The 13th Target by Mark de Castrique Read Free Book Online Page B

of Manassas, Virginia, on a farm, one of the new breed that eschewed chemical fertilizers and growth hormones for open pasture grazing and crop rotation. He hoped his freelance assignment would expand beyond one article to a series on the explosion of local farmers’ markets. He knew people in the District who drove forty-five miles for home-cured hams and grass-fed beef. The craze to buy local wasn’t just reserved for vegans and health-food nuts.
    Sidney stopped halfway to his apartment and caught his breath. Thirty-eight, paunchy, and out of shape, he winded easily. He carried a backpack slung over one shoulder. It held his Nikon, digital voice recorder, and journals that he used for taking notes. The strap cut into him and he switched the load to his other side. He checked the bottom of his shoes for any trace of his barnyard excursion, something he should have done before getting in his car. As a guy who grew up Jewish in Greenwich Village, he knew his way around a farm like he knew his way around a nunnery.
    He walked the rest of the distance slowly, wondering whether the Chinese take-out in his fridge would still be edible. He used the back entrance, a flight of outside stairs to the basement, because it was closer to his apartment. He’d check his mailbox in the lobby later.
    Classical music sounded from the other side of his door. No one was home, no one meaning his sometimes girlfriend Colleen who had a key. The FM station provided his security alarm, an attempt to convince a would-be intruder that someone was inside. Colleen would have immediately switched the station to hard rock.
    Sidney turned on his laptop before he turned on a light. He wanted to transfer the factual data from his interview notes along with the sensory impressions still fresh in his mind. If he finished in an hour, he’d ditch the Chinese leftovers and walk to Clyde’s bar in Georgetown for a burger. Friday night, he might get lucky. Some women still found reporters exciting. Some desperate women.
    He grabbed a beer and heard multiple pings as his email program loaded. That morning he’d forgotten his cellphone charging by the bed, and on the drive down and back, he opted for CDs rather than news radio. He’d been out of the loop all day. Something must have fired up his cadre of Internet followers.
    Sidney sat at the keyboard and quickly scrolled through a list of new messages. All were from anti-Fed zealots and each subject line contained Paul Luguire’s name. A sampling generated a range of words like death, suicide, murder, assassination, and liquidation—the more extreme ones coming from those elements Sidney considered nut jobs.
    He jumped to the web site of The Washington Post. The story had been filed after press deadline and so was labeled Breaking News for the on-line edition. The quote “apparent suicide” from the Arlington Police Department muted Sidney’s initial adrenaline rush. Even high-ranking Federal Reserve executives had personal problems. He didn’t know much about Luguire other than the Fed Chairman had promoted him last year to a new position as the chief link between the Fed and Treasury Department. Luguire wasn’t the public face to Congress or Wall Street like Chairman Radcliffe, but he would be privy to all the inner workings of the Board of Governors, a high enough player to set conspiracy-prone fanatics honking like startled geese.
    Sidney moved from The Washington Post to the web site of The Washington Times . The woman who had replaced him on the economy beat had the same basic information with one additional detail. The “apparent suicide” quote was attributed to an Arlington homicide detective named Robert Sullivan.
    He clicked back to his email. More than a hundred people wanted to know his take on Luguire’s death. The irony struck him that the book that had cost him his job had created these Frankenstein monsters who now stalked him for his opinions on everything from President Kennedy’s