Black Hat Blues (32 page)

out there yelling and throwing things and marching by candlelight were

rare meat for the sensation-hungry media.

The inevitable consequence, especially of the first, flash mob style pro-

test at the Congressman’s home, was that the cops would detain some

of their people. For those arrested and held on the day, it was nothing

new. They couldn’t name or even describe Sacco, because they’d never

met him. They’d come because of anonymous postings on Craig’s List

and other sites, and because they wanted to fight injustice. They paid

their fines or clocked their community service hours and maybe spent

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a few hours in a holding cell. Most of them had been there before. As

for the second march, the peaceful one, there’d been a risk of arrest of

if the cops freaked out, but Sacco had worked hard with the organizers

to make sure that everybody was on their best behavior. They should

have been fine.

Except now Sacco was getting reports that they weren’t fine. There

were three different activist groups that had been involved in organiz-

ing the candlelight march, all of them with relatively clean records of

legal activism, all of them just getting by on donations, grants, and

volunteer hours. In the past week, the federal government had come

down on the trio with a combined arms assault. The FBI came by asking

questions, the IRS notified them of audits and was threatening their

non-profit status, and even INS came calling in search of any illegal

aliens. Local city agencies got in on the game too, with OSHA and the

DC fire marshal sending over investigators for spot checks on compli-

ance. It was coordinated harassment of the most egregious kind, but

the groups’ complaints fell on deaf ears as their computers were hauled

off to be gone over by FBI computer forensic experts and their books

were combed through by forensic accountants.

Of course, the harassment only made the groups more outraged and

more committed to their causes. From Paul’s reading of public com-

plaints and the private messages that were working their way back to

Sacco, many in the groups were feeding on and even reveling in the

attention: it confirmed what they already knew to be true. The govern-

ment was made up of a bunch of fascist fucks who’d rather screw over

the poor and helpless than actually do anything about social justice.

Sacco shared their outrage, and Paul wasn’t unsympathetic, but when

the first reports came in he didn’t worry about them too much. The

assumption was that Congressman Wolverton was flexing his muscles a

little and getting some payback. They’d expected some of that, although

not to this level. Still, it would pass.

Then, a day later Paul saw in the news that federal investigators had

shut down a number of check cashing businesses in the South Florida

area. The big chains, like Amscott, managed to avoid being shut down,

but a lot of the small businesses didn’t have the clout. Their records were

seized, their accounts frozen and their owners and clerks taken in for

questioning. Paul knew it could only be for one reason: they were trying

to follow the checks. One local news story reported that there had been

massive check fraud and that the FBI was even going so far as to dust

hundreds, possibly thousands of cashed checks for fingerprints. There

were dozens of agents dedicated to the task, and as far as Paul could tell,

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169

no one in the media was making any connections between the raids in

DC on the protesters and the raids on the check cashing places, but Paul

felt certain they were connected. Here it seemed that Clover was flexing

his muscles, although given all the negative attention he was still getting

for his own scandals, Paul was very surprised that he could summon the

political will to press for such a large scale crackdown.

The following day came the INS raids on migrant farm workers and

day laborers all over the region. Hundreds of agents were sweeping

through and rounding up thousands of immigrants, legal and illegal.

The news showed school buses full of sad-faced workers being bussed

to government owned warehouses for processing. The news and cretins

like Lou Dobbs hailed it as a firm, forward step on the road to an

illegals-free America, but there were no stated connections to either

the check cashing investigation or the DC harassment. But the con-

nection was there, and Paul began to understand why Isaiah might

have been panicking a little bit. They thought they’d kneecapped the

slavers and their political connections. They’d thought Wolverton and

Clover would be too wrapped up in their own problems and commit-

ments to strike back effectively against an enemy they couldn’t see or

even prove existed.

The morning Chloe and Sacco were planning to drive up to Boca

Raton, the three of them met to figure out exactly what their situation

was and how bad things were. Paul knew going into it that Sacco was

pissed, angry at the way that the government was cracking down on

innocents without doing anything about the people he saw as the real

villains.

“Isn’t there some way we can help them?” he asked.

“I don’t see it,” said Chloe. “We’ve flown close enough to that federal

sun already—any more attention from them and we’ll get burned.”

“Right now we’re insulated from the trouble,” said Paul. “We stay put

and they shouldn’t be able to trace anything back to us. We try and

interfere or do something—and I don’t even have any idea what that

something might be—and we get screwed.”

“Some sort of diversionary tactic,” Sacco suggested. “We set up some

front group or fake activist cell to take responsibility for it all and

draw off the heat. They’ll stop detaining innocent workers if they think

they’ve got a name for the enemy they’re looking for.”

“For it to really fool them it would need to be really convincing, and

that would mean really risky,” Paul said. “We can ride this out.”

“Paul’s right,” said Chloe. “Let’s just wait and see. We shouldn’t be

doing any serious planning until we hear Isaiah out anyway. Maybe this

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backlash is a result of some fuck up of his, not ours. Maybe he’s already

got a plan and wants our help.”

“Then we should help him,” said Sacco. “Because I don’t believe for

a minute this isn’t at least partly our fault.”

“We don’t know,” Chloe said. “That’s my point. Let’s find out more

and then we’ll act, OK?”

“If Isaiah does have a plan, we’ll consider it,” Paul added, wanting

Sacco mollified. In truth, the last thing he wanted right now was to get

sucked into another of Isaiah’s big plans. He secretly hoped their ally

was calling the meeting just to give them the heave-ho. Europe was

looking nicer and nicer. “But like Chloe says, let’s wait and see.”

