sent up the line, but the reports get trashed by some senior level analyst because they don’t support his or her views.”
“Okay. What else would I be doing?” Darren asked.
Both men sat quietly for a few moments. Burcks started drumming the desk with the eraser end of a pencil as he pondered how to answer Darren.
Darren broke the silence, “I have a suspicion there’s something lurking in the bushes. Or another shoe to fall, as they say.” Burcks smiled as he glanced up.
“You have good instincts. Yeah, we’ve got a major problem emerging. In addition to the Osama and a lot of angry Arabs, we’ve an increasing number of new American super patriots who may want to use the current state of fear and instability to establish their own political agenda. State militias have been cropping up like Johnson grass. Extremism seems to spread like a virus. Some of these nuts may eventually connect with foreign terrorists, if they haven’t already. We have to contain this thing before it gets out of hand.”
“Yeah, unfortunately Ruby Ridge and Waco created waves,” Darren recalled stating.
“Yeah. Well, whatever. Darren, I don’t know if this is as serious as some think. America has always had a fringe bunch like the John Birchers or the KKK. But we can’t take chances. There are reports that there are sleeper cells out there composed of domestic and foreign terrorists. I would like you to quietly focus on these kooky people. We want to know who the leaders are, what they’re thinking and planning. And, most important, if they’ve had any contact with Arab terrorists.”
“I understand. But I’ll need some time to think about all this.”
“You’ve got two hours. Use the office across the hall from Ms. Clark. Use the phone. Call anyone you need to. Let me have your decision at once. I have a narrow window of time to act on this.”
Stunned, Darren got up to leave, then turned and asked, “General, do you think some of our domestic terrorists were responsible for the outbreak of anthrax after the World Trade Center catastrophe?”
“We don’t know.” Then, as an aside he added, “But I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Darren turned and exited as ordered. He pondered his situation as he stood at the window watching the heavy traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Finally, Ms. Clark stuck her head in and beckoned him. “Ready?”
“Shocked that his time was up, Darren’s eyes widened. He sucked in his breath, exhaled, then whispered, “Yes.”
“Go on into the General’s office. He’s waiting.”
The wood floor squeaked slightly as Darren strode across the wide hall, through Ms. Clark’s office and into Burcks’. He knocked on the doorjamb at the open doorway and peeked inside. Burcks motioned him in as he finished signing some papers and stacked them in an out-basket.
Leaning back in his chair, he asked, “Well, did you decide?”
Quietly, Darren said, “I’ll take a shot.”
“Well, don’t look so forlorn! We’re not going to put you against a wall and shoot you,” laughed Burcks. “At least not now!”
“I know. Sorry about that. A change of this magnitude is always difficult.”
Burcks rose from his desk, came around and shook Darren’s hand as he said with a serious frown, “Sure it is. Welcome aboard!” He took Darren’s right elbow and gently ushered him toward the door as he continued, “The security check is done, so you can start immediately. Ms. Clark has arranged a car to take you to your hotel. Let her know your transition travel plans and she’ll arrange the tickets and have them delivered to your hotel tonight. She’ll fill you in. Again, good to have you aboard.”
The smell of freshly brewed coffee brought Darren back to the present. He poured a cup and returned to his office. He sat at the round table next to the windows. The snowstorm mesmerized him as he waited for Ms. Clark and Burcks. He reflected on his recent experiences at the NSC. After almost a year in the belly of the whale, as Darren dubbed the federal bureaucracy, he learned that one’s Washington career does, in fact, revolve around who you know and not what you know. He tired of the phonies and psychos seeking positions of power to placate their weak egos. The frantic bureaucratic activity over the months changed him, made him heartless and angry. If not for his affection for his boss and a growing concern over the increasing terrorist activities, he would prefer to return to Global Analysis.
While the Arab terrorists had been pretty quiet since the Afghan and Iraqi wars, the number of criminal acts committed by domestic super patriots had steadily increased. They seem to have taken some pages from Al-Qaida’s playbook. Indiscriminate bombings, assassinations, young men flying private planes into tall buildings, counterfeiting, bank robberies and hooliganism in general had become weekly events.
Darren had followed the tragic events at Ruby Ridge, Waco, Oklahoma City, the burning of Afro-American churches, the attempted killing of children at a Jewish daycare facility in Los Angeles, the refusal of many people to pay income taxes, register their cars, or see themselves as citizens of the United States. Frighteningly, militia groups began conducting their own “Peoples’ Courts.” Using these contrived courts, the patriots threatened to execute U.S. congressmen, judges and law enforcement officials.
That so many marginalized or disenfranchised citizens viewed government employees as pawns in the hands of either a universal conspiracy by a few elite Jewish families or some insidious power clique within the United Nations seemed incredulous to Darren. Many believed these sinister forces resulted in The Brady Bill, the assault weapons ban, and the heightened security since nine-eleven. Especially disturbing was the movement from within the conservative evangelical wing of Christianity who believed their faith to be the national religion. Many Christian fundamentalists viewed Ruby Ridge, Waco, the World Trade Center destruction, and war in the Middle East as apocalyptic signs. Some even believed that the World Trade Center tragedy was a Jewish conspiracy to force the U.S. into a war with the Arab states. Christian fundamentalists had become as big a threat as Muslim extremists. The more he had heard from fundamentalists, the more Darren saw their kinship with the Osama bin Ladens of the world. All were constipated in faith and theology.
“Ahhh,” he sighed. So much for the trip down memory lane. I better get ready to see Burcks. He carried his files into Jo Clark’s office. Jo, an attractive woman, had lost her husband in Vietnam. She raised their two boys with help from her parents who lived on a farm near Shelton, Nebraska. A quiet and efficient person, Jo became Burcks’ administrative assistant four years ago. She took care of the general from the time he stepped out his front door until his driver dropped him off again at night. He never went anywhere without Jo’s direction. Since coming to NSC from the Pentagon, she had reviewed all the files and knew all the processes and key issues.
Burcks would certainly be concerned with his new findings. Bombs exploded in towns and cities across America on a weekly basis, killing innocent people. An internal FBI report linked ninety-six bank robberies over the last twelve months to these new super patriots. Many state and local governmental officials seem afraid to act. Some enforcement officers and judges sympathized with the movement, a few others had joined the patriot organizations, and the rest didn’t have sufficient evidence to arrest and convict.
Darren opened a large manila folder and pulled out some high altitude pictures of what the FBI had labeled extremist settlements. He had studied them carefully. Ten people in the picture clearly carried rifles. The agency said that many of the groups maintained warehouse
