“They’re very good parents. It’s just that...” Her voice fell away sadly.
For a moment, neither one could speak. Jennifer felt like shattered china and stared off at the painting of the storm clouds sweeping over the mountain, wondering if she would ever be able to move beyond the agony of the past.
“What happened to us, Jenn?” he whispered hoarsely, his forehead deeply creased.
“A nightmare, that’s what happened. I gave up the man I loved and our child so that I wouldn’t become an outcast. The truth is I was weak.”
“You weren’t weak. How could anyone be expected to risk never seeing their mother again, or their brothers and sisters, over a baby that hasn’t even been born yet?”
“I didn’t know that I would become so attached to little Ken. But then, after spending those first few days with him, I couldn’t bring myself to give him up altogether.”
He took her in his arms, letting her grief siphon into him. “I understand now,” he said softly.
She drew closer. “Choosing between an abortion and bearing a child is not an easy choice for any woman. That’s why calling an abortion a simple medical procedure is wrong, because it’s always a heart-wrenching dilemma. If my father hadn’t been involved and I’d decided to have an abortion, I’d still live every day with that loss. But it would have been my choice and the moral burden would rest solely with me. Instead, I had no real choice. And that was wrong. A woman should have the right to choose what to do with her own body.”
He held her tighter, his voice turning to an anguished murmur. “Yesterday’s gone, Jenn. No matter how hard we try, we can never get it back.”
“I know,” she said. “Instead we have to live with it for the rest of our lives.”
TUESDAY
CHAPTER 38
THE OLD NORTH END—the upper-brackets neighborhood near the Colorado College campus where the illustrious Benjamin Bradford Locke lived—was only a few blocks from the heart of downtown Colorado Springs. It was here that early 20th Century Cripple Creek mineral barons built a sumptuous enclave of spectacular mansions and filled them with the finest furnishings Europe and the Orient had to offer. For several blocks in each direction, intricate wrought-iron fences enclosed soaring Victorians and Tudors. The streets were wide—General William Palmer, the city’s founder, insisted on them being wide enough to make a U-turn in his carriage—and lined with towering spruce, elm, oak, and pine. The Old North End spoke of an idle grandeur of a bygone era, and contrasted sharply with the blandly homogeneous subdivisions and obscene trophy homes being thrown up around the state.
Locke’s two-story Tudor manor was not as imposing as those from Millionaire’s Row, the Old North End’s most celebrated enclave of aristocracy, but it was impressive nonetheless. Erected in the Roaring Twenties, the house was fashioned of cream-painted stucco and dark brown timber trim. Serpentine ivy ran up to the windows on the second floor. A grand old maple stood resolutely near the center of the expansive front lawn, and a pair of towering oaks gently nudged the side of the house. The front walkway was an intricate pattern of Colorado Lyons Sandstone.
Setting down his mineral water, Benjamin Locke took a seat at his spacious desk, checked his watch, and mentally prepared himself for his important conference call in three minutes. To the casual eye, his private study looked like nothing more than the masculine retreat of a very wealthy man with a fussy fondness for Christian religious artifacts. One wall displayed original copper engravings by late fifteenth-century German master Martin Schongauer illustrating Holy Night and other spectacular motifs deeply rooted in the Northern European Protestant tradition. From another wall hung a popular painting by William Holman Hunt entitled “The Light of the World” in which Christ was portrayed knocking at the allegorical door of the heart, waiting to enlighten it with his lamp of truth. Beneath the picture’s frame was a quote from Revelation 3:20: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” The glass cases built into the walls were packed with Christian icons, images, bells, Eucharistic vestments, church ornaments, and three priceless illuminated manuscripts. To the right of his monstrous desk, the floor-to-ceiling bookcases were stuffed with the leather-bound writings of Martin Luther, John Calvin, Billy Graham, and other renowned Protestant religious leaders throughout world history.
