Call to Treason o-11 Read online

  The other would cost him a friend.

  FOUR

  Washington, D.C.

  Monday, 8:20 A.M.

  When Don Orr was a little boy, he used to look forward to June 22, the day Miss Clarion’s twenty-two-student school closed down for the summer. He did not dislike school. Just the opposite. He loved learning new things. But the first day of summer vacation was special. He would get up at sunrise. With an olive green baseball cap pulled low over his forehead, he filled his father’s canteen and slung it across a small shoulder. He made three or four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and pushed them into a knapsack, along with a package of oatmeal cookies and a compass. Then he took a shovel from the tool shed. That was for beheading rattlesnakes if he encountered any. Holding the shovel like a prophet’s staff, he walked out from the family’s cattle ranch in Kingsville, Texas. He walked into the hot, windless plain to think about everything he had learned that year. Being alone like that for a day helped to burn the important things into his brain. He had learned in Bible class that this was what Jesus had done, and Moses before Him. The young boy felt that the walk would help to make him a stronger, better man.

  He was right. Don Orr did that for ten years running, from the time he was eight. What he did not know, until years later, was that for the first two years, his father had one of the ranch hands follow him. The tradition ended in 1967, when Orr turned eighteen and joined the air force. Orr knew what it was like to walk and ride. Now he wanted to fly. But the air force had other ideas. They wanted him to work with his hands, like he did on the ranch. Just two years earlier, the air force had established RED HORSE units: Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron, Engineering. These were divided into two squadrons: the 555th Triple Nickel and the 554th Penny Short. They assigned Orr to one of these. After nine weeks of training at Cannon Air Base in New Mexico, the young man was sent with the 554th to Phan Rang Air Base in Vietnam. There, his specialty was drilling wells to obtain drinking water, a skill he had learned on the ranch.

  Orr did one tour in Vietnam and a second in Thailand. He was sorry he never saw combat. Like breaking a horse, herding cattle, or hauling yourself into the baking summertime wilderness, war was the kind of intense challenge that burned things into a man’s head, muscles, and heart. That was one reason Senator Orr had always gotten along with combat veterans like Admiral Link. Risk-taking had been hardwired into the systems of those men.

  It was not risk-taking but a sense of duty that had inspired Senator Orr to found the United States First Party six months before. Each of the two major parties was like a Third World country, a collection of ideological warlords with only one thing in common: an overwhelming dislike for the other party. There was no singular, driving philosophy. It was discouraging. Orr’s idea was simple. The United States needed to become what the Orr Ranch was, a powerful spread run by men of vision. The nation should not be run by parties that burned up their energies playing a tug-of-war for inches. National growth should not be determined by an international consensus or by despots who bullied us with goods, from lumber to steel to oil. The USF Party would provide that. Orr had influence, resolve, credentials, and an American bloodline unmatched by any third-party leader in the past. The effort would also be good for Don Orr. The senator had influence on the Hill, but he did not have control. He was affiliated with good men, but he was not surrounded by them.

  That would change.

  The senator arrived at his office in the Russell Senate Office Building. Completed in 1908, the Beaux Arts structure was just a short walk north of the Capitol, bounded by Constitution Avenue, First Street, Delaware Avenue, and C Street NE. The senator’s office was just off the magnificent rotunda and had an inspiring view of the Capitol dome. It was also just two blocks from Union Station.

  “That proximity gives me a comfortable exit strategy,” the outspoken senator liked to joke with reporters. When Orr first came to Washington, the Dallas Morning News sent him a coach ticket. The newspaper worried that he represented a nineteenth-century Manifest Destiny ideology in a more heterogeneous twenty-first-century world. The Dallas Morning News was wrong. He had nothing against a melting pot. He just wanted to make sure that the United States, and not radicals and petty tyrants, controlled the flame. Orr believed that Americans wanted that, too. On warm spring days, when his schedule permitted, the senator would do a short version of his childhood walk. He would take a brisk walk to the station and just stroll around, listening to what voters were saying. Then he would buy a bottle of water and walk back, letting their comments settle in along the way. It matched the E-mails and letters he received from his constituency. Americans embraced globalization, but they wanted a world that was fair. The United States made other nations rich by purchasing their cars, steel, oil, and electronics. We provided them with free military protection. In exchange, most of those countries gave local manufacturers tax breaks while imposing heavy tariffs on American goods. Even Orr’s family business had suffered. Cattle-men in Australia, Canada, and Brazil paid their hands far less than American workers received. Many of those ranchers fed their cattle with cheap grasses instead of expensive, healthier grains. It was increasingly difficult to conduct business in that kind of marketplace. Orr intended to change that. He would insist on equal access to foreign markets and matching taxes on imports. If he did not get it, the door would be closed. Critics said he was being naive, but Orr believed that princes and prime ministers, presidents and chiefs would find the world a less comfortable place without American markets — and protection.

  The senator had been up late the night before, talking to opinion makers, fellow politicians, and business leaders. Most of those people were friends and allies. A few were not. They had been invited to see how Orr and his colleagues felt about their protectionist activities.

  One of those outsiders was the late William Wilson.

