Forest Park: A Zombie Novel (16 page)

However, Ambrose knew differently. What Ambrose and Harris both knew about everyone at the table that day could fill volumes. They were the keepers of secrets. Harris once told his young protégé, “Never waste your time helping them to office, only pull their strings once they get there.”

It was helpful advice.

The other attendees of the meeting being held in the White House’s situation room, were Air Force General William Anderson who represented the USAF --- a non-entity both within and outside of Washington. Representing the Navy was Admiral Scott Gardner, a Gulf War veteran who had recently racked up more gambling debts in Atlantic City and was on the verge of filing for bankruptcy until the crisis.

However, of all the military representatives who attended, General Tex “Cash”

Carnegie, was the most notorious, and at one time was the youngest general in the US Army.

The public first became aware of Carnegie during the second Gulf War; Carnegie had received the Congressional Medal of Honour, the highest award that could be won while serving in the military, but heroes are forgotten fast in a twenty-four-hour news cycle.

However, according to Harris, there was a hidden story behind the award --- or so he had told Ambrose over a drink or two one stormy night while they both sat sipping scotch and watching the lightning flash over Washington --- long before all of this began.

The story, as Ambrose had heard it from Harris, was that Carnegie had not so much won the award for bravery, or anything close to committing an act of bravery. If there was an act of bravery somewhere involved, then according to Harris, it was purely accidental.

The story was Carnegie had bought the award! To some it was purely gossip and character assassination, to Harris and Ambrose it was so close to a fact, it didn’t matter either way. Carnegie led a lavish lifestyle before he had stepped foot in Iraq, but for several years before the invasion, he had scaled much of that lavish lifestyle down. Nobody knew why exactly; some hinted at the Dotcom crash, but others thought that Carnegie was at last showing signs of maturing.

Nearly all the general’s money was old money, passed down from one crooked dealmaker to another. It was old money, which had been wisely invested by “Tex’s” father, and his father before him. Tex Carnegie Senior was a thrift and shrewd cutthroat businessman, who had grown his father’s fortune ten-fold until he passed away late one winter’s night in an escort’s apartment in lower Manhattan.

Not that the coroner ever saw the old man’s body laying prostrate on his favorite call girl’s couch, as pale as a snowflake.

However, he did look at the Tex Senior keeled over in his limousine, after a suspected heart attack felled him while he headed home from a charity dinner in aid of a children’s cancer benefit.

Harris related to Ambrose, that Carnegie speculated on the stock market with great success. He had always been a gambler, and old money loved to gamble until the Dot-com crash.

More than one hundred million dollars of his fortune had disappeared overnight. Within a few days of the Wall Street financial collapse, Carnegie told his friends who surrounded him one night that, “the meek will inherit the earth.” As such, he would now, after many years of living the high life, recommit to his duty and go back to a simple soldier’s life.

This sudden change of heart shocked most, but it also gained him enormous respect among his peers and the political animals in Washington.

Using his newly gained respect and meekness, Carnegie pushed his military and political career along, and much to his surprise, he was far more successful at being poorer than what he was being rich; of course, nobody really knew that all the riches had gone.

He was now perceived as a levelheaded guy, a man who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but who now lived on a base and drove an ordinary sedan. He even demanded his children work through college to teach them a lesson in life, and unless they could pay their own way to Harvard, he wasn’t going to pay a cent to aid them.

“All good things come earned through work and dedication.”

In 2003, Carnegie stepped out of a Black Hawk helicopter and set his feet down firmly on Iraqi soil.

According to the press, Carnegie led from the front, he took fire alongside his troops, he even fired back on occasions, but that was only a rumor.

Instead of shooting, Carnegie preferred to carry a swagger stick, trying to emulate Patton.

He was known for leaping into foxholes and sharing cold rations --- he drank the doughboys’ coffee and radioed in fire missions against insurgent positions.

However, all that was a lie. Carnegie was a hopeless coward who never made a brave decision that wasn’t based on profit margins and backed by accountants. With his newfound taste for politics, Carnegie knew that everybody loved a hero, but without the cash to support his ambitions, he was well on the way to go nowhere unless he could find a way to have both--- the heroic status and the dollars to back it up.

Ad-Dawr is a small rural town not far from the birthplace of the fallen Saddam Hussein’s home town of Tikrit, and the rumor was, Saddam was hiding somewhere in this area after the collapse of his regime.

It was also said that Saddam had emptied Iraq’s bank vaults just before he skipped town and disappeared with hundreds of millions in foreign currency and precious jewels, not to mention millions and millions in bonds and securities.

Tex “Cash” Carnegie then decided to busy himself with the hunt for Saddam and his lost millions. He pursued this beast day after day and night after night until he finally found what he was after, down a hole next to an abandoned farm, protected by two Bath party supporters who swore to protect what was hidden in the hole with their lives.

Which both did after its discovery.

Within weeks of Carnegie’s find, his closest companions on the ground (who had made a secret pact with Carnegie to divide the cash) in Iraq, also began to pay a heavy toll for their relationship with General Carnegie.

One after another, until the general was the last man standing, they passed on and up into the waiting arms of God Almighty. Except by then, he was standing on American soil and being presented with the Medal of Honour for bravely fighting to his final round, while protecting his wounded officers and men until rescued.

As luck would have it, the general was the only one to survive this fierce encounter with hundreds of insurgents one bleak night fifty miles from Baghdad.

The President had found a general for a hero and Carnegie once again started to live it up and was heard saying, “Life is too short not to enjoy what God has given you, if riches are among his gifts bestowed upon a man, then who am I to deny this God-given blessing. For I believe the meek will inherit the earth, and as such, I accept what has been given to me and not deny God his wishes. I am a humble man.”

