Chapter Twelve
THE MAIN POINT of contention among many politicians-in-training, at least on the surface, was the old question – who should rule the school, geeks or Greeks? At Ben’s university, they called the dichotomy Greeks versus independents. Ben was used to this split, and had accepted it. He watched with dismay as both groups splintered and blurred the lines.
In his senior year, after a disastrous run as leader of the opposition party, he watched in horror as a band of older independents were hanging their hats. They weren’t giving up the fight; they were selling out for a hallow victory. That is, with one exception. An African-American engineer went “incognito” in protest, and instantly became a close friend and confidant as Ben battled his conscience and participated in the “most gut-wrenching political campaign” of his life.
That friend of his was affectionately and forever-more known as “the guardian of the independents.” Her strong ethics and political idealism kept the spirit alive, long past graduation day….
BENNITA JONES WAS comfortable in the two-seater vehicle. The hum of engine was a routine sound to her, and the GPS system did all the real work of driving. That freed her up to talk with her Anglo friend – even if she felt like he should not be wearing the almost-ghetto “threads” as a disguise.
“…and that’s pretty much when I decided to put on this get-up. It seemed fitting, given that my little brother took the effort to give me an alter-ego to use that wouldn’t be easily traced by whoever it is that has been following me since I left Gainesville,” Mike explained, as he took off his sunglasses, revealing his eyes. His eyes were concealed by subtle contact lenses that changed his pupils from a shade of blue to more of a hazel color.
The sound of an approaching vehicle caught their attention, although it simply whizzed past them in the lane on their left; they were already on the Capital Beltway, heading toward Maryland.
“Mike, I never would have thought you would be on somebody else’s hit list. You seemed so eager to be liked by everyone in college,” Bennita admitted.
“Well, I had my share of critics.”
“But you’re suggesting you had critics that would care enough, 20 years later, to go after you both professionally and physically? Come on, no one cares enough about Student Government to go that far. During college maybe, but not now,” she insisted.
“It’s hard to believe, but the facts are in. Someone wants me to pay for the production of that film. It wasn’t enough to get the movie postponed. This person wants me harmed.”
“Hmmm….”
“Alright, Bennita, take this exit into College Park. I’ve put myself into a hotel here under a pseudonym.”
She looked at him oddly. “You won’t even go back to your home or office?”
“It’s too risky. This antagonist has certainly booby-trapped those places by now.”
“True,” was all she could manage as she drove her vehicle into College Park. As she did, she could have sworn she saw a dark vehicle behind them make a sudden swerve into the exit ramp, as if it didn’t expect to make the turn.
“Weird.”
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. Someone must be a sleep at the steering wheel back there.”
“It’s the hotel closest to the college campus. A Marriott, I think.” Hopefully, everything’s alright back in Gainesville. The FBI has put protection on the principal cast and crew, and running around silly trying to find me. And my sister and my brother won’t say a word because neither of them really knows where I went. Mike smiled; he was playing a good joke on law enforcement – and as long as he could help solve this mystery for them, he did not mind one bit.
“WALT, I AM following the vehicle registered under her name. She was not too smart to register her vehicle with the same email address. Anyways, they are in College Park, Maryland. I’m in pursuit, and I’ll keep you informed,” the lady in sunglasses said into her phone, as she kept one hand in touch with the steering computer.
“Be sure not to be spotted by any witnesses,” a garbled voice said in reply.
“Of course not,” she said before tossing the phone in the passenger seat.
AS THEY WERE getting out of Bennita’s vehicle, Mike spotted the aforementioned dark vehicle pulling into the parking lot of the Marriott. “Look! You’re right. We ARE being followed,” he said.
“Let’s get inside,” Bennita said.
They made their way inside the hotel lobby. A quick scan of the large square room showed a number of oversized sofas and chairs, but nowhere that served as a good hiding spot. Mike gestured toward the elevators, and the two of them made a quick dash down that corridor, just as a lady with sunglasses made her entrance into the hotel lobby.
