Subtle Traitor

By Day Williams

A photographer is framed when an assassination attempt is made on the President. The photographer strives to clear his name while the President, unsure whom to trust, runs for his life. The Vice-President, a traitor, commandeers nuclear and weather weapons, which endangers the planet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Day Williams
• Release date: Mar 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393364313

Book preview

SUBTLE TRAITOR

Chapter 1

Morning

Wednesday morning at 5 o’clock. A Los Angeles police station by the shore. Darkness over the sea surface, dim light on the horizon.

Out of the way! Everybody, move out of the way!

The burly cop stuck his huge hands before camera lenses. Like a linebacker, he pushed the reporters and photographers aside. Make way! Behind him, two cops escorted the movie actress into the police station. Each cop held an elbow, and they lifted her above the floor like a rag doll as the photographers ran and elbowed one another for better vantage points.

Her third DUI in one year! one reporter hollered from the back.

After an Academy Award! another whooped.

Overhead, a flash fired. Poof! The burly cop stopped, ham hocks on hips, and gazed up. Behind him, the procession stopped. Is that Spiderman? he shouted. A photographer hung upside from the second-floor railing, legs wrapped around a post. He continued to snap pictures. Poof! Poof! The flashes illuminated the room for milliseconds.

That’s Blazer, Bill Blazer! a reporter shouted.

He has the best angle from there! shouted a photographer.

You can’t do that! yelled the burly cop. Puffing as he went, the cop climbed the stairs toward Blazer.

Still upside down, Bill Blazer checked his cell phone. The text read, President. Carson City. Meet me @ hangar.

Get down before you fall! a photographer shouted.

I don’t follow the crowd. That’s why my shots are hot, said Bill. Gotta go, ladies and gentlemen, he said. He pulled himself up to the railing as the burly cop reached the landing. Blazer plucked his camera bag and ran for an open window.

That’s illegal! the cop snarled. You’re under arrest!

It’s certainly a thrill to have a cop take interest in me, said Blazer. Panting as he went, the burly cop chased toward him. Blazer climbed through the window. He gripped a rope tied to a desk, stepped out, feet on the outside wall, and rappelled to the sidewalk. The cop leaned out the window frame and peered down at him. Would you mind? Blazer asked. Untie the rope and toss it down.

The burly cop shrugged. What’s the use? he muttered. He untied the rope and dropped it. Blazer picked it up, wrapped it around his arm, and smiled up at the cop. Pull that stunt again and I’ll toss your butt in jail! he shouted. But Bill Blazer was already gone. The street was quiet. Blocks away, waves lapped against the shore.

***

A troubled day started with peace and beauty.

Nevada, the Battle-Born State. Spring in Carson City: Brown hills with green in dabs and jabs. Sagebrush and shrubs, pinion pines and cottonwoods, tulips and sunflowers. On the ranches in and around the city, cattle grazed and newborn lambs romped in pastures green as Eden. The main artery, U.S. Highway 395, throbbed through the town center, where shops and casinos bustled with tourists and locals. At the city’s heart, the Legislative complex, Sheriff’s deputies and Secret Service agents conferred to coordinate their security measures. On scattered rooftops, snipers focused their scopes and scanned the plaza for people they knew from mug shots, people in wrong places or with bulky clothes that would conceal weapons. They found nothing amiss. A man in blue overalls wiped his nose with his sleeve as he swept the walkways. By the Capitol walkway, another man clipped and pruned the trees, each tree from one of the 17 Nevada counties.

Above the Capitol, the United States and Nevada flags flared and flapped in the morning sunlight. Out front, sitting on folding chairs on a wood platform were the waiting dignitaries: The Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, the Attorney General, the Chief Justice of the Nevada Supreme Court–who skimmed bench memoranda to prepare for oral arguments in the afternoon–the State Treasurer, the Controller, the local judges, Carson City’s Mayor, the Board of Supervisors, the President of the Rotary Club, and the President of the League of Women Voters. The sidewalks were lined with many onlookers who had driven two hours and more to attend this event–state workers, store clerks, reporters, retirees, guards, teachers, schoolchildren, and security personnel. Teachers read to their classes from handouts and guidebooks. Stray dogs romped and frolicked on the grass and dodged security guards. Red, white and blue flags fluttered in hands small and large, young and old.

