The Exterminators

by Bill Fitzhugh

  Cut to a medium shot of a pigeon-faced woman in her fifties, sitting in front of a book-lined wall. Professor Watson answered the question with expert matter-of-factness. “They’re an apocalyptic, fundamentalist Protestant congregation whose members believe in one of the many variations of end-time doctrine. They hold that Christ will return only when they—evangelical Christians—have prepared the world for Him, a process that involves the ‘Christianizing’ of America. One of the first steps toward this end is doing away with what they consider the secular entertainment industry, which they believe has a corrupting influence on the nation. This is the same mind-set reflected in legislatures where elected officials pass anti-environmental laws under the logic that there’s no point in trying to stave off environmental collapse if the Rapture is imminent. In fact, many of these legislators are actually on the record saying that the sooner we achieve ecological collapse, the sooner Christ will return. Of course there are other evangelical groups who dispute this interpretation of scripture, saying God intended man to be good stewards of the earth.” She shrugged and said, “It’s an interesting schism.”

  Cut back to Traci standing by the side of a delivery truck marked with the Atypical Resources logo. “All of this raises the question: Why would a company specializing in fulfillment of unusual contract requirements for military research acquire a niche marketing firm and a party tent supplier? The answer to this was the third intriguing fact we came across in the public records.”

  Cut to shots of new legal documents with highlighted language as Traci continues in voice-over, “Documents reveal that Distinguished Selections, Hollywood EvenTents, and Atypical Resources are all controlled by the same company. That company is Blue Sky Capital Partners, ostensibly a venture capital firm based in the San Fernando Valley.”

  Cut to a wide shot of the DARPA complex. Traci walked into frame holding what looked like a thin phone book. “The Southern California directory of venture capital firms says Blue Sky Capital Partners is headquartered in this complex of buildings in Van Nuys. But the sign at the gate tells a different story.”

  The camera zoomed in on a small sign by the front pedestrian gate. It reads: D.A.R.P.A.

  “DARPA,” Traci said, ominously. “The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, an agency whose sole charter is radical innovation and the development of new and unusual weapons technology for the U.S. military. We called Blue Sky Capital Partners to confirm this as their mailing address. We then called the public information officer at the Department of Defense and were told that these DARPA labs are run by a man named Joshua Treadwell, the same man listed as the CEO of Blue Sky Capital Partners. The name rang a bell,” Traci said. “I had seen it before…at the website for the United Family of Calvary Church.”

  Cut back to the website. “Here, on the back pages is a listing of the church’s board of directors and various church committees. And here, listed as a board member and as the head of the finance committee was the name Joshua Treadwell.”

  Cut back to Traci at the anchor desk, the Department of Defense logo keyed in over her shoulder.

  “It all adds up to a series of troubling questions,” Traci said. “Why is an agency of the Department of Defense pretending to be, or acting as, a venture capital firm? Is it a mere coincidence that they control the three companies with direct connections to the deaths of Lloyd Thursby and over three hundred celebrities? Is it possible the mutant bugs are actually weapons created by DARPA? If so, how and why did they end up at the A-list after-parties in West Hollywood? Was Lloyd Thursby killed in an experiment gone awry at the DARPA facilities at the Van Nuys airport?”

  The graphic changes to the U.S. Constitution.

  “Given what Professor Watkins told me about the imperative of the faithful at the United Family of Calvary Church to do all they can in their private and public lives to help bring about the Second Coming, it also raises terrifying questions about the flagrant disregard for the establishment clause of the First Amendment, the separation of church and state. Is it conceivable that a few men with strongly held religious beliefs of this nature—men like Charles Browning and Joshua Treadwell—are using these deadly insects in an attempt to ‘Christianize’ America by doing away with the entertainment industry?”

  Flames began licking at the Constitution.

  “We offered Mr. Treadwell the opportunity to address these and other questions, but he refused our interview requests, leaving us to wonder what he might be hiding…For Eyewitness Action News, I’m Traci Taylor saying good night, and good luck.”

