Enemy of the People

by Peter Eichstaedt

  “That’s good. So what about Carlito and the mosque?”

  “There’s not much to say. After Miguel and Aliyah visited a few times, they decided they’d had enough. As Miguel tells it, Aliyah was not as excited about the place as Carlito.”

  “I can see why,” Kyle said. “Her family fled Iran and the Ayatollah. I can’t imagine she’d sign up with another group of religious fanatics, Islamic or otherwise.”

  “Exactly,” Raoul said. “But Carlito couldn’t get enough of the place. So, after that, Miguel and Carlito drifted apart. They each went their own ways.”

  “But Carlito’s girlfriend, Halima, stuck with him?”

  “Yeah. That’s the story.”

  “So what is Miguel doing this summer? Did you get him a job with Atlas Global?”

  “Hell, no. And I’m glad I didn’t. I have enough to worry about without Miguel in the mix.”

  “He’s in a good place now.”

  “I know. He’s working as an intern at the El Paso Times, the newspaper.”

  Kyle smiled and nodded.

  “He wants to be a journalist, just like his uncle Kyle.

  “But Miguel is not the problem here. Carlito is.”

  “We know that.”

  “So, joining with jihad and this maniac Tariq gives Carlito a way to strike back at an unjust world. But with a tactical nuclear weapon?” Raoul asked, his voice dripping with disgust. “What the fuck? Where the hell did someone like Tariq get that?”

  “Maybe they brought it across the border with them,” Kyle offered.

  “From Mexico?” Raoul asked incredulously. “That’s unlikely.”

  “Maybe they didn’t need to,” Kyle said.

  “What are you saying?”

  “Los Alamos National Laboratory is full of bomb makers and plenty of nuclear material.”

  Raoul smiled and nodded. “We need to find Jennifer Morris’s father.”

  “Exactly.”

  ***

  An hour later, Raoul braked the Hummer to a stop in the driveway of a modest house in a quiet suburban neighborhood in Los Alamos. He and Kyle sat in the vehicle for a moment, looking around at the neighborhood. The street was empty, except for a couple of boys riding bicycles on the sidewalk. The boys rode over to the Hummer and stopped close to the vehicle.

  Raoul lowered his window and smiled. “Hello boys.”

  “Cool car, man,” one of the boys said, awkwardly straddling his trail bike, which was a bit too big for him.

  “Thanks.”

  “Is this an army truck?” the second boy asked.

  “Kind of, but not really,” Raoul said. “Do you boys know if mister Morris is home?”

  The boys looked each other, then shrugged. “He hasn’t been around for a while,” the first boy said.

  “He goes to the mountains a lot,” the second boy said.

  “The mountains?” Raoul asked. “Does he have a cabin?”

  The boys shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Thanks, boys,” Raoul said. “We’re going to go see if mister Morris is home. We need to talk to him.”

  The boys nodded, climbed back onto their bicycles, and wove down the street.

  Raoul and Kyle went to the front door and looked up and down the empty street before Kyle knocked. No response. Raoul took a lock pick from his pocket, inserted the two small pieces into the keyhole, and wriggled the two sticks. The lock clicked. He grabbed the door handle.

  “Wait!” Kyle barked, raising a hand. “What if he has an alarm?”

  Raoul shrugged, drew a breath as he turned the handle, and slowly pushed the door open. They were met with silence. The air was stuffy, as if the house hadn’t been occupied for a week or more. The interior was decorated in Southwestern style, with leather couches, native weavings, and native ceremonial masks on the walls. A large rawhide and wood drum served as the coffee table.

  “We need to find his cabin,” Kyle whispered in the silence.

  “First we need to find his computer,” Raoul replied softly, surveying the interior.

  Moving quickly through the house, they found the master bedroom. The bed looked like it hadn’t been used recently. Raoul paused at the doorway of another adjoining room, its wall shelves crowded books, manuals, and stacks of paper. He settled into the desk chair and flicked on the desktop computer. The screen flickered awake. His fingers flew across the keyboard.

