The Forseti Solution

Chapter 1

As Jack and Lynn drove up to road to her house in Telluride, Colorado Lynn felt relief wash over her. She and Jack had left her home in this mountain ski resort over two months ago, barely in time to escape the men that Charles Winston had sent to capture them. Lynn half expected to see the place ravaged or burned down in retaliation for what she and the rest of Jack’s team had done to eliminate Winston’s hand-picked candidate, Senator Matthew Roberts of Idaho, from winning the primary election for President of the United States. With Winston’s unscrupulous, and illegal behind-the-scenes work, Roberts was sure to have won the November election, now just eight months away. And with the members of the House and Senate that Winston had put in place over the past six years, his plan for bringing America back from the brink of socialism into an ultra-conservative nightmare would finally be realized. Jack and the others on his team celebrated when Roberts withdrew his candidacy, but when Winston himself stepped into the Republican primary race to replace his chosen candidate, they were dismayed.

Lynn leaned over and put her head on Jack’s shoulder. Thank you, sweetheart, for bringing us back here to live. It’s so great to see it just like we left it. I guess Winston’s people didn’t come back after they gave up chasing us through the snowstorm.

I need to sweep the place for bugs, just in case. They may have left some surprises behind.

Jack pulled up to her double garage and pressed the remote to open the door. He was glad they had remembered to bring the remote. It was the middle of winter in the Rocky Mountains and he didn’t want to go out in the minus fifteen degree weather.

As soon as the door closed behind them Lynn hopped out of Jack’s specially equipped Ford Sport Trac and opened the back door to let, her Irish setter, out. She sniffed the air then Lynn could swear he smiled. He knew he was home.

She punched in her door lock code, then stepped inside to turn off the alarm. As Jack walked in the door, she put her arms around his neck and jumped up to wrap her legs around his waist. Lynn thought ‘I hope he can hold my weight. He may still be weak from that bullet wound in his butt.’ But he wrapped his arms around her in return and kissed her as he carried her into the living room and laid her on the couch. She pulled him down and said Let’s make out. He gave her a long kiss, then pulled away.

Later, sweetheart. I need to get our bags inside then get my equipment out to scan the house for bugs. Have you got anything in the freezer to fix for supper?

I have some homemade lasagna and a good bottle of Chianti to go with it?

That sounds great. It will take me about thirty minutes to clear the house of electronic bugs – spy cameras and microphones that could have been planted by Winston’s men while they were gone. I’ll do the garage and property tomorrow, after it warms up.

Don’t expect much. You’ll be lucky if the temperature gets up to zero. But my ex-husband left his ski stuff behind, so you can use that. He’s as tall as you are, six foot three, but instead of your broad shoulders, he has a broad belly. His cold weather gear should fit you just fine.

By the time Jack finished going through the house with his electronic bug detector, Lynn had dinner on the table and a large glass of wine poured for both of them. Jack sat down and held up his glass. A toast to overcoming all obstacles to finally get you in bed as my new wife.

Lynn laughed, Who got who into bed?

I think it was a mutual effort. . . . Lynn, thank you for keeping our relationship in check until we could get married.

I wanted that too, Jack, in spite of the hard time I gave you with my teasing. It was worth the wait.

After dinner Lynn lit the log fire in the main fireplace and they relaxed on the couch in front of it. They just sat there. No conversation . . . and no urge to fill the silence with words. . . .

Lynn looked over at Jack and said, Do you know how much I love you, darling?

Yes I do, because I know how much I love you. My heart was locked up when my wife, Helen, died. I never thought I could let my emotions out of the box I nailed them into, but you opened that box, in spite of my reluctance to get in touch with my feelings again. Thank you for that.

Lynn slid back against his chest and enjoyed the physical closeness. She felt so protected with his arms around her, so safe. It wasn’t just that he was a trained Federal Agent who had proven his ability to keep her alive and unharmed; it was the confidence and calmness he showed in every circumstance. He always knew exactly what to do when they were in danger without even thinking about it. It was like he was programmed to respond with the right moves no matter what happened. But what surprised her was how gentle he could be, how much he respected her ideas, and how loving he was.

Jack let his mind drift back to when he first saw her, standing on the front porch of her mountain home, her red hair blowing in the wind, a big smile on her attractive face. They didn’t get off to a good start, but after they got to understand each other’s territory – what was important to them – they settled into a comfortable relationship. He thought back through the past couple of months as they grew closer and finally realized they were in love. His thought train stopped at the time three nights ago he had first seen her in her natural state. She was beautiful. Jack couldn’t believe she was his age – fifty six. And not only was her body that of a much younger woman, but so was her personality. She had the laughing, joking, uninhibited persona that most people her age had let get away from them, to be replaced with a sadness that their fun years were over.

