Patriots Betrayed

by John Grit

  “We have to find them,” Dulling repeated. “We’re working on ruining their credibility and will continue to, but we must find them before they do more damage.”

  President Riley sat on the edge of his desk and folded his arms across his chest. “You have the full weight of the U.S. Government behind you. Use it. Take the gloves off and divert more assets. Get it done.” He lowered his head. “I hate to see those two get hurt, but there’s no way around it now, thanks to you.” He glared at Dulling.

  Dulling and Trey stepped out into the hall. Dulling moved closer to him and whispered, “You’re treading on dangerous ground, Trey. Watch your mouth. You insult me one more time in front of the boss and it’ll be your last.”

  “I see,” Trey said. “Just how many are you willing to murder? Is there no limit? The circle of death that surrounds you and everything you touch continues to expand.” He tilted his head and stared at Dulling. “You should have talked him out of it. It wouldn’t have been difficult. That Italian thing should never have happened. I know he has regretted it ever since. The rest will fall on you and the CIA, but the Italian thing will take him down.”

  “Shut up,” Dull hissed. “We’re not in the Oval Office; we’re in the hallway. Your operational security stinks. How the hell did you find out about that, anyway?”

  “This whole thing stinks.” Trey walked away.

  ~~~

  That night, Trey found a working payphone in a low-rent section of DC. He left his iPhone at home, knowing he was being tracked and his phone tapped. It had taken him an hour to shake the two CIA agents. Jumping out of a moving cab and ducking into a dangerous section of DC had worked. The agents who set out on foot after him were accosted by a gang on the sidewalk, giving Trey time to put distance between him and his tail. He heard gunfire behind him, so he knew the gang had gotten rough. The street thugs had ignored him when he went by. Being black sometimes had its advantages.

  He punched in the numbers. A woman answered. “Hello,” Trey said. “I need to speak with Ken. Tell him it’s Trey Kraust.”

  A man picked up the phone. “Trey! How the hell are you?”

  “Health-wise fine,” Trey answered. “Otherwise not so much. Remember our last conversation at the Special Forces Association meeting?”

  “Of course. Don’t tell me…”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “Shiiiit!”

  “I feel like my heart’s been ripped out, but the corruption goes all the way to the top. The revelations are true, Ken. Everything those two spooks sent to the papers checks out.”

  “And that means everything every vet has fought for is bullshit.”

  “Those ex-spooks are vets too, and they’re being hunted. They may not have served in the military, but they have bled for this country and are fighting for it as we speak.”

  “I know. Exactly what are you saying?”

  “We’ve got to help them. They’ve put their lives on the line for this country. We vets know what it’s like to be abandoned. Those two are out there more alone than anyone of us could understand.”

  “I’m not sure what we can do, but I’ll make some calls and alert the organizations, call some friends. We can at least start pressuring Congress and sending letters to papers all over the country. It’ll be talked about in every VFW from Alaska to Florida.”

  Trey looked around, seeing three youths coming his way. “I’ll call you in a couple days. Don’t contact me. I’ll call you.”

  “So you’re hot already?”

  “Hot as a Ma Deuce in a firefight. I’ve got to go. Watch your back.”

  “Yeah. Take your own advice.”

  Trey hung up and rushed across the street, weaving between traffic, horns blaring. The two teens followed, producing more blaring horns.

  Trey turned onto a side street and jumped a fence, hiding behind a cherry tree in someone’s front yard. The teens went on by. Trey ran two miles until he got to a major roadway and flagged a cab. The first three drivers refused to stop. Being black also has its disadvantages. The fourth one overlooked his race because he was dressed well enough to appear to be a professional and not a danger.

  ~~~

  Carla stepped out of the Post Office looking twenty years older and wearing a gray wig. The large handbag slung over her shoulder and under her right arm contained the H&K submachine gun with its stock in the shortest position. She walked briskly down the sidewalk for two hundred yards, then turned into a small independent grocer. She came out ten minutes later with a bag of groceries and several newspapers.

