Dead Man Running (43 page)

She let go of his hand, found a chair and pulled it over.  She sat and took her grandfather's hand again.

Mira
's vision blurred and she could no longer see her grandfather lying next to her. She was in her grandfather's office behind the magic shop in
Brooklyn
.  She was looking at the emerald green carpet on the office floor.  She could not adjust her eyes to see anything else in the room, not his desk, chairs or his extensive collection of books.

In her shock at seeing this vision, she let go of her grandfather's hand.  The vision went away and she was staring at
her
grandfather's face once again.

She steeled herself and
again
took
Hamid
's hand.  The old man faded from view and once again she was seated in
Hamid
's office looking at nothing but his plush carpet.

She knew instantly that her mentor was sending her a message. 
What did it mean?  What was the significance of the carpet?

Mira
tried the experiment several times over the next twenty-seven minutes with the same result – she always saw the carpet and nothing else.

A smiling Major Pritchett opened the door exactly thirty minutes after admitting
Mira
.  Without a word,
Mira
gently kissed
Hamid
on the lips – a family custom.  She left with the major and they made their way to the helipad.

She allowed the helicopter to return her to
Philadelphia
.  After a brief stop at her apartment
, she caught a cab to
30
th
Street
Station and
took
the first Amtrak train heading north.

It was nearly midnight before she stood on
Hamid
's emerald green carpet. 
The room was empty. 
The family had shuttered the magic shop, sent everything to storage for the next generation when it re-opened the shop, if there was a next generation.

Seated
in the middle of the floor
, the room lit only by dim alleyway lights and a sliver of moonlight
, s
he attempted to communicate with
Hamid
but failed.  Her grandfather was lost to her – except for his ability to implant the vision of the carpet in her mind.

She got on her hands and knees and crawled over every inch of the carpet.  She paused frequently, testing for echoes of supernatural power.  After
three hours she was exhausted and empty handed.  She had felt nothing.

Perhaps what
Hamid
wanted her to find was more concrete
.

She stepped over to the corner of the room nearest the door, reached down and pulled on the carpet.  The carpet came from beneath the baseboard and she managed to pull the corner to the center of the room.

She examined the underside of the carpet and the floor underneath that.  She found nothing.  She tested
the floor
with her boot heels
, looking
for hollow or false floorboards.  There were none.  She replaced the carpet and attacked the other corners.

She reached the fourth corner and pulled back the carpet.  She found nothing again.  As she was replacing the carpet she noticed that, on the edge, was written '023
2
'.  She examined the entire edge of the carpet she had displaced and found no other writing.  She tucked the carpet back under the baseboard.

In turn, she pulled back the other corners until she had '906', '566' and '347' to add to the other numer
als
. 
Awakening
her iPad,
retrieved earlier from her apartment,
she entered everything into Google and hit
enter
.
  The search returned nothing.

She tried changing the sequence of digits.  Finally she tried '5663479060232'.

The search returned one result: an eBook on Amazon called The Devil's Mystery.  The digits were the book's ISBN number. 
Mira
clicked on the link and was taken to the book's page on Amazon.  The author was someone named Joseph Perry III.  The description said that the story was about a young wizard who had to solve a mystery created by the Devil or else the world would be destroyed.

Mira
clicked on the book to purchase it.   The book downloaded into her Kindle app and she began to read.

The sun was coming up when she came to a relevant passage – the reason why
Hamid
had directed her attention so:

Young Perry
did not trust Brahms Woolsey.  He conspired to create a spy among Woolsey's minions.  He would use that spy to inform Woolsey's rival regarding Woolsey's plans and activities.  The spy would be loyal to Perry while seemingly loyal to Woolsey.  To create this spy took fantastic magic, and Perry was up to the task.  As he had turned the spy into the undead, thus Perry turned the undead into the living, with his loyalty imbedded and assured.

Young Perry used the following magic to affect the change.

Mira
read the spell and the accompanying potion.  It was so simple, but brilliant at the same time.  With it, she would be able to save thousands who had been turned by Wiley.

But who was
Hamid
's spy?  Why hadn't
Hamid
told her?  Who was 'Wiley's enemy' that was kept informed by the spy?  Was the spy still tethered to
Hamid
given her grandfather's condition?

Mira
shut down her iPad and got to her feet.  She was tired but energized at the same time. 
It was all very simple now –
substitute Hamid's formula in
the zombie bombs
, and later, the atomic bombs
.  Finally she would have the long sought
'reverse zombie bomb'.

She had reviewed her stolen files with the nanobot technology.  She theorized that she could simply substitute the blue liquid – the zombie producing elixir – with the reversal potion.  Until now she did not have the reversal potion.

How would she test it?  How would she deploy it, if successful?

Her mind was racing as she closed and locked the shop's front door.

She ran for the subway, determined to get back to Philly to begin work on saving
mankind
.

