Free Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista by Matthew Bracken

Fe yesterday, with Deleon? Anyway, he got a call from Senator Kelly while I was with him in his office, after dinner.  He was showing off—he let me listen in on another line.”
    “Why would he do that, Luis?”
    “Why?  Because I’m ghostwriting his memoirs, why else? The man is 82 years old.  He wants me to know everything, see everything from his point of view, right? He trusts me a hundred percent, and he’s very, very serious about his memoirs.  Believe me, this was a proud moment for the Mountain Lion, taking a call from the senior senator from Massachusetts! I mean, it validates him, he thinks.  Everything from the courthouse raid in ’70, to prison, to exile, to the election—his entire life!  So of course he wanted me to hear it...for his memoirs.”
    “So what did Kelly tell Deleon, that the FBI should know?  You don’t actually think I can send up a report on it, do you? On a private conversation between a U.S. senator and a governor?”
    “Shit.  I didn’t consider that. Well, I’ll give it to you anyway.  Do what you can with it.  Kelly’s not going to object to the New Mexico land reform laws.  He’s going to support them in Congress, so they’re a done deal.  The special tax on ranches over a thousand acres, the Spanish Land Grant Commission—everything.  Looks like Washington’s not going to oppose any of it, as long as the state stays away from federal land.  And you already know the President won’t say a word.  With Los Angeles burning, she can’t afford to alienate the Hispanics…”
    “I could’ve told you that.  Our instructions from headquarters have been the same ever since this mess started: New Mexico ‘land reform’ is not a federal issue.  We’ve already been directed by the DOJ to stay out of it, no matter how ugly it gets.  So it really doesn’t matter if Senator Kelly confirmed it to El Gobernador.”
    “Alex, that’s all just background.  There’s more.  I haven’t gotten to the interesting part.  This is why Kelly called:  there’s going to be a conference next week up north, some kind of mega-meeting of big shots. Politicos and tycoons are coming from all over.  Heavy hitters only.  Senator Kelly is coming down, and he said Senator Montaine is coming over too!  Imagine those two cooperating on anything!  Deleon didn’t even know about the conference before this call, but it sounded like Kelly didn’t know that he didn’t know.  Kelly must have assumed that El Gobernador was already in the loop about the meeting.  Well, you know how cagey Deleon is—he played it like he knew all along—he didn’t miss a beat.  It’s going to take place up at Wayne Parker’s ranch next week.  You won’t believe who’s coming: Orozco…”
    “Pascual Orozco’s not in charge of Mexico yet—there’s still a revolution going on.  Zorrero is still El Presidente.”
    “Not for long,” replied Carvahal.  “Zorrero is going to go on a permanent vacation in Ireland any time now, that’s the rumor.  He already owns a castle there, or at least his brother does.  Zorrero is finished. Orozco will be the next El Supremo, one way or the other, and he’s coming to Parker’s ranch next week.”
    “Then this meeting must have been cleared with the White House.”
    “That’s what I think too.  It must have gotten the okay from on high; it had to have.  And you wouldn’t believe the guest list—thank God Senator Kelly is such a namedropper. Actually, he sounded pretty drunk. Besides the senators, Paul Warburg is coming, and maybe Nicholas Biddle and Norman Montague.  Imagine those billionaires, sitting down for dinner with a socialist like Pascual Orozco!  Something huge is going to happen up there, something important.”
    “Like the Davos meetings, it sounds like.”  Garabanda was referring to the annual meeting of the so-called “World Economic Forum,” sometimes held in the Swiss town of that name.  
    “No, not like Davos.