Give Us This Day

by Tom Avitabile

  Unless, of course, someone wanted to cause havoc and death in massive quantities in order to make a political or religiously fevered point. By simply introducing dissonance into the harmonic calm.

  Enter my Mastermind Group. As an author of high-tech thrillers (I bristle at that handle but more on that later), I rely on a group of experts in every field and discipline that my plots, stories, and characters touch as I bring the story to the reader. The group consists of a select team of professionals who volunteer to review my manuscripts in the larval stage in order to head off any improbabilities or nonsensical “author crap” that can find its way into the best thrillers. I am lucky enough to have 23 experts consisting of law enforcement professionals, surgeons, architects, truckers, engineers, Pentagon military planners, commissioned officers, special operators, U.S. Ambassadors, former White House staff, mental health professionals, and a few polymaths whose prodigious brains consume, analyze, and red-line anything that isn’t Kosher. All these folks bring out their proctoscopes when I send them my baby, my manuscript.

  My deal with them is that I will accept all their points and correct anything, but first and foremost I reserve the right to not have their FACTS get in the way of my STORY. I’m happy to report that I never had to wield that ultimate “final cut” privilege. Amazingly, and in the spirit of their role in my career, ofttimes they go the extra mile and offer up minimally official sounding alternative plot points that wouldn’t hurt the flow or plausibility of the story.

  But for this book, Give Us This Day, a special group came together, surreptitiously and without fanfare. In fact, I have to thank them here anonymously because as active duty personnel, they performed a service for me that their respective homeland security agencies would frown upon. Those agencies would, In fact, demand that my manuscript be sent through a laborious and endless process of National Security review. But my guys do this just to be part of the process and gratis. (I do admit I laid down cash at our lunch before they could divvy up the bill.) I assure you it was the only time any of them were ever beaten to the draw.

  The closest I am going to get to identifying them is as the JTTF, or the Joint Terrorism Task Force. Now, before we get too crazy, I only sought an opinion on my FICTION. By the way, these guys love the term “real world” to differentiate simulation, drills, and training exercises from actual death-and-destruction attacks. They volunteered nothing real-world corrective, nor did they disclose any real-world operational security procedures, methods or practices. They were reading my manuscript at night and weekends on their own time. It was much like asking a bus driver to comment in general on a fictional road story where the characters travel by bus, without the driver disclosing his routes, schedules, or driving history.

  At a Saturday steakhouse lunch, my three beta readers armed with dog eared, plastered-with-yellow-post-it-notes copies of my manuscript, laid it on me. There were a couple of admonishments where they told me to research the professional practices of the federal agencies I mentioned in a specific part of the book. I was tickled at the fact that, while they were reading my manuscript, they would occasionally discuss the plot and characters from time to time, either at lunch or when they were traveling somewhere. Now, you have to appreciate that these agents, these serious, hard as nails, no nonsense, if I told you I’d have to kill you, modern asymmetrical warfare warriors, are entrusted with protecting the American public from exactly the kind of real-world devastating terrorist attack that my hero, Brook Burrell is trying to stop in, Give Us This Day. These guardians naturally had disagreements among themselves as to the provocation or necessary response to my fiction in the “real world.” But they kept those discussions to themselves in accordance with my agreement with them going in not to violate their oaths.

  They did, however, all have the same experience when reading the book. To summarize:

  “Every time we thought we thought we figured out what the bad guys in your book were planning, how they’d deploy their assets to execute the attack, what the targets were, and what their strategic objectives were, one of your damn ‘good guy’ characters said out loud why it wouldn’t work!”

  They all admitted they loved the exercise. As professionals they played out real-world threat/ counter-threat scenarios every day, just to make sure they were ready for whatever the real bad guys throw at America in real life. Here, because it was just the integrity and plausibility of my book at stake, they had a bit of a “joy ride” (as one said).

  Of course, getting these proud, battle-hardened pros to admit that the book “got them” was a personal victory for me. And the topper was that they were surprised and impressed at the final shape and form of the climatic onslaught.

