The Devlin Deception: Book One of The Devlin Quatrology (42 page)

“Sorry; I didn't catch it, hon.”

“Oh, well; we'll see what we'll see. That music is familiar,
isn't it, Ned?”

“Yeah; can't place it, though.”

“Oh, geez, CB, that's a big dollop. And look, she's pulling
him up and in again. Oh, that's got to be cold on him now, too.
Wonder what that would do to a guy.”

“Shrinkage, kids, shrinkage.”

“Joan, I don't think I'd want to do that bit.”

“That's okay, Ned; I can understand.”

“Well, Sharon, from the look on her face and the way she's
writhing again, it doesn't seem like that's a problem for her.”

“I'll say it again, kids; she's faking it.”

“No way, Sharon.”

“Absolutely, she is.”

“And there she goes, rolling him over again. Aaaand once
again, she's on top,” Carie said.

“Oh, not only shrinkage, but I'll bet there's gonna be
leakage.”

Giggling, Jill added, “I'll bet she's glad they're using
Neapolitan and not Rocky Road or Butter Pecan. That'd hurt.”

“Gee, Ned, if we try that, I'll have to get the rubber sheets
out again.”

“Whatever you want, hon.”

“And now, kids, we're getting into the home stretch. Hear the
Bolero? Coming to the end.”

“And so are they, perfect timing,” Jill moaned.

“Oh … my … GODDDD!!!” shrieked Pam as she
collapsed onto Jake's chest again.

“Ohhh,” groaned Jake.

“Wow,” said Ned.

“Hmmm,” Joan murmured.

“Yee-hah,” cried Jill, heading for the bathroom.

“Cool,” Carie added, reaching for the printed pages of
the scene Pam had written.

“Okay. Time for another smoke break,” Sharon said,
clicking a key on the keyboard. “Definitely faking it.”

“Turn off the TV and grab some ice cream while I change the
sheets, Ned.”

“Will do, hon. Oh, hon, want to try the harness again?”

“Nope; I got dizzy hanging upside down in that. And it chafed
and gave me blisters. Let's just try it with the ice cream.”

“Okay, hon.”

-82-

Sunday, August 21, 2011

7:37 p.m.

International Airport

Fort Myers, Florida

After a week in which Jake and Pam had watched five sunrises together
and spent hours and hours both in the water and on the sand; a week
in which the Bolero had been played in Pam's condo a total of 37
times; a week in which they had exchanged 22 sensual, erotic
massages; a week in which Jake got very little actual writing done,
but had lots of new notes; a week in which the energy expended and
the ice cream consumed balanced out, so that he neither gained nor
lost any weight; a week in which the Mimosa twins and Sharon had
found 147 teachable moments in the replays, of which seven involved
squeeze bottles of chocolate and strawberry ice cream topping; and a
week in which Ned and Joan had exhausted both themselves and Ned's
supply of little pills, Pam and Jake were sitting in his car in the
cell phone parking lot.

“You're sure you want me to just drop you off outside?”

“Please, Jake, okay? I have enough trouble with goodbyes in
private. But in public? No, thanks. Please?”

“Okay, sure, Pam. But it's not a goodbye, it's 'See ya in a
month,' the 18th, right? And you'll be all oriented and screened.”

“I'm sure gonna miss you, Jake.”

“And I'll miss you, Pam. But you're a pro. What was that word
you used? Compartmentalize? You'll do just fine.”

“Oh, I'm not worried about that, Jake; I know I'll do okay
there. I just know I'm gonna miss you … and SB.”

“SB?”

“Stevie Bruce.”

“Ah.”

“I'm looking forward to getting reacquainted with you both when
I get back.”

“And I with you and Ginny May.”

“Jake, do you think we have …”

“Oh, Pam, you said goodbye to him three times on the drive over
here, and that was only maybe twenty minutes.”

“But Ginny May didn't.”

“Ah. I'm sorry, Pam. Hard to do anything while I'm driving.”

“But now we're parked and I've got lots of time before my
flight.”

“Yes, you do. But not here; this is too open and every car has
a driver in it.”

“How about the short-term garage?”

“Probably got cameras in there.”

