A Matter of State - Installment 3
Desert Pioneer Hotel Kingman, AZ -- 6:55 AM
Hugh Nachtmann’s ego would not allow him to take pleasure from popular literature, lest he be thought common. He read only the classics. Identifying strongly with the dissolute Sidney Carton in Tale of Two Cities, he had plowed through Dickens’ masterpiece no less than eight times. Now, sitting atop the riser as Franklin approached, he was just finishing a monograph by Renaissance philosopher Nicolo Machiavelli entitled “Concerning Cruelty.”
“A leader,” Machiavelli wrote, “so long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal, ought not mind being thought cruel. Severe examples are bitter but efficient. Hence, cruel methods can be more humane than those which, through benevolence, allow disorder to arise.”
Nachtmann was no stranger to the use of brutality as a management tool, still the had never seen the technique rationalized quite so elegantly. He was impressed, not only with the writing, but with himself for having anticipated the author’s ideas.
From the corner of his eye, Nachtmann could see his adjutant, Franklin, approaching. He ignored him for as long as possible. After several moments, the man cleared his throat.
Nachtmann looked up. “What is it?” asked.
“It’s the woman, sir. We’ve lost her again.”
Nachtmann had known by Franklin’s expression what he was going to say, but hearing him say it was no less irksome.
The telephone rang. Nachtmann answered. “Nachtmann here,” he said.
“It’s Schmidt, Nachtmann.” Agent Lawrence Schmidt was Nachtmann’s contact at the FBI. “What have you got?” Nachtmann straightened up in his chair.
“We had her in our sights until just a moment ago,” he said. “She dropped off the radar, temporarily, but we’ll get her back.”
“You’d better,” Schmidt snapped. “I’m warning you, Nachtmann. It wasn’t my idea to include you in this operation, but if you screw up, it’ll be my pleasure to jerk you out.” The phone on the other end slammed down.
Nachtmann did not react visibly. This was not his fault, he told himself. It’s this idiot, Franklin. He took a deep breath, calming himself by remembering Machiavelli’s sage wisdom: Severe examples are bitter but efficient. The phrase focused his thoughts.
He glanced down at the taser gun lying on the table in front of him.
“What happened, Franklin?” he said.
“Sir,” Franklin began, “the technology we are using is formidable, but not perfect. In addition, we have limited satellite time at our disposal. Besides…” He went on in this explanatory vein for several moments, evidently unaware that Nachtmann was now holding the taser at the ready. Indeed, by the time he brought his remarks to a close, Franklin was the only person in the room who did not realize what was about to happen.
“In my opinion, Mr. Nachtmann,” said Franklin, “we should again resort to paid informants and ground reconnaissance.”
But for the grinding of a nearby printer, the room had gone quite silent.
“Sir?” Franklin said.
Nachtmann raised the stun gun and closed one eye, aiming for the part of Franklin’s upper chest exposed behind his open collar. A faint smirk danced over Nachtmann’s lips. Finally coming to appreciate the gravity his situation, Franklin’s mouth fell open.
Nachtmann pulled the trigger. The compressed gas cartridge inside the gun broke open, but the firing mechanism malfunctioned. The barbed electrodes shot downward and skidded harmlessly across the floor. For a moment, Nachtmann stared at them in surprise. Then he glanced up. A few of the men watching the drama had recovered from their shock. One man even tittered at their boss’ discomfiture. That was too much.
Clenching the grip of the taser, Nachtmann slammed the weapon into the side of Franklin’s face, first on one side, then the other. Franklin collapsed to the floor.
Nachtmann stared at the inert figure for some time before nodding toward a pair of bodyguards. “Get him out,” he said. Then, at first still gazing at the carpet where the man had fallen, he spoke to the remainder of Franklin’s team.
“All right, people, listen up. Obviously, this group needs a stronger man at the helm.” Envisioning General Patton addressing his troops, Nachtmann lifted his gaze over the heads of the small assembly, formulating his thoughts. “I’d give the job to one of you, but Franklin was one of you and we all saw where that led. I’m taking the position over myself. Now, this is what we’re going to do: we’re going to find this woman and her son and then we’re going to go out and get them. No excuses! Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” the men said weakly.
“I can’t HEAR you,” Nachtmann shouted.
“YES SIR!” came the chorused reply. Nachtmann nodded perfunctorily and waved a dismissal. The men went back to their tasks. He stood for a moment, congratulating himself on his handling of a difficult situation.
Nachtmann glanced at the photo of the young blonde woman on his desk. Then, gloom descended. He felt a wave of shame. She would not have approved of hitting Franklin. She would not have agreed with Machiavelli. Nachtmann’s expression darkened for a few moments as he considered these thoughts. Then a reassuring notion crossed his mind. He relaxed.
Deborah and I are destined to be together, he thought. It is our fate. Nothing can change that.
FBI Headquarters Office of SIOC, Washington, DC -- 7:00 AM EST
After two years as Acting Assistant Deputy Director of the Strategic Information and Operations Center, Joseph Tyler “JT” Winslow, had just been handed his boss’ job. Friday, in fact, had been his first day as Deputy Director. It had been a trial by fire. Winslow had not slept since Thursday night.
Since early Friday morning, the SOIC, a 24 hour FBI command post designed to coordinate the handling of simultaneous law enforcement crises, had been dealing with four such emergencies. Of that number, Winslow had been personally managing three: two prison uprisings and a bomb threat.
The fourth emergency, a report of civil unrest in Hawaii, he had put on hold until his three priorities had been resolved. That accomplished, he was exhausted. Nevertheless, before he could sleep, he felt he must at least assess the Hawaiian situation. Then he’d pass it on to an assistant.
“Hawaii, for Christ’s sake,” Winslow muttered under his breath. “Civil unrest in fucking paradise.”
Deputy Director Winslow and his family had often spent vacation weeks with his wife’s family on Oahu. The notion that its laid back population could get sufficiently aroused to foment civil disobedience was difficult to imagine. He looked at the cover of the report. It had been filed by Special Agent in Charge of Pacific Rim Security, Lawrence Schmidt. Winslow rolled his eyes.
“That explains a lot,” he said. Winslow had known Schmidt at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. The man’s politics made Louis XIV look like a communist.
He flipped open the cover and read the synopsis.
The self-immolation of a cleric of the ancient animist religion on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the revolution against Queen Lili'uokalani has given rise to state-wide commotion. Public disturbances have taken the following forms:
- Numerous mass protests (500+ citizens)
- ‘Sick outs’ by various government employees
- Outbreaks of vigilantism
- Petitions calling for Hawaiian sovereignty
- A rise in activities by ‘separatist’ groups
Deteriorating public morale is attributable to two main factors:
- The growing perception that sovereignty is widely embraced by middle and upper class Hawaiians
- The impending transfer of billions of tax free dollars from the conservative, pro-mainland Faber-Brady Trust to the radical, separatist Council of Kahunas.
The transfer of Faber-Brady Trust funds to the Council of Kahunas threatens to further inflame and destabilize Hawaiian politics by:
- Adding credibility to the belief that sovereignty is broadly supported
- Funding the activities of a radical separatist group (the Council of Kahunas)
CONCLUSIONS:
In that it poses a clear threat to both the public safety of the people of Hawaii and to the national security of the United States, the transfer of Faber-Brady Trust funds to the Council of Kahunas must be prevented.
It is possible, by acting quickly and decisively, both to rehabilitate Hawaiian public opinion regarding sovereignty and to prevent the transfer of Faber-Brady Trust funds to the Council of Kahunas.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
IMMEDIATE USE OF ANY AND ALL MEANS NECESSARY TO ACCOMPLISH THOSE ENDS.
Holy shit, Winslow thought, Schmidt is advocating any means, up to the use of extreme prejudice…assassination. What an idiot.
He turned the page over and scrutinized its clearance level. Thank god, he thought. At least Schmidt had had the presence of mind to encrypt this shit before sending it.
Winslow scribbled a brief note on the report cover and tossed it in his ‘out’ box. Then he went home.
Garrison Residence, San Francisco, CA -- 7:25 AM PST
When Jim Garrison awakened at 6:30, his first thoughts were of Deborah and Noah. He’d been away from them for nearly four days, but he wasn't worried. Any moment now, he felt sure, Deborah would call. He hauled himself out of bed and padded groggily into the master bathroom, carrying a portable phone along with him.
Stripping off his underwear, Garrison started the shower and adjusted the flow, then closed the curtain and backed out to wait for the water to warm. In the interim he stepped on the scale and weighed himself for the first time in several days. One-hundred fifty-two pounds – the ideal weight for his wiry 5’8” frame. He turned and looked at himself in the mirror, running a hand through his unruly, dark brown hair and over the rough stubble covering his face. Should he shave now or later – or, indeed, should he shave at all? His wife loved his rugged complexion, especially, so she said, when his whiskers were bristly.
He glanced toward the telephone, as if wishing alone would make it ring sooner, but it remained silent.
When he’d heard nothing by mid-morning, Garrison grew worried. Unable to relax and feeling as though he should be doing something, he began calling his wife’s friends. The results were troubling.
Deborah had remained in close contact with many of her former colleagues at California State University where, before Noah’s birth, she had lectured on Pacific Island anthropology. She also maintained a wide network of confidants among the young mothers in their affluent North Beach neighborhood. Normally, almost any one of them could be relied upon to provide up-to-the-minute information regarding her whereabouts. Today, however, no one seemed to know anything. A few of the women said that they had neither seen nor heard from their friend in several days.
Garrison’s stomach began to tighten but he did not panic. He continued dialing until he had reached every one of Deborah’s acquaintances. His efforts proved fruitless.
He called their houseman, Lewis Foo. Lewis worked Monday through Friday from 7:00 AM until 4:30 in the afternoon. Possibly he could shed some light on Deborah’s whereabouts.
Foo reported having been out sick since Wednesday. He had, however, spoken to Mrs. Garrison just before five o’clock on Friday, but could not remember her mentioning any plans for Friday night. He was sorry he could not be more helpful and would be sure to call if anything occurred to him.
Next, Garrison telephoned every Bay Area hospital listed in the yellow pages, even those not offering emergency services. Neither Deborah nor Noah had been admitted to any of them.
He paused, thinking over everything he’d tried thus far. Unhappily, Garrison concluded that he had taken every action he could possibly take on his own. It was now almost 12:30 in the afternoon. It was time to do the thing he most dreaded doing: contacting the authorities.
Central Police Station – San Francisco, CA -- 10:15 AM PST
The most difficult part of working missing persons, or so Inspector Frederick believed, was the tedium. If the job entailed one-twentieth as much derring-do and a fiftieth of the intrigue that it sometimes does when portrayed in films and on television, he might still have thought it only marginally appealing. That missing persons occasioned not even a hundredth of that much excitement and that a primary job requirement was a strong familiarity with various databases and computer search engines, made the time Frederick spent there very nearly unbearable.
