A work of fiction by: Lori Townsend
Edited by David Holthouse and Monica Gokey
Cover design and painting by Johanna Bohoy, Bohoy Design/Lightcaught. The watercolor "New Day" was painted in November, 2008 upon the election of Barack Obama. The cover version which is ripped apart symbolizes what the "home wreckers" in the book have attempted to do– divide America and abolish the work of the first U.S. African American president.
Copyright: 8-21-16
Revised: 11-02-17
Chapter One
The trailside gravel was mushy after an afternoon drizzle. Celia realized the sunlight that was deserting daytime hours at an alarmingly rapid clip was going to leave her in near darkness by the time she returned to the parking lot at Westchester Lagoon. She cursed as she tried to pour on a bit more speed. It was September 16, and the hole in the late fall sky above Southcentral Alaska where the daylight leaked out was gobbling more than five and a half minutes each day of precious light. Celia hadn't run this trail in several days. Nearly half an hour of lost light meant her calculations were off for how long she could run the trail and not be afraid. Growing up in Bangor, she was used to city life, but wary of wild things. Not so much rapists or people looking to steal from her, she was scared of the huge lumbering moose of Anchorage. She had been warned they did not possess an affable temperament. A horse kicked her when she was six years old and large ungulates with long legs and hooves spooked her.
Bears terrified her more.
In the advancing gloom, she was sure dangerous beasts were lurking. She had learned that Alaskans were hardy souls who populated the trails every day of the year, regardless of bitter January cold or September rain.
A surprising number of Anchorage residents used the miles of trails that connected to the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail, named for a former mayor and governor of Alaska. They used the trails to commute to downtown jobs each day, preferring to take their chances with moose, the occasional drunk, homeless camper, and other commuters on bikes and skis rather than vehicle traffic and stop lights.
Celia rounded a curve, heading down hill and picked up speed to get back to the safety of her car. She saw movement ahead of her and fought panic, sure a moose was about to run her down. The shape separated into two dark figures, Celia figured they were men, even though one was much smaller than the other. A new wave of fear gripped her as momentum carried her closer and her eyes clarified what her mind didn't want to process. The men were hunched, half carrying, half dragging a third person.
Celia stopped, jamming her toes into the front of her shoes. Her stomach lurched. New coworkers at Regional hospital where Celia worked as an RN had warned her that drunks frequented the trails and assaults sometimes happened to women running them alone.
Alaska was the rape capital of the nation.
Celia didn't have enough time to consider what she should do before the two upright figures decided for her. They silently looked up at her. She couldn't see their faces under the dark hoods, but their movements were suddenly uncoordinated and startled. They looked at each other, dropped their hold on the still figure they'd been pulling along and ran in the opposite direction of where she stood. The body fell with a thud, half on the trail, head and wide flung arms reaching into the brittle grass.
Celia realized this was not a drunken pal getting aid from fellow booze swilling comrades. This person was hurt, or possibly dead.
She hesitated for a second, her breath coming in hard gasps as she tried to calm herself, looking around for anyone who could help, and wanting to be sure the men who had just alarmed her were not coming back.
She carefully approached the form. It was getting harder to see.
"Hello?" She called softly, hoping for a moan and maybe a drunken belch, but a breeze rustling dead leaves and sighing through the upper branches in the heavy forest around her was the only sound. She knelt down and gently turned the body face up.
An older woman, her face horribly swollen and purple, stared with one glassy eye.
Celia sucked in her breath, startled to see an old lady here in the setting that normally only saw Spandex-clad urban professionals speeding along on lightweight bikes or young kids on roller blades. An old woman with white hair and a battered, bloody face.
Celia knew before she gently laid two fingers on the bruised neck, that CPR would not be necessary. The elder woman's skin was already cool to the touch. Celia slowly stood up.
A tendril of sweaty hair that had escaped her hat touched the back of her neck like an icy finger and she jumped, yelling for help as loud as she could. The dead woman's one eye stared at the sky, reflecting nothing. The other was gruesome, swollen. Her throat was a patchwork of terrible bruises. Dark blood matted her wispy, grey hair to her skull. Her housedress was torn. Blood and dirt streaked over the old-fashioned print of tiny blue forget-me-not flowers.
Celia ran back up the trail, fishing for her phone in the zippered pocket of her light jacket. She punched in 911, still running, telling the dispatcher she needed the police and fast. She started to cry, stumbling, nearly falling as she raced back down the trail to her car.