Are you ready to carried over the threshold of your bedroom?

I thought you would never ask. And it’s not my bedroom, it’s our bedroom – now and forever.

Jack slipped one arm under her knees, the other behind her neck, and lifted her off the couch. As they crossed into the bedroom Jack saw that Lynn had lit a fire in the small fireplace and turned the bed down. She wiggled out of his grasp and said I’ll shower here while you use the upstairs bath. We’ll meet back here in twenty minutes.

When Jack left, Lynn went to the back of her closet and found the negligee from her first honeymoon. Her first husband wouldn’t mind, and she still looked spectacular in it.

Jack got back to the bedroom first and slid between the sheets. Lynn stepped into the bedroom and stood at the foot of the bed. Jack just stared. Then he threw the covers back, patted her side of the bed, and said I’ve saved a place for you.

Chapter 2

Lynn was already up and fixing breakfast, humming to herself, when Jack came into the kitchen. He put his arms around her from behind and said Good morning, Mrs. Preston. She turned her head for a quick kiss and went back to the scrambled eggs.

What are you fixing?

I how about scrambled eggs, sausages, biscuits, and sausage gravy. Does that sound O.K.?

Pile up the green chilies on my eggs.

Let’s see, I have Hatch green chilies, jalapenos, and habaneras. What’s your favorite?

The New Mexico Hatch chilies are as hot as I’ll eat. People eat the hotter ones just to show how tough they are.

As they finished up their breakfast Jack took the dishes to the sink.

No you don’t, Jack. I’m the woman of the house and I wash the dishes.

Jack turned his head and replied Let’s get this straight. You cook, I wash. I cook, you wash. Got it?

You mean you can cook, too? I’m getting more than I bargained for.

Not only can I cook, I like to cook and expect to do it often. Got that?

Yes sir! Lynn said with a smile.

As Jack was finishing the dishes Lynn poured two more coffees and took them to the great room. When Jack joined her Lynn asked What’s on the calendar for today?

Well, I’m afraid the honeymoon is over. . . . for today anyway. It’s time to get to work. While I explore the perimeter to make sure there are no surveillance devices why don’t you send secure emails to the Forsetian team and arrange an online meeting for this afternoon. We need to discuss how we can head off Winston’s nomination for President.

Before they had split up last week the team decided to call themselves the Forsetians after Forseti, the Norse God of Justice. Their mission is to bring Charles Winston and his hired thugs – the ones who had killed three Federal Remediation Agency investigators – to justice. Jack himself had retired from the FRA early last year but discovered an inconsistency in the records from one of his missions. That’s what led Jack, and the others who joined him later, to discover Winston’s conspiracy to put the country under conservative rule. Jack had set up a secure network so they could interact with each other from their widely spread locations.

Jack bundled up in the cold weather gear and went down to the garage. When he worked for the FRA he had developed some electronic devices that could locate cameras and microphones even when they were inactive. He got those out of the bed of his truck and scanned the garage. It came up clean so he stepped out into the frigid morning and began his trek through the trees that surrounded Lynn’s place with O’Malley close behind. Lynn had done a good job training the dog to be a good watch dog. If she or Jack called her ‘Jasper’, she turns into an aggressive attack dog.

When he got back inside he said The good news is that I didn’t find any surveillance equipment. The bad news is that I can’t feel my toes.

Get your cold weather stuff off and come put your feet on my lap. I’ll warm them up for you.

Jack quickly complied and Lynn lifted up her sweater and held his feet against her skin.

Now that’s a foot warmer I’ve never experienced before. And it’s working pretty fast. But don’t my feet freeze your skin?

I’ll suffer anything to care for my man.

What did you find out from the team? Are they available?

Harriet Goodman and her husband, Rick, are still vacationing in Florida, but she was online and answered my email right away. They can join us online anytime this afternoon. Tom Gutierrez hasn’t responded yet . . . Oh, there’s his email now. . . . He can meet anytime. I haven’t heard from Jim Norton, Winston’s former head of security who came over to our side. He’s still hiding in the Caribbean somewhere under a new identity to protect himself from Winston’s men. He’s probably laying on the beach with a woman he’s made friends with. He’ll see my email when he gets back to his room.

Well, that’s five out of six. We can fill Jim in later if he doesn’t answer before the meeting. So when should we do this

It’s two hours later in everyone else’s time zone so I’ll set it up for noon our time.

#

Have we got everyone online? Harriet and Rick, you look like you’re enjoying the Florida sun. How’s that leg healing, Harriet?

