The Devlin Deception: Book One of The Devlin Quatrology (13 page)

And with that, all three of the kids joined in, singing the phrase
over and over in fully uncoordinated disharmony, until Gayle finally
said, “That's enough; pipe down, everybody.”

Then Cindy saw another set of the words and, in an only slightly
subdued voice, said, “Better switch lanes, Old Fart.”

Paul gave her a surreptitious glance and smiled to himself.

Jordan, irrepressible, started up again, “Daddy is an old fart,
Daddy is an old fart,” then Skyler, after squinching up her
face a bit, came out with, “Cindy is an old fart, Cindy is an
old fart,” again singing in their childish disharmony, both
kids singing over each other, with Cindy yelling “Shut up, shut
up!!” until Gayle finally yelled, “Stop it, stop it!!!
That is ENOUGH!! If you all don't settle down, we're turning around
and going back to the hotel and you won't get to build any sand
castles.”

At that point, a sulky silence settled over the entire car, until
Paul asked Gayle, “You've got my tablet, right? I want to
watch that press conference this afternoon.”

Gayle said, “Yeah, I've got it right in the bag, and it's all
charged up.”

“Great, hon. So now all of this old fart family is ready to
have a great time at the beach.”

Gayle rolled her eyes and shot daggers at the back of Paul's head as
they continued west toward the Gulf.

As they rode over the bridge onto the island, Cindy piped up, “From
now on, I want to be called 'Montana.'”

"Last week it was 'Idaho,'” Skyler chirped. “Idaho,
Idaho, Idaho!” Jordan joined in, “Udaho, Udaho, Udaho.”

Gayle growled, “Everybody, QUIET! Shut up!!!”

They continued in sulky silence, arriving at the beach ten minutes
later.

-18-

Six Months Earlier

Monday, June 13, 2011

2:53 a.m. EDT

Bonita Beach, Florida

Jake awoke instantly from a light but restorative sleep, grabbed his
.38 Special from under the pillow and was on his feet within three
seconds, sweeping his weapon and his vision quickly across the
spartan loft bedroom, noticing the red light on the security control
box, indicating the system was in secure mode. He padded silently
across to the sliding glass doors to the balcony overlooking the
Gulf, checked that they were secure, then crept to the locked door to
the rest of the house. Quietly turning the deadbolt, he slowly
opened the door and took a quick glance out, then ducked back behind
the doorframe. Seeing and hearing nothing, he moved out fast and
low, nearly on his knees, but maintaining flexibility, and again
swept his weapon and vision quickly back and forth. He saw nothing
amiss.

He glanced over the banister and again saw nothing in the open living
area below. Breathing deeply and slowly, he made his way down the
stairs, carefully avoiding the ninth step from the bottom, which he'd
booby trapped. Reaching the floor, he scanned each corner of the
room, then moved to the door to the study and went in high and fast.
But again, nothing. He also found nothing in either of the
ground-floor bedrooms, the kitchen or the bathroom.

Creeping silently to the front door, he deactivated the alarm and
opened the door, glancing down the stairs to the ground below.
Again, nada.

"Pull yourself together," he mumbled to himself, closing
the door and reactivating the alarm system. He crossed to the
sideboard on the north wall and retrieved the power cord to his
computer from the hidden drawer, then headed into the study, where he
plugged in and booted up his computer while rewinding the security
tapes to ten minutes before he awoke. Forwarding at double speed,
the only thing he saw was a slow-moving dark SUV traveling south on
Hickory at 2:52:43, passing in and out of view from left to right in
about six seconds. Freezing the video, zooming in and advancing
frame by frame, he was only able to make out a dark face looking out
the passenger window at his house as the vehicle passed by; he
couldn't tell if it was male or female. None of the other cameras
showed anything out of the ordinary.

Jake breathed a small sigh of relief, but he knew he probably
wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, still somewhat shaken from all
the gunfire on the beach the previous morning, from Pam's warning
about her boss and his ongoing suspicions, and especially from the
appalling allegations he'd found on the internet from the paper
Chelsea had given him.

