The Last Election (11 page)

Martineau yelled, “No!” but she couldn’t stop what was about to come. The agent beside her pulled her away from the opening just as the elevator gave way, plunging the two remaining agents to their deaths. As the sound of a terrible crashing and crunching of metal reached Martineau’s ears, she rolled onto her back and cried in sorrow.

Within minutes, a rescue crew arrived on the floor and attentively treated those fortunate enough to escape with their lives. A paramedic wrapped a blanket around Martineau and carefully examined her for injuries and shock. Another paramedic was tending to her assistant, however, as he went through the procedures, his eyes were totally fixated on Kenna Martineau. A minute later he slipped off down the hallway, pulling out a cell phone as he walked. He was not looking forward to this call at all. He punched the speed dial button that took him straight to his boss.

“Yeah?” said the voice on the other end.

“Sir, the mission failed, the target survived,” said the shadow agent who was posing as a paramedic.

“Go back and kill her!” screamed Agent Jorge Delgado.

Chapter 22
 

Clay Jackson found himself at yet another gun show with his militia brethren. He was certain that it was at an event much like this that the hillbilly roles for
Deliverance
were cast. Clay had traveled all the way to Martinsburg, West Virginia, for this event with Lane’s top two lieutenants, Spencer Boyd and Bud Kenner. Their collective IQ was only slightly higher than that of your average primate, making them the most intelligent members of the chapter and the natural choice for Lane’s assistants, Clay surmised.

The three men wandered the aisles of the auditorium, thumbing AK-47s,
Mausers
, World War Two vintage M-1
Garnands
, and any and every kind of pistol you could name. Kenner had a laundry list of ammo to purchase for Lane, so he and Boyd wandered off to the ammo aisle.
 
Clay decided to stop off at the souvenir stand, where he purchased two “Impeach Bonsam” bumper stickers as gifts for Kenner and Boyd.
  

Over the last few weeks, he had slowly begun to earn Colonel Lane’s trust. That was no small feat, seeing that Lane was the most paranoid person he had ever met. Every vehicle that entered his compound was searched for hidden weapons or explosives, and the drivers were patted down, even if they were active members of the branch. Lane never traveled without bodyguards, and his routes were planned in advance with contingency routes identified should something go wrong.
 
 

Clay made his way back to the rifle aisle and saw Kenner and Boyd heading his way, each pulling a hand truck loaded to the top with boxes of ammo. “Looks like y’all found what you were looking for. Oh, and here, these are for you,” Clay said as he handed a bumper sticker to each of them.

“Thanks, Clay,” said Kenner as he took the sticker. He looked at it and said, “What does ‘impeach’ mean? Is that some way to kill somebody?” Clay just nodded his head yes.

Boyd tapped on the box on the top of his stack and said, “We did pretty good, but they
ain’t
got no 12-gauge shells.”

Clay cringed on the inside.
Ain’t
-got-no.
Clay found it mentally taxing to be around these gomers. He could feel his ability to hold an intelligent conversation slowly deteriorate with every passing minute he spent with Kenner and Boyd. It was going to be an unadulterated joy to wax them and every other member of Lane’s group. This was a dream assignment.
And to think it came from the president himself…

Clay was just like all the other recruits that Delgado deceived. Delgado lured his recruits with wild tales about covert government operations of national importance that his agency was ordered to carry out, and he could only do that with the help of local spies. Delgado enjoyed telling his recruits that they were on a secret mission for the president. It amplified the perverse thrill he got while disposing of them once their services were no longer needed.
 
 
 

Chapter 23
 

Agent Delgado was surprised when he received a message from a White House staff member by the name of Craig Dolan, stating that President Bonsam wanted to speak to him. Dolan was merely a low-level presidential aide who worked in the Communications Office in the West Wing, however, he was also the lead shadow agent stationed at the White House and one of President Bonsam’s most trusted spies. Delgado and Dolan had come up through the ranks together as agents for Bonsam and had known each other for several years. Dolan, one of the few white agents in Bonsam’s spy network, possessed a strong backbone when it came to covert operations and had proven himself time and again. Delgado liked Dolan and considered him a first-rate agent, even though he found Dolan’s alternative lifestyle extremely distasteful. Gay or not, Delgado respected Dolan, for he understood what it was like to be lumped into a category of society that the majority of Americans looked down on.

Delgado was still smarting from the ass-chewing he had received from Bonsam a week earlier following the botched hit on Kenna Martineau. Bonsam’s outrage had been scathing, and Delgado dreaded the thought of experiencing more of that outrage at tonight’s meeting. He once again found himself on the grounds of Camp David, only this time he was being escorted into the Aspen Lodge. He was led into the main sitting room, where he saw President Bonsam sitting in an armchair near the fireplace. Delgado froze. The image of Bonsam sitting beside a roaring fire was strangely unnerving.

Delgado tried to remain calm as he took a seat in the armchair next to Bonsam, but he could feel beads of sweat forming on his forehead. Bonsam was in comfortable clothes, leaning back and looking relaxed. He held a glass of scotch in one hand, and a cigarette in the other. Bonsam stared into the crackling fireplace. Delgado held his breath as he looked at Bonsam. He was fearful that yet another torrid outburst was about to come.

