Justifiable Homicide: A Political Thriller (Robert Paige Thrillers Book 1) Read online

  They hung up. Heverly had calmed down somewhat. He still wanted to strangle Paige but Wellington wouldn’t permit it.

  29

  NSA Headquarters

  Heverly arrived at NSA headquarters, opened his office door, turned on the light and walked immediately to Ed Morris’s office. He saw Ed fumbling with his keys in front of his door while trying not to drop the cane he had to use ever since Paige dislocated his knee in the university parking lot. Ed saw him approaching out of the corner of his eye.

  “Hi George. What’s up?”

  “We need to talk about something. Got a minute?”

  “Sure. Come on in.” He opened the door and limped toward his desk. Heverly walked in and closed the door. Morris winced in pain as he attempted to sit down. He was a big guy. Placing his considerable weight on the leg with the injured knee was painful.

  “How’s the knee?”

  “The doctor said I’ll probably need surgery at some point. He reset it, but he said the meniscus is messed up. It’s never going to get back to normal.”

  “Sorry to hear about that.”

  “I should have just shot that bastard Paige as soon as we got out of the van.”

  Heverly tossed the envelope onto his desk. “Yeah, probably, but now we’ve got another problem.”

  Ed looked at the envelope, then at Heverly.

  “Professor Paige, or one of his buddies, dropped by the house last night and left that on the windshield of my van.”

  “How did he find out who you are or where you live?”

  “I don’t know. He must have found a way to trace my plates.”

  “Yeah, probably.” Morris looked at the photos and read Paige’s note.

  “That fucker! We should have killed him.”

  “Yeah, but it’s too late for that now.”

  “Maybe not.” Morris had a frustrated look on his face as he tapped his empty coffee cup with a pen and bit his lower lip. “I’m not ready to give up yet.”

  “I called Wellington this morning and told him about it.”

  “Yeah? What was his reaction?”

  “He sounded pissed. He wants to see us this afternoon.”

  “That’s great. Like I have nothing better to do than drop what I am doing and drive downtown at rush hour for a chat.”

  “Yeah, I know. I feel the same way.”

  “OK. Let’s plan on leaving around 4.”

  “Maybe 3:45 would be better. He said he wants to see us before 4:30. We might run into traffic.”

  “OK. Fine. We’ll leave at 3:45.”

  30

  An hour after Heverly opened the envelope, Paige arrived at his attorney’s office with the other envelopes. Paige pulled into the office building’s parking lot, got out, and looked around to see if anyone had followed him. He felt a little paranoid, and for good reason. He didn’t know what Heverly’s reaction would be after his midnight visit, but he had likely opened the envelope by now, and was probably figuring out what to do about it.

  He pushed the elevator button to the second floor. It was shortly after nine. He took a left and walked to the office at the end of the hall. The office lights shone through the opaque glass. Someone had to be there. He tested the door knob. It was unlocked. He walked in and looked around. The secretary wasn’t at her desk.

  “Anybody home?”

  Patrick Hamilton walked into the entryway, some files in his hand, his top shirt button unfastened. Patrick Hamilton was a good looking guy, in his early forties, an immigrant from Chicago who decided to escape the cold weather after graduating from the John Marshall Law School. He specialized in business law but practiced in a few other areas, too, depending on client needs.

  “Hi, Bob. To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”

  “Always the bullshit artist, huh, Pat?”

  They both laughed and shook hands. Paige didn’t need the services of an attorney very often. Their relationship consisted mostly of Paige giving Hamilton an occasional referral for legal and tax business that he no longer wanted to take.

  “Come on in.” He motioned toward his office. “What can I do for you? May I offer you some coffee?”

  “No, I’m good.” Paige took out all but one of the envelopes and placed them on Hamilton’s desk. “I’d like you to mail these for me in the event of my untimely death.”

  Hamilton’s jaw dropped. “What? You’re kidding, right?” He looked Paige in the eyes, his mouth wide open. “Has someone threatened you?”

  “You might say that.” Paige gave him the short version of the story.

  Hamilton picked up the envelopes and glanced at the names and addresses. “These are all media people. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “I left out a few details. The less you know, the better. I’m sure you can appreciate that as an attorney.”

  “Yes, it’s probably better you don’t tell me any more. But you’re still my client. The attorney-client privilege applies.”

  “Yeah, I know, but sometimes it’s better that certain things are left unsaid.”

  Hamilton nodded. “Should I bill you now, or should I wait until after I mail them?”

  They both grinned. “If you bill me now, I can squawk about the exorbitant fee you’re probably going to charge me. If you wait, I won’t be able to protest.”

  “You’re right. I’ll wait.”

  They both laughed and engaged in some pleasant chit-chat to lighten the mood. After a few minutes, Paige left.

  He got into his car and looked around to see if anyone was watching. He didn’t notice anyone.

  As he pulled out of the parking lot, he rolled down the window, took a whiff of the exhaust fumes on 163rd Street, and rolled it back up. Traffic was starting to pick up, and it was noisy. He wanted to drive without any noise or chemical pollution. He had things to think about.

