I KILL RICH PEOPLE 2 (9 page)

The Lieutenant Colonel looked up from his paperwork. “You’ve given a kidney. That’s enough, Soldier. You did your duty and you served well.”

“Hold on a minute.” Spencer looked at the three officers from face to face.
They didn’t get it.
He wasn’t leaving; he was ready to go back to Afghanistan. Ready to deploy!

“Sir,” Spencer explained, “I’m fit and able.”

“Sergeant, the Army appreciates your service. But it is time to move on, son.”

“Sir, I can do the job! Test me! Please, Sir. Sir, put me on any obstacle course. I’ll post a 10K time against any unit time in the service! Sir, I can do this!” Spencer pleaded.

“We’re going to have to move this along. Sergeant, see your exit administrator for the application if you chose to pursue an appeal.” Spencer looked on in shock as the officer applied a stamp to his paperwork and signed off. Retired for Medical Reasons.

He didn’t shift. He turned his shoulder to the Lt. Colonel and jabbed his left index finger at each of the patches on his shoulder to explain. “Sir, this wastes an army asset,” Spencer appealed. “You spent maybe a million dollars on training me. Airborne School, Ranger School, Special Forces School.” He pointed to the service badge hanging on his chest. “Advanced Sniper School.” He was a Tower of Power. What didn’t they understand? But it was Spencer who didn’t understand. Force-reduction. Cost-containment. $32,000 versus a lifetime pension vesting in six months. Spencer also didn’t understand that an appeal might keep him in uniform long enough to make his twenty years.

Right after the PEB, a hidden gear seemed to shift. Things accelerated; two E-6s appeared from behind the flag stands and proceeded around the long table toward Spencer in a synchronized gait. Spencer quickly evaluated their size and motion, flashing on the choreography. He could snap the left knee of the Staff Sergeant approaching from his right, 230 pounds, lethargic, going through a routine. He could come back on the pelvis of the other staff sergeant, younger, leaner; the E-5 would run straight onto the blow.

MSJS hardly realized that his fists were tight-knuckled until both sergeants moved their hands back onto Tasers hanging on their belts. Then a sergeant on each side placed a firm grip on his bicep and assertively directed him toward the double doors by which he had entered only minutes earlier. Nineteen years, thirty thousand miles clocked moving overland on his two feet, serving the nation and his brothers in arms, all gone with a rubber stamp.

Consultants, experts in corporate downsizing, wrote the manual. He didn’t have the chance to talk with Captain Sam. Under escort—“companion services”—they took him straight to processing and brought his personal belongings to him all packed into his duffle. They handed him $400 cash, a cashier’s check for the balance, a map of local motels, and a Veterans Services Directory.

Spencer shouldered his kit and marched to the Motel 6 on Georgia Avenue, never putting the duffle down, even when he was standing beside the swimming pool looking down, transfixed. Nothing made any sense, not even the sun and the sky above him or the clear water smelling of chlorine. He had ruptured out his own anus, born again inside-out.

The front desk accepted his army ID and a $200 deposit in lieu of a credit card. His room had white walls, a television set, an air conditioner, and an orange bedspread. A window looked onto the parking lot. The bathroom had a paper strap over the toilet seat. There was a mirror over the dresser. He didn’t want to see himself.

He never touched the bed or sat down. A broad plan formed on the fly. Spend a couple days visiting his dad; make sure Jack was doing OK, and then he was going to ride west… North Dakota, Eastern Montana. The oil fields were hiring unattached men who were willing to work. They liked vets. Captain Sam would like that. He’d be OK.

At 19:30, he drove off with a black Harley Davison Road King straight off the showroom floor.

The following morning he rode his shining Harley right past the front of the building. The lieutenant colonel and his two majors and the two staff sergeants with their Tasers had fucked him; they might never see him now, but he could take it. He was OK.

It was muggy, a sopping armpits D.C. day. He was imagining how the captain would get on back and feel the wind in his face. Even if it were just for a lap around the parking lot, it would do Captain Sam good. The bike had a great rear seat with lumbar support. He didn’t need hands. He’d hold on fine.

