“They’ve always been at the top of our hit list,” Tower agreed. “We’ve already grabbed up most of their corporate pension funds, so the voters have to know that their Social Security and their government retirement plans are next on the chopping block. Yet those assholes not only back me, I swear to God they actually like me.”
“They love you, Jim. The crowds cheer for you like maniacs at your rallies. The women look and sound like they’re having orgasms.”
“You know what Danny McMahon calls our middle-class supporters?” President Tower said. “‘The chickens that eat at Colonel Sanders.’”
“They are stupid, aren’t they?”
“They’re sheep bleating for our shears,” Tower said.
“Is that why God made us?”
“Someone has to fleece them.”
“So they, the Great Unwashed,” Brenda said, “get nothing out of all this, even as we grow even richer than sin?”
“You and I give the Unwashed Masses the opportunity to work their asses off enriching those at the top, particularly you and me. It’s not too much to ask.”
“And you offer them nothing in return?” Brenda asked.
“The satisfaction of a hard job well done.”
“In short, you offer them blood, sweat, toil and tears.”
“Their blood, sweat, toil and tears—that’s all the morons deserve,” Tower said.
“Nothing else?” Brenda asked, amazed.
“They learn, if they’re lucky, to kiss the whip—to willingly and gratefully sacrifice themselves for the financial betterment of … us.”
“But I keep asking you, why should they do it?” Brenda asked.
“Because that’s the way the world works,” Tower said. “The strong prevail, the weak perish, and that is life.”
“Ah, the situational ethics of the super-rich.”
“I do see myself as a morally relative billionaire.”
“Yeah, and if the Ignorant Masses ever found out how we live,” Brenda said, “they’d set our world on fire.”
“But they don’t know,” Tower said, “and anyway, it’s all just laziness and envy on their part. If they wanted what we have, they’d simply work harder.”
“Ah, Jimmy, the gap between us and them is unbridgeable. We travel in mega-yachts and on our own private jetliners. We own dozens of penthouses and McMansions, most of which sit empty year-round because we have so many of them. Our investment returns dwarf anything the Great Unwashed could ever imagine—in part, because they can’t afford to buy politicians, dismiss regulators and cut their taxes. They don’t have cross-border, wealth-management firms that stash their investments abroad in labyrinthine trusts, shell companies and in offshore, black-hole, black-money tax havens. Last year our businesses earned $129 billion combined in three small islands—the Virgin Islands, Bermuda and the Caymans. Those places have fewer than 150,000 inhabitants, so our profits would have come to almost $900,000 per islander had our firms actually done any real work over there.”
“On the other hand, we’re small potatoes compared to the Rothschild family,” Tower pointed out, “which is worth upwards of $2 trillion and the Saudi Royal Family, which is worth $1.4 trillion.”
“I heard the Saudi king recently bought a 500-foot yacht for $500 million.”
“But what about the UN mandate, the anti-inequality bill,” Brenda asked. “It sounds like the people of the world are finally rising up against us.”
“A temporary setback,” Tower said. “We’ll turn them around quickly enough, bring them to heel, teach them what happens when they fuck with J. T. Tower and Mikhail Putilov.”
“Jimmy, I don’t know what Putilov has planned,” Brenda said, “but knowing him, the solution could be … unacceptable.”
“You’re wrong, sis. This time it’s for all the marbles, and the only thing that matters now is that we show no fear, we don’t back down, we don’t give an inch. This time it’s total retaliation.”
“So there are no ethical limits to our response?” Brenda asked.
“None at all.”
“Does that explain our financial dealings with men like Putilov and Prince Waheed?” Brenda asked. “That the making of money recognizes no moral boundaries?”
“Money doesn’t care where it comes from.”
“But, Jimmy, those are dangerous men. We should be afraid of them.”
“If Putilov and Waheed had any sense, they’d fear me.”
“Really?” Brenda asked. “Suppose they turned New York into a nuclear necropolis. How would you justify your business transactions with those people then?”
“The cost of doing business.”
