President Kills President

By Stuart Parker

With an insatiable thirst for women and power, Jefferson Hunt, the 53rd President of the United States, had set the nation on a course for ruin. And in the year 2092 that moment had finally arrived. The US is racked by a civil war that is turning entire cities into ashes and AI is fast usurping control over what society is left. Lured out of self-imposed exile on a mission destined to decide the fate of Western Civilization itself, Hunt can see all too clearly that, in the world he has created, war is government and assassination is politics - and that it will take a President to kill a President.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stuart Parker
• Release date: Aug 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463465417

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President Kills President

Stuart Parker

Copyright © 2019 by Stuart Parker

Cover Design:  SelfPubBookCovers.com/JohnBellArt

Prologue

1938, Nuremberg, Germany

The Nazis certainly knew how to put on a show. Their armed forces were on full display on the Zeppelin Field parade ground, like a wild dog baring its teeth. Panzer tanks, light artillery units and goose-stepping storm troopers all had their chance to impress themselves upon the Nazi faithful, under the keen, calculating gaze of its Supreme Leader, Adolf Hitler. In the bleachers there was enough blonde hair and blue eyes to give the impression they were part of the dress code. The 10th Party Congress of the Nazi Party was in full swing on the sacred ground of its Nuremberg heartland.

The signs of the party’s raging thirst for war and conquest were so clear to see it was mystifying that Neville Chamberlain could ever have thought of appeasing it. Just the name the Nazis’ had given their event, The Rally of Greater Germany, smacked of empire building. They had annexed Austria a few months earlier and that was to be just the beginning of what they had in mind. Many more countries were still to feel the Nazis’ wrath. In fact, the 11th Party Congress scheduled for 1939 would be cancelled due to Germany’s invasion of Poland two days before the rally was scheduled to begin. The Rally of Peace was the name it had been slated to have, but the Nazis found that they didn't have enough time and resources to both participate in a rally for peace and invade Poland at the same time. And so, to Poland they went, and World War Two was triggered. The irony of it all was not lost on Major Mark Pernitz, who was squeezed in amongst the crowd at the back of the Zeppelin Field. He was a thirty-year-old battle-hardened American Marine with short blonde hair, menacing grey eyes and the kind of powerfully filled-out black suit that had people nervously wondering if he were an enforcer in the secret police. It was especially Jews and gypsies giving him a wide berth - not that there were any to be seen at the Nuremberg Rally. As much as Pernitz may have resembled a Nazi Party member, under no circumstances was he actually going to become one, and so he had instead relied on bribery and coercion to obtain a ticket to the rally. A significant sum had been required, though still putting him about as far away from where Hitler would deliver his closing address that it was possible to get. Certainly not a bad thing from Pernitz’s point of view, for he could still recall the very blunt order given to him by Ed Chafee, the Chief Scientist of the International Airspace Agency, back in 2092: ‘Just damned well leave Hitler alone.’ The reasons were even clearer now that he was seeing the Nazis in the flesh. These people were deranged maniacs and, as bad as World War Two was, it could have been even worse. Killing Hitler might just have brought a more astute tactician in charge of these madmen. Someone with the wherewithal to bide his time with territory already seized until a nuclear weapon could be added to the Nazi arsenal. A world war that began in 1944 with the Nazis the sole possessors of nuclear and missile capabilities would have undoubtedly reshaped history very much for the worse. As tragic as it was, the only predictable history was that which had come to pass - and to change a bad history was no guarantee a better one would emerge in its place.

