Fireworks Forming 250 in the Sky Ron AI
Hitman Hodges positioned himself in an ancient mulberry on a high spot 600 yards from the podium in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the Mall. His rifle lined up perfectly and his night scope crosshairs clearly on the president in the dark. It was hot, even in the simple white T-shirt and khaki shorts. To blend with the panicked, fleeing crowd after. Sweat was dripping down his forehead into his eyes. He wiped the sweat off with his shirt and waited a large burst of fireworks to start…
Years earlier…
The Hodges family came to Montana to log in the 1880s. They stayed to ranch in the land cleared after. Conrad, "Connie" Hodges (Oh, how he hated that nickname), came from that line of ranching, military service and hunting. Connie's grandfather, Hunter Hodges, was a heavily decorated infantrymen during World War II and his father, Connor Hodges, was a sniper for the Marines in Vietnam. It was a lot to live up to.
But Connie was the best shot of them all with his 20/10 eyesight. Outshining his family when it came to hunting in the fall like they always did to put food in the freezer. By the time he was 16, routinely bringing down big game at over 500 yards and more. He was destined for the military when he found that going to college was not something he wanted to do. Conrad enlisted in the army before Desert Storm. When his shooting ability was discovered in basic training, he was immediately taken into the elite Ranger sniper training program.
During that brief conflict, Hodges was one of the lucky ones who saw combat. He was airlifted into Iraq and credited with taking out some of the top military commanders under Saddam Hussein. Partially accounting for the disarray when the Iraqi Army fled back towards Baghdad and were massacred by US and Allied troops and air power.
His comrades began almost immediately to understand his uncanny shooting ability and started to call him, "Hitman" Hodges. To Hodges, it was far better to be called Hitman than, Connie, a name that always had gender ambiguity.
After that brief skirmish, the Rangers were called upon to do special duty for the likes of the CIA under top secret conditions. Multiple attempts to topple growing terrorist organizations in the Middle East and even heads of state in attempts to regime change.
Hodges soon learned that some of what he was called to do was very disgusting. One time, he had been airlifted and brought into position on a hillside overlooking a compound where a terrorist known only as Abdullah was supposedly staying. It turned out that Abdullah was not there, but his wife and three-year-old son were playing in the courtyard, about 700 yards distant. When he reported to headquarters what he saw, the CIA member in charge told him, “Take them out." He did as he was ordered, and regretted it every day of his life, after.
There were other times until he finally quit in disgust after 10 years of service just before 9/11. Every night, he would relive in his dreams the sight of that little three-year-old, his head exploding and him falling to the ground while his mother screamed in horror before he killed her, kept returning repeatedly making it nearly impossible to sleep.
It was a result of what he did that led him to believe why so many Muslims in the Middle East were so dead set on killing Americans. Because he was involved in atrocities like that, himself. Probably where Osama bin Laden's hatred of America came from. Things like he and others did under the direction of misunderstood regime change that never happened.
Conrad returned home to a warm welcome from his extended family. But he detested sitting around the family bar in his grandfather's ranch house where war stories were told. Although badgered by family and friends to tell what he knew, he had been bound to secrecy upon his departure from government service. And not even allowed to say that he ever was a sniper for the Rangers. He mustered out as an ordinary army private. With only the benefits given them.
Hodges knew that some of the people ordering the horrific things that he had done in Washington DC, Langley and in the military were prospering politically and economically. Largely, through business contacts and consultancies with the military industrial complex. Instead, he was given practically no benefits and no way to tell his story.
The only consolation he had was hunting. He moved into a small cabin off the grid on family land and made a living guiding hunters in the fall and taught youngsters who joined him in summer camps that he held for hunting and fishing. Most of the youngsters that came to the camps were wealthy kids referred by contacts his family had always had with high rollers. Conrad resented that connection. But used it to make a living.
Even that venture became more unbearable after a few years and Hodges became more reclusive. More inclined to stay by himself because he became so angry with being betrayed and the direction that he thought the country was heading.
