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The Camelot Conspiracy

By Diane Munson/David Munson

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Eva Montanna slid her chair from behind a cluttered desk in the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility and stretched her cramped legs. She longed to leave the super secret office in the Capitol and start her summer vacation of kite flying, wave jumping, and building sandcastles on the beach. But her special assignment to the U.S. Senate meant she first had to attend the hearing on terrorist threats from South America. She swiftly threaded her wheat-blond hair into a ponytail, her mind pivoting from tranquil thoughts of care-free days with her husband and three children to getting to the Hart Building on time.
In the closet-like office, she drained the last of her coffee, the lack of windows making it impossible for her to fathom that summer was only eight hours old. Eva gathered her list of questions when the receptionist buzzed her over the intercom.
“Eva, can you take this call? The guy sounds really strange, says he’s calling from Senator Hernandez’s Florida district.”
“I’m leaving for the intelligence hearing,” Eva shot back, hoping Amy would take the hint and find someone else. Eva’s vacation started at one o’clock, and as she watched seconds tick by on the buzzing wall clock, she was in no mood to disappoint her family.
“He claims it’s urgent and says he can’t wait.”
Before Eva could decline with a firm no, she found herself caught in the mystery of who the man was and why he was calling.
“I’ll do it for you, but then I’m outta here.”
Amy laughed, drowning out Eva’s sigh. Eva punched the line to connect the call and pushed the receiver to her ear.
“Hello, this is Eva Montanna. What’s so urgent?”
The caller’s Spanish accent was thick, so she paused for a moment to try processing his garbled response, then spoke crisply into the phone, “Sorry, I cannot hear you very well. Our connection is weak.”
His voice was a mere whisper, but he repeated the words, this time with force. “My life is in danger. Help free me, por favor.”
Eva absorbed his entreaty and then quickly calculated the impact of his plea. Was his call a hoax? More likely, he was some kook who had seen the same article she’d read that morning in the Washington Star about how the FBI had infiltrated a mosque near Seattle. For a newspaper to casually mention carefully guarded intelligence as if it were a mere accident report deeply concerned Eva. That leak might have come from a congressional staffer, and the idea planted suspicions in her mind about everyone she was working with on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Over the years she’d learned the leaks never stopped coming.
“I want to help, but what do you think I can do?” Perhaps she could decipher his true intent and flush him out, like her husband’s bird dog that went after pheasant in the brush.
A loud noise clattered in her ear, and Eva wondered if he’d dropped the phone. She resisted the urge to hang up. Then she heard another husky reply, “Bear with me, por favor. I am eighty years old. Can you get me released?”
Oh brother. She got it. The gentleman, if he could be called that, was in prison and wanted out. Well, so did thousands of other people sitting in jails across the country.
“Sir, it’s not in my power to release convicts. You’ll have to tell me more.”
Static smothered some of his words, and she strained to hear.
“My doctor is trying to kill me.”
Eva let the words sink in as a question lingered in her thoughts. Was this caller feeding her nonsense or was he for real? She’d never seen a case in which the government had tried to kill a criminal defendant. She was torn. It made sense to give him the phone number for a human rights group and hang up. But Eva was not one to let go of a mystery so quickly.
“How can you call from prison without dialing collect?”
“Nurse smuggled in a cell phone. They will find it and take it away. God kept me alive to tell what I know.” His voice faded. The effort to talk seemed to diminish his strength.
“What do you know?”
“Not over the phone.”
“Why not?” Eva stifled a frustrated sigh and shoved her Senate hearing notes into a file. In her more than fifteen years as a federal Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, she’d seen too many felons she’d put in prison contact Congress, claiming they had evidence of abuse. After all, cooperating with the government was a sure way to escape the confines of prison.
“Please, I am in a prison near Guantanamo Bay.”
He was in a Cuban prison? And using a cell phone to call her in Washington, D.C.? “Sir, if you can, tell me your name—”
“Perhaps the U.S. Navy—” And then he stopped.
Eva stalled, still hoping for a name, for anything to go on. “Can you call back at one o’clock?”
Again, he rallied. “Me abuela came to me in dream. She say children, hundreds, maybe thousands, will die if I do nothing. Can you get me out?”
That clinched it for Eva. A mother of three, she could dismiss him no longer. She’d had plenty of experience with life-changing dreams, the kind that shook her awake at night, where her every nerve tried to discern if the dreams were hokum or a warning. A dream from last night filled her with unease. She’d chased a terrorist into a building, when without warning, all of the agents on the team had abandoned her.
She was willing to take a chance with this one. Eva pressed the phone closer to her ear, not wanting to miss one word of what the caller said. If he was a quack, she’d take a chance that his story held a tiny grain of truth. Because of the leaked article and the hearing on possible threats from Cuba on the day’s agenda, she shouldn’t move too quickly on the call, which could end up being little more than a ruse to influence policy against the communist dictator.
