by Joseph Flynn
Whether the gun lobbyist acted out of gratitude to the man who brought him in from the cold or he just didn’t want to go for a walk, Brock didn’t know. He was glad, though, that he’d have an opening to sow some mischief. If he couldn’t mess with these fools’ heads, he could hardly think of himself as an anarchist.
Hale and Dalton looked at each other and came to the silent agreement they wouldn’t buck Ludwig’s choice but would remain wary of any trickery on Brock’s part.
Having both seniority and a seat in the upper house of Congress, Senator Hale was the first to address Ludwig, “Auric, I want you to know that Lorna and I had no idea of what the president had in mind for our new prison, turning it into a depository for the nation’s scum.”
“Can you fight her at least on where the damn thing will be built?” Ludwig asked. “Get it put down on your panhandle near Juneau where it isn’t quite so damn cold all the time?”
The two pols from Alaska looked at each other.
Dalton picked up the baton. “The thing about that is, the federal government is the biggest land owner in the state: 222 million acres.”
Pride wouldn’t allow Hale to restrain himself from putting that figure into context. “That’s an area larger than the entire state of Texas.” Seeing Ludwig’s sour expression, the senator added, “Just saying.”
“With the prison being federally funded, constructed and operated, and the government owning all that land, the Bureau of Prisons could site the new facility north of the Arctic Circle, if the president told them to,” Dalton explained.
“That’s what has Lorna and me so upset,” Hale said. “We let this happen, the rest of the country will start thinking of Alaska as Siberia.”
Brock grinned. “Well, that might have a chilling effect on street crime.”
Ludwig swiveled his head Brock’s way. “You think this is funny?”
“Hey, I’m a law-and-order Democrat. When it comes to criminals, you could flash-freeze the fuckers and it’d be okay by me.”
Put that way, no one in the room could argue with Brock. Nonetheless, Ludwig was only too aware that sales to criminals represented a not insubstantial market share for firearms in the United States. If anyone ever figured out a way to get a significant number of bad guys either off the street or to voluntarily disarm, it would affect his clients’ bottom lines negatively.
And the threat of locking up drug cartel members, gangbangers and assorted mafiosi for years north of the goddamn Arctic Circle might be just the thing to turn the trick.
Brock wasn’t done having his fun.
“Here’s the problem, Senator and Congresswoman. You two set yourselves up for this with your request for a new prison in your state. And you, Senator, even provided the rationale for what the president did: Alaska will take in other states’ surplus prison population. Well, you’ll be getting that in spades.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Hale said with a growl. “I thought we’d lock up our own felons mostly and take some extra from the lower forty-eight.”
“But that wasn’t the way you wrote your amendment to the Farm Bill. Specificity is usually a good idea when you ask for something.”
Now, all three of Brock’s guests looked like they were ready to leave.
So he roped them back in.
“There is one way to address the problem. Not that you could ask to return your federal funding. That would be too terrible a precedent for any legislator to set. So what you have to do is take a page from our liberal friends’ book.”
From appearances, it was clear that Ludwig, Hale and Dalton didn’t have any liberal friends. They had no idea of what he meant. So Brock told them.
“As you may have heard, there are those progressive souls in Congress who would like to see convicted felons have their voting rights restored. Some left-leaning states have already done as much. So if that right can be restored —”
Ludwig saw where Brock was going. “Why not restore the right to bear arms, too? That’s brilliant. Say some knucklehead goes a year without committing another crime. Bang. He can buy, own and carry a gun again.”
Brock said, “You might want to make the waiting period two or three years — and not use bang as an interjection.”
Ludwig brushed Brock’s suggestion aside with a wave of a hand.
“That’s just quibbling about details and vocabulary; it’s the idea that’s magnificent.”
Senator Hale and Congresswoman Dalton seemed less taken by it.
Gun were certainly important to them, but they weren’t the only thing. If they backed a restoration of gun rights, they’d be hard put to oppose doing the same for voting rights. Adding former prison inmates to the rolls of voters would not be good for the GOP. The way demographics were already going in the country, the Republican idea was to limit the diversity of the voting public. Pretending the issue was really a way to block voter fraud.
Then there was the Republicans’ tough-on-crime image. That would take a really big hit if the party came out for giving ex-jailbirds their guns back. Especially if the rate of violent crimes soared as a result. But looking at Ludwig, they saw him smile like a junkie who’d just had the best fix of his life.
So now the question became: How could they appease FirePower America without politically slitting their wrists in the process?
Hale and Dalton turned to Brock with the same thought in mind: You fucker.
Brock kept a straight face and ushered his guests out of his office. Where they’d go to try to resolve the conundrum he’d handed them he didn’t care. He had a bigger game to play.
Hours later, the congressman was just about to leave the Rayburn Building when the call he’d been waiting for all day finally came. The speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, having gone to Columbus, Ohio to confer with his legislative colleagues there, had news.
“We’ve counted the votes three times over. We’ve got more than enough. Ohio will vote later tonight to petition Congress to convene a second Constitutional Convention, and it will be held in Philadelphia. We got everything we wanted.”
