Title:
DARK MONEY
Author: Larry D. Thompson
Publisher: Story Merchant Books
Pages: 420
Genre: Legal Thriller
Publisher: Story Merchant Books
Pages: 420
Genre: Legal Thriller
DARK MONEY is
a thriller, a mystery and an expose’ of the corruption of money in politics.
Jackson
Bryant, the millionaire plaintiff lawyer who turned to pro bono work in Dead Peasants, is caught up in the
collision of money and politics when he receives a call from his old army
buddy, Walt Frazier. Walt needs his assistance in evaluating security for Texas
Governor Rob Lardner at a Halloween costume fundraiser thrown by one of the
nation’s richest Republican billionaires at his mansion in Fort Worth .
Miriam Van Zandt is the best marksman among The Alamo Defenders, an
anti-government militia group in West Texas .
She attends the fund raiser dressed as a cat burglar---wounds the governor and
murders the host’s brother, another Republican billionaire. She is shot in the
leg but manages to escape.
Jack is appointed special prosecutor and must call on the Texas DPS
SWAT team to track Van Zandt and attack the Alamo Defenders’ compound in a
lonely part of West Texas . Van Zandt’s father,
founder of the Defenders, is killed in the attack and Miriam is left in a coma.
The authorities declare victory and close the case---but Jack knows better. The
person behind the Halloween massacre has yet to be caught. When Walt and the
protective detail are sued by the fund raiser host and the widow of the dead
man, Jack follows the dark money of political contributions from the Cayman Islands to Washington
to Eastern Europe , New York New Orleans to track the real killer and
absolve his friend and the Protective Detail of responsibility for the
massacre.
For More Information
Jack
Bryant turned his old red Dodge Ram pickup into the driveway of the Greek
revival mansion at the end of the cul-de-sac in Westover Hills, an exclusive
neighborhood in Fort Worth .
He was amused to see Halloween ghosts and goblins hanging from the two enormous
live oaks that fronted the house. The driveway led to wrought iron gates that
permitted entry to the back. A heavy set Hispanic man with a Poncho Villa
mustache in a security guard uniform stood beside the driveway near the gates, clipboard
in hand. He was unarmed.
Jack
stopped beside him and lowered his window. “Afternoon, officer. Fine autumn
day, isn’t it?”
The
guard sized up the old pick-up and the man wearing jeans and a white T-shirt.
“You here to make a delivery?”
Jack
reached into his left rear pocket and retrieved his wallet from which he
extracted a laminated card. “No, sir. Name’s Jackson Douglas Bryant. I’m a
lawyer and a Tarrant County Reserve Deputy. My friend, Walter Frazier, is part
of the Governor’s Protective Detail. Said Governor Lardner is attending some
big shindig here tomorrow night and asked me to lend a hand in checking the
place out before he hits town. My name
should
be on that clipboard.”
The
guard took the card, studied it closely and handed it back to Jack. He flipped
to the second page. “There it is. Let me open the gates. Park down at the end
of the driveway. You’ll see another wall with a gate. Walk on through and
you’ll find your way to the ballroom where the party’s being held tomorrow.
I’ll radio Sergeant Frazier to let him know you’re on your way.”
The
gates silently opened, and Jack drove slowly to the back, admiring the house
and grounds. The house had to be half a football field in length. Giant arched
windows were spaced every ten feet with smaller ones above, apparently
illuminating the second floor. To Jack’s right was an eight foot wall. First
security issue. Not very hard to figure out a way to scale it. Fortunately, cameras
and lights were mounted on fifteen foot poles that appeared to blanket the
area.
Jack
parked where he was directed and climbed from his truck. Before shutting the
door, he took his cane from behind the driver’s seat. He flexed his left knee.
It felt pretty good. He might not even need the cane. Still, he usually carried
it since he never knew when he might take a step and have it buckle under him.
Better to carry the cane than to fall on his ass.
He
found himself in front of another wall. He was studying it when Walt came
through the gate. Walt was ten years his junior, six feet, two inches of solid
muscle. He bounded across the driveway to greet Jack. They first shook hands
and then bear-hugged
each
other like the old army buddies that they were.
Walt
pulled back and looked at Jack. “Damn, it’s good to see you. Been, what, about
three years since you were in Austin
for some lawyer meeting?”
“Could
have been four. I think I was practicing in Beaumont then.”
“Still
carrying the cane. That injury at the barracks causing you more problems?”
“No
worse, not any better. Every once in a while the damn knee gives out with no
warning. I may have to put an artificial one in some day. Meantime, the cane
does just fine. I’ve got a collection of about twenty of them in an old whiskey
barrel beside the back door of my house. This one is my Bubba Stick. Picked it up
at a service station a while back.”
