After he got to the FOX News studio, he realized that their security was better than what he had gone through before entering the congressional subcommittee chambers. He guessed FOX had more enemies and they knew it. Congress actually had more enemies, but they thought everyone loved them. Ostriches with their head in the sand, or up their own asses.
Jake had devised his strategy while on the drive to the studio. He would need at least ten minutes to get his point across, assuming they’d let him talk without too much interruption.
Bill O’Reilly had the largest audience on cable. Hell, he had the largest audience in the country on television. Although Jake agreed with the man about eighty percent of the time, he really didn’t have time to watch him. Also, he was starting to lean a little too far to the left for Jake’s taste. Besides the fact that the man was a self-aggrandizing, bloviating blow-hard. Realistically, Jake was about as independent as possible. He didn’t have much use for politicians in general, regardless of which side of the aisle they sat on. He believed in the Constitution, and had put his life on the line to defend it. That was as political as Jake would ever get.
The interview would be taped by satellite and air later that evening. After the normal pleasantries, Bill got right into it.
“You really shook up the congressional subcommittee yesterday, Mister Adams,” Bill said. “Did you plan on dressing down the congressman from California?”
Jake laughed. “No, it was just an added benefit of my time there.”
“You’ve really set the internet on fire,” Bill said.
“Yeah, too bad I don’t have a book to sell.”
“Right. You could call it How to Eviscerate a Congressman. I’d buy that.”
“Talk to your publisher,” Jake said. “Put in a good word for me.”
“I will. Do I get fifteen percent as your agent?”
“I’ll give you ten.”
“Deal. Now, seriously, why did you decide to engage congress the way you did?”
“Because I was sick of assholes…can I say that on cable?”
“Sure. You just did.”
“Okay, I was sick of assholes spewing their political positions ad nauseam and not actually asking me a straight question. They use their entire time trying to get their point into the congressional record. They didn’t want to know what happened. The facts had already come out on that. I had been cleared of all wrongdoing. These people are supposed to represent us in congress, and all they’re concerned about is making themselves look good for reelection. They’re the poster children for term limits.”
Bill laughed and sat back in his chair. “Whoa. Why don’t you say what you really think? Are you sure you don’t want to run for office.”
“I’d have to lose at least fifty points on my intelligence exam,” Jake said. “Maybe get a frontal lobotomy.”
Bill laughed again. “What about your own congresswoman, Lori Freeman.”
“I admire her,” Jake said. “She says what she means and means what she says. She gives people the benefit of the doubt until she doubts their benefit.”
“Do you know the congresswoman from Montana?” Bill asked.
“We’ve met now,” he said. “And let me make one thing perfectly clear to anyone listening out there. If any harm comes to her, I will hunt you all down and kill you.”
Bill looked shocked, but he cleared his throat and said, “Where did that come from Mister Adams?”
“I was kidnapped from my hotel last night and tortured for hours,” Jake said. “And I’m not talking about water boarding here. The kidnappers made threats to me and the congresswoman.” Well, they had to Jake, but not the congresswoman directly. He continued, “I was able to escape.”
Now Bill looked stunned. “Are you serious? What did they want from you?”
“I can’t discuss that. But I’m just putting them on notice right here on your show. If anything happens to anyone I know. If an associate of mine stubs his toe. If Congresswoman Lori Freeman so much as comes down with an unexplained cold. I will find you.” He pointed his finger at the camera now. “I will hunt you down. And you will pay. You can count on it. You know what I can do.”
For the first time in years, Bill O’Reilly was speechless, his mouth hanging open.
Jake pulled out his ear piece and left his chair in front of the camera.
Before leaving the building he found a land-line and made a quick call.
“Lori,” he said. “Jake. Where are you?”
“I’m at home,” she said. “Why?”
“What are your plans this weekend?”
“Jake Adams. Are you asking me out?”
He hesitated as he glanced around the dark corridor outside the studio. “Maybe,” he said.
“Well, you must be psychic. I was just about to call you. Our professor is in custody in Whitefish, Montana.”
“What the hell’s he doing there?”
“Not over the phone.”
They agreed to meet and then hung up.
Outside and in a taxi, Jake looked at his cell phone and wondered if he should get rid of the tracking chip inside. Not yet.
The cab dropped him off at a coffee shop down the block from Congresswoman Freeman’s condo complex. She was already waiting at a table away from the front window in a corner booth. She had a large coffee half full in front of her and a medium backpack on the bench next to her. Good, she had taken his advice.
“You want a coffee?” she asked him.
“No, I’m fine.” He sat down and shoved his rolling duffle bag under the table.
“If the tabloids see us,” she said, “they’ll guess we’re going off together for the weekend.”
“We are.”
“You know what I mean.”
He smiled and then said, “I’m guessing you watch FOX News and Bill O’Reilly.”
She admitted this with a shrug.
He explained what had happened to him since they had last met, including his kidnapping but leaving out some of the brutal details, and ending with his visit to Bill O’Reilly. “I won’t apologize for what I said there,” he said. “I needed to put them on notice.”
She leaned across the table closer to him. “Do you really think I’m in danger?”
“It’s possible. You might have been flagged with some of the inquiries you’ve made.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Regardless, you and I have been linked. So someone is making the assumption that I’m working for you. That’s not a good thing for either of us. We need to get out of town. What’s on the agenda next week?”
“We’re on a break until the State of the Union,” she said. “I have a trip to South Korea with a bi-partisan committee to attend six-party talks with the North.”
Jake thought about his next move. “So, you were planning on going back to Montana anyway?”
“Yes, but I’m not sure what you have in mind.”
“We’ll travel together alone.” He smiled at her and continued, “Let’s go Lori. We have a plane to catch and a professor to meet.”
Her sigh said everything as they got up and left the coffee shop.
9
The Whitefish Police Department consisted of ten patrol officers, a few sergeants and lieutenants, the assistant chief and the chief of police, Buddy Grimes, a gruff old guy with a beard who had spent most of his time in Army military police and as a Montana State Trooper before ‘retiring’ to sleepy Whitefish, where nothing much happened.
During the past dozen or so hours, Professor James Tramil had heard nearly every story the police chief could summon from his many years in law enforcement. Tramil thought the guy had a special place in his heart for his time in the Army. It took Tramil a couple of hours to convince Chief Grimes that he wasn’t a dirtbag. That he wasn’t trying to have sex with another man in the Amtrak bathroom. That the man had held a knife to his throat and had actually drawn a little blood. And that this same man had killed his friend and colleague back in Corvallis, Oregon. Once the chief confirmed his story, sort of, with the Oregon State University campus police and the Corvallis police, the man had calmed down some and started in with the story telling.