Election

by Brandt Legg

  “Yes,” Melissa said hesitantly, as he helped her put a light wrap around her shoulders.

  “We were right. Apparently, Vonner has done this before. He and several other billionaires are locked in a battle over who’s going to be the next president.”

  “Politics is expensive. It’s a rich man’s game. We knew that.”

  “No, this is more than that,” Hudson said, trying to control his bitterness. “One way or another, just about every US President in the last seventy-five years has been owned by these people. They aren’t just trying to buy influence, they’re trying to take over the world. They want to run it like emperors, but the people won’t stand for emperors anymore, so they let us think we elected someone—”

  “Take over the world? Isn’t that a little dramatic? It’s not even possible.”

  “Yes, I think it is. If they control the money, and they do, the media, and they do, the politicians, and they do—”

  “You mean a puppet?”

  “Yeah, and, obviously, it’s not just the president. It’s congress, governors, probably every US senator.”

  “You mean these politicians knowingly agree to just work for these people?”

  “Yes, mostly.”

  “But Vonner hasn’t made that deal with you.”

  “Maybe not overtly, but it won’t be easy to say no to him if I get elected. This election is my first. Our past presidents were all previously something else—congressman, senator, governor, vice president. By the time they went for the presidency, they already knew the score.”

  “Not Trump,” she countered.

  “Yeah, but don’t you remember how much he changed after only a matter of weeks in office?”

  She nodded. “Where did you get this?”

  “I’ve had people looking into it.”

  “You have?” Melissa’s tone and expression filled with indignation. “When were you going to tell me?”

  “Right now.”

  “Oh, thanks,” she said sarcastically. “Damn it, Hudson, we’re a team. I believe in you, and I believe we’re going to be in the White House nine months from now, but you need to be honest with me, and that means keeping me in the loop.” Melissa’s voice was firm, her eyes hard, yet teared. “I’ll fight Vonner with you, or anyone else that crosses us, but I can’t do that unless I know what’s going on.”

  “I know, I’m sorry,” Hudson said. She was an efficiency expert, after all; a woman who could turn around a company or solve a major public relations crisis facing a business. Melissa, also an attorney and CPA, knew how to get to the core of any situation. His wife could find a way out—a way to lose Vonner, but win the presidency.

  “I have to know who our enemies are!”

  “You’re right.” Hudson felt guilty, and knew this was probably his last chance to tell her about Rochelle and what happened that night three decades earlier, but as soon as he tried, the first words of the story fell back down into the pit of his stomach.

  A short while later, as his children joined them for dinner outside on the patio, Schueller added to the anti-Vonner discussion by telling them about the record deal.

  “Oh, Schueller,” Melissa began. “That’s awful, getting your hopes up like that. I know how badly you want a deal like that.”

  Schueller nodded.

  “Why don’t you take the deal?” Hudson asked his son while he sliced into a tuna steak.

  “It’s not real,” Schueller said, surprised he needed to explain.

  “I know,” Hudson said, his words heavy. A strong silence hung for a moment as everyone caught the irony. “But you all think I should take Vonner’s deal. Cheat to get what I want.”

  “That’s different,” Florence said, pointing her fork.

  “How?” Hudson asked, glancing at the Secret Service agents, always wondering if they were far enough away so they could not hear, suspecting there were listening devices in the table somewhere, trying to decide how many of them worked for Booker Lipton, or if any of them were on Bastendorff’s payroll.

  “You have a chance to get the power you need to fight them,” Florence said.

  “She’s right,” Melissa said. “As much as I love you, without Vonner, you will not become president. But Schueller doesn’t need Vonner. He’ll eventually get a record deal anyway.”

  “I’m sure he will,” Hudson said, smiling to his son.

  Schueller’s burner cell phone rang. He checked the number, then quickly excused himself, jogging out to the beach. When he returned a few minutes later, he stared at his father for a moment.

