Executive Treason (37 page)

“Right. You worked together about eighteen years ago.”

“Can’t help you,” Bueler interrupted.

“Just a few questions.” O’Connell said lightly. “I understand you had the morning shift. Strong followed you.”

“I don’t remember.” It was a cold response.

“Oh? Didn’t you spend some time together?”

“I said I don’t remember.”

O’Connell sensed real hostility. “Mr. Bueler, it’s really a simple matter. Strong’s gone onto become one of the nation’s most popular syndicated hosts. I’m sure that you…”

“It was a long time ago. A lot of people came and went.”

“Strong used Grants as a jumping-off point for a station in Arizona.”

“Once and for all, I can’t help you.”

“Can’t or won’t, Mr. Bueler?”

“Goodbye, Mr. O’Connell.” The former deejay hung up.

Sydney, Australia
Government House
Saturday, 4 August

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first session of what we trust will be an historic conference,” Prime Minister Foss said resolutely. “We have a great deal of work ahead. Preliminary sessions with members of our staffs have paved the way. Now it is our job to forge a new South Pacific Alliance—a model for the four corners of the world that will proclaim we stand united against terrorists and those nation states, individuals, organizations, or even corporations that support or shelter them. Ironically, it is an ancient Arab proverb that best describes our union—‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ I see new friends joining us at this table. May we all have the resolve to make the world safer.”

Foss looked around the State Room of the Government House. The Colonial Building, the most sophisticated example of Gothic Revival in all New South Wales, had been closed to the public since Australia’s SASR approved it as the secure site for the summit. In attendance were leaders from seventeen nations including Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, the United States, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Foss removed his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves.

“What do you say we get to work?”

The New York Times

The
New York Times
reporter tracked down Marcy Ripenberg in Prescott, Arizona. It was a brief call. Ripenberg didn’t want to talk about Strong. But as she hung up, O’Connell was certain he heard the word, “fucker.”

His next series of phone calls focused on a similar set of characters in Phoenix, Arizona—an old program director who was out of the business and another former secretary Strong slept with, Sheila Stuart. She was the first person who was really willing to talk.

“Yeah, he was a real mover and a shaker. And I’m not just talking about his announcing,” she said through a fit of coughs. She sounded like she’d smoked for far too long. “I knew he wasn’t going to spend much time here. Just passing through.” She laughed. “Phoenix and me.”

O’Connell ignored the comment. “Where did you think he was going?”

“To the top. Any way he could.”

“What kind of person was he?”

“He read like crazy. Sometimes I couldn’t get him to put his book down, no matter what I did.”

“And what did he like to read?”

“That’s a very good question. Is this going in the newspaper?”

“Possibly.”

“Oh. You’ll leave out the part about…”

“Yes.”

She coughed more. “Tons of history. I guess it was for his radio show. He was always quoting this president or that president. I couldn’t keep them straight, but Elliott knew them all. And nothing could break his concentration. Not even when I was under the desk when he was…. You won’t use that either, will you?”

“No.”

“On account of my husband,” Stuart added.

“I understand,” O’Connell replied. “But it sounds like you really wish the two of you could have made a go of it.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s right. But I wasn’t part of his plans. Never really was.”

“He was that talented?”

“Talented? I don’t know about that. He was good. But he was better than good. He was lucky.”

O’Connell bolded luck on his computer notes. It was the second time he heard it in context with Strong.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she added. “He was damned good on the air. He could think fast and, for someone his age, he really had a knack for politics. But it was the accident that helped him the most.”

“What accident?” This came out of nowhere.

“The crash. The car crash that killed Buck Roberts, the drive time, you know, the afternoon host. Elliott was doing weekends. Roberts was heading home one night and he ran off the road into a ravine. Killed. Just like that. Elliott got called to cover the next day. It was just before an L.A. outfit bought the station. They were putting together a regional block of stations. A month after Elliott took over for Buck, he was on seven stations. That’s what I call lucky.”

“Damned lucky, Mrs. Stuart.”

Washington, D.C.
the same day

“Now what?” Roarke asked Shannon Davis.

“We wait.”

