American Mutt E-Book

Scott Falcon

• Herausgeber: Scott Falcon
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY 
Unprecedented chaos in America, on the brink of a second civil war, maverick investigative journalist Jackson Rand runs the controversial website PublicFigure.com. It’s the home of the Sunlight List—news exclusives exposing political corruption.
Five public figures on The List disappear on the same night three weeks before the presidential election, including the Speaker of the House and the Governor of the World Bank. Part of his background a black hole, Jackson becomes a target of the investigation. 
After an attempt on his life, Jackson goes on the run to find his notorious anonymous source. 
The kidnapping mastermind reveals himself on the Internet—his name is Hale. But law enforcement and intelligence agencies can’t find any record of him ever existing.
Hale begins to unravel the captive’s connection to a ruthless cabal and their plans to destroy the sovereignty of America. 
Jackson—an enigma. The source—anonymous. Hale—a ghost. The cabal—purveyors of Utopia. 
Four mysteries that intertwine in this political thriller where nothing is what it seems. 
 

Leseprobe

American Mutt

Scott Falcon

Reviews

American Mutt is my new favorite book. A solid and all-around great read. Falcon’s truly creative action- and twist-filled story takes the reader on a crazy ride that is both suspenseful, novel fiction and a realistic, relevant warning that will hit close to home… Some of it is downright scary—even more so because it’s real and true. When you finish the book and can finally put it down…you’ll keep thinking about it; as the author cautions, nothing is what it seems. 5.0 out of 5 stars - AC - Instant fan of Scott Falcon! Reviewed on January 15, 2020

I always hesitate picking up a long book, but this thriller won me over immediately. Great pacing and balance of action, intrigue, and commentary. I was recommending the book even before I finished. The end is a bit preachy but that's politics, no? I'm on the lookout for the author's next book! 5.0 out of 5 stars R.M. Hamrick – Smooth, thrilling read. Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2020

Want something different to read? This novel will surely satisfy that one. American Mutt was a gripping novel from start to finish. Not usually a fan of this type of thriller, this one got my attention from the start - unique beginning and very intriguing throughout. Scott Falcon came up with a very unusual plot with twists and turns that keep you hurrying to see what happens next. Loved this book! 5.0 out of 5 stars D. Shaner - Politics, plots, good guys! - Reviewed on June 20, 2020

Also by Scott Falcon

THRESHOLD

CELERITY

American Mutt, a novel

Copyright © 2020 Scott Falcon

ScottFalcon.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The poem used in the novel, “Casey at the Bat,” was written in 1888 but Ernest Lawrence Thayer and is in the public domain.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email the publisher using the contact page on RandWilde.com, and include “Attention: Permissions Coordinator.” In the subject line.

ISBN: 978-1-7341473-1-5 (Ebook)

ISBN: 978-1-7341473-0-8 (Paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-7341473-5-3 (Hardcover)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019916032

FIC031060 FICTION / Thrillers / Political, FIC031010 FICTION / Thrillers / Crime, FIC031000 FICTION / Thrillers / General, FIC000000 FICTION / General

Printed by Rand Wilde Media in the United States of America.

FIRST EDITION

RandWilde.com

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

— Thomas Jefferson

Contents

Sunlight

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Scott Falcon

Sunlight

The Blood of Tyrants… was embossed on the card, followed by the number 38.The team leader picked up the card from the table. “Tonight,” he said, his eyes absorbing the words, absorbing their meaning and weight, absorbing the end of one type of life and the beginning of another. If there would be another after tonight.

He felt his heart thump against his rib cage—closed his eyes, centering himself—and exhaled a breath of resolve. A righteous passage? A threshold to cross. A christening of sorts. But no God will be there to save us. Not tonight.

A slight nod, then an I’m-good-with-that wry smile. He placed the card back on the table and checked the magazine in his SIG Sauer, a 9mm with an anchor logo on the side. He checked the targeting of the green laser attached to the light rail, then holstered the weapon.

Tonight my training will have to be enough because tonight we will commit federal crimes.

A few blocks away, a white van drove through the upper-middle-class suburban neighborhood.

The leader placed a breathable synthetic skin hood over his head, his smile disappearing behind the veil. The hood was designed to fit his face perfectly with cut-outs for his eyes, nasal passages, mouth and ear cavities. The breathable hood overlapped the suit that covered his entire body, including his fingers and toes. No trace evidence to be left.

An eight-man crew stood behind the leader, methodically covering their second skins with black tactical clothing, including gloves and boots with smooth rubber soles. Once dressed, the men affixed gear belts with extra magazines to their waists, attached their headsets, and tested the comm systems. They slammed magazines holding composite bullets into their BCM RECCE-16 dark bronze carbines and slung the rifles over their backs.

“Nathan Control, this is Gadsden One. Ready for vitals check. Over,” the leader said.

“Read you Gadsden One. Checking vitals,” Nathan Control confirmed.

An extended wheelbase black van was parked on a Washington, D.C. residential street with its headlights off. Inside the van, computer monitors displayed the vitals of eighteen operators active in the field—heart rates, blood pressures, oxygen levels. At the top of the computer screen, the names of the teams: Gadsden and Knowlton.

