A Thousand Years of Darkness: a Thriller (9 page)

The meeting, Trout noted, and which he later recorded in his notebook, seemed restricted to some of the top players in the continuing economic crisis. One of the first to arrive was veteran Congressman Frank Barnes, chair of House Ways and Means. Openly gay, he was flaming down to his limp wrists and a lisp. A year ago, he got caught up in a scandal involving his “partner” operating a homosexual prostitution ring out of Barnes’ Washington apartment. Barnes naturally had the support of the Washington establishment. The media dutifully glossed over the incident and Barnes won reelection from Massachusetts. Voters, Trout had discovered with growing cynicism, paid little attention to what went on in the rarified air along the Potomac. All they cared about was that their representatives bring home the bacon and keep the entitlements coming.

Duane Smith arrived in the company of Speaker of the House Barbara Teague and Senator Harry Roepke (D-PA), who headed the White House Economics Commission. Ms. Teague’s losing battle to retain eternal youth included Botox injections that turned her face into a big-eyed mask in which only the lips and eyelashes were capable of movement. Harry Roepke wore a wig and had his nails, hand and foot, done weekly at taxpayer expense. Smith, the White House Environmental Czar, was also president of the powerful Public Employees International Union, PEIU, and had recently assumed a position on the Board of Directors for the SIDA Corporation.

Curious, Trout had conducted some research on SIDA. It was not listed publicly anywhere, but he discovered a document on Wiedersham’s desk touting the Serious Infectious Diseases Association as an enterprise created “to design and develop novel countermeasures to prevent and treat serious infectious diseases with an emphasis on biological warfare defense and...to develop population control measures through military application in a crisis.” Whatever that entailed.

Two or three other senators and congressmen and a like number of industrialists completed the small congregation of movers and shakers. George Zuniga kept the others waiting and the meeting held up until he arrived with his bodyguard. Wiedersham met them personally to escort them to the conference room.

Trout thought Zuniga one scary-looking dude. Brushy gray brows arched like the overhang of caves inside which lurked dangerous black eyes that coldly surveyed his surroundings like carnivores casting for prey. A broad nose. Meaty lips that resembled bloated leeches and looking as if they might drop off his face if he smiled. His accent was thick and sinister. Somewhere in eastern Europe from which region Christians thought the Antichrist might appear. Trout always thought the Antichrist would be younger.

It was said the wealthy financier required no invitation to the White House; he dropped in unannounced anytime he felt like it.

Zuniga and Wiedersham walked past Trout as if he were a permanent fixture, like a wall or a door. Trout obediently fell in behind. The burly bodyguard looked him over suspiciously before taking up his station outside the door to the conference. No sound leaked out of the room. Trout started to return to his office. Wiedersham stopped him.

“Hold up, Dennis. Mr. Zuniga, I’d like to introduce Dennis Trout, my chief of staff as well as my sister’s husband.”

Zuniga’s dark eyes appraised Trout. His expression remained unchanged.

“Zee next congressman from the state of Illinois?” he said in his thick accent.

A thrill of delight ran up Trout’s spine. He actually blushed. Joe must have put in a word for him. “Well, sir. Not yet.”

“Are you zee team player, Dennis Trout?”

Trout glanced gratefully at Wiedersham. “I like to think I am, sir.”

“Zen you most certainly
will
be considered to be zee next congressman from Illinois. Someone from my office will contact you soon with zee details.”

He entered the conference room. Wiedersham tarried with Trout. “You can’t lose if Zuniga funds your campaign,” he whispered. “How do you suppose Anastos became President?”

Zuniga’s bodyguard held the door open for the majority leader.

“Well, come on, Trout, for God’s sake,” Wiedersham chided. “You’re on the team now. Act like it. And don’t disappoint me.”

Pleasure and surprise flooded Trout’s soul, temporarily cleansing it of the resentment stored against his abusive and self-centered brother-in-law. He was so grateful he could have kissed the man’s hand. Or his ass—except he was already doing that.

Trout felt as though his rear end was wagging like Reggie’s as he trailed Wiedersham into the mahogany-paneled room where Zuniga had already claimed his seat at the head of the table. Handout reports, ballpoint pens, laptop computers, coffee cups and cocktail glasses garnished each place at the table, arranged earlier by Trout himself, who at the time never suspected he would be invited to use them. Wiedersham impatiently indicated a place for Trout to sit with him near George Zuniga at the head of the table.

