Children of Hope

by Michael Fine

  “Quintavius Lancaster at your service, ma’am,” Quinn said. “My friends call me Quinn, and any friend of Charlie’s is a friend of mine, but you may call me anything you’d like. Anytime.” He smiled, and Hope was further charmed.

  “Nice to meet you, Boris,” Hope said, and Quinn exploded in a full-throated laugh.

  “Told you you’d like her,” Charlie said to Quinn, reading his friend’s expression. Then to Hope he said, “Quinn’s the best explosives guy on the planet.”

  “Demolition. We say ‘demolition’ now Charlie.” Quinn let out another chuckle. Hope realized she was going to have to watch herself around this man. He was sexy as hell.

  While Charlie and Quinn told each other bawdy jokes, the front door opened again. This time, a slender Indian man walked in. Like Quinn had done, he walked toward the table where the group was sitting.

  “Hi Charlie. Hey Quinn,” the man said.

  “Mister Patel!” Charlie boomed. “Please, come join us. Hope, I’d like you to meet Mister Patel. Mr. Patel, I’d like you to meet Hope Hunter.”

  “Hello Hope,” the man said. “My name is Sanam, but Charlie says he can never remember it. I think he’s pulling my leg, as you say, but what can I do?”

  Hope sized the man up. He wore small plastic frame glasses that didn’t hide his rich dark chocolate eyes, and he had a neatly trimmed goatee. She found herself liking him immediately. “It’s nice to meet you, Sanam.” She looked over at Charlie as if to shame him.

  “There’s always one in every class,” Charlie joked.

  “What’s your area of expertise?” Hope asked Sanam.

  “People say I’m a sensors and switches savant. Say that fast three times.” He giggled. “Charlie said you might need something unique. I’m intrigued.”

  Hope started to explain, but Charlie cut her off.

  “Let’s hold off just a bit,” Charlie said. “I’ve got one more guy joining us.” Through the years, Charlie had brought in various mercenaries now and again depending on the particular needs of a mission. Quinn and Sanam wondered who he’d invited this time.

  It was already 12:15. “Well, he’s late,” Quinn said. “I don’t like working with people who aren’t on time. It’s not professional.”

  Charlie didn’t want to tell Quinn that he’d actually told the last man to meet at 11:45 p.m. He wasn’t just fifteen minutes late, he was thirty minutes late.

  Finally, at 12:25, another man came into the restaurant. After he entered, he stood just inside the door and nervously looked around, almost like he was casing the joint like a burglar would. After thirty twitchy seconds, he finally made his way to the group assembled in the back.

  If Hope found Quinn attractive and charming, and Sanam likeable, this man repulsed her immediately. He had thinning, oily hair; acne-scarred skin; a scraggly goatee; and an overall demeanor that screamed drug addict. Or axe murder. Or both.

  “Glad you could join us, Eddie,” Charlie said. Eddie had worked with Charlie on a few of Charlie’s side jobs, but none with Quinn or Sanam to this point.

  Eddie Townsend introduced himself to everyone, and explained his profession, such as it was, proudly stating that he could get guns of any kind for anyone that wanted them.

  “You sell guns to gang members? Nutjobs? Angry ex-boyfriends?” Quinn asked Eddie, a hard edge to his voice.

  “I provide a service,” Eddie said. “That service happens to involve guns. And, yeah, that’s right, I don’t discriminate. Turns out the service I provide is highly valuable, too, if you know what I mean.”

  Quinn, already upset at the man’s tardiness, said, “Charlie, I can’t work with someone who sells guns to just anyone, and that are almost certainly used to hurt innocent people.” Quinn felt strongly that some people deserved violence be committed upon them. Hell, he, Charlie, and Sanam had been doing it themselves for years against some very bad people, although never with guns.” He looked at Eddie and added, “No offense.”

  “None taken,” Eddie said. He was used to people’s reaction to his profession and, if he was honest, to him personally.