The openness of the parking lot was reassuring after the lonely darkness that lay like a shroud over a dead woman in a grandmother's dress.
Chapter Two
When a call comes in to the Anchorage Daily Standard news line, every reporter's phone rings. Whoever picks it up deals with the tip, the request, or the angry reader.
Before social media, this urgent ringing across the room was exciting. Now, Twitter alerts for two of the young guns in the newsroom beat the news line's call by ten minutes, and Stuart Murphy's old school desk phone also rang before the general alert.
Good contacts still rule.
A hysterical new resident to Alaska's largest city had reported a body.
"Whoa! Murder victim found on the Coastal Trail near Earthquake Park!" Only twenty-four, Rick Harris tracked a wide range of official and citizen Twitter feeds. He hunched his shoulders as he peered at his phone, the ubiquitous posture of his tech generation. He quickly scanned other tweets for more information.
"Hooker?"
Tom Harwood reached for his phone while he asked. Bitter about the rapid clip at which he was being technologically left behind, he impatiently scrubbed fingers through his gray hair.
"I'll call Andy." Harwood sounded put upon, such a burden to be the guy with a friend on the Anchorage police force that fed information. To Harwood it made up for the fact that he didn't use social media and 'cheep' or 'quack' as he liked to call it after several drinks.
"Not unless hookers are eligible for social security." Murphy dropped the receiver on the phone that had graced the left corner of his desk since 1979. "This woman was at least 75."
Murphy spoke without looking up from the notes he was jotting on the long pad gripped in his right hand, the left swiftly moving across the page. Stuart Murphy was as close to retirement as Harwood, but Murphy had cultivated much better connections through the years and still had a driving passion for news. He was decent, honest, and didn't burn his sources. Harwood was burned out and let whiskey do his talking too often.
The Daily Standard's managing editor Ed Brooks walked out of his office and into the newsroom. He looked directly at his newest hire, Zilla Gillette.
"Gillette? You and Walker take this." He turned back toward his office, knowing they'd follow. They did.
He spoke while staring out at the dark. "Some fuckheads worked this old broad over pretty bad." Even though she had been born a modest Midwesterner, Zilla was used to coarse language in newsrooms.
"Why send us?" Ray Walker wouldn't have asked that question a year ago, but he'd been re-assigned from the urban crime beat to work with Gillette on the main assignment she'd been hired for, covering militias and anti-government separatists.
Zilla knew immediately. "Wife or mother? What do you suspect, Ed?"
Brooks continued to stare out the window, as if the milky old glass was hypnotic.
"Don't know, but I'd guess mother. The anti-government crowd wants young chumps who like violence and don't ask questions. Their moms don't like any of it. There could be a link here to Burke's group of merry bastards."
Alex Burke wasn't a household name in the state, but to Gillette, Walker and Brooks, he had emerged as the leader of the Double Eagles Militia and a prominent figure behind the growing numbers of those who held smoldering resentment toward the U.S. Government.
The news veterans had been meticulous, documenting a widening circle of Burke's followers.
It was 6:20 in the evening and Zilla's plans for a workout and quick dinner went out the window.
Even through the closed glass door of Brooks' office, they could hear Harwood's voice, "...beaten, stabbed, no signs of sexual assault, but a brutal attack just the same. Dumped on the Coastal Trail. A runner saw two thugs drop the body and run."
Harwood wound down a bit as he quoted one of his most consistent and reliable sources inside the Anchorage Police Department. "Andy" wasn't his source's name, but rather than saying something that sounded silly like, "someone told me." Or sounding like an asshole and saying, "a little APD bird told me." Harwood had the practical habit of giving his sources fictitious names.
Zilla knew this because Ray Walker had told her. She looked up at Walker now, his well-muscled arms crossed. His lanky body leaned against the bland wall of his boss's office. Zilla caught his eye and he raised his eyebrows slightly in an "Oh, Andy," mildly mocking way. She smiled. Through the door, Harwood continued his self-important diatribe as if the weight of all terrible crime in the city rested on his shoulders because he had moles in high places.
Ray straightened up. "So, we'll head over there, Chief." He looked at his watch instead of Brooks. They turned and walked out, needing no other instruction from their boss. Ray Walker had worked with Zilla Gillette for 13 months and knew what came next.
"I'll head to the scene, you'll head to APD?"
She had moved to her desk and was grabbing her gear.
"Yep. Meet you back here, say 8:30?"
