No Corner to Hide (The Max Masterson Series Book 2) (14 page)

His crew would accompany him on his three-week trip by truck to assist with the installation, but for all they knew, they were installing expensive icemakers in rich people’s penthouse condos. They would be spared the true intent of his mission. It was an easy diversion; move the devices into place and send the crew to the nearest bar to wait while he armed the devices and programmed them for detonation by cell phone.

Once installed, Pryor could carry out his plan by speed dialing three preset numbers for each location. Each device had its own numbers, and Bob’s employer had memorized the codes. Once installed, he destroyed those codes, so that total control over detonation resided within the mind of Pryor.

The only exception was the device entrusted to Darkhorse, and he had installed and programmed that one minutes before their meeting. In three weeks, he would be paid enough money to live for a year. It was more money than he had ever seen at one time, and it was more than he could make in two tours of duty in the Middle East. He felt lucky to have been chosen for this special assignment.

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CHAPTER 37

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nce Bob and Darkhorse had been given their orders and had been dispatched to perform their tasks, Pryor reminisced about his singular victory over the Masterson family, and the many defeats that had forged his hatred for them and everything they held sacred. It was a coup of his design; after the House of Representatives had voted unanimously in favor of funding to harden the nation’s infrastructure against solar storms and man-made gamma radiation from EMP bombs, the Senate almost unanimously voted the measure down. It was unprecedented, and it was solely of his making. Pryor had secretly labored, through the use of threats and the calling in of favors, to convince and coerce the United States Senate that the bill was too expensive, and that the security of America was secure on his capable watch.

Max’s father, John Masterson, had attempted to appeal to the reason of his fellow senators during a speech before the Senate Standing Committee on National Security. “The Carrington event is the only example we have of the effects of gamma radiation on our ability to communicate. It had nothing to do with man or the ability of mankind to wreak havoc,” he said in his commanding voice. “It was a solar superstorm that happened in 1859, before electronics, before electricity. The only electrical disturbance it could have caused back in that time in our history was to the telegraph system that was still in its infancy. It shut down the telegraph everywhere and caused sparks to ignite paper that burned down more than a few telegraph houses. It essentially shut down modern communication,” he had explained. “Today I stand before you with a problem that is a billion times more dire than the solar storm that shut down the primitive communications of 1859. If we don’t harden our electronics against the very same gamma rays that the sun emits, all of our electronics are vulnerable to attack. Not from nature alone, but from a device that is man-made, the EMP bomb. The irony of this story is that the same event could shut down our communication infrastructure today, and we have done nothing to protect ourselves from that eventuality. Senators, the House has unanimously approved this bill to protect our communications infrastructure from solar storms and EMP attacks, and we must do this to protect our way of life.”

Senator Masterson’s reputation as the protector of American privacy and dignity would have no influence on his peers. The day before, the House of Representatives had unanimously passed a bill authorizing funding to harden the sensitive electronic infrastructure against an EMP attack, but the Senate voted the matter down in a nearly unamimous vote against. His message had fallen on deaf ears.

Pryor relished his victory over Senator Masterson more than any other accomplishment in his long career as Director of Homeland Security. Contrary to his official duties as protector of the nation’s security, he fought to preserve the one vulnerability that he could use to control the nation and nurture his megalomania.

The day following the Senate vote, the following article was posted in WorldNet Daily:
according to a retired senator who has raised alarms over

EMP, the U.S. Senate has dropped a House-approved plan that would prepare the United States to defend itself from an attack from any electromagnetic pulse source—whether it would be from a natural solar flare or the detonation of a space-located nuclear weapon by enemies intent on destroying America’s infrastructure.

A demonstration of Pryor’s power was his ability to take a unanimous vote of the U.S. House and turn it into a defeat in the Senate, and the next day, the bill to protect Americans was scarcely noticed by the press.

“The news is what we say it is. Keep them dumbed down, and pacified, and in the dark, that’s what I always say. You don’t have an opinion until I say you do. I don’t make sense because the world as I let you know it doesn’t make sense,” Pryor had pontificated. He had manipulated the world of politics for as long as he had directed Homeland Security, and he lacked remorse. Through fear and intimidation, he had created a dynasty of one. This time, he had the ability to carry out his grand plan. A decade after the defeat of the EMP bill, H.R. 5026, he had his plan in place.

CHAPTER 38

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he terrorist didn’t perceive himself to be anything more than a young man just trying to make a living. He was trained by his nameless superiors to follow orders without question and to execute those orders with exacting precision. He entered the

Statue of Liberty by the service door, dressed in the same coveralls as the rest of the restoration crew. The statue had been closed late in 2011 for restoration of its ever-corroding metal sheath and to install a second stairway for public access to the top. In recent years, the existing stairwell had become unstable, and public safety inspectors had mandated the closure until safer access could be made. The last thing they wanted was the death of visitors to America’s most visible symbol of freedom, a gift from the French to the United States in an era forgotten by time.

He passed the plaque on his way toward the stairs, and paused to read the inscription, resting the large backpack at his feet.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore; Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door! “I’m just doing my job,” he said aloud. He kept his voice low,

but there was no audience for his words. The building was officially closed to the public until repairs had been completed, and security provided by the National Park Service was reduced to a skeleton crew while workers completed their repairs inside. He was more than an hour and a half early, plenty of time to unpack his payload and slip out of the building in the gray morning, as if he had never been inside.

