Shock Warning d-3

by Michael Walsh

  “Angela, we have to pretend to play fair, at least in the news columns and on the news broadcasts. On the opinion shows and the op-ed pages, you know you have our fullest support and of course in the blogosphere there are no standards at all. In fact, we’ve been hammering that son of a bitch Tyler pretty relentlessly. Why, just the other day I wrote our lead editorial — you remember, the one that was headlined ‘Still More Mush from the Feckless Wimp.’ ”

  That was a lie. Sinclair couldn’t write a shopping list if you spotted him the milk, butter, and eggs, but it was his idea, more or less.

  “I don’t care. Anyway, something’s up. Tyler’s acting weird — that’s what my spies inside the White House are saying. He’s been having secret meetings. He even left the White House the other day and went somewhere in the suburbs — he covered his tracks pretty well, so nobody’s quite sure where he went.”

  “Maybe to see a girlfriend?” suggested Sinclair.

  “That eunuch? Don’t be silly. Anyway, I want you to get your best reporter on it right away. Whatever he’s up to, we need to know about it. We can’t let him pull one of those October Surprises. Why don’t you put that big girl of yours on it, you know, the toothy one with the boobs and the funny name?”

  Sinclair couldn’t believe his luck. “Principessa Stanley,” he said, trying to control his voice.

  “That’s the one.” Finally, she softened a little. She was wearing a bathrobe, and now let it fall open a little to keep his eye on the ball. “You know, Jake, that really was a stroke of genius on your part, bumping her all the way up to the national broadcast after that creep scalped her in Central Park. I mean, who wouldn’t want to tune in and see the chick that some pervert practically buried alive, and now here she is, shorn but sassy. Real triumph-of-the-human-spirit stuff. Your shitty movie studios ought to be turning out more pictures like that instead of those fucking cartoons and that anti-war crap. America hates a loser, Jake. Remember that.”

  “You know,” said Sinclair, seeing an opening, “she was still in the office when I left. Why don’t I go back there right now and brief her? We’ve got — what is it? — a few weeks before the election. Plenty of time.”

  Angela saw her opening as well. This idiot was beginning to bore her with his mindless, solipsistic prattle. “That’s a great idea. I’m kind of tired anyway, and you know I have that big speech tomorrow in Madison Square Garden: ‘A New Vision for America.’ The crowd loves that shit, but I need to be sharp.”

  She moved forward and let her robe fall all the way open. She brought his mouth to hers and kissed him almost as if she meant it. That would keep him in line, and coming back for more.

  Jake Sinclair left a happy man. He had two angles to play and time to kill. Instead of going back to the office, he thought he’d take in a movie, just like a civilian. One of the cartoons would do just fine. With what he was sure was in store for him tonight, cartoons were just about all he could handle.

  * * *

  Three hours later he was at his customary table at Los Pescadores. He liked being recognized — not by the public, because that was always a pain in the ass, but by waiters and, more important, the maitre d’s. And then there she was, sweeping in, and he forgot all about being recognized.

  For Principessa Stanley was instantly recognized. He’d had no idea what a celebrity she was now in New York — everybody in the place knew her, wanted to shake her hand, get a pat on the head, maybe get a picture with her. He hadn’t thought of that. If he was going to make a play for Principessa Stanley tonight, suggest they get to know each other a bit better back at his place, he was going to have to play it plenty cool. No footsie, no hand holding. From the outside, it had to look like all business — kind of like a secret code between them. Too bad he didn’t know a damn thing about codes.

  Dinner was miserable. He couldn’t taste his food. He kept looking at her like a love-struck calf. Other big shots could get away with it, cheating on their wives very publicly, being seen with beautiful women in strange cities, and no one thought the less of them for it. A little whiff of the lothario, in fact, was a positive benefit for certain politicians — conquests rumored or imagined just burnished their luster as lovable rogues.

