by Noel Nash
THE
SENATOR’S
CHOICE
The White Knights Series
Book 1
NOEL NASH
THE SENATOR’S CHOICE
© Copyright 2015 Noel Nash
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First Print Edition 2015
Cover Design by Dan Pitts
Published in the United States of America
Green E-Books
Boise, Idaho 83714
For my children, Tom, Heidi and Kyle. Being your parent has been my greatest adventure!
CHAPTER 1
“WE’VE GOT A PROBLEM, Matthews,” Davis Shepherd said. “Four extra guards patrolling the building. That’s twelve to three.”
Seth Matthews adjusted his earpiece and responded. “How many times do I have to tell you, Shepherd, that we don’t haveproblemsin this business, we havechallenges? But I’m glad you’re on our team. What would we do without a boy genius who can add faster than lightning while sitting in the van?”
“That’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“I was just trying to be helpful.”
“I know you were, Shepherd. I was joking.”
“It wasn’t funny. Nobody laughed.”
“OK, it’s cool. Thanks for the heads up. We’ll proceed accordingly. And let us know if you see anything else worth mentioning.”
Crouching low, Matthews turned to the rest of his team and signaled for them to take their positions. Rich Hammond and Greg Zellers took precautions to avoid the shine of the building’s floodlights. Near the front door, Matthews grabbed one half of the battering ram while Nick Jones grabbed the other.
“Ready?” Matthews asked.
Jones nodded.“Now that you’re a card-carrying member of AARP, wouldn’t you prefer to knock? I wouldn’t want you to throw your back out.”
Matthews grinned. “On three.”
When the count hit three, the door shattered and sprayed glass shards throughout the lobby. Matthews tossed a smoke bomb into the lobby and fired off a few rounds to ensure he arrested the guards’attention.
Jones moved to the other side of the door.
“Stay low,” Matthews whispered to Jones. “This shouldn’t take long.”
In less than a minute, six armed guards spilled into the foyer and waved the smoke away. Matthews and Jones fired tranquilizer shots at them, putting them all on the floor.
“What’s your status, Hammond?”
“Five hostiles down. Only one left guarding the target.”
“Excellent. Save him for me.”
Moments later, Matthews and Jones raced down the stairs to the basement level and joined their counterparts outside the entrance to the makeshift prison cell.
“Great. A steel door. I really wanted to kick something down today. Zellers? She’s all yours.”
Zellers broke open his brown leather bag and went to work on the lock.
“What’s going on?” Shepherd asked over the com link.
“Zellers is picking the lock to the employee lobby so we can watch Oprah,” Matthews answered.
“How come I can’t ever get a straight answer from you?”
“Start asking the right questions.”
“OK, how is it going?”
“Much better. We’re all alive and we only have one more guard—unless you forgot to carry the one earlier.”
“Nope, you’re good. I’ll get the truck ready.”
Shepherd checked his watch. “Can we hurry this up?”
Zellers paused and looked up. “You can’t rush an artist.”
“Not lookin’for a masterpiece. Just an unlocked door.”
Zellers grunted and moments later the lock clicked. “After you,” he said to Matthews.
Matthews stormed into the room to discover a new challenge: The guard held a knife to the target’s neck.
An opaque light streamed into the room through the street level window near the ceiling. It was enough for Matthews to realize the gravity of the situation. He trained his gun on the guard.
“Ne dvigat’sya!” the guard yelled.
Matthews eyed the target, now personified. Tears streaked down the young woman’s face.
“Please don’t let him hurt me,” she said while she struggled to break free.
He then eyed the guard, who held her tight. Other than the guard’s crazy eyes that darted about the room, Matthews could have been staring into a mirror. Six feet tall, ripped, and still plenty of hair. This might prove to be more of a challenge than he initially believed. “Jones?”
“Russian,” Jones answered.
“I don’t care about the language—translation, please.”
“He shouted the universal phrase, ‘Don’t move.’”
“Tell him, we don’t want to hurt him but we need the girl.”
Jones translated the message before receiving one himself. He paused.
“Well, what did he say?” Matthews demanded.
“You don’t wanna know.”
Before Matthews could respond, the window shattered and a cylindrical object clinked on the floor. In seconds, a gaseous substance filled the room.
“What the—” Matthews said before he and everyone else passed out.
***
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Matthews awoke with the rest of his team in the van along with the young lady they’d been tasked to retrieve.
“What — what happened?” asked Matthews, still groggy from the gas.
“You had a … challenge,” Shepherd said from the driver’s seat of the box van. “I solved it.”
Matthews stumbled toward the front and stepped over the woman and the rest of his team. “It would’ve been nice of you to let us know what you had in mind.”
“I got bored adding numbers in the van,” Shepherd said while he veered onto the interstate.
“Pull over now.”
