The Midas Files

By J. R. Maddux

The Midas File details a dizzying mystery involving assassination, political corruption, organized crime, espionage and high treason that draw FBI Special Agent Price McLean into a vortex of deadly danger. As competing interests joust for control of the top secret document under lock and key at CIA headquarters, and all players continue to up their bids for it, the drama builds to a pulse pounding conclusion and the final, stunning revelation of the shocking secret it contains.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781620959237

Book preview

eISBN:9781620959237

Prologue

Important public officials, contrary to popular opinion, are just as human as everyone else. They rise, bathe, dress, comb their hair if they still have any and sometimes they run out of milk. Connor Ryberg, United States attorney general was preparing for just such a milk run, a task he was assigned by Sharon, his wife of thirty-five years.

Ryberg was the top law enforcement officer in the country, serving in that capacity under President David Baxter and then wisely retained by Baxter’s successor, Kyle Caldwell. He was fifty-nine, tall, trim, and gray, with hawkish features that gave him a lean and aristocratic look. Above all he was totally incorruptible, immune to political influence, independently affluent and utterly tenacious in enforcing the laws of the land. Though sometimes demonized by the far left in congress, the media and extremist human rights advocates, he was generally trusted by mainstream America to be just, impartial and relentless in carrying out his duties.

Just now he was immersed in the common ritual of pulling on some low-rise white socks to fit under his Nikes, so that he could complete his high priority errand to the local supermarket. The importance of this venture in the grand scheme of things would only become significant when there was nothing to put on the cereal for breakfast the next morning.

Consummating the informal wardrobe, he exited the two-story Maryland brownstone he called home, stopped to stroke Chester the family cat under the chin and headed down the walk to a deep forest green Jaguar that was his pride and joy. If he had a vice it was his fondness for sleek, fast sports cars. Although he rarely drove the Jag over sixty, the notion that he could burn up the road at a whim gave him a quiet inner sense of power and youthfulness.

Opening the driver’s side door he slid in behind the wheel, the smell of the luxurious leather seats generating in him the adrenaline rush of a man twenty years younger. As he inserted the key in the ignition and turned it, there was a kind of hesitation, as though the battery might be going, followed instantly by a massive, searing explosion that ripped the Jaguar to bits and showered smoldering pieces of it as much as two-hundred feet away, and leaving nothing but the flaming carcass of the luxury car to burn in the driveway. The attorney general's lifeless body, still secured by his seat belt, continued to char away to an unrecognizable crisp.

Frank Karras, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, worked unusually late on this particular evening. That was not altogether surprising, for Karras was a hopeless workaholic who took his job almost as seriously as he took himself. He was a fitness fanatic in his late forties, six feet tall, stocky, and muscular from pumping weights. Whereas many of his colleagues exited the workplace at a snail’s pace, Karras always came down the broad concrete steps outside the Hoover building at a vigorous trot. As director, he enjoyed the privilege of a private, secured parking space in the garage. Passing through the security gate he waved to the guard, who smiled and waved back.

As Karras walked toward his shiny new navy blue Buick he did not see the others who were present in the parking garage, nor was he particularly alarmed as they approached him. When he suddenly realized that each man wore a ski mask and had a silenced semi-automatic pistol in his hand, his eyes widened in disbelief. He held up the leather briefcase that was filled with night table reading as a futile shield. But the weapons spat at him again and again causing seven separate wounds as he slumped unconscious and bleeding against the bumper of his car.

In the space of fifteen minutes, two of America’s top law enforcement officials were targeted by unidentified assassins. The repercussions would ring like thunder through the halls of power on Capitol Hill for months to come.

Chapter One

Springfield, Virginia, Four Days Earlier

A steady, cold rain abated temporarily as the tall, handsome man in the dark suit and gray trench coat pulled the pretty little dark-haired girl close to him. Both shivered in the freshening autumn wind and neither seemed to notice the other sad-eyed mourners grouped around the canopy covering the catafalque and open grave beneath. A sweeping field of gray headstones lay beyond and the somber, stately oaks draped wispily in Spanish moss stood solemn watch. An elderly clergyman clad in black droned through the traditional burial litany as occasional sobs punctuated what seemed otherwise a deafening stillness.

At length, as the others drifted away and toward refuge from the inclement weather afforded by their waiting vehicles, the man and the little girl stayed behind. In the casket, now closed forever, was the body of his wife and her mother, a beautiful caring woman taken long before her time by the ravages of a cancerous tumor on her brain. There was nothing, nothing at all they could say to one another to ease the gnawing grief or assuage the all-encompassing sense of loss they both felt. Soon the rain began again, this time in earnest. Shivering and pulling their coats up around their necks they turned and trudged slowly, arm-in-arm, to the waiting hearse that would deliver them back to the funeral home and what was left of their lives.

