The Patriot Threat

by Steve Berry

“Why does this concern you?”

  “It seems that anyone who is willing to aid your cause should be viewed as a friend. I doubt you have many allies. From what I know, you are a convicted criminal, a fugitive from American justice. Yet you judge my motives?”

  The younger man leaned forward and whispered, “I’m not telling you a damn thing.”

  Howell had seemed to calm himself. His nerve had returned, along with the boldness that had surely guided him in exile.

  He made his position clear. “Then she will die.”

  “I’ll get help from the crew. Turn you in.”

  “And I will do the same to you. Except that you will then be available for arrest and extradition back to the United States, and Jelena will be at the bottom of the Adriatic, her body weighted, sunk to the depths.”

  He could see that Howell was beginning to realize this was serious.

  “What do you want?”

  He pointed to the satchel. “To read what’s in there. After that, you and I will speak again.”

  The ferry continued its smooth path east across calm water.

  He did not have the time for Howell’s obvious agony of indecision. So he made the call for him, reaching for the case and saying, “Wait here.”

  THIRTY

  VIRGINIA

  Stephanie felt better now that her agents were apprised of the danger potential. She’d meant what she’d said to Joe Levy. Never had she taken unnecessary chances with her people’s lives. After ending the call to Cotton she’d called Luke, who’d just made contact with Treasury’s eyes and ears, a female agent named Isabella Schaefer.

  “I should have Treasury recall her,” the president said.

  They were still sitting alone in Ed Tipton’s den. Dawn was not far away. She was tired and needed sleep, but she knew how to run on adrenaline. The president was a notorious night owl.

  “Let’s not,” she said. “That agent has a ten-day head start on us. We could use her knowledge.”

  He did not argue or object. Instead he sat silent, as if weighing the emergence of a new idea. She’d made both of her calls using Tipton’s landline. Danny had assured her that their host had said it was okay. But she was beginning to get the idea. “The Chinese now know I’m in the game.”

  “Which means they’ll be watching and listening to you.”

  That meant, be careful with mobile phones. There was nothing secure about them.

  “It’s that damn FDR,” he said. “This is all his fault. He was the luckiest bastard in the world.”

  “He was crippled.”

  “Which didn’t stop him. His greatest successes came after the polio. Before that he was just another spoiled rich kid, an only child, a mama’s boy. All he ever did his whole life was exactly what he wanted. He didn’t know the meaning of the word no.”

  She knew a little about Roosevelt. His father died when he was eighteen and his mother had indeed become an overriding influence. As a young man he was attractive, clever, and ambitious, using family money and connections to steadily climb the political ladder. But there was nothing wrong with that, anybody in the same position would have done the same. Still, he lost two elections prior to contracting polio in 1921. After that he went 6–0. Two terms as governor of New York. Four terms as president of the United States.

  “I’ve read a lot about dear ol’ FDR,” Danny said. “I never realized, but he wasn’t all that bright and never amounted to much of anything at school. He talked more than he listened, and was not opposed to stretching the truth when it suited him. Teachers did not speak highly of him. He knew little to nothing about either money or economics. Why would he? His family on both sides were rich. Everything was always provided for him. His grandfather, on his mother’s side, sold opium to China. Can you imagine what the press would do with that today?”

  She wondered about the rant, which seemed a bit out of character.

  “His first two terms as president were a failure,” he said. “Unemployment in 1939, after six years of Roosevelt, was worse than in 1931, before he was ever elected. Stock values had also plummeted to new lows. And the national debt? That’s his greatest gift. It grew more in the 1930s than in the previous 150 years. All he did was print money, spend it, then print more. If it hadn’t been for World War Two he would have been a two-termer, gone and forgotten. War saved this country, not FDR.”

  “But he offered people hope,” she said.

  “Stephanie, he just plucked at their heartstrings and told them what they wanted to hear. He stood for flag, God, and motherhood. Today he would have been filleted by the press. His flip-flops on the major issues would have been the jokes of late-night TV. Instead he lived in a time when no one even reported he was crippled. The press was more than friendly—they were downright complacent. Look at 1940 when he campaigned on a pledge to stay out of the war. Then, in 1941, as soon as he was sworn in a third time, he implemented Lend-Lease to the Brits. Is that staying out? We supply them equipment, they take that equipment and fight. How long did he think the Germans were going to stand for that? If Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbor, the Germans surely would have made a move on us of their own. But no reporter ever took him to task. No one ever said a word. Roosevelt had a free pass.”

  “What’s all this about?” she asked. “Why does it matter about FDR?”

  “Because he was a condescending prick, patronizing and humiliating. And those aren’t my words. Those came from Dean Acheson, who worked for him and saw it for himself. Now here we are, decades later, faced with the results of that arrogance.”

  She was still puzzled.

  “The man preached moral leadership, yet he had too many mistresses to even count. We talk about Kennedy and Clinton and their indiscretions. They were amateurs compared with FDR. He lied to his wife on a daily basis. Any man who can do that will have no problem lying to the country. He chose to go after Andrew Mellon simply because he could. But he lost, big time. He underestimated Mellon. That old man was not stupid.”

