Abuse of Power - Michael Savage [115]
The pilot maneuvered their small boat into an empty space next to a ladder, then tied the boat down and gestured for everyone to disembark. They all climbed up and stepped onto the dock, then moved up a short ramp that led under an umbrella of trees onto the island itself. They continued along a small cement concourse past the old wooden fog signal building—which was little more than a large wooden shed with two pneumatic foghorns mounted on its roof—and moved toward the Victorian bed-and-breakfast on the far side of the island.
West Brother Island was visible just beyond this, a dry, elongated chunk of earth that was crowded with cormorants, gulls, and other bay birds sharing the bare, steep rock. Nesting pelicans had taken over the entire grassy area of the island. Just as with humans, the strongest birds had the best real estate. Off to their left, about one mile across the bay, was the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge, its iron cross-work frame obscured by the fog.
“It’s beautiful here,” Sara said.
“Tell that to my ex-wife.”
She looked at him. “What?”
He shook his head. “Actually, forget I said that. It’s not worth talking about.”
Poking up from the center of the concourse was the large rounded surface of a cistern. Jack knew that there were no water lines out here and the island had been specially designed to collect rain. Water was so scarce, in fact, that the night he and Rachel visited, they hadn’t been allowed to shower before bed. Such a privilege was granted only to visitors on extended stays.
They moved past the cistern toward the main house, and the closer they got, the more reticent Jack began to feel. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it but he suddenly felt as if something were off, his fight-or-flight instinct quietly kicking into gear.
He glanced at Wickham’s bodyguard, Mr. Laser Pointer, who was standing just to his right, then turned to Wickham himself as they approached the house.
“Senator, who exactly are we meeting with?” Jack asked.
“I already told you,” Wickham said. “People we can trust. Probably the only people we can trust.”
Then they passed under a set of white stairs that led to the second floor and moved onto the small porch fronting the first-floor entrance.
The interior of the house matched its exterior—old, quaint, with a Victorian-style flavor, all the way down to the furniture. The foyer walls were lined with framed black-and-white photos of the light station in years gone by, along with old photos of Richmond and San Francisco and the bay.
As they stepped inside, Jack could hear voices.
“It’s just past dinnertime,” Wickham said, “so they’re probably all in the dining room to your left. Let’s go in and make introductions.”
It sounded more like a command than a request, but Jack and Sara turned to their left, moving through a doorway into a narrow room dominated by a long white-clothed dining table.
Everyone stopped talking when they entered.
Seven men sat at the table, dirty dishes and drinks and ashtrays in front of them, cigars in hand, the sickly-sweet smell of their smoke hanging in the air. Jack recognized a few of the men immediately, all of them old-timers like Wickham—Senator Mitch Tomlinson, a Democrat from Maine; William Arland, a high-powered financial consultant and former chairman of the Federal Reserve; James Featherstone, an undersecretary at the British Home Office; and Clyde Parkinson, former assistant director of the FBI. The others were undoubtedly movers and shakers of the same caliber, but their faces weren’t familiar to Jack.
Except one.
At the far end of the table sat a man who always got his blood pumping. A man he had hated with such ferocity for the last two years that he felt like leaping across the table and strangling him. It was the man responsible for the smear campaign that had destroyed his career.
He spoke directly to Jack with a distinct Austrian accent. “Have a seat, why don’t you, Mr. Hatfield.”
It was billionaire Lawrence Soren.