Walt’s
voice dropped to just above a whisper. “Follow me into the garden. There are
some tables there. We can sit for a few minutes while I explain what’s coming
down.”
They
walked through the gate. Beyond it was a garden, obviously tended by loving
hands. Cobblestone paths wound their way through fall plantings of Yellow
Copper Canyon Daises, Fall Aster, Apricot-colored Angel’s Trumpet, Mexican
Marigold and
the
like. Walt led the way to a wrought iron table beside a fish pond with a
fountain in the middle, spraying water from the mouth of a cherub’s statue. The
two friends settled into chairs, facing the pond.
“This
is what the help call the little garden. In a minute we’ll go around the house
to the big garden and pool that fronts the ballroom. You know whose house this
is?”
“No
idea.”
“Belongs
to Oscar Hale. He and his brother, Edward, are the two richest men in Fort Worth . Their daddy
was one of the old Texas
wildcatters. The two brothers were worth a few hundred million each, mainly
from some old oil holdings down in South Texas
and out around Midland .
Life must have been pretty good.
Then
it got better about ten years ago when the oil boys started fracking and
horizontal drilling. Counting proven reserves still in the ground, word is
they’re worth eighty billion, well, maybe just a little less now that we have
an oil glut.”
“Edward
still around?”
One
of the servers in the kitchen had seen the two men and brought two bottles of
water on a silver tray.
“Thanks…Sorry,
I forgot your name.”
“Sarah
Jane, Walt. My pleasure. Let me know if you need anything else.”
Walt
took a sip from his bottle as Sarah Jane returned to the house. “Yeah. His
legal residence is still in Fort Worth ,
and I understand he and his wife vote in this precinct, only they really live
in New York City .
He always kept an apartment there. When the oil money started gushing, he
upgraded to a twenty room penthouse that I hear overlooks Central Park. He’s
big in the arts scene up there, opera, ballet, you name it. He’s also building
the Hale Museum of Fine Art here in Fort
Worth .”
Jack
nodded his head. “Okay, I know who you’re talking about. My girlfriend is
thrilled about another museum in Fort Worth .
She’s into that kind of thing. When I moved here, she took me to every damn one
of them. The western art in the Amon Carter museum was really all that
interested me. So, the Hales play with the big boys, and the governor’s coming.
From what I read, Governor Lardner travels all over the world. Never seems to
have a problem. What’s the big deal here?”
Larry D. Thompson was first a trial lawyer. He tried more than 300 cases throughout Texas , winning in excess of 95% of them. When his youngest son graduated from college, he decided to write his first novel. Since his mother was an English teacher and his brother, Thomas Thompson, had been a best-selling author, it seemed the natural thing to do.
Larry writes about what he knows best…lawyers, courtrooms and trials. The legal thriller is his genre. DARK MONEY is his fifth story and the second in the Jack Bryant series.
Larry and his wife, Vicki, call Houston home and spend their summers on a mountain top in Vail, Colorado . He has two daughters, two sons and four grandchildren.
Why I Wrote Dark Money
The idea first came from a conversation with a member of then Texas Governor Rick Perry’s protective detail who told me that they had a constant conflict of interest. On the one hand, they were sworn peace officers, sworn to protect the citizens of this state. On the other hand, they were told that their first objective, in the event of a danger to the governor, was to get him out of harm’s way.
I mulled that over for several months and then began to read more about the problems with our political system caused by the Supreme Court when they wrote the Citizens United decision. I decided to combine the two and created a costume fundraiser just before Halloween in Fort Worth where big shots would come in masks and contribute to what has become known as a Dark Money organization, so called because the government does not require donors to such social welfare organizations to disclose their names. In theory, hundreds of millions can be contributed to sway an election and the electorate would never know who is behind the campaign.
Everything about that is wrong, but the Supreme Court failed to recognize the problems they were creating. Since my novels are all thrillers, but also have an underlying message, I decided to write this one to be a great thriller and a great mystery, but expose the corruption of money in politics.
The reader first attends a costume fundraiser where a billionaire is killed and the Texas Governor left close to death. The reader then follows Jack Bryant as he tracks the assassin to an anti-government militia compound of The Alamo Defenders. He and a SWAT team storm the compound, leaving the assassin near death. Only the story is just beginning. She is in a coma, but the person with the money to arrange for the killing is still on the loose. Jack must follow the money to New Orleans,Washington, D.C., the Cayman Islands, New York City and Europe before he gets enough evidence to force the man who paid for massacre to admit to what he did from the witness stand in a trial in Fort Worth.
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