* * *
The President looked across the collected minds of his military advisors. “Do we have anything yet?”
“No, Mr. President. We’re still trying to figure out which way they went, and if they’re even still airborne. We’re currently checking with all the small airports in the Sierras, but the assumption is that they are still airborne.”
Lawrence looked at the man speaking. It was Steve Hatten, Head Chief of the Air Force, who continued, “We’ve scrambled recons from Nellis Air Force Base, both east and southwest. We also have the northern top covered by Beale Air Force Base, the middle covered by the National Guard out of Fresno, and Charley is scouring the area around Stumps with his Air Corps. Past him to the south, Mark has El Centro and San Diego running constant sorties.”
United States Army General Mitch Osborne, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the guy that was usually quiet, spoke up early on this one. Normally, General Hatten and Rear Admiral Anders had him aimed in a certain direction prior to going in, with the three forming a like-minded alliance. But apparently that was not the case today. There was too much riding on things, and the spotlights were out looking for scapegoats.
General Hatten watched Mitch, and he knew this was a time of great trepidation for him. He spied the empty chair on his left, a chair that had used to seat his ally, Vice Chairman Richard Reis, until a fatal heart attack two months ago. The chair had not yet been refilled. Since Reis’ heart attack, Mitch had become more aloof and withdrawn. This un-choreographed outburst was just more evidence of his mental instability and of their crumbling alliance.
Osborne spoke to the President. “It’s a needle in a haystack. We have re-configured one of our Army Satellites to do a fly-over on a high-probability area down south, but we’re really just grasping.”
Steve Hatten chimed back in, “We figured their maximum airspeed at 200 miles per hour, which puts them approximately 300 miles out. My people are telling me that they doubt the path is down south—too many military zones, and too much populace. They feel we should be focused on the Canadian border. We believe that we should be able to pick them up soon as they lose the cover of the mountains, which should be any minute now.”
Lawrence looked at his Air Force Chief and asked, “What was the name of that millionaire who crashed in the Sierras some time ago? He was a big contributor of my opponent’s campaign.”
“You mean Steve Fosset?”
“Yeah, that’s the guy. How long did it take to find him again?”
“Over a year, Mr. President, I believe,” Hatten croaked out, shrinking as he sensed a tone of impending reprimand.
“Over a year and a half, Steve, that’s right.” Caulfield’s voice was rising. “It was over a year and half that half the Free World was looking for him in that same area. So the next time you want to tell me what you anticipate ‘might happen,’ I will have you removed from this room. Am I understood?”
Before Hatten could get the reply out, the President’s voice brought the room to a halt.
“Gentlemen, let’s get this straight right now, seeing this is the first time we’re in the war room together, formally. Now, other than Mitch here, who happens to know me from college, none of you know what kind of man I really am. So let’s get all the congeniality and Southern hospitality you have me typecast as, and throw them right out the window! I’m the Commander-in-Chief, and I do my homework. So understand this now: I give no breaks from this point forward for any failures to inform me of facts. The same goes for insufficient facts. I’m making decisions that hundreds of millions of people depend on. Bring me information I can act on, or hold your tongue.”
Hatten did just that, as did Osborne, as did the rest, and they went on about their business. The President thought, General Hatten’s ego is bruised, but he’ll get over it. It was a slip of the tongue for sure, just thinking out loud probably, but I set the tone exactly the way Kim wanted me to. President Caulfield had just been waiting for one of them to slip up so that he could take the opportunity to assert himself in a room full of lifetime warriors who didn’t much believe in him.
He had heard the grumblings and read the pundits questioning his military ability. Their favorite charge was, “He’s never even served.” But this charge failed to take into account the President’s advisor Kim Sullivan, who was more than just his Chief of Staff, but was also the smartest person he’d ever known.
Caulfield’s friends at TJAC had been tracking her since high school. At thirty-five, she was the youngest Chief of Staff in U.S. history. She was also a person who could answer any question on any topic and give a reply that was not only informed, but laced with helpful insight. He had been very reluctant when they presented her, first because he had been thinking, okay, here comes the hook. I knew this was too good to be true.
The night they had recruited him in his office on the Hill, the smarmy man behind the knowing smile in his office had been Chase Viana. Viana was CEO of the Teledine Corporation in his day job, and Chairman of the Board to the TJAC Corporation in his spare time.
TJAC didn’t exist in the sense of being a corporation that manufactured something or paid taxes. There was no public face to their enterprise. As a matter of fact, only eleven people even knew what the acronym meant, or that the company existed at all.
Chase, as most billionaires, had enjoyed the good life that successful capitalism afforded. It was there in his perfect bubble that he had gotten an honest look at just how corrupt the top really was. It bothered him.
It had started consuming all his thoughts. He had decided to clean his own house. It had been a painful experience, one that had cost him things he thought were honest partnerships, and in some cases, friendships.
In one case, one of his subsidiaries being run by a “trusted friend” had turned out to be a Ponzi scheme. That had cost his shareholders $500 million to set straight, and his former friend had hung himself in jail. It had taken over five years to clean house completely. But clean house Chase had.
