Novel Excerpts–The Boaz Stenographer, Chapter 45

The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.

The Boaz Stenographer, written in 2018, is my fourth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

Walt Shepherd, a 35 year veteran of the White House’s stenographic team, is fired by President Andrew Kane for refusing to lie.

Walt returns to his hometown of Boaz, Alabama and renews his relationship with Regina Gillan, his high school sweetheart, who he had ditched right before graduation to marry the daughter of a prominent local businessman.  Regina has recently moved back to Boaz after forty years in Chicago working at the Tribune.  She is now editor of the Sand Mountain Reporter, a local newspaper.

Walt and Regina’s relationship transforms into a once in life love at the same time they are being immersed in a growing local and national divide between Democrats and traditional Republicans, and extremist Republicans (known as Kanites) who are becoming more dogmatic about the revolution that began during President Kanes campaign.

Walt accepts two part-time jobs.  One as a stenography instructor at Snead State Community College in Boaz, and one as an itinerant stenographer with Rains & Associates out of Birmingham.

Walt later learns the owner of Rains & Associates  is also one of five men who created the Constitution Foundation and is involved in a sinister plot to destroy President Kane, but is using an unorthodox method to achieve its objective.  The Foundation is doing everything it can to prevent President Kane from being reelected in 2020, and is scheming to initiate a civil war that will hopefully restore allegiance to the U.S. Constitution.

While Walt is writing a book, The Coming Civil War, he is, unwittingly, gathering key information for the Constitution Foundation.

Will Walt discover a connection between the Foundation  and the deaths of three U.S. Congressmen in time to save his relationship with Regina, prevent President Kane from being reelected as the defacto head of a Christian theocracy, and the eruption of a civil war that could destroy the Nation ?

Chapter 45

At midnight, and as Walt and Regina were leaving The Pub, Semyon Ivankov was driving I-75 South through Macon.  He was Eric Chandler, or at least, that’s what his Driver’s License and Passport claimed.  His plane from Dallas, Texas had landed at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport at 8:45 p.m.  He had picked up his luggage and the waiting rental car and driven to Tortas Ahogadas Jalisco in Forest Park for his favorite Mexican food, pozole.  He was tired, for he had been traveling nonstop for nearly a week.  And, he was a day behind schedule.  Semyon didn’t like surprises.  The initial plan had been for him to enter the country stowed away in Gustav Neilson’s King Air from Toronto.  But, that plan had been ditched by Thaddeus Colburn early last week.

Last Friday, June 29th, Semyon had driven a car, along with his brother Sergei, from Toronto, Ontario, Canada to New York City.  There, at Reagan International Airport, Semyon had boarded a flight to Salt Lake City, Utah.  From there he took a twelve-hour ride on a Greyhound bus to Denver, Colorado.  Early Monday morning he had flown from Denver International Airport to Seattle, Washington.  Then, by air to Los Angeles.  Two short flights separated by an overnight stay in Phoenix landed him in Dallas at noon yesterday the Fourth.  His last flight departed Dallas at 7:00 p.m.  At each ticket counter, car rental agency, and departure, whether by car, bus, or plane, Semyon changed identities and disguises, and paid with a different prepaid debit card.  

After two bowls of pozole, Semyon realized he had allowed his hunger instead of his reason to direct his steps.  He had driven south ten minutes out of the way to Old Dixie Highway and the Mexican restaurant. Now, he had to backtrack.   Oh well, only half an hour wasted.  Seymon drove to Cubesmart Storage Lockers at 4560 Frontage Road and retrieved the long package that Marc Anderson and George Perrot had deposited last Monday.  Semyon then drove to the Shell Station on Falcon Drive and changed clothes.  Finally, he was back to himself.  A sleeveless tee shirt, cut-off bluejeans, and a pair of new Nike Men’s Air Monarchs Mr. Perrot had promised to enclose in the long package.  No more wig, mustache, glasses, and peel-on scars.  He could relax and drive.

At ten minutes past two, Semyon took Exit 62 in Tifton and drove West on US-82/GA-520.  Driving below the speed limit, he arrived at Paradise Fishing Area at 2:30 a.m.  He turned right, across from Paradise Drive, along the edge of a large field of soybeans and into a grove of trees.  He retrieved the long bag and his duffle from the trunk and abandoned the rental car.  Semyon walked over a mile eastward along Paradise Drive, across the southern dam of Lake Patrick, and onto a dirt path northward to a hidden spot along the lake’s edge five hundred yards from a small island out in the middle of the lake.  He would sleep fitfully until dawn. 

Thursday morning, July 5th, Walt and Regina awoke at 9:30, showered separately, took the elevator downstairs, and ate wholeheartedly from the continental breakfast.  They then drove to Guffey’s, an old-fashioned service station to rent a 14-foot U-Haul trailer.  They returned to the Hilton Garden Inn and stayed beside the pool until 3:00 p.m.  Their drive to Wilma and Carl Carrington’s took twenty minutes.  It took Walt three attempts to position the trailer for the easiest loading of the four pieces of heavy furniture.  Carl and the two boys with him, both short and beefy boys probably still in high school, laughed and snickered as they watched.

By 4:00 p.m., the four men had loaded the chest of drawers, the combo desk & bookcase, and the four-poster bedstead.  Also, the armoire Regina had spotted on Tuesday, and a curio cabinet that Wilma suggested would “work nicely, even in a den.”  These last two pieces cost only an additional thousand dollars.  He was thankful Wilma accepted his personal check.  Walt was elated.  After fifteen minutes of additional wrapping and strapping, the furniture was secure for the trip.  The four men left the trailer open and went inside to wash up and for refreshments before Walt and Regina left.

At 4:25 p.m., Semyon Ivankov exited the Carrington’s barn, entered the open door of the U-Haul trailer, and burrowed himself in between the desk/bookshelf combo, and the large armoire.  He was exhausted but relieved.  More than anything, he was proud of his performance.  His two shots had been perfect.

At 5:00 a.m. this morning, just like the previous six years, Kyle Turner and his brother-in-law Sean, arrived at the main pier at Lake Patrick and launched Kyle’s Sea Born NX23 fishing boat.  As was their custom, Sean would drive them to the sole island in the middle of the lake.  Six years ago, they had discovered this spot, landing fifteen large-mouth bass before 8:30 a.m.  Each year since, they had returned with similar results.  This morning, they tied off the boat, retrieved their fishing gear, exited the boat, and walked to the east side of the island.  Ten minutes after sunrise, around 6:35, Semyon’s first shot centered Kyle Turner’s forehead.  Three seconds later, the second shot passed through Sean’s head entering from his left temple.  Because of the weather, overcast with a light fog and misting rain, and how the brush and the boat concealed the bodies, they would not be discovered until nearly dusk. There had been no cause for alarm by the men’s families.  As was their tradition, they would spend the entire day on Lake Patrick.

By 7:15 a.m., Semyon had hiked the three-quarters of a mile around the southern edge of Lake Bobben and through the woods to the western edge of Wilma and Carl’s property on Richard’s Drive.  The barn had been scouted three weeks ago by a man posing to be a game warden with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, under the ruse of inspecting for an American Peregrine Falcon that had gone missing from the Tallulah Gorge State Park and whose tracking device had led to this area.  Semyon hid in the barn’s loft, nestled in the soft fescue hay, all day awaiting the arrival of Walt Shepherd and Regina Gillan. 

At 4:45 p.m., Walt and Regina exited the Carrington house, closed and latched the trailer door, and drove to the Hilton Garden Inn for one more night before heading home to Boaz in the morning.

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 Help a starving artist.