Point of Balance by J.G. Jurado Read Free Book Online Page B

friend, I’m an outsourcer, although that doesn’t exactly fit the bill, either.”
    His eyes shone and he waved his hands about to stress each word. Everyone likes to talk shop. For the vain, self-centered White, it must have been sheer torture that he couldn’t shout about his feats from the rooftops.
    â€œLet us say I am a specialist in social engineering. A client comes to me with a problem, and I fix it.”
    â€œB-but . . . ,” I stammered. “I’m not a murderer. Go look for a soldier, a mercenary, or someone who knows about weapons.”
    â€œThe cracked lone gunman is so 1960s . . . It’s a tired old trick and we’ve used it too often. No, Dave, that is not my style. Any two-bit hoodlum with three bullets and telescopic sights could set up that kind of hack job. I mean to say, it would turn out badly. In all likelihood with the gunman shackled to a chair and bleating out—shall we say—unseemly remarks about his employers’ identities. And let’s not even talk about tanking stock markets, social unrest,rising international tension . . . Our country is already in a bad way. A new scandal would tear it asunder. We’re patriots and we can’t have that, now, can we, Dave?”
    â€œNo, of course not,” I replied automatically.
    He leaned forward and lowered his voice to a whisper. At that moment, the strains of Joan Baez’s “Hush Little Baby” faded away and her “Battle Hymn of the Republic” struck up. I cannot tell whether that was happenstance or whether White had set it up, as he had everything else in the whole sordid affair, down to the last detail.
    â€œNevertheless, my dear doctor, death by natural causes would be perfectly acceptable. The great man checks into the hospital Friday, in complete secrecy. No one knows about his life-threatening illness. He receives the best treatment but dies on the operating table. A brave, tall and dark neurosurgeon faces the cameras. He’s a self-made man, an all-American hero, an example to us all. He breaks the news with tears in his eyes, and the country weeps with him. The vice president takes the oath of office, also in tears, that very night, so help me God. The nation is in mourning Saturday, then Sunday the newspapers are full of praise for the new commander in chief, whom 47.3 percent of the population couldn’t have named two days earlier. By the time Wall Street opens on Monday, everything is back on track. Factories belch smoke, moms take their kids to school and bake apple pie. The free world is safe. God bless America.”
    He clutched his chest in an affected imitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. In that diner, decorated 1950s style in red, white and blue, his patter sounded unreal and demented, but nonetheless entirely plausible. I felt sick to my stomach and gulped as I took in the enormity of the mess I was mixed up in.
    â€œYou’re crazy, White,” I muttered.
    â€œYou surmise most incorrectly,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “I am in fact a thoroughly rational and well-balanced person, who is fully cognizant of the outcome of his actions, and the costs and benefits entailed therein. Are you, Dave?”
    He stared at me long and hard, while he slowly massaged his temples, to gauge the impact of his threat.
    Every fiber in my body was screaming to get the hell out of there and away from that psycho. But I couldn’t.
    â€œWhat do you want me to do? I can’t kill him just like that!” I said in an effort to defend myself, to gain time, to explain how impossible it was to do as he wanted. “It won’t be so easy. There’ll be eyes everywhere, watching my every move. At least two other neuro­surgeons will be with me, as well as an anesthesiologist and two nurses. There’ll be cameras recording everything, and half the Secret Service peeping from behind the operating