Sympathy for the Devil (19 page)

Once Peters learned how to use Google, he found that the stuff was
everywhere
. You were supposed to pay for it, of course, that was the whole point of companies putting it up there. But there were plenty of sites where porn was available for free, as long as you were willing to put up with the numerous flashing annoyances that Peters learned were called pop-up ads.

Peters found online porn fascinating; he was, after all, male. The only thing that kept him from wasting hours looking at the stuff was the knowledge that eventually Astaroth would consider him to be slacking off, and Peters had no wish to find himself back in Hell. He was not unaware of the irony involved in worrying about whether a demon would get pissed off because some human was looking at pornography.

Chapter 18

The Presidential primary season dragged on. January gave way to February, and the snows of Iowa were replaced by the even deeper snows of Maine.

In between had been New Hampshire - the first political test of the year in which actual delegates were at stake. In terms of getting a candidate closer to the nomination, the Iowa Caucuses were meaningless. But, because they represented the first chance that voters in this election cycle had to express a preference, the media had decided that they were important; therefore, they were.

Stark had come in fifth in Iowa. It might well have been sixth but for Chesbro's tragic suicide, a few days before voting was to take place. This untimely death of a dedicated public servant had shocked and saddened his political rivals - in public, at least.

But last place was still last place, and some of the pundits had already begun to compose Howard Stark's political obituary. New Hampshire should have been the last nail in the Senator from Ohio's political coffin, except that it wasn't - quite.

Stark had managed fourth place in New Hampshire, ahead of New Mexico's Senator Ramon Martinez. This was unsurprising to many, since the Latino population of the Granite State wouldn't have filled the bleachers at a Little League baseball game. Martinez was expected to do much better as the primary season moved south and west. But fourth place was still an improvement over fifth and, as they say in Peru, better than even a small earthquake.

Fernando Garrett, Stark's campaign manager, was not known in political circles as 'Doctor Spin' for nothing. On the night of the New Hampshire primary, once all the votes had been counted Garrett had explained what it meant, to any journalist who would listen or put him in front of a camera.

"We're actually quite pleased with the result," he would say earnestly. "Of course, we didn't do as well as we had hoped, that goes without saying. But we find this result encouraging, for several reasons. First of all, it represents progress. Fourth place may not be great, but fourth beats fifth in any race I ever heard of - and don't forget, Senator Martinez was predicted to do very well here." Who, apart from Martinez's own camp, had made such a prediction, Garrett didn't bother to mention. Like most people in politics, he refused to be hindered by inconvenient facts.

"Secondly, I think it's important to remember that candidates from the Midwest, like Senator Stark, have traditionally not done well in New Hampshire, which may help to explain why Governor Lunsford was able to capture First Place." Although it was true that Lunsford was from Massachusetts, it was also true that in three out of the last five elections, at least one Midwesterner, either Democrat or Republican, had taken First in New Hampshire. Another inconvenient fact, easily ignored.

"And finally, I'd like to point out that donations to the Senator's campaign prior to this primary are four times what they were as we were heading into the Iowa Caucuses just a few weeks ago. I think that demonstrates clearly that Senator Stark's message is getting out to the American people, and that many of them are responding by making contributions, small and large, to his effort to restore real leadership to this country. No, I don't have the precise figures, but the campaign will be releasing its financial disclosure forms in due time." Garrett was telling the truth, technically, since Stark's Iowa campaign had been financed almost entirely by the Senator's own fortune (his family had once owned more than half the ships transporting iron ore across the Great Lakes). Consequently, the $11,400 in contributions the campaign had received between Iowa and New Hampshire represented a significant gain - in percentage, if not in actual dollars.

And now the political battleground had moved deeper into New England. Voting in the Republican Party's Maine Municipal Caucuses would begin the day after tomorrow, and the GOP's Presidential contenders were giving speeches at every venue that would have them. None of the candidates had yet stood up to orate during the breakfast rush at the Derry IHOP, but Bat Masterson figured it was just a matter of time before one of them started promising that under his administration, French toast would be renamed American fried bread.