“Call me again after the vote has been taken,” Brock said. “Then we’ll celebrate.”
“I’ll do just that. I’ll come to Washington and you can buy the drinks.”
Brock said nothing would please him more.
He might have felt less self-satisfied had he known Father Inigo de Loyola had landed in San José.
McLean Gardens — Washington, DC
Byron DeWitt woke up in his apartment and saw it was four o’clock. The volume of light in the sky informed him it was late afternoon not early morning. For a moment, that only confused him. He couldn’t remember the last time he slept the better part of the day away. Maybe it had been when he was eight and had been burning up with scarlet fever.
He’d been treated with antibiotics, but across the distance of years all he remembered was an impressionistic haze of heat and fatigue, as if he was being roasted from inside but couldn’t muster the energy to care. Even after the fever broke, his torpor remained and his mind was fuzzy for days.
He felt almost as lethargic now, but he was far more disciplined as an adult and he had awakened with an idea he wanted to pursue. He picked up his bedside phone and called Abra Benjamin’s mobile number. She answered before the second ring.
“How are you?” she asked.
The note of intimacy in her voice surprised him.
Almost made him long for the days when they’d been lovers.
But having conceived a child and given him up for adoption was caution enough not to go down that road again. Even after hearing what sounded like real concern in Benjamin’s voice.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Just burning the candle at both ends too long. Had to crash eventually and I did. I’ll be fine.”
Benjamin said, “Galia Mindel called me, had me bring Congressman Wesley Tilden in for questioning.”
That perked up DeWitt. “How did he tak
e it?”
“He wept. Then he clammed up. I really shouldn’t say more on a cell phone.”
“Cripes. How soon can you get on a secure line?”
“Two seconds.”
So she was at work.
“Fine. Call me back.”
His phone rang almost immediately.
Benjamin was all business now. All calls made from FBI headquarters were recorded. And not just for quality control. She told DeWitt that the decision was made not to arrest Tilden as he’d declined to self-incriminate. But all of the congressman’s phones were now tapped, he was being watched and if he developed a sudden yen to travel abroad he’d be detained on grounds yet to be decided.
DeWitt said, “Well, if Tilden is going to play against type and try to tough it out, maybe we should take care that Congressman Rutledge doesn’t go the other way.”
Benjamin said, “You think a True South Texan might commit suicide?”
“Only after he takes a couple dozen other people off the stage first.”
Adding the thought of murder to suicide made for a far more plausible scenario.
“You’re right. I should have thought of that. I’ll alert the detail watching Rutledge.”
“You might want to double the number of agents, too.”
“Okay. You’re authorizing that?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes, do you know if the Navy has ships on all the world’s oceans?”
“I’d think so. I remember reading somewhere they have almost three hundred ships on active duty. Shouldn’t that be enough to do it?”
“Seems like it. Get in touch with the National Reconnaissance Office.”
The NRO designed, built, launched, operated and maintained the country’s spy satellites.
“Mr. Deputy Director,” Benjamin said in a tone she formerly used to call him Byron.
“Yes?”
“I think you’ve been anticipated.”
“I have?”
“Chief of Staff Mindel has already tasked the NRO with finding any yacht on which Tyler Busby might be hiding.”
“Oh.” DeWitt tried not to sound too disappointed. The world did move forward while people slept. Even him. He asked, “What search criteria are being used?”
“Size and price.”
A glimmer of joy burned off some of DeWitt’s mental fog.
He still had something to contribute.
“I think I might be able to narrow the parameters a bit.”
“How’s that?”
“See who insured Busby’s phony paintings at Inspiration Hall. Not just the company but the CEO, owner or grand high poobah. See if that esteemed individual just happens to own some vast ocean-going vessel that he might have lent to a friend in need.”
“Damn, that’s good,” Benjamin said.
She was truly impressed or she wouldn’t have let even a mild profanity be recorded.
It was, of course, a variation on Putnam Shady’s idea, DeWitt clearly remembered. One that he should have gotten around to checking on sooner, if he hadn’t been run so ragged. If it turned out to be worth anything, he’d give credit where it was due.
If it was a dud, he’d take responsibility.
“I’ll get right on it,” Benjamin said. “Oh, one more thing. That hair Captain Yates found in the suspect’s car for the Jordan Gilford killing?”
“You pinned somebody?”
“Not directly, but we came up with a family member. A guy named Dario Nerón. Age eighty-eight. Lives in Miami, just barely. He was supposed to take part in the 1961 invasion of the Bay of Pigs, but he got the sniffles or something and stayed in Florida. The link turned up in the CIA’s database.”
“Nobody did DNA samples back in ’61,” DeWitt said.
“You’re right. They just did blood-typing and issued dog-tags. But as a gesture to the exile community, the Company kept updating the means of identifying any potential fallen heroes. To let the Miami Cubans know their cause hadn’t been forgotten. It was an honorary thing. Anyway, Dario Nerón took advantage. He’s in hospice care at the moment, but we’re looking at his offspring, legitimate or otherwise.”
“Let me know if you find anything.”
