The Devlin Deception: Book One of The Devlin Quatrology (53 page)

“Well, I think it's ready for market.”

“Want me to let Wes know?”

“Sure.”

“Ready for some dinner?”

“Yup; surprise me, but my style, not yours.”

Emily frowned, but said, “Okay, boss.”

-109-

April 8, 2012 (Easter Sunday)

7:36 a.m.

Bonita Beach, Florida

Another lovely spring day in Bonita, 73 degrees, clear skies, and
now, the annual sunrise service held by a local church was in full
swing, having begun at seven a.m. Nearly three hundred were in
attendance, most sitting on beach chairs or blankets, some standing
in the back, closer to the water. A few of the more curious morning
walkers stopped to watch what was going on, but many just passed on
by, keeping up their pace, from shuffling to jogging to sprinting.

George and Marion Herman had driven from their riverfront mansion to
enjoy the service; they were sitting in beach chairs about in the
middle of the crowd, having arrived ten minutes before the service
began. George had his hearing aids turned down, and he was a bit
groggy, this being two hours before his usual waking-up time.

Jake and Pam had arrived about 7:10, setting up in their usual spot
on the high tide line, a bit south of the periphery of the church
crowd, and had gone for their southerly morning walk. They chatted
briefly with two middle-aged fishermen, one of whom was calling out,
"Here, fishies, here, fishies," and laughing with his
buddy.

Neither of them had had any luck yet, although one told Jake that
he'd caught a four-foot sand shark a couple of years ago from the
same spot. His buddy, standing behind him, shook his head and held
his hands about two feet apart.

A little further south, near their usual turnaround point, they
noticed a teenager fishing near a small red skiff, which he'd pulled
onshore; he was standing knee-deep in the water. As he got closer,
Pam saw his T-shirt, which said, "How Come They Call It Season
If We Cain't Shoot 'Em?" Laughing quietly, she pointed it out
to Jake.

Chuckling, he called out, "Hey, I like your T-shirt." The
teen made no response. Jake tried again, "Catch anything?"

The teen, scowling, turned and said, "Naw, nuthin' yet,"
and faced back to the Gulf.

Jake shrugged, said, "Well, good luck," then, under his
breath, “Punk,” and he and Pam headed back north, hand in
hand.

At they passed the gazebos, the Mimosa twins turned on their
equipment.

When Pam and Jake got to about ten feet from their stuff, Jake a bit
winded and looking forward to horizontalizing himself, they suddenly
saw a giant bright red-orange devil's head popping up from the water,
perhaps 30 feet from the shoreline, and a loud, deep voice roaring,
"Jesus was gay! You're all going to Hell! Jesus was gay!
You're all going to Hell!" repeatedly.

All the folks on shore for the service looked at the apparition,
shocked. Some screamed, beach chairs were overturned, and a few
injuries, none serious, occurred as people were trampled in a rush
for the parking lots. Marion stood next to George, protecting him
from the onrushing crowd; George, oblivious to the surrounding rush,
asked Marion, "Jesus was gay? Who knew?" Marion said,
"No, George, it's just a prank," and continued to hold off
the crowd. The roaring voice continued from the water.

The pastor, recovering slowly from his own shock and outrage, finally
grabbed the mike and pled for the crowd to calm down and return to
their chairs. "Folks, it's just a balloon! Come back! Just a
balloon!!!!"

A few people in the crowd, realizing it was an inflatable, began to
snicker, but the true believers were outraged, along with their
pastor, and they started yelling for someone to turn off the noise.
Two of the younger men in the crowd, who were wearing swim suits,
swam out and searched for a way to disconnect the speaker.

Meanwhile, Jake glanced south and saw the teenaged fisherman looking
north and giggling. Jake grabbed his binoculars and focused on him
and his little red boat. He saw a small metallic box in the teen's
hand, and as he refocused on the teen's boat, the teen tossed all his
gear in and took off. But before he got turned fully away, Jake got
his registration number and wrote it down and handed it to Pam.