  Chapter Sixty-eight

  Joshua Treadwell and Charles Browning met at the food court at the United Family’s shopping mall to discuss perception management options in response to Traci Taylor’s special report.

  Treadwell’s normally rosy cheeks were pulsing with a shade of boiling blood as he struggled to keep his voice down. “You’re the lawyer, you tell me. What sort of public records and legal documents led that bitch to our door?”

  Browning shot some mustard into his paper basket. “She made it up,” he said. “Out of whole cloth. There aren’t any public records—well, there may be a couple—but there’s no way she’d ever find them. That’s how they operate. Public fishing expeditions. They tell lies and half-truths until the whole truth somehow gets uncovered. Then they print a correction after the indictments have been handed down.” He dipped his corn dog into the mustard and took a bite.

  Treadwell nibbled on a freedom fry and said, “Then that’s our angle. We disprove her assertions now.”

  “No point in that,” Browning said. “The toothpaste is out of the tube. The public’s seen the documents on TV. That makes them real enough. Besides, it’s true.”

  Treadwell surrendered the point. “All right, so we hold a press conference. Say we conducted an internal investigation that uncovered Bob and Klaus as, I don’t know, some sort of terrorist infiltrators.” He pointed at Browning. “That’s it, a couple of guys who joined the jihad, like that John Walker Lindh kid.”

  “The new American Taliban.”

  “Exactly. They infiltrated DARPA and released the bugs into Hollywood as part of some radical Islamic plan to destroy the Godless entertainment industry because…no, I guess that’s too close to…never mind.”

  Browning shook his head while dabbing his lips with a napkin. “Press conference is no good. Can’t come directly from you. Looks too defensive,” he said. “We need someone else to do this. Independent third party. Maybe one of those think-tank whores with a regular column.”

  This seemed to put an ounce of starch back in Treadwell’s spine. “All right, how about we leak it to William Cooper? He’s always happy to play ball for the team. And cheap too. Give him the worldwide print exclusive, all the facts we want put out there. A couple of former mercenaries, men with bounties on their heads, big-time traitors, that sort of thing.”

  “That’s a good place to start,” Browning said. “But we don’t want it just coming from the right. It’d be nice to see something in the Times. We know anybody who can sell them a freelance story?”

  Treadwell seemed skeptical. “Two leaks seems a little obvious, don’t you think?”

  “No, just pay somebody to write an ‘investigative’ piece like they were on the trail separately. An independent story that fingers these two with a variation of the evidence.”

  “Judy Rendon’s a possibility.”

  “She’s perfect,” Browning said. “We give her a ‘highly placed source in the Pentagon’ or naval intelligence that Williams doesn’t get, something like that. The story looks stronger coming from two directions.” Browning pushed the bottom half of the corn dog to the top of the stick, dipped it in the mustard and slipped it into his mouth.

  “Hey, what about Winston Archer? Can he be bought?”

  “Sure,” Browning said. “But it�
�s a dumb way to spend money.”

  “He’s already drinking the Kool-Aid?”

  “Hell, he’s stirring in the sugar.”

  “God bless him,” Treadwell said. “Maybe we could get him to Swift-Boat this Traci Taylor.”

  “You read my mind.”

  “Yeah, the usual hates-America, aid-and-comfort-to-the-enemy sort of thing.”

  Browning pointed his corn dog stick at Treadwell and said, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

  “Yeah, and if you’re not with us, you’re against us.”

  Browning finished his cola and said, “Think it’ll work?”

  “You kidding? I got two words for you: Mission Accomplished. This is nothing.”

  Chapter Sixty-nine

  Father Paul was at one end of the sofa, his bound hands resting in his lap. Katy was in the middle. Mary was at the other end with the remote, surfing from one news report to another. Agent Parker was standing behind them, eating a lamb shawarma that he’d picked up at a nearby Middle-Eastern take-out joint. From the corner of her eye, Mary noticed Katy passing a hand in front of Father Paul’s face. Mary turned and said, “What are you doing?”