“So it’s prodigious wealth and moral relativism for people at the top, and serfdom for everyone else?”
“I couldn’t have put it any better myself,” Tower said.
“Is that why you insist on manufacturing benzene, the most carcinogenic chemical on earth? Jules Meredith calls you ‘the Johnny Appleseed of metastatic cancer.’ She says you’ve saturated the country’s air and half its water table with carcinogens.”
“So what’s wrong with making a few bucks off benzene?” Tower asked.
“Meredith says it’s fairly fucking disgusting.”
“Fairly fucking lucrative, you mean, and anyway, why do you care? Our constituents wanted the pipeline. We called it ‘a jobs creator.’”
“But they didn’t want the terminal cancer, which the pipeline will eventually cause,” Brenda said.
“No, but they want cars that’ll go 160 miles an hour,” Tower said. “They want supersonic airliners. They want high-performance war transport. I give them the fuel that’ll get it done.”
“But why are we doing business with the Saudis? We can get all the oil and gas we want in the U.S. and Canada. Do we really have to bankroll them? A cadre of Saudi royals underwrote the 9/11 attacks. They financed and created ISIS. They’re behind the New United Islamist Front.”
“Yeah, but the Saudis still have the cheapest oil on earth, and in this age of plummeting petro-profits, Saudi oil money, for us, is the difference between the red and the black, between fiscal prosperity and corporate collapse.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Brenda said, emitting a long painful sigh.
“It’s like I always say, Brenda, this life is a great big rock. You’re either on top of it or under it.”
“And that’s all there is to it?” Brenda asked. “That’s what it all comes down to?”
“You conquer the world or you’re crucified by it,” Tower said.
“With Jules Meredith hammering in the nails?” Brenda asked.
“She would if she could,” Tower said, “but I intend to hammer her first, hammer her till she can’t stand up—till she begs for mercy.”
“Jimmy,” Brenda said, her eyes widening in astonishment, “you aren’t attracted to Jules Meredith, are you?”
“Am I ever.”
“She’s looking to you take down.”
“I’m looking to take her down.”
“You’re kidding? You could have a thousand women as hot—or hotter—than her for a phone call.”
“I’ve had them by the thousands. But, I don’t know, sis, I’ve never known one like her. Hell, I even like listening to her talk, and I don’t like listening to anyone talk. Now it’s like I’m Captain Ahab, and she’s my white whale. I can’t stop thinking about her—about harpooning her.” He rubbed his crotch.
“Maybe you’ve gone too long without a woman. Let me make some calls, set you up.”
“Wouldn’t do any good. I’m just not that interested in sex anymore. Nothing helps—porn, high-dollar hookers, Cialis.”
“I hear you brag all the time to business friends, reporters and colleagues—even over the phone to Putilov—about what a stud you are,” Brenda said, confused.
“It’s all bullshit—just me trying to make myself feel better about myself,” Tower said. “The truth is for the last five years I’ve been irreversib
ly impotent. Then one night about a year ago, I saw Jules Meredith trashing me on a talk show, and suddenly I was on fire for her. It’s been that way ever since. One glimpse of Jules Meredith on a magazine jacket, anywhere, or if I just hear her voice on the radio, even when she’s attacking me, and suddenly I’m crazy-mad for her. It’s like I’m fifteen years old again—hammer-hard and jalapeno-hot—but she’s the only one who does it for me. Otherwise, I’m deader than Kelsey’s nuts down there.”
“You have to get over this. That woman’s uncut plutonium—pure poison. She could very well destroy you—us.”
“And I have something I’d like to destroy her with.” J. T. Tower again motioned toward his crotch.
“That’s insane.”
“Brenda, I have to see her. I’ll go nuts if I don’t. She’s dying to interview me, you said.”
“She’s been trying to interview you for years,” Brenda said.
“Then set it up.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“Just set it up. Call Jules Meredith. Tell her I’ll meet her here—after midnight. Tell her I’m giving her that interview, but it’s deep background. I tell you, Brenda, I have to see her—tonight at the latest. Tell her it’s tonight or never.”
