by Oliver North
“Our neighbor, Señor Macklin, has been teaching me English since I was a little boy. He was once a British soldier and he is a very kind man. He has a large finca. My father and mother work for him. He gave them this house and this land.”
“How far is Señor Macklin’s house from here?”
The boy shrugged, thought for a few seconds, and said, “Perhaps two kilometers.”
“What direction?”
“Toward Dzilam de Bravo.”
“Is that south, east, or west of here?”
“I am sorry, Señor Martin, I do not know directions. It is that way,” he added, pointing to the wall opposite the window, “toward the sunset.”
Cohen nodded and continued. “Do any of the four men who tied me up know you speak English?”
“No. El jefe is the only one who has said anything in English. He and the others speak a language I do not understand, but I heard him say he was going to cut off your head. That is what the cartelistos do to their enemies. Why does he want to kill you?”
“He is a very bad man, Felipe. Try to make sure he does not know you can understand or speak English. It may help us both.”
The boy nodded and then asked, “Why did el jefe call you a ‘filthy Jew’? Are you a Jew?”
“Yes.”
“Señor Macklin used his Bible to teach Jorge and me how to read. He told us the Jews are God’s chosen people and they are hated by those who do not know the One True God. Is that true?”
“Yes, I suppose it is,” Cohen replied, thinking it surreal to be having a theological discussion with an eleven-year-old boy while chained to a bed in Mexico.
Felipe went on. “Señor Macklin is a very wise man with many books. One of his books has pictures of people called Nazis who killed many, many Jews. Are the four men who hit you and tied you up Nazis?”
The old man pondered the question for a moment, then said, “Yes, Felipe, they are like the Nazis in Señor Macklin’s book. They have no respect for human life. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Yes, I think so. Does that mean they will kill me, too?”
“I hope they will not kill either one of us.”
“Moses led the Jews to freedom. Can you lead us to freedom?”
Cohen was about to answer when they heard a chain rattling on the door. By the time Ahmad swung the door open and stomped into the room, Felipe was again hunkered in the corner wrapped in a cotton blanket and the admiral was feigning sleep.
“Wake up, you stinking Jew!” Ahmad shouted as he poked his trussed-up captive in the side with the muzzle of an ancient but lethal-looking AK-47.
“You thought you could escape? If I had not been ordered to keep you alive, I would kill you now, Jew. How long has your PERT been uncovered?” Ahmad demanded, pointing at Marty Cohen’s feet.
The old admiral raised his head to look at the tattered remains of the aluminum foil, foliage, and duct-tape boots he fashioned from the shielding his kidnappers wrapped around his foot before they abandoned the Ileana Rosario. He stared at his captor, shrugged, and said, “I do not know.”
Ahmad doubled up his fist and snarled, “How long has your PERT been open like this, Jew?”
“The foil you wrapped around my leg started coming apart when the storm flipped us over the first time—while I was pulling you back into the life raft and saving your life.”
“You are a fool, Jew. If you were not a Kaffir you would know better than to thwart Allah’s will. I should have cut off your foot containing the PERT.”
“There is no need to cut off my foot. My PERT has not been charged in more than six days. The battery is surely dead.”
“You had better hope so, Jew. Because if your PERT is transmitting our location and we are caught, I will cut off your head.”
Cohen looked at him for a long moment, shook his head, and said, “How can you speak this way? You are an educated man. While we were on the life raft you told me you were born in the United States and didn’t go to Iran until you were a teenage boy. I saved your life more than once in the last few days. Why do you hate me?”
“Because you are a Kaffir. You practice fitna. You oppose the will of Allah as told to us by Muhammad. That is enough.” Then, reaching into his pocket, Ahmad withdrew the knife Rikki used to cut their life raft free from the Ileana Rosario.
As the terrorist flicked open the blade, Cohen’s reaction was instinctive but futile as he strained against his bonds to defend himself.