Like most conglomerates, they had absorbed untold businesses along the way to get to their current size, and many had never been vetted properly. They couldn’t have been, because they had all been acquired too quickly, mostly because they owned some piece of proprietary equipment or software that was needed. Their growth had happened too expeditiously for there to be any real regulatory controls. Chase knew if it had happened to him, then it must have been happening elsewhere.
Thus, his house cleaning had not been enough to satiate his need for good. Chase had known that there was so much more out there that could be done. But what the hell could he really do about the big overall picture? Chase Viana was not a comic book crime fighter, for Christ’s sake, he was a businessman.
Somehow, when one is right and good, word got around. True to that, another kindred spirit had come out of the woodwork at intermission during a performance of Phantom.
Jason Evans had been a CEO from Virginia. His defense firm had made circuit boards for an assortment of military devices. His company, ICB, had been ranked thirtieth on Forbes list of the top 100 companies in the U.S.
Chase had seen Jason at functions, and they had tipped nods from time to time. He was very surprised to have Jason Evans approach him and introduce himself without his wife, who coincidentally, was talking to Chase’s wife. The two had hit it off instantly after Evans’ opening line, “Word is you cleaned your house up pretty good.”
After some witty banter and discovering what mutual relationships they shared, they had set up a lunch date. After that they had met every month. TJAC had been born ten months later, in the garden at Chase’s Estate, over Arnold Palmers and BLT’s.
Caulfield knew the story now like he’d heard it a million times, and it felt like it was close to that. Back then he’d had no inside knowledge about Kim. All he had known was that they were asking him to do something they had promised not to do.
He remembered it had been Evans who had gotten him i
nto a meeting and said, “Look, if you don’t like her, then say ‘no.’ No one is telling you what to do. All we’re asking is that you interview her fairly, not taking into consideration her gender, age, or past experience. Actually, her past experience has been handled very carefully, molded if you will, to serve a man such as you. But that aside, just be unbiased.”
He had agreed, and the rest had been history. She was amazing, not too attractive, and not too homely. Kim knew how to dress to look more mature, especially by pulling her hair back in a bun, which perfectly complimented her round face and gave her a no-nonsense appearance. Complimenting this quality, she never lost eye contact in a conversation with someone, and as a result, she was an expert lie detector.
Her answers were so automatic and good that Lawrence had to make up a couple of impossible scenarios, just to watch her trip up, just to make sure he was seeing what he was seeing and hearing what he was hearing. Her abilities seemed impossible.
His thoughts snapped back to the war room. These militaristic pinheads have no clue just how much I’ve learned about them. Not only about their tactics, but also about how each one of them thinks, acts, eats, and shits. Kim insisted that I review each one like a fighter reviews the films before a big fight.
Now those months of late nights were paying off—the nights where Lawrence had had to pore over all their bios when all he wanted to do was sleep. Like all things that took time to accomplish, there would be a time when it paid off, and that time was now.
That was how he knew to try to push Hatten’s buttons first if he could. Hatten was the “ringleader,” as Kim had put it. She had instilled in him the belief that, “They all have weaknesses, and you need to know how to exploit them when the time comes.” She was his Angelo Dundee. Hopefully he had some Mohammad Ali in him. How could someone so young be so smart about everything? Thank God, she’s on my side. Lawrence slid out of his tangent thoughts, and stepped back into the game a little stronger.
* * *
Pablo was jarred back to the present by a pick up in the wind, caused by the changing landscape below. The chopper lurched as the pilot turned and aimed them toward their destination. They were minutes from Ibarra now. Soon he would be home, and hopefully in time to be of service to her. His heart was elevating, and he couldn’t contain it. He was failing to control his escalating anxiety, and the lack of control bothered him, so he purposely went back to his daydream, to avoid the coming reality.
The chopper calmed back down, and Pablo drifted back to the past. He remembered he could immediately see the plusses of “Life behind the Hedge,” as James had so eloquently put it. The food was good, the company was needed, and the daughter was really good-looking.
Because of his mourning soul, it was hard not to think about her without guilt. Yet it was impossible not to. When she walked by after breakfast was cleared, Pablo tracked her every movement with lust. Her straight blonde hair falling midway down her back was hypnotizing. She was a slightly plump girl, with big boobs. Maybe plump was the wrong word—thick was more like it—as he stared at her ass, too. Suddenly he was racked with overwhelming guilt, and he put his face into his hands.
James had leaned over and said, “Easy boy, you can’t help living. Pablo, look at me.” Pablo had remembered looking at the floor. “You will never be able to erase tragedy. It will loom, but you can also never stop living, or what is life for? Don’t you see? I could have done so much good with my mind, but instead I was suckered in by some rich boy, with some of daddy’s money to throw around. I got caught up in all the flag waving and big contracts. Hell, even after I made my fortune, I stayed. I could have traveled the earth dropping goodwill and cash on all I crossed, but I chose not to truly live. I chose to continue to try to get more, always more. So no matter the task you have, or the tragedies you endure, if you truly want to live, be your own man and never feel guilty for wanting to enjoy every second of your life. If I would have done that, I wouldn’t feel like I do now.”
