Nano Surveillance (Dave Henson Series Book 1) (36 page)

Chapter 92 (April 2, Tuesday 11:00 am Eastern Daylight Savings Time)

Jesse Coleman and his wife boarded a Marine helicopter on the White House front lawn, as the newly sworn in President Tom Landers and his wife looked on from the White House south portico entrance.  A few moments later the helicopter lifted off the lawn and headed for Andrews Air Force Base. From there the former President would take a military jet to his home town outside of Albany, New York. As the helicopter left the White House property, cheers could be heard erupting all over the country. People were celebrating in the streets, and the Washington Press corps was already fawning over the newly sworn in President. Major news networks were also attempting to educate the public on the background of the newly appointed President Landers. Up until a few days ago, Tom Landers had been pretty much an enigma at the national level, even though he had already spent twelve years in Washington D.C.

Epilogue

The following day, the House of Representatives voted for a new Speaker of the House to replace the late Bob Daniels. The new Speaker was from the same party as former President Coleman. However, he was considered a moderate in the party and was anticipated to work well with Landers and the current Senate Majority leader.

Immediately following the election of the new Speaker of the House, a motion was made to impeach the former President and a number of members in his administration, including Chief of Staff Ken Hardy and Secretary of Commerce Nancy Devins. It was nearly a unanimous vote for passage of articles of impeachment against Jesse Coleman and his fellow administration members for treason and other high crimes.

Two days later, the Senate, with the Supreme Court Justice presiding, completed its impeachment trial of Jesse Coleman and his fellow administration members. By a 75/25 Senate vote they were all found guilty of treason and violation of public trust. The Senate went on further to strip them of their federal pensions that they were entitled to, and to bar them from ever holding federal public office or positions again. Lastly, the Senate recommended that all of them, including the former President, stand trial in a U.S. Criminal Court for the crimes they were found guilty of in the Senate.

A day after President Jesse Coleman’s resignation, down in the Caribbean, Dimitris Barbas’s yacht, the Kosmos, lifted anchor off the coast of St. John Virgin Islands. It was headed east into international waters enroute to the Mediterranean Sea with Barbas aboard. Though Barbas still had a controlling interest in ABO he had already heard from his friends in Washington D.C. that his U.S. banking accounts and properties, including his ABO stock, were about to be frozen and that he was effectively a wanted international criminal. In the subsequent week, the remaining ABO Board of Directors had summarily fired Christos Grivas for his role in the Presidential crimes over the past twelve years, and hired Jeff Kolosky as its new Chief Executive Officer.  When they offered him the position, they expressed their full appreciation for his commitment to serving the public in an honest, accurate, and historically traditional journalistic manner.

Hours after President Landers was sworn into office, Dave Henson was contacted via Idaho Senator Dale Jones on his cell phone. He had been given Dave’s cell phone number by Jeff Kolosky. Senator Jones had indicated that he had already spoken to President Landers about him and his NSurv team, as well as Dana Cogswell. The President was willing to pardon them all for their numerous illegal actions, if they were willing to work with the White House and Congress. In particular, the President was interested in having NSurv help to educate them on their nano surveillance technology, and to help craft new safety policies that would protect the American public from its abuse of power.

Dave, Dana and the rest of the NSurv team agreed to the terms and flew back into McCall, Idaho the following day. Prior to their departure out of Calgary, Dave had contacted Dan Edmond the night before to ask him to re-open the NSurv headquarters and to call all the employees back to work. It was during his call with Dan that he had learned the sad news that Ed Clemons had been killed by Barbas’s men.

It was late afternoon when the Cessna Citation approached the McCall Airport. After landing, and deplaning all of the equipment and their personal belongings, Dana lingered at the NSurv hangar while Dave closed up the Cessna Citation. The rest of the team had already driven over to the main headquarters building to return all of the equipment to the labs.

“So Dave, you did it. You actually affected real change in this country.”

“No we did it. If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t have been able to do it, or at least it would have taken a lot longer.”

Dave walked over to Dana and put his arms around her and gave her a big bear hug.

“Is that all I get for a thank you. I think I deserve a bit more than a hug.”

While Dave was still holding her in her arms, he looked down into her beautiful green eyes and put his lips to hers. They kissed for nearly a minute before she pulled back and looked up at him.

“You know she said softly, I could go for a lot more of this. I also think you owe me a vacation. Our trip down to the Virgin Islands didn’t actually have the rest and relaxation that you had promised.”

“I think we can swing that,” said Dave with a devious smile. “We’ll get everybody settled back at the office and I’ll fly us out to St. John tomorrow afternoon.”

The two laughed as they hugged and kissed each other once again. Finally, as the sun set on the horizon, the two of them walked hand in hand across the airport tarmac in the direction of the NSurv headquarters.