Hunters

had come down from the drugs, even when he woke up sober and slightly hungover. He’d called Connor twice today, and both times he’d sounded like a subservient slave.
‘The meeting got delayed, Connor. But don’t worry. It’ll happen.’
‘Make sure it does.’
‘Of course. Of course. You got any more of that stuff?’
‘Just the two vials I gave you for now. One for you. One for you-know-who.’
‘Yes, yes. But if I get it done?’
‘Then you’ll have as much as you want.’
‘Oh, that’s good, Connor. That’s really good.’
Already a dutiful servant to his new addiction.
Now, Connor stared at his burner phone, an anonymised smartphone with a year’s basic fees paid in advance. It was digitally impenetrable — he’d made sure of it. All Nelson’s calls concerning matters outside of work came through the burner phone, just to be sure.
He didn’t know what surveillance was like on the division that did most of the surveilling in the first place.
The phone rang.
5:43p.m.
Too quick, Connor thought, a lump in his throat. The President turned him down.
His mind went haywire. He couldn’t tame his racing thoughts. Was Nelson compromised? Had the Secret Service found the Bodhi? Were they calling Connor’s number to bait him into answering, sucker him into incriminating himself?
He realised they couldn’t use silence as evidence.
He brought the phone to his ear and answered without a word.
‘It’s me,’ Nelson said. ‘He took it.’
Connor’s pulse doubled.
His supreme concentration was destroyed by one of his colleagues stepping into the doorway and knocking on the frame, and he jumped from the shock.
The guy — late thirties, loud, bombastic, the life of the party — laughed in a staccato rhythm. ‘Sorry, kid. Scared you half to death. Listen, a few of us are getting drinks after work at—’
‘Fuck off,’ Connor said.
His colleague froze with his mouth half-open. ‘What—?’
‘Fuck off,’ Connor said again. ‘I’m on a call.’
The guy thought about firing back with a retort, but decided otherwise. He snorted with derision and stormed off.
If Connor was already the quiet, bookish young man who lived in his own head and made no friends, now he was overtly hostile, too, and rumours would spread like wildfire. Within minutes he’d be the workplace outcast.
He didn’t care. It was the last thing on his mind.
On the phone, Nelson said, ‘What?’
‘Not you,’ Connor said. ‘I got interrupted. So he took it?’
A pause, like Nelson couldn’t believe it either. ‘Yeah.’
‘Within thirteen minutes?’
Another pause, likely Nelson checking his watch. ‘I mean, I got in at 4:58.’
‘Fifteen minutes, then,’ Connor said, rolling his eyes. ‘Same thing. How on earth did you manage that?’
‘Told him it’d alleviate his anxieties,’ Nelson said. ‘Turns out the presidency is a stressful gig. Who’d have thought?’
‘And that’s it?’ Connor said, a touch dejected. ‘You’re already out of there?’
‘I’m going back in at seven,’ Nelson said. ‘He’s cleared his schedule for me. I took the dose at the same time he did. We’re going to peak together. Then I’ll tell him everything you told me to say. I’ll indoctrinate him to the cause.’
Connor felt emotions and sensations he hadn’t considered humanly possible. Absolute, irrepressible joy.
Connor said, ‘You sure you two will be alone?’
‘We go way back,’ Nelson said. ‘I didn’t tell you that. I wanted it to be a surprise. You know … how effortlessly I could pull it off.’
‘You’re a genius, man. You know what this means?’
Nelson clearly didn’t care about what it meant. He cared about one thing and one thing alone.
He said, ‘So … about the supply?’
Connor said, ‘You get him on board, I’ll give you a dozen vials later tonight.’
Nelson let out a low noise, something close to a moan. It was unbelievable what Bodhi was capable of. Not even heroin had the same effect. There are uncertainties and mental obstructions with heroin addiction because it knocks you out of touch with reality. If you’re hiding your addiction from your loved ones, you need to carve out stretches of time where you can be alone to lose yourself in wonderland. With Bodhi, it’s different. The optimal dose straps a rocket to your back, rids you of every worry and concern, has you functioning like you haven’t a care in the world, even in the presence of others. At the right dosage it keeps you lucid and cognisant.
The Riordans had known the right dosage.
Each vial measured to the millilitre.
Connor said, ‘You remember what to tell him?’
‘You wrote it down for me.’
He had.
Connor had transcribed the Mother Libertas creed by hand onto a fresh piece of paper and given it to Nelson before he left last night. Connor kept the original copy stuck to the fridge in his small apartment.
Nelson said, ‘Leave it with me. Soon we’ll have the most powerful man in the world under our spell.’
Connor bristled.
He hung up, put the burner phone down, and breathed out.
Maybe it was all possible…

3
The Bodhi hit Devin Nelson at ten to seven.
He was milling around in the Gateway to the Oval Office, the adjoining room where the President’s personal secretaries worked. A personal assistant sat behind a wooden desk in a black leather office chair, fixated on his computer screen. The guy was in his early forties and appeared to be a mix of a few different ethnicities. He was a consummate professional — he’d only glanced at Nelson once, the rest of the time spent focused on his evening tasks.
Usually Nelson wouldn’t play this waiting game, but two appointments with the President in a single evening meant he couldn’t afford to make over-the-top demands. He had to take what he could get.
A door leading to the Rose Garden rested at the end of his line of sight, and he was admiring the artfully arranged pink grandiflora roses when the colours seemed to ripple.
He’d been pacing slowly back and forth, but now he stopped in place and fought back a smile.
The assistant glanced up at the disruption in rhythm. ‘Everything okay, sir?’
Nelson turned to him and nodded. ‘Oh, yes. Better than okay.’
The assistant’s head cocked slightly to the right, but he