It was with some considerable interest, then, that he took a call from a certain Walker Evers, a newly appointed assistant district attorney, who had a special request.
“Listen, Inspector,” Evers said, after each had identified himself, “a friend of a friend has called in a political gimme. I’m not sure what it’s all about, exactly, but apparently, this friend of a friend can’t find his wife, and he’s pretty upset.”
“Yes?” said Frederick.
“I know you people have your procedures and so forth, but if you wouldn’t mind, I’d consider it a personal favor if you’d call on the fellow and see if you can’t mellow him out a little.”
“Mellow him out?”
“Yeah. You know,” said Evers, “do a little hand holding on behalf of official San Francisco, take his statement and help him along a little.”
“You do realize, Mr. Evers,” said Frederick, “that I’m not ordinarily assigned to this beat?”
“Sure,” said Evers. “I know who you are. All the better.”
“Pardon?” Frederick said.
“I mean it’s better that you turn up than some schmuck flatfoot who might otherwise get this assignment.” Evers had jumped ahead of Frederick’s original question and assumed that the inspector was making reference to his own, well-known reputation as a local muckraker, a thing he, Frederick, would never do.
“I don’t think you understand…” Frederick began.
“If this what’s-his-name, the wife loser, realizes that Hal Frederick is on the job, a guy who doesn’t care whose toes he treads on so long as he gets at the truth, the more likely he is to feel that the city and county of San Francisco is really on his side. See what I mean?”
“Yeah, yeah,” the inspector said, dubiously. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Frederick hung up the phone, his mind now a morass of memory and resentment. It had been nearly a year since one of his cases, the murder of local sex merchant, Blanche Anders, had turned into the smelliest political scandal San Francisco had ever experienced.
One would have thought that his successful investigation, plus the ensuing eradication of a sinkhole of political corruption during its aftermath, would have earned Frederick a modicum of official respect. One would have been wrong.
In the several months since the spectacular conclusion of the Blanche Anders murder inquiry, all Frederick ever got were brutally insensitive, left-handed ‘compliments,’ like the one he’d just received from ADA Walker Evers.
“Still,” Frederick muttered to himself, “I’m at least gonna get out of this office.”
Bayfront Beach Park, Hilo, HI -- 12:15 PM Hawaii Time
Since the untimely death of his brother and sister-in-law sixteen years earlier, Captain Raymond Suzuki of the Hilo Police Department, had made the rearing of his only niece, Janet, the main focus of his bachelor existence. He had done his job well. At just 19 years old, Ms Suzuki, intelligent, poised and attractive, was a rising star in the University of Hawaii’s School of Political Science.
Hands in his pockets, Captain Suzuki strolled along the curving, sun dappled sidewalk along Hilo Bay, his accomplished young niece on his arm, listening as she expounded on her work-study project at the office of state congressman, Moses Pukuli.
“Demographic data is being gathered constantly,” she was saying, “but no one has the time to analyze it all.”
“And you do?”
“I can’t look at everything,” Janet said, “but a particular population segment has caught my attention.”
“Which one?”
“Native Hawaiian males from 13 to 30.”
Suzuki smiled and cocked his head. “Watch it, Janet,” he said. “Thirteen is too young and 30 is too old.”
His niece slapped his arm. “Come on, Uncle Ray. I’m being serious.”
“OK, OK,” he said. “Kanaka boys and young men. What about them?”
“Well, not long ago, I came across a chart in an article funded by the Faber-Brady Trust. It claimed to show that the scholastic and employment achievement of Native Hawaiian males was declining far beyond the statewide norm.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” said her uncle. “The executive chairman of the trust is a notorious racist. He probably funded some bad research.”
“That’s what I thought at first,” Janet said. “and since the article accompanying the chart was also biased, I checked the stats.”
“And what did you find?”
“Surprisingly enough, they were accurate.”
“Really? Hmm.” Suzuki himself had long been aware of an increase in Native Hawaiian boys in the juvenile justice system. Thus far, he’d thought the phenomenon a fluke.
“And,” Janet continued, “after having remained constant for over two decades, these new declines are not only statistically significant, they’re increasing steadily.”
“So kanakas are doing worse and worse as time goes by, is that it?”
“In a nutshell, yes.”
Suzuki grunted. “Much as I hate to admit it,” he said, “that finding lines up with one of Bill Jacobson’s cockeyed theories.”
“Who? What theory?”
“Sgt. Jacobson, one of the men in Juvenile Justice. He swears that kanaka boys are being targeted.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah,” said Suzuki. “He thinks it’s drug related. Says kanakas are getting stronger marijuana than anyone else. He calls it Puna Pow.”
“And you don’t agree?”
“It’s not me that doesn’t agree. It’s the numbers. The VC stats don’t square with Jacobson’s theory.”
“Translate, Uncle Ray,” said Janet. “You know I don’t speak cop.”
“When a new street drug grows in demand in a given community,” Suzuki explained, “there’s a corresponding rise in VC...violent crime. New users ramp up criminal activity in order to support their drug use. Happens like clock work.”
“And it’s not happening here?” Janet asked.
“Not in the least,” said Captain Suzuki. “Granted, there are more kanaka boys in the system now, and there have been for at least two years, but not for violent stuff.”
“What do you think that means?”
“I don’t know,” Suzuki said. “But if Puna Pow marijuana is driving up Native Hawaiian juvenile delinquency, then someone has been providing it free of charge. I ask you: how likely is that?”
Janet Suzuki was a realist, and proud of her objectivity. “The chances of a dealer giving away free drugs?” she said. “Considering all the variables and allowing for a 2% margin of error: somewhere between zero and none.”
Garrison Residence, San Francisco, CA -- 1:30 PM PST
Jim Garrison knew that missing persons reports were not a police priority, especially in San Francisco. The romantic bayside city’s daily quota of runaways and vagabonds forbad anything but the most routine attention to such inquiries. That’s why Garrison had placed a call to a political insider of his acquaintance, requesting help and assistance. It had been the right move. The insider made a call to one or two of his own acquaintances and, within 45 minutes, Garrison’s doorbell rang.
Answering it, Garrison was confronted by a slightly rumpled, somewhat haggard looking, middle-aged African-American man in a gray fedora hat, holding aloft an open wallet and displaying a gold inspector's badge.
“Mr. Garrison?” he said.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Garrison, I’m Inspector Frederick of the San Francisco Police. I believe you called in a missing persons report.”
“Yes, I did, but…”
“But what, sir?” said Frederick.
“I know you. You’re Hal Frederick, aren’t you? You’re a homicide detective. There’s no homicide involved here…” Garrison’s face suddenly went pale. “Do you people know something I don’t?” he asked.
“No, Mr. Garrison,” Frederick replied. “Don’t be alarmed. There’s no reason to think anyone’s been killed.”
“Then what…?”
“What am I doing here?”
“Exactly,” Garrison said.
“I have a reputation as a troublemaker, sir,” the inspector said, “and missing persons cases are not choice assignments. That makes them perfect for people like me.”
Garrison blinked several times before allowing himself to believe what Frederick had just said. Then he took a deep breath and blew it out through very puffed cheeks.
“Besides,” Frederick continued, “I’m going on vacation soon and I need all the overtime I can get. May I come in?”
“Of course, Inspector,” Garrison said, standing aside. “Please.”
The policeman was escorted through a breezy entryway and into a sitting room. Its ceilings were high and airy, and natural light flowed in from three arched windows. Wooden overhead fans circulated the air, softly rustling the fronds of a Victoria palm.
“Nice room,” Frederick said. “Tropical.”
“Ah, yes,” Garrison answered. “I have my wife to thank for that. She was born and raised in Hawaii.”
“Really?” said Frederick. “My wife is from Hawaii, too. We’re trying to get back there for her family reunion, but it doesn’t look good.”
“Not enough overtime, eh?” Garrison said.
Inspector Frederick looked again at Garrison’s craggy, unshaven face, only now noticing the mordant glint in the man’s eye. Frederick, himself had a sardonic streak. He approved of that quality in others.
“Right,” he said. “Not enough overtime. Seems like there never is.” Donning a pair of drugstore reading glasses, the policeman reached into an inside pocket and drew out a spiral notebook and a stubby yellow pencil. “Now,” he said, “suppose you tell me what’s going on.”
Garrison told Inspector Frederick about finding his wife and son unexpectedly not at home and about the calls he’d made to his wife’s friends, to their houseman and to local hospitals. Then he picked up a manila envelope lying on a nearby table and opened it. “I have some pictures of Deborah and our son,” he said, drawing out several photographs. “You might find these useful.”
“Perhaps, Mr. Garrison,” said Frederick, putting the pencil behind his ear. He reached for the pictures and began flipping through them. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First of all, tell me again about your houseman.”
“Mr. Foo?”
“Is that his name, Foo?”
“Yeah. Lewis Foo.”
Frederick slipped the stack of photos under his arm and made a note. “Didn’t you say that Mr. Foo had been out sick for part of the week?”
“Yes,” said Garrison. “Since Wednesday. What are you thinking? That he may have had something to do with Deborah’s disappearance?”
“I’m not thinking anything, Mr. Garrison,” Frederick replied. “I'm just gathering information.”
“I understand, Inspector. It’s just that Mr. Foo has been with us for eight years. He was with my wife’s family before that. Deborah has known him practically all her life. That he might wish her ill is…well, it’s unthinkable.”
“These are just routine questions,” Frederick said. “Your wife and Mr. Foo…they spoke on the phone, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“At what time?”
“According to Lewis, around five.”
Frederick made another note. “Do you know who called who?”
“No,” Garrison said. “Is that important?”
“Well, if Mr. Foo called Deborah, then we’d know she was home at that time. That’s assuming he didn’t call her on her cell phone. Does she have a cell phone?”
“No. She hates them,” Garrison replied. “My business has several, and I keep trying to get her to take one for emergencies, but Deborah’s something of a technophobe.”
“No problem,” Frederick said. “I can check the LUDs.”
“The what?”
“Sorry,” said Frederick. “Police jargon. It stands for local usage details…phone company records. How old is your son, Mr. Garrison?”
“Four.”
“Good,” said Frederick. “Then we can get him in the system right away. Missing juveniles can be reported to the National Crime Center within twelve hours.”
“What about my wife?”
“That’s another matter. How long has she been missing?”
“Well,” Garrison said, “she wasn’t home last night.”
“So it’s been less than twenty four hours?”
“Yes, as far as I know.”
“That’s a problem,” Frederick said. “Adults can’t be considered legally missing until after twenty-four hours, unless, of course, there’s been foul play. Is there any reason to believe there was?”
“How would I know that?” Garrison asked.
“Have you received a ransom note? Or discovered signs of a struggle? Overturned furniture? Trails of blood? Anything like that?”
“God, no,” said Garrison. “Thank heaven.”
“Is she in good mental condition? Sound of mind?”
“Yes.”
“How about physically?"
“You mean…”
“Does she have any physical impairments? Can she take care of herself?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Taking any life sustaining medications?”
