State of Terror Read online

  State of Terror

  State of Terror

  John Brown

  THOSE WHO WOULD GIVE UP ESSENTIAL LIBERTY TO PURCHASE A LITTLE TEMPORARY SAFETY, DESERVE NEITHER LIBERTY NOR SAFETY.

  Benjamin Franklin,

  Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

  THE CAUSE OF AMERICA IS IN A GREAT MEASURE THE CAUSE OF ALL MANKIND.

  Thomas Paine,

  Common Sense, 1776

  WAR IS THE HEALTH OF THE STATE.

  Randolph Bourne,

  The State, 1918

  Copyright © 2013 by John Brown

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-0-9913059-0-2

  Cover art: Matt Holdridge

  Dedicated to all those who still believe that liberty is something worth fighting for.

  Contents

  1. The Bigger Issues

  2. Identification, Please

  3. Just Say No

  4. Multi-Stakeholder Solutions

  5. Time for a Change

  6. Let’s Make the Right Choice

  7. Hail to the Chief

  8. You Will Please Come with Us

  9. Providing the Appropriate Tools

  10. Show Him His Room

  11. Tear Down Those Walls

  12. You’re with Us or You’re with the Terrorists

  13. Welcome to Camp 6

  14. Any Last Requests?

  15. Team VIPR

  16. No Deal

  17. Phantoms of Lost Liberty

  18. Dear Blank

  19. Welcome to National Airport

  20. Preemptive War

  21. I’ll Prove You’re Wrong

  22. Building a Shared Vision

  23. Dad Would Be So Proud of Me

  24. Unsuitable for Release

  25. Home, Sweet Home

  26. This Is Why We Fight

  27. George Has a Job for You

  28. Get Me the Hell Outta This

  29. Rock ’n’ Roll Time

  30. You’ll Be All Right, Kid

  31. Live Free or Die

  32. A Significant Step Forward

  33. We Cannot Afford to Wait

  Afterword

  Join the Conversation

  1

  The Bigger Issues

  TOM BENSON DROVE TO THE METRO STATION, trying to make his meeting on time, for a change. Traffic crawled in the overcrowded lanes reserved for ordinary commuters. The sign overhead read “Trains Next Exit,” but at the rate things were moving he wouldn’t be exiting the highway for quite some time. He gazed at the virtually empty lane to his left, marked “Express Lane for Official Use Only — $5,000 Fine,” but dared not try it. Cameras at either end of the sign were trained on the highway. “Today’s Threat Level Is Orange,” scrolled a message. “Report Suspicious Items or Activities to the Authorities.” While he sat idling in traffic, police vehicles and dark limousines with blacked-out windows sped by occasionally to his left. He wished, just once, that he could drive in the official lane in rush hour at full speed. No such luck for him today. Sighing, he resigned himself to being late for his train yet again.

  Once inside the station, he lined up at the security checkpoint. “Attention,” boomed the loudspeakers. “Please report suspicious items and socially dangerous persons. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and your Transportation Security Administration appreciate your compliance.” Upon presenting his ID for inspection, he dumped his keys, shoes, jacket, watch, belt, wallet, phone, computer, and briefcase into a gray plastic bin and pushed it onto the conveyor belt. Entering the scanning booth, he held his hands over his head, facing one direction and then the other. He collected his things and got dressed, made his way to the platform, and bounded up the stairs just as his train began pulling away. The impassive conductor watched him sprinting for it as the alarm sounded and the doors shut.

  The next train arrived 13 minutes later. Two Transit Authority cops with drug and bomb-sniffing dogs stood by the train doors as the passengers scurried in and out. The cops chatted among themselves, talking of this and that, while their dogs eyed the passengers with fanatical intensity, emitting low, resonant growls whenever something caught their interest. One of the dogs sniffed Benson’s crotch, leaving a wet mark on his pants.

  Benson gave the cops a long, dirty look.

  “What’s your problem?” one of the cops sniffed. “He’s just doin’ his job, ya know?”

  “At least someone is.”

  He found a seat on the train between a group of Middle Eastern men wearing expensive suits and stern expressions. The air was rank with their pungent cologne. It was the only available seat in the car and he didn’t feel like standing for the whole ride. They must be associates traveling together, he guessed, yet they didn’t speak to, or even glance at, one another. He looked around awkwardly, avoiding their eyes. With all that was in the news lately, distrust and fear ruled. If there were that many of them, why wouldn’t they just take a taxi or a limousine? Wouldn’t it be quicker? By the look of things, they certainly had the money for it.

  Despite his better instincts, he’d begun to suspect anyone looking even vaguely Middle Eastern. He couldn’t help it. He was sure that others held their suspicions, too, if privately, for fear of being labeled narrow-minded or racist, yet it didn’t seem all that unreasonable. All the terrorists were Arabs, weren’t they? And what was the big difference between Shiites and Sunnis, anyway? They all looked the same to him.

  The interminable ride ended after some 20 minutes. Benson hurried up the stairs to the street, breathing in the fresh air. He strolled into the lobby of the historic Chase Bank of America building. The floors and walls were Italian marble, the vaulted ceilings covered with reliefs depicting the founding of the Republic. He liked the history and the magnificence of the place. It made everything done here somehow seem more important.

