My mother Mary called Jane and me into a discussion. She just had a phone call from Deb. It was very brief. Mary told us that, “Deb has made no progress on the investigation. It has been vetoed by her fellow Senators. She said very little, but the hints I got were that she expects us to go down to Harrisburg and do some more digging around. There is a part of me that is pissed that she has not added a single bit to the investigation, even though Washington DC is loaded with information. And she expects us to pull a rabbit out of the hat. But, I do know Deb. If she could get anything, she would. It sounded like she was totally shut down. The thing that was scariest to me was that she was talking in code. She did not trust anyone. Perhaps she did not even trust her own staff. Does anyone have any ideas?”
Jane muttered, “That is scary. It reminds me of all the secrecy during our product launch.” She suggested that we all travel down to Harrisburg and figure out what is going on. I spoke up, “I do not think the three of us can travel to Harrisburg. We would stick out and be recognized instantly. Mary, why don't you stay here and act as our command post. Jane and I will travel in disguise and use false names.
My mom Jane threw a fit, but I explained that Jane Foreman could not just march down to a nest of vipers and come out alive. My mom said, “If I am not traveling as Jane Foreman, who am I traveling as? It is totally illegal and impossible to have a fake ID. How do I switch identities? Without my ID, I have no access to money. I cannot buy a cup of coffee without my ID. I am Jane Foreman; I cannot be anyone else.”
I opened my purse. I pulled out a small cloth bag. “These are some of my trade goods. Most of these are in small plastic bags marked with their value.” I showed that these were a collection of old USA coins, tiny diamonds mounted on rings and bits of costume jewelry. One red plastic bag had three old silver dimes. “These are the most valuable trade goods that I carry with me. Each of these is worth 350.” My mom Jane asked, “Each of these is worth $350 dollars?”
I sighed. I had no idea that I had to start at the beginning. “Mom, trade goods are not measured in dollars. They are measured in bots. A bot is a bottle of beer when you buy beer in wholesale. It costs from 2 to 6 bots to buy a bottle of beer at a bar. The variation depends on how classy your bar is. I do not want to ever bring you into a place that charges only 2 or 3 bots for a bottle of beer. You might die of shock. Right now a bot is worth about 4 tenths of a dollar. I think that is called 40 cents. It all works out. The old silver coins had .72 ounces of silver per dollar of face value. So with silver having a rough value of two thousand dollars an ounce, work out the numbers, and each of the dimes is 350 bots.”
Jane turned to Mary and asked, “Did you know there was an underground economy based on the exchange of various shiny things and tokens? Do you have any of these bots?” Mary responded, “I knew that there were people outside of the money economy, but I never got an introduction. Rose, where did you get your money tokens?” I replied, “I buy them from various hotels and restaurants that need to convert their tokens as you call them, into the electronic money used by the rest of the economy. I usually pay a 5% premium; thus, my offers are always approved. I thought my parents were reviewing my accounts. Haven't you seen the large amounts I spend on restaurants and hotels?” Mary said, “I thought you were helping a lot of your friends. I had no idea.” Mary started to look disapproving of me. I said, “I do help my friends. I buy all sorts of food and lodging for them. I just use bots or electronic money. You know I do not spend money on myself. I don't buy many clothes or food for myself.” Mary said, “We know you are not spending money on yourself. But Rose, you seem to have some sort of plan. What do you have in mind?”
I sucked in some air. I said, “Well, I have had this idea for some time. I have been lucky so far. Each of the secret missions I have gone on, I could go alone. My age was not a handicap. But I cannot see myself doing this by myself. I think it would be fun to travel with Jane with both of us in disguise. My actual plan is to have Mary buy us train tickets, first to Pittsburg, and then on to Harrisburg. In Pittsburg, we can spend a day on our disguises. We choose a hotel right by the train station. We find a place to stash our suitcases at the hotel for a week and take the train to Harrisburg anonymously. We find a house to host us for 3-5 days. I think we could do that with just one of the silver dimes. We hang around the bars near the military unit we are interested in. No one knows who we are. If we keep our wits together, no one would ever guess who we are. Hopefully, we learn something important, and we start our return trip. Once we get back to the hotel in Pittsburg, you can get back to being the richest woman in the world.”