“Vitals confirmed, Gadsden Team. Vitals confirmed, Knowlton Team,” Nathan Control said over the comm.

“Copy,” the team leader said, then paused, hearing a vehicle outside. He held up a closed fist, and all the men froze.

The moon was full but muted behind cloud cover, dark was the night. Headlights of the approaching van penetrated the mist, shimmering beams reflecting off the rolling and churning moist night air. The van slowed in front of the stucco box house. The engine stopped, the headlights remained on, piercing light into the gap of the living room shutters. On both sides of the van was a logo: J.P. Jones Painters. Two men wearing white jumpsuits were inside.

The leader pointed to two of his men, then to the hallway, and the men left the room through the arched doorway, then moved to each side of the darkened living room window. One man inched open a wooden shutter, just enough to see the two dragon eyes of the van intruding.

Two men in jumpsuits got out of the van, looked over the house, then opened the rear cargo door.

The leader motioned to the six remaining men, who filed out of the room and moved through the house.

Outside a clatter of metal on metal, the men in jumpsuits removed something from the van.

Inside, the two men in the living room drew their carbines to ready and racked the bolts. They exhaled long and slow. The leader and his men made their way to a door off the kitchen, entered the three-car garage and got into three black SUVs.

The men in jumpsuits carried toolboxes from the back of the van and approached the front door. The electric motors of the three-bay garage doors hummed, and the doors opened. The men in jumpsuits stopped and put down their toolboxes.

Inside, the two men slid from the living room window to the front door. One man held the doorknob. The other man stood five feet away and leveled his carbine. They listened.

The big-block engines of the SUVs turned over and growled. The white reverse lights of SUVs illuminated. Outside, the men in jumpsuits reacted to the noise and turned toward the garage. The man at the front door counted down: three—two—one. He swung open the front door. The men in jumpsuits snapped their heads toward the door and stuck up their hands.

“Lower the RECCE, you’re violating my civil rights,” one of the men in jumpsuits barked.

“Yeah, mine too,” the other man added.

“B-Team doesn’t have fucking rights. Where’s your headset?” the man holding the carbine said.

“Truck. We’re just painters tonight, remember?”

“Get your comm on now. Then paint every square inch of this place. No prints left,” the man at the front door said. “Command is mobile now.”

“Copy that,” the reluctant painter said.

The three black SUVs moved through the neighborhood, then veered off in different directions into the murk.

Former Speakers of the House of Representatives were members of the “cot club.” The name described politicians who bedded down on a cot in their offices in the Longworth House Office Building every night while the House was in session. There was a quasi-palatial official suite in the Capitol, but some complained it reeked of cigarette smoke from a prior inhabitant. The current Speaker, Susan Arnold, had no intention of joining the cot club. She lived in a 7,350 square-foot Federal-style red brick on 31st street in the Georgetown section of Washington D.C. Five bedrooms and bathrooms, thick panel solid timber hardwood floors, a lower level gym, theater, and a wine cellar.

It was 2:45 a.m. when the operator in the back of the black SUV said, “Loudspeaker quiet,” a confirmation that the home security system guarding the Speaker of the House had been successfully hacked.

“Primary out route one confirmed Gadsden One. Secondary out route also confirmed,” Nathan Control said.

“Out routes confirmed Nathan,” Gadsden One said. “Let justice be done though the heavens fall,” he said to himself.

The rear of the mobile command truck was wall-to-wall communications and surveillance equipment. A computer monitor displayed a layout of the residence. Thermal images of warm bodies glowed hot on the second floor.

“Adult thermals second floor, Gadsden One,” Nathan Control said.

“Copy, Nathan. Two thermals, second floor,” Gadsden One confirmed.

The first three-man team of commandos—or operators, as they referred to themselves—Gadsden One, Two and Three, entered the residence from the rear.

That first step inside, a chasm crossed, the first of several federal crimes that would take place on this night nearly simultaneously.

Their entry was swift and silent and smooth—hand signals—not a word was said. Once inside, Gadsden One whispered into his comm, “Nathan, be advised, Gadsden One, Two, Three, internal on target.”

“Penetration of residence confirmed, Gadsden One, Zero time, mark,” Nathan Control said over the comm.

“Zero time confirmed,” Gadsden One replied.

The operators wore heads-up displays that allowed them to see their locations within three-dimensional blueprints of the residence. They saw two adults on the second floor in a prone position, likely asleep in bed. The team proceeded through the thirty-foot-long kitchen; white shaker cabinets, brass knobs and handles, a large slate gray granite island, Thermador stainless steel appliances. One operator walked through the dining room, glanced once at the oversized painting of Jacqueline Kennedy above the fireplace, and opened the front door. Operators Gadsden Four, Five, and Six entered the residence.

Willows surrounded the back yard. A lush grassy mound in the center of the yard glistened in the moonlight. On the mound stood Gadsden Seven. His two partners, Gadsden Eight and Nine, staked out the front of the residence.

Inside the residence, Gadsden operators One through Six proceeded up the staircase to the second floor, one slight creak of a wooden stair, then another, at each sound, the team froze and listened. The Speaker, still asleep, turned to her side but did not wake. Gadsden One, Two and Three entered the Speaker’s bedroom, and without hesitation, taped the mouths of the Speaker and her husband with duct tape. As the Speaker and her husband lurched from their beds, the needles found their arteries, injecting a solution that caused unconsciousness in seconds. The operators removed a black body bag from a backpack.