Sacco seemed satisfied, and Paul saw them to the door. These days

he didn’t like to step out the front during the day, just in case. You

never knew who was looking. They’d activated some new disposable

cell phones they’d had c1sman ship them from Georgia. He patted his

and said, “Call me when you’re done.”

Chloe gave him a quick goodbye kiss and squeezed his butt. “Will

do. Be good.”

“You too,” he said. “Stay out of the sun.” He went back upstairs

to check on Bee and see if there was any more bad news. Of course,

there was.

Sacco still hadn’t decided if he liked Key West or not, but he was

glad Chloe and Paul had agreed to let him go on the Boca trip. The

island city was cool, sure, but the high concentration of both tourists

and the idle rich made his skin itch. If it weren’t for the Crew’s amaz-

ing set up and surveillance network that secretly made fools of all of

them, he didn’t think he’d be able to handle it. Now granted, the party

scene was pretty awesome, especially The Party that Sandee ran. And

then there was the whole thing with Sandee. Not the first time a night

of excess had led him down that particular path, although he’d never

gone quite that far. But that was fun too, and thankfully Sandee was

being cool about it and not making a big deal of things. If anything,

he was the one kind of being weird about things, but it was kind of a

weird situation—he’d never had to live and work with one of his hook

ups the next day. He kept having these vivid fucking flashbacks to

that night, and not just to him and Sandee, but to Chloe too—she’d

been really into watching them, urging them on. And of course he’d

thought Chloe was hot since the moment he laid eyes on her, so now

that he knew about this side of her personality he wondered what else

she might be open to. Looking over at her as she focused hard on the

road ahead of them, Sacco just shook his head without even realizing

he was doing it. Damn, she was kind of amazing.

“What?” she asked. Of course she’d noticed him staring.

“I was just thinking about how screwed up everything’s gotten.”

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“It seems bad, but we’re not sure yet. Let’s wait and see what Isaiah

has to say.”

“No matter what he says, my contacts are getting fucked over by the

feds.”

“And Paul’s wanted all over the internet,” Chloe said. “I agree that

both these things suck, but neither of them is unprecedented or disas-

trous. Your friends must be used to and prepared for this kind of fed

bullshit.”

“They are I guess, as much as anyone can be.”

“And Paul’s dealt with this wanted shit before too. We’ll make it

through. There’s plenty of cash.”

Sacco just nodded. Chloe had spoken and there was no sense debat-

ing the point any more right now. She and Paul both were stubborn as

hell when they’d made up their mind, especially when they both agreed

on something. The Crew was supposed to be one member, one vote,

and it was, but he’d never seen anyone vote against Chloe and Paul

when they presented a united front. That included him, too. When they

agreed on something they seemed so certain, their arguments were so

sound, that he’d always ended up voting with them. He never seemed

to mind at the time, but he was starting to understand how his former

comrades in Hacks of Revolution must have felt when he was the one

whose voice always seemed to carry the day.

“Here’s the thing about Isaiah,” Chloe said, changing the subject.

“He’s a really serious dude.”

“So I gathered.”

“I mean, he doesn’t like joking around, he doesn’t like flippancy, he’s

all business.”

“You’re saying I should let you do all the talking.”

“No. If I was saying that, I’d just say that. Talk when you want,

I’m just telling you how to say it so he’ll listen. The only thing I ask is

that you hold to the party line on where we’re at with Paul’s publicity

problem.”

“It’s not a huge deal. It will pass. We’re not worried. Even though

we totally are.”

She glanced over at him. He thought she was pissed but she gave him

the slightest upward curve of a smile. “Not totally.”

“Why a Starbucks?” Sacco asked as they pulled into the parking lot.

“Why not someplace independent?”

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“Wasn’t my choice,” Chloe said as she scanned the parking lot.

“Isaiah likes the anonymity of these chain joints. No one notices strang-

ers because they get strangers all the time. A local joint has locals and

workers more likely to pay attention to who comes in. Chain joints have

higher turnover in staff too, less likely that some employee will still be

there to answer question if someone comes asking later. Practicality over

politics, Sacco. Gotta learn that shit.”

He did know that shit, but sometimes his anti-corporate ethics drove

his mouth before his brain could catch up. Slamming Starbucks was

second nature, but he was kicking himself for playing into whatever

preconceptions Chloe already had about him. They went inside, ordered

two large coffees (Sacco refused to say Venti) and took a seat at a cor-

ner table. There were only four other people in the place, although a

steady stream came in to get their caffeines to go. He assumed that one

of the four was with Isaiah, probably one of the two with laptops, but

he couldn’t be sure. They’d been there almost twenty minutes before

Isaiah showed up.

Isaiah slumped into the coffee shop, a tall, well-built African-

American man in a wrinkled button down shirt and old jeans. He man-

aged to give off an air of dejected defeat in his posture, pushing his thick-

framed glasses up on his nose as he waited in line for his frappucino.

Sacco was impressed with his unimpressiveness. When he sat down at

the table with them, mumbling a greeting, Sacco could hardly hear him.

“Thank you for coming,” he said. “It is urgent.”

“What’s up?” asked Chloe.

“We seem to have stirred up a hornet’s nest and I’m not sure exactly

how or where. Our target, The Enemy, is entirely defeated and driven