Zilla looked at him for a moment. "You want to come over for dinner? We can write up what we've got and file for the website, update tomorrow as we get more." Ray looked slightly shocked.
"Really? Does Harwood's talk of homicide make you hungry?"
"Hm. That is sort of a strange segue I guess." Zilla shrugged. "But I can't help it. Once I get done at the crime scene, I'll need to do something to wind down and cooking always helps."
"It's been a while since someone other than Ruby cooked for me." Ray was starting to get excited about the prospect.
"Look, I didn't say I was good at it, just hungry." Zilla looked straight at him, her face serious.
"Oh."
Ray's expression was so forlorn, she laughed out loud.
"I'm kidding, Mr. Walker. I know my way around a kitchen."
"Ok, great." Ray's big, friendly smile returned full watt. "What should I bring?"
"Stop and grab some wine after you've wrung all the information you can from the detectives. I've got everything else, chicken, rice, salad and some good bread. Sound ok?"
"Sounds great." He headed for the door.
"Walker?"
He turned at her voice. "Yeah?"
"Some ice cream would be good too."
He chuckled in that low, interesting way he had and shook his head as he turned back toward the newsroom door.
Zilla threw on her leather jacket, grabbed a notepad, pen and cellphone and crammed them all in various pockets as she left. She zipped up against the quickening gloom. It was 6:30.
As she walked to her car across the mostly empty parking lot, she had a sweet stab of remembrance for her dad and his cooking. She'd learned at age nine that if she wanted variety at mealtime, she'd have to learn how to cook, so she did. The memory came with the same confounding mix of comfort and happiness for a father who had been a good, kind man with the hollowed out feeling of knowing she'd never see him again. His funeral was two years back but still so fresh in her heart that the pain was raw in an instant. She focused on the meal regime he'd developed for them to overcome the sorrow of missing him.
He hadn't been a creative or adventurous chef, but his simple meals were packed with good nutrition. Brown rice, veggies, fish, chicken. Always something raw every day, whether it was fruit, salad or vegetables, sliced fresh or steamed lightly. He fed Zilla like a coach fed an athlete in training because that's what she was, that's what they were. Practicing Tai Chi Chuan and Kung Fu form every day, he worked her hard – running, weights, sparring. It was as if he'd decided he could drive off debilitating sorrow and depression over the brutal loss of Zilla's mother by driving Zilla to focus on training to control herself, to shield her inner and outer being from the self-destruction of pain and self pity.
He wanted her to be as safe as possible from bad people, especially men with ill intent toward his daughter. He wanted her to be able to break their nose if they attacked her, but he also wanted her to be able to exorcise the demon of horror that he knew was buried in her mind, rising in nightmares. He did the best he knew how to help Zilla live a life that kept her inner chemistry clean and her mind focused and sharp.
He had saved her.
Her mind flashed an ugly and unwelcome memory. A little girl's shoes, her shoes. Green and white and brand-new. She'd loved them but could now only remember them splattered with her mother's blood.
Zilla opened her car door and shook off the weird, heavy connection her mind had created from making dinner for a friend and colleague to the death of her mother. Must be the impending winter blues, she thought gazing up at the bruise colored clouds floating in the dark sky.
Focus on work, then dinner and let the past stay where it is.
Good advice when she could get herself to take it. She inhaled the cool evening air deeply and blew it out toward the Chugach Mountains, knowing those enormous old sentinels could easily handle a puff of grief-tinged breath. She smiled, gave them a grateful little nod, got in her old Willys Jeep and coaxed it into first gear. The steel sides shuddered as the engine coughed, then steadied. She pulled out of the lot and headed for the park and the glaring, portable lights and yellow crime scene tape, the grim hallmarks of these assignments.
Zilla recognized the black Chevy truck of Sergeant August Platonovich, the head of APD's homicide division, as she pulled in to the Westchester Lagoon parking lot. Platonovich was talking with three other officers as she walked up. A patrol car blocked most of the entrance. The intermittent blue wash of its rollers warned curious neighbors to stay back. Zilla held up her press badge.
"Giving statements yet, Sergeant?"
"Hello, Ms. Gillette. You're here quite fast." His Polish accent was still heavy after two decades in Alaska.
She shrugged. "I get the assignment, I go. What can you tell me?" She flipped her notebook open, jotted the time and started writing, knowing Platonovich would tell her what he could without excessive coaxing. After a year of reading her stories and watching her meticulous work with officer interviews, he trusted her. At least as much as any cop ever trusts a reporter.
