Justifiable Homicide: A Political Thriller (Robert Paige Thrillers Book 1) (7 page)

Seth looked away to avoid eye contact. “The part about shutting down Web sites. The law would give us the authority to shut down any web site that
might
be engaged in copyright infringement or
might
be connected to people who are merely being labeled as terrorists. All we would need to shut down a web site would be for someone to merely allege that someone who is connected with the web site is a terrorist. We wouldn’t be required to get a court order or anything. We wouldn’t need proof. We could close them down preemptively. It could lead to abuse.”

Bennett leaned back in his chair. “What’s wrong with that? How else are we going to prevent people from stealing intellectual property like music?” He leaned forward again, for emphasis. “How else are we going to shut down terrorist networks?”

Seth glanced at him briefly, then looked away. “The law would allow us to do it without judicial oversight. We could shut down any web site we want for practically any reason we want. We could sign our own search warrants. We wouldn’t need a judge to do it. We could use the intellectual property laws or the antiterrorism laws as an excuse to shut down anybody we want.”

Bennett swiveled around in his chair, picked up his cup of coffee and took a whiff. It didn’t smell too bad. He winced a bit as he drank it. It had been on the pot too long and had become bitter.

“Seth, I wouldn’t worry about it. The laws are made to protect us from thieves and terrorists. Most of the people we shut down will be one or the other. The law Senator Garrett is proposing would just make it easier to do our job.”

Seth leaned forward, looking briefly into Bennett’s eyes before turning away. “The problem I have with it is that we don’t have to prove guilt first. We could shut down
Amazon.com
for selling a book to someone who’s on the terrorist list. All we would have to do is allege that they’re aiding and abetting the enemy. We wouldn’t have to prove anything until years later, after they’re out of business.”

Bennett looked visibly pissed. “If
Amazon.com
sells books to terrorists, they should be shut down.” Seth and his ilk just didn’t get it. “We’re at war, Seth. We have to use all the tools at our disposal to shut down terrorists wherever we find them. Besides, isn’t there a provision in the law that waives their right to judicial process as a condition of doing business in the United States?”

“Yeah, there is, and that provision bothers me too.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because doing business is a right, not a privilege that’s granted by government. People shouldn’t have to give up their constitutional rights as a condition of doing business.”

“Seth, you’re living in the past. Those days are gone.” He flicked his wrist at the air as he said it, for emphasis. “We have to protect the people against terrorists.”

“If all the law did was help us fight terrorism, I might not have a problem with it, but it does much more than that.”

“Like what?”

“It allows us to shut down any web site that’s linked to someone who’s on the terrorist list. If some college student has a friend on
LinkedIn
or
Facebook
, we could block their web site just because of the link.”

“What’s wrong with that? If they’re connected to a terrorist, they’re probably giving them aid and comfort. The last time I looked, that was treason. We should do more than just block their web site. We should arrest them.”

Seth became emboldened at that remark. “You know as well as I do that just because someone is on the terrorist list doesn’t mean they’re a terrorist. Grandmothers and infants get placed on that list by mistake all the time. A lot of the people on that list don’t belong there.”

“Yeah, I know. No system is perfect. You just have to try to be as accurate as you can. But it’s better to have a few innocent people on the list than to omit a few guilty people.”

Bennett’s door was open. As the conversation became increasingly heated, it started to spill out into the hallway. Carl Johnson, another FBI attorney, overheard and decided to step in and join the conversation. Carl and Bennett were at the same pay grade but worked in different departments.

“Seth, I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation. It sounds like you’re upset with Senator Garrett’s latest proposal.”

“Yeah, I am. I think it’s unconstitutional and sets a bad precedent. I see the country going down a slippery slope, and I don’t like it.”

“Well, I’m a little concerned too, but I’m also concerned that if we don’t go a little bit down that slope, we’ll lose the war on terrorism. Debbie Waterstein and Jack Lunn want to go a step further. Did you hear what their bill proposes?”

“No, I haven’t heard.”

