Chapter 11: New Uses for Old Tunnels

Scenes from  Uncle Bud’s Select Taproom

Uncle Bud and his nephew stepped quickly through the door in the back of the janitorial closet at the Capitol Grille. Bud swung the door closed, and Carter took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the low light. He could hear some muffled noise from the restaurant and some rumbling in the distance that was most likely a Metro train.
“How are we going to back to the bar?” asked Carter. “It’s got to be three miles at least.”
“Over here,” said Bud, nodding to his left.
“Segways? I’ve never ridden a Segway. I don’t know how.”
“Relax, kid, I’ve had a friend of mine modify these.”
“You pimped a Segway?”
“Four Segways, as a matter of fact.”
Uncle Bud flipped on extra lights and Carter could see that the Segways had been arranged at the corners of a small rectangle made of some kind of dull metal. Two bar stools were mounted along the front bar and a small, open bin was bolted to the rear. Uncle Bud directed Carter to the stool on the right. “Welcome to the Segway Sedan,” said Uncle Bud. “Still quiet and clean, but you can sit down, carry a passenger and up to 500 pounds in the storage bin.” Carter sat in what he considered the passenger seat, and asked Uncle Bud what he should do.
“Just sit still and lean slightly into the turns. Oh, and don’t stand up or bend over."
Uncle Bud started the Segway and, with a slight shudder and small jerk, they were off. “Buckle up,” said Bud.
“How?” asked Carter.
“Attached to the bottom of the stool.”
Carter ran his hands under the stool and found three bungee cords with one end attached to a d-ring screwed into the bottom of the bar stool. He pulled the cords across his lap and hooked them to the d-ring.
Bud glanced over at Carter. “Not quite. Two up through your legs and then pull one over each leg.”
Carter nodded and adjusted the straps. “You invented this system?”
“Nah, Vito installed them in the bar.
Carter gave an understanding nod. “Drunks kept falling off?”
“Sometimes, but that's part of it.' Uncle Bud shrugged. "No. We’ve got a regular with narcolepsy. Last thing he needed was a head injury on top of that.”
They rode in silence for a few minutes and then Bud spoke. “It’s going to take a bit to get the main tunnel. Right now we’re in a Metro service tunnel. Let me catch you up on what’s happening down here. Maybe you can make some sense of it. Damned if I can.”
Before he could continue, Uncle Bud shook his head, blinked twice, and tapped his right ear. "Hearing aid acting up?" asked Carter.
"What? Uh, no, no, it's not a ... quiet for a minute, kid, somethings going on in the bar that I need to hear."
It took Carter a moment or two to catch up with events, which was a good bit quicker than usual. Carter's high school civics version of politics had taken a beating since he'd gotten to know his Uncle Bud better and he was still reeling. "You've bugged you bar? Is that legal?"
"It is now. Looks like no one read the changes to FISA very closely."
"Bugging Uncle Bud's Select Taproom was included in the new FISA bill?"
"Just call it a special earmark for services rendered. I called in a few chits. Let's just say that Vitter wasn't the only pol on the DC madam's BlackBerry. Kid, there's a lesson here for you. In politics, be good friends with the madams, but never be a paying customer."
Uncle Bud waved Carter into silence and went back to concentrating intently on the conversation in the bar. He kept tapping his earpiece. Carter wondered how deep underground they were and whether that was interfering with the signal.
"Damn, looks a possible Code I at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave."
"Code I?"
"Impeachment. But that's all I could get. That damn bug is next to useless."
"What's the problem?"
"Oh, it's one of those CIA gadgets that old buddies of mine let me field test. It's part of the cyborg development program. Implant nano-eavesdropping equipment in living critters, in this case, in a flea."
"A bug in a flea?"
"Yeah."
"So what happened? What's the problem? Signal keep cutting out?"
"No. The tech boys should have talked to the biologists. The equipment works fine, but only in short bursts. Seems its still got the memory of a flea."
Carter considered this for a while. "I guess they were going for the fly on the wall thing."
"Tried that. Planted a camera in the head of a fly."
"Let me guess - image too jumpy?"
"Too many images. You got migraine trying to follow the action."