  Benson rode up in an elevator packed with grim-faced office workers, all of whom stared straight ahead, looking at nothing. Amid the uncomfortable silence, they each finally arrived at their floors, hurriedly stepping off. For Benson, an office on the top floor meant the journey could take several awkward minutes. He could have run the stairs in far less time, but despite the morale-boosting posters in the lunchrooms exhorting the employees to get some exercise, the security department wouldn’t allow it anymore, the bastards.

  Benson stepped off the elevator. A young woman was waiting for him. She smiled warmly at his approach.

  “Good morning, Tina.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Benson. Everything is ready, sir.”

  Fifteen minutes late, Benson took his seat at the head of a large conference table and prepared to open the meeting. He was distracted from the task at hand by the overhead lights. They gave off a low buzzing sound that he found irritating. The new eco-lights may have saved a few pennies, but they were harsh and unnatural. He turned them off and rolled up the window blinds instead, letting the sunlight stream into the room. Moving back to his seat, he prepared to greet everyone but was cut off before he could begin.

  “Okay, so I’d like to offer the ‘thought for the day’ before we get started?” said Kay, a pale, middle-aged woman with a boyish haircut.

  Someone in the room groaned at her announcement, but she paid not the slightest heed. Her story went on at length. Some people sat upright, respectfully paying attention; others slumped in their chairs. A young man was preoccupied with his laptop, a constant frown on his face. The keyboard tapping annoyed Benson even more than Kay’s reflection. With a circular motion of his hand he implored Kay to wrap it up. The meeting had begun late and it was getting ever later.

  “So I’m, like, pissed about my muddy shoes, right? So then I see a man walking around with no feet.” And with t
hat, Kay sat back with a smug expression.

  Benson stared at her with a mix of pity and amusement.

  “What?” Benson said, shaking his head. “What?”

  “See — well, you go around kinda sorry for yourself, you know, and it’s like, hey! There’s someone—”

  “Yes, I get it. There will be no more of these ‘thoughts for the day,’ thank you very much.”

  He looked at his watch and gave Kay a withering glance, the meaning of which seemed entirely lost on her. Getting down to business, he presented a series of schematics for a more efficient underwriting process. It had taken many months of work from many departments to pull it together.

  “So that’s the plan,” Benson said, summing up his presentation. “This will eliminate useless busywork, unnecessary approvals and delays, and we’ll pass the savings on to our customers. I know everyone here is too busy, so I’ll direct the requirements engineering myself. I’d like to thank everyone for their contribution in putting this together. We can all be proud of what we’ve accomplished. Comments?”

  There was silence. Someone coughed.

  Kay looked down at the table, deep concern on her face.

  “Well, I, um, I think, you know, maybe we should just dialogue with people and hear them out first? You need permits from the bank czar, right? And the regulatory czar would need to issue special waivers? There are strict controls on this sort of thing, you can’t just offer what you feel might be a good deal to customers, you can’t change the official process that’s filed on record just like that,” she said, snapping her fingers for emphasis. “There are guidelines that must be followed, you know? There’re a whole mess of permits, and then there’s all the forms and the approvals and the lawyers and the administrative hearings. This all takes a whole bunch of time.”

  Kay shook her head doubtfully. She turned to her colleagues for a glimmer of support but no one would return her gaze. She faced Benson with an earnest expression.

  “Of course, I support you 100 percent — no, 110 percent. I mean, what do you think?”

  “Thanks for sharing.”

  A painfully thin woman at the table twisted her face in thought, looking down at her notes as she spoke up.

  “It’s like…” She paused, attempting to choose her words carefully. “Look, I’m not sure you’re really hearing what we’re saying. Some people have been saying some things—”

  “Some people? Some things?” Benson shot back, perhaps a little too aggressively, but his patience was wearing thin. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Maybe it would be too much to expect unrestrained enthusiasm, but he had at least hoped for simple cooperation. He was making it easy for them; all they had to do was go along with what they had already agreed upon. He would even let them take all the credit. Instead, he was meeting unaccountable resistance and ambiguous insinuations. He felt himself getting hot and took a deep breath to calm down.

  “I feel what Stacy’s saying is, ‘Okay, look, maybe we should just listen to each other?’” Kay said. “You know?”

  Benson gazed out the large window framing the room. Sparrows and pigeons swooped and bobbed, darting and flitting in the sunshine, happy and free. How he wished he could join them. One of the birds in particular caught his attention, a hummingbird of some extra large variety unlike any he’d seen before. It had a ruby-colored throat like those buzzing around now and then in his backyard, only much bigger. It was surprising to see a hummingbird in the city, especially at the eighth floor. Hovering by the window, it seemed to be staring inside, looking right at him.

  Benson forced his attention back to his wretched meeting and gazed, absentmindedly, at Kay, who immediately turned away. He wondered how anything got done around here. If it weren’t for the Office of Human Capital Management, he’d have fired their lazy asses in a heartbeat.

