Abigail ordered a Cobb salad. But as the waitress was taking the rest of the orders, Abigail quietly added it all up in her head. She knew that in a few hours, unless World Teleco was reprimanded and AmeriNews was launched and the Capitol was swamped with angry callers, unless all of that happened and happened perfectly, the subpoena would not be withdrawn. And Judge Jenkins would end up signing an order that would turn her husband into a fugitive from the law.
At 1:00 in the afternoon the lawyers dispatched themselves to their appointed places. Two of them at Copple’s office, two waiting in Lattig’s office for the Commissioner to arrive from Reagan airport. Abigail stationed herself outside the chairman’s office.
Then they waited. First one hour. Soon the clock on the commission wall was edging its way past 2:30.
The first to weigh-in was Commissioner Copple. After meeting with her legal staff, she called the two lawyers into her office to discuss it personally.
It was a thirty-minute session, with the commissioner’s lawyers peppering Abigail’s lawyers with questions, hypothetical “what ifs,” and caveats, while the commissioner sat back and observed. What kind of precedent would this set? Shouldn’t there be a full hearing before this kind of drastic action was taken? Did the FCC have the statutory authority in the first place? Was a single affidavit enough to face down a mammoth telecom giant? Finally, the commissioner herself was ready to speak.
“I’m inclined to support Chairman Daniels on this,” Susan Copple said, “but only after I speak to the chairman myself. I still have some concerns.”
That was good enough for Abigail’s team. They messaged that to Abigail and the rest of the team.
By 3:00, one of the staffers of Commissioner Justin Lattig poked his head out into the lobby and addressed the two waiting lawyers. “Sorry,” he said, “but Commissioner Lattig’s plane just landed. He’s so late that he won’t be coming in at all today. He’s on his way to another speech he has to make tonight in Winchester, Virginia, all the way over at the western edge of the state. I’m sorry about that.”
The lawyers walked up to Abigail who was still outside the chairman’s office and told her the bad news. But she wouldn’t accept it.
“Did you tell Lattig’s staffer how urgent this was?”
“We did, but we have no way of knowing if he ever told the commissioner.”
Abigail raced up to Jacob Daniels’ office and managed to get him to come out to the lobby for one final plea. “I told you, Abby, I can’t discuss this any more with you—”
“Jacob, can’t you at least call Commissioner Lattig and ask him to join us in a conference call from his limo?”
Daniels took a step closer to Abigail and whispered, “Already tried that. The guy’s got his cell phone turned off.” Then he reached out and squeezed her hand, said he was very sorry, and slowly returned to his inner office. Abigail grabbed her briefcase and stormed out of the building, down to the parking ramp to her rental car. Now all she could do was change her ticket to an earlier flight. Get home to Josh. Let him know she’d failed. And see whether by putting their heads together they could figure out some kind of Plan B. Even though she already knew there was no Plan B.
She was able to enter Interstate 66 from the government center of D.C. much more quickly than she would have guessed and was heading west. But she didn’t have the heart to call Joshua. Not yet. How could she? Lord, why did You bring me this close to a miracle…just to have everything collapse?
Tears were starting to come. Then the traffic slammed to a halt, both lanes. Great. Now I’ll be late to the airport. I’ll be lucky to get a flight out tonight. This is a disaster…forgive me, God, but I am so utterly…
Then she noticed something off to her right, on an entrance ramp that fed onto the Interstate. A black limo. It slowed as the driver was obviously sizing-up the veritable parking lot of stopped traffic. But a truck about twenty cars ahead of Abigail managed to swing into the adjoining lane creating a gap. The limo driver sped quickly down the ramp trying to race into the space.
Abigail’s eyes lingered on the long stretch limousine and noticed the government license plate. It read “FCCOM 2.” Commissioner Lattig would have to be heading west on I-66 to get to his next meeting in the western corner of the state. She couldn’t believe it. The black limo squeezed into the traffic lane amidst angry drivers and honking horns. The line of traffic was still stopped.
Think. Think, she said to herself. The limo had a twenty-car lead ahead of her. Once the traffic finally opened up she would never be able to catch up.
Abigail swung her car sharply out of traffic and into the emergency lane on the right. Hit the button of the dash for the flashers, and put her car into park. She grabbed wildly at her briefcase, breaking a polished fingernail in the process, but finally laid hold of the folder containing the affidavit. She yanked it out and climbed out of the car and locked the door. Then something told her to do one more thing. She’d brought her gym bag with her, hoping to work out on the treadmill at her hotel. Oh why not, she muttered. She popped the trunk and took her high heals off, threw them into the trunk, and frantically tied on her running shoes.
But that was when the traffic suddenly started moving.
No! No! she yelled out. A female driver in the car in the next lane eyed her as she started jogging down the freeway safety lane and shook her head as she slowly eased past.
With the file containing the affidavit in hand, she picked up her pace alongside of the line of snaking traffic, heading in the direction of the black government limo. She was now only twelve cars from the limo. But the traffic started moving a little faster, up to seven miles per hour. She pumped her arms and went into a bigger stride. The traffic jam was breaking up. They were now up to nine miles an hour. Then ten. Abigail was now into a full-speed run and sweat was beading up on her face. The limo was just two car lengths ahead. A male driver next to her yelled something at her, but all she could hear was the word “crazy” as she ran past him.
