Jim McGill 04 The Last Ballot Cast, Part 1

by Joseph Flynn

  Sarge looked up from his studies and noticed Ellie.

  Glanced curiously at the leather courier bag on her shoulder.

  The name tag on Sarge’s shirt said Hobart.

  Ellie came straight to the point. “I’d like a gun and some ammunition, please.”

  The sergeant put on a pair of wire-rim glasses to bring Ellie into focus. Great, she thought, a nearsighted guy learning his away around a weapon he’d never fired before. The SEALs were going to have a tough time getting past him.

  “Are you a member of the militia, Sister?” Hobart asked.

  “The militia?” Ellie asked.

  “The soldiers of Salvation’s Path.”

  The sergeant turned to show her the flag patch on the right shoulder of his uniform. The red and white stripes and the blue rectangle in the upper left corner were identical to an American flag, but the stars weren’t laid out in nine parallel rows. Instead, they formed a cross. No separation of church and state here.

  “No, Sergeant. I’m a member of the press,” Ellie said.

  To his credit, Hobart didn’t point the LAW at her, but his eyes narrowed.

  Ellie quickly explained, “Reverend Godfrey invited me here to interview him. I’m with WorldWide News.”

  Now, the sergeant smiled. He put his weapon down and extended a hand to Ellie.

  “Well, why didn’t you say so? I don’t watch anything but WorldWide.”

  A fan, Ellie thought. That might help. She shook his hand.

  “So you’ll give me a gun?”

  Hobart’s happy expression fell back to neutral.

  “Are you thinking of signing up? I might have a set of cammies that’d fit you.”

  No, Ellie thought, she was not going to put on a uniform. She was counting on her civilian clothing to afford her some measure of protection when the feds stormed the place.

  “I can’t do that, Sergeant. I’m an observer. I have to stay honest and forthright.”

  Hobart’s head bobbed. “That’s the WorldWide slogan, all right, and I wouldn’t have my news any other way. But if you don’t want to join up, why do you want a gun?”

  Ellie told him, “The same reason anyone wants a gun: If I get into a bad spot, I want the other guy to say, ‘Oh, shit.’”

  The sergeant smiled as though she’d given the verbatim answer to a catechism question.

  “Yeah, that’d be great, wouldn’t it?” he said. “I gave my wife a LadySmith for our last anniversary. A sweet little .38 revolver. Just the right size for her hand.”

  Domestic bliss, Ellie thought.

  But now she knew she wouldn’t walk away unarmed.

  So she decided to interview Sergeant Hobart and find out just what kind of a guy he was, thinking he could go toe to toe with law enforcement. No, now it would be the military. She would bet on that. The sergeant was not an uneducated man; he had a pharmacy degree. He told her there were two doctors and an oral surgeon at Salvation’s Path to bind up the troops’ wounds.

  Ellie wanted to ask if there was anyone versed in mortuary science on hand.

  Some questions, though, you just had to leave unspoken.

  If the other medical guys fell in the line of duty, Hobart continued, he’d read up on being a combat medic. He said he had two children and he was standing with the reverend in part because he wanted to retake the country for them. He showed no sign of lunacy while making his declaration, no hint of doubt that he was doing the right thing.

  Ellie took careful notes. Robert Hobart didn’t know it yet but she was going to make him famous. She got him to show her just what kinds of firepower the soldiers of Salvation’s Path had available to them. Besides the assault rifles, they had not one but a half-dozen LAWs … and then there was an empty crate with Cyrillic markings on it that made Ellie very uneasy.

  She knew from having produced a special on America’s love affair with weaponry that anyone with enough money could buy almost any kind of gun imaginable. You could buy a .50 caliber sniper rifle that could kill someone more than a mile away. But there was one piece of ordnance no civilian was supposed to have, ever.

  “That’s not what I think it is, is it?” Ellie asked.

  “I don’t know. What do you think it is?”

  “A shipping container for Russian surface-to-air missile launchers.” Getting their hands on SAMs was every terrorist’s wet dream. “SA-7 or SA-9.”

  Hobart looked around as if someone might be eavesdropping.

