The Devlin Deception: Book One of The Devlin Quatrology (6 page)

“Also, lawyers, individual or as business entities, will pay
double the tax rates I outlined earlier, and major penalties, again
with the IRS burden of proof, will apply if any lawyer does not
comply.”

At that, the entire crowd in Slinky Joe's erupted in applause and
cheers, other than from one table in the corner, where two attorneys
were dining with their mistresses, and from one woman, Colleen, the
wife of an ambulance-chasing lawyer, who was at another table with
her lover, Keith, a local developer, whose wife, Damin, was having a
torrid affair with Bill, a local dentist; Bill's wife, Deirdre, was
involved in an equally torrid affair with Tom, an ex-councilman.

Tom's wife, Nicole, was having an affair with Isabel, the wife of
Karsten, a local Elvis impersonator, who was currently belting out a
gratingly off-key rendition of “Blue Suede Shoes” at The
Coach, a competitor of Slinky Joe's across US 41 in the hardware
plaza, whose owners had not even mentioned the speech to their
customers.

Karsten, in turn, was having his own affair with Ned, the owner of a
closet-organizing franchise. Karsten and Isabel's marriage was
clearly a double-beard.

Ned's wife, Sandy, was at that moment sharing a bouncing bed at a
local motel with Anthony, the president of the local branch of a
national bank and deeply involved in money laundering for the
Sinachoa drug cartel, while Anthony's wife, Jessica, was shrieking
with fake delight in Colleen's bedroom with Colleen's husband, Joe.

“Double the tax?” Colleen muttered to herself. “I'd
better divorce that sleaze bag now, while the getting is good.”

Donne continued, “Additionally, both sides of settlements in
any divorce at or above $200,000 will be taxed at 20 percent.”

Colleen reconsidered briefly, but only briefly.

On the following Monday, she met with a high-priced divorce lawyer,
as did thousands of lawyers' spouses all around the country.
Thousands of domestic violence complaints were lodged against lawyers
over the weekend and in the following months.

Donne continued, "You'll be able to find all the details of the
new tax code in Section 2 on the web site at ten p.m. tonight.

"When you get to the web site, you'll find an index by subject,
like energy, education, health care, insurance, defense and tort
reform, just for a few examples, so you can quickly find the
directives that are of particular interest to you. None of the
directives are more than three pages long and, again, they're all
written in clear, straight-forward English. You'll also be able to
find a 'Download All' link where you can download and save or print
all of the directives I signed today; they're available in a variety
of formats. And each and every one of my future directives will be
uploaded by midnight of the day I issue them.

"There's also a link there for feedback, and I personally want
to encourage anybody to use that link and tell me what you think
about the directives I've issued so far and make any suggestions you
want for future policy. I know that opens us up to lots of nutcases
and passionate malcontents, and obviously we'll screen those out, but
if you've got some reasonable and well-thought-out ideas, I want them
to reach me so I can consider them. I particularly want to hear from
people who have firsthand information and opinions about absurdities,
corruption and inefficiencies in government that need to be fixed,
especially in the regulatory arena.

“We'll also be setting up teams here to utilize all forms of
social media and get good back-and-forth communications going.

"And I'll give a very public hint to you investment types: do a
lot of analysis of ALL the pieces to help you decide what you want to
do when the stock, bond and currency markets open on Monday. I will
make no predictions on that, other than that I would expect some
volatility during the early part of this transition.

"But I will let all traders and investors know that as of
midnight tonight, the uptick rule will be reinstated, and as of
February 1st, 2012, the wash sale rule will be repealed. As of
January 1st, naked shorting will be rooted out and SEVERELY punished.
So if you're holding any naked shorts, you've got three weeks to
unwind those. Yet another word to the wise.

"Now, I know many of you watching this have interrupted your
Friday night entertainment, so I'm going to wrap this up with just a
few final thoughts.

"First, the web site with all the directives I've issued today,
as well as a replay of this speech, which will be active at precisely
ten p.m. tonight, is www.____________.gov, as you see here on the
screen. It is hosted on Donne Enterprises servers, with multiple
mirror sites, so anyone who wants to dig into those details can do
so, with no worries about the servers crashing, even if those
Anonymous clowns try one of their cyberattacks.

