True Lies - Redux Ch. 11

**************

Jeb Jameson had just received some interesting update calls.

Carlos Harrera and Bradley Gilbert were both dead. This was unexpected news and somewhat worrisome, but only a tad. For some as of now unknown reason to Jeb, Brad had shot Carlos and then been shot in turn by Harrera's security right after one of the rogue agents had been assassinated outside their meeting house. Was Bradley a rogue agent as well? The CIA was going to be in an uproar. But that wasn't directly Jeb's problem as Secretary of Homeland Security. It might cause some headaches for the DNI though, Jason Broadwell, who was directly over the CIA in the chain of command that ended with POTUS.

The death of all or at least some of the rogue agents was the expected news, except he expected to hear all that showed up were now dead, but apparently only one had been killed.

Nathaniel Kayce had been supremely confident he could kill up to four close grouped people by himself in under three seconds. He was an experienced shooter using the semi-auto M21 sniper rifle and broad field of vision 3X-9X scope set at the 3X lowest magnification from such a close position - less than 200 yards away. His mistake was killing the woman first. Again, he had let his personal hate and bias influence his decision making.

He had wanted Jim to be shocked at his beautiful partner's suddenly violent death right in front of him and also realize he was next. But once again Nat had underestimated Jim and Jim's instantaneous reaction in moving and then diving for cover. He SHOULD have stood there frozen for at least a second or two in shock and fear. Anyone else would have. And then HE would have gotten a bullet through his own body's center mass and then one more through his head as a surety once he was down. The M21 was the sniper version of the M14 and fired the hefty and high powered 7.62x51mm M118 US match grade NATO round. It was quite accurate and deadly in the right hands out to about 1000 yards.

Nat had a nice position for both concealment and then a fast escape. It was an empty room on the top floor of a half empty four story building two city blocks away. As soon as Jim disappeared safely behind that car, Nat abandoned his rifle on the stand he had improvised for it. This sniper position gave him excellent line of sight to the front of the meeting building and yet kept himself and his gun barrel concealed from anything below him and above. He quickly hobbled down the stairs and left the building. He was certainly frustrated but he was still slowed in his mobility and knew it was time to bug out. But the gloves were off now and it was open season and he had the hunting license for Jim, Elaine Smith, "Cowboy" Rob, and Rachel Johnson. Find and eliminate. Period.

Jeb had decided on merely elimination once the details of the Grayson-Iran affair started appearing in various blogs, then Wikileaks, then the Drudge Report, and finally reported by Fox News. Eventually, it WOULD be mentioned in mainstream media worldwide. Maybe even Grayson would have to disappear. That might just depend on if Grayson kept denying everything and HOW he denied it. He had better be convincing.

Jeb Jameson had been deep undercover almost his entire life, even longer than Jim Johnson. Jeb's father was once a close friend of Malcolm Little, AKA el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz or merely Malcolm X. Malcolm X was an Islamic radical and a Black supremacist and was assassinated in 1965 at age 40 by other Black supremacists - three Nation of Islam members under orders from Elijah Muhammad. At least that was the most plausible theory given the quite public and bitter rift between the two leaders in Black nationalism and native African-American Islamism a mere year before, in 1964. And the fact Elijah lived ten years longer and died in a hospital from quite natural causes at age 78 in 1975.

But Jeb's father, Jeremiah, had already separated himself from all organised Islamism and Afrocentrism publicly, and even renounced his own Islamic name of Jabir Muhammad. But Jeremiah remained a committed Islamist and Afrocentrist quite privately and passed these firm beliefs on to his own children, especially Jebediah. Jeb was born in 1960 and had a childhood that in many ways paralleled that of the current POTUS.

In fact Jeb and Barry had first met in college at Columbia and both had very similar interests in "rebellion" against the then currently perceived socio-political establishment. But Jeb was a senior there when Barry was a junior, and Jeb always thought Barry was a lightweight in all respects, if not quite an airhead. But Jeb tried to be friendly with everyone, especially on the left, and endorsed much of the same Leftist claptrap Barry wrote and actually got published in the student newspaper once. They were both fellow travelers in the ultimate goal of diminishing or even totally overthrowing the traditional United States of America,

Jeb had lived an even more carefully orchestrated life than Barry and slowly climbed the difficult traditional public service life ladder. He became the first African-American chief of police of Baltimore and politicked ceaselessly amongst his peers and especially Federal government contacts of all kinds. He wanted and needed a position of power and influence in the inner circles of highest national power in DC.

