The Last Line (51 page)

What they needed more than anything else, though, was the cooperation of the two disaffected Program members, Walker and Delaney. As Haupt had pointed out the day before, the intelligence they'd gathered so far was illegal and would be thrown out of court.

They needed an insider's perspective—and his willingness to testify before a grand jury. With advice from an FBI legal expert, they'd been granted the authority by a federal judge to offer immunity to the program's disaffected members. Teller didn't like it—at some point, these people had agreed to join a cabal dedicated to the secession of all or part of four or five states in the American Southwest, an act that could trigger a civil war and result in the deaths of tens of thousands of American civilians. Walker and Delaney were traitors, nothing less.

Still, the ISA/FBI team needed their cooperation, or every one of the traitors would walk free.

“What would we get?” Walker asked. “We were originally told that the United States is failing. The debt … mismanagement by the government … the erosion of civil liberties … the government deciding it could hold citizens indefinitely like some third-rate African dictatorship … The idea was to create a new nation with new laws, where we could kind of start over.”

Delaney nodded. “Preston told
me
that it would give people in the Southwest a chance to tell the government, once and for all, what the people down there thought of Washington's policies lately. Especially about illegal immigration.”

“So you're saying it was supposed to be a kind of mass protest movement?” Procario asked.

“That was the line,” Walker agreed. He scowled. “But soon it was pretty clear that he had something else in mind.”

“What?”

“A new nation that he could
loot,
” Walker said, clenching his fist. “He was setting things up so that there would be a lot of investment in the new country—by the Federal Reserve, by major banks, and by the Mexicans.”

“By ‘Mexicans' you mean the drug cartels.”

“We didn't know about that until later,” Delaney said. “But reportedly, the president of Mexico was behind the idea, too.”

“Yeah,” Walker agreed. “Turns out Preston promised the cartels that they'd have their own country with their own laws—a safe haven for their, ah, activities, money laundering, smuggling, all of that. But the Mexican government is interested in supporting Aztlán, too. They need a place to send their poor and jobless, a relief valve, and they need access to programs like Directo a México for hard cash. But when he told me to set aside the Directo a México reserves for transfer to an Aztlán national bank, I knew he was just after the money.”

It made sense, in a twisted sort of way. Each of the groups involved in the plot had its own agenda—the Iranians wanted something to keep the Americans out of the Mideast, the drug cartels wanted a safe haven, the Mexican government wanted a safety valve for their poor. Behind it all was a gang of politicians, lawyers, and corporate executives interested in nothing more than stripping the new nation bare.

“Takes corporate piracy to a whole new level, doesn't it?” Teller growled. He was angry, angrier than he'd been in a long time, almost shaking with barely suppressed fury. Islamic fundamentalists were bad. So were drug cartel thugs. By far the worst, in his estimation, were the enemies who would tear the country apart from the inside, purely out of greed or a lust for power.

“Why would you people do something like this?” Procario asked. “You're all successful businessmen.”

“I guess we all had our reasons,” Walker said with a shrug. “My career was going nowhere.”

“My bank is being investigated by the FDIC,” Delaney said. “We're expecting them to bring suit any day now. Mortgage irregularities.”

“Same for Carl Fuentes. He's being investigated by the FBI for ties to the Mexican cartels. Logan's oil company is an empty shell right now, on the point of collapse. Carter's personal life is shot; his wife's leaving him. Joe Belsanno has political enemies inside the Beltway who are publishing unsavory things about his connections with certain groups.” Walker sighed. “Preston painted us all an attractive picture. A chance to say the hell with it and start over, relaxing on a beach somewhere in the South Pacific with hundreds of millions—maybe
billions
—invested in offshore banks and earning obscene amounts of interest.”

“No worries, no cares, no extradition, eh?” Teller said. “Just warm sunshine, pretty girls, and drinks with umbrellas in them.”

“So when did you find out he was going to attack Washington with nukes?” Procario asked. He sounded only mildly curious, but Teller saw the heat behind the eyes.

