Justifiable Homicide: A Political Thriller (Robert Paige Thrillers Book 1) (38 page)

In the meantime, she would target models under 18, since that would allow Congress to accuse editors of contributing to child abuse. The mere thought that magazines could be targeted would put a chilling effect on them. They would be very hesitant to hire thin models, especially if they were under 18. But she didn’t know what to do with thin models who were over 18. Perhaps for purposes of this law, the bill could define a child as anyone under 21 or 25. Or perhaps magazine editors could be arrested and fined for contributing to a hostile work environment for pressuring models of any age not to eat.

She didn’t want to move too fast. One thing at a time. If she went after salt, red meat, sugar, carbonated soft drinks, junk food, pizza in the schools, obesity and thin models all at once, it would dissipate her resources. She would be spreading herself too thin. It would also make it easier for the property rights and individual responsibility crowd to see a pattern. She preferred to work under the radar, in the shadows.

The fact that most of her constituency didn’t care about those issues didn’t bother her. She felt it was her job to do what was best for them whether they wanted her to or not.

The fact that the Constitution didn’t give the federal government the authority to make laws in those areas didn’t bother her either. She figured it was all covered under the Commerce and General Welfare clauses. She thought the people who advocated repealing those provisions of the Constitution were crazy, although she sometimes worried that their idea might pick up enough supporters to become a real threat to what she wanted to do.

Being a member of Congress allowed her to push her personal agenda. That’s why she ran for Congress. She thought being a member of Congress was the best job in the world. She couldn’t wait to get up in the morning. She never thought that her mornings might be numbered because of her agenda.

Jack Lunn was a member of Florida’s congressional delegation. His district was just north of Debbie Waterstein’s. They were colleagues and worked together on some projects of mutual interest.

Jack was more practical than Debbie. He didn’t go to Congress more than 20 years ago so he could push his personal agenda. He didn’t have one. He went so he could drink in the power.

He was in the pockets of every special interest group that was politically correct. There were a lot of elderly people in his district, so he decided to become a strong supporter of government-funded Social Security, even though it was a Ponzi scheme rip-off. He wasn’t concerned that the young people would have to pay for it and that it would go bankrupt long before they retired.

He was against increasing the retirement age or reducing benefits, two solutions that would postpone its inevitable bankruptcy. He preferred tax increases for the rich to fund it, even though the rich wouldn’t qualify to receive benefits under his plan and even though taxing the rich wouldn’t solve the problem, since the Social Security deficit was a hole that was far too deep for the rich to fill. Even if the rich were taxed at 100 percent of their marginal income, it still wouldn’t be sufficient to save Social Security from bankruptcy. He had heard that argument from economists many times but ignored it. You can’t get votes by telling old people their Social Security is going bankrupt. You have to give them hope, at least until after the next election.

Whenever anyone advocated getting government out of the pension business and privatizing Social Security he went on the attack, accusing them of being insensitive, heartless and in favor of throwing grandma under the bus. His strategy had been effective. He kept getting re-elected to Congress every two years.

“Steve, I want you to get a copy of the latest Congressional Budget Office report on tax revenue. Read it and come up with some arguments to increase taxes on the rich. They’re not paying their fair share. We have to find ways to increase their taxes.”

Steve Waldron was Jack’s Congressional assistant. He had a Master of Public Administration degree from Harvard and never worked in the private sector. He preferred working in the government sector, preferably in Washington because that’s where the action is. He preferred redistributing income to generating it.

“That might be an uphill battle, Jack. Their last report showed that the top 1 percent already pay more than the bottom 95 percent.”

“Yeah, I know, but I’m sure you can find some arguments. The top marginal tax rate in the 1950s was 94 percent. We’re not anywhere near that now. There’s room for an increase.”

Jack’s facts were a little off, but that never stopped him from making his argument. The 94 percent rate was in effect in 1944-45, toward the end of World War II. The top rate declined a bit after that but remained above 90 percent until 1964, when it dropped to a mere 77 percent.

