National Burden (20 page)

Just like that day when he’d disposed of the bully, McKnight searched his mind, swiftly coming to the beginnings of a plan. With a nod, he picked up the phone and dialed.

It took hours to file the police report and hitch a ride back into the city. Martindale had thankfully sent a car to pick them up, along with a change of clothes newly purchased from some swanky clothing boutique. Not one of the three recognized the brand.

Now safely back in their suite in the middle of the city, Cal sipped on an oversized tumbler full of Jack Daniels. MSgt Trent was sprawled out on the white couch, with a matching glass, facing the sixty inch television, watching some reality show with catty debutants, sporting a swollen face he’d refused to get checked out except by the EMT-trained cop at the Southampton Police Department. The fireplace held a low flame in the embers that the designer had made to look like aqua crystals, not really providing heat, just scenery.

Daniel walked into the room, having just taken a shower, towel still wrapped around his trim waistline, his blond hair hanging wet just below his shoulders. “Any word from Leo?”

Cal pointed to the phone. “He just called. On his way over. Can you hold down the fort? I need to take
this
drink into
that
hot shower.”

“Go ahead. I’ll order up some food, too.”

Cal’s stomach growled at the mention of food. They hadn’t eaten since lunch. “Get me a hamburger and fries.” With his order in, Cal tromped back to the bathroom, shedding his new clothing as he went.

By the time he got back to the living room, barefoot, dressed in a pair of faded jeans and a white T-shirt, the food was waiting and so was Leo. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

Leo stood up. “Cal, I can’t tell you how sorry I am for what happened.”

Cal waved the apology away. “It’s not your fault. Besides, Top is always bragging about what a good swimmer he is. Today he got to try and prove it.”

MSgt Trent looked up from his heaping plate of linguini and red sauce. “Try?”

“Top, you almost didn’t make it out of the car window.” The oversized Marine had not only gotten his shirt caught on the corner of the busted window, he’d also had a helluva time squeezing his large frame through the opening.

Trent shrugged as if just remembering the tiny detail, a peril that would have panicked and killed most men.

“Maybe it was a bad idea bringing you guys up here. I should call the cops and tell them to go on with the investigation,” said Leo, his composure from the day before gone, now replaced by panic. “There were two more stock drops today. I think they’re building up to something.”

Cal sat down and lifted the lid off his dinner, steam rising with the smell of perfectly grilled beef and hand-cut French fries. He savored the sight for a second. “Still no clue who’s behind it?”

“No, but I’m starting to think it’s more than some tech-savvy brokerage. What would you say if I told you that I think the government may be behind it?”

Everyone looked up at the billionaire. Trent asked the obvious question. “Why?”

Martindale paced around the sofas, gesturing with his hands as he explained. “Is it possible for some hacker to get into the stock market and make some disruptions? Sure. But if that was the case, I’m sure they’d lock down the system if the intruder wasn’t purged almost immediately. No, it’s got to either be someone who has access to the Dow’s back end, or someone’s pulling the strings from high up.”

“I don’t understand. Why couldn’t that still be someone who’s really connected inside Wall Street?” asked Daniel, forking another bite of just rare enough sockeye salmon.

“It’s all in the response. No one’s throwing up the red flag or sounding the alarm. I mean, if my company was losing half of its worth in a day, for no apparent reason, you better believe I’d be calling every official I could to get to the bottom of it.”

“What if the companies don’t want the publicity?” asked Cal.

“It still doesn’t make any sense. If company stock takes that big of a hit, the stockholders, especially the big ones, would be in an uproar. It’s as if they knew it was coming.”

Cal didn’t know much about stocks other than the fact that his grandfather had given him ten shares each of Coke and Disney when he was a kid. He’d always let the experts handle his money. “So let’s reach out to the companies and see what they say.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not? Don’t you own some of those stocks with your clients?”

“Sure, but it’s not that easy. We’ve got sort of a code on Wall Street. You don’t go looking for a rat unless the damn thing’s already caught.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Leo thought about how to explain it better. “Have you ever noticed how celebrities never talk bad about one another?”

“I don’t know, maybe.”

“It’s because Hollywood is too small. All the big names know each other to some degree. Plus, not everyone churns out hit after hit. Even the top actors and bands flop every once in a while. They know that and treat each other with respect even though most of them don’t like one another. It’s the same thing on Wall Street. Throwing an accusation around is like waging war on your neighbor. You’ll never hear the end of it.”

Cal thought it was kind of juvenile, but he could understand it. “Okay, so you can’t do it, but we can, right?”

“Sure. But you’re not getting paid to do that.”

“I know. Just call it our patriotic duty. Besides, I wouldn’t mind ruffling a few Wall Street feathers.”

“Ruffling feathers is what Cal does best,” announced Trent.

Leo laughed. “Okay. Tell me what you need.”

+++

Paris, France

8:04 a.m., March 8
th

Jonas Layton strolled through the nearly empty park, a sole bum, braver than his friends, lay on a pile of cardboard on the stone pavement, covered in a mound of old bedding. A thin line of steaming breath the only sign that the man was still alive.

The breeze made the thirty degree weather feel like the negatives, Layton keeping his collar cinched tight. The park was probably half the size of a baseball field, scattered trees looked like haunting ghouls, ice clinging to their branches, bending them in unnatural positions. The American shifted the Yankees ball cap on his head, scanning carefully behind his Persol sunglasses.

