Knockdown

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  “If no one interferes with our plans.”

  Sherman gave an impatient shake of his head.

  “Are you talking about those two troublemakers down in New Mexico and Texas? I tell you, you don’t have to worry about them. By now, steps have been taken to make them back off, and if they don’t . . . well, they can be gotten rid of... permanently.”

  Saddiq smiled as the woman in the burqa came back into the room carrying a tray with glasses of fruit juice on it. He nodded and told Sherman, “I like the sound of that.”

  CHAPTER 41

  Sherman and Saddiq discussed the plan on through dinner, which, as Sherman had promised, was halal, and Saddiq was able to enjoy it without reservation.

  Sherman knew that some Muslims, even among the die-hard terrorist groups, were not as stringent about following Islam’s dietary laws, but his research had told him that Saddiq was particularly fanatical about his faith’s tenets, so there was no point in offending him.

  Hence the burqas on his female servants, to hide their shapely forms from Saddiq’s eyes. Sherman preferred that all the women around him be attractive and as young as legally feasible—and in some cases, younger—but he had no objection to denying himself that pleasure for a while, if it was in a good cause.

  His cause was the best of all, and Saddiq was a useful tool in achieving his ends.

  As the terrorist took his leave that evening, to be driven back to the expensive hotel in Portland where he was staying, Sherman smiled, lifted a hand in farewell, and wondered if Saddiq was planning to have him killed at some point in their future partnership.

  Sherman would have been shocked if Saddiq didn’t intend such a double cross. Sherman certainly planned to have Saddiq put down like the rabid animal he was—as soon as he had outlived his usefulness.

  He turned away and closed the door, starting back toward the glass-walled room that was his favorite sanctum in this hodgepodge of a house.

  Terry Morse emerged from a door along the way and asked, “Shall I bring you a drink, Mr. Sherman?”

  “Yes, please,” Sherman replied.

  Terry had discarded the burqa, revealing the blue bikini she wore underneath it. It wasn’t an extremely small bikini, but she was so abundantly blessed that it almost appeared so. Her long red hair was loose now, spilling down her back. It had been a real shame to cover up such sensuous beauty, and Sherman was glad that it was back on full display.

  “And bring the others to me as soon as they arrive,” he added.

  “Of course, sir.”

  Sherman watched her walk away, admiring the view, and then went on into the study. He took a cigar from an antique humidor on the desk, lit it with an engraved, gold-plated lighter, and strolled over to peer out into the night.

  With the light behind him like that, he would have made a good target for any sniper on the opposite cliff, had the glass not been thick and bulletproof. Not only that, it also possessed a special refractive quality that made him appear from outside to be five feet to the side of where he actually was. It was a precaution, one of many he had taken to ensure that he was safe here.

  No man could have as much money as he did without also possessing a proportional number of enemies.

  Terry returned with a Scotch, handed it to Sherman, and said, “The helicopter will be here in five minutes, sir.”

  “Excellent.” Sherman sipped the Scotch. “The news and the drink.”

  He stayed where he was, staring out at the darkness and musing over his plans. It was closer to ten minutes before Terry came back onto the room and announced, “Your guests are here, Mr. Sherman.”

  He tossed back the rest of the drink and turned from the glass.

  “Thank you.” He nodded a greeting to the five men and one woman who came into the big, comfortable room, then said, “Gentlemen. Madame Speaker.”

  The woman, a sharp-faced blonde in her forties, said without smiling, “It’s a bit high-handed, isn’t it, Alexander, summoning us here this way? A command performance, is that it?”

  “Not at all,” Sherman said with an easy smile. “I meant no offense, Doris. I just knew that I’d be meeting with a key ally of ours this evening, and I wanted to fill all of you in on how our plan is progressing. Also, I suspect that some of you have information for me. Isn’t that right, Mitchell?”

  A white-haired, ruddy-faced, well-built man stepped forward and said, “I’ve dealt with the problem that’s cropped up over the past few days, if that’s what you mean.”

  Mitchell Cavanaugh’s jaw jutted out defiantly. He always looked like he was ready for a fight. That was just his nature. A good man to have on your side, but a bad enemy.

  He wasn’t the only government bureaucrat in this group. An undersecretary of state was there, too, and the bald-headed black man who was high up in the Department of Defense. The other two men were United States Senators, one from California, the other from New York.

  Including Representative Doris Farrington, the Speaker of the House since the Democrats had retaken it in the most recent midterm election, it was a high-powered group indeed, split between three elected positions and three appointed.

  All of them actually worked for him, Alexander Sherman mused, although to help themselves sleep at night, they probably thought of it as working with him for the greater good. Whatever it took. The results were all that mattered.

  “I’m glad to hear that, Mitchell,” Sherman responded to Cavanaugh’s statement. “I’ve promised our associate from the Middle East that Barry and Jake Rivers won’t cause any more trouble, and that if they try to poke their noses in again, they’ll be eliminated.”

  The senator from California said nervously, “I’m not sure we need to discuss that, Alex.”