  Kyle looked on. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m not sure,” Raoul said. “I can’t sign on. I bet he’s got a ton of technical files in there.” He rifled a pile of papers stacked beside the keyboard. “Look at this.”

  Kyle bent close. The page was a printout of a complex diagram. “What the hell is it?”

  Raoul stared at the paper. “Look.” Raoul’s finger traced what looked like an electrical diagram. One block was named “detonator,” and another was marked with the letters, C4. “Could be the small nuke.” Raoul Maybe this will help us figure out how to disarm the damned thing.”

  “Are you nuts? Cut some wires? That’s Hollywood! Think, Raoul. We’re not nuclear scientists. We’re gonna need to find Morris.”

  Raoul scowled. “If he’s alive.”

  Kyle rattled a set of keys that dangled from his fingers. “Look what I found in the kitchen.”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “Keys to the cabin.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The key fob here says C-A-B-I-N.”

  “But where the hell is it?”

  Chapter 26

  Raoul shifted the Hummer into low gear and powered it up a narrow, curving, and graveled mountain road.

  “There,” Kyle shouted, pointing to a small black wooden sign with silver metallic numbers nailed into a Ponderosa pine tree. He showed the key fob to Raoul, who only glanced. “The same numbers.”

  Raoul braked hard, then swung the Hummer onto two deep ruts that led through a stand of Ponderosa pines and to an A-frame cabin set on a concrete slab. Beside the cabin was an single-car garage converted into a workshop accessed by a wooden door. The parking area was graveled, as was a walkway connecting all three. The A-frame had a deck across the front, and the structure was protected by red metal roofing panels. The solid wood front door was flanked by a large picture window, the curtains now closed. The cabin grounds were eerily silent, save for the hush of wind moving through the tall pines. Raoul pulled out his gun, checked the ammo clip, then nodded to Kyle as he approached the workshop door.

  Raoul twisted the burnished door handle. The door was locked. He holstered his gun, pulled out his lock pick, and again worked the two small pieces into the narrow key hole, wriggling them until the lock clicked softly. He carefully turned the handle and swung the door open. A shaft of sunlight angled across the concrete floor, lighting a high-tech workshop.

  Kyle flicked a switch beside the door and overhead florescent lights blinked on. The long, wooden work bench ran along the left wall of the garage, from the front to the back of the workshop, and covered with an array of electrical technical devices with gleaming dials and a couple of bench-mounted machining tools. He and Raoul carefully stepped into the workshop, eyes wide and searching for trip wires. Seeing none, they paused to exhale.

  Raoul glanced and nodded. “It looks like the place hasn’t been used for weeks.” Raoul moved slowly, eyeing the equipment, then stopped. Looking down, he saw a couple of red laser beams on the ankles of his boots. He traced the beams to their origins, where the glowing red digital screen numbers flicked off the seconds: 59...58...57.... “Oh, shit! Kyle! Get out! The place is gonna blow!”

  Raoul pivoted and dashed for the open door, pushing Kyle out the door and into the sunlight where Kyle stumbled and fell. Raoul grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet. They scrambled to the Hummer, where Kyle yanked open the
door and jumped in as Raoul turned the key, revved the engine, and slammed the Hummer into reverse. With tires spinning, Raoul backed the Hummer between two trees, shifted, and gunned the vehicle down the rutted drive way.

  The concussive blast slapped against Kyle’s ears and sucked the air from his lungs like a punch to the gut. Kyle squeezed his eyes shut as the Hummer lurched to the side, lifting slightly. As it bounced back onto all four tires, Raoul braked it to a stop. The dust and debris from the roiling explosion fell like rain, and for a moment, Kyle flashed on the day when the Hummer he was riding was upended by an IED in Afghanistan. Kyle shook his head to clear it.

  “You okay?” Raoul croaked.

