Sabotage (30 page)

J
oey used the surprise and the leverage he had on the man. He climbed down and pounced on him, landing hard right into Britt’s jaw, which Britt was clearly not prepared for. He now had the man who tried to kill him pinned to the ground, groggy, and with a pained and helpless look on his face. He had a knee on each of Britt’s forearms, and he punched him in the face—hard—once again to make him stay down. He could feel Britt’s teeth sting his knuckles. He knew he hit him good.

The whirring of the helicopter blades was subsiding. The rent-a-thugs were paralyzed, not wanting to do anything that might jeopardize their bouncer gigs at the local strip clubs. Everyone inched slowly to the action, but no one really knew why they were doing this.

Joey reached in his back pocket and pulled out a Glock pistol. He had only used it once on a person almost five years ago in San Diego. With all he spewed in his rap, he didn’t like that, really. But he was going to like this.

He took the gun and put it in Britt’s mouth.

The cops were coming. He could see their America-colored lights closing in on the scene. They would love nothing more than to waste him as well as Britt. Joey knew this. He was prepared for this.

Raylon climbed down from the copter and was pleading with him to stand down. “We got this nigga. Let go.”

But this was personal. This was his moment. After the image he cultivated, how could he just let this bitch go? This baby killer? This terrorist? Naw, man. Shit was real. And he was gonna watch him squirm and then watch him die just like Johnny Cash, or Willie Nelson, or whoever the fuck that was.

But then he had a picture. He could hear the cops approaching, weapons drawn. He could hear their high-pitched shouts, their boots echoing against the floor of the hangar. And then he had a thought—of his Dago homies on lockdown, the unlucky ones, the hard cases who hadn’t made it. He pictured them. He pictured them interacting with this bitch, letting them have their day, letting them be patriotic.

There was at least one more helicopter overhead. In the dark, he couldn’t tell if it was media or police. He saw one brave black man, probably an airport employee, maybe the only one who knew who he was, videotaping the whole thing with his cell phone. He made a gesture to him to come closer.

He put down the gun. Sent it flying along the ground well out of Britt’s reach. He put his hands up to show the cops he was no longer strapped. He beckoned again for his close-up. When the man got close enough, he turned to the camera and sang, loudly,

“Bad-ass straight up from Dago,

I’m the baddest pimp in the cell,

Feeding down punk-ass bitches

To all of my brothas in jail.”

He laughed loudly. So did the man holding the camera. He flashed his signs. That would be a hit so big Elvis would be looking up at his ass. He would find a way to rhyme “FBI” with “fucking high.” Pal Joey was about to really blow up. He was back from the dead.

He waited for the cops to approach and to secure this bitch. They did. Then he stood up and walked away, the newest American hero.

LEAVENWORTH

I
n real life, there is no grand escape. There are rarely D.B. Coopers who extend beyond their crimes into the ether. Britt now knew this. The Bond villain in real life has an inmate number and eats the same starchy, bland prison food endured by the embezzler and the child molester.

He liked how they treated him with utter fear for their safety. They required half a dozen men to transport him anywhere, and then they left him alone, as they were afraid he would be killed by any other lifer trying to gain status for himself.

He wished the rapper would have killed him then and there. That would have given him immortal status, if only in a strange way. He could have lived on in the minds of America, pictured next to his creation, who unfortunately died with him. His design required him to sign off on each additional attack, so, while the damage he did was widespread and incredibly costly, it stopped when he was unable to key in the sequence for the next attacks. People reacted strangely to this, almost not knowing how to not be afraid anymore.

He had not done this out of some altruistic vein. He merely wanted to control every aspect of this operation and couldn’t imagine a Bond villain not setting the attacks himself.

When they finally figured out where the server was hidden, and, after the first technician died from tripping a booby trap he set, they were able to see what else he planned. Facebook and Twitter were spared much damage, and this puzzled many people. But he needed those networks to quickly spread the messages. The computer techs figured out that the code that would have infested them and sent them into decline if not outright death was two days away, the final act of the maddest man there had ever been. The code was exquisite, and more than one of the people who knew what they were looking at secretly saluted this man. That was something you couldn’t say out loud, but it was surely there.

The government was preparing its case against Britt, scheduled to start just five days short of a year after the attack, when one of the planning guards forgot to check a rarely-used vestibule on the prison’s main floor on Britt’s path to the courthouse. One of the prisoners housed on the same lock-down as Britt, who actually was friendly with him, jumped out with a pristinely made shiv and slashed Britt’s throat. He also did a pretty mean job opening up his right wrist. The man, Victor Stillings, dropped the knife immediately and surrendered. He had already memorized the codes and all the directions to the bank accounts Britt told him held millions for him and his family.

Britt smiled as he bled to death on the prison floor. He made the only escape he could, the only one left.

