Enemies Foreign And Domestic

by Matthew Bracken

  “Now I’ll take a few of your questions.”

  An older male reporter called out, “Attorney General Sanderson, how many FIST teams will there be, and where will they be located?”

  “I think for rather obvious reasons I can’t discuss all of the operational details of the program, but there will be plenty of FIST units, you may be certain of that. Enough to do the job.” Sanderson pointed to a middle-aged African American reporter next.

  “Will the FIST units use racial or ethnic profiling in determining who they are going to pull over and search?”

  “No, the FIST unit commanders will select cars completely at random, in accordance with constitutionally tested precedents.” Sanderson did not even crack a smile as he uttered both of these blatant lies.

  A reporter in the middle of the gallery called out, “Are you going to run for Governor?” and Sanderson replied, “I plan to serve the people of Virginia to the best of my ability.” When the same reporter called out again, “Is that a yes?” Sanderson ignored his question and pointed to a perky young blonde female reporter who had been waving her hand frantically.

  “Mr. Sanderson, isn’t ‘FIST’ a rather… harsh name?”

  This question drew chuckles and guffaws from the other reporters, and from the police chiefs still dutifully standing shoulder to shoulder behind the Attorney General. But Eric Sanderson didn’t laugh, instead he pounded his own fist down hard on the podium, and the sound boomed through the microphones.

  “Is the FIST program harsh? You’re damn right, it’s harsh! We intend to be very harsh with domestic terrorists and militias and illegal gun runners! Very harsh!” He brought his tightly-balled fist up in front of his chin for effect and held it there, suddenly aware in that instant that it would be on the front pages of tomorrow’s papers across Virginia, and that he had just created the six-second sound bite which would sweep him into the Governor’s mansion, and then into the U.S. Senate. His harsh visage slowly melted into an avuncular smile, and finally he brought his hand back down and gripped the sides of the podium.

  “Now before I go, I’d like to remind everyone about the toll free, totally confidential illegal firearms tip line, 1-855-GUN-STOP.”

  Sanderson pointed to the number displayed across the front of the podium just beneath the cluster of microphones. “You can serve your state and your country by calling this number if you have knowledge of anyone in possession of semi-automatic rifles of any kind. Calls which result in arrests for possession of semi-automatic assault rifles will be rewarded with up to $5,000 for each illegal rifle which is recovered, so you can serve your country and yourself at the same time, if you know anyone who is holding onto an illegal rifle.

  “And wives, if your husband is still holding onto an assault rifle, ask yourself: is it worth it to your family to have him sent to prison for five years? For the good of your whole family, get rid of those illegal semi-automatic rifles! You can’t be sure who knows about them; they’re probably already listed, and it’s only a matter of time until they’re found. So for your family’s sake, get rid of those illegal assault rifles now!

  ****

  Ranya Bardiwell had hardly been out of her one-bedroom hideout in East Ocean View since returning from her father’s brief funeral and burial the day before. Phil Carson, Brad Fallon and a handful of former friends and customers (often one and the same) had made the effort to show up for the services, but Ranya had been brittle and distant and had not planned for any kind of wake after her father’s casket had been lowered into the ground. Brad Fallon and Phil Carson had both offered to take her out to lunch, but she had declined and returned alone to her seedy apartment to brood.

  Friday morning she walked to breakfast at a Waffle House on East Ocean View Avenue. On the way back she bought a portable radio and CD player in a People’s Drugstore, so that she could follow the news, and listen to some music in her room to relax. She tried reading a paperback novel that she had started over the summer, but gave it up and went for a three mile run down to the Little Creek Inlet and back. After showering and changing she just flopped on the bed and stared at the ceiling, and in time she slept, but her dreams repelled her from that refuge. Brad Fallon had mentioned where his boat was now, and she considered riding over to Portsmouth to check it out. He had said that his mast was going up on Saturday, and so he would be busy getting it ready today, and could probably use some help. But she didn’t go.

