The Mistri Virus

  Adam followed him, eager to see the mares Jacob and Terri had purchased in Montana the week before.

  Later that evening Tommy sat in deep contemplation; staring blindly into his computer screen. Perhaps he was awaiting enlightenment. Perhaps permission. Perhaps even encouragement to topple the President of the United States. Whatever it was, he continued to wait, allowing the argument to wage war in his mind. He must always be on the side of right. Knowing he had the power to rule the world did not give him the right to abuse that power. In fact, he didn’t want the job at all!

  To the people of the United States, who is the President? Perhaps the better question is ‘what’ is the President of the United States? And what does he represent? When does he cross the line of misrepresenting the United States, its people and its National Creed? When does the President of the United States cease to be a leader for the people, elected by the people, as a representative of their beliefs, morals, and National Intent to other peoples and nations of the world?

  When he breaks the Laws of Humanity? When he intentionally deceives the People? When he intentionally misleads the nation? When he misrepresents the Oath of Office? When he breaks it?

  These questions, and hundreds more like them, zoomed through Tommy’s mind like flashes of light in the blackness of night. Each question gave birth to more questions. And they, in turn, brought forth more that needed to be answered satisfactorily before he could, or would, act.

  The Ultimate Answer to them all was simple; when a President of any country placed himself above the laws of that country, he ceased to be the People’s President and instead, became their Dictator; immune to the Laws of the land, the laws of Humanity and the Laws of the Creator of the Human Race and everything that dwells upon Planet Earth, whether that Creator is a Being, Spirit, Myth, or simply Evolution. Whatever it may be, it produced a being with the ability for abstract thought and the ability to influence its place on the planet.

  The phone record lying beside the computer monitor proved beyond a doubt that Adam Jenkins Sr. had called the President’s private line on the morning Tommy brought the hostages out of Guatemala. In fact, it had taken place about the same time the Blackhawk crossed the Mexican border into Texas and landed at Brownsville.

  The time line was near perfect when Tommy stopped to think about it. There was no question the President of the United States had been influenced by Jenkins and had chosen to disregard the law of the land and wantonly murder two-hundred-and-seventy-six, for the most part, innocent men women and children. Of course, he had no record of the actual conversation and in reality could prove nothing. But coincidence? He thought not! Justification? Perhaps. But, it was not as simple a matter as that to ruin a President of the United States.

  Maybe I should just put the evidence out there for the entire world to see, and then let the people decide, he finally argued to himself.

  The idea of personally ruining an American President was a daunting one. He had found it was as simple as one, two, three when he had stopped to consider all of the ramifications and ultimate consequences of such a decision and action.

  Making up his mind once and for all, he leaned forward to the keyboard and punched the last key that would free the demon from its cage. In a matter of seconds the President of the United States would begin to fall and the crash would be mighty.

  Let the chips fall where they may, he thought, as he made the very last keystroke and the gates of hell opened on the soon to be ex-President of the United States of America.

  Chapter 15

  The results of Tommy’s decision were devastating; irreversible. The evidence irrefutable. The finger pointing unstoppable. The accusations flying. The public outcry for impeachment and prosecution, ear shattering. In the end, a dead president; murdered at the hand of an unknown assassin inside the White House itself. And unlike the assassination of President Kennedy, no assailant was found and no weapon produced. Investigations flourished, but no one was really serious about finding and convicting a guilty party. Instead they concentrated their efforts on finding the party responsible for releasing the damning evidence to the public in the first place. Their efforts were futile.

  “It is unseemly that the President of the United States cannot have secrets from the public.” This statement, made by the Vice-President, newly elevated to the Oval Office, led to his immediate downfall in the wake of what had led to the demise of his predecessor.

  The Secretary of Defense, the National Security Advisor and the Attorney General soon followed their ill-fated leaders into history. And for the first time since George Washington, the United States was leaderless.

