Dead Man Running (38 page)

He noticed her hand coming out of her coat. 
It was empty.  He listened and
there were no jack boots approaching or sirens in the distance.  He must have said the right thing.

"I've been funneling information back to a resistance movement led by the magical community in
New Orleans
.  My contact is a man named Manchester Lee.  I'll introduce you."

"What is their plan?" she asked.

"Destroy Wiley.  We believe by doing so the rest of the zombies lose their alpha and can easily be identified, captured and destroyed."

Mira
nodded.  "How are you going to get to Wiley?"

"We don't know yet.  We need t
he
right opportunity but his security is tight."

"He's going to make a move on the VP, you need to act soon.  Also, he has me developing an atomic zombie bomb, capable of converting whole cities."

"You're doing this?"

"I am but only to cover my other activity."

"Which is?"

"To develop a bomb to reverse the effect of the zombie bomb.  We need to save as many people as we can.  If I can reverse the effect we can eliminate Wiley's army of the undead.  Even if we can't destroy him we eliminate the foundation of his power."

"Why not use it on Wiley?"

"I doubt it would work.  Wiley is different, an almost perfect reanimated being."

Elias nodded. 
"
How close are you? 
How soon will you have it worked out?"

"I don't know. 
I'm struggling to develop the spell, the right mix of
ingredients
."
  She looked out to the sea.  "I wish Hamid was here to help me."

"We don't have a lot of time."

"I know that, Elias. 
I need the help of the Penn scientists and its slow going trying to fold the development of the reversal bomb
into
that of the atomic bomb.
  They're using tiny robots called nanobots – I think I can use them for the reverse bombs.
"

Elias thought for a moment.  "
He's going to bomb
our
cities
."

There was silence between them for several moments until Mira spoke. 
"How?"

"
Who knows – drones, high altitude
bombers?
  He might even resurrect the Space Shuttle.
"
  Elias smiled but Mira's face retained a serious and determined look.

"The specs account for heat levels consistent with the extreme heat of atmospheric reentry."

Elias stood
, tried to digest that tidbit
.  "We have to stop him."  He took her hand, helped her to
her
feet.

"I'm happy that we're working together on this, Elias," she said.  She leaned in and they kissed.

As they walked away, hand in hand, Elias' thought
s
went to another
Hidar
,
Hamid
.

Of course the man still must die.  He and
Manchester
would have to figure out how.  First, they would need to know where he
wa
s being held and
Mira
Hidar
was still best positioned to
lead them right to him.

He felt guilt
y
as he put her in a cab and gave the cabbie money for the outrageously high fare to Penn Station.

The guilt slowly faded, however.  He and she had unleashed this on the human race.  If
Hamid
had to die to stop it, so be it. 

What if she
had to
die too
?
 

Unbidden
to his mind's eye
appeared
the face of the child in
Harlem
who had been converted.

"So be it," he said out loud in the empty subway train.  He looked around although he knew he was alone. 
"So be it," he echoed, slipping lower in the hard plastic seat and closing his eyes to the darkness outside his window.
 

He could not so easily shut out the darkness in his heart.  That, along with overpowering guilt, would not be easily tamed.

TWENTY-
TWO

THE
CAPITAL
BUILDING
-
WASHINGTON
DC
– MAY 2012

The public hearing between the HUD Secretary and the Senate committee that provided oversight for his department could best be described as a love fest. 
Republicans, Democrats, even the one Independent,
made love to the
man
in a public verbal orgy
.  Buffeted by positive feedback from towns large and small in their home states, each politician outdid the last heaping praise in the man's lap.

Benjamin Wiley – noted undead sexual animal – sustained an erection during most of the hearing.

The Republicans made a point of asking how Wiley could convince his boss to implement Wiley's methods across the entire Federal government, as "the deficits are getting out of hand."

To this suggestion, every time the GOP Senators repeated it, Wiley responded the same.  "
With
the
ongoing
Afghan
war, the Administration is challenged to stop the momentum of growing deficits.  We simply must give our troops all that they need to succeed.  On the domestic side, we need to spend to jumpstart the economy.  However, President Obama has implanted dozens of HUD's operational methods into the Federal government's DNA.  As we
continue to meet
the challenges
in our path
, you will see the fruit of his efforts."

The hearing had spanned the morning and Ben Wiley soon grew bored with the adulation.  His answers became shorter, his smile less brilliant, his ten thousand dollar suit getting a bit rumpled in the coat sleeves.
  Finally he came to the last of the Senators, Barbara Boxer from
California
.

"Secretary Wiley, I also am very impressed with what you have done with HUD in
little more than a
year.  I am also grateful to you for effectively making a personal plea to the Iranian leadership, ending the threat of a nuclear
Middle East
."

Wiley managed to smile, nod his head.

"I'd like to focus on a
facet of the HUD miracle that has caught my attention.  In our
California
public housing units, the population has decreased significantly, in some by fifty percent."  She shuffled a set of papers dramatically, placing reading glasses on her patrician nose to great effect.