  At lunchtime she was fooling around with her portable ten-inch color TV, seeing what kind of reception it would get inside the apartment with its whip antenna. She had no interest in daytime network television, but felt that she should keep up with the domestic terrorism news, since her father had been a casualty, and because she had her own scores to settle. She was sliding the television along the chipped red formica-topped kitchen counter and playing with the antenna, when the 12 o’clock local news came on. The sound was muted while an attractive Asian anchor woman was chatting soundlessly with her dutifully-nodding sandy-haired male co-anchor, when suddenly Ranya was looking directly at the face of Eric Sanderson! The last time that she had seen that face, and the blow-dried hair and gleaming teeth, she had been looking through the scope of her Tennyson Champion target pistol.

  The news caption on the screen underneath him said “ATTORNEY GENERAL BEGINS GUN CHECKPOINTS.” Ranya jabbed the volume button and his firm and fatherly voice spilled out into her kitchenette. On the front of his podium a sign read “1-855-GUN-STOP” and “Firearms Inspections Stop Terrorism” arranged vertically to spell FIST. Behind him police and soldiers were directing slow-moving traffic along the side of a highway. Sanderson was talking about the Stadium Massacre, about the assassination of Senator Randolph, and about gun inspection road blocks—FIST checkpoints—and how they would increase public safety. Then he said “We have also seen a local wave of firearms related violence, such as gun store arson attacks, and the drive-by machine gun shooting of a mosque…”

  The meaning of these words suddenly hit her, and she screamed at Sanderson’s face on the television. “What!? ‘Firearms related violence, such as gun store arson attacks’? Your goon squad killed my father and it’s just ‘firearms related violence’? My father and the others were shot and burned, and they’re not worth mentioning? ‘Firearms related violence’, like the firearms did it, like the gun stores just burned themselves down? Like it was their own fault?”

  And according to Sanderson, the answer to this ‘firearms violence’ was going to be the creation of ‘FIST’ checkpoints on the highways? As if now that the Second Amendment had been ripped out of the Bill of Rights, it was also safe for the government to rip out the Fourth Amendment as well?

  The FIST checkpoint was evidently on I-64 right here in Norfolk, near where the old Green Beret and his son and some others had been blown up, (which was another highly dubious ‘accident’ to Ranya’s way of thinking). So Sanderson was in Norfolk right now, Sanderson who would not investigate her father’s murder, Sanderson who had called her father a ‘merchant of death’ and all but applauded his murder by a government death squad… Sanderson who should have died last Sunday night, Sanderson who had already been in her crosshairs….

  If he was currently in Tidewater, she might get another chance to finish what she had set out to do.

  Now Sanderson was talking about scopes being outlawed. That was simply rich. As if anyone (like herself) contemplating sniping a public official would bother to obey that law! ‘Gee, I was going to assassinate the state Attorney General, but now that telescopic sights are illegal, I’ll have to cancel my plans.’ Ha! What a joke, what imbeciles! They deserve to be shot, just for being that stupid.

  Anyway, the law would not come into effect until Saturday at midnight… She thought of the hysterical irony of shooting him on the last day that scopes were legal. Perhaps she would send the Governor a note: “I was going to kill the jerk next week, but I didn’t want to violate the new scope law, so I killed him today.” T
hat would actually be pretty funny!

  Well she would do it: she just needed a time and a place. If she knew where Sanderson was going to be, and she could arrive nearby first, she could get him. When Sanderson was finished the Asian news anchor moved onto her next story: an Arlington National Cemetery memorial service was scheduled for the FBI agents slain in Reston.

  She switched off the television and began to plan.

  ****

  Ranya made the call to Sanderson’s Richmond office from a pay phone in Virginia Beach, using a pre-paid calling card that she bought with cash from a third-rate convenience store. She rode her Yamaha that far from her apartment because she knew that the pay phone would eventually be traced, and she parked it at a distance from the phone so that no one could ever connect the caller to a motorcycle. She wore masculine sunglasses, and a black ball cap with her ponytail twisted and tucked completely underneath to obscure her identity. This was on the chance that she might be caught on a digital face-scanning camera. She wasn’t positive, but she suspected that the government was able to tap into just about all of the cameras scattered across the modern urban landscape: in ATMs, in stores, traffic cameras, all of them. So she went to great lengths to reduce her risk of video identification at some later time.

