“Can you get a message to her?”
Jarvis nodded.
“Tell her I came by and ask her to swing by my place when she can.”
Jarvis scribbled some notes, then picked up his cell phone. “Will do. Right away, sir.”
I drove back to Ocean Beach. As I left the freeway and followed Sea World Drive to Sunset Cliffs Boulevard, I noticed a green Ford compact two cars behind me. A similar car had been behind me on the freeway but, at the time, I paid it no mind. I decided Jack could have a late dinner and drove straight down to Sunset Cliffs and pretended to watch the sunset. Thirty minutes later, after the sun had dipped behind the western horizon, I started up the Mustang and pulled out of the parking lot. Parked on the street was the same green Ford compact. As I drove past, it appeared empty. But when I was a half a block away from it, I looked in the review mirror and saw the Ford’s headlights pop on and the compact start to pull away from the curb.
Either all this talk about Nazis was making me paranoid, or I was being tailed.
CHAPTER 8
WHEN I PULLED THE Mustang into the driveway, I no longer saw the Ford behind me. I stood watching the street for a minute or two, expecting to see the green compact, but it never showed. Chiding myself for my nervousness, I opened the door to the bungalow.
A hair-raising howl greeted me.
Jack sat at the door admonishing me for not getting home earlier and making him dinner. Tail swishing with irritation, he paced back and forth between the door and the kitchen, turned, and scowled at me, and urged me forward to make his supper.
My lord and master. All fifteen pounds of him.
Jack purred at the food-laden bowl I placed in front of him. I made myself a tasteless cold-cut sandwich and wolfed it down almost as fast as Jack ate his dinner. After eating, I took a screwdriver and pried off an electrical outlet cover. There was nothing behind it except a hollow space into which I slipped the manila envelope with the photos and the radio messages. I couldn’t afford a secret floor safe like Crane, but I made do.
Tossing myself onto the sofa, I began to read Glasgow’s book. I must admit, I found it engrossing. When writing for the lay masses, Jonathan had a simple yet elegant writing style that most academics can never achieve. By the time I glanced at the clock, more than four hours had passed.
The book clearly laid out his premise, slowly building his case with highly referenced historical facts. I had worked in countries which passed themselves off as democracies but were, in fact, fascist. As Fred Danbury said, many of the Latin American countries we hailed as allies were nothing less than totalitarian states. But I never understood the true elements of fascism and its pervasive history in the 20th century.
Glasgow began with an explanation of what fascism is. Too often, he said, people applied the word to anyone or anything that they opposed—laws, police, the military. But fascism, he explained, was far more insidious than the occasional police abuse or an overreaching legislature. He quoted the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, considered the father of modern fascism, as saying, “Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is a merge of state and corporate power.” Glasgow quoted a 1938 speech by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in which he warned, “The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.”
FDR was warning against the corporate grasp for power in the United States that marked the 1920s and 1930s, purposefully paralleling President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address description of the U.S. as a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” Poor Abe would spin in his grave if he heard Roosevelt’s speech.
Glasgow listed fourteen characteristics of fascism: overt nationalism; disdain for human rights; using scapegoats such as foreigners, ethnic groups, or religions as a unifying cause; military supremacy; rampant sexism; a controlled mass media; an obsession with national security; intertwining of religion and government; protection of corporate power; suppression of labor movements; widespread cronyism and corruption; and fraudulent elections.
Glasgow made certain the reader understood the yawning difference between patriotism and nationalism. The former, he wrote, “is a strong love and belief in one’s country, its people, and its values. Nationalism, however, is a belief that one country and its people, or a segment of its people, is superior to or exceptional over, all other people. Nationalism is rooted in bigotry, and intolerance is its manure.”
I had to give it to Jonathan. He could turn a phrase.
While what we today call fascism first reared its demonic head in the years following World War I, Glasgow noted that business interference in the American government had a long, sordid history, particularly after the American Civil War. When modern fascism appeared, American industrialists and financiers—like their European brethren—embraced it. The 1930s saw a rise of pro-fascist organizations in the U.S., including the American Fascist Party, the German American Bund—basically the Nazi Party affiliate in the U.S.—the Silver Legion of America, the Christian Front, the America First Committee, the Christian Mobilizer, the National Worker’s League, and the Committee of One. Brown-shirted American Nazis paraded down Main Street America and even held a convention at Madison Square Garden in New York, all with the financial and political support of conservative corporate interests.
But, Glasgow explained, fascism cannot be achieved over night; it grows slowly like a cancer. He pointed out that Hitler’s first attempt to capture the German government—the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch—ended in failure. The Nazi Party’s rise to power took years of slow manipulation of the political process. A similar attempt in the United States, he said, also failed. In 1934, wealthy conservatives approached a retired Marine Corps general named Smedley Butler with a plan to overthrow the FDR administration and establish a fascist government. Butler, twice decorated with the Medal of Honor, turned the conspirators over to the feds. A congressional investigation confirmed the conspiracy—which the newspapers at the time called the American Putsch and the Bankers’ Revolt—but buried the resulting report and withheld the names of the guilty from the public for fear their exposure would crash the fragile economy.
