THE NEXT BAND WAS ANNOUNCED ON STAGE. They walked in with greasepaint makeup — and the trio wore Star Wars Jedi like personalized Shitagi costumes. Gillian presided forward, lugging his strapped-on guitar. He glanced to look at the backstage — and he did not see Samantha.

Even by hiding his low self-esteem self behind his feign makeup, it could not stop the crowds’ chanting of ‘Cory’ repeatedly at him — which was also another false-side of him.

He hated that last-name of being the president's grandson — but rather want to be recognized as his true fealty self, with his given talents in his band — The Kabuki Gods.

After swallowing seconds of stage fright, they went on and played their first song in their list, in their debut, on-stage performance. The limousine stopped outside the VIP entrance. Samantha ran into the tunnel passage, accompanied by a Secret Service Agent Forest who was chasing her from behind. Samantha reached the backstage and saw Gillian performing with his band in front of the fervent crowd of thousands.

She started to cheer from the secluded VIP backstage.

***

Agent Wolfe was monitoring the dining crowd from the back of the ballroom when her Bluetooth-comm crackled on with updates — from the Secret Service agents from the hotel rooftop. Wolfe replied. “Driscoll, what is it?”

A Blackhawk chopper flew over — and was about to alight on the convention centre’s helipad. Its arrival was unscheduled — and created some uncertainty in security, at those guarding the rooftop...

“Sir, there is an Elite Force chopper that is requesting for landing. What do I do, Sir?” Driscoll waited for orders — with all weapons pointed at the hovering helicopter...

Wolfe pondered a second...

‘Is this it?’

The anticipated, public enemy had finally landed?

Wolfe quickly switched the channel — and she contacted Agent Green who was nearby the President's main table, officiated as the POTUS’s security detail.

“Green — there is an Elite chopper on the rooftop now — you go fast, and check it out.”

“What about POTUS — at the main table, Sir?” Green responded back subtly.

“You go now — I will cover you here.”

Agent Iris Green picked two other agents — and they headed into the service elevator at the back area. Wolfe stood now by the President's table, watching over — Cory’s double conversing with her guests.

It was still Wolfe’s duty to protect the Cory-double who was the bait — and for her own surreptitious plan to work tonight — where the cameras and other electronic eyes present at the ballroom, should not capture any of her fatality footage.

There should not be any room for any suspicious shreds of evidence either — to later create a nationwide panic and hatching conspiracy theories even if it was the case of the enemy posing an imminent attack on LA — and on the facsimile POTUS — as they had boldly promised that they would, in the social media.

**

At the rooftop, Agent Green alighted out of the elevator, with a pistol in her hand — and saw a score of Elite soldiers on guard-duty assembled. Agent Driscoll and two other agents were standing around, with their weapons drawn at the landed helicopter.

The co-pilot stepped out in full uniform with helmet and dark visor. She handed a document to Driscoll. Two other soldiers in full gear helmets next descended off the chopper.

The woman co-pilot spoke out. “Vice President Mary Freeman had requested for the chopper. She requested extra security, in case there was an attack!”

Agent Iris Green approached, and Driscoll passed her the paper — Green glanced at it, stared at the co-pilot...

“Remove your helmet.”

Iris Green wore her face recognition goggle — and repeated the instruction again with her gun pointed, at the other two soldiers. The co-pilot was a blond, middle-aged woman — and the software app did not alert. Green glanced next at the other two soldiers behind the woman — and gave them the same command the third time, to remove their visor helmets.

The duo hesitated a second...

Agent Green's finger removed the safety of her pistol. The helmets were slowly removed — and Green's facial recognition goggles alerted that the two — were Li Chi and Sanchez.

Agent Green exclaimed...

“God’s Army!”

All of the agents and Elite-soldiers' guns were pointed at the surrounded, two rebels. The nervous co-pilot confessed — that she was their hostage. Agent Green next saw, the chopper's door sliding open...

A monk robed figure stepped out with a rifle — Green took two steps back after seeing that the monk, was strapped with heavy bricks of explosives on a belt —which he was wearing...

He was followed by two other AOG rebel commandos armed with RPGs. The last to alight were two other monks in robes — Michael and Peter — with pistols in hand, where the inchoate monastery duo had insisted strongly that they followed their leader, in the suicide mission.

Driscoll cried in terror — when seeing the scar-faced Doran, in-person — slipping the robe’s hood, down to reveal himself to everyone.

“Holy shit, it is the Preacher!”

All trembling hands with guns and rifles — were now pointed at him.

***

Wolfe followed the President, with Agent Knight — when the Cory-double went from table to table, shaking hands and making small talks with the distinguished VIPs. Wolfe communicated with the rooftop — by whispering into the communication device...

“Agent Green, what is the status up there?”

Agents Green, Driscoll and others SWAT troopers stepped back — for each slow pace that Doran made forward. They heard Wolfe’s vexed voice, on the Secret Service walkie-talkie...