“No.”
“Does she have any enemies, Mr. Garrison?” Frederick asked.
“None I can think of.”
“How about you? Do you have any enemies?”
“Business adversaries, of course,” Garrison said, “but none who would want to hurt my family.”
“Have you checked with Mrs. Garrison’s family?”
“My wife is an orphan…and an only child,” Garrison said. “Her parents were killed in an car crash when she was a kid. Deborah’s mother had a college friend who became her guardian after the accident. They had been close but, sometime after Deborah and I were married, Dr. Stanford moved to Easter Island for her work. She’s been there, pretty much isolated, for four or five years. Deborah has a cousin, but they’re estranged. Except for him, there’s no immediate family.”
“Can you think of anything…anything at all that might account for her disappearance? Any odd behavior? Peculiar statements? Anything like that?”
Garrison hesitated before replying. “Not really,” he said, hesitantly.
“Mr. Garrison,” said Frederick, “something that you might regard as insignificant could provide a vital clue. Don’t hold back. Please tell me everything.” Garrison scratched his head.
“It was the night before my trip,” he said, “Deborah and I were watching a news special about Hawaiian politics. One of the segments got to her.”
“What was that, Mr. Garrison? What was the segment?”
“It was about a Hawaiian holy man who’d burned himself alive on the steps of some bank headquarters or someplace. This was last January.”
“And why was that especially troubling?”
“Deborah knew the man,” Garrison said. “She’s also an anthropologist…”
“Your wife?”
“Yes. She sometimes lectures on Polynesian culture at SF State University.”
“And she knew the man who committed suicide?”
“Yes. He was a shaman and a member of something called the Council of Kahunas. Deborah had interviewed him for an article she’d written.” Frederick made a note.
“How were you and your wife getting along, Mr. Garrison?” he asked.
"Very well. We were talking about having another child.”
Frederick held several photographs of Garrison’s wife in his hand. He looked down at one of them, a shot of Deborah and her young son standing together near a playground swing. Even without makeup and wearing jeans and a t-shirt, she was striking. Her hair was thick, lustrous and blonde, her eyes, large and blue, her body long, shapely, fit and sexy. Definitely a head turner, the inspector thought.
Frederick glanced up at James Garrison. He was not ugly by any means; lean and muscular with dark hair, eyes and skin. But for his rough complexion, habitual frown and deep expression lines, some might have called him handsome. For sheer good looks, however, there was no comparison. At a youthful thirty-two years of age to his tough-looking forty, Garrison’s beautiful wife was in a class all by herself.
“Mr. Garrison,” Frederick said, “Pardon me, but I have to ask this question. Is there any possibility that your wife may have left you, taking your son with her? Might there be another man, perhaps?”
Garrison did not hesitate. “Absolutely not,” he said.
“Have you checked your joint bank accounts, your credit cards and so forth?”
“I don’t have to. I know my wife. She’s the most straightforward woman in the world. There’s no way she would have done anything underhanded.”
“All the same,” Frederick urged, “if your bank is open today, it might be worthwhile to take a few minutes and give them a call.”
Garrison sat quietly for a moment, for the first time considering what was to him, a shocking idea. His eyes darted around the room briefly, then he turned his head and looked at Frederick.
“The bank may not be open,” he said, “but if Deborah moved any money, she’d have to go through our financial advisor, Allen Kertz. He’s a workaholic. I’m pretty sure he’ll be in his office.” Garrison went to the phone, picked it up and sat down in a nearby chair, then dialed and waited.
“Yes, hello,” he said. “This is Jim Garrison. May I speak to Allen, please?…Yes, I’ll hold.”
Looking across the room, Garrison noticed that Frederick was still standing. He motioned, inviting him to sit, smiled fleetingly and then, as his party came on the line, turned his attention back to the phone.
“Hello, Al?” he said. “Hey, it’s me. Yeah, I’m good. You?…Great. Listen, I’m calling to check up on a couple of things…”
Before Garrison could frame his question, Allen Kertz began talking. Garrison fell silent as his advisor went on at some length. Inspector Frederick could not hear his words, of course. He tracked the conversation by watching Garrison’s face.
At first, Garrison listened closely, his brow creased in concentration, his eyes directed at a fixed point near the ceiling. “Yes,” he said. “I see…uh huh…right.” Then, by degrees, as Kertz’s narrative continued, Garrison stopped responding. His eyes gradually lost their focus. The blood drained from his face. A few quick questions and equally brief answers later, the conversation came to a close.
“Well, thank you, Allen,” Garrison said. “No, I understand. That’s perfectly fine. Yes. We’ll talk later. Good-bye.” Replacing the phone in its cradle, Garrison sat, silent and still, for several moments. Frederick waited.
“Well, at least she’s fair-minded,” he said at last.
“What do you mean?” Frederick asked.
“I just can’t believe it,” he said, slapping his thighs and standing. “How could I have been so wrong? I couldn’t have been, that’s all. I just couldn’t. But then…”
“Mr. Garrison,” the inspector said. “What did you find out?”
“She took half of all our personal cash reserves,” Garrison replied. “She told Allen that I was opening up an office in London and that she and Noah were going there to set up house. She even gave him a contact number and an address.”
“That was thoughtful,” Frederick said. “Why didn’t you copy them down?”
“Copy what down?”
“The telephone number…the address. Why didn’t you copy them down?”
“They’re fake,” Garrison said. “According to Allen, the street address doesn’t exist and the contact number is a payphone in Chelsea.”
“Mr. Garrison, how much did she take away…in round numbers?”
Garrison ran a hand through his hair and, once again, blew his cheeks full of air, looking up at the ceiling while thinking through the question. “In round numbers? I’d say, upwards of three-quarters of a million dollars.”
A Matter of State
Is San Francisco Police Inspector Hal Frederick a law enforcement saint or a garden variety troublemaker? It depends on who you ask.
Fresh off a case that scandalized SFPD and sent shock waves through city hall, Frederick discovers that, Deborah Garrison, a missing local woman, may be at the heart of yet another political crisis – this one centered in Hawaii. There, on the Big Island, a string of sensational murders, combined with a plot to addict Native Hawaiians to designer dope, begins driving Hawaii toward a political precipice – declaring its independence from the United States.
It's a ticking time bomb – and Deborah Garrison is in the middle everything. Can Inspector Frederick penetrate the maze of greed, corruption and intrigue soon enough to avert disaster? Will Hawaii become the first state since the Civil War to secede?
There's only one way to find out.
EMPTY GUN THERAPY
Image: James Robert Terrell
So the man in the black suit strides confidently through the great divide in the House Chamber as it's in full session, everyone standing in respect. He pretty much ignores them as he steps up by an empty chair at the podium. From here he gazes out to those gathered before him as they noisily take their seats. And he continues to stand silent and unmoving until there's just a murmur in the air among the 435 seated before him, as if waiting for his characteristic persona to emerge.
Still standing at the podium with no one behind him and ignoring the screen with words, he reaches into his jacket's right pocket, and a tiny click echoes through the chamber. He smiles wryly, and then taps with a finger the mike clipped onto his shirt's white collar. A loud thud explodes from speakers everywhere, and into many of the assembly members' ear plugs. Gazing steely eyed at the seated crowd, he briefly coughs, and almost reaches for something in his left jacket pocket, but pulls back, and smiles, a face full of wrinkles revealing a long life of dealing with the tough stuff of people.
"Excuse me," he says hoarsely, eyes glinting. "Must be something in the air." He smiles, choosing his words carefully. "Do we need any introductions?"
He catches a few shaking their heads no.
"That was rhetorical;" smiling again.
With a trained, relaxed motion, he reaches with his right hand inside his suit, under his left arm... and pulls out a large gleaming black gun, hearing many gasps. With practiced agility, he methodically points it directly at his captive audience, right down the middle, slowly and steadily fanning it back and forth, right to left and then back again to the middle. "Gentleman," he states, still holding steady... in a perfect stance to catch a powerful kickback... something that might weigh over four pounds fully loaded. He then lightly nicks his head with a thin respectful smile, "... and ladies."
The smile dissolves as he continues to hold steady the gun. "This here is a six-shot Smith & Wesson model 29." His strong hoarse voice goes slower, even more steady... momentarily stalling, like choosing just the right word. He looks down at it. "A .44 Magnum, and never mind for a moment... that science later proved this thing ain't exactly the most powerful handgun in the world. It'll kick ass just as bad, and you won't even hear it coming when the lights go out." He holds his stance and waits a couple of seconds. "Are we gonna have any problems tonight?"
You could hear a pin drop.
"Didn't think so," he says, walking to the empty chair, and sitting down in it, the long black barrel of his revolver still held steady at those who'd invited him. Briefly glancing at his weapon, he continues in that slow steady voice of his. "This weapon spits out of its .44 Magnum cartridge a hot chunk of lead... with a muzzle velocity of... hell, it's over the speed of sound... and with a kickass punch of some... well, I've heard it explained to me as some... yeah, that's it.... some 1700 joules. Sort of like getting hit in the chest by a double whammy from some heavy weight word champion... and at over the speed of sound. You'll never hear it coming." He coughs briefly, the hand holding the gun not the least bit affected. "Excuse me. Like I said; something in the air."
He relaxes his stance a bit, and confidently leans forward, to have a more personal chat. Then he lets his right arm drop until the elbow comfortably rests on his right knee, the big black barrel barely moving.
"That's like getting your head knocked off... with the force of two of Rocky Marciano's overhand rights, at over the speed of sound, at least when that fist first launches at you." He smiles briefly, still holding the Smith & Wesson steady. "But not with any regulation gloves ... Nope... But with a chunk of hard lead a half inch wide boring into your chest at... like I said... at least with a muzzle velocity of well over the speed of sound. Don't quite know what that translates into... well, once it reaches that bit of fat skin over your hearts and starts to mash your insides... like the way my wife, bless her heart..." and he smiles "...turns whole tomatoes and whatever into taco dip with her big steel blender. But I'm good friends with some real scientists... who've tried to explain this thing called... the laws of thermo...dynamics."
He briefly shakes his head with a smile, as though remembering.
Without missing a step, he continues, "Anybody here want a proof of that? I can let you feel what that's like with one round. Yeah, you'll see the muzzle flash just before it hits you... into some Kevlar."
He lightly coughs again.
"Now, I've never been one to get into any kind of... long drawn out conversation... or speech like this here. I don't like to mince words. I'll settle for a few good ones. Let that sink in. And then no more chit-chat. Just the raw truth. But tonight, gentlemen... and ma'am's... I'll make a bit of an exception." He coughs. "Damn, what is it you guys breathe in here? Anyways, don't ever expect this courtesy again.
"You thought I was going to this empty chair thing, right? Nah, I'm gonna call this an empty gun thing.
"So, anyone here got the balls to come up here? Take one for the team? I'll get you a Kevlar vest."
