No Corner to Hide (The Max Masterson Series Book 2)

by Mark E Becker

  The conspiracies were created in the studio during planning sessions between Somovich and his producers. They judged the value of each one by the amount of listeners who believed his nonsense enough to call in and fill up airtime. Some of the regular callers and guests would go on to commercial success by writing books about Willie’s theories, and some would ghost-write books that would be published as Willie’s profound beliefs. Each one had become a best-seller, and Willie B. Somovich had become a very rich man.

  The show ran each weekday afternoon from 1:30 to 3:00 PM. His commentary occupied the first segment, followed by an hour of call-in guests, who he interrupted at every opportunity. Most of the sentiments that Willie expressed were nonsense, but his listeners and viewers didn’t mind. His approach to the world was unique. He would start each show with a quote that described his character with micro-precision: “Life doesn’t make sense, so why should I?” Once reason was dismissed, all of the messages were cloaked in a conservative mantra. Anyone who questioned the basis for the theories was immediately criticized for their lack of adherence to conservative ideals. If they refused to back down, Willie would question their patriotism, and they never called back.

  “Good afternoon, Conservative Americans!” The background jingle had been created exclusively for Willie, sung by a country singer who had once been at the top of the charts, but his only gig nowadays was to sing The Willie Song at every event at which his meal ticket appeared.

  “Today,” Willie began, “we will be talking about the ideals that made this country great. My topic of the day is: We must buy up all of the Middle East oil we can, so the Chinese can’t get their hands on it, and we need to borrow their money to do it. My argument is this: They need oil to run their factories over there, and if we have all of the oil, they can’t out-produce us. They produce almost everything we use here in this country, so we need to beat them to the oil wells.” Willie seldom made sense, but lately, his thought-processes were more jumbled than usual due to a hidden addiction to painkillers. His growing habit was unknown to everyone except the doctor who made a good living writing prescriptions for Willie, whether he needed painkillers or not.

  His first caller was a long-distance trucker from the Deep South, who was calling from the highway while driving a load of used tires cross-country. “Let’s take our first call from Trey from Tuscaloosa. Welcome to “Willie B Right!”

  “Willie, Trey here. Long-time listener. First-time caller. Here’s a BooYah to Ya, or as we say in Tuscaloosa, Boo Y’all to Y’all.” “Good one, Trey. And BooYah back to Ya. What is it you wanted to talk about?

  “I wanted ta talk to ya ‘bout that there idea ya’ll had ‘bout buyin’ up all the oal.”

  Trey’s image on split screen, broadcast from a Skype phone built into the steering wheel of his semi, was quite a contrast from the carefully coifed Somovich in the broadcast studio.

  “That’s one heckuvah accent you have going there, Trey,” Willie replied.

  “I ain’t got no accent, ya mangy dawg…Y’all got the accent, if ya ask me. I—”

  “Now, now, Trey.” Willie interrupted Trey in mid-sentence. It was a standard part of the program. If he allowed the caller to get out a complete sentence, they would be having a conversation, and Willie delighted in cutting Trey off before he could get there. “I like accents. They remind me of the fact that we are not all alike, and some of us are less alike than others. Now, what was the matter in which we are about to engage?”

  “Engage! I ain’t gonna engage to no fella. I gotta a girl back home—”

  “Next caller,” said Willie.

  The next caller was a university professor from Berkley, California, named William. No last names were permitted. William had the temerity to attempt to challenge the premise upon which the day’s topic was based, and in doing so, he challenged the extent of Willie’s knowledge on the subject. He was not a frequent viewer, or he would have realized that having an intellectual conversation requires two intellectuals in the conversation, and Willie was going to have none of that on his show.

  “Hi, Willie,” said Willie.