  A sly smile appeared on his face and Ellie saw another side of the man.

  In a whisper, he told her, “SA-9. You sure know your business.”

  “I know something else,” Ellie said. “Our military jets have countermeasures against these things. You fire one at, say, an F-15, you’re almost certain to miss. But if there’s a commercial jet anywhere nearby, you’ll kill lots innocent people.”

  Hobart’s smile disappeared.

  “You sure about that?”

  Ellie told the guy who’d been studying a LAW manual minutes earlier she was sure.

  “Please pass the word to anyone who has one of these things,” she said.

  “I sure will. Right away. We don’t want to shoot Grandma out of the sky.”

  “No, we don’t.”

  Grateful for the warning, the sergeant told Ellie to look around at what else they had on hand and be sure to let him know if there was anything else he needed to warn people about. He went into a cubicle in a corner of the room and made a phone call.

  Must have been some kind of internal hard-wired system the feds hadn’t been able to jam, Ellie thought. More likely, though, the government had been smart enough to let it be as they eavesdropped. She’d heard rumors the NSA had found a way to turn people’s house phones into listening devices; no need to plant bugs. Was the reverend’s high command savvy enough to consider the possibility snoopers were at work and maybe they should speak to each other in tongues? She didn’t think so.

  Ellie found a stash of Beretta 92s, the standard sidearm of the U.S. Army. She helped herself to one and continued shopping. She added three clips of ammunition and four sets of Maxcuff plastic restraints to her cart and did an express check-out, no credit card necessary. She put everything into her courier’s bag.

  Hobart was still on the phone as Ellie waved goodbye to him.

  “You’re good with the other stuff,” she said.

  Like she was talking about so many kids’ toys.

  He nodded and smiled at her. Gave her a thumbs-up.

  Now, taking a deep breath, she’d have to pretend she had a pair of big brass balls. The only way to get out of this mess legally, professionally and in one piece, she’d decided, was to get the drop on Reverend Burke Godfrey and have him tied up with a ribbon and a bow when the government hard boys came to collect him. She was sure the feds would make at least one more phone call to Godfrey to urge him to give up and avoid bloodshed.

  She intended to pick up his phone when it rang.

  Tell the feds Godfrey was ready for pick up.

  Hope to hell she didn’t have to kill anyone to make that happen.

  Mango Mary’s, Key West, Florida

  For the first time in his life, Linley Boland exchanged cash for a car.

  The transaction took place at 4:30 a.m., a half-hour after Mango Mary’s bar had closed, two minutes after the cleaning crew had left and thirty seconds after Mary had locked the front door.

  Boland put ten grand on the bar and Mary gave him the keys to her four-year-old Jeep Wrangler Soft Top.

  “You want a last drink, Jackie?” Mary asked.

  Boland had introduced himself as Jackie Richmond, a kid he’d known growing up. Jackie had been into street racing. He’d had talent as a driver, but he got his ticket punched when a guy who’d lost his girlfriend to Jackie showed up at a race and threw a steam iron at Jackie’s car. The damn thing caught Jackie bang on his head just as he shifted into high gear. That might have been enough to kill him, but jumping
a curb and hitting a brick wall surely did.

  Several of Jackie’s friend ran down the guy who threw the iron.

  Boland went to Jackie’s wrecked car. One look was enough to tell him Jackie was dead, and would have no further use for the contents of his wallet. Boland didn’t take any money or credit cards. Didn’t take the picture of the girl whose wayward heart had caused all the trouble. All he took were Jackie’s driver’s license and his Social Security card.

  There was a fair resemblance between Boland and Jackie and with the Social Security card as backup, he’d never had a bit of trouble getting a new license in Jackie’s name. When Boland had gone over to the guys beating the iron-tosser and told them Jackie was dead, that was it for the punk. Boland slipped away without trying to get a lick in.

  What with two guys getting killed and six more getting charged with murder, the cops didn’t sweat the fact that Jackie had been driving without a license.

  Thing was, Jackie Richmond was the identity of last resort for Boland. He’d never used it before. A guy got killed by a flying steam iron, you had to think maybe anyone with his name was going to be unlucky.