Still, it would surely one day prove a major political debate, possibly even an election issue. After all, what good was time travel if it wasn't to take out the likes of Hitler and his henchmen? Before that question could even be discussed, however, Pernitz needed to be successful in his stated mission: to prove that time travel was indeed possible. He was the one person in the whole history of the world who could confirm it because here he was, a man born in the year 2062, sitting in witness to one of the Nazi Party's most notorious political rallies. Proving to those back in his own time that he had actually made it this far and had not merely been vaporized in the Arkansas Particle Collider, was going to be a challenge. He couldn't just write a letter or make a phone call. Scratching his name into a pyramid or the Brooklyn Bridge might conceivably make it to 2092, but that would not be convincing enough to sway sceptics. Visual evidence was his best chance. Either in photograph or in film. And unless he somehow managed to break into Hollywood, film would be the less likely path to the future. So, photography it would be. Being in one of the most tumultuous times in history, meant there were impending photographs that were going to be in circulation around the world for centuries to come. Pernitz would photo bomb where he could. No point trying here in Nuremberg, for the Nazis were way too preoccupied with themselves. And the only crowd shots were of the masses hailing Hitler with blind obedience. He sure as hell wasn’t going to be seen in amongst that. But there would be other opportunities to be recorded for posterity: The cabarets of pre-war Paris, the London blitz, V-J Day in Times Square. Civilian moments. Even though he was a decorated war hero in his time, he had been ordered to remain a non-combatant for the duration of the Second World War. The logic was that, as the world’s first time traveler, he was far too valuable to risk getting killed or maimed in a war that had already occurred. This was especially the case as the war from which he had come was yet to be decided and threatened to wipe out civilization forever. Pernitz was struck by a pang of sorrow as his thoughts drifted back to home. He thought about the wife, family and friends that he had lost - in a sense, he had passed them on the way here. He thought, in particular, about his mother and father and wished he had been able to drop in on their little cottage in Connecticut for a visit one more time. But time travel was not as neat as that. He had been blasted into the gathering storm of World War Two with no hope of ever returning to his own time. 1938 was his new home and life was about to get uglier than just about anyone else on the whole planet could imagine. Still, the year 2092 had its own troubles and they were tearing the United States apart. So much so that even here, on the precipice of World War 2, Pernitz had a far better chance of living out a full life.

All the same, as a soldier of the United States Marines, it was painfully hard to accept that killing Hitler right here and now wouldn’t have been a good thing. Twenty-three million lives could be saved as a direct result. And how much untold misery averted? The only thing that prevented Mark Pernitz from going completely mad with this dilemma was the fact that he personally didn’t know any of them. Back in his own time, it was a different story. The war had claimed his entire immediate family and the slaughter that was the Battle of New Orleans had taken the last of his comrades. Put simply, he had come to this mission as a sole survivor, a soldier with nothing left to lose. And just one task to complete, which had been given to him by the 54th President of the United States in person: He had to send word one hundred and fifty-four years into the future that time travel was now a reality and that the world’s downward plunge to self-annihilation might somehow be arrested yet. Pernitz supposed for this reason he was currently the most important person on the planet - it was peculiar given how useless he was actually feeling. Anyway, if his mission was to consist of little more than to exist and stay out of the war, he would join the exodus from Germany as soon as he could. He certainly wasn’t going to waste too much time trying to be photographed on the mean streets of Nazi Germany. It was good enough to let the future know they could put someone close enough to Hitler to do him some harm if they chose - 3am Saturday 10th September 1938, Nuremberg, Germany had been the precise place in history the Miraculine computer had despatched him to. From Nuremberg he would head to Paris. There was still a good year and a half before the Nazis would overrun it. Pernitz would book his tickets in advance so that, with the Nazis bursting through the Ardennes Forest, he could make a quick dash to Britain. By then, he would have needed to have established an identity that could withstand scrutiny when the war got serious and the citizenship started to grow suspicious of outsiders. There was only going to be one skill a career soldier of 2092 would be able to profit from in 1938: a form of insider trading uniquely reserved to time travelers. Pernitz had five gold coins in his pocket to get him started and with a few well-laid investments, he would be a millionaire within ten years. Although he could do it faster and bigger, that would only draw attention to himself. He could not let himself get too greedy. His initial investments would be in the war industries and pharmaceuticals. And he would place a bet or two on horse races to tie him over in the short term. Before he had stepped into the Arkansas Particle Collider, he had researched the winners of twenty races in Europe and the United States over the next two years. Not all of them were well-known races, but he would certainly place a bet on Jacola to beat Seabiscuit at Laurel Park in the following month. Such was the frenzy of betting that occurred there, he would be able to wager an entire gold coin’s worth on it without raising an eyebrow.