It felt instantly strange when he turned into the front drive. Spencer had been away for just a couple days, but after he parked and walked toward the rehabilitation center he sensed that he was an outsider now. The guards and duty officer stopped him right at the entrance. He couldn’t get to the elevators. Phone calls went between the reception desk and Major Davies. The short, packed sausage showed up from between two MPs who towered over her. All three walked like a wall, moving Spencer outside and down the front steps.

“Major, I’m not here to make waves,” Spencer explained. “I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to Captain Hall. I’d like to spend a little time with him. Tell him my plans. That’s all. If you don’t want me on the ward, no problem, Major. Somebody else can bring him down.”

“Master Sergeant Spencer, where did you go with Captain Hall?” she demanded.

“Sir?”

“It’s a simple question, Sergeant,” she snapped at him. “You took Captain Hall off the ward every day. Where did you go?”

Spencer was caught off-guard. For two days he had been hurtling along, tossed out of orbit and clinging to the handlebars of his new Harley Davidson CVO Road King for something tangible that made sense.

Coming from the ranking officer, he searched for the answer without taking the time to consider why the question was being asked. They went to the east sports field, they jogged the perimeter several times, and they frequently talked and hung out on the grass under the big oak next to Palmer Road South.

“Did you ever take Captain Samuel Hall, up onto that roof? The one with the sign on the door stating that it is ‘Off Limits’?” Major Davies stretched her short arm toward the top of the building, pointing her stubby finger.

Roof, Spencer wondered? He didn’t like the tone of her voice. They’d already junked him out on a Medical so what did it matter if the roof was off-limits? What more could they do to him now? Sure, he and the captain went up on the roof a couple times. There was usually a nice breeze up there. They didn’t do anything except spend a few minutes cooling down.

“We went up a few times,” Spencer admitted. “So do half the guys here.”

“As the SPO at this facility, I am responsible for writing this ASER, Sergeant. SRMSO is going to see you name on that report. I hold you responsible!”

“Major, I’m not here to argue and you’re throwing out more letters than I know. I just want to spend an hour with Captain Sam and then I’m out of here.”

“On your new motorcycle.”

Spencer agreed. “Yes. On my new motorcycle.”

“Well let me tell you. ‘SPO’ stands for Suicide Prevention Officer. ‘ASER’ is Army Suicide Event Report. The SRMSO is the Suicide Risk Management and Surveillance Office.”

Major Davies pointed at a freshly-scrubbed circle of cement bleached whiter than the surrounding slab. “See that?”

Spencer concentrated on the stark white patch without comprehending.

“Captain Hall managed to get himself up to the sixteenth floor yesterday afternoon, where he jumped to his death. Thanks to you.”

Captain Sam was dead?

Major Davies had carefully watched the security recordings and was preparing for the investigation that would follow. She neglected to explain to Spencer how MEBs and PEBs and appeals had been put onto an accelerated fast-track under new orders, going all the way up to the Joint Chiefs. Two hundred and fifty exit-processes targeted for completion at Walter Reed within ten days.

Captain Sam’s appeal process was formally denied in four and a half minutes. The same Lieutenant Colonel who ran through Spencer’s PEB was tasked to process back-logged evaluations throughout the Eastern administrative sector.

From the hearing chamber, Captain Sam was walked to the cafeteria. He was scheduled for immediate transport home, but unlike Spencer, the captain’s disabilities precluded his immediate departure. He was helped to a tray of Sloppy Joes and canned peaches in syrup that a Filipino contract caregiver spoon-fed to him in small bites that dribbled down both cheeks. He told the helper that he wanted to be left alone to do some reading.

From the cafeteria, the captain retraced the steps to the elevator on his own then rubbed his forearm down the wall until he used his forearm to depress the up button. The elevator camera recorded him pressing every floor and patiently riding to the top-floor landing where he stepped out then waited to hear the doors closing behind him.

He shuffled his way forward until he found the wall and then walked his shoulder down the hallway until he felt the doorframe. The bar-mechanism drove into his side.

Once outside, Captain Sam turned his face up to the sunshine. The recording showed his hair pushed back by the wind. He touch-toed his way ahead out to the stub-wall surrounding the roof-edge, stepped up onto the edge and listened to the sounds of cars out in the distance cars driving along Rockville Pike. Above him and to his right, flags snapped in the breeze. He stepped down from the wall then counted his strides going backward carefully making certain there was nothing in his path until the bumped into the access door. He spun a crisp about-face and faced west. His right elbow cocked upward, he paused, and then sprinted to clear the first hurdle.