“Why? Did I do something wrong?”
“You’re driving.”
Shepherd pulled off on the shoulder. He banged on the steering wheel. “Why don’t you ever let me drive? It’s not fair. Everyone else gets to drive.” He opened the door and walked around the front of the van and climbed into the front passenger seat.
Matthews slid into the driver’s seat and buckled his seat belt while he waited for his team member.
“Everyone else has a license,” Matthews said once Shepherd latched his buckle.
“You don’t have a license for half the things you do.”
“I don’t ask for permission. Now, let’s get this woman to the safe house.”
CHAPTER 2
SENATOR JEFFREY DANIELS viewed his life like he did his politics — straight-forward and to the point. He stood up and walked around his desk toward one of the plaques on his office wall. It was a silly award from a free weekly paper in Washington, something he’d usually toss in a box somewhere and have an aide dispose of it. But this one actually meant something to him. Etched onto the black plate were the words: “Washington’s Most Loved and Hated Senator.” He smiled as he looked at it. That little award reminded him of the promise he made to himself and the people of Ohio when he first won his senate seat ov
er thirty years ago: Negotiate in the spirit of statesmanship, but never compromise.
He then gazed into the glass doors of his office hutch. Out of habit, he adjusted his red tie then lingered as he stared at his reflection. His crow’s feet and gray hair betrayed his age as did the cracked leather on the displayed football. In 1971, he caught the game-winning touchdown pass on a tipped ball to beat Minnesota. He never let anyone forget it, especially Howard Blackledge, the Minnesota senator who played for the Gophers that season. But Senator Daniels wanted to accomplish something that he wouldn’t have to tell people about.
Documents requiring his signature sat stacked on one corner of his desk. On the other wasThe Washington Times,open to an article detailing the rampant corruption in the Environmental Protection Agency. Next to it — the most important bill he would ever sign: Bradley Briner’s New England Energy Access Act.
Several months ago, Briner reached out to Daniels in an attempt to garner support and create a power alliance that stretched across both sides of the political aisle. With Maine’s economy sagging, Briner saw an opportunity to bolster job creation for his constituents through a New England gas pipeline. With Canada and nearby U.S. states Montana and Wyoming unleashing restrictions that once suppressed oil companies’ability to prospect there, an economic boon resulted. However, transporting all the new oil to refineries was expensive, and most existing refineries couldn’t handle the volume. Zolcorp, an oil company that owned most of these burgeoning fields, contacted Briner first about building state-of-the-art refineries in Maine and Ohio. With a plan that proved strategic in rallying support for the plan and skirting stringent federal regulations, Zolcorp remained one step away from securing a windfall for its investors. Zolcorp selected Maine because of its seaport access and the fact that it sent all its natural gas back to Canada for refining. Ohio seemed like the next easy target after a new law brought stifling restrictions on coal energy production. It all but eliminated the natural resource that accounted for producing more than sixty percent of Ohio’s energy. Natural gas was the second-leading energy producing resource in the state — and out of work Ohioans would welcome both the cheaper energy prices and the new jobs.
“We’re gonna write the book on bipartisanship,” Briner told him over lunch once they shook hands in agreement. “Maybe we’ll even change the face of politics in America.”
Once word leaked out what Briner was supporting, the preliminary polls indicated just the opposite — typical Washington gridlock. Party line voting seemed to be the destiny of Briner’s amendment. But at the President’s request, Briner and Daniels worked hard to get the votes they needed to pass the bill. It gave the President confidence to sign the bill, knowing that he would be enacting the will of the people.
For Daniels, the bill did more than create a signature moment for him in Congress — it helped him save his hometown of Waycross. Once a bustling town, the economic downturn hit the town hard. The population had dwindled to less than five thousand after swelling to more than twenty-five thousand when Daniels was a kid. With plenty of cheap property and a population starved for real work, Zolcorp targeted Waycross for one of its new refineries.
Four more days.
Four days was an eternity in Congress. Senators’stars could rise and fall and rise again in that period of time. They were all a news story away from watching their power dissipate on the allegations of a scandal. The media’s insatiable desire to be first on a story resulted in a rash of stories that failed to check sources. If a senator’s story fell first into the hands of a reporter determined to make a name for himself, he would waste the next month in damage control, not to mention spend half of his next campaign deconstructing the half-truth accusations that his opponent would pounce upon. But this vote seemed like a lock. It was the kind of vote Catherine would have been proud of.
Daniels looked at the faded photo on the corner of his desk — a cozy family picture with Catherine and the boys, Mike, Ben and Luke. He tried to replace it many times but couldn’t bring himself to do it. As he thought about Catherine, he moved to twist his wedding ring. It wasn’t there. He’d finally taken it off six months ago.
“If all of Congress was like you, this country would be in a much better place,” she once told him.