“OK, I’ll get right on it.”

He called Yolanda, one of his Congressional staffers, into his office. Yolanda had beautiful brown skin. She was an African-American, Puerto Rican mix. He’d had a brief affair with her but ended it when his wife smelled her perfume on one of his shirts. Yolanda stopped wearing perfume in the office after that, just in case he wanted to resume their relationship.

“Yolanda, I’d like you to check on that radio station in Palm Beach, the one that has that loud mouth conservative talk show host. See when their license is up for renewal. Maybe we can get the Federal Communications Commission to find some irregularities.”

Lunn didn’t like most of what that guy said. He had a funny name. Jack could never remember it. All he knew was that the station was hampering his reelection campaign. Maybe if the FCC could find some irregularities, he could pressure the station into firing that guy in exchange for getting its license renewed. As a representative of the people, he thought it was his duty to shut that guy up. What he didn’t know was that some other representatives of the people were about to try to shut him up.

“If this be treason, make the most of it.”

Patrick Henry

“I have some good news for you.” It was Jim Bennett, speaking to Wellington. They were standing outside Wellington’s downtown office. Bennett suggested meeting in person rather than conveying the information over their cell phones because he didn’t want the feds picking up the conversation with their monitoring equipment.

“Our friends Debbie Waterstein and Jack Lunn are having lunch in Fort Lauderdale next Saturday.”

“That’s great. Maybe we can get a twofer.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking, but there are some complications.”

“Like what?”

“Debbie has become such a big shot that she sometimes has a body guard or two. She’s been using them a lot more frequently since the esteemed Senator Garrett met his untimely demise.”

“Hmmm. I see what you’re getting at. You’ll need an assist.”

“Yeah, if we want to get them at the same time, we’ll need more than one person.”

“I hear ya.”

“I think we should wait until they exit the restaurant. They’ll probably arrive at different times but they’ll probably leave together.”

“That sounds like a plan. That will also give us time to check out where their limos and bodyguards are stationed. Which restaurant will they be at?”

“SoLita. The name means South of Little Italy. It’s an upscale Italian place on Las Olas Boulevard.”

“Hmmm. That could complicate things. There’s a lot of traffic in that area, especially on Saturday afternoons. There are limited entries and exits. If we try to escape over the bridge it would be easy to trap us. All they would have to do is close the bridge.”

“That won’t be a problem. The restaurant’s on the mainland side of the bridge, close to Federal Highway.”

“OK, that makes the escape easier, but still not perfect. After we whack them, the place will be crawling with cops. They could block Federal Highway.”

“Yeah, I’ve thought of that. We could use a couple of stolen cars for the job, then abandon them in a mall parking lot a few blocks away. Maybe we could take in a movie. That way we wouldn’t have to try to leave the neighborhood.”

“Sounds good. What’s playing?”

“Funny, John. I like your sense of humor.”

“I think we should use the AA12. I’ll load up the mag with Frag 12s. We’ll pop the bodyguards first to get them out of the way. If they’re standing close enough together we could just shoot a few rounds into the sidewalk between them. The Frag 12s have a 9 foot burst radius. One or two shells might be enough to take all of them out. Then we can focus on Debbie and Jack.”

“The voters won’t be pleased, John.”

“That’s OK. They can elect a couple of new hacks to replace them.”

“You might want to pump one into the limo window, too, just in case there might be a body guard there. The driver might be carrying a gun, too.”

“Yeah, good idea. Let’s bring Santos and Tomás in on this. If the two limos are in different locations, we’ll need some back-up.”

“OK. I’ll see if they’re available. It’ll be a Saturday, so Tomás won’t be working. Santos doesn’t usually work weekends, either, but I’ll check, just to make sure.”