  Kyle grunted and swallowed. “Yeah. I think,” he said hoarsely, and realized he was still so pumped full of adrenalin he couldn’t feel a thing.

  “You got a nasty cut,” Raoul said.

  Kyle could feel something wet and warm on his forehead and realized he’d been thrown forward just enough to bang his head on the dash. He touched the cut with a finger, which showed a smear of blood. “Shit.”

  The ensuing silence was broken by a couple of Black Hawk helicopters just above the treetops. Moments later, a familiar looking convoy of three black Suburbans came to a stop at the entrance to the narrow, rutted dirt road.

  Kyle and Raoul stood outside their Hummer with their hands out to their sides as one of the Suburbans roared past and up the sloping drive to the smoldering remains of the cabin, the workshop nothing more than a charred pit in the forest floor.

  After a few moments, the Suburban backed down the drive and an agent stepped out. It was the one who’d spoken to them earlier. The agent looked Kyle and Raoul up and down, then shook his head in disgust. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

  “Your concern is touching,” Raoul said.

  “It was a dirty bomb,” the agent said, waving a small, palm sized meter in his hand.

  “This place is hot?” Kyle asked.

  “We did a fly over just as you guys were inside. We were getting radiation readings. Because of you, the whole area is now contaminated with radioactivity.”

  “How hot are you talking about?” Raoul asked.

  “Enough so you shouldn’t hang around too long,” the agent said.

  “Shit,” Kyle mumbled, squinting at Raoul and the agent. “That means the bomb was assembled here.”

  The agent nodded. “There were fissionable materials in there. We wanted to collect them so we can trace them, find out where the material came from. That will help us determine exactly who made the bomb.”

  “You mean the material didn’t come from Los Alamos?” Kyle asked.

  The agent drew a deep breath, pulled off his sunglasses, and squinted. “Radioactive elements have their own signature. We could have traced it. Now thanks to you, we may never know.” The FBI agent flexed his jaw. “I should arrest you both for interfering with an investigation.”

  Chapter 27

  Kyle sat at the dining room table in his rented Santa Fe guest house and faced his laptop computer, his right hand wriggling his mouse. He touched the bandage on his forehead with his left as Raoul sat opposite him drinking a beer and with a mescal chaser.

  “How can you even work now?” Raoul asked.

  “My brain works just fine,” Kyle said, reaching for his own glass of amber mescal. He took a sip, then set the glass beside his computer. He lifted his left arm. “This sling is a pain in the ass.” He slipped it off his shoulder, tossed it on the desk, then extended his arm, stretching it, then massaged his shoulder. “That’s feels better. It’s stiff, but I can deal with that.”

  Raoul shook his head in disgust. “So, now you’re a doctor?”

  Kyle shrugged. They both turned to the television screen hanging on the wall. Raoul grabbed the remote control and the sound came up as the screen filled with the faces the male and female co-anchors of Wolfe News.

  “Acting President James Marvin is showing strong resolve in the face of this crisis,” the male anchor said.

  “Marvin is the kind of strong leader that President Harris has, unfortunately, not been,” his blonde female co-anchor said with an agreeing nod. “Let’s listen to the Marvin now from the White House.”

  The screen cut to the White House briefing room where Marvin stood at a small podium, nodding grimly to the assembled White House press corps. “These days will test the mettle of this great country. Although the terrorists have threatened to detonate a bomb if any attempt is made to rescue President Harris, I can say here and now that we cannot and will not give into their demands.”

  A reporter lifted his hand and waved. “Even if it means the President Harris’s life is at stake?”

  “I have known President Harris for a long time,” Marvin said. “We have talked about our unwavering resolve to never negotiate with terrorists. I am sure he would agree with this course of action.”

  “You’re willing to sacrifice the life of the president?” the reporter asked.

  Marvin scowled and flexed his jaw. “The future of this country, if not the free world, is at stake here. If we surrender to the demands of terrorists, then what’s next? Do we just turn our country over to them?”