  The Speaker of the House, James Adam Cartwright, was nominated as acting President until an election could be held. He was unanimously approved by Congress and took office soon thereafter. He took the Oath of Office and was sworn in by Chief Supreme Court Justice, Lansing P. Shelter exactly twenty-seven days following the President’s assassination.

  * * * * *

  The day following the inauguration of President Cartwright, six Secret Service agents showed up on Tommy LeSade’s new front porch on Lake Tenkiller.

  Tommy was whisked away, along with Lisa, Jacob, Terri and Judge Ryan, to Washington, D.C. by order of the new President of the United States. Their presence was demanded in the Oval Office. It seemed President Cartwright wanted to talk to them about a most serious matter of National Security.

  The five were ushered into the presence of the new President without the slightest delay. He ordered them to be seated. Then, offered them coffee or tea. Tommy asked for pure water. It was delivered without delay.

  Jacob wanted Root Beer. It was delivered.

  Lisa and Judge Ryan wanted orange soda. They received it.

  Terri settled for iced tea and a hot spicy pickle. She was pregnant; her request was fulfilled even though it took a little while longer.

  “Let’s take a walk in the Rose Garden,” the President said, standing and leading them in the right direction.

  They all stood and followed him through his private entrance. Tommy was not shocked to see Governor Wendell Cartwright seated on a bench in the garden. He stood as his brother approached with his guests. “It seems everyone is here,” the President said as he shook his brother’s hand. “Everyone gather around close. We can’t speak loud. There are ears everywhere. Mostly I’ll whisper. You listen. Understood?”

  They all nodded their heads in understanding and stepped in close. Tommy stood on the President’s left.

  “I have ordered all investigations into the late President’s death stopped. It is a futile effort to discover what is not there,” he said looking directly at Tommy and winking his eye. “As of this moment you are all the seed of a new National Security group. Tommy, you are its head. You assign your people where you want them. Your primary purpose is to follow up on the rumors concerning our National Security. You will be free to investigate any public or private person or official, including myself. As there is no way to stop you from what I gather,” he smiled, then glanced at his brother. “If you find evidence of corruption, you will expose it to the public, as you did with our late President,” he smiled again, looking back at Tommy. “You have my word of honor that you will never be exposed by this administration.”

  Alarm bells were going off in Tommy’s brain like a five alarm fire. His father screaming loudly in his ear, “Tommy never trust the CIA or the government! You are nothing to them. They only care about themselves, their power and their money! They will discard you in an instant if it is for their advantage! Look at what they done to me! Where are they now, Tommy? Where are they now!”

  “Excuse me Mister President. But, I haven’t a clue as to what you are talking about, sir,” Tommy said loudly, so anyone listening could hear him plainly.

  The other four decried their innocence as well.

  The Governor turned pale.

  The President turned red and began to tremble slightly.
He stared intently at Tommy as if his look alone could kill.

  “LeSade, I will pursue you until the Hounds of Hell run you aground. If you think you can beat me, just try it!” he hissed in a whispered roar.

  “No one is trying to beat you, Mister President. I simply fail to understand what your purpose is, Sir,” Tommy replied calmly, as Master Wu spoke soothingly, but seriously and earnestly, in his mind. ‘Young Tommy, when you release the Corona of the Sun upon your enemy, he will not see the next sunrise in this lifetime. Use it wisely on your deadliest enemy only!”

  “Oh, you know, LeSade! Don’t play stupid with me,” Cartwright hissed, leaning closer to Tommy’s right arm.

  “Sir,” Tommy said, raising his right arm behind the President’s back.

  His index and middle finger seemed to just touch at the base of the President’s skull, then dropped back to his side.

  The President saw an instantaneous, blinding red, flash behind his eyes as Tommy’s fingers, quick as a striking black Mamba, slammed the nerve bundle together with several hundred pounds of pressure.

  “A bee, sir,” Tommy said simply, knowing the President was dying even as he spoke. “As I was saying, Sir,” Tommy continued as if nothing had happened. “I am in no way qualified to head such an organization. That is all I was implying, Mister President,” he continued, hoping to calm the President down so they could part on good terms.

