Birnbaum’s mind began to wander, but he focused on Washington again. “So what unfinished business do we have?” he asked.

“You dying,” Washington said. “You were supposed to have been assassinated at the rally, but our marksman didn’t make the shot. He blamed it on a gust of wind between him and the target. So it fell to me.”

Birnbaum was confused. “Why do you want me dead? I did what you asked.”

“And again, you did a fine job,” Washington said. “But now the discussion needs to be brought to another level. Making you a martyr to the cause will do that. Nothing like a public assassination to embed the topic into the national consciousness.”

“I don’t understand,” Birnbaum said, increasingly confused.

“I know,” Washington said. “But you never understood, Mr. Birnbaum. You didn’t want to understand all that much, I think. You never even really cared who I worked for. All you were interested in was what I was dangling in front of you. You never took your eyes off that.”

“Who do you work for?” Birnbaum croaked.

“I work for the Colonial Union, of course,” Washington said. “They needed some way to change the conversation. Or, alternately, I work for Russians and the Brazilians, who are upset that the United States is taking the lead in the international discussions about the Colonial Union and wanted to disrupt its momentum. No, I work for the political party not in the White House, who was looking to change the election calculus. Actually, all of those were lies: I work for a cabal who wants to form a world government.”

Birnbaum bulged his eyes at him, disbelieving.

“The time to have demanded an answer was before you took the job, Mr. Birnbaum,” Washington said. “Now you’ll never know.” He held up a syringe. “You woke up because I injected you with this. It’s shutting down your nervous system as we speak. It’s intentionally obvious. We want it to be clear you were assassinated. There are enough clues planted in various places for a merry chase. You’ll be even more famous now. And with that fame will come influence. Not that you will be able to use it, of course. But others will, and that will be enough. Fame, power and an audience, Mr. Birnbaum. It’s what you were promised. It’s what you were given.”

Birnbaum said nothing to this; he’d died midmonologue. Washington smiled, planted the syringe in Birnbaum’s bed and walked out of the room.

*   *   *

“They have the assassin on video,” Jason from Canoga Park said, to Louisa Smart, who had taken over the show, temporarily, for the memorial broadcast. “They have him on video injecting him and talking to him before he died. That was when it happened. When he revealed the plot of the world government.”