True Lies - Redux

******************

Jim -

I was pretty much worried sick about Rachel, but I had to bury those feelings and focus on just what I was doing now, second by second.

We were on the way to the address the cabbie had given us. He was locked in the back seat.

Jennifer was with me and we were both armed now. I had my full sized M1911 Colt .45 ACP with that little P238 for backup plus my .22 WMR mini-revolver.

Jennifer had the cabbie's Glock 9mm as her major gun plus whatever hidden backups she might have. We were both dressed in just jeans and tees. Jenn's hair was up and she was wearing a ball cap.

We were discussing strategies and contingencies. The cabbie had given us the address and very little other info. Time was too short for extended tactical planning. It was decided she would get out two blocks before the street address and I'd wait 10 minutes for her to get in some kind of back up overwatch position. If there were more than four opponents waiting for me it was all going to be very iffy, anyway. Our only real advantage was surprise. After all, I was supposed to be caged and controlled before even showing up there.

After the short wait I drove on up. And Jenn was just in plain site in front of the address - a warehouse type building with a garage door open.

"Nobody's here." Jenn said.

We dragged the cabbie out and into the warehouse. He wasn't looking good.

"Why shouldn't I just kill you right now?" I asked him in a quiet voice.

"Look, this is the place," he answered in a shaky voice. "I've driven for these guys before. I'm just a driver, independent of their mob."

"Who are they?"

"Russians, I think. They sound Russian and all I know is some first names. An Ivan and a Dimitry. They always pay cash, $500 generally. This was my first $1000 job - just delivering people like you."

"Where's their hangout?"

"This is it. All I know. They just call my phone when they need me."

I had his phone and went through his call list with him and he pointed out the number.

Jennifer and I huddled up.

"What are we going to do with him?" Jennifer asked.

"Shit. I don't want to kill him. Let's drop him off about a block from an ER. That should give us time to drive close to a metro station while he hobbles in for treatment. I don't think calling someone on us is his top priority right now. Then let's go to Alexandria via cab and get a hotel room and just try and meet Elaine, tomorrow. He knows where my apartment is but I have to think it's already compromised anyway. I expect official or non-official goons to show up there pretty soon. Somebody sure knows I'm still free by now.

"You got everything you need, OK?" I asked Jennifer.

"No. But I agree with you. We'll both need to use standard tradecraft for "invisibility" and keep our faces out of public cameras. If NSA gets the green light to locate us, they'll turn the supercomps facial recognition software on against every public camera database from last night forward. You wouldn't believe how fast the supercomputers can handle and process images now. Shit, it's close to realtime when they crank it up with highest priority."

"How are you set for cash?" I asked.

"I've got a couple thousand plus two "other identity" credit cards - a Discover card and a VISA. How about you?"

"Just a couple hundred and my personal cards - now junk - and that unlimited "agency" AX card that might or might not be compromised. I can't use it until I talk to Elaine."

"OK, I'll get us a room for two tonight at the Alexandria Best Western with my "Susan Smith" Visa. We'll take separate cabs and you just stay outside and watch me head to our room."

That Best Western was a motel type with external entries to the rooms.

We got in the room OK and talked for a while. I know Jennifer was upset and scared.

I was upset and a little frightened as well. Still very worried about Rachel. I had no clue who really had her and how she was...being treated.

Jennifer and I slept together once again, and ended up making desperate love. It was an emotional "reinforcement" kind of love making. It allowed her to relax and fall asleep with the subconscious feeling of safety in a strong man's arms. At least for this one night.

It also drained some of the tension out of my own body, but afterwards I lay there physically relaxed but still thoughtful mentally. I didn't know what I would do if Rachel was harmed even more than she already had been. God forbid she might pay the ultimate price for my own failings.

Things seemed to be going so well for so many years. I had my own meaningful career "as part of something greater than myself" and I had my own personal love in a beautiful and loving wife.

But not for the first time lately, I began to question if I had my priorities straight, all along.