  “My name is William, and I’m calling about—”

  “No. You’re a Willie, I’m a Willie, we’re both Willies. Equals, if I may.” Willie always said “if I may” at the end of a sentence when he was on the air with someone he presumed had greater knowledge than he did on a topic, which happened a lot. He was at his best when he could make an intelligent caller sound stupid. The goateed man in split-screen shifted in his chair. He appeared uncomfortable.

  “I prefer to be called William, if you don’t mind.”

  “Well I do mind, Willie,” said Willie. “I prefer to be called Willie, and I think that’s a perfectly nice name, don’t you think?

  Smelling the bait, William ignored the question. “I would like to challenge the presumptions used in forming your hypothesis about buying foreign oil to stimulate the U.S. economy, and thereby defeating China’s—”

  “Well, well, Willie. You misunderstood. I’m surprised that a man with your credentials wouldn’t understand that I was talking about jobs for Americans and taking back the rights of every American to keep those jobs at home!”

  A gong sounded, and a pre-recorded cheer resounded through the studio.

  “But I thought—”

  “Next caller!” said Willie. The sound of the connection being severed was amplified for effect. “Schmuck.”

  And so it went. Another typical day on the Willie B Right show.

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  CHAPTER 26

  G

  len Aspect was the polar opposite of Willie. He fervently believed that all who disagreed with him were Neanderthals, and he told them so. He contended that government should take care of all of our needs, but he bristled at the label of Socialist.

  “Why can’t we all get along?” Glen was starting his morning talk show in the usual way. It followed a set format, and for his most faithful listeners, it struck a chord. They couldn’t get enough. Aspect would start with his message of the day, addressing recent national and world events that were violent enough or so potentially catastrophic as to evoke worry. Then he would shift to a discussion of how the government should help, followed by clips of somewhere in the world where innocents were being slaughtered. In the end, he would do a sixty-second editorial about altruism, and how if we all just did the right thing, the world would be a better place. He didn’t take calls from listeners. He didn’t care what they had to say. His concern was with ratings, and they told him all he needed to know.

  “The last thing I need to hear is some yahoo from Topeka calling in and questioning my flawless judgment,” he told his producers during the daily staff meeting. They had been reviewing the format for the show, and Glen was adamant that he remain isolated from public opinion. “It just doesn’t fit my program. I will not be flailed by call-ins who I can’t control. I don’t work like Somovich, and if his viewers start in on me, I’m going to have a bad day. I don’t like bad days,” he explained.

  The next day, the show would start the same. Nothing changed, and Glen had another segment that essentially presented the same material with different players, all bent on changing the world with peace, love, and getting along. The fallacy of his argument, that lasting change must address the core of the problems, was never mentioned. Glen Aspect’s view of life was simple: As long as the world continued on the same path toward perceived annihilation, his talk show would never be cancelled, and his personal prosperity was guaranteed.

  “The ultimate obscenity is nuclear energy. It doesn’t choose its victims. Everyone becomes its victim,” he started in his daily editorial. The opening statement had to be what he called a “headline grabber,” and each one was carefully crafted for maximum controversy by his staff of seven writers.

  The mornings were devoted to his show so that he could book the afternoons for guest appearances on other talk shows to discuss his views. The irony of the situation
was that Glen didn’t have many views of his own, and his appearances were written and rehearsed for maximum play on all of the major networks. He was a regular contributor by virtue of his ability to talk in the time allocated for his segment, and his staff wrote the questions for the interviews. All the networks had to do was park Aspect in a chair and let him read from the script.

  “Remember Three Mile Island? Chernobyl? How about Fukushima? Hiroshima? Nagasaki? Well, I’m here to tell you that we have our own nuclear disaster waiting to happen again right here in the good ol’ United States, and all it will take is one big earthquake in California. That’s right, folks. The Diablo Canyon nuclear plant is built on one of the biggest earthquake faults in the U.S., and it’s a disaster waiting to happen. And mark my words, it will happen.”

