Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista (63 page)

“Well Ranya,” he said softly, “I’m sorry you feel that way, but it still matters to me.  This might sound like nothing but a joke to you, but I took an oath to defend the Constitution.  I put my right hand up in the air, and I swore to God that I’d defend it.  And that doesn’t mean just standing around and watching, not while a couple of billionaires and crooked senators gin up a new one, and get it rubberstamped in a phony convention.”

“Your patriotism moves me,” she replied coldly, “But come on, even if that’s all true—and I’m not saying it is—what could you possibly do about it anyway? Wayne Parker is one of the richest men in the world. Can you imagine the security he’s got up there?  Besides his own private guards, the entire Falcon Battalion is going up to cover the conference—I heard that from Comandante Ramos himself.  What are you going to do, charge in like Rambo and shoot them all? Arrest the senators and make them confess to treason? You won’t be able to get within ten miles of Wayne Parker’s ranch!  Seriously, what can you do that’ll make any difference?”

“Oh, I have some ideas.  The meeting’s on Wednesday, in the afternoon and evening, so I have three days to plan and get ready.  It’s completely secret.  I’ve been checking, and I haven’t seen a single hint of it. Not in the media, or in FBI message traffic.  Secrecy is obviously their top concern—they can’t be caught in the act of rigging the new Constitution. So if I can just find out who came, prove who was there…it’ll be something. I’m not saying it’ll derail this bullshit Constitutional Convention…but it’ll be something. I think it’s important that people find out that the new Constitution is a con job, that it was pre-cooked at Wayne Parker’s ranch by a bunch of billionaire globalists.”

“Do you honestly think that Americans will care?” she responded. “As long as they can watch the ball game and find a beer to pour down their throats, they could give a crap less about the Constitution—old or new.  They care about finding gas to put in their cars and food to put in the fridge, not what happens in Philadelphia.”

“Well, maybe you’re right, but it doesn’t matter.  I still have to do it.”

There was no denying his stubbornness, his dogged determination to press on.  She said, “I know, I know…you swore an oath to defend the Constitution.” 

“That’s right, I did!  Against
all
enemies, foreign
and domestic
. And you know what? I meant it then…and I still mean it now.”

“I can hear that you mean it.  I believe you.  But I heard that same speech once, and afterwards, some good men died—and not one thing changed.  The country just got worse.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but I still believe it.  Go ahead and mock me if you want to, but I still believe it.  I took an oath,
and I meant it
. I’m not going to just hang around doing nothing, not while the Constitution is ripped to shreds and put back together in a lab like Frankenstein!  Anyway, this is going to be safe, there won’t be any shooting.  This’ll just be an intelligence-gathering mission.  Photographic surveillance.  If I can find out exactly who attended the conference, that’ll be enough.  After that, we’ll fly straight to San Diego and find Brian.”

“But I’m paying for the airplane ride with my gold, and I’m not interested in making a side trip to northern New Mexico!  You can tilt at windmills on your own time.”

“Okay, fine, if that’s the way you want it! Then maybe I won’t help you get to California at all!  Hey lady, maybe you can just walk there, or drive your little solar car!  And what happens when you get there,
if
you get there? I don’t exactly think Brian is going to run to the arms of the strange woman who just shot his mother.  You’ll need me out there if you want to get Brian.”

She knew that he had a point, and she wasn’t sure if he was bluffing. And at least he was showing some backbone, some spine—
some life
. He seemed to have climbed out of the pit of misery she had found him in when she had first entered his house.  He was angry and determined, qualities they’d need in San Diego. “All right, I’ll think about it.  What did you have in mind?”

“Just aerial surveillance.  Some kind of quick aerial surveillance.  I’ll know more after I talk to my friend. He used to be a Border Patrol pilot, he just retired.”

“Who is he? You can trust him?”

“Oh yeah, totally.  Plus, he really needs the money—well, the gold.  I think he’ll fly us anywhere we pay him to go.”

***

Just after dark,
the pilot pulled into the driveway and rang the doorbell like any other visitor.  Ranya remained in the kitchen while Garabanda went to the front door to let him in.  She slid into a pantry corner, her hand on the grip of the .45 against the small of her back, in case this was the moment of betrayal.  If it was, she decided that she would make the best possible use of the eight bullets in her pistol.  She would not meekly surrender. She would not be thrown to the ground on her face and handcuffed.

