Justifiable Homicide: A Political Thriller (Robert Paige Thrillers Book 1) (37 page)

“Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God.”

Benjamin Franklin

“We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.”

George Orwell

Sunday night. Time to kill Senator Garrett. Tomás Gutierrez would be Wellington’s wing man again. Jim Bennett needed a rest after a week of overtime at the FBI. His main assignment that week was to find Nelson Fuller’s assassin. It was the Miami office’s top assignment and they were getting heat from Washington to find the assassin before he could strike again. He had to go through the motions.

There weren’t any solid clues, but if one turned up, he would try to throw the other investigators off the trail. All they knew was that the assassin was a man. The witness reports were conflicting. Some said he was tall. Others said he was of medium height. Some said he was Hispanic. Others said he was Anglo. It’s not unusual for eye witnesses to report incorrect information. That worked to Wellington’s advantage.

Wellington liked working with Gutierrez. He was calmer and less prone to emotional outbursts than Santos Hernandez. He was easier to control and didn’t challenge orders, although he was worried that Gutierrez might balk at an order to assassinate a journalist or professor. He would cross that bridge when he came to it.

Senator Garrett’s plane was scheduled to leave Miami at 8:07 pm. If he were a normal person, he would have to get there more than an hour early to go through security, but since he was a member of the privileged Washington elite, he could get there pretty much any time he damn well pleased. The airport staff would just have to deal with it. On several occasions, they had to hold the plane for him because he was running late. He always flew first class. Taxpayers would just have to pick up the extra $150 cost for his two and a half hour ride. He couldn’t be bothered flying in coach with the rabble he was representing.

Since they didn’t know when he would be leaving for the airport or where he would be leaving from, they would have to guess and take their chances. The best guess was that he would be leaving from his home in Coral Gables in a black Lincoln Town Car with his regular driver about 90 minutes before flight time, but it was just a guess. If the woman who had picked him up in a red Toyota on Friday night was the one to pick him up today, Wellington had decided that they would abort the mission again and wait until his next trip to Miami, which would be a week or two later. He didn’t come home every weekend.

Wellington and Gutierrez didn’t want to wait any longer. They wanted to cross him off the list tonight. They didn’t want to waste any more of their time on him. He was taking time away from their families. They resented it. The fact that Garrett also had a family and that his wife and children might miss him never entered their minds. You can’t think about those things if you want to be an effective assassin. If you think of your target as a human being you have already lost the fight. You have to think of them as an inanimate object, just a target that has to be hit on the first attempt.

They started their mission two hours before flight time, just to be on the safe side. It paid off. They saw a black Lincoln Town Car drive past them a few blocks from the Senator’s home 97 minutes before flight time. Wellington saw it first.

“There’s the Town Car. Let’s follow it just to make sure, but stay back so they don’t notice they’re being followed.” Gutierrez pulled out and followed, keeping about a hundred feet behind. A few minutes later it pulled into the Senator’s driveway. They drove by and parked a few blocks away, between the Senator’s house and the airport, and waited.

The Town Car passed by five minutes later, going a few miles over the speed limit. Gutierrez turned toward Wellington. “It’s not far to the airport, and the closer we get, the more traffic we’ll run into. We’ve gotta do it soon.”

Wellington rolled down both back windows and gripped the AA12 firmly. Then he shifted to the right and rested the gun butt on his left thigh. “Let’s get him on a side street, before he makes it to the highway. Pull alongside him when you get a chance, but keep some distance. I don’t want to get any blowback from the Frag 12s.”

Garrett’s Town Car turned left, toward Le Jeune Road, which was only a few blocks away. Time was running out. Wellington could sense it. He started fidgeting in the back seat.

“We have to get him before he gets to LeJeune Road. If we don’t, there’ll be too much traffic. We might get caught in a traffic jam.”

“Gotcha, boss.” Gutierrez swung left and accelerated until they were alongside Garrett.

Hopefully, the blasts from the Frag 12s wouldn’t cause Garrett’s driver to jerk to the left. They were positioned a little too close for comfort. Some of the blast might bounce back in their direction. It’s a chance they would have to take.

Wellington caressed the AA12 shotgun and waited for the right moment. His mouth was dry. He stuck the barrel out the right rear window just as Senator Garrett turned to look at their car, which was hovering a few feet away. Wellington placed the gun butt on his left shoulder. It was his weak side, since he was right-handed, but it didn’t matter. At this close a range, he couldn’t miss.

He squeezed the trigger. The blast from the shotgun in the enclosed quarters was deafening. Gutierrez jerked instinctively and slammed on the gas pedal. They didn’t think to wear ear plugs but it didn’t matter. In a few minutes they would be able to hear normally again, perhaps with a slight ringing in their ears.

The shot hit its mark. The Frag12 exploded on impact with the window, causing it to shatter, and ripped off the Senator’s head. The explosion also took off the back of the driver’s head. The Town Car swerved to the right and went off the road into someone’s front yard. Some fragments from the blast hit their car but didn’t cause any damage. Gutierrez took the next right turn. They made a clean escape. It all happened so fast that none of the people in the other cars were able to give a clear description of them or their car. They rolled down the remaining windows so the smell of the gunpowder could dissipate.

“Government does not create wealth; it redistributes it. Whatever you receive from government was taken from someone else.”

Robert W. McGee

After driving a few miles, and after making sure they weren’t followed, Wellington told Gutierrez to pull over. Wellington took out his laptop and sent a previously composed message to all the radio and television stations in the Miami and Washington, DC areas, as well as some political websites, explaining why Senator Garrett had been killed.