“You want to put this on me?” Spencer screamed. “You couldn’t let him have a fucking bidet! You couldn’t let him have some dignity! Fuck you, Major! You’re fucking worthless! Fuck you!”  The captain… that’s a great man.

Spencer sped north at eighty miles an hour. He left his visor up, ignoring the pressure on his eardrums in trade for the wind blowing into his eyes. This wasn’t on him; she couldn’t put it on him!

But that was nothing. Bullshit. The major was bullshit.

“Jesus. Fuck! God. Captain Sam! No!”

He didn’t know why he was riding north. What mattered was motion, not where he was heading. Jack’s house was in the opposite direction. Maybe that was why? Maybe he couldn’t bring himself to see Jack. He didn’t want to lie and he didn’t want to explain. He just had to move! His hands, arms, shoulders, neck, back, buttocks, thighs, even his feet were tensed into granite. He clenched his jaw so tightly that his molars ached.

Outside Baltimore he pulled the visor down. He was outside Philly before he really gave thought to having a direction. North Dakota was west, not that it mattered. Distance and movement.

He saw the billboards and banners on the outskirts of Allentown.
Gun Show. Eagle Arms.

Inside the main pavilion, soldiers in fatigues mixed with hunters and collectors over hundreds of tables laden with weapons and ordnance, journals and loaders, targets and maintenance supplies. Spencer moved right past the outfitters booths selling hunting trips: Alaskan caribou, Nunavik polar bear culls, Cape Buffalo in Namibia; Spencer accelerated straight through until his hands felt the familiar heft of a Barrett 82A. He had it lifted to his shoulder before the vendor could say hello.

It all clicked. This was home; this was where he was right with the world. It wasn’t a place, it was a purpose. The feeling of that Barrett against his shoulder, knowing that he could break it down faster than anyone in that giant building and make it dance like nobody else,
that
was home.

“The continued existence of human life on this planet is no certainty,” the captain had said. “The world needs a thriving, dynamic, positive America to lead the way forward. We can’t be a do-nothing country that watches as we destroy ourselves. How many marriages fail, how much violence is prompted, simply because every year we get squeezed? Fewer opportunities and more pressure. More output, more rent hikes, more debt just to keep up!”

The captain told him: “America can’t be a world leader with guns alone. We once lead by example, by being the nation where a C student could work his butt off and thrive. Where bosses and workers both did fine. We had a country where we all pulled on the same rope to move forward. Now a bunch of rich greedy bastards bully everybody else. They push our noses in the dirt, Jonathan! We can’t let them ruin it for everyone else. If we go down, everyplace goes down!

If killing fifty people clears the way to put America back on track, wouldn’t you do that?”

Spencer balanced the Barrett while he sighted down the Leupold scope, rotating around the giant warehouse and he stopped with a bright green ‘Exit’ sign in the crosshairs.

“BRASS,” he whispered.

Captain Sam was dead.
Like he never existed
.

He committed half his remaining cash to purchasing both the Barrett and the Remington Arms M24, along with a Leupold 4 scope that could mount interchangeably on both weapons.

His direction changed. Rich people weren’t going to be in North Dakota’s oilfields; the billionaire tycoons were a lot closer than North Dakota. One hundred miles due east… New York City.

CHAPTER FOUR

Some of you here this week and next already completed the Guerilla Warfare training modules. This training is much more than an update. We have plenty of new material to cover. The urban conflict components, for example, have all been updated with case studies and simulations drawn from actions in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.  

Enemy forces conducting asymmetrical warfare going up against our numerical, logistical, and material superiority will employ targeting variation, tactical variation, and improvisation to which we must be prepared to respond. They mix it up and they adjust on the fly. Those are the enemy’s tools of the trade. Well we are going to put you inside their heads; you are going to learn to think like them, you’re going to anticipate their behaviors, and when you leave here and get out on missions you will implement these lessons you learn and  you are going to bring your troops home alive.