  Kyle glanced at Raoul. “Marvin is throwing Harris to the dogs!” he said, his voice rising.

  “Why so quickly?” Raoul asked.

  Kyle shrugged, sipped again from his mescal, and frowned, lost in thought. “He’s preparing the country for the worst possible outcome.”

  Raoul gazed at Kyle, his eyes unfocused, then nodded in agreement. “I spent seven years in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan fighting those bastards,” Raoul said. “They don’t care who dies or how. To them it’s all the same. It means martyrdom. An eternity in heaven.”

  “You think they’ll kill Harris?”

  “Unless they’re stopped,” Raoul said.

  “How did this situation get so bad so quickly?” Kyle asked.

  “There’s only one way,” Raoul said.

  “Inside help?” Kyle asked.

  Raoul shrugged.

  “I think you’re right,” Kyle said. “Look at this. I’ve been doing a little research.”

  “And?”

  “Benedict Enterprises is the parent company to Atlas Global and a host of other companies.”

  “We know that,” Raoul said.

  “Old man Benedict and his companies have been the major source of money for a handful of super PACs.”

  “Political action committees. So what?”

  “Super PACs can spend as much money as they want in support of any issue or candidate,” Kyle said. “They don’t fall under election spending laws as long as they don’t give the money directly to the candidate.”

  “Again, so what?”

  “Benedict’s super PACs have backed people like James Marvin, the late House Speaker Divine, and Senator Blount, whose body is out there on the patio at Vista Verde.”

  “But Marvin is a Democrat,” Raoul said.

  “Look at this,” Kyle said, pointing to the screen to his lap. “People like Benedict are only interested in influence and control. Parties are only labels and mean nothing.”

  “Okay.”

  “James Marvin and David Benedict had similar educations,” Kyle said, “first at a private academy in Massachusetts and then at the same Ivy League school.”

  “That doesn’t prove anything.”

  “They were both devotees of a political science professor named Archer Brooks.”

  “Should I know him?” Raoul asked.

  Kyle went to the kitchen, refilled his glass, and brought the mescal bottle to the table. “Brooks was a well-known political theorist. He developed a body of work based on the philosophy of Ayn Rand.”

  “The author?”

  “Yes. She wrote Atlas Shrugged. Her most famous
novel.”

  “So now you’re an expert on Ayn Rand?” Raoul asked.

  “Just listen for a minute. Rand believed that the world is governed by certain principles.”

  “Such as?”

  “That people only do what’s best for themselves, not other people.”

  “Sounds right to me,” Raoul said.

  “People love others only because they want to be loved in return.”

  Raoul nodded. “That’s human nature. People only give if they know they’ll get something back.”

  “Yes, well,” Kyle said, “some of Ayn Rand’s followers turned her ideas into a philosophy. They call it objectivism.”

  “And...?”

  “Her philosophy is again in vogue, just as it was 50 years ago,” Kyle said.

  “Yes, and…?”

  “Brooks believed government welfare was immoral,” Kyle said. “It goes against the natural order.”

  “Why?”

  “Because people are getting something they didn’t earn,” Kyle said. “It’s wrong. Makes people lazy. Destroys their initiative.”

  “I can see that,” Raoul said. “You’re paying people to do nothing. After a while, they expect it. Then they demand it.”

  “Brooks and Rand said that if people don’t work, they don’t get,” Kyle said. “It’s each person’s duty to look out for themselves, not others. There’s nothing wrong with giving money to the poor. If you want to do it, fine. But it’s a voluntary thing. It should never be institutionalized or automatic. Welfare only makes government bigger. It’s a drag on the economy and makes society weak. Worst of all, it makes people depend on the government.”

  “Yeah, well, that makes sense to me,” Raoul said. “But what does this have to do with Vista Verde?”

  “President Harris and most other Americans believe that if you help the under classes, you help society at large. A generous society has an obligation to help its poorest members.”