Trout sat down, feeling awkward and out of place but at the same time immensely thrilled. Wait until he told Marilyn. He himself was a player now, not just some glorified gofer. Dennis Trout was on his way up. His toast was finally getting buttered.
Congressman
Trout. He liked the feel of it on his tongue.

Wiedersham stood up.

“President Anastos sends his regards,” he announced, “but he cautions, along with Mr. Zuniga, I’m sure, that we not be too visible at this stage. FAD hasn’t been passed yet and Zenergy News is still snooping around—although, I must say, one fewer in force than a few days ago.”

That elicited a round of restrained mirth. Trout joined in guiltily, realizing that the reference was to the death of talk show guru Jerry Baer, who had been the administration’s chief nemesis. Wiedersham spoke another minute or so in welcome and reminded everyone that all notes must be deposited in a burn bag before leaving the room. Then the congregation got down to business.

Ground rules and objectives had apparently been established in prior gatherings, so there was no need to restate them. Everyone seemed to be of one accord and on the same page. Trout felt as though he had walked on in the middle of a conversation. The single topic for today’s meeting seemed to be the American Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf and how it could be used as a springboard to—and Trout gasped mentally when he finally understood—further depress the economy. It took him a while longer to understand
why
they wanted to collapse it.

“If Judge Fielding’s ruling against us stands and allows the oil rigs to resume operation,” Science Czar Harold Golden pointed out, “it will delay Cap and Trade until next year or even later. The EPA won’t move far enough fast enough to allow us to nationalize oil, gas and coal. We can’t afford to wait. This is our time. We have to move on it while the poker’s hot and we have the people worked up to do something about the environment.”

“Judge Fielding won’t be a problem,” Wiedersham reassured the assembly, with a quick look at Zuniga. “His ruling is already under Supreme Court appeal, on a fast track for a decision by next month. Fielding has a few skeletons in his closet which I’m sure well-directed news sources will discover and use to discredit him. If that doesn’t work...” He shrugged.

Trout wondered what he meant by that.

“Louisiana alone will lose twenty thousand jobs if the drilling ban holds,” Environmental Czar Duane Smith put in. “Gas prices will necessarily skyrocket to five bucks a gallon, seven when we push through Cap and Trade and carbon taxes. My people are ready to take to the streets to protest.”

Sam Shrader laughed. He was chief of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs with almost unlimited power to impose regulations to laws passed by Congress.

“Never let a good crisis go to waste,” he quipped cheerfully. “We don’t care if they’re our people or
theirs
, just so long as they’re out there forcing us to take action to restore harmony.”

House Speaker Barbara Teague with her porcelain-cast face was the only woman in the room. She followed the exchange by bobbing her head back and forth, her face smooth and blank from injections, making her appear totally clueless.

“There are thirty three oil rigs in the Gulf,” she interjected. “If the President’s suspension lasts only six months, it’ll be too late for the oil companies to recover. AP and Big Oil will lose billions of dollars. The rigs will have to be leased out. It costs ten million dollars to move one of those things. If they move out, they won’t be coming back.”

George Zuniga bobbed his massive head. “Ms. Teague, it is up to you in zee House and Majority Leader Wiedersham in zee Senate to twist arms and push through legislation to nationalize energy. We are on a time table that must be met before zee next Presidential election and before zee obstructionists have time to organize resistance.”

“We are well aware of the time table, Mr. Zuniga,” Wiedersham said. “We are on track.”

All at once it dawned on Trout what Marilyn meant about investing in foreign oil. More than twenty billion dollars in U.S. economic stimulus funds had been “lent” to Petrobras, the Brazilian nationalized oil company, for it to pursue deep sea oil drilling off both its own coasts and off U.S. shores. Trout was willing to wager a million dollars against an oil-dead pelican that Petrobras would be leasing the Gulf oil rigs. He was also willing to accept even greater odds that George Zuniga had made heavy investments in Brazil oil himself. He, and everyone who followed his lead in the venture, stood to make a ton of loot if President Anastos’ ban held and the rigs went to Petrobras, even more if the administration made good on its efforts to nationalize America’s energy industries.

