Justifiable Homicide: A Political Thriller (Robert Paige Thrillers Book 1)

by Robert W. McGee

  86

  “The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” Frederick Douglass

  Senator Garrett’s assassination caused problems for Frank Carbone, the bank president with the passport problem. He had found a way to get the million dollars Senator Garrett demanded but now he didn’t know what to do with it.

  There was no way in hell he was going to give it to Ken Tolleson, Garrett’s snotty assistant, since Tolleson didn’t have any power of his own. He was practically out of a job. Whoever was appointed to replace Garrett would probably want his own people, which meant Tolleson would soon be fired.

  He still had the IRS problem to deal with. Now that Garrett was gone, there was no one to get the IRS off his back and there was no way to get his passport back, other than by going through the normal process, which could take years. He would be fired long before then.

  He didn’t know what to do with the money. It was risky to take it out of the bank. It would be risky to try to return it.

  He figured his best bet would be to approach Florida’s other Senator, Marco Emeraldo. He had a reputation for being squeaky clean. If he told him his story, perhaps he would understand and would be able to do something without the necessity of bribing him. He decided to hold on to the money until after he met with Senator Emeraldo, just in case. If he could get his passport back without paying a bribe, he would find a way to return the money to the bank.

  87

  Debbie Waterstein

  “To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”

  Thomas Jefferson

  “They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose … Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them.” Thomas Jefferson

  “The government is merely a servant—merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.”

  Mark Twain

  Debbie Waterstein was one of the more visible members of Congress. She never missed an opportunity to put her ugly face in front of a camera. The Congressional leadership was grooming her for bigger and better things. She was on a power trip. She didn’t have to be convinced that in order to get along, you have to go along. She was more than willing to go along with any legislation the Congressional leadership wanted to pass, as long as it increased spending or taxed the rich.

  She never saw a spending program she didn’t like. She thought up a few of her own. She believed that the government owned one hundred percent of the people’s income, and that she and her colleagues were gracious enough to let them keep some of it. The Boss had listened to some of her speeches. That was what got her on the list.

  “Marta, contact that guy in New York who wants to outlaw table salt in restaurants. I forgot his name, but you can find it on the internet. He’s a member of the New York State delegation in Albany. I want to ask him about his strategy.”

  “Yes, Debbie. I’ll get right on it.”

  When she first took office eight years ago she winced whenever a staff member called her by her first name. She preferred to be called Ms. Waterstein or Congresswoman Waterstein, but decided she would appear to be a woman of the people if she allowed them to call her Debbie instead. She has since gotten used to being called Debbie. It was part of her strategy to be seen as just one of the little people, a vanguard of the proletariat.

  One way she kept her finger on the pulse of the little people is by renting slum properties. She didn’t collect the rent herself, of course. She didn’t want to actually meet the people she rented to. She hired people to do that for her. Her rental properties were all listed under corporate names. Her tenants didn’t know that she was their landlady. She preferred it that way. If they knew she was their slum lord, they might not vote for her.

  She thought the state legislators in Albany were doing some good things and wanted to learn more. They and their colleagues in New York City had managed to outlaw smoking in restaurants. She and New York Senator Chuck Sherman had co-sponsored a bill to do the same thing nationally but it got tied up in committee. She didn’t care that prohibiting smoking in restaurants violated the property rights of the restaurant owners. She thought some things were more important than property rights. The fact that Congress didn’t have the Constitutional authority to regulate smoking never entered her mind. She believed the Commerce and General Welfare Clauses gave Congress carte blanche to do whatever it wanted.

  She was frustrated that she couldn’t ban smoking nationwide, so she decided to go after table salt. It caused high blood pressure, it was unhealthy, and it increased medical costs. That was all the excuse she needed.

  After she got rid of table salt, she planned to outlaw red meat in any school that accepted federal funding, which meant most of them. She fully believed that red meat made children aggressive and caused people to become fat. She believed it was her mission as a member of Congress to regulate people’s lives. She didn’t think the average American was capable of making informed decisions. Her mission was to do that for them.

  At the other end of the spectrum, she wanted to prevent fashion magazines from using thin models who appeared to have eating disorders, but the First Amendment’s guarantee of free press was getting in her way. She sponsored legislation to carve out an exception to the First Amendment that would allow Congress to regulate magazine advertising. There were already some prohibitions on alcohol and tobacco advertising. She wanted to expand those prohibitions, but hadn’t figured out how to do it and still keep below the radar. She didn’t want the magazine industry to have time to gather opposition against her proposal. She would try to sneak the bill into another piece of legislation on a totally unrelated topic, perhaps a transportation bill or something like that. Members of Congress seldom read the bills they vote on. She might be able to get away with it. Once a bill became law it was difficult to repeal, even if it was a bad law. She knew that and used that fact to her advantage.