Somehow I had put "my country" ahead of my wife, and even God. And what was "my country"? The people of the United States of America? Just an idea embodied in the Constitution - and all it's complexities? If some parts of "my country" were now diametrically opposed to other parts - where did my own loyalties lie, and why? Hadn't this already occurred in one terrible Civil War? Maybe my priorities should have been: God, wife and family, trusted friends, and THEN "country"?

The natural state of human affairs is basically this kind of "tribalism". Most humans down through our entire species history have lived in small tribal village or wandering hunter-gatherer groupings - like for about 190,000 out of the 200,000 years science shows we have existed. This tribalism still pops up in modern man in all kinds of ways - from "gangbangers" in the 'hood - to the REAL reason modern American soldiers fight so hard and often die in battle. Not for "flag and country" but for one's brothers in arms on either side in the battle line - good and trusted brethren of any sex.

Many human organizations down through the ages have been structured this "tribal" way - from the "Godfather" concept of the Mafia gang which is much like the true "client-patron" (clientela patronage) polity of the pagan Roman Empire, to indeed the organization of "the Agency", made up of principled individuals who trusted friends and comrades more so than a shifting political "leadership" and/or just bureaucratic kiss-ass personal career enrichment types. Most of these personal relationships had been forged in fire and hardened by quenching disappointments in national trends and National Leadership gross failures. Half hearted warfare that needlessly caused wounding and loss of life to faithful men and women in uniform, and appeasement of enemies that certainly seemed to any sane person as "common sense" evil, were but two examples of these biting disappointments.

Augustine, not Jesus, first broached the concepts and ideas about "just war" - that good Christians COULD use violence in opposition to evil on Earth. But never for merely "personal gain." And only when "proper Earthly authorities" declared war for the proper reasons and proper goals - chiefly to objectively prevent even greater evil. Keeping the USA together as one political entity probably would not have qualified to most Catholic theologians. But ending racist slavery? Yes. That would have qualified. Not fully defeating an evil when war was deemed necessary hardly qualified, either.

Thomas Aquinas and then the Salamanca School of Catholic Scholastics fleshed out the thinking on "just war." But that was in the 13th century and later. By the 11th century AD about half the world of "Christendom" had already disappeared - basically the tens of millions of Christians in North Africa, the Middle East, Southern and even Far East Asia - including Japan - were no longer allowed to be Christians by totalitarian edict and draconian measures.

In China, first this was an edict of the Taoist Emperors. In North Africa and the Middle East it was the spreading of Islam, especially the much more virulent Islam of the newly converted Turkic peoples. It was these Turkic converts that really started the war on Christians in the Middle East - and then on the European Christian Pilgrimages to the Holy Land that Arab Muslims had until this point allowed quite peaceably, enjoying the taxes and "tourist" commerce the Pilgrims happily brought. The Crusades was the response of Catholic Europe to these increased attacks. Eventually the Crusades did totally fail, and Islam completed the conquest of Constantinople - the Eastern Roman Empire - and all the Balkans and continued advancing into Eastern Europe until the Battle of Vienna in 1683.

Was it a lack of implementation of "just war" principles that doomed Christianity in those other parts of the world? How far would Islam have extended in Europe if brave Christians had not fought them in mostly defensive battles time and again? Was it merely dilution of Christianity by "Eastern mysticism"? Certainly many pagan festival traditions were absorbed into Christianity in Northern and Western Europe, but the real negatives of paganism were kept out, especially human sacrifice and annual orgies surrounding the winter solstice. But also the pessimism of "the fickle Gods control all our destinies. Woe is us." What Judaism started and Christianity very much continued and improved on was merely the idea progress WAS possible here on Earth in the present and future.

One of the biggest turning points of history was Genghis Khan, whose hordes originally were a mixture of Animist pagans and Buddhists, religiously. Genghis received emissaries from Islam and Christianity and after due reflection, chose Islam. This is the major reason Islam became the religion of all those "-stan" countries and the "Mughals" ruled India, and then Kublai Khan and his Yuan (Islamic) dynasty ruled China for many decades. Neither Hinduism nor Taoism or Buddhism were totally wiped out in these Asian countries, but Christianity pretty much was until the English eventually brought a version of Christianity back - backed by English guns and some forms of "just warfare". But mostly "might makes right" gun boat diplomacy - not hardly the true message of Christ, after all.

