“The Clintons and the Bushes,” Jimmie said.
“This is bigger than our families,” Hillary said. “We’re talking about the Democrats and Republicans.”
“So wait another two years for the next presidential election,” Jimmie said.
“The United States may not be around in two years if we get drawn into this conflict with Great Britain. They fight dirty,” Jeb! said.
Jimmie folded the brochure. “Your brother got us into that mess in Iraq, and we’re still here. Deeper in debt and less respected around the world, but what else is new?”
“If you’re expecting me to defend my brother, you don’t know Jeb!”
Not many people do know Jeb!, Jimmie thought.
“What’s done is done,” Hillary said. “The conflict in the Middle East was a limited skirmish. Yes, it destabilized the region . . . but it didn’t destabilize the world. Al Qaeda is wiped out, and ISIS has been contained. But war with the UK is another beast entirely.”
“Two beasts. A lion and a unicorn,” interjected Jeb! “Because they’re on the coat of arms over there.”
“Shut up, Jeb!”
“Sorry.”
Hillary continued, “My point is, France took our side in the Revolutionary War. Whose side will they take this time, especially after Trump’s call to resculpt the Statue of Liberty so she shows more leg? Russia, on the other hand, will have Trump’s back. Especially after he let Putin fight to a hero’s death against that panda. That will put America at odds with almost every country we currently call allies. The entire geopolitical map is about to be redrawn, Mr. Bernwood.”
“Unless you take Trump down,” Jimmie said.
“Unless we take his entire administration down,” Jeb! said. “They’re corrupt from top to bottom. We’ll need to clean house—starting with the man in charge.”
“Tom Brady is next in line,” Jimmie said.
“The vice president is in outer space,” Hillary said. “You can’t govern from outer space. It’s in the Constitution.”
“The speaker of the house will be sworn in,” Jeb! said. “Ryan is a party guy.”
“He likes to party, does he?” Jimmie asked.
“He’s a card-carrying Republican,” Hillary said.
“I was making a joke,” Jimmie said.
“I don’t know what those are,” Hillary said.
So the Socialist Justice Warriors wanted what was best for America? Jimmie wasn’t buying it. Hillary and Jeb!’s pitch to him to “save the country” came off as sour grapes. They’d both had their chance against Trump. The American people had spoken—loud and clear. In record numbers. The people trusted Trump to make the right decisions for their country. If you listened to polls, most of them were happy with their choice. Who was Jimmie to argue with them? While the Socialist Justice Warriors spoke about Trump as if he were a dictator, they were the ones trying to force themselves down America’s throat. They were the ones attempting to dismantle the democracy.
No wonder Jimmie fucking hated politics.
“You don’t have a mole in the White House, then?” Jimmie asked, fishing around to see if Christie was part of their organization.
“If we did, we wouldn’t have had to kidnap your girlfriend,” Hillary said. “Since you refused to assist the Socialist Justice Warriors, we’ve had to resort to . . . unsavory tactics. You left us no choice.”
Hillary had known what she was doing when she called Cat his “girlfriend.” He thought about disputing the taunt, but keeping his emotions in check was something he’d just picked up from Trump’s book.
“Set the tapes on the ground and scoot them over,” Hillary demanded.
Jimmie felt the recorder in his jacket pocket but didn’t remove it. “Where’s Cat?”
“She’s safe,” Jeb! said. “Just give us the damn tapes. Time is running out.”
“Tell me where she is, or I drop the tapes into the toilet.”
“You wouldn’t,” Jeb! said. “You wouldn’t dare. You know how valuable—”
“He’s bluffing,” Hillary said. “He probably doesn’t even have them on him.”
Jimmie pressed PLAY on the recorder. Trump’s voice echoed in the stall: Here’s what you do. You finance a boat, then you buy the boat company and run it into the ground. They close up shop, boom—free boat.
He paused it.
“God dammit,” Jeb! cried, pounding weakly on the divider. “Don’t do it.”
