Payback, page 12
“The Senator is waiting out back. He wanted to have lunch with you on the terrace since it’s a beautiful day.”
“Sounds very nice.” She followed the butler into the home and through the elaborate foyer, framed by marble statues. A huge crystal chandelier provided the soft light while classical music filled the air. “Spectacular place.”
“Yes, it is. I enjoy working here, and the Senator is a very kind man. You should feel honored by the invitation, he rarely sees anyone.” The butler opened the French doors as they reached the end of the foyer. “Enjoy your time with the Senator, lunch will be served shortly.”
“Thank you.” She emerged into the sunlight and took in the spectacular view. A heron sat poised at the end of a dock while seagulls chirped away in the distance. She saw the Senator s wearing a pale blue short-sleeved shirt seated at a glass table under a huge white umbrella. As she moved closer she was immediately struck by how much he had aged since he left Washington. Though sixty-two, the former candidate looked eighty. The famous thick black hair had gone snow white, his lean face now gaunt and severely wrinkled like an old fisherman.
Is this what losing a presidential election does to a person?
I don’t want to look like the crypt keeper.
The Senator saw her heading his way and stood up to greet her. “Johanna, pleasure to meet you.” His voice was filled with gravel, making him sound as old as he looked.
“You too, Senator, and thank you so much for the invite.”
“I don’t do this for everyone, but Frank is an old friend.”
“He appears to have a lot of those.”
The Senator studied her face. “You’re quite the spirited young lady from what I’ve seen on television. Very refreshing.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
He gestured toward a chair and they both sat. “So, I guess you want to know what I didn’t put in my memoir. I assume you already read it.”
She nodded. “I did when it first came out and read it again a few weeks ago. Thought it would help with my decision. I found it interesting that you really didn’t touch on the election.”
He cringed a bit. “Too painful to put in writing. The memory is bad enough.” He looked up and waved at a servant standing by near the house. “Let’s enjoy lunch before I have to re-live that disaster.”
The Senator looked out at the water as the butler set dessert on the table. “The pain never goes away, Johanna. You can ask anyone who lost a race for the White House. I still second-guess myself, especially after losing by just a few electoral votes. Did I campaign enough? Did I choose the right running mate? Could my TV ads have been better? Should I have been tougher at the last debate? One state could have made the difference... could I have spent more time in the ones that were close?” He turned to face her, took a sip of iced tea, his dark eyes deep pools of permanent hurt. “And that’s the risk you have to consider, Johanna, when deciding whether or not to run. Trust me, it will ruin your life if you lose. The demons will dance in your head every single day. You will replay things until you die.”
His words sent a chill up her spine. “But Senator, you accomplished so much during your time in office. Did some great things.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“You live in this incredible house.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“People of both parties still respect you a great deal. You have a great legacy.”
“Does. Not. Matter.” He leaned forward. “Johanna, think of the worst thing that ever happened in your life. What is it?”
“That’s easy. My father died when I was a teenager.”
“You remember how you felt the day it happened?”
She nodded as the memory flooded back. “Of course. I was absolutely devastated. I didn’t leave my bedroom for a week. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. I cried for hours. My grades went down. I had no interest in school, and I’d been nearly a straight-A student.”
“How long did that feeling last?”
“It gradually started to pass over the next year, but I still miss him. I think of him often. It’s funny, I’ll pass one of the restaurants he loved or see his favorite food in the grocery store, and the memories flood back.”
“But you obviously got on with your life.”
“Well, sure.”
“Now think about what you felt on the day he died, and imagine feeling that way every single day for the rest of your life.”
Was he that bitter? Was the loss so devastating that it actually ruined his life? “But you can’t beat yourself up forever, Sir. The past is written in stone. Surely some things bring you joy, Senator.”
“Oh sure, when my kids and grandkids come to visit. But at the end of the day when I go to bed... that’s the worst part. The wheels start turning. It’s like Groundhog Day, replaying the same thing over and over.” He took another sip of tea. “Let me ask you this, Johanna. Where are you right now? Running or not?”
“Completely straddling the fence. I can think of several reasons to run and several not to do it.”
“I see you brought a pad. So we’re going to do this the old-fashioned way. Divide a sheet of paper and I want you to write the pros and cons of running.”