  Needless to say, as a thriller author, this was music to my ears (perfectly tuned to Concert A).

  The only discordant note, if you could call it that, came with dessert, when they unanimously agreed that I should include an epilogue explaining how this form of attack and it’s crippling potential – which would be greater than a biological, small nuclear, or chemical attack on New York – was purely an invention of my deranged mind and couldn’t really happen – real world.

  In the art and craft of book writing, it is axiomatic that one generate questions, keeping the reader guessing, making them turn the pages. Maybe that’s why the hard cover of Give Us This Day was a #1 best seller. But that could also just be me harmonizing with the music in my head.

  Oh, and why do I bristle at the term, “high-tech thriller author?” In the old “dial on your phone days,” a hero or villain who used a devious device or snappy chunk of tech to play out the plot placed that book on the High-Tech Thriller shelf. But today, when we have 160 million times the computing power that took us to the moon on just our cell phones, artificial intelligence subliminally guiding our online choices, and more tech in your kitchen then in the war rooms of World War II, we are reluctantly all now techno-sapiens. My stories are about people who brush up against technology as part of their everyday day lives. So, rather than being a high-tech thriller scribe, I am actually a “high-people thriller” author, if that makes sense.

  I believe that, in its simplest form, a book’s existence is summed up in the universal log line, “Something happens to someone.” Note there is not a machine or piece of tech in that succinct four-word description. But the gods of marketing have decreed my shelf is in the High-Tech Thriller perch. But now you know my truth.

  Remember, it’s only fiction ‘til it happens.

  Also by Tom Avitabile

  A chemical engineer sets in motion a horrendous explosion killing hundreds of commuters and himself.

  Hollywood’s hottest sex symbol assassinates a sitting senator.

  A grandmother stages a sophisticated attack on a train causing massive damage.

  An airplane full of Silicon Valley’s brightest is blown up while refueling.

  A series of deadly, unrelated events or the unlikely start of an insidious new terror network?

  As Science Advisor to the President, William “Wild Bill” Hiccock is tasked with assembling a team to identify and stop the threat, whether homegrown or foreign. His team – a retired Navy admiral, a wise-guy computer hacker sprung from federal prison, and his ex-wife, a leading behavioral psychologist – must identify and destroy their elusive adversary who always seems to be a step ahead.

  Here’s an excerpt from The Eighth Day:

  “IF HE WANTS TO SEE my bare chest in his film, then I want to see sixteen million in my account, Myron. Hell, I didn’t do a nude scene for ‘art’s’ sake back when I was doing Indies. I am certainly not going to do it for less than eight million a boob today!” Shari Saks picked up and considered biting into one of the organically grown carrot crudités that automatically appeared in her Beverly Hills mansion every day.

  On the other end of the phone, Myron Weisberg, agent to the stars, sat peering through his
door to the outer office at International Creative Agency and caught the eye of his assistant, who, as always, was listening in on his conversations via headset and taking notes. He adjusted his posture forward as the leather on the seat of his chair responded with an ungracious sound. He zeroed in on his thoughts and drilled them through the receiver to the “star” at the other end. “Look, I can’t tell you what to do, baby. These days everybody is showing everything ... right on television! But this director, Graham Houser, he’s a hot ticket, darling. He waltzed from Sundance to Cannes to the goddamned best-picture Oscar! This guy is on a roll and you, my dear girl, could see an Oscar as well.”

  Myron set his chin. He waited for her to comment, and when she came up for air he jumped in, not allowing her to speak, “Shari, Shari, Shari, boobalah, we’re talking Best Picture here. I can smell Best Actress, I can smell it!” He tapped his nose even though Shari couldn’t see him. It kept him in the moment.

  “Myron, Myron, Myron, you also said the last film was a guaranteed Academy Award. Instead I wind up having to do a scene with 2,000 cockroaches on me ...” The memory made Shari stick the carrot spear into the cluster lovingly arranged in the Pierre Deux bone china cup.

  “Shari, cupcake! They were beetles. Little kids in Rangoon or someplace keep them as pets ...”

