Even though Morgan Taylor hadn’t asked, Lewis knew what the president really wanted.
“Sir, it’s been a while. Would you like to fly her?” Air Force One was on autopilot.
“Yes, sir,” said the former Navy commander.
Taylor fastened his safety belt, grabbed hold of the yoke, and gave Lewis a thumbs-up to disengage the autopilot, transferring control of the 747 to the president.
“She’s all yours.”
Taylor didn’t answer, he just smiled.
Only one person noticed a change in the way the plane handled — Lt. Eric Ross. Rossy’s senses were attuned to the plane more than anyone’s. He was in an aft compartment when the president took control. He felt a slight surge of power and an almost imperceptible dip in altitude. After a second, he relaxed. Confident that all was well, he returned to his favorite reading — tech updates from Boeing.
The library shelves were filled with biographies and autobiographies of Limbaugh, Savage, Franken, O’Reilly, Hannity, and other talk-show hosts. But no one had written anything comprehensive about Elliott Strong. O’Connell quickly learned that a number of publishing houses had approached the Kansas-based talker, however Strong rejected every offer and threatened to sue anyone who proceeded with an unauthorized biography in print, on A&E, or in magazines. Until recently, the established media hardly cared.
So Michael O’Connell went back to the tried-and-true method for his initial research. He made phone calls.
The New York Times reporter soon discovered that none of the individual radio stations that had employed Strong during his ascension were still run by the same owners. No matter the size, the stations now belonged to media conglomerates that acquired them in the media buying frenzy that followed deregulation.
Many of the radio stations weren’t even operated in the local communities they served. They were programmed from miles away.
A call to a main station number might trigger an answering machine or an automatic transfer to an office in another town.
That point was no more clearly demonstrated than in January 2002, when a train transporting 10,000 gallons of anhydrous ammonia derailed in Minot, North Dakota. O’Connell learned that the contents spilled, sending a toxic cloud into the sky. Authorities who responded to the danger attempted to warn residents to stay indoors. However, when they called the six local commercial radio stations, no one was there to make an announcement. The stations were automated and programmed remotely. So much for local radio, thought O’Connell.
Some congressmen used the Minot case to explore the impact of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. The facts were clear. The law prompted consolidation. Roughly 9,000 out of 10,000 existing radio stations across the U.S. were bought and sold at least once within a five-year period, including the stations where Strong worked.
Minot was allowed to happen. And Elliott Strong remained an enigma.
The reporter had no previous concept of the impact of deregulation. He vowed to find a way to work it into his story. That still left him with an immediate problem. Where do I go now?
There wasn’t going to be a hotel room left in Washington between August 15 and 19. The Bridgeman March accounted for every bed, except those already booked by vacationers.
Anyone dawdling found themselves either out of luck or forced to stay north of Baltimore or deep in Virginia.
“I warned you,” Elliott Strong said to his listeners. “But hey, we’ve secured permits from Parks and Recreations, so bring your sleeping bags. The Mall’s all yours.”
Estimates for the march now exceeded two million. Almost half would have to sleep on the grass. The entertainment was booked and the networks were already adjusting their lineup. Dateline and Primetime Live put in requests to follow Bridgeman through the day. CNN and Fox committed their anchors to non-stop coverage. Ironically, there would be more live programming for the one-day march, which was really a rally, than the networks devoted to the last two party conventions. Strong gloated. All this for a political movement that didn’t exist much more than a month earlier.
Elliott Strong smiled into the mirror that sat on his desk. “Sixteen more days,” he said. “I can’t wait.”
Strong’s early history was a matter of public record, posted on www.elliottstrong.com. It was a story he often told on the air. O’Connell read how Strong talked his way into his first radio job by mowing the lawn and how, by being in the right place at the right time, he earned an on-air shift. After that, there was truly no biographical information, only a list of radio stations that carried Strong Nation. When the Fresno station, now owned by one of the nation’s largest holders of radio properties, couldn’t help him, the reporter phoned the local Fresno newspaper.
That call, and the two that followed, eventually put him in touch with a senior residence, where the station’s general manager now lived.
O’Connell waited on the telephone for nearly ten minutes until the person at the front desk pulled the retiree away from lunch.
“Hello!” Overstreet yelled into the phone. The old, but booming, radio voice startled O’Connell.
“Hello, Mr. Overstreet?”
“What?”
“Mr. Overstreet?” he asked louder, realizing the old man was hard of hearing.
“Yes, who’s there?”
O’Connell explained. He finished the thought with, “…and I’m calling regarding Elliott Strong.”
“Who?”
“An announcer you hired years ago. “Strong. Elliott Strong.” By now O’Connell wrote off the interview.
“Strong, you say?”
“Yes.”
“The kid?”
The reporter was surprised. “Yes, yes. The kid. Do you remember him?”
“Of course I do. He was boffing my secretary behind my back,” he laughed. “Didn’t know for the longest time. Did he tell you I canned them both?”
O’Connell ignored the question.
“Then he left her waiting at the bus station while he high-tailed it out of town.”
“I didn’t know that. Do you remember her name?”
“I remember the dimple on her left cheek. And I’m not talking about the one she could see in the mirror. Of course I remember her goddamned name! Sally. Got to give it to the kid. He surprised the hell out of me.”
“Is she still around?”
“Nope. She married some car salesman in town. Funny about things. Heard she died in a car accident years back.”
O’Connell was disappointed. “What else can you tell me about the kid?”
“Luckiest guy in radio.” Then Overstreet opened up.
Luis Gonzales’s fortune was built on the sales of artwork — both legitimate and illegal. While money bought everything and everyone he needed, information was also a highly valuable commodity. Certain facts came from people who thought they were contributing to Middle East think tanks, but they were actually reporting to Gonzales via shell organizations.
He also had moles inside the government. A new message just arrived for him from an officer in the FBI.
Gonzales decoded the message, contained in an eBay sales posting. As each word formed, his body tensed more. Even though his informant didn’t understand the significance of the communiqué, the impact was profound.
Florida rez subject of fed conspiracy.
Agency investing. Subject: Haddad, Ibrahim.