Help me, Lord! She yelled out loud as she was tiring and couldn’t close the two-car gap between herself and the limo cruising just beyond her reach. The traffic slowed just slightly. She kept running. As a tour bus up ahead slowly bullied its way from the right lane into the left, a bottleneck in traffic brought the traffic to another standstill. Abigail rushed up to the rear passenger window. Commissioner Lattig saw someone at his passenger side door and quickly slid over to the far side of the back seat with a startled look. She waved the file in front of the window. Then a look of slight recognition broke over his face. Lattig scooted over the seat and lowered the window half way down.
“Aren’t you…,” he started to say.
“Abigail Jordan, yes,” she managed to say between gasping breaths.
“What in the world—”
“An emergency matter before the FCC.”
Though traffic was still stopped, a car right behind them blasted its horn. Lattig ignored it.
“Oh,” he said absently. “I wasn’t told it was an emergency—”
“It is. We have two votes in our favor,” she said breathlessly. “The chairman and, I think, Commissioner Copple. All we need is your vote…against World Teleco…it’s an outrage, Mr. Commissioner…has to be done this afternoon. Here’s the proof of deliberate viewpoint discrimination and censorship committed by World Teleco…” With that she stuffed the file containing the affidavit through the half-open window of the limo. Then she added, “Your staff said you demanded to see me in person. So here I am…”
“In person? Oh, that. Yes. But not about this case…”
“Then what?” Abigail blurted out almost in a shout.
“Well, to tell you something personal. About your husband.” Lattig lowered the limo window down all the way. Lattig’s face was fully in the open window of the limo. “I wanted you to know that I think your husband is a hero.”
Abigail couldn’t help herself; she started to laugh and cry at the same time.
br /> “Now, about this case of yours,” Lattig said. “Get in, get in. Let’s talk.” With that he swung the door open. She climbed in just as the traffic started moving again.
At 4:10 in the afternoon, after conferring personally with Commissioner Copple and talking on the phone with Commissioner Lattig from his limo, FCC Chairman Jacob Daniels wrote a note to himself in his daily journal. At the top was the date and time. The entry read:
On the World Teleco matter, concerning their denial of service over the Internet to AmeriNews…
Then he lifted his pen off the paper for a moment. He was considering the outcome. And all that might follow. Then he finished his note.
After consulting with Commissioners KC and JL, I have made my decision. I will so order World Teleco to honor their contract with AmeriNews. Commissioners KC and JL concurred, making it a majority vote.
At 4:16, Chairman Daniels had a phone call with Bill Cheavers, executive vice president for the North American Division of World Teleco. It was not a pleasant call.
Cheavers threatened the chairman with leading a “conspiracy to drive World Teleco out of business.” Daniels calmly replied that he had no such intent. “Unless, of course,” Daniels continued, “you violate our cease-and-desist order and fail to honor your service contract with AmeriNews. In which case we will revoke the authority of your company to do telecommunications in America, which you and I both know I have the power to do—and I have the votes.”
“I’ll appeal,” snarled Cheavers. “You’ll lose. You’ll look stupid. Then the president will finally get around to yanking you off the FCC.”
“All that may be true,” Daniels said. “But not until Wall Street and NASDAQ react to your corporation being suspended from doing business. I wonder what the record is for the fastest, deepest drop for the stock of any American Corporation. You folks at World Teleco might just break the record.”
At 4:31 p.m., on the order of World Teleco executive Bill Cheavers, AmeriNews was launched to half of the Allfones in America. The headline read:
An American Hero Persecuted: Senator Lies about Joshua Jordan’s RTS Missile Defense System
The subheadline read:
Treason in Congress?
By five minutes before 5:00 that afternoon, the Capitol Hill telephone switchboard in Congress became so overloaded from the outraged calls of citizens that it was rendered inoperable. At 5:25, Senator Straworth was called into an emergency caucus with his party members.
Senate Majority Leader Russell Beyers spoke for them all: “Straworth, you’ve got a cyclone by the tail here,” he said. “This subpoena issue involving Joshua Jordan is now threatening every one of us in the party. You need to withdraw that subpoena—and now. Make this all go away.”
Senator Straworth puffed his chest and refused, yelling so hard that spittle flew out of his mouth. “I’m not afraid of a political tornado.”
“I come from Oklahoma,” the majority leader intoned calmly. “You don’t. We know a little about the power of a tornado. It can suck a man clean off the surface of the earth.” Then he added, “And if that doesn’t remove you, your fellow senators will.”
By 5:30, Senator Straworth had ordered the official withdrawal of the subpoena that had been issued against Joshua Jordan, retroactively. And advised the clerk in Judge Jenkins’ court accordingly.
Harry Smythe was dispatched to the federal courthouse to try to catch Judge Jenkins and get her to vacate her order against Joshua Jordan on the grounds that the entire dispute with Congress had now been rendered legally moot.
Joshua, Abigail, and all the members of the Roundtable had been patched into a conference call to receive the news.
