, who has a Bronx accent, responds, Figures! The city attracts a lot of that garbage. He pauses, looks around. "But these explosions were not caused by the Klan. No way! Not with those fatigues. Not their uniform of the day. This is something bigger! Way above our pay grade!

Let’s report it to Manhattan-North Watch Commander."

The first officer makes the radio call. The second officer goes into the damaged facility. After he makes his call, the first officer catches up. The second officer screams alarmed, Jack, look at this. He points to two burned corpses. He examines the corpses, and exclaims, Jesus, mother-fucking Christ! Look at their clothes. These two were plant employees.

***

In Washington Heights, a young Dominican male in a hooded olive-drab sweat shirt, hood down over his shoulders, bearing a logo on the back of his shirt that says Army Special Forces, sits on the stoop of an apartment building. He espies a Hispanic male his age in camouflaged fatigues and hood behaving erratically as he walks across the street. Suspicious, the ominican tails him. The mark goes in a candy storas he walks at 172nd and orders a black espresso.

The Dominican picks up on the mark’s speech.

He‘s a greaser, but not from this ‘hood. That looks like a uniform of some sort. Not ours! Smells like he just came out of a boat! The mark leaves the candy store. The Dominicans tails him on 174th Street. When the mark reaches about a quarter of a block east of Amsterdam, he enters an abandoned warehouse. Cautiously, the Dominican looks into the warehouse through one of its very large windows.

He murmurs to himself, "holy shit!"

He sees over a dozen large navy blue GMC SUVs and as many Savana vans, dozens of guns and rocket launchers and large boxes against a wall containing what appear to be explosives and some ugly, mean-looking mother-fuckers! The Dominican walks about a half-block away from the warehouse.

He calls the Desk Sergeant at the nearby police precinct on his cell.

With a voice that reflects his Spanish-accented English with a NY affectation he tells the respondent, "Hey! You know the biz of the electrical transformers?"

The respondent, a NYPD Desk Sergeant sitting at his desk on a high chair answers, "Emilio, dat you?

Fucking aye! Listen you dumb fat Irish asshole. I got gold for you! It’s going to make you and your corrupt traffic ticket peddlers look good. By now even a deep-shit like you should have heard about the explosions on the electrical stations. That’s what I’m calling you about! Bring your heavies to the empty warehouse at 174th east of Amsterdam. You know the place. Used to be a shooting gallery. There’s a fucking arsenal with real mean, mother-fuckers in there! Not locals! Armed to the teeth!"

The Police Desk Sergeant continues, "You ain’t a-shitting me, are you!

No. You dumb fuck! This is gold! Get in there! Fast! This is big time, man!

We’ll be there in fifteen!

New York City’s finest responds as promised by the Desk Sergeant. It’s now 0800 hours.

** *

Emilio makes a second call, this one long-distance. At a Whitley Park luxury apartment complex north of Bethesda, Maryland, Colonel Marcus Aurelius Davila answers.This is Marc. The respondent is Marcus Aurelius Dávila, a US Air Force Colonel who serves on the military side of the intelligence community. Marc is a spy, a former inquisitor and now a scalp-hunter. Counterintelligence and human intelligence matters.

Emilio identifies himself and continues, "Mí coronel? I think I found a location. 174th, a hundred yards east of Amsterdam. I’ve alerted New York’s finest, our guy at the precinct. He’s on it."

Davila acknowledges, "Thanks! Nos vemos luego!

Thirty SWAT officers are inside the warehouse. More officers are outside. Theywear camouflage uniforms that identify them as members of NYCPD SWAT teams and carry heavy weaponry. Officer-in-Charge is Captain John Francis Buchanan. Over six-foot tall, burly, nasal and loud. He addresses a Hispanic male in military fatigues with hood and a one-star silver insignia on his collar in rapid-fire.

"Who the fuck are you? What kind o’shit uniform is that? You goin’ to some kinda o’masquerade party?

The man in fatigues answers, My name is Juan Acevedo Mejias. I’m a major in the Guardians. I command a unit of the First Southern Alliance Regimental Attack Team.

Buchanan chuckles.

Shit! What’s this world coming to!

He gets a laptop from his police SUV and runs a national file check entering the words

first southern alliance regimental attack team. He finds no such unit. Not in US military tables of organizations, not on any other military force.

* **

At 0930 hours, another call is made to Whitley Park.