“Okay.” She took the pad, laid it on the table and drew a line down the middle of the paper.
“Biggest reason to run?”
“That’s easy. I could do a lot of good. Fix all the stuff that Damien has broken. I’d get writer’s cramp signing executive actions to undo his policies.”
He pointed at her pad. “Write it down.” The Senator pressed her to list more positives and she filled half the page.
“That’s all I can think of.”
“Okay, now the worst parts about being President, and don’t forget the campaign.”
“The top one is easy. My private life will be over, even after leaving office. Secret Service guys hovering for the rest of my life. My kids will be celebrities, always in the public eye, even if they have no desire to live that way. Security guards around them forever. And I understand the worst part of the campaign is the grueling schedule, the constant travel.”
“You’re right about all of that. I never liked having the Secret Service around when I was the candidate. And not many people know this, but I was actually hospitalized for exhaustion after the election. That’s how tired I was, and I was in good shape back then. A President once said the reason inauguration day is in January is so the president-elect can recover.” He pointed at the pad. “Keep writing.”
“Did Frank tell you about the death threat?” She wrote it in big bold letters.
He nodded. “I lost count on how many I had. But no one ever broke into my home like what happened to you. Did it scare you?”
“Hell, yeah.”
“There’s another thing. Toward the middle of my campaign they actually caught this radical whack job with a gun at one of my rallies, so they started having me wear a bulletproof vest. If you check out the old videos it looks like I gained weight all of a sudden. Just putting the thing on scared me. Would this be the day someone shot me in the head? A vest would do no good in that case.”
A short time later she finished, with about the same number of positives and negatives. “You can see why I’m truly on the fence. Not even leaning one way or the other.”
“Then you still have a lot of thinking to do.” He grabbed a fork and took a bite of cheesecake.
“Let me ask you this, Senator. Do you think I should run?”
He shook his head. “No. You can still do a lot of good in the House. You could move up to the Senate, which, considering your reputation, shouldn’t be hard with Senator Baxter retiring at the end of his term in a few years. You just said I did great things as a Senator, and those things didn’t require me to be President. You’re young, you’ve got a nice family, you want the best for your kids. Why screw that up? But do I think you could win? Hell, yeah. Unless...”
“Unless what?”
“Unless the damn Democrats don’t steal the election again.”
As soon as Johanna hit the road she called Frank. “I just left the Senator.”
“Well? How’d it go?”
“It was... very enlightening.”
“Did it change your thinking?”
“Honestly... I’m more confused than ever. He’s really bitter.”
“I know. Poor guy can’t let go of the past. I wish we had more points of view to share, but he’s the only former Republican nominee still alive who lost.”
“Since you want me to run, why in the world did you let me talk to him if you knew his mindset?”
“I wanted to be fair with you. While the White House is a dream for most politicians, it can also be a nightmare.”
“Apparently. I gotta ask you... how come you never ran? I’ve seen your name tossed about over the years.”
“I didn’t think I could win.”
“Seriously?”
“I’m being honest. Besides, I loved being governor. Sly wasn’t on board either, dead set against it. That life in a fishbowl is not for us. As governor we could still go out to dinner, go for a walk, shop for groceries like normal people. Can’t do that as President. Hell, they won’t even let you drive a car. So if you do this, you need to make sure your husband and kids are behind the decision one hundred percent.”
“Why am I different?”
“Because you have a unique quality I’ve never seen. Because the stars are aligned. At this point in time, you’re the perfect candidate.”
Then he played the trump card.
“And if the Democrats win the next election, America will be gone. You may be the only person who can save this country.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
David Chen arrived at his new home, a medium security prison in upstate New York. While it wasn’t Club Fed, it didn’t house the worst human beings on the planet. He wondered if he’d be in the general population as his paperwork was being reviewed.
The thirtysomething guard finished with his file, folded it and put it in a cabinet. “Okay, Chen, someone to see you before we get you all tucked in. Follow me.”
The guard led him down a long hallway. The place was a lot cleaner than the last prison. “Sir, will I be in the general population?”
“No. You’re going to a block which has mostly white-collar guys like yourself.”
He exhaled some tension. “I appreciate that.”
