The Last Election (10 page)

Matthias realized that it would do no good to mention Miriam’s mental ailments at this point, so he continued on with his story.

Matthias left home and joined the US Marine Corps when Miriam was only 16, and was just completing boot camp at Parris Island when he received a frantic call from his father. Miriam had run away. Miriam had left a note saying she had been very depressed since Matthias had gone off to join the Marines. She felt alone and scared, and no longer felt safe in her neighborhood and school. She concluded her note by saying that she loved her parents dearly, but she could no longer stay in Jackson.

Miriam vanished without a trace. Police searched for weeks but came up empty. Since there was no sign of foul play, they eventually stopped the search. Miriam became nothing more than a sad statistic, another teenage runaway. Her parents were devastated, and Matthias was never able to stop blaming himself for what had happened.

Matthias then told Mr. Parks and Clay about his service in the Marine Corps, and how he had embarked on a career in law enforcement. It was then that he learned of his sister’s fate. The murder of Miriam Jackson had been splashed across the headlines of every major paper in Southeastern Michigan. When Matthias saw the name Miriam he feared the worst, and with a little help from his friends in the law enforcement community, he sadly discovered that the murdered Miriam Jackson was indeed his long lost sister. Matthias also learned of Miriam’s orphaned son, and without hesitation set out to bring Clay into his family. Matthias’s wife and children gave him their total support.

Matthias looked at Clay and said, “Clay, you are part of my family and I’ve come to take you home.”

Mr. Parks and Matthias made arrangements so that Clay could have one more day at the Park residence to gather his belongings, and Matthias would pick him up the following afternoon. “See you tomorrow, Clay,” said Matthias as he walked to the door.

“See you tomorrow,” Clay replied. After a few seconds he added, “Uncle Matthias.” Matthias smiled and shook his head up and down, knowing that he had made a connection with his nephew.

At first Clay was nervous about leaving the Parks’ home to live with Matthias, but he soon became very excited about the move. He could feel his mother’s love in Uncle Matthias. He admired his uncle and was eager to meet the rest of the Grant family, especially his two male cousins. Also, he thought it was funny that he was moving to a town with the same name as his last name...Clay Jackson from Jackson.

Clay never really knew what had happened to his father after his arrest. He asked Uncle Matthias soon after arriving in Jackson, but Matthias simply said that his father had been put in jail and was never coming back. Clay was glad about that.

Unbeknownst to Clay, Wade Jackson just so happened to be residing in Jackson as well, locked up in the state penitentiary. Even more coincidentally, Matthias Grant just so happened to be an officer in the Michigan Department of Corrections. Matthias’s career in the prison system had made him a firm believer in the “what goes around comes around” principle. Therefore, he personally arranged to have Wade Jackson placed in the worst cellblock of the prison. It was the cellblock specially reserved for the most uncontrollably violent murderers, rapists, and thieves within the Michigan penal system. It was poetic justice, Matthias thought, that Wade Jackson now spent his days and nights on the receiving end of a brutal sexual relationship with his African-American cellmate, a very large and rather psychotic inmate with a horrific violent streak, who was serving 10-20 for the aggravated assault and attempted murder of a female police officer who had pulled him over for speeding. The police officer was still in a coma.

Clay’s cousins turned out to be identical twins that were four years older than Clay. Isaac and Isaiah Grant were big like their father. They were only fourteen years old, but they stood nearly six feet tall. They were built like Matthias, strong and solid.

Isaac and Isaiah were the best cousins a boy could have. They looked out for Clay each and every day. One time soon after Clay had arrived at their home in Jackson, a neighborhood punk tried to pick on Clay, making fun of his light skin. Isaiah jacked the punk up against a building wall, holding the punk two feet off the ground with his forearm pressed firmly against his throat. Isaiah had a look in his eyes as if he were criminally insane, and he spit in the punk’s face with every other word he said while describing in graphic detail what would happen to him if he ever fucked with Clay again. Word soon got around the ‘hood that there would be no messing with the kid with light skin.

Isaac and Isaiah loved Clay like a brother. Even when they went off to Western Michigan University, they always made a point of coming back to Jackson to spend time with him. Isaac and Isaiah were all-state high school football players and each received a four-year free ride to Western, and sometimes they would invite Clay out to Kalamazoo to watch one of their games.

The Grant brothers were brutal. They were fan favorites of the Broncos’ football team, notorious for their ferocious tackles and sacks. During the season opener of their junior year, Western took on their conference rivals from Bowling Green State University. They fired up the crowd with their devastating defensive play, and the poor quarterback of the BGSU Falcons ended up spending eight weeks in traction after the brothers blindsided him, one high and one low.

They were good, solid players, but unfortunately the Broncos finished toward the bottom of the Middle Atlantic Conference every year the brothers played. Pro scouts never gave them a second look. So when graduation day arrived and they left WMU with worthless degrees in Psychology, they knew that gainful employment was not in the cards. They realized then and there that it hadn’t been such a good idea to let football groupies do all their homework and write all their papers for four consecutive years.

Matthias, who loved his sons dearly, wanted to kill them. Instead, he threatened to take them to the local Marine recruiting office the day after graduation. Isaac and Isaiah, who had no strong desire to spend the next several years in Afghanistan, promised their father that they would find employment and find it soon. Their job hunt took off at a glacial pace, which angered Matthias even more.

