by D S Kane
He called the agent in charge of his transportation. “Bill, get the car ready. I’m going to the office.” He dressed quickly and grabbed his attaché case.
As he put on his coat and locked the door to his house, he thought about the Bug-Lok device embedded somewhere in the central nervous system of Lee Ainsley. It was his ace in the hole.
Mark McDougal’s cell phone rang out its tune from AC/DC, “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.” He looked at the clock radio. 3:18 a.m.
His cell phone’s text message read, “Urgent, office meeting at 4:30 a.m. My office. Use secure link to confirm. Greenfield.”
McDougal slipped from the bed, careful not to disturb his wife. He dressed quickly and exited the driveway in under twenty minutes. He wondered what that bastard wanted him to do? How could anything be urgent on election night after his party lost? Suddenly it hit him: Oh shit, he wants to clean up loose ends before Inauguration Day.
Just after noon, Wallace Wilton sat, waiting patiently, just outside the Oval Office. She was dressed in a light blue full-length formal blouse, high at the neck. Blue for her party. Black slacks for her heritage. She chuckled to herself, black and blue. With all the in-fighting until the nomination, she’d gotten that way. All the name calling during the debates. Yes, black and blue.
The outgoing President’s secretary turned and smiled at her. “He’ll see you now.” The younger woman opened the door to the holy of holies. It was the first time Wilton had ever entered. She smiled at the gray-haired man and extended her hand.
He smiled back. An awkward expression clouded his face. “I know it’s unusual for an outgoing President to offer to meet with his replacement the day after the election, but I wanted to express my desire to be helpful, you know, even before you try figuring out what goes where.”
She nodded. “May I sit?”
“Of course. Would you like coffee or tea?”
“No, thanks. Is this a photo op? Or is there something I need to know at this time?”
He sat still for a moment, his face moving and shifting as if he was trying to configure his thoughts before he spoke. She noticed this and instinctively understood. This would be a sensitive discussion.
He said, “I have made some very difficult decisions that no one outside this office truly knows or understands. Information may soon be revealed that causes many to doubt my character. I don’t intend to tell you what I’ve done, but I want to prepare you. The news may come suddenly, and regardless of our party differences, you deserve to know just this much. I hope you come to believe that what I did was right and just, and in the best interests of our country, as I do.”
Wilton’s jaw dropped. She imagined a possible Watergate scenario, and like Nixon did with Ford, was this President requesting a pardon in advance? She had no intention of granting him anything. “Mr. President, what do you expect me to do with this forewarning?”
“Nothing. I just don’t want you to be totally surprised.”
She shook her head. This visit had started with her being tense and worrisome, but now she was near panic. She self-consciously relaxed the death-grip with which she held her purse. “Is there—is there anything else?”
“No. Sure you wouldn’t like some coffee or tea?”
As she sat back in the limousine, Wilton tried decoding the messages she’d received from the man she’d succeed. She turned to her husband, James Wilton, who’d followed her into the White House but then waited outside the West Wing during the meeting of Presidents.
“What was that all about, Wally?”
“Strange. He gave me a storm warning. I have no idea now what to expect, just that something very bad will happen, and very soon.”
Her husband’s worried face mirrored hers.
The limousine exited the security gate onto Pennsylvania Avenue. The cold gray sky portended a storm, and the driver took several turns carrying the President-elect and her husband back toward their home in Chevy Chase.
Three blocks from the White House, a missile hit and exploded the limousine, killing them both.
Washington Tribune Headline:
Byline, April May O’Toole to the Tribune
Washington, DC
Late this morning, the day after the election, the President-elect, Wallace Wilton, was assassinated by a ground-to-ground missile fired by some person or persons as yet to be determined. Secret Service agents are investigating, but at this early date, the investigation hasn’t yielded anything.
Ms. Wilton won the election by forty-two electoral votes, the highest in over two decades. Her husband was in the limousine with her and they were leaving the White House after a brief meeting with the outgoing President. The Wiltons are survived by their three children, Harley, Susan, and Michael.
Wallace Wilton was the first black female ever elected President. She vowed a more open regime, with fewer foreign intrigues.
Her Vice President–elect, Amos Mastoff, is a born-again Christian Fundamentalist and a neoconservative. Although there is some question whether a Vice President–elect can become the President-elect, a Supreme Court insider informed this reporter that the court will likely rule in the affirmative. This reporter’s source said, “To do anything else would cause a litany of claims that might take years to fix.”
The Vice President–elect mentioned during the campaign that he favored a law to decree Christian beliefs, such as intelligent design, to be taught in schools in place of evolution. During the campaign, he also proposed a constitutional amendment to make Protestantism the official religion of the United States. Conservative groups and family-values groups were enthusiastic about his nomination as Vice President and were instrumental in Wilton and Mastoff’s electoral victory.
Mastoff has had no comment as yet about his accidental ascent to the Presidency.
Amos Mastoff lit the cigar he held as he watched cable news. He considered himself the luckiest man on planet Earth. A broad grin split his face. “Dear, things have changed. We’ll be moving into the White House.”
