The Good Guy with a Gun (Jim McGill series Book 6) Page 18

  He honestly didn’t think he had anything to worry about. Not from the FBI or any other law enforcement agency. But who was this sister, Hasna Kalil? Jihadis were hardly advocates of women’s rights, but they weren’t above using females to commit acts of violence, even to the point of letting their veiled ladies blow themselves up for the cause.

  Was it possible Hasna would try to kill him, if she decided he’d killed her brother?

  Brock decided it would be foolish to think otherwise.

  He revised his threat assessment on the homefront upward.

  From there, he took the jump to another possible worry overseas.

  Tyler Busby was still on the run, no doubt in great style, but hiding out was not really the man’s style. He loved the limelight. If Busby were to decide his role as a fugitive was getting old, he might see what consideration he could get for himself, in the way of reduced punishment, by giving the feds a treacherous member of Congress. Him.

  Oh, well. He’d known all along he was playing a dangerous game.

  He’d just have to speed things up. Stay a hop, skip and a jump ahead of the hangman.

  He picked up his phone and made a call, not caring that he’d wake up the other party.

  In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a groggy speaker of the state House of Representatives answered, after looking at his caller ID. “You couldn’t have called earlier?”

  “Sorry. Travel problems,” Brock said.

  “Well, you’ll be happy. We’ve got the votes. The roll call’s … I was going to say tomorrow. But it’s really later this morning.”

  “Sonofabitch,” Brock said, “We’re going to do it.”

  “If we get Ohio, we will.”

  “We’ll get Ohio.”

  “Then, Congressman, the United States will have its second Constitutional Convention.”

  It couldn’t come fast enough to suit Philip Brock.

  Chapter 13

  White House Gymnasium — Monday, March 10, 2014

  McGill lived up to his promise to the president, almost. He woke up early, five-thirty, and hit the treadmill running. He was still a little leg-weary from his run yesterday and that annoyed him. No one who had led an athletic life ever liked to admit that his strength, endurance or flexibility was slipping. He’d never been an elite athlete in most regards, but he’d been a damn good recreational jock.

  The one physical gift he had that could go up against the very best anywhere was quickness. He’d always had an abundance of fast-twitch muscles, a simple genetic legacy. If he needed a burst of speed, he had a first step few could match. That was important if you wanted to get off a clean basketball shot or slip a punch. Throw a punch, too.

  Any muscle, though, depended on having great tone for peak performance.

  McGill felt maybe he’d been taking things for granted lately, had gotten just a bit lazy. That was exactly the wrong approach to take as time continued to pass at its relentless pace and gray hair was lurking around the next corner. He didn’t care that much about cosmetic changes; it was maintaining the ability to function at a high level that mattered to him.

  A mile into his run on the treadmill, he warmed up. He felt a spring return to his stride. His hips, knees and ankles swung through their ranges of motion without complaint. His heart and lungs expanded and contracted in rhythm. Sweat flowed steadily and breathing came easily. He stepped up the pace and did two more miles, the latter of which was completed with someone watching him.

  A glance at the mirror in front of the treadmill showed Elspeth Kendry, the Secret Service special agent in charge of the presidential security detail had stopped by. She looked at him run without giving any sign she had come to speak with him. That was reassuring. If she’d had any dire news concerning the president, she’d have been at his side in a heartbeat, telling him to cut his workout short.

  McGill finished his run, toweled off and took a measured gulp from his Poland Spring bottle. He gestured to Elspeth to join him. She stepped his way but stopped outside his sweat radius, as measured by the puddle forming around his feet.

  “Something we need to talk about, Elspeth?”

  “Today is one of Special Agent Ky’s rare days off. If you don’t mind, I’ll be replacing him.”

  McGill had had his ups and downs with Elspeth. That was pretty much a given for him. The Secret Service, as an institution, was still adjusting to not having a polite, compliant First Lady to usher around. He knew he was a pain in the ass to them in many ways, but their job wasn’t an easy one in any case. The bullet-catchers would have to evolve. He wouldn’t be the last man to be married to a female president — and the way society was changing it was conceivable a man might one day be the spouse of a male president.

  That might be a ways off, but once something could be imagined …

  “Fine with me, Elspeth.” Despite their occasional contretemps, she was far more congenial company than Celsus Crogher had ever been. Before the guy had retired. As a civilian, Celsus was starting to show signs of becoming human. “You haven’t been up all night, have you?”

  The time now was only six o’clock.

  “No, sir. I was given a heads-up that you’d awoken early.”

  “Sorry about that. Have you had breakfast?”

  “No.”

  “That’ll be on me then. We’ll eat in the Mess.” McGill had a thought. Elspeth’s presence, dressed in a dark suit cut for a woman and sensible rubber-soled shoes, presented him with an opportunity to keep his reflexes sharp. “Would mind doing a little light sparring with me, Elspeth?”

  He’d seen real-world examples of just how quick she was.

  Elspeth nodded. “As long as it’s not full speed. The president might chastise me if I broke your nose.”