But Locke’s sanctum sanctorum actually contained so much more, things that had nothing to do with God Almighty and couldn’t be seen. The walls were soundproofed and contained microlayers of copper and zinc to protect against directional microphones. The hidden speakers at the window and along the walls quietly hummed with background “white noise” to filter out the sound of voices, a built-in electronic surveillance jammer. His phone was equipped with a pre-programmed controller that automatically swept the line for wiretaps. Similar devices were embedded in the ceiling and scanned for eavesdropping equipment in the room twice daily. The small metal box next to his phone was equipped with a tonal modulator that electronically distorted voices and rendered them unrecognizable. And in the right hand drawer of his desk was a Beretta 9mm semiauto, stoked with seventeen rounds and equipped with custom noise- and flash-suppressors, not exactly the firearm of choice for the average home protector.
After again checking his watch, Locke dialed a number from memory in Chesapeake, Virginia. The call was received by a switching box and forwarded to an unlisted number and switching box, and from there to an untraceable number in Orange County, California. Ten seconds later, four ranking members of the Coalition’s Executive Committee were patched in on secure lines from four different locations. Locke pressed a button on the small black box beside the telephone, activating the voice modulator.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” he announced, his voice a full two octaves lower than normal, like a record played at slow speed.
“Good morning, Mr. Chairman,” several voices chimed in unison, each and every one also electronically distorted so they couldn’t be identified.
“There have been some new developments. First, I was paid a little visit yesterday.” Locke quickly recounted his interview with Agents Patton and Taylor regarding the buttons.
Joseph Truscott, his main rival for the chairmanship of the Coalition, challenged him right off the bat. “And you’re not concerned?” sniffed the retired CIA deputy director for operations, calling from his sprawling ranch in nearby Westcliffe.
Locke deftly parried Skull Eyes. “Not at all,” he replied smoothly. “The souvenirs are a wild goose chase. There are millions of them. It will lead to nothing.”
“I still don’t understand the why of it,” said Senator Dubois, Locke’s most loyal ally on the Coalition’s Executive Committee. The renowned Republican senator was plugged in from his antebellum mansion in Baton Rouge. “Why would the asset pull a stunt like that in the first place?”
“I believe it’s to get our attention. Gomez is letting us know that he knows about us in case we refuse to pay him or send someone to pay him a visit. A thinly veiled threat, if you will.”
“Then how do the other souvenirs fit in?” Skull Eyes pressed him.
“I’m not sure at this point,” Locke admitted. “It’s possible they were left behind simply as false clues. But I don’t think the item in question can be included in that category.”
“Is the asset’s agent standing by his story?” posed A.W. Windholz, media and tobacco magnate, president of United Broadcasting, and head of the American Right-to-Life Foundation. He was patched in from Herndon, Virginia.
The response came from “Skull Eyes” Truscott, to whom the question was directed. “Xavier says he doesn’t know why it happened but that it doesn’t matter. He still wants the remainder of the compensation.”
“Are we going to give it to him?” inquired Windholz.
“I don’t see how after that damned stunt.”
“Are you suggesting we take the produce off the shelf?” asked Colonel Caleb Heston, calling from his commodious, Southwestern-style adobe house just
south of the Air Force Academy.
“I don’t think we need to venture down that path at this time, gentlemen,” interjected Locke before Skull Eyes could answer, asserting his control over the meeting. “True, the asset and his agent both pose a potential risk, but I believe the situation can be resolved peacefully.”
“We definitely don’t want to mess with Gomez,” said Skull Eyes. “But we can’t just let him get away with this either. We need to send both him and Xavier a message.”
“I think the asset poses more of a threat than we are acknowledging,” said the colonel. “Our friend the Apostle could handle the assignment quickly and efficiently. We could put this ugly business behind us once and for all.”
“He would certainly get the job done—and for cheap,” agreed Truscott.