“Do you believe in God?”
“Why do you ask? Because I’m dying and you want to know if I’m going to go from atheist to Bible clutcher in my waning moments?” James spat his words out with a little too much drama, he realized after they had already left his mouth.
Pablo had smiled. “Been holding that in a while, huh?”
James had rubbed his head in that annoying American way Pablo both hated and loved.
“Okay, Kid. Seriously, there’s a good argument for both sides of that issue, but I have to lean toward the science, although a few things still sit in the back of my mind.”
“Like?”
“Like, if you could go to the end of the known universe, what would the end be? And what would be on the other side? You know, things science can’t come close to answering. What’s this about anyway?”
Before Pablo had been able to answer, Eva had walked back into the alcove, and the conversation had changed directions to her, and where she was heading for school in the fall.
James had observed that the boy never took his eyes off of her. So maybe there’s a chance he will have a family after all.
* * *
Their path took Matt and Vera’s plane over Bishop and down into Death Valley. Once in the valley the plane was able to stay low, thanks to a friendly moon. Matt looked back at Vera, and she still had the thousand-yard-stare.
“What next?” he asked Doug.
Doug replied, “When we come out of here, we’ll be smack-dab in the middle of several military bases. You do realize that once they figure out we’re below radar, they’ll start flying sorties all over.”
Matt thought about that and said, “We’re still a needle in a haystack because no one knows which direction we left in.” He thought he detected a glimmer of something in Doug, and it looked like hope. It was time for Doug to have a refresher course in Threats 101.
“Doug, if we get an escort, I’m not going to be turning myself in, so be prepared if that happens. Seriously, if I see an escort, it’s time to get your affairs with the Big Guy in order. I’m just saying.”
Doug was floored. It was like this guy could read his mind. Was this guy for real? He talks like Al Qaeda, but he’s a white guy. Damn my neck hurts, what a night! Who could have ever seen this one coming? Actually, I should have seen this one coming because no chick that hot has ever talked to me. That should have been clue Number One.
Doug wondered how many times in history a man had been led to his untimely death at the hands of a woman with ulterior motives? Well, he was now one of the countless fools, and he hated himself for still being able to feel her against him. The few minutes he had gotten to be with her were the most amazing time he’d ever had with a woman, and they hadn’t even made it. Then “Psycho Boy” had showed up. Who the hell was he?
Doug remembered that as he had been coming to, he had heard the man yelling, “Look at me!” He had heard slapping and whimpering, and then finally a pop, like a champagne cork. It was that pop that opened his eyes.
He looked at Matt and analyzed him. This guy killed that guy, sure as shit. That both pleased and terrified Doug, because he knew that he was not in a bluff type of situation with this guy.
On the other hand, he couldn’t think of a better person to have been killed than that asshole, whoever he had been. Maybe this guy was right, if the attacker had been a cop, then he would have identified himself, and he wouldn’t have hurt him or the girl.
This was all adding up to be something right out of a novel.
He had too much left to do to give his life away so that some trade secrets didn’t get stolen or re-stolen, depending on whose version of the story you believed. Hell, I’ve never even had two chicks at the same time yet, and that’s definitely on my bucket list. Doug realized that it had to be as this Matt Hurst said. He needed to make up his mind right now if he wanted to live or die, because if he wanted to live, it would be because he was going to have to leave it all hanging out.
He th
ought hard about that, and the last sentence where this guy had made it clear that there would be no surrender. Maybe drifting above seven hundred feet and getting spotted wasn’t the best idea after all.
Doug was no dummy, and he knew that his ass wouldn’t mean shit to the government, or whoever it was that wanted these two. He also knew that the lines between the private sector and the government, were merging at an alarming rate. He reflected on that whole Blackwater deal, as well as every politician in Washington who was on the payroll of some special interest group. For sure, if he wanted to live, then he would have to fight for it and trust that this guy wasn’t full of shit.
He banked the plane down as they cleared the mountains and headed across the open desert at near full throttle.
* * *
The Bahnhofstrasse is one of the premier places to shop in the entire world, hosting all the usual high-end retailers: Armani, Tommy Hilfiger, Rolex, and a prestigious list of others. It also hosts the famous Swiss banks that drug smugglers love so much. Because of this, James had not been able to just walk up and deposit a big bag of cash, as had been possible at one time.
The Swiss banks had adopted a policy to “know your customer.” This is why James had had to become a master forger, way before he ever became sick. He had needed a different identification to start his Wall Street endeavor, so he had gone with the nationality that he wanted to put his money into, Swiss. He had been able to create a whole new identity. Then he had gotten a job in Zurich as an Information Technology Manager for an exporter.
He had carefully sought a job where he was able to work off-site. Then he had bought property. He had finally been able to deposit more than $250,000 without scrutiny. It had been shortly after that when he had started feeling ill and had gone to his doctor.
James had known that there were only two ways to get money into a Zurich bank, and if he hadn’t done it this way, he would have had to pay an exorbitant broker fee, which wouldn’t have done for one of the smartest men in the world. Later, all those moves had looked like Divine Intervention.
The Harbinger of Change Page 19