Linwood Barclay - Trust Your Eyes

Like those two nut jobs who were about to set off a bomb in a Florida theme park when they were nabbed. The moment he was notified of the arrests, Goldsmith was leaning on Florida’s highest-ranking law enforcement officials to hold the two men until his people arrived. Goldsmith’s intelligence experts said something much bigger was coming, and those clowns in Florida agreed to tell everything they knew in return for a couple of air tickets back to Yemen. (The U.S. government even paid their airfare home, the Times noted, a fact that rankled almost as much as the prospect of the devastation they nearly caused.)

Goldsmith credited the deal with thwarting another underwear/shoe-type bomber before he boarded a Washington-bound plane in Paris. But the Times story could find no definitive link between the two events. It suggested Goldsmith was inflating the value of the intel he’d received from the two theme park terrorists to justify sending them home.

Goldsmith was pilloried. He resigned. Florida’s attorney general followed.

What the Times didn’t know was that Florida was not the first such incident.

A Saudi illegal with al Qaeda sympathies had tried to set off a Ford F-150 filled with explosives around the corner from the Guggenheim. He’d parked it in the middle of the night and set it to go off at nine in the morning. But a woman looking out her brownstone window wondered why he kept checking something in the truck’s cargo bed, and called the police. A tactical team arrived and disabled the device before the bagel carts had set up for business. The truck was traced to its owner, the man arrested. Goldsmith was in the loop from the beginning, scooped the suspect, found out he had a bunch of similar-minded friends he was willing to roll on, all in return for a trip home.

Goldsmith called Morris.

Morris balked at first. He’d prosecute the son of a bitch. Told Goldsmith he wasn’t interested in making deals with terrorists. Goldsmith said, “You know, terror suspects aren’t the only people we have a lot of background intel on, if you get my meaning.”

There wasn’t an ambitious politician alive who didn’t have secrets he hoped were buried forever. Morris Sawchuck could only have guessed what Goldsmith might have had on him. Knowledge, perhaps, of one or more dirty tricks Howard had performed on his behalf. Campaign donations that hadn’t gone through channels. Maybe even something about Bridget’s sexual history. Or even his own.

Sawchuck allowed himself to be overruled.

The bomber went home.

When the Times story broke, Howard and Morris waited for the other shoe to drop. The Times would keep digging and find out Morris had caved. They could see the headlines: “New York AG Allows Guggenheim Bomber to Skip Country.”

It would have finished him.

No one who let terrorists go free got to the governor’s mansion, let alone the White House. Morris would have been lucky to serve on the board of a community college after this got out.

It is all this, Howard fears, that Allison Fitch has heard Bridget talking about on the phone with Morris.

“Jesus Christ, Bridget, how stupid are you?” Howard shakes his head. “How stupid is Morris?”

“He never talked about anything specific. Everything was in general terms. Just that he’s worried. That he hopes all this will blow over soon.”

“That’s the thing, Bridget. We think it’s all going to blow over soon. There’s a very good chance this will all go away.” His voice is very low. “But not if you start blabbing about it on the phone, where some blackmailing lesbo bimbo can hear you.”

“Howard, really, she’s bluffing. She never heard anything. I’m sure of it.”

He turns, takes two steps away from her, turns and looks at her again. He approaches and says, “The blackmail thing-I could see us getting out from under that. But if this woman really heard something, she’s got information that trumps some girl-on-girl action. She’s got dynamite. You understand what I’m saying, Bridget? She has dynamite. She has a goddamn nuclear weapon.”

“Howard, honestly, I’m sure, even if she heard every word I said, she never heard anything that would-”

“Enough,” he says. “Enough.” He shakes his head slowly, thinking. He points a finger at her and says, “Not one word to Morris. Not one single word.”

Then, abruptly, he leaves her there, striding out of the lobby to the sidewalk and heading east.

Bridget braces herself against the wall, tries to regain her composure. Howard doesn’t have to worry that she’ll tell Morris. He scares her far more than her husband does.

“The FBI sent some people to talk to me, Mr. President.”

“Yes, of course, that makes sense.”

“Did you send them?”

“It’s standard procedure.”

“Okay. Because they weren’t friendly. They asked if I’d ever been in trouble.”

“What did you say?”

“They knew about the time that I saw Mrs. Hitchens naked. But they didn’t know about the other thing.”

“And you didn’t tell them.”

“No. And I think they meant the kind of trouble where I was the one who did the bad thing. But it wasn’t my fault. I don’t like to talk about it. Dad wanted to talk about it just before he died, wanted me to talk about it. It was very confusing, because for years and years he wouldn’t let me talk about it, to anyone. And I never did. Not even Dr. Grigorin knows.”

“I know.”

“It’s safe, telling you.”

“What about your brother? Should you tell him?”

“No. No, I don’t think so.”

Driving home, Michael Lambton wants some.

He can go home and get it-just shake Vera so that she wakes up enough to roll onto her back-but that’s not really what he has in mind. This is a celebration, after all. If you’re going to celebrate, do you really want the same piece of ass you can get any day of the week?

And this is definitely a cause for celebration. He’s pulled it off. At least, it sure as hell looks as though he’s pulled it off. The vote’s this coming Sunday, and all indications are the dumb bastards are going to approve it. Narrowly, probably, but they’re going to ratify a contract that gives them a zero pay increase, a clawback in benefits, and no job security clauses. But they still have jobs, and they don’t want them moving to Mexico or China or Taiwan or any of those goddamn places.

They want to keep making automotive parts-door panels and dashboards and steering wheel assemblies-and shipping them off to GM and Toyota and Honda and Ford plants, not just here in the good ol’ USA but overseas, too. They’ve seen what’s been happening across this country, for years now, where the jobs are going. And when these jobs leave, are they ever coming back? Not fucking likely.

That is what Lambton tells them when he presents the company’s offer. He calls it “piss poor.” He calls it “a motherfucking insult.” He calls it “a punch to the gut of each and every hardworking man and woman in this plant.”

He calls it all those things. He also calls it “our best hope of keeping our jobs.”

“Let’s face it, folks. These sons of bitches can close up shop and be set up in Asswipe, South Korea, before you’ve even gotten home from the evening shift, cracked open a beer, and put on Leno. Do I like this contract? I hate this contract. And I’m here to tell you tonight, as your union leader, that on Sunday I am going to be voting for this piece of shit contract. You know why? Because I’m a realist. Because I got mouths to feed, and I know you do, too. Because I got a mortgage to pay, and I know you do, too. Because I got kids to send to school, and I know you do, too. Because I got people who depend on me, each and every day, and I know you do, too.”