A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [108]
“Cool Hand Quinn,” she said softly, “have it your way. My way or the highway. Dirty decision time. You’re my hero, Governor.”
“Not me. Arne Skye.”
“Good night, man. I’ll be following the beeping ball.”
“Dawn, call Rita, will you? She’s at the condo.”
“Okay, get some sleep.”
Chapter 29
“Yuck!” Quinn said, smacking his lips together. He unscrambled himself from his blanket, came to sitting, and held his face in his hands. “Yuck,” he repeated. “My name is Quinn Patrick O’Connell,” he told himself. “Now where am I…what is that strange odor? The morgue!”
“Morning, Governor,” Dr. Dawn Mock said.
“Jesus, what time is it?”
“Past ten.”
“Huh, guess I must have been tired. Morning, Dawn.”
“Good news first or the bad news?” she asked.
“Good news.”
“There is none. Roy Sedgewick has disappeared into thin air.”
“He could be here in Denver, using an alias,” Quinn said, groping for his shoes.
“Or,” Dawn added, “halfway to somewhere. The Canadian government has put him on an Interpol alert. Interpol would cough him up in Europe. That leaves South America and Asia. I’d guess China. Sedgewick has a long history of gunrunning for the Chinese. I gather the Chinese financed him on getting the licenses for the VEC’s. If China is his route, forget it. He’s too well connected, and they’ll let him in and hide him.”
“Damn, so we scratch him, huh?”
“For sure we won’t find him today.”
Quinn stretched hard, yawned, excused himself. “I’m going to run to my condo and clean up. I’ll be back in an hour.”
Dawn gave a double thumbs-up sign, and a look passed from one to another that said, “Are we crazy or something?”
Rita smiled broadly to cover up her sleepless night, as did Rae. Quinn stood under an ice-cold shower until he could handle no more. An infusion of coffee awaited him as he exited the shower stall.
“I’m thinking,” Quinn said with a good feeling of putting on clean clothing, “you and the kids ought to move into the mansion. Take Mal with you.”
“Why?”
“Don’t give me a hard time.”
“All right. Duncan called earlier. He’s at the convention. I gave him my cellular in case you needed to reach him.”
The great “fairness” theme had evaporated with Governor O’Connell as he left the auditorium. One after another, the row of front benchers of the board came to the pulpit and roasted the demons of the anti-gun, anti-American, anti-Christ charlatans who ruled the government.
A basket of pro-AMERIGUN proposals and “whereas-es” was passed unanimously. Underaged gun owners, anti-children’s safety locks, anti-limitation of twenty guns per family, anti-parental responsibility, anti-waiting periods, were all branded as violations of Second Amendment rights.
On this morning, King Porter made damned certain that last night’s resolutions were remembered. The basic AMERIGUN strategy was now to silence the major gun-control freaks and particularly one in a Western state. With Quinn O’Connell put in his place, the rest of the state houses in the nation would think twice about gun-control legislation.
King Porter whipped himself up into a lather with a romping, stomping revival sermon.
“Hello, Duncan, it’s Dad.”
“Hi, Dad. They just hung you. That Porter guy was frothing at the mouth.”
“So, what’s new?”
“I’ve canvassed the exhibition hall with four of Dr. Mock’s detectives. They estimate there may be several hundred illegal weapons in the hall, but there’s no way to get to them. By the time we get the legal search and seizure papers, they will have scattered.”
“Duncan, don’t lose the faith,” Quinn said. “I want you to get back to the condo, pronto, and move over to the mansion…and no fucking arguments!”
“Okay, Dad, I hear you.”
The instant Quinn saw Dawn Mock, he knew that something terrible had taken place. Harry Chin, usually expressionless, suddenly looked ancient. Dawn pointed at the GPS monitor.
“It stopped transmitting about fifteen minutes ago,” she said.
“There’s nothing I can do, Governor,” Dr. Chin said.