“I’m guessing that at some point you worked for the government. Which agency?”
“You’re just burning up with questions, aren’t you? Well, if you really want to know, I’ll tell you. I worked for the government, sure. Long time ago. I worked for an office, I won’t tell you where, but our job was to explore for oil overseas, in remote areas. This was before the age of green zealotry,” he says. “You know the ones, subscribe to global warming or they’ll cut your head off. That crowd.
“One day I came to work and found my desk cleaned out. The division I worked for was gone. They told us we were victims of the peace dividend. Us, along with half of the military and a fair piece of the country’s intelligence apparatus.
“The leaders had all found religion. The concept of war was outdated. The green dogma that passes for enlightenment was sweeping the world. Guns were out and butter was in, enough to grease the welfare skids and keep the entitlement programs humming.
“The lesson I learned was that America had no leaders. What passed for leaders were herd animals. They were out front only because they wanted to be seen. They kept running into trees and off cliffs because they spent all their time looking back trying to figure out where the herd was going next so they could get back out in front.”
“Take it you don’t like politicians.”
“I hate ’em. They come in handy from time to time, if you can pack them in your pocket. Otherwise they’re worthless. They stripped the country bare. Laid waste its intelligence agencies and staked out the position that the United States was invulnerable. Anybody who attacked would have to be out of their minds.
“It took ten years before they discovered half the world was crazy and some of the people in the asylum were fashioning nuclear weapons. As for me, I didn’t care. The experience had opened my eyes to opportunity. I found my niche.”
“Murder Incorporated?”
“You keep running your mouth, I’m going to put a bullet in you. That’s a hobby. I’m talking business. The same people who told us we didn’t need oil were the ones who’d stripped the country and told us there’d never be another war. But when winter rolled in and people started growing frost on their upper lips, they expected the bunker oilman to deliver. I had all those nice detailed maps prepared for the government. Why lock ’em away in some dusty file? So I went into business. Became an entrepreneur.”
“Is that what you call it?”
“Say what you want. In the last twenty years I’ve made more money than God. I bought up the offshore oil resources, developed the oil, and sold it on the spot market. It ends up back here at three times the cost of the domestic supply that Washington won’t let anybody drill. The politicians can claim they’re protecting the environment and the taxpaying chumps pay the premium at the pump. It’s a great system,” he says. “Designed for the dull-witted by the corrupt. They say sheep are stupid. They’ve got nothing on the American voter. And they wonder where all their jobs have gone. Maybe they should take a closer look at the people they elect.”
“Maybe they would if they knew you owned them.”
He gives me another look at the business end of the pistol and then pushes the button on the Taser. The voltage hits me like a freight train. In an instant I am stiff as a board, every muscle in my body convulsing, along with a dry metallic taste in my mouth. I rattle around in the chair, banging up against the desk behind me. Visions of shock therapy. There is the taste of blood in my mouth. Suddenly it stops.
I slump over in the chair, breathless, as blood drips from my lip onto the front of my shirt. Somehow I bit my tongue. I think about the cops who use these things for recreation following an arrest. This gives me a whole new perspective.
“How’d that work for you? I can do it again if you’d like. What was it we were talking about? Oh yeah, politicians. I don’t own all of them. There’s always room for growth,” he says.
I look up at him, anger fixed in my eyes. “For a man who seems so bitter, it sounds like you’ve done pretty well.”
“I’m not bitter. I like my work.”
He probably does, but he’s twisted. I would say it out loud, but I don’t want another taste of the Taser from Vlad the Impaler, his own form of aversion therapy. He wants me to talk, but he’s conditioning me to keep my thoughts to myself.
“Of course, I’m not sitting where you are right now. Shall we start again?”
“Do we have to?”
“I’m only gonna ask you one more time. I’m wasting electricity. Guess I’m gonna have to put a bullet in you. Where is Betz, and where are the bank records?” He stands there looking at me, waiting for my answer.
When I don’t say anything he moves a few steps closer. “Listen. I don’t want to have to hurt you anymore.” He lowers the muzzle of the gun half an inch, a measure of his sincerity. “You tell me what I want to know and I’ll make certain there’s no pain. You have my word. I promise.”
“Tell you what. You give me the gun, I’ll give you the same deal. And I won’t even ask you any questions.”
He cocks his head, looks at me. There is something predatory in his eyes.
The flash preceded by a nanosecond the impact of the bullet. It grazed the fabric at my knee and shattered the right front leg of the chair.
I land sprawled on the floor, my head slamming into the desk. The explosion of the round is still vibrating in my ears as the spent metal cartridge bounces and spins like a top on the tile floor ten feet away.
For a moment I’m dazed. A fine dusting of smoke, along with the sweet smell of nitrates from the gunpowder, permeates the air. I look at the shattered leg of the chair, wondering why it isn’t me, if I’m just lucky or if he’s that good.
Slowly I search with my hand along the inside seam of my right pant leg, hoping I won’t feel the wet warmth of blood spreading through the worsted wool.
“Would you like another?” He holds both of the weapons up and says: “Pick your poison.”
“You’re gonna wreck your furniture,” I tell him.
“No, this time I’ll go for the kneecap.”
“I don’t know where the records are,” I tell him.
“But you know where he is.”
I shrug my head, a grudging concession.
“I’m done talking,” he says.
“The government has him!”
“Where?”
“On a military base.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know. But I can find out.”
“How?”
“He checks in. He calls me three times a day, my office and my house. He leaves a coded message. If I need to talk to him I pick up, at which point we’d make arrangements to meet.”
He offers a big sigh. “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
The fact is, I’m buying time. If I told him that Betz was at Miramar, there’s a chance he’d kill me and try to figure some way to get onto the base himself. The man has connections. That’s clear. This way he needs me to answer the telephone.
“One thing I do know.”
“What’s that?” he says.
“If you kill him, everything he has, all the information, will be released. I don’t know the details. But it’s set up for the broadest possible dissemination. He told me that much. If anything happens to him, the world is gonna know names, dates, deposits, amounts on hand, everything.”
“You’re sure he didn’t tell you where it was?”
“No. He knows if he gives it up, if he loses that, he’s dead.”
I assume the Impaler already knew this, but it sets him to thinking. “Do you know what kind of arrangements they have for security? The military base. How many guards?”
“US Marshals. I don’t know how many. And probably a regiment of military police.”
“What time does Betz call?”
“Ten in the morning and three in the afternoon at the office. Eight o’clock at night at my house.”
“Get up. Get on your feet,” he says. He waves the gun at me, checks his watch. “There’s too many people at your office. Anybody at the house?”