  Sherman’s weathered features hardened. He said, “Oh, but we do, Bradley. We need to be very clear about what’s going on here and what we’re going to do. If Barry and Jake Rivers cause trouble for us again, they’re going to be killed. Mitchell has men sympathetic to our cause who will be happy to eliminate them for us. Isn’t that right, Mitchell?”

  Cavanaugh looked like he would just as soon not be discussing this, either, but he said, “There are a number of agents, men and women both, in DOJ, the FBI, Homeland Security, DOD, and elsewhere in the government who understand how vital it is that we take back control of our country from the . . . the rabble who keep foisting these unsuitable leaders on us!”

  The Speaker of the House said, “If you give the voters an actual choice, inevitably they make the wrong one. We’ve seen that time and again.” Her lips tightened into a thin line and barely moved as she added, “We’re not going to allow that to happen again.”

  “Indeed, we are not,” Sherman said. “We’ve taken the first steps on that path already.” He turned toward the glass wall again and clasped his hands behind his back. “People know what they want, but they don’t know what’s good for them. They’re grasping and greedy and, in the end, think only of themselves.” A harsh laugh came from him. Without turning to face the others again, he went on, “I know what you’re thinking. How ridiculous it is for a man of my wealth to be ranting about people’s selfishness and all the inequality and discrimination that breeds. But I’d give away all my money tomorrow if that would actually make a difference. It wouldn’t,” he said flatly. “No amount of money in the world will change human nature. So the changes that we need will have to be forced on the American public, and to do that, we need the power of the government. We need the best people running things, the people who know what needs to be done and how to go about doing it. That’s how my money can make a difference, by helping to make sure that the right people are elected and appointed and put in a position to enact those changes. That is how we’ll make this a different country, my friends. A better country.”

  “Are you making a speech or giving a sermon, Alex?” the senator from New York asked. “Why don’t you run for office?”

  Sherman said, “Bah!” and made a cu
rt, chopping gesture. “And waste my efforts by setting my sights so low? I can do a lot more good by working behind the scenes like this.”

  “By working with a known terrorist who wants to supplant the rule of law in this country with his religious law,” the man from the Department of Defense said. “I’m not sure that’s the best way to proceed—”

  That made Sherman swing around from the window. He said, “You can leave right now, Clark. You know that. You don’t have to be part of this.”

  The man’s eyes widened a little in visible fear. He said hurriedly, “Don’t get me wrong. I know we’re just doing what has to be done in order to preserve a system that those who came before us built over the past hundred years. I mean, all the way back to FDR—”

  “Wilson, you mean. Before FDR.” That came from the Speaker of the House, who before entering politics had been a professor of history at one of the Ivy League universities.

  “Yeah, whatever,” the man from DOD said. “All I’m saying is that we’re following traditions that go way back, and I know we don’t have any choice in the matter. Since we don’t have full control over the media and mass communication—”

  “We have people working on that at all the social networks,” the senator from California said.

  “I know, I know.” It was cool inside the house, but the man from DOD had a few beads of sweat on his forehead. Sherman saw that and knew they were there because the man understood how close he had come to making a fatal mistake. “I’m just saying I don’t like working with terrorists. But it’s necessary, I’ll give you that. And I assume, Alex, that when we don’t need them anymore . . .”

  “They’ll be squashed like bugs,” Sherman said. “All of them.”

  The man from the Department of Defense swallowed and nodded, obviously relieved to have dodged the bullet of seeming to have wavered in his devotion to the cause.

  Sherman would remember what had happened, though. And when the time came, Bandar al-Saddiq might not be the only one who had outlived his usefulness.

  “Once we’ve created enough economic chaos to justify removing the President and Vice President from office, you’ll be in charge, Doris,” Sherman went on, feeling his fervor growing stronger once more. “You can start setting things right again. Congress will go along with whatever executive orders you issue, and for those who don’t want to cooperate, we’ll have facilities where we can show them the errors of their ways.” He smiled. “I have a lot of property in Nevada and Utah, after all, that’s not being used. Plenty of room there for dissidents who need to be reeducated.”

  “You mean . . . camps,” one of the bureaucrats said.

  Sherman shrugged and said, “It’s a word that’s taken on unpleasant connotations, but really, what better way to bring people around to the proper way of thinking than to remove all the distractions of modern life? Harsh conditions breed hardy organisms. We see that in nature all the time. And those who can’t, or won’t, adapt . . .”

  Sherman’s voice trailed off, but his meaning was clear.

  Once the members of the Washington elite were running things again, the common people would toe the line.

  Or they would die.

  Sherman looked around the room, saw that knowledge on their faces . . . and didn’t care one whit whether they liked it or not.

  CHAPTER 42

  Jake swung his legs off the hotel room bed when somebody knocked on the door. He stood up and went to see who was there, feeling a little uncomfortable as he did so because he was unarmed. When he and Barry had been taken into custody, all the weapons on them had been confiscated.

  Jake didn’t know what would happen to all the guns in Barry’s truck. More than likely, the authorities would grab them, too—if Barry let them. Jake worried about what the outcome of such an attempt might be.