  Aspect didn’t waste any time seeking comment. He was the Chicken Little of the talk show world, and people loved it. There was no need to explain his views. His genre was sensational fright inducement, and he knew it. Glen Aspect was a real-life horror ghoul dressed in an immaculate pin-stripe suit.

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  CHAPTER 27

  B

  ob, Phil, and Jerry sat in their usual Thursday night “meeting.” At least that’s what they called it, but it was more of a structured excuse to get away from the wife and kids for awhile, drink beer, and eat chicken wings. They had been doing

  the same thing for so long that it had become a habit. Jerry never let a Thursday pass without reminding his fellow members that he held the record for consecutive meetings, which made Bob and Phil eternally regret that they chose the birth of their children over the meeting. Most of all, they regretted that Jerry would do anything to maintain his string of attendance, and they would never be able to steal that badge of pride, no matter what. Jerry could be on life support, and he would still find a way to be there.

  Jerry took the opportunity to start the meeting by waving a drumstick covered with Blazing Volcano sauce so hot that it had been rumored to eat the flesh off of unsuspecting hot sauce rookies. He announced, “Let the meeting begin!” and they turned toward the big screen situated at the end of the bar. Their focus was the political news of the day, and they had long since programmed themselves to filter out the information they deemed not worthy of discussion. This Thursday, they chose to focus on reports of the new president, Max Masterson, and his vice-president, Scarlett, who they had privately confessed to each other that they would screw in a heartbeat if their wives wouldn’t find out. They then took a male oath of secrecy by saying in unison, “If you tell anyone I said that, I’ll personally kick your ass.” They each took a prolonged gulp of beer and bit into a wing before reviewing the clips of the day.

  “They all make shit up, and they put their slant on whatever you say. The more words you speak, the more they have to twist and misconstrue, and in the end, they can have you spouting nonsense,” announced Jerry as they watched a report from the Bull Network’s Glenda Reasoner that dealt with the new administration’s lack of party loyalty.

  “You can say that again,” Bill replied as the televised commentary shifted to talk show hosts Willie Somovich and Glen Aspect, two hosts they loved to hate. “Did you see what they said about our boy Max the other night? That shit about him just sitting up in the Oval Office and not caring about us common folk? If you ask me—”

  Jerry cut off Bill before he launched into one of his weekly diatribes.

  “He isn’t even in the White House yet. Glenda says that he’s down at the oil spill getting his hands dirty—”

  “Would you guys shut the fuck up? I want to see the Special Report.”

  Phil resented the fact that he was always the last to speak. By the time they got around to him, he usually had nothing to say, but on this occasion, he was ready. The three turned from their bickering and watched as the president-elect of the United States fell into what looked like floating turds, not once but twice, and came up covered in brown gook. As they watched in rapt amazement, Max approached the camera and flung the slimy mess at the laughing press corps.

  “Oh Lord, we’re in for an interesting four years,” said Phil. “What do you mean? I’m going for eight,” replied Jerry.

  “Well, if you guys want him in for eight, then I’ll go for twelve,” announced Bob.

  Jerry and Phil just shook their heads as Bob, convinced that he had finally one-upped his old buddies, drained the last of his draft with a satisfied gulp.

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  CHAPTER 28

  T

  he Trump Plaza in Jersey City is the jewel of high rise residences in the greater New York metropolitan area. At 55 stories tall, it is the tallest residential building in New Jersey, commanding an unrestricted view of the Statue of Liberty, the

  Hudson River, and all of Manhattan. The penthouse condo of the building had been sold back in Trump’s heyday to meet his financial obligations on other projects, purchased by a corporation named PGM, Inc., which existed only to purchase properties in tall buildings in major cities along the eastern seaboard and west coast of the United States. Nobody knew what the initials stood for, and they didn’t care. All transactions, for all ten of the luxurious penthouse residences that PGM had purchased to date, were made by remote wire transfer, and all ten sales were closed without the presence of a single human being. None of the residences were occupied, and their opulent furnishings were only for show.