Stacey McLean - that was the little girl’s name - was just eleven. She didn’t really understand the permanency of this final separation. Megan, her beloved mother, told her that one day soon she would go to be with God and the angels. But there was nothing that could really prepare Stacey for this emptiness or sense of desertion. She looked up at her father who rode next to her in the big black car. But there were just no words, no everything’s going to be all right,’ no tomorrow will be a better day, nothing at all that could lessen the emptiness they felt. She saw the tears staining his face, the unheeded raindrops dripping from his sodden hair and the hollow look in his eyes that betrayed the blackness in his soul. Price McLean was a twelve-year veteran of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In the line of duty, his own life was endangered on more occasions than he could remember. In each of those instances he acted fearlessly, confidently and invariably made the right decisions. Now he was trying to come to grips with the ultimate fear. Not that of losing his own life, but of losing one whose life was dearer to him than his own could ever be. When doctors told them that the end was near, he tried to imagine what it would be like to go on without Megan. But each time he did, he ended up in a deep depression and so he banished the thought from his mind and pretended that another remission would come, that something would change what everyone around him seemed to accept as inevitable. Now he knew the awful truth, and it was too bitter to bear. He wrapped both arms tightly around Stacey and they wept together as the big car raced down the highway while the trees, whose leaves were now various shades of red, brown and gold, whizzed past in a rain-muddled blur.

Springfield, the McLean Home

Upon arriving home from the funeral, Stacey McLean, exhausted and with no more tears to cry, flopped across her bed and fell into a deep sleep. Her father was not so lucky. Price McLean had not enjoyed a peaceful night’s slumber in months. He was the Bureau’s liaison to the president’s national security advisor which, though not particularly hazardous, was nonetheless an important and taxing responsibility. But it was not the work. It was not the criminals he could not apprehend or crimes he could not solve. It was this damned disease he could not fight, a silent, unstoppable killer targeting his darling wife and against which he was completely powerless. She was treated by the finest doctors and surgeons, underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatments, had two surgeries but alas, in the end they were all in vain. He guessed now that it was the foreboding sense of loneliness, the uncertainty about what kind of single father he would make and the realization that Meg was, in the end, a part of him. When she died, a part of him was going to die with her, and that made him very afraid. So his unconscious mind told him not to let down his guard, not to relax, not to let go because that is when it might happen. Sleep seemed always the enemy.

He sat alone in the living room, aware as he looked around that the wallpaper they hung together was Meg’s choice. The paint on the walls was her favorite color of green. The knick-knacks on the shelves were things she liked that accumulated during their married life. The vertical wood blinds on the windows and the sheer curtains were Meg’s idea, the carpet her selection. She was so much a part of the warp and woof of this house and of his life that forgetting her was simply impossible. But Price didn’t want to forget Megan. He looked down at the wedding band on his finger and the tears came again with a rush.

By and by he rose and went to the front picture window, intent on closing the blinds and shutting out a prying world that might interfere in his private grief or violate his sanctuary by inviting him to think about something else. He grasped the cord to pull when he saw the small red car pull into the drive. Momentarily, a slender attractive brunette got out and began a slow pilgrimage up the narrow walkway lined with the daisies and petunias that Meg loved to plant and care for. When he heard the knock on the door it was, in fact, a gentle one. But to Price it seemed thunderous, deafening. Slowly, reluctantly, he opened up.

Helen, what are you doing here? he asked, already believing he knew the answer.

I came to check in on you and Stacey, she said in a quiet voice, her dark eyes engaging his.

Helen Vandervoort and her husband, Chip, were the dearest friends Price McLean had in his suddenly desolate world. Chip was senior to Price in service to the Bureau but befriended him and taught him the ropes when they were both posted in Seattle. After the two of them distinguished themselves while assigned to a Department of Homeland Security team chasing an international terrorist, Chip was tasked to command the elite Hostage Rescue Team operating out of Quantico, while Price was given the national security assignment. Helen and Meg were also the best of friends, and the couples vacationed together, laughed together, shopped and frequently dined together and occasionally wept together. Price stood godfather to the Vandervoorts’ ten-year-old son, Zach. If there was anyone Price should have been glad to see, it would have been Helen. But now he was near speechless, withdrawn so far inside himself, protecting the raw nerve of grief that was eating away at his sanity that all he craved was solitude.

I know you are in terrible pain, Price, Helen offered. I just couldn’t bear for you and Stacey to be completely alone.

You and Chip mean a whole lot to me, Helen, he finally choked out, but I don’t think there is any help for me just now. And I don’t think I’m much help to Stacey.