His wife, Valerie, sat beside him on the couch. Her face still showed shock at the speed with which their fortunes had changed.
She was as small as he was large. Both were over sixty years old, and Mastoff’s senate seat in Florida had brought him to the ticket. And Florida had bought the presidency for Wallace Wilton, one-time Governor of California. Mastoff’s other attribute of value was his ultra-conservative Christian fundamentalism that complemented Wilton’s liberal policies.
Mastoff took her hand. “Now we’ll bring religion to those heathens in Washington. I’ll have those bastards fearing God as they fear me.”
The sub rode the surface, recharging its ancient batteries. Its antenna dragged on the surface behind them. It was nearly seven in the evening on November 10.
Cassie found the thrumming of the engines disconcerting. She’d spent this day until dinner-time consumed by the frequent and vocal planning meetings she had with Avram and JD. She took a bite of a melted cheese sandwich on Russian black bread, made from what they found in the sub’s stores. Days had passed, but she hadn’t forgotten how close to death she and her mercenaries had come.
Now, one day melded into the next, as they hammered out pieces of a plan.
Cassie had been involved in paramilitary operations in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, and in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. As she saw it, the problem was, the pieces of the plan were discrete islands of action with huge missing bits still not covered in any way. So much could go wrong. So many people might needlessly die, not just her and her mercenaries. The plan, though well thought out, was merely pieces, like bricks lying on the ground without mortar to hold them together. The planning sessions went on for most of each day. It was very slow plodding work, exhausting, frustrating, like playing chess with a relentless opponent.
She walked the narrow corridor through several hatches, fifty feet to the ready room.
In minutes, they had Wing, Lee Ainsley, and Adam Mahee on Skype, with
sound from a satellite speaker. They had all gathered in the living room of her house in Chevy Chase and she could see them on the screen of her notebook computer.
Lee spoke first. “Greenfield tried to kill me using a piece of Mossad technology called Bug-Lok.”
“What?” everyone exclaimed in unison.
“I got it removed yesterday. Gorman said the agency calls it Bug-Lok, and it can see and hear what I see and hear, and track where I was. Plus it contains a bit of lethal poison.”
“How did Gorman know?” Cassie was in a state of panic, her jaw hardened.
“An anonymous tip. That’s all we know.”
“The voice was male. I was the one who talked with him.” Mahee seemed calm.
“And that’s all we know? Can we backtrace the call?” Cassie’s voice was shrill.
“I can. I will. Just another thing on my to-do list.” Wing’s voice sounded hoarse, as if he hadn’t slept in days.
But once again, the conversation quickly deteriorated into accusations between Cassie and William about his failure to locate Watson. Wing shouted. “Okay! Cass, believe me. I’m doing all I can. I know how desperate you are. Take it easy on me.”
“Okay, children,” said an angry Avram Shimmel. “Let’s behave ourselves.” Cassie could see his face go red with anger. “Let’s review the pieces we have.”
Wing said, “We all agree that we need both Achmed Houmaz and Omasu Maru dead, as soon as possible. So, one possible plan calls for us to take out bets on the deaths of each. This piece is easy to implement. The second piece is to leverage Mark McDougal, but we don’t know if he can even help us. What does he really know that we could leverage? Then there’s the piece to make Phillip Watson either totally ineffective or render him dead. On this one, we’ve already failed several times. But there are other pieces that are missing. What to do about Ann and you, Lee? What do we do about GrayNet and the other betting websites that are being used to cause your assassination, Cassie? What do we do about the hitters who might eventually find and murder you? And, are there any other players involved who we don’t know about?”
She shook her head. This isn’t working. “Unless the President has decided that the leak removed all my leverage, I think we’re safe on the last count. And, with the assassination of Wilton by alleged terrorists, the confusion there will keep everyone from even guessing what’s going on. The country is in a massive state of turmoil. We just can’t guess what the new President will do. Meanwhile, Mastoff’s been mentioning that the prior administration caused God to bring about Wilton’s death. What a mess.” She looked at Wing’s face in the tiny screen at the front of the metal conference table in the ready room. “Have we determined why Maru and Houmaz are working together?”
Wing frowned. “No firm evidence. What I told you a week ago is still the best we can come up with. We’ll probably never know for certain.”
Cassie kept asking him the same question even though she knew he had nothing new to tell her. She could hear his sigh on the other end of the vid-cam connection.
“How did the bounty on my life get to be so high?”
Wing shook his head. “I’ve already gone through this with you.” He paused and closed his eyes for a moment. “It appears that when people believe a thing is easy or certain, almost all the bets go to that side and the odds for those that bet on the certain outcome receive a tiny return for their bets. Of course, betting long odds simply means a huge probability of losing your bet and your money. In your case, Cassie, as more hitters got involved, the odds eventually began to move toward even. But in the process of evening the odds, more and more cash dropped into the betting pool for the winners.”