He gesticulates his gun to a pair of US Capitol police officers by a door, who express no concerns about the man on the podium, sitting on what had been an empty chair, and pointing a .44 Magnum revolver at the entire assembly of the US House of Representatives. "You, there? You're wearing those, right? Go ahead and make my day... by givin' whoever here is brave enough to wear your vest."
The two cops there nod their heads.
He nods back, relaxing into the chair again, and leaning into the mike. "So? Who? It probably won't kill you... but you'll feel like shit for a long time once you wake up. Won't be a cute sight for your wife or whoever you screw at night to see on your chest. You'll be wearing a purple badge over your heart for a good long time.
"Yeah, I've taken my share of rounds into my chest while wearing one of those. That was part of my job, you see. But it ain't fun." He pauses, his right hand still holding the House hostage with a steady grip on the six-shooter.
"Thing is, this ain't gonna be no stupid ass... what the hell did she call it. Yeah... Gestalt moment here." He leans back into the chair and brings the revolver almost to eye level, pointing the barrel to the dome above. Expertly, he thumbs open the cylinder."
Briefly smiling, he spits out, "See, empty. But I knew that coming in."
With his left hand he deftly reaches into his left jacket pocket, and pulls out a single gleaming cartridge, He holds up briefly, and says, "A bit different from a .22, ain't it?" Then he sticks it into the open cylinder, flipping the gun to lock the cylinder in place. And with an expert motion, spins the cylinder with his left hand, not looking at where the cartridge lands. Having held the gun close to his head while doing so, the sound of its oily-smooth clicking dying down slowly echoes sharply into everyone's ears
With his left hand again, he fishes something else out of that pocket and holds up a white cloth handkerchief. He smiles, waving it open.
"Had to cough into it just about when coming into this building. That's why it ain't sitting all pretty and white... in my lapel pocket." Shifting gears again, he repeated, "So, who's going to take one for the team?"
Methodically, he wraps the handkerchief around the gun, obscuring whatever could be seen down the cylinder's holes. "No one? Com'on!"
"Cowards... all of you. I knew it. Well, let me tell you something. All this shit you're pulling. Everything. All of it. It ain't no different than playing Russian roulette ... with a .44 Magnum... and on every single living person in this big beautiful country of ours. And the planet too. But no Kevlar for them."
Shaking his head, he stands up and walks across the empty podium, and strides down the divide towards where he had come in from, his gun held at belt level. As he walks, he looks directly into the eyes of many, and shakes his head before anyone has a chance to look away.
When he reaches the two cops at the door, he nods respectfully to them. They return the gesture in kind.
At the threshold, he stops, and turns around, briefly tapping the mike on his collar, a satisfied grimace creasing his face upon hearing the thumps that echo back at him.
"Get your shit together. That's what these two cops here... me... and the whole damn rest of this country pays you to do."
He raises his hoarse voice. "And way too many get shit pay... well because of the color of their skin, or their sex. And them, Latinos, some of you... call illegals. Well, I never met an illegal in my life... except inside a jailhouse, once he's been found guilty by a ... by a jury of his peers. Or when I see a perp about to do serious bodily harm. You guys ever seriously look in the mirror?"
He coughs loudly. "Damn." And he smiles, like catching a joke.
"Black kids out there...in ghettos just a short walk north of this Capitol Building? They're the great-great grandchildren of our great-great grandparents' slaves. That's a fact, gentlemen... and ladies. We fought a goddamn war to make that right. And now you're telling them to go fuck themselves and their histories? While you're making laws that enslave them again? And don't get me started with the Latinos... the sick and hungry. The guy you sent to Afghanistan? Got his foot blown off? Begging for s few bucks down the street from this Hill? Yeah, I saw him. And we talked. And I gave whatever I had in my pockets that could be helpful. But see. That ain't gonna last him more than a ´day or two.
Pointing the weapon back at the group, staring frozen in a backwards stare down the barrel ...
"Get your goddamn shit together. Yeah, I might sometimes think I believe in something I can't prove. But I don't go throwing my crap at anybody. You know why? Because I know from those friends of mine... who went to school while I was doing foot patrol... that that kind of shit seriously screws with people's brains. And while on my beat, way back then, seeing firsthand the crap good folk have to deal with to live another day. And it's only gotten worse, while you guys... you rake in millions... for your own fat asses." He shook his head slowly, the long black muzzle sticking out of the handkerchief barely moving.
"That's like playing Russian roulette with this powerful machine here. What's the statistics on that? Some of you have an education to figure it out. So you do the math."
"Are all of you insane? Or didn't you get enough titty as a baby? What a lot of you are doing... with your religion bullshit... is passing on that shit... forcing everybody to play that roulette game on each other..." He paused to take a breath. "And the rest of the world!? Christ almighty! Full of folk like you and me... well, not like you, that's for damn sure. Billions of people on this planet. Just trying live another day without a bullet, without a bomb, without a storm, to bring home the bacon..."
He shook his head.
"Just like this 44 Magnum here came from real science... and delivers a punch of, yeah, numbers might not be my thing... but that's a lot of Joules ." He raises his right arm a bit. "This thing in my right hand? You think it came about through some mystery shit ... some 6000 years ago!? That math don't add up even to me. The shit you're shotgun pumping into kids nowadays... and the hurt you're spraying everywhere else? Math and science knows what that's about... just like this here Smith & Wesson.
"Dinosaurs and people living at the same time. That just don't add up. Kind of like watching the Flintstones on TV. And that Lincoln and Jefferson Davisfought each other over state's rights, with over six-hundred thousand dying in ways you don't want to know about? That don't add up either." He took a deep breath. Beginning as an angry hoarse shout, which quickly tapers, he continues the thought with: "And you're still holding them like slaves, with your laws... with your damn for profit criminal justice bullshit. Putting folk of color behind bars, so they generate an income for fat asses like you. I've dealt with punks like you at city hall. I saw it as a beat cop. Saw it on last night's news in my hotel room. ...And see it now today, in these chambers.
"Keep your greedy ass magical thinking to yourselves. I've got my own baggage of that. But I don't go playing Russian roulette with my neighbor over it. We've got a whole lot of blood... sweat...and god-damned tears out there... while you guys go home to your gated mansions. You've got storms, and you've got NASA doing the math You give those kids some blocks north of here, and the whole rest of the country, an education... and I don't give a rat's ass how dirt poor. Or you're dooming us into becoming the dumbest, sorry ass nation ever. Fuck!
"And get them guns off the streets and out of hands of assholes. Most I've come to unfortunately get personal with... with a gun in his hands... might have been better if he'd never been born. The 2nd Amendment BS? If we take that argument to its... illogical conclusion... every damn household in these United States would have an ICBM in their backyards, pointed at his neighbor.
"And if cops on the street play executioner... like at some good old boys' Ku Klux Klan hanging party... they go direct to jail like any other creep. Back when I was on the force? I gave a rat's ass about blue laws and a city hall with its collective hands in deep pockets jerking each other off. You make damn good sure anybody who goes to a hospital ... don't come home to a sheriff from the bank... waiting to kick some struggling sick woman ... and her kids... out on the street, and then take the shirts off their backs. You make damn good sure every kid's got food in her belly... before she steps out into the concrete jangle."
He took another deep breath, gun still aimed at the House assembly, which had its collective neck twisted and strained to look down the barrel.
"And for shit's sake, what the hell is it with you guys telling women what they do with their bodies? I don't give a shit what your religion thinks. Thought the Constitution kept that out of these chambers. If the same science that made this Smith and Wesson says life ain't yet a thinking, feeling human, well, it ain't. If a woman decides that she don't want to bring a kid into the world. That's her own goddamn body. And that fetus growing inside her. Her decision. Don't you keep playing Russian roulette with her life. Keep your dirty thoughts zipped up, for cryin' out loud. Go jerk off in the toilet, if you have to.
"You're acting no different than some punks I arrested and threw the book at. For whoring teenage girls after gang raping them. My other nature? Well, I'd'a maybe wanted to put a bullet into their maggoty heads. But I'm no judge, jury and executioner... like some of you assholes here... forcing everyone to play Russian roulette. The worlds on fire and you're all playing piss-ass with your imaginary worlds... where pouring gasoline from a fire truck into all that is a creator's wet dream.
"Go talk with those NASA folk. There're some real smart gals there. They'll show you the math. Hell, they already have. You know what one pretty gal over there told me. It's like hurling a Manhattan sized rock down on the planet, and I ain't got a clue about the ...Joules... yeah, that's it... of that punch. But your gated mansions ain't gonna protect you in the end. You better pay attention to the math. Or you ain't nothing but a bunch of homicidal dinosaurs hell bent on suicide. You're threatening my life. My wife's and my kids' lives. Everybody... and even your own damn sorry asses.
"Keep your damn dogmas to yourself, and tell the asshole....you know who I'm talking about... the guy who walks into your office... to take a hike when he offers you a few million for your next election. He ain't paying you to sit here. We the people, who elected you, are.
"Anybody got any questions?"
He waits patiently.
Grimacing a bit, he makes an upwards motion with his cloth-covered gun, as to tip up the brim on an imaginary hat, and slowly turns his back on the hundreds, not one of them having said a word, and begins to walk through the door still held open by the two US Capitol Police officers, his mike still carrying his voice to the speakers and earplugs everywhere. And ignores the reporters, and cameras with their bright lights, and big mikes out to this face, some aiming their cameras at his Smith & Wesson, like in the old days.
Coughing again, he said once more "Get your damn shit together. Or I'll be back. That you can count on. Have a good day. Adios."
Editing assistance: Deborah Baron
A Matter of State - Installment 2
This is Installment 2.
For Installment 1, click here.
Chapter Three
Saturday, April 10, 1993
Wasco, CA -- 2:15 AM PST
The first leg of Deborah’s trek had gone well. Noah slept peacefully in his car seat while the Mustang hummed down Interstate 5 toward Kingman. At just before two o’clock Saturday morning the two hit their first patch of trouble.
The Mustang’s gas gauge was nearing ‘empty’ as Deborah exited Highway 5 and struck out down a frontage road in search of an out-of-the-way gas station. Absurd is it might seem, Deborah’s sense of caution dictated the assumption that Nachtmann had people everywhere, even here. If so, she thought, she would be far less conspicuous in a remote filling station than at one of the brightly lit, corporate facilities on the main drag.
Near the end of Merced Way in the tiny burg of Wasco, California, almost exactly halfway between San Francisco and Kingman, Deborah spotted what looked to be the most obscure service station in all Christendom: Earl’s Garage and Auto Repair. The gas pumps were ancient and the storefront was covered with layers of dirt and grime. Squinting through the window, Deborah saw a light. The station was open. There was someone inside. She drove up under the shelter and tapped the horn.
Beyond the window glass, the attendant jerked awake, narrowly avoiding a fall from atop his stool. Recovering himself, he stood, yawning, and made his way to the car.