  Raylan saw her coming. He cranked the engine and reached over to open the passenger side door.

  She got in without a word, setting the grocery bag on the floor between her feet. After Raylan had driven down the road several miles, she unfolded a newspaper and held it up for him to see. “Guess what, we’re both rich and didn’t even know it.”

  He took his eyes off the road long enough to read the headline.

  Rogue CIA Operatives Suspected of Being Double Agents.

  She read the first few lines of the report. “Bank records show the two CIA agents received over one million each in payment for spying on America. Counterespionage experts say Russia and North Korea were the recipients of classified information and paid the spies well.”

  “So it begins,” Raylan said. “They may not have even put any money in our accounts. The CIA has reporters and newspaper editors on their payroll. They will print just about anything the CIA tells them.”

  Carla dropped the paper in her lap. “I don’t know what makes me more angry; them trying to kill us or painting us as traitors.”

  “Oooh the last,” Raylan said. “People have been trying to kill us for years, but calling us traitors and fabricating evidence is a new one.”

  Carla gripped the H&K. “I almost wish a couple of their thugs would show up right now. I feel like killing someone.”

  “Might be someone we know. And they’ll think they’re doing the country a service. We’re traitors now.”

  Carla turned white, then red with anger. “Stop trying to cheer me up, will you?”

  “Okay. How about this? We need to move our camp. Satellite surveillance is going to notice the camp being there too long for us to be vacationers. The tent’s under a canopy of trees, but they’re likely to notice something sooner or later.”

  “Yeah, that cheered me right up. Where to?”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Let’s make it some place with running water this time. I’ve had enough of bathing in that freezing stream.”

  “Before we change location, we might as well stop at a bank and transfer our money to the Bahamas. I have an account there. I’m sure you do too, since we always needed working capital to dig into while on a mission.”

  She laughed. “You’re kidding. You just said there may not even be any money.”

  “Only one way to find out.” He glanced at her. “If they put it in our name, it’s a gift. We’d better do it fast, though, before they seize it and block our accounts, if they haven’t already. They’ve certainly flagged them and are waiting for us to pull cash out. Also, we better be prepared to move out of the area fast, because they’ll certainly come for us in a matter of minutes.”

  “Probably too late.” She gave a dark blue Crown Vic a close examination as they went through an intersection. Seeing only an elderly lady in it, she checked the other cars in the area. “What the hell. It’s worth a try. If the bank employees give off any bad vibes and try to stall us, we’ll just walk out. We’re hitting the road anyway. Only thing we left at the camp is that cheap little tent.”

  He nodded and turned left at a light, heading for downtown. “It’s going to be close no matter how careful we are. We’ll be slipping out of a fast-tightening loop. That is if the money is there and we pull it off.”

  “Right. But exactly why are we doing this? We’re not going to live long enough to spend it.” They passed a bar. “Damn, I w
ould like a drink right now.”

  “It’s not the money. I want to spit in their face. The bastards use our Constitution for toilet paper while others die to protect it.”

  “Okay,” Carla said. “But I’d rather shoot the bastards.”

  “We’ll never get a shot at any of them, especially the prez.”

  “Might get the Director,” Carla quipped.

  Raylan froze for a second. “That might not be a bad idea. He’s no soft target, but it could be done. The president – well – forget it. Besides, the VP is just as bad and crazy to boot.”

  “Why forget it? We’ve taken out the leaders of other countries?”

  Raylan’s face hardened. “I’m not going to kill the President of the United States, even if he deserves it. I still believe in this country.”