While Carter considered this, Uncle Bud slowed to a stop in front of a security door that appeared to be newly installed. The surface of the huge steel door was criss-crossed by interlocking metal rods as thick as your wrist. One end of the rods was firmly embedded in steel-reinforced wells and the other end was connected to a huge wheel mounted on the center of the door. A Homeland Security Agency emblem was stamped on the center of the wheel. Warning signs flanked the door - "Security Clearance Required" in 26 languages. Carter couldn't imagine hoe you'd even start to open the door. He turned to Uncle Bud who was rooting around in a small carry-all in the carrying bin on the Segway.
"Got a sonic screw driver in there?" asked Carter.
"Cute," replied Uncle Bud. "No, I've something even more powerful." He pulled out a small device that looked like an ordinary garage door opener with the cover removed. After a few minutes of pressing the button and then flipping some switches inside the device the wheel turned, the bars slid noiselessly out of their wells, and the door swung open.
"How many things did the CIA give you?" asked Carter incredulously.
"Not Langley," said Uncle Bud, sliding the device into his pocket, "Lowe's."
"Lowe's?" repeated Carter blankly. Just when he thought he had Uncle Bud figured out, the old man threw him a knuckler. "You got a device to open a HSA high security fortified door at Lowe's? That thing that looks like a garage door opener."
"It is a garage door opener. These door were build by FortifyAmerica, Inc on a HSA contract."
"And they are?"
"They're a new company formed by three brothers who all just happen to be Bush Super-Rangers. They bundled their way to nearly $1 mil for Bush in '04. That's worth a no-bid contract or two. You know, the stuff that's too small for the big boys to care about."
Uncle Bud wandered around the large room that was full of rolls of chain link fencing, sacks of concrete, barbed wire, huge speakers, banks of lights, and piles of construction equipment. He fished his GPS device out of his pocket and nodded when he checked the location. The only completed thing in the construction area was a large bronze plaque high on the far wall. It was the the seal of the Vice-President of the United States, surrounded by the motto, "In a Unitary Executive, There is No Number Two."
Carter was still trying to figure out why the garage door opener worked. "Uncle Bud, I still don't get it. How did you know a garage door opener would open the high-security door?"
"Because the brothers who own FortifyAmerica made their money as the Midwest's leading garage door sales and installation company. Door looks good though, doesn't it?"
Uncle Bud took Carter by the arm and lead him outside to the Segways. He clicked the opener and the door swung shut. "Climb on, boy," said Uncle Bud. "We need to make a quick detour, and then get back to the bar and figure out what the hell this impeachment stuff is about. I've got $75 on Gonzo, but the odds are down to 2 to 1."
"Where are we going?" asked Carter.
"Massachusetts Avenue. N.W., Embassy Row."

They rode in silence as Uncle Bud maneuvered his way through the gloomy tunnels occasionally glancing at his GPS device to check his bearings. "Should be right around the next bend," he said.
Carter could see bright lights lancing into the gloomy tunnels. Uncle Bud slipped his wallet out and flipped without looking to an official looking card. He held in front of him as they turned the corner. The Segway bounced to a stopped in the middle of a busy construction site. The startled workers nearest him shouldered their shovels and glared at the two intruders. "Easy, gentlemen, take a careful look at the card before you get silly," said a smiling Uncle Bud.
One of the men stepped forward. He had a cup a coffee and no shovel so Carter put him down as the foreman. He examined Uncle Bud's card and then, nodding toward Carter, asked, "So who's he?"
"He's family," said Bud in a way that firmly suggested that the Foreman really didn't want to ask anything else.
The foreman paused, weighing challenging someone with Uncle Bud's security clearance level against returning to the garage door installation division in Nebraska in winter. The calculation was swift. "Family is number one in my book," he said and stepped aside. "Back to work, fellas, lots of high-paying government work to do."
"Wait here," said Uncle Bud to Carter. "I've got to check out something. Won't take me but five minutes or so." He walked swiftly away, and Carter watched him stop every so often and check his location with the GPS device. Uncle Bud then walked over to the foreman and was lead into an office. He was out in a few minutes and returned to Carter and the Segway.
"What's going on?" asked Carter. "A new Metro line?"
"No quite," replied Uncle Bud. "Where are we, Carter? I mean, what country?"
Carter knew that "America" should be correct, but the question made no sense if it did. His face must have reflected his confusion, because Uncle Bud laughed and said, "We're under Embassy Row. Does that help?"
Carter scratched his head in the approved primate manner that signified deep thought. The scratching didn't help. "Still nothing," said Carter, "other than the US, and you can't mean that."
"You were looking at an international construction projection located underneath the embassies of the countries that are fighting alongside us in the War on Terror."
"But what are they building?"
"They are building the COW - the Camp of the Willing. Cheney's lawyers have convinced Bush to issue a classified Executive Order that the Embassy's territory extends downward beneath the Embassy for three miles. Soon DC will be honeycombed with small Gitmo's on foreign soil conveniently located in the tunnels beneath DC. They'll be up and running before you can say 'Rendition.' They'll be a slight increase in helicopter traffic into Langley and Andrews, and then W will announce the closing of Gitmo South with another 'Mission Accomplished' speech. Well before the 2008 elections, of course."
Carter was dumbstruck. Uncle Bud reached over and patted his nephew on the back. "Remember, my boy, they're the ones creating reality. Now, let's get back to the bar and see what this Impeachment talk is all about."

Monday, August 6, 2007