Gadsden Three opened the Speaker’s left eye. Gadsden Two removed a device from his tactical vest and scanned the eye. In the Command truck, a computer monitor displayed an image of the Speaker’s pupil. Gadsden Three removed a fingerprint scanner from his vest and scanned the Speaker’s thumb. Another monitor displayed the thumbprint.

“Susan Arnold confirmed, Gadsden One. Proceed Arnold transport. Repeat. Proceed Arnold transport.”

“Copy, Nathan. Proceeding with transport, over.”

The operators slipped the Speaker into the body bag.

“Ninety seconds counting,” Nathan Control said over the comm.

“Copy,” Gadsden One said.

The men carried the Speaker out of the bedroom.

“Time for SSE, Nathan?” Gadsden One said.

“Negative on SSE, Gadsden One. Complete transport and exit residence.”

“Copy.”

The extraction from the Speaker’s bedroom took two minutes. An operator lagged behind. From his backpack, he removed what looked like a mini leaf blower connected to a small canister. He turned it on and sprayed the room with a cloud of fine dust. The team moved the body bag through the kitchen to the back door. Gadsden One paused, removed the calling card from his pocket and placed it on the kitchen island. The Blood of Tyrants - 38

Minutes earlier, several blocks away in the Foxhall neighborhood of Washington, D.C., the landscaping lights went dark in the back yard of a renovated 6,350 square-foot colonial. Heinrich Tenner snored deeply, long labored inhales and garbled exhales. His penchant for Davidoff cigarettes had given him a low-grade case of emphysema but his gold Dunhill lighter still stood tall on his nightstand next to his bed like the trusty companion it was. His wife lay next to him wearing earmuffs. The Knowlton team stood at ready over the bed and counted down by fingers: three—two—one—go. The duct tape went on, and the needles plunged into the carotids. After a few seconds of struggle, all was quiet, and the team rolled the governor of the World Bank into the body bag. On his kitchen counter lay another calling card: Blood of Tyrants - $.

Across the country, the estate on Harcross Road in Woodside, California was one of the largest properties available on the San Francisco Peninsula. The marketing brochure in the kitchen boasted its exceptionally rare 32 acres, minutes to Menlo Country Club, award-winning formal gardens (specific awards not noted), surrounded by rolling grassy hills with native oaks and redwoods, orchards, and potential for cattle or horses.

The circa 1933 Pennsylvania Tudor consisted of a 7-bedroom main residence, a secluded oversized pool, and a multi-room pool house. On the market for a cool 21 mil. Apparently, the executive vice president of the largest social media company on the planet, Glenn Woo, wanted to move uptown to posh Pacific Heights.

The rolling grassy hills surrounding the property proved useful to the nine special operators of the Tallmadge Team. Minutes earlier, they had approached the main house at the exact time of the abductions of the speaker and governor. The tech-exec was a light sleeper and sat up in bed. The men in black were on him within two syllables, which sounded something like, “What the.” Remaining behind in his kitchen was another calling card: Blood of Tyrants - METHOD.

Lawrence Brenton served several years in Congress before he was defeated by a younger Democrat, an aggressive Ivy leaguer, left of his left, which was far left. So be it, he became a wealthy lobbyist. Political insiders on the hill considered him to be one of the leading experts on state legislatures, for which expertise he gained the nickname Local Larry. But some insiders thought his curriculum vitae to be odd. What was an expert of small local politics doing in D.C. as a multi-million-dollar lobbyist, and who was paying him?

Local Larry was an old school, cigar smoke closed door meetings with power brokers kind of guy. But he liked to blow town twice a month, flying private of course, to his contemporary post-and-beam on the ocean in Newport Beach, California. It was there the midnight ramblers dressed in black, the Revere Team, snatched Local Larry, who had fallen asleep on his living room couch. The operators entered from the beach. Another card was left behind: Blood of Tyrants - Convention.

Attack dog pundit faux news anchor, Donald Sturitz, was in the middle of his five-year contract, the largest deal CNN made to date. More rancor than anchor, Sturitz became the Sean Hannity of the left. While Hannity split time on his show praising his conservative politic favorites and berating those on the left, Sturitz praised no one and became the master of the dark attack, king of gutter political ranting, and his base audience loved him for it. Sturitz created an edge, an element of humor Hannity lacked. Sturitz relished the inflicting, the rusty dull blade that needed force to go deep. He taunted, he ridiculed, he derided. Only politicians with the thickest of skins dared appear on his 7 p.m. prime-time hour.

CNN juggled the onslaught of censure issues and slander lawsuits, but the ratings kept rising for his show, and with them, ad revenue. His view of America was dark, darker, the darkest. Sick dark. He scorned, he mocked, and he divided, all with his screechy, shriekish laugh. The devil on crack. Sardonic Don. Don Rickles on Oxy, he was sarcastic, satiric, and ironic. He became known as Donic.