  “Attorney General Sanderson’s office, how may I help you?”

  “Hi, I’m Liz Courtney, I’m the managing producer for Channel 14 Action News in Norfolk. May I speak to Attorney General Sanderson’s media representative?”

  “Oh, um, that would be Samantha Jeffers, I’m sorry but she’s in Norfolk with the Attorney General today. May I take a message?”

  “Oh, Darn! I’m out of the studio right now, I’m on another story, perhaps you can help me. I’m afraid I left the Attorney General’s itinerary back at the studio, can you be a dear and go over his appearances the rest of this afternoon? I’m really pinched for time, we’re running between stories and we really do want to squeeze in an interview for the five o’clock news…if it s not too much trouble?”

  “Well, um, certainly, let me see…at one he’s visiting the federal building, he’s speaking to the FBI and the Joint Task Force, but that’s a closed meeting, there’s no media availability. At 2:30 he’s speaking at Norfolk State in Mandela Hall, that should be a great event—his gun-safety initiatives are really very popular in the minority community, as you know. At four he’s going to be attending the re-dedication of the Al-Fuqra Mosque in Portsmouth. The rest of his schedule is private I’m afraid.”

  “Is he staying in Norfolk tonight, then? Perhaps we could schedule an interview for tomorrow morning.”

  “I don’t think so; the Attorney General is playing golf in the morning with friends, and then he’s returning to Richmond.”

  “Which golf course would that be? Will there be a media availability, or at least a photo opportunity?”

  “Um, I believe it would be… here it is: the Greenspring Country Club. But I don’t see any media event listed.”

  “Well perhaps we can do the interview in Richmond next week. I’ll call Samantha Monday morning and set it up. And thank you so much, you’ve been a dear.”

  “Glad to be of help. Did you say you were from Channel 14 in Norfolk?”

  “That’s right, Channel 14 Action News.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “Bye now.”

  “Bye.”

  Click.

  Ranya hoped that the conversation hadn’t been automatically recorded; she had found and called an interior office number, and not Sanderson’s main switchboard. But if it was recorded, so be it, it was necessary: there was no opportunity that did not come without an element of risk. Anyway, they’d have to catch her for the tape to do them any good; her voice was not on any computer database that she was aware of. And she didn’t intend to be caught.

  So Sanderson was a golfer…

  This was a very nice hobby for him to have, to Ranya’s way of thinking.

  22

  Friday after lunchtime, Malvone called George Hammet directly on his cell phone. He found him in the ATF offices in the Norfolk federal building, where he was holding down the fort. Hammet’s nominal boss, the Norfolk Field Office’s totally ineffectual Special-Agent-In-Charge Kayla Coleridge, was out with the Attorney General’s traveling FIST checkpoint media circus. She was totally absorbed in sucking up to the rising-star Attorney General and to the ATF honchos who had come down from Washington and Richmond, and had little time to bother with her nominal deputy, Assistant Special-Agent-In-Charge George Hammet.

  Malvone broke the news to him that the STU was going operational and heading down to Tidewater over the weekend. He invited Hammet up to his house in Maryland for a Friday night STU Team party, informing him that the time was finally right for him to join the STU. He would officially be taken aboard as the next team leader, when they expanded to three tactical teams in the near future. The party would be an opportunity for him to meet the rest of the team in an informal setting.

  This was welcome news to George Hammet, the culmination of his clandestine working relationship with the ATF Deputy Assistant Director. It was no problem for Hammet to break away from the Field Office. Kayla Coleridge was out tagging along with Sanderson’s entourage and was not even aware that he took off early. The normal Friday afternoon office routines were discarded as the “Eric Sanderson Show” took precedence over everything else, including supporting the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the MD-Rifle investigation.

  So George Hammet was able to take credit for keeping his nose to the grindstone and staying back at the nearly-deserted ATF office. He finished some work and left at four PM. He had made the two-hundred-mile drive up I-64 and I-95 to DC so many times that he could do it in his sleep, and he arrived at Malvone’s place before seven.