“They just stab people in the back figuratively instead of literally, like the guys in the rest of this place. I’ve got you assigned to a job in the kitchen. Doesn’t matter if you can cook, since I think the meat comes from the horses who lost at Saratoga.”
“Sounds good. Not the food, the job. I got tired of having nothing to do at the last prison. And I’m not sure the food here could be worse.”
“Don’t speak too soon. But this place is definitely better than where you were. I cannot believe they put you there... guess they were making an example of you, huh?”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“Anyway, we have a nice exercise yard, though in this part of New York it can get pretty damn cold. The four seasons here are almost winter, winter, still winter and construction.”
David laughed a bit. The guard was a lot friendlier than the ones in the last prison. They turned a corner into a meeting room and he saw his benefactor sitting at a table.
The guard stood up straight as he saw the attractive woman. “Damn, Chen. You’ve got nice taste in visitors. She single?”
“No clue.”
“Find out and I might let you have an extra-long phone call. Anyway, I’ll be outside when you’re done.” The guard turned and left him alone with the woman, who stood to greet him.
She extended her hand. “See what happens when you do as you’re told?”
He smiled as he shook hands with her. “Thank you. I really appreciate this. Great to be out of that hell hole, even if I was in a safe spot.”
“This is just another rung up the ladder, my friend. Keep doing great work and you might be on a golf course soon. I must say, the job you did on the last assignment exceeded expectations.”
They both took seats at the table. “I was really worried about that one. Didn’t want to start World War Three.”
“We never would have let that happen. Hell, the people in charge wouldn’t even know how to launch a missile. Anyway, I have what you will probably consider an easy one this time.” She pulled a few sheets of paper from her briefcase and slid them across the table.
David took a look at a letter on a sheet of stationery belonging to a United States Senator’s campaign, details to a massive mailing list and another page outlining his assignment. He quickly read the parameters and nodded his head. “Piece of cake. Though I’m not sure I understand what it’s for.”
She pointed at a date on the page. “It’s just a matter of getting specific information out to the voters. Anyway, I have a little office set up for you, so I’ll need you to launch this today.”
WITH THE PRIMARY JUST one day away, Democratic Senator Harold Beasley wasn’t even worried as he sat in the campaign office of his tiny home town. The four-term incumbent would easily defeat his lone challenger, with the massive mail-in ballot campaign designed to take care of things, as it had during his last election. It wouldn’t even matter if people showed up at the polls. The under-the-table payoffs had already been made on behalf of the sixty-seven-year-old politician. And the members of the media he had in his pocket had basically called the race with a fake poll doubling the true numbers, saying the challenger had no chance of unseating Beasley. That usually kept supporters of any challenger at home, not bothering to vote in a losing cause. Besides, everyone knew the challenger was not a credible candidate with no shot against the Republican, who actually was a formidable opponent.
Beasley leaned back in his soft leather swivel rocker, ready to get the primary out of the way so he could concentrate on the general election. This would be his last term; six more years to sock away enough political payoffs to take care of his family for generations. He glanced at his watch; time to meet his biggest donor for a thank you dinner. He’d already gained another twenty pounds this year, but since the scale read more than three hundred, Beasley figured a few extra pounds was like a deck chair on a cruise ship. At a height of five-five, the gray-haired Senator was nearly as round as he was tall.
The Senator looked up to see his skinny, middle-aged campaign manager headed his way in a hurry carrying a sheet of paper.
Looking scared.
Campaign manager Cyrus Hunter didn’t even bother to knock on the open door. “Senator, we’ve got a problem.”
“I wouldn’t worry about what James said about me on his show last night.”
“Not that.” Hunter handed the paper to the Senator. “I have no idea how this got sent out, but every Democrat in the state either got a letter, an email or both.”
Beasley took the paper and noted it was a letter from the campaign instructing people how to mail in their ballots and not to bother going to the polls. He shrugged. “The instructions look pretty simple to me, even for the morons in the state. What’s the problem?”
Hunter pointed at the bottom of the page. “Keep reading. The date the ballots must be postmarked, Sir, in order to be legally counted. Five days after the real deadline, which is tomorrow.”
Beasley’s eyes widened as he stood bolt upright. “What the hell? Who is responsible for this?”