She harbored no illusions.  She knew that after drowning Warden Linssen and escaping from the federal detention camp, she would rate gold star prisoner status as both a cop killer and an escape risk.  The best that she could hope for after arrest would be a silent and solitary life spent in a windowless underground supermax cell.  She would never leave the cell unshackled, ever.  She would get only an hour of “exercise” in another solitary pen, virtually a dog run, once a week.  She’d been there.  She knew. She wasn’t going back.

The only alternative to this living death would be a one-way trip to death row itself, to await execution.  Neither choice was an option. If Alex Garabanda was going to be her Judas, she would try to take him out first. If he was even now letting in an assault team, they would be in full body armor and helmets, and she would aim directly at the first face she saw. She turned out the kitchen light and hid herself in shadow behind the half-open pantry door.  She wondered if she should have already run out the back door, instead of waiting here in his kitchen like a cornered animal, but she figured that if an arrest team was coming, they’d already have the back yard covered.  

But after a few minutes alone with her dark thoughts, there was still no FBI SWAT Team, no squad of Federal Marshals.  There was just Alex Garabanda and a paunchy middle-aged man with dark black hair combed straight back, chatting casually while they strolled into the kitchen. She stepped out from her concealment.  Garabanda flipped the kitchen light back on, and gave her a look of mild puzzlement.  She shrugged at him in return, while shoving her pistol inside of her pants in the small of her back.

The pilot was no taller that Ranya, no more than five feet nine.  He was clean-shaven, with a weak chin and down-turned eyes that gave him a mournful hound-dog look.  He was wearing jeans and a royal blue alligator shirt, Joe Average, nobody you’d look at twice.  The FBI man looked like a television star next to him.  Garabanda introduced him simply as his friend Logan, who used to fly for Customs and the Border Patrol.  No other name or personal background information was offered, and Ranya didn’t ask. His appearance didn’t inspire much confidence.

She introduced herself in return as Robin, her previous nom d’guerre from another undeclared dirty war.  If the pilot wondered whether she was another Special Agent or Garabanda’s girlfriend or something else, he didn’t indicate any overt curiosity.  Whatever Garabanda had told him to explain her presence in his house must have satisfied him.  Best of all, Logan brought a twelve pack of beer, and a paper sack full of takeout burritos with him. He put them on the kitchen counter and invited them both to dig in, while pulling the first bottle of cold beer from the colorful cardboard box.

Ranya extracted her own brew and twisted it open, then unwrapped the foil from a beef burrito and bit into it, closing her eyes with pleasure. Alex Garabanda turned the radio back up, to block their conversation from possible eavesdropping.  The curtains were already closed.  The three sat down around the Formica-topped kitchen table to eat, drink, and see where their conversation might lead them.  The Dragunov rifle had already been put away, stashed in the pantry.  In its place a road map of New Mexico was spread across the center of the table, with beer bottles and plates of burritos on top of the map.

The pilot spoke with a folksy Texas twang.  “Al, I’m real sorry to hear that Karin bolted on you.  Well, I mean, I’m not so sorry about her…I guess I’m just sorry that she took Brian. It must be tough for you, losin’ the little guy.”

“Yeah Logan, it’s tough, it’s damn tough.”

“At least you’re back in your own house, that’s something anyway.”

“I suppose.”  Garabanda shrugged as he looked around the nearly bare kitchen.  “So, how’s retired life treating you?”

“I’m bored, I’m not flying nearly enough.  The flight instructor gig sure ain’t working out.  Nobody can afford to pay for lessons, especially not with fuel the way it is. Things are tight, there’s never enough money…you know how they cut the pensions when they changed the money.  Thank God our house is paid off is all I can say—otherwise we’d be living in a tent.”

***

Alex Garabanda knew
that this was no mere figure of speech.  Thousands of retirees and the unemployed were indeed living in tents and RVs on new “campgrounds,” which seemed to be springing up like mushrooms.  He adopted a more somber tone and asked his friend, “How’s Trudy doing?”

The pilot slowly shook his head while letting out a sigh.  “She’s holding on.  She’s a real trooper.  She just needs more treatments than what she can get here.”

“Can’t she get what she needs on the outside? Private care, I mean.”