Senator Stark had managed to draw a pretty fair crowd at Bannerman High School's auditorium in Castle Rock this evening. With five Republicans going at it, and the Democrats due in for their own shindig in just ten days, you'd think the people of Maine would be speeched-out by now. But apparently their appetite for political oratory was nearly endless.

Either that, or Stark was starting to catch fire.

And maybe he was. One thing was clear to Masterson: over the last few months, Stark had made substantial improvement as a public speaker.

Once he found out that he was being assigned to Stark's protection detail, Masterson had tracked down and watched the only available footage (courtesy of C-SPAN) of Stark giving a speech - one he'd done for some Christian Right group in Boston last October. Masterson didn't give a damn about the oratory - he was interested in the crowd. He was looking for someone in the audience acting hinky. If he'd found something, Masterson would have made a screen capture of the image. It would then be enlarged, examined, identified if possible, and kept in the Secret Service 'potential threat' file - just in case. But as far as he could tell, the Bible thumpers had liked Stark just fine.

Stark had gone over well with the fundies because he'd told them what they wanted to hear. The speech itself earned a 'B-minus' in Masterson's opinion - adequate for a U.S. Senator, but nothing destined for the history books, or the White House, either. Among other problems, Masterson had thought Stark to be afflicted by what he privately thought of as 'Ted Kennedy Disease': a tendency to shout your way through an entire speech, so that every idea, from the mundane to the exceptional, was given the same frantic emphasis, which amounted to no emphasis at all.

But it seemed that Stark had got himself some lessons. His gestures were now compelling without seeming stagy, his eye contact with the audience was much improved, and he was finding nuances within the spoken words that had apparently escaped him completely just three or four months ago.

I don't know who the Kingfish's new speech coach is, but the sumbitch is good,
Masterson thought.
This guy might just have a shot at the brass ring, after all.

The speech concluded a few minutes later. Stark remained at the podium a little while to accept the applause, then he left the stage to shake hands with people in the audience. The media had covered several of Stark's events earlier in the day, but they were apparently elsewhere this evening. Masterson noted the absence of network video cameras, and he didn't see any of the print journalists or bloggers whose faces had become familiar to him.

What Stark was doing gave security people ulcers on their ulcers. Protecting somebody in a crowd situation like this was a nightmare for the Secret Service agents, and there wasn't a damn thing they could do to prevent it. Politicians like to press the flesh, because personal contact means votes, and the people charged with keeping them safe would just have to lump it. As usual.

One agent went down the rope line about twenty feet ahead of the candidate. "Can you just put your hands out, folks, just like you were about to shake hands with the Senator. That's it. Now please keep 'em up like that if you would - you won't have to wait long."

The hand you can't see may be the hand clutching a weapon. Obviously, a bad guy could have a weapon in his other hand, but asking people to stand for two or three minutes with both hands out in front of them was unreasonable. In the Secret Service, you take what you can get, and one hand in view was better than none.

They moved slowly down the rope line, the agents stepping sideways, so that they were facing the crowd at all times. After the advance guy, who got peoples' hands up, were two more agents, who geared their rate of lateral movement to the speed the protectee (in this case, Stark) was moving. Then the Man himself, followed by two more agents, in case somebody had the idea of shooting Stark in the back after he passed. Masterson had placed himself second from the end, which put him a few feet to Stark's left.

When he worked a crowd or a rope line, the same refrain always ran through Masterson's mind like a mantra, replete with names of infamous security failures of the past.

Watch the hands of the ones close up, watch the faces of those farther away, John Hinckley, watch the hands, keep The Man moving, watch their hands, check the faces for the guy who isn't smiling, Lee Harvey Oswald, don't let him stay in one place more than a few seconds, keep him moving, watch their hands, Arthur Brenner, don't over-react - shoot some civilian who's reaching for a breath mint and your career's over, Sirhan Sirhan, watch their faces, look ahead, anticipate, John Wilkes fucking Booth, the hands, watch their hands...

