Kingfish

By Frank Perry

The book involves: mystery, love, politics, murder, intrigue, corruption, drama, adventure, compassion, and provocative policy issues.

The Drug War has spilled on to U.S. Soil, killing Americans, draining our economy and corrupting government. A few brave souls are attempting to end the war which cannot be won as long as illegal drugs are demanded by the population and ruthless cartels exist to supply them. One reluctant lobbyist leads the campaign to re-write policy creating legal alternatives with regulation, and becomes the target of a powerful drug smuggler. Hunter Kohl’s family is threatened. Law enforcement is powerless to protect them against veiled threats and he must choose between continuing in his effort to stop the war or them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frank Perry
• Release date: Oct 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301760411

Book preview

Kingfish

By

Frank Perry, author

Hampton Falls, New Hampshire

[e-mail]

Synopsis

A former Navy SEAL becomes an unlikely lobbyist for the state of California in Washington DC at the request of his sister, a lawyer in the Governor’s office. He’s dealing with a controversial state initiative to legalize recreational drug use under certain controlled conditions to ease the enormous expense caused by the war on drugs. He’s inexperienced on the job and seeks help from numerous sources more familiar with the political process. His crude approach stirs emotions on both sides of the issue and becomes violent when it might ruin fortunes for illicit drug traffickers and careers of politicians bent on promoting and anti-drug platform. He’s up against an unholy alliance of opposites, both trying to stop him. Personal lives are uprooted and the people dearest to the lobbyist, including his fiancée, become targets for retribution. He’s faced with abandoning his work or bringing heartache to those he loves.

Copyright © 2016 by Frank Perry

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 author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email to: [e-mail].

___________________________________________

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the contributions made to this book by: Sandy Blair, my valued author friend and advisor, Richard Cesario and Beverly Heinle provided invaluable proofreading red marks, and Ken Starr, LTC, USA (ret.) provided valuable Army insight. My wife Janet Perry tolerantly read the early drafts, preventing too much embarrassment. The cover theme and designed was created by my talented son, Brendan Perry.

___________________________________________

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, world organizations, government agencies, regulations, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The author professes no medical training related to the subject matter.

___________________________________________

Other books by Frank:

Recall to Arms

The Cobra Identity

Reign of Terror

Letters From the Grave

Kingfish

Sibley’s Secret

The Dolos Conspiracy

Prolog: Failed Policy

The Washington Times, on June 2, 2011¹, reported the results of an international panel, prepared by the Global Commission on Drug Policy². According to the Times article, ... The fact is that the war on drugs is a failure.

The 19-member commission included several heads of state and noted individuals including former U.S. officials George P. Schultz and Paul Volcker.

The Nixon-era War on Drugs has escalated each year, resulting in massive expenditures, organized crime, overcrowded prisons, and human destruction on a scale unknown since the Second World War. This doesn’t suggest that nothing should be done to curb drug abuse in America and around the world, but criminalized production and distribution of illegal drugs has corrupted governments in all parts of the world, including America. Organized crime today exists primarily because of current drug enforcement policies. Drug consumption and Government corruption have both increased dramatically over thirty years since the war began—as a direct result of American policy.

U.S. taxpayers have spent over a trillion dollars fighting the war and are continuing to lose an un-winnable battle. It’s ironic that a partially legalized and closely regulated policy, especially for marijuana, would do more to curb abusive drug use and end gangland violence (and actually generate revenue) than any so-called war. The sad fact is that being hard on drugs has become a perverted platform for politicians. Practical courage is needed to re-address the problem of drug abuse. From history, we should have learned that barricading the borders (Prohibition) was the wrong answer to controlling substance abuse.

1. Report: Drug war a failure, The Washington Times, June 2, 2011

2. War on Drugs, Global Commission on Drug Policy. June, 2011 (http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/Report)

Farallons

The Farallon Islands are an eight-mile-long stretch of uninhabited barren outcroppings jutting from the Pacific, ranging from twenty-five to thirty miles off the Northern California coastline. They are remnants of an ancient tectonic upheaval, officially part of San Francisco County today. On clear days, they cast a grey silhouette against the western sky that can be seen from the Golden Gate Bridge. Clear days are rare. Winds and perpetual surf have eroded the islands, sculpting steep craggy peaks and arches rising a hundred feet above the surface then sinking sharply below, to over eight hundred feet. Uninhabitable by humans, the islands are a natural sanctuary for sea birds and mammals. Massive kelp beds and plankton-rich Pacific currents support all forms of marine life, including abalone and urchins, in dense underground natural hatcheries. Seals and otters thrive on the vast food supply. To their peril, a natural enemy, the Great White Shark, inhabits these waters as well in greater abundance than anywhere else in the world.