Watching the soldiers on the Zeppelin Field turn their efforts from parades to exciting the crowd with a noisy, smoky battlefield simulation, it struck Pernitz how similar things were to his own time. In 2092, war was still a human fixation, with technological advancements only having made it cleaner and deadlier. It begged the question how could it ever be stopped? How could it be even possible to think that removing one man would somehow extinguish the euphoria for war that was so evident in this stadium? What good would getting rid of Hitler really do? And what about in the case of the Second American Civil War, that had so ravaged his own time? Whose demise could make a difference when so many countless millions had already fallen? But perhaps this was not so difficult a question to answer, after all. Pernitz felt a pang of anger when he thought about the 53rd President of the United States hidden away in his fortified skyscraper in central New York. His death would make a difference. Pernitz would never get to see it, to know if his contribution in this moment would help forge a future in which his family and friends did not get wiped out by war, but he was quite certain the death of Jefferson Hunt would change everything.

Part One

2072, New York City

1

President Jefferson Hunt had made love longer than he should have with this beautiful woman whose bed he was in, but, knowing that this was to be her last night alive, he felt somewhat obliged to give her all he had. He eased off her stomach for the fourth time that night and propped up his head with an elbow dug into one of the bed’s four luxurious duck-down pillows. ‘So, will I get your vote for re-election?’ he muttered with a wry smirk. He was particularly good looking, with thick blonde hair, piercing grey-blue eyes and a square jaw; and he had a tall, athletic build. He was forty-one years old and had been in politics for eleven years. Prior to that he had served with distinction in the military, reaching the rank of lieutenant. Primarily serving in Special Forces Command, he had fought campaigns in Afghanistan, Mexico and the Middle East. He had killed at least thirty enemy soldiers - many at close quarters. At the age of thirty, having survived six months of brutal captivity at the hands of a splinter terrorist organization in Afghanistan, he had resigned his commission to take up a career in politics. With powerful backers in New York, Chicago and Washington bankrolling his campaign, he had become, at the age of just thirty-eight, the youngest US Presidents in history - beating Theodore Roosevelt by a good four years. But now, in the early hours of Wednesday 20th July 2072, with only one year and a half before the Presidential elections, his low poll numbers suggested it would be an uphill battle to win a second term. By any standards, it had been a bumpy first term. The shadow of corruption, infidelity and dirty tactics had marked his presidency almost from the beginning. Even though nothing had been proven, the gossip linking him to a string of beautiful women, including the one sharing the bed this evening, and the whispers of extreme violence committed by his bodyguards, the notorious Unit X, who consisted of his most trusted ex-Special Forces comrades, created a feeling of disquiet amongst the general public. Indeed, the only poll in which he still enjoyed a healthy lead was in the Sexiest President of All-Time surveys. Hunt’s Democratic rivals had tried to deride him about it but being a high-flying playboy who had jumped from the rank of lieutenant all the way to Supreme Commander, was precisely the way he liked to be known. And, despite all the doom and gloom, he was not at all concerned about the upcoming presidential elections, for he had a strategy that no one would see coming and that he was certain couldn’t fail.

‘Yes, you are definitely on tonight,’ the young woman finally replied, flicking some strands of her ginger hair out of her eyes. ‘It somehow makes me feel even more guilty knowing I am depriving the First Lady of this.’

Hunt laughed. ‘A Wall Street banker feeling guilty? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?’

‘Well, now that you have brought my profession into it, why don’t we actually start talking about the economy? If I’m not mistaken, that’s what we’re supposed to be doing.’

