American Terrorist Trilogy

by Jeffrey Poston

  “This part is important. Sooner or later the government will find me. When I go down, you don’t want to be caught in the cross-fire. Use your money and get out of the country. No heroics and no loyalties other than to your family, got it?”

  Garcia nodded. “I’ve never encountered a client in this business that actually cared about the wellbeing of his partners.” The young man paused as if he were trying to figure Carl out.

  “Let’s get something straight, Mr. Garcia. Nothing interferes with my mission.”

  “I understand,” Garcia said. “The mission is important.”

  “The mission is everything.”

  “So,” the young man said. “You have a legal team available in case the FBI gets to you or me before you call?”

  “I don’t know the name of the agency that will come for us, but it won’t be the FBI, and no legal team on the planet will be able to help you or me. If you get taken by these people, cooperate. Give them whatever they want. If you don’t, they will hurt you and your family.”

  Garcia did not object or make any comment, so Carl leaned back in his seat and contemplated his next phase.

  “So, for Phase Three, I need a professional who can get us fake IDs and passports so I can travel freely in my two disguises without government computers flagging me. And you’ll need passports and new IDs for your family to leave the country, if it ever comes to that. And we’ll need some legitimate bank accounts with credit cards.”

  “I know some people who can hook us up with that kind of talent.”

  Carl was curious about how that process would happen and what the risk of the documentation surviving federal scrutiny was.

  “So what do you do, have people use their address to apply for new documents, or do they create fake lease agreements and use those to get false IDs from the Motor Vehicle Department?”

  Garcia smiled. “A lot of small timers who want to get caught do it like that. You can really only do that a few times, though. Sooner or later someone at the MVD is going to recognize you if you go in more than a couple times to get new docs, even if you use different offices. Some manager or supervisor might recognize your name on a summary sheet or something.”

  Carl nodded. He was familiar with the Motor Vehicle Department’s process for registering cars and applying for new driver’s licenses. Last time he went in, they had changed the process and no longer let you walk out with your license. Instead, they started subcontracting that function out to secure identification fabrication companies. Turned out, criminals were breaking into the MVD offices, stealing the license-making equipment, and using them to do exactly what Carl was planning on doing—creating new identity cards.

  Garcia continued. “The only way to do it correctly and quickly, without risk of detection, is from the inside.” He shrugged. “These men and women get ten bucks an hour to do that kind of work. We’ll pay them a flat fee of two thousand to do each one of our requests. That way we’ll know it’ll be done right. When they take our money, they become accomplices, and they don’t want to get caught any more than we do. So they do it the right way and they do it carefully.”

  Carl nodded, satisfied. “Okay, then for Phase Four, I’m going to need some mercenaries. I’m not talking about some backcountry, yahoo militia guys that grew up pretending the commies are coming. I’ll need real shooters, ex-special forces with real combat experience and a bunch of kills under their belts. Guys and gals who can go hand-to-hand with the feds and covert ops agents, and who can handle themselves well in a firefight or any other crisis. And make sure at least one of them is a well-qualified, long-distance sniper because I guarantee you, the feds will bring their own snipers to the party.”

  He recalled seeing SWAT snipers at the roof line of the Convention Center during his take-down at Starbucks.

  “I want our sniper to be able to hit their snipers from further away than theirs can reach. And we’ll need top-tier, military-quality weapons for the mercs, and some specific medical supplies.”

  He dictated a shopping list to Garcia.

  “Sounds like you’re going to war.”

  “I am.” Carl nodded his head. “The Feds don’t do anything half-assed. They play to win, and so will I.”

  Garcia shrugged. “Finances I can handle. Fake IDs I can handle. But weaponry and explosives, especially on the scale of what you’re looking for, is way out of my league. I know people I can talk to, but a transaction on this scale, or even a series of small transactions, for this kind of equipment can easily get flagged. The FBI and the Mexican equivalent—the Federal Ministerial Police, which everyone calls the Federales, have a lot of informants. It’s going to be hard to keep this quiet.”

  Carl had anticipated that. “Find the mercenaries first and give them the list. They will know how and where to acquire the equipment on the down-low.”

  The young man paused. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Mr. Smith, but a lot of people think they can outsmart the FBI.”

  Carl shook his head. “The FBI isn’t a person to be outsmarted. It’s a system. I know that better than anyone now. For every gullible dumbass who tries to outsmart the FBI, there are a hundred criminal psychologists and detectives and forensics specialists and special agents with advanced degrees and technology and training and years of experience, and they’re ready to kick some ass.

  “The FBI exists to apprehend people who try to do what I’m going to do. And once they get mobilized, there’ll be no stopping them and no outsmarting them because the US government will give them unlimited resources. And they won’t quit until they win. They’ll outlast us, out-spend us, and out-resource us. But my objective is not to win a shooting war against the FBI. They’re merely a stepping stone to other people in another agency.”

  Garcia nodded. “May I know your objective?”

  “I want the people who killed my son. When I find them, I’ll be needing all that hardware and the mercenaries to use it.”

  Carl felt a surge of strength. Actually putting his mission into words filled him with a sense of resolve.