“Beware of Greeks bearing gifts and self-proclaimed humble men,” Harris said to Ambrose that dark stormy night in Washington.

Toward the end of the long oak table sat Thomas Holtz, the Vice President. Holtz was a close friend of General Carnegie and a bitter opponent of both Schwartz and Lieberman. Holtz had only recently celebrated his 55th birthday, and the anniversary of his first term in office as the Vice President of the United States. Dignitaries from all over the world had come to celebrate this (and the President’s) milestone at a lavish public reception for the press, and then a private party behind closed doors with scotch-filled glasses and fat Cuban cigars.

It was around this time when close friends and associates began to see the cracks showing in both the President’s relationship with Holtz and the relationship the President had with many of the Washington long-timers.

Within the early months of the President’s first term in office, things began to change around Capitol Hill.

Favors had ceased having a price tag, and the old men of the Hill were now just glimpsing a new vision of the future. The era of Green Politics had arrived in Washington.

The new President’s electoral success was due to his acceptance of global warming and his views on old-fashioned values and religion.

Faith and Green issues was the cornerstone of his election campaign, faith and an urgent need for social change to begin a golden period of wealth and prosperity for America. The new President wanted to bring American jobs back home, and be the Green savior of American industry, and he vowed to allow each young American to have the right to choose between Darwin and Creation in public schools. He believed creationism was a science and a practical alternative to the men in white lab-coats --- this belief now clouded his view on the current crisis. A terrorist act may be the act of the devil, but even the devil submits to the plan of God.

Before the crisis, the President preached that small towns were on their way back, and that the young people who had left the land to chase opportunity in the city and to avoid the crippling debts of farming, would now be encouraged to stay. Both Holtz and the President were hitting the streets, proclaiming that with government incentives and a building from the ground-up approach that the country was going to turn around, a country, which had for years been lost in the mire of international wars and globalization.

They equally preached a simpler approach to both domestic and foreign problems.

They both preached America for Americans.

Having faith as a cornerstone of policy was always a winner in Holtz’s eyes, a guaranteed win, but there was only one drawback to this approach. Holtz wasn’t a particularly religious man and what had happened during his first term while he was second fiddle, had seriously begun to worry him and the others who surrounded him.

The fact was the new President scared Holtz --- he was unpredictable and based many of his decisions on prayer and conscience, but worst of all, his near fanatical Christian brothers and sisters from the church easily swayed him.

Within months, some of Holtz’s long-time friends were in jail on corruption charges (no matter what party they belonged to) and it seemed to Holtz that it was only a matter of time before the Feds knocked on his door as well.

All over Capitol Hill, people were running scared.

The President, only days before the current crisis broke, was considering what he called “the eye of the needle tax,” based on the premise that a rich man had as much chance of getting into heaven as a camel had in climbing through the eye of a needle.

He was about to propose higher taxes on America’s leading companies and corporations, which Holtz and many others believed would cripple any new economic recovery. This new tax would provide for dramatic social reforms and Green initiatives, and cost America’s richest billions, “Something they could afford,” the President said.

At the end of the table sat the President, Joseph Walker, his gaunt face and tired eyes relayed his anxieties and troubled thoughts. His deep brown eyes gave him a hint of innocence and naivety, which was in a way true.

Walker was a profoundly thoughtful and honest man who lived his life according to the gospels and his own personal piety. To those who first met him, he seemed deeply out of his league in the cutthroat world of big-time politics. A country boy with honest expressions and truly felt emotions, he radiated a certain vibe. He made you feel special, almost as if you were his entire world, and your problems were also his.

He made a man feel that he was also carrying your burdens, like Atlas, he had the world on his shoulders.

It was a gift.

To people like Holtz, it was a gift that they couldn’t comprehend.

Walker could shame a man with a single look. He made bad people feel dreadful for their failures --- for their corruption and their back-door dealings.

However, in making others feel insecure about their way of life. He was creating enemies of his own, some very powerful ones indeed.

Walker looked around the table, seemingly holding eye contact with everyone, even though he only scanned the table for a moment or two, then he spoke.

“Gentlemen, I want to thank you for coming to this meeting today. I know you all have pressing matters to deal with which concern this current crisis, and I understand that you will wish to go back to deal with those matters as soon as possible.”

The table nodded in unison. Except for Harris, Ambrose noticed.

Walker then continued. “First, I would like to start with some relatively good news. It appears the flu element of the epidemic is easing. This may be due to the wide use of Tamiflu, limited as it was. I’m now told that the flu virus has mutated into a less lethal form. Even so, according to the experts, it does seem possible, but remote, that we may all become carriers. This means our people may not succumb to the virus as easy as before. However, the long-term consequences of the mutation remain unclear. Nevertheless, it’s a step forward, and with time and prayer, I’m sure better news will be forthcoming. I don’t believe I will be understating the fact that this is the greatest dilemma that this country has ever faced, not to mention our friends in Europe and Asia. Our nation is in the grip of terror, and our people are looking for leadership and especially to us for a solution to this crisis.” He paused for a moment to let his words sink in.

“And I for one do not intend to let them down. First, I would like to express my gratitude to all you for being so prompt in dealing with this situation and for accepting the meager resources that we have at hand. The situation is far from perfect, but the work all of you have done so far has been brilliant.” President Walker looked around the room to reinforce this sentiment.

“Now, before I continue, I would like to hear some of your opinions on what solutions you have in mind and what challenges you believe we have to overcome to get through this. So I open the floor. And please use my Christian name; we can drop Mister President for this occasion.”

Alan Lieberman went first. “Joseph, I’d like to say that the leadership you’ve displayed during the last week was outstanding, and I speak for everyone here when I express that truth. You’ve been an inspiration to everyone at this table and to our citizens who look to you for guidance and reassurance.”