  “You held back with the ambassador,” she said. “You didn’t tell him what this was all about. But you know, don’t you?”

  “That’s another two-faced SOB. China wants what FDR was supposed to find.”

  “Care to tell me what that is?”

  “We know that Mellon gave something to FDR when they met in 1936. It had to be that page with numbers. The code. That’s what FDR was supposed to figure out. Mellon probably had possession of certain documents that could have been harmful to the United States. They probably concerned Haym Salomon. There was some sort of internal Treasury investigation in 1937. That we know, too. Larks copied its report. He also copied other classified papers.”

  “Cotton has the documents in sight,” she said. “You heard him.”

  “Which gives me some comfort. I don’t want those falling into the wrong hands.”

  The name Haym Salomon finally rang a bell. “There’s a big bronze statue in downtown Chicago, near the river. George Washington, Robert Morris, and Haym Salomon. I’ve seen it.”

  He nodded. “It’s been there since ’41. Roosevelt called it this great triumvirate of patriots. It’s one of the few memorials erected to Salomon. He’s a forgotten figure, but appears to have been an important one. Hell, we might owe his heirs $300 billion.”

  “But you and I know that could hardly be what this is about?”

  “I agree. But in 1936 that debt was still in the many billions and would have been a big deal. The same was true in the 1920s, when Mellon first came across the information. Repayment then could have bankrupted the nation. Not to mention the pure embarrassment of the whole thing. So Mellon, being Mellon, used what he knew to his advantage and managed to stay in power until the Depression made his blackmail irrelevant. That’s when Hoover got rid of him.”

  “There has to be more to this than just that.”

  “There is.”

  They’d been inside Tipton’s house a long time, and she sensed that their conversat
ion should be finished in the car where they would be alone.

  “Shouldn’t we be leaving?” she asked.

  Danny stood. “I need to get back to the White House, before things get going for the day there.”

  His voice had grown low and tired.

  “Here’s the deal, Stephanie. Mellon fashioned some sort of hunt. Something that would be, to use his words, the end of FDR. He provided the code and a starting point, but FDR, being the arrogant prick he was, crumpled it up and threw it away. We now know that crumpled sheet still existed in April 1945, when FDR died, and that it was given to Morgenthau at Treasury.”

  She heard what he hadn’t said. “But it wasn’t among the papers you read yesterday.”

  He shook his head. “No, it wasn’t.”

  Which begged several other questions. But she held those for now and asked, “Why would Mellon hide something away that was so potentially harmful, and then give FDR a way to find it? If he hated the president, just use it and be done with it.”

  “It’s like what Finley wrote in his diary. Mellon was a patriot. He hated FDR, but not America. He hid away what he had, then gave his enemy a way to find it solely for torment. He actually wanted FDR to find it. Surely, if it’s as bad as Mellon said, Roosevelt would have destroyed it. No harm done, except that FDR would have skipped to Mellon’s beat. For men with egos like those two, that was more than enough satisfaction. Today we do the same thing. We torment our enemies in the media, or on the Internet, or the social networks. We let ’em twist in the wind, just enough to drive ’em nuts.”

  And she had no doubt that Danny spoke from experience.

  “But Mellon overestimated his importance,” she said, “and FDR didn’t take the bait.”

  “Not soon enough, anyway, as Tipton told us earlier. It seems that on the day he died, nine years after the fact, FDR had finally decided to pay attention. The problem for us is that it’s still out there, waiting for our enemies to find.” He paused, seemingly in thought, then asked, “You really think what’s on that paper is a code?”

  “It sure sounds like it, and makes sense.”

  “Then we have to find that missing crumpled sheet.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  ADRIATIC SEA

  Malone watched as Kim left with the black Tumi case. He debated what to do. Go after it? Or stay here? Howell’s face was thick with concern. Clearly, whatever had just happened was way over that man’s head. Since there was no place for Kim to go aboard the ferry, he decided to stick with Howell and see what could be learned. He rose, walked across the room, and sat at Howell’s table.

  “Who the hell are you?” Howell eyed him with an innate suspicion. Then recognition came to the younger man’s face. “Ah, crap. You’re government. What? IRS? FBI?”

  “Neither. But I am a guy who can help. What just happened?”

  “Does the whole damn world know what I’m doing? How did you find me?”

  They were attracting attention.

  “Keep your voice down, okay? And don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. What did Kim want?”

  “Who’s Kim?”

  “The guy who was just here. Kim Yong Jin.”

  “Who is that?”

  “Not someone you want to mess with.”

  “You here to take me in?”

  “That was the original plan, but things have changed. Paul Larks is dead.” He saw that Howell had not known that. “Kim killed him.”

  Howell appeared both frustrated and scared. “This is getting way out of hand. You may not believe this, but I have no idea who that Korean is. He and I emailed some, but he used an alias. What does he want with me?”

  “Actually, I can believe all of that. But I need to know what’s in that satchel?”

  “Look … what’s your name?”

  “Cotton Malone.”

  Howell threw him an odd look. “How’d you get a tag like that?”

  “Long story, and we don’t have the time. Answer my question.”