Tim Chambers and Brock Keefe worked in Sausalito as drywall installers during the week, and spent their weekends as commercial divers along the California Coast, harvesting sea urchins for their roe, which is a delicacy on the west coast and in Asia. Together, they owned an old nineteen-foot open skiff with a single Mercury outboard motor. Their diving gear was a hookah system, consisting of a scuba regulator tethered by a high-pressure hose to a small air compressor aboard the boat. Wearing a wetsuit and heavy weight belts, they could work along the rocky bottom of the ocean for long periods, sending their catch in baskets to the surface by a rope tended from the boat. They would alternate diving and tending duties.

Both men were in their mid-twenties and unmarried. They made enough money working underwater on the weekends to pay for their boat and expenses, but little profit. They were not full-time professional divers, but loved doing it on weekends. They had licenses to dive commercially.

Most of the time, they would anchor in kelp beds near the coast, not far from the mouth of the Golden Gate. If the weather was calm enough, and they had time to cruise farther out, they would venture to the Farallons where the harvest was much richer. It was a kind of manly dare between them to cross the open ocean in the small open boat. Neither would admit being nervous about the sharks, which had multiplied along the Northern California coast since otters and seals had been removed from government protection. At least one diver was attacked each year, on average, in the Farallons. A diver named Edleman had been killed and partially eaten only a week before. The U.S. National Parks Service had issued a warning for divers to avoid entering water near the North Farallon Island for at least a year. The huge sharks were known to be territorial during certain times of the year then would usually move to new feeding grounds. Tim and Brock were diving at the south island, miles away.

The dark pre-dawn swells were running about six feet tall at long gentle intervals in a dense fog. They cruised slowly, watching and listening for ships in the channel, using a magnetic compass for navigation. The fog would lift by mid-morning when the wind and chop would increase. They planned to dive along the leeward side of the southern-most island, shielded from the worst weather. If sea conditions followed a normal summer pattern, the men would return home after dark when conditions subsided again. If it remained too rough at night to cross to the mainland, they carried sleeping bags and food to stay overnight on the boat at anchor. Once the holding tank was filled, the boat would sink ten inches lower in the water, becoming dangerous to manage in anything but a glassy flat sea. At the Farallons, they expected to have a full load quickly.

It was cold and damp, as they neared the island. They could smell it before seeing anything. After two hours of cruising, they slowed as the swells moderated and the gulls could be heard above the engine noise, nearing their destination. They couldn’t see it, but there were indications that the jutting cliffs were somewhere close ahead. The fog was thinning from the sunrise behind them, and the grey ghostly silhouette of south island suddenly appeared. Brock threw the anchor overboard into the kelp and Tim shifted into reverse, stopping forward motion.

Both were psyched about the money they could make in this fertile area but also thought about the man-eaters living there. They didn’t talk about it. With swells and wind coming from the northwest, they were anchored in dense seaweed close to the cliffs on the southeastern side of the highest peak, about fifty feet from shore in thirty feet of calm water. They were surrounded by a dark brown kelp carpet spreading around the boat from stalks anchored to the bottom. The rocky shore at the base of the cliff had hundreds of sea lions waiting for the sun. Some bellowed warnings at the boat, but most continued to sleep. There were summer storms farther out in the Pacific, and rough sea conditions in the surrounding ocean created more silt in the water than usual, obscuring visibility. The anchor rope disappeared from view no more than six feet below the surface.

His teeth chattered in the mist as Chambers put on his black wetsuit for the first dive of the day while Keefe started the compressor and arranged the tethers. They didn’t speak much during these practiced rituals. If the reef below was covered with legal-size urchins as both hoped, the basket would come up full a dozen times during the first hour before it would be Keefe’s turn to work on the bottom. Chambers normally wore a fourteen pound weight belt when free diving to offset the buoyancy of his neoprene suit, but today he wore an additional ten-pound belt. This allowed him to wear sneakers instead of swim fins and stand on the rocky sea ledge. Even though the bottom sloped at fifteen degrees, the crustaceans living on the massive outcroppings provided ample traction. He just needed to avoid stepping into fissures where moray eels would feel threatened.

