A PATRIOT DIRGE: Dark Sessions

Stashing Bullets
Fire with Fire, Stone for Stone
Insurance Policies

Only in America could a cross dressing, power hungry freak who never married and savored the company of men become a singular institution that survived and in many ways transcended eight presidencies. If ever a man was beyond reproach, his name was J. Edgar Hoover, a name that stains the façade of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to this day.

From 1935 to 1972, as America was becoming the most powerful nation on earth, the most powerful man in the nation was J. Edgar Hoover. He had a dossier on everyone and everything that moved – especially anything within throwing distance to the halls of power in Washington D.C. Hoover famously underestimated the importance of organized crime while devoting unlimited resources to investigating such dangerous characters as Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lennon. Hoover played a critical role in the McCarthy era witch hunts and the Kennedy assassination whitewash.

John Sinclair was on the honor list of those who had a file on record with the FBI when the agency was forced to release its records under the Freedom of Information Act. A highly redacted report suggested that Sinclair had flirted with radical ideologies and dangerous organizations but he always came back to the fold when it counted.

Sinclair learned a lot from J. Edgar Hoover. It was one thing to gather incriminating information; it was another to know how and when to use it.

The first time Sinclair met Roman Mason at a gathering of Seattle’s political and social elite, he asked him how he made his money.

"The honest way," Rome replied to which Sinclair, without hesitation, said "Drugs?" Rome laughed. "Real Estate." Sinclair shrugged as if it was all the same. The Kennedy clan made theirs bootlegging during the Prohibition. JP Morgan, the Rockefellers, Dupont, Carnegie and Vanderbilt made theirs crushing small business, smashing organized labor and exploiting workers. Buy low, sell high, the law of the jungle: All the same.

They formed an immediate bond founded on cynicism. Rome struggled to transcend his but Sinclair embraced it. It gave him an edge. It guided his thinking. It led him to know long before the facts were in, who put the fix in and why. It enabled him to anticipate an enemy’s moves.

Periodically, Sinclair and Rome convened special strategy sessions featuring the dark side of the political process. They were always closed on a need to know basis. Candidates and potential candidates, the public faces of the organization, were never invited. They need not know what they should not know so they would never have to hide uncomfortable facts.

On this occasion they were meeting at a café across the street from an old brick building where Freddie Prader had assembled a technology center on the top floor. It was late in the evening, a half moon high in the sky, a cool breeze breathing the scent and taste of the northern Pacific to the second-story balcony where Freddie sat opposite the old masters, John Sinclair and Rome Mason, a little in awe.

Freddie set out to explain the system but Sinclair cut him short: Just tell me what you know.

Sinclair had already postulated the source of the attacks. Freddie’s reverse surveillance technology confirmed what Sinclair suspected: The Obama camp had come to the conclusion that their assistance was no longer required. The Independent Movement was needed when the nomination was in doubt but now they were perceived as a liability. Better to uproot the cause now before it grew and spread. Republican operatives were recruited to the cause making it a bipartisan mission to stamp out the little guys. The major parties always found cause for unity when it came to keeping the system closed. Of course, they were willing to play the game, Republicans supporting Ralph Nader, Democrats supporting Bill Barr, as long as there was no chance the independent would become viable.

Rome was surprised the betrayal came so soon. It was arrogant of the Obama people to think they had it in the bag already. There remained more than three months of campaigning before the election. Anything could happen and most often did.

If Obama himself approved or gave the order it could never be documented. The one thing the candidate had proven beyond doubt was that he was politically savvy. He was after all a Chicago politician. Layers of plausible deniability protected him. A dozen operatives were willing to fall on the sword to keep the new messiah safe. Still, he could be wounded by doubt and by being compelled to throw another trusted aide under the bus.

Sinclair assured Rome they had plenty of ammunition at their disposal and declared it time to give them a taste of their own dirt. Rome sense he was holding something back (he was of course holding the Simon Juneau package) but decided it was not time to press.

He suggested releasing a series of speculative articles on the web, dropping names and citing dates and locations – things no one should know outside their circle. It would be enough to let both sides know they were not playing with amateurs. Attacks would be answered in kind. Blood for blood.

Freddie nearly dropped his beer and groped for an I Pod device in his jacket pocket. Something was happening. He looked across the street where the dim lights of security monitors and exit signs, lights that never went off, suddenly did.

