America Rising (9 page)

Two hours later a gleaming Sundancer pulled up to the pier and the partiers clambered off. There were six legislators, including the former House speaker and current Senate majority leader, plus another four whose faces I didn’t recognize. Their “dates” were a dozen young women who appeared to have been popped out of molds in some giant factory of siliconed and Botoxed replicants. The men were worse—pasty-white and already liquored up, their bellies stretching Polo shirts over the tops of their gaudy shorts.

I got nice tight close-ups and group shots of them all, then hot-footed it back to my post behind the bougainvillea and waited for the action to begin. It was predictably sad and revolting—eighteen naked and oiled bodies writhing in noisy faux passion in groups of two and three and more, fueled by bowls of sky-blue pills for the men and fine white powder for the ladies. After several hours they broke for lunch, then went at it again until cocktail hour.

I’d seen enough. I checked the laptop’s hard drive to make sure I’d recorded the day’s activities, packed up my gear and texted Robert to come get me. The party picked up after dark but I was already at the dingy, watching Robert flash his running lights. When we’d tied up the little craft I described the scene to him, reminded him of my promise to give him a preview. He stared at me a moment and shook his head.

“Don’t make me puke,” he said.

T
he limousine that would take Edwin Eustice Chalmers III from his K Street office to his weekend estate in Virginia’s horse country pulled up to the curb promptly at 5 p.m. It had been two months since he’d gotten out of D.C., an extremely busy but equally profitable time, having picked up several new clients with the unexpected retirement of one of his competitors and the surprise dissolution of another, one of the capitol’s best-known lobbying firms. With the kind of hours he’d been pulling, he figured he deserved a little R&R.

Edwin Eustice Chalmers’ blood was as blue as his politics were red. His great-grandfather was a contemporary of Joe Kennedy’s, and subsequent generations of Chalmers rose to new heights of business and political prominence, becoming ever more conservative as they grew ever wealthier. His father, Edwin II, had represented the people of the great state of Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives for twenty-six year before retiring over a scandal involving a stripper, a couple pounds of Peruvian flake and a large bag of cash.

Edwin III liked politics but hated the restrictions that came with holding public office, so he leveraged his connections and experience running his father’s campaigns to become chief of staff to Rep. Mark “Sparky” Thomson, whose iron-fisted reign as of head of the House Ways and Means Committee lasted the better part of a decade. When Massachusetts voters finally kicked Sparky aside, Edwin Chalmers again leveraged his connections and experience, this time opening a law office-slash-lobbying firm whose primary business was acting as an intermediary—”bagman,” to put it less politely—between Washington politicos and the corporations that suckled them like piglets at their mother’s tits.

Chalmers & Associates’ clients were some of the biggest pigs in the pen: several Wall Street financial institutions and hedge funds, two of the country’s largest banks, three of its largest health insurance companies, a pair of major oil companies, and a smorgasbord of manufacturing, service and real estate firms, not to mention the odd foreign dictator or two who wanted to keep the American aid flowing.

Edwin Chalmers’ ability to tap into his clients’ vast wealth and spread it around without leaving any fingerprints, plus a rumored little black book full of the peccadilloes of prominent politicians, had given him a 120-acre horse country estate, a suite at D.C.’s famous Watergate hotel, a vacation home in Bermuda, ownership of several large apartment complexes, a yacht, a Bentley and a collection of classic cars, still with enough left over to support a wife and pair of mistresses in the style to which they had come to view as only natural.

It was a cold December day when Edwin Chalmers hurried out of his office under a Billionaire Couture umbrella and settled into the limo’s plush leather seat, where his customary Johnny Blue-and-soda was waiting in a heavy Baccarat glass. Distracted by work and fumbling to close his fifty thousand dollar plaything, it took him a minute to notice the normally well-lit interior was dark. Also the man dressed in black jeans and sweater, sitting at the front of the spacious compartment.

“Good evening, Mr. Chalmers,” the man said easily, as if they were being introduced at some anonymous government function.