  Only now, Linley Boland figured nobody’s luck could be worse than his. He almost got caught trying to steal the tricked-out Chevy the president’s henchman used. He did get caught trying to steal a Porsche in Baltimore, and just barely made bail. Then he tried to nail a hot Mercedes in Naples, should have been a gimme, and wound up killing the geezer at the wheel and his old witch of a wife, and had to leave the car behind.

  Having someone throw an iron at him would probably mean things were looking up.

  He told Mary, “I’ll have whatever your drinking.”

  “Who says I’m drinking anything?”

  “If that’s the case, I’m good, too.”

  He’d had a Land Shark Lager when he’d entered the bar at midnight. After that, he’d switched to ginger ale. Didn’t remember how many of them he’d had. Bet Mary could tell him, though. She’d started sizing him up the minute he’d stepped into the place.

  Decided he looked like someone who might have the money and the disposition for the deal she had in mind. She’d said she needed a loan of ten grand before the sun came up, which wasn’t far off now. She didn’t tell him why she needed the money and he didn’t ask.

  She told him he could hold her ride as collateral. She’d repay him within a week.

  Boland asked to see the title. It would have been very foolish for a car thief to get busted driving a hot car he was holding as surety for a loan. To his expert eye, the title looked legit.

  His only condition for the loan was that Mary give him a lead on where he might rent a quiet room in a private home for an indefinite time. She’d looked at him, trying to decide if he might be a crazy who got hard hurting people.

  Or maybe he was just trying to avoid someone like that.

  She’d told him she might know a place.

  Mary took a bottle off the back bar. Chivas Regal, twelve years old. Poured two shots.

  “How about you let me drop you off and I use the Jeep to run my errand?” she asked.

  “Sure, as long as you make sure I get tucked in somewhere first.”

  She took out another key and said, “My place. Spare room’s toward the back.”

  They touched glasses and drank.

  “I’m not going to regret this, am I, Jackie?” she asked.

  “Not at all. I’m clean, quiet and keep my hands to myself. In fact, if I’m staying with you, you might as well keep your car key. I could use some exercise, and this town looks like a good place for walking.”

  “I’ve got a bicycle you could use,” Mary told him.

  “Never learned to ride one,” Jackie said.

  GWU Hospital — Washington, D.C.

  Kenny McGill opened his eyes. Slowly. Like somebody else was turning a crank to move his lids. The world that lay before him was a blur. The quality of light he perceived, though, looked familiar. Fluorescent. Neither a heavenly glow nor a hellish glare. That was good, he thought.

  He extended the fingers of his right hand.

  Felt the polished cotton of a bed sheet.

  He flared his nostrils and knew from the first sniff he was still in the hospital.

  Alive.

  He’d come through the transplant and now he had … Patti’s bone marrow cells inside him. They hadn’t told him who his donor would be. He just felt it. And there was no other reason he could think of that Patti’s face had just popped up in his mind. She was smiling at him.

  He tried to say, “Thank you,” but his throat was too dry to speak.

  So he just let the words form in his mind. Patti would know he was grateful.

  The light before his eyes dimmed and for a second Kenny feared that he was losing consciousness, maybe even that he was dying. Then he felt a hand take his. It was a rubbery feeling hand, but it was still completely reassuring.

  He tried to speak again and this time was able to croak, “Mom?”

  “Yes, honey, it’s me.”

  Kenny felt the corners of his mouth rise. That seemed like someone else was doing the work, too. He didn’t care, as long as Mom could see his smile, knew he was happy she was there. He wanted to look at her.

  After a couple tries, he said, “Can’t see right.”

  One shadow stepped back and another moved forward.

  Now, Kenny was sure someone else was gently holding his eyelids open, first one eye, then the other. He felt drops of something wet land on his eyes. Then he was able to blink and his vision cleared. He saw a woman wearing a surgical mask. He got the impression she was smiling at him. She stepped back and his mother moved forward. She, too, was wearing a mask and a cap over her hair. But he’d know Mom’s eyes anywhere.