  Orr heard about Wilson’s death from Kat. As his driver moved through the thick morning traffic, Orr phoned Kendra Peterson to discuss the news. They both knew that Orr’s office would receive calls from around the world looking for comments about Wilson’s death last night. The woman was already at her desk helping to answer calls from reporters, commenting about the genius of Wilson’s MasterLock and lamenting his passing. She promised that the senator would have a statement later in the day.

  Arriving at the office, Orr discovered that the press were not the only ones interested in speaking with him. Detective Robert Howell of the Metropolitan Police phoned the senator’s office shortly before nine. The senator respected law officers of any stripe. He took the call. Detective Howell sounded tense.

  “Senator, we understand that Mr. Wilson attended a party at your residence last night,” the detective said. “Can you tell me anything about what Mr. Wilson did or who he may have spoken with?”

  “We had two hundred guests, Detective,” Orr said. “I noticed him chatting with a number of guests, but I did not pay him particular attention. He left alone, around ten-thirty,” Orr said.

  “You noticed his departure?”

  “Only because he came over to thank me,” Orr said. “The Brits, like Texans, have manners. To save you time, I do not know what he said to other guests and I did not notice if he was drinking or what he was eating. I presume toxicology reports will tell you that.”

  “Yes, sir. Do you happen to know if Mr. Wilson arranged to meet anyone after the party?” Howell asked.

  “I do not,” Orr replied. “The newspaper said that he entertained a woman in his suite and died of an apparent heart attack sometime during the night. Do you have any reason to suspect otherwise?”

  “Not at this time,” said the detective.

  “I’m happy to hear that,” the senator said. He did not want a scandal attached to his name.

  “But if someone was with him and failed to summon medical assistance — perhaps because she was married and feared publicity — that individual might be guilty of involuntary m
anslaughter.”

  “I see. Don’t you have video from the hotel security cameras?”

  “We do, but the woman was extremely careful not to show her face,” Howell told him.

  “Which makes you even more suspicious,” Orr said.

  “It does make us interested in her,” the detective agreed. “Senator, would it be an imposition to obtain a list of your party guests?”

  “It will be an imposition if my guests are harassed by the police or the press,” Orr told him.

  “We are only interested in locating the woman who was with Mr. Wilson last night. Our questions will not go beyond that.”

  “In that case, my executive assistant Kendra Peterson will provide you with a list,” Orr told him.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Is there anything else we can do for you?” Orr asked.

  “Nothing that I can think of right now,” Detective Howell told him. “I appreciate your cooperation, sir.”

  “It was my pleasure, Detective.”

  Orr hung up the phone and sat at his desk made of rare Texas aspen. It was the same desk the revered Sam Houston had used when he served in the Senate. As Orr had expected, the conversation with Detective Howell was direct but respectful. The D.C. police were good that way. They knew that politicians could shape innuendo as if it were plastique. Investigations were handled with exceptional care. Hopefully, William Wilson’s death did not become a distraction for the media. The senator had a plan, a vision for the United States, the unveiling of which was one of the worst-kept secrets in Washington. For the past several months Orr had been organizing funds and personnel to establish a new force in American politics. In two days he would acknowledge what many had suspected: that he would be making a serious third-party run for the presidency. He would make the announcement at a press conference at seven A.M. the next morning, when it was six A.M. in Kingsville. That was when he had first announced his intention to run for the United States Senate, with a big Texas sun rising behind him. The press conference would include an invitation for all Americans to join him at the USF Party’s first convention, to be held later that week in San Diego. There, they would define the party’s platform and name its first candidates for president and vice president of the United States. Orr did not intend to repeat the mistake of other third-party founders. He was not doing this for personal advancement, for revenge, or to appeal to a radical fringe. The USF was here for people who believed that the interests of America came before the needs of partisans.

  Orr looked out the window at the Capitol. It was a bright day, and the 288-foot-high dome gleamed white against a cloudless sky. The senator still felt humbled to see it, to be part of an unbroken chain of leaders dating from the Founding Fathers and the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. The dome was a daily, iconic reminder to him of why he had come to Washington: to serve the electorate fearlessly. To uphold the Constitution with his energy, his heart, and his judgment. If he did that successfully, he would continue to serve here. If he failed, he would go back to ranching.

  Either way, Don Orr won.

  Either way, he was still an American.

  FIVE

  Washington, D.C.

  Monday, 8:24 A.M.

  When is a postal carrier not a postal carrier? That was what Ed March had asked his old friend Darrell McCaskey to help him find out.

  The two men had been college roommates at the University of Miami. While McCaskey was recruited by the FBI, March was asked to become a police officer with the U.S. Postal Service. For over ten years, March’s beat had been child pornography. Then the Internet virtually ended that use of the mails. He was shifted to Homeland Security activities where most of his time was spent doing the ABCs — alien background checks — of individuals who regularly sent packages to nations that sponsored terrorism. March was currently involved in a stakeout involving a postal carrier who was suspected of helping a certain individual bypass the ABC system by collecting packages from a specific drop box and bringing them directly to the overseas pouches. These were believed to contain materials that could not be sent via E-mail attachments: stolen documents, currency, and possibly computer components.