Her eyes darted back to the clock. In minutes, Eva was expected in the hearing room to give Senator Olivia Hernandez a list of questions she’d prepared.
A sigh, a stutter. “M-m-my name, I am, General Raul San Felipe, political prisoner of the regime—”
The connection cut off, and Eva could not believe what she’d heard. She tapped the switch on the phone. “Hello?”
The general’s words, if true, were even more astonishing than the leak about the FBI’s case. Eva quickly gathered a sheaf of papers from her desk drawer, making sure to close and lock it. As she grabbed her jacket and headed for her office door, she recalled an article in a Pentagon paper about General Raul San Felipe once being a confidant of Fidel Castro. In the 1970s the Cuban government had jailed San Felipe as an enemy of the regime. No doubt, he was real. Eva could picture a frail man in a weakened condition fighting for his life, and she felt enormous compassion. She’d seen a smuggled video of the conditions of Cuban prisoners, and she imagined at San Felipe’s age, his life could be in grave danger.
But she did not believe, not yet. With dozens of questions and few answers, she reckoned that his plea for help was probably nothing. After all, anyone could surf the Internet and make a phony call to the Senate.
Eva strode down the hall in her black suit, gripping her briefcase, heels clicking on the shiny marble floor as she tried to make sense of it all. She was about to exit the SCIF, which was sealed from electronic signal penetration, when she passed a CIA agent leaning against the doorjamb. Stopping mid-stride, she decided to tell Bo Rider about the general’s call. She’d spoken with him a few times since his return from a foreign assignment—one that no one talked about openly.
Committee rumor had it that Bo’s cover had been blown in a world hot spot, so he’d been flown home for his own protection. The sight of him, hair curling over his ears, head bent over a sudoku puzzle reminded Eva of how sensitive her staff position truly was. She had the nation’s classified operations at her fingertips, and she had to be careful, for her sake and her family’s.
“Bo, if you’re here later, someone claiming to be the Cuban General Raul San Felipe is calling back at one. I’m leaving right after the hearing. Can you talk to him?”
Bo straightened his back, looking up at her with a scowl. “It may look like I’m goofing off, but actually, I’m working on a new type of code.”
“I can refer the general’s call to someone else.” Eva didn’t really care what he was doing.
“I should have solved this by one.” Then he gave her a thumbs up. “No problem.”
“Thanks.” Eva flashed a smile. “I am so ready for time with my family.” She dug a Dutch peppermint from her pocket and hurried away, stopping at Amy’s desk. “The mystery man is supposed to call back at one. Bo Rider is taking his call.”
“Gotcha.”
Eva swiped her access card and left the SCIF, her appetite for intrigue stoked. Her mind was appraising how a Cuban political prisoner might change the dynamics of the national threat assessment hearing she was headed to. She figured she wouldn’t be lucky enough to leave early after all.
She waved to the guard, wondering if Bo would be convinced that General San Felipe was real and in a Cuban jail. If the general turned out to be legitimate, Eva would launch a full-scale effort to smuggle him out of Cuba.
Her last undercover assignment—with FBI Agent Griff Topping and British MI-5 agent Brewster Miles—leaped into her mind. The three of them had posed as scientists studying frankincense trees on
a small island in the Indian Ocean in order to apprehend the vicious leader of a terror cell. The thrill of working undercover, which was a far cry from holding the hands of constituents, excited her.
On the way to hearing room, the full force of the simple but painful truth burned in Eva’s mind: sitting behind her tiny desk on Capitol Hill was too confining. As a federal agent, she wanted action. Eva pressed her lips together, regretting her promise to her husband Scott to seek the Congressional fellowship, and give up risky cases. Because she dearly loved Scott and the kids—Andy, Kaley, and the baby they called Marty—she’d reluctantly agreed to work on Capitol Hill.
With her hand lingering on the doorknob to the Senate hearing room, Eva took in a deep breath, knowing nothing important would be accomplished inside the paneled walls. She had accepted the dull work, but another four months of advising politicians who hoped to convince the electorate they knew everything would be an awful grind. On loan to the Senate Intelligence Committee for the balance of the summer, she knew her life would be layered with secrets she could not discuss with Scott. The sooner she left the Senate and returned to her old job, where she could supervise agents with dangerous cases, the better.
She yanked open the door and was surprised to see photographers already snapping pictures of senators who were shaking hands with Wilt Kangas, the CIA’s Deputy Director for Intelligence, who was about to testify. Eva hurried down to the single row of seats for staff, taking her chair behind Senator Hernandez. She was sorry she was late, but she had more important issues revolving in her mind.
Could General San Felipe be smuggled out of Cuba without creating an international incident? As she gave Senator Hernandez the questions, Eva felt adrenaline pumping through her for the first time in months. At one o’clock, she would be at Bo’s side for the general’s call, and none of Scott’s objections would stop her.

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