Treason (26 page)

If the men stopped to question him, he wouldn't understand their orders and he would have no choice but to draw his pistols and kill them.
Then what?

Miles lowered his eyes in submission as the Land Rover continued its turn without stopping and made its way back to the gated entrance.

There was no point in asking the herder what the security guard had told him without Hani being there to interpret. When they finally collected the goats and made the arduous trip back to the hut and pens, it was turning dark. They found her squatting over a fire preparing dinner.

As he moved toward the fire to greet her, Miles noticed that Hani's eyes were puffy and one was black.

“What happened?” he asked.

She ignored his question and lifted her headscarf to cover what appeared to be bruises on her face. The herder also noticed and spoke to her in a harsh voice. Hani retired from the outside fire to the hut. The old man poured them milk from a pot resting on a stone next to the hot coals, and when they squatted near the campfire, he pointed at Miles's waist.

Miles drew one of his pistols from its hiding place, removed its metal ammunition clip, pulled back the slide so he could empty the gun's chambered round, and handed the now unloaded pistol to the old man, who snatched it from his grasp.

As Miles watched, the goat herder expertly disassembled the handgun before reassembling it and returning it to Miles in a move meant to demonstrate his expertise.

Leaving the herder by the fire, Miles reloaded the weapon, tucked it back under his shirt, and walked to the hut's door flap.

“May I come inside?” he asked.

She did not reply, so he lifted the door covering and stepped inside.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “What happened to you while we were gone?”

“It is not of your concern.”

For an awkward moment neither spoke, and then he said, “Two security guards came out of Umoja Owiti's estate this afternoon and said something to your father.”

“Yes, he told me when you first returned with the goats.”

“What did they say to him?”

“They said he could graze his goats tomorrow but he could not come the day after that. If he did, they will kill his goats.”

Miles glanced again at her puffy face, which was illuminated by the oil lamp.

“Was it Al-Shabaab who hurt you?” he asked.

She pulled away from the flickering light. He wanted to say something comforting to her, but he didn't know what to say, so he left her alone in the hut. Outside its entrance, he counted his paces until he had walked to a sandy spot about fifteen feet from the hut's entrance. Dropping to his knees, he began digging with his knife until its metal blade struck metal. Using his hands now, he unearthed the AK-47 and extra ammunition that he had hidden there that morning before leaving with the old man and goats.

Returning to the campfire, he handed the assault rifle to the goat herder, who immediately began breaking it down, cleaning it.

It was time, Miles decided, to even the playing field.

Chief of Staff Mallory Harper's office

The White House

Washington, D.C.

O
mar Nader telephoned Mallory Harper's office and asked for an appointment to see her. The matter was private and urgent, he told her secretary. Within an hour, the secretary returned his nine a.m. call. Harper could see him at one p.m.

It was only a ten-minute walk from the OIN headquarters on K Street to the White House, but Nader left his office at twelve thirty, knowing it would take time for the Secret Service to clear him at the White House's front gate, even though Harper's secretary had supplied them with his Saudi Arabian diplomatic passport number and he'd been admitted as a visitor on earlier occasions.

As he approached Lafayette Park, across from the White House, Nader thought about what he hoped to accomplish during their face-to-face. His goal was to seek Harper's help in stopping Representative Thomas Edgar Stanton from investigating Muslim mosques and Imams. Nader had heard from well-placed sources that Harper wasn't personally fond of Stanton.

Derailing the hearings would not be simple or easy. Chairman Stanton had lots of friends in Congress, having accumulated plenty of political IOUs during his many years in office. He also belonged to the same political party as President Allworth, and that prevented Harper from launching any overt actions against him.

Nader thought he knew why Harper disliked Stanton. She could not control him. Nearly all senators and House members had the same Achilles' heel. Once elected, they wanted desperately to remain in office. This made them easy for a president to manipulate. All it took in most instances was the offer of a piece of prime federal pork to serve voters back home—a fish hatchery, a regional office for some federal agency, or funding for a legislator's pet project. If those goodies were not enough to make an elected leader in Congress dance, the White House could crack a whip. Delaying the appointment of a federal judge, holding back the release of block grant funding, or killing a legislator's pet bill were all threats that only the foolhardy ignored.

Unfortunately for Harper and the White House, Representative Stanton was not easily cajoled. Even worse, he could fight back. The Chairman could tie up legislation that the White House wanted passed. As an incumbent, Stanton also appeared to be unbeatable. His approval rating in his South Carolina district was the highest in Congress.