“I hate waiting. I’m not good at it. Besides, what do we wait for? For Cooper to say, ‘Here I am!’ That’s not going to happen.”

Davis put his feet up on the table in a conference room in the White House basement—their war room. They knew who the enemy was, but aside from the story leaked to
The Times
, they didn’t have a clue what to do next.

“Start with the assumption that he saw the report. He could go into deep hiding, which would be the smartest and easiest thing. Does he do that, or does he come after us?”

“Not us. Me,” Roarke corrected. “He knows me by sight now and I’m sure he’s realized I’m after him.” Roarke craned his neck, moving his head from shoulder to shoulder. He felt tense and frustrated. He finally sat down next to his friend. “That means he’s more likely to go on the offensive.”

Neither man added to the conversation for two solid minutes. Roarke finally broke the silence. “Another assumption: Cooper’s got more than enough money to live his life out. He also has the ability to pass himself off as just about anybody.”

“So that and his shoe size are supposed to deliver him to us?”

“No, it won’t. As far as we’ve seen, this guy doesn’t do a thing without surveillance and preparation. There’s a better-than-fair chance that he’s the most skilled assassin that’s emerged in a long time. And if he’s not the most skilled, he’s at least the most careful.”

“Which leaves us at square one.”

They sat quietly for another few minutes, sharing only deep, frustrating sighs.

Davis tried another approach. “We do know his assignments came from a man named Haddad. What if we announce we’ve caught him, that he’s talking to us. That might snarf him out.”

Roarke didn’t like the idea.

“Okay then, we pull in Cooper’s parents. Hold them on conspiracy charges. Hell, they might even be involved and…”

Another no from Roarke. “Unless we catch the right man, with the proper proof, the press will fry us. Remember, it’s been a year since he killed Jennifer Lodge and six months since he shot Teddy Lodge. The story’s already off everyone’s scope. We bring in the wrong man and the FBI takes the fall. Probably the president, too.”

“So I guess that’s it,” Davis said getting to his feet. He reached for his dark blue suit jacket, which was draped over the back of his chair. Roarke had nothing to add that would keep the conversation going.

“Write if you get work,” Davis said. Roarke saluted with two fingers.

That was it. They were in the middle of a chess match, not knowing whether the other guy even wanted to play. To make matters worse, the opponent was winning.

The New York Times
the same time

The impact of being on one Houston radio station was far greater than the seven New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada stations. That’s where Elliott Strong went next. O’Connell spoke to Linda Dale Lockhart, the retired media critic of
The Houston Chronicle
. She was quite familiar with O’Connell’s writing, which made it easier for him.

“Yup, he was in this market about eighteen months, maybe closer to two years,” the critic remembered. “He stirred up all sorts of shit. I think he really found his voice here—a pretty angry one at that. As I recall, he never had guests—not that he had to. When they threw out the Fairness Doctrine, stations had no reason to broadcast balanced shows. So a lot stopped trying. But as I understand it, there was a loophole, anyway. Call-in shows weren’t really governed by the Fairness Doctrine.”

“No?” This was different from what O’Connell had generally heard and what most critics understood.

“Well, presumably by inviting a cross-section of the community to express their opinions, the scope of the opinion broadened—at least on paper. Of course, things were tame back then anyway. Who knew where it was all going? It was all pretty local. Now? Seems whoever’s the loudest gets the most attention. And for a while in this market, Strong was the loudest of them all.”

“How so?”

“Well, remember, he was preaching to the converted. That’s what talk-show hosts generally do. But he must have slipped something in Houston’s Kool Aid, because his ratings took off here.”

O’Connell asked the next question with some notion of what he might hear.

“Would you describe him as lucky?”

“Funny you mention it. Now that I think of it, yes.”

“How so?”

“Well, let’s see, he was on the number-two talker in town. The number-one was a powerhouse station with a bona fide Houston legend. Race was his name, Bill Race. Well, he had a heart attack. 44.”

“He died?”

“Yup. Deader than a doornail. And Strong moved right in on his audience.”

O’Connell kept the critic engaged for a few more minutes, but he had learned enough.