Standing over the old man, brandishing the knife in his right hand, the Iranian chuckled mirthlessly and said, “Hold still, Jew, I am going to cut you loose.” As he severed the ropes holding the old man’s wrists and ankles, Ahmad gestured toward Felipe with the rifle and said, “I am untying you, Jew, so you can talk to this boy in his infidel tongue.”
CAIR PARAVEL
PAWLEYS ISLAND, SC
FRIDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER 2032
1930 HOURS, LOCAL
She arrived just as they were sitting down to dinner. They had all just joined hands around the table to offer a blessing over the food when the security system chimed, signaling the gate in front of the house was unlocking. A moment later the living room door opened and she walked in. Peter’s salient observation, “You never cease to amaze me,” was echoed by everyone at the table.
After hugs and kisses all around, she said, as though her surprise arrival should have been anticipated, “I just couldn’t miss tonight’s tenth wedding anniversary celebration and tomorrow’s birthday party for Seth.”
“Yeah,” said James with a smile, “Sarah and I were concerned our anniversary just wouldn’t be complete without you being with us, Mom—and here you are. How did you get here, on your broom?”
Rachel gave her son a withering look—the kind he came to know as a child—and said, “Heed the Fifth Commandment, James, and watch your mouth. Words some people think are funny don’t sound that way when they come from the lips of your own offspring. And by the way, you need a shave.”
In an effort to avert the sudden friction, Peter said, “James is growing a beard. I’m glad you’re here. I missed you.” As the four boys clambered for their grandmother’s attention, he set another place at the table and added, “James and Sarah decided to celebrate their anniversary here at Cair Paravel. We have a delightful dinner this evening, catered by the nice people at Chive Blossom Cafe. Let’s thank God for this good food, your safe, if unexpected, arrival, and eat.”
They did. And during the meal the four adults tried to refrain from discussing anything but the most lighthearted topics. Seth prompted the closest thing to a serious exchange when he asked, “How did you get here, Nan?”
“I flew from Winchester to Myrtle Beach with Henry Simmons, CSG’s chief pilot, in the Beech King Air 450. You boys have flown in that plane before. Remember the trip we made to the air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, a few years ago?”
“Oh yeah,” Josh interjected with a grin. “That was where Seth got lost in an old airplane.”
“I wasn’t lost. And it wasn’t just an old airplane, it was a World War II B-17 and I was in the cockpit.”
James joined in. “And how did we find you?”
“My PERT.”
“Right. And now that none of our PERTs are transmitting anymore, what’s the new rule?”
The two older boys answered in unison, “Stay with Mom and Dad and keep an eye on our little brothers.”
“Right, again,” James replied. Then, looking at his mother, he said, “I’m sorry for my mean comment when you arrived. Did Henry bring you from the airport to Cair Paravel?”
“You’re forgiven. Yes. Henry rented a car at Myrtle, dropped me here, and is staying at the Sea View Inn. The DEA has chartered the 450 and he’s flying it on to Fort Worth when they call for it.”
James glanced at his father, caught Peter’s quick shake of his head no, and let the matter drop. For the remainder of the meal, conversation focused on an enormous horseshoe crab that washed up on the
beach and the best techniques for coaxing seagulls into snatching bread crusts from a boy’s upraised hand.
After James and Sarah took the children upstairs to read stories and put them to bed, Peter and Rachel began clearing the table. They were no sooner alone than Rachel said quietly, “I’m sorry for the unexpected arrival, but I needed a way to tell you what I learned this afternoon from a Secret Service agent. James is in great jeopardy. So is Mack Caperton—perhaps more than any of us anticipated. I didn’t want to call.”
Peter stopped placing items in the dishwasher, turned to his wife, and said, “That was very smart. Let’s go for a walk on the beach.”
They took off their shoes on the porch and headed out into the dim light of a waning crescent moon. The temperature had dropped and the light breeze shifted offshore. Peter draped his light cotton sweater over Rachel’s shoulders as they walked slowly south on the deserted white sand.