“Evening, ma’am,” he said, leaning into her window. “I know it don’t look like it, but the pumps are self service.” The skin beneath the man’s eyes sagged and his face and jaw were covered with dark stubble. His breath was stale from sleeping.
“Well, even so,” Deborah said, turning her head aside, “if you’d be kind enough to fill my tank, check the oil and clean the windshield, I’ll make it worth your while.”
“In that case, I’d be happy to, ma’am. Premium?”
“Yes, please.”
The attendant flipped back rear the license plate holder, removed gas cap and inserted the fuel nozzle. Then he began washing the windows.
“You folks from Frisco?” he asked, squirting cleaning fluid on the windshield and wiping slowly as he talked. Deborah looked up. The oval patch on the man’s overalls identified him as ‘Earl.’
“What makes you think that, Earl?” she asked.
“I just saw it on your license plate holder, that’s all,” replied the attendant. “Just like you saw my name tag.”
Earl flashed Deborah what he apparently believed was an ingratiating smile then, shuffling his feet, he cleared his throat and glanced through the window toward the still sleeping Noah. “Where…uh…where you headed?” he asked.
“Why?” Deborah said. “Is there trouble on the road?”
“No. I’m just wondering.” Earl grinned as though he had said something clever. “Out here we like to talk to folks. It’s called making conversation. You know?”
Deborah’s neck hair tingled. Earl’s manner, she thought, was entirely too oily. Had he seemed a more outgoing person, she might have thought his forwardness flirtatious, but Earl was not flirting. He was scrutinizing. Deborah squirmed.
Noah fidgeted in his car seat, whimpered and came slightly conscious. He would likely have returned to sleep had not Earl’s squeegee, just then, clattered to the concrete. Noah rubbed his eyes and looked around.
“Mommy?”
“Hi, pumpkin.”
The boy frowned and wrinkled his nose. “I feel sick,” he said.
Deborah reached for the clasp on his car seat and unfastened it. “Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie,” she said, “Do you want to go to the restroom? You do have a rest room?” she asked Earl.
“Sure enough, ma’am,” he said. “And it’s a clean one, too. Just go around back.”
Once again, even in those unremarkable words, Deborah sensed menace. Nervously, she stepped out of the Mustang and pulled the driver’s seat forward, making way for Noah to climb out and into her arms.
Holding the boy while walking toward the rear of the old building, she felt her legs beginning to shake. Noah was not that heavy and she was not tired. It was Earl’s manner that had affected her so. As she turned the corner, she realized that she was trembling, not from fatigue but from fear.
“Hope the little fellow is OK,” Earl called after her. Deborah shuddered.
There was no stall inside the restroom, just a toilet and a sink but, as Earl had promised, the facilities were clean. She closed the toilet seat and sat on the lid, holding Noah on her lap.
“What’s the trouble, sweetheart?” she asked.
“I’m hot, Mommy,” the boy replied. “And my tummy hurts.” Noah was indeed warm. Deborah pulled a hankie from her purse, moistened it with tap water and dabbed his forehead and cheeks, blowing on his dampened skin to speed cooling.
“Do you feel like you’re gong to throw up?” she asked.
“Not right now, Mommy,” Noah said, imitating the tone Deborah used when distracted. “Maybe later.”
Deborah smiled. “Mommy’s sorry you feel yucky, Noah,” she said.
“That’s OK,” the boy replied. She sat with him for several moments, rocking him slowly and holding his head to her breast.
In her familiar role as Noah’s mom, Deborah relaxed. She thought again of her encounter with Earl. Nothing had really happened. Why had she felt so edgy? Perhaps she had misread the man. He was probably quite harmless. It had been a long day and she was stressed. She decided that her imagination had run away with her.
“Are you ready to get back in the car, Noah?” she asked.
“Yeah. I’m better now, Mom.”
“OK, good. Let’s go, then. Do you want to walk or should I carry you?”
“I’ll walk.” Deborah put the boy down and held the door open for him. Stepping outside in the cool air, Noah began to swagger, doing his ‘big boy’ strut. He was feeling better. He looked up at his mother and smiled, then reached for her hand and headed toward the car.
Coming around the corner, Deborah took one look at the Mustang and froze. She and Noah had been gone for several minutes, plenty of time for all the services she’d requested to have been completed. Yet the hood was standing open and the pump hose still hung from the tank. Inside the garage, she saw Earl talking on the phone. She couldn’t hear him, but the expression on his face was disturbing.
“What’s wrong, Mom?” Noah said. “Why’d you stop?” Deborah leaned over her son and whispered in his ear.
“Noah,” she said, “remember when you showed me how you could lock yourself into your car seat?” The boy nodded. “Do you think you can do that now?”
“Sure,” said the boy. “But I thought you said you always wanted to lock me in.”
“I did say that, and I meant it, but now is a special time. Will you go over there and lock yourself in for me? Mommy will be right back and when I get there we’ll drive away really fast, OK?”
Noah grinned, thinking that his mother had invented a new game. “OK, Mom,” he said and scampered to the car.
Deborah watched until he was safely aboard, then turned and entered the garage. From her present vantage point, she could no longer see Earl, but she could now hear what he was saying into the phone.
“I’ve stayed open all night on the off chance this broad might show up,” he said, “and now you’re asking me if I’m sure it’s her? Of course it’s her. It’s got to be. Pretty blonde, jumpy, San Francisco car, traveling with a kid.”
Earl paused and listened to the voice on the other end for a moment.
“The kid?” he said. “What about the kid?…Yeah, it’s a boy…How should I know what his name is? It could be Noah, it could be Jesus Christ, for all I…What?…Hold her here?…How in the hell am I supposed to…All right, all right. No need to get snippy. I’ll do what I can. Just get here quick, OK?” He grunted into the mouthpiece a few more times and hung up.
Deborah’s vision pulsed in time with her heart. Blood rushed past her eardrums. She looked around. On a nearby workbench lay a set of wrenches. She picked up the heaviest one and moved into the shadows behind a stack of boxes.
From a few feet away she heard a rustling, then the sound of a twist top unscrewing and the gurgling of liquid as Earl gave himself a shot of 80 proof courage. She gritted her teeth and gripped the wrench tighter.
A shadow swept over the space between the boxes and the far wall. He was coming. Deborah raised the wrench over her head as Earl walked past, exactly where she expected, but quicker than anticipated. The wrench came down hard and fast, but missed its target. Deborah stumbled as the wrench fell, clanging to the floor. A surprised look on his face, Earl whirled around. Then he smiled.
“Hey, there,” he said, glancing down at the wrench. “That wasn’t very nice, now was it?.”
Deborah leaned forward on the balls of her feet, taut and alert, her arms outstretched. The smell of the man’s body odor and whisky breath stung her nostrils.
Earl feigned a left jab. Deborah parried.
“Oh, you’re good,” Earl said mockingly. “You’re good, all right. But you know what? I don’t want to fight. No, no. What’s that saying? ‘Make love not war?’ How about it, Blondie? You want to do some of that?”
Again he simulated throwing a blow. Again Deborah moved to ward it off. With surprising quickness, Earl grasped her defending forearm, gripped it firmly and pulled her toward him, laughing.
“Come here, mama,” he said. “I’m gonna get a thousand bucks for you, but maybe I’ll take a couple hundred out in trade.”
Deborah was momentarily overpowered, but not beaten. As Earl drew her toward him she clenched her free fist, cocked her arm and put all her weight on her back foot. Shifting her body forward, she swung, landing a punch with full force, squarely on his solar plexus.
Earl cried out, wheezing as his lungs collapsed. He released her, doubling over, groaning and holding his midsection, helpless, for the moment, on the floor.
“That was good for me, Earl” she said. “Was it good for you?” The attendant raised his eyes and looked at her, his lip curling as he struggled to rise. Deborah reached again for the wrenches, picked up the nearest one and drew back to swing. This time she connected. With a grunt, Earl crumpled to the concrete and lay still.
She stood over him, panting, then nudged him with her toe to ensure that he was really down. Then, remembering his last words on the phone, she rushed outside, slammed the hood, pulled out the fuel hose and replaced the gas cap.
Climbing behind the wheel, she threw the car in gear and sped away, her tires squealing.
Noah shrieked with delight. “Wow, Mommy,” he exulted. “You were right. We’re going fast!” In other circumstances Deborah might have laughed with her son but not now. She needed all her wits for thinking.
“Just get here quick,” Earl had said into the phone. That could have meant only one thing: Nachtmann had people very nearby. And because she had not overheard the entire conversation, Deborah had to assume the worst. Earl had told them where she was as well as what she was driving; maybe even her license plate number.
She had to get out of sight, and quickly.
A few minutes later, after weaving through Wasco’s web of paved and dirt roads, Deborah came to a likely looking plot of land. The moon, though not quite full, shone brightly over an open meadow. At the center of the acreage, some one hundred yards from the road, stood an old barn, partially hidden behind a small grove of cottonwood trees. It looked deserted.
Deborah slowed to a stop. Through a tangle of weeds, she detected the trace of a pathway leading from the roadside to the barn door. She pulled over and onto the path.
“What are you doing, Mommy?” Noah asked. “How come you’re driving in the dirt?”
“I’m looking for a place to park, Noah,” his mother replied. “Everything’s OK. Don’t worry.”
She slid off the front seat and walked toward the building. A hasp still hung near a wooden handhold, but there was no lock. She gripped the handle and pulled. Its hinges creaking, the door swung open, a dank and dusty smell drifting from within. The Mustang’s headlights lit the interior, revealing nothing, save a large spider, alone on its web.
Deborah parked the Mustang inside the barn, then got out.
Near the doorway, she pulled up a dried bramble bush and used it to sweep the ground, erasing whatever tracks the Mustang may have left. Then she went back inside the barn and closed the door.
For a few moments, she sat quietly, then reached across the front seat, flipped open the glove box and began rummaging.
“What are you looking for, Mommy?” Noah asked.
“Uh…a map, sweetie.”
“Oh.”
Deborah knew the main route from the Bay Area to I-40 in Barstow. She’d committed it to memory before leaving San Francisco, but now she was in unfamiliar territory. She cursed herself for not grabbing a handful of maps from Earl’s Garage when she’d had the chance.
Her hand fell on a familiar shape: a map book. Rand-McNally’s California Highways. She pulled it out. Then she saw the glow from a tiny red light.
Her flashlight still lay on the seat beside her. She switched it on, shining the beam into the glove box. The red light was on the side of a hard plastic case. On the edge of he case were the words “NoJax – Vehicle Pursuit and Recovery System.”
Deborah was not entirely sure what purpose the device served, but the words ‘vehicle pursuit’ troubled her. She reached into the glove compartment, pulled the plastic case from its moorings, twisted off the connecting wires and flung it out the window.
“Sorry, Rachel,” she said.
Inside the NoJax case, an electronic impulse from the power transformer alerted a chip in the central processing unit that its main power supply had been disconnected. Instantaneously, secondary power from a ni-cad battery source kicked in, allowing the unit to begin broadcasting a silent radio tracking signal.