“I have no idea. I’ve always had final approval on any mailers, and I control the account for the postage. It hasn’t been touched. I checked the campaign’s email address and there’s no record of this being sent electronically, but it seems everyone received one from the official campaign account. Even me.”
“Jesus! So everyone who’s gonna mail in a ballot will think they have all this extra time to do it?”
Hunter nodded. “Exactly. By then the election will have been certified. We won’t even be able to use our post office people to backdate the postmarks.”
“Well, then, print up a shitload of ballots that are already filled out and get them in the mail tonight!”
“Not possible. I was thinking the same thing so I called the printer on the payroll who produced the last batch of fake ballots and his entire computer system crashed last night. He can’t print a thing and we don’t have anyone else we can trust.”
“Cyrus, we have to get in front of this. Schedule a news conference as soon as possible.”
“I’ll do my best, Sir, but none of the national media people are in the state. They aren’t bothering to cover the race since they ran the bogus poll that it was in the bag. And what’s worse, some of the state’s media outlets also got a copy of this and are already reporting the five-day window.”
“What kind of idiot reporters do we have these days?”
“I hate to say this, but lazy ones who report what we give them verbatim. They don’t know the difference between a United States Senator and a State Senator. And since it’s on our letterhead, they assume it’s legit.”
“Good God, what the hell do we do?”
The campaign manager ran his hands through his sandy hair. “We need to get people to the polls the old-fashioned way.”
“We already told these lazy sacks of shit we made the voting process easier so they could vote from home. Sonofabitch!”
“I’ll do what I can, Senator. But I’m not sure what.”
LUCY HEADED UP THE steps to the Georgetown condo, home of now former Press Secretary Cassie Yates, new pariah of the Democratic Party. Dressed in a conservative blue suit with a single strand of pearls, she rang the bell, knowing the woman hadn’t left her home since the news briefing.
Lucy was a blonde today.
She heard steps approaching the door, then noted the light changing behind the peephole. The door didn’t open and she heard the voice. “I’ve told you reporters for the last time, I have no comment. And I never will. Leave me the hell alone.”
“Ms. Yates, I’m not with the media.”
“Sounds very nice.” She followed the butler into the home and through the elaborate foyer, framed by marble statues. A huge crystal chandelier provided the soft light while classical music filled the air. “Spectacular place.”
“Yes, it is. I enjoy working here, and the Senator is a very kind man. You should feel honored by the invitation, he rarely sees anyone.” The butler opened the French doors as they reached the end of the foyer. “Enjoy your time with the Senator, lunch will be served shortly.”
“Thank you.” She emerged into the sunlight and took in the spectacular view. A heron sat poised at the end of a dock while seagulls chirped away in the distance. She saw the Senator s wearing a pale blue short-sleeved shirt seated at a glass table under a huge white umbrella. As she moved closer she was immediately struck by how much he had aged since he left Washington. Though sixty-two, the former candidate looked eighty. The famous thick black hair had gone snow white, his lean face now gaunt and severely wrinkled like an old fisherman.
Is this what losing a presidential election does to a person?
I don’t want to look like the crypt keeper.
The Senator saw her heading his way and stood up to greet her. “Johanna, pleasure to meet you.” His voice was filled with gravel, making him sound as old as he looked.
“You too, Senator, and thank you so much for the invite.”
“I don’t do this for everyone, but Frank is an old friend.”
“He appears to have a lot of those.”
The Senator studied her face. “You’re quite the spirited young lady from what I’ve seen on television. Very refreshing.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
He gestured toward a chair and they both sat. “So, I guess you want to know what I didn’t put in my memoir. I assume you already read it.”
She nodded. “I did when it first came out and read it again a few weeks ago. Thought it would help with my decision. I found it interesting that you really didn’t touch on the election.”
He cringed a bit. “Too painful to put in writing. The memory is bad enough.” He looked up and waved at a servant standing by near the house. “Let’s enjoy lunch before I have to re-live that disaster.”