  “Everything okay?” Melissa asked.

  Schueller motioned for them to join him on the beach. They followed him twenty feet out on the sand. The Secret Service moved around them in a perimeter, but still allowed for some privacy.

  “That was our friend,” Schueller said in a whisper. “He’s found more . . . big stuff.”

  “What?” Hudson asked.

  “He didn’t want to say too much over the phone, but it’s about Vonner. Zackers is flying down here tomorrow. I’ll meet him at the airport. His plane gets in at four.”

  “You’ll have to shake the Secret Service,” Florence reminded him.

  “I don’t like that at all,” Melissa said sharply.

  “And get back in time for the debate,” Hudson said.

  “Why does he have to shake Secret Service?” Melissa persisted. “They don’t work for Vonner.”

  “We don’t know that,” Hudson said. “Everyone works for one of the REMies.”

  “Zackers did say something crazy, though,” Schueller interrupted.

  “What?” Hudson asked.

  “He uncovered something that seems to show Vonner isn’t the dirt bag we think he is. He didn’t say what it was, but Zackers believes Vonner might actually be on our side.”

  “What does that even mean?” Florence asked.

  “I don’t know,” Schueller replied. “Zackers said he’d fill me in tomorrow, but his final words were, ‘If I’m right, and Vonner is one of the good guys, then that means this is far worse than we imagined.’”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Hudson spent the following day crisscrossing Florida, attending one rally after another, while his opponents were hunkered down preparing for the debate. Since he was undefeated, he had already put in enough time polishing for this one.

  When he reached the University of Miami shortly before the event, he checked his phone again. Still no word from Schueller. They’d all been hopeful that perhaps Vonner could be trusted after all, even though Hudson couldn’t imagine how that could be possible. But he did enjoy thinking about telling the Wizard that he’d been wrong about the billionaire.

  Just after they told Hudson it would be ten minutes to airtime, Schueller’s call finally came.

  “How did it go?” Hudson asked, relieved to hear from his son.

  “Zackers is dead.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, God . . . he’s dead.”

  “Take a deep breath and tell me,” Hudson said, looking around, trying to figure out how he could get to his son.

  “His flight was late,” Schueller stammered. “We met for like ten minutes, then he said he didn’t feel well, needed to use the restroom. I waited maybe eight minutes, figured he was in there sick or whatever. He hadn’t looked very good. Finally, I went in to check—” Schueller’s voice broke. “Damn it, Dad, I should have gone sooner.”

  Hudson closed his eyes, struggling to remain calm, then opened them staring directly at Florence. Melissa and Florence, sensing trouble, were trying to coax information from him with their expressions. Hudson shook his head and spoke to Schueller in a deliberate, parental voice. “Keep calm. Now, how did it happen? Start when you went in.”

  “Zackers was locked in the stall. His arm was tied off, needle on the floor.”

  “He’d shot up?” Hudson asked.

  “Yeah, but I don’t believe it. He wasn’t like that. Zackers’ dr
ug of choice was the internet, maybe Mountain Dew and M&Ms. They . . . I ran out and got someone. Medics were there in a few minutes. We were still in the airport. Dad, someone did this to him.”

  “Did you see anyone go in or out?”

  “I wasn’t watching.” Schueller’s voice trembled, fell, and rose. Hudson thought his son might cry. “Damn, damn, dammit, I should have been watching!”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Dad, the police came. They know who I am. It’ll probably make the news.”

  Hudson’s eyes closed again, envisioning the headline. Republican frontrunner’s son caught in the company of a drug addict at the Miami Airport. Addict dies in men’s room overdose.

  Florence and Melissa tried again to get Hudson to tell them what Schueller was saying, but Hudson was overwhelmed.

  I might even get asked about it during the debate, but what does that even matter? Because what if Zackers’ death wasn’t accidental? What if he was killed—murder made to look like a suicide or overdose? What if whoever did that is now going after my son?

