Foreign Enemies and Traitors (109 page)

               
“I’m finished with boats.  Ranya, I’m sorry you ended up in prison after you flew home from Colombia.  I kept looking for you, but…”

               
“That’s water over the dam.  Forget it.  Anyway, prison led me to my son, to Alex, and to our new lives in Wyoming.  Now we’re rich, and we have more gold than we can spend in our lifetimes.  One less ammo can won’t even put a dent in it.” 

               
“All right, but only since we’re family…sort of.  And I think I’ll take you up on your offer, and build a house up here.  But first, I’m going to take some gold down to Zack and Jenny in Mississippi.  Not too much, though.  They’re young and I don’t want to ruin them.”

               
“Isn’t gold illegal down there?”

               
“Not anymore.  General Mirabeau canceled all of his emergency laws, just before he resigned and retired from the Army.  Now he’s running for governor of Georgia…but I think he has his eye on the White House.  So I’m going to go back down there and help those kids out for a while, and make sure they’re set up right.  Zack and I have a little treasure hunt to go on; that’s going to be my wedding present to them.  It’ll be better if he earns it on a tough salvage job than if I just hand him a bunch of gold coins.”

               
“I’d love to meet them someday.  You’ve made them sound like an incredible pair of kids.”

               
“They are!  I wish I could talk him into moving to a free state, but Zack wants to stay there and live in the house his father built.  It’s something about ‘not getting run out of Mississippi.’  That boy is stubborn as hell.  But if it just doesn’t work out down there, if it’s still too dangerous, then I’ll probably bring them up here and let them have my share of the gold.” 

               
Carson thought,
I probably ought to take care of Doug Dolan too.  And his mother, get her the hell out of Baltimore.  Doug came through in the end, big time.  His television production from Raven Rock probably saved the country, or what’s left of it.  And I can give some gold to Boone too, and to Sergeant Amory…
  

               
“Sure, Ranya, I’ll take an ammo can of your gold.  I’m thinking of a few ways to put it to good use.  I don’t need all that much for myself.  I don’t need a palace, or a yacht.  I’m done with yachts, and I already know somebody in Wyoming with a palace.”  He winked at her, drawing a quick fist-jab to his shoulder in reply.  “But I do know some good folks who deserve a break.  So yes, I’ll take the gold, as long as you’re offering.”

               
“Great,” she said.  “I’m glad that’s settled.  Are you ready to ride?  We can stop in Thermopolis for lunch, before we head back down to Lander.”

               
“Sounds like a plan.  Let’s saddle up.”

               
They walked along the scenic overlook back toward their motorcycles.  Just before reaching them, Ranya asked, “So what
really
happened to Robert Waylen?  How did that blackmail tape wind up on national TV?  Did you have something to do with that?” 

               
“Me?  I was just at Fort Campbell, and then at Camp David.  I don’t know too much about the tape.”

               
“Yeah, right,
General Detcord
.  Fess up.  What really happened to Waylen?”

               
“What do
you
think happened?”

               
“I’m not sure.  The timing of it just seems too…lucky.  After forty years as a communist, he has a sudden change of heart, leaks the tape and then hangs himself in remorse?  That’s all just a
little
hard to swallow.  I don’t believe Robert Waylen ever felt one little bit of remorse in his life.  Not for the bombings, not for being a communist traitor, not for anything.”

               
Carson grinned and looked away from her up the canyon, toward a snow-streaked granite peak with brilliant blue sky above it.  In every direction were stunning calendar-worthy views.

               
“Another thing I can’t figure out,” said Ranya, “is why Waylen would have made that blackmail tape in the first place.  Why set Tambor up like that, if they were friends and political allies?”

               
“Control, I’d guess.  Just in case Tambor strayed from the socialist path.  At least that would be the overt reason.  Waylen was trained as an intelligence officer in Cuba, by the KGB and the Cuban DGI.”

               
“He was?  I didn’t know that.”