“She could if I was made of money.  I just can’t play the insurance game any harder than what I already am. You know how government health care sucks for retirees—we’re at the bottom of every priority list. She just can’t get any more treatments here.  Twice a week isn’t enough, and the dialysis machines they use are just crap.  They’re friggin’ antiques, and they reuse the filters!  You wouldn’t believe it, you’d think you were in Cuba or Mexico or something.  It’s damned depressing.  You know how New Mexico is, so just imagine how it is on a pension when you need extra medical treatment.”  He took a long pull from his bottle of beer.  “I swear to God Al, they just want us to shut up and die, without costing them any money.”

“So what’s the word on the organ donor list?” he asked.

“What list? We’re off the list—Trudy doesn’t make the cut.  It’s the triple whammy: she’s over fifty, no dependent kids and not working. Three strikes and you’re out.  The only waiting list she’s on is the hurry-up-and-die list.”

Garabanda let those words sink in, before responding gently.  “Logan, I think we can help each other out. We don’t need much, we just need somebody to do a little flying—off the books.  We can pay you for it.  We can pay you real well.”

The pilot slowly shook his head, resignation written on his downcast face. “You must not know what dialysis treatments cost out on the private side.”

“I think I’ve got an idea how much.  Anyway, I’m pretty sure we can help you out with it.”

“Al, I don’t know what you’ve been up to lately, or where you’d come up with that kind of money—and I don’t want to know.  But I can’t pay for Trudy’s dialysis with wads of cash.  They won’t accept it unless I have about ten kinds of disclosure forms filled out and approved.  I have to pay with credit cards or bank drafts.  Its all gotta be 100% kosher, legit, traceable electronic money.  That’s the system, that’s how it works.”

“I know all about the system—I’m an expert.  But I’m not talking about paying you cash.”

The pilot appeared puzzled.  “I don’t understand. What then?”

“First, let me tell you what we need.  We want to fly up to Torcido County on Wednesday, stay for a few hours, and then fly to San Diego. That’s it.”

The pilot quietly whistled.  “Interstate.  That’s a pretty tall order, that’s over a thousand miles one way, ballpark estimate.  So what’s going on up in Torcido? Picking somebody up, or what?”

“Well, I’m afraid it’s a little bit more involved than that.  You’re familiar with Wayne Parker’s place up there? The Vedado Ranch?”

“Sure. It’s got one of the only private jet-capable runways around, at least that I ever heard of.  How much land does he have up there, a half-million acres?”

“More like a million.  It’s roughly about forty miles on a side. Covers most of Torcido County.”

“That used to be Spanish Land Grant territory,” offered the pilot, “So how come Wayne Parker hasn’t been ‘land reformed’?”

“I’m not sure,” replied Garabanda.  “I think it’s got something to do with the United Nations.  He’s donating most of Vedado for a World Conservancy Site.  It’s some kind of a UN deal.  You know Wayne Parker—he’s a big one-worlder, so the commies up in Santa Fe tolerate him— at least for now.  Plus, he practically bankrolled Deleon into office single-handed.  I guess if you fork over enough dough, you get to keep your land.”

The pilot twisted open his second bottle of beer.  “Al, for some reason I’m not getting the impression that Wayne Parker’s inviting you up for a party.  What’s going on?”

“Well, it’s kind of complicated.  He’s having some VIPs fly in for a conference on Wednesday, and I want to know who they are.”

“What’s the matter with the FBI, can’t you get your own airplanes? What are you asking me for?”

Garabanda paused, looking directly across at his friend.  “The FBI isn’t behind this, Logan.  This one is on my own. Well, on our own.”  He nodded to Ranya, who was devouring her second beef and bean burrito. She had been a silent observer at the table during the exchange, and shot him back a challenging look at that comment.

The pilot replied, “What the hell are you talking about? Al, are you going freelance? What is this, an FLA operation?  Or the Federal Underground?  Man, I can’t afford to get messed up in that kind of shit—I need to keep my federal pension.  If I lose the pension, we’re eating out of garbage dumps like all the trash pickers!  I’ll lose all of my benefits, and that includes medical, and then Trudy won’t be eligible for any treatments at all! I mean, I’m sympathetic to the cause, but Al, I just can’t get mixed up with that underground cop business.”