Well, when you're hip deep in alligators it's a little late to remember the original plan was to drain the fucking swamp. And I was hip deep in a lot of personal alligators, right now. As well as the world at large hip deep in revived aggressive Islam.

I really hated the idea that I was going to have to be a "lone wolf" cowboy type and save the day. In real history successful human "lone wolves" were just about as successful as REAL "lone wolves" in nature - that is, not hardly at all. Humans and wolves were both social mammals and teamwork was absolutely essential to survival, much less any other greater kind of success. At a minimum I needed some form my own team back - Jennifer and Elaine and hopefully some other resources and members Elaine could identify.

I would need them for any hope of eventual success. Eventual success right now meant getting Rachel back and eliminating my now personal deadly enemies, apparently. I had not personally killed anyone else in my intelligence career, so far. I guess I always had that moral theological message of Gandalf to Frodo about Gollum in "Lord of the Rings". The one about death being final and the real one thing that can't be undone and every human should have a chance at personal redemption while alive on Earth. And any human may even play a much larger role in the world than any of us could imagine in our own present time. Ultimately Gollum's early death not happening DID prevent Sauron from acquiring the Ring and Frodo being totally corrupted by the Ring of power. Just a pleasant fiction? Or an important moral and philosophic point?

Maybe Grayson had a bigger - and ultimately positive role to play in the world? Hard to imagine what that might be now. He WAS a flop as a "turned" agent for "us" against Iran and just possibly a nuclear armageddon kicked off by Iran in the not too distant future...

It was these kinds of thoughts that eventually allowed me to get to sleep - just trying to stay "objectively rational' rather than "subjectively feeling" and just crying my heart out over Rachel's fate and that of her poor parents.

*************

Senator Charles Reyburn of Maine, conservative opposition majority party chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was in a meeting starting at 10AM the next morning.

The meeting was held at his own northern Virginia farm. The farmhouse was large and well appointed but in no way a mansion. After all, Senator Reyburn was a career public servant and was hardly "filthy rich." Filthy, perhaps a little, yes. And pretty rich, also yes. The filthy riches were really coming once he finally retired and wrote a book, started public speaking, and began lobbying and "consulting".

Also in attendance was Senator Chance Reade from Nevada, liberal minority party Senate leader; Congresswoman Elizabeth Carliosi from California, liberal minority House leader; Jeb Jameson, Secretary of DHS; Carolyn Nance, National Security Advisor to the President; and Grayson Peterson III.

Normally Grayson would easily have been the top dog in this meeting. After all, in his flush days only weeks ago, he had already donated a million or so in campaign funds - legal and maybe not quite so legal - to every single one of these politicians - and three times as much to the current POTUS, represented by his equally fanatical liberal advisors, Nance and Jameson.

But instead of resources of 1000 million dollars or so, to manage all things, Grayson was currently down to less than three million - and was a veritable pauper now.

Reyburn was host but NSA Carolyn Nance, as the closest personal advisor to the President was really running the meeting. After everyone had their coffee poured for them by the servants, she started pretty bluntly.

"Grayson, what the fuck happened?"

"Why don't your boy from DHS fill us all in!" Grayson said rather red faced, then continued,

"It was some people from your own Alphabet Soup intelligence agencies that did it! What the fuck...how the fuck did that happen? You know damn well I was just helping this Admin and their goals as requested!"

"Is that true, Jeb?

Jeb was looking a little perturbed. It MIGHT have been that "boy" comment referring to him - since he was a very proud African-American - which also meant he fought constant low self-esteem issues, much like the current President.

"I'm working on it. It all came as quite a shock. Apparently there are quite a few rogue agents in several different agencies that appear loosely organized and working together on some projects neither officially approved nor authorized. We've identified several individuals for sure and neutralized them with administrative actions - like moving them basically into gilded cages of constant monitoring by definitely loyal employees. We've especially focused on the managers at higher levels with the broadest security intel access and budget spending authority. Control the money...and pretty much everything else follow."

"Well, that's all fine and dandy but how do I get MY money back?!? And just who is that fucking Jim Johnson, Rachel Johnson's hubby?"