Edwin Chalmers almost spilled his drink.

“What the— Who the hell are you? You can’t—” He lunged for the door handle but it gave nothing in his hand. He reached for his cell phone, blanching when the screen lit up with “No Service.” He tried to bluster his way out. “Who are you and what do you want? I demand—”

“Shut up, please,” the man said. His voice was still easy but underneath it was chipped and sharp as steel. “Settle down and drink your scotch. I want to show you something.”

Chalmers downed his drink in two quick gulps. He pushed himself back in the seat, getting as far away from the intruder as possible, eyeing the man warily. As the limo inched through gridlocked city streets he felt suddenly, inexplicably weary. His arms and legs seemed tied to lead weights. His vision grew fuzzy. He couldn’t keep his head up. He tried to speak but his mouth felt full of cotton. When he leaned over to try the door handle again he lost his balance and slumped face-down on the seat, a thin stream of drool pooling on the butter-soft leather.

Some time later Edwin Chalmers awoke slowly, like an animal coming to after a winter’s hibernation. His arms and legs were his own again, though his head pounded and his mouth was as dry as desert sand. He blinked focus into his eyes and took in his surroundings. He’d been laid out on a couch of inexpensive black leather, his jacket and tie removed and neatly hung on a hook, his shoes side-by-side on the floor, his wallet and keys in a small cardboard box.

The room itself was small, no more than twenty by twenty feet, its walls painted off-white. A thin indoor-outdoor carpet covered the floor. There were no windows and no adornments. Besides the couch, the only furnishings were a long folding table and metal chair, the kind you’d see at conference rooms in cheap airport hotels. On the table was a laptop computer, a cell phone, a bottle of water and a plastic glass. Careful not to set off the brass band playing inside his head, he planted his feet and stood, then gingerly made his way to the table, where he sat, poured a glass of water and washed the sand out of his mouth. It was only then that he noticed what appeared to be a blank business card next to the computer. He moved to turn it over when a voice crackled from an unseen speaker.

“Good morning, Mr. Chalmers.” It was the man in the limo. “Sorry for the short nap, but it was necessary for your security and for ours. You are, of course, wondering who we are and why you’re here. The first question, I’m afraid, I can’t answer. The second, we’ll get to in a moment. My associates and I know very much about you, Mr. Chalmers. We’ve followed your career with great interest, particularly of late. We’ve also been following the careers of some of your colleagues. You of course know Anita Cowell of Cowell & Co. and Nathan Rifkin and Wesley Mathers of Rifkin-Mathers.”

Edwin Chalmers’ mouth went dry again. Cowell, one of the only women in the big-time D.C. lobbying game and a tenacious and formidable advocate, had retired suddenly two months ago and seemingly vanished off the face of the earth. Nat Rifkin and Wes Mathers had been in the business of bribing and influencing politicians since George Washington crossed the Delaware; the unexpected dissolution of their firm had shocked members of the D.C. establishment. Since then nothing had been heard from them either, though rumor had it Rifkin had moved to Paris and Mathers was somewhere in the Caribbean.

“Ah, I can see that you’ve been wondering too,” the voice continued. “Their departure from your chosen profession was, shall we say, sudden? Unexpected? Even baffling? I suppose so. Well, they had their reasons. And so will you.” The easy voice was all flint again. “You’re a cancer, Mr. Chalmers. You and the people who ply your trade are a disease that has sickened this country, corrupted its politics, made fools and paupers of its people.”

It seemed the man behind the voice could read his thoughts.

“I know, I know, much of what you do is not illegal but, frankly, my colleagues and I are not too interested in legality these days. What we are interested in is a country where policy is not made in corporate boardrooms, where the people’s ‘representatives’ are not bought and sold like pork belly futures, where the interest of the American public isn’t something to be traded away for a new Bentley and a vacation home in Bermuda. Now, this is not all the fault of you and your profession. There’s plenty of blame to go around. For other players, rest assured, their time will come. In some cases, it already has. But at the moment we are talking about you. Please tap the touchpad on the computer.”