  “Beetles, my ass! I’m telling you they were roaches. Big fucking roaches.” She flopped down on the Turkish striped-satin Donghia chaise. “Look Myron, you get me my sixteen mil or I’ll finally take lunch with Jack Newhouse over at CMS.”

  Myron’s assistant’s eyebrows went up.

  Myron nodded as he closed his eyes confidently as if to say, watch me handle this. “Now, baby girl, has Uncle Myron ever not made money for you? And you break my heart with threats? Threats aren’t going to win you that Oscar.”

  “That’s only a threat if you don’t deliver! Love to Marsha and the kids, bye.” America’s current reigning female box-office attraction tossed her Freddi Fekkai–dyed blonde mane as she hung up the phone with no more regret than if she’d had her secretary order a pizza.

  Shari felt she had earned her right to piss downhill. Having started out a wiry black-haired Jewish actress doing performance art pieces at the Nuyorican Café in New York’s Alphabet City, she climbed her way up to her lofty perch as Variety’s most bankable female star. She achieved the altitude by latching on to the winged talent of a fringe director who catapulted himself, and her career, into the mainstream when he finally got his big break.

  It was of little consolation to her that she had been twice nominated for an Academy Award. Myron Weisberg, agent extraordinaire, was right. Winning the Oscar was the one thing that had eluded her thus far.

  She was heading into one of her seven Italian marbled bathrooms when she heard the beep from her computer that announced she had mail. She poured half a glass of Remi Martin 125th anniversary cognac, a surviving bottle of which fetches $6,000 for the 1978 vintage. With one knee on the chair, she bent over to see who e-mailed her. Within a few seconds, she adjusted her position and sat squarely on the custom-designed, body-molded Swedish ergonomic chair. The only perceptible motion was caused by the gentle current of purified air from the filtration system she had demanded the studio install and pay for and which created a gentle billowing of her silk kimono. The richly colored and finely embroidered ancient wrap had been a gift from the head of Sony to celebrate her last film going past the $200 million mark. She was told it had been a ceremonial robe worn by a concubine to the emperor in some Japanese past century. She couldn’t remember which dynasty but she knew the fucking thing was practically a Nipponese national treasure. Shari reasoned that since a French film critic classified her body as an American national treasure, it was perfectly fitting for her to wrap it up in this Jap schmatte.

  For the next twenty-five minutes, the motion picture star sat before her computer motionless.

  8§8

  Shari Saks picked up her white, gold-leaf, French-styled phone that was once the bedroom phone of silent screen siren—and later Coca-Cola icon—Clara Bow. In those days, she was known as the “It Girl.” The phone was a gift from Louis B. Mayer who, as the legend goes, presented it to Clara as a peace offering after he tried to get his hands all over her “its.” Jewish film moguls, Japanese electronics moguls, all the same, she equated in her mind. It was as if the word mogul was Latin for “breast-man.” Men are such schmucks, she thought as she started dialing a number to a private telephone that was only to be used in dire circumstances. She could not recall why, but she knew the circumstances were dire.

  8§8

  The president stopped by Hiccock’s office unannounced on his way to a fund-raiser out west for an influential senator. “Any breaks?”

  “Janice is just digging in now, she may have something soon.”

  “Where is she? I’d like to meet her.”

  “She just went over to the FBI profile lab. She’s going to be so disappointed that she missed you.”

  “I’m sure we’ll meet sooner or later. Let me know if anything new comes up.”

  “Will do. Heading out of town?”

  “Another rubber chicken for Dent. He’s got a big state there, with the most electoral votes and gobs of high-tech money behind him. I need to let the good people of California know that I am running for reelection as president and not him. Or at least that’s the line I am supposed to spew according to Reynolds.”

  “Dent! You know, right before all the feces hit the air-circulating device, I had my position papers on his national firewall initiative forwarded to him. I think he’s got a good idea there.”

  “I have concerns that it smells a little like ‘industrial policy,’ but I’ll be sure to tell him my people like his proposal.”