“He has duplicates somewhere,” Hillary said, unfazed.
“I couldn’t risk making a copy,” Jimmie said. “The interview sessions are on a hard drive inside this recorder. No tapes. No copies. This is it.”
According to Trump: The Art of the Deal, “the worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you’re dead.” Right now, Jeb! Bush was sweating desperation. Hillary was playing it cool. Jimmie wondered if she’d colored Trump’s book.
“Your girlfriend is tied up in the Taken exhibit,” Hillary said.
That was all Jimmie wanted to know. That was all he needed to know.
He unlocked the door.
“You think you’re just going to walk out of here without handing over the device?” Hillary said. “Even if you get past both of our men at the restroom door, you’ll never make it out of the museum alive. And neither will your girlfriend.”
“You’ll get the recorder as soon as I make sure she’s safe,” Jimmie said. “I’m in charge now. I’m the goddamn man. I’m—”
The overhead lights went out. This wasn’t an uncommon occurrence in Trump’s United States. You just sort of had to expect the rolling brownouts, as all caps on energy consumption had been lifted. Usually, the backup generators in most buildings kicked in after ten or fifteen seconds. Life would return to normal.
But this time, the darkness did not abate. Really? Did this have to happen right in the middle of his big speech where he turned the tables on the kidnappers?
A loud bang outside of the restroom startled Jimmie. It was quickly followed by another, and another. Gunshots.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Killing Everybody
“Did you double-cross us, Jimmie?” Hillary asked in the darkness.
“How could I double-cross you? We were never on the same page to begin with.”
Something landed on the floor outside the stalls with a metallic clang and started hissing like a snake. The room quickly filled with smoke. Jimmie covered his mouth with his T-shirt and crept up onto the toilet seat, where he crouched like Spider-Man.
A red laser cut through the darkness and danced above the stall door. The tiny shaft of light would have only been a red dot if not for the smoke clouding the air. Perched like he was on the toilet, Jimmie Bernwood was a shitting duck.
The red shaft of light passed under the stalls, bouncing off the shoes of his stallmates. He closed his eyes as it passed over the bare tile in front of his toilet. The gunshots outside indicated to him that somebody had taken out the Socialist Justice Warriors standing guard . . . but that didn’t necessarily mean whoever was doing the shooting was after Hillary and Jeb! More likely, they were after the same thing everyone else seemed to be interested in: the Dorset recordings. And Jimmie didn’t need to be alive to hand them over.
He opened his eyes just as gunfire erupted outside of the stalls. In such close quarters, it was loud enough to take what was left of Jimmie’s hearing and leave a ringing in its place. After the first few rapid-fire shots, he stopped hearing them. The shooting was still going on, though, because the flashes of the muzzles were lighting up the restroom. It was as if somebody were throwing a Fourth of July fireworks show just for his private amusement. Some real asshole.
Jimmie braced for the bullets to enter his body and deliver him to the Lord. Although he’d always been an atheist, he prayed to God that the assassins left enough of him for at least a partially open casket. Those closed-casket affairs were jus
t depressing as all shit—you always wondered just how mangled the corpse was beneath the pine lid.
Finally, the light show stopped.
Jimmie ran a hand over his chest and stomach, checking for wounds. Not a bullet hole to be found. He thanked God for saving him and went back to being an atheist.
The ringing in his ears slowly wound down, and he could make out a couple of voices arguing on the other side of the stall door. The lights flickered back on. Jimmie glanced down to see how his stallmates had fared, then quickly looked away. The floor was a mess of busted ceramic from the toilet seats, plaster chunks from the walls . . . and blood. So much blood. One of Jeb!’s loafers had somehow found its way back into Jimmie’s stall. Part of a foot was still stuck in it, but it had come undone from the rest of Jeb!’s body.
There were footsteps across the broken tile outside Jimmie’s stall. Then a pause. He could sense somebody standing there, contemplating his fate. An assassin. Jimmie decided to go down swinging.
