by Jake Devlin
Sunday, August 21, 2011
7:37 p.m.
International Airport
Fort Myers, Florida
After a week in which Jake and Pam had watched five sunrises together and spent hours and hours both in the water and on the sand; a week in which the Bolero had been played in Pam's condo a total of 37 times; a week in which they had exchanged 22 sensual, erotic massages; a week in which Jake got very little actual writing done, but had lots of new notes; a week in which the energy expended and the ice cream consumed balanced out, so that he neither gained nor lost any weight; a week in which the Mimosa twins and Sharon had found 147 teachable moments in the replays, of which seven involved squeeze bottles of chocolate and strawberry ice cream topping; and a week in which Ned and Joan had exhausted both themselves and Ned's supply of little pills, Pam and Jake were sitting in his car in the cell phone parking lot.
“You're sure you want me to just drop you off outside?”
“Please, Jake, okay? I have enough trouble with goodbyes in private. But in public? No, thanks. Please?”
“Okay, sure, Pam. But it's not a goodbye, it's 'See ya in a month,' the 18th, right? And you'll be all oriented and screened.”
“I'm sure gonna miss you, Jake.”
“And I'll miss you, Pam. But you're a pro. What was that word you used? Compartmentalize? You'll do just fine.”
“Oh, I'm not worried about that, Jake; I know I'll do okay there. I just know I'm gonna miss you … and SB.”
“SB?”
“Stevie Bruce.”
“Ah.”
“I'm looking forward to getting reacquainted with you both when I get back.”
“And I with you and Ginny May.”
“Jake, do you think we have …”
“Oh, Pam, you said goodbye to him three times on the drive over here, and that was only maybe twenty minutes.”
“But Ginny May didn't.”
“Ah. I'm sorry, Pam. Hard to do anything while I'm driving.”
“But now we're parked and I've got lots of time before my flight.”
“Yes, you do. But not here; this is too open and every car has a driver in it.”
“How about the short-term garage?”
“Probably got cameras in there.”
“Let's go look. Maybe we can find a spot between two vans or SUVs. And it is dusk. We can figure it out.”
“Okay.”
Twenty minutes later, Stevie Bruce and Ginny May having had their deeply moving (in fact, very deeply moving) and fond farewell, Jake pulled his car up to the terminal entrance, where Pam gave him an equally deeply moving goodbye kiss and got out and walked with an only slightly bowlegged gait toward the terminal doors, followed by a skycap carrying her two bags, whose eyes had no difficulty staying focused on his client … or at least on one part of her body.
Just before she passed through the doors, she turned, waved and blew a kiss at Jake, which he returned.
As the doors closed behind her, he wiped a small tear from his left eye and pulled away from the terminal.
On his way home, he stopped at a fast food drive-thru and got a cheeseburger and fries, but noticed that their apple pies, which had been two for a buck previously, now were 69 cents each.
Quickly doing the math, he murmured, “That's 38 percent inflation in, what, a couple of months? Geez.”
As he exited from I-75 onto Bonita Beach Road, he noticed a dark SUV with only one headlight a couple cars behind him. From perhaps an excess of caution, he turned right on Imperial Parkway, then left on Dean Street, and he saw that the cyclopean SUV followed him, staying a good ways back, no cars between them.
He took the Matheson-Terry-Pine Avenue route and pulled into the public library parking lot, up to the dropoff box, where he dropped an empty book-sized tissue box in, and pulled back out onto West Terry. The SUV was nowhere to be seen.
Slightly relieved, but still cautious, Jake took a right onto West Terry, not noticing a dark SUV idling on the corner of Lavinka and West Terry that turned on its single headlight, then the other one, and pulled out from Lavinka, keeping a healthy distance between itself and Jake's car.
When Jake got to US41, instead of a left, he took a right and headed north. The double-headlit SUV followed discreetly, blending in with the light traffic.
When Jake reached the intersection with Old 41, he turned left and pulled into the shopping center, swinging into the lot for the Scottish Pub, parked for a moment, carefully checking everything around him, and then pulled back out, finally turning south on US41, not seeing the SUV following him, a quarter mile behind. The driver of the SUV chuckled. “You may be good, but I'm better.”
When he reached Bonita Beach Road, he turned right, did an SDR through Bonita Shores, then headed home, with one final precaution: he drove past his house, then turned into the parking lot of Big Mike's Seafood Grill, across from Access 10, where he turned off his lights, pulled back out to where he could see the northbound traffic on Hickory Boulevard and watched for ten minutes.
Several cars and trucks passed, but none aroused Jake's suspicions, so he turned on his lights and headed south, turning his lights off a hundred yards north of where he pulled quickly into his driveway and into his garage, closing the door as soon as he cleared it. Only once the door was completely closed and light-proofed did he turn on the inside light.
He failed to notice a dark SUV with two working headlights that passed his house heading slowly northbound. The driver looked left at Jake's house, but continued north, smiling.
Inside, Jake reached the first floor and headed to his study, where he booted up his PC and settled in with his cheeseburger, fries and a can of soda from his refrigerator. He checked his email and found several messages, but one caught his attention.