  “That guy Kim has Jelena, my girlfriend. He said he’d kill her if I didn’t hand over the satchel. She’s an innocent here. We met in Croatia. That’s where I’ve been hiding. She was just doing me a favor. Larks bought my ticket for that cruise, but I changed it into her name.”

  He doubted Larks bought anything. More likely Kim had financed the whole venture as a way to gather the players in one place.

  “What’s in the satchel?” he repeated.

  “Proof of a conspiracy that will bring America to its knees.”

  “That’s a bold statement.”

  “Who do you work for?’

  “Justice Department.”

  “I can’t let anything happen to Jelena. She doesn’t deserve this. He said he was coming back after he looked over the documents.”

  He zeroed tight on Howell’s eyes and said for the last time, “Tell me what’s in that satchel.”

  * * *

  Kim entered the cabin Hana had booked for them. It came with twin beds and a small bathroom with shower. They were both traveling on false passports, under aliases, which he’d obtained in Macao. He liked the ability to move about the world unobstructed and, compared with the time he’d tried to gain entry into Japan years ago, the state of the art in forgeries was far superior. Besides, no one paid him any attention.

  “How is our guest?” he asked.

  Hana pointed to the bed where the woman lay, laboring under the effects of the same drug used on Malone and Larks. He found it so much easier to travel with drugs as opposed to guns. No one ever questioned them. Most people today carried small pharmacies around with them.

  “She was no trouble,” Hana said.

  They were two decks down from the dining salon, toward the bow. He saw she noticed the satchel, and he smiled at their success.

  “Time for us to see if all this was worth it.”

  * * *

  Malone listened as Howell explained that the 16th Amendment to the Constitution came as a direct consequence of an 1895 Supreme Court decision that held taxes on incomes must be apportioned, under Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution. That would mean people living in less populated states would pay a higher tax on their income so that their portion of the overall total was equal to that of other more populated states. That fundamental unfairness had been intentional on the part of the Founding Fathers, as they were no fan of direct taxes. Apportionment became the way to discourage them.

  And it worked.

  Direct taxes were avoided by Congress.

  But during the early part of the 20th century sentiment changed. The Gilded Age had produced clearly defined classes of “haves” and “have nots.” Social unrest had firmly taken hold, and the idea of a tax to “soak the rich” became popular among liberals in both the Democratic and Republican parties. Several times Democrats introduced bills in the House of Representatives to tax higher incomes, but each time the conservative branch of the Republican party killed the measure in the Senate. That’s when Democrats began to call Republicans “the party of the rich.”

  And the label stuck.

  Causing reelection anxiety.

  In April 1909 the Democrats proposed another bill for a national income tax as a ploy to embarrass Republicans and force them to publicly acknowledge their support for the wealthy. Nobody gave the bill any chance of passage—and even if it did, there was still the matter that unapportioned income taxes had, fifteen years earlier, been ruled unconstitutional. But to everyone’s amazement Teddy Roosevelt and other liberal Republicans endorsed the measure. Conservative Republicans then fell into a panic. Oppose the bill and they would certainly become “the party of the rich.” Support the bill and they would lose their political base—which was the rich.

  So they opted for an end run.

  In June 1909 President William Taft, a Republican, caught the Democrats off guard and proposed the 16th Amendment. At the precise moment when it appeared that Democrats would pass an income tax bill, the Republicans cho
se to submit the entire matter to the states for their approval. Even better, if the amendment was approved, it would eliminate the Supreme Court’s opposition to income taxes, overruling the apportionment requirement, and allowing the tax to be imposed equally nationwide. The Republican strategy seemed brilliant on paper, as the amendment had little chance of passing in Congress and, even if it did, three-fourths of the states would surely reject it.

  But they were wrong.

  The Senate backed the amendment 77–0 and the House 318–14.

  Then state after state ratified until, on February 12, 1913, Secretary of State Philander Knox declared the amendment “in effect.”

  “When the first income tax was approved in 1913,” Howell told Malone, “it was only 1 percent on the first $20,000 and 7 percent above $500,000. That would be 1 percent on the first $298,000 in today’s dollars and 7 percent above $7,460,000. By 1939 only 5 percent of the population was required to file a return. Today more than 80 percent have to file.”

  Howell sounded like a true fanatic, who loved to rely on statistics to support their position.

  “The collection process changed in 1943. That’s when FDR started withholding from wages and salaries. Income taxes began to be collected right at the payroll window, before they were even due to be paid by the taxpayer. That’s when the whole thing went from a tax on the rich, to a tax on the masses.”

  He studied the salon again and saw no sign of Kim.

  “I’m worried about Jelena,” Howell said.

  “You keep talking. I assure you, she’s fine. For now.”

  * * *

  Kim opened the satchel and removed a thick sheath of papers clamped together with a black metal clip. Several hundred pages, all of which appeared to be copies, except for one. He scanned through the pile, taking in bits and pieces. Clumps were stapled together.

  One of the copies caught his eye.

  A report.

  Department of Justice

  _______

  Office of the Solicitor

  _____________

  Memorandum

  February 24, 1913

  Ratification of the 16th Amendment to the