“You’ll never take me alive,” he said, gripping the only weapon he had—the recorder—with both hands. His voice was trembling and weak.
The words had sounded so much better in his head.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
High Score: 1,072
“If I show up with your casket in tow, the president will probably revoke my Medal of Honor,” the man outside the stall said. His voice was like gravel. “But it’s your choice, amigo. I get paid by the pound.”
“The president?” Jimmie said. “You mean President Trump?”
“Goddamn right I mean President Trump. He’s our boss—the commander in chief. And we have orders to bag your sorry ass. Open the door.”
Jimmie unlocked the door and opened it a crack. The man he was talking to was dressed in camo from head to toe. Jimmie recognized the soldier’s rifle as an FN SCAR (Special Operations Forces Combat Assault Rifle, an acronym he knew from his days playing the original Human Hiroshima on Xbox—er, his roommate’s days of playing video games).
“Who’s ‘we’?” Jimmie asked.
“You’re James Bernwood?” the soldier asked, ignoring his question.
Jimmie eyed the man’s hands cradling the rifle. He nodded in the affirmative.
“I’m Sergeant Spencer Paul,” the soldier said. “And we’re SEAL Team Sixty-Nine.”
“The Spencer Paul?” Jimmie asked. “The Human Hiroshima?”
“If you’re asking if I’m the Spencer Paul who personally shot and killed one thousand seventy-two enemy combatants—the most confirmed kills in US military history—and who was the subject of the Bill O’Reilly book Killing Everybody, then yes.”
Jimmie heard more footsteps. Three figures trotted from the fog to form a semicircle around Jimmie’s stall with the celebrated Navy SEAL. “The perimeter is secure, sir,” one of the other soldiers, a tough-as-buffalo-jerky-sounding woman, said. “Is this the baggage?”
“Baggage confirmed,” Paul said, nodding.
Jimmie stepped out of the stall. The restroom was torn apart. It reminded him of his off-campus apartment senior year.
Immediately, all four soldiers pointed their weapons at Jimmie. A wet, warm feeling spread underneath his butt. He may have pissed himself. It wouldn’t have been the first time, but it would have been the first time he’d done so while sober.
“What’s that in your hand?” Paul shouted.
Jimmie raised his hands. “It’s just a recording—”
“Set it on the ground.”
He set it on the floor so that they could inspect it. Paul fired a single shot through it, causing Jimmie’s heart to skip a beat. While it was practically worthless, it was all Jimmie had.
“Let’s secure the LZ and get the hell out of here,” Paul said.
“There’s a woman being held captive,” Jimmie said. “On the third floor, I think.”
Paul nodded to the other soldiers, who filed out of the restroom. Paul waited behind with Jimmie, who wondered if kills on US soil counted toward Spencer Paul’s astounding total. Probably not, he guessed.
Still, what had happened here today wasn’t going to be swept under a rug. Covering up an apparent murder at the White House was one thing; covering up the brutal assassination of two former presidential candidates—one of whom, as the first lady, was supposed to still be under Secret Service protection—was beyond comprehension.
Jimmie had been wrong when he thought Trump was untouchable as far as scandal went. This had all happened in the middle of the day. With families around, even. And according to Spencer Paul, the order for the assault had come directly from the president himself.
Trump’s political career was over. The recorder (or what was left of it) lying on the tile hardly mattered now, if it ever did in the first place.
A cheer erupted from outside in the hallway, and President Trump entered the restroom. It seemed that his political career wasn’t over quite yet.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Deny Everything
Spencer Paul saluted the commander in chief, who returned with an awkward wave of the hand. Trump still hadn’t quite gotten the hang of being a politician. He was constantly fist-bumping hands raised for high fives and slapping babies instead of kissing them. The whole “politicians kissing babies” thing had never sat right with Jimmie, though, so he forgave Trump for that one.
