Leon Uris (28 page)

Line dancing up to forty yards long pounded the deck and skirts flared, showing the ladies’ legs, and the bars damn near ran dry.

“By God, Governor,” Harry Chin said with uncharacteristic emotion, “you were right! It’s going to be 10101.”

“What kind of stupid fools are they?” Quinn thought aloud.

“Repetition,” Dawn Mock said. “If a mode of operation works ten times, it will work the eleventh. All criminals leave a signature. Maybe no one was certain who was supposed to be in charge of changing locations, so nobody did.”

“Folks, could I have your kind attention?” the loudspeaker boomed. “There’s a line of yellow cabs at the main entrance. They have been provided for your safety. If you feel you’ve had a couple of drinks too many, take one of these tipsy taxis. You will be delivered to your lodging without charge, compliments of the Colorado Tourist Board.”

A sweet and hurting voice continued singing. The revelers were beginning to get weary, soaked, and grow heavy-legged. Quick action by the police stopped a fight before punches were thrown. “Don’t you go looking at my wife that way.”

“Well, tell your wife not to look that way.”

The police nudged them into separate taxis.

As the wearies trod from the
microsoftGRAND BALLROOM
, the singer was closing out with slow dancing, loves lost, losers, loves strayed, loves betrayed, all in heartache three-quarter time.

“Ladies and gentlemen, fellows and gals. Shooters! Tomorrow night is the grand awards banquet…”

“Give me the governor!”

“Quinn here.”

“Detective Solomon. Chad Murtha has turned off the freeway. He’s heading for 10101.”

“Hang on.”

Quinn, Mock, and Chin spread the map and returned to the phone. “Have your teams come in steadily on Petroleum Boulevard. Park your cars in the Colo Computers’ lot and proceed by foot three blocks east to Oakdale and Bancroft. Trooper Hap Cronin will be advised you are coming and will update you. And remember guys, no casualties if humanly possible.”

“Morrison.”

“Here.”

“Seventeen pieces, seventeen thousand rounds.”

“Trinowski.”

“Right here.”

“Sixty-five pieces, sixty-five thousand rounds.”

“Here’s my own order,” Chad said. “I’ve got two hundred and seventy pieces. I’m buying the beers. I’ve been looked up by a dozen militias.”

“Spotlights!” Yancey Hawke ordered.

Friehoff’s warehouse and grounds lit up as though an astro from outer space were making an earth landing. Blinding!

“Now hear this!” Yancey Hawke boomed. “You people are surrounded and cannot escape. If you resist or open fire, we will shoot to kill!”

First to leap off the loading dock screaming, “Don’t shoot,” was Jessup Jensen, the trucker’s middle brother. He had run a few steps toward the gate when his younger brother Darren shot him in the back.

“First volley,” Yancey Hawke ordered.

A number of stun grenades arched over the fence, followed by a barrage of tear gas that hit the loading dock and crashed through the windows into the warehouse.

“Shall I bust open the gate, Colonel?”

“Hell, no, they are penned in. Just leave them penned in.”

It seemed that everyone among the gun runners reached for a weapon at the same time and appeared to be shooting at each other.

“Drop your weapons! Walk to the fence with your hands over your heads and stand, holding the fence facing us, or we will fire. This is not Waco or Ruby Ridge or the Montana Freemen! You have thirty seconds to raise a white flag. Anyone who tries to hide in the warehouse will not come out alive! You now have twenty seconds!”

“Now hear this,” Butterworth said to the empty ballroom. “This facility is hereby seized under Colorado statute six-oh-four-A as a clear and present danger to public safety, and other crimes.”

Breaking Story Breaking Story Breaking Story

“We take you now to our Denver affiliate. Don, are you there?”

“Yes, this is Don Fender, CNN, Denver. In the late hours of last night and the early hours of this morning, Colorado state troopers and the Colorado National Guard carried out a lightning raid intercepting a gun-running scheme. A second task force seized the Colorado convention center where the national AMERIGUN conclave was being held.”

