Chapter 66

CHAPTER 66

A FTER A LATE NIGHT DOING some research on several law enforcement databases, and speaking with Campbell and other folks at DHS, Devine was getting dressed early the following morning when someone knocked on the hotel room door.

It was Saxby, focused and grim.

“Betsy’s still asleep,” he told her.

“I actually wanted to talk to you. After how it was left yesterday,” she added.

“Superiors order you here to try to repair the situation with more bullshit?”

“Can we just have a conversation, Travis? Please?”

They sat down across from each other.

He said, “I have a long to-do list so can you get on with it?”

“We have to assume that 12/24/65 knows about you taking Betsy back to her home. So we need to have a plan to counteract that as best we can.”

“You mind if I call them something else? Reciting that date is getting old.”

“What do you want to call them?”

“Let’s call a spade a spade. How about traitors ?”

Saxby smiled. “Works for me.”

“And how do they know I’m taking Betsy to her home?”

“My father was an arborist, down in Arkansas. When I was growing up, he told me that the hardest part of his business was surprising his customers with unexpected news. That a healthy-looking tree had root rot, or blight or some other disease that would kill it. But the worst of all he told me was one thing.”

“What was that?”

“Termites. Everything could look absolutely fine. A mighty oak looked as strong as solid rock, happy and healthy. But when you looked underneath the surface, it was full of holes, hollowed out, about to give way, bringing the whole thing down when it looked so pristine on the surface. He called it being eaten from the inside out.”

“And that’s where we are?”

“We have termites all over the place, Devine, and they are eating away at the very foundations of this country. And no secret is apparently safe from them.”

“Then instead of traitors, let’s just call them termites .”

Saxby smiled again, even more broadly than before.

“You should do that more often, Ellen, it wears well on you.” He hunkered down. “So what’s the plan?”

“A joint ops team has already met with Nate Shore and Korey Rose, at a location away from the trailer. They seem to be solid people with Betsy’s best interests at heart.”

“They are.”

“We can’t make it obvious that we’re protecting the place, although 12—I mean the Termites —will suspect that we’ll be all over it. But we will be there, Devine. Guaranteed.”

“And on the trip out to Kittitas?”

“You will be tailed, discreetly, but agents will be there.”

“They’ll know all this is happening, if they have people on the inside.”

“Yes, but this time they won’t know everything, because we have kept some things so tight, even the Termites have no access.”

“With so much protection, will the Termites even make an attempt on Betsy or Glass?”

“That’s the crux of the matter, Devine. They have to. When I say Glass’s testimony and documentation will devastate them, I am not embellishing. We have over a hundred arrest and search warrants ready to execute when Glass goes on the record and DOJ gives the go-ahead to round these assholes up. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. And the media will have a field day, because some of the names that are going to come down? Household ones. In high places, politicians, religious leaders, media, business, police, military all working in concert to topple the government.”

“Well, you know what they say, the higher they are, the more it hurts when they hit dirt. But how the hell did Glass get such valuable evidence on all those sorts of people?”

“These folks need large sums of money to fund their operations. And it can’t just come from their own pockets or illegally hijacked political or religious donations. That would cause too many problems and leave a trail. So they’ve turned to criminal activity to get what they need: money for recruiting, equipping, and paying boots on the ground. Glass was able to facilitate all that. And then he laundered the funds on the other end through all of his legal platforms. He’s got rock-solid evidence on many of the movement’s leaders because of that.”

“Why would they trust one guy that much?”

“Danny Glass is a world-class salesman, the king of grift. He can talk a poor man out of his last dollar and convince a rich one he’s their best friend. The fact that he quit the Army and gave them the finger at the same time also didn’t hurt because the Termites hate America, at least what it looks like today, as well as all institutions associated with it, particularly the military, which they see as an obstacle to their aim of overthrowing the government. And Glass is a criminal. He had every incentive to play it straight with them just so he’d stay out of prison.”

“If Glass is so good at his job, how did you guys nail him?”

Now Saxby, exuberant before, seemed to withdraw. “I can’t get into that with you, Devine.”

Before, this would have ticked Devine off, but that was before, not now. “Okay. But you laid out a potential problem and you haven’t answered it.”

“What’s that?”

“Betsy Odom. She’s leverage against Glass. If the Termites tell Glass they won’t harm her so long as he doesn’t cooperate, where does that leave all of you?”

Again, Saxby looked troubled. “I won’t lie to you, Devine, and tell you that’s not a concern. Glass has been less forthcoming recently. And at this point we are not at all sure of his cooperation, which is absolutely vital to our national interests. That’s why we had to resort to the plan with using Betsy as bait. We otherwise would never have done that. But we’re pretty much desperate now. We have got to pull the trigger on this.”

“So if he doesn’t cooperate, what, you reinstate the RICO case?”

“I haven’t asked DOJ that question. But I imagine they would.”

“But then the Termites go free to rain destruction on this country?” said Devine.

“We’ll have to come up with another way to get to them.”

“How long will you wait to see what Glass is going to do?” asked Devine.

“Our intel is telling us that the Termites are not far off from commencing the initial phases of their coup attempt. Once that’s done, Glass becomes irrelevant.”

“Thanks for the info, Ellen. I mean it.”

“Good luck. Day or night, call if you need anything.”

She left Devine there and he was about to finish packing when someone knocked on his door again.

Jesus, it’s like Grand Central this morning.

It was Braddock and Walker.

“I thought we were going to be strip-searched before they’d let us up here,” said Braddock.

“Welcome to my brave new world, Detective,” replied Devine.