“A week ago,” Walker said. “I wanted out then, but I didn't see how I could pull it off.”

“He has those cartel thugs working for him,” Delaney added.

“Well, you have your chance now,” Teller told them. He didn't like it, but the McDee had told him how to play it. “
One
chance you get, that's all. I can't promise you won't be charged, but the attorney general is willing to cut you a deal if you cooperate with the investigation.”

“Anything,” Walker said. “
Anything.
I just want this nightmare to end.”

PRESTON

BOHEMIAN GROVE

MONTE RIO, CALIFORNIA

0232 HOURS, PDT

Preston's cell phone rang. It was Escalante. “What?”

“I sent two of my people over to the Security Office a little while ago,” Escalante told him. “They haven't reported back. I definitely think something's wrong.” There was a pause. “And Walker and Delaney aren't in their cabin.”

“Shit.” Escalante was right. There were too many suspicious things happening. A couple of security guards not at their post might be evidence of nothing more than drunkenness on duty—but this was four men now, plus the two on watch in the Security Office.

It was time to get the hell out—
now
.

“Okay. Meet me at the car.”

If someone had infiltrated the Bohemian Grove, they would have the main gate guarded. However, there were several other ways in and out known only to a few—including a dirt road leading down to a spot on the Russian River where Preston had hidden a Zodiac a few days ago. That would get them into town unobserved, where a car was waiting at a local garage.

He didn't like abandoning the others; more than anything, though, he hated abandoning the Program. So many years of careful work, of recruiting, of nurturing to bring the plan this far.

Long ago, Preston had decided that the United States of America was doomed. Even before he'd been tapped as the president's national security adviser, he'd been convinced that the country had, at most, another twenty years before it was engulfed in bloody chaos and economic collapse. He'd begun making preparations then, while he was still a department manager at the Fed. He'd been asked to join the National Security Council seven years earlier, and only last year been tapped as ANSA. Access to security briefings and secret intel from every branch of the intelligence community had only served to strengthen his conviction that America stood at the brink of apocalypse.

The only question was how to take advantage of the approaching collapse. He began—cautiously—to talk to others who shared his belief. Logan was a born-again Christian convinced that Armageddon was at hand; Walker thought that the international fiscal policies he was required to supervise would bleed the nation into economic collapse, and that his superiors didn't care; Gonzales believed passionately that Aztlán was part of the inevitable future march of history. Slowly, Preston had built his little group, playing on their fears and on their convictions. If America was to fall, it wouldn't hurt to nudge things a little—and to do so in a way that would make a few billion along the way. Not in dollars, obviously, or in unstable Euros. Gold, silver, platinum, and certificates of deposit easily converted to renminbi or Australian dollars or pesos or pounds sterling or whatever other currencies remained strong in the coming collapse. Preston had contacts within the PRC, and they'd been quite happy to have the Program invest in Chinese renminbi yuan. China's leaders hoped to internationalize their currency during the next few years, to make it a strong reserve currency.

In fact, the People's Republic, he thought, might be a good place for him to hole up for a while, to reassess and to rebuild. If the intruders here in the Grove tonight knew about the nukes, as seemed likely, they would go to considerable lengths to apprehend him.

He retrieved a pistol from a desk drawer, checked to see that it was loaded, then put on his jacket.

His phone rang. There was no caller ID.

Better not to answer it. During the past few years working with various intelligence agencies, he'd heard rumors, of course, of technologies allowing the government to turn cell phones into listening devices. The only hard information he'd seen on that had been reports of NSA intercepts of terrorist cell phone calls; the wilder stories, to the effect that the government could turn your phone into a listening device even when it was off, he'd discounted.

Now, though, he was beginning to wonder.

At his level, it wasn't necessary for him to know the details of signals intercepts, or the technologies that made them possible. He'd read thousands of reports of phone intercepts in Pakistan, of satellite infiltrations of electronic networks in China, of computer viruses inserted into Iranian nuclear labs …

He'd never once questioned how these myriad technological miracles had been worked.