One morning shortly thereafter, the twins awoke to find themselves in headlocks that were bordering on chokeholds. Matthias dragged them into the living room and simultaneously sent them airborne and onto the sofa. With his wife at his side, Matthias informed his sons that they were going to attend an upcoming State and Federal Law Enforcement job fair that was coming to his Corrections Department facility. He went on to emphasize that they were going to find jobs before they left, and if they didn’t, they could just go ahead and shave their heads and start learning the lyrics to
The
Halls of Montezuma.
 

With that incentive, Isaac and Isaiah got up at the break of dawn on the morning of the job fair and put on their Sunday best suits. That was probably the first time
Isaac and Isaiah
had worn ties in a decade. Clay chuckled as he watched Uncle Matthias tie the knots around his own neck before transferring the ties to his sons’ necks. Uncle Matthias made sure that he pulled the Windsor knot good and tight against their throats as he reminded them once again in no uncertain terms that they were going to find employment that day. He also told them that Clay was allowed to tag along.

Isaac, Isaiah and Clay arrived at the job fair before the doors opened. Once they were let inside, the twins bolted straight to the recruiting tables while Clay aimlessly wandered through the aisles, ignoring the men at the booths trying to get his attention. He was getting quite a laugh out of watching Isaac and Isaiah going up to each booth, standing there in their pressed shirts and new ties, saying, “Yes sir, yes sir,” repeatedly to the recruiters. It sounded as though they were about to recite
Baa, Baa, Black Sheep
, and Clay had to fight back the urge to walk up behind them and say, “Three bags full!”

Clay was looking at some State Police brochures that were sitting on an unattended table, when a well-dressed man approached him. He greeted Clay and shook his hand, and introduced himself as Special Agent Martinez. Clay looked him over but could not quite figure out what made him so special. He was cool and smooth though, with his jet black hair slicked back and his perfect pronunciation of every word he spoke, but with a thick Spanish accent.

He asked Clay questions about his career goals, but Clay told the man he was only there waiting for his cousins. Special Agent Martinez was professional and polite, and asked Clay to fill out a contact form anyway. Clay had no intention whatsoever of working in law enforcement, but he figured he’d never hear from the man again so he completed the form and left.

After Clay had walked away, Special Agent “Martinez” removed his nametag and tossed it in the trash. Special Agent Delgado was very pleased that he had made contact with one Clayton Jackson with relative ease. Clay was the perfect dupe for an upcoming mission, a mission of supreme importance to the president. Delgado smiled as he left the room, thinking about how much fun it was going to be to use and abuse young Mr. Jackson.

Chapter 21

Kenna Martineau had quickly become an even bigger political sensation and had more than proven her value to the Republican ticket. She had been hitting the talk shows all weekend long and performing in spectacular form. The political pundits wanted to talk to her more than they wanted to talk to Governor Clark, and that was just the way Clark liked it. He could focus full-force on the job at hand, which was now more than just winning the presidential election. He could continue to consult experts and develop a comprehensive game plan for his presidency without being constantly inundated by the media. He had full faith in Martineau to get his message out.

This particular morning, Martineau had just finished wiping the floor with the tenacious crew from
Good Morning America
that had tried in vain to trip her up. She had the crew so flustered with her straight-forward answers and her relentless criticism of President Bonsam’s policies that they were reduced to taking long, slow pulls from their coffee cups and straightening out stacks of paper as they looked at one another with the dire hope that someone among them would come up with a way to prevent her from making them look even more foolish. Unfortunately for them, it was way too late for that. Even before the interview had ended, Drudge, Slate and many other political websites pounced mercilessly on the GMA team for letting Speaker Martineau get the best of them.

Martineau left the studio with her entourage and proceeded toward the elevators. As they rounded a hall corner, she stopped to look out a large window. The view of New York from Times Square Studios was impressive, but it brought back the painful memories of her husband’s death, which had occurred only a few short miles away.

She stepped into the elevator and let out a deep breath. It was exhausting to fire off criticism against the president with the whole world watching. The elevator doors closed and the lift started descending. Moments later, the elevator came to an abrupt stop, catching its passengers off-guard. Everyone onboard let out a “whoa” and looked around at each other. Seconds later a loud pop was heard followed by a small spray of sparks falling from the ceiling.

The lead Secret Service agent was closest to the door and reacted quickly. He ripped the small metal door of the box containing the emergency phone off its hinges and drove the edge through the crack of the elevator doors, and then he and the other two agents managed to pry the doors apart. They were over halfway down a floor, and the only way out was to climb up.

The sizzling sound of an electrical short could still be heard above them, and the smell of burning wires filled the elevator. The agents pulled Martineau forward and one yelled, “You’re first, ma’am,” as he and his partner grabbed Martineau by the shins and raised her upward onto the open floor above.

Martineau was momentarily dazed, but she quickly regained her composure. She laid flat on the floor and extended her hand into the elevator and shouted, “Come on!” One by one, she helped pull up her colleagues, who each dropped down beside her and helped her pull the remaining trapped passengers out of the elevator.

Suddenly, Martineau’s world slipped into slow motion. She screamed to the three agents still inside the elevator. The lead agent grabbed one of his fellow agents by the waist and hoisted him upward, and Martineau and the two staff members beside her lifted him up to the floor. He immediately pulled the staff members away from the opening and jumped down beside Martineau, throwing his hand down toward the agent that the leader was trying to hoist up next. In less than a second there was another loud pop followed by a much bigger spray of sparks.