  “And the medical supplies?” Garcia glanced at his shopping list. “Some of these are controlled substances and won’t be cheap or easy to acquire.”

  “I learned some things about questioning people from professional interrogators. I’ll be needing those medical items to convince some folks to tell me the truth.”

  “Well, Mr. Smith,” Garcia said, raising his coffee cup in toast. “Here’s to the fan business.”

  Carl clinked his coffee cup against Garcia’s. The war had officially begun.

  “There’s one more thing I want you to do.”

  Chapter 29

  0815 MST Friday

  Albuquerque, NM

  Four days later, Carl met Garcia at the same downtown coffee shop. Carl had arrived an hour early to see if he could detect any potential surveillance. Even if the FBI had discovered he’d set fire to his house to cover his escape, he figured there was no way the Feds could have any tangible evidence linking his extortion activities or anything else in his plan to the blaze. Worst case, they’d have put out an APB on him and would rely on the police to locate him. That was why he was always in disguise.

  Just in case, Carl had chosen that particular coffee shop for his meetings for a reason. It was expensive and law enforcement personnel typically didn’t eat there. Undercover cops or FBI agents would stick out like a sore thumb...he thought.

  On the other hand, a dark-skinned man in dreadlocks stood out too, so today he was in his white-man disguise, wearing the nondescript brown wig with the light skin cream. He wore a button-down shirt, slacks, and a gray cable cardigan sweater.

  He sat at the same table as before, sipped coffee, and scanned the room, but no one seemed to be giving him even casual attention. He liked this particular disguise because he looked totally ordinary, just another clean-cut white guy in a preppy coffee shop. Then he wondered if he could really pick out a professional FBI surveillance team. Tho
se guys and gals went to school to learn how not to be seen.

  A shiver of doubt gripped his gut again, but it was too late to reassess. He was in the shit. Now that he had begun to implement his plan, he’d committed several federal offenses, including taking hostages, extorting funds, and illegal international money transfers.

  If young Mr. Garcia was successful, then Carl would also be guilty of the purchase and import of illegal firearms, hiring mercenaries, and possession of controlled medical substances, if there were such crimes. In a couple days, he’d be guilty of far more serious crimes as well. No, he was too far into the abyss to even think about going back.

  Garcia walked in the front double-glass door right at nine o’clock. At Carl’s request the young man was also nicely groomed and was dressed conservatively in a button-down shirt, slacks, and a nice jacket. He looked up at Carl, but didn’t recognize him. He turned up the corner of his mouth a bit as if he was displeased to find someone occupying their scheduled meeting table. His gaze kept searching, then he joined the line to get his coffee.

  Carl kept scanning the faces in the shop, looking for anyone who might be covertly watching Garcia. No one seemed the least bit interested in him, and no one entered the coffee shop right after him. He got his coffee and dressed it up at the cream station, then headed up the curved staircase. At the top, his gazed passed over Carl again and this time Carl gave him a head nod.

  Garcia smiled. “Nice look,” he said, sitting down. He patted a canvas satchel by his left hip. “All the docs for our operations and our emergency exit plan are in here.”

  Carl shook his head. “Your emergency exit plan. I have no need for such a plan.” Carl knew any kind of long-term escape and evasion was not in the cards for him.

  Garcia nodded. “I have two envelopes, each with one hundred thousand in cash and a credit card with a fifty thousand dollar spending limit drawn on a legitimate bank in Texas. Each has a California driver’s license and a passport validated with a verifiable history of international travel. By the way, one license and passport has your picture in dreadlocks, as you requested, and your name is Kyle Fortune. Your white-boy disguise is for Kerry Fortina.”

  Carl looked at the kid sideways. “You had to go and call me a white boy, didn’t you?”

  Garcia chuckled. “I rarely get the opportunity to diss a brotha without getting in a fight.”

  “Mexicans,” Carl said with a shake of his head. “Always gotta be deviants.”

  They shared a chuckle and clicked coffee cups in a mock toast.

  “You’ve got docs for your wife and child also?”

  Garcia nodded, and Carl pulled out a key fob from his jacket pocket. On the ring was a single key, but the key fob had a red button and a green button accompanied by four tiny inline white buttons. He handed the fob to Garcia.

  “Down on west Central there’s a small mini-storage called Store and Go. No gates, no cameras, no on-site manager. This is the key to unit eighteen. I have the only other key. It’s one of those cut-proof and pick-proof super locks. Keep your docs close to you, but when our merchandise arrives, store it in that little garage unit.

  “I went to Radio Shack,” he continued, “and bought a motion detector. As soon as the storage door goes up, the alarm circuit automatically dials this cell.” He pulled another pay-as-you-go device from his left pant pocket. “If this thing rings and the number is all ones then someone is stealing our stuff. Get over there with your boys and shoot whoever is there, but if it’s the Feds, just get out of the fan business. Go grab your wife and kid, and drive away. Don’t look back.”

  Garcia nodded, and Carl told him how to arm and disarm the alarm.

