by Mike Bogin
Al shrugged his shoulders if to say What can you do? while Owen smiled. Trudy phoned, Callie texted.
“I saw you talking with Christiana Dansk,” Al noted after the call. “Next thing, you want a drink.”
“She runs the division,” Owen responded. “I don’t.”
“And I gather you would run things differently.”
“Uh huh.” Owen looked up for their server. All of a sudden the cheesecake was looking good. “You won’t believe the investigation. All the manpower.” Owen paused, hesitant to hang out dirty laundry.
“I’m aware that Intel Division has been looking for size thirteen shoes,” Al volunteered. “You work the leads you have until something better comes along.”
Al’s comment opened the floodgates. “Sure, you look for shoes, and weapons, too. But why pour a ton of fresh money into the division and then clamp limits on the investigation? Not even looking at Americans? Not even talking about the military? My partner and I just wasted two days chasing around to gun stores in friggin’ Newark, for Christ’s sake.”
“Do you play chess?” Al asked Owen before taking a small piece of cheesecake past his lips.
Owen shrugged. He knew the game, but he wasn’t a player.
“My father taught me chess from before I started in school. Chess and music. That was my father. The worlds of chess and his violin could take him away from everything else. My mother played, too, the cello, up until he died.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago. My mother speaks five languages, English, German, Lithuanian, Polish, and Yiddish.” Al faded off for a moment, memories still vivid in his mind. His mother always so involved, always in her book groups, politics, volunteering at women’s shelters even now, at eighty-nine.
“I digress,” Al said. “Chess. Chess must be thought from big to small. Anyone thinking of just one move at each interval has no chance of beating a skilled opponent. With a worthy opponent, you need to see in your mind where the opponent is going. Thousands of possibilities, and yet you are prepared because the thought goes from big to small, always checking each segment for balance, direction, control.”
Al likened the thought process to their case investigation,
bringing out disturbing connections that Owen had never considered. “Take NYPD Intelligence Division,’ Al told him. “Don’t think of one move. Think of the whole chessboard. The Intelligence Division is funded again. NYPD didn’t allocate those funds, so who did? Who could allocate the money? What strings were attached? The whole chessboard, Owen. What is most important for Dansk? I will tell you. A funded division is more important than any one case, no matter how big.”
A light came on in Owen’s eyes just as it did whenever he realized how he thought like a Boy Scout, always believing in a society founded upon good intentions and the common good. Dansk had made a bargain. Federal dollars had flowed into reviving the full division. The Chief of Police was off to D.C. to lobby Congress for increased policing powers. The House Intelligence Committee was weighing internet privacy versus public security, with the shooter tipping the scales toward funding more NSA internal surveillance.
Intel was never going to get close to the real case. Whoever had brought the funds had seen to that. Politics.
“I think you’re getting it now. You want to solve this case; you have a better chance with this old Data Analyst than you or anyone else will have under Dansk. Dansk can’t step on toes to get the shooter without your Intel Division going into brown-out again.”
Al was right. The entire tempo around Intel Division was revived. That explained much. But Owen remained confused by another question he had been wondering about. He finally asked, point blank.
“I don’t get it, Al. You and my dad.” Eamonn had been a uniform cop for thirty-five years. The Big Man wasn’t any deep thinker. What did the two of them even have to say to one another?
“Alcohol comes in from the outside and holds your soul in its teeth,” Al explained quietly. “Everyone who has seen that demon, felt that bite, we have more in common with one another than with anyone else in the world.”
“Did Eamonn talk about my mother?” Owen asked quietly.
“I know some things, yes,” Al answered. Where to begin, and how? Eamonn was gone, but still there were too many trusts that he would never betray. “She drank, too. Eamonn got help. She didn’t.”
A stinging heat welled in Owen’s eyes. He needed to be out in the air. “Al, I have to go.”
Leaving in the middle of conversation with Al was getting to be a habit. Who else kept finding his raw nerves?
* * * * *
An Assistant Attorney General from DOJ ordered Special Agent Turner to prepare a complete hard copy overview of the Bureau’s entire case file on the shooter. The head of Americans for Patriotic Action was flying in from D.C.
An admin telephoned Turner at 4:45 in the afternoon, telling him, “Meet US Attorney, Byron Cole, in the lobby at Trump International, 09:00. Christiana Dansk will be there, too.”
Turner kept staffers in the Bureau headquarters until midnight. When he arrived at 9 a.m., he came to the meeting prepared with a narrated PowerPoint presentation. He had been practicing his delivery in front of the bathroom mirror since 6:30 that morning.
U.S. Attorney Cole was already in the hotel lobby with Turner when Dansk arrived looking a mod KGB agent in her padded-shoulder Balenciaga pant suit and ankle-high black boots. They went into the elevator together, riding to the top floor. A butler opened the penthouse doors, directing them in to the sitting room, where floor-to-ceiling windows looked directly over Central Park. Both the dining table and the coffee table were adorned with abundant arrangements of freshly-cut flowers. More fresh flowers decorated the bathrooms.