"We don't know a lot yet. On background... she was killed somewhere else and brought to the trail. A jogger saw two men drop the body on the trail and run."
"Did she describe them?" Gillette didn't look up from her rapid note taking.
"No, they had hoods on and it was nearly dark."
"How does she know they were men?"
"Good question, but it's hard to imagine two women dragging a body that distance."
"How far?"
"At least 200 yards, from the upper parking lot to where they crossed paths with the runner." He paused, continued.
"Again, this is off record at this point. Probably they planned to dump the body in the inlet and let the tide erase their mess."
"Has anyone reported an elderly woman missing?" Still looking down, writing and flipping pages.
"Her son called, worried that she wasn't home. He's waiting for us to get done at the scene and move the body so he can ID her."
"God, where is he?"
Platonovich nodded his head in the direction of the car with the slow flashers.
She looked up, surprised.
"He's here? Anything else you can tell me right now?"
"No, I'm afraid not. There is much to be determined." His intense blue eyes, as usual, revealed nothing. She thanked him and walked to the patrol car, leaning down slightly to look in the window. The victim's son was in the front seat and looked distraught. Zilla immediately recognized him. Del Warner, small time drug dealer and known Double Eagle militia associate. Brooks' instincts had been spot on. This could be a way in to this group.
"Mr. Warner? My name is Zilla Gillette. I'm a reporter with the Anchorage Daily Standard. Could I talk to you for a couple of minutes sir?" She spoke in a low voice, hoping it would coax him into opening the car window. It didn't.
"I ain't talking to no reporters. My momma's dead! Can't you leave me alone?"
She pressed gently. "I'm sure you're worried, but how can you be sure this person is your mother?"
He stared straight ahead, a baseball cap jammed over unkempt graying hair. His voice was at first so quiet she barely heard him.
"Because I know." Then angry, "Now leave me the fuck alone!" He flashed a look at her, anguish and of note to the sharp reporter. Fear was in his eyes.
She reached in her pocket and tucked a card into the slot between the glass and the door. "I'm sorry to have bothered you."
She walked back to Platonovich. "Is he a suspect?"
His lips tightened for an instant. "Everyone close to the victim is a suspect in a homicide Ms. Gillette, you know that. However, Mr. Warner has an airtight alibi in this particular instance."
"How so?"
"He's been in lock up since last night. Picked up for traffic tickets and a bench warrant for failure to appear on a drug charge from a year ago. We were hoping to work him for information about where he's getting the black tar he's been peddling, but he was uncooperative and desperate to get out to check on his mother. He was very worried about her. Obviously with good reason."
"Interesting." Zilla jotted a few more notes. "He didn't say why?"
"He did not. Would not"
"Thank you, Sergeant. I'll be in touch tomorrow."
"I expected you would." He nodded, his handsome features somber.
She shook his hand and took her leave.
##
As was often her habit, Zilla ended up making a more sophisticated meal than just chicken breast and salad. Other than martial arts drills, cooking was her favorite way to relax. She hit the preset on her radio for one of only two stations she listened to. Tonight it was the city's urban Native station KNBA and the salsa music pulsing through the kitchen inspired her. When she wanted news, she tuned in KSKA.
Soon she was pounding the breast meat with a well-used wooden mallet until it was flat enough to accept the scrumptious feta cheese, mushroom, fresh herb and black olive filling she'd whipped up. She rolled the meat around her concoction, tied and seared them in a hot pan before drizzling a bit of cranberry and orange sauce over the rounded tops and sticking them in the oven. The salad went together quickly and when Ray knocked on the door at 8:40, prompting an acknowledging woof from her chocolate lab buddy Buck, she had already cleaned up her prep dishes, set the table and was ready for some pre-dinner conversation.
"Hello, Zee." Ray Walker's smile made women walk into street signs if he flashed it at them on a city sidewalk. Tonight the wattage was turned up full.
He lifted two bags. One clinked, hinting at the two bottles of wine within. The other had the solid blocky look of a container of ice cream.
"Two bottles? You're not planning on getting me drunk are you?" She was teasing but also suddenly had a bit of discomfort, wondering if Ray had misread her invitation for a simple meal as an invitation for a date. As if reading it, he immediately put her mind at ease.
