2nd US President
In just a little more than two-and-a-half hours from take-off, the group from the CIS private jet stepped onto the stern of a fifty-six-foot Hatteras fishing yacht, dubbed the Ida Kay, at a Fort Myers, Florida yacht club.
There to meet the group were the boat captain and three deckhands. The chartered boat was scheduled to be out for twenty-four hours, approximately seventy miles offshore in the Gulf to fish for tarpon, kingfish, red snapper, bonito, and ling. If they were lucky, they could stumble on some tuna, sailfish or blunt-nosed dolphin (mahi mahi).
The Ida Kay was well appointed with four private sleeping areas below deck and a small galley. The yacht was rigged for big game fishing, with a six-foot opening in the stern for dragging prize catches up on deck. The wheelhouse was elevated high above the deck, allowing for a great view of the Gulf while at sea.
“We are going to set sail in twenty minutes, gentlemen,” said the captain after brief introductions. Senator McCray had used this charter company on several occasions before.
“Got some new deckhands, I see?” commented McCray to Captain Walsh.
“Two of them are brand new. Both came from another boat in Miami, but were highly recommended,” said the captain. He went on to explain that his two experienced deckhands, after both had worked for him for years, were inexplicably no-shows as of the charter before this one.
“Your Honor, the stateroom below is yours. Feel free to make yourself comfortable. There is beer here on deck and just about anything you want in the galley. We have had some quite tasty snacks prepared and we will eat en route. The seas are a little choppy, but we should make it to the reefs I want to fish in about two to three hours.”
“Thank you, captain. There’s nothing like sleeping on a boat, in my opinion. The soundest sleep I ever get. If you don’t mind, I’ll probably just grab a bite and retire to my bunk. No need to wake me for dinner,” said Noyner.
“Damn, Your Honor. Going to bed early, huh? Not even some scotch with old friends before you retire?” asked Senator McCray.
“I’m a bourbon drinker,” shot back Noyner.
“Yes, Your Honor, please have at least one drink with us before you check out for the night,” said Ottosson.
“Okay,” Noyner conceded, “a nice glass of bourbon will help me sleep.”
The captain motioned to one of the crew, who went down to the galley and fetched some snacks, glasses, ice and some small-batch Kentucky bourbon.
The crew members were busy stowing gear and making the guests comfortable. One of the two crewmen reached over to a small canvas bag with leather handles and a zipper that was sitting on the deck next to the luggage brought aboard. He snatched it up quickly and disappeared down the steps to the galley. Although he didn’t think much of it at the time, Noyner wondered why the man only took the small bag below when so many other pieces of luggage remained topside.
The Ida Kay cruised slowly out of the harbor, passing Sanibel Island just at sunset, making a spectacular scene for the fishing party. Ottosson sat on the party deck in the rear enjoying the drinks, small talk, and a deep orange sunset.
Justice Noyner’s one glass of bourbon turned into four as he and McCray delighted their small audience with anecdotes from past Supreme Court courtroom drama, politics, and the occasional off-color joke.
The Ida Kay was steadily plowing southwesterly through four- to five-foot seas in a steady up-and-down rhythm as Noyner stood and declared he was going down to his bunk.
Noyner noticed the entire time he was enjoying his bourbon with the others that one particular crew member was curiously fixated on him, enough to make him uneasy. He had become accustomed to this whenever he ate out with his wife or went to his favorite watering hole. However, every time Noyner glanced back, the crew member looked down and continued to work on the rods, reels and rigging.
At 4:00 a.m., the captain rang the bell that rousted his clients from slumber. Although they’d arrived an hour and half later than he expected, the captain had positioned the boat over the reef structure where he wanted to begin the day fishing. They were seventy-eight miles offshore from Sanibel Island.
Noyner, now well rested, was the first one on deck with the crew, anxious to get his day started catching fish.
“Good morning, Captain. Still a little choppy, I see,” Noyner commented.