  McGill grinned. “I’ll write you a note if that happens, but I’ll do my best to avoid it.”

  Elspeth hung her coat on a wall-hook that held a twenty-five pound resistance band. She stood, hands at her sides, facing McGill and asked, “How do you want to do this?”

  “Not like we’re boxing. More like street fighting. I’ll stand like this, with my palms out, as if I’m trying to appease you. ‘Hey, lady, I don’t want any trouble.’ You try to land a punch to my head, almost. You want to measure your reach, so you don’t get in trouble with the boss?”

  “No, I’m good. I know where to stop a punch.”

  “Okay, then. Use both hands and start whenev —”

  Elspeth threw a straight left, trying to catch McGill by surprise.

  He swung his right arm in an arc, the back of his wrist pushing her arm aside.

  Elspeth fired a right. McGill’s right hand reversed the arc, diverting the punch with his palm. Elspeth, emotion showing in her eyes now at the ease with which McGill had parried her blows, threw two lefts in succession and followed those with a kick from her right foot. They hadn’t discussed kicking, but McGill had said it was a street fight.

  He blocked the first of the successive lefts as he had before, with the back of his wrist. He stepped forward inside the second left, letting it go by. Elspeth felt the fingers of McGill’s right hand slide across her cheek, soft as a lover’s caress. Only his thumb was coming straight for her eye. Elspeth felt it touch her eyelashes as she reflexively closed her eyes. By instinct — she’d done her own share of street fighting — she tried to kick McGill with her right foot.

  The attempt was blocked inches from the ground by McGill’s left foot hitting her shin. He wore sneakers, and Elspeth could tell he hadn’t put much force into the counter-kick. So she was able to step back, get her hands up in front of her face and open her eyes.

  She saw McGill had also retreated slightly, but the SOB was smiling.

  “That was great,” he said. “I don’t suppose you have a metal baton we could work with.”

  Elspeth did, in fact, have one in her suit coat.

  But she said, “I don’t want to hurt you any worse than I already have.”

  That being the
case, McGill said he’d shower and meet her for breakfast in twenty minutes.

  The Winstead School — Washington, DC

  Patricia Grant stepped onstage in the school auditorium in front of an audience of high school students and adults, each of whom was clean, well-dressed and a display of raw grief. Galia watched from the wings. The headmaster, Geoffrey Cooper, had given an introduction that was as simple as it got, “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Patricia Grant, the president of the United States.” The assembly got to its feet and offered a round of applause.

  The president saw more than a few familiar faces, including Kira Fahey Yates and her uncle, Mather Wyman, the former vice president of the United States. It wasn’t a morning for a prolonged ovation. The president quickly said thank you and asked everyone to be seated.

  “I came here today to tell all of you how sorry I am that you’ve lost so many friends, classmates, teachers and colleagues who meant so much to everyone here. I’m sorry for the loss of Coaches Russell, Eccles and Knox. I’m sorry for the loss of Jarius Niles, Ricky Mitchell, Paul Dirksen, Christopher Malloy, Gianni Tomaselli, Melvin Kendricks and Evan Wellstone.

  “I pray the Lord has greeted them all as the heroes they are. I pray that all the young men who have been wounded in body and in soul recover fully and speedily. I pray that no one here ever again experiences such a terrible day.

  “If that is to happen, if we are to put an end to such murderous rampages, then I have to do a better job for you. I’ve taken the oath of office to be your president two times. I’ve sworn to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. That’s not good enough. Concepts of government are important, but the day-to-day reality of how we govern ourselves matters more. Reality trumps theory.

  “Any government that allow schoolchildren to be murdered even once has to be thought of as flawed, but a government that repeatedly lets its children, and other innocents, be killed has to be considered a failure. As the head of such a government, responsibility for that failure begins, but doesn’t end, with me.

  “It’s often been said, that the presidency is an impossible job to do at all, much less to do well. There are simply too many tasks to perform and too many competing interests to reach a consensus for the common good. Nonetheless, we share a widely accepted bit of wisdom that tells us your right to swing your fist ends short of where my nose begins.

  “Both this aphorism and the law tell us that there is no right to assault another person. There is no right in civil society to be an aggressor. The only context in which aggression is justifiable is warfare, as was the case when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and Germany declared war on the United States. We were morally correct in taking the fight to them, not simply sitting back and arraying ourselves in a defensive posture.

  “But civil society is not — or shouldn’t be — a state of war. We must not allow our streets and parks, our classrooms and our shopping centers to become war zones. But that’s just what is happening because the companies who manufacture firearms in our country and the companies who import firearms into our country, have decided to sell military-style weapons to civilians, to the American public.

  “These companies made a judgment that there would be a market for such weapons and to our sorrow they were right. Included in that market was Abel Mays. Included in that market were the young men incapable of rational thought and unpossessed of a moral compass who have killed students in other schools, moviegoers in theaters and voters meeting with their elected representatives.