“Well, well, well,” Jake said after a cursory read, “my first death threat.” He created a folder named “Death Threats,” and moved that message into it, smiling to himself.
He replied to five messages needing answers, then closed down the PC, finished off his burger, fries and soda, put the PC power cord back in the sideboard and headed up to bed, remembering at the last moment to avoid the ninth step. Humming his new theme song, he showered and climbed into bed, falling immediately into a deep and dream-filled sleep.
-83-
Thursday, August 25, 2011
11:30 p.m.
Cyberspace
The Suppressor opened two emails, each sent the previous afternoon.
The first read: “Our final and best offer is 100K to keep Rep.pdf out and another 100K to keep Dem.pdf in. Please advise as to method of payment and date of publication.”
The other read: “Our final and best offer is 150K to keep Dem.pdf and Dem2.pdf out and 125K to keep Rep.pdf in. We hope that is sufficient to win the bidding. Let us know ASAP and we will make the payments immediately.”
He smiled and wrote two replies, each accepting the offer and providing a wire transfer account number, a different one for each, as well as a request for email notice once the transfers had been made.
Those email notices were received the following day, but the Suppressor also received notices from one of his banks that $200K had been received and from another that $275K had been deposited.
He moved those funds electronically through three other banks, consolidating them into one account in Singapore, where an associate converted them into bearer bonds. He then walked two blocks and deposited the bonds, less his 10K commission, in yet another bank, from which The Suppressor electronically moved them through five more banks, after which they finally landed in an account in the Cayman Islands, bringing the total in that account to a little over 58 million dollars. That whole process took three hours.
He waited five days and then sent two emails, each reading: “Funds received; both files will be kept out. No refunds will be given for the one you wanted kept in. Sue if you want, but both files will then come out. Publication date is December 15, 2011. Thank you
both for playing. Sincerely, The – no, you don't need to know that.”
To one of them, he added a postscript, “Tell James his imitation of an intern sucked big time. ;-))”
He closed that email account and scrubbed all traces of it from his PC and the anonymous mail servers he'd used. He then backed up his work, turned off the PC, poured a huge glass of wine and settled back into his recliner. Half an hour later, he drained and rinsed the glass and headed up to bed.
A week later, anonymous donations of $155K each were received by private micro-loan programs in Appalachia, New Mexico and India.
-84-
Friday, February 3, 2012
8:30 p.m.
The Oval Office
Washington, DC
via a 24-hour news channel
Gordon Donne faced the camera from behind his desk, this time in a plain beige short-sleeved polo shirt, a somber look on his face.
“Ladies and gentlemen, my fellow citizens, good evening. I have three announcements to make tonight.
“First, today's jobs report for January was encouraging, with a net gain of 422,000 jobs, even with the offset of 146,000 job losses in the federal government; that means the private sector added nearly 570,000 jobs in the month. Bravo! And the job losses in the federal government will continue for several more months as we trim the bloat. I would note here that only the very lowest-level workers will be eligible for unemployment benefits.
“Second, as you may remember, in my first speech to you two months ago, and in my first press conference, I told you that my administration would be going after wrongdoers of both parties, as well as lobbyists and other beneficiaries of the immoral, unethical and corrupt actions of the politicians. Tonight I'm announcing a part of that process, and seven directives that go into the details will be posted on our web site by ten o'clock tonight. Here's the gist.
“We know that most, if not all, of our representatives and senators gorged themselves, their families and cronies at the public trough, mainly through the so-called 'earmarks' that they sneaked into must-pass bills, and the so-called Senate Ethics Committee ruled that if an earmark benefited just one other person, it passed muster; a similar ruling came out of the House Ethics Committee. That sort of self-exoneration is and was appalling, but now it will no longer suffice to cover up and justify the out-and-out theft of taxpayer monies.
“So we will be going back and not only clawing back the proceeds of those actions, but also levying fines on each and every single participant in them. That includes, but is not limited to, representatives and senators, staff members, campaign donors and bundlers, lobbyists, spin doctors, family members, cronies and anyone else who benefited or who traded their vote in some back-door deal.
“In order to facilitate that process, I've eliminated all statutes of limitation on that kind of corruption, part, but only in part, using the RICO statutes; we will go back as far as we can or have to. The Congressional Record and other sources have given us all the info we've needed to ferret out and document all the instances that are relevant, going back several decades.
“We have now compiled a fairly exhaustive list of people who fall into that category, but we will not be releasing it either to the public or to people who are on it. We're going to see if people on the list have enough of a conscience to realize that their behavior was corrupt and will do the right thing by coming forward now.
“Those individuals have sixty days from today to 'fess up and tell our staff what they did and how much they and their associates profited from what they did. Those who do come forward within that time will have to repay the Treasury the amount of corrupt proceeds they received, either directly or indirectly. That also includes any increases in the value of property they owned that rose in value due to that kind of corruption.
“Additionally, they will be subject to a fine of up to fifty percent of their assets ... not their net worth; they will keep their liabilities ... and they will not be eligible to declare bankruptcy.
