Chapter Nineteen: Melissa and the Assassin

His name was Marty Reese. Corporal Marty Reese, United States Army. He’d watched all three speeches. Right after their arrival in Canberra. First Dubois, who touted the wonderful things he’d done. Then Ajala, who touted the terrible things Dubois had done. And finally Platt, who touted the terrible things both had done. Or something like that. Dubois and Ajala arrived in huge floaters. Platt in a little one.

Reese was certain nobody in the crowd knew of him. Sure, they noticed him. It was hard not to. But after a baleful stare, they would go back to the blithering things people in crowds watching politicians do. Unless someone were to ask them later, “Did you see a man with a missing right arm wearing a fading old-style blue American uniform?” they would never remember him.

Even the army didn’t know his real background in the Special Forces. The corporal rank had been a cover for his real work. But an operation during the U.S. occupation of Mexico went bad. His team was killed. He’d lost his arm. They gave him a prosthetic, but returning to active duty was out of the question, against policy. One moment he was an up-and-coming star covert operative. The next he was a handicapped bum. Wandering the streets on a tiny army pension. Even his sometimes-girlfriend in Houston dropped him.

The army had supplied him with an obsolete, low-end prosthetic right arm. It itched and hurt. It never worked well anyway. He could clumsily grab things with it, but that was about all. He’d been right-handed. He learned to do everything with his left arm. He’d finally tossed the fake arm into his storage locker. If he had worn it, its clunky metal parts would set off alarms at security checkpoints everywhere. They’d have confiscated it and held him while it was searched. Probably laugh at the archaic thing. The last thing he wanted was for security to notice him.

He was clumsy, inept, unshaven, and unwashed. When he didn’t wear his ragged uniform, he wore worn-out clothes he’d stolen from a charity store. The lowliest people in the streets laughed at him behind his back. He was sure.

How he hated this world. Everybody on it.

He’d killed his supervisors from the Special Forces and Army. He’d decapitated the sometimes-girlfriend from Houston. It wasn’t enough. No one noticed.

Reese watched the crowd when Dubois spoke. He saw their rapt attention and the silly blank looks on their faces. If he killed Dubois, how would he be remembered?

He’d followed Dubois around the world. He’d bummed rides on floaters when he could. He’d stolen money for the ride to Australia. As he watched the president from a distance, assassination plans would pop into his head. But who would care if he killed Dubois? Many thought he made a fine but dishonest president. Who cared if the leader lied if he kept the economy going? And kept riffraff like Reese in line?

Killing Dubois would be killing an unloved bureaucrat. Nobody would care.

Reese wanted a president the people loved. One they trusted and cherished as a member of their own family. One who gave them hope. One who seemed to live in that figurative world all presidents aspire to, Camelot.

Then, when he killed that president, the dreams would be blasted. Tears would flow. He’d be remembered. Oh, yes, they’d remember him.

Everyone remembered who killed Lincoln, Kennedy, and Brown. Nobody remembered who killed Garfield, McKinley, and Willard.

Dubois wasn’t the one. He was a Garfield, a McKinley, a Willard.

Ajala was loved by his minions. The opposite of Dubois. He fulfilled all of Reese’s requirements but one. He wasn’t the president. He was well behind in the worldwide polls. Reese would continue to watch the polls, see if Ajala improved. Maybe all that mattered was the perception that he might be the next president. Then Reese could act. But not before.

The third candidate, Platt, had just finished his speech. Reese was irritated at him. Platt would siphon votes from Ajala. He could give the election to the unloved Dubois. He’d keep his eye on Platt. Perhaps do away with him before he caused too much damage. Dubois and Ajala were surrounded by lots of security. There seemed only a pair of guards watching over Platt. Perhaps Reese could kill him without getting caught. Then he could go after Ajala. When the time was ripe.

Reese stared coldly as Platt waved to the crowd. Even caught his eye for a few seconds. He felt a jolt when Platt nodded at him. He breathed heavily, as he often did when he was excited. He’d felt a connection. Maybe this was one to watch. The one to kill.

As Platt spoke, Reese looked about at the crowd. Crowds liked Ajala and Platt. Maybe there was hope. And if either rose in the polls…he looked about again. If only they knew, he thought. But they will. They will.

He was hungry and lonely. He looked for a StarMacs.

* * *

Melissa was confused. She’d listened to all three speeches from the candidates as they arrived in Canberra. First Dubois…thud. While nobody really liked him, he had a razzle-dazzle way of convincing people he was right. Maybe it was that white hair shooting in all directions and the shaking fist as he made his points. Or maybe it was his well-funded ads that were misleading and full of lies. He was like that irritating, eccentric uncle that you gave up trying to argue. And so he led in the polls. The world was full of ignorant people. She would have to do something about that.