"On a school night? No way!" He laughed easily. "Ruby taught me that I should always bring a bottle to leave with my evening meal benefactor as a true expression of gratitude, rather than just one bottle that I'll certainly help drink." His smile could be heard in his voice. "I appreciate the invitation Gillette. People just don't have friends over for dinner for no reason that often anymore." He was in the front glassed-in porch, or arctic entry, shrugging off his coat.
"Wow, dinner smells great!" His enthusiasm was genuine and soon they were at the table, a glass of hearty Syrah in front of them, as they waited for the bread to warm in the oven. The talk turned to work.
"What did you find out?" Ray took a healthy draw from the deep red wine in his glass and turned expectantly to his colleague.
Zilla ran through what Platonovich had given her and then casually lobbed out her best information.
"The son was there, in the cruiser. Guess who it was?"
"Really? Come on." Ray held her gaze as he took another drink of wine.
"Del Warner! He was sure it was his mom. Brooks was right to send us. If it all confirms, we've got a murder potentially linked to Alex Burke."
"Holy shit!" Ray sat up in his chair. "I don't want to get too far out in front of it, but this could be huge."
Zilla carried salad dressing to the small table. "How about you? What did you find out at APD?"
"Well," he turned the stem of his wine glass thoughtfully. "She wasn't robbed, has no criminal record and no family history of trouble, except her son's minor drug offenses. Who would want her dead?"
"Maybe her son owed the wrong person drug money. Or maybe it really is linked to Burke, the so-called General of the Double Eagles." Zilla was pulling the food from the oven now and serving plates for them both.
Ray poured more wine and eyed with appreciation the plate set before him.
"Someone needs to get Warner to answer some questions."
"He seemed sure the body would be his mother and he looked scared."
"Think he's the one that killed her?" Ray was slicing through the perfectly cooked chicken.
"No, Platonovich told me he was in lock up. Couldn't have done it."
Ray grinned. "Ah, your detective."
"He's hardly my detective, Walker." Zilla said.
It was true she had quickly developed a good rapport with the head of the Anchorage Police Department's homicide division since she'd started working assignments on the city beat and he was admittedly a sharp-looking man, but Zilla was a professional and didn't pollute her work with contacts by flirting with them.
It made her prickly to have it suggested.
"She doth protest too much." Ray teased. "What did he have to say?"
"Not much, but they were planning to pump Warner for information on his drug connections. Platonovich would love to know where all of the damn heroin is coming from. I suppose they were going to offer him a reduced sentence, but he said Warner was freaked out about his mother's safety and wouldn't talk."
"Well, I'll poke around tomorrow and see if I can roust a name or two from some of the people who sell to him."
"Know a lot of drug dealers do you, Walker?" Zilla was enjoying the delicious meal, but still took time to tease.
"Sure. It's where I get some of my best leads and this story needs a break."
"Ok super sleuth." Then pouring the last of the wine, she affected her best Ed Brooks voice, their ferocious, gruff editor. "Get on it tomorrow Walker and hurry the hell up about it. This paper can't write itself."
At the end of the evening Zilla realized that just like Mo Scott, the tough but sensible bartender at Ruby's Bar, Ray Walker, Ruby's son, had quickly become one of her favorite people and their friendship would be easy and relaxed.
Not that she couldn't be attracted to him, how could you not if you were a straight woman with eyes? And although she'd grown up in a glaringly white part of the Midwest, solid people who judged others by their character and how they treated their families, rather than skin tone or the size of their bank account had raised her.
Ruby was as white as you could get and Ray's father had been a black jazz musician from Louisiana. Ray's mixed race heritage was of mild genealogic interest to her just as a friend who was Italian and Swedish might be, but it meant nothing else. She figured personal histories should be of most interest to those who carried them.
She was glad for the friendship of an intelligent man who didn't have designs on wooing her into the bedroom. She wanted a comfortable partnership with a colleague she knew had tremendous reporting skill, so they could easily focus on their profession and not have to deal with the awkwardness of sexual interest. She loved her new gig and the next day caught an important break.
Her newsroom line had a message from the elder Warner's son Del. He wanted to talk, but not to the police. He wanted to talk to her.
"Yeah Gillette. You need to meet with me. I got information you need. You're gonna get a call about The General. But you better hear me out first."
Chapter Three
Three months earlier, in the General's mind, the revolution had already started. For him, it had been much longer, years of bewilderment and outrage at the lack of leadership in the nation. The lack of honoring those who worked hard and the hand-wringing over social assistance for sloths that only knew how to hold a hand out, not close one around the handle of a tool.