  Her chest deflated. “Yeah. We’re both afflicted with that disease called patriotism. Never mind the president is a piece of shit who had his mistress and unborn child murdered. He’s still the President of the United States.”

  ~~~

  They topped off the Explorer’s tank and headed into town.

  Raylan parallel parked on Main Street and reached over the back of the seat to open a pouch on his bug-out pack.

  Carla opened her pack and started switching all of her identification in her wallet back to another one of her aliases. The photo on her alias’s driver license matched her current disguise. “The papers say your riches are in the name of David Sutton.”

  “Yep,” he said. “I’m taking care of that now.” He switched all of the credentials in his wallet back to the alias he used at his scuba shop. “Does your alias have a valid passport?” He laid his on the seat beside him. “They’ll want to check us out thoroughly when they learn how much money we’re transferring.”

  “Yeah, the whole package, even a birth certificate.” She held the passport up. “I’ve used it twice over the last two years. Took a couple vacations.”

  Raylan checked to make certain no one was close enough to the car to see in, before pulling his pistol and sliding it under the pile of newspapers lying between them on the front seat. He did the same with four spare magazines. “Remember, there’s a key under the right front fender,” he said. It was in a small container with a strong magnet to hold it to the car’s metal body. Their eyes met. “In case I don’t make it back.”

  She pulled her pistol and put it beside his, along with her spare magazines. “Going in without guns gives me a feeling of naked vulnerability. Damn the banks’ metal detectors at the door.”

  He waited for a couple of business men to walk on down the sidewalk they were parked next to. “You have a ceramic knife in your belt, don’t you?”

  “Of course.” She checked her watch. “One forty-eight.”

  He checked his, setting the time to match hers. “So, you’ve already figured out what I was planning.”

  “I was thinking we’ll enter our respective banks simultaneously. Yours must be across the street, since you parked here, mine’s just past that intersection. We’ll give them – what, fifteen minutes – before walking out with or without the transfer.”

  “Make it ten minutes from the time we show them our IDs and account numbers until they execute the transfers. If it hasn’t happened by then, walk out without a word.”

  Carla checked her disguise in the rear-view mirror. “Ten minutes then. I sure don’t want to be caught in that bank without my H&K. Ten minutes sounds good.”

  He reached for the door latch. “If you make it back here before I do, get the key, get in, and strap in. Be ready for some fast driving. If I make it before you, I’ll be in the passenger seat, because I want you to drive while I ride shotgun with the M4.”

  She took one last look around and opened her door. “Oh, you like my driving, huh?”

  He got out and closed the door. “You did well at the trailer park.”

  She smiled and started down the sidewalk at a fast pace.

  ~~~

  Raylan stepped past gray marbled walls and into a vestibule that welcomed and funneled patrons to the brass-framed double doors of stained oak. He entered the bank and nodded at the skinny elderly armed guard, who barely acknowledged him and kept both thumbs hooked to his gun belt.

  There were few people inside, pleasing Raylan, as he wanted to get back to the car as soon as possible and had no desire to wait in line for thirty minutes. A thin blonde no more than twenty-one stood behind the counter. Smiling, she said, “Good afternoon. How may I help you?”

  “Looks like we’re in for another hot afternoon,” Raylan said. “I need to transfer some funds to an account in another country.”

  The teller checked through the open door of an office on the other side of the lobby. She saw no customer inside, just the manager at her desk. “Uh, follow me and I’ll get someone to help you.”

  Raylan kept a calm and cordial air about him. “Certainly.” She walked around the counter and he followed.

  The teller stopped at the office door. “Margret. A man needs to wire funds to an international account.”

  The plump, fifty-something manager stood. “Come on in and I’ll get you taken care of.”

  Raylan smiled pleasantly and sat in a chair. He laid out his credentials on the desk. Handing her the account numbers of both the account with that bank and the name and account of the bank in the Bahamas, he said, “I would like to transfer all but $10,000 from my account in Florida to my other account.”

  “Okay. Let’s see.” She punched the numbers in. Her eyes grew wide as she scanned the screen.

  “What’s the current balance?” Raylan asked. “I’m not sure how much I still have in the account in Florida.”

  “Uh, it’s uh, one million forty-three thousand six hundred dollars and eight cents.”

  “Great. That’s a little more than I thought. Here’s my driver license, passport, Social Security card, and birth certificate.”

