* * *
We called in MCB to take care of the recently orphaned. The doctors warned them they’d be told to keep their mouths shut and to try to comfort each other. They noted that in mass attacks like this, group therapy worked quite well. Then we set out to fully clear the town.
There were a few shamblers still around. MCB had sent in school buses to get all the girls out. We ended up bunking with the families that had survived. We were clearing shamblers for three days.
On day three we declared the town clear and completed our count. This turned out to be a huge event. The MCB had their work cut out covering it up. I thought that had to be some sort of a record but it turned out the New York City blackout zombie outbreak had been three times our number. Total dead was higher. All the young children had been simply slaughtered. Some of them turned anyway but they were in pieces. Gruesome sight. I hate killing the young shamblers. That sort of thing shouldn’t happen to children.
When the town was clear, we had a visitor.
We were putting away our gear outside the Sheriff’s Office when a car pulled up and a tall man in his forties got out. He was wearing a revolver in a holster, one that had been used and seen some service, a shotgun vest loaded with cartridges and a Remington pump. Since the town was still under quarantine, we weren’t supposed to have visitors. But at least he’d dressed appropriately.
I was closest, taking off my Kevlar pants, as he walked up.
“Garrett Terry,” he said, holding out his hand. “Congressman for the Fourth District. Thank you for your service to our nation in resolving this terrible tragedy.”
“Congressman,” I said, shaking his hand. “Sorry for what happened to your constituents. We got here as fast as we could.”
“I understand,” he said, sitting down on the tailgate of the truck. “Okay, that’s a lie. I forced the FBI agents to read me in. That took three calls to DC with me increasingly steamed. Finally, I got a senior aide to force the issue. Now I almost wish I didn’t know.”
Doctor Lucius walked up to see what the hell was going on.
“Congressman Terry,” I said. “This is my team co-lead, Doctor Lucius Nelson, MD Psych. Doc Lucius, Congressman Terry. This is his district.”
“Congressman,” Lucius said, shaking his hand. “I’m surprised MCB let you through.”
“You wouldn’t believe how much trouble I went through to get through, Doctor Nelson,” Terry said, looking around at the empty streets. “I’m from Otuk. I went to school here. This is home, Doctor Nelson. I’m damned furious at this. And even more damned furious that this sort of thing happens and nobody even knows about it! It’s just made into myth! That’s not the purpose of the Federal Government and a priori suppression of speech is a total violation of the Constitution signed by our Founding Fathers!”
I was starting to like this guy. But…
“I’ve read the secret letters of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock and Benjamin Franklin on the subject, sir,” I said. “They were in agreement, mixed admittedly, they were never in lockstep, on suppression of the truth of the supernatural. They were even negotiating with the British Parliament while the war was ongoing. The signed agreement of the Continental Congress to suppress the truth of the supernatural was one of the conditions the French required to come in on our side. It goes way back.”
“You’ve read those letters?” Doctor Nelson said.
“Van Helsing had copies,” I said.
“Like Doctor Van Helsing?” Terry asked. “As in Dracula Van Helsing?”
“The Institute named after him, sir,” I said. “Congressman, be a bit cautious before you rock the boat on this one. We’ll talk. But just keep your anger in check. MCB could possibly be a bit less heavy-handed.”
“You think?” Doctor Nelson said, angrily.
“But these guys were actually helpful, which was the biggest surprise of this operation,” I said. “You want to say something good about this? Compliment those agents up there. They actually helped. First time in my experience.”
“It’s extremely rare, put it that way,” Doctor Nelson said.
“Emphasize the importance of keeping a lid on with your constituents. Help those poor girls who have lost their parents. And when you get to DC, try to get on the oversight committee so you can get fully read in.”
“Hate to tell you this, but getting on a committee costs actual money,” Terry said. “Campaign contributions to the party. And I just lost a major contributor in this massacre.”
“Did you mention money?” I said. “Did they mention we get well paid for this? Like I said, let’s talk. But later. There is lots to talk about.”
* * *
I thought about what “Reverend Donahue” said the whole way back to Seattle. With my gear cleaned and put away, ready for another mission, I pulled out my rolodex and dialed a number in DC.
“Assistant Deputy Director Wilson’s office. Who may I ask is calling?”
“Tell him it’s Chad Gardenier,” I said. “And I’ve got a lead on case number J-14458…”
The Dark Masters…Now who could they be…?
* * *
Denouement. “Reverend Donahue” was never officially identified to us. However, his depredations had been many. I’d reported to the incoming, “professional” MCB agents that he was the same necromancer that had attacked in Elkins. Necromancers were paid on a sliding scale depending on how powerful they were, he wasn’t very powerful, and how many known attacks they’d been involved in, many.
We made a bundle off of Rendon. I still wished it had never happened but that covers most of my career.
CHAPTER 16
This chapter’s going to piss off Raymond III, Ray IV and Earl. But it has to be said.
