American Conspiracy

by M. J. Polelle

  “Fifteen minutes.” He checked the time on his cell and sat down. “No more.”

  “I found out something interesting.” She tightened the cardigan around her shoulders. “While doing research on the archaeology of Easter Island, I learned there’s a bacterium in the soil that produces rapamycin, a potent antibiotic used to prevent organ rejection and now also used as an antitumor drug—”

  “How’s that connect to my Senex investigation?”

  “I’ll answer if you let me.” She didn’t like being talked over. “Rapamycin, it turns out, lengthens life spans in insects, worms, and mice . . . as much as thirty percent and—”

  “Don’t you get it?” He ran his fingers down his face. “I can’t arrest Senex for taking rapamycin.”

  “That’s not my point . . . if you’d just let me finish.” Her patience was running thin. “A footnote in the article mentioned Dr. Angelo Mora had done research on the antibiotic years ago at the University of Padua in the search for what he called the fountain of youth. He rejected rapamycin because it threatened the human immune system. Instead he saw parabiosis . . . joining the blood circulatory systems of two living organisms, one younger and one older . . . as the way forward to rejuvenation and—”

  “A pissing match among experts means nothing.”

  “I’m leaving unless you stop talking over me.” She took a deep breath. “I know you’ve been through a lot with the commander but . . . please . . . hear me out.” When he remained silent, she continued. “Mora suggested young convicted criminals be forced into parabiosis before execution, or offered commutation of sentence for agreeing to parabiosis, so their blood didn’t go to waste.”

  “You mean—”

  “Exactly. Think about it. Dr. Mora, brought to Chicago by Sebastian Senex, is around when gangbangers disappear and three—” She cut herself off. No need to remind him of Santiago’s death.

  “I get it.” He swallowed hard. “Neofascist comes to Chicago, gangbangers disappear, three found dead in a truck . . . including my son. Senex must have known the background of his chief medical investigator.” He held her hand across the table. “Not much to go on but it’s something.”

  “Why not interrogate Mora?”

  “I’d love to.” His facial excitement faded to gloom. “But Dr. Mora has gone missing.”

  “Cheer up. I brought good news.”

  “Must be a mistake.”

  “Has Marco’s pessimism infected your top-of-the-morning optimism?” She pushed his arm playfully. “Stop imagining the worst.” She handed over a business card. “This publisher for my archaeology book heard about you from yours truly. He’s interested in publishing a line of children’s books and looking for authors. Need I say more?”

  “What’s this got to do with me?” He dropped the card into his shirt pocket without reading it.

  “Sparky the Squirrel. Remember the notes you left behind when we had lunch in the Walnut Room at Macy’s?”

  “They were just notes to kill time.”

  “Hold on.” She straightened up. “Marco told me you’re writing a children’s book.”

  “I didn’t ask you to find a publisher.”

  “You’re welcome.” She got up and buttoned her coat. “You obviously want to have a pity party for yourself. But you don’t need me for that.” She picked up her purse. “Daisy just wants to speak to you anyway.”

  “I’d like you to stay.” He looked down at the floor. “They’ll laugh at me if they find out.”

  “Who?”

  “District Thirteen cops. They’re old-school.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “If word gets out I’m writing a children’s book . . .”

  “I’m not laughing.”

  “Don’t tell anyone.”

  “Oh yeah.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Like I’m going to tell your macho brother cops you’re writing a book about a squirrel who lost his nuts.”

  She put two fingers over her lips and widened her eyes right before they both rocked with belly laughter. His laughter came through like a rushing stream breaking up a logjam of despondency. Color returned to his cheeks. His eyes grew bright and merry.

  “I have a soft spot for kids.” He shook his head at the waiter offering another Guinness. “Our baby died at birth . . . and then Santiago.”

  “I know.” She came around the back of his chair and kneaded his shoulder with her hand. “Marco told me.”

  “All I wanted was to help a disabled girl in a wheelchair by tossing her ball back.” He took her hand still resting on his shoulder. “Next thing I know I’m responsible for the death of the next president of the United States and the mess the country’s in.” He shrugged. “As Marco would say . . . ‘Mondo cane . . . It’s a dog’s world.’”

  “Dogs don’t wallow in the past.” She removed her hand and sat back down. “The assassin’s responsible for the murder. Maybe someday you feel that as well as know it.”

  Just then Daisy Senex flung open the front door of Dugan’s Pub and came over to their table. She pulled out a chair and sat down without a greeting.

  “Do you want me to leave?” Nicole asked.

  Daisy shook her head. “Stay.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Murphy said. “You have dirt about your own father?”

  Daisy pulled out a letter written to her by Dr. Angelo Mora in his own hand shortly before his disappearance. The doctor’s lab assistant told her Mora gave instructions for him to deliver the letter to her in the event of the doctor’s death or disappearance. Daisy read the letter like a woman in a trance.

  My poor Daisy . . . If you are reading these words, know that I am dead at the hands of your father for what he considers my betrayal of him to organized crime. Even though he received from me the gift of youth and a reprieve from death, the ingrate murdered me.