  Before she looked them over, she said, “There will be a small fee for this, mainly because I’ll have to fill out an IRS form, as the amount is way over the limit to avoid reporting it.”

  Knowing it would be days before the IRS received the form and knowing of the reporting requirement already, he said, “That’s fine.”

  Her hands shook as she double-checked his ID.

  “Is there a problem?” he asked.

  She looked up from his passport. “No. It’s just nerve-racking to handle this much money.”

  “It really shouldn’t be,” he said with a warm smile. “After all it’s not real, just a digital transfer, a few strokes of the keyboard, numbers on the screen.”

  “Yeah,” she laughed, “but it’s still nerve-racking.”

  Eight minutes later, Raylan walked out of the bank. He rushed across the street as soon as the pedestrian walk/don’t walk light turned green at the intersection where Carla’s bank stood. Carla was nowhere in sight. A glance through the bank windows as he walked by told him everything appeared normal inside. He unlocked the door and sat in the passenger seat. It was hot inside the car, but he didn’t bother to reach over and crank the engine to run the air. After waiting for the area to clear of people long enough for him to get the M4 out from under his bug-out pack and in his lap, covered by an open newspaper, he checked his watch. She should have been out of there by now. He stuffed pistol magazines in his pockets and slipped the pistol in the holster, getting ready for trouble.

  ~~~

  Carla sat in the bank manager’s office, knowing something was wrong. The man sitting at the computer and posing as a bank manager was too young and too self-confident to be a bank employee. He carried himself like a military man and was in top physical shape. Then there was his high and tight haircut. Using the desk for cover, she slid a five-inch ceramic knife out of a hidden sheath in her belt. Razor sharp, the blade could cut a man’s throat in a flash. It had only one fault — its glass-hard but brittle composition meant it could be easily broken. Knowing she had walked in
to the trap that she and Raylan had talked about, she stayed calm. “You know, darling,” she said, while staying in the character of an older woman that matched her disguise, “you remind me of my son in the Army. He just got back from Afghanistan.”

  The man froze for a second. Their eyes locked. He sprung across the desk at her, a mistake that cost him his life. His exposed throat was met by Carla’s slashing ceramic blade. Blood sprayed across her chest as she watched his eyes go blank when he passed out and died. She yanked his body closer and reached under his jacket with her left hand for the pistol she knew was there. It was her bad luck that he was left-handed. That cost her time, time enough for another killer to come rushing out of a back room and through the office doorway, pistol in hand but not yet aimed. She swung around with the knife in her right hand, arm fully extended, releasing it at the perfect fraction of a second. The blade flew three feet and buried itself into his Adam ’s apple. He dropped the pistol and clawed at his throat, then collapsed to the floor.

  Carla scrambled for the Glock he had dropped, two bullets passing inches from her head. Coming up with the pistol in both hands, she double tapped a man in the forehead so fast it sounded like one shot. He dropped the pistol and fell in his own shadow. The two young bank tellers were already on the floor behind the counter, screaming their heads off. One of them reached up and frantically pumped the panic button that would send the local police. Carla nearly ripped the door off its hinges as she exploded out onto the sidewalk.

  Just as Carla emerged from the building, two black SUVs with tinted windows raced up and came to a tire-smoking stop, one jumping the curb and blocking the sidewalk on the far side of the bank entrance, the other stopped in the middle of the street. Rayland had heard the shots inside the bank and was ready for trouble. He jumped out of the Explorer and ran down the sidewalk, his M4 under a jacket. Carla saw him coming and put herself against the building, out of Raylan’s the line of fire. She fired at the door of one SUV, forcing the man inside to hesitate before swinging the door open and exiting so he could join the battle. Firing in controlled bursts, Raylan killed two men on the sidewalk before they had a chance to shoot, his rounds passing by only feet from Carla. He recognized both of them – CIA. There was no time to ponder over killing men he had once fought alongside. Carla dropped and fast crawled to the nearest cover: a compact car parked against the curb.