Enemy of the People

by Peter Eichstaedt

  Kyle and Raoul stood in a large, rustic foyer with its polished slate floor and varnished overhead log beams. Mounted heads of bear, deer, antelope, and buffalo stared glassy-eyed from the walls.

  “A lot of animals gave their life for the cause,” Kyle said.

  An array of chairs and couches fronted a wide fireplace of river rock that rose to the cathedral ceiling. Raoul pointed to the wide and curving stairs rising to the second story. “The President, Speaker Divine, and Senator Blount are staying in the upstairs rooms.”

  “Do they share a bathroom?”

  “What?” Raoul asked.

  “I’m joking.”

  Raoul shook his head in disgust, then pointed to the far end of the spacious foyer. “The library is over there. Looks like something from an old English castle. Leather bound books. It’s where they’re meeting starting tomorrow. The dining hall and kitchen are there. The massage and spa are there.”

  “Massage and spa? I thought this was a no-frills meeting.”

  Raoul shrugged. “It’s a full service lodge. During the summer, they swim in the big trout pond out front. It’s got a small floating dock. ”

  Kyle stepped to the door with a small engraved sign: “MASSAGE.” Over it was a photo of a woman with curly brown hair, crystalline blue eyes, and a welcoming smile. The name read: Ariel Brady, masseuse. “Damn, but she looks familiar,” Kyle said. “I dated a woman once who looked just like her. Years ago. She went by the name of Aurora Borealis.”

  “Isn’t that the northern lights?”

  “The name was appropriate,” Kyle said. “She was about as spacey as they come.” He flashed a mischievous smile.

  “Like those people who say they can live on light?”

  “And a few carrots,” Kyle said.

  They’d met when he was a young reporter covering the land grant protest that had erupted in one of the northern mountain villages. It was the most fun he’d ever had in his short career. He spent a few days at the camp with the protestors and nights at a room at the ancient hot springs hotel ten miles away. Ariel had worked there as a masseuse, then with the name of Aurora. It was her vegetarian-earth mother-goddess-of-healing phase. It had been a good time for both of them.

  “I have to find out,” Kyle said. Knocking on the massage room door, he leaned in close to hear a response.

  “One moment, please,” said a clear and strong feminine voice from behind the door. The door opened, revealing a fit and tanned woman wearing a light blue polo shirt under the short white smock. She stood in the doorway, smiling quizzically. “You ordered a massage?”

  Kyle grinned as he recognized her. “Aurora?”

  She looked at him, confusion clouding her face. “Kyle? Kyle Dawson?”

  Kyle couldn’t restrain his grin and nodded. “So, it’s Ariel now?”

  “Oh, my God! It’s been....”

  “About twenty years.”

  “It can’t be.”

  Kyle shrugged. “It can.”

  “Yes, ah, Ariel Brady now.” Her excited eyes searched his. “So much has happened....”

  “You’re right,” Kyle said, unable to stop smiling. “How did you end up here?”

  Ariel shrugged. “I…ah … have a son, Jason. He’s eleven now.”

  “I have two kids,” Kyle said. “A boy and a girl.”

  “Do they have names?” she asked.

  “Erica and Brandon, who’s about the same age as your son.”

  They lapsed into silence, unable to take their eyes off each other.

  “So.... you want a massage?” Ariel asked.

  Kyle turned to Raoul. “We have time?”

  Raoul raised his hands. “I’ll leave you two to … ah, get reacquainted.”

  ***

  Twenty minutes later, Kyle was stretched out on the massage table, his face in the padded donut hole, his backside covered with just a towel. Ariel had worked her way down from his neck and shoulders and squirted aromatic massage oil on his calves as she began kneading the muscle. “You have scars on the side of your knee. What happened?” she asked.

  “Someone didn’t want me to write a story that needed to be written.”

  “Maybe you should find another line of work.”

  “That’s what my ex-wife said.”

  “Divorced?”

  “A few years now.”

  “Never remarried?”

  “I work overseas a lot. It’s hell on relationships.”

  “Tell me about it. My husband worked overseas. That’s where he died.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “In Iraq.”