Desert Pioneer Hotel Kingman, AZ – 5:30 AM
When the tall, red-haired man checked into the Desert Pioneer Hotel on the outskirts of Kingman, Arizona, he did so via an assistant. Waiting outside in a rented limousine until his rooms had been made ready, he swept through the lobby surrounded by his entourage. That he wore a crew cut and sunglasses was apparent to observers only because his riding boots added an extra two inches to his height.
Saying nothing and looking neither right nor left, he entered the express elevator and ascended to the seventh floor penthouse. There he remained, cloistered and unseen. That had been two days ago, on Thursday.
If the red-haired man had not ventured out of his suite, neither were any of the hotel staff allowed in. Brusque men wearing wireless earphones came to the door and intercepted both his food and his linen. Needless to say, tipping was at an all-time low.
By 5:30 AM Saturday morning, had any hotel employees succeeded in entering the penthouse, they would doubtless have been surprised by its appearance. Among other things, what once had been its plain, Southwestern-style sitting room was now teeming with technology. Numerous state-of-the-art communications devices, including a secure two-way radio system, three computer workstations and a bank of nine television monitors now dominated the room.
To its walls were now affixed a series of topographical road maps of the Kingman area, plus a layout of both the Kingman and Sun Valley Airports. The modest balcony, which once held only a pair of lounge chairs, now housed a satellite dish.
The shroud of secrecy that hung over the penthouse gave rise speculation that room 700 had been taken over by the FBI. That was incorrect. Although it was true that, through his employers, the red-haired man frequently collaborated with an FBI agent, he himself was merely the chief of security for a group called the Faber-Brady Trust (FBT).
Furthermore, though he was knowledgeable in electronic surveillance and surveillance detection, forensics, intelligence gathering and all manner of other security related areas, the red-haired man had ascended to his present position, not through hard work and diligence, but as the direct result of a blackmail scheme perpetrated against the wife and daughter of one of FBT’s senior directors.
Now wearing a desert field jacket with matching jodhpurs, he was seated at a writing desk on a low riser in the midst of his mass of electronics. A pile of books and boxes, as well as various sinister-looking gadgets lay before him. At the moment, he was reading over the instructions for something called a taser gun.
Within his line of sight, two technicians and their supervisor huddled around a TV screen, scanning video clips. After a time, the crew’s leader broke away and approached the man with the taser gun.
“What is it, Franklin?” asked the red-haired man.
“We’ve lost track of her, Mr. Nachtmann,” he said. “She went to ground around 2:30 AM after a confirmed sighting in Wasco. Since then, nothing.”
Nachtmann closed his eyes as if absorbing a great shock. With a great show of weariness, he allowed his head to droop. His eyes came to rest on the stun gun in his hand.
“Tell me, Franklin,” he said, holding up the gun. “What is this thing?”
“A stun gun, sir. I believe it’s called a taser.”
“Correct. Do you know how it works?”
“The same as ordinary stun guns, sir, except the two charge electrodes are attached to long wires.”
“Correct,” said Nachtmann. “And what is the advantage of such a design, may I ask?”
“That an attacker can be stunned from a distance, sir.”
“Exactly,” said Nachtmann, beaming like a proud parent. “From where I sit, for example, you would make an easy target.” He paused. “Excuse me, Franklin. I got sidetracked. You were telling me something about losing the woman.”
“Well, sir. I…this is a temporary setback only, sir. If you’ll…”
“If I what, Franklin? If I allow you to carry on, you’ll make good?”
“Yes, sir. As I was saying, if you…”
“If, Franklin,” Nachtmann said. “If, if, if. If wishes were horses then beggars would ride.”
Franklin was not sure what his boss was getting at, but whatever it was, he didn’t like it.
“Tell me, Franklin,” he said. “Are wishes horses?”
Franklin swallowed again. Sweat began forming on his upper lip. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came.
“I asked you a question, Franklin,” Nachtmann said. “Are wishes horses?”
Franklin blinked. “No, sir,” he whispered.
A shout went up from among the technicians surrounding the video monitors. The heads of both Franklin and Nachtmann turned toward the sound.
“What is it, for god’s sake?” Nachtmann demanded.
“You were right, Mr. Franklin,” said one of his men. “She’s been spotted again, exactly where you said.”
Nachtmann’s face fell. He was pleased that Mrs. Garrison’s trail had been reacquired but disappointed that he could no longer mete out punishment for its loss.
“Get back to work, Franklin,” he said, perfunctorily.
“Uh...yes, sir.”
Resuming his seat, Nachtmann’s eye fell on a framed picture of a of young woman of perhaps 18 or 19. His expression softened as he gazed at it.
The image was fuzzy and indistinct, as though enlarged from a much smaller original. Still, it was easy to see that the girl was fresh-faced. Her lips turned up in a genial smile and her wavy blonde hair, though pulled back from her face, cascaded gaily down her back and over her shoulders.
A blurred inscription graced the lower quarter of the photo. Nachtmann ran his finger over the words and read them for perhaps the ten-thousandth time: “To HN, Good Luck, DF.”
Yes, Deborah, Nachtmann thought to himself. Good luck…to us both.
South Central Valley Highway, Near Rosedale, CA -- 5:40 AM
Deborah couldn’t sleep. Her mind wouldn’t let her. By now, Earl had certainly told Nachtmann’s people about the Mustang. The car was no longer safe. In less than twenty-six hours she was going to have to be in Kingman. That was plenty of time, but it wasn’t forever. Sooner or later she was going to have to venture outside. Sooner, she decided, was better.
Just as the sun began rising, she backed the Mustang out of the barn, turned it around and headed southeast down the South Central Valley Highway.
Out the passenger window, acres of fragrant red roses blazed in the morning light. Deborah inhaled deeply, relieving the tension by filling her nostrils with their aroma.
As her eyes swept over the field and back toward the highway, she noticed a pale glow in the distance. She sat up and craned her neck for a better view.
“Perfect,” Deborah murmured. She pressed down on the accelerator. Two miles ahead, at Rosedale Road, she turned right. Reassuringly, the glow was still visible.
Rounding a curve, just as the Mustang passed a copse of poplar trees, the source of the radiance revealed itself. A riot of flashing light and color, its rods reeled, its neon screamed.
“Here it is! Here it is!” it cried. “Come one, come all! Welcome to the one and only…Crazy Sally’s Used Car Emporium!”
Deborah pulled off the main drag, onto the adjoining side street and drove around Crazy Sally’s, then pulled onto the lot through a fallen length of chain between two steel posts. Parking near a late-model coupe, she got out, took the sale placard from the coupe and placed it on the Mustang’s windscreen.
Neither she nor the Mustang were visible from the road. That was good. She was going to do something new and she wasn’t sure how long it would take. A modular, corrugated steel office building stood nearby. The sign on it’s side read: “9 A.M. to Midnight - 7 Days a Week.” That settled it. A couple of hours was all she had.
Back inside the Mustang, Deborah checked her passenger. He was asleep. From a zippered bag, she took out a carton of milk and a package of peanut butter crackers, opened them and placed them beside his car seat. Then she got out and softly closed the door.
Had she been a bolder person, Deborah might have considered stealing a car. The thought never occurred to her, however, and, even if it had, she would not have known how to go about it. Taking a set of license plates, on the other hand, was another matter. The crime was less severe and the necessary know-how was minimal.
At first, she thought she might be able to remove a set of plates by hand. Three fingernails later, she accepted the inevitable. Another crime needed committing. She was going to have to break into the garage and steal what tools she needed. This realization presented her with yet another dilemma, namely, how do you break into a garage?
She walked around the building. There were only two means of entry: a sliding, metal door and a regular wooden door. The wooden door had a window. Deborah glanced at her watch. It was now 6:40 AM, less than twenty-four hours from her rendezvous and she’d made no progress. Then she heard Noah.
“Mommy!” he called out. “Mommy!” From his tone, she knew that he wasn’t yet afraid, but he was going to be. Time was running out and so were her options.
“What the hell,” Deborah said to herself. “In for a penny, in for a pound.” She picked up a large rock, walked to the wooden door and smashed the window. Half expecting to hear alarm bells, she reached through the shattered glass and let herself inside, then hurried to the nearest workbench where she found a set of screwdrivers.
She heard a soft click. Milliseconds later, flourescent light flooded the room. In the doorway stood the most outlandishly dressed woman Deborah had ever seen.
“You seem like a smart enough kid,” the woman said, “and yet you’ve just broken a $50 pane of glass to steal ten bucks worth of screwdrivers.” Deborah was too surprised to reply. “You might as well take a something valuable, honey,” the woman continued. “Anyway, that’s what I’m going to tell the insurance people you did.”
Deborah thought she might be hallucinating. “Who are you?” she asked.
“Who am I?” the woman said. The purple ostrich plume on her hat bounced with every word. “That’s rich. You’re the one robbing the joint, sweetheart. Who the hell are you?”
Outside, Noah called out once again. This time, he sounded afraid.
“At the moment,” she said, “All I am is Noah’s mommy. Excuse me, please.” Brushing past the woman Deborah headed out the door and down the rows of cars toward the Mustang.
“Now just a damn minute,” the woman called out. She turned and followed Deborah through the lot. “I haven’t finished being bitchy yet.”
Deborah kept walking. “Listen,” she said, “I’m sorry about the damage. I really am. I’ll pay you for it, but right now I don’t have time.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said the woman. “I don’t think you realize who you’re talking to. I’m Sally Hank. You know...Crazy Sally? I’m the aggrieved party here and unless you’ve got a gun or something, I’m the one who gets to set the timetable. Now, suppose I want to take a few minutes to check in with the police?”
Deborah had already reached the Mustang and had the door half open. She looked over her shoulder. “Wait,” she said. “Hold that thought.” Noah had unfastened the restraint on his car seat and was standing with his arms outstretched. Deborah pulled the front seat forward.
“Where were you Mommy?” he said, striving to staunch his tears. “I try not to cry but I scared.”
“That’s OK, sweetie,” Deborah soothed. Her arms were around him. “You can cry all you want. Mommy’s here. Did you find the milk and crackers ?”
“Yeah. But I wasn’t hungry.”
“How about now? Are you hungry now?”
“A little,” Noah admitted, sniffling.
Deborah retrieved the snack from the rear of the car and sat on the edge of the driver’s seat with her feet in the dirt, holding Noah on her knees. For several moments the only sounds were the wind through the poplars and the occasional crunch of a peanut butter cracker.
“What’s going on, sugar?” Crazy Sally said at last. “Are you running from your husband? Does he beat you or something?” Deborah could not help laughing.
“Oh, no,” she said. “It’s nothing like that. I only wish it were.” The off-hand reply had its affect on Crazy Sally.
“You don’t mean that,” she said. “And even if you do, you don’t. Believe me.” The older woman’s eyes told Deborah that Sally knew whereof she spoke
“You’re right,” she said. “I’m sorry. That was a foolish thing to say.”