The events of 9/11/2001 helped Jeb greatly. The subsequent creation of the Department of Homeland Security as a whole vast new Federal Bureaucracy became Jeb's entre into the DC power universe. And now he was making full use of his own power.

Barry's establishing and allowing a ruthless disrespect for law and order for his own self-serving definition of "for the greater good" greatly aided Jeb's own goals. Politicizing the IRS and Justice Department so blatantly and inconsequentially made Jeb's own efforts that much easier. Jeb already owned ICE and the Border Patrol, directly assigned to Homeland Security. Jeb really wanted the FBI, DEA, and ATF but they remained assigned to the DoJ. In this case since the Attorney General, head of the Department of Justice, was an Afrocentrist woman and good friend of Jeb's and well as Barry's, herself, it worked out pretty good. Jeb was included in the meetings discussing the "possibility" of a Fast and Furious type operation, since ICE and Border Patrol would have to know what to ignore or even allow. By then Jeb had already either turned or merely emplaced key individuals personally loyal to himself above all others to insure that so many good things would happen.

Jeb and Barry and all the other Afrocentrist racists - call a spade a spade - just never considered for a moment how much things had changed in the USA for all those of African descent. That many "good things" already HAD happened, in so many ways. The mere fact there were now more than 30,000 African-American millionaires in the USA. More than in the entire continent of present day Africa and quite probably more than every other country in the world, combined. Sure, just based on strict demographic statistics, there SHOULD be ten times more - 300,000 - minimum. But this lack wasn't because of "racism" or even "white privilege." It was because for whatever reasons African-Americans gave up on marriage and families.

All those White millionaires - like in "The Millionaire Next Door" MOSTLY got their own wealth through stable marriage and merely slow capital accumulation - actually paying off the mortgage and owning their homes and other properties outright. Of course "liberalism" argues against conservative sexuality, stable lifelong marriage, and even "capitalism" - accumulating capital - itself. And the vast majority of Afro-Americans had bought into liberalism - early and hard. More of LBJ's loathsome legacy - that whole "Great Society" scam.

And so Jeb's idea of "good things happening" was allowing ever more Islamic Jihadists entry into the USA via normal "sloppy" ICE processing of "legal" immigrants but also criminally negligent Southern border patrolling and (non)controlling of illegal immigrants entry. More than one team of trained and well equipped Jihadist terrorist cells were already here and spread out through the USA.

Jeb had his own special cadre of ICE-HSI investigative agents that now did a lot of quasi-legal activities - whatever Jeb wanted. Jeb was more personally involved than he really wanted to be, but he couldn't really trust any of his own highly positioned top assistants. Who he could trust were his "lieutenants" over his squads of agents. Each one of them was also at minimum a "closet" Muslim. These were the ones more directly involved with other activist Muslims moving into the USA.

Nathaniel Kayce was not one of these Muslims, but had been actually working directly for Jeb, rather than the now deceased Carlos Harerra, all along. Jeb had provided Nat his Dagestanis in Chicago. But now Nat was cut out of the whole Rachel/Chicago nexus.

Instead Jeb used his own "lieutenant" American Muslim HSI agent, Darwin Moore, who was interfaced with an even better follow up group to handle the Rachel situation - an in place group of Saudi Arab Wahhabis. They were 6 men very well armed with fully auto AR-15's, a few RPG's, and about 20 pounds of plastic explosives. The carbines were part of that "Fast and Furious" program that a Cartel armorer had converted to full auto capability, before selling them to these "foreigners" who also paid handsomely for "mule" escort through the Arizona desert and even further transport within the USA.