Once his PC finished booting up, he checked the curtains to be sure
no lights could be seen from the beach side, since it was turtle
nesting season, and only then did he turn on the desk lamp, settle
into the chair and check his emails, finding two that needed replies.
He sent those and then began typing from the notes he'd made while
waiting for Pamela at the Seabreeze Cafe: "... -itzer reporting
from the White House Press Room, where we're expecting Gordon Donne
to appear at any minute for his long-awaited first live press
conference. You can feel the electricity …”

-19-

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Midday

New York, New York

As the morning wore on and the markets all hovered only a bit up or a
bit down, volume stayed near an all-time low, but the buzz of
conversation and arguments was near an all-time high.

But as one p.m. approached, a hush of anticipation settled over the
entire trading floor and everybody looked to the televisions and
their tablets with rapt attention.

* * * * * *

12:55 p.m.

Bonita Beach, Florida

Paul Rutledge finished up the sandwich Gayle had made for him and
stuffed the wrapper into their trash bag. Then he pulled his tablet
from their beach bag and started searching for the online broadcast
of Donne's press conference.

Cindy, Jordan and Skyler were happily building a huge sandcastle down
near the shoreline, occasionally singing out “Daddy is an old
fart.” Gayle kept a close eye on them while she chatted with an
Italian couple, Salvatore and Rafaella, and an octogenarian Canadian
woman, Lucy, who'd been snowbirding in Bonita for the past fifteen or
sixteen years; she wasn't clear on which. Lucy had also seen the OLD
FART LANE stencils and wondered if those had been installed by the
City and how that could possibly be enforced. She also said in no
uncertain terms that she was not going to be forced into that lane if
she didn't want to go there. “Nobody tells me where to drive
my Jaguar,” she grumbled.

Paul finally got to an online site with Donne's press conference, but
only after a great deal of frustration, and even then, the screen was
difficult to see in the bright sun. He managed to get the screen
tilted to where he could sort of see what was going on, his earbuds
in, volume adjusted, and settled in just as the press conference was
beginning to get underway.

"... -itzer reporting from the White House Press Room, where
we're expecting Gordon Donne to appear at any minute for his
long-awaited first live press conference. You can feel the
electricity of anticipation coursing through the room, and again, we
have received no prepared statement from his office, nor has there
been either a demand or a request from Mr. Donne's office for advance
notice of any of our questions. So it looks like it's going to be a
free-for-all, and from some of the conversations we've had while
we've been waiting, probably a pretty wild one.

"We've also noticed a couple of additions on the stage: that
big touch screen on the right and a chair and side table on the left
-- okay, here we go, right on time."

At precisely one p.m., Donne, dressed in jeans and a tropical shirt,
entered the Press Room, preceded by two bodyguards and followed by a
short, thin and very prim woman and a stout man, both in business
suits, who sat in the fold-down chairs along the left wall. Donne
strode to the podium and faced the assembled crowd.

"Ladies and gentlemen, before I begin, I want to introduce my
Anti-Hubris Czar, Cecily Fusi, F-u-s-i, pronounced Fyoo-si, not Fussy
or Fyoo-zi. Cecily has been with me for twelve years and has always
acted as a trusted sounding board, sort of like my conscience.

“Could you stand up, Cissy?”

The female stood and the press applauded politely.

"Next to Cissy is Cody Harbison, my Czar for Unintended
Consequences. Cody has a phenomenal ability to take any set of facts
and predict an entire spectrum of both intended and unintended
consequences with uncanny accuracy. Cody's been with Donne
Enterprises International for seventeen years, and he's the only guy
who's ever been able to beat me at chess.”

"Just once, Gordy, in '96,” Cody said as he stood up.
The press corps laughed and applauded.

"Thanks, guys,” Donne said as they sat back down. Then he
smiled at the press corps and held up a sheaf of papers.