  Right now, March did not want the mailer. He wanted the carrier so he could confiscate the truck before the package could be off-loaded. If the address on the parcel inside was the same that had been found in a terrorist hut in Gunong Tahan, the carrier would be persuaded to turn future packages over to the CIA before they were sent overseas.

  March had backup a block away in an unmarked car, but he needed McCaskey to tell him whether he was being watched while he watched the mailbox and carrier. March had been in this location for several days, waiting for another drop-off. It was not uncommon for spies and terrorists to work in partnership with observers. These persons kept a careful eye on nationals in their employ. As often as not, nationals turned out to be double agents. Especially when they had been found out.

  Posing as a flag vendor with a small white cart, March was standing on the corner of Constitution Avenue. Mailboxes were potential receptacles for bombs, and this was one of the few locations the USPS had left operational. The postal service police believed that the mailer came over the Potomac from Arlington and dropped it off on his way to work at the Embassy of Malaysia on Massachusetts Avenue. That was ascertained by following the staff members home and seeing who passed this way. There were two potential targets.

  One of them had mailed a package at the box forty minutes earlier.

  McCaskey was sitting cross-legged on a small bench closer to the Lincoln Memorial. Early-morning tourists and joggers moved by in all directions. McCaskey noticed them all to see if any came by again. That could mean they were watching the mailbox, looking for enemy recon. McCaskey also watched for the glint of binoculars or anyone who had a good eye line with the box.

  In McCaskey’s hand was one of the greatest surveillance props ever invented: the cell phone. A user had to concentrate in order to hear, so passers-by assumed the caller did not see them. Pickpockets loved cell phones for that reason. McCaskey missed nothing, even as he pretended to talk to his wife, Maria. In fact, former Interpol agent Maria Corneja-McCaskey was sitting beside him on the bench. That irony was not lost on either of them. McCaskey had always feared that Maria was too wedded to intelligence work to have time for a marriage. That was the problem with McCaskey’s first marriage. He had married a fellow FBI agent, Bonnie Edwards, and had three kids with her. Bonnie quit to be a full-time mother, and McCaskey took a promotion to unit chief in Dallas to pick up the financial slack. A subsequent promotion took him to D.C., which was good for McCaskey but not for the family. In the end, after eight years of marriage, the McCaskeys agreed to a divorce. The children visited their father during school vacations, and McCaskey went to see them whenever he could get away. They lived outside of Dallas, where Bonnie had married an oil executive with three kids. She seemed to like her very Brady life.

  The dueling careers had come between McCaskey and Maria once, when they first met in her native Spain. They had reconnected when McCaskey was on a mission in Madrid. Maria had agreed to give it up and move to Washington.

  Now his beautiful, dark-haired wife was helping him with a stakeout. She woke up smirking. Though Maria was in character now, pretending to be an artist sketching the Memorial in pastel, the bemused look was still there.

  “Honey, I am so incredibly bad at having these fake conversations,” he said into the deactivated phone. “Pausing and pretending to listen to someone.” He paused and pretended to listen. “Then laughing disarmingly.” He chuckled. “I’d rather be in a firefight.”

  “You may have an opportunity,” Maria said from the side of her mouth. “Three o’clock, nanny with a stroller.”

  McCaskey glanced over as the young woman passed. She had Asian features. She was dressed in a Georgetown University sweatshirt and jeans and was absently rocking a charcoal-colored Maclaren stroller with a hood.

  �
�I don’t think so,” McCaskey said.

  “Darrell, there’s no baby in the stroller,” Maria said. She put the ivory-colored chalk back in the wooden carrying case.

  “I know,” he replied, still pretending to talk in the phone. “There’s a shopping bag in the stroller. It’s probably got everything she owns. Look at the laces of her Adidas. Broken and knotted, hole on one side. The foam handle of the stroller is torn. It was probably discarded. She’s homeless.”

  “Or pretending to be,” Maria said as she selected a navy blue stick to lay in shadows.

  “It’s possible,” McCaskey agreed. He looked toward the lawn beyond the path. “I’m more concerned about the guy sitting on the grass with the laptop.”

  “The man in the windbreaker?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” Maria asked. “His back is to the mailbox.”

  “But the web cam is not,” McCaskey said. “He could be teleconferencing, or he could be watching the mailbox.”

  Just then the mail carrier pulled up in his small local-haul truck. A lanky, blond-haired young man emerged carrying a white plastic bin and stepped over to the mailbox. McCaskey continued to talk on the phone as March moved his cart so he was closer to the mail truck. The carrier did not seem to notice. He knelt, opened the front panel with a key from the ring on his belt, and slowly scooped the contents into the container. He appeared to be looking for something. When he found it, he swept the rest of the mail in quickly and shut the box. Evidently, that was all March needed. He stepped from his cart and intercepted the mail carrier. McCaskey saw March show the carrier his badge, but he could not hear what was being said. The carrier made a disbelieving, then angry face and shook his head. March was insistent as he got on his cell phone and made a call. He was summoning his backup.

  The mail carrier moved toward the truck, still holding the bin. March grabbed his arm and said something.