“Honey, you do know I’m not perfect, right?” he responded.
“Yes, but perfection is not a prerequisite for greatness.”
Enacting legislation never felt like a moment of greatness to Daniels, but the consequences often did. When citizens regained power from an overreaching government or gained justice on a corrupt system, he felt proudest about what he did. Despite what his colleagues on the Hill did, he always knew he’d been sent to Washington to serve the interests of the people above his own. The New England Energy Access Act was primed to do just that at the expense of a favor from his own party.
Bella Zander, his 23-year-old aide, knocked on his door.
“Come in,” he said.
She slid a package onto his desk. “This just came for you, sir.”
“Thanks, Bella.”
He opened it and pulled out a piece of paper and a picture. He gaped at the image. “Bella! Get in here now!”
She rushed into the room. “Is everything all right, sir?”
“Who gave this to you?”
“One of the mailroom clerks. Why?”
“Do you know which one?”
“Yeah. Is there a problem?”
“See if you can get him on the phone for me.”
Daniels stared at the photo. He struggled to hold back tears.No! This can’t be happening to me!
He tossed the note and the snapshot on his desk. It was a picture of his youngest son, 15-year-old Luke, bound and gagged. The accompanying note read:
“Vote NO on the bill or your son dies.
Call the cops or the feds and he dies. We’re watching you!”
Bella buzzed his office phone. “I’ve got the clerk on the line, sir. Should I patch him through”?”
His phone buzzed with a text message. “Hold on a second.” He read the text message:
Don’t talk to the mailroom clerk unless you want him to die.
“You know what, it’s all right. I’ll handle it later. Tell him everything is fine.”
“Okay, sir.”Bella hung up.
They’re listening to me too. I gotta get outta here!
He stormed out of his office and headed straight for Bella’s desk. Leaning over her desk, he whispered, “Can I borrow your cell phone for a minute?”
She furrowed her brow and cocked her head. “Are you sure everything is okay, sir? You’re acting very strange all of a sudden”.”
“Can I borrow your phone or not?”
“Fine. Take it.” She handed him her phone. “You look kind of pale, sir. I think maybe you should go to the infirmary.”
Daniels held up his index finger to her as he turned and walked away. He slipped down the hall into an unoccupied conference room. As he sat down, he began to loosen his tie. He needed to make two phone calls first: Mike and Ben.
***
THIRTY MINUTES LATER, Daniels sat across the table from his sons, Mike and Ben, in the same conference room.
“What’s this all about, Dad? You’re freaking me out,” Ben said.
Mike leaned forward in his chair. “Yeah, the last time you called an immediate family meeting like this was when—”
“Let’s not go down that road, son,” Daniels said. “But this is almost as important.”
“What’s going on?” Ben demanded.
“No use in mincing words here: Luke’s been kidnapped.”
Ben pushed back from his chair, stood up and started pacing about the room. “Kidnapped? Are you sure?”
“Yes. They sent a proof of life picture,” Daniels said.
“Can I see it?” Ben asked.
“It’s probably best that you didn’t see it right now. I don’t want you getting worked up.”
> Mike buried his face in his hands. “This can’t be happening. What’s this all about?”
“It’s about the New England Energy Access Act,” Daniels said.
“Are you sure?” Mike asked. “You think someone would go to such extremes over that bill?”
Daniels stood up and took his tie off. “They imprisoned a scientist with the EPA who threatened to go public with the truth about the environmental impact — or lack thereof — the pipeline would have.”
“Anybody but Luke,” Ben said. He pounded his fist on the table. “We’ve gotta call the feds and do something about this.”
“No. We’re not getting the feds or any other law enforcement involved,”Daniels snapped.
“Why not?” Mike asked. “You’re just gonna vote No on the bill and expect they’ll return him to you like nothing ever happened?”
Daniels took a deep breath and shot a steely gaze at Mike. “Of course not. I’m going to call your uncle Seth and get him involved.”
“Is there anything we can do in the meantime?” Ben asked.
“Yes. You can go home and not breathe a word of this to anyone, not even your wives. We’ve got to keep this circle tight. I’m afraid these people are crazy enough to follow through on their promises if we don’t at least act like we’re going along with them.”
Mike and Ben took turns giving their father hugs before they prepared to exit the room.
“We’re gonna get through this. Just stay positive and pray it all works out,” Daniels said.
After his boys exited the room, he pulled out Bella’s cell phone and dialed the number for his brother-in-law, Seth Matthews.
“Matthews here. Who is this?” he answered.
“Seth, it’s me, Jeffrey Daniels.”
“Where are you calling me from?”
“Never mind that. I’ve got a favor to ask.”
“Anything for you, JD. What’s this about?”
“I can’t tell you right now, but I need to make sure you’re going to be there for our lunch date. It’s important.”