Bennett perked up at the mention of Debbie Waterstein, the local congressional representative. Bennett or a member of his staff was sometimes assigned to protect her when she appeared at a public event in the Miami area. He had gotten to know her over the years, and he didn’t like her. She was a phony, someone who would smile to your face and slip a knife in your back when you turned around. As she gained seniority in the House of Representatives, the power had gone to her head. She treated Bennett and his people like servants and barked orders at them. She never said please or thank you. She acted like a master rather than a public servant.

Carl sat down in the chair next to Seth. “Yeah, they’re calling it the Patriot Reading Act. They’re targeting anything that’s anti-patriot—books, web sites, newspapers, anything in print. If it provides aid and comfort to the enemy, they want to shut them down. Any bookstore that sells anti-patriotic books would get shut down for giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Any credit card company that finances the sale would get shut down. Any advertiser that pays for an ad on an online web site that spouts anti-patriotic crap—shut down. The same with
Facebook
. Shut ‘em down and arrest their owners.

Bennett started to smile, not because he approved of the proposed legislation, but because it showed that Debbie had gone over the edge. “It sounds like our friend Debbie is totally out of control. She’s become drunk with power, much like Caligula and the other Roman emperors in the late phase of the empire.”

Carl nodded in agreement. “Yeah, only she wears expensive designer clothes instead of a toga and drives around in a limo instead of a chariot. Senator Garrett says that if the bill passes in the House, he’ll make sure it passes in the Senate. He’ll have a voice vote on it, so the senators won’t have to go on record as being for it. He’ll declare that the ayes have it, regardless of how many votes it gets.”

Bennett’s smile turned into a smirk. “Ah, Senator Garrett. Now there’s a prime example of rat puke rising to the top.” He shifted his attention to Seth. “Seth, let’s say that I assigned you to guard Debbie Waterstein or Senator Garrett the next time they were in town, and somebody tried to assassinate them. Would you step in front of them and take the bullet?” Bennett winked at Carl after he said it.

Seth squirmed in his chair and looked at the carpet. “Yes, I suppose I’d have to. It’s my job.”

“Well, then, you’re the one who’s going to get that assignment.”

Carl and Bennett laughed. Seth did not.

The phone rang. Bennett swiveled around and picked it up.

“Jim? John Wellington. Can you talk?”

“Guys, sorry. I have to take this call. Seth, close the door on your way out.” A few seconds later, he was alone. “Hi, John. What can I do for you?”

“I’d like you to stop by my office before you go home tonight.”

“Which one? You have three of them.”

“I’m at the downtown office today.”

“Great. You want me to drive to downtown Miami at rush hour.”

“Don’t worry. Everyone else will be going in the other direction.”

“Right. Until it’s my turn to leave.”

“Give me a call a few minutes before you arrive. I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

“I know the procedure. See you around five.”

Bennett arrived a few minutes early. He called Wellington as he drove into the parking garage down the street. He didn’t want to have to wait long in the lobby. His appearance—just under six feet with an athletic build and brown hair—made him standout in a crowd, especially in Miami, where most of the locals were short, and many were overweight.

Bennett walked through the front doors and saw Wellington on the other side of the lobby. He gripped a cloth bag in his left hand, which appeared unusual for someone who looked like an Indiana prep school graduate.

Wellington started walking toward Bennett. “Jim. Glad you could make it. I hope the traffic wasn’t too bad.”

“Not any worse than usual for five o’clock in Miami.” Bennett wasn’t used to being summoned to offsite locations. He was usually the one who did the summoning.

Wellington placed his hand on Bennett’s shoulder and motioned toward the door with a nod of his head. “Let’s go to my other office.”

They went outside and turned left. A few moments later they turned left again, into the alley that separated the Commerce Department building from the one next to it. After going about fifty feet, Wellington stopped and turned toward the street, and Bennett.

“Here are some things our friend, Professor Paige, gave me this afternoon. He wants ‘my guys’ to process it.” He related the story to Bennett. “Do it off the books. I don’t want any paper trail.”