Even without his strong voter base and his influential connections, Stanton would have been difficult for any president to manipulate. He paid little attention to what his pollsters or his political party bosses said. Stanton genuinely believed that he knew what was best for the nation and that made him unpredictable. The White House could never be a hundred percent certain what he might do.

Stanton's call for investigative hearings had unleashed a new wave of anti-Muslim rhetoric. All Muslims were being typecast as terrorists, and Islam in general was being defamed. Stanton had to be stopped and also punished before this wave became a typhoon.

By the time Nader entered the White House grounds, he'd decided the best way to get Harper's help would be by appealing to her vanity. He arrived five minutes before his one p.m. appointment. Thirty minutes later, he was escorted into Harper's office. She offered no apology for making him wait. After they exchanged niceties, Nader made his pitch.

“I've come to ask you for advice about a political matter. It's about Chairman Stanton. The OIN and I, personally, are distressed about the anti-Muslim feelings that he is generating. He is promoting fearmongering, and his call for law enforcement to become more aggressive in infiltrating mosques and censoring Imams is blatant profiling and a threat to religious freedom.”

“I may agree,” Harper replied, “but like it or not, Chairman Stanton's call for hearings has struck a nerve with many Americans. They are afraid of homegrown terrorism, and polls show a large number of them believe that political correctness has gotten out of hand. The recent attacks here in Washington haven't helped your cause.”

“If Stanton goes forward with committee hearings, he is going to further alarm and inflame the public. What will happen next? Will Muslims be gathered up into internment camps like your country gathered up the Japanese? Will mosques be closed, Imams arrested? Will Muslims be deported or not allowed to enter your country? Stanton is dangerous, which is why I need your guidance.”

“Why are you asking me for advice?”

Nader glanced around her office. Hanging on its walls were pho
tographs of Harper posing with President Allworth, various Washington power brokers, and international leaders. “Isn't it obvious? You are the top of the mountain. You understand American politics and, despite my best efforts to educate myself, I come from a nation ruled by a king and royal family. None of us is as skilled as you are at dealing civilly with political opponents.”

“In a monarchy you simply arrest them or worse.”

“You must admit,” Nader said with a smile, “prison and death are effective deterrents. But I do not think you and President Allworth have that luxury with Representative Stanton.”

“You do realize that Stanton and the president belong to the same party, don't you?”

“Of course, but that should not keep the president from defending America's core values. I would like to offer the president an opportunity to do exactly that.”

“What type of opportunity?”

“The OIN will soon announce plans for a million-man Muslim march on Washington. We will be calling on all Muslims to come to show their support for religious freedom and tolerance. And we would like the president to support our march.”

“As long as it is nonviolent, I am fairly certain she will be open to releasing a statement.”

“We are hoping for more than a mere statement. We would like the president to speak at our rally about the importance of religious freedom.”

“The president would need to know more details before committing to a speech. But your chances of getting her to attend would be better if you didn't bill this as a Muslim march, but rather as a march for all faiths. You could include Christians, Jews, and other faiths.”

Nader shook his head in amazement. “You see, this is why I have come seeking your advice. That is a brilliant idea. Consider it done.”

“I'm not clear how a march will solve your problem with Chairman Stanton,” Harper said.

“We are trying to shame and embarrass him. I'm certain you have heard that we put him on our list of Islamophobic Americans.”

“And that probably made him more popular, not less.”

“You see my frustration then,” Nader replied. “Perhaps, you can offer me some better ideas—unofficially, of course.”

Mallory Harper studied the seasoned diplomat sitting across from her cluttered desk. She did not believe Omar Nader was as naïve as he was pretending. Rather, he was probing. He was trying to learn if she, and more importantly the president, would be willing to help the OIN go after Stanton.

What Nader had no way of knowing was that Mallory Harper was just as eager to destroy the Chairman as was the OIN. Her interest in ridding herself of Stanton went beyond her personal disdain for him. The Chairman still intended to conduct hearings in the future about the Somalia embassy debacle—hearings that would badly embarrass the president.

Harper lowered her voice to a whisper. “Unofficially,” she said, “I will offer you some advice.” Pushing back in her chair, she turned sideways so she was now facing her computer. Typing quickly on its keyboard, she explained, “I'm going to assume that you haven't seen an interview that Chairman Stanton gave after his press conference to a reporter from his home district. The interview was for a cable television show on a local access channel. No one ever watches these shows, but stations are obligated by their licenses to provide a certain amount of free programming to the locals.”

“You are correct, I am not aware of this.”

