Foreign Enemies and Traitors

by Matthew Bracken

  “You’re ‘sorry’?! Do you know that people were probably killed because of you?”

  “Killed?”

  Ira asked, “What do you think they meant by ‘missiles ready to drop’? A SWAT team just raided a house near the cabin. They blew it up, probably with a missile launched from a Predator. I was close enough to hear the explosion. They thought it was us, but it was a mistake. There’s no garage and no white SUV at the cabin, so obviously they got the wrong house. But those three men are still dead, and now we can’t even go back to find out who it was. And all because you had to call your mother!”

  “I’m so sorry…”

  “And those people are still dead!” shouted Boone, struggling to keep his composure. “Let me tell you, Doug, part of me wants to…part of me wants to take you apart. But I can’t. I won’t. And do you know why?”

  Dolan looked up at Boone, misery on his face.

  “I can’t give you what you deserve because we still need you. You’re the only one of us who can run a modern studio mixing board, at least that’s what Ira tells me, and I believe him. We don’t have anybody who can replace you tomorrow, so you have to pull your act together and somehow, somehow, not fuck this up. So no matter how we feel about you right now, we still need you. You’re our television producer, and you still need to do your job, without a doubt the most important job you’ve ever done in your short life. And I know you’ll do it, because now, finally, I think you understand the kind of people we’re fighting. They’re the kind of people who kill innocent Americans just because they think they might be rebels. I hope it’s sinking in that this is no game. So you’re getting another chance. Now—are you going to fall to pieces on us, or are you going to pull yourself together, man up, and carry on like a Soldier?”

  Doug Dolan swallowed hard and nodded his head affirmatively. “I’ll be able to do my part. I won’t screw it up, Boone, I promise. I’ll do my job. No matter what it takes.”

  29

  The military called them C-12 Hurons. Civilian general aviation pilots knew them as Beech Super King Air twin turboprops. It wasn’t a Gulfstream, a Citation or even a Learjet, but Sidney Krantz wasn’t complaining. The plane had a pressurized cabin and flew at jet altitudes, and it had the speed and range to carry him directly from Andrews Air Force Base to Fort Campbell. An entire squadron at Andrews was dedicated to transporting government VIPs around the country and overseas. The aircrews didn’t care who they were flying as long as they were given valid orders through their chain of command. They routinely flew congressional delegations on thinly disguised Caribbean junkets, so a trip to Fort Campbell was above question.

  This particular airplane was a deluxe version of the C-12, with only six very wide leather seats, three on each side. The front two seats faced rearward, with fold-down coffee tables between them and the two middle seats. The pilot and copilot could be seen all the way forward in the cockpit. The only other person aboard was a female Air Force sergeant, a slim and trim Nordic type with short blond hair. Her sole mission apparently was keeping her single passenger comfortable, plying him with snacks, drinks, defense industry magazines and pillows.

  Krantz briefly wondered if other men in his situation might throw a pass at her, and perhaps inquire about her plans for later on at Fort Campbell. It was just his bad luck that they would provide him with a female steward, because he was much more interested in handsome young men than in girls. And in today’s military, a young male flight attendant might be openly gay, and he might even be attracted to an older Distinguished Guest, a Very Important Person who frequently had the president’s ear. But alas, this was not to be, not on this flight.

  Even with propellers instead of jets, and a female cabin steward, this afternoon’s solo air travel was a huge boost to Sidney’s ego. A twin-engine luxury airplane, two pilots and a steward had been placed entirely at his service. He could fly back tonight or tomorrow, as he wished. The plane and crew were at his beck and call, because this was a White House mission. After this Tennessee rural pacification campaign was successfully wrapped up, and Jamal Tambor was even more impressed with his service, perhaps then he would rate a luxury jet for his official travels. But even this level of luxury was very nice. Best of all was being waited upon by uniformed military personnel. If they only knew how much he despised them for their disgusting ultra patriotism, and their incessantly cheerful “Yes sir, no sir, what we can do for you, sir.”

