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New AMERIGUN headquarters, the Alamo, were set up, out of harm’s way, in western Maryland with a view to the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Combine reduced AMERIGUN functions. They could carry on shooting seminars, publish the magazine, Weaponry, conduct mailings and competitions, and rise up and scream when ordered.

Longstanding leader of AMERIGUN, King Porter, understood that without The Combine’s financial support the organization would collapse.

Once King had been a terrifying predator who gained his spurs in Congress by fear tactics. His fall from grace only lathered up his innards for the moment of revenge.

For two decades King Porter had been the “rock of ages,” cemented into bedrock with a fifty-foot-high, twenty-foot-thick brick wall enclosing his brain.

King didn’t stand very tall in actuality. Most people looking at eye level saw the naked crown of his head with an occasional upright hair from the horseshoe fringe. His skin was stretched tightly over his face, flattening his cheeks into a mouth set with the left side of his face a fraction higher than the right.

His dress, by ancient tailor, had a Western swag to it, back snug and straight with heavily seamed outlines. Heels of Western boots pumped him up a bit. King’s eyes and ears allowed little humor. Not infrequently had he envisioned himself a Confederate general about to lead a cavalry charge when he appeared before a House or Senate hearing.

King Porter was bred and brewed as the middle and smallest male of nine stunted hillbilly kids. In order to survive he had willed himself an aura of power through intimidation. No one doubted he’d set them afire if angry enough. With rage always near the surface he was able to gain mastery over his siblings. The level of rage was usually close to a boil, as was his memory of hunger and its pains.

Porter was at once an unpleasant person, bully, and righteous defender of the Second Amendment.

What really ticked King Porter off was that the names of The Combine were held secret from him. He had to deal with a single person representing The Combine. He loathed her.

Maud Traynor was the lawyer and sole contact to The Combine. She was a middle-aged, expensively dumpy bitch. Her language could startle a drunken sailor. She cracked her knuckles and blew foul cigarette smoke in his sensitive eyes. Maud Traynor, King was certain, was a practicing lesbian.

From his window he could see her pull into the circle in her vulgar red Ferrari. King greeted her at the elevator door with the stiffness of a Prussian field marshal. She pinched his cheek in passing. He smiled through locked teeth.

“Beautiful ride up here,” Maud said. “Saving your booze for the Fourth of July?” She was a nononsense rye drinker. King Porter slid into his seat tentatively.

“We’ve got a problem,” she said right off.

“We have?”

“It’s this off-year election. The polls show us clobbering the dirty dozen we tagged for defeat. But this cowboy running for governor of Colorado is opening his lead.”

“O’Donald?”

“O’Connell. Quinn Patrick O’fucking Connell. It was made clear, King, that we can’t have a gun-control freak in the middle of gun territory. He could poison all the states around him.”

King shook his head. “Too bad his daddy, old Daniel O’Connell, passed on. Dan was a real shooter.” King called for his records. Colorado had been saturated with infomercial tapes to three hundred radio talk shows in the region. Six hundred thousand pieces of literature had been mailed. Two or three weekly leaks to the tabloids had been accomplished. AMERIGUN’s website carried out a gnashing attack.

“Look at this,” King said.

…O’Connell is the son of a death-row inmate and a prostitute.

…possible fetal alcohol syndrome.

…severe learning disabilities.

…what is the true story behind his Navy Cross? A cover-up was needed for his cowardice.

…suspected drug addiction.

…wife abuser.

…his father-in-law, Reynaldo Maldonado is red, left-wing professor and creator of pornographic art.

…Maldonado