Shattered Lies (Web of Lies #3)(66)
“Do it, but let’s give Orson enough rope to hang himself. Let him start talking, and you’ll know the right time to arrest him. Let Cromwell do it. You and I can stand together during my speech. Then I want to see you and your good friend, Senator Epps, in my office tonight at eight.”
“Epps?” Kirby feigned confusion.
“Yes, Epps. I know you two were looking for the bomb stolen from the FBI lab in Quantico. Subsequently, I think we found it when I was having dinner.” Birch looked toward the exchange and shook his head. “If you think Orson is the only one trying to bring me down, you’re na?ve. There were coordinated attacks all over the world today that were stopped by good intel. That lets us know more’s at play than only one missing bomb. I’m ready to read you and Epps in because I need your help to bring the whole ring down.”
Kirby was quiet for a moment. “You have your own intelligence? Geez, Lizzy is working with you, isn’t she?”
“Lizzy who?”
“Lizzy fucking James.” Kirby looked around. “She was just here.”
“I know Lizzy James, but only through her father. Lance James and my father were war buddies. That’s beside the point, though. The point is you knew something was off, and you didn’t come to me. Why?”
“I didn’t know who to trust,” Kirby admitted.
“Well, I didn’t either. Now it’s time to take a leap of faith and bring you two into the fold. Are you ready to take them down, Kirby?”
Kirby looked around him with a sad face. “If I’d been doing a better job, I would have caught this bastard before he got to you and your team. Damn right I’m ready to take them down.”
“Then let Orson through and get ready to go.”
* * *
He smashed his fist on the table as Roland read the reports to him. His blood stirred, and by the end of the report, it was boiling. They had all failed! “Where the fuck is Sandra?”
“I-I don’t know,” Roland stuttered. “But since she’s not here and there was obviously someone giving the authorities inside information, I can only assume she was flipped.”
“What about Governor Benning?”
“He’s moving forward with the plans. He’s declared martial law, has called in the state guards and CBL Services, and is about to give a press conference.”
He turned up the television as Benning stood in front of the bombing site at the New York Stock Exchange. He was six feet, but looked seven by the way he carried himself. Orson’s football muscles had softened as he approached sixty. Orson’s black hair was fading as gray now sprinkled through it. He liked Orson because he didn’t give a shit about politics. Orson gave a shit about himself. Always had as a kid growing up in the Bronx. Orson hustled and didn’t care if he crossed the lines to get what he wanted: power. And that meant Orson was pretty easy to predict and control.
The news station zoomed in on Orson closing his eyes and bowing his head in a moment of silence for the asshole who had been killed, minimizing the impact of the bomb. Because of that bastard, the exchange was still standing and his plans were in the shitter. Although he did always have a Plan B. And right now Orson was enacting it.
With a mix of sorrow and anger in his eyes, Orson opened his eyes and looked directly out to the first responders and lines of New York National Guardsmen who had been brought in to guarantee his plan went into effect. “I’ve failed you. I swore I would protect you, and I allowed this unspeakable act of terror to occur.”
Orson shook his head with disgust. “I allowed it to happen because I fell in line with politics, and I knew better to do that. I knew when President”—Orson sneered the word as if it had a bad taste to even say it—“Stratton ordered me not to act on intelligence of a terror attack, instead saying the feds would handle it. Well, I should have known better. After all, the only person able to look after New York is a New Yorker.”
The crowd cheered, and he smiled as Orson seemed to grow even taller as he felt the power the people were ready to hand over to him. “That’s why I am taking back our city, our exchange, and our state from the feds. New York will no longer be accountable to a sham of a president who purposely kept you, my New York brothers and sisters, in the dark, allowing terrorists to damage our beloved city. The New York Guard will be here to keep us safe as I kick out all the federal agents. I refuse to comply with their corrupt orders! The president”—Orson again sneered, looking off camera to where he bet Stratton stood—“no longer has any power over the citizens of New York. To show the terrorists of the world, including the president, it takes more than a failed attempt to scare us, I demand the exchange be reopened immediately!”
“Amazing,” Roland murmured on the video conference screen as he watched the speech. He agreed. Orson was a natural. He’d need to be watched, though. If someone was able to manipulate others so quickly, he wasn’t na?ve enough to think Orson wouldn’t try to take over his spot on the top. It was a delicate balance trying to find men and women who craved power, but who weren’t powerful enough to take his.
He watched as the crowd cheered, and then a man a couple years younger than Orson in a dark suit and wearing an American flag pin slowly walked over to Orson, grabbed his left arm, and cranked it behind his back. His right hand was cuffed to his left. Even Orson didn’t react until he felt the bite of the handcuffs locking into place.