FBI Headquarters
Washington, D.C.
the same time

“What about other prints from Haddad’s condo?” Mulligan asked Bessolo.

“Some illegals on the cleaning staff. And one that matched a California driver’s license.

“You have a name with that?”

“Ali Razak.”

“Razak.” He spelled it. “No police record. We’re checking with the IRS on anything they may have. I have a picture of him from California. I’ll forward it up to you. A big guy.”

“Big, like bodyguard big?”

“Try Godzilla.”

The GAO report was more of an indictment than a study. The investigative arm of Congress, the Government Accounting Office, charged that the Pentagon couldn’t reconcile where all its Category I weapons were. Translating the GAO paper into people-speak, the military simply did not know how many Stinger missiles—believed to have been shipped to the Middle East during the Gulf War and through the subsequent war in Iraq—were missing. Inventory records of man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) differed from GAO’s physical count, not by dozens or even hundreds, but by thousands of missiles.

Since 1970, several hundred thousand MANPADS were manufactured and issued to American military. Thousands were sold internationally through the Foreign Military Sales Program. Problems in record keeping, storage, theft, and black market trade revealed that the armed services could not account for the actual number of missiles that had been in their stores. The reason? Lax reporting on serial numbers of MANPADS produced, fired, destroyed, sold, or transferred.

To put it another way, there are better records on who owns America’s laptop computers than who’s holding Stinger missiles capable of downing an aircraft.

And what of personal arms? In Vietnam alone, some 90,000 semiautomatic pistols were abandoned by American combatants during the troop evacuation. Add to that 791,000 M-16A1 rifles, 857,600 other non-classed rifles, and thousands of other weapons, including 550 tanks, the total of arms left behind reached an estimated 1,882,238.

The number of deaths these weapons have inflicted by guerilla fighters and terrorists around the world is impossible to calculate because there are no end-use controls that prevent them from getting into the hands of undesirables. The potential destruction from the MANPADS on the market is even worse and less excusable.

More recently, a combat theater commander in the Persian Gulf relaxed administrative requirements permitted by operational regulations, which ultimately led to missiles being transported on unguarded trucks and driven by third-country nationals. In addition, ammunition sites were left wide open.

In Europe at one depot, facility managers’ records recorded that 22,558 Category I missiles were in storage. The GAO counted 20,373, a frightening difference of 2,185 missiles. The GAO’s conclusion, enumerated in GAO/NSIAD-94-100:

“It is impossible to accurately determine how many missiles are missing at the item manager or storage level because the services did not establish effective procedures to determine what should be in their inventories.”

In hard numbers, it is estimated that one percent of the worldwide total of 750,000 MANPADS—or 7,500 missiles—were beyond the control of the U.S. military or formal governments. Luis Gonzales had two.

Paris, France
Sunday, 5 August

The wires picked up the
New York Times
story. Cable news ignored it. There were no visuals. But the foreign press took note. Two days after Michael O’Connell’s brief article ran,
The
International Herald
gave it a paragraph on page six.

The United States Army has reopened an investigation into the deaths of seven members of a Special Forces team killed in Baghdad, September 2004. The combatants died during a devastating apartment building explosion. Reports at the time indicated that it was a trap. The exact reason for renewing the inquiry is unknown, but a Pentagon source told
The New York Times
that some irregularities have recently surfaced…

Canadian Robby Pearlman sipped his latte on the balcony of his suite at the Hotel Meurice. He looked over the Tuileries and the city beyond. It was the Vancouver real estate developer’s third trip to Paris. By far, it was his best.

The tall, athletic businessman turned back to the bedroom where a 26-year-old blonde lay naked on the bed they shared. They’d met the previous afternoon at the Louvre, on a Da Vinci Code museum tour. She was on holiday from London where she worked as a teacher. She was hoping for a suave Frenchman, but the handsome, soft-spoken, well-read Canadian caught her eye.

She slept as he read the newspaper and contemplated what to do.

Lebanon, Kansas
the same time

“Bring your cell phones with you and call in. And you can text message friends, because I guarantee you, it’s going to be too loud to hear any rings.” The phones were an important component to the real success of the Bridgeman March on Washington.