“Well, we are down to two- to three-foot chops as compared to last night. I’m sure you could tell the seas were up a bit last night. That’s why it took so long for us to get out here. When we left, they were the same, but increased to four to six.”
“I didn’t notice; I slept like a baby.”
“Glad to hear it. We have coffee and breakfast ready for you in the galley,” the captain told him.
“I could smell the coffee and pastries,” Noyner said.
“If you don’t want pastries, our cook made some eggs, and there’s oatmeal and other items that might meet your fancy.”
“Thank you, I’ll take a look. Coffee sounds great.” Noyner was going down the galley steps as McCray, Ottosson and the others were grabbing coffee and pastries.
“Looks like a good day to wet a line, but a little choppy,” remarked McCray.
Nodding his head while sipping hot coffee, Noyner said, “Indeed it does.”
The crew was standing ready with baited rods as they headed topside,
“Let’s start with some mullet, crab and pinfish. Tarpon love this stuff and we want your rig down pretty deep,” suggested the head deck mate.
“Not much weight on these lines?” asked McCray.
“We like to free line, with just a little sinker on them to get them to sink slowly. This will work just fine,” answered the other deckhand.
The two new deckhands were mostly quiet, and at times looked like they were somewhat out of place, just a step slower than the captain’s regular deckhands. Noyner felt this a little unusual, as the captain was one of those boat captains that was always at the top of his game and didn’t tolerate amateurs working as deckhands.
For the first few hours, the group pulled in three nice-sized tarpon, the largest by Ottosson weighing in at ninety pounds, a few kingfish and a couple of bonito. Noyner hadn’t caught a tarpon yet.
By 10:00, the seas had picked up and the waves had increased to five to seven feet and the wind was beginning to gust.
“Gentlemen, we have about an hour left before I want to start heading in. I’m looking at the weather and we have some squalls developing to the west. If we pull out in an hour or so, we should beat them into shore,” the captain told everyone on the back party deck.
“That should be all I need to get my tarpon,” laughed Noyner.
“I’m done fishing. I’m going to grab some coffee and watch Your Honor get that tarpon!” remarked Ottosson, slightly annoying Noyner.
“I’m done, too. I may go down and grab a sandwich in the galley,” McCray answered.
The minute McCray disappeared with his two staff members, Noyner’s reel began singing.
“Tarpon!” yelled one of the deckhands. “It’s a big one!”
“Here we go!” yelled back Noyner, happy he had finally got on to a tarpon.
“Judge, hang in there; the waves are picking up, too!” shouted the captain.
Well behind the boat, a two-hundred pound-plus tarpon leaped out of the Gulf, spinning acrobatically as it crashed back through the surface of the water. This battle was going to be a long one.
For the next hour, the crew focused on helping Noyner get the tarpon landed. Noyner had to transfer the rod to a deckhand on two occasions to take a breather. The waves made the deck slippery and hazardous and, with the frenzy of trying to land the big tarpon, the captain ordered the others to the galley or wheelhouse. McCray’s two aides were up on the pilot’s deck with the captain. Three of the four deckhands were on the deck. One of the new deckhands scurried past Ottosson on the ladder to the galley. He went down and came back up with the small
blue canvas bag.
The only person that took notice was Ottosson.
“We're close, sir! Steady! Keep the rod tip up. John, get that gaff ready!” yelled a deckhand.
In all the excitement, commotion, and the rocking of the boat, nobody noticed one of the new deckhands who was in the corner of the deck against the bulkheads, mostly out of everyone’s view.
The tarpon was slowly tiring, and Noyner was exhausted but excited. Two of the deckhands assisted Noyner with the rod, while another was ready at the stern to gaff the fish and bring it in. The captain was busy trying to keep the boat positioned bow first into the growing waves.
As the tarpon was near the stern, the deckhand who had been fiddling with the canvas pack stepped across the deck quickly. In one motion, he reached over and slightly grazed the forearm of Noyner with something. Noyner barely felt anything; his arm was drained of strength from fighting the big fish. He looked briefly confused at what the deckhand was trying to do, thinking he was somehow trying to help him with the reel.