  “The weapons all these killers used were weapons of war. They brought the wars within their twisted minds and tortured hearts home to all of us, and the results are horrifying. Just as the right to swing a fist is limited, the right to possess weapons of war must be limited. It must belong solely to those we send to war to protect us against the aggression of others.

  “I’m sorry that I have failed you all so terribly. I promise I will do everything I can think of to end the kind of tragedy and sorrow you are enduring right now, but I have to tell you, I won’t be able to succeed alone. I’ll need help from each and every one of you.

  “Please add my name to the list of those for whom you pray.

  “Pray that together we’ll all succeed.”

  Every word the president addressed to the Winstead School community was heartfelt. So were the ones she delivered to a smaller gathering of twenty Winstead parents in Headmaster Cooper’s conference room. Only the tone was different. It was hard as granite and carried a weight measured in metric tons.

  Galia Mindel stood in front of the only door to the room. Her expression said nobody was getting by her to enter or exit. Not until the president had said her piece.

  The president began, “Almost forty percent of the firearms manufactured in this country fall under the ownership of one privately held investment banking firm: Liberty, Unlimited. Their arms companies make hunting rifles, shotguns and semi-automatic military-style assault rifles. They are also moving into the handgun market.

  “Their business model, like so many others, calls for them to sell ever increasing numbers of their products. Only their products, with increasing frequency, wind up killing innocent people doing nothing more than going about their daily lives. The gun lobby’s answer to mass murders is to put even more guns into circulation, never mentioning that would only fatten their clients’ profits and cause more deaths.

  “If I were able, I would nationalize every gun manufacturer in the nation. Only President Kennedy tried that with the steel companies and the Supreme Court told him he lacked that authority. There is, however, no obstacle to the people in this room pooling their resources and joining with like-minded friends and business partners to either buy out Liberty, Unlimited or do your best to drive them out of business.”

  Contrary to Auric Ludwig’s fondest wish, not all of the dead football players were scholarship students. Five of them came from some of the richest families in the country. Their suffering was equal to any parent’s, but their means to do something about it was far greater.

  The president continued, “From the latest financial filings I’ve seen, Liberty, Unlimited is a half-billion dollars in debt and reported a net loss of six million dollars for 2013. It seems to me with the right combination of carrots and sticks a sale of the company to new ownership should be possible.”

  One of the fathers in the room raised a hand.

  “Yes?”

  “A sale of the company to what end, Madam President?”

  “The newly owned and, I presume, renamed company would stop selling military-style weapons to civilians.”

  Another man raised his hand, and the president nodded to him.

  “I know something about that company, ma’am. Assault weapons are their hottest sales models. How are we to approach investors to buy an indebted, money-losing company, if we tell them the company will no longer be able to sell its most popular product? Also …” The man had to take a deep breath; he’d lost his son. “The weapon that killed my son, Christopher, was made overseas and imported. How would the purchase of Liberty, Unlimited affect that for the better?”

  The president wanted to respond harshly, but she reminded herself of the pain the man had to be feeling. So she tempered her answer. While not avoiding its core truth.

  “What you have to do, sir, and it won’t be easy, is to let the people you approach see just how badly broken your heart is. Allow them to see that and tell them if nothing changes what happened to you can happen to them, too. If we don’t change things soon, there will be no safe public places left in this country. No one’s children will be safe.”

  More than a few of the mothers in the room began to cry.

  Under other circumstances, the president would have wept with them.

  She had more to say, though, and had to lead the others where she wanted them to go.

  “There’s another point you can make to investors. Once the new company initiates its no-assault
-weapons policy, I will rally the American people to join me into pushing Congress to buy weapons for our military only from companies that refuse to sell such weapons to civilians.”

  What the president didn’t say, to avoid any charge of insider trading, was that she intended to use her power as commander in chief to cancel any federal contracts with arms manufacturers that refused to go along with her program.

  If Congress wanted to fight her on that, she’d welcome it.

  “As regards the importation of military style weapons from foreign countries, I will ask my fellow heads of state to ban the export of such weapons to the United States. If they refuse to do so wholeheartedly and without delay, I will make plain to them their overall relationships with our country will suffer greatly, and again I will rally the American people to our cause.”

  The men in the room looked reassured the president had given them something to work with. The women looked absolutely determined to support her efforts. More than a few people among each gender clenched a fist in a show of solidarity.

  The president said, “If any of you should have a suggestion of how we can carry our mission forward, I will review it as soon as I possibly can.” As a final note, she added, “I am so, so sorry for all of you.”

  And then Patricia Grant allowed herself to cry.

  White House Mess

  The Navy culinary specialists at the Mess would have whipped up any breakfast McGill desired, but to maintain his persona as a man of the people he ordered off the menu: a fruit cup, hot cakes and coffee. Elspeth had the French Toast and orange juice. While their food choices were standard fare, the kitchen did open early for McGill. Breakfast service, for most people, began at nine a.m.

  They had the place to themselves.