Abuse of Power

41

In the months that followed, the world did not miraculously change.

The good guys had won, but that didn’t necessarily mean the bad guys would be punished. Not in the way that Jack would have liked, with handcuffs and trials and lifetime-without-parole.

Instead, the rich and powerful managed to prevail, as they often do.

Despite Jack’s statements to the FBI and Homeland Security and the twenty other law enforcement agencies that seemed to be involved in the investigation, there was no hard proof to put Lawrence Soren and his cronies behind bars. And no real proof that MI6 or the British Home Office had ever been involved.

The island in the bay had been scrubbed, sanitized. The boats the men had used were MIA. Abdal al-Fida was a suicide, Bob Copeland was listed as an “accidental death,” and Jamal Thomas was an OD. There were no e-mails, no enhanced photos, there was nothing even remotely incriminating on the computers of Dave Karras or Faisal al-Jubeir. Someone had gotten to the machines and washed them, too. Bribes had been paid to the right officials.

There was only the word of Jack and Sara.

And that, unfortunately, was not enough.

The only good news was that the San Francisco District Attorney dropped the charges against the Constitutional Defense Brigade, citing “lack of evidence.” In time-enough time for the FBI to save face-the car bomb was added to the charges against the small band of Muslim extremists, led by Hassan Haddad, who had tried and failed to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge.

There was no mention of the tanker and the hydrazine-based rocket fuel that would have been used as an accelerant. Jack hadn’t told Forsyth the worst of it. The destruction of the bridge was a visual symbol to show the world, to encourage other terrorists to strike. On the ground, though-that was where the real disaster would have occurred. He and Tony had done some rough calculations: given the speed and direction of the wind, the heat from that fire would have risen high enough to blanket all of the San Francisco and Oakland regions with lethal levels of radiation from the exploded nuke. There would have been thousands of deaths within days, tens of thousands within weeks, over a million within a month-many of those among people who would have been needed to keep the infrastructure from collapsing. Doctors, police, workers at power plants and sewage centers. The environment would have become so toxic that rescue workers couldn’t have gotten into the area, and poisoned food and water would have added exponentially to the death toll. Airdrops of fresh supplies would have led to riots, more death. Silicon Valley would have been ravaged, all but destroying the U.S. computer industry.

Fortunately, Tony, Doc, and the other members of the team survived their wounds. After calling Jack, Doc had phoned in a 911 then gone back to the bunker to minister to the others. He stopped the bleeding as best he could and propped them in such a way as to limit the flow of blood toward the wounds. Given everything else that was going on it was morning before help arrived; Doc had gone back out the tunnel to wait for them.

They were all tough old birds, and Jack had figured it would take more than a firefight with a gang of fanatic Muslim murderers to put them down.

Maxine went back to doing what she did best, and found herself inundated with work when her own role in the counterespionage activities hit the press-courtesy of Jack, who tipped off a few colleagues. Max and Karras even managed to maintain something that resembled a relationship.

At least there was also some justice in the world.

Two months after the attempt, Senator Harold Wickham was caught in a compromising situation with one of his office staff members and was forced to resign his seat. He insisted that he had been set up, that he didn’t even know any hookers from Bulgaria, but video doesn’t lie.

Especially when the person at the other end of the fiberoptic cable is Maxine Cole.

Several of the other men in that bed-and-breakfast dining room also left their jobs, suddenly and surprisingly, citing the need to spend time with their families.

Lawrence Soren himself was caught in a financial scandal that threatened to destroy a good portion of his media empire, when some enterprising reporters at GNT rival Flux News found out about the profit he’d earned from his hedge fund that had made millions shorting Tokyo Electric the same day as the massive earthquake and tsunami hit Fukushima. Even the most rapacious investors don’t want so-called BBFs-Body Bag Funds-as a line item in their annual reports. Still, Jack did not doubt that Soren and the others would be back. These were not the type of men who give up easily.

The press called Jack and Sara heroes, and while he found the hypocrisy mildly offensive-these were some of the same reporters who had called him a traitor to American ideals-Jack was gratified to find himself fielding phone calls regarding job offers from all the major networks, including his old friends at GNT.

He let most of those calls pile up on voice mail.

As he and Sara recovered emotionally as well as physically, they spent many of their days at sea, lounging on the Sea Wrighter, letting the sun and the salty ocean air work their natural healing effects. Their nights were spent in the harbor, drinking wine with Tony, with Eddie curled up at their feet.

Despite his disappointments, despite the lumps he took to get here, Jack couldn’t imagine a better life.

He was in the city he cherished, close to people he cared for and who cared for him, with all the material things he needed-and what, after all, could matter more than that?

Well, there was one thing. And he vowed to do something about that.

Six months after the showdown on the bridge, on a cold Friday night in London, the body of Adam Swain was found by a girlfriend in his apartment near Westminster. He had been strapped to a chair by an unknown assailant, his body covered with burns that were determined to have been made by the application of an electric baton.

For several hours, according to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

Coincidentally, on that same night, the imam of a local mosque, Faakhir Zuabi, was found dead in his office, a. 22 caliber bullet hole in his forehead.

Neither of the murders was ever solved.

The following day, two men boarded a plane at Heathrow and flew into Ben Gurion International with a group of their fellow Chabad-Lubavitcher Chasids.

Their names were Rabbi Mel Neershum and Jacob Samuel Heshowitz.

They spent the next few days visiting with the Reb’s cousin Ohad before returning to San Francisco. But before they left, Jack and Sara and Reb, each at the same time, went to his own church or mosque or temple and prayed.

All of them prayed to God.

To the same God.