Seeing that he was on the verge of breaking down again, she put a comforting arm around him and led him to the beige-patterned sofa where they sat for a few minutes in total silence. Finally, she resolved that some things needed to be said and that he had to hear them whether he wanted to or not.

Price, you know that next to you I was Megan’s best friend. And while I still have Chip and Zach to go home to, I have lost a part of my life just like you. And I can sit here and comfort you but then I have to go home and cook dinner for the ones I love. All of that is just to say that we all have to live life for and among the living. That doesn’t in any way diminish those who have gone on, or mean we don’t still love them dearly. It just acknowledges the fact that we are not alone here. We have others who care for us, and for whom we care. And much as we would like to indulge ourselves in a long, maudlin reverie, we have responsibilities to them as well. It’s too late to feel sorry for Megan. You and the doctors did everything humanly possible for her. You nursed her and were with her even in her last moments here. No one could have done more. You do know that, don’t you? she asked rhetorically.

In my head, I do, he muttered distantly, but I can’t shake the nagging feeling that somewhere along the line I failed her, that I should have seen the signs of illness sooner, suggested alternate treatment, found more doctors.

Shhhh! she said, pressing one forefinger to his lips. You know better than that. You did everything, absolutely everything that any husband could have done. You think you are superman, that there’s nothing you can’t do, no problem you can’t solve, no mountain you can’t climb. Well, maybe this was your wake-up call that it’s a fiction. There are just some things that are meant to be. We can’t understand why, we can’t believe how bad they hurt and there’s nothing at all we can do to stop them. But failure is letting them define us, how we act, what we do next, who we are. So who are you, Price? Are you a man who wants to turn totally inward and mope over things he can’t change, and in that process become so much less than he can be? Or are you that strong, good, sensitive man of integrity I have known for all these years? That’s the man Stacey needs now, the one you have to be for her, if not for yourself.

I guess you’re right, as usual, he conceded. I guess I am feeling sorry mostly for myself. I just can’t think through and clearly define my life without Megan.

Well of course you can’t, Helen agreed. You have to work it out one careful step at a time. Sometimes you’ll start down paths that take you somewhere you don’t want to be, and then you’ll have to go back and start over. But at some point life will just take off, and you’ll find the joy, the love, the peace all over again.

Without Meg? he asked, hoping for an answer he knew would not, could not come.

Yes, without Meg, she replied soberly. Don’t you think she would want that for you? Don’t you think she would want you and Stacey to go on and live full, normal, happy lives? Your lives must not end just because hers did. That would be the greatest tragedy of all.

What are you, my conscience? he teased ironically.

If I have to be, yes, she said. You are not alone, Price. Stacey is there for you just as you are for her. She is her mother’s daughter too, a living breathing part of Megan that we still have. And Chip and I and all your other friends are here for you as well. Invite us in. Let us share the bitter along with the better. That’s what friends are for.

His nod and thoughtful gaze told her that enough had been said. She rose to go and they shared the embrace of friends. Then she vanished through the door and was gone, leaving him to begin re-ordering his priorities and re-thinking his life.

New York City, the Board Room of the Pan Global Tower, Two Days after the Attacks

Giancarlo Pavone sat alone in a glove-soft leather chair, feet propped up on an expensive beryl coffee table. In his sixties, about five-feet-nine with thinning silver-black hair and matching sharply trimmed beard and moustache, he was deeply tanned, his olive complexion darkened by many hours spent in the sun on one of his two yachts. On his left wrist he wore a striking and unique gold Rolex. His pinstriped suit was tailored Savile Row, and his expensive alligator shoes were polished so finely that he could almost make out his reflection. His small dark eyes conveyed both intelligence and ruthlessness, two characteristics that over many years served his business interests well. Momentarily, it would be time to greet the others who came to grovel at his table. But for this serene moment he stared contentedly out the window of the second tallest building in Manhattan and enjoyed the panorama of the city that never sleeps. Don Giancarlo was king of all he surveyed -- well, almost all.

First to arrive was Giustino Cortese, the don’s personal attorney, or consigliere. He was the don's most trusted advisor, often to the point that he could make decisions if the don was indisposed. Cortese was a graduate of one of the east’s finest universities and cum laude from a prominent Ivy League law school. The don was his only client. Still, he was among the best paid attorneys in the nation.

Following Cortese through the impressive carved double doors was Salvatore Funicello or 'Sally Jello' as he was known in his days on the street. Today he was Pan Global’s financial mastermind, the creator of one new and profitable enterprise after another. Some of them were within the law, some of them were not.