LONDON, ENGLAND

Naseem’s picture still appeared on the occasional television show, but Grant made good on his promise to make things as easy as he possibly could. The story got much more play in the States, and, after Grant arranged, with some help from above, a flight to Bermuda and then a boat to England, things cooled off.

Naseem grew a beard, stayed out of the sun, and looked less and less like the angry man that stared out of his last passport picture, the one the press loved to show.

He paid for his crimes every day in the never-ending sense of dread he felt when anything out of the ordinary happened. This would be his own private, minimum-security prison for years to come. He knew it wasn’t enough for many people, and, in fact, he questioned whether it was enough penance for him, but he wasn’t looking to heap anything else on himself, at least right now. He would blend in and eventually slip into a more Mediterranean country, where he hoped to disappear into normalcy.

Grant sent him some money. It helped. Grant knew he could have been killed, and Naseem spared him. He wasn’t going to write him a love song, but he wasn’t going to forget him either. That to him was the greatest trait of Americans: remembering the good much longer than the bad.

He questioned everything now: Allah, America, England, life. But at least he was alive to ask those questions.

LOS ANGELES

“Terrorista” by Pal Joey, with a rare co-writer credit to his friend Raylon, turned out to be the biggest hit of the year. It was a dope track and was remixed by everyone. Pal Joey appeared simultaneously on the covers of
Rolling Stone, Vibe
and
Time
, a feat no one else could claim. His back catalogue was selling and being licensed at a pace that made Jay-Z envious.

Some rappers and others in the community thought he should have pulled the trigger and called him out for it, considering how many of Joey’s own people were killed, but they were most likely just jealous of the success. Raylon told him to quit listening. He knew he did the right thing.

He met and had taken pictures with Grant and Caitlin a couple of times, but there were no reunions planned. If he hadn’t found the phone, none of this would have happened. He knew he was the true hero. He was the only rapper who showed up high to the White House and could add a Presidential Medal to his bling. And he didn’t care who bitched about it.

JEKYLL ISLAND, GA

In the latter parts of the 19th century and the first decade or two of the 1900s, most of the world’s elite wintered on Jekyll Island—the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Morgans, Pulitzers, and others. This was where the Federal Reserve was designed in 1913.

The millionaires built what they called cottages but were really mini-mansions. They were positioned close to each other and close to the beautiful club that was built to house all of those egos.

The church there was no less special, built in the same style, and featured stained glass windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany himself. The piece, one of only five in the world, featured an angel looking down on the scene below. It was the true work of a master, seeming more like a translucent painting than a piece of glass. It seemed to Grant like the perfect place to have a wedding.

He and Caitlin stood in front of that angel as they said their vows. Only their families, his slightly bigger than hers, were allowed to come. They kept it an absolute secret, and, judging from the lack of photographers outside, they succeeded in giving the paparazzi the slip.

They came outside as husband and wife, completing a circle begun years earlier. Caitlin seemed satisfied and calm. He felt happy and fulfilled.

He hoped they could make it through the next couple of days unnoticed. They brought beach disguises. After years of the Playboy Mansion and late nights in the club, he knew he left that behind. Nothing compared with this woman, and he would risk anything to keep that true. All he needed was an evening with dragonflies and a night on the beach. Anything else was a bonus.

Acknowledgements

I am forever indebted to my great friend Liz Giordano, who pushed me to seek an audience for
Sabotage
. She has been an editor, a cheerleader, and a willing helper in advocating for this book.

As of this date, several of my friends have read
Sabotage:
Bill McCullah, Lisa Haglund, Amy Lamphere, Susan Kelly, Amber Hruska, Cecelia Havens, Beth Rich, Jess Meadows, and Julie Gibson. Their suggestions were pivotal to seeing my way to the final manuscript. Thank you to all of you!

And finally, to my agent, Italia Gandolfo, for making this process so smooth and fun. You are the best!

About the Author

Dale Wiley has had a character named after him on CSI, owned a record label, been interviewed by Bob Edwards on NPR’s Morning Edition and made motorcycles for Merle Haggard and John Paul DeJoria. He has three awesome kids and spends his days working as a lawyer fighting the big banks. Dale is the author of the bestselling novel,
The Intern
.

Check Dale’s site at http://www.dalewiley.com/ for updates and details.

Preview
The Intern
—a political action thriller by Dale Wiley.

It's 1995, and life is great for Washington, DC intern Trent Norris. But life can change in a moment--and does when Trent becomes the prime suspect in two murders and a slew of other crimes. Overnight, he becomes the most wanted man in America. Trent has to find a way—any way—out. He holes up at The Watergate on a senator's dime and enlists a call girl as his unwitting ally. But with the media eating Trent alive, he doesn't have long before they catch him. From the tony clubs of Georgetown to murders on Capitol Hill, The Intern has all the twists and turns of a classic DC thriller, with an added comedic flair.