He was being watched and he’d already caught glimpses of figures on the periphery. They were being cautious, careful. What did they want? Layton rarely travelled without security, but he’d taken the Secretary of State’s assurance that he’d be well protected under his own umbrella. The problem was, he no longer trusted Dryburgh. The American diplomat had asked to meet later in the day, but Layton told his friend he would be leaving on a noon flight back to the States.  It was past time to go.

As he made his way to the far exit, where two looming sculptures of long-forgotten heroes stood facing away from the park, Layton could feel the convergence of multiple contacts on his highly tuned radar. Hyper observant, he tracked a knitted cap to the left, a pair of brown loafers to the right, the sounds of faint shuffles behind. He picked up his pace, thinking to make the stoned entrance before the others. Too late, they paced his strides as if in sync.

Fear crept up his back like a troop of stringy-legged spiders. Layton’s pulse quickened, pupils dilated, but he kept his hands stuffed in his pockets, carefully measuring the distance to freedom.

As he passed through the exit, two men approached from his left and right, a quick peripheral glance pinpointing the black weapons hanging at their sides.

“Mr. Layton, we’d like to have a word with you,” said the man on the right in heavily accented English. French for sure. He wore a brown checkered knit cap over a head that Layton assumed to be bald, dark piercing eyes a mismatch to his smiling mouth. Probably just over six feet tall, the man’s muscular physique was evident even under the layers of wool and cotton.

“I’m sorry, what is this about?” asked Layton, trying to keep his voice steady as he clenched his fists inside their protective cocoons.

“Monsieur, we can’t say here, but it is a matter of national security.”

If he hadn’t been so scared he would have laughed. National security seemed to be the excuse for any and all nefarious actions around the world. “I have a plane to catch.”

The man to his right had closed in and stood watching, his black overcoat swaying with the breeze, no smile on his face, just the cold stare of a professional used to violence.

“That won’t be possible, monsieur. We will be happy to book you another.”

“Gentlemen, I suggest you contact my attorney if you’d like a word. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Layton stepped off the curb, careful to avoid a divot full of slush. He felt an iron grip on his right arm and stopped, blood pumping faster, adrenaline kicking.

As if on cue, four nondescript French sedans came tearing from different directions, lights flashing red and blue, no sirens. The two men looked up in surprise, the one holding Layton loosening his grip slightly. In the next five seconds no less than ten men, all dressed in impeccably tailored suits, jumped out of the vehicles and started yelling at the two strangers in French to drop their weapons and get on the ground. They did as they were told, weapons first, followed by their slow descent to the ground with hands raised.

Layton breathed a sigh of relief as they were cuffed and thrown into the waiting cars, both men glaring angrily at their intended target. The smallest of the ten men to arrive stepped up to Layton. “Are you well, Jonas?”

Layton nodded. “I wasn’t sure you guys were watching.”

The man shrugged, doing a funny twitch with his bushy mustache. “You know how we work, Jonas. Always watching.”

“Thank you, Lucas. I owe you one.”

Lucas shrugged as if what they’d done was nothing. “We will have a talk with these men and let you know what we find out. Now, may I offer you a ride to the airport? Your bags are in my trunk.”

“That would be great, thanks.” Layton followed the French intelligence chief to his car, grateful that he’d given Lucas a little help a year before with an issue that had plagued his service for months, but which Layton had cracked in minutes.

“I forgot to tell you. The men watching you from the other side of the park have also been apprehended and are on their way to interrogation as well.”

Layton shook his head, ever amazed by the seamless expertise of true professionals.

President Zimmer had been at it for over an hour, signed and sealed bills and intelligence reports stacked neatly in his OUT box. Despite the events of the day before, he felt rejuvenated. Preliminary reports from Johns Hopkins suggested the drug he’d been given had been manufactured specifically to induce stress, fatigue and possibly hallucinations at the right dosage. They wouldn’t know for sure until they’d done some more testing, but the doctor told the president with near certainty that any lingering effects should be out of his body in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours.

So many things made sense after that revelation. The paranoia, the high blood pressure, the nerves he’d never felt before. Zimmer had privately thought that maybe the office of president was just too big for him, a task he was unworthy of. There were days when he’d barely kept it together, like when he’d offered the positions to Travis Haden and Marge Haines. That had been one of the lows and he mentioned it to Travis. His loyal Chief of Staff had agreed with the assessment, even telling his boss about the concerns he’d had about taking the job due to Zimmer’s weakened state.

Even though the symptoms might not have been fully purged, Zimmer felt stronger just knowing it wasn’t him, that it had been something else influencing his body and mind. But that still left issues unresolved. Who had put Santos Lockwood up to it? Travis suggested they ask Southgate, what with his recent attempt to capsize the president. The list was short, but had the potential of growing exponentially should they let their imaginations run wild. Any president, no matter how popular, had any number of enemies, mostly unseen, seeking to discredit his legitimacy.

As he was signing yet another letter to a foreign leader, this one to the ambassador of Ghana, his desktop phone rang. By the flashing light he could tell it was his ever efficient secretary. He pressed the speaker button.

“Mr. President, I hate to disturb you, but I have Congressman McKnight on the phone. He said it was urgent.”

Zimmer knew McKnight from his time in The House. They’d been in the same freshman class of representatives. He didn’t know McKnight personally, but he’d seen the way the young Floridian was being groomed by the Republican Party to be one of its up-and-coming leaders.

“Did he say what he wants?”