“I once called that ‘truthful hyperbole.’”
“But that does summarize your business philosophy?”
“When I’m in the private sector, my job is to maximize my profits and the government’s job is to keep out of my way.”
“But without laws we have anarchy.”
“You’ve called me an anarchist before. In your last blog, you also called me ‘an engine of entropy, a force multiplier for metastatic greed.’”
Jules did not like that he could recite passages of her articles by heart. She also did not like his glazed, drunken eyes and feral stare.
“But do you deny the charge?” Jules asked.
“Hell, yes, I deny it,” Tower continued, but his speech was slowing down and his eyes were losing their focus. “We’re the makers and shakers, not the losers and the moochers. Those Great Unwashed Assholes, otherwise known as the American People, should be paying taxes to us, not Uncle Sam.”
“J. T.,” Jules said, “as far as I can tell, on balance, you’ve paid practically nothing in taxes … ever. You’re worth billions, yet most years you’ve run your companies at a loss.”
“Were that true,” Tower said, “I would take it as a compliment. I shouldn’t have to pay taxes—not if I’m doing my job right.”
“So in Jim World, no one should be allowed to rein you in?”
“Not that damn IRS or the FBI or the EPA or OSHA,” Tower said, even though he was starting to sway, and his speech was erratic. “Fighting them is like fighting the Terminator, an army of ghosts, like waging war on the living dead. They keep coming at you, keep coming back to life despite all the mortal blows you hit them with. I beat back one ruling, they come after me with another and another, always with endless fines, which keep getting bigger.”
Shit, Jules thought, he’s probably never been this drunk in his life.
“You think you’re cleaning out the Augean Stables?” Jules asked with mock irony.
“With a fucking Hydra,” J. T. added, badly slurring his speech.
Reaching forward, he grabbed her knee. She quickly removed it.
Leaning forward, locking his eyes on hers, he grabbed her upper leg again, this time squeezing it as hard as he could until her thigh screamed in agony.
Jules bent his middle finger back and held it there, until he howled, dropped to his knees and fell onto his side.
“That’s it, Tower. I’m in the archives. Even I can’t stand you anymore. This is where the cowgirl rides away.”
Standing, she spun on her heels and strode toward the door.
Tower attempted to stand but immediately became light-headed.
Fuck. He couldn’t even get up off the floor. He was too drunk to go after her.
7
“Perhaps I was too judgmental,” McMahon admitted sheepishly.
“To what do I owe this pleasure, my prince?” McMahon asked nervously.
McMahon was still belly-down on the rack—his joints screaming with pain—and he had to crane his neck up in order to see the TV screen.
“You’ve been ridiculing my life and lifestyle for some time now,” the portly terrorist financier, Kamal ad-Din, said. Lounging luxuriously on a big circular bed with red satin sheets, he was surrounded by the three embarrassingly young girls in skimpy negligees. “I thought it was time we met.”
“I’m glad to meet you,” McMahon said a little shakily.
“We’ll see about that,” Marika whispered under her breath.
The monitor filled with a prerecorded close-up of Danny McMahon. His grin was half leer, half sneer, and he was delivering a bitingly satiric TV monologue. Raza muted the sound, so the prince could comment on Danny’s act.
“During one of your HBO Specials,” Prince Kamal explained, “you said some very ugly things about me. You said, among other things, I’d ‘fuck anything.’”
Raza turned the sound on, and on the screen Danny McMahon—with eyes blazing and grin glinting—was saying:
“Prince Kamal’ll fuck anything: Hair, hips, pits or lips. Eight to eighty, blind, crippled or crazy. He’s fucked cops, firemen and Indian chiefs in war bonnets—the whole YMCA.” The TV audience roared with laughter, and McMahon said after quieting them down: “If America still made Model Ts and Stanley Steamers, he’d fuck them too.”
