Jim McGill 05 The Devil on the Doorstep

by Joseph Flynn

  The National Mall — Washington, DC — Sunday, January 13, 2013

  Harlan Fisk wore combat fatigues despite never having served in any branch of the armed forces of the United States. A Beretta 92, the official sidearm of the U.S. Army, was holstered at his right thigh. Just below that, a scabbard holding a U.S. Navy Seals Combat Knife — $77.83 at Amazon — was tied to his calf. His ensemble was topped off by a blood red beret.

  Not intended to be misunderstood as an official naval rank, he called himself the Commander of the First Michigan Militia. Other than a moderate middle-aged bulge at his gut, he cut an imposing figure, standing six-foot-three and weighing two hundred and thirty pounds. His broad shoulders and calloused hands were the products of someone who had worked construction for twenty-five years, starting when he was eighteen.

  With the recession, though, he’d been out of work the past three years. His unemployment benefits were gone. The savings he and his wife, Krissy, had put away were almost used up, too. Only thing that kept them above water was Krissy had kept going to school all the time they were married. Got herself an accounting degree. Worked as a CPA for a plumbing supplies company in Lansing. Started using her proper name, Kristine.

  Truth was, Krissy made a decent salary, while he didn’t earn a goddamn cent. There were times, thinking how his tiny little doll of a wife out-earned him so bad, that his face got as red as his beret. She’d refused to come down South with him while he and the boys trained. He thought maybe that had to do with more than her job. She had to be tired of him not making any money, and she was bound to find someone new while he was away. Maybe she already had. So he decided to make the most of her credit cards while he could, buying all the arms and ammo Visa would allow.

  He’d been tickled how Elvie had insisted on going South with her dad. That was a good girl for you. Tiny and pretty like her mom, but tough as a Detroit pit bull. Did whatever he told her to do. He was sure as hell gonna get her back or that cocksucker married to that thieving bitch in the White House would learn what it meant to lose your own flesh and blood.

  He’d been surprised at first that Krissy would let Elvie go without putting up a fuss about it. Then he realized it would be that much easier for his wife to find a new boyfriend if she didn’t have a kid around the house.

  The thought never entered his mind that if he wasn’t arming himself and his friends for World War III he could have been living a comfortable middle-class life. Maybe get some new vocational training himself. He’d never been much good in school, though.

  He had trouble adjusting his thinking to new realities, too. His old man had taught him how things were supposed to be, and that was that. A man supported his family; he didn’t live off his wife. That wasn’t right. It was a pussy thing to do.

  The other guys in his militia knew that. Who was going to look out for them if they didn’t look out for each other? Nobody, brother. Things had to change.

  Maybe not go back to the way they were exactly. There were plenty of decent colored guys and the Mexicans he knew worked as hard as anyone on the planet. Anyone could see those things. That’s why his militia was not just a bunch of white guys. Any asshole with a Nazi tattoo tried to sign up with his outfit, he got a boot right in his ass.

  His fight was, there had to be some new way for a working man to find work. Do something with his hands that would let him bring home a respectable paycheck. Let him take a measure of pride in himself. Not get fucked over every time the goddamn bankers and other white-collar crooks robbed the country blind.

  Jesus Christ, it just wasn’t right, the way the world was going.

  Harlan Fisk was one angry, heavily armed man.

  His deputy commander, a former GM line worker, carried two Colt AR-15s, one for the commander, one for himself. The weapons were bought legal, online. All of the two hundred and forty-seven men in his militia carried their firearms openly. Exercising their second amendment rights just the way the Constitution said.

  A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

  More than one of his men had those very words inked on his chest or back.

  Some had it on both sides; you got to see the second amendment coming or going.

  They were a militia, as well regulated and trained as any in the country. They weren’t just a bunch of jerks with guns. They were Americans standing up for themselves and their rights. Those old boys who wrote the Constitution had known things might come to this.

  Fisk knew about the injunction from the chief justice.

  To hell with him. Damn judge couldn’t choose where a man’s rights applied.

  Their objective was in plain sight now: the Capitol of the United States of America.

  Beautiful damn building, all lit up in the night. Made your heart swell with pride.

  Until you thought of all the lying, cheating scumbags who worked inside of it. Wouldn’t be long, though, until the First Michigan was joined by militias from all over the country. Their strength would be measured in the thousands. No damn cops would be able to stop them. They’d put things right for the whole damn country.

  Right now, though, it looked like the First Michigan was the first to arrive.

  Fisk extended his right hand and his deputy commander filled it with his AR-15.

  He had no idea he and his men were walking into a trap.

  FBI Headquarters — Washington, DC

  Deputy Director Byron DeWitt sat behind his desk and looked at the man sitting in one of his guest chairs. The guy had to be crowding eighty years old. He wore a black suit, a Roman collar and handcuffs. You got cuffed when you showed up at 935 Pennsylvania Avenue NW and said you were a part of a terrorist conspiracy to assassinate the president of the United States and bring down a major building in the process.