“Have them knock out the traffic cameras on the escape route, too. We don’t want them to get photos of us. The best time would probably be around 2am on Saturday morning. Traffic will be light and the cops won’t have time to replace them by lunchtime. A few well-placed shotgun blasts should do it. But not with the Frag 12s. The shells are too expensive. Have them use regular shells. Tell them not to take out the traffic lights, though. That would cause traffic jams all up and down Las Olas. The cops would have to direct traffic the old fashioned way, one on each corner. We don’t need that.”

“OK, I’m on it.”

Saturday morning, around 2am. Santos and Tomás just stole a Toyota with a sun roof. It would be less obvious than a convertible and it would allow them to do what they have to do – shoot out the traffic cameras on the escape route without the need to get out of the car at each intersection.

Santos drove. Tomás sat in the front passenger seat holding a shotgun on his lap. They agreed that Santos would drive because he had trouble fitting his massive shoulders and chest through the sun roof.

The AA12 was in the back seat, loaded with a mag of Frag 12s, in case a random squad car spotted them shooting out the cameras. They didn’t want to kill any cops, but they also didn’t want to get caught. Certain firearms violations carry a mandatory 5-year minimum sentence, and they figured that blowing out multiple traffic cameras might qualify.

The city purchased most of the traffic cameras with a federal grant. Maybe they wouldn’t be replaced, unless the city could get another federal grant. They liked the idea of destroying the cameras. Even though Santos worked for the TSA and was on the front lines of the war on terror, he didn’t like it that the federal government was installing cameras everywhere. He knew the cameras didn’t do anything to stop terrorists, not the foreign kind, anyway. He figured he was doing a service to the community and to all Americans by taking them out.

Several intersections on the escape route had cameras, usually four per intersection, so Tomás would have to squeeze off a lot of rounds. He wore a thick pad on his right shoulder to absorb the recoil of the shotgun. Without it, his shoulder would likely be black and blue before sunrise.

Las Olas Boulevard would be fairly easy, although they were worried that a squad car might be parked on a side street. Federal Highway would be more dangerous. It was a main highway and at that hour squad cars passed by every few minutes.

They both made excuses to their wives for being away overnight. Tomás told Teresa he was attending an IT conference in Orlando. Santos told Maria he had to work at the Tampa airport, which was too far away to commute. They booked a room at one of the local motels that take cash. After their excursion, they would ditch the car and go there to catch a few hours of sleep.

The job went off without a hitch. The shotgun blasts made a lot of noise at two in the morning, and the people who were on the sidewalks or in their cars at that hour got a brief bit of excitement, but they didn’t think to take photos with their cell phones, and no one even considered following them or trying to stop them. They both wore stockings over their heads, just in case. They didn’t want to be identified.

The whole adventure was over in a few minutes. They blew out the cameras they needed to blow out, plus a few more for good measure. The police probably wouldn’t think the camera caper was tied in to the assassinations until after they had made their escape.

After completing the mission, Tomás sent a one-word text message to Wellington – DONE.

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

Thomas Jefferson

“If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government.”

Alexander Hamilton

Lunch was scheduled for 1pm. Debbie Waterstein arrived at 12:45pm in a limo with an armed driver and two body guards. But she didn’t merely arrive. She made an entrance. She blocked traffic on Las Olas as she got out of the car. The two body guards were large, fit and dressed in dark suits, wearing sun glasses. One of them escorted her inside. The other one stayed outside, and took a position just to the left of the front door. The driver removed the orange cones that had been placed on the street in front of the restaurant and parked in the space that the local police had reserved for her.

It was nearly impossible to find parking on Las Olas Boulevard on a Saturday afternoon. Regular people had to park on a side street or in one of the several parking lots in the neighborhood. Debbie was not a regular person. Power had its privilege.

Jack Lunn arrived a few minutes later with just a driver, who wasn’t carrying a weapon, and no body guards. He had to open his own door. He wasn’t as high on the food chain as Congresswoman Waterstein. His driver had to find a place to park at one of the municipal parking lots.