Trump peeked into the stalls and frowned. “Jesus, you SEALs don’t play around.”
“No, sir, we do not,” Paul said.
“Christie’s on his way over here to clean this up,” Trump said. Then, to Jimmie, he added, “The country thanks you for your help unveiling the plot against the presidency. Shame it had to go down like this on a perfectly fine holiday weekend, but I suppose cutting my trip to Mar-a-Lago short was worth it to extinguish a domestic terror threat. As I’m sure you understand, Jimmie, we’ll need to keep all of this top secret. Not a word to anyone—even your mother.”
“My mother’s dead.”
“Then that should make it easy not to tell her.”
“Did they find Cat?” Jimmie blurted.
“The reporter?” Trump said. He looked to Paul, who radioed the other SEALs for an update.
“The baggage has been located,” the celebrity SEAL said. “We’re taking her to the nearest hospital as a precaution. She’s in shock, but she otherwise appears to be unharmed.”
Jimmie was glad to hear that. He wished the SEALs would stop referring to people they rescued as “baggage,” but it was probably a better term than what they called them when they weren’t in the room.
“What about the people out there?” Jimmie said. “There was a military operation on American soil. In broad daylight. People had to have taken pictures. They had to have heard the gunshots—”
“All part of a demonstration at the International Spy Museum,” Trump said. “As far as any of the turdfaces know, there were no live rounds fired during the exhibition. They do interactive stuff like this all the time around here. The kids love it.”
Trump stumbled over the broken recorder and kicked it out of the way. He seemed rather pleased with the mayhem. “And if anyone finds out what really happened . . . I signed an executive order last night classifying these SJW clowns as domestic terrorists. I’m keeping America safe.”
You’re keeping you safe, Jimmie thought.
Instead of saying what was on his mind, though, he said, “Emma was murdered last night.”
“I heard. You did an excellent job with the plumbing work,” Trump said. “When I told you we had a leak, I had no idea you would find it so quickly. Can’t believe she slipped under my radar. That’s what a nice set of gams will do to a guy! England almost had us by the balls there. And today—well, you’ve certainly gone above and beyond my expectations, Jimmie. Rooting out a spy and leading these blue-cap-wearing bozos straight to us? You deserve a reward.”
Trump pulled out a business card. “Use this at the Watergate hotel spa for fifteen percent off anythi
ng,” the president said. “My treat.”
Trump took a step, then turned back to Jimmie. “Stick with me, kid, and you’ll go places. Just saying, there’s going to be an opening soon for governor of Wales. Think about it.”
Trump slapped Spencer Paul on the back, and the two men walked out together, laughing. Jimmie shook his head and dropped the card.
Trump was coming unhinged—if he’d ever been hinged in the first place. Putin’s death hadn’t tamed his bravado. Congress was going to come around any day now. With the leaders of the resistance movement and who knew how many of their foot soldiers out of the way, there was no one standing between the president and his insane thirst for war with the United Kingdom.
No one but Jimmie Bernwood.
Bill Clinton burst into the restroom with a flurry of energy. “You guys need to check out this shirt I got at the gift . . . shop . . .” His voice trailed off as he surveyed the destruction, wide-eyed. The shirt he was wearing read “DENY EVERYTHING.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. President,” Jimmie said. “Your wife . . .”
Bill caught his breath and poked his head into the stall where Hillary lay. Or what was left of her. He turned quickly away from the gruesome scene. A single tear streaked down his rosy cheek. Bill pulled Jimmie in for a hug. They’d never met before, but how could you say no to a grieving man?
“Hug your loved ones tonight,” Bill said. “Life is precious.”
Jimmie promised him he would.
Bill wiped the tear away. “Say, do you know how late that Bond girls exhibit is open upstairs?”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
To Catch a Rat
On Jimmie’s way out of the museum, he saw Cat being helped into the back of an ambulance. She brushed the paramedics away and gave Jimmie a quick hug.
The Day of the Donald Page 16