“Then you made fun of Kamal’s weight problem,” Raza said, shaking her head with disapproval and freezing the screen. “Yes, he struggles with weight control, but that is not a laughing matter. It should be a cause for sympathy. Instead you called him ‘a living, breathing dirigible’ and ‘human hippo.’ You said he couldn’t ride horses because he’d ‘kill a Clydesdale.’ He’d even ‘demolish a dromedary.’ You said his couturier was ‘Omar the Circus-Tent Maker.’”
“In one monologue, you said Kamal’s hat size was ‘extra watermelon’!” Marika roared.
“You even ridiculed his mother’s weight,” Raza said
“You said she ‘won the Miss Goodyear Blimp Look-Alike Contest twenty years running’!” Marika shouted, outraged.
“The poor woman!” Raza said.
“Cr—u—u—u—e—l!!!” Marika said.
“Hurtful, Mr. McMahon,” Raza said. “Your remarks were cutting, uncalled-for, unnecessary.”
Marika ran another clip from one of McMahon’s comic monologues. McMahon was saying:
“Their sainted Islamist leader and financier, Kamal ad-Din, has an idiot wind blowing through his brain from one end of Dar al-Islam to the other. He claims he’s a Muslim, but in truth, he’s their high priest of psychopathia sexualis. To that obese imbecile, floggings, stonings, amputations and decapitations aren’t atrocities. They’re Islamist foreplay! And as for the suicide bombers, whom Kamal so enthusiastically bankrolls with his ill-gotten billions, they are craven maniacs and sadistic halfwits just like Kamal himself … only not as fucking fat!”
“You called our beloved leader Kamal the Camel!” Raza fulminated.
“The Muslim Moby Dick!!!” Marika exploded.
“You once shouted at his photograph,” Raza yelled at the top of her lungs, “HEY, DUMBO, WHERE’S YOUR TRUNK???”
“Your country, on the other hand, has spent the last two decades bulldozing its way through our Mideast,” Marika said, serious and reasonable, “flattening everything in its path, yet you smirk and sneer at our culture, when, in fact, you have wreaked far more carnage and chaos here than ISIS, al Qaeda, the TTP and the old Soviet Union put together.”
“Perhaps I was too judgmental,” McMahon admitted sheepishly.
“Perhaps you were,” Marika said, removing the riding crop from under her arm. Grabbing both ends, she again bent it over 250 degrees. Turning to Raza, she said. “And perhaps that is why we are here, Sister-Friend, to teach Mr. McMahon the error of his ways. But it’s my turn now.”
He caught the blur of motion just over his shoulder, and again the horsewhip whistled through the air and slashed his ass.
Through the fog of tears and pain, he could hear the raucous, booming guffaws of Prince Kamal; the demented wailing laughter of Tariq al-Omari, who’d just entered the room, clearly eager to watch the spectacle to come; Marika’s high, tinkling, melodious chortles; and Raza’s loud unwavering count as she announced in sequence the numbered strokes.
“ONE!”
Crack!
“TWO!”
Crack!
“THREE!”
Crack!
After the thirty-third blows he blacked out and gratefully lost count.
PART IX
This valley of dying stars.
—T. S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”
1
Promises had been made, and now Jonathan P. Conley was here to collect.
Former FBI director Jonathan Conley sat in a private waiting room outside J. T. Tower’s New York presidential offices. It contained six red stuffed chairs, a matching couch, a coffee table piled with magazines and newspapers, wall shelves filled with books and a coffee sta
tion. The walls were adorned with Picasso prints. He was embarrassed to even be sitting in a room so ignorantly designed and disgustingly decorated.
It was all Tower’s fault Conley was here. The president’s deep-seated aversion to D.C. had inspired Tower to set up shop in the Big Apple, and he usually did business—if you could call it that—at his 59th Street Needle Tower penthouse or on the top floor of the Excelsior Hotel on 57th Street. Conley despised both places. In fact, just being in New York almost made him physically ill. He thought it the most depraved city in the world. A mere glimpse of its skyline made his flesh crawl. Deeply religious, Conley disparaged New York in private as “Sin City” and “Sodom by the Sea.” He carried a small black King James Bible in his coat pocket, which, whenever he visited the city, he gripped in times of stress as if it were a charm against evil.
