Jim McGill 04 The Last Ballot Cast, Part 2

by Joseph Flynn

  Beyond that, no other security measures were visible.

  Neither guards nor dogs patrolled the grounds.

  All was quiet along the lakefront nearing the end of Election Day.

  McGill sat alone in the room where Andy Grant had died. Had been blown to bits by the rocket-propelled grenade Erna Godfrey had fired. So much had happened since that awful night, but the pain of Andy’s death remained one of the threads that bound McGill and Patti together. The room had been restored and filled with awards and mementoes Andy had been given.

  Photographs filled all available wall spaces. There was only one of Andy standing next to a politician and a celebrity. In that case it was Patti who filled both roles. The two of them smiled like little kids who shared the best secret in the world. It was their wedding picture.

  All the other photos were of Andy with his friends. People with whom he’d worked. People to whom he’d extended a helping hand. Many of those in the latter category were too busy hugging him to be bothered looking at the camera.

  In the early days after Andy’s death, McGill had told Patti that high among his regrets was that he hadn’t had more time to get to know Andy better. So, in an act of both generosity and trust, she’d given him access to both his business correspondence and his diaries. McGill would be the only one to receive that privilege while Patti still lived.

  McGill had learned that Andy had come from a family that was affluent but nowhere near as rich as Andy would later become. After graduating from the University of Chicago with a degree in mathematics, Andy went to work as a trader at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Possessing both an ability to analyze hard numbers and an intuitive grasp for which way the markets in pork bellies and wheat would move, he’d made millions.

  Then joining with two college classmates who’d moved to California, he was a founder of a venture capital firm, and that was where his billions had been made. In the last years of his life he spent the majority of his time managing The Grant Foundation.

  Giving money away wisely, as he’d told McGill.

  Getting to know Andy’s life better, McGill regretted his inability to save his life all the more.

  An ironic sentiment, he knew. Had he saved Andy, he never would have married Patti.

  Might have become an old bachelor content to live off his two pensions.

  Wondering how to fill all the hours he didn’t spend with his children.

  Or he might have married Clare Tracy.

  The way things had turned out, he was watching the returns of the presidential election come in from the eastern third of the United States. He had not only a rooting interest but a personal interest. A civic interest, too. He was biased, sure. But even if he had become an old bachelor, he’d still have thought Patti would do the best job for the country.

  The sound level of the television was low enough that McGill heard a beep on the alarm console next to his chair. He silenced the alarm and turned off the TV. The alarm had indicated a threat from above. Once the FBI had learned that Todd had taken sky diving and wing suit flying lessons, the Secret Service had installed a radar system. Just like at the White House.

  Something or someone had entered the estate’s no-fly zone.

  Then McGill heard the rumble of marine motors come to life. Through the room’s east-facing windows, he saw lights appear on boats stationed on the lake. McGill smiled. It would be funny if Todd overshot the mark and wound up in cold water. Be hilarious if one of the special agents held his head under until all their troubles were over.

  While there was activity on the lake, if the plan was holding, the grounds around the house would remain dark and quiet. Allow Todd to feel safe, if the activity overhead had been a fake-out. And that seemed to be the way of it.

  McGill heard the front door of the house open.

  He’d made it easy and left it unlocked.

  He clicked his Beretta’s safety off and called out, “That you, Dr. Todd? I’m up here. First door on the right at the top of the stairs. Great view. We can watch the show you set up out on the lake.”

  A man with any sense of reason would know he’d been suckered. Would have at least attempted to get away. McGill heard footsteps on the staircase. The chair in which he sat was in line with the doorway. The gun in his right hand was pointed at Todd’s head as it came into view.

  A little voice in McGill’s mind told him to do what he’d instructed Elspeth so often.

  Shoot him.

  McGill would have had to make it a head shot. As Todd stepped into the second floor hallway, McGill could see that under a formfitting black Lycra top Todd was wearing a vest. Well, McGill had dressed in Kevlar, too. Fair was fair.

  Only Todd’s hands were empty. No gun, no knife, no stick. Unless the SOB had become an overnight master of empty-hand combat, that was suspiciously cocky of him. The muted creak of a floorboard sounded from the first floor.

  Todd turned to look. McGill knew what he saw, Sweetie and Elspeth climbing the stairs, completing the trap, herding Todd toward McGill. It was too late to commit cold-blooded murder now. Elspeth might look the other way. Sweetie’s conscience would never let her do the same.

  Todd raised his hands and asked McGill, “May I join you?”

  McGill said, “Sure. Just like old times.”

  Except he hadn’t had backup the last time he’d faced off with Todd.

  And Todd had been anything but submissive.

  As Todd entered the room, McGill studied him. The recessed lighting was set in the midrange of the rheostat. Seeing Todd was no problem at all. Missing some small detail was still a possibility. Sweetie and Elspeth entered the room. They kept their weapons pointed at Todd.

  Todd had stopped fewer than ten feet away from McGill, between him and the windows that looked out on the lake. Close enough to tackle, if a sub-lethal counterattack was called for.