Bill Blazer, a lanky twenty-five year old, with black hair, a goatee, a large nose, a solid chin, and a lean build, wore an L.A. Dodgers baseball cap and a green fisherman’s vest in which he had stuffed his camera lenses and accessories in the pockets above his hiking boots. His dark eyes flashed with energy and mischievousness. With two black digital cameras hung around his neck, Bill photographed the buildings, the people, the flowers, and the dogs. He stood out in a bright red long-sleeve shirt. As the critical time approached, he switched lenses on one camera body from a wide-angle to a 300mm telephoto lens. He pressed a button on the camera back, turned a dial, and checked the last twenty photographs to ensure they were framed properly and sharp.

Satisfied, he checked how many shots his CF card had left. With the camera set on RAW, he had 313 to go, more than enough to photograph the event. His other camera had 515 shots left. He plucked a camel-hair brush from his gadget bag and brushed the dust from the UV filters screwed on his lenses. Noticing some smudges, he squeezed the lens cleaner container. A drop plopped onto the lens cleaning cloth. He wiped the filters until they were clean and clear.

A crowd gathered before the Ormsby House, a hotel, a Carson City landmark. Wearing a spotless white blouse, Mercedes Calderón nudged, jostled, and slipped herself to a spot before the crowd gathered on the sidewalk. "Perdón, perdón," she said. Her teeth glowed. Her brown eyes twinkled with kindness. She was so pleasant, people gave way before her. She patted a boy on the head and petted a dog, which wagged its tail. The young woman had a kind word for everybody.

Years before, Mercedes’ father had crossed the border through Texas and worked in the fields for three seasons before he met her mother. They married in a Spanish-speaking Catholic church that met in a south Los Angeles warehouse between a bar and an auto parts shop. Mercedes first cried and bawled in a shack where a midwife pulled her into the light, spanked her, and handed the baby to her father, who paid the midwife what he could afford: A week’s supply of fruit and vegetables. Her mother suffered internal bleeding, blessed her child, and died a month later. The laborers raised Mercedes. At fifteen, she ran away from home with a teenage boy she met in her math class. He ran with a gang for two years while she waited tables. One midnight he pointed a gun at a convenience store clerk, who shot back. The bullet lodged in the boy’s spine, and he became a paraplegic. To avoid a harsh sentence, he testified for the State against other gang members. His bitterness foamed like a festering wound from his wheelchair to his friends and family. She stayed with him as long as she could stand his demeaning comments and demands. After he drove her car into a telephone pole and blamed her for it (you shouldn’t have let me drive), she needed a reason to leave. When she heard that the President had scheduled a visit to Carson City, she left without saying good-bye and cadged a ride from a computer salesman. It’s wonderful to be here with fellow Americans, she said to nobody in particular.

The Cowboy’s ranch was a fifteen-minute horseback ride from the Legislative plaza. He rose at five, when his rooster announced the morning with a spirited crow. He threw back the covers, pulled on his overalls, walked into his kitchen, and opened a Bible. He studied the Bible an hour, then did his chores. He fed the chickens, the horses, the dogs, and the barn cats. Looking up, he noticed a barn owl nested in the shadows of the rafters. He checked his fences and went back inside the house, where he took a shower. After he tossed his dirty clothes in a hamper, he brewed a pot of coffee, fried three eggs, burnt a piece of raisin toast, slapped the eggs and the burnt raisin toast on a pale blue plate, and savored his breakfast, burnt toast and all. Picking up a broom, he swept the front porch. Next, he found his claw hammer and ambled to a fence to put wrap more wire around the chicken coop. The coyotes came closer every night, their growls and howls disturbing his sleep. He had determined to keep them away from his chickens.

The motel manager made the night deposit at midnight, then went to bed. He and his wife rose at six to supervise the maids, do the books, and clean the office. As his wife pored over the accounts, he rubbed her back and told her that he loved her.