Tower was not only the biggest fucking asshole Conley had ever known, he was arguably the worst president in Conley’s lifetime—perhaps in the history of the country. Furthermore, the man had no concept of loyalty. The idiot had actually had the chutzpah to fire Conley after Conley had risked going to prison to get him elected president. Tower claimed privately that Conley was disloyal because the FBI had agents investigating Putilov’s hacking of the previous presidential election.
Of course the FBI had agents inquiring into Putilov’s fixing of that election. The Democratically controlled Senate had forced Conley to assign agents to that case. Conley had no choice. But just because Conley had ordered agents to examine those election results didn’t mean that, he, Conley, would let those numbskulls find anything—at least nothing incriminating. Couldn’t Tower get it through his thick skull that Conley had his back?
And if that insult wasn’t enough, now Tower had him waiting, cooling his heels for over an hour in the ugliest waiting room Conley had ever seen anywhere, and after an hour of sitting there he was getting both pissed and stiff. To loosen his tight sore muscles, he tried stretching, which was no simple task. Over six feet, seven inches tall, his body required floor exercises if he were to truly loosen it up. Still he did his best. His extended arms and legs, his suit sleeves and trousers now riding up on his wrists and ankles, reminding him that he was wearing his best, most expensive navy blue Brioni suit, a crisply starched white shirt and, he remembered, he’d also put on a red silk tie. God, suits made him hot—sweaty, in fact. He would have loved to take the coat off, loosen the power tie and roll up the sleeves of his white shirt. But this was an important meeting for him—the first time he’d be alone with President Tower—so he wanted to look important. He wanted to look like he was somebody.
Like he belonged.
Dress for the job you want, he’d always heard, not the job you have.
And why shouldn’t he have something better than this bullshit former FBI director job? He deserved much, much more after all he’d done for Putilov and Tower. In fact, he’d been promised much, much more. After Putilov and the FSB had surreptitiously hacked the emails of Tower’s Democratic presidential opponent, Obama’s former female secretary of state, and disseminated them through WikiLeaks, they’d asked Conley to open an investigation of those leaked emails. They’d asked him to announce to the world that he was investigating her, to create the illusion she was guilty as sin of something, anything. Putilov and Tower had told Conley he had to convince the public she was untrustworthy. So he’d destroyed his own personal and professional reputation for Tower by leveling false accusations at Tower’s Democratic rival, making it appear she was a crook and a liar.
Then when the emails came back empty and revealed nothing of substance, the two men had returned to him. Tower and Putilov wanted him to issue statements saying that the FBI was still investigating the woman and that she was still suspected of influence peddling, bribe taking and enriching herself at the public trough—anything, everything.
Conley had done all that as well—even though it was all a pack of lies.
And the ruse had worked.
Conley and Putilov had gotten Tower elected.
Conley had risked a treason trial and life in prison to get Tower elected.
Afterward, however, it started to get scary. The press found shocking evidence that Tower and Putilov had conspired to hack into the vote tabulations in key battleground states, that they had falsified the totals and thrown those battleground states to Tower, thereby cheating his opponent out of her rightful victory. The Democrats demanded a special prosecutor—his predecessor at the FBI, former director Ben Miller—and God only knew how far that bastard would take this thing.
So Tower and Putilov had begged Conley to personally take over the probe, to distract the Congressional investigators, to hide, deflect and if necessary destroy emails and electronic files, to stall and derail any and all inquiries no matter what the cost.
Conley had spent his whole life as a bureaucratic infighter, and he knew just how to throw sand in the bureaucracy’s gears and tie up investigators in red tape.
He’d thwarted those investigations and throttled them to death.
The Democrats had objected, calling him a fanatical partisan infighter, but at that point in time Tower had still had control of both Houses, and fuck it, Conley’s evangelical background and revivalist speechifying had convinced the religious right and the party’s base that he was sincere.
And if you can fake sincerity, you can fake anything, he thought to himself with sardonic amusement.