“We’ll never have a better opportunity,” lisped Congressman Frank Barnes. “I think, really, what we’re seeing now, we’re seeing the start of the end of the capitalist system. I say good riddance. It hasn’t helped people on the planet. Although I do have certain reservations that the speed of our methods—”

George Zuniga cut him off. Even his well-fed laughter had a sinister quality. His lips, Trout noted, did not fall off after all.

“Opportunity,” he said. “That’s what vee have to keep in mind. It is well to understand that if vee do not want zee world’s wealth controlled by people with money, then zee alternative is to have zee world’s wealth controlled by people with guns. What vee are doing is necessary at this stage to crumble zee government into our hands.”

Muttered agreement passed through the room. In this assemblage, it was
In George Zuniga We Trust
. Trout ducked his head, unsure about whether to join in or to be appalled at the candor with which they were discussing engineering the economic meltdown of the United States. For some reason he thought of Michael Douglas’ line in
Wall Street:
“Corruption is why you and I are prancing around in here instead of fighting over scraps of meat out in the streets. Corruption is why we win.”

Senator Wiedersham leaned over toward Trout. “I hope you’re well-invested in Petrobras,
Congressman
Trout,” he said with a sly grin.

Trout grinned back, conscience assuaged. This was one of the happiest days of his life.

Chapter Fifteen

Tulsa

Nail and Sharon picked up the ORU police file Lieutenant Ross left with Toby at Quik Trip. They were on their way to Cherry Street where Rupert rented a pad a few blocks from where Jamie had lived. Sure enough, there was nothing of substance in the file, not even autopsy or ballistic reports. Disappointed but not surprised, Nail wheeled a left onto Cherry Street and then turned off onto side streets to avoid passing Jamie’s apartment. He was sure Connie would be there either today or tomorrow to pack up their daughter’s things.

Rupert lived in a seedy neighborhood of rooms for let by the night or by the hour. It was afternoon by now, the sun well up without a cloud in the sky. Nail wore a bill cap with an
AAA Quarter Horses
logo on it to conceal the smaller bandage Sharon used to dress the bullet graze to the side of his head. He could tell he was getting stronger.

As luck would have it, Rupert Madison happened to be stepping out the door of the shabby rooming house he shared with a half-dozen other downtown types with long hair, nose rings, face tats, stashes of grass in the kitchen and revolution on their fried brains. Rupert was dressed down in a red T-shirt with Mao on it and ragged ride-low ex-con jeans. He started to bolt when the tan Saturn whipped to the curb and he recognized Nail.

Nail jumped out of the car. “I’ll pound your ass into the pavement when I catch you,” he promised.

Rupert hesitated. Sunlight glinted off the ring in his nose. Nail walked up to him, Sharon close behind looking pale and uncertain.

“Man, you don’t hafta come on me like this,” Rupert whined. “I feel as bad as you do. She was my lady.”

Nail clenched a fistful of Mao’s T-shirt face and frog-walked Rupert into the narrows between the rooming house and a falling down privacy fence. Rupert reeked of marijuana smoke.

“James...?” Sharon whispered, looking around to see if there were witnesses.

Nail slammed Rupert against the side of the house and switched his grasp from Mao to the ring in Rupert’s nose. He twisted it until tears of pain ran down Rupert’s cheeks.

“We can have a conversation once we’ve established the ground rules,” Nail said. “If you lie to me, Ru-pert, I’m going to stuff one of those fence posts up your ass. Do we understand each other?”

“But Jamie—”

Nail yanked on the nose ring. Rupert howled and rose on his tiptoes.

“Don’t ever say her name in front of me again. Who ordered you to organize the demonstration at ORU?”

“Man, shi-it! That’s what I do. I’m a community organizer.”

Nail put an extra twist into the ring. Rupert howled some more and dropped to his knees in agony. Nail pulled him upright again with the ring.

“Let’s start again,” Nail suggested patiently.

“Man, I don’t know who it was. That’s the truth. It might have been the union. I got a phone call and this dude says roust out the troops, there’d be buses to haul ’em. That ain’t unusual when Baer shows up someplace. The man’s a hate magnet—”