The Senator looked out at the water as the butler set dessert on the table. “The pain never goes away, Johanna. You can ask anyone who lost a race for the White House. I still second-guess myself, especially after losing by just a few electoral votes. Did I campaign enough? Did I choose the right running mate? Could my TV ads have been better? Should I have been tougher at the last debate? One state could have made the difference... could I have spent more time in the ones that were close?” He turned to face her, took a sip of iced tea, his dark eyes deep pools of permanent hurt. “And that’s the risk you have to consider, Johanna, when deciding whether or not to run. Trust me, it will ruin your life if you lose. The demons will dance in your head every single day. You will replay things until you die.”
His words sent a chill up her spine. “But Senator, you accomplished so much during your time in office. Did some great things.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“You live in this incredible house.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“People of both parties still respect you a great deal. You have a great legacy.”
“Does. Not. Matter.” He leaned forward. “Johanna, think of the worst thing that ever happened in your life. What is it?”
“That’s easy. My father died when I was a teenager.”
“You remember how you felt the day it happened?”
She nodded as the memory flooded back. “Of course. I was absolutely devastated. I didn’t leave my bedroom for a week. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. I cried for hours. My grades went down. I had no interest in school, and I’d been nearly a straight-A student.”
“How long did that feeling last?”
“It gradually started to pass over the next year, but I still miss him. I think of him often. It’s funny, I’ll pass one of the restaurants he loved or see his favorite food in the grocery store, and the memories flood back.”
“But you obviously got on with your life.”
“Well, sure.”
“Now think about what you felt on the day he died, and imagine feeling that way every single day for the rest of your life.”
Was he that bitter? Was the loss so devastating that it actually ruined his life? “But you can’t beat yourself up forever, Sir. The past is written in stone. Surely some things bring you joy, Senator.”
“Oh sure, when my kids and grandkids come to visit. But at the end of the day when I go to bed... that’s the worst part. The wheels start turning. It’s like Groundhog Day, replaying the same thing over and over.” He took another sip of tea. “Let me ask you this, Johanna. Where are you right now? Running or not?”
“Completely straddling the fence. I can think of several reasons to run and several not to do it.”
“I see you brought a pad. So we’re going to do this the old-fashioned way. Divide a sheet of paper and I want you to write the pros and cons of running.”
“Okay.” She took the pad, laid it on the table and drew a line down the middle of the paper.
“Biggest reason to run?”
“That’s easy. I could do a lot of good. Fix all the stuff that Damien has broken. I’d get writer’s cramp signing executive actions to undo his policies.”
He pointed at her pad. “Write it down.” The Senator pressed her to list more positives and she filled half the page.
“That’s all I can think of.”
“Okay, now the worst parts about being President, and don’t forget the campaign.”
“The top one is easy. My private life will be over, even after leaving office. Secret Service guys hovering for the rest of my life. My kids will be celebrities, always in the public eye, even if they have no desire to live that way. Security guards around them forever. And I understand the worst part of the campaign is the grueling schedule, the constant travel.”
“You’re right about all of that. I never liked having the Secret Service around when I was the candidate. And not many people know this, but I was actually hospitalized for exhaustion after the election. That’s how tired I was, and I was in good shape back then. A President once said the reason inauguration day is in January is so the president-elect can recover.” He pointed at the pad. “Keep writing.”
“Did Frank tell you about the death threat?” She wrote it in big bold letters.
He nodded. “I lost count on how many I had. But no one ever broke into my home like what happened to you. Did it scare you?”
“Hell, yeah.”
“There’s another thing. Toward the middle of my campaign they actually caught this radical whack job with a gun at one of my rallies, so they started having me wear a bulletproof vest. If you check out the old videos it looks like I gained weight all of a sudden. Just putting the thing on scared me. Would this be the day someone shot me in the head? A vest would do no good in that case.”
A short time later she finished, with about the same number of positives and negatives. “You can see why I’m truly on the fence. Not even leaning one way or the other.”
“Then you still have a lot of thinking to do.” He grabbed a fork and took a bite of cheesecake.
“Let me ask you this, Senator. Do you think I should run?”
He shook his head. “No. You can still do a lot of good in the House. You could move up to the Senate, which, considering your reputation, shouldn’t be hard with Senator Baxter retiring at the end of his term in a few years. You just said I did great things as a Senator, and those things didn’t require me to be President. You’re young, you’ve got a nice family, you want the best for your kids. Why screw that up? But do I think you could win? Hell, yeah. Unless...”