  Benson sat bored at his desk, looking out the window and daydreaming. This was becoming a disturbingly common event. He was trying to fight it and not succeeding. He had everything he’d ever wanted — a wonderful wife, a great son, and excellent health. Career, money, cars, house; he had it all. He had successfully climbed the corporate ladder. Although they were now financially secure, each subsequent promotion and raise wasn’t nearly as gratifying as he’d expected. He certainly didn’t feel anywhere near rich. He had come to realize that past a certain point, chasing more of the same was futile. Having more things may have added some extra measure of fun in their lives, yet, deep down, he wasn’t really any more content today than when he and Jane had started out as broke newlyweds so many years ago. In truth, those were good years, exciting years.

  Interrupting his reverie, Fred, a junior colleague in the Department of Government and Regulatory Affairs, suddenly appeared in front of his desk, clutching an oversized mug bearing the corporate logo and a picture of his face. These had been distributed at the company picnic as a morale booster, along with surplus promotional merchandise normally given away to customers at the holidays — pens, notepads, calendars, mouse pads, and other such swag. The custom picture mugs were a big hit at the last picnic. Everyone had eagerly lined up in front of a wall for their shots.

  Benson remembered these picnics mainly for the disturbingly casual garb in which some of his male colleagues appeared, dressed in tank tops, basketball shorts, and beach sandals, their hairy shoulders and knobby knees on display. The women could be just as bad, sporting revealing tops and short skirts or tight shorts, bulging in all the wrong places. They’d bend over for the barrel race or potato sack jump or something and he’d have to look away out of a decent respect for decorum, especially if Jane was there with him.

  “Tom? Earth to Tom.”

  Fred laughed at his little joke.

  “Hey Tom, you’re gonna be late for the meeting, dude. We’re gonna talk Rule 140-D, Accounting for Transfers of Financial Assets and Repurchase Financing Transactions.”

  “Sounds like fun, Fred. I’ll be there in five minutes — and don’t call me ‘dude,’ dog.”

  Just beyond his window, the birds swooped and soared gracefully in the warm breeze, barely flapping their wings, riding the wind. No cage and no rules. No meetings. Some men try to stoke their flagging enthusiasm by gambling, drinking, or womanizing. One-dimensional and self-destructive; not for him. He wasn’t achieving anything here anymore; he needed new challenges. He was beginning to feel as if he were shackled to his desk, caged in his little office. The moment he left the building every night was the best part of his day. He would rejoin Jane and Daniel, his son.

  It was shortly after the last company picnic that Benson had decided that it was time to get more involved in the bigger issues. He would devote his energies to something more than just a job. Unlike all the other presidential elections he could remember, each of them proclaiming to be the most critical contest in a generation, or that, if the other candidate won, the country would be overrun by rampaging hordes looting grocery stores and stealing cars and other such nonsense, this one truly seemed important. The country was facing serious threats from inside and out. He would not sit and watch while his beloved country went into decline.

  He became captivated with the idea of changing the world and personally making a difference, jumping at an unexpected offer to be a campaign “bundler,” hosting fundraisers and coaxing friends, relatives, and business contacts to donate to the cause. The very idea charged him up, invigorating him with new passion and purpose. The people with whom he would work would be intellectual, freewheeling, high-energy types. He knew that it would take up most of his weeknights and weekends while he struggled to devote enough hours to his job at the bank, and he wouldn’t have much time for family. Still, it would be temporary and he was getting into it rather late anyway, as political campaigns go. He would make this small sacrifice for his country. No doubt, he would make great contacts, too. It would almost certainly further his career. Jane would understand.

  It took an enormous amount of money to
mount a competitive campaign. So much was at stake and up for grabs, so many laws and regulations, so much money and power, that the competition between the parties to raise funds dominated the energies of everyone down the line. When not making speeches and shaking hands, even the candidate himself would spend entire days at a stretch holed up in hotel rooms, constantly on the phone soliciting and making ever more promises to donors. The entire campaign was maniacally obsessed with raising and spending money, relentless promotion, and expensive media buys.

  “Joseph King For President” posters swathed the campaign headquarter’s walls, featuring the candidate in various poses, many of them vaguely heroic or uplifting — King staring off into the horizon, King pointing off-camera to the future, King with a confident and wise smile. These portraits were typically rendered in simple primary colors, below which appeared inspirational slogans, including “He Gets the Big Picture,” and “The Right Man, The Right Time,” and “Looking Out For You, America.” Gazing at these posters evoked a certain emotional response that Benson found difficult to describe. Not pride and not pleasure, but an upbeat, warm kind of feeling. He couldn’t put his finger on it exactly. Perhaps it was something about the artwork.

  He pushed himself to shake hands and solicit donations at numerous fundraising parties, making sure to contact everyone and hit them up for money. It was an activity he came to loathe soon enough, all this hustling, but it had to be done and he was already committed to seeing it through. At any rate, the revelers expected to be hit upon; it was why they were there.

  “Can you spare some change?” he would say. “Right — thanks anyway.”

  At one such campaign cocktail party, typical of many to come, Benson approached a wealthy-looking woman and shook her hand. It was getting late and many of the partygoers were becoming drunk. This proved to be the best time to secure pledges.