Reporter-agent Micah Lane drove down Sepulveda Boulevard, bobbing his head to LeCrae on his CD player. As he drove and listened to the music, he worked out a story outline for an exposé. His theme: Sex and bribes with high-played officials. At noon he would meet a key witness at a Starbucks. The man had inside information on black budgets, billions diverted to boondoggles in Afghanistan, and honey-pots run by foreign intelligence agencies. After that, Micah would call Bill about his morning photographs in Carson City. The White House Press Office had suggested the story to Micah, who had texted Bill while he hung upside down at a police station. In his small airplane, Micah had flown Bill to Carson City to cover the story, and then returned to Los Angeles. Micah rolled his window down and stuck his hand out, waving it in the wind. The air felt wetter than normal. While it had its air pollution, Los Angeles seldom had such high humidity.

In her Pasadena apartment, Vicky slept fitfully. Her triplet toddlers woke her at one o’clock and three-thirty. Mommy, called the youngest one, and she awoke from a night-dream in which she flew over mountains behind three birds. Vicky ran her hand along the bedspread, found a bottle in the early morning gloom, and slipped it into the toddler’s mouth. Weary and bleary, she pushed herself from the bed, donned her slippers, and padded into the kitchen to cook pancakes.

In Los Angeles, City Hall, third floor, the Mayor sat at a long mahogany table. Pens, paper and laptops covered its glass surface. She called to order a meeting with her staff and read a page from a motivational book about inclusion and diversity. They did a team shout together. Let’s get to work on solar power, she told her aides, and plant some trees today. Los Angeles will be green, green, green.

In southern Alaska, Joe Gibson and Kurt Moskowitz arrived at their underground control chamber five minutes apart. The snow was moderate on the roads this morning. Traffic was light. Kurt plugged in the coffee pot and checked the printouts for the period from midnight to 6:00 a.m. Gibson did fifty pushups on his desk.

I read the news today, said Moskowitz.

Oh boy! said Gibson. Another plane crash in Brazil? Tornado in Oklahoma? Budget problems?

The President is traveling to Carson City, Nevada for conferences and a speech.

It doesn’t matter much to me, said Gibson. He did another twenty-five pushups for good measure.

At the Carson Hospital at Carson City’s north end, on the second floor, a nurse ran down her mental checklist to end her shift. She had started when the night was old, when the only other cars on the roads were drunks, cops, and ambulances. The on-duty nurse nodded as she hurried to complete her final tasks. The nurse checked her patients’ charts and the medicine cabinets. She checked a list on a clipboard to order supplies. Her patients slept, read, or watched television. Peace descended on the ward and folded her wings. Everything was in order like pieces on a chessboard before the first move. She expected a quiet night and early morning where she would shuttle between patients’ rooms and the nurses’ station.

At the same hospital, on the ground floor, Curtis, hospital cook, chopped celery, mushrooms, and broccoli on a white plastic cutting board. He counted cans and boxes in the storeroom and, with a blunt blue pencil, filled out an order form. Bacon sizzled. Its pleasing aroma permeated the kitchen. When he had a moment, he would sharpen his knives. If orders were slow, he’d sharpen a pencil.

Wearing a red apron, Karina, a hospital maid, mopped a room on the second floor. The water in the galvanized aluminum mop bucket was dark gray. When she inserted the cotton yard mop, the window reflections wiggled and wavered. She rested the mop against a wall, picked up the bucket by its thin handle, lugged it past three rooms to the white plastic sink, dumped the water, and refilled the bucket. She rubbed her forearms. Her arms were already tired, and she had several hours to go before she could clock out. Going home held no great pull for her. She had nobody else at home to cook or clean for, nobody to pick up after, nobody to hug. Careful not to spill a drop, she hauled the bucket back and mopped where she had left off.

Tom Wilson, an audio-visual technician in the State Capitol building, cleaned camcorder lenses. He looked forward to a break, when he could resume a book about a C.I.A. agent who, by making clever disguises, helped U.S. government employees escape from foreign countries. By his side, his computer monitor played screen-saver patterns: Blue geometric designs, dissolving rainbows.

Sam McPhee waited outside the public library for it to open. The men next to him wore raincoats. One had come with a grocery cart laden with his worldly possessions–tools, books, sticks, canned food, a water jug, tattered newspapers. A yellow poncho covered and protected his goods. Someone told him that, for security reasons, he had to move the cart, so he pushed it behind a dumpster at a nearby grocery store parking lot. McPhee wanted to go on the Internet and shop for a new mate and the romance websites, and he planned to flirt with a librarian who listened to him. McPhee’s wife would never know. He was sure that she believed his cover story that he was studying electronics, his hobby, during his extended stays in the library.