  “Why don’t you listen to what Hope has in mind? I think you’ll understand why I felt the need to include Eddie here,” Charlie said to Quinn and Sanam. He hoped they would accept Eddie’s involvement in their project once they knew what Hope was thinking.

  “Please, proceed m’lady,” Quinn said to Hope. “Tell us why we are all here.”

  Hope took a deep breath and closed her eyes. This was it: the first step down a road she never imagined she would walk. She briefly explained the circumstances of Angel’s death and her stalwart opposition to the proposed Sanctity of Life bill, then moved on to describing her intentions. “In short, I want to attack the U.S. Senate, while they are in session, and impregnate Senator Royce Carrington. Yes, impregnate. With a fetus. And I want it to be covered live on C-SPAN.”

  She stopped and took a read of the men at the table. She waited for what felt like an eternity until Eddie, the gun guy, said, “Fuckin’ A, lady! That’s some seriously fucked up shit!” After a beat he added, “I love it!”

  Hope, who desperately wanted the group to support her plan, suddenly worried what it meant that this lunatic supported it. She turned to face Quinn and Sanam. “Guys?”

  Quinn asked, “You need me to help with a forced entry?”

  Charlie interjected. “I’m hoping that we won’t have to actually ignite any explosives. I want them as a deterrent. Assuming we can get in, we can place the explosives on the chamber door from the inside and inform the police or FBI that we’ve rigged the doors.”

  Hope added, “We need your talents in another way too, Quinn.” She took a sip of coffee and said, “I don’t want this man to have the option of removing the fetus I implant. I want you to help with a small explosive that I can somehow attach to the artificial womb I insert. No abortions for women? Well, no ‘abortion’”—she made air quotes with her hands—”for the douchebag from the great state of Mississippi, either.”

  Quinn couldn’t help himself. He started calculating how much C-4 would be needed, how much wire, …

  Hope continued, “I need the smaller explosive to be deadly to the host, but in no way dangerous to anyone around him. No innocent should be injured or put at risk. That’s non-negotiable.”

  “Is that why I’m here?” Sanam asked. “You need some kind of sensor or switch that will set the internal explosive off should the man attempt to remove his fetus?”

  “Exactly.”

  Sanam shook his head, “I don’t know. I’m not sure how to make that work. A tilt switch? A change in pressure? Maybe a—”

  “I still don’t like that we have to involve a gun dealer,” Quinn said, cutting off Sanam’s musings. He didn’t like the looks of this Eddie guy any more than Hope did.

  The group discussed the situation for over an hour. When it was approaching two in the morning, Hope finally said, “Well? Are you guys in or are you out? There’s less than a month before these Senators pass their precious ‘Sanctity of Life’ bill.”

  Sanam spoke in a quiet, serious voice. “This seems to be a plan borne of anger, not of clear thinking. This worries me.”

  “I can’t disagree with that,” Hope said. “But this is my mission. I’m doing this, somehow, some way. So I’ll ask again: are you in or are you out?”

  Quinn banged a hand on the table and declared, “I’m in.” Hope actually blushed. She—and Charlie—would never know that Quinn’s niece had gone for an off-the-books abortion a few years earlier and would never be able to have children because of the botched procedure.

  Eddie twitched and said, “Fuck yeah! Let’s stick it to the man!” Charlie had promised him ten grand for his help.

  “Sanam?”

  “Count me in,” Sanam said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

  “Thank you guys,” Charlie said.

  Hope told the men that the group would meet again in the Spirit of Justice pa
rk in Washington D.C. in three days, on the following Monday.

  “At noon, Eddie,” she said, looking directly at the man. It was all she could do not to look away, he repulsed her so much.

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Eddie said.

  “Be there. On time,” Quinn said to Eddie. How he hated unprofessional people.

  “Make reservations at separate hotels in the greater D.C. area. Not in D.C. proper. Understand? Eddie?”

  “Yeah, yeah, got it,” Eddie said. He hated how people talked to him.

