24 Veto Power by John Whitman Read Free Book Online Page A

head. “The power you have is terrifying.”
    “You won’t think so if it helps find your father. His cell phone placed a call here. Check your message machine.”
    Nazila went back to the living room. A silver cordless telephone stood upright on a stand that also contained the message system. She pressed play, the machine beeped at her, and her father’s voice chimed in. “Nazi, I will be home a little late. Someone wants to see me about a research project for a movie. It’s late for an old man, but if it is something, we could use the money. The name of the company is on a card on my nightstand. That’s where I’ll be if you worry.”
    “Movies?” Jack asked.
    “He consulted on a movie once before, when they needed an expert on Islam in the Middle Ages. A movie about the Crusades.”
    He followed her back to her father’s room and scanned the room as soon as she turned on the lights. This was the room of a scholar—every flat surface piled high with books, magazines, and pages of notes. The nightstand was no different—Jack counted a stack of five books by the bed, plus two more that lay facedown and open, as though Rafizadeh had been reading both at the same time. On top of the stack was a precariously balanced pile of papers— brochures, business cards, junk mail, and letters. Nazila lifted a business card off the top, and the rest of the pile fell to the floor. She handed it to Jack, then hurriedly gathered up the papers that had fallen. He dialed CTU again, but his eyes were on her furtive movements.
    “Bandison, Bauer again. Run a check on this company—” he glanced at the business card—“Minute Man Films. Based here in Los Angeles. I’m guessing it doesn’t exist.”
    “Right back,” Jessi Bandison said in shorthand, and put Jack on hold.
    Nazila stacked the papers neatly and quickly—so quickly, in fact, that Jack almost missed her sleightof-hand as she slipped one piece of paper into the pocket of her robe.
    When Jack was taken off hold, Jessi Bandison was on the line. “Jack, there’s no Minute Man Films.”
    “I figured. Thanks.”
    He snapped his phone shut. “Nazila, I’m sorry. I think your father’s been taken by the Greater Nation. This company he was meeting doesn’t exist.”
    Her faced paled. “Can you help him?”
    “I’ll do my best. I owe it to you,” he said. “But first show me what you just slipped into your pocket.”
    Her hand covered her robes. “Nothing. It’s personal.”
    “Show me anyway.”
    Reluctantly, defeated, she pulled the slip of paper from her pocket. It was a four-by-six generic greeting card with pictures of a watercolor of flowers on the front. Inside, spidery handwriting crawled from side to side. Jack didn’t read what it said, because his eyes were drawn to two facts immediately.
    First, the card was dated two months ago.
    Second, it was signed by Nazila’s dead brother.
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    THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLAC E
BETWEEN THE HOURS OF
5 A.M. AND 6 A.M.
PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
    5:00 A . M . PST
    At five in the morning, the streets of San Francisco lost all their romance. In another hour or two, the sun would rise across the bay, and anyone with a good view and a penchant for rising early could sit with a cup of Peet’s Coffee and watch the fog roll back out the Golden Gate like a retreating army. But at this hour, San Francisco was simply another dark and quiet city, except with very steep hills.
    The hour was, however, a convenient running time for a U.S. senator whose circadian rhythms were still set to East Coast Time and whose biological clock kept sending all her weight into her hips. Debrah Drexler, consummate feminist and liberal though she was, was not above a little vanity. Her one self-indulgence in a hectic schedule was her three-mile jog every morning. She had been what was called a looker in her day, and while in her head she knew that the days had passed when she’d turn