Molon Labe! (50 page)

After a brisk shower, he dressed for a quiet dinner out. Even though a light snow had begun to fall, Miles elected to walk. Leisurely moving down the steps, Miles turned left and walked south to Cambridge Place on his way to 30th Street. He glanced at 3027, what used to be the home of Vince Foster, Clinton's first Deputy White House Counsel. The highly suspicious death (and its subsequent cover-up) of the highest level federal official since JFK had quite the chilling effect on 1993 Washington. Clinton simply brought his "Arkansas Mafia" tactics to the nation's capital, and Foster's likely homicide (to cover-up Clinton's murder of the Branch Davidians by illegally using Delta Force) was a sharp lesson to the Beltway political machine.

Just in case anybody needed a reminder, they had only to wait three years. On 3 April 1996, Commerce Secretary Ron Brown's Air Force jet crashed into a Croatian mountainside, and the Air Force killed the safety investigation. Brown was only months away from prison for his rat's nest of criminal deals, including accepting $700,000 from Communist Vietnam to cancel our trade embargo. When Brown's mess became too vast even for Clinton to call off the dogs (the DOJ, the FDIC, the Congressional Reform and Oversight Committee, the FBI, the DOE, the IRS, etc.), Brown vowed in February 1996 not to take the rap alone by fingering the Clintons and McDougal.

From then on, Ron Brown was a dead man holding interim air.

While "Billary" were long gone, one nevertheless didn't tweak Washington's tail foolishly. Rough politics might be excused, but not this ugly conspiracy for some gilded global slavery.
Hairless apes indeed
, as Miles recalled Harquist's choice phrase. He would have to very carefully consider his actions from here on.

Ten minutes later he arrives in a dark mood at his favorite Chinese restaurant on Dumbarton Avenue, is warmly greeted as a regular and quickly seated. While waiting for his meal, he fishes out his cell phone, but the battery is dead. Miles, rises and finds the payphone, digs out his calling card, and dials the San Diego number of his Harvard roommate and best friend, Steve Dunbar. Dunbar was from Jackson, Wyoming, where his parents had opened a ski lodge in the 1970s. An old Republican family, his parents were longtime friends of the Prestons.

"Hey, it's P.R., howya been? Ah, same old crap — it's
Washington
, Steve-o. Listen, I know it's short notice, but I could use a break for a few days. You up for some fishing off Cabo this weekend? Boat's on me. Really? Great! I'll email you tomorrow about my flight. I sound kinda funny? Yeah, well, I can't get into it right now. We'll talk about it this weekend. All I can say is that for the first time in my life I feel like I'm in
way
over my head. I need some help on this, buddy, and you're the only one I think I can trust with it. No, I'm not trying to keep you in suspense — I just can't go into it right now. Thanks. We'll talk Friday. O.K., see you then."

Miles returns to his table; his meal is waiting for him. Scraping his chopsticks against each other as the savory scent of his
Kung-Pao
chicken wafts, he suddenly feels much better. He is very glad that he had called his friend.
Steve will have some ideas.

Engrossed in thought, Phillip Miles did not notice the inconspicuous carpet cleaning van parked cater-corner across the street. Equipped with the very best telcom technology, the men inside were also engrossed in the thoughts of the Deputy Chief-of-Staff. Thanks to the eager help of Lucent Technologies and the Bell companies a few years ago, any phone's conversation could be routed through the FBI's digital recording banks within 15 seconds. This was legal without a search warrant under the
USA PATRIOT
Act of 2001 and the
Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act III
of 2009 (one of President McBlane's first bills to sign — which he did gladly).

Civil libertarians had argued, fruitlessly, that
CALEA III
would actually
"create an Orwellian Thought Police."
Senator Kennedy (D-MA) blasted this as
"shrill and baseless melodrama."