Edwin Chalmers obeyed. He cringed at the image as the computer screen flickered to life.

“Tell me what you see,” the voice commanded.

“Silverhill,” Chalmers said, his own voice a fearful whisper.

“Your $4.5 million country estate.”

“Yes.”

“Watch.”

What happened next occurred so quickly, so unexpectedly, so violently that for a full minute Edwin Chalmers showed no reaction, felt nothing at all. Then it hit him. Hit him so hard he gasped and almost fell out of the chair, unable to take his eyes off the screen. His sprawling red-brick mansion had exploded in a blazing fireball, flinging millions of particles of brick and wood and piping and insulation high into the night sky, now as bright as day, forming a giant nimbus that hung in the air as if suspended before falling away to reveal a scorched foundation dotted with piles of rubble and tongues of flame. He tried to speak but that power had been stripped from him. All he could do was stare at the destruction.

“Don’t worry.” The voice was again easy and serene. “Your wife and children are safe. Lila and Madison are at a sleepover at a neighbors’, and Margaret is on her customary girls night out.”

“Wha— Why? How could—”

“I’m afraid we’re not done here yet,” the voice interrupted. “Please tap the touchpad again.”

Edwin Chalmers obeyed. This time, though, he saw only an official-looking document. He tried to focus on the columns of numbers but his mind was still reeling from the shock of minutes before.

The voice seemed to understand and helped him out.

“This is the statement for your account at Bank of the Caribbean in the Cayman Islands. After all, no one wants to pay U.S. income taxes and the advantages of the Cayman banking system are very well known. Please note the balance on this account is zero.”

Chalmers blinked and shook his head, trying once more to clear the fog from his head. He peered at the computer screen, forcing himself to concentrate, then his muscles seized up like a faulty motor and all he could do was stare.

“No, no. . . You can’t. . .”

“Yes, Mr. Chalmers, we can. In fact, we have.”

Other forms flashed by on the screen.

“This is your account at Islands Bank, Ltd. This at Hanniford Bank & Trust in Turks and Caicos. And this is at Banque Suisse. Spreading your money around. Very impressive, I must say. Note too that the balance on all of these accounts is also zero. If you don’t believe I’m telling the truth, the cell phone on the table is programmed to the Essex County fire department and your personal bankers at these institutions. Feel free to call them and confirm everything I’ve said.”

Edwin Chalmers gave no evidence of having heard. He sat rock-still, unblinking. Mouth open. He made no effort to pick up the phone.

“Cheer up, Mr. Chalmers.” The voice was not unsympathetic. “You will receive a large insurance settlement on the house, several million dollars, I believe. The accounts in your and your wife’s names in the U.S. are untouched, as are your 401Ks and stock portfolio. So you and your family will not be living in a cardboard box on the sidewalk. In fact, there’s a good chance you will get a large portion of the money we’ve removed from your other accounts returned to you. . . If you agree to certain conditions.”

The briefest spark flared in Edwin Chalmers’s dulled eyes.

“These conditions are simple, inviolable and non-negotiable. First, within the week you will dissolve Chalmers & Associates and retire from the business of selling out your fellow citizens. Say it’s because of your health or to spend more time with your family or join the priesthood. Whatever. No one will believe you anyway.

“Second, within two weeks you will pack up your wife and daughters—your mistresses too, if that’s what you want—and move to your house in Bermuda. Third, you will not return to the U.S. for any reason until you have been informed it is okay to do so.

“Fourth—and this is very important, Mr. Chalmers; it’s not too much to say your entire future rests on your not violating this condition—you will have no contact with anyone in the U.S., outside of your immediate family, and you will especially have no contact with anyone in your previous profession. That means no politicians, bureaucrats, colleagues, corporations and individuals, not via telephone, email, text message, third-party communications or even old-fashioned snail mail. Comply with these conditions and at the end of one year a portion of your ‘missing’ funds will be placed in the bank account of your choice. At the end of the second year you will receive another portion, and so on and so on.”