During that last conference call with Tower and Putilov, however, when they were still begging him for his help, Conley had finally spoken up. He told the two men that he wanted something in return. A Texan by birth, he knew that that state’s 87-year-old senior senator had a dicey ticker and would soon step down. Conley wanted Tower to make the Texas governor appoint him, Jonathan Conley, U.S. senator, and then when Tower ran for reelection, he wanted the number two spot. Jonathan P. Conley, Vice President.
Four years later, he believed in his soul that he, Jonathan Conley, could run and be President of the United States.
Tower and Putilov were so desperate for him to block the Putilov–Tower investigation, they had instantly agreed. They said they’d give him anything he wanted. They offered him the sun, the moon, the stars, if he could stop those goddamn inquiries.
So he had done everything the two men had asked. He’d defamed Tower’s opponent, risked life in prison to get Tower elected, then protected them from criminal investigations for their hacking and falsifying of the election results. He’d sacrificed everything for Putilov and Tower. And then …
And then …
And then …
And then Tower … had canned his fucking ass.
Adding insult to injury, the two men had stopped answering Conley’s phone calls and refused to even speak with him afterward.
They were giving him the middle finger.
But that shit was ending now. He was finally having it out with Tower. He deserved better. Promises had been made, and now Jonathan P. Conley was here to collect.
2
“We’re harrowing hell for a lost soul, and we need some help.”
—Elena Moreno
Eight men sat at a large, unpainted, heavily worn beer-soaked table in the upstairs room of a Belfast bar. They’d chosen to meet in Northern Ireland because Jamie, Elena and Adara had to hire a dozen mercs fast. So many soldiers of fortune lived in that city they’d have a broad assortment to pick from. Also meeting with so many hired guns wouldn’t be that unusual in Belfast. Since contractors were everywhere—all over the city—their meetings would be less conspicuous in this city than in most.
The men were dressed in dark hooded sweatshirts, cut-off T-shirts, watch caps and baseball hats. One of them wore an old army surplus fatigue jacket, and most had unkempt beards. Only one man at the table was clean-shaven. Bottles of Bushmills, Dewar’s and Hennessey, pitchers of beer and an assortment of mugs and glasses, were scattered across the table.
Adara and Elena entered, and Ja
mie followed, shutting the door behind him. Both women wore Levi’s and T-shirts; Elena sported a short leather jacket with a black hooded sweatshirt under it as well and Adara a gray hooded sweatshirt. Jamie, who stood six feet, two inches, was beardless, his hair in a military buzz cut, and he had on a bush jacket. Adara kept a pistol in the small of her back under her skinny jeans and her hoodie. A subcompact slimline Glock 10mm, it held seven rounds plus one in the receiver. Elena kept the same weapon in a shoulder rig under her sweatshirt. She preferred shoulder holsters because they gave her quicker access to her pistol while sitting down. All three of them wore hip bags that held various weapons and extra magazines.
The introductions and hellos were minimal—waves, nods, brief greetings, no names. They had all worked together previously on different occasions.
“Well as I live and barely breathe,” Elena finally said, as the two women sat down. “The dogs of war.”
“Hydrophobic curs, you ask me,” Adara said.
“Hey, you called us,” Jonesy said. He was the one black merc, and if he had a first name, no one knew it. He had a thin curly beard and was dressed in a black shirt, matching Wranglers, cowboy boots and a leather sports jacket.
“And it was so nice of you to show up,” Elena said.
“We came for the free drinks,” the one called Andre said. He had a short blond beard and a ponytail. He wore a dark sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off. His cannonball biceps were covered with military tats. He had just finished field-stripping a .45 M1911 U.S. Army Colt. Disengaging the safety, he inserted a magazine and pulled back the slide. When he released it with a hard, sudden snap!, the action automatically chambered a round and cocked the hammer. Without thinking, he reengaged the safety—cocked and locked. He flashed Elena a cutthroat grin. Uncorking a liter Hennessey brandy bottle, he offered Elena and Adara glasses. They each nodded their thanks and took one.
“Where you been, mon cher?” Adara asked.
“On an existential quest for my identity,” Andre said.
The Evil That Men Do Page 18