  In the meantime, she would target models under 18, since that would allow Congress to accuse editors of contributing to child abuse. The mere thought that magazines could be targeted would put a chilling effect on them. They would be very hesitant to hire thin models, especially if they were under 18. But she didn’t know what to do with thin models who were over 18. Perhaps for purposes of this law, the bill could define a child as anyone under 21 or 25. Or perhaps magazine editors could be arrested and fined for contributing to a hostile work environment for pressuring models of any age not to eat.

  She didn’t want to move too fast. One thing at a time. If she went after salt, red meat, sugar, carbonated soft drinks, junk food, pizza in the schools, obesity and thin models all at once, it would dissipate her resources. She would be spreading herself too thin. It would also make it easier for the property rights and individual responsibility crowd to see a pattern. She preferred to work under the radar, in the shadows.

  The fact that most of her constituency didn’t care about those issues didn’t bother her. She felt it was her job to do what was best for them whether they wanted her to or not.

  The fact that the Constitution didn’t give the federal government the authority to make laws in those areas didn’t bother her either. She figured it was all covered under the Commerce and General Welfare clauses. She thought the people who advocated repealing those provisions of the Constitution were crazy, although she sometimes worried that their idea might pick up enough supporters to become a real threat to what she wanted to do.

  Being a member of Congress allowed her to push her personal agenda. That’s why she ran for Congress. She thought being a member of Congress was the best job in the world. She couldn’t wait to get up in the morning. She never thought that her mornings might be numbered because of her agenda.

  88
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br />   Jack Lunn

  Jack Lunn was a member of Florida’s congressional delegation. His district was just north of Debbie Waterstein’s. They were colleagues and worked together on some projects of mutual interest.

  Jack was more practical than Debbie. He didn’t go to Congress more than 20 years ago so he could push his personal agenda. He didn’t have one. He went so he could drink in the power.

  He was in the pockets of every special interest group that was politically correct. There were a lot of elderly people in his district, so he decided to become a strong supporter of government-funded Social Security, even though it was a Ponzi scheme rip-off. He wasn’t concerned that the young people would have to pay for it and that it would go bankrupt long before they retired.

  He was against increasing the retirement age or reducing benefits, two solutions that would postpone its inevitable bankruptcy. He preferred tax increases for the rich to fund it, even though the rich wouldn’t qualify to receive benefits under his plan and even though taxing the rich wouldn’t solve the problem, since the Social Security deficit was a hole that was far too deep for the rich to fill. Even if the rich were taxed at 100 percent of their marginal income, it still wouldn’t be sufficient to save Social Security from bankruptcy. He had heard that argument from economists many times but ignored it. You can’t get votes by telling old people their Social Security is going bankrupt. You have to give them hope, at least until after the next election.

  Whenever anyone advocated getting government out of the pension business and privatizing Social Security he went on the attack, accusing them of being insensitive, heartless and in favor of throwing grandma under the bus. His strategy had been effective. He kept getting re-elected to Congress every two years.

  “Steve, I want you to get a copy of the latest Congressional Budget Office report on tax revenue. Read it and come up with some arguments to increase taxes on the rich. They’re not paying their fair share. We have to find ways to increase their taxes.”

  Steve Waldron was Jack’s Congressional assistant. He had a Master of Public Administration degree from Harvard and never worked in the private sector. He preferred working in the government sector, preferably in Washington because that’s where the action is. He preferred redistributing income to generating it.

  “That might be an uphill battle, Jack. Their last report showed that the top 1 percent already pay more than the bottom 95 percent.”

  “Yeah, I know, but I’m sure you can find some arguments. The top marginal tax rate in the 1950s was 94 percent. We’re not anywhere near that now. There’s room for an increase.”

  Jack’s facts were a little off, but that never stopped him from making his argument. The 94 percent rate was in effect in 1944-45, toward the end of World War II. The top rate declined a bit after that but remained above 90 percent until 1964, when it dropped to a mere 77 percent.

  “OK, I’ll get right on it.”

  He called Yolanda, one of his Congressional staffers, into his office. Yolanda had beautiful brown skin. She was an African-American, Puerto Rican mix. He’d had a brief affair with her but ended it when his wife smelled her perfume on one of his shirts. Yolanda stopped wearing perfume in the office after that, just in case he wanted to resume their relationship.

  “Yolanda, I’d like you to check on that radio station in Palm Beach, the one that has that loud mouth conservative talk show host. See when their license is up for renewal. Maybe we can get the Federal Communications Commission to find some irregularities.”

  Lunn didn’t like most of what that guy said. He had a funny name. Jack could never remember it. All he knew was that the station was hampering his reelection campaign. Maybe if the FCC could find some irregularities, he could pressure the station into firing that guy in exchange for getting its license renewed. As a representative of the people, he thought it was his duty to shut that guy up. What he didn’t know was that some other representatives of the people were about to try to shut him up.

  89

  “If this be treason, make the most of it.”