  “Where are you now, Schueller?” Hudson asked, suddenly urgent.

  “I’m still at the airport. The police just finished questioning me and taking my statement.”

  “Stay there, I’m coming for you,” Hudson said, pacing.

  “Dad, no. The debate.”

  “To hell with the debate.”

  “What’s going on?” Melissa demanded.

  “Zackers is dead,” Hudson finally blurted. The taste of the words coming out of his mouth made his knees soften, and he backed into a chair.

  Florence grabbed the phone. “Schueller, Zackers is dead?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How?”

  “They killed him, Florence. As sure as I know anything, I know that the REMies killed Zackers.”

  “We need to go get Schueller,” Hudson said.

  “I’ll go,” Melissa volunteered.

  “The candidate’s wife needs to be at the debate,” Florence said.

  “To hell with the debate,” Hudson repeated.

  “No, I’m fine!” Schueller shouted after hearing the argument.

  “He says he can get here himself,” Florence relayed.

  Hudson grabbed the phone back from his daughter. “You may not be safe.”

  “Send the Secret Service,” Florence said.

  “Can we trust them?” Hudson asked, thinking of agent Pearce.

  “So far, they’ve kept us all alive,” Melissa said. “Although his usual agent must be furious right now.”

  Hudson thought for a few seconds. “Okay. Schueller, stay there until the Secret Service gets there. It’ll be agent Croft. Ask him for ID.”

  Schueller, still shaken, but knowing there was no point in arguing, agreed and told his father his exact location. By the time Hudson explained the situation to Agent Croft and had a brief, hushed conference with Melissa and Florence, he was late to take the stage. He walked into the glare of lights, the probe of cameras, and the roar of applause, shakier than he’d been since Colorado.

  Twenty minutes in, Thorne, instead of responding to a question about legalizing marijuana, turned to Hudson. “Pound, are you aware that your son was with a drug addict at the time of his death just a couple of hours ago?”

  Hudson stared blankly into the camera for a few startled moments.

  “From a drug overdose,” the shock-jock emphasized. “In a dirty bathroom stall.”

  “I am,” Hudson finally replied. “I appreciate your concern. My son is safe, and has cooperated fully with Miami-Dade police.”

  “Was your son wasted at the time—err, rather, under the influence of a controlled substance?”

  “This is hardly relevant,” Hudson said. “But I’m sure the police will confirm that he was not.”

  “I beg to differ,” Thorne shot back. “You want to lead the country, but you have no real experience in leadership other than maybe being a father. So how did you do with your kids, huh, Pound?”

  “My daughter is a nurse. My son is a musician. He submitted to a drug test. He was clean. My children are exceptional. Beyond that, my children are off-limits.”

  Hudson had won the moment, and even with a few stumbles due to his shock over Zackers and concern for his son, he would go on to win the night, as expected.

  Schueller sat in the busy North Terminal of Miami International Airport suspiciously eyeing anyone who looked his way. From his seat, he could see dozens of eating places and shops, but hunger never crossed his crowded mind. All Schueller could think of was Zackers’ lifeless body slumped in the men’s room stall, and of what the brilliant hacker had told him in the minutes before his death.

  As a man in a suit approached, Schueller fidgeted with the flash drive Zackers had given him, and one horrifying thought suddenly replaced all the others.

  They killed him for this. What dangerous secrets must it contain?

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Vonner watched the debate from Sun Wave, his Carmel, California estate, far less attentively than usual. Rex had just given him a disturbing report.

  “This kid, Zackers, what did he know?”

  “A lot,” Rex replied.

  “I know what you told me yesterday, but beyond the Augusta30 post, what did he find this morning? Before his flight? And how much time did he have to tell Schueller whatever the hell he did find?”

  “He was a sharp one,” Rex said, still reading data. “I’d have liked to hire the kid. But he didn’t get as far as he could have. A few more days, and he might have had it all.”

