The Devlin Deception: Book One of The Devlin Quatrology Read online

  "The Tea Party, when it comes to taxes, has got it about right, maybe a bit too extreme. But when they get into the theocratic stuff and demand that the government force everybody to behave as if they believe the same way the tea party social conservatives do, that's where I have a problem. Again, it's easy to look at stuff in black and white and miss the nuances, the multiple shades of gray, and it's easy to want to limit other people's freedom of choice. Okay. Next? Yes.”

  “Danielle _____, _____. Several of your critics on the Sunday morning shows complained that your background was primarily as a hedge fund manager –“

  “Owner.”

  “I'm sorry; owner – and that the public has a pretty low opinion of hedge funds. What can you say to those critics?”

  "Well, Danielle, I'm actually quite proud of our hedge fund. One of the best things we did was price our services well. When most hedge funds were two-and-twenty funds, in other words, charging clients two percent a year on their account plus taking 20 percent of the gains, we attracted a lot of money by simply taking a zero annual fee and fifteen percent of the gains, reducing that to ten percent on funds a client kept with us for five years. Our clients' ten-year average annual return, after our fees, was 26.7 percent, way above the second place fund, which averaged 14.9 percent. And we were managing over 1.8 trillion dollars, with fewer than a hundred direct employees.

  "And by investing some of that money as venture capital or private equity funding, we started or acquired hundreds of businesses all over the world, which is what developed into Donne Enterprises International. And in all of our businesses, we've instituted generous profit-sharing plans, so we've never had unions in any of them. In many of the businesses, those profit-sharing plans were used by the employees to buy the companies back from us after we'd turned them around; DEI keeps ten percent and the option to go back in and fix new problems as they arise, as consultants. And we still have given our investors generous returns. Okay. Yes?”

  “Stephanie _____, ____. Mr. Donne, are you going to release your tax returns?”

  “No. Okay. Ye- --”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I'm not running for anything, Stephanie. And I'm not going to release DEI's returns, either. Okay. Yes?”

  “Brenna ____, ____. Last night's talk shows and fake news shows had a lot of jokes at your expense. How do you feel about those?”

  “I've sent black helicopters for them all. Just kidding. But I could if I wanted to.” He glanced over at Cissy, who shrugged and nodded. Donne smiled.

  “Actually, I've got a pretty thick skin, even on this little body, and I know I'm no Charlton Heston, sort of charisma-free. I also know that until they start to see how my policies are going to work in reality, ad hominem jokes are about all they can do. So I don't really mind in the slightest.

  “In fact, I really liked the cartoon of me on that first fake news show. You know what they say about men with big ears, don't you?”

  The press corps tittered a bit nervously.

  “Well, it's true, absolute fact.”

  The crowd tittered even more nervously.

  “Yup. We really do listen better than the poor guys who only have little ones.”

  A few in the crowd broke into audible chuckles.

  “But I do pay attention to all those late night shows, even if I can't watch them all myself; I get summaries and clips each day. They shouldn't think they'll have much impact on my policies, of course.

  “But I have to say I'm intrigued by John's idea of animatronic robots in the Capitol and the --”

  Just then, the Marine officer entered again, saluted and whispered into Donne's ear. Donne whispered back briefly and stood up.

  “I'm sorry, gang, but I've got to go, and this will probably take a lot longer. So with my mea culpa, I've got to suspend this press conference right now. But we may have an announcement later this afternoon; we'll let you know on that. Thank you all for coming.”

  With that, Donne followed the Marine officer out, followed in turn by his two czars. The press corps murmured, mumbled and mingled, finally dispersing back to their offices to file their stories and await further developments.

  -22-

  Five Months Earlier

  Thursday, July 7, 2011

  9:15 a.m.

  Bonita Springs, FL

  A rare rainy day in Bonita Springs. Jake lolled on his bed with his laptop, consolidating and organizing notes that he'd made in his tiny beach notebook, and reminding himself that he should quit using spiral notebooks and get some that didn't have those annoying little stubs of paper, several of which had gotten away from him when he ripped the sheets out and were now fluttering around in the breeze coming in from the Gulf during a break In the downpour.

  “Geez, I hate these things,” Jake mumbled as he threw back the covers and began a search-and-recovery mission, which took him all of six minutes, two minutes of which involved scrambling after one recalcitrant piece that had lodged far under his bed and caused him to deeply scratch his right shoulder on the bottom of the bedspring.

  While he was in the bathroom, dousing the wound with hydrogen peroxide and putting on a large bandage, the rain and wind picked up again and Jake hurried out to close the sliders. But he slipped on some rain that had blown in on the tile floor and fell through the screen, cutting his right thigh on the frame of the screen door and scraping his cheek, hands and one forearm on the river-rock balcony floor.

  Back in the bathroom after closing the slider, with more peroxide and bandages, Jake muttered, “I am not superstitious, I am not superstitious. I do not believe in omens. This is just a coincidence. Just a coincidence. Guess I'd better get a tetanus booster, at least. Geez. What a klutz. Damn, damn, damn.”