Wing paused and on their Skype connection, Cassie saw him shuffling papers and then the sound of keystrokes before he continued. “There’s a class of betters that have very long odds of living much longer. These are people with terminal diseases that wiped out their savings when their medical insurance declined to pay for their expensive treatment. They won’t be able to support the families they love after they die. This class of assassins with terminal diseases probably feels that a sudden death is relatively painless compared to a protracted one. Earning the bounty is as probable as winning the lottery, but it makes a bigger statement to their families if they die trying.”
Cassie nodded. “Are there that many crazies waiting to die of some disease?”
“Uh, yes. They are being called ‘zombie patriots.’ But there’s another group. A more predictable group of better-organized crooks. These include people whose political views lead them to want to kill someone. This class includes terrorists who see it as a noble effort if they die trying to fund their organization. And finally, there are rational killers. Professional hitters. They can retire if they earn the bounty from murdering you. I think they are among the ones betting on you living, so the odds get better when they kill you.”
Cassie shook her head. So, now it’s no longer “if” they kill me, it’s “when” they kill me. She knew she had started this, with her bets on the deaths of drug company CEOs. But now, she was the likely victim. “Okay, what happens to the bets on my death, if Maru and Houmaz both die?”
“Cassie, the bets are already funded. Like a put or call stock option, the cash is held by the broker until the option is sold or exercised. So, if Maru doesn’t terminate the bet and call back his cash, the bet remains active on the website. Watson’s company has the money in its bank account. Even though I took the cash from GrayNet’s accounts, he’s long gone. There’s no one there to update the connection between funded bets and received cash.” He waited for her to show understanding.
When she nodded, Wing did too. “Unfortunately, the updates are automatic, part of Predictive Markets infrastructure. If I try changing the website, the system will simply reimplement them the next time it reconciles itself with its backup files. This happens to ensure system integrity with every daily cycle. I’ve tried to hack into Watson’s emails and his documents, but still can’t determine his password. I think he made it a very long alphanumeric string. Besides, even if I could hack Watson’s web page, it might take many hackers weeks of work. And as long as the other websites sponsoring the bet are being actively managed, we can’t hack them all, because they’ll surely just recycle the bets with the backups on the web pages again.”
Her head fell into her arms. There weren’t any good options.
She faced Shimmel, her jaw trembling. “Avram, take a team and end Achmed Houmaz. Then end Maru. Make the deaths look accidental. Can you do that?”
“Sashakovich, we can’t use contract assassins, because the word may leak while we’re recruiting them. We’ll have no choice but to do this ourselves. But, when either of them dies, the other would likely assume they’re also in danger and change their habits and schedules. Or just disappear. So, to succeed, the two missions must be completed simultaneously.”
He waved his finger through the air to make a point. “Remember Afghanistan and Riyadh? There are serious problems in simultaneous missions. Timing would have to be critical and we’d need a communications blackout between Riyadh and Tokyo, much more difficult than the one we created between Nangarhar and Riyadh a few months ago, since the communications technology of Nangarhar is primitive, but Tokyo’s is very sophisticated and robust.”
He stopped and thought for a few seconds. “And complicating the matter further, none of us has ever completed an assassination. We’re mercenaries. We lack the capabilities. We aren’t capable of making anything look like an accident.”
Cassie’s words came out more as sobs. “It isn’t just my life at stake. Lee and Ann’s too. Do it. And succeed!” Tears formed in the corners of her eyes.
He shook his head. “We can try to make them look like accidents, but I pray that I can come up with a better idea. Then, if we’re successful, you might have William hack the GrayNet website.”
She lifted her head. “You’re saying it was a bad idea for me to use th
e website to offer bounties on their lives because that made them more cautious?”
“Yes.” Shimmel’s expression showed sadness. “And, should we fail to kill both, then Lee and Ann will surely become Yakuza targets.”
Cassie stiffened. “I’ll end the bets I started on everyone. That was a big mistake.” She shook her head. “Organize simultaneous missions, Avram. Best to try to make them look like accidental deaths if you can, just in case the timing gets fouled.”
Things were already so badly screwed in her life. She wondered about that ancient saying, no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. What would go wrong next?
“So, what you’re telling me is the little bitch escaped from more than three thousand hitters, including over twenty Navy SEALs?” The President was obviously distressed as they walked outside the White House into the rose garden.
Greenfield just nodded. “It appears she was exfiltrated by submarine.”
The President stuffed his hands into his pockets against the cold of the day. “Where did she find a fucking sub? Gil, this is unacceptable. Your covert force was there to assist those amateurs, and make sure the throng of idiots took the blame for her death. Now we don’t even know where she is.”
The director wasn’t willing to face his friend and kept looking at the last of the flowers still blooming. “Well, the good news, Mr. President, is that when she does contact Ainsley, we’ll know about it. Bug-Lok will give us everything.” Greenfield smiled, thankful now that he’d not told the President about the device’s ability to eliminate Ainsley as well. If things went badly, maybe he could offer Ainsley up as a substitute for Sashakovich.