Miracle Man (36 page)

“Very much, sir. Thanks for inviting me.”

“You deserve it. You proved yourself on Project WS. It was a delicate assignment and you executed it with precision.”

“May I ask you a question about it?”

“I may not answer it—but ask.”

“Where did the directive come from for the project? Was it the White House?”

The red flush that came over the director’s cheeks signaled his annoyance at the question. “The directive came from me.”

Just as Perrone was about to say something to mollify Varneys, a tall elegantly dressed older man who looked like Washington had been good to him for a long time, stepped forward and said, “Director —Merry Christmas and congratulations.”

“Congratulations?” asked Varneys.

“You haven’t heard? It’s going to be announced tomorrow. Your boy just won two more Nobels. For the malaria cure and the other parasite disease work he did. And he got an Abel Award for math also.”

Varneys did his best to conceal his embarrassment that the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security had information he didn’t have. “An Abel Award,” repeated Varneys matter of factly.

The senator swirled the ice cubes in his gin and tonic, and moved closer to Varneys as if he were about to impart a personal confidence. “The story goes that Alfred Nobel’s wife was having an affair with a mathematician—so Al’s revenge was to exclude math from the awards. That’s why there’s no Nobel Prize for math. The Abel was established to fill the gap.”

“Yes, of course. I knew that,” said Varneys, flicking his hand
.

“The best part,” said the Senator, laughing, “is the statement from the Abel Committee.”

How
the hell has he seen the statement already?
wondered Varneys. In a town where information is the most valuable currency, the look on the senator’s face signaled his sense of superiority. He continued, “Orin—you have to read it when it’s released. It’s hilarious. They say they’re giving him the award because they know he deserves it for his new math language, even though no one understands it, but they hope they will one day.”

“That’s rich,” said Varneys, clasping the senator’s arm.

Looking at Varney’s wide-spaced eyes and the innumerable small teeth that were exposed by his forced smile, Perrone wondered if he was the only one who thought Varneys resembled a piranha.

As the Senator walked away, he turned toward Varneys and raised his glass as if to make a toast. “Don’t think any of us have forgotten who we have to thank.”

58

P
atience and planning were virtues that Colum McAlister long ago learned to value. Sitting in front of the video monitors in his Lands End office, his safe open, he flipped through his alphabetical file of video discs and prepared to make copies of the small screen debuts of:

Neil Foster, the Undersecretary of the Department of Health and Human Services

Randall Lindsay, the Deputy Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration

Graham Waters, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee

Michael Petersen, the Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means

He smiled.
Politicians have so little will power. They want it all.
Whatever their proclivities, penchants and weaknesses, McAlister had catered to them over the years —sometimes at Lands End—but more often at entrapments that McAlister had orchestrated in Washington D.C., New York, Aspen, Los Angeles—wherever the opportunity best presented itself. The incriminating antics of his hapless stars –all venerable and vulnerable public servants –would be preserved on video and land-up in McAlister’s alphabetical file. He had been building what he called his “insurance portfolio” for a long time. Often his coverage spanned years, and began early in the careers of upwardly mobile subjects that he had identified as potentially useful. When things went as they should, the videos would remain McAlister’s secret—secure and hidden away. Most of the time, he could rely on the more subtle tools of influence peddling, which he plied with great acumen. But over the years, his videos had proven invaluable and had given Bushings the edge it needed in many regulatory and legislative contexts. Now, at this point in time, McAlister felt that he had to pull out the stops.

The deputy commissioner of the FDA had a preference for young dominant women attired in fetish gear who would gag and bind him, subject him to humiliating violations, and then lead him around on a leash like a disobedient puppy. The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee enjoyed infantilism. McAlister smiled as he thought how shocked the American public would be to see the “lion of the senate” attired in nothing more than a diaper and a baby bonnet, sucking on a pacifier, his eyes wide with anticipation. The Ways and Means Chairman, a conservative Republican with a picture-postcard American family, was partial to boyish looking males, the younger and skinnier the better, particularly in pairs. And then, there was McAlister’s personal viewing favorite, the Undersecretary of the HHS Department and his beautiful wife, twenty years his junior, who enjoyed cuckold scenes in which she would have sex with young well endowed men, while her husband watched and pleasured himself as he was taunted by them for his inadequacies. As McAlister reviewed the videos he had selected for duplication, he was pleased. “Each one a career killer,” he muttered.

59

I
t was well after eleven at night when Bobby stepped out of the elevator, walked down the narrow non-descript hallway, opened the door to apartment 4W and flicked the lights on. This was the first time in five days that he had come home to his apartment instead of staying at Prides Crossing. He pulled the living room curtains closed, poured himself a drink and kicked off his shoes, all within what seemed like a single movement. Collapsing on the sofa, he was exhausted.
What’s that foul odor?
he wondered. Tracking it to the kitchen, he realized he hadn’t emptied the garbage in almost two weeks. He grabbed the overflowing trash bag, stepped into the building’s hallway and walked over to the disposal chute, only to find that it was taped shut, with a sign posted, “Out of Order. Put Trash in Basement Bin.”