  “Oh, I believe you are more than qualified,” the President said. “I have decided! So, it shall be!” He turned abruptly and left them standing in the Rose garden.

  “Tommy, let me explain...” Wendell began.

  “I don’t want to hear your explanations, Governor,” Tommy interrupted rudely. “You have shown where your loyalties and honor lie. Now, you live with it,” he added, poking the Governor slightly left of center of his chest in a gentle rhythmic way with his index finger. Directly beneath his poking finger lay a bundle of nerves that if disrupted in the proper manner would disrupt the respiratory timing as well as the electrical impulses to the heart that kept it beating regularly. Tommy’s carefully timed pokes to Wendell’s chest caused the nerves to begin misfiring slightly. As time went on, the misfire would grow worse until the heart stopped all together. Nothing known to modern medicine would restart and retime the electrical impulses to support life that was now balanced on a razor’s edge. The slightest emotional shock would send it crashing into oblivion. In fact, Governor Wendell Cartwright was a dead man walking. He would die within twenty-four hours, after learning of his brother’s death.

  “I’m ready to go home now. Show us out of this snake pit, please,” Tommy said, taking Wendell by the arm and gently shoving him forward.

  Tommy’s belief was that when one was confronted with evil, and that evil threatened one’s life, safety or family, it was better to destroy it first, rather than allow it to destroy what one held sacred. He truly felt bad about destroying a life he had once saved. However, in some cultures around the world, if one saves the life of another, that life becomes the property of the saver, to do with what he wishes, when he wishes.

  Tommy didn’t believe, or feel, he owned Wendell Cartwright’s life. He did believe though, that he was owed the man’s loyalty. And when Wendell chose to betray the secret of the Mistri Virus and jeopardize Tommy’s well­being, peace of mind and trust that was one thing. But, when he chose to endanger the people Tommy held closest to his heart, that was quite another terrible mistake. An unforgivable sin. In fact, a deadly sin.

  In the White House limousine on the way to the airport to catch a commercial flight home, Tommy called Colonel Lake and asked him to meet them at the Tulsa International Airport.

  “I’ll call you back when I get a flight time and ETA,” Tommy said.

  “I’ll be there,” Austin stated. “How’d your visit go with our new president?”

  “Let’s just say it went.”

  “Sounds exciting,” Austin laughed, then hung up.

  There were no available flights out for three hours. So, Tommy decided to charter a flight to Tulsa. He called the Colonel and told him of the change of plans.

  They were in the air in less than an hour, heading southwest at over four-hundred miles per hour. They would be home for supper.

  “Tommy, why don’t you build a landing strip on the ranch and buy a Lear jet?” Judge Ryan inquired.

  “I don’t know how to fly,” Tommy replied earnestly.

  “Hire a pilot. You can afford it!”

  “That’s true. But we rarely go far enough to justify a Lear.”

  “You could go anywhere your business leads you, if you had one,” Ryan pointed out. “Then, you could buy your own horses instead of relying on someone else.”

  “There is that,” Tommy agreed. “How long of a runway would it take?”

  “Two-thousand feet would do nicely.”

  “Is that all?”

  “You could go longer if you wanted to.”

  “Maybe I will. I’ll think about it, anyway.”

  “I like the idea of having a private jet at my beck and call,” Lisa smiled.

  “I got another new Peterbilt, Tommy. You should have a new jet. I wish I had one,” Jacob said wistfully.

  “It is a good idea, Tommy,” Terri said. “No more driving to airports, waiting for flights, fighting traffic. Just step out your back door and fly away,” she added dreamily.

  “Alright! Alright! I give in, already! You win,” Tommy laughed, knowing he wouldn’t hear the end of it until he capitulated. “But first, the runway.”

  There were cheers all around the cabin of the private jet they were flying in. Tommy loved to see his friends so happy. It was all that made life worthwhile.