He was met at the door by one of Escalante's thugs, a powerfully built Latino named Herrera holding an M-16 assault rifle. He looked nervous. “Señor Escalante, he says to hurry,” Herrera said. “Something here is not right!”

“Let's go, then.
Adelante.
”

They stepped out into the cool blackness of the night.

TELLER

BOHEMIAN GROVE

MONTE RIO, CALIFORNIA

0236 HOURS, PDT

The door to the Owl's Nest swung open on Teller's IR imager, and Preston joined the Mexican standing on the front porch.

“All units, November Sierra is in sight,” a voice said over the Bluetooth clipped to his ear. The Owl's Nest had been surrounded for over an hour now. Officially, the FBI was running this show, in the form of a Bureau special tactical team, but the real muscle was provided by Marcetti's ISA assault force. Teller, Procario, and Marcetti had left the confines of the van to close on the redwood château where their main target had been residing.

“He's not answering his phone,” Teller said over the tactical net. “Get his attention.”

Teller's arm, nestled in a black sling to keep it invisible in the darkness, was throbbing. The drugs they'd given him yesterday at Belvoir had long since worn off, but he'd decided not to take more. He wanted to be fully aware, alert, and functional when they took Preston down.

“Randolph Preston,” Marcetti's voice boomed out of the night, electronically amplified. “You are surrounded. Raise your hands immediately and—”

It all happened too fast to follow. The cartel gunman raised his M-16 and opened fire, blazing away in a broad semicircle. Preston lunged to the right and started running. The assault unit's snipers opened fire, sending multiple rounds into the gunman, who continued firing until his magazine went dry. Other shots directed at Preston missed as the man dodged behind the massive black bulk of a redwood.

Floodlights winked on, bathing the Grove's central area in a harsh white light. “Damn!” Procario snapped. “Where'd he go?”

“I've got him,” Teller said. He'd pulled up a Cellmap image on his smart phone, showing the blue icon tagged as Preston moving through a graphic map toward the lake. “He's headed for the Owl Shrine. C'mon!” Teller lurched from his hiding spot and raced through the trees, hoping that the surrounding snipers and tactical personnel got a clear ID on their target before opening fire.

The ground was uneven and descending, the path twisting through the enormous trees, some of which were over a thousand years old. Up ahead was the Owl Shrine, a stage next to an artificial lake at the center of the Grove. During the July revels, Teller had learned, the Shrine was the location of the Bohemian Club's Cremation of Care ceremony, as well as the venue for informal daily talks on public policy, government, and economic issues of interest to the attendees.

Teller emerged near the shore of the lake. To his left, a car was pulling up in front of the entrance to the shrine—Escalante. When the driver saw the lights glaring through the trees, however, he floored the accelerator and sent the vehicle squealing around in a half circle, leaving the running Preston behind.

“Preston!” Teller yelled. “Stop! Give it up!”

Fifty yards away, Preston stared at Teller, then turned and ran, apparently trying to make his way around the man-made pond. A startling apparition loomed up above the water—a forty-foot-tall statue, concrete on steel and covered with moss, of a titanic owl. Preston ran across the small wooden stage between statue and water, ducking to slip through beneath a wall of evergreen branches. Teller followed, pounding onto the wooden stage.

Gunfire cracked from the dark mass of evergreens ahead, two shots, and Teller felt the snap of one of the rounds going past. He was backlit, he realized, by the searchlight glare filtering through the forest behind him and immediately took the only option that presented itself, pitching to the side and over a wooden railing, hitting the pond with a noisy splash.

The pond was quite shallow and choked with algae and weeds, but Teller stayed beneath the surface as he moved forward across the muddy bottom. It was an awkward swim, one-handed, with his arm bound and his shoulder screaming at him. Preston, he knew, would do one of two things—run, or stay put and wait for him to emerge from the water. If he ran, other members of the tactical team were already moving to cut him off, and Teller would emerge from the pond, soaking wet and too late to participate in the capture.