Executive Order (Reeder and Rogers Thriller) by Max Allan Collins

Author:Max Allan Collins [Collins, Max Allan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781477819432
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2017-04-10T18:30:00+00:00

“How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?”

Dwight D. Eisenhower, thirty-fourth President of the United States of America. Served 1953–1961. Former five-star general, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in World War II.

TWELVE

Lawrence Morris sat at the long narrow table in the expansive private dining room of the Federalist Club on F Street. He had been here a few times, to deliver messages, but had never been admitted past the front vestibule. Tonight, he perched among the chosen, ready to deliver his report when the chairman called upon him.

The chamber, with its rich oak paneling and dark heavy furnishings, seemed a throwback to a day when industrialists openly ruled the nation from behind closed doors. The same was true for the formal table settings with their bone china, impossibly white dinnerware with intricate hand-painted cherry blossoms. Baccarat crystal water glasses, Reed & Barton sterling silverware, hand-embroidered table linen, the outlay fairly dazzled Morris. He knew, for example, that these napkins ran over $150 each, which meant that for tonight’s dinner with the six-body board, plus the chairman, plus Morris himself, brought the napkin cost alone to $1,200. Toss in the fine tablecloth, and linens, and it tallied more than the price of his first car. (Working as he did in the Government Accountability Office, knowing what things cost was Morris’s specialty.)

The male staff wore tuxedos, the females old-fashioned maid-uniform livery. Whenever staff entered the room, all conversation stopped, and—other than giving orders or responding to questions from waiters—the board members remained silent until they were alone again.

With dessert done, and coffee served, the liveried army retreated to the kitchen. The chairman waited a full minute, then tapped his knife against his water glass, just once.

Every eye went to Senator Wilson Blount, his sharp light blue eyes peering from above the low-riding tortoiseshell glasses, his silvery blond hair barbershop perfect despite the late hour. Even before that single tap of metal on glass, all here were already under his sway. The chairman of the American Patriots Alliance led the way of this joint effort to restore the United States from “the sniveling weakling it had become,” as Blount himself sometimes explained it, “to its rightful place as the world’s preeminent superpower.”

“We all know why we’re here, gentlemen,” Blount said in his lilting Tennessee accent.

The six board members nodded as one.

Their attire varied in style but not in monetary value—Morris was out of his depth as to the exact price of their wardrobe (tailored suits rarely came up at the GAO). And admittedly he felt somewhat self-conscious in his own Men’s Wearhouse number. But actually, Blount’s off-the-rack brown suit, which fit his contrived folksy persona, may have cost even less.

Morris recognized two of the board, powerful men with national reputations who occasionally made it into the media—a major hotelier from New Jersey, and a trucking magnate from Wisconsin. The other four Morris drew a blank on, though that was hardly surprising. Anonymity was something the Alliance board cultivated.

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