  An hour later, Jake limped out of an urgent care clinic on Bonita Beach Road, his wallet 412 dollars lighter, but with a tetanus shot, four stitches in his shoulder and eight in his thigh, fresh bandages and a prescription for an antibiotic, which he filled (to his surprise, for free) at a supermarket on his way home. He also had a prescription for a heavy-duty painkiller, which he didn't fill, a choice he later regretted. The doc had also told him not to go in the water for two weeks and to come back in ten days to get the stitches out.

  He did pick up three small non-spiral notebooks, some over-the-counter painkillers, a couple packages of hot dog buns and a bag of his favorite half-ounce meatballs, which he noticed now only had 65 in the bag, instead of the 80 that each bag had previously held, but the price was the same. A quick bit of math and Jake concluded that that worked out to an inflation rate of about 23 percent in a few months.

  As he went by the frozen food section, he noticed that the ice cream he'd bought the previous week for $5.75 for one, then get one free, was now not on a BOGO, but was now priced at $4.89. He didn't bother to do the math on that, but it seemed that a true BOGO should still be at the lower price.

  “Geez,” he muttered to himself, “I gotta find some way to put those in the book. Wonder what Donne would do? Hmm; what would Donne do? Cool. WWDD. Or … hmm … WWGD? Hmm. Do I dare?”

  Chuckling, Jake left the supermarket, where he saw two tables set up, one with a pro-Obama sign and one with a pro-Republican sign, both attempting to register voters, and he debated only briefly before approaching the Obama table, where he told the two people manning it that he thought Obama was the biggest liar ever to be elected President and then mentioned the book he was writing and challenging them to read what he had online; he gave them the web address.

  Then he walked over to the Republican table and told them that he was writing a book about a guy who buys the country and legalizes gay marriage, abortion and marijuana, and challenged them to read what he's got online, also giving them the web address.

  He walked to his car, again chuckling about the WWGD idea, but then he reminded himself about Pam's warning, so when he left the parking lot, he stopped for a small tub of ice cream at the Princely Dollop on 8th Street, then drove a
round some random streets in Bonita Shores, saw nobody following him and returned home, getting there a bit past eleven.

  He mopped up the water on the tile floor and used hydrogen peroxide to remove the bloodstains on the white shag rug around his bed, careful to avoid aggravating his new injuries. Half an hour later, finally satisfied with his cleanup, he settled back on his bed and continued consolidating his notes, adding “WWDD” and “WWGD” to the batch. He also added “MBs, +23%” and “$5.75 vs. $4.89” and “MD, $412!!”

  By noon, Jake's butt hurt from the tetanus shot, so he popped a couple of the OTC painkillers, told himself, “There's a nap for that,” rolled over on his side and took one.

  -23-

  Tuesday, December 13, 2011

  3:55 p.m.

  The White House Press Room

  Washington, DC

  By a quarter to four, rumors about something going on in the Mideast were circulating among the members of the press corps who had returned to the room. Some of them were on their cell phones, frantically trying to get the latest information from their main offices and Mideast correspondents, for the most part unsuccessfully.

  At five minutes to four, the screen to the right of the podium came to life with a shot of the Situation Room, showing Donne and several military and civilian personnel gathered around the table, most staring intently at something slightly to the left of the camera aimed at them. All the journalists either shut off their phones or held them up to record or transmit what was on the screen.

  Donne looked up at the camera and smiled at the milling press corps as an aide handed him a microphone. Donne fumbled with it for a moment, then found the on/off switch and clicked it on.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I'll be joining you there in a few minutes, but I just wanted to let you know that we have just wrapped up three operations in the Mideast, capturing or killing three senior-level Al Qaeda leaders, with no American casualties and no collateral damage, as far as we know at this point.

  “I can't tell you more than that, other than that it was a joint military/CIA operation and that it was the culmination of several months of cooperative intelligence gathering by many, many agencies in our government and others. At least that's what I was told in the briefings I've gotten on this since Friday morning.

  “In any event, I'll be back with y'all in a few minutes, ten at the most. Smoke 'em if you got 'em.” Donne handed the microphone back to the aide and then said to Cissy, who was seated next to him, “I've always wanted to say that,” apparently unaware that he hadn't turned the mike off. The screen then went to black.

  -24-

  Five Months Earlier

  Thursday, July 7, 2011

  2:55 p.m.

  Bonita Beach, FL

  Jake was startled awake by a bright flash and a loud clap of thunder, which seemed to come from right outside his window. Automatically reaching under his pillow, he grabbed his .38 and leapt to his feet, sweeping the gun from left to right. Another clap of thunder, this one further away, and Jake realized what had awakened him, so he relaxed, but only a little.