Ten minutes after anchoring, Tim sat on the edge of the hull with his feet in the water, adjusting his facemask and testing airflow. Brock handed him the tool bag inside the haul net that would be raised as Tim filled it with urchins. If all went well, they would have a full holding tank today.

With a final thumbs-up, Chambers pushed off as the air hose and haul net rope uncoiled beside Keefe on deck. Almost as quickly as he jumped, he disappeared from view, leaving a steady stream of bubbles boiling on the surface. His respiration rate accelerated from the first shocked by the cold Pacific, and bubbles rose in a constant stream before the water inside his wet suit warmed to body temperature. Today, tension from poor visibility and unspoken danger surrounding the Farallons contributed to higher anxiety. The compressor could handle Tim’s excessive air usage. Brock instinctively maintained vigilance, watching around the boat for any sign of danger, but the Great Whites don’t swim on the surface. Attacks come from below.

A crimson-streaked eastern sky was not yet provided much light in the depths. Tim sank, surrounded by darkness. He was in a forest of tall kelp and his only sight reference was the tether and the shadow of the boat above. After about a minute descending into the increasing darkness, vague contours appeared to his right while blackness remained elsewhere. His feet hit an uneven outcropping, covered with sea grass and barnacles.

It was difficult to balance at first. After stabilizing, he saw the floor surrounding him covered with the blackish spiny urchins. Excitement replaced anxiety as he filled the net, on the rope, sending it up in only two minutes. He was careful to measure each one, but most of them were so large it wasn’t necessary. He couldn’t see more than six feet, but it didn’t matter. He’d never seen so many urchins in one location. After the second basket was sent up, sea lions darted in and out of the shadows as he broke open a few urchins to attract them for fun. If he thought about it, this was a stupid thing to do. Sharks ate the seals.

Time went by quickly when Brock pulled on the air hose, signaling Time to come up. The holding tank on the boat was already a third full. Chambers lifted his fourteen-pound belt into the haul net with some urchins and started up as Brock pulled on the air hose and rope together. Breaking the surface, Chambers yelled, Man, there’s gold on the bottom!

Brock had been dumping the net. Get aboard, and let me see!

Chambers lifted his ten-pound belt over the side and tossed his mask and regulator into the boat, to climb over the swim platform. Brock! You should see it down there! We could be rich, man! I never seen so many urchins and abalone. It’s like no one has ever been here before. Red abs (abalone) is crawlin’ on top of each other.

Brock was already half suited up when Chambers climbed over the stern. Tim, empty the net, I wanna get down there. We’ve never had a haul like this so fast.

Chambers helped him with his weight belts and coiled the lines for a smooth descent. Okay pal, we could be heading in by noon if this keeps up. It’s pretty dirty down (poor visibility), but I didn’t see any end to it. Just start a little south of the boat, and keep working toward deeper water. I was at about fifty feet, moving around the kelp stalks. It’s dark, but you don’t need to see far to find ‘em.

Brock’s excitement raged, and he was already sitting on the edge with his feet dangling in the water. Hand me the basket, and hold my lines. He jumped in and started down as Chambers managed the lines. Like Chambers, Brock saw the bottom only a moment before landing. Even without moving to deeper water he was still finding urchins that Chambers had missed. They could come back to this spot for years and never deplete the supply.

The kelp forest was all around, casting dark shadows as the sun rose and fog thinned. Visibility improved to about ten feet with more light, and the ethereal shapes of the kelp formed a broad floating ceiling above, punctuated by moving light rays. It felt like a huge smoke-filled forest at dawn. He looked up briefly and saw the vague shaded shape of the hull for reference. He was cautious moving deeper into the darkness.

The steep slope led rapidly into the darker depths, but Brock wanted to find the boundaries of the urchin field, stepping carefully down the ledge, like descending from a steep mountain. He just couldn’t believe how plentiful their prize really was. Then he saw it, an unexpected familiar shape in the monochromatic blackness ahead. He knew what it was before he could see even a third of it.

He was five feet above a car covered under a short layer of sea grass. It sat upright, with its hood pointed toward deeper water. Unlike the steep streets in San Francisco, this car had not simply slipped gear and rolled into the harbor -- not twenty-five miles at sea. He rubbed the license plate attached to the bumper with a registration sticker that was valid only a year earlier.