  “I was there,” Kyle said.

  “I figured so.”

  “What city?” he asked.

  “Don’t know,” Ariel said. “Karbala. Fallujah. One of those. He was with Atlas Global. Protecting Americans, he said.”

  “Atlas?” Kyle asked. “The people who own this ranch?”

  “Yep. Hank Benedict. He’s my boss.”

  “Atlas is his baby,” Kyle said. “Big government contracts to protect embassy personnel.”

  “My husband worked closely with Hank.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Jerome. Jerome Brady. He came home in a casket. A closed casket.”

  “And now you’re here?” Kyle asked.

  “Turn over.”

  Kyle turned slowly as Ariel carefully kept the towel in place. Kyle sighed as he settled onto his back. He hadn’t felt so relaxed in months. He looked up at Ariel, who caught his gaze and held it for a long, silent moment. Kyle felt a stirring of desire, but did his best to ignore it. He couldn’t stop thinking of those nights long ago when they’d been together.

  Ariel stopped for a moment, her eyes locked on his. Kyle reached out and slipped a hand around her waist and pulled her hips close. His hand moved inside her shirt and to her lower back. She slowly leaned close and kissed him, the warmth of her soft lips flooding him.

  ***

  The lodge’s main dining room was crowded and noisy, the talk loud and excited, the silverware clinking on plates as a handful of waiters bustled, removing and replacing plates, pouring pitchers of ice water, and uncorking bottles of wine. President Harris, Senator Blount, and Speaker Divine, along with their top aides, sat at a large, round corner table. Massive chandeliers made of elk antlers hung over the dining room.

  Kyle, Raoul, and Ariel sat at one of the dozen smaller round tables with Hank Benedict. Kyle had dreaded the dinner, Raoul having warned him that they’d be dining with his boss. Kyle remembered Benedict now from their short encounter at the shipping dock in Tripoli and knew this dinner could be a golden opportunity. He had a thousand questions for Benedict, most of which would never be answered. Ironically, it was Benedict who started to talk.

  “Raoul tells me you guys go way back,” Benedict said, staring quizzically at Kyle.

  “We’re cousins,” Kyle said. “We played high school football together. In El Paso.”

  “I feel lucky that Raoul has joined our organization,” Benedict said. “A man with his talent and experience is hard to find.”

  “Don’t you think it’s risky to have the President and the congressional leaders under one roof and in such a remote location like this?” Kyle asked. “Think what it would mean to this country if something happened here to these men.”

  Benedict shook his head, no. “We have the finest security service in the world. If these men are not secure here, they’re not secure anywhere.” He paused for a moment and refilled his wine glass. Taking a sip, he continued. “It’s important to get these men together. We need to get this country back on track.”

  “I didn’t know it was off track,” Kyle said.

  Benedict stared at Kyle for a moment, leaned back in his chair. “I guess we have a di
fference of opinion.”

  Benedict was about to continue when Ariel interrupted. “Do we have to talk politics?” she asked. “Why can’t we just enjoy this dinner?”

  Benedict, Kyle, and Raoul look at each other sheepishly.

  “Good point, Ariel,” Kyle said.

  Benedict grabbed the bottle of French wine and topped off each of their glasses, then examined the label. “There’re only about a hundred cases of this Grand-Puy-Lacoste Bordeaux left. We’re lucky to have some of it here.”

  Kyle turned to Ariel, who was seated beside him, and watched her use one of the antler-handled steak knives to slice a lean filet. “I thought you were, ah ... vegan! Now you’re eating buffalo?”

  Ariel popped the meat into her mouth and chewed. She nodded and swallowed, dabbing her lips with a cloth napkin. “When I met Jerome, a lot of things changed.”

  “I’d like to propose a toast drink to Jerome,” Benedict said, raising his glass. “He was one of the best.”

  They nodded in unison, lifted their glasses, and drank.

  “What exactly happened to Jerome?” Kyle asked Benedict.

  Benedict looked at his plate a moment, as if he struggled to answer, then lifted his eyes, filled with intensity. “Let’s just say he died a hero.”

