Dead Man Running (34 page)

"Why were you hiding, child?"

"My granny said that the monsters were coming to get us.  Are you a monster?"  The tears had stopped and she viewed the creature knelling before her with clear brown eyes.  She wore blue jeans and a light blue blouse.  Her hair was braided and pulled back from her face.  Her grandmother had loved her and cared for her
well
.

He ignored her question.  "How did your grandmother know that monsters were coming?"

The child shrugged.  "She just kept saying that she felt
them
coming."

Most people have some level of psychic ability, thought Mookie.  He would have to make Wiley aware that some humans may be able to sense their coming, no matter the disguise they employ.

"How long have you been hiding in this apartment?"

"Since yesterday morning.  Granny told me to stay here until she came back for me."  She looked over Mookie again.  "You're not one of them monsters are you?"

Mookie shook his head.  "No, child, I'm not."  But her granny
, if she was truly elderly, likely
was and after her Wiley Warrior training would return to the apartment to find her still human granddaughter.  Mookie cringed – the reunion would not be what the child expected.

"Fact is, child, your granny wants me to take you to the police station."  He searched his memory for an
Oakland
police station that had not been co-opted by Wiley's converts. 
There was none. 

He would have to leave town –
Daly City
's PD was next on their list.  The child would be safe if left at
one of their stations
.

"She tole me to stay here," the girl said.  She shook her head, her braids flying.

Mookie crept closer.  "I lied.  I have to tell you something pretty bad and I need you to be a big girl.  Can you be a big girl for me and your granny?"

The girl nodded.  "I have to tell you something, child.  The monsters have got your granny.  All the older women here have been taken
– dead or converted
.  I need to get you to safety."

"My granny won't be back?"

"
If she comes back she'll be a
monster now," he said gently.

The girl cried once more and Mookie held her in his arms.  After several minutes she quieted.

"We need to go," he said.

"How we gonna get out with all these monsters?"

"We gonna just walk outta here," he said.  With Wiley occupied
by
his feast, no one had the authority to stop him.

Mookie and Tamesha took the elevator down to the building lobby. 
He took her hand in his.  He was careful to hustle the child through the lobby lest he encountered the girl's grandmother, who certainly would raise an alarm.

They cleared the lobby and stepped outside in
to
the crisp, cool
Northern California
afternoon.  The girl had no coat and her hand became cold in his. 

One of his men – Orem Barksdale – stood outside Wiley's limo.  It was parked in front of Mookie's Crown Vic.  Barksdale smiled as he saw the pair approach.

"Where you heading boss?  I hear the party is inside
.
"

Mookie stopped.  He caressed the girl's head and eyed her hungrily.  "Just a little something for later," he said.  "Gonna take her and stow her in the hotel."

The girl remained quiet but tears filled her eyes once more.
  She remembered her grandmother's words, about how a male stranger would save her, and she gained strength.  She would not run.  Everything will be okay.

Orem Barksdale approached, slid his
ice cold
hand along her arm.  "This here is choice," he said.  The child recoiled from his touch.

"It certainly is," Mookie
replied
.  He opened the back door to the Crown Vic and guided the girl inside.

"Be back in a few," he said as he closed the door.  "Might be a little longer if I get hungry on the way."  With one more lascivious glance at his underling, Mookie climbed into the driver seat.  He fired up the engine and drove away slowly.

"Everything's gonna be alright," he said.

"Was that a monster?" she asked minutes later, as they hit the
Bay
Bridge
.

"Yes it was young'un.  But you don't have to worry about monsters anymore."

He drove her to the
Daly City
police, telling them a story about how he found her wandering around town.  As she was coached, the girl gave the police a fake last name and address. 

That night s
he would spend the evening in an orphanage run
by social services.  There were no monsters there. 

Not yet, anyway.

Wiley's private plane – a Gulfstream II donated by admirers – taxied onto the
El Paso
runway. 
This was an unscheduled stop – Wiley had told the White House that he would come immediately back to DC to meet with diplomats ahead of the Ahmedinajad visit.  They didn't realize that Ben Wiley had made all the preparations that he needed to make for the bellicose Iranian and their advice would fall on deaf ears.

Besides, Wiley was curious.  What could the Tea Party possibly have to say to him?

A Lincoln Town Car waited on the tarmac and minutes later Wiley stood at the edge of an uncompleted road.

"Literally the road to nowhere," said his host,
We
st Texas Tea Party chairman Bernard
'Bucky'
Weatherly.
  Dry desert winds roiled the tumbleweeds across the six lanes of blacktop.  Between the grit filled wind and the unforgiving midday
Texas
sun, the environment was uncomfortable for Weatherly and his vice chair Mary Lou
Poteet.  Their guests – the slick Easterners Wiley and Mookie – did not seem bothered by the conditions.  Weatherly hurried to the point of the meeting.

"This road was funded by earmarks – placed in a military funding bill by our Republican representative.  This road was to lead to a new bedroom community west of town.  They started building then the bottom fell out of the real estate market.  They stopped building and the bedroom community became a ghost town.  That was in 2008."

Wiley looked around.  There was construction equipment and supplies
scattered
everywhere.  The equipment looked new – it certainly did not appear to have been abandoned for over two years.

"They started building this road after the collapse?"

