settling on Snyder. The kid seemed lonely, as if he was desperate for a friend, but never seemed to mix or chat with the other two. He was the odd man out. The only person he talked to was the clerk behind the counter in the gift shop downstairs. Thatâs how Thorn had found out Snyder went to Stanford and was trying to get into law school, by listening from behind a pillar as Jimmie chatted with the clerk during his break.
From that sparse information Thorn tailored the friendly lawyer Warren Humphreys. The rest was easy. The kid was so anxious to find a friend that Thorn didnât even have to ask him for a private tour. Snyder offered, and in less than forty minutes Thorn had every thing he needed.
Thorn found out that his unofficial tour of the building had been discovered and that Jimmie Snyder was about to be questioned. He was tipped off by his employer. Whoever they were, they had boots on the ground, and big ears.
The kid could no doubt identify Thorn even without the heavy makeup and the rubber gut glued to his stomach to create a paunch under his polo shirt. Thorn had used padding in his cheeks forjowls and wore a broad-billed baseball cap that he kept pulled low over his eyes. All of these were intended to mask Thornâs appearance from the security cameras in the building. What was more threatening, however, was that Snyder could tell authorities exactly what it was that Thorn did as they went through the building, the fact that he had this rather strange-looking camera and that he kept using it to snap pictures from odd angles inside some of the rooms. Jimmie had even commented on it, wondering out loud how the camera had gotten through the metal detector without setting off the alarm. The reason was that the device contained no metal. Thorn had had it fabricated from plastic and carbon fiber using off-the-shelf hardware and parts.
Considering what the kid had seen and what he knew, Thorn had no choice. He hired the Mexican he had used several times before, and silenced Jimmie Snyder forever.
Thorn scrolled back to the first page and glanced at a few of the other headlines on the screen. He read the banner at the top: âDeficit Grows to Six Trillion.â
He scanned enough of the story to conclude, at least in his own mind, that the old superpower up north was going down fast, in one final orgy of spending. To Thorn the whole thing seemed comical. For a century and a half, it had sucked taxpayers dry, forcing them all to pay for Social Security and Medicare several times over while Congress refused to lock up the money and pissed it all away on other things, including the Congressional gold-plated pension plan. Now they wanted to give everybody health care so they could play the same tune over again, only louder this time.
Einstein was right; only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity.
Two thousand years since the Romans disappeared, government was still dealing in bread and circuses. Perks to the people in return for their votes, all of it to be paid for by the rich, if you believed the people pulling the levers. And all they wanted wasmerely to serve, to maintain their death grip in the wheelhouse even as the ship went under.
Thorn would have to move fast if he was going to catch it before it sank; it would be like shooting fireworks off the deck of the Titanic . He would give them a light show they would never forget, just as the country slipped beneath a financial tsunami.
EIGHT
T he United States Senate was without question the most exclusive club in the world. But tonight Joshua Root was wishing he had joined the Rotary Club instead. He was sitting alone in the darkened living room of his home in Chevy Chase holding a single sheet of paper, a printout of a personal e-mail from his computer upstairs. It was the second message in less than a month from an old acquaintance, someone he hadnât seen or heard from in years, a former friend from the dark days of his
From that sparse information Thorn tailored the friendly lawyer Warren Humphreys. The rest was easy. The kid was so anxious to find a friend that Thorn didnât even have to ask him for a private tour. Snyder offered, and in less than forty minutes Thorn had every thing he needed.
Thorn found out that his unofficial tour of the building had been discovered and that Jimmie Snyder was about to be questioned. He was tipped off by his employer. Whoever they were, they had boots on the ground, and big ears.
The kid could no doubt identify Thorn even without the heavy makeup and the rubber gut glued to his stomach to create a paunch under his polo shirt. Thorn had used padding in his cheeks forjowls and wore a broad-billed baseball cap that he kept pulled low over his eyes. All of these were intended to mask Thornâs appearance from the security cameras in the building. What was more threatening, however, was that Snyder could tell authorities exactly what it was that Thorn did as they went through the building, the fact that he had this rather strange-looking camera and that he kept using it to snap pictures from odd angles inside some of the rooms. Jimmie had even commented on it, wondering out loud how the camera had gotten through the metal detector without setting off the alarm. The reason was that the device contained no metal. Thorn had had it fabricated from plastic and carbon fiber using off-the-shelf hardware and parts.
Considering what the kid had seen and what he knew, Thorn had no choice. He hired the Mexican he had used several times before, and silenced Jimmie Snyder forever.
Thorn scrolled back to the first page and glanced at a few of the other headlines on the screen. He read the banner at the top: âDeficit Grows to Six Trillion.â
He scanned enough of the story to conclude, at least in his own mind, that the old superpower up north was going down fast, in one final orgy of spending. To Thorn the whole thing seemed comical. For a century and a half, it had sucked taxpayers dry, forcing them all to pay for Social Security and Medicare several times over while Congress refused to lock up the money and pissed it all away on other things, including the Congressional gold-plated pension plan. Now they wanted to give everybody health care so they could play the same tune over again, only louder this time.
Einstein was right; only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity.
Two thousand years since the Romans disappeared, government was still dealing in bread and circuses. Perks to the people in return for their votes, all of it to be paid for by the rich, if you believed the people pulling the levers. And all they wanted wasmerely to serve, to maintain their death grip in the wheelhouse even as the ship went under.
Thorn would have to move fast if he was going to catch it before it sank; it would be like shooting fireworks off the deck of the Titanic . He would give them a light show they would never forget, just as the country slipped beneath a financial tsunami.
EIGHT
T he United States Senate was without question the most exclusive club in the world. But tonight Joshua Root was wishing he had joined the Rotary Club instead. He was sitting alone in the darkened living room of his home in Chevy Chase holding a single sheet of paper, a printout of a personal e-mail from his computer upstairs. It was the second message in less than a month from an old acquaintance, someone he hadnât seen or heard from in years, a former friend from the dark days of his
Similar Books