The sliver of moon set and the couple passed the pier jutting into the Atlantic before Rachel completed her summary of all she had learned that afternoon. The only thing she omitted was the part about Frances’s father. When she finished her account, Rachel asked, “Is there any way to find out if our son was secretly indicted this afternoon?”
Peter had not spoken since they began their walk and now he said, “I don’t know. But let me ask a few questions first. Do you trust this woman?”
“Yes. After meeting with her, I went to the CSG Ops Center. Don Gabbard helped me verify her background information. It all matched what she told me.”
“You don’t think she was sent by someone at the White House to see how we would respond to the information—what we call a provocation?”
“It occurred to me but as Don pointed out, we weren’t being targeted by the government when she joined the church and started attending your Sunday school class or my Bible study for women in government. She may be a great actress, but she seems genuinely concerned and straightforward about what she overheard and relayed to me.”
Peter nodded in the dark and said, “That’s good enough for me. You have always had greater gifts of perception and discernment than I. For as long as I’ve known you, people have been willing to share the most amazing things with you they wouldn’t tell others under torture.”
Rachel snickered, “I think that’s a compliment.” After a moment of silence, she asked, “So if we believe Frances’s story, where does that leave us with finding out about whether our only boy has been indicted by these creeps?”
“I’m not sure. Certainly the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia would know if a sealed indictment was handed down by a grand jury. I would normally just call Mack or Judge Hodson in Richmond, but given what you told me about the communications intercepts, we have to be very careful how we go about inquiring.”
“Do we have any way to warn Mack Caperton that his communications are being monitored?”
“Yes. But we’re going to have to start exchanging information the way criminals do to avoid being detected on the MESH. Back at the house, in the safe hidden behind the fireplace, we have a thousand disposable, prepaid MESH interface devices—just like our PIDs—only unregistered.”
“A thousand? Why so many?”
“Because we never want to use the same one more than once or twice. Unlike a PID, or a registered MESH phone, these don’t have an integral GPS chip and they can’t be recharged. They really are meant to be disposable.”
“Where did you get them?”
“From Mack. He brought them with him when he came here on Wednesday. I don’t know precisely how he got them.”
“Are those the things the government calls Anark MESH links? They’re illegal, aren’t they?”
“Yes to both. But the Chinese still manufacture them by the millions and sell them all over the world on the black market. And according to Mack, there are Anark workshops in places like Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Texas that produce them as well. We just have to be very careful how we use them.”
“What do you mean by careful?”
“Every device that accesses the MESH—whether it’s a PERT, a PID, a telephone, a computer, even an Au-Vid camera—has a unique electronic interface code that identifies what it is and who owns it. It’s called a device recognition signal—DRS for short. By international treaty and U.S. law, every DRS has to be registered to a business or an individual’s Personal Identification Number. Here in the U.S. that’s a business tax-ID number or an individual Social Security number. The Anark MESH link devices in the safe at the house each have a DRS—otherwise they wouldn’t work—but their registrations are all phony.”
“Will we be breaking the law if we use them?”
“Yes. It’s illegal to send or receive information over the MESH from an unregistered device—even though it happens all the time. The UN and national governments can’t collect their MESH user fees—what the Anarks call MESH Taxes—from unregistered devices. Anyone caught using an unregistered MESH interface device can be prosecuted for violating international, federal, and state laws—and the IRS code.”
“Why would anyone take such a chance?”
“Some people use unregistered devices to avoid paying the MESH Tax. Others use them for privacy or secrecy. That’s certainly why criminals and terrorists use them. The fact is, very few people actually get caught—and when they do it’s usually while they are in the process of committing some other crime.”
“So can we just call Mack on one of these unregistered devices to warn him about being intercepted and find out about whether a secret warrant has been issued to arrest our son?”