Next up was Ajala. She had a love-hate relationship with the man, who she’d only met a few times while traveling the world as a volunteer on his campaign. She loved what he had to say and his refusal to compromise his principles, but she hated what he had to say and his refusal to compromise his principles because they made him almost unelectable. Great leadership meant becoming a leader. His soaring rhetoric and ideas would have dominated in a past world, but funding trumped words in these days of political war. Of course, the funding only meant some people’s words were heard more than others’. So it was a war of words, but people tend to believe the words they hear repeatedly until their opinions set. And then they rarely changed. She would have to do something about that, too.

And then there was the new guy, the wild card, Toby Platt, the man who’d made and then rejected Dubois. She’d hated him for years, but now…things had changed. But he was almost too quick to give up his principles to get elected. Did he really believe all the compromise and moderate ideas he spoke about? Were his core principles to find the middle in everything? Either he was spineless or he truly believed in listening to the masses and finding that middle area that best represented them. Listening to the masses? That didn’t make for great leadership. If she could ever talk to the man, she would do something about that.

She was hungry and lonely. She saw a StarMacs across the street—there seemed one on every corner these days—and she salivated at the thought of a cofftea, the drink of choice by the political class.

She ordered an orange cofftea and a banana muffin from the friendly StarMacs machine. Like all StarMacs, plastic ivy climbed the walls with the sound of a gurgling creek in the background. As she looked about, a voice said, “Wanna to join me?” The voice came from a man in an old-style American military uniform, with one sleeve empty—he was missing his right arm. Why not?

“Sure.” She sat down next to the man. She noticed with distaste that he was eating a hamburger—a real one. Australian meat.

He extended his left arm. “Marty Reese. American soldier and political junky.”

She smiled. “Melissa Smith, Antarctica girl and fellow political junky. I’m a volunteer with the Ajala campaign.”

“Really! You listen to the speeches?”

“All three.”

“I guess we agree that Dubois’s a massive migraine.”

“Don’t get me started.”

“I’d love to get you started. Tell me about Ajala.”

Five minutes later he said, “Stop! I give up! I’ll vote for him!”

She smiled. One down, several billion to go.

“Don’t you think he’s too liberal?” asked Reese.

“Liberal? Conservative? Moderate? Those are just silly labels. I think Ajala tries to do the right thing, and usually I think that’s what people label as liberal. Liberals stopped slavery, brought the vote to blacks and women, stopped child labor, created the minimum wage, the 20-hour work week, the five-hour workday, workplace safety regulations, social security, healthcare, and universal TCs. Most conservatives opposed these.”

“Maybe liberals do some good things, but need conservatives to put the brakes on sometimes, to promote stability and tradition.”

“That’s why we have moderates.” Melissa smiled.

“I’m scared to ask you what you think of Platt.”

“Too quick to compromise,” she said. “The opposite of Ajala. But at least he’s open about his core values, which are to find compromise, and try to define right by the midpoint between two extremes.”

“I find his compromising a breath of fresh air,” Reese said. “I’m tired of candidates who stick to their party’s platform. Like flies in a web.”

That’s pretty good, she thought. Even Ajala stuck too close to the party line. It was the easiest way in politics, showing backbone by taking the easy way out. Yet Ajala did show backbone in refusing to compromise when it was politically smart. Damn him!

“Sometimes these flies need to get swatted,” the man continued. “Put down. Don’t you agree?”

“What do you mean by swatted?” Suddenly the man sounded creepy. The missing arm only added to the creepiness. Then she mentally swatted herself for having such a prejudice.

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

“Jefferson said that about the American Revolution. We’re not in a revolution. Just a political campaign.”

“Same thing. Another campaign. Another loser gets elected. An endless cycle. Only one way to change it. Someone should die. It’d get the attention of voters. Don’t you think?”

She wondered if she should alert security. “No one needs to die.”

He laughed. “Apologies. Didn’t mean that literally. No one’s going to die. Except politically.”

She brightened. “Ajala’s not going to die politically. Unless he starts listening to his political experts, he’s already dead. Platt’s still a nobody, and so can only go up. So the only one who can die politically would be Dubois. I hope so!”

“If he died, who would care?”

“His family?”

“Politicians don’t have real families. His family is his political party. Even they don’t care for him. They just want him to win. Someone else needs to die. Someone loved. Someone that would get everyone’s attention.”

“That’s—”

“I mean metaphorically. Of course.” Reese smiled. He reached out and patted her hand.

Melissa had had enough. She looked into the distance and let her eyes go blank, pulling her hand away from his as she did so. Then she said, “Sorry, got a call.” She pretended to listen intently to her TC, then looked over at the man. “Sorry, they need me. Gotta go.” She practically raced for the exit.