  If the crew only knew the true purpose of his mission to Tennessee, and what he was delivering! If they only knew what he had in a glass vial the size of a pill bottle, hidden in his carry-on bag. There was only about a tablespoon of the brownish liquid culture, but that was enough to infect hundreds of rats. Just a tiny injection was all it would take. That and fleas, and proximity to the thousands of rebels currently confined in tight quarters in a dozen FEMA camps in Tennessee. Well, President Tambor had said that he wanted the resistance crushed, and he didn’t care how. Sidney Krantz was merely attempting to fulfill his leader’s wishes.

  ****

  The C-12 chased the afternoon sun for three hours, and landed at Campbell Army Airfield just at twilight. Ten minutes after its arrival, it had taxied onto a concrete apron amidst other small- and medium-sized fixed-wing aircraft. The Huron was a sleek white twin turboprop with low wings and a high T-tail gleaming in the last light. As its engines were shutting down, a black SUV drove up almost to its left wing and parked. The plane’s side door was lowered, creating its own steps. A single passenger stepped down, a portly man in a gray suit. He held a black carryall bag in one hand, and a brown hanging bag in the other. The driver of the SUV approached him, and even tipped his black ball cap.

  “Mr. Krantz?” The driver was wearing black trousers cut like combat fatigues, and a matching black insulated jacket with pockets and pouches for police radios, ammunition magazines, backup pistols, handcuffs, drinking water in a “camelback” and a dozen other “tactical necessities.”

  The deplaning VIP said, “That would be me.”

  “I’m your driver; I’ll be taking you to Director Bullard’s house. May I help you with your luggage, sir?”

  “You can take my hanging bag, thanks.” Krantz held onto his black leather grip bag, and followed the driver to the Suburban.

  “We’re just a few minutes from Director Bullard’s house. Is this your first trip to Fort Campbell?”

  “Yes, it’s my first time,” said Krantz while checking his watch.

  The driver held the left rear door open for Sidney Krantz, who slid across the middle seat while keeping his carry-on bag close by his side. The driver clipped the hanging bag to a hook, and closed the door. Then he got behind the wheel and they drove away from the airplanes, the aprons and service roads, and the airfield. It was fully dark by the time they left the perimeter road. The two men shared no polite words of conversation; they were from utterly different worlds. The driver selected a roundabout route that kept them away from most of Fort Campbell’s built-up areas.

  Five minutes later, he pulled onto a winding road that led past a golf course. This road, in turn, led into a secluded section that was home to Fort Campbell’s general officers. This was also the location of the temporary residence of Bob Bullard, a member of the federal government’s Senior Executive Service. A discreet sign at the entrance to this tree-shielded stretch of asphalt simply read “Senior Officer Housing, Authorized Personnel and Guests Only.” On an Army base, where military discipline ruled personal conduct, this sign was the only outward indication of the presence of a higher security level. There was no separate gate or guardhouse.

  Bullard’s two-story white shingle-sided house was at the end of its own cul-de-sac. Lines of evergreens ensured its privacy. It was one of only nine homes designated for general officers on Fort Campbell. The black Suburban turned onto the long driveway, rounded the circle at the end, and parked in front of the home’s main entrance. The driver stepped out and opened his passenger’s door, g
rabbed the hanging bag and politely waited while Krantz exited the SUV with his black leather bag in his left hand. Then the driver walked up the brick steps to the front landing of the home, rang the bell, and stepped to the side as a motion-activated security light came on above them. Sidney Krantz stood directly in front of the door, waiting for it to open. A white security camera no larger than a pack of cigarettes was discreetly mounted above them to their left.

  In less than a minute the door swung inward, opened by Director Robert Bullard himself, dressed casually in jeans and a maroon sweater. He stepped to the threshold, his right hand out to greet his colleague from Washington. Sidney Krantz was the man who had plucked him from his virtual house arrest in San Diego and recommended him for his current assignment heading up the rural pacification program. Bullard shook Krantz’s hand, then glanced over at the driver, whose back was turned to them. He said, “Jimmy, you can leave the bag on that hook over there, and then you can take off.”

  Ira Gersham turned around with the garment bag over his left arm. A Glock pistol was in his right hand, with a suppressor attached to its barrel. After letting Bullard see it, he jammed its muzzle hard into Sidney Krantz’s back, and then he said, “Jimmy couldn’t make it. Why don’t we go inside?”

