by Jon Jackson
“According to the Colonel, you guys go back a long way,” Joe said. “Vietnam. He didn’t say much about later activities. But it looks like we’re fellow Lucani. We ought to have some kind of secret handshake, or a password.”
“Shibboleth, you mean,” Luck said, with a smile.
“Shibboleth,” Joe said. “Maybe we could get special rings, or whistle the opening bars of a Dixie Chicks tune.”
“Except I don’t know any Dixie Chicks tunes,” Luck said.
Joe confessed he didn’t either.
“By the way,” Luck said, as if the thought had just struck him, “you didn’t have something to do with Mulheisen’s abrupt departure a couple of nights ago?”
“Mulheisen! He was here? Well, I guess he would be. He’s the kind of guy who keeps poking around. Hard to keep anything from Mulheisen, although he never seems all that intrusive, does he? Just always around. I’m not usually happy to see Mulheisen. So what is this operation of yours? The Colonel says it’s just a bunch of patriotic yokels. What’s the story on that?”
Luck seemed disposed to explain, in a general way. He talked about the patriotic movement. According to him it was just ordinary citizens with reasonable concerns about the federal government, its interference in personal lives and activities. It was all about law and private rights.
Joe was interested. He talked about his place out west, the problems with privacy. Luck responded. They traded comments about private land, taxation, the interference of agencies that had no business interfering. Luck was impressed with Joe’s description of the extent of his property in Montana, the fortunate disposition of national forests and Bureau of Land Management holdings as borders. The idea of a couple of thousand acres, nicely sequestered, seemed enviable.
“It’s different here,” Luck said, “the available acreage is limited. It’s all owned by someone, been in the family for ages, that sort of thing. You can’t buy them out, even if it’s worthless marshland. That farm next to me, for instance, it hasn’t been used or even visited by the owners for decades. But will they sell? Never. It’s owned by people who live in Illinois. They inherited. I don’t think any of them have even seen the property in a generation.”
“You remind me of my neighbor,” Joe said. “He says he doesn’t want to own everything, just the land next to his.”
Luck chuckled. “Well, it makes things easier, doesn’t it?”
“How much do you have here?” Joe asked.
“By rights, it should be close to a thousand acres,” Luck said, “but there are some legal disputes. My grandfather had quite a bit more, but through some legal chicanery I’m down to just a few hundred. I’ve been working on that. I think I’ll win out, eventually, but it takes up too much of my time, it’s expensive, and, hell, it’s just plain not right!”
“I hear you,” Joe said. “I thought I had a good deal with my neighbor, but now he wants to run cattle. That’ll mean brand inspectors coming around. They can walk right onto your land, without a warrant, no warning. And if you want to divert a little stream, you have to file a plan with Fish and Game. That has to be inspected and approved, and approval doesn’t come easy. You practically have to file an environmental impact statement to bury your garbage. More agencies. The Forest Service wants to survey, take a census of your trees, your riparian rights, whether you’re complying with best forest practices. It goes on and on.”
Luck was nodding his head eagerly. “It’s probably worse here in Michigan,” he said. The problem was the long tenure of settlement, compared to a state like Montana, where there were sizable tracts of privately owned land.
“Other than privacy,” Joe said, “what do you need with all this land?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Luck said. When Service smiled at him, he smiled back. “All right . . . you’re Lucani. I accept that. The Colonel told me as much. The plan was a little different, in the beginning. I got interested in the patriot movement. It wasn’t difficult to drum up interest, but the people you get, they’re just bumper-sticker conservatives. No fire in the belly. Then I got online. There are thousands of guys out there who are truly pissed. Most of them are pretty much like the locals. Their idea of activism is to join a group like the one I started. They get together, spout off some antigovernment sentiments, plaster a flag on their SUV, maybe go to a liberal gathering and shout some angry words. But there’s always a few willing to throw a bomb.”
“Literally?” Joe said.
“Oh, sure,” Luck said. “It’s like the old anarchists in Russia, back in the days of the czar. But we don’t want that.”