  “Lisa, you and Terri start looking. When you find the one you want, we’ll buy it,” Tommy said. “But, not until the runway is finished and a hangar built. Fair enough?”

  They all began to talk excitedly and all at once about what they wanted in a new jet. Tommy tuned them out and fretted over the morrow and what it would bring.

  When Tommy entered his computer room in the new house, his first mission was to recover all the money he had entrusted to Wendell Cartwright. What was left of it anyway. His second mission was to figure out who would be the next President of the United States and whether he could be trusted or not. If not, he would be destroyed politically. If he could, he would be allowed to serve without interference. If he turned corrupt while serving, he would go the way of the last two.

  Tommy left the Cartwright estate one-hundred-million dollars. If they couldn’t live comfortably on that amount for the rest of their lives, then shame on them. He recovered almost a hundred-billion and dispersed it throughout his, Ryan’s and Lake’s accounts worldwide. The accounts never noticed the influx of funds. They absorbed the meager amount as if it were interest only, or as the ocean absorbs a sudden rain shower.

  The first reports of the newly appointed President’s death hit CNN News channel around 8:00 p.m.; the cause of death had not yet been determined, but anaphylactic shock was a prime suspect. It seemed the President had been stung by a bee while strolling in the Rose Garden earlier in the day. Efforts to save his life had been futile. He had been pronounced dead within half an hour of the onset of the symptoms. It was a tragedy; a great loss for a nation still reeling from the death of his predecessor. The coverage went on and on, bla, bla, bla, until Tommy, for one, was sick of hearing the lies being told by those who didn’t want to know the truth.

  Then another wave of news hit the airways when the news broke of the late President’s younger brother Wendell, the current Governor of Oklahoma, and the President’s choice for Vice President had dropped dead of a massive coronary after hearing the news of his brother’s death.

  A tragedy on top of tragedy, on top of tragedy; the greatest loss of political authority in the history of the United States! Two Presidents, a Governor, an Attorney General, A Secretary of Defense and one National Security Advisor, dea
d in the span of three months.

  Tommy in no way regretted his decisions to clean out the corruption that was rampant in American politics. Corruption was a disease with only one cure. It was akin to rust on a piece of steel; corrosion on a piece of aluminum; bright sunlight on some plastics of the kind used in the dash boards of some American cars. If left unattended and treated, it would grow until total deterioration was the result.

  Tommy had the means and desire to stomp it out. He had no political aspirations, no power addiction he had to feed and most of all no personal ax to grind. He just wanted honesty for the American people. They fought for it and died for it. They earned it and deserved it. He would give it to them free of charge.

  He believed that were it not for the poor and middle class, there would be no United States at all. For instance, who fought the wars? The poor and middle class. Who kept the politicians fat and happy? The poor and middle class. Who fed off the poor and middle class? The government. Therefore, the least it could do was give honest representation to its host.

  America was the greatest bureaucracy in the history of the world and when pressed, claimed the people lived off it, instead of the other way around.

  It was high time the honest, hard-working people of America had an honest and hard working government they could believe-in, trust, and depend on. He, Tommy LeSade, was going to see they got it for a change, one way or the other. Or he would die trying.

  * * * * *

  Tommy was sitting on his new front porch in Lisa’s new swing when he saw Jacob’s pickup come speeding down the hill from the truck barn.

  He slid to a stop in front of the house and got out fast. He was talking loud before his pickup door swung shut.

  “Tommy! Judge let Jack Anderson outta jail this mornin’! Anderson’s a’comin for you! Says he’s gonna kill ya dead!” he finished as he came up on the porch looking big eyed and scared.

  “Do you believe him, Jacob?” Tommy asked calmly, remembering the big, fat, loud mouthed ex-sheriff whose attitude he had adjusted a few months back.

  “Yeah Tommy, I do,” Jacob said seriously. “Them Andersons are real bully-boys. They’ll back shoot ya if need be. Quicker’n a grasshopper can jump!” he added, taking a seat on the swing beside Tommy.