“We’re days away from the biggest political show of force ever to be witnessed in America. You’ll be part of it. You’ll make history. You’ll show the rest of the country and the entire world that we demand change. We demand it now.”

Bridgeman’s picture was on the cover of
Time
. Inside, there was a sidebar on Elliott Strong. They printed only what they knew; O’Connell had more.

The New York Times
the same time

O’Connell discovered that in Atlanta, Strong benefited from another timely merger which put him on stations across the state.

Another announcer was supposed to get the syndication gig, but coincidently, he was the killed in a brutal, unsolved carjacking.

Paris, France
an hour later

Robby Pearlman ran his fingers down the back of his newest conquest and pressed into her. She felt his hardness against her ass and responded with a tired moan. She really wanted to rest and couldn’t understand how he was ready again.

“In a little while, I’m so tired.”

He pushed closer to her. She reached back and held him in her hand. “Please. Just a few minutes.” Up until now he had been attentive to her needs and pleasure. But now he showed an insatiable appetite. He rolled her on her back and climbed over her. “In a while.”

Pearlman wouldn’t stop. It was as if he stalked her and now it was time to take her down. She tried to resist, but couldn’t. He was too strong, too determined. The man she’d spent the last twenty-four hours with suddenly changed. He became a sexual predator.

“Please! You’re hurting me.”

Pearlman didn’t stop. He didn’t hear her. And least of all, he didn’t care. He was some place far away.

Boston, Massachusetts

“What’s the matter?” Katie asked. They were already into their nightly phone call and it was clear to her that Roarke wasn’t himself.

“Nothing. I’m okay.”

“Come on, honey, are the bad guys getting you down?”

He was constantly amazed at how well she read him.

“I can’t.”

“You can tell me how you feel,” she offered.

“How do you know me so well?” Roarke asked in return.

“I know you because I love you.”

This was still all so new to him. “And why do you love me?”

“I love you because I know you so well.”

With that, Roarke opened up. Tonight, they wouldn’t have a romantic or sexy conversation. This was a pouring out, equal to what Katie had done when she was in Roarke’s arms. He spoke like they were in bed: lovingly, openly, and honestly. Through it all, he blessed the day they met. Katie vowed to catch an early flight out in the morning. It was time she took her research to Washington, time she tried out Roarke’s bed.

two hours later

Katie Kessler’s first round of research covered everything from prestigious legal journals to Gore Vidal’s novels. She reviewed Congressional testimony from 2004 and studied fundamental arguments offered by the Founding Fathers. Some of them seemed relevant enough to be heard in the halls of the House and Senate chambers today. When it came to constructing a new framework for presidential succession, there was certainly no shortage of opinion. Kessler read hundreds of briefs: thousands of pages of testimony. But coming up with solid arguments that would stand up to the Constitution was another thing entirely.

As Katie packed her suitcases and stacked her boxes of research by the front door of her Grove Street apartment, she wondered whether she would be able to accomplish what Congress hadn’t achieved in more than fifty years.

Recently, many of the country’s greatest legal scholars went to the Capitol to offer their proposals for amending the succession laws. Nothing came of the testimony. Leading representatives filed a variety of bills. Again, nothing happened. Now Ms. Kessler was going to Washington. She asked herself how she could make a difference. It seemed like an impossible task until she had an epiphany. I don’t have to get a bill passed. She needed to deliver the groundwork. Others would supply the muscle for the heavy lifting. By working for the White House, she could approach succession from the inside, much like Harry Truman had in 1947. Another realization came to her. That’s how it gets done! Not when Congress wants it, but when the president does.

Ideas were taking shape now. They were a combination of disparate thoughts from both sides of the aisle, with a little political dynamite thrown in for good measure.

It all came down to one experience that occurred before her time. In 1968, when a majority of Americans voted for Richard Nixon, they also voted for his choice as vice president, Spiro Agnew. The majority of the country didn’t want Democrat George McGovern. They got Republicans Nixon and Agnew. Agnew eventually resigned. Nixon chose Ford to replace him. When Nixon resigned, Ford chose Nelson Rockefeller as his vice president. The term that started out with the election of Nixon-Agnew ended with the unelected Ford-Rockefeller.