“You don’t?”
“No. It’s too helter-skelter,” Luck said. “What you want to do is get them into a more organized environment. It’s the age-old process: identify the true radicals, divert them into a program with an actual philosophy. The irony is, the buffoons, the bumper-sticker flag-wavers, they make a good cover. You get investigated, the feds, or whoever, see the buffoons and they report that. You’re just a group of harmless cranks. I had a different notion entirely.”
Basically, as he explained it, Luck had gotten interested in the security business. Guards, equipment, protection for wealthy clients. He’d worked in that for a while and then he saw that the people who were really making the money were offering not just rent-a-cops but actual troops.
“You thought you’d put together a private army?” Joe didn’t conceal his skepticism.
“Well, others have done it. You get outfits like this Vinnell Corporation, working all over the Mid East and other places. They actually started out in the construction business. They got into oil, building sites and then protecting them. They hired ex-Rangers, guys like that. Pretty soon they had an army. They get contracts in the hundred-million range. I had good contacts in the government—my ol’ buddy Vern Tucker, for instance. But you know what? There’s just not enough room here to do the soldier training. Besides, it was too much like being in the army. So I scaled back.”
“Ah,” Joe said. “No army, but . . .”
“Key men,” Luck said. “That’s where it’s at.” He leaned forward, his eyes intense. “What’s the biggest problem going? Terrorism, right? The public forgot all about guys like McVeigh and Nichols the minute those planes drove into the World Trade Center towers. All they could think about was Osama bin Laden. They eagerly supported a war against sovereign nations, thinking they were destroying Osama. But they can’t destroy Osama. Not that way.”
Joe attended to Luck’s argument, but he was also keeping his ears open for other noises. Was this guy for real? Who else was around here? He stayed alert. “So what’s the answer?” he said.
“Osama provided a good answer himself. Everybody looked at the camps he had, the actual layouts. They thought, ‘We destroy that and we’ve destroyed this terrorist threat.’ But there was more to it. I don’t know how much of Osama’s interest was, or is, vested in the camps, but I don’t think it’s training camps. His real business is a clearinghouse for guerrilla projects and in providing a host of core agents. The would-be saboteurs flock to him. He takes a few in, trains them, discusses philosophy with them, and sends them back out to the rest of the world where they get together the people they need to carry out the terrorist activities.”
“Kind of like a finishing school for agents,” Joe said.
“Exactly,” Luck said, sitting back with an air of satisfaction. “Grad school. There’s no shortage of young men in the world full of fury and rage, boiling over with testosterone. Not just Arab kids who want to blow up Americans and other infidels, but American kids who want to blow up . . . well, just about anything. What you need is someone to focus these guys. In the Mid East, they go in for martyrs. Americans don’t like the idea of martyrs. To us, it’s sick. But if we want to fight these guys we’ve got to use Osama’s tactics: create the guys who will go out and organize counterterrorists.”
“And you don’t need a big camp for that,” Joe said.
“No, nothing huge. But you have to have some space, a facility, and a lot of security. You’re just training a small cadre. You provide a philosophy, study the history of the terrorist movements, and work on field craft.”
Joe nodded. It was an interesting concept. “So, have you had much success?”
“A little,” Luck said modestly. “We’re just getting going. My guys are in the early stages. The thing is, with the Internet you reach the whole world. You wouldn’t believe the inquiries I get, from all over the country, Australia, Europe, even the Middle East.”
“The Middle East?”
“Hell, yes,” Luck said. “You think there aren’t guys in the Middle East who want to defeat Osama and his gang? Of course, you have to vet them to make sure they aren’t just spies. That’s a problem. But Tucker helps with that, of course. That’s useful, and it’s a quid pro quo thing: he can keep an eye on attempts of terrorists to infiltrate. Works out well.”
“How about contracts?” Joe said. “Are you on your way to competing with Vinnell?”
“No firm contracts yet,” Luck said. “I’m working on it. I need a couple of demonstrations.”