Giuseppe Petrocelli, street named 'Joey the Rock,' was something of a specialist. He occupied a very important position as the mob's intelligence officer. Joey knew about every public official the company owned, every law enforcement officer who was on the arm, every competitor’s every move, who was a problem and who wasn’t, what needed handling and what didn’t. His recommendations were the don’s commands unless, of course, they were vetoed by Cortese. And that rarely happened. A stocky, robust, streetwise veteran with a full head of curly black hair, Petrocelli was easily identified by a large, deep scar on the left side of his neck, a mark left by an enemy's knife just before the man went permanently missing.

Luciano 'Lucky' Potenza was the enforcer. If muscle became necessary, then Lucky knew how to recruit and deploy it where it would hurt the most. For the Pavone famiglia, violence was truly a last resort now, to be exhumed from the era of Al Capone only if an enemy got too close or a friend too fickle. The new Mafia preferred to fight its battles in the corporate boardrooms of America, on the trading floor of Wall Street or in the intricate and secretive world of international banking. That’s where the real money was to be made, and money was the key to power.

Don Giancarlo Pavone earned his spurs as a young capo in the Garfino crime organization. When the feds busted old man Tony Briganza, the head of a smaller rival famiglia along with most of his capos, the opportunity was right for the formation of a new clan. Cleverly and ruthlessly, Pavone moved in on most of the Briganza rackets and some of their legitimate business enterprises. Before long, what was left of the Garfino-Briganza organization pledged loyalty to Don Giancarlo, or turned up stone cold dead. The don soon began divesting himself of all but the most lucrative rackets, reinvesting the proceeds in legitimate business and forming powerful partnerships with non-Sicilian, 'white bread' business types. The names of many of them now appeared the Pan Global Financial Futures letterhead as 'directors.' But they were, in point of fact, only shills for the stealth board, the members of the famiglia now gathering in Pavone’s swank high rise board room. This was an extremely simple illusion to perpetuate, because none of the so-called 'directors' gave a flying flip about titles or even who Giancarlo Pavone really was. They only knew that he made them lots and lots of money and while the coffers kept filling up they would ask few questions and make no waves.

One by one, the capos embraced Don Giancarlo, kissing him on both cheeks in the typical old world gesture of affection. In return he called each by his own designation of respect, and acknowledged their fealty. Making a sweeping gesture that indicated they should sit, the don stood alone at the head of the massive conference table.

Welcome to the world we have made, he said, looking around in mock awe.

This is the way the don always began a meeting. He wanted them to feel a sense of contribution, ownership, partnership. It was as close as he would come to modesty, and it endeared him to them all the more.

Sally, he said, looking over at Funicello, who was seated to his left, tell us how much money we’re making this month.

About twenty million if everything falls right, ‘Sally Jello’ responded. We get the usual on the book, he said, referring to the archaic bookmaking racket that still was a mob staple, and this is the month we get our 'union dues.’

They all cackled at his humorous way of referencing the tribute money paid by the nation’s three largest unions, all of which they more-or-less controlled.

And nine months ago we rolled out that offshore trust scam. It’s done real well, but we need to sell it off and get out pretty quick now, because the feds are starting to get interested.

Tell us about that, Joey, Pavone said to Petrocelli, knowing full well that his intelligence man knew what the federal government and its enforcement officers were up to, usually before they did.

Yeah, we need to shut it down soon, boss. We’ve pretty much squeezed it dry and hidden the paper trail. There’s this dumb Nigerian guy, Nambosa, who wants to buy it for ten million in cash. I checked him out, he’s good for it. Make the deal, through a third party, of course, and let Nambosa fade the heat, if there is any, Petrocelli said with his usual flair and confidence.

What are our friends over at the Justice Department up to? Cortese asked casually.

Oh, Justice, they got big problems over there since two of their boys got whacked. They got this guy Marx in charge at the Bureau now, Petrocelli continued.

Would that be Groucho, Harpo or Chico? ‘Lucky’ Potenza demanded with a loud guffaw, soon joined in raucous laughter by the others.

They seem to be real disorganized right now, Petrocelli injected, so I don’t think we have any worries there for quite awhile.

Who do you like for attorney general, Joey? asked the don.

The White House is mum on that, Petrocelli responded. But it won’t be the guy who’s interim, because he’s too old and probably couldn't get confirmed because some Senators don't like him.

I’d give my left nut to get Jack Miceli in that chair. Nose around a little, Joey, and see what that would take, will you?

It was fascinating how Giancarlo Pavone could talk about buying the attorney general’s office as if it were a sale suit off the rack at Macy’s. But that was the way of his world. And in it, everything and everyone had a price. Talk waned as white-jacketed waiters brought in the red wine and crystal goblets and then exited, closing the ornate double doors on the drinking and scheming that followed.

Chapter Two

Springfield, Virginia, Six Days after the Attacks

He knew about the brazen assaults on the attorney general and FBI director. They were covered in