  “I’ll have my executive summary sent up to Air Force One for your review, Sir.”

  “Make it short. I got the whole California congressional delegation flying with me ... such fun.”

  When Clark Gable drove up to the sixteen-foot-tall front gates, a security guard would nod and let him in. He would never challenge the movie idol, whose face was known around the world. U.S. Senator Hank Dent, however, had to punch in a seven-digit code to activate the now electrically operated gates. As he drove in, Dent scanned for gardeners, butlers, chauffeurs, and maids, but found no sign of anyone. At least Shari was following the rules that he established in their regular e-mail exchanges. Those personal, private, and often provocative missives were protected by using the U.S. Senate’s secure encryption. This was necessary because his liaisons with her, if discovered, would not be advantageous to his standing in the polls and his ambition to be the next White House resident. He was, after all, a trusted public servant—a married trusted public servant. On the other hand, what was the value of being the senior senator from the state that gave Hollywood to the world, if you couldn’t afford yourself the pleasures of one of its true natural wonders?

  Parking in front of the seven-car garage that used to hold David O. Selznick’s sixteen-cylinder Dusenburghs, he walked around back to find Shari sunbathing nude by the pool. God she is beautiful, he thought as he took in every part of her. He stood there for a full minute, as someone would admire a Michelangelo painting at the Louvre.

  Lying before him was the most coveted body in America, probably the world. The sexual ground zero of a billion male fantasies. Oceans of sperm had been jettisoned, from young boys and old men alike, just imagining what it would be like to be him, right there, right then. It was worth putting his staff off and canceling a few appointments. After all, it wasn’t as if they hadn’t handled presidential visits before. He could certainly squeeze out a few hours.

  As he stepped closer, the sound of his Italian leather soles scraping the Israeli marble with which the pool was encircled brought Shari’s eyes to him. Tall cypress trees, planted in the thirties by Rudolph Valentino’s landscaper, stood gua
rd as the most powerful woman in Hollywood gave the most powerful man in the U.S. Senate a classic, downtown, Avenue A, New York City blow job.

  This was turning into quite a good day for the senator. Twenty-five minutes after the poolside oral gratuity, he was in full thrust atop Givenchy sheets on the actual, California-size bed that had belonged to Doris Day, humping the brains out of “eight-million-dollar-a-tit” Shari Saks. She was a wildcat in bed; her every squeal of delight, every shift of her Pilates-honed, yoga-tightened, Tai Chi–balanced, vegetarian-fed incredible body was a signal that he was the only man who ever gave her such pleasure.

  The fact that she was also an Academy Award– nominated actress never penetrated his mind—which he was literally fucking himself out of right now. As happens in all Hollywood bedroom adventures, they climaxed at the same time. She was sprawled out flatly beneath him and he collapsed on her. They lay there for a minute catching their breath, squeezing the last bit of pleasure from their loins.

  They did a little kissing, but mostly just allowed the waves of passion to wash away. His head was buried face down next to hers, his chin on her shoulder, her arm under him, dangling near the bedside table. He felt her move, but didn’t adjust his position. Eyes closed, he never saw her remove the .357 Magnum from between the mattress and box spring. The click of the hammer going back was a curious sound to him, but he never got to lift his head as she pressed the cold steel of the gun’s muzzle into her temple.

  Looking up at the ceiling, Shari pulled the trigger. Her eyes widened in her final, frozen-for-all-time closeup as the slug traversed the twelve inches through both her head then his, finally embedding itself in the Chippendale desk under which Harvey Warner was personally serviced by the then-struggling actress Heddy Dukes.

  8§8

  The two most powerful places in America being Washington and Hollywood, the news of the movie star’s and senator’s deaths came as a shock to just about everyone. The details were never released by the LAPD. “Murder-suicide” was the official cause of death in the coroner’s report. The impact on Hollywood was considerable, as Miss Saks was in the middle of a $200-million film that would now have to be trashed. The senator was just about to start his re-election bid and many pundits, posthumously of course, foresaw a possible White House residency in his recently extinguished future.