And then a closet Muslim stole the White House.
It wasn't so much the first time that did it. Sure that pissed the good people off, enraged them in fact and made them go kick some ass and take some names, so to speak. But mostly they figured it was just a fluke. It was just a group of them Black Panther uppity niggers and some of those goddamn hippy fucking kids with their pot-smoking, folk-singing asses, living on the legacy and trust funds of their '60s radical, granola, wimp-ass parents. They just got lucky the first time, or so good American Patriots thought.
But the second time crossed a line. No, more than that. The first time that black bastard swindled his way into the White House was a warning shot over the bow and the good people, the Patriots, didn't snap to attention quickly enough. Passed it off as just more hysteria, that somehow spilled into the voting booth. The second time was a declaration of war and General Alex Burke was ready to start it.
It was time for the twenty-first century's version of the Civil War. He knew it was the last stand for decent people and the right and proper government and leadership for this country, the last vestige of decency and racial purity in the great country of America.
The last gasp of white power.
The General had been irked when the Republicans offered up Mitt Romney in the second go around with that black terrorist that had sleazed his way into the Oval Office. Romney was too weak. A Mormon with no military background, no real backbone, Burke knew he'd get beat. And he did.
But the mess that was before the country now was impossible to comprehend. From a field crowded with half-assed business executives, whiny senators and governors, and a reality television star – the person who emerged on top was the one least equipped to lead the most powerful nation in the world.
The Democrats' choice was terrible too, although The General couldn't decide which one, Trump or Clinton was more horrific to consider as the next Commander in Chief. The General agreed with Trump's plan for walling off the nation, but Trump was a spoiled, rich brat who didn't have the metal or military savvy to handle the pressure of an increasingly dangerous world.
The General had to take action. It was his duty as a soldier and a Patriot. There was no other choice now. He could no longer simply stew in hatred over the lazy welfare mutts, the drug lords pouring over the borders, and the illegals with their anchor babies making it possible for them to milk the American system dry, the drugged-out idiots that lay in front of reality television all day waiting for their government hand out and breeding more idiots to start the cycle all over.
A national crisis was unfolding before his eyes and before it was too late and Vladimir Putin or China took over America, the General knew he had to act.
The good news was, recruiting had gotten so easy he didn't have to recruit, just lead the way for those who shared his burning rage for a country run amok.
The bad news was, every-fucking-thing else.
General Alex Burke was not a real general or a pure white man, but he played one on TV as they say. He said he was Italian if pressed. A young girl had shyly said to him once, "I know who you really are..." and he'd nearly slit her throat before the words were out of her mouth.. And then she said, "I know you is eye-talian, right?" He had given her a gruff smile and nodded curtly. Sure kid.
Wrong.
He was of a similar lineage as the man, outrageously living in the White House, that he espoused to hate, like other people filled with self-loathing either by teaching or by illness, he hated what he was.
It was so simple it was ridiculous. But he didn't see it. As the thoughts of that precocious child (...who had almost died...) ran through the General's mind, he knew it was time to get started. It was time to go to war.
He wasn't a general but he had been in combat and he was a damn fine salesman. It was easy to sell yourself as a semi-retired, four-star general when you had groomed the neat-as-a-pin look and had money from a medical malpractice lawsuit to back it up.
These thoughts were going through his mind as he finished the underground bunker that was more for show than purpose.
The General was a man who knew that appearance was everything. If you wanted to fool most of the people most of the time and tamp down the hysteria, you had to look the part and have the necessary props to complete the illusion of control.
He smiled to himself as he swiftly pounded nails into the rough-hewn two-by-fours that were shaping into a doorframe chopped out of the compacted clay on the hillside. The Conjuror. That was a good name for him, too – someone who crafted optical magic out of thin air. Oh, and a few timbers and hinges.
The General pulled the edge back from the cuff of his worn, leather gloves and looked at his watch. It was almost eight and the evening sun was hanging in the sky as if on a nail, not interested in budging for at least another two hours.
Summer in Alaska is akin to a celestial experience, bathed in eternal sunlight, a man could work on outdoor construction projects until long after his energy level could possibly last, or his neighbors' patience for the piercing whine of a Skill Saw at 11 p.m.
He was going to meet Jamie Lynn Carter at 9 at the Polar Bar in Anchorage. He smiled at his stroke of good fortune for having found her. She was the last piece to the puzzle that would now afford him the ability to start the revolution from within Alaska.