  Next stop - the bank. He always mentally cringed when he went to the Bank of America. Sometimes he got great service and other times it was appalling. He remembered one time when he had to get something notarized. The notary sat across from him in the office while the phone rang off the hook. She ignored it. After about 10 rings, he asked, “Aren’t you going to answer it?” Her reply was, “No, we’ve decided we’re not going to answer the phones today. We’re short staffed.”

  He arrived a few minutes later. He walked in, started to sign in and, before he could finish, heard a young, female voice over his shoulder. “May I help you?” He turned around to see a 20-something blonde woman with a Russian accent.

  “Yes, I’d like to put something in my safe deposit box.”

  “Have a seat. I’ll get the key.” As she walked away, he noticed a pleasant fragrance emanating from her direction. The scent intensified as she took him into the enclosed safe deposit box area. He went into the private room the bank provided, put the last envelope in the box and left. As he placed it in the box, he wrote “To be opened in the event of my death” on the front.

  In the early afternoon he went to the gym to work the weight machines and practice his second-degree black belt form. As he finished, he decided to pay Wellington a visit. Part of him wanted to confront Wellington, but he decided against it. He was a dangerous man. It would be best not to tip his hand or let Wellington know he knew he had lied about the parking lot incident.

  31

  Saul Steinman taught political science at Florida International University. He had achieved a small amount of fame in Miami because of his outspoken views on economic and political issues. The fact that he knew almost nothing about economics didn’t stop the local television and newspaper reporters from asking his opinion on a wide range of issues. One of the main reasons they contacted him was because he always made himself available for interviews, and he was articulate. He took the World’s Smallest Political Quiz on the Internet and found, to no one’s surprise, that he placed solidly in the left liberal quadrant. He generally supported freedom of choice in personal matters but wanted government
to regulate the socks off of business, both large and small. He liked the idea of confiscating the wealth of those who had earned it and giving it to those who had not.

  He was a Jew, of sorts, but he was also an atheist. That’s the thing about being a Jew. You could also be an atheist, if you liked. Catholics didn’t have that option. Catholics could only be Catholics, but Jews could also be atheists, as long as their mother was a Jew. He usually kept kosher because of pressure from his wife, but developed a liking for bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches while serving in the army. He hadn’t gone to temple more than a dozen times since his bar mitzvah.

  He was a strong supporter of Israel and didn’t have anything nice to say about Muslims, as a group, although he did have a sexual relationship with a Muslim girl for a few weeks while a graduate student in London. That experience wasn’t enough to get him to change his mind about Muslims, although it did make him more sensitive to some of the human rights abuses the Israelis had perpetrated on the Palestinians. His Palestinian sleeping companion moved to London because the Israelis had confiscated her parents’ home in Jerusalem. She had an uncle in London who took in her family until her father could find a job.

  ***

  “Saul,” the dean said as she walked into his office. “I got another complaint about you. It’s about that interview you gave to Channel 7 yesterday.”

  Steinman stopped typing. As usual, Dean Joy Maximilien-Thomas didn’t exude much joy. Her frown, however, had worn lines between and outward from her eyes. The sound of her voice grated on his ears. Her one redeeming feature was that she smelled nice. She wore far too much perfume, and left a trail behind her that lingered for hours, much like a skunk on a country road.

  “What did they say?”

  “I just got a call from some guy who wouldn’t identify himself. He sounded like a redneck. He said that if you like Mexicans so much, perhaps you should move to Mexico. He doesn’t want them in this country, and he definitely doesn’t want to pay for their health care or the education of their children.”

  “Humph. Sounds like a Christian, probably a Baptist—always compassionate for the poor and downtrodden.”

  “Saul, it’s the fourth complaint I’ve had about you in the last month. I realize you have a right to express your opinions, but you should try to …”

  “Be more diplomatic?”

  “Yes, exactly. It’s annoying getting these complaints. I have better things to do than come in here and have these discussions with you.”

  “Then don’t have these discussions. You said it. I have a right to express my opinions, and I will continue to do it. Get used to it.”

  The nice thing about being a tenured professor was that you could tell the dean to go to hell and there wasn’t much they could do about it. Unless you were caught screwing a student during class, you had a guaranteed job for life, and even then you might not get fired. A male professor who nailed a male student might merely be placed on probation and given a slap on the wrist. The administration would try to ignore it if a female professor was having an affair with a female student, even though doing so might expose the university to a sexual harassment lawsuit. It’s not politically correct to challenge homosexual relationships.

  The dean walked out in a huff. Steinman checked out her fat ass as she left.

  32

  Tomás Gutierrez was about 5’ 10” tall. He had black hair and black eyes, and light brown skin. He served in the U.S. army in Afghanistan and Iraq. His parents, who fled Cuba shortly after Castro took over, were very proud of him. They didn’t know what he did when he was in the army. They assumed he just worked with computers. They didn’t know that one of the things he did while in Iraq was destroy evidence of a drone attack that killed 43 people who were attending a wedding party, including the video the drone recorded of the attack. Now he worked as a systems analyst at Carnival Cruise Lines.