It’s almost all better. Rick and I have been walking a couple of miles on the beach every day and I can feel the strength coming back. I won’t be happy until I can run those two miles, though.

Harriet had been a fellow FRA agent before Winston’s men had smashed into her car. She survived that, but they sent someone into her hospital room to finish the job. She and Rick made him wish he had stayed home.

Tom, how’s the family? Are you still staying at your sister’s place in Wisconsin?

No, I contacted your friend, Dave Cramer at his detective agency and he gave me a job – one that pays a lot better than the FRA job I had before. He’s found a house for us to rent in Philadelphia a couple of blocks away from the office, so we’ll be moving there next week.

Lynn said That’s great, Tom! I’d like to meet your wife and family sometime.

. . . Maybe we can arrange that.

Jack put on his officious voice: I now call the second meeting of the Forsetians to order.

He turned to Lynn in a mock whisper they all could hear We’ve got to get me a gavel so I can maintain order. After the laughter passed Jack got serious.

I’m sure you all know why we’re meeting. We thought we had finished the job when Winston’s presidential candidate was arrested for the murder of his wife. Jim Norton knew most of Winston’s plan and assured us that there wasn’t a backup candidate ready to step in, and that Winston’s people had convinced him he didn’t have the charisma to run himself. But as we saw on the news last week, that’s exactly what he has done. He’s probably hired some image consultants who are working on who he will pretend to be to get elected.

Harriet spoke up. How can we keep him from winning the primaries, Jack? He’s got all the money he needs and then some, and the three February primaries are just days away. There’s no time to dig up anything on him that will turn the voters against him, and if he manages to win all the primaries on Super Tuesday, he’ll have the nomination for sure.

Tom added his thoughts about that. Other than posting a lot of lies on the internet, I can’t see any way to slow him down. But that’s exactly what his people did to get their candidates elected, and if we do that we’re no better than he is.

Lynn replied, Good point, Tom. We have to maintain the moral high ground, but that really handicaps us.

Yeah, sometimes being honest sucks. Rick added.

Jack thought for a minute. Even if we did manage to get the voters to reject him in the primaries he probably has other tricks up his sleeve. With enough money passed around he could even hijack the Republican National Convention and get nominated anyway.

I don’t think we can act fast enough to stop his nomination, so we have to focus on ways to discredit him before the November election. If you recall I was digging into Winston’s financial dealings before we split up. I need to continue that to see what turns up.

That’s a good start, Rick. You have talent and connections in the financial world, so why don’t you continue exploring that angle. Maybe you can find something that will get the attention of the IRS.

Will do, Jack. But if we’re going to get the IRS involved we have to do it before Winston gets elected President or he’ll have the IRS under his control, just like the current President does.

Harriet spoke up. Now Rick, don’t start talking about when he gets elected. Think more like ‘on the off-chance he manages to get into the White House.’ Think positive.

But we can’t ignore the possibility. We have to have a contingency plan in case we can’t stop him.

Jack added, "Another good point, Lynn. But for now we should focus on how we can keep him from winning the general election. Rick is covering the financial possibilities. What other areas can we use to attack him? Harriet, what do you have?

Earlier I started looking for evidence of how his people managed to get a majority of ultra-conservatives elected to the House and Senate over the past several years. I discovered that many of their opponents were publicly exposed for various unsavory activities, but it looked like some of those charges were fabricated and brought out in the open just before the elections. Afterward, the accusers and witnesses couldn’t be found. And the campaign spending of these conservative Republican candidates was huge – most likely funded by Winston himself. The Democrat candidates couldn’t begin to match the advertising blitz of Winston’s candidates.

That’s a great direction to go, Harriet, but it may take awhile to get some results that will stand up in court. Go after that with a vengeance to speed up the process. Tom, do you have a particular area you could explore to go after Winston?

I do, Jack. We haven’t had the time to investigate the deaths that were probably ordered by Winston. We believe his hired guns killed the three FSA agents who planted false information to incriminate potential political opponents. They tried to take out Harriet, you, and me, but we were too smart – or lucky – to get caught. And then there’s the death of the newspaper reporter who was after Winston, and the apparent suicide of his hand-picked presidential candidate. That’s five possible murders that we might be able to tie to Winston. Now that I’m going to be working for CSIC – Cramer Security and Investigations Company – I can get access to those cases and look for evidence that Winston was involved.

That’s good stuff, guys. I’m not sure what Lynn and I will do at this point, but I’ll come up with something.

You two newlyweds need to spend some time together to get acquainted, not jump into work right away.

Lynn answered, We’ve been together almost 24/7 for the past three months, so I think we’re well acquainted. She added with a smile, In fact, I’m tired of him already as she gave him a hug.