“Exercises?” Joe said. “With live ammo . . . real-life situations?”
“Exactly,” Luck said. He eyed Service shrewdly. “What do you think? Would something like this interest you?”
“Me?” Joe said. “Hey, don’t look at me. I’m the original stray dog. All this stuff sounds too military.”
“It is military, Joe. It has to be. If you’re training guys to lead men you have to have discipline. You don’t think the al-Qaeda is run like the Mafia, do you? There’s too much at stake.”
“The outfits I knew relied totally on family. That was how they built loyalty. You didn’t have to be a blood brother, but if you wanted to succeed in the family you had to at least be adopted. That’s why I didn’t like it. But they needed a dog who wouldn’t come to every master who waved a bone. My impression is the terrorists use religion for family.”
“They do,” Luck said, “but we have religion too. And it’s allied to an intense nationalism. There’s a conventional myth about the great American Christian nation. There are elements of racism involved. You want to avoid that. It’s divisive. It’s all about God’s chosen nation, the City on the Hill. Onward Christian soldiers. Osama recognizes it and calls us crusaders. That’s good. That’s useful. We don’t mind that.”
“I don’t know diddly about terrorism,” Joe said. “Not my game. And the last thing I want is to march and make my bed so tight you can bounce a quarter off it. I didn’t go into the army—it didn’t sound like any kind of fun.”
“I spent a lot of time around the military, Joe, but I didn’t join up either. I went another way. I had the same feeling as you. I didn’t like the regimentation concept. But I ended up working with these guys. Plus, I’ve spent a lifetime studying military history and tactics. So I’m kind of into it, without being in it, if you know what I mean. But I wasn’t trying to recruit you . . . I mean, not as a re-cruit! I meant, would you be interested in being one of the instructors? You wouldn’t be subject to the discipline. What we need is guys who know what these kids need to know.
“One thing I noticed about the military, Joe: they know how to educate young men. The soldiering part is one thing—discipline is essential. But when the military wants a kid to know something about, say, jet engines, they don’t leave that up to some sergeant who read a textbook. They go out and get guys who wrote the textbooks, guys who know all about the latest engines, who have worked on them, built them, and so on.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Joe said.
“Yeah, but you know a lot of other stuff,” Luck said. He was enthusiastic. “The fact that you walked in here without anyone detecting your presence . . . man, that’s what these kids need to learn. Right now, that’s my main job, recruiting the kind of men who can provide the expertise.”
“Any luck?”
“A little,” Luck said. “A start. I’ve got one guy, he came to me through the Web site. He’s had hands-on experience building cadres, and in the Middle East. Military specialist. That’s the kind of thing you need. No substitute for practical experience in the field.”
“Mercenaries,” Joe said.
“I get some of those guys applying too. I’m vetting them, or the Colonel is. They’re in the pipeline. But you need all kinds of experts. Explosives, surveillance, electronics, even finance. Once we get some contracts, I’ll be open for business.”
“Speaking of finance, who’s bankrolling all this?” Joe said.
“Ah, I can’t reveal too much on that score. It takes a lot of money to start up, but I have sources.”
“Tucker, huh?”
“Mmmm, maybe a little,” Luck conceded, “but there’s also private sources. Lot of money out there, looking for a cause to spend it on. More money than you would believe.”
“Count me out,” Joe said. “I’ve got my work to do. I don’t have time to do yours.”
“What do you have to do? Tucker told me you were taking up carpentry, and fly-fishing!”
“That was just a vacation. That’s over,” Joe said. “Right now, I’ve got to find a guy. Before he finds me.”
“Who’s this?” Luck inquired.
“I don’t think you know him. Hell, I don’t know him. The Colonel does, though: a drug dealer named Echeverria. I call him Itcheverria. I need to Scratcheverria.” Joe was disappointed that Luck wasn’t amused.
“I’ve met him,” Luck said. “The Colonel needed a backup when he went to see him, down in Panama. I drove the plane and carried an Uzi. Weird guy, wears a veil.”
“A veil?”
