Fast and Loose

5

Rawls stepped inside; he seemed a little out of breath.

“Sorry if I’m early,” he said. “I walked over here, and it took less time than I thought.”

“That’s fine, Ed. Come in. You know Dino.”

“Hi, Ed.”

“Evening.” He accepted a large Talisker from Stone. “Have you heard the news?”

“What news?”

“Of course you haven’t. What am I thinking?”

“Hard to tell, Ed. Spit it out.”

“Oh. You remember one Erik Macher?”

“I do.”

“I’ve had news that he has taken over Christian St. Clair’s holdings, personal and business — everything except what St. Clair left his wife.”

“How could he do that?”

“He met with the board and, with the support of the corporate counsel, Thomas Berenson, who drew the will and had it witnessed, he got himself appointed CEO, with power to replace board members at will, and he is heir to St. Clair’s personal property that wasn’t left to his wife, including the yacht.”

Stone poured drinks for himself and Dino while he thought about that, then he sat down. “I know a little about Tommy Berenson’s reputation, and it isn’t all good. If I were a board member, I’d put that will through the wringer.”

“And you’d be fired and replaced in the blink of an eye. Anyway, with Tommy Berenson backing him, he’s in an impossibly strong position.”

“Well,” Stone said, “I’m glad I don’t own stock in any of St. Clair’s ventures.”

“Not even the yacht?”

“Well, there is that,” Stone admitted.

“Anyway, none of St. Clair’s businesses are publicly owned. He started with a large fortune from his father and built his empire out of profits.”

“How do you know so much about St. Clair?”

“When I was in prison it was sort of my hobby to follow the careers and lives of a number of people,” Ed said. “St. Clair was one of them, and apart from the Internet, I had my own sources with good information to impart.”

“You must be the most successful prisoner in the history of the federal system,” Stone observed.

“Don’t you believe it. I was just looking for information, while others were establishing fortunes and others were conducting criminal enterprises.”

“Was prison security that loose, that these things could go on?”

“You have to remember that the Atlanta Federal Prison was closed, then later reopened in a small way, to contain special prisoners, and employing a very small staff. None of the inmates had histories of violence — they were mostly white-collar thieves and a few other, special cons, like me, who were put there to keep prisoners in other jails from killing them. A few people had cell phones and laptops, though they weren’t used openly, but communication with the outside was fairly easy.”

“I must remember, if I ever commit a crime, to get sent to Atlanta,” Stone said.

“I’ll note that preference in your file,” Dino said.

“Stone,” Rawls said, “you don’t seem to be getting what this means.”

Stone blinked. “Should I be?”

“You remember I told you that St. Clair had his own police force?”

“I do remember.”

“Well, Erik Macher was its chief, and he still is. Except now he has complete power. He doesn’t have to wait for St. Clair to tell him to remove somebody from living, he can just issue the order himself.”

“Now, why would he do that and jeopardize his newly found position?”

“Because he is a revenge freak, and he’s going to get drunk with power very quickly.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever encountered anybody quite like that,” Stone said. “How would you define a revenge freak?”

“Someone who, when slighted — however slightly — extracts a price from the slighter, usually one all out of proportion to the seriousness of the slight.”

“Even unto death?”

“Death was Macher’s work when he was at the CIA. I mean, he always had a title as a cover, and he did carry out covert operations for the Agency, but they usually revolved around the removal of one or more of the opposition. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Agency’s drone program, which has carried assassination to new and exotic heights.”

“Yes, I’ve seen the pictures of the firing of Hellfire missiles through windows, exploding entire houses.”

“Oh, now it’s much more refined than that,” Ed said. “Now some of them are equipped with silenced .50 caliber sniper rifles that can, remotely, put a round into the ear of an opponent and not make a sound heard on the ground. Heads just suddenly explode, alarming others nearby.”

“Please tell me that St. Clair did not have a fleet of those standing by.”

“Not a fleet, but Macher, through his connections with Agency suppliers, managed to corral a couple. But I digress, I don’t mean necessarily that Macher is going to hunt any of us down with drones.”

“I’m relieved to hear it, and I’m glad that I hardly ever came to Macher’s attention.”

“Don’t you believe it,” Rawls said.

“Huh?”

“St. Clair knew everything about you and me that could be known, and it was Macher who gathered the intelligence on us and anyone else St. Clair dealt with. He was an information freak. He had to know everything about everybody.”

“Then he would have known he was backing a political candidate, Nelson Knott, who had a proclivity for raping and sometimes impregnating women who worked for him.”

“Of course he did, and he took the greatest precautions to see that that news never came out. He took the view that if there was no evidence and no witnesses, it never happened.”

“But his precautions were not successful.”

“Right. You managed to hide one of the women and her family at your home in England, and that recording she made blew the lid off Knott’s candidacy and, incidentally, off the candidate, as well.”

“How colorfully you put it.”

“That’s the sort of interference that Macher would take personally.”

“Oh, he’s thin-skinned, is he?”

“Thin-skinned and hard-shelled. Simultaneously. You must remember that most of the work St. Clair put into creating Knott as a candidate was actually performed by Macher and his wide-ranging PD.”

Stone took a swig of his bourbon and let it find its way down. “Oh, shit,” he said.