  Boone Vikersun and Phil Carson, dressed in jeans and windbreakers, opened the rear doors of the Suburban from the inside. They had helped to subdue the driver sent to pick up Krantz, and thereafter they had remained hidden in the cargo area behind the third seat. They dashed toward the front door of the house before Bullard had gotten over his initial surprise. In seconds, they were all inside and the door was closed behind them. Other members of the Special Forces working group were already concealed around Bullard’s property, to prevent any of his men from potentially coming to his assistance.

  Carson said, “Hey, Bob, guess what? You hit the wrong house this morning. I don’t know who you killed, but it wasn’t us.”

  “And here we are,” said Boone, “just in time to meet your friend Sidney.” All three intruders were carrying pistols with sound suppressors.

  Bullard was momentarily speechless, and then all he could ask was a bewildered “How?” as he was pushed and prodded across the living room with Sidney Krantz.

  Boone said, “You actually thought that you could just set up shop on Fort Campbell, and we wouldn’t know every move you were making? Or that we wouldn’t care? You actually thought that you would be safe because you were on an Army base? Like we’re all just robots who only follow orders and don’t notice what we’re not supposed to notice? Bob Bullard, if you thought that, you are one stupid son of a bitch! Oh, and by that way, that pitiful mall-ninja you sent to pick up Sidney is still alive.”

  “Snappy dresser, though,” said Ira Gersham. “Just my size, and I absolutely love all the pockets.”

  They reached the basement door, which opened into the hall on the way to the kitchen. Colonel Spencer had attended social functions in several of the generals’ homes, and had briefed the team on their layout. Boone opened the door and said, “Now, let’s all go downstairs and get properly acquainted.”

  “Reacquainted, in my case,” said Carson. “Bob and I go way back. We’ve never met face to face, but we have some history together. Maybe we can talk over old times and catch up, eh, Bob?”

  ****

  Half of the basement was finished like a clubroom, with a pool table, a wet bar, a leather sofa and a big-screen television. The walls were wood paneled and the floor was carpeted. The other half was left rough, with block walls, a cement floor and exposed pipes and ducts running along the bottom of the ceiling beams. An interior wall with a door in the middle separated the two main basement rooms. The unfinished side was the laundry and storage area for the house, and it was very cold.

  Five minutes after the home invasion, Bob Bullard and Sidney Krantz were dressed only in their underwear shorts, without undershirts or even socks. Bullard wore red boxers, while Krantz wore black briefs that were mostly covered by a roll of pale belly flesh. A single hanging light bulb illuminated the room, and revealed that their pasty skin was covered by goose bumps from the chill air. Their hands were manacled over a steel water pipe that ran along a ceiling beam. They stood a few feet apart from one another, with their bare feet elevated on rough cinderblocks. There was one block beneath each man, so that their wrists would reach the pipe with their arms stretched straight up. Their ankles were bound together with green parachute cord, to prevent them from even attempting a kick.

  Coming down the steps, Bullard had tried to play the tough guy for about ten seconds, but that show of bravado ended with a casual punch from Boone Vikersun’s oversized fist. Carson thought that up close, Bob Bullard almost looked like Robert De Niro. Sidney Krantz had offered no resistance at all, from the moment that he had seen the armed men at the front door. The home invaders had pushed their two captives down the steps to the basement, the logical place to conduct a rapid and possibly noisy interrogation. Carson found the overhead pipes and the cinderblocks. Ira Gersham had brought the steel police handcuffs. Both men stripped off their clothing when they were ordered to. Bullard was silent but glaring daggers, Krantz was blubbering with fear.

  There was an old-fashioned square laundry sink in the corner of the basement past the washing machine. Boone filled a galvanized bucket with cold water from the tap. It was the temperature of the ground outside the house, just above freezing. He walked over to Bullard, swung the bucket back and doused him from the head down, leaving him sputtering and then hyperventilating. Then he repeated the process with Krantz, leaving both men drenched in the already frigid air. Both prisoners had to stand straight up on their cement block perches, with their arms stretched upward, to prevent the steel cuffs from digging into their wrists. It was not a posture designed to maximize their comfort or instill a feeling of safety and well-being.