This was consistent with the will of the people. But what if something catastrophic happened to the new president and vice president? The Speaker of the House would have become president. Speaker of the House Carl Albert was a Democrat.

The will of the people? Kessler asked herself again. Presidential succession, no matter what form it takes, should reflect the will of the people.

To shape her arguments she needed counsel from the other man she’d grown to respect over the past year—Supreme Court Chief Justice Leopold Browning.

Maluku, Indonesia
the same time

Komari called himself commander. It wasn’t an official rank in anyone’s army except his own. He established his own rules of discipline and loyalty. He presided over the most undemocratic of court martials, and punishment always came swiftly. In Komari’s world, there was no imprisonment.

Umar Komari’s force grew by the day. Although the Indonesian government had heard rumblings of his activities, they didn’t consider the insurgent, who confined his operation to the remote islands, a real threat. Anti-Christian sentiment continued to grow, but the occasional report of violence attributed to Komari was far less important to the TNI than maintaining order in Jakarta. That was a mistake.

Komari hadn’t begun wholesale slaughter of the hated Christians, but his nightly raids were striking fear in the small fishing villages of the Malukus. He killed, stole, and recruited Muslim conscripts, and rewarded them with some of the spoils. His drug production increased, as he knew it would, and his weapons cache expanded. So the would-be commander actually had a command. Soon he would be addressed by a new title. He repeated it in his mind.

President.

Sydney, Australia
Monday, 6 August

Morgan Taylor listened to the Indonesian leader’s remarks, showing only a blank stare. Since Taylor took office, he’d expressed his disappointment numerous times about Indonesia’s inability to drive terrorists out. Now he was worried that the country was becoming a training ground from which terrorism was being exported. However, nine minutes into the speech, the Indonesian president claimed his government had addressed the problem.

“Terrorists will find no sanctuary in my country. As we gather under the umbrella of freedom, our military carries on a vigilant search for the last remnants of Jemaah Islamiyyah. We have dealt deadly blows to the rebels. According to the reports I read, we are more safe today than in previous years. I am encouraged by our progress, as you should be.” He continued to spout platitudes for another two minutes, then concluded with a request for substantially more aid.

“The chair thanks you for your comments,” said Prime Minister Foss, “and now recognizes the representative from the United States of America, President Morgan Taylor.”

“Thank you, Prime Minister Foss.” Taylor turned over his prepared remarks. For a protracted moment, he was back at the town hall meeting at Verona Area High School. What can we do? That was the overriding question he heard that night. He read the same concern on many of the faces in the room now—at least those who weren’t posturing for the sake of the summit.

Morgan Taylor didn’t have the answer for the Verona bus driver who asked, “What’s America doing to stop them?” The same was true when the Dane County, Wisconsin, law clerk explained that her oldest son had been killed by a suicide bomber in Baghdad, and now she was afraid for her youngest who just enlisted. Tell me what you’re going to do to protect my son.

He moved onto other issues during the town hall meeting in the gym, but personally, he never moved off the question. He was going to answer it today.

“With all due respect to the remarks of President Ramelan Djali, the Indonesian leader must recognize that we are his partner in the defense of his country. Is that true, sir?”

He got an affirmative nod.

“And as such, we share intelligence.”

Another yes.

“Then I think we are in a perfect position to assess that things are not better!”

Taylor stepped on the gasps. “Sir, there’s nothing to indicate that you’re striking deadly blows. The opposite is true. The United States provides you with weekly, sometimes daily intelligence. You have done little with it. And, sadly, we have done little to encourage you.” Now he broadened his argument. “The same can be said of almost every nation at this table, save Australia which recently struck back in the Solomons. Who else can honestly say they have gone after the terrorists in a manner that would benefit peace?” He looked at every leader at the table. Some averted their eyes.

Taylor reached behind him. On cue, Secretary of State Poole handed him a folder. “Let me share a number of reports compiled by the intelligence services of the United States government. Some of these will be familiar to President Djali. They paint a very different picture than the one presented here today. Since he didn’t share them with you, I will.”