The Devlin Deception: Book One of The Devlin Quatrology (15 page)

“No fourth guy to fill out the diamond?”

“Nope; stupid lapse in tradecraft.”

“And fatal?”

“Absolutely.

“Once they passed me, I lurched up from the fence, staggered
out to where I was about 15 feet directly behind the fat fuck, got a
clear shot between the two heavies, and took it. The dart ran right
into his big butt and he reached back to pull it out, but the barbs
kept it in. The two rear BG's moved in to try to help get it out,
and just after I'd gotten back around the corner to safety, I pushed
the boom button.”

“How big a boom?”

“Same as in our final test on the first prototype.

“The BG on point survived, barely, but the other two and the
target are now splattered over a big part of that intersection;
they'll be picking up bits of them for months, if not years.”

“But you're okay?”

“Yup. I only got a bit of blow-by, mostly the BGs, probably.
Got away clean, dropped the gun and the costume with Hailey at the
safe house and flew back here on the jet. Pizza cake. And zero
collateral damage, other than some of the fence, maybe a few bushes
and trees.”

“Well, one less bad-ass human trafficker.”

“And our client will move up and take his place. So what have
we really accomplished?”

“20 million euros, for one.”

“Yup, from another bad guy. And we'll probably get a contract
on him from HIS assistant in a month or two.”

“Right,” Sharon said. They both laughed.

“Great technology. I think we can move it into production now.

“Meanwhile, you're heading back to Florida, right?”

“Right. Flying out tomorrow afternoon – I mean this
afternoon.”

“Good. See you there sometime, maybe.”

“Probably not. I'm on the top floor all day every day.”

“Right. Anything else we can get for you up there?”

“Nothing I can think of; it's comfy and cozy, nice furnishings.
I'm pretty well set.”

“Well, if you do need anything, just let Amber know.”

“Will do; thanks.”

“Okay. I gotta get a quick bite and some rack time; getting
too old for even this mid-distance stuff. So g'night, Sniper.”

“G'night, Carnivore.”

-21-

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

1:35 p.m.

The White House Press Room

Washington, DC

At 1:30, a Marine had come into the press room and given the press
corps a five-minute warning, and exactly five minutes later, Gordon
Donne returned to the podium and nodded at everybody.

“Sorry for the interruption and the delay, folks. Sometimes
things need to be decided, and this was one of those times. Thanks
for your patience.” He moved over to the chair and sat back
down.

“Now, I think we're ready for the next question. Yes?”

“Marissa ______ from _____, Mr. Donne. I'd like to follow up
on Doris's question.”

“Go for it.”

“How can you eliminate the preference for women in particular
when their earnings are only 78% of males' earnings?”

“It's easy; I just sign a directive. Seriously, that number
has been bandied about for years and it ignores lots of factors that
go into it, like women leaving the workforce to have kids, just for
one example. My goal is to absolutely level the playing field and
opportunities for all people, regardless of gender, race or any other
characteristic other than qualifications. And the MWBE has been
gamed too much.

“Now, Marissa, this is going to be an extreme example, but in
your field, would you hire a woman who couldn't spell just because
she's a woman? I would hope not. And my government is not going to
try to make employers do that kind of thing. We encourage both the
public and private sector to simply hire the most qualified, and get
rid of unqualified and/or unproductive employees. In particular, we
have abolished all quotas, whether by statute or in practice to
satisfy some implied or inferred standard.

“Along those lines, if you read all my directives, you'll have
seen that we will be offering green cards to foreign students who
earn advanced degrees in math, engineering and the physical sciences.
It will be their choice, but we are no longer going to force them
back out of this country when they graduate. Nor will we continue to
force the children of immigrants who've opened businesses here under
E2 or EB-5 visas to leave the country once they turn 21. And we will
be loosening the requirements and getting rid of most of the
bureaucratic red tape for those two types of visas, and expanding
the availability of H1-B visas.