“Let's go look. Maybe we can find a spot between two vans or
SUVs. And it is dusk. We can figure it out.”

“Okay.”

Twenty minutes later, Stevie Bruce and Ginny May having had their
deeply moving (in fact, very deeply moving) and fond farewell, Jake
pulled his car up to the terminal entrance, where Pam gave him an
equally deeply moving goodbye kiss and got out and walked with an
only slightly bowlegged gait toward the terminal doors, followed by a
skycap carrying her two bags, whose eyes had no difficulty staying
focused on his client … or at least on one part of her body.

Just before she passed through the doors, she turned, waved and blew
a kiss at Jake, which he returned.

As the doors closed behind her, he wiped a small tear from his left
eye and pulled away from the terminal.

On his way home, he stopped at a fast food drive-thru and got a
cheeseburger and fries, but noticed that their apple pies, which had
been two for a buck previously, now were 69 cents each.

Quickly doing the math, he murmured, “That's 38 percent
inflation in, what, a couple of months? Geez.”

As he exited from I-75 onto Bonita Beach Road, he noticed a dark SUV
with only one headlight a couple cars behind him. From perhaps an
excess of caution, he turned right on Imperial Parkway, then left on
Dean Street, and he saw that the cyclopean SUV followed him, staying
a good ways back, no cars between them.

He took the Matheson-Terry-Pine Avenue route and pulled into the
public library parking lot, up to the dropoff box, where he dropped
an empty book-sized tissue box in, and pulled back out onto West
Terry. The SUV was nowhere to be seen.

Slightly relieved, but still cautious, Jake took a right onto West
Terry, not noticing a dark SUV idling on the corner of Lavinka and
West Terry that turned on its single headlight, then the other one,
and pulled out from Lavinka, keeping a healthy distance between
itself and Jake's car.

When Jake got to US41, instead of a left, he took a right and headed
north. The double-headlit SUV followed discreetly, blending in with
the light traffic.

When Jake reached the intersection with Old 41, he turned left and
pulled into the shopping center, swinging into the lot for the
Scottish Pub, parked for a moment, carefully checking everything
around him, and then pulled back out, finally turning south on US41,
not seeing the SUV following him, a quarter mile behind. The driver
of the SUV chuckled. “You may be good, but I'm better.”

When he reached Bonita Beach Road, he turned right, did an SDR
through Bonita Shores, then headed home, with one final precaution:
he drove past his house, then turned into the parking lot of Big
Mike's Seafood Grill, across from Access 10, where he turned off his
lights, pulled back out to where he could see the northbound traffic
on Hickory Boulevard and watched for ten minutes.

Several cars and trucks passed, but none aroused Jake's suspicions,
so he turned on his lights and headed south, turning his lights off a
hundred yards north of where he pulled quickly into his driveway and
into his garage, closing the door as soon as he cleared it. Only
once the door was completely closed and light-proofed did he turn on
the inside light.

He failed to notice a dark SUV with two working headlights that
passed his house heading slowly northbound. The driver looked left
at Jake's house, but continued north, smiling.

Inside, Jake reached the first floor and headed to his study, where
he booted up his PC and settled in with his cheeseburger, fries and a
can of soda from his refrigerator. He checked his email and found
several messages, but one caught his attention.

“Well, well, well,” Jake said after a cursory read, “my
first death threat.” He created a folder named “Death
Threats,” and moved that message into it, smiling to himself.

He replied to five messages needing answers, then closed down the PC,
finished off his burger, fries and soda, put the PC power cord back
in the sideboard and headed up to bed, remembering at the last moment
to avoid the ninth step. Humming his new theme song, he showered and
climbed into bed, falling immediately into a deep and dream-filled
sleep.

-83-

Thursday, August 25, 2011

11:30 p.m.

Cyberspace

The Suppressor opened two emails, each sent the previous afternoon.

The first read: “Our final and best offer is 100K to keep
Rep.pdf out and another 100K to keep Dem.pdf in. Please advise as to
method of payment and date of publication.”

The other read: “Our final and best offer is 150K to keep
Dem.pdf and Dem2.pdf out and 125K to keep Rep.pdf in. We hope that
is sufficient to win the bidding. Let us know ASAP and we will make
the payments immediately.”

