Dead Man Running (40 page)

On the way he did a mental check of his apartment – he had placed his and
Manchester
's dishes in the dishwasher.  The Thai takeout containers were safely in the trash, the bottle of wine tucked into the refrigerator.  There was no evidence that Manchester Lee had been in the apartment.

Elias sat in the love seat opposite the couch, where
Manchester
had been seated ten minutes prior.  Wiley and Mookie sat on the couch.  His goons were stationed one outside and one inside the apartment door.

Wiley snapped his fingers and Mookie produced a manila envelope.  Wiley reached into the envelope and pulled
out
a group of photographs.

"I know the value of a healthy sex life so I won't take too much of your time.  These people are why I am here."

Elias looked at the photographs.  The subjects were unknown to him except for the long shot of Manchester Lee leaving the
Verizon
Center
.
 
Another clandestine meeting?

Elias was well aware of Mookie and Wiley watching him as he looked over the photographs.
  He decided that he would need to lie, aggressively.

"Do you recognize anyone here?" Mookie asked.

Elias pointed to an older woman with short dark hair.  "This woman, I see her sometimes outside the Starbucks I frequent."

"Has she ever spoken to you?"  Wiley asked.

Elias looked both men in the eyes, in turn.  "Never but she always seems to be there when I am."

"Why didn't you alert us to this?" Mookie asked.

Elias
shrugged
and
maintained eye contact with Mookie.  "I didn't think much about it, actually."

"We need to place that Starbucks under surveillance," said Wiley.

"I'll take care of it," Mookie replied.

"Who are these people?" Elias asked.

"Terrorists," Wiley replied.

"They call themselves the Magical Resistance," said Mookie.  "It began among the community of voodoo queens and soothsayers in
New Orleans
.  It has spread to other parts of the nation."

"Their goal is to destroy me and
our country
.  They want to take us off course," Wiley said.

"What do we do about them?" Elias asked.  "Do they have any chance to stop our plans?"

Wiley smiled, patted him on the hand as if comforting a child.  "
There is n
o possib
ility they
succeed.  My people are finding and eliminating them as we speak.  We are closing in on him, her and him." 
Wiley's finger ended up on the picture of
Manchester Lee.

Just then his cell phone buzzed on his hip.  The two zombies stared at the phone.

"Probably that lady," Mookie said with a grin.

"You better answer it, Elias.  She's missing you,"
laugh
ed Wiley.  He playfully grabbed his crotch and Mookie howled like a wolf.

Since his death and resurrection, Elias had never seen Wiley so….human.  He was almost his old self – just smarter, stronger with a murderous streak bent on world domination via genocide.

His phone stopped buzzing and a chime sounded as he received a text.  He slid the phone out of its cradle and looked at the text message.  'Delayed?' the message read.

Elias typed in a reply.  'Yes see you later' he replied back.  He put his phone away, grateful that Wiley and Mookie could not see his screen.  The name
Manchester
was visible plain as day, a potentially fatal mistake under the circumstances.

"Now that your romantic life is under control, there is more that we need to discuss," Wiley said.

"Legislative matters?" Elias asked and Wiley nodded.

"
As part of the highway appropriation bill I've had the Administration add funding for the
I
nternational Space Station and
language that gives private spacecraft the ability to dock at the station.  We
'll soon
have
converts
on board the ISS and the funding will allow us to build delivery systems on the structure."

"Delivery systems for what?"
Elias asked, although he knew the answer.

"Later," Wiley responded.  "Right now I need you to push this legislation with our Democrat
ic
friends.  They're being a problem for us in the House."

"How about the Senate?"

"I have Boxer pushing for approval there.  We shouldn't have a problem.  You need to get the Black Caucus on board."

Elias nodded.  "What's in it for them?" he asked.

"Anything they want," Wiley replied.  "I have to have this bill pass.  With the Tea Party budget nuts opposing it, we'll need the maximum number of Democrats on board."  He stood and extended his hand to Elias.  "I know I can count on your help, Elias.  Your human ability to persuade is still very valuable to me."

Elias felt a chill down to his toes.  "Thank you, Ben," he managed as Wiley signaled for Mookie to leave.

The phrase 'still very valuable' echoed in Elias' brain as he shut the door behind Wiley and his men.  He didn't bother to find a
chair;
he sat on the floor, his back against the
front
door.

His time was running out, he knew it.  Wiley
, very soon, would have no need for a human Elias.  The clock was ticking and they had to make their move soon or else he would be slaughtered for meat or transformed into the undead like countless souls already.

He got to his feet.  He wouldn't attempt to contact
Manchester
tonight in case they were monitoring his cell calls.  He would slip away tomorrow to contact him on an anonymous landline in the House.  They – he,
Manchester
, and
Mira
– need
ed
a plan, right now.  Time
wa
s running out –
nearly
gone.

He stepped into his kitchen and poured himself a glass of water.  A knock on his door caused the glass to slip out of his hand.  Water and glass spread out on his kitchen floor.  He ignored the mess and turned to the front of his condo.  He wondered if Wiley and his boys had returned, having determined the identity of Elias' 'girlfriend'.