We live in a representative republic. That’s the technical term for our system of government. The way our system handles laws, regulations and so on and so forth is for the people, that’s us, to choose elected representatives, Congress and Senate, state legislatures, to figure out all the messy “stuff” of government for us. That’s what they are there for. Then the Executives, Presidents and Governors, set various boro-crats on the job of actually getting things done. Judges decide if they’re doing so within the laws.
That’s how it works. Civics 101.
What Civics 101 doesn’t cover is the nitty-gritty. When you take it they say “A bill will go through a committee…”
Okay, but how does Congressman Schmedlap get on such a committee? There are lots and lots of committees. How are congressmen and women chosen for them?
The Parties. There’s a committee in each party specifically to choose which legislator from which party will serve on which committee. Not only do they choose who and what, they set the cost of each committee seat.
Cost? Yep. It’s never discussed publicly but every committee seat costs money. The money is contributions to the party “in the name of” a particular legislator.
I’d heard about this way back when I was a kid. Remember, my mom was one of those politically active academics. We had congressmen and even a senator over to the house and I had big ears. Mom was always raising contributions for her favorite politicians. It was why she was so popular at UK. Because here’s how it works.
Person A raises money for Congressman B. Congressman B then gets on a committee that affects the business, academic, scientific, whatever, of Person A. Congressman B then steers money to Person A’s business. Person A sends some of it back to Congressman B. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Easiest example is the evil military industrial complex. Evil Defense Contractor (EDC) is based in Congressman Schmedlap’s district. EDC gives sixty thousand dollars to the Democratic party, via the Congressman’s aide. Said money is “contributed towards” the Congressman getting on the Defense Review Committee. The Congressman then ensures that EDC’s primo weapon of choice gets pushed through whether the Marines want the AAV or not. Better competing system be damned if they don’t have the rig
ht Congressmen and Senators on the right committees.
Up to ninety percent of a politicians time is absorbed just doing fund-raising. That’s how democracy works. Get over it.
Mom was a grant machine. She got on the grant committee in record time. Why? She knew congressmen and senators who were willing to steer grant money her way knowing that some of it would turn around and flow back into their sticky fingers.
You can call it bribery, you can call it a game, it’s the way the system works.
Ray and Earl hate the system. They “refuse to play the game.” When I started to play it on my own I got an angry call from Ray. I told him, point blank, he was a damned idiot. You see, we are part of the game!
We make ninety percent of our income from governments! The rest is contracts with various businesses. But most of our money comes from governments, especially the Federal Government in the form or PUFF checks.
Not “playing the game” was freaking insane. It was and is idiotic.
So here’s my pro-tip. One that will piss off the bosses but they reluctantly accept with the words “It’s your money, spend it how you like.”
Find yourself a congresscritter who you can stomach. Somebody that matches your general political spectrum, whatever it might be.
And block out a certain amount of money from every PUFF bonus to that congresscritter. Ten percent, twenty percent, one percent, whatever.
The agreement is that he will use that money to get onto oversight committees for monster related activity and share information to the extent that he can legally.
If every Monster Hunter in the US did that it would turn the tables on the MCB and monster rights groups. Because those guys decide how much money the MCB gets and how many grants monster rights advocates get. They control the purse. And money talks, bullshit walks.
About a month after the Rendon Incident I sat down with Congressman Terry in a nice restaurant in Seattle. Just the Congressman and myself. Dinner, Dutch, turned into drinks and a night out on the town. Man, that guy could drink. I didn’t hand him a fat check. That’s not how it works. We just talked. He’d been read in, wasn’t on any of the committees, hadn’t even known they existed, and wanted to know about monster hunting. I told stories. He told stories. He was former Army and a lawyer. He had some good stories. He explained some of the deep, dark secrets of how Congress actually worked. I told him I knew some of it. I talked about my bitch of a mother. He was aghast then laughed his ass off at the story about Bethesda.
I did not then and never did say “You need to increase the PUFF levels.” It wasn’t about that. But I did tell him that Monster Hunters, not MHI but the whole industry, needed a voice on the subcommittees. He couldn’t even tell me how many there were or who had oversight over what.
I promised to come up with some money, my own and others. He had to spread it around. It had to go towards monster related activities. He agreed. We shook hands over it at a bar right at last call.
The next week I sent his chief aide an envelope with checks worth over fifty grand from various members of my team.
Let me tell you, brother. For the rest of the time he was in Congress, Gary, as he prefers, took my calls. It was Gary and some other Congresscritters and later Senators who were snuffling in the Hunter trough that got us the contracts in Eastern Europe. And MHI made a packet on those. And when NY MCB got downright ornery, ’cause it was NY and how could a bunch of yokels know how to manage monsters in NYC? It was Gary, by then a party leader at least in part due to Hunter money, that smacked them the hell down and told them they’d fucked up the monster situation in NYC so they had a hell of a lot of nerve saying MHI couldn’t handle it.
Which we did in our own inimitable style.
Over the subsequent years I probably poured a million dollars of my own money into Gary’s pocket and twice that much from other Hunters. Gary was Republican, so am I, but I sent him checks for the Democratic party as well. Jesse of all people was a hardcore Democrat. Louis, surprisingly, was Republican. But I’d send money to the devil himself if it made my job easier. And Gary would pick out the Democrat who got it. Talk about bipartisan.
