America Rising (18 page)

“. . . and thank you for taking the lead on the summit, Frank,” the president was saying as Bernabe pulled himself out of his musings. “I believe what we’ve accomplished here will help put the country back on the road to prosperity.”

They all talk like this in Washington, he thought sourly as the president nattered on. It’s one of the reasons I hate the goddam place. He loved the direct, brutal language of finance and its cold, emotionless logic, despised the pompous oratory of politicians who even in private persisted in their childish self-delusions. He feigned interest as the president went on at length about Task Force One and William Bigby, as if he didn’t already know. When she finally concluded he nodded gravely and said, “Wise decisions, Nancy. Both of them.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Nancy Elias said. “But I’m afraid you won’t be so happy with what I have to say next.”

Frank Bernabe was instantly wary. He hated surprises even more than he hated politicians. A politician with a surprise was worse than the Second Coming of Karl Marx and almost as dangerous. He focused his attention on the president and said, “How so?”

“The home invasions on that Teichner woman and others,” Nancy Elias said, “The attacks on the SayNo people in New Orleans. They’ve got to stop.”

Bernabe’s face darkened.

“Don’t look at me that way, Frank,” she said. “I’m not saying you had anything to do with them. Or even knew about them. But you have contacts, influence. I need you to use them to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen. They haven’t solved the problem, dammit, they’ve made it worse. Those videos that were supposed to intimidate people have enraged them instead. They’re making martyrs out of people who should be pitied. Or scorned.

“Now, I’m not criticizing here,” she said soothingly. “You’re one of the most brilliant men I’ve ever met, and you know how I value your support and counsel. But you’ve got to admit, you have all the people skills of a hungry great white shark. We need to act with some subtlety here, not with a meat ax. There’s enough unrest and anger in the country already. We don’t need to add any more.”

Grudgingly, Bernabe allowed that she might be right. He tended to divide people into two groups—fellow predators and chum. The first was to be treated warily, the second to be eaten. But in sufficient numbers and with proper motivation, even chum could cause serious indigestion. He’d get hold of Leland Elliott and have him call off the dogs. Then he’d offer Elliott’s services to Ray Carmody to help track down the terrorists. Pleased with the efficacy of his solution, he bowed his head in acknowledgement and said, “Understood, Madam President. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you,” Nancy Elias said. “Now, there’s one more thing I need your help with.”

So this is the big pitch, the real reason for this meeting. Bernabe’s wariness doubled. Alright, Nancy, out with it. But it better be good.

“I’m concerned about this ‘New Declaration’ business,” she said. “That SayNo group and their don’t-pay-your-bills month that’s supposed to start July Fourth. I’m told it could involve as many as twenty million people. Now, it may just be a lot of lefty hot air, a handful of whack jobs talking to themselves, but I believe those figures to be accurate. You’ve seen what’s happening out there, Frank. People are in a desperate state, and I’m afraid this kind of action could be very, very appealing.

“Just think of the impact—economically, politically, psychologically. It could be devastating. Twenty million Americans refusing to pay their mortgages and their credit card bills and car loans and utilities and payments on everything from that new washer and dryer to car registration? It would be the equivalent of a general strike. A rebellion. And it would set an incredibly dangerous precedent, give people a dangerous sense of power. To respond in the usual way, the way they expect—ruin their credit ratings, garnish their wages, hit them with collection agencies, fees, repossessions—would only make things worse. It could set off an enormous backlash, a civil war. Of course, eventually we’d win. But at what cost?”

“Damn the cost!” Frank Bernabe snapped, a flush creeping up his neck. “That’s a recipe for anarchy! It’s one thing to avoid stirring up the peasants any more than necessary, but if they think they’re going to start a civil war. . . I’ll give them a goddam civil war! This is a country of laws, and they goddam well better obey them.”

Nancy Elias waited patiently for the storm to pass.

“Spoken as I would have expected, Frank,” she said. “Believe me, I understand your anger and frustration, but we need to look at the bigger picture here. This country is on the verge of a class war, a challenge to our authority that’s never been seen before. Try to stop it by brute force and you’ll create dozens more SayNos, a dozen more terrorist groups, a dozen more challenges to government and business and the rule of law. Don’t forget, this system of ours has been very good to you and your predecessors, me and mine too. Do you really want to risk it in favor of a police state locked in perpetual war with its own people?

“This is what I’m proposing; just hear me out. This ‘Declaration’ is supposed to begin July Fourth, right? Well, on July first I hold a press conference on the White House lawn and announce that every major American bank, financial institution, retail company, public utility, every major American business in the country, will give their customers a one-month amnesty on all their bills in honor of our nation’s birthday and in recognition of these trying economic times.

“Think about it, in one fell swoop you’ve taken the play away from the radicals, totally stolen their thunder. All of a sudden, there’s
no reason for them to protest.
C’mon, Frank. Lay your emotions aside and put that cold, analytical mind of yours to work:
Taking
something
from
someone is power,
giving
something
to
someone is generosity.

“Do this my way and the story isn’t the people versus big, evil corporations, it’s about socially responsible American businesses extending a helping hand to their valued customers in their hour of need. Besides, in a few months you can jack up some fees, add a surcharge, rachet up the interest rates—I’m sure you can think of something—and get all that money back. Then once this crisis is over, we can deal with the people who caused it. But right now we need to manage it so it doesn’t get out of hand. Remember, I won this office on a campaign of hope and change; if I can’t offer the real thing, I have to at least offer the illusion.