The Sands Point estate had worthless security and plenty of it. Any minor Afghan official in local government had better odds of surviving an attack. Along the entire back side of the property, Morris Levy’s private security service was allowing outside doors to be left open while armies of workers assembled the lavish arrangements for his birthday bash. Spencer reconnoitered across two days and nights tracking perimeter patrols that ran predictably once each hour, on the hour, with two uniformed guards touring around in a golf cart. He watched as caterers and florists were waived right through the huge front gates. No scrutiny. No concern for in-coming bags. But they
were
checking bags when the workers left.

The
New York Post
called the up-coming birthday bash “a bejeweled expression of over-the-top indulgence with no ingredients spared.”

From the darkness inside the tree line, Spencer took one knee. His eyes followed the hundreds of guests in couture dresses and tuxedos arriving down fairytale pathways lit by thousands of tinkling white bulbs onto the lush acres of lawn.

Offshore, behind and to his right, the guests arriving by yacht were handing their pre-function champagne off to attendants and being helped into launches. Distinct constellations built up on the lawns, each surrounding one or two individuals who stood fixed, like suns, while the others orbited and vied to move closer in. More like moths than planets.

Spencer lifted the Remington MSR, scanning his surroundings through the scope, touching his index and middle fingers to the bolt. Spencer thought of Manchester United, the soccer kid in his Pumas. None of these fancy people inside his field of vision gave that any thought.
Further than Mars
.

A foot patrol was making three routine passes per hour, doing a ground-scan by Maglite. One by one, Spencer looked down the scope, sighting onto each position and running through the tight lateral shifts and elevations until each shift was automatic. Morris Levy was recognizable from the
Post
photo, a bald little man but fiercely erect like an aggressive featherweight fighter. Each of the “suns” took seats at tables close to him.

Emerson Elliot, the radio shock jock, started crooning “Blue Moon,” but Spencer heard “Breathe, Relax, Aim, Slack, Squeeze.” He centered himself calmly.
One. Two, Three. Four.
And then he was collecting casings and moving through the darkness, shouldering this weapon and pushing the matte dark wave runner off the sand. Pressing the electric start. Twice.

Seven thousand miles away, American soldiers were so happy if they had air conditioning or a piece of fresh fruit. Not being shot at or bombed, not closing your eyes and seeing the faces of dead friends and foes were the measures for a good day or a decent night. Bouncing northward across the dark water, he could already feel the adrenaline rush receding. It was only one action. History now, alongside a long history before.

While grunts slog and die, they throw parties. How many of them stole their private billions from public trillions?
Time to learn learn about blood and bone.

*****

His knowledge, his preparation, his skills; in Afghanistan
he
took down 131 people and he never once saw anything in a newspaper or heard a radio report about it. But at least there was a debriefing. He found himself missing the meeting to review and assess. Media speculation everywhere; he couldn’t shut it out, and yet none of it had anything right. No precision. Nobody who knew anything about the intricacies of planning and execution.

There it was.
You crossed the Rubicon.
Done.
The strangest thing was how it felt normal, going right back to what he was trained for. He felt right about being ‘home’ for the first time in years. 

Four dead billionaires. Soft targets.
Now vary the profile. Switch it up. Watch, listen, observe
.

*****

Rooks Bishop caught the breaking news within minutes after the first reports came in identifying Morris Levy. Just shy of a year into private consulting, Bishop had learned to stay ahead of the curve. There was no project so he had no role, but he was already logging his timesheet and staying ahead of the curve. In his business, by the time the client called it was already too late to ramp up.

Four Jewish billionaires shot dead. By midnight, Bishop was listening to audio and breaking down sound patterns. Identical reports, none overlapping.
One shooter
. Close shot intervals, three-point-two seconds from first fire to last. Four shots, four kills.

By morning, two more curious pieces added to the mix. No shell casings. Professional shooter. That was different. Bishop pushed back his white Stetson and considered. All Jewish targets, but not Hamas or Hezbollah, not unless the Palestinians were retooling; nothing like their MO. That and no group claiming responsibility.
Neo-Nazi?

Bishop had a pretty good idea that APA would be calling. He intended to be prepared. In consulting, you’re either running fast right out of the blocks or you’re backpedaling and defending your hourly fee. His was $550 per hour, gross. His bottom line net was leaned down considerably after he paid for golfing vacations and every manner of modest luxuries that his contacts inside government law enforcement could never afford.. These were his costs of doing business.