  Chapter 13

  Kyle’s head ached. He adjusted his sunglasses, waiting for the two ibuprofens to take effect, and regretted some of the previous evening. They’d polished off another two bottles of the wine, which Kyle knew sold for several hundred dollars a bottle, and finished the evening sipping rare bourbon. It was more than he usually drank, but by that time of night, it was going down too smoothly. As much as he enjoyed the food and drink, he was dismayed how people like Benedict acted as if they deserved to live like that, day in and day out.

  People in the valleys and mountain villages surrounding the Vista Verde ranch had been there for generations and struggled to get by, raising sheep, grazing a few head of cattle, and growing large gardens irrigated by mountain streams. They lived a lifestyle that dated back centuries. The deadly land grant protest he’d covered more than twenty years earlier had taken place about ten miles as the crow flies from where was now. Was this location for the meeting an ironic coincidence? As he pondered, he realized the source of his anxiety about this political event.

  Little or nothing that the men in the Vista Verde Ranch dining hall would decide over the next couple of days, months, or even years would have any discernable effect on the lives of those who lived in the surrounding mountains. Yet, these power brokers talked and laughed, and without a moment’s hesitation, devoured the best the world had to offer.

  Kyle pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind as he gazed at Hank Benedict, who had his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against a gleaming black Atlas Global Humvee, its doors painted with the yellow globe logo. Benedict squinted in the early morning sunlight, then nodded as Kyle and Raoul approached. Benedict was in his Atlas Global garb: a tight black polo shirt embroidered with the Atlas Global logo, tan cargo pants, and a black boonie cap, also with the Atlas logo. He shook Kyle’s hand and nodded to Raoul.

  “I hope you enjoyed last night’s dinner,” Benedict said.

  “Yes, I did,” Kyle said. “I didn’t expect it to be so…gourmet.”

  “When you can get the best, well, you take it.”

  Kyle winced at the remark, and was about to respond, when Benedict added, “So, Raoul says you want a tour of the Atlas training center?”

  Kyle nodded. “Well, yes. For the next couple of days, you’re hosting the President of the United States, along with the two top elected officials in the country. But nobody knows what the Vista Verde Ranch is all about.”

  “That’s right,” Benedict said, adjusting his hat. “We like it like that. It’s why we wanted to use this place for this political summit. The less people know about Vista Verde, the safer it is. It makes our job easier.”

  “Perhaps,” Kyle said. “But if something happens…well, the whole world is going to want to know.”

  Benedict squinted in the morning light and adjusted his sun glasses. “Let’s go. If you want to be back for the noon press conference, we need to move,” he said, and pulled open the driver’s door to his Humvee. “Get in the other side. You sit up front with me. We can talk on the way.” The vehicle surged from the graveled parking lot onto the graded road, trailed by a plume of dust.

  Kyle gazed out the window, seemingly made of standard window glass, unlike the thick, bullet-proof and tinted glass of the combat-equipped Hummers he ridden in Afghanistan. This Hummer felt familiar, the engine quieter, however, than the Hummer that day when he’d rolled and bounced across the bone-dry moonscape wastelands of Afghanistan’s southern Ghazni Province, some of the most bleak and barren terrain he’d ever seen.

  He’d been embedded with a US Army mechanized patrol rolling out of the ancient fortress town of Ghazni, a few hours south of Kabul, in a convoy of three armored Humvees. It was a National Guard unit from Fort Riley, Kansas, and the soldiers were raw-boned, pink-faced farm boys. Fort Riley had been the home of Gen. George Custer and his 7th Cavalry, but Kyle didn’t bring mention it, hoping Custer’s fate would not be what the patrol would meet that day.

  Half a dozen Afghan soldiers were part the patrol and were dressed like army irregulars, wearing smudged green berets and carrying beat-up AK-47s. Another couple wrapped their heads in black scarves, bandoliers draped from their shoulders and crisscrossing their chests over camouflaged clothing, their thigh pockets stuffed with banana clips. They rode in the back of an aging and open troop carrier with wooden bench seats, double rear axels, and topped with a 30-caliber machine gun bolted to the top of the truck cab.