“Got him!” screamed the deckhand at the stern, reaching out to gaff the tarpon.
“Oh,” said Noyner. As he loosened his grip on the rod, it fell to the deck.
“It’s okay, sir, we got him!” yelled another deckhand as he saw Noyner drop the reel.
Noyner turned to the deckhand behind him with a bewildered look.
“Sir, you okay? Do you want to sit down?” The deckhand noticed Noyner was suddenly ashen and void of color.
Without warning, Noyner’s legs went wobbly and he dropped to the deck.
Thinking Noyner had slipped on the wet deck, the deckhand helping with the rod reached down to help him up.
“What the hell… are you okay, sir?” he shrieked.
Noyner was foaming at the mouth and suddenly began violently convulsing.
The deckhand at the rear was trying to hold onto the tarpon and keep Noyner from going overboard through the six-foot open gaffing section in the stern.
The captain, focused on steering the boat, turned to see something was wrong on the deck.
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” he yelled.
“Something’s wrong with the judge!” screamed back one of the deckhands.
From the galley, McCray and the others stuck their heads out of the ladder hole, initially to get a look at the big tarpon, but then realized there was some other commotion going on.
“Oh, my God, what’s wrong with Clarence?” shouted McCray.
Noyner was still convulsing wildly, and the crew could not gain control of him. Instead of a big game fish flopping around on the deck, it was Justice Noyner.
Another wave rocked the boat and, in conjunction with Noyner’s wild contortions, it launched him off the deck onto the small platform deck on the stern. Two of the crew had fallen on the deck, and the gaffer let go of the tarpon and crawled back on the deck but was launched forward, unable to help Noyner.
The deckhand with the small blue canvas bag suddenly jumped down to the platform to assist, looking back to see where everyone was. The captain had turned his back to fight the next wave, and the deckhands trying to get their footing blocked the entrance to the galley. They could not see Noyner on the platform deck, which was two feet below the stern.
The deckhand looked right into Noyner’s eyes as he was still convulsing, but not as violently. The deckhand put his foot on the judge's shoulder and, with a strong thrust of his leg, pushed him forcefully off the platform into the Gulf.
“Man overboard! Man overboard!” he yelled back to the crew, after allowing a few seconds to pass.
“Holy crap!” yelled the captain. “Throw him a ring! Throw him a ring!”
“What the hell is going on?” shouted McCray. A sinking feeling began to set in.
“I can’t see him! I can’t see him!” shrieked one of the hands.
“Turn to port! Turn to port!” another deckhand screamed to the captain, who couldn’t leave the wheelhouse.
“Get the hell outta the way!” screamed the captain to McCray’s aides who ventured on the deck to see if they could help.
Now all the crew but the captain were at the stern, some with life rings looking for signs of Noyner. Several rings were tossed into the Gulf in case Noyner could get to one but, even if he were in top shape and not having a medical emergency, it would have been difficult in the growing swells of the Gulf to see a ring or swim to it.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday!” shouted the captain into his microphone. “This is the Ida Kay fishing charter!” The captain yelled his coordinates to the U.S. Coast Guard.
“We can’t see him!” yelled one of the crew.
“Damn it! We have the Supreme Court chief justice who has fallen overboard, having some kind of medical emergency! Get your birds in the air now!” the captain kept repeating into the mike.
“Nothing, sir, no sign of him!” a crew member yelled from the deck.
“Oh, my God… Oh, my God...” McCray was saying to himself as he tried to come fully up the ladder onto the deck.
“Stay below, Senator! Stay below!” ordered a deckhand to the senator. “It’s too dangerous up here. Stay below!”
For the next forty-five minutes, the captain crisscrossed the area as the crew looked for Chief Justice Noyner, who had taken off his life jacket at a deckhand's suggestion during one of his breaks from fighting the tarpon.