He smiled and wrote two replies, each accepting the offer and
providing a wire transfer account number, a different one for each,
as well as a request for email notice once the transfers had been
made.

Those email notices were received the following day, but the
Suppressor also received notices from one of his banks that $200K had
been received and from another that $275K had been deposited.

He moved those funds electronically through three other banks,
consolidating them into one account in Singapore, where an associate
converted them into bearer bonds. He then walked two blocks and
deposited the bonds, less his 10K commission, in yet another bank,
from which The Suppressor electronically moved them through five more
banks, after which they finally landed in an account in the Cayman
Islands, bringing the total in that account to a little over 58
million dollars. That whole process took three hours.

He waited five days and then sent two emails, each reading: “Funds
received; both files will be kept out. No refunds will be given for
the one you wanted kept in. Sue if you want, but both files will
then come out. Publication date is December 15, 2011. Thank you both
for playing. Sincerely, The – no, you don't need to know
that.”

To one of them, he added a postscript, “Tell James his
imitation of an intern sucked big time. ;-))”

He closed that email account and scrubbed all traces of it from his
PC and the anonymous mail servers he'd used. He then backed up his
work, turned off the PC, poured a huge glass of wine and settled back
into his recliner. Half an hour later, he drained and rinsed the
glass and headed up to bed.

A week later, anonymous donations of $155K each were received by
private micro-loan programs in Appalachia, New Mexico and India.

-84-

Friday, February 3, 2012

8:30 p.m.

The Oval Office

Washington, DC

via a 24-hour news channel

Gordon Donne faced the camera from behind his desk, this time in a
plain beige short-sleeved polo shirt, a somber look on his face.

“Ladies and gentlemen, my fellow citizens, good evening. I
have three announcements to make tonight.

“First, today's jobs report for January was encouraging, with a
net gain of 422,000 jobs, even with the offset of 146,000 job losses
in the federal government; that means the private sector added nearly
570,000 jobs in the month. Bravo! And the job losses in the federal
government will continue for several more months as we trim the
bloat. I would note here that only the very lowest-level workers
will be eligible for unemployment benefits.

“Second, as you may remember, in my first speech to you two
months ago, and in my first press conference, I told you that my
administration would be going after wrongdoers of both parties, as
well as lobbyists and other beneficiaries of the immoral, unethical
and corrupt actions of the politicians. Tonight I'm announcing a
part of that process, and seven directives that go into the details
will be posted on our web site by ten o'clock tonight. Here's the
gist.

“We know that most, if not all, of our representatives and
senators gorged themselves, their families and cronies at the public
trough, mainly through the so-called 'earmarks' that they sneaked
into must-pass bills, and the so-called Senate Ethics Committee ruled
that if an earmark benefited just one other person, it passed muster;
a similar ruling came out of the House Ethics Committee. That sort
of self-exoneration is and was appalling, but now it will no longer
suffice to cover up and justify the out-and-out theft of taxpayer
monies.

“So we will be going back and not only clawing back the
proceeds of those actions, but also levying fines on each and every
single participant in them. That includes, but is not limited to,
representatives and senators, staff members, campaign donors and
bundlers, lobbyists, spin doctors, family members, cronies and anyone
else who benefited or who traded their vote in some back-door deal.

“In order to facilitate that process, I've eliminated all
statutes of limitation on that kind of corruption, part, but only in
part, using the RICO statutes; we will go back as far as we can or
have to. The Congressional Record and other sources have given us
all the info we've needed to ferret out and document all the
instances that are relevant, going back several decades.

“We have now compiled a fairly exhaustive list of people who
fall into that category, but we will not be releasing it either to
the public or to people who are on it. We're going to see if people
on the list have enough of a conscience to realize that their
behavior was corrupt and will do the right thing by coming forward
now.

“Those individuals have sixty days from today to 'fess up and
tell our staff what they did and how much they and their associates
profited from what they did. Those who do come forward within that
time will have to repay the Treasury the amount of corrupt proceeds
they received, either directly or indirectly. That also includes any
increases in the value of property they owned that rose in value due
to that kind of corruption.