x
He could see the attorney general's panties---pink---as the breeze lifted her skirt on the 3rd green. She was bent over, intent on sinking a 2-foot putt for a possible birdie. Kimber Roman, a divorcee in her late thirties with two young children, was the most beautiful and, by general agreement, the most courageous AG ever to grace Washington, let alone the fairways of Arlington's exclusive Army and Navy Golf Club.
Her partner for today's round was retired general Skylar Morris, a widower at 56, a man known more for his prowess in war than in love. He couldn't take his eyes off her. He envied the job of the male agent who, along with the female counterpart, accompanied the AG wherever she went. Kimber Roman was a strong advocate of the 2nd Amendment and topped the Internet's PDOE---People's Dominion of Ecotopia---"enemies of Mother Earth" list. The general was still mentally undressing her when he heard her cellular ringing. It was attached to her golf cart. Both agents, about 20 yards from the green, were watching the rough by the fairway.
"I'll get it," he said quietly so as not to disrupt her concentration.
"Hello. General Morris speaking."
"Oh..." There was a tone of disappointment. "Is Kimber there?"
"Yes. She'll be just a second."
"Thank you."
Morris watched her sink the putt. "Nice shot."
"Thank you, Skylar. That'll be $10 on the next hole."
"My, you're a cocky one today, aren't you?" he said, handing her the phone and moving off to his own putt.
"I'm a lucky one today," she said, smiling. "Hello. Kimber Roman."
"Attorney General Roman?"
"Yes."
The phone exploded.
Blood streaming from her head, only part of her right hand remaining, the attorney general of the United States staggered a few paces, an acrid black smoke wreathing her body, then fell like a rag doll.
She was rushed to Alexandria Hospital in a coma.
Morris and the two agents, Alex Austin, FBI, and Roberta Williams, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were released from Emergency with cuts and abrasions from the phone's shrapnel. General Morris's left eye was still bloodied, its cornea lacerated by a sliver from the remote-detonated C-4 plastique bomb, the same kind that had been put into a cellular by Israel's Mossad to kill Arab terrorist Yehya Ayyash, known as "the Engineer," in January 1996.
131Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrKU86kRz8K
131Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiYzvTUkidc
131Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7jJ8sqdnDm
131Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVtucevqbTD
As Alex Austin and Roberta Williams questioned him about what exactly had transpired on the green---exactly what had been said on the phone---the normally good-humored Morris, who bore a striking resemblance to George C. Scott, was in no mood, as he delicately put it, "to fart around. Hell, there's no mystery about who did it. It's the damn nut-job Ecotopians! Kimber's been telling----" He paused. "How is she? Any progress?"
"None," said Austin. "She's still critical---in a coma."
"Well, she's been telling me for weeks her concern about those people---how their numbers have increased tenfold in the past few years. She's been especially worried about this giant convention they're having up in Spokane and the joint maneuvers they've got scheduled up there. Thousands of 'em apparently. Like a goddamn jamboree!"
"Except," said Alex Austin wryly, "there're no Boy Scouts or Campfire girls."
"Maybe," said Morris, "but they've got a motto: 'Solidarity With Nature.' Sons-of-bitches' organization is superb. Lot of 'em might still live in the boonies, but they get e-mail out faster than Greenpeace."
"We know the AGs been concerned about them," responded Robert Williams, who until now had said nothing.
"Have your people traced the call?" the general asked them.
"Yes," said Alex Austin. "All incoming calls to the AG are automatically recorded. We know the call was a landline feed from a place called Stiff's Range, Idaho. Public phone. The remote detonation would have had to be made locally, though---within cell range."
"So," said Morris, "the landline call was the setup to get her on the cellular?"
"Correct. Landline's a lot harder to intercept than a cellular signal. But whoever pushed the button had to be within remote range---a mile or more."
Before Morris could ask the next question, Roberta Williams was answering it. "We didn't get anyone. We flooded a two-square-mile area with agents within 20 minutes of learning what had happened."
"Golf-club parking lot?" the general suggested.
"Nothing," Robert assured him. "Could've been on foot---though I doubt it."
"How about BATF?" Morris asked Alex Austin.
"Ditto. We've carried out normal procedures---had the highway patrol with fake speed trap taking videos on all roads leading out of the area. No computer license match with anything yet."
Morris shook his head with impatience. "Fuckmunch could be in Canada but now."
Alex Austin glanced at his watch. "Not unless they took a plane, General."
"Near enough," Morris responded sharply. He paused. "Look, I'm sorry if I sound...impatient. It's because I am. Kimber Roman and I are close...."
"We understand," said Roberta. At a certain angle, Williams, with the eye patch, looked menacing.
"How in hell," he asked, "did they get to Kimber's cellular in the first place---to pack the bomb?"
Roberta shrugged. She felt embarrassed for the FBI. "We don't know. We infiltrate them, they infiltrate us. But in any case that's a cold trail by now. The explosive could have been planted or cellulars switched weeks ago---we've no idea. We stand a much better chance of getting the person who pushed the button."
"Roberta and I," said Austin, "have been asked to work on it as a team. Assumption is we might recall something from being near the green. That's why we've been questioning you."
Morris was exasperated. "I've been telling General Shaw up at Fort Lewis and the joint chiefs for months----they should carry out a preemptive strike on the Ecotopians. Least we should do is go up there and arrest the ringleaders." He paused, his tone now one of unabashed sarcasm. " 'Course he couldn't do that---might violate somebody's civil rights!"
Neither Austin nor Williams said anything. It wasn't that they disagreed with the general in principle. All federal agents believed something had to be done about the alarming growth of the left-wing Ecotopia movement, but in Washington D.C., the official word was about about Skylar Morris. A good man, loyal, brave, a hell of a fighter in 'Nam, the Gulf, and half a dozen other wars, and a general who was always up front and out front with his men. If he was afraid it was anything, it was of growing old gracefully. But his biggest enemy, in his case as in Patton's, was his mouth. He had an open contempt for bureaucrats of any kind---those in the state department in particular---and didn't give a damn who knew it. "Eased out" of the army because of "policy differences" with the joint chiefs, the general was still giving free and unsolicited advice, to colleagues and anyone else who'd listen, about what they ought to be doing to "save America." If you were seen or heard espousing Morris's philosophy of "Love your enemy but keep the son-of-a-bitch in your sights!" it could have deleterious effects on your career. It was said that back in his California home near Monterrey---unlike most retired generals' abodes, a modest bungalow---Morris had a contingency list of officers and other enlisted personnel all over the country---specialists----who were still serving and whom, via his computer, he could call together within hours to form a one-thousand-man battalion-size SOF---special operations force.
"What for?" army C-in-C Jake Taylor had asked.
"For any contingency," Morris had told him.
Later, Taylor told friends, "Skylar is looking for a fight. He can't stand being out of the action."
"Oh, he'll settle down."
"No, he will not."