In the last year, Donic had become paranoid, noticeable if you watched his show, daily. There had been three attempts on his life. One Southern nut case packing an old Colt .45 revolver screamed Confederate Army slogans while he unloaded at Sturitz on Columbus Circle in broad daylight. A poor shot evidently, the hot dog vendor with a flesh wound, but Sturitz was unharmed. Another attempt, this one by an Angel Dad, who beat Sturitz good and bloody outside the Time Warner Center. Sturitz stayed overnight at Mount Sinai. The attack only made Sturitz more brazen on the air. The third attack was a rumor within the CNN New York office. No police report. Sturitz missed three shows.

Two bodyguards protecting Sturitz’s brownstone in the Upper West Side was the norm. Part of his CNN contract. The black van was parked one block away. Inside the van, aerial footage from the drone circling over the residence displayed on the operator’s pad. The thermal infrared camera on the drone only detected a single guard outside. Heat signatures inside the residence revealed one adult female and one adult male lying prone in different bedrooms, indicating a high probability of the target being present.

“Single guard,” Ethan One said into his headset. “Alarm disable confirmed. Targets separate rooms.”

“Why one guard?” Ethan Two said.

“Unknown,” another operator responded. Hold for further.”

“Copy.”

Outside the brownstone, the Ethan Team exited the van. Ethan Seven, dressed in a trench coat, approached the guard and tipped his hat. The guard nodded at Ethan Seven as the dart found his neck. The guard collapsed, Ethan Seven caught the guard’s limp body, and pulled him into the bushes.

Six Ethan operators stood in the hallway on the second floor of the residence. Ethan Four, Five and Six were outside the bedroom door of the female non-target. The other team, Ethan One, Two and Three, were thirty feet down the hallway at the other bedroom door. Ethan One nodded, Ethan Four nodded back, then the finger count: three—two. The operators rushed through the bedroom doors. The pundit’s wife had no time to react. She was neutralized according to plan. Neutralized, not dead.

Ethan One saw the king-size bed was made, not slept in... but on. On the bed was one of Sturitz’s security guards, AR-15 at his side. The team paused for half a beat. That was too much. The guard rolled off the bed and swung his rifle around toward Ethan One, who was on him in a flash, but not before the guard got off four rounds from the rifle on full auto—crack, crack, crack, crack—the rounds shredding the plaster on the wall and ceiling.

Ethan Two swung his carbine like a baseball bat into the side of the guard’s head, blunt force, out cold. The guard rag-dolled to the floor.

“We gotta Charlie Foxtrot. Negative on target. Security guard down,” Ethan One said into his headset.

“Abort,” came over the comm.

The Ethan Teams ran down the stairs and exited the side door of the residence. They hugged the perimeter wall. The van screeched to a halt out front. The men jumped in the rear of the van, and it sped away, turned a corner, pulled over then stopped.

“Ethan Team, continue to proceed to evac. Stand by,” Nathan Control Two commanded.

Breathing hard in the back of the van, Ethan Team waited.

“Ethan Team. A new twenty. Brownstone. Target still possible at new twenty. Stand by.”

“Should we full abort, Nathan?” Ethan One said.

“Stand by, Ethan One.”

Fifteen minutes later, Ethan Seven navigated the drone until it displayed the residences on each side of 3 Sutton Place. Through the speaker on the pad broadcasting audio from the drone, a dog barked.

“Negative lights on adjacent. Dog barking,” Ethan Three said.

“Proceed to alt twenty. Repeat, proceed to alt twenty. Target at second location,” Nathan Control Two said over the comm.

Several blocks away was the brownstone of Madeline Cironnia, former A-list actress. The traffic jam on her face of lift-nip-tucks piled up into an under-construction zone. Her latest offers had been roles to play variations of aging Zoloft queens for Netflix pilots, no acting required.

The man standing guard outside the Cironnia brownstone was a tenured CNN security guard. The man’s body-guarding skills had peaked years prior, but he was trusted with many company secrets, embarrassments that never saw the light of day. Inside, asleep in the master bedroom, was the man’s boss, Donald Sturitz.

Madeline apparently had not gone to bed yet, a bout of insomnia fueled by what was in the mirror at the edge of the pink granite countertop in the kitchen. Her pupils dilated even further when she whipped around, negligee twirling, and stared at the foreboding military insurgents in her kitchen. Ethan Four moved like a cat, covered her mouth, and Ethan Five delivered the just-a-slight-prick. The intruders gently laid her down on the kitchen floor. Ethan Five pulled her negligee down to cover her waist.

Sturitz’s bodyguard was milling around smoking a cigarette when the man in the trench coat and hat distracted him. The card on the kitchen island; Blood of Tyrants - CUDA.

Four of the five public figures had at least one thing in common: recent investigative exposés asserting some level of corruption—political, journalistic or corporate. The reports revealed evidence no other media outlet had discovered or knew existed. The reports revealed hard evidence. Evidence that came from the public figures’ own confidential files or those of their cronies. Sources unnamed. Journalists and pundits stated that evidence presented in the exposés was hacked, stolen, or both. Attribution? Russia, China, other nation-states, our own government? Unknown. What was known was that the exposés were published by a single media outlet, the controversial investigative journalist website.

