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They’ll use these paramilitary police they have tucked into every government alphabet agency as storm troopers and SS troops—”
    That was as far as I got. Molina exploded. “Comparing the federal government to Nazis is unacceptable. I am not going to sit here listening to that kind of shit, Carmellini.”
    I didn’t say anything. Sal Molina couldn’t fire me, and if Grafton did, I was ready to be on my way. Truth was, I had been in the belly of the beast for far too long.
    â€œGo on, Tommy,” Grafton prompted, ignoring Molina.
    â€œThey’ll arrest every prominent Republican they can find and hold them in guarded camps, mainly at military bases. They have computer-generated lists.Gun owners, people who run their mouths on Facebook and Twitter, radio talk-show hosts, editors and publishers of Republican newspapers. . .you know, dangerous enemies of society.”
    â€œWho ran the exercise?”
    â€œA senior Homeland Security dude named Zag Lambert. Wore a uniform shirt and a belt with a holstered pistol. Honest to God, all he needed was a Hitler mustache. That guy should be kept in a padded room.”
    Grafton sighed. Molina threw the report back onto the desk. Grafton picked it up and said to me, “I’ll read this. Thanks, Tommy.”
    I got up and beat it.
    Outside I rescued my cup, decided the coffee was still warm enough to be drinkable, punched the door code, and strolled into the executive assistants’ office. I worked with and liked both of them: Max Hurley, a skinny long-distance runner, and Anastasia Roberts, a black woman with a PhD whose IQ was probably up in the stratosphere.
    â€œHey.”
    â€œTommy,” Hurley acknowledged. “You were just in the pit—how is it going with Molina?”
    I shrugged. “Tense.”
    â€œThey’ve been arguing for a week,” Roberts said. “These agency police forces and huge ammo buys. The White House wants the CIA to establish our own paramilitary force, and Grafton has said no. He’s defying the White House.”
    They stared at me and I stared back. That meant Grafton was on the way out, and we probably were too. The new man, or woman, would bring his or her own management team.
    â€œThey don’t trust us,” Anastasia Roberts remarked, quite unnecessarily. I knew whom she meant. The brain trust at the White House, hunkered down on Pennsylvania Avenue ever since the Democrats lost control of the Senate in the last off-year election, two years ago. The Republicans already had the House. This was August. The presidential election was in November, and no matter which way it went, the current president, Barry Soetoro, was leaving on January 20. TheConstitution limited the president to two terms, so the end of his eight-year occupation of the White House was in sight at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Only 151 days of Soetoro left to endure, according to the countdown counter on Fox News that one of the hosts opened his show with every day.
    â€œYou know I was out in Denver last week at the Jade Helm 16 exercise,” I remarked. “The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, has their own private army, and some of the troopers were at the exercise. A couple dozen of them came down from Boulder, decked out in camo clothes and helmets and armed to the teeth. They bonded with the storm troopers from other agencies. In my opinion, if the water and air gurus need paramilitary police, this agency certainly does.”
    â€œBoulder is a hotbed of sedition,” Max Hurley observed. “Washington is a hotbed of sheep.”
    â€œThe revolution will start there, no question,” I agreed. “The faculty of the University of Colorado is packed with dangerous right-wing fanatics who will lead their students in a wild charge against the Bureau of Standards, burn it down, then attack NOAA.”
    â€œIf they fire Grafton, will you stay with the agency?”