Turner opened up his laptop on the dining table but Carlton Jeffers came in through a side door and immediately cut him off. Turner offered his hand. Jeffers either missed it or ignored it. The slim, elegant, gray-haired conservative unbuttoned his suit jacket and sat down in one of the deep upholstered chairs, crossing his legs and looking first distinctly into Turner’s eyes and then briefly eyed Dansk’s outfit.
“The killers are secondary,” Jeffers announced with practiced calm. He was not about to tell any of these people more than they needed to know.
“Political fringe comes and goes,” he said. “But Americans for Patriotic Action feathers too many nests to keep patiently waiting for your DOJ to get a backbone.”
Jeffers tapped an iPad, then leaned back again while a recording started playing.
“I want to pin you down. Say what you mean,” Elliot was saying through the tablet’s speakers.
The man speaking with Elliot articulated his concerns with dire precision. “What is really more important to Americans, all the hype over guns, gays, and abortion or having decent opportunities in our lives? This country could sort out every wedge-issue with clear majorities. We could end this cycle of diversion that handcuffs real leadership. But doing that, governing effectively, would both take away each party’s appeal to its base and give power back to the people. Instead of that, we have a minority of powerful, connected people using government for their private purposes. Politician after politician talks about ‘the Global Economy’ like that corporate scheme is the one and only truth. They should be spitting after the words ‘Global Economy’ comes out their mouths! The real meaning is cheap foreign labor that crushes American jobs. For thirty years, rich politicians and richer private parties have crushed regular Americans because, in the short-term, elites have always thrived when the general population is weakest. I don’t blame one political party, either. The mainstream is not getting poorer because of natural trends. We are not experiencing systemic failure. We are feeling the impact of the purposeful obliteration of opportunity for regular Americans.”
&n
bsp; Turner, Cole, Dansk, and Jeffers listened as the speaker hacked disgustingly into the mic to clear his throat and gulped water before continuing.
“We don’t even have American corporations anymore. Not many. What we have is multinational entities that search for the cheapest means to maximize profits. But corporations don’t give orders. People do. We let people hide behind corporations, but it always comes down to individuals pushing agendas and then closing their eyes to the dirty deals that serve their profit goals. They continue to manipulate government and hide behind corporate veils while stealing our futures and corrupting this country. Everything goes their way because they have bought and paid for the system.”
Jeffers paused the recording. “Pay attention to this,” he ordered Turner.
“We can’t produce meaningful change from within. Not now. What these people understand is risk and reward, profit and loss. The way to stop them is to raise the price they pay for messing with our liberty. It has to be personal. Emerson, they buy politicians and use Game Theory to legislate; it’s all about the winning and never about whatever is right or wrong about the issues. They win again and again and the country loses.
“We need to take back the playing field. Every slimeball that cheats, lies, bribes, and steals our freedom needs to be put onto a list! WikiSkunks. Post it all over the Web and let anyone out there contribute to it.”
Elliot laughed. “Great domain name, but naming these people won’t do any good.”
“You’re wrong, Emerson. People used to kiss their rich butts and now nobody wants to be within twenty feet of the very rich. That’s progress! Even if it took violence to achieve it, I can’t name another time that the rich have seen pushback like this. One or two shooters have been able to recalibrate the paradigm and we can build on that!
“Anyone who has a camera phone can post real-time photos of them on the web so the whole world knows where they are all the time. We have the power to make it impossible for them to leave their fancy caves without the entire world knowing where they are. Every time they enter the public world, they pay the price of their privacy. We can have flash mobs embarrassing them anywhere they go—restaurants, parties, stores. Shame them into caring about the other America, the America that doesn’t live behind giant walls.”
Elliot snorted. “You don’t know these people like I know them. Shaming them won’t do anything. They have no shame! Oh, I get it. You’re really talking about delivering them to Bullets on a silver platter. That’s your real meaning.”
“Emerson, I don’t advocate violence. If I were looking at violent action, I would never say a word to anyone, not a living soul. But isn’t America worth fighting for? They bought our government, our media. We don’t even have a Supreme Court we can turn to anymore.
“They own the playing field. As long as they dictate the rules, they win. Like I said, their game is risk and reward, profit and loss. So raise the risk and raise the losses. When the losses become unacceptable, we can get our country back.”
“You want to leave them exposed for every anarchistic vigilante out there,” Elliot said mockingly. “Once their names are on the list, they’re terrorized forever.”
“Not in the least, Emerson. That would be counterproductive. It should be easy to get off the list. As easy as stopping manipulating the country. Stay the hell out of our government. If you’re on the list, leave the big-shot job. We need to break through the corporations. We need to make this personal. It comes down to people. No more hiding behind the corporations and calling the free market an all-in-one excuse for everything. We’re calling bullshit on that. At the risk that they’ll label me a commie, how about we offer a deal with the super-rich that gets them off the list. You can keep fifty million dollars, five cars, two planes, two yachts, and three homes. Please fade off into the sunset. Live in comfort. Hell, live in splendor! Just shut up and go away!”