  She had a cup in her hand with a bent straw sticking out of it.

  “Would you like a sip of water, honey?” she asked.

  More than anything in the world, Kenny thought. Mom understood without his saying a word. She leaned forward and put the straw between his lips. She was wearing transparent gloves. Explained the rubbery hand he’d felt. The water was delicious, made his throat feel so much better.

  He wanted to drink a gallon of it, but Mom moved the straw out of his mouth after a few sips, and he knew he’d had enough. The drops had cleared his vision to the point where he could see Mom and the nurse were the only people in the room.

  “Where’s Dad? Abbie and Caitie?”

  “I’ll get your father in just a minute. The girls are sleeping. It’s still quite early.”

  At the moment, Kenny hadn’t reacquired a sense of time. Early? For what?

  He thought to ask one more question.

  “How’s Patti?”

  One room over from Kenny, James J. McGill sat in a chair at the side of the bed on which Patti lay sleeping. Her immune system was sufficiently functional that he didn’t need to wear surgical garb to protect against infection. He had, however, showered and shaved at the hospital during the night and at his request, Blessing, the head butler at the White House, had brought him a clean set of his DePaul University sweat clothes and a new pair of sneakers.

  In the room with him were Artemus Nicolaides, the White House physician, and two female Secret Service special agents. More of their colleagues were stationed in and around the building. Elspeth Kendry, McGill’s personal threat assessment coordinator, stepped into the room. She crouched beside his chair and whispered good news into his ear.

  “Clare Tracy came through her donation without a hitch. The little girl who received her bone marrow cells seems to be doing well, too.”

  McGill smiled. Almost thirty years had passed without his seeing Clare, but when his old college sweetheart had heard Kenny needed a donor, she’d volunteered without hesitation. Had been a perfect match, too. But when it was determined that Patti was also a match for Kenny, Clare had graciously stepped aside, and made a donation to another child.

  Before McGill co
uld ask for an update on his son, Elspeth told him, “Kenny has awakened. He’s speaking with Mrs. Enquist.” Carolyn. McGill’s ex. Kenny’s mother.

  A tremor of relief passed through McGill.

  He clenched a fist in support of his son.

  There might be setbacks, but Kenny was going to make it.

  “You want to gown up and see him?” Elspeth asked him.

  The medical team was allowing only one family visitor in the room at a time, until Kenny’s immune system was firmly reestablished.

  “Not yet,” he said. “Let Carolyn have as much time as she needs. She or Kenny will let me know when it’s my turn.”

  McGill turned to look at Patti’s heart monitor.

  It showed a steady, normal rhythm.

  “The president is looking strong, sir,” Elspeth said.

  McGill nodded. He’d half-convinced himself that Patti’s recovery depended on his force of will to keep things running down the right track. Might be a lifelong frame of mind for him.

  “If you don’t need me for anything else, sir, I have to meet with SAC Crogher at the White House. Special Agent Ky will be able to reach me, if you find something for me to do.”

  Elspeth had just straightened up when McGill beckoned her back to his side.

  He told her, “I honestly try not to jerk Celsus around too much. In a perverse way, I’ve come to respect the man. That being said, if the powers that be decide a human sacrifice is required for what happened at Vice President Wyman’s house, I won’t let it be you. You tell SAC Crogher, or the director, if either of them tries to reassign you, that I said you’re golden. You’re staying right where you are.” After a pause, McGill added, “Tell Celsus I said he’s golden, too.”

  Special Agent Kendry stood again and saluted McGill.

  He went back to watching his wife’s heart monitor.

  Made sure the damn thing didn’t get any funny ideas.

  Tried to guess what Patti would say about his decision to continue with the transplant.

  Dumbarton Oaks

  The late Nathan Mindel’s financial standing had been nowhere near that of billionaire Andrew Hudson Grant, but he’d been a successful tax attorney and had left Galia, Aaron and Joshua comfortably situated. Except for a total of four years when her sons were infants and toddlers, Galia had always worked, too. So when Patricia Darden Grant moved to Pennsylvania Avenue, Galia found a very nice house in Dumbarton Oaks and paid cash.