“Can you tell us—”

“The operation apparently depended on secrecy and speed. Details are very slow coming in…”

Breaking Story Breaking Story Breaking Story

“…interrupt this program to bring you a breaking story from Denver.”

“This is Anita McGlore, MSNBC, Denver. The cock has crowed and Denver citizens are waking up this morning to the electrifying news of a major gun bust and the closure of the AMERIGUN convention. Governor Quinn Patrick O’Connell has scheduled a news conference for one o’clock this afternoon, Rocky Mountain time. It will be held at the historic Brown Palace Hotel.”

Rocky Mountain News
GOVERNOR QUINN PADLOCKS ARMS SHOW

Denver Post
MAJOR ARMS CACHE RAIDED

USA Today
TWO KILLED IN ARMS RAID
.
A PAIR OF BROTHERS
,
IDENTIFIED AS DRIVERS
,
DIE IN SHOOTOUT

New York Times (See story inside, section A, page 31)

New York Post
GUN MUGGERS MUGGED

The “historic” Brown Palace buzzed with anticipation. Its atrium lobby soared nine stories to a glass roof which held an American flag four stories long.

By one o’clock some sixty print journalists and a dozen camera crews had assembled, each with their own rumors.

Deadly silence. One could hear people parting as Governor O’Connell made his way to the rostrum. A smattering of applause. A half dozen journalists came to their feet cheering. Now, sustained applause as Quinn fooled with the microphone.

“First, I want to sing you all a little song,” Quinn opened. “I’ve never been involved in a press conference of this magnitude, and it’s a little frightening. Half of you I don’t know, so please give your name and organization. We okay with that? Thank you.”

Breaking News Breaking News Breaking News

“…switch you now to a press conference at the historic Brown Palace Hotel in downtown Denver.”

Announcer in a whisper: “…that is Governor O’Connell at the rostrum. The three people sitting at his left are identified as Adjutant General
Butterworth, commander of the Colorado National Guard, Colonel Yancey Hawke, chief of the Colorado troopers, and Dr. Dawn Mock, head of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, a well-known figure in law enforcement circles.”

Quinn held up and waved a sheet of paper. “You all have received a rap sheet like this. It brings us up to an hour ago, noon. Questions?”

“Vernon Creech,
Rocky
.”

“Hi, Vern, I thought you’d never ask.”

“Governor,” Creech went on, “the rap sheet says your initial tip was anonymous. Are you saying, sir, that it wasn’t someone in the federal government or that you didn’t have assistance of the FBI or BATF?”

“First, we aren’t going to blow our sources. Second, the operation is still going on, and third, we might want to use the same sources again in the future. It was my belief that the entire AMERIGUN invasion of Denver was meant to be as intimidation, a warning about future anti-gun legislation. If any of you listened to the rhetoric at the convention, you’ll understand my drift. I considered it a crude attempt to bully Colorado out of its sovereign rights. This was a state operation from beginning to end. My colleagues and I felt we could only be successful if we held the secret to just a few people. I determined that we had sufficient state forces to do the job. The weapons are Canadian-made VEC–44’s of Belgian origin and were smuggled into Wisconsin via the Great Lakes. Apparently, the drivers, the Jensen brothers, had been running contraband for several years.”

“There must have been middlemen, sir,” Creech said, not yet sitting down.

“The manufacturer, a Roy Sedgewick of Toronto, has disappeared. Friehoff, whose warehouse was the drop spot, has been placed under arrest, and we also
arrested five weapons dealers working from the exhibition tables.”

“Governor,” Chita Mendez of the
Pueblo Chieftain
said. “It sounds like no officials of AMERIGUN were involved.”

“Just one,” Quinn answered, “Senator Richard Darling of Wisconsin.”