Senator Tom Garrett was exterminated because he was guilty of crimes against the American people. His support of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and corporate bailouts wasted trillions of taxpayer dollars and helped destroy home ownership in America. He also set a bad precedent, that redistribution of wealth is an acceptable policy. It is not. Let this be a warning to the other members of Congress who waste taxpayer dollars and who advocate taking the wealth of those who have earned it and giving it to those who have not. We will deal with you, too. You are on our list and you will be exterminated … at the time and place of our choosing. The only way to remove yourself from the list is to resign.

Sons of Liberty

The assassination and the note to the media caused an uproar that resounded throughout Washington and the nation. The Garrett assassination proved that Nelson Fuller’s killing was not random. It was part of a larger scheme that probably involved other people, although it was not possible to say how many. The FBI suspected that the assassinations were localized, since they both took place in Miami, but they feared the executions would spur copycat killings in other cities. The frustration expressed by the Sons of Liberty was widespread. Millions of other Americans felt the same way. Many of them had guns. Several members of Congress resigned, but not Debbie Waterstein or Jack Lunn, who were next on the list.

“The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” Frederick Douglass

Senator Garrett’s assassination caused problems for Frank Carbone, the bank president with the passport problem. He had found a way to get the million dollars Senator Garrett demanded but now he didn’t know what to do with it.

There was no way in hell he was going to give it to Ken Tolleson, Garrett’s snotty assistant, since Tolleson didn’t have any power of his own. He was practically out of a job. Whoever was appointed to replace Garrett would probably want his own people, which meant Tolleson would soon be fired.

He still had the IRS problem to deal with. Now that Garrett was gone, there was no one to get the IRS off his back and there was no way to get his passport back, other than by going through the normal process, which could take years. He would be fired long before then.

He didn’t know what to do with the money. It was risky to take it out of the bank. It would be risky to try to return it.

He figured his best bet would be to approach Florida’s other Senator, Marco Emeraldo. He had a reputation for being squeaky clean. If he told him his story, perhaps he would understand and would be able to do something without the necessity of bribing him. He decided to hold on to the money until after he met with Senator Emeraldo, just in case. If he could get his passport back without paying a bribe, he would find a way to return the money to the bank.

“To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”

Thomas Jefferson

“They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose … Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them.” Thomas Jefferson

“The government is merely a servant—merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.”

Mark Twain

Debbie Waterstein was one of the more visible members of Congress. She never missed an opportunity to put her ugly face in front of a camera. The Congressional leadership was grooming her for bigger and better things. She was on a power trip. She didn’t have to be convinced that in order to get along, you have to go along. She was more than willing to go along with any legislation the Congressional leadership wanted to pass, as long as it increased spending or taxed the rich.

She never saw a spending program she didn’t like. She thought up a few of her own. She believed that the government owned one hundred percent of the people’s income, and that she and her colleagues were gracious enough to let them keep some of it. The Boss had listened to some of her speeches. That was what got her on the list.

“Marta, contact that guy in New York who wants to outlaw table salt in restaurants. I forgot his name, but you can find it on the internet. He’s a member of the New York State delegation in Albany. I want to ask him about his strategy.”

“Yes, Debbie. I’ll get right on it.”

When she first took office eight years ago she winced whenever a staff member called her by her first name. She preferred to be called Ms. Waterstein or Congresswoman Waterstein, but decided she would appear to be a woman of the people if she allowed them to call her Debbie instead. She has since gotten used to being called Debbie. It was part of her strategy to be seen as just one of the little people, a vanguard of the proletariat.

One way she kept her finger on the pulse of the little people is by renting slum properties. She didn’t collect the rent herself, of course. She didn’t want to actually meet the people she rented to. She hired people to do that for her. Her rental properties were all listed under corporate names. Her tenants didn’t know that she was their landlady. She preferred it that way. If they knew she was their slum lord, they might not vote for her.

She thought the state legislators in Albany were doing some good things and wanted to learn more. They and their colleagues in New York City had managed to outlaw smoking in restaurants. She and New York Senator Chuck Sherman had co-sponsored a bill to do the same thing nationally but it got tied up in committee. She didn’t care that prohibiting smoking in restaurants violated the property rights of the restaurant owners. She thought some things were more important than property rights. The fact that Congress didn’t have the Constitutional authority to regulate smoking never entered her mind. She believed the Commerce and General Welfare Clauses gave Congress carte blanche to do whatever it wanted.

She was frustrated that she couldn’t ban smoking nationwide, so she decided to go after table salt. It caused high blood pressure, it was unhealthy, and it increased medical costs. That was all the excuse she needed.

After she got rid of table salt, she planned to outlaw red meat in any school that accepted federal funding, which meant most of them. She fully believed that red meat made children aggressive and caused people to become fat. She believed it was her mission as a member of Congress to regulate people’s lives. She didn’t think the average American was capable of making informed decisions. Her mission was to do that for them.

At the other end of the spectrum, she wanted to prevent fashion magazines from using thin models who appeared to have eating disorders, but the First Amendment’s guarantee of free press was getting in her way. She sponsored legislation to carve out an exception to the First Amendment that would allow Congress to regulate magazine advertising. There were already some prohibitions on alcohol and tobacco advertising. She wanted to expand those prohibitions, but hadn’t figured out how to do it and still keep below the radar. She didn’t want the magazine industry to have time to gather opposition against her proposal. She would try to sneak the bill into another piece of legislation on a totally unrelated topic, perhaps a transportation bill or something like that. Members of Congress seldom read the bills they vote on. She might be able to get away with it. Once a bill became law it was difficult to repeal, even if it was a bad law. She knew that and used that fact to her advantage.