Actually I just figured out what our role will be. For you all to do your jobs, you’ll need same heavy duty hacking into government and corporate computers. Lynn is pretty good with a computer already, so I’ll turn her into a first-class hacker to help me hunt down the information we need.

Well, that beats a honeymoon any day, Lynn added with a laugh.

Jack closed the meeting with the comment We make a great team. We have just the variety of skills and experience that can take Charles Winston and his bunch down. Let’s meet online again at the end of the week to exchange more thoughts and talk about our progress. Rick, would you stay connected. There’s something I want to run by you.

Jack was about to close the meeting when Harriet got his attention. "There’s something we’re missing here. If we take Winston down before the general election, the Democrat candidate will win the Presidency. Everyone expects Clinton Hill, the former Secretary of State, to get the nomination, and he is as far left as Winston is right. Hill is clearly a socialist, even though he says he isn’t, who will take the country further in the direction started by our current President. It could be the end of personal freedom and capitalism in this country.

So here’s the problem. We’re caught between a rock and a hard place. If we get rid of Winston before the election, Hill destroys the country with socialism, but if we allow Winston to win, then we get destroyed by ultra-conservatism. I can’t see a way out of this.

Everyone was shocked by the thought. Tom said what all of them were thinking. Then we might as well quit wasting our time and get ready for the coming apocalypse. That brought another silence.

Jack thought for a couple of minutes. But there’s a wild card in this deck. . . . who will be Winston’s Vice President. If Winston chooses someone less over the edge than he is, someone a little more moderate, then that person would be President if we wait until Winston’s is sworn in to reveal what we hope we can find out about him. He might not go to prison for it, but there’s a chance he would be impeached and kicked out of office. So until we know who Winston’s running mate is, we should continue to gather evidence.

Everyone agreed, so Jack ended the meeting.

Chapter 3

Jack and Lynn had finished supper and were sitting in the great room watching snowflakes fall gently through the deck light illumination. Lynn snuggled her back up to his chest and Jack wrapped his arms around her in what had become their favorite position. I’m so happy here, back in my home with you by my side. I hope nothing happens to force us to run from here again.

As a matter of fact, that’s what I talked to Rick about this afternoon. Through his real estate business, he’s going to sell your house.

Lynn quickly turned to face him. What! You can’t do that! I won’t ever give this place up.

"Cool down, dear. We’re going to sell it to ourselves, but under a different name. Rick will set up a real estate holding company to buy your house. The holding company will be owned by two anonymous investors – that would be you and me. Your name will no longer appear on any records related to the property, so if Winston’s gang tries to find you again, they’ll hit a dead end.

Oooh, I like that. You’re so damn smart, sweetheart. But what about mail that comes to this address, and your mail too once you send the post office a change of address.

Rick will rent a post office box near their new place in Leesburg, Virginia that all of our mail will be sent to. Harriet will forward the bundle to us once a week, minus the junk mail of course, addressed to our new names. If You’ll take face photos of us, I’ll get some solid false identity documents made that we’ll use to get a P. O. box down in Telluride. Rick and Harriet are going to do the same thing at their farm outside of Leesburg.

So they bought the farm we all used as a hideout that first month after we got together. That’s a beautiful place. They’ll love it there. If I didn’t have this place, that would be my second choice for a home. . . . No, your cabin in West Virginia would be my second choice. The farm would be third. What are you going to do with your old place, Jack?

For now I think I’ll do the same thing with that – sell it to myself through a holding company. I thought about selling it – I built that right after Helen died and it holds a lot of memories I don’t want to face again. Especially the depression I went into for awhile. Did I tell you I thought about suicide a lot during that time?

That must have been very painful for you to consider suicide. I just can’t imagine someone with your inner strength thinking about killing himself.

Depression screws with your mind and interferes with your ability to think rationally. It was like a black whirlpool trying to suck me down into . . . into . . . I don’t know what. Non-existence?

They sat without speaking for awhile, then Lynn turned around, put her hands on either side of his face, and looked into his eyes. Jack, promise you’ll tell me if you ever feel yourself sinking back there. I know you’re still taking anti-depressants, and they seem to work for you, but don’t let the darkness keep you from telling me.

Tears formed in Jack’s eyes. "Lynn, thinking about that time in my life chokes me up. After I started getting better I had a constant fear that I would fall back into depression. I still wake up with nightmares about it. But after being with you I can see now that my isolation was part of what drove the depression. I’ve always been afraid to share my emotions with anyone. But with you, I feel safe telling you my feelings . . . and getting choked up in front of you. In my 32 years of marriage to