At a small office across the street from the public library, a chiropractor and his mother-in-law were at work. He ran tests on a patient and made notes in the chart, having determined that the patient had one leg shorter than the other. Meanwhile, his mother-in-law took a phone call and scheduled another appointment. She dropped a few pellets into the aquarium, and the pellets attracted the tropical fish. On a bookshelf, fast asleep on a cat-hair-covered pillow, her nineteen-pound tabby purred like a well-oiled motor.

In a news station’s sound truck on the Legislative plaza, a woman newscaster put the finishing touches on her make-up. As she sipped coffee, she studied her notes, her questions and follow-up questions as she prepared for the interviews she had planned this day. She stopped a moment to reflect how far she had come since her journalism classes at the University of Nevada in Reno.

In the Legislature building, second floor, Nevada State Senator Kling said, Good morning, good morning, to his secretary, Miss Twombly as he breezed by her. He hung his smartly-tailored suit coat on a varnished coat rack, dragged a comb across his head, picked up the morning paper, and went into his office, closing the door behind him. A red light lit on Miss Twombly’s phone, which meant a phone call. She reached underneath her desk and flicked a switch.

Carson City Sheriff’s Deputy Miller had yet to adjust to the day shift. He had spent two years on jail duty, five years as a beat cop on graveyard shift, and three years on swing shift. When one officer took a position in Reno, a slot for day shift opened up. Deputy Miller snapped it up. But he was still sleepy during the day. He was assigned to cover the City while other officers handled the crowds downtown. The morning had been slow. He was tailing two dark sedans that looked suspicious because the one followed the other. The registrations were current. The sedans made legal right turns and drove away from him. Having no reason to follow the sedans any longer, he stopped at a car wash to wash and vacuum his patrol car.

Riding on a white jet, Air Force Two, Vince Madden, Vice-President of the United States, sent encrypted messages on his cell phone, anxious for the responses. He checked his watch. A few minutes more. He squirmed in his seat. Sweat sprinkled his brow. Another drink! he snapped at the stewardess. More potato chips! He clenched and unclenched his fists.

As his limousine sped north on U.S. Highway 395, Everett Masterman, the President of the United States, brushed lint from a blue-striped suit. The dilemma sickened him. He was a rat in a mirrored maze which had no exit. The coming election meant nothing, because he distrusted his wife and staff. His wife slept with his associates, had done so for years, and he doubted the agents were loyal. Mr. Murkhy, who stood out like a tarantula on writing paper, made his stomach turn. Vice-President Madden had assigned Mr. Murkhy, an FBI agent, to guard the President on this trip. Masterman sensed that something brewed and stewed behind his back as though a wizard stirred a pot in a castle. The ingredients remained a mystery that muddled his dreams and befuddled his days. Wherever he turned, he met false smiles on faces that wanted his time and consideration. The President garnered attention, so much attention it disgusted him. He was center stage in a circus freak show, with top billing, freakier than the bearded lady, the Siamese twins, and the sword swallower.

When he was Governor, he had time to himself.  He hunted, fished, rode horseback, and nobody bothered him. As President, the demands never stopped. Instead, they grew apace with each day in office. More than anything, he wanted time alone to sort out who he was, who was on his side, and who wasn’t. He wanted a map or an aerial photograph, but none was available. As he sped from city to city in jets and limousines, as he talked to crowds, the people and places blurred. He had lost his bearings. Where to begin?   

The First Lady sat like a queen on the leather seat between the President and Mr. Murkhy. She wore a mini skirt that displayed her shapely legs. As the President gazed gloomily out the window, she squeezed Mr. Murkhy’s hand and winked at him. She had come a long way from her days as a student teacher, when she had trudged through snow to a one-room schoolhouse in Lovelock, Nevada. This was a key day. They had planned for this a long time. She would move up in the world, even higher than her present place.