"I have before me a summary of hundreds of complaints from relatives of those who used to live in public housing.  The complaints say that the
ir friends or family members were
living in one of your units one day, then gone the next.  Completely disappeared with no forwarding address and not available by phone or on the Internet.  Mr. Secretary, are you aware of this?"

Wiley sat straighter in his seat, the bored, casual look gone, replaced by one of utter, bereft concern.

"Senator, I am aware of the issue.  I have a possible explanation."

"I'll be delighted to hear it," Boxer interjected.

"We have made great strides in giving our residents the authority to police their own house, if you will.  One by-product of that is some residents are unhappy that they cannot continue their bad habits
under our roof.  They move on to other housing, where perhaps they have greater freedom to do ill.  And perhaps this takes them to other towns, with few or no regard for the friends and relatives they leave behind."

"Mr. Secretary, that suggests that 'the missing' really are
n't
missing and, moreover,
that they
are criminals."  She shuffled the papers again, dramatically. 

And they say all the best actresses are in
Hollywood
or
on
Broadway.

"I have children who are missing, Mr. Secretary.  There are mothers, even grandmothers.  What about them?   Are they criminals too, moving on to greener pastures?"

Ben Wiley smiled the
cold
smile he has used hundreds of times – before he removed a human's head.

"Of course not, Senator.  My suggestion only covers a percentage of those who are missing.  May I also say that two thousand three hundred Americans go missing daily, close to a million a
year
.
  I'll be glad to look at your data but the residents of public housing certainly fit the profile of those who go missing – poor, female, minority and desperate.  We in HUD have never studied the issue – possibly more appropriate for a
u
niversity or non profit – but there is likely a high overlap between residents of public housing and the missing.  And, as you know, many missing are missing voluntarily."

"Understood, Mr. Secretary.
  My point in bringing this to
the attention of
this committee
and the American people
is to perhaps shine a light on the other side of your
sterling
achievements: the depopulation of
America
's public housing.  And I have a hard time viewing these statistics…." 
There
wa
s a
nother flourish of shuffling and stacking papers.  "….as a coincidence with your programs at HUD."

"But shouldn't there be fewer Americans in public housing,
s
enator?"

"Public housing is a safety net for millions."

"As it should be but it was not designed to be a lifetime safety net.  People should get the help they need, then move on to housing they have fully paid for with the sweat of their efforts."

"You sound like a Republican," Boxer spat.

"I will refer the problem of the missing housing residents to the FBI, Senator Boxer.  The issue will be a priority for me and the department.  However, by the end of this decade, I wouldn't be happier to preside over a HUD which has no residents, public housing gone the way of the phone booth, into the ashcan of history."

Lieberman
, the committee chair, cut off Boxer's reply.
  "I think, Senator Boxer, your time is at an end."  He smiled in Wiley's direction.  "I believe the secretary has more than answered your questions and responded to your concerns.  May I add that I too share his vision that one day all housing everywhere in this wonderful country of ours will be privately owned or rented, with no public contribution.  I believe that the Founding Fathers would agree with that goal."  He banged the gavel.  "The witness is dismissed and the hearing is ended."  He banged the gavel again.

One hour later Benjamin Wiley met with Senator Boxer privately in a room off the Senate's cloakroom.  It was a meeting requested – begged perhaps – by Wiley.  Once seated, there was no conversation.  A silver globe was produced, deployed and a half hour later a transformed Boxer walked out of the room.  She understood now where the public housing residents had 'disappeared' to.
  She left Wiley behind the locked door to clean up the detritus of her re-creation, her rebirth as a new, undead, but glorious thing.

Her stomach was already growling as she hit the floor of the Senate.  She was looking forward to her first
meal;
one where she
w
ould make
yet
another human disappear.

Jan sat in her office at the DC townhouse she shared with her husband.  She was ready to begin her 'work day' as CEO of Wiley's super PAC called Come Together America.  It was the role Wiley had assigned her after one of her complaints that she felt useless just sitting around their home all day. 

She had impressive business cards and her face on the PAC's website but she soon found it a hollow victory. 

She had studied super PAC rules and made sure the PAC's legion of lawyers and accountants kept up on the voluminous Federal paperwork.  She spoke to Wiley supporters, thanking them for their donations, and touched base with the web designers and publicists who maintained the PAC's and her public face.
There had been several newspaper interviews, a spread in Ess
ence magazine even, but that attention had
mostly died down.  Now she spent most of her time acknowledging cash transfers from Wiley's adoring legions, zombie and human, and overseeing the deposit of those funds in the PAC's bank accounts.  As CEO it was her fiduciary responsibility to do so.

The rest of her day was spent opening the snail mail correspondence that came to the house.  Some of that contained money – checks and some cash – sent by the more technologically challenged of Wiley's Warriors.  She legally acknowledged and deposited that money, too, via secure courier.  This work depressed
her
– she felt as if she was back being someone
's
glorified secretary and it added to what she acknowledged to be her mild depression.