“ASAP?”
“When I wake up tomorrow morning. No earlier than seven a.m.”
“As you wish.”
A perfectly proper response, but also a direct steal from The Princess Bride.
A way they and a million other couples had once said, “I love you.”
What was the woman doing to him, DeWitt wondered.
He hung up his phone, lay back down and drifted off to sleep.
Telling himself he was not going to dream of Benjamin.
McGill’s Hideaway — The White House
McGill and Patti sat hip to hip on his leather sofa. Flames danced in the fireplace, but the First Couple’s attention was focused on McGill’s iPad. Ellie Booker had called to say WWN would be debuting its National Gun Death Counter feature. The broadcast began with a cold opening: no title credits or voice-over announcer.
Just a shot of a blue sky as “Taps” began to play softly.
A sans serif graphic message appeared: Number of Americans Killed by Gunfire Since January 1, 2014. Beneath that message a number appeared: 2,588.
That message faded out to be replaced by: Some of the People We Lost Today.
A horizontal row of eight faces appeared. Men, women and two children.
Their names, ages and hometowns appeared beneath the photos.
As the last note of “Taps” sounded, WWN moved on to its usual opening graphics and musical theme. The lead anchor and managing editor of the broadcast, Ethan Judd, explained the unusual opening.
“What you’ve just seen is the only part of tonight’s broadcast that I was asked to include by the network. My contract with WWN gives me complete control over this broadcast’s editorial content. That’s not to say people on our staff don’t offer suggestions as to what stories we cover and in what depth. They do, frequently at the tops of their voices. But the final decision is mine.
“For the first time since I began working at WWN, this company’s CEO, Hugh Collier, came to me with news he thought we should be covering: just how many people are killed in this country every single day by gunfire. Hugh candidly told me this wasn’t his idea. He originally opposed it … and then he got shot. Funny how something like that can change your mind.
“Hugh told me he got the idea from senior contributing producer Ellie Booker. She told me she got it from James J. McGill. Mr. McGill authored a bit of wisdom that is becoming nationally known. He said, ‘If a situation stinks and you want to change it, you can’t let people to hold their noses.’ Brother, does he have that right.
“So from now on, this broadcast will open, close or put smack dab in the middle the number of Americans who have been killed by gunfire. Placement will depend on what other stories each day brings us. Too many of our people find themselves caught in the midst of a raging uncivil war. The victims are young, old, male, female and come in every color God has devised for us. Chances are we will never achieve a complete ceasefire, but we must all work toward the day when a death by gunshot is considered shocking rather than routine.
“And now in other news …”
McGill and Patti looked at each other.
“I didn’t realize what kind of punch that would pack,” McGill said.
“It was more than the just the numbers. It was the faces and the music. The sense of horrible waste and irretrievable loss.” Patti dabbed at her eyes.
McGill gave her his handkerchief.
“It will be hard for other news organizations to either ignore that feature or top it.”
“Let’s see how it’s rolling out in social media,” McGill said.
The father of three tech savvy kids, he’d been instructed in the rudiments of Twitter.
WWN Gun Deaths was already number one in trending topics.<
br />
McGill and Patti had sandwiches and soft drinks brought in while they watched the Didi DiMarco Show on MSNBC. Didi’s take on the national gun death story didn’t use music or have the stark simplicity of WWN’s coverage, but it was far more comprehensive, featuring maps, charts and interviews with cops, judges and local pols from around the country.
She wrapped up her show with a two-minute memorial to a woman who had been shot and killed that morning sitting at a bus stop in Topeka, Kansas waiting to go to work. It would have been her first day on a new job, after being unemployed for three months. She left a husband and two children. She sang in her church choir and had donated twenty-eight pints of blood at her local blood bank.
The driver of the bus that would have picked up the woman told police that she’d been shot for no apparent reason by a man driving a car in the oncoming lane. The bus driver was able to give the police a license plate number and a description of the shooter. The police were hopeful they’d be able to make an arrest.
“None of which will do the victim or her family one bit of good,” Didi said in conclusion. “And if James J. McGill happens to be watching, I’d like to invite him to come on the show and talk about the horrendous state of gun violence in our country.”
McGill powered down his iPad.
He and Patti turned their gaze to the dying blaze in the fireplace, lost in thoughts of sympathy for a woman in Kansas they’d never met. Realizing that the tragedy afflicting her family was repeated in huge numbers every single day in the United States. Knowing they had to do whatever they could to end the scourge of gun homicides.
“Are you going to accept Ms. DiMarco’s invitation?” Patti asked.
“I think so. Assuming we get Jordan Gilford’s killer sometime soon.”
Each of them had a surplus of prior obligations.
Patti nodded. “I’ll be speaking at a District public school tomorrow.”
“Good. It’s important for you to see as many people as possible.”
“Comforter in chief, that’s me. But I’ve got to back my words with action.”
McGill said, “Speaking of which, I talked to Elspeth about bumping up Abbie’s security and to the Evanston PD about doing the same for Kenny and Caitie. You know, after Kenny raised their profiles with his new smart-phone app.”