Hunt loved the woman’s British accent, scented with a real private school purity and sophistication. Her name was Jean Hitchlow and she was his most trusted economic adviser - at least, trusted to keep their little liaisons confidential. She and Hunt had started the evening eating cheese fondue on her bed, eighty-five floors above Wall Street in her luxurious live-in office. The views were far better than those in the White House. But, although Hunt appreciated the sprawling New York nightscape beyond the bay-windows, it was the toned, almost porcelain-white skin of Hitchlow that so mesmerized him. Megan Hunt, the widely regarded First Lady, simply couldn't compete with Hitchlow’s classic beauty that began with her rich ginger hair and traveled on a highway of delicious curves and intoxicating smoothness all the way to her pedicured toes. Hunt had been sleeping with her on and off for three years and had used his contacts to lift her up through the ranks of Mackie Trust, one of Wall Street’s biggest trading firms. Not that he ever thought to discuss it with her. After all, he wasn’t sure he even did it for her. Sex and success were the ultimate cocktail and he liked the women he was liaising with to be bathed in its scent.

‘Good idea,’ he replied half-heartedly. He reached forward to the clock on the bedside table and noted that it had just slipped past 5am. ‘My State of the Union address is in four hours, so I suppose it would be nice if you gave me a bullet point or two.’

Hitchlow ran her fingers probingly along Hunt’s hard, flat abdomen. ‘You could show them your six pack and explain that regrettably the economy is not in as great a shape.’

Hunt was stirred by her flirtation and only wished there was something left in the tank to give her some more. He settled for a kiss on one of her soft, beautifully shaped nipples and broke into a yawn. ‘At least I’ll look like I’ve been up all night worrying about it.’

‘Yes, an all-night session. I have some sleep replacement pills in the cabinet if you’d like one.’

‘No need. I have plenty of those myself.’

‘Of course, you do. You must have many nights like this.’

Hunt put a hand on her thigh. ‘Not quite like this. But what about you? You’ve only been married a year. You must still remember the honeymoon.’

Hitchlow sighed. ‘My husband has never been what you would call affectionate. And he hasn’t got the fuckability status of the United States President to push my buttons. So, it would be fair to say both he and I prefer to spend our horizontal hours asleep.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. Anyway, I’ll be sure to favorably mention you in this morning’s speech. That will give him something to be proud of.’

Hitchlow pulled a face and flicked him on the chest. ‘You're a ruthless son of a bitch, Mr President.’

‘Comes with the territory, Ms Hitchlow.’

Hitchlow stretched across to her bedside table and scooped up some more cheese fondue and picked up her glass of Dom Perignon champagne. ‘If you want to show me some respect, you should at least listen to what I have to say about the economy. I am your economic advisor, am I not?’

‘Of course, you are, honey. I would very much like to hear what you have to say.’

‘Great, then listen to this. Your economic policies are fatally flawed and doomed to failure. And with it American society will collapse.’

Hunt rubbed his jaw playfully. ‘Wow, quite a right hook you’ve got there.’

Hitchlow did not blink. ‘You’ve heard such predictions before from other seasoned economists. But now you're hearing it from me. Your policies are well on the way to instigating another American Civil War. The ironic difference is that now the working class have now become the privileged class. They live in huge mansions with organic foods, extra fresh water allocations and clothes made of real textiles. Meanwhile, the masses, whose traditional careers have been fully automated, are growing ever more dissatisfied with their superfluous, trivial existence. I’m talking about people who once upon a time may have been teachers, fire fighters or accountants. A whole generation of the uneducated, bored and idle left to rot together in ghettos like unpicked fruit.’

‘Hardly ghettos if you're going to bring history into it. The average life expectancy after all is eighty-two.’

‘For the working class it is ninety-nine.’

‘You might be right. I have heard that point made before. And my reply is the same. The working class must be the privileged group in society or else no one will be willing to work and study hard enough to get good at anything useful and we will become fully subservient to the machines we’ve built. Managers, IT technicians, scientists, police, judges, soldiers, farmers, architects, teachers, actors, singers and priests could all be automated in the name of equality and expediency, but is that the world we want to live in?’

Hitchlow’s gaze softened. ‘You forgot to mention bankers.’

Hunt smirked. ‘Out of politeness I chose to leave present company out of the conversation.’

Hitchlow looked out the window to see the night was easing its grip with the emergence of the first wisps of dawn. ‘If you look northward you can just make out the lights of Battery Town. They call it that because the population lives in their little apartments and are fed like battery chickens. And most