Mike kept pushing the “up” button, not knowing that the stalker had thrown a silent fit and decided to ask a bellhop for some help locating her target. Finally, the elevator opened, and just in the nick of time – the bellhop pointed down the corridor to where the two of them had just stood. The lady scurried off in pursuit, but just barely missed the elevator.
They both breathed a sigh of relief when they got off on the 11th floor and made it into Mike’s temporary lodging. Mike dropped his keys on the nightstand, and flopped down on the bed. Bennita chose to sit down in a chair next to the window. When they had stopped breathing heavily, Mike flipped on the television – and saw the news leads from D.C. and Gainesville.
“Politicians in Congress continued to quibble over how to spend the national surplus today in dueling news conferences. The Stock Market took a dive as investors pocketed their recent gains. ‘Friends II’, a sequel to the popular sitcom, has been green-lighted, with cast members selected from the families of the original ‘Friends’ cast. And in D.C., police have increased security around local weapons stores, research plants, and depositories, as investigations lead into dead-ends as who might have been involved in the recent heist of high-tech weaponry. Back in Gainesville, the recovering victims of food poisoning have reached a quick out-of-court settlement with the restaurant they acquired the illness from – with one, Brenda Freddies, saying she was grateful to put this past her, as she excused herself and went to a restroom.”
That is some pretty lame news headlines, Mike thought, but he felt it was good to hear some good news for a change coming from someone he knew. It certainly could have been worse, given my luck lately.
A strange, piercing sound caught both of them by surprise, however, just before some smoke began appearing outside the hotel window. Bennita leaned over to get a look, and grew angry.
“That’s my car!”
“What?!?” Mike raced over. Sure enough, the very same vehicle they had been sitting in just a half hour before was engulfed in flames. “Bennita, we can’t stay here,” he said as he went for his things and stuffed them back in his pockets. He also made sure to put his sunglasses back on.
“Come on, Bennita, let’s go!”
“Where? My car is gone!!!!”
“I’ve got a rental in the south parking lot.”
Reluctantly, she peeled herself from the window and fled the room. They used the elevator to get down into the basement, and used the back service entrance to get to the southern parking lot.
As they got in and Mike was powering up the vehicle, he hazarded a guess about their predicament. “My only guess is that I wasn’t the one being followed.”
“How can you say that?!? I’m not the one receiving death threats, here! You know, I’ve taken great care to remain “incognita” ever since I left college – I didn’t want anything more to do with politics, and those silly elites from back home. And look what you’ve done? You’ve put me on their hit list!”
“Would you please calm down?” He paused, waiting and hoping for an obvious sign that she had complied with his request. “Just remember, I’ve been known as Frank Levitz since I left Seattle. And they could have only found you through the fact that I sent you that email the other day. Now, think for a mom
ent. Have you registered for anything that connected your identity with that alumni email account?”
She slumped in her seat. After glancing at the picturesque scenery they were leaving behind. “There’s certainly one thing. That car. God damn it. They found me with that? Whoever hates you, Mike, has good intelligence resources at their disposal. You must’ve really pissed someone off to get us into all this trouble.”
“Tell me about it. We’re making a stop at the University of Maryland, here in College Park. I need access to the Internet – and it can’t be from some place obvious like either of ours’ home or office.”
“You think they’ve bugged my stuff?” she asked with disbelief.
Mike did not hesitate to give his answer. “Bennita, if they had the time to blow up your car, they’ve had the time to bug your house.”
“SIR, I’VE LOST them. Neither Michael Adams nor Bennita Jones took a room in the hotel, nor did any of their credit accounts get used in taking one. And after her car was destroyed, she didn’t come out and wait for the police or the insurance company, as we expected. Too many people were watching the blaze to notice if anyone left the hotel that didn’t look out of the ordinary,” the lady in sunglasses said into a microphone as she glanced into a mirror.
Walt replied, “And the security cams?”
“The cameras caught nothing. All I could see from them were several routine rentals coming and going. None of them in either person’s registry,” she said as she applied some blonde dye to the browning roots of her otherwise bottle-blonde appearance.
“So you’re at an impasse?”
“Basically I am.”
“Alright, then. Stay in town and watch out for any electronic sightings of this Bennita Jones character. She’s a close friend of his and not to be trusted for that very reason.”