  Close enough to study for a hidden weapon, too.

  The bastard had to have something up his sleeve.

  Todd saw McGill’s concern and offered a mocking smile.

  “Well, Marshal, ya got me,” he said.

  Todd started to lower his hands.

  McGill said, “Keep them up.”

  “What’s the matter? Do I scare you?”

  “Never have. That’s what bothers you about me. I just don’t want to get gore on the furnishings.”

  Todd saw that McGill wasn’t kidding and kept his hands up.

  McGill studied him, searching for a place Todd could have hidden a weapon.

  Didn’t see a damn thing. The only imperfections in Todd’s garb were the bulge around his torso from the vest and a dangling loop of stray thread at the hem of his shirt. He had to be missing something.

  “Sweetie, Elspeth,” McGill said, “you see any sign of a weapon?”

  “Turn around,” Elspeth ordered.

  “Keep your hands up, too,” Sweetie told Todd.

  He obeyed both orders. Gave it a minute. Turned back to face his captors.

  “How is Chana?” he asked McGill.

  “Sorry she didn’t get to shoot you, too.”

  Todd frowned. “You’ve changed her,” he told McGill, “and not for the better.”

  The old combative Todd was creeping back into sight now, putting McGill on edge.

  He had to be missing something. He moved to the edge of his chair, the better to see Todd, and closing the gap if he had to go for the man.

  He thought that provoking Todd might throw him off his game.

  “Chana is very happy with her life, her work and … her husband. Graham was her first boyfriend, you know. Her first love. Her true love.”

  Any semblance of humanity fell from Todd’s face like a rockslide.

  He revealed himself as a beast about to strike.

  McGill pushed him one last step.

  “You figured out the reason you need to kill me, right? To show Chana you’re the better man. But you’ve never been able to do it. Even with the help of two
playmates from the —”

  Todd likely expected McGill to say CIA, but McGill didn’t. He bolted from the chair while Todd was waiting for him to complete his sentence. Todd had finally given himself away. He’d dropped his head and lowered his eyes. He was looking for the loop of thread hanging from his shirt. It wasn’t a stray piece of fabric at all.

  The loop was a triggering ring. Todd wasn’t wearing body armor; he was wearing a bomb. He was willing to kill himself as long as he could take McGill with him. Getting Sweetie and Elspeth, too, would be a bonus.

  McGill grabbed Todd’s right arm as he tried to bring it down — hoping neither Sweetie nor Elspeth shot him by mistake — and yanked it back up, putting an arm-bar on Todd’s triceps. Using the submission hold, McGill ran Todd headfirst toward the windows facing the lake. Shoving Todd as hard as he could, McGill sent him crashing through a window.

  He spun and threw himself to the floor, yelling to Sweetie and Elspeth, “Get down!”

  For just a heartbeat he thought he was going to look like a horse’s ass if —

  The explosion shattered the windows not already broken and made McGill’s ears ring. Todd must have triggered the bomb with his free hand a second after taking flight. Maybe it was an unstoppable continuation of effort begun as McGill still held him. Maybe he hadn’t wanted ever to be held in confinement again.

  It didn’t matter to McGill. Callous bastard that he’d become, he was simply glad Todd was dead. He was happier still to see Sweetie and Elspeth step back into the room. They’d been smart enough to duck out while the ducking was good.

  Obeying an impulse he’d later regret, McGill looked out through the shattered window frame.

  Damon Todd’s remains bore no resemblance to any human form.

  McGill turned around and found one consoling thought.

  He’d saved Andy’s room from getting blown up again.

  Washington, D.C.

  McGill had assured everyone back home in Illinois that he was fine, but he wasn’t. His ears still rang, though not as bad as at first. The more serious pain came from learning that once again he’d been too late to save an innocent man. Deke had told him that Todd had spent an unknown amount of time hiding out at the house of the neighbor who lived just to the north of the Grant mansion. Had used the neighbor’s ladder to scale the wall between the two estates.

  Todd had timed his entry onto the Grant property with seeing Jaime Martinez zoom past overhead and the lights of the security boats going on. Martinez had been caught, explained he knew nothing of what Todd had planned. The expatriate Mexican had no criminal record, but it looked like it would be some time before he got back to his wife in Uruguay.

  Perry Hardwick, the late neighbor, had been a retired ad exec, something of a snoop when it had come to seeing if he could peer into Patti Grant’s bedroom window and reputedly stingy with the dispensing of Halloween candy. But he’d deserved a better end than meeting up with Damon Todd. He’d been found tied to a chair in the basement of his home. He’d suffered no ghastly torture or even mild abuse. He simply hadn’t been given his heart medicine and had died from the neglect.

  No big deal to Todd. Hell, he’d planned to kill himself. He was going to worry about a stranger? The sonofabitch. McGill was kicking himself for not getting to Todd sooner.

  He dropped Abbie off at Georgetown and took some comfort from the hug and the words with which she’d left him. “Dad, you did your best. Who could have done better?”

  McGill promised Abbie he’d pull himself out of his funk

  He didn’t want her to worry about him.