“Got it. Do you want me to give you a written report?”

“Yes, but put it directly into a flash drive. Don’t use your office computer at all. I want to show it to the boys and point out how they screwed up. Don’t bother processing the DNA samples. We already know who they are.”

Bennett smiled. “It’s a good thing Paige didn’t take it to the local police.”

“Yeah, that could complicate our lives. Well, yours, at least.”

“A hallmark of soft totalitarianism is the subjugation of the individual, all done in the name of personal freedom.”

Atavus Ataraktos (John William McMullen,
Utopia Revisited
)

Santos Hernandez could be described as a lump of muscle on two legs. He was short, barely 5’ 8”, with massive arms and a chest that barely fit into his shirts. He had a round head with dark brown hair that was too short to comb. His neck was not clearly visible. It appeared that God set his head directly between his shoulders. He had the thick, full lips that women liked to kiss, although the only women he’d been kissing lately were his wife, Maria, and their nine year-old daughter, Rosa. On the surface they appeared to be a typical, hard-working Hispanic Miami family. But Santos had a dark side that even Maria didn’t know about.

The dark side had remained hidden throughout high school and the two years he spent at Miami-Dade College. It didn’t emerge until shortly after John Wellington recruited him to be a part-time CIA asset. Wellington thought he might be a useful asset because of his physical attributes and his job at the Miami International Airport, where he worked as a TSA agent. He was the CIA’s eyes and ears at the airport. He wasn’t the CIA’s only airport asset, but occasionally he did provide useful information and he had access to records that allowed Wellington to get information without going through official channels. It saved time and avoided the necessity of answering questions that Wellington didn’t want to answer, since some of the projects he worked on were off the books.

It had been two weeks since he killed Raul Rodriguez and Gabriella Acosta. The public had mostly forgotten about it and moved on, but Santos Hernandez had not. The image of her face just before he pulled the trigger still haunted him. He wondered if he would ever be able to forget.

It started like a typical Tuesday afternoon at the gate entrance. The citizenry lined up like sheep, patiently waiting to go through the warrantless search process they had become accustomed to after 9/11. Santos watched a female TSA agent caress the breasts of one of the better looking female passengers, a job well suited for lesbians with deviant sex syndrome because it allowed them to legally grope hundreds of female passengers every day, and they could select the ones they wanted to grope. Before 9/11 it would have been considered sexual assault. Since then it had become just standard operating procedure in the fight against terrorism.

The passenger being groped reminded him of Gabriella. He still thought of her at least once a day. He couldn’t forget the look of terror she had on her face as she realized she was about to die. He felt bad that he’d had to kill her.

Santos experienced a rare sense of guilt when he read her obituary. She’d left behind a son, a brother, and two parents. He could relate to that. He had a family, too. Usually when he snuffed someone he didn’t think of them as a human being, just a target that needed to be eliminated. He preferred killing men.

An elderly woman in a wheelchair set off an alarm. Santos snapped out of his daydream about Gabriella and looked in the direction of the commotion. The TSA agent closest to the woman went into action.

“Ma’am, let’s go over here.” The female TSA agent motioned for her to go off to the side so that the other passengers could proceed to pick up their carry-on luggage. The woman looked startled. The man pushing her wheelchair chimed in. “She has dementia. She doesn’t understand what’s going on.”

The agent blocked his advance with her right arm. “Sir, you have to wait here.”

The physical contact caught Santos’s attention. The man appeared to be in his early sixties. A little on the pudgy side, average height, thinning brown hair, pasty white skin and rimless glasses. From his appearance, one could guess that his ancestors came from Northern Europe or Ireland.

A second female agent roughly pushed him aside, startling the man. “We’ll take it from here.” She took control of the wheelchair, propelling it off to the right, toward the search area. The wheelchair slammed into a table. The tube connecting the elderly woman’s urine bag and catheter caught on the edge of the table, causing the catheter to get ripped from her crotch. She screamed. Yellow liquid splattered onto the floor as blood began to ooze from her crotch.