PublicFigure.com

Chapter 1

It was a perfect fall morning at the Ventura Coastal Little League Field. This was fall ball. The Mediterranean climate of Southern California meant baseball could be played any time of year. Fall ball was a three-month stretch of league play, kind of a bonus time in addition to the conventional spring baseball season for the little guys.

The players were scattered around practicing hitting, running, fielding, throwing and pitching on this very special field. This field, this ballpark, was like no other. Millions had been spent on the construction of these hallowed baseball grounds, and all from a single donor. That donor had intended to make it the best of the best, a miniaturized version of Wrigley Field, complete with brick walls, ivy and the hand-operated scoreboard in center. The kids loved the park and it made them feel special.

Observing the antics was a man wearing sunglasses and a hoodie. He sat in the top row in the farthest left seat of the bleachers along the third base line. He lifted his head and inhaled deeply, taking in the waft of fresh-cut grass that brought him back to an earlier Americana time and place. The hooded man smiled as he felt something. That sense of someone watching him. A sense he’d honed years ago. He scanned the field again. An old man standing inside the third base line assisting with the day's activities was staring at him.

The old man was Satchel, in his seventies or eighties…or who knew. No one knew if Satchel was his real name, but when questioned about the origin of his name, Satchel said, “Cuz I ain’t playing no trumpet like Satchmo, so they dun called me Satchel. I gots a satchel full of pitches, ya never knows what’s comin’ out.”

Satchel stepped over the third-base line. He was smiling broadly at the man with the hoodie in the stands. It was a smile of acknowledgment. One of gratitude. Mutual respect. The man in the stands smiled back. Of course he did. Satchel was one of his favorite people.

From his perched view in the stands, the hooded man’s attention turned to the parking lot on the far side of the field. An SUV pulled up, and a woman got out. She helped a boy out of the back seat. The hooded man removed a pair of small binoculars from his jacket and glassed the woman. She was in her late twenties, auburn hair, deep tan, athletic, wearing a stocking cap and sunglasses. The hooded man tracked her as she made her way to the registration table, handed in her paperwork, hugged the boy, walked back to her truck and left.

The stands were packed with parents, and the hooded man made way to allow a woman to sit next to him, the last available open seat.

“Thanks,” the woman said. “Which one is yours?”

“Oh, I don’t have a boy here,” the hooded man said. “Just like watching. Helps me think.”

The woman smiled, an I-don’t-really-get-that-but-I’ll-be-polite smile.

The hooded man turned to the sound of commotion on the ground. A heavily tattooed man, early thirties, lock-gripped a young boy’s arm, and they were arguing. A league volunteer, a woman, approached them.

“Sir, you don’t have to take it out on your son,” the volunteer said.

A quick inhale, and the tattooed man said, “This here is a public park, no?... chamaca. Parks be free, for res-si-dents, si?”

“Yes, sir, the park is free, but there’s a fee for all players to be in the fall ball league. Uniforms and such,” the woman said, shuffling back a half step.

The volunteer turned and looked up to the hooded man sitting in the stands to see if he was watching. He was and he rose, making his way down the stands. He placed a phone to his ear, acting like he was making a phone call, and took a picture of the tattooed man below him, who did not catch the action.

The tattooed man grabbed the boy by the collar and shoved him towards the parking lot.

The hooded man reached ground level and stepped through the archway that led to the bullpen area behind the dugout. He approached the volunteer and placed a hand on her shoulder, an it's-okay-let-me-deal-with-this pat.

Jackson Rand, drew back his hoodie and removed his sunglasses. Jackson was six-feet-one, mixed-race, mid-length flowing dark hair, early thirties, athletically fit with a grizzled-more-than-the-age face, and small scars on his forehead, cheek and chin.

The tattooed man snorted like a bull about to charge. “You a cop, homie?”

Jackson showed no emotion. “Is there an issue?” he said.

“No issue for you, maricón.”

“I was just explaining to the gentleman about the Little League fee,” the volunteer said.

“This your son?” Jackson asked.

“Ain’t no bastard, who the fuck’re you?”

Jackson noticed an MS on his neck. “What’s your name, son?”

“Tony,” the boy said.

“Hey, Tony.” Jackson high-fived him. “You wanna play some baseball today?”

The tattooed man gripped the boy’s collar.

Jackson locked eyes with tattoo man for a fraction of a second. Tattoo man’s head rocked back, a look of pent-up rage. He took his hand off the boy’s collar, shifted his stance. Jackson smiled and kneeled in front of the boy.

“Tony, what position do ya like best?”

“Catcher,” Tony said.

“Catcher?” Tony nodded. “Do you know about the league promotion we got going today? Kinda a deferred payment deal for all catchers. How’s that sound, Tony?”

The boy smiled and looked up at the tattooed man.

“Part of your tax, homie,” the tattooed man said, taking a half step with his lead foot, towering over Jackson.

Jackson rose to his feet in a slow, deliberate move, ending inches from the tattooed man’s face, passed Tony’s hand to the volunteer.

“Nice to meet you, Tony. Let’s get you registered,” the volunteer said.

“Deferred payment,” Jackson said. “You pay later.”

“Suck my verga, marrano.” The tattooed man broke off the stare and walked away. Jackson’s shoulders loosened slightly, a slight exhale, his silent DEFCON ratcheting down a notch.