  Once their prisoners were properly secured and soaked with cold water, the three home invaders left the rough side of the cellar, closing the door behind them. They spread their prisoners’ clothing on the pool table and searched through it. Carson emptied the black leather grip bag that Krantz had brought from Washington. Inside a casserole-sized Tupperware container was a large Ziploc bag, and inside that was a wide-mouthed plastic jar, similar to the ones that held peanut butter or mayonnaise. Inside that jar was a layer of bubble wrap and another Ziploc, and inside that protective padding was a small glass vial with a green rubber top.

  This vial was only about two inches high. Inside it was a resiny brownish-black liquid, with the viscosity of blood. A paper label on this vial was marked “YP-12D.” These letters were hand printed with a black marker. Carson set this glass vial on the pool table, away from the other items. Also in the Tupperware was another plastic bag, containing about twenty disposable syringes, and a small cardboard box containing disposable blue rubber gloves. He placed the bag of syringes and the gloves alongside the vial.

  Carson said, “I think I know why Krantz wanted Bullard to catch some rats.”

  “YP-12D,” said Gersham, leaning over the vial and studying it closely without touching it. “YP. That’s got to be Yersinia pestis.”

  “Okay, you guys,” said Boone, “speak English.”

  Carson replied, “Yersinia pestis is the germ that causes the bubonic plague. The Black Death. That’s why Krantz wanted rats. Rats carry the plague, and they spread it to humans.”

  “No shit?” said Boone. “And I thought I already hated those jokers. How long have they been chained to the pipe? You think they’re softened up enough for round two?”

  “Let’s go see.” Carson pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, took the vial and a syringe, and the three went back into the rough side of the basement. Bullard and Krantz were as they had been left, but now they were shivering almost uncontrollably. Bullard was in decent shape for a man in his fifties, with just some love handles, but the nearly obese Sidney Krantz was shaking like a bowl of white yogurt.

/>   Carson said, “Okay, boys, we’re going to play a new reality game. It’s kind of like Survivor. It’s called ‘Who Knows the Biggest Secret?’ The winner will live, and the loser will die. Now, to start off, who wants to tell me about this bottle? I’m assuming that the ‘YP’ stands for Yersinia pestis, the friendly little bug that causes the bubonic plague.” He held up the glass vial for the prisoners to see.

  “I don’t know anything about that stuff,” Bullard blurted out, shaking his head while staring at the little jar.

  “What about you, Sidney? This stuff was in your bag. What do you know about YP-12D?”

  Krantz just shook his head and looked down.

  Boone said, “Sidney, do you want another bucket of ice water to refresh your memory? It was in your bag. And wasn’t that you on the phone yesterday, asking Bob here to collect a dozen rats? Right after you asked him how many FEMA camps were in West Tennessee? Yeah, that’s right, Bob—we’ve been tapping your phone. Hey, don’t look so surprised; I mean, it’s our base. Come on now Sidney, remember the name of the game. It’s called ‘Who Knows the Biggest Secret?’”

  Finally Krantz spoke, his teeth chattering, his body shaking both from cold and from fear. “It’s not what you think. It wouldn’t cause a major epidemic. It was really just for psyops value. After a few cases, people would panic and leave West Tennessee. That’s what it was for, to make people leave. And when the weather turned warm, it would disappear completely.”

  Carson said, “Psyops value, huh? Well, for the people who got infected, I think it would be a little more than psychological, don’t you think?”

  Ira Gersham had gone back to the other basement room, and returned with a large blue textbook, already opened in his hands. “There’s an old set of Encyclopedia Britannica over there. It must stay with the house; I sure can’t see Bob Bullard bringing along a set of encyclopedias. Am I right, Bob, it was already here?” Bullard barely nodded yes. “That’s what I thought. Now, let’s see what it says about the bubonic plague. Okay, here we are. I’ll just hit the highlights. It’s an infection of the lymphatic system, typically resulting from the bite of an infected flea. The fleas are usually found on rodents such as rats, and they move onto humans when their rodent hosts die. Well, that explains the rats that Sidney wanted.