For once, I was in Rose's hand. We were a party of three: me, Rose, and Rashid (our bodyguard). We took a train to Pittsburg, following Rose's instructions. We checked into a hotel in our own names. Rose took us to an area of town where we obtained some clothes. We used her trade goods, so there would not be a trace of our presence. The clothes were worn, shabby, but fairly sturdy. Rose instructed us not to launder them, and to wear them day or night until our mission was over. To pay for complete outfits for all three of us, Rose paid with one of her silver dimes. As change, she got another small diamond ring. I was astonished at how quickly buyer and seller looked at their new items. Rose was right; it was easy to verify the trade goods were legit.
Our next stop was at a spray tanning salon. All three of us stripped and got sprayed with a medium darkening treatment. According to Rose and the management, the darkening would last about 5 to 10 days. Rose carefully supervised the degree of darkness for our faces and our hands. She told me that we could not get so dark that our facial features clashed with our skin tone. Rose was careful to make sure there were no light patches on our face or hands. I was not watching how Rose paid for the treatments. But the transaction was swift. There was no sign or indication that these trade goods would be accepted. I have to admit that I felt like a child being treated by an adult. I was very impressed.
Our final stop was a hairdresser. Rose and I had relatively short haircuts. I purchased a blond wig that was a bit tacky. Rose had her own blond wig, which she had with her in a bag she was carrying. She put on her new wig and then paid for everything with the small diamond ring she got as change for her dime at the clothing store. I glanced at the three of us in the big mirror. I have to say that Rose had been clever. I looked like so many of the poor people in our nation. There was nothing about me that indicated that I was in disguise. The blond wig seemed to be a way of indicating what our jobs were. Rose must have had a lot of fun dressing her mom as a whore.
We went back to our hotel through a side door and slipped into our room unnoticed. We ate the food that we had gathered during our shopping trip. Rose and Rashid shared a bed. I was not pleased, but Rose argued, “I may need to sleep with Rashid while we are undercover. We need to be comfortable with each other. Don't worry; I will set some sensible boundaries.”
In the morning of October 5th, we had a quick snack in our room and then packed our suitcases. We checked out under our correct names. I just said, “We are going to a costume party.” As we settled the bill, I left a large tip. We stored our suitcases under my name. Rashid took all our ID cards and put them in a wallet. He stored the wallet and his gun in a safe under a ten-digit code number. As soon as we walked out of the hotel, we did not carry anything to associate us with our old identities. I felt as rootless as I was when I was first enslaved so many years ago when I was fifteen years old. Rashid no longer carried a gun. He had a few knives hidden in his clothing. As we eased ourselves into the train seats on the way to Harrisburg, I felt very safe.
Once we arrived in Harrisburg, Rose told us that we needed to walk for almost 6 hours to get to the Army barracks near Carlie. Rashid and I started to yell at her, and she added, “Unless we get to hitch a ride.” We did get one ride in the back of a truck that took us far enough, so the whole trip took only two hours. Rose paid with five copper tokens. The truck driver looked very pleased.
Rose had us walk to a bar close to the military base. By now it was 4:30 in the afternoon. She used her trading tokens to buy us all a fine steak and potatoes dinner. She made sure that Rashid paid. Rose told us, “He is playing the role of the client. You and I are providing our services. It would be disrespectful for one of his ladies to pay for the bill.” Once again, I was regretting not supervising Rose enough, and proud that she was able to handle herself so well in these dives.
As we were enjoying our first solid food in two days, we became aware of a commotion in another part of the room. There was another table with one man and two ladies. Another woman came in who acted as if she was the main girlfriend. She was saying nice words, “I love you. You love me. I do not care if you sleep around since you are such a good provider.” But her tone was sharp. An argument ensued. The entire group was as asked to leave by one of the staff. As they started to open the door to leave, the arguing got much louder. I really wanted to go outside to watch. Both Rose and I told Rashid that he also was a great provider. We all had a good laugh.