  In the weeks leading up to the inauguration, there was a flurry of activity in each of the units, as men disguised as movers brought large, innocuous looking boxes into the buildings. They had the proper credentials to present upon request, and their activities were never questioned by the management. The movers had the keycards necessary to enter the building, and another key card gave them access to the penthouse floors, which were inaccessible by anyone not possessing the electronic key. The total time that the units were occupied was approximately two hours, during which the workers installed ice-making machines and carefully connected them to the power supply. Inside each icemaker was a carefully engineered device of mass destruction: a tritium-enhanced, super EMP bomb.

  It wasn’t a bomb in the conventional way. An Electromagnetic Pulse device did not produce a structure and people-destroying explosion. The EMP bomb was designed to emit gamma rays in a concentrated discharge. The effect of it’s detonation was to save those people and buildings, but take away all of the pillars of living in a technological society. Gamma rays emitted from the sun have disrupted electronics and communications on earth. The EMP produced gamma rays in a much shorter burst. At levels much higher than the indiscriminate gamma radiation produced by solar flares, the device was capable of crashing the grid and plunging a city into darkness in less than a minute, and paralyzing all modern transportation. If used in the intended way, the bomb could be pointed in the direction of a target city, sparing civilization outside of the target area.

  In his briefing with Adam Pryor weeks prior to the incident, Darkhorse was given the details of his mission. “You know why we own those high-rises?” Pryor now inquired.

  “No sir, I don’t care. After this is over, I’ll disappear like I always do, and you can do whatever you do, and we can all part ways. I just do my job. You pay me. It’s as simple as that.”

  Darkhorse had spent a lifetime guarding his identity from everyone. He had never maintained a lasting relationship, not even a casual friendship. He liked it that way. If they don’t know you, they can’t get to you, he thought, and that more than anything guaranteed his continued existence.

  He didn’t trust Pryor to leave him alone and alive after it was over, and he had carefully devised his exit strategy. He would be gone before the bombs were detonated, and he would be in a place where nobody would look, even if they knew he was involved. His only contact was Pryor himself, and this power whore would never give him up.

  Pryor was proud of his plan, and despite his assassin’s aloof response, he outlined the details. “I am going to run Masterson out of of
fice and regain control. I don’t want to kill a lot of people to do it, but there will be collateral damage. Survival of the fittest. You understand that, don’t you?” He turned his back to pour himself a drink but continued to watch Darkhorse in the mirror above the bar. Pryor continued to speak as he watched his hired gun shift uneasily and scan the room for available exits. There was something about this conversation that was becoming very creepy, and he wasn’t about to remain any longer than necessary.

  “You do understand,” Pryor continued. “I know you do. The people who maintain my lifestyle are counting on you to understand. I managed to get my hands on eleven weapons that this country has never seen before. Homeland Security intercepted them a few years ago in a container load down at the docks of the international seaport at Port Everglades. They were shipped from the Ukraine by way of Germany. Terrorists bought them up when the Soviet Union collapsed. I hear they paid for them with crappy cars and kitchen appliances.” He laughed as Darkhorse stared.

  “It turns out that the Soviets had improvised an EMP bomb that doesn’t nuke a city like conventional nukes. They modified them to take out all of the electronics and shut down the grid. They have some kind of cone inside that lets us direct gamma radiation in any way we want, and I’m about to take out all of the electronics and shut down the power anywhere inside the blast area. Hell, if I could find out how to get one of these babies up six miles, I could take out the whole country. But I don’t want to do that.”

  Darkhorse stood up to leave.

  “No, don’t go. I haven’t got to the good part yet.” Pryor moved toward Darkhorse, intending to grab his arm. When he saw the menacing look that his advance had provoked, he backed off and continued talking. “Do you know what will happen when these things go off? I’m not talking big mushroom clouds and destruction here. I am just going to take all of society away for awhile.”