Jeffers stopped the segment and then coldly eyed Cole and Turner across a long silence. Three of APA’s biggest backers, all founding Vision Partners, had drawn this to his attention. They expected unambiguous results.
“I’m not about to let my whales drift away from APA,” Jeffers made clear, “ not because of some dirty-mouthed Jew on the radio!”
“Sir, your office sent this to my office last week and I responded immediately,” Cole insisted.
“I told you to get him off the air.”
Cole struggled for a satisfactory reply. “Elliot hasn’t broken the law,” he attempted to explain. “We have no statutes that were violated. Nothing was said in that recording that would constitute a conspiracy to break federal law.”
Cole walked over to the windows and looked down on Central Park. He could see past his reflection to the trees and green meadows in the open expanse below.
“Mr. Cole, I didn’t summon you here to debate constitutional law,” Jeffers snapped back. “That ‘radio personality’ is giving a public forum to insurrectionists. Stop him.”
“This is protected speech according to the First Amendment,” Cole reiterated.
“I heard you have ambitions, Mr. Cole. Think outside of the box!”
Turner received the next volley. “Turner, Dansk, either of you could have him followed 24/7,” Jeffers ordered. “The minute he gets behind the wheel intoxicated, arrest him! If he takes an illegal drug or violates any law whatsoever, you lock him up. What I want from you three is Emerson Elliot either shut up or shut down!”
Cole turned back to them and broke up the flirtation. “Mr. Jeffers, time to talk turkey. Just how important is this to you?” He was initiating a negotiation.
“What do you want?” Jeffers responded. He never made offers ahead of demands. Bad negotiating technique.
“This is an election year,” Cole said. “Provided that your party takes the White House, the country will get a new AG.”
Jeffers was impressed with the comment. “You want to run the Department of Justice.”
“I do.”
Jeffers uncrossed his legs then crossed them again in reverse before picking a small leather-bound notepad from off the side table and opening it.
“I have a sense of opportunities that I am in a position to make happen for each of you. Before we are done with this meeting, you can each tender a single offer. If I agree, when you leave this room, all three of you will be APA Freedom Associates. If any one of you asks for too much, then you all fail.
What is it that you want, Special Agent Turner?”
“My home district.”
“Congress?” Jeffers noted aloud. It was already annotated on his pad. “And you, Miss Dansk? What are your ambitions?”
“Executive Vice President for Governmental Affairs,” Dansk began.
Jeffers cut her off. “In charge of growing the drone program,” he said, finishing her words for her. “Yes, your tastes are private sector,” Jeffers added with a long critical glance over her wardrobe choice.
He prepared to set forth his terms and rose from his chair to be at full height then swooned momentarily, catching hold of the chair’s padded arm to collect himself. The new sleep medication was affecting his blood pressure.
“Mr. Cole. I can arrange to get your name onto the long list. Beyond that, you had better get your ducks in a row,” Jeffers said when he felt steady again.
“Official APA endorsement?”
Turner and Dansk flashed glances toward one another. Cole may have pushed too far.
“Provided that you don’t like boys or have any other embarrassing skeletons lurking in your closet, agreed.” Jeffers appreciated men who thought big and he appreciated their future value, too.
“Ms. Dansk, you’ll get your opportunity. Homeland Security, Intelligence, and Appropriations will back the drone expenditures. There will be no serious opposition.
Mr. T
urner, you have a two-year wait ahead of you. APA will be endorsing the incumbent in the coming election and you are going to need that time to establish your base ahead of his retirement. I will place you in touch with our people in your district. If you can win their endorsement, you’ll enter the race as the horse I’m backing.”
Cole raised his hand. “There is another way to go about this,” he argued. “Nothing in the First Amendment necessarily insulates him from civil liability. There is abundant precedent in case law: freedom of speech doesn’t protect Elliot from liability for whatever harm that can be tied to for-profit on-air invective. I have a particular colleague who will bury Emerson Elliot under subpoenas and depositions and then use the law and the media to rip Elliot’s tongue out.”
“Now you’re talking,” Jeffers approved. “Where there is a will, there’s a way. What will it take?”
Turner was left watching jealously while Jeffers and Cole hammered out a broad strategic outline. Cole was already prepared with plans that put him several moves ahead.
“There isn’t reliable public sympathy for the rich,” Cole explained. “And their own families have the lawyers and the resources to sue Elliot themselves. Plus, right now they have no inclination to be in the public eye.
I have a different approach in mind.”
When they finished, Jeffers had guaranteed Cole quiet funds against up to $750,000 in legal fees.
Turner agreed to convey real-time updates on every aspect of FBI activity in pursuits of the shooter. Dansk guaranteed the same from Intel Division and NYPD. After that, Cole excused himself to go make the necessary arrangements.
“Use the desk and telephone in the second bedroom,” Jeffers directed him. “Get this under way now. I’ll take you to lunch with me downstairs at Jean Georges. We’ll have a nice meal and talk some more about this ambition of yours.”