  My secret blood research on his behalf and of which he availed himself reversed his aging process through parabiosis. My genius even surpassed that landmark breakthrough by my further discovery of the Ponce de León protein that renders parabiosis outmoded.

  Your father and I agreed that the blood of criminal riffraff should be used for the experimentation. To this end he conspired with organized crime to kidnap and use street criminals as my guinea pigs and sources of youthful blood.

  The start of my tragedy occurred when what you call the Chicago Outfit refused to assassinate the Democratic candidate, Franklin Dexter Walker, at your father’s request. Your father instead recruited the renewed Sinaloa cartel for this enterprise. Because of a business falling-out spawned by my discoveries, he has now declared war on the Chicago Outfit and brought in the cartel to wage that war. Sinaloa brought in the Aztec Warriors as allies. Vincent Palomba learned of this through his informant in the cartel.

  I lied when I told you in the Lincoln Park Conservatory that I did not know who ordered the killing of Vincent Palomba. The Aztec Warriors who killed and cannibalized the heart of your dear lover, Vincent Palomba, acted at the direction of the Sinaloa cartel. What I didn’t tell you was that your father is not only responsible for the death of the missing hoodlums sought by the police. He also retained the cartel to specifically murder your beloved Vincent Palomba. Sources within the Chicago Outfit confirmed all this from captured Sinaloa members.

  And, finally, I must tell you what I could not tell Detective Murphy during his interrogation. From personal involvement, I know the son of Detective Murphy, Santiago, was rounded up on the street so that I could join his body to that of Sebastian Senex—

  “It can’t be,” Murphy said.

  —and use the blood of Santiago’s body to rejuvenate Sebastian Senex at the threshold of death.

  “My son’s blood is in that piece of garbage.” He stood up.

  Garvey hugged him.

  I confess that at the direction of Sebastian Senex an
d the leader of the Chicago Outfit I ended the life of Santiago, after the parabiosis procedure, with a fatal combination of drugs. I repent my actions and seek my revenge against Sebastian Senex through Detective Murphy. Farewell.

  “Senex will pay,” Murphy said. “He murdered my son.”

  Chapter Fifty

  While gray skies drizzled over New Orleans, Sebastian Senex marveled how much General Horatio A. Harrison had aged. Or maybe it only seemed that way because he himself looked so young. They took a table inside the covered portico of Café Du Monde away from perimeter tables exposed to the windswept rain. He owed much to this friend of the family who, as adjutant general of the Illinois National Guard, had watched over him in the guard.

  Senex had shimmied up the greased pole of promotion and retired as a National Guard colonel on inactive status before becoming CEO of Promethean Pharma. Their fast friendship grew distant when General Harrison rose through army ranks until he reached the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and now secretary of defense. In a camouflage jacket, the general sat with hands on the table and fingers interlocked. Furrows ran along his forehead. Rumor was ol’ Hard-Ass was having a hard time adjusting to civilian life.

  “You look great, Sebastian.” The general took a pill with water. “Wish I felt like you look. Working in DC with political blockheads tires me out.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “Civilians dumb as a box of rocks.” He signaled for a waiter. “How do you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Look so good.”

  “Not smoking, eating right, exercise . . . the usual.” He didn’t want to waste time on chitchat. “You know, you’re the reason I came to the National Guard Association Convention.” He was set to continue when a waiter interrupted to take their orders.

  The waiter started with Senex. “What’ll you have?”

  “A café au lait and a beignet.”

  “And I’ll have a good ol’ cup of plain American coffee . . . black and no sugar.”

  “Who would have thought you’d be secretary of defense one day . . . and giving the keynote speech at this convention.”

  The general softened his clamped lips into the semblance of a smile.

  “I don’t use the word lightly, but you’re a true American hero . . . Afghanistan, Iraq, NATO command, and then big shot at Lockheed Martin, reorganizer of the Pentagon—”

  “Enough.” The general held out his hand with a big grin on his face. “You didn’t do so bad yourself.”

  “Nothing compared to you.” He sipped his café au lait. “You should think of running for high office, Horatio.”

  “Not Horatio.” The general’s face winced. “I prefer Ray.”

  “Sorry, Ray.” How could he have forgotten? He worried the mistake would set back his plan to butter up the general. At least he remembered not to call him Hard-Ass. Hearing that nickname would have sent H. A. Harrison up the wall. “I forgot your name preference, but you see, I’m distracted with worry about our country.” He had heard rumors of friction between Dallas Taylor and the general. He needed to exploit that.

  “I’m worried too.” Harrison looked around and leaned over. “Can you keep a secret?”

  “Of course.” Senex offered half of his beignet. The general patted his plump belly and declined.

  “Being out of active command grinds on me. I have to play nursemaid to a former television judge and kooky politician. Would you believe she watches TV for hours in the Oval Office? She scares me with her incompetence in these dangerous times. Our foreign enemies are circling around.”

  “Unless you convince her, Ray, to call up the National Guard . . . Chicago will be in ruins.”

  “I’ve tried. She refuses to listen. It’s hopeless.” He shrugged his shoulders. “With your influence, can’t you get the governor to do it?”

