“Why don’t you just tell me what it says.”
“The boat is named Swift, sir. Is that at all familiar, sir?” he asked.
President Quaid drummed his fingers on his desktop.
“Sir, the boat the Coast Guard recovered about thirty miles from where this photo was taken, the boat with the hidden storage compartment, the compartment that screamed of radiation from U-235. That boat was a Hinckley Bermuda 40. It was named Swift. This is a photo of the same boat, sir.”
“So? We’ve assumed that before the boat sank, it was able to float, haven’t we?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll get to the real news.”
Harrison placed another photo to the side of the others stretching across Quaid’s desk. It was an enlargement of the dinghy. The faces, although somewhat distorted, were recognizable. Harrison pointed his pen at the man rowing the boat.
“That is Lt. Chaim Levi, Israeli Navy lieutenant, sir. The guy we shot in New Hampshire.” He placed one final photo on the desk, an enlargement of the woman at the back of the dinghy, facing Levi.
“The FBI identified her, sir. Debra Reuben. The name ring any bells, sir? No? Not for me, either. She used to be a local newscaster, television, in New York City.”
The president was clearly interested now.
“She left New York and moved to Israel—Tel Aviv, Israel. She did quite well there, too. Became a well-known television personality for a while, sir.”
“And then?”
“And then she joined the government. She was a member of the prime minister’s cabinet of the last government to govern the State of Israel. As far as we can tell, sir, if Debra Reuben survived, as she apparently did, she is the most senior living member of the Israeli government. And she was in Maine on the sailboat that carried the bomb. And the strangest thing is she seems to be keeping her presence a secret. Her mother thinks she’s traveling around Europe with a new boyfriend. I strongly suspect that if we find Debra Reuben, we’ll find that bomb.”
“Good work, Harrison. Now go find that terrorist.”
The trailer park detention camps deteriorated rapidly. And the military was going broke maintaining them. Guantanamo Bay, at its maximum, held 775 enemy combatants. It cost the military $900,000 per year. For each detainee. The entire federal prison system held 216,000 people. It cost $7 billion per year. Holding more than 400,000 American Jews, and adding more every day, was an impossible task.
“Mr. President, something—something else—has to be done with these people,” General Cruz said at a hastily called cabinet meeting. “We can’t continue to hold this many people in giant trailer parks. We can’t feed them, and clothe them, and provide medical care for them, for old women, infants, school-age children. Here’s a fact for you. I was told to expect thirteen births every day among the people we’re holding. This can’t continue.”
“We’re not releasing one of them,” President Quaid said. “Who knows what they’d do. Suggestions?”
Attorney General Harrison broke the uncomfortable pause.
“We can do with them what we did with every other criminal group we didn’t want. We deported Mexicans, South Americans, Chinese, Africans. Even illegal Irish. Trump deported babies. So deport the Jews. All of them.”
The suggestion was met by silence. No objections. Just silence.
“But these are American citizens. How can I deport them? And where would we send them?” President Quaid asked.
“Citizens, yes, but they are enemy combatants, sir. Each and every one of them. You declared them to be enemy combatants and you were fully in your power to do so. Plenty of precedent for making US citizens enemy combatants.”
“Don’t they still have rights? Wouldn’t some judge stop us from deporting them?”
“Can’t happen,” Harrison said. “Enemy combatants have no right to go to any court in the country. You make somebody an enemy combatant and no judge has jurisdiction to even hear a legal complaint from him. That’s the law. It’s a pretty slick legal doctrine.”
“Where would we deport them to? I’m not turning 400,000 American Jews over to the Palestinians.”
Gen. Cruz interrupted. “Had the same problem with Guantanamo. Even when we wanted to release people, we worked our tails off finding countries to take them. Had to twist a lot of arms. Spend a lot of money. But it worked.”
Harry Wade, the FEMA head who came up with the trailer scheme, recognized a problem to solve. And he solved it.
“Africa,” Wade said. “Between AIDS and Ebola, Africa lost 25 percent of its population. We can send our Jews to Africa. Grease the skids with a few billion dollars to a dozen countries there. Problem solved. The Brits came up with a scheme to relocate their Jews to Uganda a hundred years ago. Too bad they didn’t do it. Jews would be running the place by now. Our Jews will probably take over and make their fortunes in Africa.”
“Deport America’s Jews to Africa,” President Quaid said to himself, testing the concept. “It would solve our problem, for sure.”
“Lots of problems,” Harrison said.
CHAPTER 62
Judy Katz drove her battered green Honda Civic up to the gatehouse at Camp Edwards, wondering if she would be turned around and headed home within minutes. The guard at the camp gate didn’t know what to do when she flashed her Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers registration card and said she was an attorney representing detainees and she intended to meet with her clients.
It took almost an hour for a sergeant in a Humvee to drive up. He told her to park her car in a lot next to the gatehouse, then had her sit in the Humvee’s front seat.
Katz spent another forty-five minutes in a wooden chair outside a door marked Commander. Eventually, the door opened and a soldier ushered her in. An officer sat behind a wooden desk. Two men stood with their backs against a wall. One wore a uniform, the other jeans and a T-shirt.
“Major Ted Dancer, ma’am. You’ve thrown us for something of a loop here. Nobody told us you’d be coming down, you see, and, well, as you can imagine, we’re not much used to lawyers coming to visit our guests. In fact, you’re the first one. It’s a total surprise that such a thing could even happen.”
He smiled smugly at the young woman sitting demurely, knees together, in front of his desk, like a student called to the principal’s office for a chat.
“Save the bullshit for somebody else, Major,” she said. “Ted Dancer? You’re the same Ted Dancer who was adjutant commander at Guantanamo, right? The same Guantanamo that played host to what, about two hundred lawyers visiting their clients, right? So, get me an escort and a room and take me to my clients. Now, if you please.”
“Lieutenant, escort the young lady around, would you please?” he said, then looked Katz directly in the eyes while he continued speaking to the soldier. “Listen to the rules first and make sure she complies. If she doesn’t go along with these rules, drive her to the gate.”
The man stood at attention and saluted, a smile on his face. The major glanced at a paper on his desk and then spoke to Katz.
“First, you don’t get to speak with anybody, no detainees—not until somebody who outranks me tells me that you do. Understand?” he barked at her as if he were her drill instructor. He guessed correctly that she’d never done time in uniform, at least not since Girl Scouts.
“Next, we’ll give you a drive around so you can see that people are being cared for humanely. We’ll show you the dining hall, a barracks, the recreation area. You can look into the school, hell, sit in on a class if you want. We’re treating these people pretty damn good if you ask me. I don’t mind showing that off a bit.