Jackson’s cellphone rang. “Hey, Tina.”

With panic in her voice, Tina said, “We gotta major problem here. Did you see the news?”

The historic and quaint downtown area of small-town-feel Ventura, California used to be post-card beautiful and included the San Buenaventura Mission founded in 1782, the Bank of Italy building with its columns and gargoyles, and the classic white stone City Hall, built in 1912 and the birthplace of the Perry Mason novels. The lamppost-lit Main Street was an eclectic mix of architecture, including Victorian, Neoclassical, mission-style, Craftsman, Cape Cod, Mediterranean architecture and more. Main Street featured locally owned bars, pubs, shops, thrift stores, and antique stores—no chain-stores or fast food, a real throwback in time.

In 2015, Men’s Journal called it the best place to live in America, the sleepy city of 106,000 located midway between Santa Barbara and Malibu, remains refreshingly unpolished, like a 1961 Ford pick-up that’s been well kept. The city used to be all those, except now in place of the vintage truck were what had become known as sanc-tees, sanctuary tents for the homeless. The despair of Los Angeles had moved north.

Toward the east end of Main Street sat an old Victorian house that had been converted into offices. The top floor offices looked over the Pacific and the Channel Islands. The eastern-facing windows had a direct view of the colorful mix of the Main Street thrift store shopping crowd who were navigating the encampments. At night that view would change to the robust nightlife raucous rock-and-roller partying crowd bouncing off the half-light zombies buzzed on one street-grade intoxicant or another.

The house was now the headquarters for an Internet-based news organization that was notorious for breaking stories about political corruption, sources undisclosed. The website already had ruined the political career of several demagogues of both parties, and was recently blamed for the suicide of a congressman in the 28th District of California after it published evidence of the fabrication of evidence to implicate a political opponent in a phony criminal case.

The site’s founder was also under investigation for releasing what some of his critics claimed was classified information. Rumors of illegal wiretapping by his confederates also swirled, and he had been implicated in plots to steal documents from private residences—documents that ended up on his website, though no charges were filed due to lack of hard evidence. The site had risen quickly in readership, second only to Drudge, and put WikiLeaks to shame in terms of scoops. That site was PublicFigure.com. Its founder was Jackson Rand.

The bullpen, a tightly packed area of cubicles and workstations, was put together using Herman Miller Resolve workstations that featured organic-styled boomerang-shaped desks, adjustable partitions and domed canopies on casters. The designers of the systems intended to foster a more naturally human experience of work by enabling people to feel comfortable, valued, and connected in their workspaces. Rand’s web developers weren’t sure about any of that, but they dug the open-air feeling and look. Scattered around the bullpen were flat-screens displaying major news stations, FOX, CNN, Fox Business, BBC, and others.

Earlier that morning, the editors were banging away on their keyboards on a day like any other, when, within seconds of each other, the news stations went into alert mode. On Fox, the screen flashed a Fox News Alert, and the programming cut to reporter Catherine Hanson, fortyish, dark short hair, who was covering the Capitol in Washington, D.C. “We are getting reports just now that, days before a controversial vote on raising the debt ceiling, a procedure crucial to avoid a default on the monstrous national debt, the Speaker has not entered the Capitol today and has not been reachable. Our sources are reporting that a security detail was dispatched pre-dawn to the residence of the Speaker in Georgetown. I believe we have our Michael Foster in front of the residence. Michael, can you hear me?”

Across the street from the home of the Speaker, Fox reporter Michael Foster, mid-thirties, black, was adjusting his earpiece. Behind him were a dozen government vehicles, two FBI field office evidence response team trucks, an FBI mobile Command Center vehicle, and several Capitol Police cars. The home was barricaded with yellow crime scene tape, and police were moving in and out of the residence rapidly.

“Yes, Catherine. As you can see behind me, something has happened here. We have an active crime scene. My sources inside the Capitol Police are telling me that the Speaker is missing and there may have been foul play of some kind,” Foster said.

“Missing? Uh, what does that mean exactly, Michael?”

“Well, from what I was told, her husband was awakened by Capitol Police, who somehow entered the residence. Mr. Arnold was very groggy, and once lucid, told the police that men entered his bedroom in the middle of the night.”

“Yes, Michael stand by. We are getting a report that the Capitol Police are announcing now, in a short statement, that they believe the Speaker of the House was abducted from her residence sometime last night and further details will be available at a press briefing shortly. And this comes, of course, just three weeks from the presidential election. A shocking development,” Catherine Hanson said.

Tina Takata, half Asian, half Caucasian, senior editor for PublicFigure, stood motionless in the center of the bullpen, her eyes bouncing from one newscast to the next. She yelled out to her staff, “Okay, new headline. Add link to full bio of Arnold too. Let’s go, people.”

The writers and developers in the PublicFigure bullpen went into overdrive, and within minutes, a photograph of the Speaker appeared on the home page of the website, with a link to her extensive biography.

“Jesus, she’s on our Sunlight List,” a developer said.

“No shit,” another writer said. “Whatta we have on her that we haven’t cleared for publication yet?”

Jackson Rand stormed through the front door.