When trouble came, it appeared out of nowhere, as it always does. They had almost reached the auditorium doors when Stark suddenly recoiled from someone, or something, in the crowd.

It was a tribute to the professionalism of the Secret Service agents that nobody yelled "Gun!" That word would have galvanized the entire detail, sending the agents into a series of precise and coordinated actions as carefully planned and practiced as any play called by an NFL quarterback. But none of them had seen a weapon or a muzzle flash, or heard a shot, and so they refrained, even though they knew that
something
was wrong.

That was enough for Masterson to call a Class 2 Security Alert. Two agents surrounded Stark and got him quietly but firmly away from the people and out the door, no drama, while the other agents went the other way, wading into the crowd near the spot where Stark had been a few moments earlier. Their attentions focused on a thin, middle-aged man in a Navy blue sweater. The man didn't pull a weapon, or fight, or try to run. In fact, he seemed confused by the questions being shouted at him by several large men in suits.

The Secret Service had commandeered an office just off the auditorium for use as a staging area, and it was there that they brought the man in the blue sweater, who was now looking both bewildered and scared.

They hadn't read the man his rights yet - it wasn't clear at the moment what they would charge him with, if anything, and the paperwork involved in filing an arrest report with Washington was a major pain in the butt. Better to find out what they were dealing with, first.

The initial order of business was a thorough frisk, which gave absolutely no consideration to the man's dignity or privacy. In a few minutes, it was clear that he carried nothing that could conceivably be called a weapon.

The contents of the man's pockets were arrayed on a nearby desk, and Masterson looked them over with a practiced eye. He picked up a slim book bound in black leather. Hanging from the bottom were several thin ribbons in different colors, each about the width of a shoelace.

Masterson tugged one of the bits of cloth, and the book opened in his hand. He saw now that it was a bookmark that ran from the top of the spine all the way down the page.

Funny way to keep your place - and why would you need five of them?

Then he realized that the pages open before him were in a foreign language. He wasn't Catholic, but Masterson recognized Latin when he saw it.

He turned to the man in the blue sweater, who now sat in a chair, hands in his lap. "You're a Godly man, are you, Mr...?"
Maybe he's a religious nut? That might help explain a few things.

"Bowles," the man said. "Joseph Robert Bowles. He assayed a small, nervous smile, then said, "Yes, I like to think of myself as Godly. I do my best, anyway."

Rex Cummings, one of the other agents, had started going through the man's cheap-looking wallet. "Yeah, I'd say he was Godly, all right," he said, handing the open wallet to Masterson. "Take a look at
this
."

Masterson took it and saw a laminated ID card. It had the man's photo, confirmed that his name was Joseph R. Bowles, and contained a bunch of other information. Stamped across the whole thing, in big letters, was 'CLERGY.'

Oh, sweet fucking Jesus. That's all I need.

There was no standing in line this time. The package was just a manila envelope, so thin that when folded lengthwise that it actually fit into Nestor Greene's Post Office box. He waited until he was back in his car to open it.

The return address was another P.O. box, although he knew that to be fictitious. Greene knew who had sent the envelope; he recognized the spider-thin handwriting, including where it said 'Do not bend!' He shook his head in disgust. Even though the admonition on the envelope had been ignored by the postal service nitwits, he saw that the contents of the envelope had not been adversely affected by being bent and crammed into his mailbox.

Green frowned as he examined the materials. He was not being given a lot to work with, this time around. There were no juicy photos to pass on to the tabloid press. Well, at least he wouldn't have to meet with that macho idiot Mundenar again.

The manila envelope contained a single sheet of paper that, he knew, would bear his instructions from Mary Margaret Doyle, and two sets of paper-clipped documents. One consisted of a series of photocopies of what looked like pages from a book. The other was made up of some sort of typed material, the pages crinkly and a bit faded with age. Greene frowned and decided that he'd best wait until he was home to examine these latest treasures.