“For those who do not voluntarily come forward and/or try to hide assets, in violation of Directives 213 through 217, we will find you, and the fine will then be up to one hundred percent of your assets; again, you will still be subject to your liabilities and ineligible for bankruptcy. And there could be serious prison time, as well.
“Now, if someone comes forward who is NOT on our list, and disgorges their corrupt proceeds, there will be no fine; we will not be confiscating any of their other assets. Word to the wise, okay?
“I will also ask all investigative journalists right now to continue their efforts at unearthing corruption, current or historical, and we will look seriously at their discoveries and continue to add to our list.
“All the details will be posted by ten o'clock tonight, in Directives 421 to 427.
“My final announcement is actually more just a quick reminder. The national sales tax goes into effect in about eight weeks, on April 1st, and any business that has not prepared to collect and transmit that should go to our web site, ___________.gov, and download the instructions and the software we've provided there. It's free and works with all hardware and software platforms.
“And for consumers, if I were in your shoes, I would seriously think about stocking up on whatever staples you can between now and the end of March. Another word to the wise.
“That's it for tonight, so I'll wish you all a good evening and a very enjoyable weekend … well, other than those of you who might be on our list and may have a few well-deserved nightmares. Good night.”
Once he was sure the camera was off, Donne smiled and said to himself, “Oppressing the oppressors; on our way.”
-85R-
Five Months Earlier
Sunday, August 28, 2011
11:03 a.m.
Bonita Beach, Florida
”Hey, Sharon, got your ears on?”
“I do, kid. What's up?”
“Grab your scope and take a look at that couple in the water down there to the south of us, maybe 80 meters – sorry; a little less than 90 yards, just out from the fifth gazebo.”
“Hey, meters are fine with me, Jill. But which couple?”
“The guy has a big straw hat on, and she's got gray hair, cataract sunglasses, no hat.”
“Got 'em. Think they're a threat?”
“No, no threat. I'm just wondering if you can tell if they're doing what it looks like they're doing from down here.”
“Okay. Let me just swing the – oh, geez, gotta move the tripod for that angle; the doorframe's in the way. Okay. Swing, focus … ah, got 'em. Oh, geez; they've gotta be pushing 80, and they're playing heavy duty kissyface out there.”
“That's them. Are they --”
“Yup, I think they are. Lemme – oh, geez, I think he's got his suit on his arm, right under the water. It's around her back and – oh, geez, look at her face. She's – wait a minute. Yup, she's done. Okay, there he goes.”
“Ewww, ick.”
“Hey, kid, respect your elders.”
“Ewww. Sorry, EAM.”
“Hey, they're not that much older than I am, kiddo. Well, maybe ten yea- – wait a minute. Oh, geez.” Sharon guffawed.
“What, what?”
“His suit … it … it … sorry, kiddo. His suit slipped off his arm and he's thrashing around looking for it. But he's going the wrong way; it's behind him, and the waves are taking it further away. Oh, geez.” She exploded into gales of laughter. “Poor guy. Now what?”
Carie spoke for the first time. “Jill, why don't you go down there and get it? Sharon could spot for you.”
“Ewww, not me.”
“No, I can't; it's gone. I can't see it anymore. The waves are too -- oh, wait; there it – nope, that wasn't it. It's gone. Poor guy.” Her laughter kept her from saying anything more.
“Now, now, EAM; respect your elders.”
“Oh, geez. He – wait. What's – oh. She's come on shore and – oh, she's getting one of their towels and – oh, ok
ay. Boy, that's gonna be one heavy towel, all wet like that.”
“What's going on?”
“He's got the towel around him now, Carie, and he's – yup, out of the water. Geez, that thing is dripping a lot of – oh, she's wringing it out.”
“And here come some walkers. What are they making of all that?”
“Wait a minute, kid; I've got to – oh, they look – I guess they haven't noti- – wait; she's saying something to him, he just looked over, and they're both snickering. Okay; they've gone by, coming your way.”
“Don't say it, JB; bite your tongue.”
“Okay, okay, CB. Bitten.”
“She's done wringing and they're heading your way.”
“I hope he's wrapped it well, EAM. Hate to see that fall off. Some things people just shouldn't see.”
“Hey, kid, someday you'll be that old.”
“Not in this line of work.”
“Sssst,” hissed Carie.
“What? Suddenly you're superstitious?”
“No; here they come. Don't be obvious.”
“But --”
“No, no, no; bite your tongue.”
“Geez, CB, it's already bleeding.”
“Look at me, JB, look at me. And look serious.”
“Okay, okay. Okay?”
“Okay. They're on the boardwalk.”
“Coming your way, Sharon. Now you can bite your tongue.”
“Not a problem for me, kid.”
A few minutes later, Sharon said, “Oh, geez; looks like they're heading for my building. Hang on.”
Another few minutes passed, and then Sharon said, “Hey, kids, it seems they're in the unit right under mine. Lemme – yup, the water trail leads from the elevator right to their door.”
“That explains those noises we heard that night we were up there with you.”
“Ewwww.”