Jubilation rang out. Phil Rankowitz was so overjoyed he could hardly speak. Even Alvin Leander was laughing, saying he was still in disbelief that they pulled it off.
After the celebration died down and the call ended, Abigail called Joshua back so they could talk, just the two of them. She explained that she’d received a private telephone call from Harry Smythe, who said there was just one remaining problem—and Joshua and Abigail needed to know.
“The only bad news,” Abigail said, “is that Judge Jenkins left the courthouse today without rescinding her order for your arrest. The clerk wouldn’t bother her at home. So Harry will be down there first thing in the morning to speak to her. I would have thought she’d have withdrawn the warrant against you as soon as she knew the congressional subpoena—the legal basis for this whole dispute—had been withdrawn.”
“Harry’ll do the right thing,” Joshua said with an air of confidence. “I’m not worried. I think the victory’s been won, darling. And I owe it all to you. Your strategy was absolutely brilliant.”
“I give God the credit, Josh, honey. He does the miracles. Even when we’ve quit looking for them.”
FIFTY-FOUR
At his country villa north of Rome, just off of the Via Salaria, Caesar Demas was about to get down to business with his guest from the Middle East. He’d already given him a short tour of his four-thousand-square-meter gardens, the mahogany-lined fifty-stall horse stables, and the restored ancient Roman road that made up part of his three-kilometer-long gated driveway. Now he and his visitor were seated in the gold room, so named for the dark wheat-colored walls, with the stunning view of the rolling hills of his estate. Demas was seated in one brown leather chair, his guest in the matching chair next to him.
Now that refreshments had been served, Demas motioned for the servants to leave the room. But before exiting, the head butler bent down next to Demas’ ear and whispered, “Excuse me, sir, but Mrs. Demas is wondering whether you will be able to address the matter of the vineyards today. Your chief of operations in your Tuscany property resigned a week ago. Your wife is worried that there is no one to oversee all of the vineyard work.”
Demas turned to the butler and gave him a withering look.
“Do not—I repeat—do not bother me with those trifles. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” the butler whispered. “But what do you want me to tell Mrs. Demas?”
“Tell her anything you want. Now please leave.”
The butler nodded courteously and was about to exit, but then Demas thought of something and motioned for him to come back.
When the butler bent down next to Demas again, his master whispered in the butler’s ear, “Remember that I want her to be accompanied at all times. I don’t want her left on her own. Understood? And please have her escort, who will be helping her with her wheelchair, send me instant messages regularly. I want to know all of her whereabouts and everything about her activities.”
The butler nodded once again and swept out of the room.
Then Caesar Demas turned his attention to his visitor who was sipping tea.
The delegate from the Republic of Iran smiled appreciatively now that they were finally going to address the reason for his visit. With his hand he gave a quick stroke to his closely cropped beard and straightened his white silk waistcoat.
“I had expected Hamad Katchi to be part of this discussion. We had dealt with him previously on this.”
Demas said, “Unfortunately, we have many enemies.” Then he folded his hands, took on a sad, reflective expression, and added, “I fear Mr. Katchi may have fallen prey to some of them. He’s disappeared. We haven’t been able to locate him. I am so concerned that they may have liquidated him.”
“That would be a terrible loss.”
“Yes, to all of us.”
“Well, then we shall talk, you and I, about these important matters. The RTS specifications…,” the Iranian said, “will be delivered…when?”
“We will have possession in the next forty-eight hours. Delivery after that will follow with all possible haste.”
“Will technical assistance be guaranteed?” the Iranian asked.
“That’s part of the package. We have some physicists and weapons designers who are prepared to help you integrate the RTS into your e
xisting weapons systems.”
“The matter of exclusivity has been of great concern to our president,” the Iranian said. “We do not want the RTS to turn into a kind of global discount item available to any banana-republic or no-name island.”
“Of course not,” Demas said, offering to refill his guest’s teacup.
The Iranian smiled but held a hand up to say no thank you.
Demas continued explaining. “To reiterate. The RTS technology will only be available to cooperating nations or international unions that are members of our soon-to-be-established League of Ten.”
Then he remembered something else and added, “And remember that another benefit is that your nation, and others in our League, will have the benefit of the anti-RTS avoidance technology we expect to develop as soon as our scientists analyze the RTS operating principals. So, you will not only have the benefit of returning incoming missiles to their point of origin, but your nation—and those inside our ten—will also be able to send your missiles into nonmember states, like the United States or their allies…and the wonderful thing is that you’ll be able to bypass their RTS system.”
The Iranian beamed and said, “Very good. That is all very good.”
Caesar Demas smiled back. Then he had a private thought. So glad I chose Atta Zimler for this. Truly reliable men are hard to find.
In a different time zone, in a very different part of the world, Cal Jordan was in his dorm room at Liberty University, changing into his gym trunks and a T-shirt. He was glad, now that he’d thought about it, that he was going to play some basketball with his buddies to get his mind off things.
And he was also glad he had heard from his dad. Who knows, maybe he and I will start connecting. Maybe things are going to be better between us.
Cal was going to turn off the lights in his dorm room before leaving, but suddenly they started to dim—and then they went out completely.