The caller, a woman with a soft Eastern European accent Marc knows as Natasha, a colleague and long-time friend whose real name is Amanda Brooks. Mandy is the widow of Lieutenant General Raymond W. Brooks, who during his life served in the US Strategic Command in many posts, the last of which was Commander of the 8th Air Force.

She says, It’s all there!

Marc calmly responded, Yes, I see!

His eyes, glued to the television monitor, see the long lines of cars, backed up for miles by the entrances on both sides of the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels and the George Washington and Verrazano Bridges, and groups of burning buildings around New York City and Jersey City enveloped in smoke.

CHAPTER THREE

in Smiley himself we meet the rarest breed of literary hero, one for whom, from the start, the reader feels personally responsible. Reluctantly in harness, by turns compassionate and ruthless, a vague patriot, scornful of isms and estranged from institutional thought, a master of the black arts of deceit yet, in love, the incurable victim of self-deception – George Smiley is a loner with a profound sense of membership in mankind." LeCarre, John, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy, cover piece.

WASHINGTON, DC: LATE NINETIES

COLONEL MARCUS AURELIO DAVILA

Colonel Marcus Aurelius Davila ignored the power steering leak for another couple of days, and in his beloved light blue Mark VII, he left The Broadmoor underground garage at Connecticut Avenue and Porter Street, NW, Washington, D. C. at 8:15 early morning. He turned south on Connecticut Avenue and headed downtown to his 24th Street office.

This beautiful day mirrored his frame of mind!

His spirits were high. He had always appreciated the beauty of the nation’s capital and lived here by choice. He drove onto Rock Creek Parkway from Connecticut Avenue and exited at P Street, passed the 23rd Street Beach, equidistant between Georgetown and Dupont Circle. He wanted to make peace with his oldest daughter, a maverick who made it through West Point, jumped out of perfectly good airplanes in the middle of the night while assigned as signal company in the XVIII Airborne Corps in Fort Bragg, and trained in air assaults with the 101st Airborne Division in Fort Benning -- all five-foot-two and 105 pounds of her -- and told the Army to suck it after ten years. They met in Santa Barbara, California last Easter and went to the Ranch House in Montecito. After feasting on a brunch of excellent crab cakes and rack of lamb with a choice of desserts, and, of course, gobs of champagne he sensed that the fences were mended and things were back to when they had the best father-daughter relationship.

He examined his own life, the incredible journey it had been. He had accepted his addiction. To his acquaintances he was an alley cat. He'd never saw the need to explain the recklessness of his numerous sexual escapades. He had no regrets nor did he feel any remorse. Someone in his past – perhaps his mama – had persuasively told him it was in the genes, and he accepted that explanation which alleviated any thought of remorse he may have felt. He had loved every moment he spent with the women in his life, and loved every one of the women.

And they loved him!

His personal life was what it was, but it was his professional life that troubled him now.

He sometimes wished he were a passenger on a barge floating over the Lethe – the Roman mythical river of forgetfulness – or simply living the rest of his life walking on a secluded Caribbean beach or unpaved paths bordered by flowering flamboyanes, living in a nearby small village as a quasi-hermit – a retired author of historical novels or something-or-other, or practicing public interest law.

It all had come to finally accepting the fact that he was different no matter how hard he tried to be one of them. A real American. To them he, and his brothers were the invisible people. Despite his place of birth in the United States he was de facto a Hispanic. A Puerto Rican. Better – or worse – still, a Neuyorican. No one would let him forget that. The most recent event was particularly painful. A few weeks before, he attended a lunch of intelligence professionals where he had a lengthy discussion with the Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on the subject of racial discrimination in the Bureau.

The official said to him that prejudice in the United States was institutional. There was nothing he or anyone could do about it. So it came to this: Marc and his soul brothers risked their lives for a country, whose majority class delegated them to a caste lower than them. To this guy and others like him, they were delegated to the status of Shudra, as in the Hindi caste system. Yet they had no reservations about meeting their patriotic obligations. With unparalleled pride. He was one of these.

They were, after all, the invisibles.

Now, Christian Fundamentalism was a litmus test for entry to the privileged corridors of the Department of Defense. Indeed, to many of the corridors of power in the various sectors of Seat of Government. He was not adept at sucking up. The test had become more pronounced in the Air Staff and at the Air Force Academy and equivalent organizations. To qualify for special assignments, you had to swear that you had confessed to the Lord Jesus