“Unless what?”
“Unless the damn Democrats don’t steal the election again.”
As soon as Johanna hit the road she called Frank. “I just left the Senator.”
“Well? How’d it go?”
“It was... very enlightening.”
“Did it change your thinking?”
“Honestly... I’m more confused than ever. He’s really bitter.”
“I know. Poor guy can’t let go of the past. I wish we had more points of view to share, but he’s the only former Republican nominee still alive who lost.”
“Since you want me to run, why in the world did you let me talk to him if you knew his mindset?”
“I wanted to be fair with you. While the White House is a dream for most politicians, it can also be a nightmare.”
“Apparently. I gotta ask you... how come you never ran? I’ve seen your name tossed about over the years.”
“I didn’t think I could win.”
“Seriously?”
“I’m being honest. Besides, I loved being governor. Sly wasn’t on board either, dead set against it. That life in a fishbowl is not for us. As governor we could still go out to dinner, go for a walk, shop for groceries like normal people. Can’t do that as President. Hell, they won’t even let you drive a car. So if you do this, you need to make sure your husband and kids are behind the decision one hundred percent.”
“Why am I different?”
“Because you have a unique quality I’ve never seen. Because the stars are aligned. At this point in time, you’re the perfect candidate.”
Then he played the trump card.
“And if the Democrats win the next election, America will be gone. You may be the only person who can save this country.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
David Chen arrived at his new home, a medium security prison in upstate New York. While it wasn’t Club Fed, it didn’t house the worst human beings on the planet. He wondered if he’d be in the general population as his paperwork was being reviewed.
The thirtysomething guard finished with his file, folded it and put it in a cabinet. “Okay, Chen, someone to see you before we get you all tucked in. Follow me.”
The guard led him down a long hallway. The place was a lot cleaner than the last prison. “Sir, will I be in the general population?”
“No. You’re going to a block which has mostly white-collar guys like yourself.”
He exhaled some tension. “I appreciate that.”
“They just stab people in the back figuratively instead of literally, like the guys in the rest of this place. I’ve got you assigned to a job in the kitchen. Doesn’t matter if you can cook, since I think the meat comes from the horses who lost at Saratoga.”
“Sounds good. Not the food, the job. I got tired of having nothing to do at the last prison. And I’m not sure the food here could be worse.”
“Don’t speak too soon. But this place is definitely better than where you were. I cannot believe they put you there... guess they were making an example of you, huh?”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“Anyway, we have a nice exercise yard, though in this part of New York it can get pretty damn cold. The four seasons here are almost winter, winter, still winter and construction.”
David laughed a bit. The guard was a lot friendlier than the ones in the last prison. They turned a corner into a meeting room and he saw his benefactor sitting at a table.
The guard stood up straight as he saw the attractive woman. “Damn, Chen. You’ve got nice taste in visitors. She single?”
“No clue.”
“Find out and I might let you have an extra-long phone call. Anyway, I’ll be outside when you’re done.” The guard turned and left him alone with the woman, who stood to greet him.
She extended her hand. “See what happens when you do as you’re told?”
He smiled as he shook hands with her. “Thank you. I really appreciate this. Great to be out of that hell hole, even if I was in a safe spot.”
“This is just another rung up the ladder, my friend. Keep doing great work and you might be on a golf course soon. I must say, the job you did on the last assignment exceeded expectations.”
They both took seats at the table. “I was really worried about that one. Didn’t want to start World War Three.”
“We never would have let that happen. Hell, the people in charge wouldn’t even know how to launch a missile. Anyway, I have what you will probably consider an easy one this time.” She pulled a few sheets of paper from her briefcase and slid them across the table.
David took a look at a letter on a sheet of stationery belonging to a United States Senator’s campaign, details to a massive mailing list and another page outlining his assignment. He quickly read the parameters and nodded his head. “Piece of cake. Though I’m not sure I understand what it’s for.”
She pointed at a date on the page. “It’s just a matter of getting specific information out to the voters. Anyway, I have a little office set up for you, so I’ll need you to launch this today.”