Towards a more authoritarian and war-like posture every year. He didn't like the idea of the USA against the world. It seemed like a losing proposition to him. Meanwhile, his family was becoming more a part of it.
This alienated him from them. Until they weren't talking at all. Conrad made infrequent trips to town, to get supplies with his meager military pension. That was it. He had installed solar power and acquired the Internet with a satellite service that came available in 2024. Before that, he had an old-fashioned satellite TV system where he got the news and entertainment. A self-imposed lonely life.
Watching the country go deeper from a defense, into a war stance, scapegoating and driving out undesirables with false accusations was just the first move. Attacking intellectuals and the universities and their research was next. Gathering wealth to the administration and those loyal while firing those in opposition and filing lawsuits with no grounds against those who would speak out against the figurehead for them, the president. While the Congress remained deadlocked and loyal. And finally, a Supreme Court packed to rule in their favor. Everyone watched while the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Nothing was being done about it. Not even the middle class that was shrinking and slipping into poverty with every year.
The president proceeded to beef up the military and began to attack small countries with "lightning war" operations like what was seen in Germany as World War II unfolded. He pictured himself as the only one who could run the government and the country, while raking in billions through his family businesses and connections with wealthy Middle Eastern countries. It was a ticking time bomb, and Conrad Hodges could see it. He had to do something. He began to plan.
Hodges knew that the president was planning a huge 250 anniversary party and that was where he would strike. In his PTSD delirium, he felt that the best thing for the country would be a regime change by taking out the top of the pyramid. And he thought he knew how to do it. Assassination, his forte.
A week before the event, he drove to Washington DC in his old pickup and checked into a hotel within walking distance of the Mall. He went shopping and found a light gray camouflage backpack. At a cosmetics counter, he bought red, white and blue face paint and had his disguise ready to go. He bought hair products to both bleach his hair and to dye it black.
In his suitcase that he carried into the hotel himself, he had his trusty camouflage gray sniper rifle that he picked up 10 years before in a Montana gun store that was equivalent to what he had used in the military. It broke down and reassembled very quickly and weighed only about 10 pounds. He had adequate ammo with him as well. All he had to do was find a place from where he would shoot.
There were many tourists to the Mall every day, especially while the reflecting pool was being renovated and painted blue for the big event to follow. Lost in the crowd of tourists, he located an ancient mulberry tree that he felt would be excellent for stabilizing his rifle to shoot and give him cover from the rest of the crowd who would be much closer since it was around 600 yards from the crowd center and action at the Lincoln Memorial.
That day, he had the gun in the backpack covered with a smelly pastrami sandwich in case any security wanted to look in. He sat near the mulberry eating the massive sandwich watching the workmen leave the reflecting pool as the sun set and the crowds dimmed. Under cover of darkness, he quickly climbed the tree and secured the backpack matching the weathered trunk and branches high up in the tree where it blended under the leaves perfectly.
With that done, he toured the city and some of its attractions from his hotel until the fateful day, July 4, 2026.
Conrad didn't attend all the festivities. Few did. And he waited until it was dark, dressed simply like he was before with his face covered with the red, white and blue makeup and his hair bleached blonde, he left the hotel and walked to the Mall to join the crowds there for the fireworks that would begin at 10:30 p.m.
He arrived at the entrance outside of where the mulberry tree was in time to hear the president’s self-serving speech about how great he had made the country and how much greater it would become in the next 250 years under his initial leadership as the founding father of the new republic. But waited outside watching how the guards were getting very tired and not watching their posts as acutely as they had before. Hoping to get home, exhausted, but happy for the additional pay.
As Hodges listened, his mind conjured up newsreels he had seen of Adolf Hitler pontificating in the same way about how the 3rd Reich would last 1000 years. This was Hitler’s reincarnation. This time, he wouldn’t let it get any further.