  “The coward.” He crushed the remainder of the beignet with a spoon. “He’s afraid he’ll lose votes if the guardsmen miss work and are taken from their families. Or if the guardsmen harm protestors and rioters. He’s dead meat next election, as far as I’m concerned.” He held up his hands. “But these hands are tied for now.”

  “Not like our old pal, the former governor. He got things done.”

  “What can we do,” Senex asked, “about this accidental president in the White House before things get worse?”

  “Somebody should do something. Dallas Taylor is a celebrity imposter. She’s likely to sack the current cabinet and install her team of second-raters.”

  “But if no one else does anything?” He leaned across the table and looked into Harrison’s eyes. “How do we get her out?”

  The general fidgeted. “Let’s hope the House chooses a president soon.”

  “And if not soon?”

  “We’d have to do something.”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  What would he do? President Dallas Taylor swung around in her Oval Office swivel chair to contemplate a framed photograph of a scowling LBJ pointing an accusatory forefinger at some unseen target. The man could be a crude sonofabitch but no one doubted he was in charge.

  He stayed the course in signing the Civil Rights bill even though it wrecked the Democratic Party in the South. He pushed to eliminate poverty while fighting the Vietnam War even though it ballooned the national debt. Whatever his Texas-sized failings, LBJ had what Texans called double backbone when it came to fighting for the underdogs. So would she.

  If a Texan as god-awful mumbly as LBJ could handle the presidency, so could an articulate black woman from a Texas ghetto with a natural flair for media communication.

  She looked at the political advertisement on TV. The ad kept popping up all morning on one or more of the three TV sets tuned to different cable networks. This was a low-blow attack ad dressed up in the guise of a public-service ad about terrorism. The ad creator had manipulated a photo of her and Malik Shakur, the leader of BPM, so that she appeared to shake hands with him instead of what really happened: shaking her finger in disapproval of his message.

  She had to contend with something her political idol did not. The era of fake images had dawned hand in hand with fake news. Artificial intelligence furthered exploitation of the visual media. Determining the truth in the political arena became more difficult. It wasn’t simply that much of the public relied on deepfake images via social media in place of true images. No siree, the problem was worse than that. Many doubted even true images because they thought they could be deepfakes. This cynicism ate away at the cohesiveness of an American society where visual facts were treated as fakes and fakes treated as visual facts.

  Who was behind it? She put her money on Sebastian Senex. You didn’t need artificial intelligence to make that bet. Just half a brain. When she gave her press conference criticizing the price monopoly of Promethean Pharma regarding Anoflix, Senex must have followed through on his threat to smear her as an African American radical in cahoots with domestic terrorists.

  Under the legal pretext of being a social welfare organization, the super PAC had used dark money from a 501(c)(4) group whose donor list could legally remain anonymous. She and Sebastian Senex were now at war. She winked at LBJ and strutted off to a meeting in the Cabinet Room with a holdover team of officials from the previous administration.

  Inside the room with her fifteen cabinet members gathered around the oval table, she had only one item on her mind. “Give me a status report on the federal court case against Promethean Pharma,” she asked the attorney general, “for refusing to negotiate the price of Anoflix.”

  “We’ve caught Promethean Pharma off guard,” the attorney general said, a smart-as-a-whip woman with Florida roots. “They assumed we’d only try to enforce the excise tax against Promethean Pharma for failing to bargain.” She rubbed her hands together as though about to devour a treat. “But I had a better idea.”

 
; “You should have informed me of your idea before this meeting,” said the silver-haired secretary of health and human services. “The new federal statute designates HHS as the drug-price negotiator.”

  “The attorney general determines legal strategy,” Taylor said. “She reports directly to me. Not to you.”

  A friend of the former president, the secretary of HHS was on thin ice. Taylor didn’t appreciate his jealous turf battles with other agencies. Worse, the man never saw or offered solutions, only hopeless problems. She’d have to remove him once she settled in.

  “Trying to enforce the so-called excise tax is a dead end,” the attorney general continued. “Any tax they pay is a drop in the bucket given their profits. They can continue gouging patients as a cost of doing business.” The attorney general paused for what seemed to be dramatic effect. “Instead, I’m asking the court to enjoin Promethean Pharma to negotiate in good faith, similar to what happens in labor dispute cases . . . or else risk contempt of court if they don’t.”

  “I like it.” Taylor saw her holdover attorney general being nominated to the Supreme Court. She came from the same dirt-poor beginnings as her new boss and made a success of herself as a former Harvard Law professor and federal judge. Right now, though, Taylor needed this legal whiz in court against Promethean Pharma and Senex. “How quickly can we do it?”

  “Good news,” her legal star responded. “The district court judge fast-tracked the case because of its public health implications. We’re moving for an emergency temporary restraining order tomorrow, to be followed by an injunction.”

  “Excellent.” Her legal team would stick it to Senex. She wouldn’t have minded so much if he hadn’t made his opposition so personal. But how could she forgive him for stirring up his legislative lackeys to bar her from using the Oval Office until the Senate elected a president? The attempt to humiliate her had never gotten off the ground, but it still infuriated her.