TWENTY-
F
IVE

On a pleasant June Sunday
, the
Robert
C.
Weaver
Building
– HUD's headquarters – was nearly empty.  On the top floor, in a conference room positioned in the center of the floor, a very important meeting was being held.

Secretary Wiley met
with his core team of advisors: Mookie Sills, Rebecca Singler and two
undead
Elias had not met before, Archibald Kosart and Sylvia Arnell. 

After Wiley's opening remarks indicating that the
'
Wiley Way
' was progressing well, the group got down to business.  Security
head
Mookie led off with his update.

"We continue our infiltration of the government's security organizations, at the local, state and federal levels.  Our immersion in these apparatus has led us to acquire knowledge regarding the government's surveillance of us."

"Any change in status?" Wiley asked.

"None.  We know that they have moles in our organization.  We know that the information has been fed back to the FBI and the CIA.  There are still significant firewalls between the organizations, despite the lessons learned from 911.  The multitude of other federal intelligence agencies – including those under the DOD umbrella and the NSA – do not have us on their radar.  Not yet.  At the local level, there have been reports from the NYPD but our friends in the department and city government have squashed those."

"The usual method?" asked Kosart.

Mookie nodded.  "Anyone who has touched those reports has been either killed or converted."

"What about the president?  What does he know?"

Mookie
leaned
across the table and made eye contact with his boss.  "He's been briefed by the FBI Director.  The sense from the Director was that Obama did not take the report seriously."

"The CIA?"

"That's an unknown, sir."

"We need to know what they are doing."

"I'm working on that.  The CIA Director is extremely well protected and he prefers CIA lodgings to his own."

"Make it happen, Mookie.  I need to know what he knows."

"It will
get done
, sir, very soon.  We've turned his assistant director and we'll have him bomb the Director as soon as feasible."

Wiley nodded and smiled.  "Tell me about our friend
named
Joe."

"We have converted his entire Secret Service detail, including all back-ups.  We are a go on Biden whenever you say."

"Excellent old friend.  Unless there is an objection from around this table, I say we go."  He l
ooked at Elias, then the others
.

"Go," said Becky Sings.  "That will then prompt Obama to name you to the ticket."

"
Move forward
with
it Mookie," Wiley said.

"How sure are you that the president will name you to replace Biden?" Elias asked.  It was the first time, other than greetings, he had spoke
n
at the meeting.

"I have people inside the White House, Elias.  They've been in the room as the possibility of dropping Biden has been discussed.  They've seen my poll numbers – eighty percent approval even
including
Republicans – and they are salivating. 
With me on the ticket the Republican nominee – likely Mitt Romney – doesn't stand a chance. 
They've mapped out how to use me in the campaign.  They've even written a script for the president's talk with Joe.  Loyalty is the only thing preventing Obama from pulling the trigger and putting the
human
gaff machine out to pasture."

"His conversion and subsequent decision to retire clears the path for Ben and eases Obama's conscience
,
"
added Kosart, Wiley's political director.

Wiley turned his attention back to Mookie.  "When will you convert Biden?"

"He's with the wife and grandkids today.  He's coming back to the VP residence tomorrow afternoon, alone.  I'll do it then."

"I want you to be there and personally oversee it."

"Yes, sir."

"No mistakes.  And I want a phone call when it's over.
"  He paused and looked through his aid
e
. "And record it.  I want to see.
"

"Of course."

Wiley smiled and turned his attention to Arnell.  "Sylvia, tell me about our farms."

"
Mr. Secretary
, we have over two hundred sites now.  We have migrated approximately thirty thousand human beings to those site
s
, of which we have already rendered nearly ten thousand as food stuff back to our followers."

"How are we doing logistically?"

"We have our own fully secure railroad and trucking resources, as well as having compromised the agencies that oversee those industries."

"So, no surprise inspection to uncover six dozen frozen heads in the back of a refrigerated box car?"

"No, sir.  We also have
coordinated
with Mr. Sills' security forces to shadow each shipment.  Local law enforcement or any other disruption will be handled quickly and quietly."

Mookie nodded.  "There's always room for one more head in that box car," he said.

Wiley laughed and the others joined in.

He turned to Singler, who sat on his immediate right.  "We need to feed our people.  Can you ramp up the transition of more humans to Sylvia's locations?"

"Not without creating undue attention.  I thought we wanted to maintain a low profile until we're ready for the ultimate conversion
?
"

Wiley nodded.  "Correct, but our people are hungry.  You need to be more aggressive.  Use Wiley's Warriors to convert the curious – police, reporters, or relatives."

Singler nodded.  "I'll make it happen, Ben."

"That brings us to our discussion of the ultimate conversion, code named Golden Shower.  Elias, I see that the
highway appropriations bill
signed by the president included ISS funding and language approving access to the ISS by nongovernmental spacecraft.
   Good job.
"