Jesus, I thought, even Hitler did jail time after his failed putsch.
Glasgow explained how the American and European banking systems and industries where closely tied to the Nazis and their German supporters. It was, after all, German industrialists and financiers who lobbied for Hitler’s appointment as chancellor, the position from which he launched his dictatorship. American motor companies played a major role in building the Nazi war machine, according to Glasgow; so much so that Hitler twice personally decorated Henry Ford for services rendered to the Third Reich. The intertwining of Allied business interests with Nazi business interests made it virtually impossible to determine which side some corporations were on. Here, Glasgow quoted a writer of the period, George Seldes, on the threat of an economic Fifth Column in the United States during the war.
“Only the little seditionists and traitors have been rounded up by the FBI. The real Nazi Fifth Column in America remains immune,” Seldes wrote. “And yet there is evidence that those in both countries who place profits above patriotism—and fascism is based entirely on profits although all of its propaganda speaks of patriotism—have conspired to make America part of the Nazi Big Business system.”
Those involved with this “economic treason,” Glasgow wrote, were a tightly knit community of corporate elites. One conglomerate alone had twenty-three of its firms seized by the government in 1942 for trading with the enemy, despite the efforts of their lawyers to conceal their Nazi ownership. Those lawyers, brothers Allen and John Foster Dulles, themselves had close ties to the Nazis and many suspected they were sympathizers. When the U.S. entered the war, Allen Dulles joined th
e Office of Strategic Services—forerunner of the CIA—and became America’s top spy in Switzerland. There he allegedly spent more energy continuing the brothers’ business dealings with the Nazis than spying on them. Nevertheless, after the war, Allen became the first CIA director while his brother became secretary of state. The man whose Nazi-dealings the Dulles brothers tried to conceal was Prescott Bush who, despite his pro-Nazi past, became a U.S. Senator after the war, and whose son, George H. W. Bush, would become president of the United States.
I shrugged at that last part. After all, a son should not be blamed for the sins of his father, should he? Unless you’re talking biblically, that is.
Jack stirred from where he lay on my stomach and growled. He jumped to the floor and stood, back arched, facing the front door, hissing a warning. I quick-marched into the bedroom and took a small, silver, .25 caliber pistol from my bed stand. Another knock, more urgent, then I heard her voice.
“Peter? Are you home?”
I replaced the pistol, hurried to the door, and opened it.
Jo stood at the doorway. In the dim glow of the porch light, I could see she’d been crying. Smears of mascara streaked her cheeks and her eyes were swollen and red. I led her into the front room and she fell into my arms. I held her tight, as tight as I used to when things were good with us.
“Jo, what is it?”
“Frank’s company.” She snuffled. “The bastards are taking it away from me.”
CHAPTER 9
I SETTLED JO INTO a chair and poured her a glass of wine. Jack, recognizing her scent and her emotional distress, wormed himself around her ankles and purred. She found a tissue in her purse and dabbed her eyes, then checked her reflection in a compact mirror.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” she muttered. “I look frightening.”
“You look just fine,” I said. She did. Beautiful, in fact, in an orphaned waif sort of way.
“I’ll be right back.”
She downed the wine, held the glass up for more, then dashed into the bathroom. A few minutes later, she returned, makeup repaired and her eyes less red. She took the refilled glass and settled back into the chair. Jack jumped onto her lap and kneaded her thigh until he settled down.
“I’m sorry for barging in like this,” Jo said.
“You’re not barging in,” I said, sitting across from her. “I left you a message to come by after your meeting.”
“A message?”
“With your guard, Jarvis. I stopped by your place on my way back from Orange County.”
Jo shook her head. “I never got it.” She dismissed it with a wave. “Those bastards probably kept it from me.”
“What bastards, Jo? Tell me what happened.”
“Chase and Sterling,” she said. “William Chase is World-Wide’s CFO, the finance guy. Clark Sterling is the COO. He runs operations. They told me Frank didn’t really own World-Wide. He had a silent partner who was the actual majority stockholder—C. Gerald MacIntosh. Frank always told me he had no partners, that he was sole owner of World-Wide.”
“Did they show you some proof?” I asked.
She opened her purse, removed several folded sheets of paper, and handed them to me. I opened them and scanned the first page. It was a contract for an elaborate business investment deal.
“Maybe it’s fake,” I said. “A swindle of some kind.”
“Oh, it’s real all right,” Jo said. “I took it to my lawyer. He authenticated it. But then, I don’t know if I trust him. He was Frank’s lawyer, too.”
“Who is this MacIntosh guy?”
“He’s best known for being the CEO of the League for Freedom and Responsibility. Frank was a member.”
“What the hell is the League for Freedom and Responsibility?” I asked. “Sounds like some kind of cult.”
“It’s a political think tank,” Jo said. “They have a bunch of people with letters after their names who sit around and write position papers on how the world should be run.”
“And people listen to them?”
“Frank did,” Jo said. “I knew he was a member and received their publications, but I didn’t know he had ties to MacIntosh. I didn’t even know who MacIntosh was until today.”
“When you said they’re taking World-Wide away from you, what did you mean, Jo?”