“We can’t call him directly. Based on what your Secret Service agent told you, we should assume Mack’s communications are being monitored twenty-four seven in real time—and the people doing the intercepts will be able to determine the DRS of the device originating the contact almost instantly. If it’s a voice call, they will be able to run a voice pattern analysis—and identify the caller from his or her audible fingerprint in an hour or so.”
“How about just sending him a text message?”
“A data or text message sent on one of the Anark MESH link devices is safer for the originator because the people intercepting the communication can’t do a voice ID. They may eventually be able to decrypt the message—but the greater concern is they will know the sender’s location within seconds even though they won’t know who it is.”
“How do they know the location of the sender? I thought you said these unregistered devices don’t have a GPS chip in them.”
“That’s correct. But the FBI or any other government agency intercepting messages being sent to Mack can backtrack to the portal where the device with the unregistered DRS entered the MESH. They would know the message originated on or near Pawleys Island, South Carolina, in less than half a minute.”
“Then what good are they if we can’t use them?”
“We can use them, but we have to go through a series of cutouts. It takes a little longer to get a message through, but it’s much safer and it helps protect the recipient—in this case, Mack.”
“What do you mean by cutouts?”
“It works like this. We use one of the unregistered Anark MESH link devices to send an encrypted message to another unregistered device in some other place—”
“You mean to another Anark?”
“Some of them probably are Anarks. According to Mack, many are former SEALs, soldiers, and Marines. He calls them his ‘trusted MESH addressees’—and describes them as ‘People of the Book who know bullets and ballots.’ We send our text message for Mack to one of those unregistered MESH addresses. The recipient scrapes off our DRS data and relays the message over a private fiber-optic line to a person with a registered PID in a third location. The encrypted message is then sent to Mack via a properly registered PID from this third relay station.”
“How long does all this take?”
“According to Mack, it all happens in less than ten
minutes.”
They arrived at Cair Paravel’s wooden walkway over the dunes. As Rachel stepped onto the stair she stopped, turned to her husband, now at eye level, and said, “Before we go back in the house, just a few more questions. How do you know all this stuff about MESH devices—from Mack?”
“No. Most of it I learned from our son. He knows more about electronics and the MESH than I ever will.”
“So are we going to go inside and deliver all this bad news to James and Sarah on their tenth wedding anniversary?”
“I don’t want to—because we really need to know more. Until we contact Mack and determine a course of action, all the information you received from your young Secret Service agent is just one more thing to worry about.”
“What if FBI or Homeland Security agents come here looking for James?”
“I think we have to assume they eventually will. But right now they have no reason to come looking here. Our PERTs are all masked. We used Sarah’s ID code to log into the MESH from the computer in the house. All of our other communications have been with Mack using the SSCI PIDs that have false names assigned. The FBI or Homeland Security goons will eventually figure out those SSCI PIDs are bogus, but that will take a while. All this means we need to come up with a plan in the next forty-eight hours or so. And that’s why I need to communicate with Mack tonight.”
“Oh dear, dear Peter, how did we come to this point in this country?” she asked. Though he couldn’t see them in the darkness, he knew from her voice that tears were welling up in her eyes.
“We gave it all away,” he replied quietly. “In exchange for the promise of comfort and security, ‘We the People’ surrendered our freedoms to our government—and the ‘international community,’ whatever that is. Our liberty has been ebbing away for decades and we just let it go. When our economy fell apart, we turned to elites in Washington for handouts and bailouts and did nothing when they took over our banks, industries, hospitals, doctors, even the press. Our government surrendered our right to keep and bear arms to the UN, but did nothing to stop the Iranians and half a dozen others from building nuclear weapons. We legalized the use of illicit drugs, opened our borders to armed enemies, and offered amnesty to millions of people who came here illegally—because they would vote the right way. We abandoned allies like Israel and agreed to the creation of the Caliphate so we could buy cheap oil from people who hate us—while we turned our military into a laboratory for social engineering. And when a handful of good men like Mack warned us years ago we were on a path that would forfeit the future, ‘We the People’ ignored them—and handed the government even more power over our lives.”