Rome caught his gaze and sensed the panic behind them. "Let’s go," he said standing, even before four men in dark suits emerged from a white SUV, jimmied the lock in a matter of seconds and went inside. Rome tossed a couple of bills on the table and went for the door with Sinclair and Freddie following. They walked down the stairs toward the glass doors that opened to the street when Freddie pleaded with them to wait. He had access to the monitors on his device and informed them that one of the men was stationed outside as a lookout.

They went to the back of the building where they found an emergency exit wired for security.

"Can you fix it?" asked Sinclair.

Freddie laughed. "I’m a tech wizard, not an electrician." He was studying the small screen of his device as if he were a baseball fan watching the ninth inning of a World Series game.

"You can see them?" asked Rome. Freddie nodded. His entire security system was connected to the device in his hands. "Can you hear them?" asked Rome.

Freddie flipped on the volume and allowed them to listen and observe. They were in a storage area with boxes, maintenance supplies and a row of folding chairs against a wall. Sinclair pulled out three chairs and they sat down, listening and waiting.

"Is it recording?" Yes.

"Wind it back to where they first entered the center."

Freddie did so and they watched three of the men break in, one taking the lead with a gun, securing the premises, another went directly to a computer station and began tapping on the keyboard, and the third hung back until he received the "all clear." He called a number on his cell phone, reporting that the target was secured but no one was home. He seemed disappointed.

"That’s enough," said Rome. Freddie nodded and went back to monitoring the situation live. One man was at a window with binoculars, scanning the street. Another was still pounding away at the keyboard and the third, the boss man, was looking over his shoulder.

"He’ll never crack it," said Freddie.

"Who are they?" Rome asked Sinclair.

Sinclair shrugged. "Professionals. Government trained but they could be anyone."

"Let’s find out."

Rome dialed 911 on his own cell and reported a burglary in progress, hanging up just as Freddie reported some disturbing news.

"Shit!" he said twice. "They’ve spotted your car," he said to Rome. "The lookout’s walking across the street to check it out."

The three men on folding chairs were starting to sweat, watching the little screen where a man was shining his flashlight inside the car. He checked the door and looked up at the lights from the café and smiled.

"Where are you parked?" Rome asked Freddie.

"Parking lot down the street."

"What do we do now?" asked Sinclair.

"We wait," Rome replied. "If we get a break, we make it to Freddie’s car and get as far away from here as we can."

"If we don’t?"

Rome shrugged. Either way they would find out what was going on.

"He’s headed this way," reported Freddie just as the brief squawk and beating blue light of a patrol car announced itself and pulled up across the street. The man stopped, sighed, and walked over to the squad car. They could not make out what was being said outside the building. He seemed to be trying to explain the situation but the officer was not buying his story. He pulled his gun, disarmed the man, cuffed him and deposited him in the back of the squad car. He then examined the broken doorway and entered the building on alert.

"That’s our break," said Sinclair.

They walked out the front door, past a frustrated man in the back of a squad car shaking his head, to Freddie’s VW van down the street. They piled in without a word and Freddie began driving before he realized there was nowhere to go. He took a left turn, then a right and parked at all night bar, where the three of them observed the proceedings back at the technology center.

After an initial flurry of shouts, hands up and against the wall, the boss man produced an identification that settled the dispute.

"Homeland Security," he said.

Like the Gestapo in Nazi Germany, Homeland Security was all that needed to be said. No one questioned it and no one was allowed to protest. Well, there was a whimper here and there but what did it accomplish? If you protested long and loud enough, it got your name put on a list. If your name came up again, they took you away.

Like the Reign of Terror, the Spanish Inquisition or the French Gendarme in Algiers, the process was self-sustaining. Who was the enemy? They were on the list. How did they get on the list? They asked too many questions. They said yes when they should have said no. They said no when they should have said yes.

It was easy. It was too easy.

"What do you think, John?"

"If it was my operation, I’d round them all up in one sweep. Not the locals, the volunteers, but the core."

Three men in an old VW van, two old and one young, lost in the world and searching for their next move. Their pasts erased, their bank accounts wiped clean, they were no longer whom they were. They were nonentities. They were aliens in their own land.

"Shit," said Freddie. "What do we do now?"

"Well," said Rome, "I have a cabin off the books, up on the north coast of the Sound. No phone, electricity on a generator. They’ll find it but it will take a while, maybe a week. After that we have two choices: Canada or Mexico and Canada is a lot closer."

"Shit," said Freddie.

"You ready for this, John?"

The old man smiled, sincere and heartfelt, his memories of past battles racing through his mind, the taste of blood fresh on his lips.

"I was born ready for this."

Freddie kicked it in gear and they drove north into a moonlit Seattle night.