As he investigated, sea lions started darting nervously around him before disappearing into the forest. Then all light was eclipsed by a huge object overhead. On the surface, between the boat and shore rocks, the sea lions were suddenly noisy. They were barking and jumping out of the water as fast as they could swim. On the bottom, Brock knew what it above. A huge shark, about twenty feet long, brushed his yellow air hose, terrifying him. He could hide near the car and maybe even under it. He’d seen blue sharks before, but never anything over six feet long. This thing looked as big as a school bus and would eat a diver as quickly as a sea lions.

On the surface, Chambers tugged on the lines, figuring that a shark was there. Brock responded with a sharp tug that Chambers misunderstood as a signal. He thought Brock was coming up, so pulled hard. Brock lifted off the bottom, leaving him with no chance to hide. He was now shark bait. He panicked, dropping both weight belts and inflating his buoyancy compensator, ascending at a dangerous rate. He risked nitrogen poisoning or being eaten. He was rising too fast, trying to breathe normally. Terror overtook him as the head of the creature filled his vision, passing only a foot away. It swam moved past close enough to touch, showing a girth almost five feet wide. The massive tail thrust Brock aside. He was momentarily disoriented, but Chambers tugged him upright. The shark appeared again, its mouth only inches from Brock’s torso as it missed him again. Its mouth was agape, wider than Brock’s upper body with teeth inches long. He saw the jagged razors in massive red jaws. He screamed through his mouthpiece, reaching for the boat hull only feet above. Chambers had seen none of it. The shark made another pass charging from the depths below, and Brock jerked his legs to his chest. The beast missed by inches and broke the surface like a nuclear submarine shooting ten feet in the air. Brock broke the surface and Chambers grabbed both arms, pulling him over the side with superhuman stength.

That was when Chambers saw the shark’s full size, longer than the boat, as it charged toward Brock’s dangling lower body. Adrenalin in both men catapulted Brock onto the deck with Chambers falling beside him. Brock was unhurt but shaking uncontrollably. They lay motionless without speaking, afraid to show themselves. It felt safe lying flat, hoping the shark wouldn’t attack the boat.

The Lobbyist

The Washington DC Metro system (WMATA) is a marvel of complexity. Anyone visiting the Capitol region for the first time is perplexed by the system’s fare system. Costs vary, depending on the distance travelled and time of day. Highly educated people can’t easily figure out how much it costs easily. More intellectually-challenged people or foreigners find it impossible. Even the seasoned Washingtonians usually just add twenty dollars to their passes and let the system deduct each ride before re-filling the credit amount. Other cities in the US and around the world use simple tokens or flat fares that anyone can understand. A large percentage of the Washington patrons, living in poor areas without cars, rely on the system for transportation. These people find the credit card feature on the kiosks insulting even beyond the system calculus, because most don’t qualify for cards.

Professionals around the Capitol, including Government executives, legislators, lawyers, lobbyists and thousands of support staff, mingle with students, janitors, maids and street cleaners on their daily commutes. WMATA carries an amalgam of demographic, cultural and ethnically diverse people throughout the system. Almost a million people use it each day. They rely on the efficiency and timeliness of the trains in their daily routines. Since September 11, 2001, people are wary and vigilant. The Washington Metro is a particularly attractive target for terrorists since there is almost certainly someone newsworthy on the various train lines during rush hours. The system is generally safe from bullies and thieves, given its complexity and expense during peak hours, but the ethic mix in the Capitol district makes many people uneasy.

Hunter Kohl was late, which was something that he never tolerated for himself. He had lived near Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, for almost a year and never missed an appointment. His rented townhome was only three blocks from the King Street Metro stop. The early morning phone call from his girlfriend, Laurie (Malone), was an unexpected treat, and he wasn’t going to miss talking to her just to have a leisurely walk to the train. By running and some luck with the train schedule, he would still make his lunch meeting after talking to her. He was in good shape but wasn’t lucky this time. His train departed as he worked the fare machine near the bottom of the escalator, leading up to the platform.

He needed to add to credit to his pass. The train departed just as he got to the platform at the top of the escalator. It was the yellow-line train, and he would need to wait for the next one into The District. The blue-line trains also stopped at the King Street station, but they looped all the way around into Roselyn and Georgetown before ending back in the center of DC. He would also need to transfer to the red line. He looked at the digital clock in the center of the platform – damn.