“As I said, I don’t think we need to resort to any precipitous action at this early stage,” said Locke, feeling a touch of consternation, as he so often did, with Skull Eyes and the colonel. In his view, violence was only to be used as a last resort or to keep someone from talking, which was at odds with his two more bellicose counterparts. “My recommendation is to make Xavier sweat for a few days before paying up. I know none of us like surprises, but the buttons won’t amount to anything.”
“I concur with our humble chairman,” said Dubois, coming to his defense. “Let Xavier sweat for a couple days then pay the balance.”
“I second the motion,” agreed A.W. Windholz.
“Very well, that settles it,” said Locke, relieved to have outmaneuvered his two main rivals on a technicality. “Let’s move on, gentlemen, to the next action item on the agenda, the progress on the California front. The Apostle has completed his assignment. Apparently everything went off smoothly. It should be days before the merchandise is even found.”
“How long until the point of origin is tracked down?” asked Windholz, a cryptic reference to the source of the Ares virus.
“The best estimate is Wednesday or Thursday,” the colonel replied.
“I had the opportunity to see the feds in action at my office yesterday afternoon,” Locke said. “They fell for the deception like bees to honey. The word from our inside sources is they are devoting considerable manpower to tracking down the point of origin.”
“Working out of Denver?” Dubois asked.
“No, San Francisco.”
There was a momentary silence. “So everything is proceeding according to plan,” said Truscott.
Am I mistaken or is there a trace of skepticism in his voice? “Yes,” replied Locke. “Everything is proceeding according to plan. But we must keep in mind that it is still early.”
“What about your meeting with the president-elect? Did that go as planned ?”
Locke refused to allow himself to be goaded by Skull Eye’s skeptical tone. “The meeting went very well. I laid out our offer and, as you might expect, she was quite pleased with it. She’s on board with the platform in every respect and the Stealth PAC transfer will go through by the end of the week. We have chosen wisely, gentlemen.”
There was a low rumble of approval on the other end, which Locke found gratifying.
“I know I speak for everyone when I say, you’ve done a masterful job, Mr. Chairman,” said the colonel, taking him pleasantly by surprise.
Everyone except Skull Eyes that is, Locke wanted to say, knowing full well where he genuinely stood with the one man who would be more than happy to end his reign as chairman of the Executive Committee. “Thank you, Colonel. My compliments.” He raised an imaginary glass in a toast. “To Phase Three, gentlemen.”
“To Phase Three!” all but his chief rival chanted in unison. And with that, the conference call was brought to an inspired conclusion.
It was then Locke heard a knock on his office door.
It must be his wife, he realized. “Yes, just a moment, dear,” he said.
He rose from his chair, went to the door, unlocked it, and slowly opened it. To his surprise, both his wife and daughter were standing there, looking tense and anxious, as if they had something important to tell him.
“We need to talk, Benjamin,” said his wife. “And you’re not going to like it.”
CHAPTER 39
SEATED AGAIN AT HIS OFFICE DESK, Benjamin Bradford Locke took a deep breath to control his outrage. He couldn’t believe what he had just heard. In fact, the widely-respected Christian leader, acting chieftain of the publically visible American Patriots organization, and elected chairman of the secret political society, the Coalition, could not remember having ever been blindsided like this before.
“What do you mean Susan’s pregnant? There must be some mistake.”
“It’s no mistake,” replied his wife, Mary. She was a healthily plump, ruddy-cheeked woman in her late-fifties. Normally she would have had a pleasant smile on her face, but not today.
Locke looked disapprovingly at his daughter. The girl’s face was red with shame. He felt badly for her, but he was still in shock at the startling announcement.
“How far along are you, Susan?”
“Eight weeks,” answered his wife.
He looked at her and shook his head. “Did you know before today?”
“No, of course not.”
“But you suspected. For how long?”
She looked at him guiltily. “A week, maybe two.”
Locke looked back at his daughter. “Susan, you know that we both love you dearly. But I don’t understand how you could have possibly allowed this to happen. After everything we’ve done for you, how could you treat us like this?”