“Agent Green, do you read me?"

Sanchez howled like a wolf — and some of the rebels that walked behind him laughed — even Doran smiled, as he turned to the terrified agents...

“That is Wolfe — the voice which I will take to the grave today — and also your President...

“Did she not make an open invitation to me to come to join her banquet tonight? I am here now — and, I have accepted the Snake-woman’s invitation!”

The AOG rebels walked over, eager to meet those — who turned up to at the fundraiser event that night.

While, Green and Driscoll’s eyes were fixated on the dead man's trigger mechanism that Doran held forward to them — like a crucifix in the exorcism of demons.

His thumb was firmly suppressed onto the trigger to click. Some of the terrified Elite soldiers started to run away to the far end of the building. Li Chi and Sanchez began to fire their pistols with silencers —at those who attempted to use the elevator, as their escape-way from the divination clear and present danger that waited.

“We are taking the elevator. If any of you demonic-bitches in black, get in my way, I will fry you all on this roof, is that understood?” the Preacher next spoke out to the agents, raising the trigger...

The government agents tacitly nodded in dread — and they gave passage to the seven-man suicide squad — who crossed over the bodies of two dead women soldiers in their path — before entering the elevator on the rooftop. Li Chi pressed the eighth-floor button, and the door closed.

Green barked out instructions to Driscoll to wait for the returning elevator — while she and two other agents — used the stairwell down, descending back to the ballroom.

***

The Vice President had joined the Cory-double — while they went to the tables, thanking the guests for their contribution to the coming presidential election. Wolfe followed them from the side, she grabbed Agent Knight's arm and alerted subtly...

“Something is going wrong — on the roof. Be prepared.”

Inside the moving elevator car, two rebels were helping to detach — the kill-switch to Semtex-belt off Doran. They were being very cautious with its complex wirings — that delicately ran from the trigger mechanism to the bricks of the explosive device strapped-belt. The jittery Michael and Peter observed them removing it, with beads of perspiration on their every faces.

Two floors above, Agent Green was still running down the stairwell — to anticipate and counterstrike the rebel assassins’ breach into the convention centre.

The elevator door opened at the eighth floor — Sanchez and Li Chi fired their silencer pistols — killing the two guarding Elite soldiers at close range.

They wanted to surprise Cory — with their grand entrance — without much initial gunshot noises.

They walked into the ballroom in the side exit and ignored the frightened-looking waitresses who were regressing — but the guests ahead were shot at will — because in his YouTube sermons, Doran had labelled that those who were supporting and funding the Snake-woman in her upcoming election — were also an enemy of God's Army — and to God Himself.

***

The elevator door reopened at the rooftop, and the armed, Agent Driscoll — found it empty...

Six armed Elite soldiers followed her in — and the lift door closed — they all then looked stupefied at the elevator ceiling — the Semtex explosives was plastered above them...

00:02, 00:01, 00:00...

The massive explosion rock-and-blew a crater on the rooftop — regurgitating of burning flesh and body part limbs, with the thrown up concrete debris...

The impact of the blasting heat wave lifted the rebel’s Blackhawk, off the top of the building’s helipad — it then fell eleven floors, to crash below on the garden front.

Panic aroused in the ballroom when everyone sensed the tremor of the external explosion. The frenetic VP Mary Freeman screamed when her horrendous nightmare had come true in coming to LA.

She cried out blames — at the numb Cory-double across her...

“Madeline, you fool! I told you clearly that we will be attacked tonight!”

This was his cue...

Oswald-Wu Leong locked his target on the president, to take a headshot — but VP came in between when she attacked by choking the ‘Cory-double’ out of spite — Mary Freeman was shot instead. Her side of her skull was blown away, by the hollow point bullet...

The Cory-double was jumped by Agent Knight — who shielded the POTUS from further assail.

Wu Leong cursed himself for missing his target — and he fired more shots at the invariable direction, hoping by some second chance, in hitting the Snake-woman — but the target was obstructed by more dreading people running across in helter-skelter — they were instead dropping dead in the target zone...

Wolfe drew out her SIG Sauer pistol — and spotted Doran in the monk robe, at the far end of the ballroom. The AOG rebels opened fire — with their machine guns in the breakout...

The rebels were killing everyone at sight, both the avarice billionaire personages and to the salaried uniforms bodyguard agents in the ballroom. The CNN media crew present, who were covering the chaos, was next blasted with RPG — for their sins — of spreading the Snake-woman’s propaganda and deceits against the Army of God.

Wolfe grinned while seeing the mayhem of the on slaughter unfolding — she had planned it to a tee. Her stratagem was falling into place — and she was ready for her long-awaited showdown, with the scar-faced Preacher.

The ensnare bait had been set...

She was going to take him out now, at all cost — on this special night to reclaim her forswear, belated 38th birthday gift — since her last Tombscradle visit...