a few months into her new job as councilwoman, Koontz began to push for a gay-and-lesbian themed city park, complete with a fountain pool encircling a statue of two men embracing. The council didn’t seem alarmed or even opposed to the park. One of the councilmen thought the statue might be pushing the theme a bit much. The other councilmen tabled Koontz’s plan, citing a lack of funding for the project. “If you can come up with the funds, Ms. Koontz, I’m sure the council would gladly reconsider your proposal,” the mayor suggested, not realizing the trouble he had just set into motion.
The next day, against a backdrop of barking and howling dogs, Donna Koontz toured the city’s animal control facility. Her questions to the staff seemed innocent enough. How much did it cost to board a stray dog for one day? What was the cost to euthanize a cat? Koontz went from room to room and looked into every cage with the animal shelter staff in tow. She would pause at a cage and ask a few question of the employees. She busily scribbled on a note pad, pausing often to glare disapprovingly at one of the noisy caged animals. Koontz returned the next morning with two lists. The first list consisted of the animals to be euthanized. The second list was made up of the animals to be sold to a research lab. With no sense of emotion whatsoever, Koontz notified the stunned Animal Control Director that someone would be coming to pick them up.
“We can’t do that. There’s a thirty-day holding period for every rescue,” the kennel director stammered.
“Not anymore,” Koontz ordered, walking away. “I want these animals taken care of today,” she shouted without looking back.
Donna Koontz had thoroughly and coldly calculated the cost of housing a rescued animal, including food, water, supplies, and man-hours, and compared it to the expense of having the animals euthanized. Koontz had calculated that death was the cheaper option. After a few calls to some dubious animal research labs, Koontz determined that if the animals were euthanized, she would have the funds she needed for her park statue within sixty days.
“Any means to achieve the end,” she had defiantly thought to herself.
Before Donna Koontz had even started her car, the animal control director and employees were furiously making calls. After they called the mayor and several San Francisco television stations, Koontz’s plan to acquire her park money at the cost of the kennel’s pets came to a screeching halt. Word spread quickly and the media descended on city hall and the animal control center like hornets. Behind them poured hundreds of angry people who filled the parking lot in protest. Like a mob chasing Frankenstein, the outraged crowd demanded retribution for Donna Koontz’s actions. The mayor, completely blindsided by Koontz’s evil scheme, assured the media a complete investigation was in progress and that no animals would be harmed. Koontz’s actions achieved a secondary result. The animal control shelter was transformed into a “no kill” facility within forty-eight hours.
Newspapers and television stations ran the scandalous story complete with Donna Koontz’s non-smiling DMV picture. By the end of the nightly news, Koontz had become the most hated woman to darken the state of California.
Koontz couldn’t believe the public’s reaction. She fumed with anger during her drive home. She had been planning to have the director and staff of the animal control center terminated. “I’ll teach those loudmouthed fuckers a lesson,” she thought to herself. However, Koontz found herself the one fired at an emergency session of the city council. The meeting was so crowded that it was standing-room only. Nearly everyone wore a T-shirt with Koontz’s picture on it and the words: “Euthanize Koontz.” The city council fired Koontz in record time with a unanimous vote. As the audience of pet lovers stood and gave a standing ovation, Koontz stormed out of the meeting chambers.
A small group of protesters were already waiting for Koontz when she pulled into her street. A half-block from the chanting crowd, a man in a black suit stepped off the curb, right in front of her car, forcing her to a jolting stop. Stepping beside the driver’s door he motioned for her to roll down her window. Koontz reluctantly did so, expecting the man to draw a gun and shoot her. Instead, he handed her a folded piece of paper and walked away. Koontz quickly read it.
“Love your spunk. Want to work for me? I need people like you.”
Attached was a business card from a politician she was unfamiliar with. After a couple of phone calls and a face-to-face meeting the following day, Donna Koontz became an aide to little-known Democratic Senator Marcus Barakat.
Now, President Barakat dismissed Koontz for the tall man wearing a dark suit barely covering his muscular physique. He stood straight and tall, his dark eyes almost hidden below his protruding forehead. His hair was cut short, and his entire demeanor oozed cloak-and-dagger.
Neither man shook hands with the other, nor offered a warm greeting. They stood for a silent second, until the president finally spoke in a low voice. “How is Operation Stalin going, Mr. King?”
Max King tilted his head, sharply right and then left, emitting small popping sounds from cracking his neck, before answering. His demeanor was very serious, yet cocky, in front of the most powerful man in the world. “Everything is going according to plan, Mr. President,” he replied. “The Joint Chiefs of Staff have been arrested and are being held in secure locations. Our own hand-picked people are being placed in command of all four military branches and the Coast Guard. We have blockaded all the major ports, closed down the airports, and are taking control of the major U.S. cities, especially those on the coasts – such as, Miami, San Francisco and New Orleans. We are telling the foreign press that a plot to have you assassinated was foiled and that is the reason for such a lockdown. The media will be reporting the same story beginning tomorrow morning. I feel confident in saying that Phase One of Operation Stalin is nearly complete.”
“Keep up the good work, Mr. King,” said the president, as Secret Service took up positions around him. “I’m going to expect a lot out of you,” he said, walking away.
“Any means to achieve the end, Mr. President.” As the president walked away, King pulled a smart phone out of his inside coat pocket and quickly dialed a number. A moment later a voice answered, “National Security Operations.”
“This is King. Begin the roundups now,” he said without emotion.
“Yes, sir,” replied the voice.
Max King shoved his phone into his pocket, and tossed a breath mint into his mouth before walking out of the room.
A ring of Secret Service agents escorted the president outside to his motorcade. Climbing into the vehicle, President Barakat settled into the comfortable padded seat. Donna Koontz slid in the back seat behind him and took her usual position.
“Wonderful speech, Mr. President,” Koontz said smiling broadly. “Really moving.”
Barakat nodded his head and looked out the window as the motorcade began to pull away. His mind began to drift. He thought about his beginning and how far he had come.
President Barakat’s father, Jean-Pierre, had immigrated to the United States from Algeria at the height of the conflict between Islamic revolutionaries of the National Liberation Front and French colonial rulers in 1958. His father, a low-level French government official who sympathized with the NLF, had met his mother, Ginny, at a small sidewalk cafe. She was an intellectual and active member of the French Communist Party in Paris. The scathing articles she had written about the French policy in Algeria had brought her onto the radar of the French government. She had left before the French authorities could pick her up and later returned to the turmoil in Algiers when bombings and terrorism were daily events. Barakat’s parents shared a love of communism and anarchy. They had even considered moving to the USSR, but Barakat’s mother had issues that kept her in Algiers, and Barakat’s father was important to her goal. Her four brothers were active terrorists with the NLF. A fifth had already been killed in a failed attack on a French police station. The remaining four were operating a secret bomb factory, and that’s where Barakat’s father was needed. With his position in the government he was able to channel money from France into Algeria and ultimately into the coffers of the NLF to buy guns, ammunition, and explosives. For more than a year, the arrangement worked well.