  The convoy had stopped in a village of mud brick houses. The low-slung homes cascaded down a hillside that emitted a swarm of boys who appeared, cheering and waving as the US soldiers arrived. The village mullah had a clean, white turban, sported a trimmed black goatee, and wore a gray vest over his light blue, shalwar chamise, his feet clad in scuffed leather sandals. The mullah had an oriental cast to his face, telling Kyle the villagers were Hazara, descendants of the Mongolian invaders who had overrun Afghanistan 800 years earlier. The Hazara were despised by some because they were Shia Muslims, unlike the Sunni Taliban.

  The Kansas unit’s lieutenant, a tall and lanky man with cropped light brown hair and sunburned cheeks, greeted the mullah. Using a translator, he’d asked if the villagers had any recent contact with the Taliban. No, the mullah had said, there were no Taliban in the area.

  The lieutenant, nodded, accepting the mullah’s word, then turned to Kyle. “C’mon,” he said, “I want to show you what we’ve done for these people.”

  Kyle followed the lieutenant to a mudbrick school built on a nearby knoll where the village’s young school girls lined the path to it, each wearing a coarse black dress and white head scarf. The school was cool inside, smelling of earth and dust, the floors covered with threadbare carpets. The small school’s narrow hallway was decorated with warning posters depicting unexploded ordnance and illustrations of the mortars, grenades, and cluster bombs littering the landscape and routinely shredding limbs and lives.

  Kyle remembered the chalk marks on a piece of black-painted plywood hanging from a peg that served as a blackboard. Above it were letters of the Arabic alphabet. A solitary young girl knelt on the carpet, her head bowed in silence as dust floated and sparkled in the sunlight streaming through the open window. The girl had looked at him quickly, then returned her gaze to the pink cloth bag on the floor in front of her.

  The convoy had rolled out of the village on a dirt road, then dropped into a wide and rocky dry stream bed, slowing as the Humvees shifted into low gear and four-wheel drive so they could churn through the course gravel and over the boulders. The lieutenant said the streambed was safer because the Taliban wouldn’t plant land
mines in it.

  After the Afghans complained the streambed was ruining their truck’s rear axel, the convoy climbed back onto the dirt road, angling up and across the face of a long and barren slope where the knobby tires of the Humvees churned through the powdery dirt and under the sun hanging in an opaque sky like a hazy burning orb. The convoy stopped at the summit where the lieutenant, his first sergeant, and the interpreter consulted a map they spread on hood of the Humvee. A dark and indistinct ridge of shadowy mountains sat along the northern horizon, and at its base a ribbon of green extended far to the east, a small river lined with leafy trees.

  When the convoy reached the valley floor, the lead vehicle stopped so the lieutenant could question two young boys who stood at the side of the road, one with a crude shovel made from a piece of flat, hand-pounded metal, the other with a rake. The lieutenant accused the boys of planting road bombs. The interpreter told the lieutenant the boys were harmless and stood by the road pretending to fill holes and hoping for a handout from passing motorists. Only the Taliban, not these boys, would plant road bombs. Quivering with fear, sweat beading their stricken faces, the boys ran off when the lieutenant told them leave.

  The convoy continued, rolling across the sun-baked landscape, dark rocks scattered across the terrain as if placed by a Zen garden master gone mad, lost and wandering the Afghan wastelands. In the monotonous drone of the engines, Kyle had nodded off.

  His eyes blinked open when the earth erupted. The lead truck with the Afghans lifted skyward and the air was sucked out of Kyle’s lungs. He jerked forward against the straps of his seatbelt as the Humvee rose up and back, turning on its rear end, then fell onto its side.

  Kyle gasped for air, dust coating his mouth and throat, and coughed hard, his eyes burning. He hung by the shoulder straps as dirt and rocks rained from the sky. The hiss and blast of a rocket propelled grenade came first, followed by a second deafening blast as an RPG hit one of the damaged Humvees. Then came the jack-hammer staccato of automatic gunfire and the whack-whack-whack of bullets slamming into the metal skin of the Humvee’s underside, now exposed. They’d driven into an ambush.