  So he was the most surprised guy in the joint when, after they got the check — the prices here really were outrageous, but luckily the company was paying for it — she leaned over, very casual-like, and suggested that they go back to her place for a nightcap — in separate cars, of course.

  Good. At least one of them knew code.

  He got there about twenty minutes after she did, as she had requested. She wanted to get out of her work clothes, change into something more comfortable, get the champagne out of the fridge. All good signs. This was going to be his lucky night.

  He had the driver let him off half a block away and around the corner. Nobody needed to know where he was. He didn’t need any whispers about power imbalances or workplace violation — hell, he owned the damn workplace. This was a simple consenting-adult transaction. He would help his lover win the presidency, Principessa would get the story of a lifetime, everybody would get laid — no harm, no foul.

  It was one of those private elevators that opened right into the flat. The apartment was spectacular — not as spectacular as his, of course, because he always prided himself on the best of everything. But it was pretty darn good just the same, two thousand square feet of living space overlooking the East River near Gracie Mansion, with a windswept terrace that made you forget the automobile noise from the FDR far below. He must be paying her too much.

  She was wearing… well, not much. Everything he had imagined about that bod… well, as they said in the movie business, it was all right up there on the screen.

  He took in his arms and kissed her, ran his hands over her. She responded in kind; good Lord, she was powerful. They knocked each other around the terrace, then toppled back into the living room. He had just gotten his pants down around his ankles when the flash of a cell-phone camera caught his bare ass high, wide, and handsome, and he knew he was fucked. And not in a good way.

  “I’m sorry, Jake,” said Principessa, pulling herself together, “but you ought to know better than to try and screw the help.”

  Sinclair couldn’t see the man sitting in the darkness, but he could hear him chuckle. It was a low, sinister exhalation and it frightened him. This was no ordinary wronged lover or professional gumshoe, sent by Jenny II to see where he was parking his dick when he was out of town. This guy was scary.

  “Whatever she’s paying you, I’ll double it,” he whined. “Triple it. Name your price.”

  “She’s not paying me anything,” said the man. Sinclair could tell he had risen from the sofa on which he’d been sitting and was walking toward him. He wasn’t at all sure that he wanted to see his face. He looked around for Principessa, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  “Who are you working for? What’s he paying you?”

  “More like a ‘they,’ ” said the man, still approaching. “But don’t worry, even you can’t afford my fee.”

  He had his pants back on now, and was feeling a little braver. “That’s bullshit. Do you know who I am?” He realized what a stupid question that was the instant it came out of his mouth.

  “Your fly is still open, so zip yourself. There’s a lady present, or have you forgotten?”

  “You’re fired, Ms. Stanley,” he said.

  “Oh, I doubt that very much, Mr. Sinclair,” the man said. “In fact, I would say that you’re working for us now. You see, I have a job that I very much want to keep, and I need your cooperation and assistance to help me to keep it. It’s worth a lot to me, so I and Principessa and several other very important people would really fucking appreciate it if you would become part of the team.”

  “What if I don’t?”

  The man held up the cell camera and illuminated the screen. Yup, that was his bare behind all right, about to slip the sausage to a woman whos
e face couldn’t be seen. There was no way out but to play along.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Very simple. Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing, as in neutral. You stop pounding on Tyler. You tell your papers and your crappy cable channels and your shit-assed websites that, as we enter the final phase of the campaign, you have decided, as president and CEO of Sinclair Holdings and Sinclair Worldwide Media, that henceforth true patriotism demands that the media act fairly. No more taking sides. No more rooting for one team or the other. No more fabricating documents, reporting innuendo, and imagining total crap and then rushing it onto the TV or into print. Your days as a kingmaker are over. Capisce?”

  God, he hated that expression. New Yorkers said it all the time, like they were all goombah-wannabes, auditioning for crime dramas. “Yes, I understand.”