PART V
“Tower’s only patriotism, his only allegiance period, is to that country which allows him to pay the least amount of taxes, which frequently means paying no taxes at all.”
—Jules Meredith on President J. T. Tower
1
“Rashid, your file also said you’re a slave to drink; you have a weakness for drugs; and you are perpetually in hock to dealers, bookies and loan sharks. Are there no depths to which you won’t sink? Is there nothing you won’t do for money?”
—Raza Jabarti to Rashid al-Rahman
The woman’s eyes flickered over the naked heavily scarred man. A two-foot rope bound his wrists tightly behind his back. Another line—affixed to a pulley and hanging from an unpainted eight-by-ten ceiling beam—ran inside his elbows. A third rope lashed his ankles, which were bent sharply behind him, bound to his wrists. He was hoisted a full foot above the raw plank floor. The stress on his elbows, shoulders, wrists and knee joints was excruciating.
Raza studied the man hanging from this crude simulacrum of a strappado—a specific form of torture sometimes known as the “Parrot’s Perch”—clearly disdainful of his misery, but then her two-decade career as a professional killer and interrogator had inured her to most varieties of human suffering. In fact, her employers believed that her indifference to other people’s terror and pain was, in large part, what made her such an indispensable asset.
She glanced around at her surroundings. The building was constructed out of concrete blocks, and the interrogation room looked to be fifteen by twenty feet across and a dozen feet high. In one corner was a draped-off toilet. Next to it was a dirty steel sink and an even dirtier steel worktable, on which rested an electric aluminum coffeepot. A single 100-watt bare bulb hung from center of the ceiling. It was one of the more bare-bones torture chambers the woman had worked in.
Raza turned around to look at Tariq al-Omari, who was sitting in a corner to her rear on a folding chair. He wore a white robe, or thawb, and rope sandals. His dark shoulder-length hair and goatee were meticulously trimmed. Smoking a black Turkish cigarette, he stared at Raza.
She walked up to him.
“I do not understand why Kamal insisted you interrogate this man,” Tariq said with an angry scowl.
“Because your methods have become … unsound,” Raza said softly so the prisoner couldn’t hear. “You killed the last four suspects you interrogated. You tortured them to death, and we got nothing from them.”
“They deserved no mercy,” Tariq said sharply.
“Tariq,” Raza sighed, “there’s no point in arguing. I also wish Kamal had put you in charge. Do you think I want to be here? In the scorching heat of the Pashtun desert? We’re practically on the Afghan border”
“I could have handled it myself,” Tariq said.
“I’m sure you could have,” Raza said placatingly, “but Kamal told me this man might be a double agent. We can’t kill him, and we have to make him talk … now. You are not to go near Rashid unless Marika Madiha or me are there to supervise you.”
“I know how to interrogate people,” Tariq said.
“You are a legend in this business, my friend. You’ve become too … impatient though. Your anger is overruling your better judgment. Also Kamal thought that this man might have issues with women and wouldn’t be able to tolerate being hurt by one. His file suggests that he liked dominating them, not the other way around. So Kamal wanted Marika and me to try. She should be arriving shortly. He hoped we might speed the process up. Kamal also thought I might enjoy breaking a big strong macho man. I would ordinarily, but not enough to come here—not to this torrid, arid Pashtun wilderness.”
“He doesn’t look that tough,” Tariq said, staring at the hanging man and shrugging.
“Maybe he’s not, but no one else has been able to get a peep out of him,” Raza said. “So a woman’s touch might be in order. I’m putting Marika in charge. She’ll arrive later. If she needs help, I’ll participate.”
“And if you have trouble,” Tariq asked, “you’ll ask me to jump in?”
“With both hands and feet.”