  Right now, however, there was nothing he could do about it, so he just bent over a little to look through the peephole in the hotel room door.

  He grunted in surprise. He hadn’t expected to see Gretchen Rogers standing out there in the hall.

  She had changed clothes, now wearing dark green trousers and a matching jacket over a white top. Her curly blond hair was still loose around her shoulders.

  Jake couldn’t help but notice how attractive she was. Under the circumstances, such thoughts probably weren’t appropriate; they had a lot more important things to worry about. But there was no denying it, either.

  As far as Jake could tell, Gretchen was alone. He opened the door and said, “Hello.”

  “Where’s your uncle?” she asked, which he thought was a little abrupt.

  “He hasn’t gotten back from Las Cruces yet. He went up there to pick up his truck, remember?”

  “You mean he was escorted up there.”

  “Well, yeah.” Jake shrugged. “I kind of thought he might be back by now, but I haven’t seen him.”

  It was early evening. He’d been stuck here in this hotel room since the middle of the afternoon, when Walt Graham and several other high-up FBI agents had stopped interrogating him.

  “Can I come in?” Gretchen asked. “I’d hoped to talk to both of you, but since your uncle’s not here . . .”

  “Oh. Yeah.” Jake stepped back. “Didn’t mean to be impolite. Come on in. Please.”

  Gretchen walked into the room. Jake closed the door behind her. It didn’t occur to him to ask if she wanted it left open. They were both adults. She could speak up if she didn’t like something he did.

  Besides, he had seen her in action. He knew she couldn’t kick his butt—she wasn’t big enough to do that—but there was a good chance she could hurt him if she wanted to. Not that he intended to give her any reason to want to.

  Irritated with himself, he shoved those thoughts out of his head.

  “I don’t know what’s in the minibar,” he told her. “I haven’t broken into it. But if you’d like a drink . . .”

  “No, thanks.” She turned to face him and put the small purse she carried on the desk under the flat-screen TV. “I want to talk about what we’re going to do about this.”

  “About . . .?”

  “This.” She gestured impatiently, as if she couldn’t understand why he didn’t read her mind. “This whole business of being stuck in here like prisoners.”

  “Mighty fancy jail,” he said. His broad shoulders rose and fell. “But yeah, if we’re not prisoners, we’re the next thing to it.”

  “And while we’re stuck here, there’s no telling what those terrorists are going to do next.”

  “I guess somebody else will have to figure that out,” Jake said.

  “Do you really think they will? This whole thing has made your bosses, and my bosses, look bad.”

  “Walt Graham is a good man and a good agent. There’s no way he’ll just brush something under the rug.”

  “I hope you’re right, but I’m worried that you might not be.” Gretchen shook her head. “I don’t trust that man Cavanaugh.”

  Jake grunted and said, “That makes two of us. He had Deep State written all over him.”

  “You believe in the Deep State?” Gretchen asked, cocking her head a little to one side.

  “How can you not?” Jake asked, surprised by the question. “Anybody who’s been paying attention during the past ten years has seen plenty of evidence of it, over and over again. Any time the President did anything to buck the elites, everybody in both parties freaked out! They believed they had a firm grip on everything that went on in Washington, and they didn’t like it when that hold started to slip. Mostly the left, but some on the right, too. And they all have one thing in common.”

  “Oh?” Gretchen said. “And what’s that? Please, continue pontificating.”

  “I don’t mean for it to sound like that. But the answer to your question is a simple one. Power. That’s what they all want. They believed they had it and nobody could take it away from them. And they’ll fight to the death to keep it.”

  “And yet yo
u work for people you evidently believe are awful.”

  Jake shook his head and said, “No, not most of them. The vast majority of folks who work for the government are all right. Most of the FBI agents I know, for example . . . we’re just cops. We’re out there trying to bust the bad guys and keep them from hurting innocent people. It’s only when you get into the upper ranks, not just in the FBI but across the board with all the Alphabet Boys, that thinking starts to get twisted and corrupted. Must be something in the air up there. You see it over and over again. They start thinking they’re above the law.”

  “Didn’t you and your uncle do pretty much the same thing, going after that Mexican cartel and those terrorists on your own?”

  Jake looked at her for a long moment and then said, “Aren’t you arguing both sides of the case here? When you came in, you seemed to be worried that this whole thing would get covered up, and now you’re acting like nobody in the government would do that to save their own butts . . . or their grip on power.”

  Gretchen blew out an exasperated breath, shook her head, and said, “I don’t know what I’m arguing! I don’t know what to do. I want to trust the people I work for, but at the same time, I don’t like being shunted aside like this.”

  “You want to be in on the action,” Jake told her.

  She looked at him and said, “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I do.”

  “Welcome to the club.” Jake smiled and shook his head in frustration. “I’ve been going nuts ever since they put me here. But there are guards by the elevators and stairs, and I don’t want to give a guy grief just for doing his job. They don’t have anybody watching you?”

  “Not so far. I haven’t received any notice that I’m officially suspended, either. And I still have my badge and gun.”

  Jake couldn’t tell she was carrying, but that came as no surprise. These days, even amateurs could carry without it being obvious.