  The man was standing over him now, very close, but he still couldn’t see his face. “Now, you’re probably thinking, ‘Fuck this guy. The minute I get out of here, I’m going to unleash my whole fucking empire on this cocksucker, and make him rue the day he was born. I am going to unleash hell, sic the dogs on him, finish him in this world and in all universes, known and unknown.’ That about right?”

  “Maybe. Can I stand up now?”

  “Sure. Let me give you a hand.” A powerful arm reached out and hauled him to his feet.

  “I’m sorry, Jake,” said Principessa, returning dressed and decent. “Looks like they got us both by the nuts.”

  “That’s right,” said the man, stepping out of the shadows and into the dim light. “You’re both working for me now — for me and the President of the United States. Do we have a deal?”

  Sinclair recognized him right away. It was Thomas Byrne, deputy director of the FBI, and very much a man you didn’t want to fuck with. Byrne had put in the ground more opponents, whether criminal or political, than Crazy Horse at the Little Bighorn. A major bad-ass.

  “We have a deal,” said Sinclair.

  Principessa walked over to Tom. For a second, Sinclair wasn’t sure what she was going to do. She looked like she might slap him.

  Then she threw her arms around his neck and picked up with him right where she had left off with Jake. Only this time, she meant it.

  “Why don’t you let yourself out, pal?” said Byrne. “Ms. Stanley and I are going to be busy for a while.”

  Byrne must have already summoned the elevator because it was right there, waiting for him.

  “I’ll be in touch,” shouted Byrne from the bedroom. “Remember, Jake — you can run but you can’t hide. I know where Laughlin Park is, and you can bet that if I do, other folks do too. So keep your nose clean and your head down and wait until your country needs you before you say another damn thing.”

  Jake Sinclair could hear them going at it as he sheepishly tiptoed into the elevator. He’d be on his way back to L.A. tomorrow morning. There would be no dossier released in dribs and drabs, no October Surprise from the Sinclair media empire. Angela Hassett was on her own.

  Jenny II was starting to look pretty good after all.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Over Iran

  The MH-6H Little Bird zipped across the desert, flying low and flying fast. It had been stripped of its Hellfire missiles and its M23 °Chain Gun and carried just two passengers, one of them the pilot, the other a man dressed all in black. They had taken off from the deck of the Eisenhower, stopped to refuel in Iraq near Amarah, and then dipped under the Iranian air defenses and ran like hell. The MH-6M was known in the trade as the Killer Egg; it didn’t look particularly fearsome, but it had a maximum speed of one hundred fifty-two knots and a range of four hundred thirty kilometers at an altitude of five thousand feet. That wasn’t quite enough to get Devlin all the way to where he wanted to go, but he was a big boy. Better to get him past Borūjerd and send him on his way.

  They said nothing on the flight. Everything that needed to be said had already been said. Either they would make it or they wouldn’t. They had a plan, they had backup, they had the personnel, and they had each other. They’d been in combat many times before.

  They were going to make it.

  Danny brought the Little Bird down, to just a few feet off the high desert floor. Devlin rappelled down, hit the ground, and started running. With Devlin off-loaded, Danny didn’t bother to look down or chart his progress: Inshallah, he would be all right. If not, there was an end to it.

  For a Muslim state, the Iranian air defenses were fairly sophisticated, but beatable. Since the Russians had pulled the plug on selling the Islamic Republic its S-300 antiaircraft missiles, it was largely confined to radar, rockets, and its own air force. But eternal vigilance only seemed to be the price of liberty in free countries; in the countries of the Middle East, sloth and corruption ruled the day, and there were plenty of holes in the sky to fly through if only you knew where to look.

  Danny knew where to look. He’d been flying in this territory since the first Gulf War, knew the capabilities of both the systems and the men who operated them. You never wanted to underestimate your enemy, but his regard for the Muslim capacity for war was low. The culture prized and rewarded familial connections and tribal loyalty over the alien notion of the nation-state, and while Iran had a proud history stretching back thousands of years, its sense of national purpose had been destroyed by the Islamic Revolution and subordinated to the ummah. With its next-door enemy of Iraq neutralized, thanks to the United States, its guard was down. Which is why they wouldn’t be looking for what was coming.