Directly across from the hanging man was a six-by-four-foot wall mirror. Looking over her shoulder, Raza noted Rashid’s reflection in it—the contorted mask of agony that was now his face, and the intricate maze of ancient scars disfiguring his filth-streaked body. Those cicatrices bore mute witness to other interrogations in other nameless blood-splattered rooms, and they contrasted with the raw red complex of more recent cuts, burns and welts now dotting and crisscrossing his corpus.
This man had had a very thorough working over, and he hadn’t given up one name.
This man was a pro—hard-core.
Raza stared absently at the mirror. Tariq had not hung it there by accident, and Raza understood its purpose. After over forty years of such interviews, Tariq had concluded that if the subject observed himself in a mirror, if he was forced to “visualize and internalize” the sheer horror of his situation—his abject humiliation, his incontrovertible helplessness, the utter hopelessness of his situation—he would give up and give them anything they wanted.
Over the years, that strategy had worked astonishingly well.
Until now.
Until Rashid.
Turning toward the prisoner, Raza caught a side glimpse of herself in the tarnished mirror. In contrast to the prisoner, she looked … outstanding. She’d learned decades ago that close-fitting Western clothing utterly unhinged devout Muslim men during interrogations. Abjuring traditional Islamic garb, she wore tight black Levi’s, matching riding boots and a red T-shirt with the sleeves and midriff cut off. Her long ebony tresses hung down below her shoulder blades. Her high wide cheekbones and full generous lips framed her delicate nose. However, her eyes—flat as a snake’s, hard sharp and pitch-black as obsidian—betrayed any semblance of conventional beauty. Her eyes told anyone and everyone precisely who and what she was. Her eyes froze Gorgons.
“Your shoulder and elbow joints must really smart,” she said pleasantly to the hanging man, her voice lovingly melodious.
“Actually,” Rashid said, “they feel … marvelous.”
“No doubt. I’ve read your file, you know. It describes you as tough—as the archetypal mercenary with no theological or ideological beliefs. Is any of that true?”
“I have deep beliefs about some things.”
“Such as?”
“Ever hear of money?” Rashid asked.
“Don’t honor and high moral character have a role to play in your worldview?” Raza asked, smiling in spite of herself.
“Ever try spending honor and high moral character?”
“Point taken. Your file also says you have an eye for pretty ladies. A
n African-American mercenary you once worked and socialized with is quoted as describing you as a ‘booty bandit,’ ‘some sheet-shaker’ and ‘a real pee-hole pirate.’”
“I’ve known a woman or two.”
“Or maybe a thousand or two?”
“I can’t help it if women like me”
“Rashid, your file also said you’re a slave to drink; you have a weakness for drugs; and you are perpetually in hock to dealers, bookies and loan sharks. Are there no depths to which you won’t sink? Is there nothing you won’t do for money?”
“I’ll do pretty near anything,” Rashid had to admit.
Raza snorted disdainfully. “Are you even a Muslim? Do you know anything at all about the One True Faith?”
“I tried reading the Koran once,” Rashid said, wincing.
“How did you like it?”
“Pretty slow going.”
“Too many big words and long sentences?”
“Yes—also too many rules and regulations.”
“Then why did you try reading it?”
“I guess I was looking for loopholes?” Rashid almost managed to shrug on a strappado.
“In your case, there aren’t any. Allah disapproves of everything you’ve ever done throughout your whole disreputable life—past, present and future.”
“So you claim,” Rashid said, “but what do you really know of my life?”
“That your entire earthly existence has been dedicated to violence, drink, drugs, fornication and degenerate gambling. I also know Allah doesn’t countenance any of those depraved activities.”
“He’s not exactly a god of fun, is He?” Rashid acknowledged.
“He’s real big on work, worry and servile obedience.”
“What else does my file say?”
“That you kill without compunction,” Raza said, “that you lie just to keep in practice and that you positively eat betrayal.”
“Sounds pretty bad.”
“Actually, those are the good parts, but buck up. Where I come from you’d be considered a role model.”
Rashid looked around the room. He spotted Tariq.
“That guy in the corner?” Rashid asked softly. “What’s your take on him?”
The Evil That Men Do Page 11