Pam pulled out her cell phone and called 911. The operator had
already received several calls, but Pam asked to speak to Sergeant
Dooley, telling the operator that she might have the boat
registration number of a possible suspect, and that the boat was
heading south toward Naples. The 911 operator took the information
and said she'd pass it on to Dooley and to the marine division.

Finally, the two men in the water managed to disconnect the speaker
and the service continued, until the arrival of Sgt. Dooley and four
Collier deputies, as well as two Lee County deputies and their
sergeant. But the devil's head stayed inflated.

As the Lee and Collier sergeants conferred, they concluded that while
most of the servicegoers were sitting in Lee County, about a third of
them were in Collier, the devil's head was in the littoral waters of
Collier County and the suspect had been in Collier. So, after a bit
of ego competition, they agreed that Collier would be primary and the
Lee deputies would assist with the witnesses north of the county
line.

Sgt. Dooley headed over to Pam and Jake, scrutinized Pam and said,
"You?”

“Hello, Sergeant,” Pam said, smiling.

Dooley just hissed. “Okay, you two, what the hell happened
here this time?"

Jake smiled and said, "As to this inflatable event, of course?"

"Of course,” Dooley said, glancing suspiciously at Pam.

Just then, his radio squawked, and he was informed that the marine
division had stopped the red skiff and was bringing it and the
teenager back for identification; they said they also retrieved a
metal box that the teen had thrown overboard, but which stayed afloat
long enough for them to scoop it out of the Gulf.

Pam and Jake both gave statements, as did the pastor and scores of
people at the service. Several people also provided cell phone
videos. The teen was arrested and taken to the Collier County Jail.
A trailer was brought in and the skiff removed from the scene.

The pastor fought hard for the teen to be charged with a hate crime,
but his lawyer successfully argued that there was a fine line between
mischievous and malicious, and the US Attorney declined to press
those charges.

A federal investigation of the gorilla head incident, which the teen
admitted, placed the blame for the shooting part on an albino Marine
private named Murphy overreacting. The fairness of that investigation
surprised everybody involved, including the teen and his lawyer. No
federal charges were filed. Sgt. Ron Danuski's death had previously
been ruled an accident, and no charges were filed against Norm or
Janet.

The teen ultimately pled guilty to state misdemeanor charges of
disturbing the peace, two counts, one for each inflatable, and spent
sixty days in juvenile detention.

Seven years later, he was hired by a major New York-based department
store as a designer of balloons for their Thanksgiving Day parades.

-110-

Friday, April 27, 2012

8:30 p.m.

The Oval Office

Washington, DC

via a 24-hour news channel

Gordon Donne smiled at the camera from behind his desk, his colorful
red-blue-and-green tropical shirt contrasting with the bland curtains
in the background. A stack of papers about six inches tall sat in
front of him, and he drummed his fingers on them as he began.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, fellow citizens; tonight
I've got five announcements.” He slid the papers to one side
and tapped them.

“First, these papers summarize the current results of our
corrupt proceeds clawback efforts, which I announced in February and
which are ongoing. So far, we have recovered nearly five billion in
direct clawbacks and over eleven billion in confiscated assets from
over four thousand individuals and corporations, including five
ex-Presidents, four ex-VPs, nearly eleven hundred ex-Congressmen, and
over five hundred senior ex-military officers. We have posted a
searchable list of all of these people on the __________.gov web
site.

“Of those, only approximately ten percent came forward on their
own, which is about what we expected. Of the other ninety percent,
approximately twenty percent have begun or will soon begin serving
prison terms ranging from several months to several years. There
have also been seventeen suicides of people on the list, and we are
investigating six other suspicious deaths, which have been classified
as homicides by the medical examiners involved.

“We still have several hundred individuals and corporations to
go, with more being added every day, thanks to ongoing journalistic
investigations. Bravo, guys and gals. Keep up the good work.