  “I’m worried about him,” Katy said. “Every now and then his lids close and his eyes move around like he’s having a dream, but I don’t think he’s asleep. Half the time he does it with his eyes open.” She tilted her head sympathetically. “He kind of reminds me of Granddad.”

  In fact, the smell of the onion, lamb, and hummus had Father Paul drifting in and out of a vivid hallucination about the torture and death of St. Lawrence, the patron saint of cooks who, after irritating the prefect of Rome in August of 258, found himself strapped to a large grill and laid over a bed of hot coals without the benefit of so much as a dry rub. After being adequately browned on one side, legend has it that St. Lawrence made his famous and cheerful remark, which Father Paul now uttered, “It is well done,” he said. “Turn it over and eat it.”

  “Guh.” Katy moved away from him slightly and said, “What-ever.”

  “Just leave him alone.” Mary hit the remote again and came across the Winston Archer Report. “Oh,” she said. “This ought to be good.”

  Winston Archer had a large radio and cable television audience, a fan base known collectively as Archer’s Army. It consisted primarily of bumper-sticker-logic white males over sixty-five, though it skewed slightly younger and with more female appeal among the NASCAR demographic. Their catch phrase, repeated ad nauseam by his studio audience and those who called in to his radio show, was “Amen, Archer!”

  Wearing his costume of red tie, white shirt, and blue blazer with the flag pin on the lapel, Archer was alternately avuncular and contemptuous as he delivered the news of the day. “Looks like those killer bugs got another dozen last night in La-La Land,” he said reading from a sheet of paper. “What do we have here, five actors, four agents, two set designers, and another director.” Archer pumped a fist before shaking his head as if contractually obligated to show some degree of humanity, even for those in the entertainment industry. He put the paper down and said, “Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that the only people getting killed seem to be Democrats?”

  The studio audience chuckled in anticipation of the punch line.

  “I mean, it’s uncanny. It’s like these darn bugs can smell a lib-brull from a mile away!”

  Now they laughed and yelled, “Amen, Archer!”

  “Mary?” Bob called from the dining room table. “Could you turn that down?” He gestured at the stacks of entomology textbooks. “We’re trying to work here.”

  Klaus pushed one of the books across the table to Bob and said, “What about pirate bugs?

  Bob put a hand across one eye and said, “Arrrgghhh, Orius insidiosus.” He read about the bug’s life cycle and feeding habits.

  “They can eat thirty spider mites a day,” Klaus offered somewhat desperately. “Perhaps—”

  Bob pushed the book back to Klaus. “Way too small,” Bob said. “Their beaks probably wouldn’t even penetrate the assassins’ exoskeleton.” Bob grabbed another book and said, “What about the hunting wasps?”

  “Perhaps,” Klaus said, reaching for the North American Field Guide to Wasps.

  There were several species to choose from, but they focused on the ones that preyed on shield, wing bugs, stinging the victim to deaden, but not kill it, before laying an egg inside the prey, sealing it in a nest, and letting the larva eat its way out.

  “But we’d have to design them to hunt the assassins,” Bob said. “I don’t think we have that much time.”

  Klaus nodded. “I still believe the best approach is to bait traps with the cockroach pheromone. If nothing else, it would reduce the numbers and buy us some time.”

  Agent Parker finished his shawarma as Winston Archer began his interview with a U.S. congressman who, in addition to evading taxes and engaging in mail and wire fraud, had steered deals to a defense contractor in exchange for two million dollars in bribes. He said, “So, Congressman, what’s your reaction to what’s been happening in Los Angeles?”

  The man offered a wry smile. “Winston, I think it just goes to show that even if big government couldn’t do anything to fix Hollywood, God sure could.”

  Winston replied with a wink and a nod before he said, “Now, Congressman, let’s talk about this indictment of yours.” He paused to sniff the air. “If you ask me, it smells like nothing but partisan politics.”