  He checked for bogies. Nothing tracking, nothing locking on. No visible. The events of the past few days, the mysterious apparitions, had the country’s undivided attention. He was, as the saying went, an ant in the afterbirth.

  Good. He’d be back in Iraq in no time. And then the real fun would begin.

  * * *

  As he approached the first village he saw, Devlin slowed down. He had already changed out of his camouflage and into the local costume. He had been very careful about this, for there were distinct differences in dress among the towns and cities of Iran, just as there were differences among accents, and one could as easily give you away as the other. Colloquial Tehrani would do just fine.

  Sir Richard Burton had always been one of his heroes. Burton, the great English explorer, translator, and linguist. Burton, the indispensable man of the Empire, who had fought and loved and traveled from India to central Africa to Brazil to the Mormon country. Burton, one of only a handful of infidels to make the hajj to Mecca and Medina and live to write of it. He had disguised himself as a Pashtun, which meant his speech would not be subject to the same scrutiny as that of an Arab. Still, it was always the little things that gave you away — Burton was nearly caught out when he lifted his robes to take a leak standing up instead of squatting on the ground like a native.

  “O pilgrim, have you heard of the holy miracle at Qom?” asked the driver of the car, an ancient Russian Chaika that had somehow found its way here. One thing about countries in this part of the world: it was easy to hitch a ride, even if you sometimes had to share the vehicle with a dozen or so others, some of whom rode on the roof. “Seyed Khorasani has proclaimed himself, and the Occultation is nearing an end. Allah be praised.”

  “This is why I am on the road to Qom myself in this moment.”

  “Imagine — the Holy Prophet himself, may peace and blessings be upon him, has appeared in the skies about the holy city of Qom. Surely this is a sign from Allah that the Coming is near.”

  “Surely it is.”

  “And where will you be staying in Qom?”

  Great. A garrulous driver. He did not want to take the conversation down this road. “I will leave that to the holy will of Allah, that I might find appropriate lodgings.”

  The driver shook his head and made clucking noise. “Ah, but this will never do. The town is filled up. I am told myself that there is not an empty inn for miles around. Truly
, brother, Allah must smile upon you in your hour of need.”

  “Allah always helps those who believe in His holy word, and live by His holy book.”

  The driver look at him warily, as if wondering whether he could trust him. Then he looked into the backseat, in case anyone might be lurking there to overhear, even though it was his own car. “But sometimes,” he said in a low voice, “Allah must be assisted in the most trifling of matters, and surely, brother, lodgings are a trifling matter when compared with the holy miracles that are sure to come.”

  “Surely.”

  Now a big smile broke across the driver’s swarthy face. They were on highway 56 from Ark to Qom, maybe an hour, maybe less, maybe two. You never knew in Iran. “In that case, fellow believer, this is your lucky day. For as sure as there is no God but Allah and that Mohammed is his Holy Prophet, just as sure is it that I have a brother-in-law dwelling within the sacred precincts of the holy city of Qom, very close to the sacred mosque at Jamkaran, and for a small sum I am certain that he will be able to accommodate you handsomely.”

  The driver dropped his voice and leaned toward Devlin. “Might I also add, that his wife is renowned throughout the province for the excellence of her cooking, and his daughters are acknowledged by all as the fairest maidens of virtue in all of Iran!”

  “Then you have made me an offer impossible for me to refuse,” said Devlin, taking out a fistful of rials and handing them over. The driver smiled at his great good fortune.

  Excellent. He was getting a ride right into the heart of the city, and he was complicit with his new best friend, the driver, in a mutually beneficial transaction that had just involved the exchange of money. By the time-honored customs of the Islamic world, he and the driver were now informal allies against the state, and he could rely on him — except under duress — to do what he said he would do.