  His employee badge gave him practically unlimited access to the Ports of Miami and Fort Lauderdale. His skill as a systems analyst and his familiarity with the ports allowed him to gain access to a vast quantity of confidential data, which included passenger lists and ship movements. John Wellington had recruited him to work as a freelance asset for the CIA because of his position, access, and computer skills. At times he had been able to assist the FBI and CIA in drug busts that took place at one of the ports, without his employer’s knowledge.

  His ongoing assignment, when he could find time for it, was to plant viruses on the web sites of groups that criticized U.S. foreign or domestic policy. Since there were so many web sites to choose from, Wellington told him to focus his attention on the groups and web sites that gave the most aid and comfort to the enemy.

  He usually had the authority to choose his own web sites, although Wellington occasionally made special requests. He also had a list of web sites and groups he was not allowed to infect. He gave Wellington a monthly report listing the sites he had infected. Occasionally he found one that he wasn’t able to infiltrate. When that happened, he reported it to Wellington, who passed along the information to someone at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, where he had taken an intensive, one-on-one specialized course that gave him the skills he now had.

  Usually he didn’t infect YouTube sites while at work because most of them had audio, which would draw attention to what he was doing. He did it at home when his wife, Teresa, and his son, Julio, weren’t around. That limited the amount of time he could devote to this ongoing project.

  Last weekend he found a few YouTube videos that recorded TSA airport frisks of small children and a woman who’d had a double mastectomy. The quality of the videos wasn’t good because they’d been recorded on cell phones, but they were good enough to enrage anyone who viewed them. He was able to infect all of them.

  Viewers with good antivirus software wouldn’t catch the virus. They’d merely be blocked out, but that was the purpose of infecting the videos, to prevent people from viewing them. And the people who did not have good antivirus software? Well, that would give them a wake-up call to get some.

  “Tomás, are you looking at YouTube videos again? You know that Hank doesn’t like us surfing the Net at work.”

  Jennifer Dawes, one of his coworkers, caught him in the act, although she didn’t know that he was actually surfing to find his next target. Hank was their boss.

  “I was just bored and had to take a break from debugging this new software Hank bought.” He got up from his desk to refill his cup of coffee. He put a packet of hazelnut powder in the cup to enhance its taste and smell.

  She smiled and looked him in the eyes as he returned to his desk. “Well, I suppose I won’t report you this time.”

  She also surfed the Net at times. They used to joke about some of the things they found in cyberspace. He liked it when she stopped by to chat. She had a nice set of lips and teeth. She had good definition on her calves, too, which she got from playing tennis two or three times a week.

  The time Tomás spent in Afghanistan and Iraq inspired his intense dislike for Arabs and Muslims. He took out his pent-up frustration by infecting web sites that had anything nice to say about Islam, although that wasn’t part of his assignment. He didn’t tell Wellington about it and didn’t include those web sites in his monthly report, because he surmised Wellington probably wouldn’t approve. He also suspected that some of those web sites were sponsored by the CIA and were being used to entrap potential enemies of America. After Jennifer returned to her desk he booted up another YouTube video.

  33

  Paige had started his workout with some warm-up exercises, then did circuit training, with extra work on his shoulders. His physical therapist had suggested extra shoulder work to strengthen his right rotator cuff, which he’d injured in a karate tournament a few years ago. He finished off by practicing the second degree black belt form, which consisted of more than eighty movements. He went through it twice, to build muscle memory, then hit the showers.

  He was
hungry and dehydrated after the workout, so he walked to the Starbucks on Collins Avenue and ordered a tuna croissant. He took it to an outside table, sat down, reached into his gym bag and pulled out a chocolate high-protein drink. It was tasty, even though it wasn’t chilled.

  The hedges between the tables and the street cut down on the traffic noise. The pollution from the exhaust fumes wasn’t too bad at that time of day, mid-afternoon. It would get worse in about an hour.

  After he finished, he took a look at his watch. 3:45. It would take 45-60 minutes to drive from Sunny Isles Beach to downtown Miami, so if he wanted to see Wellington before he left for the day, he had better get started. He still hadn’t figured out how he would open the conversation, or what he would say, but he felt confident that the words would come after he showed up unexpectedly at Wellington’s office and looked him in the eyes.

  34

  George Heverly stepped into Ed Morris’s office. “Ready to go?”

  “Yeah, let’s go.” Morris reached over to the right, picked up his cane, winced in pain as he got out of his chair, and started moving toward the door.

  “You know, I’ve gained four pounds since I started using this cane?”

  “Really? Why’s that?”

  “I’ve been eating more and exercising less. I’ve been sitting instead of walking. I’m not burning off the calories.”

  Heverly didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. Their walk down the hall to the parking garage was slow and silent. Morris had to hobble, and Heverly had to walk slowly to prevent getting ahead of him. As they walked into the garage, Morris pulled out his keys. “Let’s take my car. That way I won’t have to try to climb up into your van.”

  They both became immersed in their own thoughts on the drive to Wellington’s office, with only occasional breaks in the silence. They pulled into the parking garage down the street from Wellington’s office at 4:17. Heverly found a space, parked, and took out his cell phone to call Wellington.