  Limping a bit and being careful not to disturb his stitches, he did his now-routine check of the alarm system and the house, this time going carefully down the inside stairs from the first floor to the ground level, where he checked the garage doors, the extra fridge, the hidden safe and his car. Finding nothing amiss, he returned to his loft bedroom and secured his weapon back in its hiding place.

  Padding carefully over to the sliding glass doors, he looked out at the screen flapping in the breeze and, seeing that his fall had only pulled it from the frame, he decided he'd try to fix it himself once the rain stopped.

  But he also noticed that one of his southern neighbor's trees must have been struck by the lightning bolt that had awakened him and was now lying across their pool, stretching toward the shoreline.

  The surf was huge, some of the waves cresting at seven feet, maybe eight, and the stakes and tapes around most of the turtle nests in front of his house and his northern neighbor's McMansion were gone.

  But he also saw that a few surfers were out, braving the rain and seeming to be enjoying riding the big waves.

  “Idiots.” Jake shook his head, went back to his bed, took another couple of painkillers and pulled his laptop and his notebook off the side table and continued with his organizing and consolidating. But he was much more careful with the spiral notebook, just crossing things off rather than tearing the pages out. He was also careful about putting pressure on the wrong place on his butt, but within half an hour, he was again lying on his left side, fast asleep.

  -25-

  Tuesday, December 13, 2011

  4:05 p.m.

  The White House Press Room

  Washington, DC

  As he'd promised, Donne returned to the press room, preceded and followed by his retinue, and he smiled a bit grimly at the crowd.

  “Before I take any more questions, we're preparing a release for y'all on the operations we just finished, including the names of the AQ we killed and the two we captured. So I won't have to try to pronounce their names. You should have that release in just a few minutes, on your phones, tablets and on our web site.

  “Now, I've got time for only a few more questions. Yes?”

  “Yani ____, from _____. On these operations, do you give President Obama credit for those?”

  “Of course, to the extent he authorized the original intelligence ops, as did President Bush before that. But as for actual credit, that goes to our military intelligence agencies, especially the CIA, and other countries' intelligence agencies, as well as the military people who participated in the actual ops. Beyond that, I won't be able to go into any operational details. Classified. Okay. Yes?”

  “Samantha ____, _____. In your directives, particularly Numbers 148 through 161, you've eliminated OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and many functions of the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Communications Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Could you explain how you plan to accomplish their missions?”

  “Well, Samantha, in general, I'm getting the government out of micromanaging and microregulating and replacing those with a freer rein, but absolute responsibility and accountability on the part of companies that have been regulated.

  “Specifically as to OSHA, the biggest problem with that agency has been petty-minded and inadequately trained inspectors with massive checklists going into businesses with a mindset of finding tiny violations, most often in some part of the byzantine paperwork, and assessing fines. Like the EPA and EEOC and several other agencies, it's had a distinctly anti-business bias. So I've dissolved it, replacing it with a pro-business safety agency, which only goes into a business after there's an injury, fatality or environmental incident, on a consulting basis, paid for by the company, and remains there until the contributing problems, if any, are corrected.

  “If the company reports the incident, compensates any and all victims adequately and fixes the problems, there will be no fine. If someone else reports the incident, there will be a fine equivalent to the assessed damages. But If the company tries to cover it up, shame on them; not only will damages be assessed, but the fine will be triple the damages assessed and the officers, directors, counsel and any other personnel involved in the coverup will be personally liable for two thirds of that fine … PERSONALLY liable.

  "This is sort of like a solution for the problem of reckless driving that I heard about years ago. If you got rid of all the seat belts, air bags and other safety devices, and installed knives that flip out from the steering wheel in an impact, in EVERY vehicle, I know I'd drive more carefully, and I'd think most sensible people would. I know that's not a practical solution to that problem, but the principle is worth looking at. And it's that principle I'm applying to OSHA.

  “As to the other agencies you mentioned, we are not eliminating them, but they have become so bureaucratic and ineffective that they need a
total culture shift. We will no longer tolerate SEC attorneys spending their days downloading pornography, and we're going to be replacing much of the legal staff there with top-notch forensic accounting people who can actually understand the data that they look at.

  “We will be revamping the FDA to follow the European model and eliminating most of the byzantine bureaucratic hurdles that keep promising drugs in the pipeline for way too long. And the FCC will also be totally revamped and will lose the crony capitalism image that it's had, because it will no longer be involved in crony capitalism. Period.

  “And ANY agency that's been involved in anything even remotely smacking of that will be totally restructured and completely culture shifted, to a culture and attitude of selfless and efficient service for its customers, the people. Okay. Yes?”

  “Carmen _____, ______. Mr. Donne, how can you justify allowing the resumption of embryonic stem cell research?”

  “Because stem cell research has already saved thousands of lives and discovered cures for hundreds of diseases. To limit this kind of scientific research, even with embryonic stem cells, on the basis of some religious belief, is not something my government will support. Okay. Yes?”

  “Dell _____, ____. How is your crowd-sourcing going? Are you getting any good suggestions from the people?”