"Second, while this has been a very general speech, with only a
few specifics, by noon tomorrow, I will have posted a series of
videos going over all the details of today's directives, section by
section. Those videos will also be available on Donne Enterprises
servers, and the web address is www.__________1.gov, as you see
below. So just add the number 1 to the other web address.

"Third, I'll be looking forward to the Sunday morning talk
shows, and I fully expect to see all the usual spin doctors, poll
dancers (that's p-o-l-l, by the way), pundits, special interest
people, professional mudslingers and possibly even a few reasonable
analysts, and if you watch any or all of those shows, I'd encourage
you to carefully consider their biases, constituencies and/or clients
as you listen to what they say. Keep your eyes and ears open for
hints of greed, direct or indirect; another word to the wise, okay?
And watch how they play with the word 'fair.' Oh, remember the
sandbox on the Titanic, too.

"Finally, I'll be conducting a televised press conference on
Tuesday afternoon, starting at one p.m., for all journalists with
White House credentials, so I'd suggest you gather your thoughts and
questions and be prepared for an interesting afternoon. I hope all
of you can come up with some great 'gotcha' questions, which I will
certainly welcome, other than questions which try to get me to play
in that sandbox on one side or the other.

"Oh, a few quick additional things I almost forgot. First, no
more anchor babies, and for those anchor babies who are now under ten
years old, the rights and benefits given to them and their relatives
have been revoked as of this moment.

"Second, if you remember when the dollar was on the gold
standard, we're going to do the same thing, but instead of gold,
we'll use oil. So the value of the dollar will now be one-sixtieth
of one barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude oil, or sixty bucks a
barrel, and one-seventieth of one barrel of Brent North Sea crude, or
seventy bucks a barrel, as of right now. Sorry, longs; and shorts,
don't gloat.

"Third, speaking of oil, and energy in general, I have issued
directives that ensure that drilling on federal lands and waters and
the construction of nuclear power plants will require only NOTICE,
not permits and approvals and environmental impact statements and
other bureaucratic delaying tactics. I've also approved the Keystone
pipeline, with a few restrictions.

"Fourth, Obamacare, mostly gone; Dodd-Frank, totally
re-evaluated, mostly gone; cap and trade, never.”

A mixture of applause and boos filled Slinky Joe's.

"Fifth, I will have a budget prepared by February 1st, 2012, for
the rest of this fiscal year that will reduce spending by a minimum
of 20 percent, and by May 31st, we'll have a budget for FY 2013 that
has a minimum 33 percent reduction. And that is based on current
spending, NOT projected baselines. The FY 2014 budget will be
balanced, with possibly even a slight surplus.

“Finally, I would also invite all the economists out there to
submit their analyses of the economic impact of the policies I've put
in place, including everything that will be on the web site this
evening, and to include charts of their predictions of GDP, deficits
and debt over the next 20 years, using both static and dynamic
analysis. The CBO and OMB will be doing that, as well, all to be in
my office by close of business this coming Monday.

"With that, I wish you all a very good evening, and for those of
you who will want to do your analyses, a very busy and productive
weekend. And a very happy holiday season to all. Good night."

In the back office, Joe turned to Pete and said, "Well, looks
like it's gonna be a long weekend. Wow."

Pete replied, "Yup, but you're the numbers guy. I'll get back
out there and see how the customers are taking that all in and get
Salt and Pepper back onstage, get things going again."

Marion leaned over to George and said, "Honey, let's pay the
bill and get home; I need to look at those directives as soon as
they're online." George smiled, reached for his wallet and
said, "Omaha." He dropped a twenty on the table, heaved
himself out of his chair, grabbed his walker and shuffled toward the
door. Marion did a quick calculation in her head, opened her purse,
dropped another twenty, sighed, rolled her eyes and headed after
George.