  Other things happened, too. The Bureau checked to see if you were inebriated or under the influence of drugs, prescription or otherwise. Your stated identity was verified. Once these two bits of business were completed, your medical history was pursued to make sure you weren’t a fugitive from a place of psychiatric confinement.

  Jailbreaks were also looked into.

  After these points were addressed, someone had to decide who would interrogate you. The extreme nature of the old guy’s confession required that he talk to someone of eminence. Of course, the coot, if he’d known what he was doing, should have turned himself in to the Secret Service. The fact that he’d sought out the wrong federal law enforcement agency cast some doubt on the veracity of his claim.

  The FBI simply could have transferred the guy to the custody of their federal brethren.

  But like any cops — local, state or federal — they had an abiding curiosity about any crimes that had been or might be committed in their jurisdiction. The FBI was of the mindset that their jurisdiction was planet Earth. Given the current state of tension concerning the presidency being won by a single electoral vote, if the geezer had turned himself in at midday, he might have spent some time talking with the director himself.

  Having surrendered himself the previous evening, and having been processed shortly after midnight, though, Mulchrone had caused DeWitt to get rousted from his bed.

  “So you’re a priest?” the deputy director said.

  “Yes, but I’m retired from full ministry.”

  “What was your order, Father? What kind of priest were you?”

  “Franciscan.”

  DeWitt smiled. “Founded by St. Francis of Assisi, a man of great humility and kindness. The new pope is a Jesuit but he chose the name Francis in honor of the saint, didn’t he?”

  Father Mulchrone returned the smile. “Why, yes he did. Are you Catholic?”

  “No, I’m a Buddhist, but I admire the teachings of Jesus.”

  Mulchrone looked puzzled. “I’m not quite sure I see the connection.”

  “Well, Buddhists believe that you end suffering by elim
inating ignorance. Whatever else people might think of Jesus, most would agree that he was a teacher of profound influence. If he wasn’t, why would people still ask themselves, ‘What would Jesus do?’ They’re seeking his wisdom. Hoping to end someone’s suffering. The connection between these two great faith traditions seems obvious to me.”

  “I’d never thought about that,” Mulchrone admitted. “I’m afraid my faith is the only one I’ve studied.”

  “Because it has served you so well,” DeWitt said.

  “Yes, exactly.”

  “And following your faith led you here to me today.”

  Mulchrone hung his head. “Yes.”

  “Obviously, though, it never instructed you to kill anyone.”

  The priest shook his head.

  DeWitt said, “That was strictly a failing on your part.”

  “It was.” Mulchrone’s voice began to quaver. “For which I am grievously sorry.”

  That was the moment the deputy director took the man in front of him seriously. His remorse was true, deep and painful. It would be with him a long time. Probably for the remaining days of his life.

  DeWitt asked, “Did you go to confession, Father, before you came here?”

  Mulchrone looked up. “I did.”

  “Were you absolved of your sins?”

  “I was, provided I do everything I can to help you.”

  The deputy director was a graduate of Boalt Hall, the law school at UC Berkeley.

  He knew a hedged answer when he heard one.

  DeWitt said, “Meaning there are things you can’t do to help me. Because they would violate church law.”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Let’s start with what you can do to help. Tell me whatever you can.”

  DeWitt had been recording Mulchrone since the priest stepped into his office. So he just sat back in his chair and listened. Heard the man say the new museum in town, Inspiration Hall, was going to be hit by a truck bomb tomorrow. One of tremendous power. The detonation was supposed to take place while the president and her husband were on the premises.

  The public and the media might not have known the nature of the new building, but the FBI did. In post-9/11 America, you didn’t get to build a large structure in the heart of a major U.S. city and keep its purposes hidden from the national security agencies. The wonder of Inspiration Hall was that none of the people who knew about it had leaked the news and spoiled the surprise.

  What shocked DeWitt was that an aged priest who wandered in off the street knew in advance what the president would be doing on a Sunday when she had no public events scheduled. At least there weren’t any on her official schedule that the White House routinely shared with the FBI. The deputy director wondered if even the Secret Service knew.

  For everyone’s sake, he sure as hell hoped so.

  He asked Mulchrone, “When is the president supposed to be at this location.”

  “Ten-thirty in the morning is what I heard.”

  “Who told you?”

  “A man named Harlan Fisk. He leads the First Michigan Militia.”

  “How did he know?”

  “I don’t know his source of information.”

  DeWitt saw only painful sorrow in the priest’s eyes. No hint of deceit or willful withholding of information. Not on this point.

  “All right, Father. I’ll make sure this information gets to the Secret Service. You may have just saved the lives of the president, her husband and who knows who else. But you’re holding back other information on me. The only reason you’d do that is because you heard it in the context of a confession.”

  “I can’t say a word about that,” Mulchrone said.

  “Because church law says so, but here’s the thing, Father. If you’re protecting one of the people behind an attempt on the president’s life, and if that person sees tomorrow’s plan fail, he might try again. Might even succeed. Then you won’t have saved the president’s life at all, and you’ll be an accomplice to an assassination.”

  The horror of that idea registered in Mulchrone’s eyes.

  DeWitt added to it. “Then, of course, there’s always the collateral damage. Maybe James J. McGill. Men, women and children who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  The deputy director leaned over his desk.