While Miles was walking south on 30th Street NW, his credit card records were being analyzed by the gray men in the gray van, who correctly surmised that he was enroute to the Peking Palace. A telephone database was immediately accessed which listed the restaurant's payphone number. As Miles was entering his calling card number, his payphone was "touched," as the Thought Police called it. Once Miles had entered his friend's number, Steve Dunbar's name and address filled a small window on the screen. Their call was not only recorded but automatically transcribed through the finest AI voice recognition software in existence, which used contextual analysis to virtually eliminate translation error. The conversation was also fed through a sophisticated lie-detection software which analyzed micro-tremors.

Miles and Dunbar had no inkling of all this, for the real-time splice was absolutely silent. In fact, only the phone company and the Government knew, or
could
know.
"A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,"
as the science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke once observed.

FBI Special Agent Bleth has heard enough. "Sounds hinky. And he used a payphone to bypass his cell. Compile a full doss on this Steven Joseph Dunbar by 0800. Route both of their comms from Dixie-Cups-and-string to sat phone through the Box. California, D.C., Baja,
wherever,
I want airtight coverage —
got it
? Put a six-man tag team on Miles by 2200 and we'll hand off to them. Get me the SAC,
now
."

Deep sea fishing off Cabo San Lucas? Well, Phillip Roland Miles, I'm a fisher of men, and my fish bait their own hooks.

The secret of good government is to let man alone.

— Lao Tze, 270 A.D.

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

— Machiavelli, 1513

Cheyenne, Wyoming

February 2015

During the 40 days of general session, the Wyoming legislature worked fast. Most of the desired changes had been drafted by Preston's people months before last year's election and it was just a matter of the final wording. To streamline a government took careful planning. Political power — like energy — could not be eliminated, only changed in
form.
What was taken back from government had to be returned to its source, the People. Since they had relinquished their sovereignty slowly, it could be returned only slowly, at a rate they could absorb — as well as appreciate. The fate of the 14th century Italian politician di Rienzo was a poignant lesson.

Cola di Rienzo was young Roman lawyer in his mid-30s. He went to Avignon in the year 1343 to ask Pope Clement VI for his support against the feuding aristocracy who dominated the capital. Clement agreed, and sent di Rienzo back to Rome with money and encouragement.

Filled with dreams of returning the glory that was Rome, di Rienzo dressed in the white toga of an ancient senator and challenged the people to seize the government, restore the popular assembly, and elect a tribune strong enough to protect them from the nobility. Backed by the poor, the merchants, and the papacy, di Rienzo was first elected dictator and later allowed the old popular title of tribune. When the nobles protested, his armed revolutionaries ran them out of the city to their country estates.

di Rienzo brought impartial justice and stable prices back to Rome. A court of conciliation ended nearly 2,000 feuds. Crooked judges were exposed and punished. Peasants tilled their field in peace and security. All became tranquil and prosperous in Rome, and the entire peninsula marveled.

The mantle of power, however, proved too heady for di Rienzo. He became increasingly extravagant and megalomanic. Then, he tried to enlarge his reign by inviting all of Italy to join his federation. This frightened Pope Clement VI. A unified Italy — much less, a reconstituted Roman empire —would make the Italian Church a prisoner of the state. Clement abandoned di Rienzo on 3 December 1347 as a heretic and criminal, and called upon all Romans to banish him. If this were not done, the Pope threatened, then the jubilee
³
of 1350 would be cancelled.

Suddenly, di Rienzo had lost support from the poor, the merchants, and the Church. The nobles raised an army against him and marched on Rome. di Rienzo frantically called the people to arms, but they refused, preferring the jubilee's profits over paying taxes and military service. The army of the nobles arrived unchallenged two weeks later, and the triumphant aristocracy reentered their city palaces. Clement named two of them as senators over Rome. di Rienzo fled to Naples.