“Now, I know I can’t sell this to your people myself. But you can. It’s a big step and a big risk, I know. No question, everyone is going to lose some money, the economy is going to take a hit. But both of those are only temporary. And they buy time for the other actions I’ve set in motion to succeed—hunt down and eliminate the terrorists and marginalize, if not destroy, SayNo and similar groups. It’s a good plan, Frank, and you know it. But it won’t work without you. Will you help me?”

For the first time since he met her as the junior senator from California, Frank Bernabe was genuinely impressed with Nancy Elias. He’d always respected her political skills, but this was an order of magnitude above. It was smart, tough, devious, cynical and showed an instinctive understanding of how to hold and deploy power. Plus it took real balls to propose it to him when she knew the fury of his reaction.

He stroked his chin thoughtfully. Nancy Elias may have just earned herself a second term. He stood up and reached across the desk and shook her hand.

“Yes, Madam President,” he said.

M
y initial euphoria over what I’d taken to calling the Christmas Papers crashed hard into the reality of trying to confirm anything in them. I knew in my gut they were real but proving it would be extraordinarily difficult, even dangerous.

Not trusting the security of email, I went low-tech, copying each page on my home copier and hiring a private courier to deliver the package to Jeff O’Neill at the Public Interest office in Atlanta. He called within minutes of the papers’ arrival, as excited as I was, and the following day dispatched more than two dozen reporters in eight cities to dig into their allegations.

From the beginning that digging yielded only frustration. Every person mentioned in the papers had apparently been warned ahead of time and disappeared. Legal and even extra-legal searches of public records, from arrest reports to DMV files, came up empty. They had disappeared too. Even the SFPD file on Armando Gutierrez, a copy of which I still had in my office, had been erased. If it weren’t for the victims, their pain and their recollections, it was as if nothing had ever happened.

That pissed me off big time. I had a name, an address and a phone number. It was time to rattle Leland Elliott’s gilded cage.

* * *

The two men met at a house rented by a third man atop a high ridge of the Vaca Mountains east of the Napa Valley. It was a modest house in a remote and isolated area of stark natural beauty, accessible only by a narrow, packed dirt driveway that switchbacked up the ridge under a canopy of giant oaks.

In mid-February it was cold and drizzly but the men abstained from building a fire in the large stone fireplace. They wanted no telltale smoke wafting from the chimney, giving away their presence, so they kept their sweaters on and cranked up the heater. A bottle of Cabernet from an esteemed St. Helena winery only a few miles away sat between them on the kitchen table, but they abstained from it too and sipped strong black coffee. They’d been at the house only a few minutes and would leave—separately, half an hour apart—as soon as it got dark.

The first man to arrive refilled his cup and said, “Well, now it’s official.”

The second man nodded. “We knew it would be. Eventually.”

The first man said, “Our security is good. Our procedures are tight.”

“They better be,” the second man responded. “They’ll come after us with everything they have. It’s us or them. They know that.”

“Do we abort?”

“Do you want to? Do the others?”

“Of course not.”

“Then we don’t. We see it through. But there’s no margin for error.”

The first man smiled thinly. “Like there ever was.”

The second man returned the smile. “True. But now it’s less than zero. How close are we?”

“A couple weeks, at least. Maybe more.”

“It’s got to be air-tight.”

“It will be.”

“Good.”

“How’s our reporter doing?”

“Not much yet. He’s still scratching around but he’ll get there. We need him to make the public case.”

“You’re putting him at risk, you know. Using him as bait, even.”

The second man lapsed silent. He looked out the window at the dripping trees and wet earth. “I know,” he said quietly. “That’s on me.”

“It had to be done,” the first man said. “Hard choices.”

“Yes.”

The first man refilled his own coffee cup and said, “If. . . I mean, when we pull this off, we’ll be toxic. Nuclear. We’ll have to go dark.”

“Probably. But it’s the only way. And it’s worth it.”

“Yes, it is.”

* * *

Ed Bane listened to the patriotic music rise and fall, then swell to a crescendo in the radio studio he’d had built in a far wing of his Palm Beach estate. He punched a red button on the console in front of him and leaned into the big silver microphone and intoned solemnly, “This is Day One-Thousand-One-Hundred-Thirty-Six of the socialist revolution in America. Welcome to the Resistance.”

The music faded and he amped up his delivery to take its place. “Today’s outrage is a group of liberal terrorist revolutionaries calling themselves SayNo.org. These left-wing scum have a plan—they admit it, plain and simple—to destroy our national economy. They call it ‘The New Declaration of Independence,’ spitting on the memory of the men who brought forth and fought and died for this great country.

“And what is this ‘New Declaration?’ Just what you’d expect from these godless parasites: We won’t pay our bills, we won’t fulfill our obligations, we won’t live up to our responsibilities. All of you honest, hard-working Americans out there can support us, take food out of the mouths of your children, work two and three jobs to feed a tax-tax-tax, spend-spend-spend government, while we do drugs and sodomize each other and laugh all the way to the welfare office.”

He let his audience choke on that for a moment, then continued: “But that’s not the only outrage. Now these SayNo parasites, these Nazi Marxist revolutionaries, plan to march on Washington to defile our nation’s capital, to establish a tent city—a temple of filth and crime and perversion—right in front of the Washington Monument.”

He shook his head at the perfidy of it all. “I can see it now, thousands of these useless sacks of human flesh copulating and shooting up and relieving themselves on sacred ground in front of the entire world. For an entire month! And when do you think they plan to do this? When do you think this collection of perverts and losers and communists will attempt to destroy our capitalist system, to move into our nation’s living room and leave a stinking pile on the carpet? Of course: six months from now, on the birthday of the United States of America, July Fourth.”