Having found what she was after, Harper turned her computer screen so he could watch the interview from where he was sitting. The reporter questioning Stanton looked as if he were still in high school.

“What you're doing doesn't seem any different from Senator Joseph McCarthy's claim in the 1950s that communists were infiltrating the federal government—those charges turned out to be nothing but fearmongering and hate speech that destroyed lives and Hollywood careers.”

“Young man,” Stanton said, clearly irked, “you need to take another look at your history books. It was the House Committee on Un-American Activities that blacklisted hundreds of actors, writers, and directors after World War Two because they were suspected of being communists, not Senator Joe McCarthy.”

“But that committee and McCarthy both engaged in false accusations and smearing innocent Americans. That's what McCarthyism is,” the reporter replied, standing his ground.

It was Stanton's next statement that Harper wanted Nader to hear. Rather than condemning the much-shamed Wisconsin Republican senator, Stanton said: “It's Joe McCarthy who has been falsely smeared by history. The Soviet Union was planting sleeper agents inside our government—in the highest levels of power. What McCarthy was warning the American people about was real. He got in trouble because he was bombastic and that actually aided the Reds.”

Harper turned off the interview being shown on her computer and turned back in her chair so she could face Nader. “Joe McCarthy,” she said, “is one of the most vilified politicians in American history. McCarthyism is synonymous with irresponsibility and hyperbole. Stanton has handed you his own head on a platter. All you need to do is shift the public debate away from Muslims and onto him.”

She could tell from the intense look on Nader's face that he was eager to hear more, so she continued. “Some ten to twelve thousand Americans lost their jobs during the height of McCarthyism because they were accused of being communists. More than three hundred Hollywood movie stars were blacklisted. It is considered one of the darkest periods politically in U.S. history. And yet you have Stanton on a video defending McCarthy, no, applauding him. Do you understand how that could be interpreted? We live in a twenty-four-hour news cycle. We live in an age of social media. Imagine the political fallout if someone posted a montage on the Internet of what Stanton is saying today interspersed with Joe McCarthy's rants.”

Harper wasn't yet done. “Do you know who the most offended Americans were by McCarthyism? It was the media. Edward R. Murrow, a pioneer television journalist, went on the air exposing McCarthy. His broadcasts led to his censure and ultimately to public opinion turning against him. Murrow's actions are considered one of the greatest moments in the history of journalism. It's time you put Stanton on trial for attacking the country's core values of fairness, honesty, religious freedom, and freedom of speech.” She paused for a moment to catch her breath and then said, “You need to understand that Thomas Stanton has always enjoyed an excellent relationship with the media. They have never put him through the meat grinder. He's always been loved. Exposing him as a political reincarnation of Joe McCarthy and the embodiment of McCarthyism will devastate him.” She sat back in her chair, having finished her soliloquy, but then added, “Unofficially speaking.”

“Would the OIN have a friend or foe in the White House if someone took that anonymous unofficial advice?”

“I believe the president would feel that she didn't have a dog in the fight. Chairman Stanton would need to defend himself,” Harper replied. “But if you decide to launch a crusade against him, you need to go all in. You don't want Stanton coming back at you at some later point.”

“I'm not certain that I know what ‘all in' means in this context.”

“I will assume the OIN will be actively supporting his opponent when Stanton runs for reelection. Is that correct?”

Now Nader understood. While she had posed her remark as a question, it was clearly a recommendation.

“If you are aware of a viable candidate,” he replied, “the OIN would be grateful to hear his name.”

“Mr. Nader, as you pointed out earlier, Chairman Stanton is a member of the president's party. No one in our party would dare challenge him in a primary because he is so popular and it would be unprofessional of me to help the other side field a candidate. But I believe the last person from the opposition to challenge him was a college professor from Smithville University. Are you familiar with that school?”

“Unfortunately, I'm embarrassed to say I am not.”

“It's in the heart of South Carolina's Third Congressional District, which Stanton represents. You probably missed it because Smithville University is a small private Christian university supported by the South Carolina Baptist Convention. Although it is very highly ranked for its academics, it remains a tiny fish.”

“My I ask the name of this professor who challenged Stanton?”

“Dr. Robert Powers. I believe he teaches mathematics there.”

“But you said Stanton easily defeated him.”

“Yes, he did, but post-election polls showed that Powers might have won if he'd had better financing and better messaging. You see, the Third District has always been a Democratic stronghold, but in recent years, voters have been electing more and more Republicans. This is a trend across the entire South where voters are abandoning their ties to the old Democratic Party in favor of more socially conservative views.”