Twenty years inside government law enforcement, five with Texas state agencies. The Stetson had moved with him from Houston to federal roles with the DEA, FBI, ATF, DOJ and U.S. Marshals. Working with cooperating foreign agencies inside Mexico, Columbia, and Panama had him speaking pretty good street
Español
. The most successful cross-border interdiction effort in the nation had been his simple, efficient design.

Bishop had slashed overhead costs at the DEA and still he had cut deeply into the cartels. His network paid the working stiffs who actually moved the drugs a cut on every kilo they turned over to him. Many of his informants were able to get out of narco-trafficking thanks to the money he got to them from turning over a single big shipment. The traffickers weren’t there for the lifestyle, not most of them; it was dangerous, unhealthy work. They were there for the money. Every six months or so the cartels cleaned house, killing everybody, and the cycle started all over again. Giving them a ticket out was saving lives.

The real backbreaker that took Bishop out of the game came down when Mexican officials who, corrupt up to their eyeballs, had threatened to legalize narcotics unless Washington shut down Bishop’s whole operation.

He didn’t blame leaving on any one individual or even that they collapsed his interdiction unit. Law enforcement had been hit by tectonic shifts everywhere. Efficacy didn’t save programs; the system was seldom based on anything quite as logical as good work. Senior management was so afraid of looking their age that handed their budgets over to third-party technology contractors who were taking over the guts of U.S. government intelligence. Human intelligence budgets for investigation and interrogation and field informant relationships were being chopped to bits. Bishop’s entire generation of professionals was pivoting to systems that they didn’t understand and had no idea how to implement. DEA and ATF were pushing hard for more technological surveillance, as though slinging cash at drones and GPS and monitoring emails and phone calls would hygienically replace the realities of a very dirty business.

It was time to get out.

He wore the Stetson into FBI headquarters for the briefing following the murders on Long Island. The postcards reading “I Kill Rich People” had brought out a who’s-who of law enforcement heavyweights, including several former government men who were now private consultants.

Nobody in the room mentioned class warfare out loud. Nobody had to. The entire focus of the meeting was on framing the story and media response. A pretty boy FBI Special Agent was framing the media package when the text from Americans for Patriotic Action, APA, came through to Bishop, who drew glances by saying “yes” and loudly slapping his thigh.

He was in.

Bishop knew to come in prepared to back up everything he said with facts, dates, and defensible data. Carlton Jeffers didn’t suffer fools. He looked for clarity and brevity.  Jeffers, Yale Class of ’76, had taken Americans for Patriotic Action over the past twenty years from a richly-endowed organization of conservative academics and built it into the single most powerful public-private alliance in the world.

Congressmen, senators, K-Street lobbyists, and more than one thousand of America’s most powerful business leaders were included in APA membership. The airport nearest APA’s monthly Visions Partnership meetings was entirely redesigned to support the attendees’ private jet fleet.

Jeffers projected the file from his desktop onto the wall behind his desk when Bishop was ushered into his office. Bishop looked at the two low-backed dark red leather chairs in from of Jeffer’s broad desk but read standing up when Jeffers ignored his presence. His fingers continued to tear across his keyboard while Bishop studied the polling data he had up on the office wall.

Bishop had learned a lot since he first set up his login and created his “vendor identity” on the secure website. APA was nowhere to be seen, not in the cover page and not in any link he drilled down into. He had to go on faith; that and the $49,500 retainer that kick-started their client-consultant relationship. Two-weeks, billable at forty-five hours per week, to identify the shooter or shooters. He entered his Social Security number, Maryland Driver’s License, Blue Shield medical information, six references, full-time employment since college, his current address, and prior addresses for the past ten years.

“Forty-four percent of respondents call these attacks ‘Somewhat Justified,’ ‘Justified,’ or ‘Highly Justified,’” Jeffers snarled without looking up. “Forty-four percent!

“Once these slogans go viral, you probably have no idea how much input it takes to tame them,” Jeffers grumbled. “I coordinated the simultaneous law enforcement and media sweep that had sent the Occupy movement into history. But ‘we are the ninety-nine percent’ is still burrowed into the lexicon like a damned tick.” 