The Metro system in Washington was reliable, but the duration between trains lengthens after rush hour in the morning and evening, as patronage declined. The terracotta floor tiles have round glass inserts that blink when a train is coming. In between trains, the lights remain on steadily, which added to Hunter’s frustration. Noon trains were scheduled about half as often as morning trains. Looking up at the electronic marquee only increased his anxiety when it said ten minutes before the arrival of the next yellow train. After pacing alone in the midday heat on the platform, the floor lights began blinking. He looked down the track and saw a yellow placard in the front window of the train.

It was a long ten minutes. Once he was aboard, he took a seat near the door, allowing him to see fore and aft. There were only two other people in the fifty-foot long car. Both were disinterested in looking at him. From habit, Hunter always assessed the people around him. One of the men wore a dark green mechanic’s uniform, and hid behind a newspaper. The other man was young, hiding under gigantic headphones, bobbing his head to some unheard rhythm. Neither man looked suspicious and didn’t look like terrorists. He couldn’t do anything but wait and enjoy the sites while the train was above ground. The ride seemed extra slow, travelling above and below ground in Virginia, then finally crossing above the Potomac River parallel to the Fourteenth Street Bridge before descending underground again for the L'Enfant Plaza platform inside the Capitol district. Two stops later, the train arrived underground at Gallery Place where he departed for the red-line. Gallery Place station has tracks crisscrossing on different levels, so Hunter took the escalator for his train. At the top, he was still underground on a vacant platform – he’d just missed the train again. He had another aggravating delay, waiting for an east-bound red-line train. While standing on the platform, it occurred to him that he had never been above ground at Gallery Place and had no idea where it was located in the district. He wasn’t going to find out today. The train arrived in twelve minutes and he entered the nearest car, sitting alone except for an elderly woman toward the back. In total, he was about fifteen minutes behind schedule when the train arrived at Union Station at the base of the hill leading up to the Senate office buildings. He jogged up First Street with his sport coat over his shoulder. Summer heat and humidity were high, but at least it wasn’t raining. He still wasn’t accustomed to wearing a tie for work. His whole life had been about casual living or a uniform. His lunch meeting was at a small bistro east of the Hart Office building.

He was meeting Brian Collie, the number-two person in the Senate Appropriations staff office. Brian and his team were responsible for the language written into the Appropriations Bill from the Senate. The bill would be over one thousand pages in length before going to the President for signature once both houses of Congress were satisfied that their interests were served. Hunter was a Lobbyist, paid to influence the bill.

Brian was about five years younger than Hunter, having taken the staff position after receiving his Master’s Degree in Economics from NYU. They were quite a contrast. Hunter was six feet tall, trim and muscular, around two hundred pounds with a very low body fat index. His dark brown hair had grown to medium length since leaving the active duty, but was always neatly trimmed. He had an air of confidence from military service, yet maintained a youthful eagerness. Although clean shaven, his beard grew quickly and showed moderate stubble by lunch time. Brian, by contrast, was short, chubby and soft, with overgrown hair. He had the childlike appearance of a college freshman except for his cheap business suit and horn-rimmed glasses. Hunter still had perfect vision.

Brian’s father was a prominent New York attorney and political contributor, able to get his son on the staff of their family friend, a Senator, who was on the Appropriations Committee. Professional Staff members were technically neutral politically, reporting to the bipartisan committees, but ultimately still owed their allegiance to their sponsor. Brian and the other staff members were all young bright politically-connected professionals making little money. They work for the connections they made on the hill. They did all of the behind-the-scenes work, crafting the bills for committee purposes. They actually had broad discretion in wording the legislation, as long as it satisfied the intent of members.

Hunter was inexperienced as a lobbyist, but it didn’t matter too much. His interface was mostly with specific committee staffers and supportive members of the House and Senate. Hunter was a California government employee paid as a liaison with the state’s delegates in Washington. He worked for the California Department of Substance Abuse and Control. Most staffers were interns working for slave wages to establish credentials that would launch them into future careers. Hunter wasn’t from an Ivy League background and didn’t have a politically connected family. But he was experienced as an operator in the field, which gave him creditability with most of the people he needed to know in Washington.

He reached the top of the hill in less than two minutes, near the