He made his way slowly up the stairs toward Lady Liberty’s arm and the torch, ever-mindful that it was too fragile to accommodate the constant wear and tear of public access. That route to the top had been closed to the public since 1916, and that insured he would have no visitors while he placed the small bomb at the peak. He was an expert locksmith, and any barriers between him and his goal were quickly dispensed with. All thoughts he had about his weight causing a catastrophic break in the famous statue were dispelled quickly, when he realized that the arm and torch had already been fully restored in recent years.

He was alone.

CHAPTER 39

M

ax held Rachel’s hand as they walked through the colorful field of wildflowers that graced the Fairlane estate. There was no lawn, replaced by his father years before his birth in a fit of practicality. Senator Masterson had

ordered the green expanse of nothingness plowed up and hauled off, and replaced by a hundred sacks worth of native wildflower seeds that gave birth to a garden that bloomed year-round. The senator had been practical that way.

The seeds had naturalized the landscape over the years, and the only landscaping was the addition of a flagstone walkway that wound through the grounds toward the Potomac and back, over small babbling brooks and through the forest that lined the river banks. It was an idyllic escape that Max and Rachel made a part of their daily routine whenever they were home, once in the early morning when the song of birds served as their alarm clock, and once before or after dinner, depending on when the golden glow of the setting sun was touching the tops of the trees.

“I don’t feel like the White House is home to me, Max said. “It’s more like a symbolic home built into a fortress. You can’t be alone there, free to walk around naked if you want to.” Rachel giggled. She and Max had spent many an evening lounging nude or walking around the spacious estate without a stitch of clothing, but those evenings had gone the way of their privacy.

“I remember that game of strip hide-and-seek we had that night when the moon was full.” She laughed as Max pulled her close, their bodies melting into one. He could feel her heart pounding in excitement, and she could feel his desire building. It happened every time he held her.

“So do I.” He recalled their passionate lovemaking under the stars. “You and I really left our inhibitions with our clothes that night.” He smiled, reminiscing of the days when nobody knew where they were or what they did, a carefree time.

Rachel was his, and he was her one and only. She had never told him that, but he had never asked. She knew the stories of his early years, throughout his twenties and early thirties. He had a reputation for being a suave and confident, dedicated to bedding beautiful women and getting constant exposure in the press. Max’s image got more exposure than his words. He was known for one sentence interviews, but that suited glamour reporters well.

The press had no interest in depth or insight. They wanted a cutline beneath an image and something to run for fifteen seconds by deadline, showing Max in the company of yet another “female companion.” If they dated more than once, the name of the woman would be found, and she would have her brief glimpse of fame as a possible romantic interest. Three dates would elevate her to relationship status, accompanied by an article detailing her background. If the young woman consented to an interview, Max invariably terminated their relationship. There were few who had lasted beyond the romantic interest stage.

When Rachel attracted Max’s attention, all of the carousing with social-climbers had ended abruptly, and the press immediately went into withdrawal. They attempted to dig into Rachel’s background,

MARK E. BECKER

but the information they found was sketchy. No previous romantic relationships beyond the puppy love stage during high school. No arrest record or any indication that she had any vices at all.

Her father had been a highly decorated pilot who served in the first Gulf war, and he had gone on to start his own helicopter manufacturing firm, designing high-tech helicopters for military and business applications. Rachel’s mother shared her striking dark hair and svelte figure, staying at home to rear Rachel and her younger brother, Tom, who had grown up to be a married CPA with a nice wife and three kids. It was all bland fare for the readers and viewers accustomed to the glamour and fabricated scandal of Max’s past, and it was deemed not newsworthy.

The fascinating information about Rachel had to do with her interests. She shared her father’s love for flying, and at 13 she had soloed her first single-engine plane. In the years between her first flight and her 26
^th
birthday, she became licensed to fly nearly everything from her dad’s helicopters to passenger jets. Flying was her passion, and she had accompanied Max on the campaign trail on most of his forays, acting as his pilot. That way, she could spend more time with him while remaining active doing the things that gave her the most satisfaction. While Max was off doing his own thing, she could usually be found at an airport.

Although the press could sometimes predict where she could be found, they were totally stymied in their ability to get a statement from her. Their frustration wore on for the first two years of the relationship between Rachel and Max, until the information became sensationalized gossip, rumor, and speculation.

Articles with the headlines Max Dating Mute Beauty and Masterson’s Female Companion; Talk Much? were featured in one week, to Max’s delight. He loved messing with the press. Rachel had the intuition and intelligence to know that any words that came out of her mouth would be sensationalized, chopped, and slanted to suit the particular audience that each segment of the press serviced, and she had steadfastly refused to fall into that slippery pit.

“The earth laughs in flowers,” said Rachel, quoting Emerson. She paused to pick an Indian Paintbrush from a naturalized bed of identical flowers that covered a small hill that faced the sun. Its orange, red, and burgundy colors were visual therapy that helped them slow down from their hectic lives, if only for the duration of their visits to this special place.

They kissed and held each other for a long time, turning their heads to the west to gaze at the setting sun. From the private vantage point where they lay, they were invisible to the world, but to each other, a sexual intensity grew. Max ran his fingers through Rachel’s long, brown hair. When he reached the back of her head, he pulled her even tighter, until they were fused in passion. They made love in the darkening shadows—the highlight of the day—and into the night.

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CHAPTER 40

Washington DC
I