  “Remember what I told you, Father? My faith tells me that you end suffering by eliminating ignorance. If that doesn’t get you out of the awful corner you’ve put yourself in, pay heed to what your faith instructs. Ask yourself: What would Jesus do?”

  Montreal-Trudeau Airport — Montreal, Canada

  René Simonet pretended to wait patiently to board the Air France flight to Paris, traveling under his own name. He knew of the name the police had given him, of course. Laurent Fortier. It had amused him the first time he’d heard of it. As the legend surrounding Fortier grew, it even pleased him. The police were looking for a larger-than-life figure of their own creation. That could only serve to insulate him from apprehension.

  The police were a small concern compared to the way Simonet felt about Tyler Busby at the moment. The more he thought about the ten million euros Busby had deposited in his Swiss account — the one the American knew about — the less he believed it was hush money. What it really was, Simonet thought, was please-stop-thinking-clearly money.

  As long as Simonet, Benedict and Duvessa had been in business with Busby, he’d never been anything but a hardheaded businessman, driving the hardest bargains for their services that he could manage. Busby was a former colleague of Benedict’s and the two of them had contrived an offshoot of the sell-the-forgery-to-the-sucker scam.

  Busby would buy the forgery and swap it for a genuine, albeit stolen, masterpiece that one of his plutocrat friends had bought from other art thieves. The other fat cat thought he was getting an item of equal cachet and monetary value while insulating himself from a charge of being the receiver of stolen goods. The people who Busby dealt with didn’t give a damn about the intrinsic value of the art; they cared about power, status and ego.

  The signature at the bottom of the painting was what they craved.

  Only one of them, that Simonet knew of, had either the wit or the interest to see if the painting he’d received from Busby was the genuine article. Learning he’d been snookered, the fellow sent a thug to deal with Busby. The thug was met by Special Agent Osgood Riddick of the FBI and told to forget about vengeance and mend his ways. For emphasis, the thug was Van Gogh-ed. Lost an ear. He was sent back to his boss with the message that there was no telling what might be cut off him, if he kept making trouble.

  That was the Tyler Busby that Simonet knew.

  He didn’t give away small fortunes to buy silence.

  Armed with that knowledge, Simonet knew it was time to get back France and start looking for a new home, for himself and his art. The money Busby had put in Simonet’s Swiss account was meant to lull him into a false sense of security. Give Busby the time to arrange for Simonet’s disappearance and … Mon Dieu, Simonet saw what Busby wanted more than his life.

  He wanted Simonet’s collection, all the paintings he’d stolen the past twenty-five years.

  If the man would put himself in league with terrorists to cover up his thefts from the Ransom and Drucker collections — as Benedict had hinted to Simonet — he would hardly leave Simonet’s treasures unplundered.

  That horrifying epiphany had no sooner occurred to Simonet than he asked himself how Busby would lead him to the slaughter. What lure would he use? There could be only one.

  He was packing his bag to make his escape when Duvessa called.

  She told him, “It’s been too long since we’ve spent a night together. I’ve booked a suite for us at the Pierre tonight. Are you interested?”

  Simonet said, “Certainment.”

  He scheduled their tryst for three hours after he caught his flight to Montreal with a connection to Paris. The connecting flight had a mechanical problem, de
laying its departure for four hours. Each minute had been agony for Simonet. He was sure his fate was closing in on him. He contained his rage only so he didn’t draw attention to himself.

  The announcement finally came that all was now well with the damn plane and boarding began. Simonet flew business class. The leg room was adequate and a passenger called less attention to himself than he would have in first class. He was about to doze when a cabin attendant came by to take his drink order.

  She began to chat. Not wanting to make a bad impression, Simonet engaged with her, hoping the conversation would be brief. It was long enough for her to draw out of him that he was an art dealer. She liked that, his being a man of culture. She immediately offered him a free upgrade to first class.

  He decided it would look suspicious not to accept, and so he did, saying thank you. The new window seat was much more comfortable than his old one. Rather than worry pointlessly, he decided to take comfort in the added sense of luxury. He would sleep peacefully all the way across the Atlantic. When he awoke, he would catch the quick flight to Lyon. He would make the short drive to Annecy.

  And he would start packing his paintings.

  Before they could be stolen from him.

  The President’s Bedroom

  McGill sat in a chair opposite the foot of the bed where Patti slept. She lay on her side, unmoving, her respiration just barely audible. The picture of someone restfully asleep. For the moment, McGill’s job was to see that no one disturbed the president’s slumber.

  He’d been out of bed for an hour now, after catching ninety-minutes of sleep. He always drifted off these days after he and Patti had made love. They both conked out within minutes. Sex used to be an exercise of grand passion and racing heartbeats. Now, it was a marital sleep aid. That was just fine with him.

  Nobody would ever be able to put that feeling of blissful peace in a bottle.

  Having departed from their bed to put himself between his beloved and the evil schemes of the outside world, McGill’s mood had darkened considerably. When Patti had first mentioned to him that she was going to run for the presidency, he’d said, “Who better?”