Conrad waited until the fireworks were well underway and the guards were no longer paying any attention. He snuck in past them without them even knowing he did.
In the darkness, amid flashes of light and loud booms, he reached the mulberry and climbed up into it unseen. Hodges opened his pack and took out his rifle that was as familiar to him as his right hand, quickly put it together and loaded it with a magazine. All that he would need.
The president had gathered his top administration to watch the festivities with him, no exception. They were all there obediently watching the fireworks that he promised would be, “The greatest they had ever seen."
Midway in the show, Old Glory began. Soon followed by barrage after barrage of loud and bright fireworks just as the music blared, “And the rockets’ red glare, the bomb was bursting in air!”, Hitman Hodges began firing precisely and quickly. First, the president. And then, the vice president, the secretary of war followed along with the head of the joint chiefs of staff. Down in front, he quickly dispatched three of the Supreme Court members in attendance along with the speaker of the house and some other prominent members of the administration and Congress located on or near the podium.
It all happened so fast and the noise of the music and the fireworks overshadowing the screams of the president’s wife and others while most of the crowd was looking up at the fireworks and not noticing what was happening at the podium at all.
The Secret Service was scrambling and the security surrounding them were frozen as though by the fog of war. It took them a while to get organized, and the sirens began blaring while the fireworks continued. Finally, the music stopped and the loudspeakers were asking the crowd to leave in an orderly fashion.
Conrad Hitman Hodges simply broke down his gun, put it back in the backpack, looking like any other American in a plain T-shirt and shorts for the heat, ran out with the crowd that began leaving in a rush after they began to realize what had happened. Most of them running and overpowering security trying to check them out.
He made his way back to the hotel avoiding as many cameras as he could and entered the hotel through the back staircase where no one saw him. Everyone was watching television in the main lobby. Even security.
Deciding to take advantage of the confusion, Conrad removed his face paint and dyed his hair black. Making sure that the sink was completely clear of any evidence of the face paint or dye. As well as the rest of the hotel room completely clear of any fingerprints. DNA was another matter. But he didn’t think they would be looking for him in that room.
Conrad packed the gun and the backpack into the single old suitcase that he brought and left in a clean pair of T-shirt and shorts. Immediately checking out and telling the hotel that he had been at the event and was so horrified he didn’t want to stay in town anymore. Others were doing the same.
He was stopped on the highway, but a check of his driver’s license and registration showed nothing unusual from any other tourist in DC at that time and the people at the checkpoint let him go.
Since he had been incognito in the military, there was no record in the police data of him ever being anything other than a private during Desert Storm and a citizen in good standing from Montana on a summer vacation. He told the cops that he was on vacation and was at the Mall when the terrible thing happened. He told them he was shocked by it. They agreed and let him pass.
When he returned home, Conrad watched to see what would happen now that he had attempted regime change by assassination.
The country went into a mourning period longer than it ever had before. The government was in chaos with everyone blaming everyone else for what had happened.
All kinds of leads were chased down trying to find who did it, but it was like a ghost had done the deed because there was no evidence, not even any DNA, to be found. There were scapegoating of organizations on both the right and left but investigations came up with no evidence, no plan or conspiracy. Nothing on the Internet. Camera shots of a blonde middle-aged man with a camouflage backpack and face painted red, white and blue were investigated but led to nothing in the end.
The country remained in control of the autocratic wealthy for some time after because the president and vice president, including all the others murdered were martyred. The president got all the monuments in his name that he had wished for in his life and more.
But gradually, the pendulum of power swung back from the right to the left when everyone began to realize that what happened was the result of extreme right-wing behavior not seen since World War II and the Axis of power. The United States of America continued, imperfect as it was.
Conrad Hitman Hodges was found dead in his cabin, his body severely decayed, with a bullet to his head by a cousin checking on him. No evidence was ever found that connected him with the 250 Massacre at the Mall.
Copyright 2026 © Ronald W. Hull
7/1/26