The seventeen-year-old’s lips trembled and tears suddenly poured from her eyes.
Locke felt horrible for making her cry, but he was still mad as hell. He looked sternly at his wife. “I take it Todd’s the father?”
She nodded ruefully.
Locke shook his head again, this time with disgust. The truth was he had never approved of Todd Somersby. It didn’t make any difference that Susan was crazy about him or that he was co-captain of the Cheyenne Mountain football team or that he came from a prominent family from the Broadmoor. Locke had never quite trusted the kid, but he also couldn’t stand his daughter dating a boy who wore an earring, only went to church at Christmas, and whose parents were fundraisers for Planned Parenthood. But he put up with it because he truly loved his daughter more than anything else in the world and he wanted her to be happy. Now it was painfully obvious that his lack of trust in the boy had been well-founded. If only Susan had stayed away from Todd Somersby, this shameful indiscretion would never have happened.
“Todd and I love each other. That’s why…that’s why it happened.” The girl’s voice trailed away despondently.
Locke rose from his chair, went to the window, and stared out at the mountains as Susan quietly sobbed and his wife soothingly reassured her. Massive Pikes Peak seemed unusually cold and distant to him today.
“I never trusted that boy,” he admitted to them both for the first time. “And now he’s gone and gotten you pregnant. I always knew he would do something like this.”
Suddenly, an unexpected voice at the open door interrupted them.
“What’s this I hear? Dear little Sis has gotten herself knocked up?”
All eyes turned toward the doorway.
Benjamin Jr. strutted into the room like a game rooster. The nineteen-year-old was the spitting image of his father, but he lacked his father’s charismatic personality, dignified sense of etiquette, and ability to command a room. He also had an egotistical, venomous quality that people found offensive. He had been expelled last spring from Bob Jones University, after he and two other boys were arrested for beating up a homosexual student in Columbia. Locke’s high-powered attorney succeeded in getting the charges dropped in return for a $250,000 settlement, so Benjamin Jr. didn’t do any prison time. But given his father’s national prominence, the story received ample media coverage and the Bob Jones disciplinary committee, which normally would have dismissed
such actions as mere fraternal “hazing,” had no choice but to send the kid packing.
After the incident, Locke brought his son home with the proviso that he take a year off from college, undergo Christian counseling, and work at AMP. For the last few months, Benjamin Jr. had been helping with the voter scorecards and gathering research for religious rights newswatch stories, but he was harsh and arrogant and the employees resented him. Meantime, Locke was pulling strings to get him into lowly Grapevine Bible College in Texas. The task was proving difficult.
“Your mother and I are taking care of the situation, Benjamin. There’s no reason for you to get involved.”
“Really? Dear little Sis is behaving like Madonna and I have to keep my mouth shut, is that it?”
“My God, have you no feelings?” cried Mary, wrapping both arms around Susan protectively to comfort her. “Can’t you see what she’s going through?”
“I’m sorry, but she brought this upon herself.”
Locke felt his temper rising. “That’s enough, Benjamin,” he bristled. “I said your mother and I are handling this.”
“You’ve always been too soft on her. That’s why she’s gone and done this. Please tell me you’re not going to actually let her see Mr. All-State Linebacker again. Not after this disgrace.”
Susan appeared terrified. “What? Of course I’m going to see Todd again.”
“I’m afraid that’s out of the question,” said Locke, and he instantly felt a stab of regret at the harsh finality in his voice. “At least for a while,” he added to soften the blow.
“But he’s the father of my child.”
“One can only hope,” snickered Benjamin Jr.
“That’s enough, Benjamin,” Locke said for the second time, stepping protectively between the boy and Susan, who started to cry again.
“Why are you protecting her like this when she’s gone and performed the worst sin imaginable? What the little harlot needs is to be severely punished.”
The Coalition: A Novel of Suspense Page 15