               
“Oh yeah, he was,” said Carson.  “Big time.  On one of those ‘workers solidarity’ trips in the seventies.  He sure wasn’t chopping sugar cane in Havana for almost a whole year.  Then once he became an Ivy League professor, he was a ‘bird dog.’  He was a talent spotter for the communists.  The DGI ran him for the KGB.  In those days, it was a lot easier for Cubans to go unnoticed in New York than for Russians.  Cuban communists could pretend to be anti-Castro Cubans, or they could pass themselves off as Puerto Ricans.  Anyway, Jamal Tambor was his greatest find.  Making blackmail tapes in order to control your agents is Spycraft 101.  It’s S.O.P.  You do it on general principle, just in case you need to apply a little pressure later on.  Sometimes low-level agents rise to high places, and they start forgetting who owns their loyalty.  That would certainly apply to Jamal Tambor.  I mean, his rising to a high position.  As far as I can tell, he never needed to be pressured.  Tambor was a dedicated socialist to the end.  He still is, I guess. 

               
“But I think the real reason he made the tape was pure human jealousy.  Waylen struggled in the trenches of the revolution for over forty years, and at the end he really had nothing to show for it.  Tambor didn’t even give him credit for writing his book, and that book launched his entire career, all the way to the White House.  You could almost say that Robert Waylen
made
Jamal Tambor, with that book and with his connections.”

               
“Like introducing him to Peter Kosimos when he was just a college student.”

               
“Exactly.  Tambor would have been a nobody if it wasn’t for Robert Waylen.  And what thanks did he get?  I mean, can you imagine writing your greatest masterpiece, a critically acclaimed best-seller that sold millions of copies, and you didn’t even get one dollar from it?  Not even a thank-you note from the man whose name was on the cover?  Tambor is such a narcissist, I’m sure that it never even
occurred
to him to thank Waylen for writing his book for him, before he said it on that tape.  Hell, Tambor probably
believes
he wrote it by now, even if all he did was scribble a rough-draft outline.  That’s how narcissists are: they take credit for everything.  And then to be brushed off like some crazy old crackpot…to be publicly rebuked…that had to hurt.  That videotape was made during Tambor’s final visit to Waylen’s house.  Maybe it was for insurance.  Maybe it was for blackmail down the road, if he needed to use it.  Maybe he just wanted to get Tambor on tape admitting that he didn’t write his own book, that Waylen did.  For posterity, for the record.  Even though he was a communist, Waylen was still a history teacher.  Posterity would matter to him.”

               
“That makes sense,” said Ranya.  “But you’re dodging my question.  What
really
happened in his townhouse?  Did Waylen have any help doing himself in?  And how did the tape get out?  Come on, Phil, you can tell me.  You know I can keep a secret.”

               
“Let’s just wait on that one, okay?  We have plenty of time.  I need to save
some
good
war
stories for those long winter nights in front of your ridiculously huge fireplace.  Just plant me in a rocking chair with some good sipping whisky in my hand, throw a horse blanket over my legs, and I’m liable to tell all kinds of stories.”  Like what had happened to Bob Bullard.  Phil didn’t want to bring him up yet and tear open that old wound in Ranya’s heart.  Not now.  Today was just too perfect to ruin with such ugly talk.

               
But someday she’d want to know that Brad had been revenged.  He had injected far too much of the YP-12D into Bullard’s guts, and the rampant plague infection could not be reversed.  Krantz had also gotten a needle before they had left for Camp David, in case they did not return from the mission.  Bullard’s house at Fort Campbell had been burned down with their bubo-ridden bodies still chained in its basement, to prevent the spread of the deadly germs.  It was just another “accidental” fire.  Phil Carson was losing track of them all.

               
Ranya asked, “You promise you’ll tell me what really happened someday?”

               
“Of course I promise.  I’m planning on it.  Brian’s going to hear all manner of outrageous tall tales when his uncle Phil comes to visit.  But I’m going to spread ’em out.  Take my time.  I don’t want to wear out my welcome too soon.”

               
“Phil, you know you’ll never wear out your welcome,” said Ranya, slipping her arm around his waist as they gazed together up the Wind River Canyon. 

               
“I hope not.”

               
“We have years.”

               
“That we do,” said Phil Carson.  “We have years.  We have forever.”

United States Constitution

Article 1 Section 3:

The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments.  When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation.  When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members present.

Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States; but the party convicted shall nonetheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law.

Article 2 Section 4:

The president, vice-president and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Article 3 Section 3:

Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.  No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

The Congress shall have the power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attained.

Article 5:

The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress.

Matthew Bracken
was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1957, and graduated from the University of Virginia and UDT/SEAL training in 1979.  He is married, has two children and lives in Florida.  Since completing the Enemies trilogy, Matt has written
Castigo Cay
, his first Dan Kilmer novel, about a former Marine sniper trying to live as a free man in an unfree world.