Crazy Sally was a successful used car dealer. Sentimentality had no place in her world. Still, the sight of the distressed mother and child moved her. She touched the corner of her eye.
“So what is it?” she asked again. “If it’s not your husband, who is it? Your boyfriend? Repo men? The cops?”
“It’s someone very dangerous,” replied Deborah. “That’s all I can say, and I’ve got to get to Kingman before he catches me.”
“Or what?” Sally asked.
“Or a lot of people will get hurt.”
Crazy Sally reflected for a moment. “If this guy is such a pistol,” she said, “why don’t you go to the cops?”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t, Sally,” Deborah said. “I just can’t.”
“What is this,” the older woman scoffed, “an episode of Days of Our Lives?”
“No it isn’t,” Deborah said firmly. “This is real.” The two looked at each other for a long moment.
“OK, then,” Sally said, “what are the screwdrivers for?”
“I need to change my plates.”
“Change your plates? Why?”
Deborah began recounting her misadventures at the filling station. As she did, she became increasingly aware of how outlandish the whole thing sounded; a menacing adversary with spies at every turn, a man whose influence reached even to an obscure business like Earl’s Garage in Wasco. It was insane. Why would anyone believe me, Deborah thought, least of all someone who’s just caught me stealing?
Sally looked at her watch. “When do you have to be in Kingman?” she asked.
“8 AM tomorrow,” Deborah said. “No later.”
“Come on, then,” Sally said. “Let’s go to my place across the way there. You and the boy can rest. Then we’ll sort out this license plate thing.”
Deborah stood up and threw her arms around Sally’s sequined neck. “Oh, thank you,” she said. “Thank you for believing me.”
“Don’t take it too personal, sweetie,” said Sally. “They don’t call me crazy for nothing.”
A Matter of State Installment 1
This is Installment 1.
For Installment 2 click here.
A Matter of State
by
Ray Staar
"By an act of war, committed with the participation of a diplomatic representative of the United States and without authority of Congress, the Government of...(Hawaii,)...a feeble but friendly and confiding people, has been overthrown. A substantial wrong has thus been done which a due regard for our national character as well as the rights of the injured people requires we should endeavor to repair."
President Grover Cleveland
Executive Mansion
December 18, 1893
What follows is a work of fiction. Similarities to any person or persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental, except, of course, for the historical references, which are entirely true.
Chapter One
Thursday, April 8, 1993
Potrero Hill, San Francisco, CA -- 5:20 AM Pacific Standard Time
In the foggy pre-dawn of a chilly San Francisco morning, pajama clad police inspector Hal Frederick sat at the kitchen table, his grizzled brown jaw resting in the palm of his right hand, watching, almost impartially, as the pencil in his left hand wrote down the sum of the last of several columns of figures. For the past hour, as Hannah lay sleeping in their bedroom, he had repeated numerous variations of the same calculation, in hopes that some novel permutation might make the same numbers come out differently.
Alas, for all his efforts, the figures would not yield a happy outcome. Barring some miracle, he and Hannah would not be attending her family reunion the following week in Hilo, Hawaii. She would be terribly disappointed.
Frederick had dreaded this eventuality for several months now, and had done everything in his power to prevent it, including taking on countless shifts of unenviable overtime in the missing persons department at SFPD. Most recently, in a last ditch effort to raise cash he had sold some oil futures he owned, having heard that the market was trending upward and that hefty profits were likely.
The information had proved unreliable. Frederick lost over two thousand dollars.
Now, there was nothing for it. He was going to have to own up. Hannah was going to have to be told.
"You're up early."
Frederick jerked upright and looked over his shoulder. "Jesus," he said. "How do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"You know," he said, "sneak up on a person like that."
"It's the Pacific Islander pig hunter in me," Hannah replied, coming up behind him. "If my ancestors hadn't been so stealthy, they might have starved. Then there'd be no Hannah to sneak up on anyone." She bent over and kissed the top of her husband's head, pausing briefly to nuzzle its crop of close-cut, kinky hair. "Besides, after all these years, shouldn't you be used to it?"
"I see," Frederick said, rising to the verbal volleyball in which the two regularly competed, "And I suppose if you'd been sticking me with pins all this time, I should have gotten used to that, too."
Hannah did not reply. "What's all this?" she asked, nodding toward the papers spread over the tabletop.
Frederick cringed but, apparently screwing up his courage, took a breath and began. "It's our financials," he said. "I've been crunching numbers."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, babe," he said. He turned in his chair, placed his hands on her waist and looked up. "I'm afraid it doesn't look good."
"Meaning?" said Hannah.
"Meaning the reunion," Frederick replied. "I don't think we can afford it."
Hannah blinked and pursed her lips. Frederick knew the signs. The news, though not entirely unanticipated, had stung.
"I'm so sorry, sweetheart," he said.
His wife nodded, remaining silent for a long moment.
"These pins you speak of," she said, a tear forming in the corner of one eye, "What kind are they, exactly? Teeny little pins, or gigundous hypodermic-sized pins?"
Frederick stood and took his wife in his arms, holding her while she wept softly. After some moments, she pulled her head from his chest and produced a tissue from the pocket of her robe.
"I don't know why I'm so upset," she said, blowing her nose. "The Pukuli family reunion will be just like everything else in Hawaii."
Frederick's brow wrinkled. "Pardon?" he said.
"It only seems like it'll be fun because of the location. The truth is, Hawaii is about as lackluster as Little Rock. Nothing really exciting ever happens there."
Kihei, Maui, HI -- 9:30 PM Hawaii Time
On the evening of his last day on earth, multi-millionaire evangelist Reverend Dr. Faber Heath leaned, waist deep, against the marble deck of a saltwater pool in his Maui compound, idly watching as a tawny Native Hawaiian parishioner stepped out of her clothing and stood, completely nude, before him.
Devlin, the visiting deacon who had procured the woman, had been right. She was exquisite. She was also, as Heath was soon to learn, highly skilled.
The reverend scarcely noticed the woman move a canvas cooler bag to the water's edge just before joining him in the pool. He was far too preoccupied tracking the progress of the saltwater as it slipped over her trim ankles, her superb calves, thighs and hips, finally rising to just below her dainty navel.
Now standing in front of him, gazing seductively into his eyes, the young woman laced the brittle fingers of Reverend Heath's bony hands through hers, then lay them on her bosom.
She drew near and placed her moistened lips over his. Faber Heath's mouth opened. She found his tongue and sucked on it, softly grinding her naked groin back and forth over his leg. So convincing was her display of ardor that, for several moments, Reverend Heath almost believed himself as vital and desirable as she.
Is this sorcery, the reverend wondered? Have I been bewitched?
However the thing was accomplished, Dr. Heath presently sensed his breath coming quickly, his skin tingling pleasurably and his pulse pounding. In short, as the quaint phrasing of the Bible would have it, there was a stirring in his loins. Such passionate responses as these were the most vigorous and authentic he'd experienced in many years.
Murmuring softly, the Hawaiian woman slipped her hand inside the good doctor's swimming trunks and fondled him. Faber moaned. God knew he had been touched by female parishioners before, some of whom had been nearly as beautiful as this one, but few had possessed the power to fill him with such anticipation. Whatever gift she has, he thought, she has it in abundance and she gives of it readily. He slid off his trunks so that she might give more freely.
"Oh, Dr. Heath," the woman breathed, "I want so much to bring you pleasure. May I take you in my mouth?"
Heath was mildly shocked, but only at her forthrightness. If he had any compunctions about allowing her to commit an act considered sinful by the church to which they both belonged, he was not aware of it.
"Oh yes, my dear," he said, draping his arm over the back of her neck, "of course."
The salty water made his body buoyant. Using the woman's shoulder as a hoist, the reverend closed his eyes, arching himself upward until, like a dinghy on the Dead Sea, he floated within her easy reach.
"The Lord has made you powerful and wealthy," she said, taking hold of his penis. Dr. Heath smiled at the compliment, foreseeing, so he thought, the even greater pleasure that was soon to follow. "It's a pity he also made you such a fool."
Lost in fervor, the reverend did not, at first, grasp the disparity between the two halves of the woman's statement. When it dawned on him that he was being taunted and might very well be in danger, he opened his eyes, but by then it was too late.
While he had been swooning, the woman had retrieved her canvas cooler bag from the pool's edge. Smiling, she now held it in her free hand, open and just low enough to reveal its contents. Protruding from the brackish water inside was a translucent mass of fleshy tissue about the size of a cabbage head. Just beneath it, dozens of thick tentacles undulated, like a cluster of venomous and angry worms. Faber's eyes grew wide.
"Sea wasp?" he said, hoarsely.
"Sea wasp, box jellyfish, cube jelly," the woman said. "Call it what you will, it's equally lethal." Reverend Heath's breath came harder and faster now, but not from desire.
"Who are you?" he asked. "What do you want from me?" The woman's smile broadened. Dr. Heath struggled, but held as he was by his most sensitive organ, his efforts were quite useless. "I'll scream," he said. "Deacon Devlin will hear if I scream."
"Deacon Devlin," called the woman. "Reverend Heath says he's going to scream."
A sliding glass door leading to the nearby pool house was heard to open. From inside, the deacon called out his reply.
"I'll put on some music, then," he said.
Realizing he was alone and defenseless, Dr. Heath's expression grew more desperate. Having no other recourse, he began to beg.
"Please. I'll give you anything. Whatever you want, it's yours. Just don't do this, I implore you."
The woman brought her face directly over Faber Heath's and looked into his eyes. "Will you lead Japheth out from the tents of Shem?" she said.
To a bystander, even to a Biblical scholar, the question might have seemed obscure. To Dr. Heath, it apparently spoke volumes. For the first time, his face registered comprehension. He now grasped with whom he was dealing and what was at stake. He now understood it was time for him to die.
"Will you lead Japheth out from the tents of Shem?" the woman asked again.
His eyes bulging, Dr. Heath remained silent.
"I thought not," she said.
Then, in one nimble movement, the woman released the reverend doctor, leaped from the pool and upended her cooler bag. Amid a splash of seawater, the dread creature fell on Faber Heath. Its once fat tentacles, now sticky and thin, encircled his body and adhered to his skin, its organelles stinging repeatedly, injecting him with deadly venom.
He sank briefly and then shot up out of the water, clawing at the transparent strings and howling in agony, his skin aflame, his heart pounding.
Alas, Dr. Heath's efforts served only to stimulate the creature's secretions. The more he struggled, the more toxins flowed into his flesh. One final time, his head broke the surface of the pool. He screamed pitiably.
"Olga!"
The beautiful Hawaiian woman did not stop to wonder why, with his last breath, the old man had called out this particular name. It did not concern her. Calmly, she picked up a long pole and pushed down on the reverend doctor's chest. Within minutes, Faber Heath was dead.