There wasn’t any real fallout from major intelligence catastrophes; newspapers ran headlines, but the stories had no shelf life; they grew boring and stale overnight. Nobody lost jobs. No programs were curtailed. Everything went right back to business as usual. But a good sound bite sticks!

“For twenty years I’ve been crafting positive imagery for America’s job creators. Now this “I Kill Rich People” is polling at forty-four percent!

What do you think?” Jeffers asked, finally training his piercing stare on Bishop’s hat.

“Single perpetrator,” Bishop answered. “There’s nothing indicating this modus operandi at FBI. Interpol has three Chechen snipers they’re tracking, all single-target attacks. No correlation.”

Jeffers’ eyes shifted opposite Bishop’s. “Don’t tell me what he’s not,” Jeffers admonished. “Tell me what he is.”

“I reviewed the recordings. Single weapon. Four kills with four shots in three-point-two seconds. Studied and understood the area. In and out cleanly.

“He’s lean, efficient, and professional. Betting odds say he’s done it before. Best guess, military sniper.”

“How many?” Jeffers responded.

“Snipers? Twelve hundred a year qualify across all branches.”

While Bishop did the math in his head, Jeffers held down a key on his telephone. “Get Don Chambers on the phone,” he barked.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not seeing any listing for a Don Chambers,” a female voice replied.

“Call the Joint Chiefs,” Jeffers snapped at her. “Tell them I said to find General Chambers and you make sure they say I’m on the line. Then conference him in.”

Bishop removed his Stetson and waved it slowly above his head to get Jeffers’ attention. U.S. Forces trained hundreds more snipers from a dozen countries, plus police forces trained thousands more, and then there were Israelis and Russians and Brits and the whole international scene to consider.

Jeffers leaned back and considered. NSA and DOD would be where to start. Bishop knew exactly what he was thinking. Stephen Nussbaum. Nussbaum could boil down the numbers.

“Sweep your calendar,” Jeffers ordered Bishop. “Whatever NYPD or FBI or Nassau County PD or any other law enforcement agency thinks, knows, or does, you plug yourself into that loop and report back.”

“Find out what’s behind it and you could find the shooter,” Bishop suggested.

The look on Jeffers’ pursed mouth spoke to the foolish remark. Jeffers had already conferred with NSA resources to probe for any and all targeted violence coming out of extremist groups. He was about to add to that to search out every intersection with trained military snipers.

Forensic accountants consulting for APA were concurrently pouring through stock market trades and private equity activities. First thing he did was follow the money. Four Wall Street billionaires dead… somebody somewhere was making a fortune.

Bishop kept standing with both sets of fingers holding onto his hat brim. Jeffers had returned his attention to his monitor. He seemed unaware that Bishop remained in the room.

Bishop waited through a long pause then turned to the door. Before he reached for the handle, he turned back. “Mr. Jeffers?” he asked.

Jeffers typed a quick sentence then raised his face.

“He’s a doer, not a talker,” Bishop explained. “He’ll do it again.”

Jeffers looked up, craned his head, thinking. “Which do you like more,” he asked. “‘We won the Cold War. This President is giving it right back’ or ‘We are entering the next Cold War. This President is letting it happen’?”

Bishop considered the choices then realized he couldn’t remember the difference. “Can you repeat them?”

“‘We won the Cold War. This President is giving it right back’ or ‘We are entering the next Cold War. This President is letting it happen,’” Jeffers repeated.

“How about this,” Bishop suggested. “‘We are the strongest nation on Earth. Why does this President let Russia and China push us around?’”

Jeffers shook his head. Negative. Can’t name Russia and China. And too many words. He never looked back up and offered no response to Bishop, who stood waiting and then left the room quietly.

*****

Thinking of the first time he saw Stephen Nussbaum, Bishop had to chuckle. Bishop wondered how Jeffers had let the whole thing happen, but of course he could never ask.

Stephen had to have been the strangest geek ever to present at Vision Partners. He had jumped up onto the stage in those skinny bright red jeans, shoved the podium out of his way, and zipped straight into his shtick without waiting for any introduction. This wasn’t TED Talks; this was Vision Partners at their semi-annual retreat; Fortune 100, Right-to-Life, and the deepest political pockets on the planet. Part strategic conference, part fundraiser, with fly-rods, cigars, and gun-packing butlers serving each billionaire’s drink of choice.