The captain, realizing he may have lost a very high-profile client overboard, leaned over the rail of the wheelhouse on the port side and threw up. The swells were now eight to ten feet high, and the Ida Kay was way overdue to head back to shore and beat the squalls that were coming. A decision had to be made for the safety of the rest of the clients and the crew, and he knew what he had to do.
Nils Ottosson sat in the galley, strangely calm and silent, although nobody noticed as everyone was dealing with the horror of the moment in his own way.
“Gentlemen, we have a bad storm turning south, bearing down on us. For the safety of the rest of you and, as hard as it is to abandon our search, we are going to have to pull out!”
“No, sir! We have to find him!” McCray yelled up the ladder hole. “You don’t see him? My God…”
“Senator, he appeared to be having some kind of medical emergency. He was fighting that fish very hard and appeared to have a stroke, heart attack, or seizure of some kind. With these waves and weather, I don’t see how we find him,” said the captain.
“Captain, the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court just went overboard! What if he is alive and trying to tread water?”
“Based on what we saw on the deck, Senator, he was really having some kind of very serious problem. I doubt he is alive at this point and we are all in danger if I don’t pull out NOW!”
“Jesus…my God,” said McCray as he backed down the ladder to sit in bewilderment on the blue padded bench that surrounded the galley table.
“The Coast Guard has launched a chopper and a search plane and they know who we lost. They will try to beat the weather to these coordinates before the storm, but even that looks dim.”
The crew secured the deck and got into their positions as the captain got the thumbs up, then pushed both throttles to full speed as he turned back to the east for the long, sad ride back to shore.
Unbeknownst to the rest of the country, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Clarence Noyner was floating somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. He had just become the victim of the perfect assassination.
Chapter 12
“Government is in reality established by the few; and these few assume the consent of all the rest, without any such consent being actually given.”
- Lysander Spooner
(1808-1887) Political theorist, activist
“After a two-day search, the U.S. Coast Guard recovered the body of Chief Justice Clarence Noyner of the United States Supreme Court,” said the Fox News anchor in a “breaking news” alert on one of the big screens in Zach Turner’s Bunker.
Zach and three others working in the Bunker stopped in dead silence. Nobody said a word during the news alert broadcast.
“Damn,” said Zach, barely audible.
Then they all started to speak at once.
Holding both arms up, Zach said, “Hold up, hold up!”
“At the request of his family, Justice Noyner was cremated earlier today within hours of his remains reaching shore,” continued the newscast.
“Are you kidding me? Are you serious?” yelled Will at the screen.
“Wow!” said another.
“Who does that? That’s one of the most important men in our country and they don’t order an autopsy? Are you flippin’ serious?” screamed Zach at the screen, then turning to his men, who looked bewildered.
Will grabbed the remote to turn the sound down on the Fox screen and turned up CNN.
“They’re all saying the same thing… Wow,” Will said, his voice unbelieving.
“Guys, call your contacts right now. This may be an accident as they say, but I want to know what the chatter is. Do it now,” ordered Zach.
Zach sat down and a sinking feeling came over him. The Supreme Court had several cases on its docket that were controversial and very close to Zach, including vital cases that involved gun control that could effectively gut the 2nd Amendment if decisions came down on the liberal side of things.
The death of Noyner now put the Court in a 4-4 deadlock, with one justice who was so moderate that he tended to be liberal in most decisions and was expected to be a gun regulation proponent.
President Bartlett was now poised to appoint a Supreme Court nominee that would be hard left. With Bartlett now in the White House and the conservative justices so old, Bartlett could swing the Supreme Court of the United States for generations to come. Transformational would be an understatement.
“Zach, Noyner was with Senator McCray and some guy named Ottosson from CIS. They flew down to Florida on the CIS corporate jet.”
“CIS? What the hell is Noyner doing on their damned plane?”
“CIS is a major donor for McCray,” replied Will, holding up a donor sheet pulled off a government campaign contributor website.
Purge on the Potomac Page 6