BLAM

Breaking News Breaking News Breaking News

“Governor O’Connell has named Senator Darling of Wisconsin as the chief operator of a long-standing smuggling ring from Canada. Apprehended at the Denver International Airport, the senator has vociferously claimed his innocence. We switch you now to the Denver International…”

When the press conference regained its sanity, Len Sanders of the
New York Times
threw the question:

“Did you use computer surveillance, and how did you follow the weapons from Wisconsin to Denver?”

“Yes, we used computers. Our entire operation was covered by appropriate court warrants. Moreover, we took abnormal caution to see that there were no casualties. The two Jensen brothers were apparently killed by their own gunfire. I’m not totally free to give you the method we used to trail the weapons to Colorado.”

“Can we have some more dope on the VEC–44’s?”

Quinn held up the assault gun. “Here she is. It’s a 9mm, about .38 caliber, fully automatic machine pistol using thirty-five round clips. She only weighs three pounds, and the barrel is a few inches. You couldn’t hit a bull in the ass at twenty feet with one of these little buggers. They are designed to be in
close and personal killers particularly for street gangs and burglars.”

“What is the current status of the operation, Governor?”

“Well, let’s see. Three thousand VEC–44’s have been logged and impounded. Some five or six hundred weapons were due to be delivered to buyers last night. They are part of the cache. The dealers have been taken into custody. More important, we have a search-and-seizure warrant in effect. Our teams are in the convention center checking all the weapon ID numbers. So far we have turned up well over a hundred laundered guns. In addition, a dozen exhibitors are wanted by police elsewhere.”

“What you going to do with all these weapons, Governor?”

“Melt them down for sewer lid covers. Let me say that any exhibitor selling legitimate material can have it returned by merely going to the Exhibition Desk.”

“You don’t expect any dirty dealers to actually try to claim an unregistered gun, do you?”

“Stranger things have happened,” Quinn said. “I wish to apologize,” he went on, “to the AMERIGUN delegates and directors and exhibitors of legitimate items. The vast majority of folks are honorable, law-abiding citizens. Unfortunately, an ugly element pervades any gun show, and there are hundreds of them every year. There is always an aura of fear and danger emanating. This was a rare opportunity to inspect all the contents of the exhibition tables.”

“You rat!” a voice screamed from the rear of the room. King Porter was held at bay by his confederates. “You entrapped us!”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Quinn said, “that is King Porter, CEO of AMERIGUN. King, you are free
to come up here and join the news conference.”

“What! To your Goddamned fucking liberal press! This is war!”

“You bet it is,” Quinn answered.

In the days that followed, Governor O’Connell was deluged with messages of approval. The raid rang a note that a peaceful people had at last given the neighborhood bully a punch in the nose.

Quinn pressed forward with a gun-ownership bill, the sane bill for sane citizens that encompassed provisions that would have been defeated a few weeks earlier. It was to be a model for other states.

The polls in and out of Colorado showed high approval ratings on the governor’s action.

Polls showed 78.6 percent for, 21.4 percent against.

J. Malcolm Dunlay, a former attorney general, appeared on two dozen panels of experts in the following fortnight as part of the 156 TV panels to discuss the pros and cons of the sting.

The Civil Liberties fanned the fire by declaring that the gun dealers had been denied their civil rights.

Others accused O’Connell of usurping the federal charters of the FBI and the BATF.

More panel shows.

Quinn and his people withdrew as a ravenous media started searching through the capital’s trash cans and toilet stalls.

A count total was lost as to the number of Internet communications, but it appeared that they ran 78.9 percent in favor of the operation.

The public was smitten. Replays of
High Noon
abounded. Governor Quinn Patrick O’Connell was thrust into national prominence.

At the end of the month, the AMERIGUN bust
and cowboy O’Connell dissolved and were replaced when a star of one of sitcom’s royal series chopped up his wife with a carving knife.

Homicide panels replaced weapons and legal panels, although J. Malcolm Dunlay slid from one to the other effortlessly.