They were already settled in and living in Gary, Indiana and were basically impatiently waiting in place for just the right time and place to strike the best blow against the infidels in the USA. Then they were ordered by Darwin to kidnap a woman. He gave them the probable location address and description with pictures of a certain Jewish woman - Rachel Johnson - and orders to use whatever force was necessary against possible armed opposition. The address had been located via NSA backtracking of that previously obscure cellphone calling Jim's flagged official phone. Jason Broadwell - DNI - was almost personally directing that whole project though NSA and reporting every finding to Jeb almost as soon as he received the info. Broadwell wasn't quite sure just why Jeb was so interested in all this - but he knew Jeb and POTUS were very tight and Broadwell hoped to personally benefit from his own helping Jeb. Just some normal quid pro quo amongst high level executive department appointees.

And why was Nat doing it? Just his own version of patriotism? Trusting his own superiors and THEIR proper decision making? Ignoring the Nuremberg Trials results and the "just following orders" rationale was never good enough? Or just trusting that Jeb as someone with quite a bit more real political and "personal contacts" power would inevitably be good for Nat's own pecking order status rise eventually? Perhaps all the above and...other things...

It was the reported failure of recapturing Rachel that also influenced Jeb to just order the termination of all those even loosely identified or associated with thwarting Iran's rapid acquisition of advanced nuclear weapons. When Rachel was located again it would now just be a kill order for her.

Jeb really wanted Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, also Saudi Arabia, maybe even Egypt. Jeb knew that as soon as Iran successfully tested their first Nuke - Saudi Arabia would do all that was necessary, spend as much as it took, to also become a Nuclear power. Jeb knew the Sunni Saudi's feared the Shi'ite Iranians, but from Jeb's personal perspective, the more Islamic states with nuclear capability the better.

Eventually he expected Israel to be washed clean by nuclear fire - and the millions of Palestinians who would also die when that happened - well, they would all get their reward as necessary martyrs in Paradise. And this was the single most important thing - destroying Israel - and then Jeb also looked forward to and hoped to direct some surgical nuclear strikes in the USA, itself. Just possibly Washington, DC. Cut the head off the Great Serpent and then Jeb just might help pick up the pieces, and with Muslims like himself even more in charge. His own martyrdom would happen much later, if at all. He wasn't planning on being anywhere near DC when it mushroomed.

There was still a lot to try and accomplish quickly. After all, Barry's reign would soon end and probably Jeb's official power would as well. Unless someone like a Hillary was then elected. Another liberal POTUS to solidify Barry's legacy might very well, unwittingly or not, continue policies and practices that further enabled Jeb's own efforts. It was quite possible he/she would keep him as Secretary of DHS, at least for awhile. And if not, he had already developed personally very strong ties and tentacles in every key law enforcement and intelligence agency at the Federal level.

He had personal power now that far exceeded what the Constitution or his legal authority allowed.

***************

Jim -

We were all stunned by the current turn of events. I still don't know exactly how or why I reacted as quickly as I did. It was just instinctive somehow. It certainly wasn't a reflex learned and honed in years of war fighting - the kind many SpecOps veterans developed. It was almost like an out-of-body experience with someone or something else dragging me instantly away as time slowed way down. In some fighting situations in the past I had previously experienced that time-slowing feeling phenomena - which seemed to let me move or react faster than physically possible.

But it wasn't my own survival that plagued my thoughts. It wasn't even mourning for Jennifer. That would come later. And would still be brutal.

What I was most concerned about was lost initiative and fearful lethargy creeping in. Not resisting the urge to KEEP ducking and weaving and hiding. It was so hard not to feel helpless and overwhelmed, It was so easy to feel like the whole shadowy US intelligence community was after us and would soon find us and summarily execute us.

Think! I kept mentally shouting at myself.

It was easy and maybe proper to assume that our own opponents here were responsible for that sniper. But also just remember he only evidently knew when and where we were going to be meeting Harrera. There was no indication they knew where we were at otherwise.

So I determined to go home at Elaine's again tonight like normal and just hoped like hell Rob would also show up.

Adel and his people dropped us off downtown close to the Metro and random cab transportation. Elaine and I exchanged a quick hug and went our separate ways. Since I was in public again I used my Bluejack phone to check for messages.

There was one voicemail from Rachel. I recognized her voice easily. It was succinct, "They tried to get me again last night but I escaped. We're just running now." And a sound like a little sob. She didn't know what else to say. God damn it all to hell.