“They’re forcing me out completely,” Jo said. “I don’t even get to keep the job I had when Frank and I got married. They said a woman couldn’t run a security company like World-Wide. That I should just stay home—”
“And cook?”
Jo looked at me and chuckled. “Not quite, but the meaning was there.” She set the wine glass and Jack down, stood, and paced the room, her limp more pronounced than it was when I was at her house. “Damn it, Peter, I commanded a platoon of army MPs. I’ve been in combat. None of those bastards—Chase, Sterling, or MacIntosh—not one of them ever served in the military. They’ve got no real law enforcement or security experience. They’re just a bunch of rich dilettantes.”
“So was Frank,” I said.
She stopped pacing and glared at me. “You said that once before.”
I had. It was the day she told me we were finished, that she found someone else. That someone else was Frank Crane, who had hired Jo because of her military law-enforcement experience. At least that’s what he told her when he hired her. Not too long after that he began sharing more with Jo than her war stories. I didn’t think much of Crane the few times I’d met him at company events. He was tall with dark, coiffed hair, tailored clothing, and manicured nails. The latter seemed to me particularly effete. He struck me as a man who had never done hard work, yet he had an air of superiority as if he were some kind of an aristocrat, and a habit of looking at me as if I were a piece of dog droppings on the carpet.
On that last day with Jo, I told her what I thought of him.
The fire in Jo’s eyes flickered out.
“And you were right,” she said. She slumped back into the chair. “Oh, Peter, I’m so sorry I hurt you.”
I shook my head, but she continued.
“It was unfair to you, I know,” she said. “But Frank was so attentive, so flattering; he just sort of swept me up into his world. And you…”
She fell quiet, so I finished her thoughts.
“And I was afraid of commitment,” I said, “afraid I would screw things up like I did with Robin.”
Jo nodded.
“And I did screw things up,” I said. I crossed over to her, kneeled, and took her hand. “That wasn’t your fault, Jo. It was mine alone.”
“But—”
“I’ve had a long time to think about it, Jo,” I said. “Maybe I’m finally growing up or something. But I don’t blame you for anything. And like I said the other night, we’re still friends.”
I looked her straight in the eye, hoping she believed me. I believed it. Jo leaned forward and kissed me softly on the lips.
“Friends,” she said with a touch of sadness in her voice.
I touched her face. The old feelings stirred, so I stood and walked into the kitchen to make myself a stiff Scotch and water—very light on the water. When I returned, Jo was petting Jack. She had a distant look on her face.
“You okay?” I asked.
She came back to the present, looked at me, and smiled. She had a quirky, crooked tomboy smile that used to flood me with emotions, and still did.
“I was just thinking,” Jo said. “Do you think those three had something to do with Frank’s murder?”
“To gain control of the company?” I considered the possibility, then dismissed it. “No, I don’t see why they would.” I pointed to the contract, which was resting on the lamp table next to Jo’s chair. “They could have wrested control of World-Wide from Frank at any time with that. Besides, even if they needed to murder Frank to get him out of the way, why torture him, then try to destroy the body with fire?” I shook my head. “No, I just don’t see it. Do you?”
“I guess not,” Jo
said. “I just don’t understand everything that’s happening. Frank’s murder, that gold bar—”
“Speaking of which,” I interrupted, hoping to get her thinking about other matters. “I saw that writer acquaintance of mine today.”
I briefed Jo on what Jonathan Glasgow told me and what I had been reading in his book.
“You think there’s some truth to his conspiracy theory?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I haven’t gotten that far into the book,” I said. “But what I’ve read so far is pretty compelling…and frightening, too.”
“Maybe,” Jo said. She set Jack on the floor and stood. “But I don’t see what it has to do with Frank’s murder. He was conserva—”
Jo staggered and started to fall. I caught her and helped her back into the chair.
“Well, this is embarrassing,” she said with a giggle. “I’m drunk.”
“On two glasses of wine?”
“I had something to drink at the lawyer’s before I came here,” Jo said. “And I haven’t eaten all day.”
“You’re not fit to drive,” I said. “Stay here tonight.”
“But—”
“Let me make you something to eat, then you take the bedroom,” I said, walking into the kitchen. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”
I made Jo a cold-cut sandwich and she ate it with Jack’s help. Jack always demanded his tithing of anything edible. While she ate, I laid out a blanket and pillow on the couch. When Jo finished the sandwich, I led her into the bedroom. Jack followed and leapt up on the bed.
“There,” I said. “And you have Jack to guard you from any lascivious intentions I might develop during the night.”
I winked.
Jo smiled.
“What makes you think I want to be guarded from that?” she said, then winked herself.
I backed out the door and closed it.
CHAPTER 10
I WASN’T SLEEPY, SO I poured another Scotch and sat down at the computer. An internet search found several entries for the League for Freedom and Responsibility. I clicked on their main web page and read the first sentence. There was nothing particularly sinister about it, but a chill crept down my spine. “We advocate for corporate rights, limited government, responsible individual freedom, traditional American values and exceptionalism, and a strong national defense,” it read.
The Fourth Rising (Peter Brandt Thrillers Book 3) Page 5
