Free A Triple Thriller Fest by Michael Wallace, Philip Chen, Gordon Ryan Page A

disbelief and began to eat, thinking about Jim’s comment and Roger Dahlgren’s implied threat. For the next twenty minutes he bantered with the Bank of America branch manager, feigning concern about the rising interest rates and the price of oil.
    At 12:45, the program chairman once again brought the room to order and waited for conversation and the clanking of dinnerware to die down before he spoke.
    “Members and invited guests, it is my distinct pleasure to open today’s forum and to welcome our distinguished guest. For eighteen years, Senator Malcolm Turner has served as California’s voice in the United States Senate. For six years before that, he served us well as a representative in the House. Many explosive issues have come and gone during his congressional tenure. Senator Turner has taken a stance on each, relative to his understanding of where Californians stood. But perhaps, in this latest movement, Senator Turner faces his greatest challenge. Indeed, perhaps all California faces its greatest test. Let’s hear what he has to say. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you the man who may well be the first president—or perhaps even prime minister—of the Republic of California, Senator Malcolm Turner.”
    A few of the Rotarians and their guests immediately stood in applause. Others, some less enthusiastically, joined them in standing as Turner rose from his seat at the head table and stepped to the podium. He took his place behind the lectern, confident, smiling warmly, acknowledging old friends in the room and nodding to new faces. Malcolm Turner looked very much the part of a U.S. senator. His artificially dark hair was immaculately coiffed. He wore a dark-blue suit, starched white shirt, and a bold, California bear flag tie. Smiling, he accepted their welcome, then raised his manicured hands to quell the generous applause.
    As the audience took their seats, the senator looked around the crowded room. Attendance was up by a third, given the multitude of guests and media representatives. Nearly a hundred people were jammed into tight quarters. With the tables filled, some had taken their lunch on their laps and were seated on chairs lining the walls.
    After the room quieted, Turner stood silent for a moment, allowing the tension to build slightly. Here in Woodland—in the heart of an agricultural county burdened by myriad federal regulations—he knew he had a sympathetic audience.
    “Mr. Mayor, members of the Yolo County Board of Supervisors, Woodland City Council members, Rotarians, and honored guests: In 1958, during Eisenhower’s presidency, my father brought me to Woodland to the Yolo County Fair. I was home from college for the summer, and Dad wanted me to see some of the exhibits, as well as to participate in the business discussions he had scheduled with local farmers. It was my first introduction into the business end of farming, outside of the countless hours I had spent in our fields near Modesto. There may well be some of you in the room today who recall the glory days of the California farmer. And most of you will also recall eighteen months ago, when I first proposed consideration of California becoming a sovereign nation. To me, it seems like only yesterday …”
     
    Chapter 6
     
    Sea Ranch
Ninety-five miles north of San Francisco, California
January, 2010
    It was election year, and Senator Malcolm Turner had put out the call for campaign contributions as he began his run for a fourth term in the U.S. Senate. The invitation to meet with John Henry Franklin at his palatial estate three hours’ drive north of San Francisco had been a welcome surprise. Their meeting changed Turner’s campaign rhetoric from politics-as-usual hyperbole to a more deadly indictment of federal intervention into state’s rights. Franklin’s retreat, called Sea Ranch Estate, sprawled over an area of about twelve miles, north to south, and running east from the coast nearly nine miles, well into the