"Ladies and gentlemen, a couple of announcements and then I'll
take your questions. First, I'm holding 173 letters of commitment
from big businesses all around the world, pledging to open offices or
manufacturing plants here in the United States, with projections of
over 1.1 million jobs by the end of next year."

A gasp rose from most of the hard-crusted, cynical journalists in the
room, and on trading floors around the world, millions of buy orders
were executed, and in a matter of seconds, all three US stock indices
spiked up between one and one and a half percent.

On Bonita Beach, Paul tented a towel over his head and his tablet and
was able to follow the market action on the ticker and summary
windows on the bottom of the screen.

Donne continued, "That's just in the past three days.
Furthermore, a survey conducted by a major pollster yesterday and
last evening shows that 77% of small businesses in this country are
now planning to add new employees in the first quarter of 2012, which
works out to be another 2.3 million jobs.”

At that, the three indices shot up another percent and a half. Paul
let out a too-loud “Yessss!” Gayle pulled up a corner of
his towel tent and held a finger to her lips to shush him. Paul
nodded a silent okay, but quickly returned his eyes to the screen as
Donne continued with his comments.

"I know a few of the pundits on the Sunday morning talk fests
wondered why I only mentioned the word 'jobs' once in my speech last
Friday. I hope what I just told you all made up for that omission.
Creating private sector jobs is one of my major priorities, but I
know that the role of government, using that word in its most
generalized sense, is not to do that directly, but to create the kind
of environment that supports job creation, and in my admittedly
biased opinion, that is better done with carrots than with sticks,
metaphorically speaking, although some of both are needed. It's a
question of balance.

"Next, as most of us know, the whole world is going to be facing
a serious situation with water as the population rises beyond seven
billion, but that does not give any government the right to restrict
its citizens' private property rights, which as of now includes the
right for any property owner in this country to deal with any
precipitation that falls on his property in any way he chooses,
without any kind of restrictions. Sorry, Colorado and Utah, but now
your residents can now have rain barrels, and people everywhere are
free to use their own creativity in any way they choose. That's
Directive 318, which, along with many others, has been posted on
______.gov.

“Now, a VERY important and special announcement. As you all
know, interest rates are very low, and many of our seniors can't get
a decent return on their retirement savings without taking
substantial and often dangerous risks. In part to help with that,
and in part to provide some investment capital for the country, I am
creating a USA Sovereign Wealth Fund, which will be a private
institution, NOT a government one.

“Among the many ways institutions and individuals can invest in
this fund, it will offer a guaranteed minimum rate of five percent on
a five-year CD, with an annual withdrawal option; for example, if you
invest a hundred thousand dollars, each January 15th, you'll get a
check for five thousand dollars, and after five years, you'll get
your hundred thousand back. So after five years, you'll have
collected 25 thousand dollars and can also get your hundred thousand
back.

“On a ten-year CD, the interest rate will be eight percent, if
you take the annual withdrawal option. So each January, you'll get a
check for eight thousand dollars, or eighty thousand over ten years,
and then you get your hundred thou back.

“Now, if you don't choose the annual withdrawal option, your
rate will be one percent higher on each of those CDs, compounded
daily.

“There will also be longer-term CD's available, and the minimum
investment will be as low as five hundred dollars.

“In addition, with my hedge fund and private equity experience,
I know that our return will be significantly higher than five, six,
eight or nine percent, and those excess returns will be split 70/30,
with the 70 percent going to infrastructure repair and development
and other types of projects and the 30 percent into a pool which will
be added to the return each investor receives, to be distributed or
reinvested, at the investor's option, at the end of the CD's term.

“I have created this fund under Directive 251, and we'll have
the details in the form of a prospectus available online in PDF
format by Friday of this week.

"I do have some other announcements to make, but I'll defer
those and we'll get right to the Q&A, since there'll probably be
some overlap there." Donne moved to the chair and settled
comfortably into it.

"Okay, first question? Let's see. Yes? Please use the mike.”

"Good afternoon, sir. Barbara _______ from ______ News. Have
you decided on what title you want to have us call you?”