“Tina, do you have her on the home page yet?” Jackson said.

“It’s up,” Tina said.

“I’m gonna tweak the home page real quick, so save it, and hold up editing, I’m on point. Come see me if you get more details.”

Jackson walked into his workspace that was more like a computer lab than an office, with a mix of television monitors and computer screens stacked high and wide. Bookshelves covered the wall space. On a shelf in front of the books was an old baseball glove, a Wilson A2000, well worn. A small frame on another shelf held a photograph of Keith Richards. Next to the photo was a bottle of Bracero Anejo tequila, half full, and next to it, a small metal trident pin also known as the Budweiser. On the floor near the corner were two used chrome Supertrapp exhaust pipes and a motorcycle helmet. Jackson sat down in his Aeron chair and, in a flurry of keystrokes on his mechanical keyboard, brought up the HTML editing screen for the home page and started making changes.

Tina rushed in. “We’re going to be people of interest number one by the Feds, the Secret Service, DOJ and who knows what the hell else. How are we going to protect our sources and the newest stuff on the Speaker?”

“Who’s our source on her exposé?” Jackson said.

“You know. The deep anon.”

“So that’s what we’ll tell them.”

“They’ll go after another contempt charge,” Tina said.

“Take care of my dog while I’m gone.”

“That’s not funny. Should I call the lawyer?”

“I already did.”

The west end of Ventura has been mostly Hispanic since the mid-1860s. A mishmash of single-story quasi-industrial block and stucco structures, machine shops and dilapidated buildings in need of repair. Next to a family-owned Mexican cafe was a building that housed a welding business before it failed.

To keep the homeless out, the owner surrounded the building with a chain-link fence and boarded up the windows with plywood. It was dark and damp inside the old welding shop; rusted machines littered the space and cobwebs hung down from the rafters. Birds found their way in and fluttered around until they escaped or dropped dead.

Spider webs enshrouded a doorway adjacent to the main floor area that led to a small office. An old dented battleship-gray metal desk sat in the center of the office room, rusting, layers of dust coating it. An old Coca-Cola machine stood against the wall, long past any functionality.

Next to the machine was a three-foot-square metal plate on the floor with eyelets to hold padlocks. The plate concealed a wobbly staircase that led down to a basement. A basement, any basement, was rare in California due to their propensity to flood. The basement was ten-by-fifteen feet, walls of cinder block, cellar darkness. Darkness until the wall switch was flipped and the basement lit up like daylight in the desert. There was electrical power and lots of it. The welding operation had beefed up the electrical panel to power heavy equipment on the main floor, and it was that panel that Cinder Stowe had modified to power what has hidden in this cavernous enclave. Racks of computer servers.

Cinder, the woman Jackson had viewed through the binoculars at the ball field, sat in the middle of her horse-shoe configuration of technology, computer screens surrounding her. All of her machines routed to an array of servers across the planet. Any trace of the connections led to anonymous servers in Finland. At the end of each session, the work files were saved on the dark web, encrypted of course, and purged from local hard drives through a variety of proprietary bleaching processes. Her clandestine research, all of her communications, and black-hat hacking originating in this dark refuge, were untraceable.

Red Nick was Cinder's call sign on the dark web. Most thought it was a play on the term Red Neck, a guy named Nick who was from the South. Or a far-left radical named Nick who loved the irony. It was a play on her name spelled backward, Rednic. Cloaked in anonymity, Red Nick ran a deep web-based network of researchers and hackers located in several countries. She paid them in Bitcoins. Red Nick became a thing of dark web legend.

Fearing that Jackson Rand would connect her dots someday, she communicated to the PublicFigure editorial team as Deep Anon. Red Nick-Rednic-Deep Anon-Cinder Stowe was an information broker. A very special information broker. A sleuth information broker that could manage black hats.

Cinder lived for the rush. The max adrenaline main-line rush, the no-one-could-have-pulled-this-off-but-me rush, when the source’s work product made international news, and a corrupt CEO or a celebrity pedophile or a banker or a Congressperson or despot was exposed and hauled away in handcuffs. Which to her chagrin, was a rare occurrence even though corruption was at an all-time high since the United States became a one-party system welfare state.

There was the rush, the justice-served rush, and then there was the money. Cinder was well-paid for her unique services. She paid her black hats exorbitant fees in turn, which was why they did what they did. So there was the rush and the money. The money from her highest paying and most consistent client. The website known as The Famous, The Infamous, and The Notorious—PublicFigure.com.

But under the cool-in-control demeanor coupled with a cold and calculating math mind, was something else. Behind the hazel eyes, a fire burned, a torch of an unquieted need. The need for revenge. The bittersweet taste of revenge yet to pass her lips, yet to be consumed, digested, and dissolved. She carried the burden of a nagging secret and every day repeated the same mantra. Someday soon.

Today’s justice-served work would have to wait. On the five screens surrounding Cinder were data sets for five individuals. Commissioned work. Works in progress. Susan Arnold, Heinrich Tenner, Glenn Woo, Donald Sturitz, and Lawrence Brenton. When the news flashed on one of her screens about the disappearance of the Speaker of the House, Cinder quickly turned up the volume and sat up in her chair.