I ended up not only speaking before secret subcommittees but hanging out in the houses of Congressmen and Senators in DC. Generally when I was injured, again. And I’d tell them war stories. Few of them had ever met a hunter. Not a damned one of them had ever fought a monster, face to face. Some had seen them, one of the members was from New Orleans. Some of them still had a hard time believing in them. They’d be showed videos of them or in a few cases live specimens collected by the MCB.
I found out about other groups, some of them really top-secret. I met President Reagan, again. This time on business. He’d heard about me and asked to meet. We mostly talked about the philosophy of hunter vs. police monster control. After the meeting I ended up taking dinner, en famille, with him and Miss Nancy. She wanted me to call her just “Nancy” and I couldn’t. It was “Miss Nancy” and “Uncle Ron.” He admitted he hadn’t specifically remembered me from the bombing but he remembered meeting the airplane. I told him it had been the high point of my life to that point. I told them the troll story and Miss Nancy laughed so hard she spit out some of the veal. Even the Secret Service agents doubled over.
I ended up spending a weekend at the Western Whitehouse, their ranch in California. Again, while in recovery. Beautiful place and a great chance to talk. By then the GAO had been forced to do a cost benefit analysis of hunters vs. FBI. Turned out that the FBI cost for one wight was six times the PUFF. Including the cost of PUFF administration which was nearly as much as the PUFF. Christ, the government burns money like it’s coal or something.
And then I met my mother. Again.
At of all places a secret congressional subcommittee hearing.
Bitch was there representing Monster Rights Advocates.
Son of a…Yeah, that’s what I am.
She sat there talking about how vampires were intelligent beings and deserved full rights under the Constitution. I’d gotten some of those sorts of questions from members of the committee before and now I knew who was writing the questions. I’d been asked by a staffer on “our” side to prepare some questions for a monster rights advocate and Gary just tore a strip off of her hide.
“Do vampires have a soul?” Gary asked.
“I don’t see why that question is germane,” my bitch mother answered.
“I asked it. Answer it.”
“There is very little way to determine if any being has a soul. This is Congress after all.”
That caused some strained laughter from the very small audience. She had a few supporters. None from the committee. Not even her supporters on it.
“Previous respondents have testified that when a vampire drinks it drinks the soul power of the victim,” Gary said. “Are you disputing that testimony, Doctor?”
“I am not an expert on the soul,” she answered, bitchily. “But vampires are quite urbane individuals. Many of them are musicians, artists. Do they not deserve the right to life?”
“The only thing that may or may not deserve a right to life, madam, is something alive,” Gary said. “You are advocating rights for something that rips the human throat open and drinks its blood. You are advocating a right to life for something that is dead and simply kept animated, and hungry, through the blackest sorcery. That only gains its sentience, its ability to think and reason, after taking the lives of human beings. A vampire may play music but show me the one that can compose! You are advocating allowing the continued spread of a curse and a disease! You might as well suggest we legalize the Black Plague or Ebola! Have you no shame? Have you no common decency?!”
He wasn’t the only one that ripped her a new one. I was a major contributor to three of the members of the committee. Not only my money, other hunters as well. One of them was a Democrat. All of her supporters were Dems so I was bipartisan. She wasn’t.
After a long hour of back and forth it fina
lly ended.
She hadn’t seen me come in. I was the next testimony. She saw me when she got up and blanched.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she snarled. “Do you have to ruin everything?”
“I’m the next testant. You know, the pro ‘stake ’em, cut off the head and cremate’ side of the argument.”
“Chairwoman!” my mother said, spinning in place and shrieking at the committee. “This…this…This cannot be allowed to speak! He is a warmonger! A babykiller! A…A…He is the monster! Here the monster sits before you!”
One of her supporters was the chairwoman but she banged her gavel with a pained expression.
“The testimony is complete and we will have order,” the chairwoman said, wearily. She might take my mother’s money but I could tell she didn’t like her.
When I sat down I looked at my prepared remarks and set them aside.
“Madam chairwoman, due to the outburst from the previous testant, I request permission to revise and extend on my introductory remarks so as to put it in some framework. I will try to keep it as brief as possible for I understand the time constraints of the Honorable Congressmen and -women on this committee.”
She didn’t want to give it but Gary chimed in.
“Support the motion.”
Two others chimed in as well including my loyal Democrat.
“Permission granted to revise and extend.”
“The woman who just screamed at the honorable committee on the Supernatural is my birth mother,” I said, grinning. “I say birth mother because otherwise she was my personal vampire growing up…”
I didn’t get into the whole intro to this book but I did relate a few choice anecdotes about what it was like growing up with “that being” as my mother. And I related the Bethesda Incident. By the time I got to “Do the whole village!” even the chairwoman was laughing in shocked hysteria.
“So please keep those facts in mind when considering the previous testimony,” I concluded. “As well as the outburst on exit. That covers nothing of my original opening statement, but I considered it more important. I am now prepared for questions from the committee…”
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