Even though Governor O’Connell was out of the immediate spotlight, a buzz had started around him. Instead of taking the glory road, he seemed to withdraw, dazed and wondering.

Rita was finally able to tear him loose from Denver and lure him to Troublesome. They would stay at Mal’s, where they could enjoy more isolation than at the ranch.

The rain plopped hard on the skylight, perhaps the last rain before the snows. Rita’s knowing hands rubbed out his sore spots. At first he was not even up to making love.

Wind misted with rain and bombarded threateningly, then softened to a mellow tattoo of little raindrops. A moment for resurrection was at hand.

Rita and her father rocked on porch swings, watched the storm drift south, and smelled the freshness of after rain.

They stopped talking as Quinn, in floppy bathrobe, yawned his way out to them. He had crashed, for this particular nap, for four hours.

“Well, my wife and father-in-law seem to be in a conspiracy…what? And assassinate the cruel governor with daggers and gain the statehouse?”

“You are, my dear son-in-law, a victim of your own success. Anything not clear to you, Quinn?”

“Like what?”

“Like I saw you on your knees at the family chapel for the first time in the four decades I’ve known you,” Mal said.

“It was between me and God,” Quinn said.
“Please tell me, Lord, who I am and what do you have in mind for me. Do I have veto powers? Be still my heart.”

“You know what’s going on,” Mal said. “Rita and I have fielded calls from every big hitter in the Democratic Party. They’ve a golden boy. Get used to it.”

“I love the people’s politics—” Quinn started.

“And are the most beloved governor in Colorado history,” Rita said.

“I was thinking maybe an embassy. Maybe Australia or New Zealand. No cabinet posts, just a non-trouble-making embassy.”

“Well,” said Mal, “why not try to open a consul general in St. Bart’s and lie on the beach and look at tits all day?”

“And I’d get to look at peckers,” Rita said.

“Out with it, Quinn,” Mal pressed.

“First the Urbakkan raid,” Quinn mumbled, “now this AMERIGUN bust. All the sudden adoration is bound to fade, and they will say, Quinn’s a man of violence. Who needs him? The good life depends on peace and prosperity. Moral imperatives like the defeat of slavery come at too high a price. So long as we remain fat and free, we will avoid the lingering festering issues. At any rate, I am not going to be the one to gather up the people on a moral issue. It makes for a dull person.”

“You’re anything but dull,” Rita said.

“And what about you and Duncan and Rae? Are you ready for a million maggots at your door every morning?”

“What I am worried about,” Rita retorted, “is that if you walk away from the call, we’ll spend the rest of our lives in our own form of self-imposed hell. I knew this was going to happen even before you ran for governor.”

“Don’t raise the stinker that you’re retreating
because of your family. They know their daddy is a great leader…” Mal said.

“Mea culpa time,” Quinn said. “I wanted clean in and clean out. Before the bust I made up my mind that I would stand for reelection if I had a chance to get this legislation through and impound about eighty-five percent of the guns in Colorado. When plans for the raid became a reality, I treated myself to massive doses of mendacity, the ancient art of lying to oneself. I lied, I made dirty deals, I was very selective of people’s rights, I put a lot of folks in harm’s way, I endangered the careers of some very gifted people. I went into Urbakkan clean and escaped by a miracle. I went into AMERIGUN tainted and again escaped clean, except for those sad Jensen brothers. Am I cursed to have to always ride in on wings of a raven? Must I blow up half of the state to prove my point? Do the people really want a cowboy?”

“Well, right now they’ve got one,” Mal snapped back.

“You are their hero, Quinn,” Rita said.

“I love you guys,” Quinn whispered, “and I know what you are thinking but dare not say. Play it cool for your next term, Quinn, then go take a shot at the presidency.” Quinn had balled up both fists. “Nothing,” he banged out, “nothing can happen, no disaster can befall so great as to go through the agony of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Nothing,” he said, “nothing, nothing, nothing.”