Six years later, di Rienzo, now a broken man from flight and imprisonment, was returned by the Church to Rome as senator and local governor. (Meanwhile, a brutal tribune named Baroncelli had arisen, so di Rienzo's old supporters desired his return following a successful uprising against Baroncelli.) The old fire and dreams of his youth were gone; di Rienzo toed the papal line. The nobles still hated him, and the proletariat (after initial excitement) grew to see him as disloyal. Two months after his return, di Rienzo was seized by a street mob shouting
Long live the people! Death to the traitor Cola di Rienzo!
He was taken to the steps of the Capitol and stabbed by over a hundred people. His body was dragged through the streets to be hung up at a butcher's stall for two days, spat upon and disgraced.

The moral was multifaceted: Finances are often more valued than freedom, alliances will shift, and the people are eternally fickle. Preston understood that radical politics were a very risky business.

The trick was to pour through a funnel, consistently yet gradually. Post-1991 Russia was the now-classic example of what happened when too much freedom was returned too quickly. Unaccustomed to liberty, the former USSR (except for the Czech Republic) begged for Communism's return after the mafia chaos, and got it. Still, what the legislators accomplished in only six weeks astounded the nation (and much of Wyoming). The
Cheyenne Sentinel
quoted Governor Preston's summary of the first 40 days:

"Point One. We applaud the inherent value of an armed citizenry. Armed Citizens kill three times more violent criminals than do the police. They also injure far fewer innocent bystanders than do the police: 1 in 50 vs. 1 in 9. Accordingly, as self-protection is not only a communal good, but an individual
right —
not a privilege — the state sales tax on firearms, ammunition, and shooting gear is today repealed. We ask the Federal Government to repeal their own excise taxes on these articles.

"Point Two. Furthermore, the Wyoming legislature follows the lead of Vermont and Alaska, and hereby recognizes the right of any sane, non-felon adult to own and carry weapons without requirement of license or permit. As the cities and counties are creatures of the state, there shall be no local infringement of this cornerstone right. Carry what you want, how you want, where you want, and we won't bother you unless you mess up. If you're unhappy about seeing armed Citizens on your street, then there are dozens of other states which welcome you. So would their
criminals
!

Accordingly, the legislature proposes that Article 1, Section 24 of the Wyoming Constitution be replaced with the following language:

No state, county, or city representative, officer, agent, employee, or functionary, may deny, infringe, regulate, or tax the absolute right of the people, in either their individual or collective militia capacities, to purchase, own, convey, carry, train with, and use weapons and their accoutrements. Any act or order which would, directly or indirectly, or under any guise or pretense, deny, infringe, regulate, or tax this cornerstone right is null and void at moment of passage, and may lawfully be, without pain of prosecution, ignored, or, if deemed necessary by the people or any of them, forcibly resisted.

"Point Three. The legislature proposes that Article 1, Section 28 of the Wyoming Constitution be replaced with the following language:
"No tax shall be imposed or increased without the consent of a three-fourth majority of electors in a preceding general election."
This means that you the people must overwhelmingly approve any new tax or rate hike. No longer will representatives be able to impose or increase taxes at their whim.

"Point Four. No longer will we be the first generation to drive slower than our parents. We follow the lead of our neighbor state Montana in the matter of daytime highway speed limits —
'Reasonable and prudent.'
While the enforcement judgment of what is
'reasonable and prudent'
will be up to the police officer, as long as the road and traffic conditions allow, a competent driver should have no problem enjoying a capable machine at triple-digit speeds in good weather. It used to be done in Germany, before the EC became too powerful.

"Point Five. We fully recognize your Sixth Amendment right to a speedy and public jury trial in
'all criminal prosecutions.'
In our view,
'all'
means exactly that — all. Therefore, we heartily repudiate the Supreme Court's
Blanton
doctrine
⁴
, which is classic
Animal Farm
'except-for' jurisprudence. In Wyoming, your right in
any
criminal case to a jury trial by twelve peers is guaranteed in full, including a unanimous verdict to convict. Accordingly, the legislature has proposed that Article 1, Section 9 of the Wyoming Constitution be so amended.