Simesky turned and walked into the kitchen in the back of the safe house.

The plan …

Whose goal was quite simple: to eliminate the traitor to America, Congressman William Garrett Davis, the politician who would sell the country out to people who didn’t belong here, who used it for their own gain, who despised the red, white and blue but were happy to rob this glorious nation blind. How difficult it had been for Simesky to feign admiration and undying devotion to Davis and get a job on the staff, then work his way into the man’s inner circle. He had, however, done a damn good job of it, spending more hours than virtually anyone else on Davis’s team. He’d done whatever was necessary to ingratiate himself into the man’s inner circle and gather as much information as he needed so they could stop the traitor, who—if elected president, as might very well happen—would ruin our great nation.

A little over a year ago, when Davis’s popularity began to surge, Simesky was with a think tank based in Texas, with offices in Washington, New York, Chicago and L.A. It was part of an informal association of wealthy businessmen in the Midwest and South, who ran companies and nonprofits and even a few universities. This group of men—and yes, they were exclusively men and, by the way, white—had no official name but informally, and with some wry humor, they’d adopted one, which had been bestowed by some demonic liberal media blogger. The journalist had referred to the cabal contemptuously as the Keyholders, because, he reported, the senior leaders believed they held the key to curing all of the nation’s woes.

The group loved it.

The Keyholders funneled huge sums to candidates they thought would best uphold proper ideals to keep America strong: reduced federal government, limited taxation, minimal participation in world geopolitics and, most important, the elimination of virtually all immigration. Curiously, the Keyholders had little patience for what they considered, in their opinion, unfocused and often simpleminded movements like the Tea Party, the religious right and those railing against abortion and homosexuality.

No, the main issues that mattered to the Keyholders were the death of American self-reliance through socialism and the dilution of the purity of the nation through immigration. Leaders like Bill Davis would drive the country straight to bankruptcy and moral corruption.

Generally, the Keyholders’ efforts involved financial support for candidates, publicity, misinformation campaigns against traitorous politicos and reporters, personality smears and stings.

But sometimes more was needed.

And that’s when Peter Simesky’s obscure think tank would receive a call, asking him to handle a particularly critical matter.

However he thought best.

However extreme the solution.

The Keyholders knew that whatever the mission, Simesky would create an effective and careful plan, so it was obvious that the death of this muckraking liberal journalist had to be an accident, or of that environment activist was a suicide, or of that reformer congressman was an assassination spawned by a stalker’s love for a famous singer.