He pushed the buttons and held it to his ear. He could hear the ring signal.
“Jake, is that you?” Callie’s voice.
“Yes. I—”
“Where are you?”
“Camp Dawson. It’s a detention facility in West Virginia.”
“Are you okay?”
“Oh, sure, Hon. Got a cot in a tent and they feed us three times a day, all the food anyone wants.”
“Jake, your name was in the paper this morning. The government said you are being investigated to see if you were a member of the conspiracy that planned to assassinate the president.”
“Who said that?”
“Some spokesperson for the FBI.”
So Sal Molina was correct. Jake changed the subject. “Are you doing okay?”
“Oh, sure. Missing you and worried stiff. Why didn’t you call sooner?”
“They are monitoring and recording all telephone calls. All of them.”
“Oh,” Callie said, and fell silent.
“Talk to me,” Jake said. “I need to hear your voice. Talk about Amy and the grandbaby.”
He leaned against the cinderblock latrine, closed his eyes, and listened to Callie’s voice. She had been his rock for so many years. He was damned lucky to have had her to share his life with, and he knew it.
When they finally broke the connection, Jake Grafton stood looking at the ten-foot chain-link fence topped by three strands of barbed wire, with guard towers at the corners. This thing wasn’t built overnight. Fence, latrines, sewage and water lines, showers, kitchens with natural gas stoves, electric refrigerators, concrete pads for the tents… construction must have taken months. The phone in his hand rang. He looked at the number. Tommy Carmellini.
“Hey, Tommy.”
“I heard you are now famous, Admiral. Saw the news on television last night when I was eating dinner. Been trying to call you.”
“My fifteen minutes.”
“Where are you?”
“Camp Dawson, West Virginia.”
“You got a charger for that phone?”
“I can get one. Why?”
“Keep it charged and on. I may want some investment advice. The stock market has the giggling shits, and you know how I am about bargains.”
“Sure.”
“Don’t bend over to pick up the soap.” And Tommy was gone.
Jake snorted, smiled, and put the phone in his pocket. Tommy Carmellini was one of the good guys he had known through the years. Amazing that there had been so many.
FOUR
I turned the iPhone off and looked at the ceiling in the motel room. Since I heard that news broadcast while munching a burger at the bar of a TGI Friday’s at a little town in Ohio, I had tried Grafton’s phone eight times before midnight, and two times since. Then, voila! he answered.
Not that he had anything to say. I remembered that classified file that crossed his desk about the NSA going to comprehensive monitoring of all American telephone conversations. And I well knew how good they were at triangulating cell phone signals. They could put you within a few meters, whether you were using the phone or not, just as long as it was logged into a network. I was on teams that used that technique to find wanted terrorists in Pakistan and Syria and Yemen.
The way to defeat that was to wrap your phone in tinfoil. So I wrapped mine back up and put it in my pocket.
The thing that bothered me was the announcement by the FBI that former CIA director Jake Grafton — note that “former”—was being detained and investigated for a possible role in the right-wing conspiracy to assassinate the president. They could have just locked him up and thrown away the key, but no, they decided to create a conspiracy to help justify martial law. I had no doubt when the trolls in the White House were finished writing this fiction the guilty bastards would make quite a list. I might even be on one of them. Along with the many enemies of the administration who didn’t believe in global warming or Soetorocare or his give-a-pass-to-terror treaty with the death-to-America regime in Iran. Soetoro’s enemies would be in deep and serious shit that no doubt would ruin them for life. Maybe they would get a show trial before a military commission. And afterward, be put against a wall in front of a firing squad, or permanently locked in a cell somewhere to figure out where they went wrong. Barry Soetoro had that in him. He was the savior of the planet, after all.
So the question became, what was Mrs. Carmellini’s little boy Tommy going to do about it?
Well, at least I knew where Grafton was. Tonight. I suspected they would not keep him long at Camp Dawson. They would want him to sign a confession they were busy writing now, so I suspected they would move him soon and go to work on him with torture and drugs.
Personally, I didn’t give a damn what he signed. I had to get to him before they killed him.
I crawled out of bed, took a shower, and shaved because I had no idea when I would get another chance, then loaded my stuff into my car. I paused for a good look at the Benz. What an impractical car. I needed a pickup. Tomorrow, maybe.
I filled the car at an all-night station, got a cup of coffee, and pointed the front bumper east. There wasn’t much traffic. The sky lightened up and the tires hummed on the pavement and I passed some trucks. I left the radio off.
Normally I don’t think much about politics. I am like most people, I suppose. I get wrapped up in the business of earning a living, giving pleasure to select members of the opposite sex, spending time with friends, and following the fortunes of my favorite sports teams. I vote for people to represent me at every little meeting from city council to Congress and the White House; they can worry about the public’s business, about filling the potholes in the streets, the state of the sewage treatment plants, and how much, if any, foreign aid we should give to Egypt: I vote for them because I don’t want to do that stuff, and they say they do.
And yet, they need to stay within certain boundaries. I don’t want them messing with me any more than they absolutely must. I am choosing my path through life: I want to be responsible for my choices and the results.
Just like most people.
I sat there driving through America wondering about Barry Soetoro and his disciples. I have never trusted people who think they know how everyone else should live, and demand those other people obey. I am not a good follower.
Aaugh!
The highway spun along toward the horizon and the sky got lighter. Another day in America!
When Jack Hays woke up on his couch that Friday morning, Nadine was leaning over, brushing her lips on his. She liked to wake him with a kiss.
“The coffee is on,” she said, and went back toward the kitchen, where the cook reigned. Jack padded along behind and found the cook wasn’t in yet.
With both of them sipping coffee, Nadine said, “You are going to have a hell of a day.”
He nodded. “I think it’ll come to a boil today, or tonight.”
“What are you going to do, Jack?”
“Ask God for the wisdom to make the right decision and for the courage to see it through.”
She rested her head on his shoulder and they stood holding each other, feeling the warmth of each other’s bodies.
JR put his Beretta 9-mm in his belt and went for a tour of the ranch in the pickup. He wanted to see the terrain again, to refresh his memory, to see how it had changed through the years. Joe Bob had built some shooting stands here and there, boxes for hunters to stand in fifteen or twenty feet above the ground. The sports would climb up there with their rifles, hunker down, drink beer, and wait for something wonderful to wander into range, where they would assassinate it.