************

Rachel -

We drove away quietly from the former safe house. As soon as we cleared that neighborhood and hit a major secondary road, Allie turned the headlights on and we just drove on normally. About 45 minutes later we pulled up to a large gated estate. Allie talked to the intercom and the large and heavy gates opened and we drove up the long driveway. It was not quite 6AM when we parked and went in the front doors of this mansion.

An armed servant let us in and directed us to a comfortably appointed sitting room. Allie and I didn't say much as we waited quietly. The servant came back and got Allie. He smiled tiredly and patted my arm and said he'd be right back.

Soon he returned with an older and comfortably overweight man in an expensive looking dressing robe. "Shalom," the man greeted me quietly.

"Shalom," I replied.

Allie said, "Rachel, this is Moses Birger, a good friend."

"Mrs. Johnson, I also knew your father just a little bit in his professional capacity and through others like Allie, here. I never heard one thing bad about him. I am so sorry for your loss - and his - of your sweet mother."

"Thank you - and please, Mr. Birger, I'm just Rachel..."

"And I'm just Moe. Allie filled me in a little on the basics of your situation. So, what is the plan?"

Allie said, "I'm thinking I should just try and get Rachel back to DC and her husband right now. That attack last night was - troubling - in a lot of ways. I just don't know how they found us so fast. The thought of betrayal unfortunately is in my mind. Or maybe the NSA really is that good and comprehensive in electronic eavesdropping right here in USA..."

"So, what can I help you with."

"I'd just like to borrow some cash - enough for a few days travel by auto from here to DC. I want to stay completely under the radar - no credit card purchases."

"Good. Harry, bring me ten grand and the keys to the Caddy Escalade. You guys might as well travel in comfort." Moe addressed his servant/guard.

Allie started to protest, "Moe, that's too much, and if they do find us with that SUV registered to you - they're gonna be all over you."

Moe just laughed, "Hell, the Feds have been after me ever since I was born. You know that. I've handled them so far just fine, just like my Dad..."

"Well, they seem to be moving in another direction now. Not just cops and DA's or Fed prosecutors - but machine gun armed executioners."

"My dear father survived pretty deadly violent Italian mobsters as well as the Feds. I think I just might be able to as well. You guys just take the cash and the car and take care of yourselves. Get this beautiful woman back to her husband, where she belongs. And you call me or come to me whenever you need anything else at all. Mazel tov."

Allie and Moe argued for a bit more, before Allie gracefully and gratefully accepted Moe's largesse.

Maybe Allie didn't want to be TOO indebted to a Jewish Godfather type?

I asked him when we got in the car.

Allie just laughed. "I'm pretty sure at least 90% of Moe's income streams now are all perfectly legitimate businesses. I think he still does that other 10% just so he can think of himself as a "mobster" in his father and grandfather's tradition. We already both owe each other so much we'll either never be even - or we always will be. It's not a concern."

I was still pretty keyed up and nervous until we hit the interstate - I-90 heading east. Then the monotonous mile after mile plus so little sleep the night before soon had me pretty much passed out.

Allie eventually woke me up.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"Just outside Toledo. It's only about 1 PM but I'm fading fast myself. I need a nap and I'm thinking we should just get a room somewhere. It would be safest even if we only use it for six hours or so. OK with you?"

"Sure, but I'm feeling pretty rested right now. If we just get a bite to eat, I could keep driving..."

"We're still about 7 to 8 hours away - driving straight through. What would we do when we get there? Can you contact Jim?"

"Just via voicemail I guess. I could leave him a coded message he'd understand and probably no one else would. We'd probably end up having to get a room there tonight anyway..."

And that's what we did - just got some Wendy's fast food and I kept driving and Allie fell asleep very quickly once we hit the Interstate again. I pondered who I could possibly contact? Jennifer? Elaine? Dr. Ruth? Maybe Dr. Ruth! We'd need to pick up some burner phones...and my mind was churning and I was just praying Jim was OK.

******************

Jim -

Cowboy Rob did make it to Elaine's that night OK. He already knew about Jennifer from his own contacts in the CIA.

"No one over there seems to know what happened. Maybe they - Harrera and whoever - had some story ready to spin when Jennifer and you, and me and Elaine if we had shown up, were all killed - but Gilbert killing Harerra blew all that up. Now the FBI is definitely involved and just maybe not completely under "their" control. Maybe Jennifer's death won't be just...pointless."