When we were about half-way finished with our meal, an officer approached us. He asked Rashid, “Are you in Evaluation or Assessment?” Rashid laughed and replied, “You tell me. Someone told me to check out this group. I am here with my associates. This is Roseanna, and her daughter Debra. I have discovered that if I cannot learn something, these two firecrackers will get the story.” I smiled, and muttered, “Pleased to meet you while averting my eyes.” I did not want him to think I was curious about him.
The gentleman gave us invaluable information. He said, “Our organization is known as ‘Threat Evaluation and Assessment.’ Evaluation means doing research. We spy on all kinds of organizations. Assessment is an inside joke. It means doing an operation to render an organization less effective. The joke is that we are assessing the organization's response to our interference. I personally prefer Assessment.”
I was holding my breath. Everything depended on how Rashid reacted to this very provocative statement. Rashid just said, “My sources say they have seen a lot of these agents in the halls of Congress. Are they evaluating our government or assessing our government?” The gentleman just said, “I have no idea what you are talking about!” He gave a smirk and a laugh that showed he did know something. Rose quietly took his picture with a hidden camera. Our questioner quickly moved away from the table. We finished our dinner.
I knew that Rashid was playing the role of big cheese for our little group. I whispered, “We know this group is up to no good. We just have this guy's picture. How are we going to learn more without giving ourselves away?” Rose asked me what we still needed to know. I answered, “We need to assess the size of the agency. How can we figure out how big it is? Do we count food trucks going in? Do we count garbage going out of the complex? Anyone have any ideas?”
Rose got up and walked over to the bartender. She said, “I have a math problem for you. Let's say I can service three men a night from the military base. How many months would go by before I would be repeating myself? The bartender replied, “There are a lot of women at that base. Are you willing to fuck men and women in this math problem?” Rose glanced over to me and said, “Of course, they don't get as tired as the men.” The bartender asked, “Seven days a week?” Rose answered, “Uh-huh.” He asked, “Officers too?” Rose said, “Of course.” He then asked about civilian contractors. Rose said, “I worded my problem poorly. I should have asked how many military staff members. I am not interested in the civilian head-count.” The bartender thought for a few moments and said, “I would say a little over seven months. That's based on the latest information I have. This bar has been a gold mine.” Rose called to Rashid and me, “I told you this is a great town. I say we move in now!”
I was taken aback, both by Rose's amazing boldness and by the scale of the complex. It was more than twice the size that I would have imagined. I said, “OK, we seem to have learned the size of this military base without counting garbage trucks.” We did stay in town for an extra day to try to learn more. We got a few scraps of information. At no point did we learn as much as we learned when Rose asked her rude math problem. All in all, the food and lodging for those two days cost us another of Rose's magic silver dimes. I had to admit that it had been largely wasted. On the train back to Pittsburg, I reminded Rose how she hated word problems in school. I told her, “Look how much you have grown up. You are writing them now. I think you are a natural teacher.” We made our way back to Chicago without doing anything to show that we had made a side trip to the Harrisburg/Carlie area. Rose was right; we could travel for a few days without needing our ID cards and our bank accounts. It had been an astonishing adventure.
The bonus adventure was that Mary had a fit when she found that Rose and I had modified our skin tone. She insisted that we visit a dermatologist to restore our natural appearance. Until we had our appointments, I did notice that when Mary, the kids, and I walked around the streets of Chicago, we got less attention because none of us were white. I made a last plea to Mary that people stared at us less when we looked more alike. Mary said, “Fine. Figure out a way to do it permanently. Let’s decide as a family. I think Amir should have a say in all of this. Do interviews before you do this, and explain the decision. Take plenty of 'before and after’ pictures so no one is surprised. Before you dip yourself in the dye tub, remember that there is more to being black than avoiding attention when walking with your black wife. It's no skin off my back.” Then she could not stop laughing for several minutes.