However, President Bonsam spoke calmly. “Jorge, last night a vision came to me while I slept. It was awe inspiring.”

Delgado remained speechless. The only sounds came from the popping of the logs in the fireplace as they rapidly burned. Another uncomfortable minute passed before the president spoke again.

“Jorge, this vision brought to me a magnificent plan, a plan that will eliminate any chance that Governor Clark has of stealing the election.” For the first time since Delgado arrived Bonsam took his eyes off the fireplace. He looked at Delgado, but Delgado avoided direct eye contact.

“I need your help to bring this plan to fruition, Jorge,” Bonsam continued, “but first you will need to make some drastic changes to your mission to eliminate the KKK in Michigan.”

Chapter 24

“Hey, Moon Goddess! The oceans are rising, Jupiter has aligned with Mars, cats and dogs are living together! My God, they were right, it’s the end of the world as we know it!”

Ixchel
Cobán
gave her classmate Patrick a blank stare and thought, “Does he really think his stupid remarks about the Maya prophecies are still funny?”

Ixchel was a kind and likable young woman who was normally polite and professional, but when people like Patrick became
irritating
, she never hesitated to put them in their place. “Shouldn’t you be concerned with more pressing matters, Patrick, such as, say, the fact that you haven’t gotten laid since your freshman year?”

Patrick’s face turned red with embarrassment as everyone in the University of Virginia’s archaeology lab let out a collective, “
Phhffft
!”

“Really Patrick, you are starting to exhibit all sorts of homosexual tendencies these days,” she said in jest. “You should get some help. Or perhaps, a boyfriend.”

“Go back to Guatemala, Moon Goddess!”

Daniel
Adan
jumped in and sarcastically said, “Whoa, nice comeback, Patrick. You should do stand-up.” Daniel was the top grad student on the Ancient Maya Civilization Studies team at the university.

“Don’t waste your breath on him, Daniel, he is nothing more than an insignificant annoyance, kind of like a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe that you just can’t get rid of,” Ixchel said with a smile, flipping back her long black hair.

Oh God, did I really just flip back my hair? Could I be more obvious?
Ixchel had been attracted to Daniel since the first time she saw him lecture on the ancient temple of
Chichén
Itzá
. He had a head of thick black hair, and the strong facial features and deep dark eyes of his Moroccan ancestors. He worked out every day and it showed. More than once Ixchel had caught herself checking out his buff body, but to Ixchel, Daniel was more than just your ordinary hunk. Daniel was the consummate gentleman and treated Ixchel with kindness and respect, which she found quite alluring.
  
 

“Really? Because I was thinking he was more along the lines of a mosquito that buzzes in your ear when you’re trying to sleep,” replied Daniel as he gazed at Ixchel.

For Daniel, the attraction was mutual. Ixchel was a total package, with flawless olive skin, brilliant white teeth, dark sultry eyes, and long, straight, silky black hair. Daniel often found himself imagining holding her voluptuous body in his arms and feeling her luscious breasts pressed against his chest. What made Ixchel even more attractive to Daniel was that she was by far the preeminent undergrad in the entire Anthropology Department. She was a fabulous archaeologist, and her insights into ancient Maya civilizations were unmatched by anyone he had ever encountered.

Ixchel was a direct descendant of the Maya and she felt an inexplicable connection to her Maya heritage. Her ancestors might have been the people who carved the Maya calendar themselves. With all the hoopla surrounding the impending “end of the world” predictions associated with the Maya calendar, she avoided the cosmic nonsense that was running rampant through Hollywood, television, and poorly written novels. There were no comets, no black holes, and no phantom planets on a collision course with Earth. NASA had long ago proven that absolutely nothing was going to happen when the Earth passed through the Milky Way’s galactic plane. That event would be about as sensational as Y2K.

Even the calendar’s predicted end date of December 21, 2012, was just an arbitrary date that scientists studying Maya archaeology came up with to impress others in the scientific community. They found the Maya calendar to be consistently precise, however, it was the Gregorian calendar that had so many lapses and gaps over the years that it was impossible to synch the two. In reality, no one knew an exact date. The best estimate that scientists had ever developed had the calendar ending some time during a span of over several months before or several months after the twenty-first of December.

She was certain that there would be no world-ending calamity from the stars. For as long as she could remember, she had possessed an indescribable feeling that the prophecy’s true meaning was beyond comprehension. She could still remember as a child, intently listening to the stories of the ancient Maya civilization as told by her great-grandmother, Ixazaluoh. Ixazaluoh had lived to be 107. Her stories had nothing to do with cosmic catastrophes. Her stories warned of evil. Ixazaluoh was one of the chosen few who understood that the ancient Maya prophecies foretold of a monstrous evil more powerful than the world had ever seen, an evil that came from the depths of humanity itself.

Chapter
25

The next morning Daniel walked into the lab with a noticeable spring in his step. “What’s up, Dan-o?” Ixchel asked, looking up from an impressed sheet of Maya pictographs she was translating.

“I just got some interesting news. Great news. Once-in-a-lifetime news,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. He was enjoying teasing her.

“Well? Give it up already,” Ixchel said with a mock impatient tone. She scowled, crossed her arms over her chest, and began tapping her foot. She was holding back the urge to flip her hair.