“Yes, sir.”
ONE THING THAT Mike had always liked about the University of Maryland’s College Park campus was the way it was built. If there ever existed a stereotypical American university campus, UM at College Park is pretty darn close to resembling it. Expansive courtyards, and beautiful architecture filled the landscape; the massive parking lots did little to hide the charm. Even the newer buildings were in keeping with the old, almost colonial style of the buildings.
I still feel a pang of guilt for not considering coming here for college, Mike thought as he drove Bennita through the main campus and into a parking lot next to the main computer lab. But at least I live close enough to come and visit.
Even during nice weather such as today’s, getting to the computer lab was a chore, but at least there were plenty of people around to cloak the duo in anonymity. And as luck would have it, there were enough computer desks available to let them select one off in a corner away from public view. While the computer was loading, Mike pulled his tablet out of the right pocket of his jeans. And he couldn’t help but think: I can’t believe I’m wearing jeans again! I really like this disguise!
He shook off the distraction and plugged his tablet up for a direct link with the computer. He then turned to explain what he was about to do, for Bennita’s benefit.
“I’m going to have the computer run a substantive content analysis of my manuscript using the most common descriptors, and run that against a character map I wrote to guide me through the process of writing “A True Gator Party.”
She looked slightly confused. “What, if anything, will that accomplish?”
“If successful, I will have created a list of people that I may have, in their view, mocked or placed in a negative light in the fictional portrayals of their characters. It’s a stretch, but if this person is mad at me-”
“Mad enough to try and kill you,” Bennita interjected.
“Right, if this person wants to do that, and seems to be responding to the success of this book and the new movie being produced, it has to be because of what I may have done in the fictional story linked with his or her character. Or in the way I presented the group he was affiliated with. But honestly, this guy acts like a loner, someone intensely upset with my success, so it must be a personal thing.”
Mike began the analysis he just described, even as he listened to what she had to say. “Definitely makes sense, and you can rule out a lot of the people right off the bat for that reason alone. You didn’t make fun of a lot of people in this book of yours; you mostly attacked the lengths people go to in order to get ahead on campus. Not exactly a novel concept or one particular to our alma mater.”
“Duh. That’s why I can’t understand why anyone would go this far.”
While they were waiting, Mike decided to check his messages. Thank you, Paul, Mike thought as he toggled through the boring or the junk mail. Smartly, Paul had set up all of Mike’s messages to be forwarded to a message box set up for ‘Frank’, and placed a firewall up to prevent any outsiders from tracking where those messages were sent. It was a relatively simple procedure, really.
The only messages that caught Mike’s attention were one from Adam Ruppesberger, who reported the expected – the FBI had few leads, and were now focusing on protection for the principals, and trying to track Mike down for his own good. The other message, from his sister Anne, was more of a stream-of-consciousness rant about the insurance settlement for her garage, a non-too-pleasant complaint about her premium, and a happy report about the free media for her campaign.
Flashing lights on the computer notified them when the procedure was complete. It took far less time than either of them expected, in part because the traits normally associated with personal attacks were few and far in between in the manuscript. Yet, it did organize the list of characters based on being presented positively or negatively. Mike retrieved his tablet from its temporary docking port.
“Alright, we’ve got the list. Time we talk about strategy,” Bennita said, confident that her old friend would seek her guidance. Mike rose and began to leave the lab. Bennita scrambled to keep up. “Mike? Did you hear me? Let’s talk about this together.”
“I don’t think that’d be such a good idea. You’ve been through enough as it is.”
“Mike, you saw what those people did to my car. For what it’s worth, I am no longer able to hide behind a hospital job. This may be a personal fight with you, but your antagonist has also caught my attention. I’m in this for the long haul.”
“Are you sure?” he said as he turned to face her in the middle of a small courtyard outside the lab and in the middle of three other classroom buildings. The afternoon sun was already showing signs of fading into dusk.
“Did I just pee on your leg and tell you it’s raining? Of course I’m sure. I’ll do this, but I’m doing it for you – not for me, for you. And you clearly need all the help you can get, if you are to succeed. It’s time we catch this guy.”