  Once again the audience called out, “Amen, Archer!” followed by sustained applause.

  Agent Parker reached over the back of the sofa and took the remote from Mary. He turned off the television and said, “Guys, I think we’ve lost our focus here.” He pointed the remote at Bob and Klaus. “Now, I know you’re busy trying to save L.A., but there’s twenty million dollars on the table and we need to put our heads together and figure out how to make it ours.”

  “Yes!” Katy slapped her thighs and jumped up. “I was starting to wonder if I was the only one thinking about that.” Katy figured her cut was in the neighborhood of five million, and it had been burning a hole in her pockets since Agent Parker revealed his plan. “I’ve been working on some ideas,” she said. “But I’ve got a question.” She looked at Agent Parker. “Like, what kind of proof is he looking for? I mean, he can’t expect you to bring the bodies to Bolivia, right? And I doubt he’d come up here, since he could get arrested. So how are we going to prove they’re dead? Like you said, Polaroids and a crusty hat probably aren’t going to cut it this time.”

  “No, you’re right,” Agent Parker said. “That’s why we need to—”

  “I was thinking either fingers or teeth,” Katy interrupted. “If we can prove the fingerprints really belong to them, and I don’t know how we’d do that, I’d leave that up to you guys, but if we hand over the fingers, that might work, except he might suspect we just cut them off and they’re not really dead, right, they just have fewer fingers.” She pointed to Agent Parker. “Hey, do you know if it’s possible to transplant fingerprints to other fingers?”

  “Katy, we’re not going to cut off your dad’s fingers,” Mary said. “Or Klaus’.”

  “Guh. Well then you’re probably going to shoot down my teeth idea, too.”

  “Try me.”

  “I was thinking if we got the jaws of a couple of dead guys, we could phony up some dental records, and how’s he going to argue with that?”

  “Where do think we’re going to get human jaws?”

  “Guh, I don’t know. It was just an idea.”

  Chapter Seventy

  When the Treadwell-Browning version of the story broke a couple of days later, Winston Archer jumped on it like a scarlet-and-green leafhopper (Graphocephala coccinea).

  “As good soldiers in Archer’s Arm
y, you’ll recall the other day I was telling you about that lib-brull wacko, Traci Taylor, trying to blame Christians for the nearly four hundred and fifty deaths in Los Angeles. I’m not making this up, folks, she says God-fearing Christians are at the bottom of this thing. Can you believe it? Now, I’ve pointed it out before, but this is just more proof that part of the lib-brull press agenda is to demonize people of faith. It’s scandalous. But, there’s good news.” He held up a copy of the Times along with a glossy news weekly, pointing at the front-page and cover stories. “Fortunately, there are still a few journalists in the mainstream who still go out and investigate to get to the truth. Judy Rendon is one of them; William Cooper is another.”

  “This story will chill the blood of patriotic Americans,” Archer said, waving the articles. “It’s absolutely unbelievable, but here it is in print. While that lib-brull chowderhead was out fabricating her Traci-in-Wonderland story, insinuating some sort of insidious plot and slandering two good men, Judy Rendon and William Cooper were out gathering facts. I know, we shouldn’t let facts get in the way of a blame-America-first narrative, but, according to these two thoroughly researched articles, the facts are these: the Department of Defense—you remember them, don’t you? The men and women who protect this great nation from those who would destroy us—you remember 9/11, don’t you? Well, long before the lib-brull press was conjuring their fairy tale, the Department of Defense was conducting an internal investigation into the possible infiltration of one of their agencies by illegal enemy combatants. I’m not making this up, folks. I’m not even sure I could. Don’t ask me how these guys got hired in the first place, probably some equal-opportunity requirement. I’m just surprised one of them isn’t a black Jewish lesbian.”

  “Amen, Archer!”

  “But in any event, the DOD investigation yielded results. And I’m here to share those results with you. So take a good look, my friends,” Winston Archer said. “Here are the faces of the enemy.”