  “Incredible,” Vonner said, while skiing down his artificial treadmill ski slope, complete with blowing snow flurries. “How the hell is that stuff still accessible?”

  “It’s not.”

  Vonner shot him an angry, confused look.

  “Not really. I mean, he’s parsing, or was parsing,” Rex continued, correcting the tense with which he referred to the now-dead Zackers. “He was parsing the data from many layers, many historic digital tombs. Brilliant, nothing less than brilliant.”

  “I’m glad the kid impressed you, but who else is going to get where he got?”

  “Hard to say. But they can’t get there without our knowing about it.”

  “Really?” Vonner barked. “Then what happened with this Zackers kid?”

  Rex pointed to the data on one of the screens. “We knew.”

  “Not before it was too late.”

  Rex nodded. “Depends on how you look at it.”

  Vonner shook his head, in no mood to continue the argument. “You realize the problem we have now? That we’re going to get blamed?”

  “No, the police can’t touch us on this,” Rex said, puzzled by his boss’s statement.

  An ocean breeze blew in, ruffling a few papers on his desk. “I don’t give a damn about the police, I mean Hudson! Hudson is going to throw this on his bonfire of ‘Vonner is Satan’ pile and toss the match.”

  “Depends on what Zackers said before he died.” Rex tossed five red dice on the table, made a mental note of the numbers, then scooped them up before Vonner could protest.

  “We need to get Schueller before he gets to Pound,” Vonner said, turning to the screen showing the continuing Republican debate.

  “On it,” Rex replied, rolling the red dice over and over in his hands. “One of our security guys is riding along with Secret Service heading to pick up Schueller.”

  “What’s he going to ask him?” Vonner asked, putting down his ski poles as a butler brought him a scotch.

  “Nothing,” Rex said. “Whatever Zackers told Schueller has been said. As long as Schueller is alive, he’s going to pass it on to his father.”

  Vonner stared at Rex, letting the statement register.

  “I’m not suggesting we kill Schueller right now,” Rex said. “Way too close to the Zackers mess. My point is that whatever he tells his old man is without proof unless Zackers gave him proof.”

>   “You mean on a flash drive or something?”

  “Exactly. You can bet Zackers didn’t fly from New York to Miami to have a chat with Schueller he could just as easily have had on one of their burner phones. No, he was delivering something, and Schueller has it, which means it will be in Pound’s possession within the hour unless we get it first.”

  “How do you propose we accomplish that? He isn’t going to just hand it over.”

  Rex shot a look as if he were insulted.

  “I have no doubt our man can overpower the kid,” Vonner continued, “but the Secret Service agent might take issue with our manhandling a presidential candidate’s son.”

  “We’ll get the drive.”

  As soon as Schueller noticed the tough-looking man breaking from the crowd, he knew the thug was coming for him. Quickly scanning the area for more enemies, Schueller started moving. He already had a planned escape route, having chosen this spot precisely because there were so many exit options available. He headed toward his first choice—the escalator.

  The big man saw his target bolt and ran to cut him off. Schueller descended fast, weaving through startled travelers. By the time his pursuer made it to the top, Schueller was at the bottom. The man, trying to avoid causing a scene, couldn’t be as aggressive as he wanted, but managed to get down quickly enough to keep Schueller in his sights.

  A cop, I just need a cop, Schueller thought while racing onto a moving walkway. It was a mistake. The crowd ahead compressed. There was no way through.

  The man chasing knew he had to reach Schueller before the Secret Service did, and as long as he didn’t lose him, the farther they got from the rendezvous spot, the better.

  Schueller looked back, saw how close his pursuer was, and scrambled over the black rubber railing. Several of the harried travelers gave him annoyed looks, one person even shouted at him, but most people just assumed he was late for a flight.

  The man after him jostled two women out of his way, then vaulted the railing before colliding with a luggage cart, but recovered quickly. The mishap put more distance between him and his quarry.