It was militarily, and tactically, brilliant. A plan to take America back to its healthy, prosperous past, when men only married women and white girls only dated white boys and the rest of them people knew to keep to themselves and not blame others for the lot they were cast in life.
It was not Burke's fault how people came to be or what shape, color or sexual oddity they presented to the world. He couldn't save everyone, so he intended to save the people who were rightful leaders, the people who were spiritually, morally and intellectually superior and therefore should be in power. He could trust the people who were currently at risk of being extinct: White People.
General Burke was building his plan and his army. It was starting. Now that he was conditioning the caustic Jamie Lynn Carter, he had all the right tricks.
The General had thought he'd only found a lackey when he'd met Holt Carter, Jamie Lynn's stepdad. This was long before he'd laid eyes on her and her Bigfoot sister Bernadette. He hadn't met the girls until the first time Holt had him over to drink beer, after he'd seen him in a couple of the local bars on Muldoon Road.
The Trapper's Lodge was the usual meeting place for men like Holt.
They were always looking for a fast way to make a buck.
Holt was a lazy, mean son of a bitch, but the General knew how to manipulate lazy, mean sons of bitches and soon had him doing errands for him as he groomed him to be a disposable flunky who thought he was a corporal.
Burke hadn't known the girls existed until he walked in behind Holt and saw Bernadette slumped in a kitchen chair, her legs splayed out in front of her. Heavy, scuffed leather men's boots on her feet.
"Who are you?" Bernadette asked gruffly.
"Who are you?" General Burke shot the question back, but he smiled.
"That's my damn step-daughter. Her bitch of a mother ran off and left her and her little sister." Holt wiped across his nose with the back of his hand. "You can pay for one of 'em if you want. I can use the cash." He leered at the General, who felt his stomach lurch.
Then she walked through the door.
Jamie Lynn was beautiful, with a wounded animal look in her eyes. The General had seen that look in the eyes of children in Vietnam, right before they pulled up an old rifle and started shooting. He was immediately interested in more than her pretty face.
She was perfect to help lead the battle from the North, where no one would suspect the revolution to start. The war that would triumph in the re-taking of America, the re-whitening of America, would start in the North. It was brilliant. Not the South this time, the North.
They would start in New Patriot Alaska and once they had secured their base there, they would quickly take the West Coast of the Lower 48. At least as much of it as they wanted to control. There was a general sentiment that evacuating good whites from California and leaving the liberal Nancy Pelosi types with the muddy-brown hordes of border rats there might be the best. Let them try to make it without the U.S. welfare system shoring them up.
Even as they redefined the border to the south, they would be sending men and supplies north and east into Canada.
They would push them all back. And the East Coast could rot in hell, like all good Patriots knew it was going to do eventually anyway. Why not just help speed the process? That's where all the trouble had started in the first place, in Washington. Let that cesspool stagnate.
Once the money needle was ripped from their veins and they no longer controlled the national purse strings, they would quickly become irrelevant, then desperate, then dead. Those now in Washington were flabby, dishonest men and they would perish quickly before General Burke's network of like-minded Patriots across the nation.
Now he had found Jamie Lynn, damaged little white girl who, at the malleable age of 26, would clean up and become the new Patriot's young white messiah. He would create her new persona and she would help him conquer and destroy and cast out.
He had taught himself to portray the hard-assed master of war. He'd learned plenty along the way about how to read and interpret what people needed, and he gave it to them. He strode in through a wide open door, in more ways than one.
General Burke knew what women wanted.
He knew when a woman wanted to be ordered around, told to cook or wash the clothes. He knew the women who wanted to be coddled, pampered, waited on. The ones that just had to throw tantrums from time to time. The ones who thought they were in charge of their own lives, and the ones who were sexual wack-jobs.
He was a master of psychology just as he was a master of disguise. He knew what Jamie Lynn wanted: a shortcut to the top of the heap. Not realizing that all it meant was getting to the pinnacle of not much. Never farther, or if so, only for a short blip.
But that didn't matter to General Burke. Nothing really mattered to the General, except conquering and controlling. Alex Burke hadn't been wronged as a child, left in the cold on a doorstep or beaten and starved in an abusive home. He'd been raised by solid parents who had no addictions or abnormal behaviors. His father didn't hit or yell or visit his room late at night, his mother had made his clothes and home cooked food.
He had no reason to hate. He just did.