Chapter Two
Friday, April 9, 1993
Somewhere in Puna, The Big Island, HI -- 9:00 AM Hawaii Time
Iggy the Apostle was late. Dickley Hooper, guerrilla pot farmer, squatted near a newly planted marijuana patch, sparked up a blunt and waited.
This year would mark the fifth season in a row that Dickley had contracted with Iggy to plant a highly potent variety of weed known as Puna Pow. Previously, as an independent grower, he had cultivated White Widow, another species of cannabis, but five out of the last six years he had done so, his crop had been discovered by police and destroyed. Since throwing in with Iggy, such difficulties had ceased to plague him. That was one of the benefits of being under Iggy's protection.
Another benefit was the money. Iggy paid a generous yearly advance even though, as far as Dickley knew, no Puna Pow was ever sold on the Big Island, a fact he had always found puzzling. Another puzzle was that Iggy forbade Dickley to hold back any Puna Pow for himself.
"Don't even smoke any," he told Dickley. "You do, and I'll know. You do, and I'll kill your ass."
Dickley shook his head. Yes, that Iggy was an odd bird, but he paid well and he paid punctually. In fact, he realized with a start, Iggy was punctual in all things. Dickley could not imagine what might be delaying him today.
Inhaling yet another long pull from the blunt, Dickley held it in his lungs until spots appeared before his eyes.
Then, while exhaling, he thought he heard a rustling sound from the brush some sixty feet away. He looked up, but saw nothing. Still light-headed, he rubbed his eyes and looked again. Still, there was nothing.
Dickley stood up and set out across the field, focusing his attention on a thicket whose branches appeared to have begun fluttering. Abruptly, the fluttering became a racket. Limbs bowed, boughs crackled and small animals bolted from the underbrush. Iggy the Apostle, weaving unsteadily, moaning and holding his arms in front of him, appeared in the clearing.
Dickley's first thought was that Iggy was playing some kind of trick. A heartbeat later, he realized he was wrong. Iggy had no sense of humor. He didn't play tricks.
Then Dickley saw the blood streaming from Iggy the Apostle's eyes. Rolling down his cheeks ran two streams of red. Somewhere in his mind, Dickley must have also realized that Iggy's eyelids were hanging, strangely slack and flaccid over his eye sockets. Even so, his horror stricken brain would not allow him to draw the obvious conclusion. He called out.
"Iggy?"
The Apostle, standing at a slight angle, awkwardly turned himself toward the sound of Dickley's voice, cocked his ear and grunted. Seen straight on, his appearance was all the more grisly.
"Iggy. My god, what's happened?"
Iggy parted his lips and pointed between them. "Ah," he said. "Aye pooh mah Ah ah."
Past the edge of the man's mouth, beyond his lips and behind his teeth, loomed a revolting void. At the back of Iggy's throat, a stump of bloody muscle that had once been his tongue, writhed like a wounded serpent. Dickley tasted bile, finally realizing what he was seeing.
He leaned over, heaving convulsively, driven to his knees by nausea, remaining on the ground, his head in his hands, for several long moments. When, at length, Dickley did look up, what he saw filled him with even greater dread.
Two enormous brown men, identical in appearance and dressed as Hawaiian warriors, wearing colorful sarongs, gourd helmets and feathers, flanked Iggy the Apostle, holding him fast by either arm. Beside them stood the most beautiful Native Hawaiian woman Dickley had ever seen. Her face was covered in yellow and red paint. She was naked to the waist. In her hands she held a shark-toothed bludgeon.
"This is the plague with which the nations that fight against us will be stricken," she said. Dickley gazed at her with alarm and awe. "Their flesh will rot where they stand, their eyes will fall from their sockets, their tongues will be torn from their mouths." Then, with a powerful grace that Dickley could not but admire, the woman swung her truncheon, neatly splitting Iggy's head like a ripe melon.
As he fell, the two brown behemoths made a move toward Dickley as if to take him, but the woman held out her ax, blocking their way.
"For now," she said, "this is the last of four. Should more poison find its way to my people, more deaths will follow." She turned toward Dickley Hooper and fixed her eyes on his. "Do you understand?"
Dickley did not understand. Still he nodded.
"Good," she said before disappearing into the brush. "Go now. Go and tell them."
Garrison Residence, San Francisco, CA -- 10:00 PM PST (Pacific Standard Time)
For days now, two sets of incoming calls had plagued Deborah Garrison's peace of mind. One set had been threatening. The other set held out hope.
An old friend of her family ran a contract air courier business which flew regularly between Hilo, Hawaii, and Kingman, Arizona. He'd offered to arrange safe transport to the islands if Deborah could but reach Kingman undetected. That was going to be tricky.
By this time, she was sure, every local airport, bus and train station had been put under surveillance. Engaging private transport or even taking her husband's company jet would leave an easily followed paper trail. Still, she had to get out of town and, in the circumstances, there was really only one way to do it: she was going to have to drive.
Deborah did not relish leaving her San Francisco home, nor did she relish the idea of running, especially from an oaf like Hugh Nachtmann. In his youth he had been an arrogant boor and a bully, an embarrassment to both his school and community. Time, she was sorry to learn, had not altered him.
Among their high school peers in the Hilo District of Hawaii's Big Island, she alone had stood up to Nachtmann, defending those he tormented and bearing up under the revenge he took on her for opposing him. Over time, his very presence, she remembered, became enough to set her teeth on edge.
Still, though she had defied him once, she could not defy him now. If she and her family were ever to know peace again, today she must run.
The classic brown 1966 Mustang in which they fled belonged to Deborah's friend and neighbor, airline executive Rachel Morris. She'd left it in Deborah's care while vacationing in Europe.
To keep the car in trim, Deborah had agreed to use it for shopping and other short trips, but the promise had proven difficult to keep. In fact, until tonight, she hadn't driven it at all, dispensing with her care-taking responsibilities by occasionally opening Rachel's garage door, starting the engine and letting it run.
It was with a comforting sense of anonymity then, that at 10:00 PM Friday evening, she and her 4 year-old son, Noah, had followed a flashlight beam down the alley and through the gate leading to Rachel's backyard, climbed into the Mustang and driven into the darkness.
Had they taken Deborah's Volvo, Hugh Nachtmann and his people would likely have been on their trail almost instantly. The unfamiliar vehicle, she hoped, would buy the pair at least some of the time they needed.
Noah sat in his child safety seat in the back of the car. "Does Daddy know where we're going?" he asked.
"No, sweetheart," said Deborah, catching her son's eye in the rearview mirror.
"How come?"
"Well, you know how Daddy sometimes has to go on trips by himself?"
"Yes."
"That's what we have to do, sweetie. We have to take a trip by ourselves. OK?" The boy cocked his head to the side and pursed his lips, a manner of looking thoughtful he'd learned from his father.
"OK," Noah said.
Deborah Garrison could not explain to her son. His child's mind was not yet capable of understanding. In his mother's past there was an enormous and troubling secret. Because of it her parents had died. Because of it, her life and the life of her child, were also threatened. From this thing, finally, there could be no escape, only confrontation.
Garrison Residence, San Francisco, CA -- 11:00 PM PST
Jim Garrison returned from a business trip later that evening to find Deborah and Noah not at home. Though their absence was unexpected, he was not concerned. It was Friday night. Possibly they were having a sleepover with one of Noah's day school friends. The boy loved spending time in unfamiliar places, especially if his mother was nearby.
The absence of an explanatory note, too, might have troubled another husband. Garrison, however, was unperturbed. Yes, his wife was ordinarily conscientious, but even conscientious people have lapses of memory.
More likely, he thought, it had been he whose memory had lapsed. Doubtless, Deborah had told him of her plans and, in his busyness, he had let it slip his mind. In either event, Garrison did not fret. He did his nighttime exercises and went to bed.
Office of US Congressman Joe Chow, Hilo, The Big Island, HI -- 11:00 PM Hawaii Time
Moses Pukuli, member of the Hawaiian House of Representatives for the 4th District, sat in the home office of his friend and fellow Democrat, US Congressman Joseph Chow.
Chow was not as yet in attendance and Moses Pukuli was growing restless. A former cop, he was predisposed to take easy offense from politicians, even though he had been one himself for many years now.
At 8:05 PM, Hawaii Time, Congressman Pukuli had been contacted by one of Chow's aides who had requested his immediate presence for an emergency meeting. Could Mr. Pukuli, the aide wondered, be in Hilo by 9:30 PM?
As of this moment, 11:00 PM Hawaii Time, Moses Pukuli had been cooling his heels in Congressman Chow's empty office for nearly two hours. If this meeting was so goddamn urgent, he grumbled to himself, why is my chair the only one with an ass in it?
Pukuli drummed his fingertips and glanced impatiently around the room. The walls of Chow's office were covered with an impressive array of photos, plaques and memorabilia, attesting to the congressman's popularity, not only in his home district, but also statewide and even in Washington, D.C.
Pukuli rose from his seat and walked to an especially large color photograph. Standing before it, he was ashamed to feel a wave of envy stirring his breast. Pictured there, in the glowing spring sun near a tulip bed, was Joe Chow and two of his staunchest political allies: Bill and Hillary Clinton. The scene of the photo, he then realized, was the Rose Garden at the West End of the White House. The wave of envy threatened to become an tsunami of spite.
At that moment, the door to the office swung open and through it strode Chow himself, his hand extended, an apologetic smile spreading over his face.
"Moses," he said, advancing into the room. "I can't tell you how glad I am to see you." Reaching out for his comrade's hand, Pukuli's jealousy evaporated. While it may have been feasible to work up a resentment against Chow in his absence, it was quite impossible to dislike the man face-to-face. He was just too damned genuine.
"Sit down, Moses. Sit down," Chow urged. "Please forgive my tardiness. It's been a brutal day." Pukuli resumed his seat, glancing back across the desk just in time to see Chow wincing in pain. The leg wounds he had sustained while serving in Vietnam were especially troublesome when he was overtired.
Pukuli leaned forward. "What's going on, Joe?" he asked.
Chow did not mince words. "We've got trouble, Moses," he said. "Big trouble."
"With what? Who?"
"Faber Heath is dead," said Chow. "His body washed up on the beach near his home."
"Drowned?"
"No. Evidently he was swimming when he was attacked by a venomous jellyfish."
"Jesus H. Christ," Pukuli whispered. "What a way to go." A moment later, the larger implications of Congressman Chow's news became clear.
"Oh, shit," Pukuli said. "The Faber-Brady trust. Will it?"
"Yes," said Chow. "The only known eligible beneficiary cannot be located. That being the case, unless another suitable candidate can be identified, the Council succeeds by default."
"How long before that happens?"
"We've got five days," said Chow. "The deadline is Wednesday."
"Great God in heaven," whispered Congressman Pukuli. "The Council of Kahunas...a radical agenda with an eight billion dollar war chest."
"Exactly," said Chow. "When word gets out, the news alone will cause more political fallout than Watergate."
"Political fallout my brown ass," Pukuli said. "We'll be lucky if it doesn't cause real fallout."