"They used
the earmark money
to kick 'er off, then they
got more money from the
stimulus
," Poteet replied.
  "We tried to tell anybody with ears
that we didn't need this danged road but they wouldn't listen.  They was hell bent on spending money."  She waved one of her short arms toward the wide expanse of asphalt.

"I thought Democrats were responsible for the budget deficit," Mookie said with a smile.

"Us, too, mister," said Weatherly.  "Turns out all of DC is at the trough and we be danged if'n we can get their snouts out."

"Looks like someone got it stopped," Wiley said.

"They just temporarily ran out of money.  They plan to slip an earmark in the next military appropriations bill."

"You know, we gotta support our troops," Poteet
sneered
.

Wiley nodded. 
"I'm outraged about this waste, also.  I just don't know what you want me to do."

"Fair enough, Secretary Wiley.  You are looking at this tremendous waste of taxpayer money because you, sir, are the only hope that we in the Tea Party have of stopping this and other waste of taxpayer dollars.  Mary Lou?"

"My
'
day job
'
,
gentlemen
,
is IT Director for a midsized firm here in
El Paso
.
  We saw the 60 Minutes report regarding the work you are doing with HUD.  Our members were impressed but I was asked to verify the claims made in the story.  You see, we in the Tea Party do not trust the liberal media for accurate and unbiased information.  Especially as far as it concerns the Great Satan, Mr. Obama."

"Mary Lou…"

"Sorry.  I did my research.  I have back doors into government data bases and found that your monthly departmental expense and capital outlays have dropped in excess of thirty-nine percent since December of last year.  You have decapitated the upper management at HUD, flattening the organization.  You have reduced force by twenty-seven percent overall.  I even verified your claim of having eliminated the security force."

"I believe in good government," Wiley said.

"The funny thing is, the downsized have fallen completely off the government payroll.  In other words, I expected a shell game – the players simply moved to another government job or set up for two years of unemployment.  But these folks have moved on to the private sector or something.  The bottom line is, they no longer are taking money from the taxpayer.
 
My biggest
surprise
, with all due respect, was that you did not spare minorities.  In fact, minority workers were targeted at a higher rate than whites."

Wiley nodded.  "HUD has long been perceived as belonging to black folks.  This has been a patronage pit for forty years."

Mookie looked at his watch.  These people weren't telling them anything he didn't already know.  He took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow.

"You haven't told us why you wanted to speak with Mr. Wiley," he said.

"Mary Lou's research also uncovered that you have created a super
PAC.
  We can only assume that your PAC will be an instrument of supporting like minded folks or perhaps a future candidacy of your own."

Wiley nodded and the man continued.

"The West Texas Tea Party has sent your PAC a contribution of fifty thousand dollars.  That is merely a token of intent.  If, sir, you do plan on running for national office, the West Texas Tea Party is prepared to fully support you.  We have shared Mary Lou's data with the other Tea Party branches nationwide.  It is safe to say that our peers are as excited as we are."

"I appreciate your support," Wiley said.  He shook their hands.  "For now I'm working for this president."

"Can you convince him to do what you've done at HUD for the entire government?" Poteet asked.

"I'm a loyal ma
n
, Ms. Poteet.  You can't get me to say anything bad about the man I work for.  All I can say is
that
I'm committed to ruthlessly eliminating waste in government.  And I don't intend to let any party or person stop me."

The Tea Party regulars smiled at that.  In less than
one
hour that
statement
would be in
an email that would hit every Tea Party branch
nationwide
. 

Ben Wiley would achieve thousands of converts without killing a soul. 

Mookie Sills sat on the luxurious jet as it climbed above
El Paso
. 
While
Wiley was excited after the meeting, Mookie was decidedly nonplussed.  They were converting thousands of people.  What did they need with the Tea Party?  Ma and Pa Kettle down there didn't realize that Ben Wiley was downsizing government through mass murder. 
Would the Tea Party care even if they knew the real facts?
  Mookie rolled that question around in his head for a few minutes.

Probably not, he finally concluded.  Those people were so fanatical they made Wiley's undead legions look like slackers.  They wanted smaller government and they wouldn't be bothered about a little blood being s
pilled
.

In the Oval Office
President Obama read the Top Secret memo from his National Security Advisor.  It was two pages long
and had been delivered by secure messenger
.  It detailed a criminal conspiracy unlike any the nation had
ever
seen.  The conspiracy reached high in his government and directly threatened his life and that of his vice president.  The memo described mass murder on a level not seen on this continent since the war against the Plains Indian.

He got to the last
two
paragraph
s
:

"
The objective of the abomination calling itself Ben Wiley is world domination. 
He, it,
is a monster beyond the most evil
men
that have walked the Earth.  Even
the most evil, Hitler,
Stalin
, Columbus,
wished to sustain and perpetuate humanity.  Wiley wants to exterminate mankind.  His plan is to slaughter billions, leaving only enough humans to act as feed stock for his population of zombies.  As the Palestra video shows, he has developed a weapon of mass destruction.  He is clearly deploying that weapon in the guise of better government.  He cynically touts his downsizing of HUD while murdering hundreds, if not thousands, and converting thousands more.  He is gaining in financial, political and popular support with a grassroots movement among some in the Democratic
Party
to draft him for president in 2016, if not 2012.