“Some kind of gauze mask thing,” Luck said. “It has a face painted on it, kind of. . . eyes, lips. He got burnt. It’s very eerie to be around. He’s talking through this mask, you can see his lips moving, and this painted face is grinning at you like Mr. Pumpkin. What’s he got against you?”
“Just between us, he thinks I hung the mask on him.”
Luck was impressed. “Did you, by god? Playing with fire, were you?”
It was Joe’s turn not to laugh.
“You know, maybe I could help you get to him,” Luck said. “Would that interest you? Maybe we could work out some quid pro quo ourselves.”
“It sounds possible,” Joe said. “We could discuss it, but not here.” He glanced around. “It’s too much like Nixon’s office.”
“Let’s go for a walk then. I want you to see the grounds anyway.”
Joe was agreeable. The two of them strolled out among the trees. Joe explained about the occasions when he’d booby-trapped his house, which had led to Echeverria’s getting all but burned to a crisp, and the subsequent occasion, when he’d thought he was making a hit for the Colonel. Echeverria had survived, but now he was, as Joe put it, “prejudiced” against him. “Just to make life more relaxing, it looks like I’ve got to take him out,” he said.
Luck thought he could help. He had contacts. Echeverria could be set up. Panama would be a good place, but Guatemala was also a possibility. Luck had done some work down there.
“No,” Joe said. “I’m not going out of the country. He’d be more at home there than I would. It would have to be here, in the States.”
Luck said that would be more difficult. Echeverria didn’t like coming to the States. Tucker might be able to help, though.
They had walked along a pleasant wooded path, kicking up leaves. They came to the edge of the woods and a high, stout fence. Luck unlocked a gate and let them out. They continued out into a broad field and along an old, sandy two-track that led up to a ridge. The field had long lain fallow, obviously, now overgrown with sumac and various brambly bushes. At the top of the ridge there was an old ironwork gate that opened into an enclosure surrounded by a low fence. It was an old cemetery.
Luck paused. “All my people are buried up here,” he said. He pushed the gate open and they enter
ed. “I’ll be buried here someday.” There were perhaps twenty tombstones. An old apple tree shaded one corner, very gnarled. It was festooned with greenish apples with a red patina. Luck reached up and plucked one. “Try it,” he said, handing the apple to Joe. “They’re not bad. The deer eat most of them. They’re an old variety, the Northern Spy.” He picked another for himself and polished it on his wool field jacket.
Joe tasted it. “Very good,” he said. He stood among the scattered graves, munching and gazing off into the fields below. In the distance, he could see a farm, several other houses. A red fuel truck rolled along a distant county road. The wind ruffled his hair. Shafts of sunlight broke through the heavy overcast and played across the largely yellow and brown fields.
“You should have built up here,” Joe said. “It’s a nice view. Airy.”
“Yes, the old homestead was nearby,” Luck said. “But ‘the woods are lovely, deep and dark,’ to quote the poet. And they’re more secure. Down there”—he gestured—“were pastures and cornfields, gardens.”
Joe peered at the stones. They were well worn, some kind of soft, white stone, but he could read most of the faded inscriptions: Alois Luckenbach, 1824–1901; Johanna Siegmuller Luckenbach, 1841–1875; and many of the stones, small ones, bore the names of children, none of whom had lived longer than a year or two. There were other, only slightly newer stones. The names were all Luckenbach. The site was well cared for, mowed, with a few pruned rosebushes, a couple of dark evergreens, not very large. A rather new site was in one corner. It had no stone, but there were some flowers planted at the head, not in bloom, just greenish shoots, now withering in the fall.
“Who’s this?” Joe said.
“Ah, my father,” Luck said. “He wasn’t buried here. I relocated his grave a couple of years ago. I’ve been meaning to get a stone up, but I’ve been remiss.”
Joe glanced around. He’d seen a stone, a little ways off, marked “Martin Parvis Luck, II.” He had assumed it was the father. Which would make Luck the third, presumably. He didn’t say anything about it.