He slow walked to the door, his lack of speed eliciting another, sharper rap on the door.

At the door he looked through the peephole and recognized Harry Gentile, his building's night doorman.
If there were others with Gentile, Elias could not see them.  He opened the door and let out a breath.

Nearly everyone called him Harry
the
G, at his insistence. 
Elias looked both ways down the hall -
Harry
the
G was alone.

"Mr. Turnbull, sir, good evening.  I'm sorry for disturbing you so late."  He held a white
envelope in his right hand, and waved it like a fan.  Harry
the
G was a large man and he was winded from the walk down the hallway.  He must have felt it was important to make the trip upstairs to deliver the envelope.  Harry
the
G's most vigorous exercise was hitting the handicapped automatic door button to let in residents
and visitors
.

He handed the envelope to Elias.  He took a deep gulp of air and told his story.

"A messenger brought this around, just now.  He said it was very important that you get this as soon as possible.  He wanted to deliver it himself but I told him that no deliveries are allowed directly to the residences."  He straightened himself up, proud to be able to recite the building's policy.  Harry was never a bright person and small accomplishments like that excited him.

"Thank you, Harry.  Did he say what this is concerning?"

"National security," he said.

Elias reached his hand out and shook hands.  The man's hand was cold and clammy.  He'll probably be dead from a heart attack in six months, Elias thought. 

Do
es
he
or
any of us have six months to live?

"One second," Elias said and he stepped into his condo.  He returned with a fifty, kept on hand for such occasions.
  He tipped a grateful Gentile and closed and locked his door.  Avoiding the kitchen and the mess, he walked into his bedroom and sat on his bed.  He opened the envelope.  There was one hand written page inside.

To his surprise it was from the new Mrs. Wiley.  The note had that day's date and began with "Dear Elias."

"I wanted to thank you
again
for attending our wedding.  Now that I am settling into married life I find that I have less time for old friends and acquaintances.  I desperately would like to spend some time with you, an old and dear friend of ours.  I understand that you and I will be attending the same event, the International Woman's Conference in
DC
.  I look forward to seeing you there.  I'm hoping that we have some private time to catch up and renew our special relationship.  Until then, I wish you a good evening."

Elias read the note four times.  He failed to understand it.  They had no relationship – he wasn't even her boss anymore as she ha
d
become Wiley's arm candy. 

He was going to blow off his commitment to the conference given Wiley's push to get the highway bill passed.  Now,
in possession of
Jan's screwball note, he had to attend.  The fact that Wiley himself did not pass along the message was significant.  Clearly she
wa
s going behind his back. 

Is she an ally?  Will she help destroy Wiley?
 

Elias grew more excited the more he thought about it.  Maybe this was the break that they needed
- a
Trojan horse in the guise of a loving black bride.

At that moment
Mira
Hidar
was at work late.  In the Penn research lab that housed the team working on the so called atomic zombie bomb, she found it very difficult to be alone.  Zombies don't sleep and they don't get tired.  They do get bored, however.  A pack of the researchers sat in the conference room playing Call
of
Duty in multiplayer mode.  She chuckled under her breath – these creatures were zombies but they had not lost their 'geek-hood'. 

Next they would be having a Sudoku tournament. 

This was good for Mira Hidar, alone finally in the lab with no one looking over her shoulder.

First she downloaded the schematics of the atomic bomb delivery system to her thumb drive.  She had the idea that her zombie reversal bomb would have to be deployed similar to Wiley's bomb.  She was not an engineer but hoped that Elias and the people he was working with could find someone capable of taking this design and manufacturing a prototype.  The zombies were far ahead – they were already machining a prototype. They had also come up with using nan
o
bots to both deliver the
poison and transformative
serum to the
victims and
transmit
Mira
's spell to create the living dead. 

She searched for the files fruitlessly.  She concentrated hard and did not notice Dr. Haskins, the twenty-something wunderkind who was the driving force behind the research, ease behind her.

"Can I help you find something,
Mira
?" he asked.

She did her best not to jump out of her skin but she was rattled.  Her voice trembled as she responded.
  "I wanted to get a look at the nan
o
bots that you've designed.  I wanted to take another shot at the serum mix."  That was one of her tasks – determine the volume and mix of serum that would kill and transform the highest possible
percentage
of victims.  The wrong mix may kill but not transform
, or attempt to transform the still living victim. 
She needed to find a mix that achieved a high kill rate and a high rate of transformation.

Haskins leaned over her shoulder.  He took a deep breath to smell her scent.

"I smell fear,
Mira
.  Are you afraid of me?"

Mira
turned to face him.  He had invaded her personal space before and this time his face was inches from her
own
.

She looked in
to
his dead eyes.  "I'm not afraid of you," she said.

He nodded slightly.  "Maybe it is something else I smell," he said.  He slid a cold hand along the nape of her neck, down to her right breast.  He roughly handled her breast until her nipple stood erect.  That accomplished his hand rubbed her vagina through her cotton slacks.