  Malvone had a narrow waterfront property overlooking a small bay just off of the Potomac, about ten miles south of DC. Hammet parked his red Jeep Cherokee on the grass under some trees out front with a dozen other SUVs, pickups, sports cars and motorcycles. Then he walked downhill around the side of the house to the backyard as he’d been instructed, following the sound of loud rock music. Malvone’s property had woods along both sides all the way to the river. The house was at least eighty years old, with dark wood-shingle siding, and dormer windows protruding from the sides of the roof.

  Malvone met him coming around the back of the house, greeted him cheerfully and quickly put a cold Heineken in his hand. Most of the other STU men were milling around on the patio, gathered around a brick barbeque cooking steaks over mesquite wood. It was obvious to Hammet that they were quite a few drinks ahead. He sipped from his Heineken and shook hands with the other STU leaders, while Wally Malvone made the introductions.

  “George, I’m glad you could make it on short notice. I thought you should meet the gang up here socially before we get to work. You already know Bob Bullard from Headquarters, right? Bob’s the STU commander on paper, even though we all know I’m the one that runs the show.”

  Bullard was at least a decade older than the rest of the team, in his late forties, but he was obviously still an operator just the same. He was a hard-looking man with a hawk face and very little evidence of middle age-spread. He accepted Hammet’s hand and gave it a firm shake, making direct eye contact. “Don’t listen to him George; Wally’s just our headquarters admin puke. He likes to pretend he’s an operator, and as long as he keeps buying us new toys we let him hang out with us. Plus he throws pretty good parties, so we put up with him.”

  Malvone laughed good naturedly at the ribbing and continued with his introductions. “This old cripple here is Joe Silvari. We call him ‘Half Ass.’ He tried to sit on a flash-bang grenade once and blew off most of his right ass cheek…it’s a long story. Now he’s our number-one support puke, and he’s the second-in-command of the STU Team. You need anything wired, Silvari’s little band of misfit geeks will take care of it for you. Night vision, phone taps, special weapons…anything th
e shooters are too dumb to figure out.”

  “For once you’re telling the truth Wally.” Silvari was one of the smaller men gathered around the barbeque, with stringy brown hair combed straight back and a face which resembled a rodent, with a weak chin and a protruding nose.

  More burly young men began to filter in, coming around the house and down to Malvone’s backyard overlooking the water. They were wearing an assortment of loose casual clothes, such as Hawaiian shirts, Latin-style guayabera’s, and a few biker-style leather vests which hung over their belts to conceal their pistols. These days, federal agents didn’t walk to the mailbox without at least carrying a serious pistol, and their submachine guns were also never very far from reach. Hammet noticed that there were a few Hispanic-looking guys, but no blacks.

  Malvone said, “Friday nights I usually have just the team leaders over for poker, but since the whole STU is finally moving out and going operational I decided to throw a party for all of the troops. You’ll get to know all of these assholes pretty soon. Before you know it, they’ll be stealing your gear and hitting you up for loans like the rest of us. Almost everybody’s here tonight except Michael Shanks. He’s the Gold Team leader, and he’s already down in Chesapeake with the advance party, they’re setting up our new forward operating site. This pretty boy here is Tim Jaeger, we call him Hollywood ‘cause he’s so cute. Tim’s an ex-SEAL, and he’s the Blue Team leader. He’s also our official team chick-magnet, so just hang around with Hollywood if you want a shot at sloppy seconds.”

  Jaeger ignored Malvone and said, “Welcome aboard George.” Then offering his right hand he went for a short grip around Hammet’s fingers to try to innocently crush them, but Hammet was quick and sober and ready for the old trick. He shot his hand all the way in and they locked brutal grips like a pair of vises for a solid ten seconds. Both men were serious power lifters, and both liked the measure of the other, grinning at one another as they recognized kindred spirits. Given the chance, both enjoyed the game of crushing the average pencil-neck weenie Special Agent’s hand, and tonight both respected the strength of the other man.