  Carl ticked off the next agenda item of his mental plan. Nothing was written down, so there was no hard evidence yet of any plot, plan, or conspiracy. He knew the FBI excelled in finding the tiniest pieces of information and using their vast analytical capability to connect the dots and uncover conspiracies. So the entire plan, all the details, resided only in Carl’s brain.

  “Of the mercs you found, does one possess the intel pedigree I listed?”

  “Pops found a guy,” Garcia stopped when Carl tented his eyebrows. “I didn’t tell you my pops worked with his brother until Uncle got retired? Well, Pops retired also, but of his own volition.”

  Carl revised his assessment of the young Hispanic man seated across from him. He had the physical presence—the mannerisms, the posture, the streetwise gestures—of a young man who got his education in the ‘hood, either in America or in Mexico. He spoke proper English, though he lacked the finesse of college-educated, twenty-somethings who went on to take corporate jobs that required proper speaking and mainstream behavior.

  He reminded Carl of many youths from inner city Los Angeles who discovered at some point in their adult lives that if you wanted to succeed in the world, then you had to learn to think and speak and behave like the mainstream population.

  He thought of sports superstars and rappers who became very successful and were able to manage the transition across cultural lines. Often they had a mentor assist them in their transition. Yet, those young black men always seemed to be able to keep some measure of their ethnic individuality with them as they traveled through their mainstream careers.

  Young Garcia seemed to be the Hispanic version of the urban youth Carl was familiar with. There was a great age difference between them, perhaps twenty-five years, and Carl had the impression that Garcia considered him to be a mentor.

  Carl had learned his proper speaking and behavior over a career of more than thirty years that included formal college education, Air Force training as an officer and a gentleman, and work in the corporate world. In addition, his mixed parents had raised him on a steady diet of watching science shows and science fiction movies, reading at the library, speaking proper English in the house, and not being allowed to hang out in the streets.

  After fifty-plus years, it was easy to take his formal education and verbal etiquette for granted. It was easy to forget a young minority might like to emulate an older minority’s polished speech and manners.

  Volition. Good word choice, he decided.

  “Okay, you were saying?”

  “Pops used a retired CIA analyst a few times. Well, he didn’t actually retire. He was dismissed for a drug problem.”

  “You’d think the CIA would try to rehab a skilled asset like that.”

  Garcia chuckled. “Apparently, Henry Erickson was beyond rehabilitation. He used company assets to run a shakedown racket on some drug smugglers. Except one of his targets was an informant who ratted him out.

  “Pops says he’s a bit eccentric when he doesn’t get his fix, but he’s an absolute whiz with a computer, and he knows the intel business inside and out. And he knows how the FBI works.”

  “He can do everything I specified?”

  “Pops swears by him.”

  “He can get into the FBI’s computer system and other government systems?”

  Garcia nodded. “We’ll need passwords, depending on how deep into the system you need to go and what kind of information you want.”

  Carl nodded. “I figured as much.” He’d foreseen that obstacle and incorporated it into his plan. “If he gets unruly, give him enough of what he needs to keep him sane. But I need him lucid and fully functional for at least a week.

  “And we’re going to need three safe houses. Create a holding company to lease one, then create a subsidiary of that holding company to lease another. Make the relationship hard to find, but not too hard. When the FBI finds it, I want them to think they’ve got me.”

  “Head fake?”

  Head fake—when a player moves the head in one direction to cover a body movement in another direction.

  “Precisely. Lease the third place under a fictitious name completely unrelated to the other two, because that’ll be our base of operations. We’ll also need half a dozen cars, all of them SUVs or minivans with darkly tinted windows. Old and dis
posable. Make sure they’re all properly registered and insured. I don’t want anyone getting pulled over by the cops for expired license plates. And make sure all our people have defect-free IDs.

  “Get the first house set up first thing in the morning. Make it a vacant house way down in the South Valley—maybe somewhere south of Rio Bravo and Coors—with the utilities still on, and an owner who will take cash. Get Erickson moved in and set up with whatever computer equipment he’ll need. Make sure there’s furniture and plenty of food, so no one will have to go out or order delivery. I want to keep our public profile to an absolute minimum.”

  Then Carl told Garcia what Erickson’s first assignment would be.

  Garcia nodded. “It’s going to be a busy weekend.”

  “You have no idea.”

  Chapter 30

  1744 MST Sunday

  Albuquerque, NM

  Carl shed his white-man disguise and looked like his normal self when he went into the bedroom of the rented house. He was clean-shaven on both his head and his face, and he wore stylish glasses with thick, dark plastic frames just like he’d seen Reyes wearing four weeks ago.

  The ex-CIA hacker Henry Erickson had pulled up quite a bit of information on Alfonso Reyes. There were a huge number of men named Reyes, both in Mexico and New Mexico, but there was only one that looked like Carl.

  Erickson found a lot of public data from the Internet, as well as low-level classified data from CIA and FBI networks that didn’t need a lot of serious hacking to obtain. Information regarding the man’s connection to Carl Johnson or a kidnapped girl was conspicuously missing. Curiosity teased Carl.

  Who was the girl? Where was the girl?