“We want to attract and keep talented, educated and creative
people, regardless of their national origin, as well as keep families
together … as long as they add to our growth and economic
health.

“Now, for those who would object to all those evil immigrants
coming in and taking American jobs, I would suggest that you all
encourage your constituents to improve their own skills so they can
compete effectively.

“On the other end of the spectrum, we will no longer encourage
slackers and system-gamers to come here or stay here. Next? Yes.”

“Terry _____, _____. I'm sure you saw the editorials in our
paper today, especially the one from our Nobel Prize-winning
economist, that pointed out that your economic policies are exactly
the wrong thing to do in the midst of a recession. How do you
respond?”

“Well, Terry, someone once said that the reason astrology was
invented was to make economics look scientific.”

Many in the audience laughed aloud, although a few, including Terry,
did not join in.

“Now, you may remember that at the end of my speech Friday
night, I invited economists to submit their predictions based on
their analysis of my policies. Well, we received over 200 of those
in time to include a few of them in some charts that we've prepared.
Here's one that combines their GDP growth projections over the next
20 years.”

Donne then tapped on a tablet PC on the table beside him and a
graphic appeared on the screen on the other side of the podium.

“Oh, I'm sorry; that's a spaghetti plot of hurricane paths in
the Gulf of Mexico. Yup; there's Texas, and Florida's over there.”

This time, the entire audience joined in laughter.

“Let me change that a little. Let's see. If I just pull on
the ends of the Gulf Coast, like this, so it becomes a straight
vertical line, or axis, on the right end, then change the units to
percentages, and we make the bottom line a time axis, you can see
that we now have a lot of lines squiggling up and down, and ending up
in a range from minus 23% ... that's your guy's, Terry … to
plus 19% in 2032. And look at all the squiggles each one takes in
the near term. Which of these is most accurate, only time will tell.

“Now, I've looked at LOTS of economic forecasts, 90% of which
are downright wrong. And many of them are ideologically or
politically driven. So I don't give a whole lot of credibility to
any of them, especially the Keynesians your paper seems to prefer to
hire.

“As to the guy you mentioned, Terry, I think Paul could do a
great service for this country just by buying a big, luxurious
motorcycle with a sidecar, some leathers and a helmet and taking a
year off from your paper and traveling the country, talking to lots
of regular people. That would be both a small contribution to GDP
growth and a great contribution to his education in the real world,
where he apparently hasn't been living ever since he got the Nobel
Prize. Next? Yes.”

“Leslie ____, ____. Mr. Donne, what you do think about the Tea
Party and the more recent Occupy movement?”

"I think that both of them are a result of the frustration that
most of our population feels about 'business as usual' in both the
public and private sectors. As for the Occupy people, in my opinion,
they are MUCH less than one percent of the population claiming to
represent 99 percent, and that's downright false. I think they
probably speak for maybe five percent. Think about it. Look at
someone at, say, the 70th percentile; they're doing just fine. At
the 40th percentile, maybe not that well, but they're getting by
okay. But it's easy to look at in black and white, especially if
you're loud about it, as they sure manage to be. But frankly, I
don't get a sense that they have any concrete and realistic ideas to
put forth. If they ever do, I'd be happy to discuss those with one
or two people they want to send over here … but just one or
two; more than that and it tends to deteriorate to a lot of noise and
not much significant give and take.

"The Tea Party, when it comes to taxes, has got it about right,
maybe a bit too extreme. But when they get into the theocratic stuff
and demand that the government force everybody to behave as if they
believe the same way the tea party social conservatives do, that's
where I have a problem. Again, it's easy to look at stuff in black
and white and miss the nuances, the multiple shades of gray, and it's
easy to want to limit other people's freedom of choice. Okay. Next?
Yes.”

“Danielle _____, _____. Several of your critics on the Sunday
morning shows complained that your background was primarily as a
hedge fund manager –“

“Owner.”