"He's on the books as an NSA language expert/interpreter/analyst at a very low level, but with no real identifiable manager or office. That's all a little strange and we're still investigating him, but I'm afraid he has kind of disappeared and may have run into some foul play. Apparently his estranged wife Rachel and her family had some recent problems as well. We're not sure exactly what happened there.

"Do you know anything about this, Grayson?"

"Of course not."

Nothing in this meeting was being officially recorded of course - except all participants were recording just for their own self-protective benefits. Still the basic ground rules had been established long ago - NEVER admit to or even discuss any actual criminal activity. Only general goals, needs, desires, broad strategies and only legal tactics were ever discussed.

Everyone here just wanted peace and happiness for everyone in the whole world. Utopia for all, and the MOST important thing for each individual in this room - maintaining their own place of power in this world while grabbing ever more. The establishment was a great place to be. And as the government pie got ever larger, so did these folks "rightful share" of that pie.

There was a moment of silence. Grayson was still glaring. Finally National Security Advisor Nance said, "We can probably get you some working capital right away. Like maybe $50 million from some of the newly freed up Iranian impounded monies. I take it you can't get that directly from Iran yourself?"

"Ha. You saw that Web site video, right? I've got all kinds of Shia and Sunni fanatics gunning for me. I've still got some friends in Iran Intelligence myself, but even their hands are tied now just not wanting to take any chances on their OWN fanatics. The kind that like to chop heads first and then let Allah sort it out. What about returning all my hidden account monies?"

"Unfortunately we have no record of anyone in the US Intel community freezing or seizing those accounts. This happened in Paris? Might have been French intelligence, and I've asked but only gotten a runaround so far. Fucking French...On the other hand, all you have to do is get SOMEONE in the Iranian government vouch for you as their agent and that'll give us enough cover to get you your money."

"But then, what can you do for us now?" Nance asked a tad pointedly to Grayson.

"You know my quite general contacts and capabilities. You all will keep getting my support in all ways," Grayson replied.

They all knew this was both monetarily and whenever something not quite legal or even grossly illegal needed doing. Grayson had all the necessary contacts.

"Alright. What about the Iran mess? Iranians seem happy so far, yes?" Nance addressed Jameson on this question.

Jeb replied, "As long as nothing gets publicized - the charges that they still claim are absolutely false that Iran is pursuing nuclear WMD's development - they'll stay happy. They are starting to chaff that Congress hasn't approved the treaty, though."

Reyburn had to laugh. "Hell, we can NOT approve a treaty they haven't even signed yet. And apparently they're not going to do that. The President has got the best of all worlds, right now - a "publicity" coup and "legacy" accomplishment of a Nuclear Arms deal that is vocal only - and hardly that! Yet I'm controlling Congress enough that we won't impeach his ass even though he keeps pulling Executive Orders out of it. Do you guys really want a Nuclear armed Iran?"

Carliosi jumped in. "Of course not, Charlie! What we all want is a nuclear free world. However, parity of Nuclear arms between competing nations - nations who have different but equal religions and culture, economic schemes and morality - just seems to work best in actually preventing Nuclear and other wars. Now, if Iran somehow manages to develop their own Nuclear capability, that will undoubtedly help their own self-esteem and settle them right down as far as rhetoric and terrorist support.

"I've got psychological study after study that proves that is just the most normal human male behavior. It's merely science and you can't argue against science. It's too bad so many voting Americans just don't understand science, any more!"

Everyone was nodding wisely at this but Reyburn and Grayson. Reyburn thought it was all nuts, but not critically so. Grayson just didn't care. He just wanted his own money and independent personal power back. He was also wondering who the hell was going after Jim and Rachel Johnson, and why?

Because for sure he wasn't. If he NEVER saw Rachel or Jim or especially that bitch Jennifer again it would be WAY too soon. The worst day of his life was the day he first noticed Rachel flashing her scanties at him. That fucking cunt. And his own fucking brainless pecker. He knew she was married and at that time it just added to the spice. Fucking another man's wife and eventually degrading her more and more just tickled his own vanity. Well, fuck that now!