  Charlie gave each man and Hope an envelope of spending money, and the meeting was adjourned.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Saturday, February 17 (the next day)

  North Fairfields High School

  Shreveport, Louisiana

  Senator Royce Carrington sat in the back of the school’s crowded “multi-use room” and tried to stay invisible. He wore jeans, a plaid wool shirt, and paint-splattered work boots, and had a Shreveport Swamp Dragons baseball cap pulled tightly on his head. The boots were from the back of his closet, from back when he was still willing and able to do some of the renovations around his house, and the hat was from a garage sale he’d visited on the way to the emergency School Board meeting. He hadn’t worn the jeans in years.

  Carrington looked around the room, which had seating for about a hundred people but currently held about twice that. Clusters of people—mostly parents of students at the school as best he could tell—stood and spoke in hushed tones. Dozens had pink public comment cards, which they intended to submit so they could speak for two minutes in front of the School Board. Most fanned themselves with their cards in a failed attempt to stay cool in the hot, stuffy room.

  Eventually, the members of the Board returned and took their seats on the room’s raised stage, which served as their dais. After a few minutes, all were settled and the Board President banged his gavel and officially announced that the meeting was now back in open session.

  A parent volunteer weaved through the crowd and picked up all of the comment cards, then made her way to where the Board Secretary sat and handed over the stack of cards. Every member of the Board knew from the size of the crowd and the height of the stack of comment cards that it was going to be a long night. The Board President made introductory remarks, pleading with anyone intending to speak to do so civilly and for audience members to refrain from any kind of outburst. He called the first speaker, Sam Doernbecher.

  A fortyish-looking man with thinning brown hair and wire-frame glasses walked nervously to the microphone in the center of the room, about ten feet from the Board Members on stage.

  “Good evening ladies and gentlemen of the Board, and members of the audience. My name is Sam Doernbecher. My daughter, Elizabeth, is a freshman here. We are practicing Christians in my household, but I do not believe that Mrs. Hyatt, or any other teacher here, has the right to share her faith with students at school. I support whatever punishment you feel appropriate, up to and including termination. Thank you.”

  Despite the Board President’s opening comments, the room erupted in chatter. Most of the people in the room either booed or yelled at the man, who quickly took his seat and tried to ignore the vitriol being spewed his way.

  The next eight speakers took the opposite view. One, an algebra teacher at the school and a good friend of Mrs. Hyatt, the woman at the center of the storm, said, “We should not be asked to compartmentalize our faith. If we truly believe in Christ and desire to follow Him, then our faith should impact every aspect of our lives, including what we do here leading our students.” This caused most of the crowd to erupt in applause.

  After another man had the audacity to state his opinion that Mrs. Hyatt should be fired immediately, the crowd became so unruly that the Board President had to bang on his gavel repeatedly in his attempt to bring order to the chaos. He eventually quieted the crowd before calling another teacher.

  “My name is Brenda Barnes, and I teach American History. Mrs. Hyatt is my department chair and she is an amazing teacher who is being treated horribly.”

  The crowd applauded and Brenda Barnes waited for quiet before continuing.

  “Every teacher at North Fairfields and at every other school in the country has preconceived ideas they bring with them into the classroom. But there’s a big difference. Ours are the Truth. Why should other teachers be able to spread their false ideas and their false philosophies while we’re being told to muzzle our True ones?”

  After another burst of applause and delay, Barnes delivered what she thought was her coup de grâce. “God’s truths are not just for Sunday mornings,” she said before taking her seat, a proud and defiant look on her face.

  Carrington sat, rapt by the spectacle of local democracy in action. Passions ran high on both sides of the issue, but at least in this room on this night, there were far more people supporting the teacher, Mrs. Hyatt, than not. He’d read in the local paper that, during a lesson on ancient Egypt, she’d shared her view that the teachings of Jesus were clearly the Truth compared to the polytheism of the Egyptians, and that a student told her parents and the parents complained to someone at the School District. The primary agenda item in tonight’s emergency session was whether the School Board would reprimand, suspend, or terminate the teacher.