  Besides that, he had to give Patti moral support.

  It took two hundred and seventy electoral votes to win the presidency.

  Patti had won two hundred and sixty-nine.

  Patti won California, Illinois and New York, the new early primary states. Thanks to Jean Morrissey, she also won Minnesota. That had given her a great head-start with a hundred and fourteen electoral votes from just four states.

  As counting continued through Election Night, Patti added Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio (a blow to Mather Wyman), Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

  Total electoral votes: two hundred and sixty-nine.

  Howard Hurlbert won Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.

  Total electoral votes: one hundred and forty-three.

  Mather Wyman won Arizona, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Michigan (the irony), Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico (thank you, Rosalinda Fuentes), North Dakota, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

  Total electoral votes: one hundred and fifteen.

  That left one state, Indiana, where the vote was still too close to call.

  A recount was a certainty in the Hoosier State.

  McGill sat in on the Wednesday morning quarterbacking that took place in the Oval Office with Patti, Galia Mindel and Stephen Norwood. Everyone inquired after McGill’s health, but attention quickly turned to coming so close yet remaining far away. The race in Indiana was between Mather Wyman and Howard Hurlbert. Patti Grant had finished a distant third.

  Galia shook her head and said, “I just don’t know what we can do.”

  “Update our résumés,” the president suggested.

  The two staffers in the room gave thin laughs.

  “Jim?” Patti asked.

  “Play ‘til you hear the buzzer. Go out with your heads high, if it comes to that.”

  “Stephen?” the president asked.

  “It may well come to that. Our electoral votes are solid. So are the other guys’ votes from everything I’ve been able to find out. If there’s no winner in the Electoral College, the election goes to the House of Representatives.”

  “The goddamn House,” Galia said, “where we have so many friends. We might as well start packing now.”

  The president shook her head. “No, we keep working. Out of respect for the people who put us here the first time.”

  Galia and Norwood nodded and went back to work. The First Couple were left with each other.

  “How do you feel, loyal henchman?” the president asked. “Is this all small potatoes after what you’ve been through?”

  “Not small potatoes at all,” McGill said. “You make more life or death decisions than I do.”

  “Maybe I’ve had enough of all that.”

  “Who could blame you? Whatever happens, you’ll still be my girlfriend?”

  “Sure. My prospects are few these days.”

  McGill got up, leaned over the president’s desk and kissed her.

  “Back to work,” he said. “The taxpayer expects value for his money.”

  14

  December, 2012

  Indiana State Capitol — Indianapolis, Indiana

  Mather Wyman carried Indiana by nine hundred and twenty-two votes. That added eleven more electoral votes to Wyman’s tally, giving him a total of one hundred and twenty-six. Not enough to move him out of third place.

  On the Monday following the second Wednesday in December, the seventeenth day of the month, Indiana’s eleven electors met to cast their ballots. Each elector had to complete and sign six Certificates of Vote. Two would be sent by registered mail to the President of the United States Senate. Two would be sent by registered mail to the Archivist of the United States. Two would be delivered by hand to Indiana’s attorney general.

  In addition to the Constitutionally mandated requirements, each state was free to add non-conflicting obligations. Indiana chose to have each elector give an oral declaration, stating his or her name and the name of the candidate who would receive that elector’s vote. The declarations would begin with the most senior elector and conclude with the most junior elector.

  Sheryl Kimbrough was sick to her stomach at
the thought of what would happen if the election was sent to the House of Representatives. There was no way Mather Wyman was going to leapfrog Howard Hurlbert to become president by a vote of the House. The country at large had shown it wasn’t ready to elect an openly gay president; the members of the House certainly weren’t going to blaze a new trail.

  What did that leave?

  It left New South cajoling Republicans into voting with them. Heck, they’d say, we’re all really Republicans at heart. That was how things would work out, along with New South picking up a chickenhearted Democrat or ten. There were always Democrats willing to sell out their party. They were famous for it.

  Then the House would vote and Howard Hurlbert would —

  “Sheryl, it’s your turn.” Her old boss, Senator Charles Talbert, tugged her sleeve. “You’re the last one to vote, my dear.”

  She got to her feet, went to the lectern and looked out at all the faces looking back at her.

  Looked at the television camera that would record her words for history.

  She said, “I’m Sheryl Kimbrough and I cast my ballot for … Patricia Darden Grant.”

  About the Author

  Joseph Flynn is a Chicagoan, born and raised, currently living in central Illinois with his wife and daughter. He is the author of The Concrete Inquisition, Digger, The Next President, Hot Type, Farewell Performance, Gasoline Texas, The President’s Henchman, The Hangman's Companion, Round Robin, Blood Street Punx, Nailed, One False Step, Still Coming, The K Street Killer, Tall Man in Ray-Bans with more titles on the drawing board.

  Contact Joe at Hey Joe and meet other friends of Jim McGill at Friends of Jim McGill

  All the novels are available for the Kindle through www.amazon.com.

  The Concrete Inquisition

  Digger

  The Next President

  Hot Type

  Farewell Performance

  Gasoline, Texas