WITH THE PRIMARY JUST one day away, Democratic Senator Harold Beasley wasn’t even worried as he sat in the campaign office of his tiny home town. The four-term incumbent would easily defeat his lone challenger, with the massive mail-in ballot campaign designed to take care of things, as it had during his last election. It wouldn’t even matter if people showed up at the polls. The under-the-table payoffs had already been made on behalf of the sixty-seven-year-old politician. And the members of the media he had in his pocket had basically called the race with a fake poll doubling the true numbers, saying the challenger had no chance of unseating Beasley. That usually kept supporters of any challenger at home, not bothering to vote in a losing cause. Besides, everyone knew the challenger was not a credible candidate with no shot against the Republican, who actually was a formidable opponent.
Beasley leaned back in his soft leather swivel rocker, ready to get the primary out of the way so he could concentrate on the general election. This would be his last term; six more years to sock away enough political payoffs to take care of his family for generations. He glanced at his watch; time to meet his biggest donor for a thank you dinner. He’d already gained another twenty pounds this year, but since the scale read more than three hundred, Beasley figured a few extra pounds was like a deck chair on a cruise ship. At a height of five-five, the gray-haired Senator was nearly as round as he was tall.
The Senator looked up to see his skinny, middle-aged campaign manager headed his way in a hurry carrying a sheet of paper.
Looking scared.
Campaign manager Cyrus Hunter didn’t even bother to knock on the open door. “Senator, we’ve got a problem.”
“I wouldn’t worry about what James said about me on his show last night.”
“Not that.” Hunter handed the paper to the Senator. “I have no idea how this got sent out, but every Democrat in the state either got a letter, an email or both.”
Beasley took the paper and noted it was a letter from the campaign instructing people how to mail in their ballots and not to bother going to the polls. He shrugged. “The instructions look pretty simple to me, even for the morons in the state. What’s the problem?”
Hunter pointed at the bottom of the page. “Keep reading. The date the ballots must be postmarked, Sir, in order to be legally counted. Five days after the real deadline, which is tomorrow.”
Beasley’s eyes widened as he stood bolt upright. “What the hell? Who is responsible for this?”
“I have no idea. I’ve always had final approval on any mailers, and I control the account for the postage. It hasn’t been touched. I checked the campaign’s email address and there’s no record of this being sent electronically, but it seems everyone received one from the official campaign account. Even me.”
“Jesus! So everyone who’s gonna mail in a ballot will think they have all this extra time to do it?”
Hunter nodded. “Exactly. By then the election will have been certified. We won’t even be able to use our post office people to backdate the postmarks.”
“Well, then, print up a shitload of ballots that are already filled out and get them in the mail tonight!”
“Not possible. I was thinking the same thing so I called the printer on the payroll who produced the last batch of fake ballots and his entire computer system crashed last night. He can’t print a thing and we don’t have anyone else we can trust.”
“Cyrus, we have to get in front of this. Schedule a news conference as soon as possible.”
“I’ll do my best, Sir, but none of the national media people are in the state. They aren’t bothering to cover the race since they ran the bogus poll that it was in the bag. And what’s worse, some of the state’s media outlets also got a copy of this and are already reporting the five-day window.”
“What kind of idiot reporters do we have these days?”
“I hate to say this, but lazy ones who report what we give them verbatim. They don’t know the difference between a United States Senator and a State Senator. And since it’s on our letterhead, they assume it’s legit.”
“Good God, what the hell do we do?”
The campaign manager ran his hands through his sandy hair. “We need to get people to the polls the old-fashioned way.”
“We already told these lazy sacks of shit we made the voting process easier so they could vote from home. Sonofabitch!”
“I’ll do what I can, Senator. But I’m not sure what.”
LUCY HEADED UP THE steps to the Georgetown condo, home of now former Press Secretary Cassie Yates, new pariah of the Democratic Party. Dressed in a conservative blue suit with a single strand of pearls, she rang the bell, knowing the woman hadn’t left her home since the news briefing.
Lucy was a blonde today.
She heard steps approaching the door, then noted the light changing behind the peephole. The door didn’t open and she heard the voice. “I’ve told you reporters for the last time, I have no comment. And I never will. Leave me the hell alone.”
“Ms. Yates, I’m not with the media.”