I was astonished when I got the report from Jane (and Rose). The scale of the operation, the arrogance, and the illegality of it took my breath away. We were able to identify the man who talked to Rahid, Jane, and Rose. Through that identification, I was able to learn enough that the head of the “Assessment” branch of Unit 17 was a military officer named Luciana Lopez. Ms. Lopez seemed to be a frequent visitor to congress. I knew that she was a key figure who had been tampering with the constitutional process of a properly elected congress.
In total secrecy, we moved Senate staff into the Carlisle and served Luciana Lopez with a subpoena on October 14th (Thursday). We just came into her house with our staff and cameras and started interrogating her right on the spot. We did not want to tip anyone off that we were in town investigating things. We made sure that Luciana knew that I was a US Senator, and I was conducting an official investigation; she was required to answer our questions. Any and all military orders she had ever received asking for secrecy were now rescinded.
But Luciana threw a curveball. She said, “I understand who you are. I accept your credentials as authentic. My military supervisors have explained that they take their orders from the banking elite who have credentials above and beyond the constitutional authority of the United States of America.” I yelled, “What? Which bankers give you such advanced credentials? Do you mean the Constitutional Bank of the United States? Why don't we have a break now, so that I can arrange a video hookup?”
I called up Jane and Amir. As expected, it took about ten minutes to set up a video and voice connection. I asked Lucina to pay close attention. I introduced Luciana to Amir Hassan, the head of the Constitutional Bank of New York. He is, of course, the highest-rank banker in the country. I asked, “Luciana, do you recognize this man?” She answered, “Yes, I recognize his face and his voice from countless news reports that I have watched.” I was relieved that I did not have to fight that battle. I asked Amir the key question that I had never asked him or anyone else, “Are you able to exert control over others via channels outside of constitutional mandates? Do you have any access to a military unit which can evade constitutional controls? Have you ever heard of a military unit called Unit 17?” Amir had a surprised expression. He responded, “I only work through constitutional means. I never work with the military. I have never heard of Unit 17. Is that the secret military unit in the book Seven Days in May?” I had to look it up, that was the fictional ECONCOM. I think Amir was trying to get more clues about what the context was for my questions.
My next move was a total shot in the dark. I showed a three-minute video that my staff had produced about the attempt on Jane's life using the data from our joint investigation. Each person was carefully identified on screen. When there was a segment showing the lunch with the Ukrainian suspects (who cannot be identified in this book due to legal issues), Luciana exclaimed, “Oh my God.” We had hit the jackpot. I knew that her unit had provided fake identification to the key people on the assassination team. Luciana said, “Put me in protective custody. Once you have arrested my superiors, I will testify at the trial. I had no idea that I was participating in an attempt on the life of my personal hero, Jane Foreman.”
At dawn the next day, we arrested Lloyd Warren. He defended his actions by saying he was ordered to do what he did by his superiors. We marched in three levels of the military hierarchy. They gave testimony as to the actual role of Unit 17 and the limitations of the power of General Warren. He then said that he derived his authority from the bankers of America. We had video hookups with 40 members of the boards of the ten separate Constitutional Banks of America. We also had hookups with 20 other top bankers in America who worked outside the framework of the Constitutional Bank. Every single one denounced any effort by Police or Military to subvert the Constitutional Authority of America.
It was all fairly dramatic. I officially asked that General Warren be arrested for treason and for suspicion for directing the attempt on the life of Jane Foreman. I will spare readers with the details of all the ways the Military healed the wound and opened up their processes to Congressional oversight. I have full confidence in this process. My office was given a complete database of all the phony Identification Cards issued by this rogue military unit. We all had to sign agreements that when we found evidence of criminal behavior by those listed in the database, we would turn the names over to the Police, and not use the list to launch additional investigations. We have stayed true to our agreement.
We did get the alternative identities of our four suspects. We were able to put computer alerts when their names or ID's ever surfaced. I finally felt that all of the work I have done as a US Senator to pierce the veil of secrecy around what really happened on September 4th in Des Moines Iowa was worth it. What a whirlwind, starting with a dropped can of nuts and bolts leading to the arrest of a prominent general, who, in my opinion, was nuts.