48

Wednesday, February 17, 2021, 11AM Eastern Standard Time

The President squinted at his guest, who was sitting across from him on one of the two couches in the Oval Office. A brace of Secret Service agents sat on either side of him.

“Zed,” he said.

“Zed?” the President inquired.

“Zed.”

The President leaned back.

“This is the guy who was outside the gate? With the table? North of the White House?”

The Director of the Secret Service, who was seated next to the President, said, “Yes, sir. As far as it is humanly possible to ascertain, this is the man.”

“And he was there for how long?”

“Every day for about two months. When it wasn’t raining or snowing.”

“But never at night?”

“Not as far as we are able to ascertain.”

“Was he near the church?”

“We were not able to obtain clear footage of that particular area.”

The President looked at the man closely. He did have a long beard. And it was gray, as was his hair. But there was something a bit off about him. He seemed too young to have such gray hair, and the hair was shorter than in the videos and stills. And the beard…

“What took ya so long? I’m a busy man.”

“Well…” the first agent said.

***

“You are gonna really owe me after this, mister,” the police makeup artist said to the second agent, two hours earlier in the limousine.

“I know.”

“I mean, I don’t hear from you for months, and then suddenly I gotta show up on some national security mission for you?”

“I know, I know,” the second agent said.

“He wasn’t exaggerating,” the first agent reassured her. “What you are doing today is of the utmost importance.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said.

They had just parked at St. Elizabeth’s.

“Stay here, we’ll be right back,” the second agent told the woman.

“Where else am I gonna go, check into the booby hatch?”

The two doors slammed and she sat with her arms folded.

The agents walked into the facility, flashed their badges, and proceeded to the elevator. When it reached the third floor, they got out and walked down the hall to the room. The first agent opened the door and walked in, then walked back to the nurses’ station.

“What happened to the guy who was here a couple of weeks ago?”

“What guy?” a burly male nurse said to him.

“The guy who was here – the Zed guy.”

“He’s still there. What – he didn’t escape, did he?”

The nurse jumped up and jogged toward the room ahead of the agents. He looked into the room, then turned back in relief.

“No, that’s him,” he said to them, smiling now. “Still there. Right, Zed?”

“Zed,” the clean-cut man said to him, beaming.

“Oh, Christ,” the first agent said.

“What are we gonna do?” the second agent said.

“You’d better think of something,” the first agent said.

“I’D better think of something?”

The first agent glared at him. The second agent got on the phone.

“Honey, I got a favor to ask. I know you were just in for a beard-tinting job, but how are you at fake beards?”

The first agent heard a jumble of angry noises from the phone.

“Is there a place we can get you the supplies? …Theatrical Supply? …Near Ford’s Theater? Okay.” He hung up.

“What’s the deal?”

“We gotta make a stop on the way.”

***

“We…had a holdup at the hospital, Mr. President. Some medical bureaucratic thing.”

“I guess they got papers to fill out for the kooks.”

“Yes, sir. Some red tape. But we’re here now.”

“What did the signs say?”

“Signs?”

“The signs he had outside the White House.”

“Oh… It was some kind of gibberish, sir.”

“But you printed it out?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let me see it.”

The Director gestured to one of his agents, and he pulled out an enlarged photographic image of a sign. They all looked at it.

CAST YOUR BREAD UPON THE WATERS FOR YOU WILL FIND IT AFTER MANY DAYS GIVE A PORTION TO SEVEN OR EVEN TO EIGHT FOR YOU KNOW NOT WHAT DISASTER MAY HAPPEN ON EARTH IF WE ALL JUST GIVE AWAY EVERYTHING AND TRUST EACH OTHER THAN WE CAN ALL SURVIVE IF WE TRY TO HOLD ONTO EVERYTHING WE WILL ALL PERISH AM I WORTH MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE NO PLEASE MISTER PRESIDENT LETS ALL GIVE TO EACH OTHER AND RELY ON OUR FELLOW MAN AND WOMAN

OTHERWISE

BEAST OF REVELATION

THIS IS
THE END

“This is the end,” the President said.

“Zed,” said Zed.

“I want to try something,” the President said.

“What, sir?”

“Let’s take him for a walk,” the President said, and got up from the couch.

“All right,” the Director said, rising himself and gesturing for the others to rise.

The President made his way out of the Oval Office and the entire entourage followed him. He walked down the hall, then outside to the colonnade that led to the Residence. Once inside, they all got on an elevator to the second story. When the doors opened, he led them into a dining room with a view to the north.

“Come over here,” he said to the patient.

The patient docilely came over to him.

The President pointed out toward the church across Lafayette Park.

“You were there?” the President said.

“You were there?” the patient answered.

“No, YOU were there? At night?”

“YOU were there,” the man replied. “At night?”

“I was there? …At night?”

The man’s eyes widened.

“I was there…at night?”

“And this is the end?”

The man simply smiled at him.

“And the Beast of Revelation?”

The man walked closer to the President. He seemed to sniff him from three feet away. The Secret Service men moved quickly to stop him.

“No, let him alone,” the President said.

The patient simply beamed.

“I might have you come back,” the President said.

The patient continued beaming. Then he pointed out the window, roughly toward the Episcopal church across Lafayette Park.

“Zed,” he said.

“Zed,” the President said. “Z. The end. The last letter of the alphabet. That’s how my mother used to say it. She was from the U.K. That’s the classy way to say ‘z’.”

There was a pause. Then the President said, “Okay, you can take him back. I might want to see him again, though.”

“Certainly, sir,” said the Director. The agents took the man gently by the arm and they all made their way back to the elevator.

“Jeez. That was a close call,” the second agent said. “I really owe her now.”

“She’s still in the limo?”

“Yeah. She kept calling and saying she was gonna get fired.”

“Well… she might have a new job now,” the first agent said, gesturing to the patient.

“Zed,” the patient said, smiling.