Darryl poked Debbie, who was still asleep and snoring, and said,
"Let's go out to my truck." Debbie opened her eyes
groggily, slurred, "Mmm, okay," and they staggered out of
the bar. They returned ten minutes later.

-6-

Saturday, December 10, 2011

2:25 a.m. (8:25 p.m. EST)

St. Tropez, France

A man with many names clicked from a 24-hour news channel to the
local French news channel, checked the time on his diamond-encrusted
watch, took another sip from his glass of the most expensive wine in
the world and smiled at his reflection in the window of his villa
overlooking the marina in St. Tropez. In the light of the full moon,
he could just make out the imposing silhouette of his 39-meter yacht,
custom built to his precise specifications. But that was not why he
was smiling. What curved the corners of his mouth slightly up was
the certain knowledge that his skills as the world's most talented
assassin would soon be called for, and aside from his standard fee of
20 million euros, he knew he would enjoy the challenge. He had no
doubt as to the target; his only curiosity was who the client might
turn out to be.

But as he settled back into his hot tub with the latest novel by the
author who put Sanibel on the literary map, he had no inkling that
before everything was over, he would have contracts from nineteen
discrete (and, of course, discreet) clients, all with the same target
... and the same fee, of course. So he would make a real killing by
making a real killing.

-7-

Friday, December 9, 2011

8:45 p.m. EST

Cyberspace

As soon as Donne's speech concluded, hackers both in and out of
Anonymous began spreading the word that at precisely 9:58 p.m., the
most massive Denial of Service (DOS) attack ever attempted would
begin, and by 8:45, the instructions for that had spread to over five
thousand individual hackers, each of whom controlled an average of
178.3 computers scattered all around the world. In gleeful
anticipation of shutting down the servers at Donne Enterprises, many
of them ran upstairs to raid their parents' pantries and
refrigerators for provisions, mostly corn chips, potato chips and
chocolate sodas, and then scurried back down to their basements.

* * * * * *

8:45 p.m. EST

Bonita Springs, FL

Marion headed to their riverfront mansion on the south side of their
luxurious gated community. Once she got inside and got George
comfortably settled in his recliner, she got on the phone and called
all of her friends in her book club, investment club and even a few
of the Bonita Hookers (they hooked rugs) to make sure they all knew
what had happened and were ready to go online at ten and watch the
replay, as well as digging into the directives.

* * * * * *

8:45 p.m. EST

Bonita Springs, FL

Back at Slinky Joe's, Joe was in the office, going over his notes,
Pete was out front, going table to table, chatting with the many
people who remained, Salt and Pepper were back on stage, and Debbie
was alone on the dance floor, unsteadily shaking and wriggling her
scrawny body as provocatively as she could. Darryl was sitting
bleary-eyed at the bar, sipping his eighth beer; three to go before
he'd try to drive the nine miles back to his trailer park, hoping to
avoid another DUI.

* * * * * *

8:45 p.m. EST

The Capitol

Washington, DC

On the House floor, now-ex-Members of Congress and Supreme Court
justices had been heatedly discussing the events of the day and ways
in which they might resist Donne's surprise takeover. Never in the
history of the building had the decibel level come anywhere near what
it was this evening … and it was bipartisan.

At 8:45, the doors opened and hundreds of side-armed Marines in
battle fatigues swarmed the chamber, and, in pairs, escorted each
Member to his or her office and oversaw the removal of all personal
items and the exit of each from the premises, during which all phones
were given back and notices not to return were distributed.

A similar process was followed with each Supreme Court justice, and
with absent Members of Congress over the next few weeks.

-8-

Friday, December 9, 2011

9:59:59 p.m. EST

Donne Enterprises International Server Farm

The duty technician flipped a switch and all the sites and mirror
sites went live. On the home page, just below the "Replay
Speech" link, the First Directive stated that "Each and
every directive issued by this office shall include by reference the
following: 'Any and all constitutional provisions, statutes, case
law, common law, executive orders, regulations, ordinances and/or
rules of any type, at any level of government, federal, state or
local, are hereby declared null and void as they run counter to this
directive only, but shall remain in effect for all other purposes.'"
Below that was an index by topic.