  Patrick Henry

  “I have some good news for you.” It was Jim Bennett, speaking to Wellington. They were standing outside Wellington’s downtown office. Bennett suggested meeting in person rather than conveying the information over their cell phones because he didn’t want the feds picking up the conversation with their monitoring equipment.

  “Our friends Debbie Waterstein and Jack Lunn are having lunch in Fort Lauderdale next Saturday.”

  “That’s great. Maybe we can get a twofer.”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking, but there are some complications.”

  “Like what?”

  “Debbie has become such a big shot that she sometimes has a body guard or two. She’s been using them a lot more frequently since the esteemed Senator Garrett met his untimely demise.”

  “Hmmm. I see what you’re getting at. You’ll need an assist.”

  “Yeah, if we want to get them at the same time, we’ll need more than one person.”

  “I hear ya.”

  “I think we should wait until they exit the restaurant. They’ll probably arrive at different times but they’ll probably leave together.”

  “That sounds like a plan. That will also give us time to check out where their limos and bodyguards are stationed. Which restaurant will they be at?”

  “SoLita. The name means South of Little Italy. It’s an upscale Italian place on Las Olas Boulevard.”

  “Hmmm. That could complicate things. There’s a lot of traffic in that area, especially on Saturday afternoons. There are limited entries and exits. If we try to escape over the bridge it would be easy to trap us. All they would have to do is close the bridge.”

  “That won’t be a problem. The restaurant’s on the mainland side of the bridge, close to Federal Highway.”

  “OK, that makes the escape easier, but still not perfect. After we whack them, the place will be crawling with cops. They could block Federal Highway.”

  “Yeah, I’ve thought of that. We could use a couple of stolen cars for the job, then abandon them in a mall parking lot a few blocks away. Maybe we could take in a movie. That way we wouldn’t have to try to leave the neighborhood.”

  “Sounds good. What’s playing?”

  “Funny, John. I like your sense of humor.”

  “I think we should use the AA12. I’ll load up the mag with Frag 12s. We’ll pop the bodyguards first to get them out of the way. If they’re standing close enough together we could just shoot a few rounds into the sidewalk between them. The Frag 12s have a 9 foot burst radius. One or two shells might be enough to take all of them out. Then we can focus on Debbie and Jack.”

  “The voters won’t be pleased, John.”

  “That’s OK. They can elect a couple of new hacks to replace them.”

  “You might want to pump one into the limo window, too, just in case there might be a body guard there. The driver might be carrying a gun, too.”

  “Yeah, good idea. Let’s bring Santos and Tomás in on this. If the two limos are in different locations, we’ll need some back-up.”

  “OK. I’ll see if they’re available. It’ll be a Saturday, so Tomás won’t be working. Santos doesn’t usually work weekends, either, but I’ll check, just to make sure.”

  “Have them knock out the traffic cameras on the escape route, too. We don’t want them to get photos of us. The best time would probably be around 2am on Saturday morning. Traffic will be light and the cops won’t have time to replace them by lunchtime. A few well-placed shotgun blasts should do it. But not with the Frag 12s. The shells are too expensive. Have them use regular shells. Tell them not to take out the traffic lights, though. That would cause traffic jams all up and down Las Olas. The cops would have to direct traffic the old fashioned way, one on each corner. We don’t need that.”

  “OK, I’m on it.”

  90

  Saturday morning, around 2am. Santos and T
omás just stole a Toyota with a sun roof. It would be less obvious than a convertible and it would allow them to do what they have to do – shoot out the traffic cameras on the escape route without the need to get out of the car at each intersection.

  Santos drove. Tomás sat in the front passenger seat holding a shotgun on his lap. They agreed that Santos would drive because he had trouble fitting his massive shoulders and chest through the sun roof.

  The AA12 was in the back seat, loaded with a mag of Frag 12s, in case a random squad car spotted them shooting out the cameras. They didn’t want to kill any cops, but they also didn’t want to get caught. Certain firearms violations carry a mandatory 5-year minimum sentence, and they figured that blowing out multiple traffic cameras might qualify.

  The city purchased most of the traffic cameras with a federal grant. Maybe they wouldn’t be replaced, unless the city could get another federal grant. They liked the idea of destroying the cameras. Even though Santos worked for the TSA and was on the front lines of the war on terror, he didn’t like it that the federal government was installing cameras everywhere. He knew the cameras didn’t do anything to stop terrorists, not the foreign kind, anyway. He figured he was doing a service to the community and to all Americans by taking them out.

  Several intersections on the escape route had cameras, usually four per intersection, so Tomás would have to squeeze off a lot of rounds. He wore a thick pad on his right shoulder to absorb the recoil of the shotgun. Without it, his shoulder would likely be black and blue before sunrise.

  Las Olas Boulevard would be fairly easy, although they were worried that a squad car might be parked on a side street. Federal Highway would be more dangerous. It was a main highway and at that hour squad cars passed by every few minutes.