The NAFTA Blueprint
Page 37
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I ignored her and kept walking out of the apartment in the direction towards my street. I knew a bus route that would drop me off a block from the Chronicle’s office, but I was startled by the government Suburban parked between the two blocks. Igor was sitting inside with the window lowered, “Where are you going Michael, come inside for a second.”
With reluctance I stepped inside the vehicle, “I saw the news report last night about the whole Kansas City thing―congratulations.”
I looked over at him lamping in approval. “Now it’s time for me to play my part, I’m doing what I’ve agreed to. I finished writing the story. I’m on my way now to hand it over to my boss in person.”
“Listen to this,” said Igor. He turned up the radio which was reporting a fire sweeping through the 152-year-old Texas Governor’s mansion causing severe damage. No injuries were reported and according to sources the Governor’s family was in Stockholm at the time of the incident.
“Fuck, there was nobody there! I didn’t kill anyone―the plot failed.”
He was distracted and stared with blankness towards the street without glancing in my direction. His gloved hands clenched the steering wheel and we sat there in a moment of awkward silence. He had burned the Governor’s mansion as he had claimed.
“Michael,” a long pause followed, “I need your help.”
“What is it, what’s going on?” I asked, but I was afraid of his response. Whatever Igor wanted me to do I knew there was no turning back―it was like making a deal with the devil.
“The Governor’s family is in Sweden at the moment, but he’s here, the Governor will be at the state capitol building in Austin this morning. It might be the only chance I get.”
“Okay, so…what does that have to do with me?” I asked.
“You said you wanted payback for Pencho, well, I need your help on this one. The plan went to shit, so I only have this window of opportunity to assassinate him before it’s too late. I know you said you didn’t get your hands dirty, but I need a getaway driver. You won’t even have to get out of the car. If someone is trailing me, I’ll turn myself in or something and you can drive off like it never happened. What do you say? You still want to get this murderer? Did you really mean what you said about getting payback?”
I sat in the vehicle with my heart pounding hard within my chest. It reminded me of pressure groups in high school when I hung out with the thugged-out gangsters who wanted me to drive the car when they did beer runs out of liquor stores. This wasn’t a favor you asked the average person, this was the planned assassination of a state governor. It was treason. I couldn’t believe he was asking me to do this, but in all fairness I had responded with a strong emotional content when I found out Pencho had been murdered. I had asked to be a part of this cycle of violence. I was afraid of going to prison, I was afraid of being an accomplice to a murder, I was afraid of God’s wrath, I was afraid of losing my soul, but most important I was afraid of the government of the United States of America.
“Look Michael, I would understand if you said no. I don’t want you to feel pressured into doing something you don’t want to. I would have asked you in the apartment after you saw the video footage when you were pumped up but I didn’t want to say anything in front of the girl. I don’t know what’s going on with you two, but I didn’t think she needed to know about this. It’s quite simple actually―you’ll drop me off on 12th St in front of Waterloo Park, after that you’ll have no clue as to where or what I’ll be doing. The less you know the better. When I come back we’ll turn right on Trinity St and then we’ll head over to the freeway going northbound…I’ll spare you the details.”
Just then a public bus zoomed past us with a billboard promoting Bulgaria―Pencho Slaveykov was speaking out to me, it was an omen provided to me as an encouragement to go forward with these plans. I was making history.
“No, it’s alright…I’ll join you,” I said, after a brief period of contemplation.