The coverage of the disappearance of the Speaker was interrupted with a news alert about the disappearance of Donald Sturitz, the CNN pundit. Cinder swallowed—tried to swallow—her throat tightened, her saliva turned to cement, hardened on the way down, and plowed into her intestines like a wrecking ball. She grabbed the top of the monitor with both hands, her eyes intense, absorbing every word.

She slammed back into the chair and typed furiously, bringing up article after article from news sites about the kidnappings. She switched to the dark web, typing in dozens of search terms, including Speaker of the House, Susan Arnold, and Donald Sturitz. She was looking for chatter within the last hour.

She went into terminate-local-mode: Save all data to encrypted cloud system—local deletion—bleach drives—disconnect external hard drives and remove. She opened a pilot’s suitcase and threw in dozens of static flash drives, flipped open the sides of the computer cases and extracted all the RAM modules and hard drives.

She powered down all of the computers. In the pilot’s case went three laptops and six satellite phones. She lifted the latch on a rusty water heater in the corner, revealing a safe. She spun the dial of the combination lock with finesse and opened the safe door. She was in execution mode now. Flat out. Methodical. Focused.

She removed three stacks of one-hundred-dollar bills, several dozen Krugerrand coins, and several flash drives. She threw all the items in the suitcase and closed it. Remaining in the safe were a pistol and ten magazines. She removed the gun and placed it on the desk. From a desk drawer, she removed a Kydex holster, slipped it on her belt, then holstered her weapon.

She put on a Safari-type jacket and placed the magazines in the lower bellowed pockets. She pulled up the handle on the suitcase, stood it upright, and rolled it away from the computer setup. She sprayed lighter fluid on the keyboards, chairs, and desk, then lit them on fire.

She pulled the suitcase up the stairs, rolled it out of the building to her old Range Rover, and placed it in the trunk area, then returned to the cellar and doused the flames with a fire extinguisher.

Once the fire was out, Cinder left the building and drove away. She kept her Range Rover at the speed limit and proceeded along Main Street through downtown Ventura. She glanced at the PublicFigure building and kept going, continuing past the West Main street area, the tents of the illegals and the aimless and the hopeless. Dodging the staggerers; the hungry, the high, the homeless. She flipped news stations in rapid-fire.

A reporter with another alert blurted, “Yeah, Bret, I’m in Washington, outside the residence of Heinrich Tenner, the current Governor of the World Bank, and our sources here tell us he was taken in the middle of the night as well. There is now no doubt that some type of coordinated attack, or kidnapping, uh, I should say we have no information at this time that any of these victims were murdered, uh, it seems they have been extracted from their homes at about the same time.”

Cinder hit the brakes. She saw a car closing in from behind, pulled over, and stopped. Breathing heavy, her hand darted to her waist, feeling the butt of the pistol. An instinctive move to make sure it was still there. The car passed her. She rolled down the window and coughed, then spat out the window.

The Range Rover pulled into the parking lot of the Little League park. Casey, her son, came running up.

“Hey Mom, you’re early, but it’s okay, my tryout is over. I did good,” Casey said. The ten-year-old ran up and hugged Cinder.

“Can we go to Ben and Jerry’s like you said?”

“We’re going on a little adventure.”

“Again?”

Chapter 2

The editors and web developers stood around a single television screen in the bullpen of the PublicFigure offices, watching the news. Another Fox News Alert flashed, and the reporting cut back to Catherine Hanson.

Jackson watched the news with one foot upon his desk. His gaze was elsewhere, not on the screens, distant, his phones kept ringing. He held a baseball in his hands and was tossing it back and forth. The reports on his monitors continued… “These may be unrelated events, but it kinda reminds me of the initial plane report on 9/11, then we knew,” Catherine said.

Two employees rushed into Jackson’s office, a web developer and an editor.

“Did ya see this one yet? Damn, Jackson, I mean... Dude, all three of these people are on our top ten Sunlight List. What the fuck?” the web developer said.

“Yeah, I’m watching.”

“What does this mean, Jackson? I mean for us?” the editor asked.

“Means we can expect visitors pretty soon,” Jackson said.

“The feds again, right? They gonna want some answers pronto about our content and sources and methods and all that shi…,” the web developer said.

“Lockdown mode,” Jackson said.

“They gonna be walking in here with SWAT shit, dude,” the web developer said.

“Only for web developers. You better Kevlar up then,” Jackson said.

The editor and web developer looked at each other with he’s-fucking-with-us-right? expressions.

The television coverage cut back to Catherine Hanson. “We have our correspondent, Tamara Blarren, in our local San Francisco office with us who is reporting from Woodside, California. Tamara what do you have for us?”

Tamara was standing outside the large estate in Woodside, California. “Hi, Catherine. We have just received confirmation on the ground here from our media source at Facebook, and this has been confirmed by the local sheriff’s spokesperson, that their executive vice president of marketing, Glenn Woo, was reported missing by his wife this morning. The police, as you can see behind me are investigating this, now anyway, as a crime scene, once they connected with the D.C. and Manhattan counterparts, where a similar M.O. was happening there, Catherine. The details are scant at this time, but it seems we have some type of synchronized thing going on here. We’re just not sure what exactly.”