The force was so astounding when it blew out the windows of the entire fourth floor, that a fireball was propelled across the street, scorching the face of a building fifty feet away. Within a few minutes, the police cordoned off a three block area, and the roads became clogged with fire engines and emergency vehicles. The media reported that a gas leak emanating from the kitchen of Apartment 4W at 5 Adam’s Way, leased to a Susan Corwin, had caused the explosion and that anyone in the apartment would have been killed instantly.

“What the hell happened?” Varneys yelled at Perrone.

“From our surveillance tapes, we know that a cable TV repair crew entered the building last week. While we can’t be sure, we think they might have opened the manifold on the roof and somehow delivered explosives into the air- conditioning ducts of Austin’s apartment, probably by way of a radio controlled trolley that was operated remotely using video guidance. They must have been watching the apartment waiting to see Austin enter, at which point they detonated the bomb. It was a highly sophisticated operation.”

Varneys’ head wagged. “But how would they know what Austin looks like? There aren’t any photos of him out there.”

Perrone’s words were cadenced as precisely as he could manage under Varneys’ gaze. “They didn’t necessarily know. But they saw the lights go on in 4W. Somehow they knew it was really Austin’s apartment and not Corwin’s.”

Varney’s voice was a cold monotone. “And your team picked up nothing.”

“We picked up the cable truck arriving.”

Varneys began to pace. After a few back and forths, he stopped in front of Perrone. “But the guys who entered the building weren’t with the cable company were they?” he asked rhetorically. And
your agents didn’t check their IDs when they entered the building?”

“That wasn’t the protocol, sir. This was a covert operation, not a lock-down. The apartment and the fourth floor hallway were under twenty-four hour surveillance. The intrusion escaped detection only because of the use of the ducts.”

Varneys smacked the corner of his desk with his open hand and the loud slap caused Perrone to wince. Varney’s voice was a harsh rasp with a rapid staccato delivery. “The surveillance was a total failure, a complete waste of time. If Austin wasn’t in the basement dumping his crap because of a busted compactor, he’d be dead. We don’t get paid to be lucky.”

Perrone shifted uneasily. “No, sir, we don’t.”

Varneys glared at Perrone. “Now—who’s responsible for the blast?”

“From what we can tell so far—it’s RASI,” Perrone replied. “They have a contingent of ex-military operatives and they also have the funding to contract privately.”

Varneys began to pace again. “How the hell did they ever find out Austin lived there?” “Don’t know yet, sir.”

Plunking down in his desk chair, Varneys exhaled loudly, swiveled around so he was facing the windows, and stared into the gloomy overcast sky. Perrone stood stiffly, waiting in silence, hoping the inquisition was almost over. Finally, Varneys turned to face him. “It’s amazing how much you don’t know isn’t it?” Perrone studied the floor as he waited for the next salvo. “So, how did Austin take it?” asked Varneys resignedly.

Perrone’s face brightened. “The good news is that he doesn’t blame us because he doesn’t know we had his apartment under surveillance. But he’s hard to read. He acted pretty stoic. Made some weird comments. ”

“Like what?”

“He said he’d always had a special relationship with garbage. I don’t know what the hell that’s supposed to mean.” Varneys emitted a grunt in recognition of Bobby’s sarcasm. Perrone continued, “And then, when I told him I thought it was RASI that did it— he said, ‘That should be my biggest problem.’”

“Did you ask him what he meant?”

“He just smiled at me —and thanked me for stopping by—you know, dismissively.”

“Did you see anyone else we know?”

“The Corwin lady and Christina Moore. They were both worked up over the blast.” Perrone grinned. “When Corwin introduced me to Moore, I thought Moore was going to melt into the floor.”

Varneys stood up so Perrone knew the meeting was over. “Two things, agent. When the perps don’t see any announcement of Austin’s demise, they may slip and say something somewhere that implicates them because they know who really lived in that apartment. So, we need maximum penetration on RASI. Secondly, starting immediately, I want every male working at Prides Crossing to wear a baseball cap and sunglasses just like Austin does. No exceptions.”

60

A
t the conclusion of Bushings weekly meeting of its most senior executives, after everyone else had filed out of the conference room, Turnbull closed the door and excitedly asked McAlister, “Did you see the news report about the explosion at that Corwin lady’s apartment?”

McAlister appeared to be almost oblivious to the question. “What are you talking about?”

“The explosion at Susan Corwin’s place.”

“Who cares? Who’s she?”

“Who’s she?” replied Turnbull. “She’s Austin’s right hand. She’s the gatekeeper I’ve talked about. It was her place. The apartment was obliterated. Too bad she wasn’t having Austin over for dinner. He would have been vaporized. Would have solved a lot of problems for us.”

McAlister smiled patronizingly. “Let’s not get draconian. We still have arrows in our quiver. I’m going to Washington for a few days to make the rounds. Shake some hands. We need to shore-up our good will with the people who make the rules.”