“Second, GDP growth for the first quarter came in at 3.2
percent in today's report, slightly above our projections, probably
due in good part to raised dividend payments to shareholders and in
part to more folks stocking up ahead of the national sales tax than
we had expected. So we will not be surprised if second-quarter GDP
growth backs off a bit, although the February and March job reports
both showed net gains of over half a million jobs, even with the
offsets of over a hundred thousand job losses in the federal
government each month. That's brought the unemployment rate down to
7.4 percent. Still a long way to go to get to my goal of four
percent, but overall, the recovery seems to be progressing well.

“Third, our health insurance reforms appear to be popular, but
it's still early. Allowing companies to operate nationwide and to
offer multiple choices, from bare-bones to comprehensive policies,
and to provide ala carte rider selections, along with the expanded
health savings accounts, all are getting upwards of 75 percent
approval ratings in the latest polls. And our requirement that all
medical providers post their prices prominently in their offices, in
print and on their web sites, which helps consumers to make more
informed choices when they can, also gets positive approval, above
eighty percent, in the same polls. So we're encouraged on that
front, as well. There's still much more to do there, of course.

“Fourth, as for the protests, demonstrations and occasional
riots, we are making good progress on containing and redirecting
those. My policy of holding organizers and instigators personally
liable for any damages and requiring participants to repair those
damages, under supervision of military personnel, has begun to have
some positive results. I don't have any statistics on this yet, but
I've gotten anecdotal reports that many demonstrators have moved into
apprenticeship programs in carpentry, plumbing, electrical and glass
repair and are preparing for good jobs in those fields.

“Finally … and this is going to require a lot of
explanation, which you'll find in Directives 558 to 573 by ten p.m.
tonight … as of the end of June, the one-hundred-dollar and
fifty-dollar bills will no longer be legal tender; they will be
replaced by brand new bills in those two denominations, which will be
legal tender as of … well, right now.

“We've been printing them up since late December, so we should
have enough available. Here's what they look like.”

Donne held up two bills and flipped them front and back for the
camera, which zoomed in for closeups.

“Both bills have multiple anti-counterfeiting features
embedded, as well as embossed numbers, so the blind can distinguish
them.”

Donne set them aside and the camera zoomed back out.

“Individuals will be able to exchange the old bills for new
ones at their local banks all around the world, beginning tomorrow
morning, and can continue that until June 30th. There will be a
limit of one thousand dollars per person per day, and thumbprints or
other biometric identification will be required.

“Businesses will be able to exchange old for new up to their
average daily deposits, and will have an extra week in July to make
the swap, since they will be accepting old bills up through the end
of June. Again, thumbprints or other bio ID required.

“After that, any of the old bills in anybody's possession might
make good kindling for a fire, because they will have zero value …
well, some collectors might give you a few cents apiece for them …
or, if you have lots of them in bundles, you might add some water and
glue and use them for building walls. I don't believe they have any
nutritional value, so I wouldn't suggest eating them … unless
you don't care about nutrition, which many of you apparently don't.

“I guess that's all for – oh, one more thing. I want to
thank the 38 billionaires who've joined me in donating at least a
billion dollars to help with the deficit, and the more than five
thousand millionaires who've donated at least a million dollars each,
for another five billion bucks. And I'll continue to extend that
invitation to any others at our wealth level to do the same.

“Now I do believe that's it for tonight, so I'll wish all of
you a good evening and a great weekend. Good night.”

* * * * * *

As soon as the camera was off, Donne stepped from behind his desk and
joined the other people sitting on the couches in the middle of the
Oval Office.

“Okay, folks, are all our surveillance assets in place and
ready?”

The directors of the Secret Service, CIA, DEA, FBI, NSA, IRS and
Homeland Security all nodded.

“Good, good. And our military backup teams are also in place?”

Martin Dean, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), said,
“Locked and loaded, Gordy.”

“And we've coordinated with the governments we can trust?”