“I'm sorry; owner – and that the public has a pretty low
opinion of hedge funds. What can you say to those critics?”

"Well, Danielle, I'm actually quite proud of our hedge fund.
One of the best things we did was price our services well. When most
hedge funds were two-and-twenty funds, in other words, charging
clients two percent a year on their account plus taking 20 percent of
the gains, we attracted a lot of money by simply taking a zero
annual fee and fifteen percent of the gains, reducing that to ten
percent on funds a client kept with us for five years. Our clients'
ten-year average annual return, after our fees, was 26.7 percent, way
above the second place fund, which averaged 14.9 percent. And we
were managing over 1.8 trillion dollars, with fewer than a hundred
direct employees.

"And by investing some of that money as venture capital or
private equity funding, we started or acquired hundreds of businesses
all over the world, which is what developed into Donne Enterprises
International. And in all of our businesses, we've instituted
generous profit-sharing plans, so we've never had unions in any of
them. In many of the businesses, those profit-sharing plans were
used by the employees to buy the companies back from us after we'd
turned them around; DEI keeps ten percent and the option to go back
in and fix new problems as they arise, as consultants. And we still
have given our investors generous returns. Okay. Yes?”

“Stephanie _____, ____. Mr. Donne, are you going to release
your tax returns?”

“No. Okay. Ye- --”

“Why not?”

“Because I'm not running for anything, Stephanie. And I'm not
going to release DEI's returns, either. Okay. Yes?”

“Brenna ____, ____. Last night's talk shows and fake news
shows had a lot of jokes at your expense. How do you feel about
those?”

“I've sent black helicopters for them all. Just kidding. But
I could if I wanted to.” He glanced over at Cissy, who
shrugged and nodded. Donne smiled.

“Actually, I've got a pretty thick skin, even on this little
body, and I know I'm no Charlton Heston, sort of charisma-free. I
also know that until they start to see how my policies are going to
work in reality, ad hominem jokes are about all they can do. So I
don't really mind in the slightest.

“In fact, I really liked the cartoon of me on that first fake
news show. You know what they say about men with big ears, don't
you?”

The press corps tittered a bit nervously.

“Well, it's true, absolute fact.”

The crowd tittered even more nervously.

“Yup. We really do listen better than the poor guys who only
have little ones.”

A few in the crowd broke into audible chuckles.

“But I do pay attention to all those late night shows, even if
I can't watch them all myself; I get summaries and clips each day.
They shouldn't think they'll have much impact on my policies, of
course.

“But I have to say I'm intrigued by John's idea of animatronic
robots in the Capitol and the --”

Just then, the Marine officer entered again, saluted and whispered
into Donne's ear. Donne whispered back briefly and stood up.

“I'm sorry, gang, but I've got to go, and this will probably
take a lot longer. So with my mea culpa, I've got to suspend this
press conference right now. But we may have an announcement later
this afternoon; we'll let you know on that. Thank you all for
coming.”

With that, Donne followed the Marine officer out, followed in turn by
his two czars. The press corps murmured, mumbled and mingled,
finally dispersing back to their offices to file their stories and
await further developments.

-22-

Five Months Earlier

Thursday, July 7, 2011

9:15 a.m.

Bonita Springs, FL

A rare rainy day in Bonita Springs. Jake lolled on his bed with his
laptop, consolidating and organizing notes that he'd made in his tiny
beach notebook, and reminding himself that he should quit using
spiral notebooks and get some that didn't have those annoying little
stubs of paper, several of which had gotten away from him when he
ripped the sheets out and were now fluttering around in the breeze
coming in from the Gulf during a break In the downpour.

“Geez, I hate these things,” Jake mumbled as he threw
back the covers and began a search-and-recovery mission, which took
him all of six minutes, two minutes of which involved scrambling
after one recalcitrant piece that had lodged far under his bed and
caused him to deeply scratch his right shoulder on the bottom of the
bedspring.