Mr. Murkhy winked back at the First Lady and shifted in his seat. The limo neared the Legislative plaza, where the State Capitol, the Nevada Supreme Court, and the Legislature building stood in a row by a plaza. The President was coming because Nevada had key electoral votes. The White House scheduler had arranged conferences for the President, his aides, the Governor, and leading Nevada legislators. In the evening the President would address the Nevada Legislature with plans to stop the storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain and to invest federal funds to probe for underground rivers. Mr. Murkhy planned for the schedule to be thrown off-kilter in a moment or two. He had convinced the President to ride in a limo with the top down. The fresh air will do you good, Sir, he said, and you’ll be closer to the people. Mr. Murkhy afforded himself a small smile. He fingered the small pistol in a holster at his side, under his coat next to his tailored his red vest.

Chapter 2

Two Shots

At 9:11 A.M. two shots were fired at the President of the United States of America.

Chapter 3

Taking the Camera Away

Give me the camera, the man said. He was six foot two or six foot three, Bill estimated. The man’s chest and arms were solid muscle. The man wore sunglasses and a dark suit. Black shoes sparkled from polish and wax and in the spring morning sun. His face was well-tanned; his nose large and flat, his lips thick. When he smiled, a gold tooth glinted like fool’s gold on a mining claim. The man stuck out his hand, big as a hog’s flank. Give, he repeated.

Bystanders stole glances at Bill and the man, then melted back into the crowd. Sheriff’s deputies barricaded the street by the Ormsby House and the Legislature building. Schoolchildren screamed and shrieked as their teachers shepherded them back to their yellow school buses parked on side streets. A first-grader, lost, sat down on the sidewalk and squawked until a teacher tugged his hand, lifted him up, and carried him toward a bus. In the distance a siren sounded, a wail from America’s heart.

Tabloid editors around the world knew Bill and his work, as well as his reputation for fearlessness. Nothing, not bodyguards, not muscle-bound men, not cops, stopped his quest for high-priced pictures. His resourcefulness was legendary among photographers and editors. Due to his speed, he could hold his own in a fist-fight with anyone but a professional boxer, and he had punched more than one man who had blocked his way to an actress. But, to his distress, this man was as big and well-muscled as a heavyweight boxing champion. And the man’s jacket had bulges underneath that suggested a gun or two.

Bill photographed celebrities for a living. They hired bodyguards to protect their privacy. To do his job, he invaded their privacy. His job was to take and sell pictures that showed celebrities in unguarded moments (preferably unclothed), which was what the tabloid editors liked best and paid well for. This led to awkward situations with bodyguards, some armed, all skilled in martial arts, trained to twist limbs and break bones. Too many wanted to show their skills to their bosses. Although he could use his fists if he had to, Bill counted on fast thinking and a silver tongue to finesse his escapes from serious bodily injury.

More than once, a bodyguard had demanded Bill’s camera. In response, Bill had developed a routine. Let me state my point of view, said Bill. He flashed his best go-bite-a-donut-look at the man. I work alone and I don’t need your help. Get from my way and I won’t hurt you.

The hulk growled, Do what I say, or I’ll rearrange your face. Your boyfriend won’t like it anymore.

This is my livelihood, Bill said, as he looked up the man’s eyes, which stared behind the sunglasses. I need my camera.

Sure you do. The big man smiled, showing his gold tooth. His dark suit was like that worn by the other Secret Service men, but he acted like a Chicago mobster. Bill half-expected a scowling Al Capone, wielding a baseball bat, to show up behind the man. The man’s right hand disappeared inside his jacket.

I thought this was a free country, said Bill.

Not that free, buddy.

If I give it to you, I want a receipt, said Bill. Asking for a receipt had always bought him some time. The year before, a Hollywood bodyguard had taken Bill’s camera after he found Bill concealed in a tree that overlooked a Hollywood actress’s swimming pool and hot tub. With a 400mm lens, Bill had photographed her loud and wild, and lewdly photogenic, swim parties. Bill demanded a receipt from the bodyguard, who jogged into the house to find paper and pen. As soon as he disappeared into the house, Bill climbed over the white fence, scraping his knee on the wire and glass on top, and escaped a thrashing or a trespassing charge, or both. With the payment for the pictures, he made a year’s payments on his sports car.

A mile or two behind the Chicago-mobster-Secret-Service-agent thug, another siren sounded. The man responded, "I don’t have time for