  Eventually, everyone who wanted to speak had his or her opportunity to do so. Carrington found it interesting that, in his mind at least, most of the poor, uneducated parents used their two minutes to far greater effect than most of the teachers. After some back and forth about the need for a clear motion with a yes or no vote, one of the parent representatives on the Board made a motion.

  “I make a motion that we terminate Mrs. Hyatt’s contract with the school,” Mrs. Potter, a parent representative on the Board, said.

  “Second,” said the Vice President, a heavyset woman wearing huge hoop earrings and garish pink lipstick.

  “All right,” the Board President said, “I’ll go down the line, starting with Mrs. Potter. I’ll go last. The motion on the table is whether to terminate Mrs. Hyatt’s contract. An ‘aye’ vote is a vote to fire her. A ‘no’ vote is a vote not to fire her. Depending on the outcome of the vote, we may entertain other motions. Everyone clear on the motion?”

  The seven members of the Board nodded their heads.

  Six votes later, the vote was three to three and the teaching career of Mrs. Hyatt was in the hands of the Board President.

  “I vote ‘aye,’” he said somberly.

  And with that, Mrs. Hyatt’s fate was sealed. The crowd became so hostile that the security guards the Board President hired felt the need to step forward from the corners of the room to position themselves in front of the stage. Several members of the audience threw wadded up papers, empty bottles and cans, and other items at the guards and the members of the Board.

  Despite his preparation in hiring the guards, the Board President was afraid for his safety and that of his fellow Board members. He quickly called the meeting to a close. Within a minute, all four members who voted to fire the teacher were out the door, rushing for their cars. The other three stepped down into the crowd to commiserate with a cluster of parents in the audience.

  Amidst the chaos, Royce Carrington walked quietly out the back door with his cell phone on his ear. His call was to the head of a political action committee committed to promoting “Judeo-Christian heritage” in public schools.

  “Hello, Markus. It’s me, Royce. I’m in. Twenty-five million. I’ll get a check to you tomorrow.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Monday, February 19 (three days later)

  The Spirit of Justice Park near the Capitol Building

  Washington, D.C.

  24 days before vote on the Sanctity of Life bill

  Hope asked Charlie to meet her at the Spirit of Justice park fifteen minutes before their meeting with the others. He was waiting for her at the western fountain when she arrived.

  “Hiya kiddo,”
he said, waving to her as she walked up.

  “Hey Charlie.”

  Charlie noticed that Hope was shivering. He reached out and wrapped her scarf tighter around her neck and fully zipped her jacket.

  “Thanks. I swear I don’t know how people here do it. I took the metro to the Capitol South Station and only had to walk a block or two. What do the people who have to walk farther do? I mean, holy moly it’s cold.”

  Charlie rubbed his hands up and down Hope’s arms and enveloped her in his coat in an attempt to warm her up.

  “We’ll get a hot bowl of soup after we meet with the guys,” Charlie said. “I know a place nearby.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a thermos of coffee. “In the meantime, drink this.”

  Hope took the thermos appreciatively. “Thanks. I don’t know what I would do without you.” She took a sip and savored it. “Listen… are you sure about Eddie Townsend? The guy gives me the creeps. And he can’t even show up on time.”

  Charlie knew people’s reaction to Eddie. Hell, he felt repulsed by the guy too. But the man could get his hands on pretty much any kind of weapon Charlie had needed through the years.

  “He’s not the most punctual guy, I’ll grant you that,” Charlie said, “but he’s connected and can get us what we need. Like you said, we don’t really have a lot of time. Which means we don’t really have much choice.”

  “If you say so.” She took another sip of the piping hot coffee and thanked Charlie again.

  At noon, Sanam Patel and Quinn Lancaster walked up from different directions, Sanam from C Street and Quinn from D street.

  After everyone greeted each other, Quinn made a point of looking at his watch. It was 12:01 and Eddie Townsend was nowhere to be seen.

  “Charlie, I do not like working with people who don’t have their shit together enough to be on time.”

  “I know, I know. Hope and I were just talking about it. But we need the firepower he can provide. We’re talking about the U.S. Capitol for Christ’s sake. We’re going to need more than a couple of pea shooters.”