At Risk of Winning (The Max Masterson Series Book 1)

by Mark E Becker

  lon. Better bring the cooler though, or it’ll melt before you get back.” Mom knew exactly how much ice cream was left, just like she

  knew how many chicken breasts were marinating on the counter, or

  where that jar of cinnamon was at the back of the spice cupboard. She

  had been running this family most of her life, and for her, keeping

  your family fed was a badge of pride that she would wear to the grave. “Andrew, if you get over to Washington, would you tell them for

  me that we need those politicians to call us back?” Andrew was out

  the door and backing down the driveway by the time her voice began

  to trail off. his mind was on the new job, and the adrenaline was

  pumping.

  u ChAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Senator Masterson had chosen the steps of the Jefferson Memorial for Max to make his announcement many years before his death. It was meticulously planned for more than a decade, together with detailed instructions for working through channels to accomplish all details, including a warning about how to deal with the National Park Service, the gatekeeper of outdoor events in the nation’s capitol. For the photo opportunity to be perfect, he planned it for 6:30 a.m. This made the press crews angry for having to arrive two hours before sunrise. They were forced to lug their heavy equipment from the parking lot at the far end of the facility and set up their mobile equipment at the base of the steps in total darkness. The optimal angle was obtained for the sun to rise in the east and illuminate the side of his face, and the tidal basin accommodated by being smooth as glass, reflecting the Washington Monument and the White house from across the water.

  There was no practical way for the heavy broadcasting equipment to be easily transported to the memorial. The Capitol Police made no exceptions. No parking on Ohio Avenue. No loitering. No stopping. No easy way to do anything—for security reasons. heavy concrete barriers were constructed at random intervals to deflect any vehicle trying to make its way in the direction of any national monument in Washington D.C., and once the press trucks were spotted, security vehicles swarmed the area.

  Luke Postlewaite had secured the necessary permits, though, and they had official permission from the National Park Service, obtained years in advance. No previous candidate had been able to accomplish the same feat, but Luke pulled every string he could yank. After initial resistance of officials who unequivocally announced that it was impossible to accommodate his simple request, they relented. A latenight phone call to the secretary of the interior at his home number, and the appropriate veiled threats to disclose certain information about a certain public official who had a reputation to maintain, and Max had the venue for his press conference.

  As they were erecting their powerful lights to illuminate the scene, Max appeared. “No. You can’t use artificial light. I want the sun to do your work for you. It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?” he announced.

  They didn’t agree at this hour of the morning, and it was difficult to imagine in the predawn darkness that there would be enough light to illuminate a chipmunk. The reporters chose to stay in bed while they set up for the shoot, and there were no hot microphones ready to record the encounter. They would arrive shortly before the time scheduled for the announcement, which, curiously, was 6:47 a.m. If they had consulted their Farmer’s Almanac, they would have realized that this time was two minutes after sunrise, when the lights illuminating the Jefferson Memorial at night turned off and the light of day cast its glow.

  “I’ll be back in a little while. Don’t go away,” said Max as he walked back toward the parking lot. The technicians, as a result of working in Washington D.C. for most of their assignments, were accustomed to politicians holding press conferences on short notice, but this one was peculiar. he seemed to be doing it all himself. There were no staff members with clipboards barking out instructions in preparation for the public appearance, just the guy in the suit.

  When they had finished their preparations, they wandered as a group toward the satellite trucks, where they had coffee ready to sustain them during the inevitable wait. They huddled in the cool of the morning around their mobile command centers, waiting for the visual component of their crew to arrive and begin the primping and preening to ready themselves for their time in front of the cameras.

  Max appeared. “Do you mind if I bum a cup of coffee from you? It’s a long walk to the nearest Starbucks.” Max’s appearance startled them, but one cameraman had just finished pouring his cup and offered it to him. “If you don’t mind me saying so,” said one technician, “you aren’t our typical political candidate. We don’t usually get to hang out with you before a press conference, if you know what I mean.” Max sat in a folding canvas chair and appeared to relax a bit. “Yeah, I suppose it’s new to you, but think about how I feel. I’ve never done this before.”

  “I covered you back a few years ago at the Kennedy Center, and I got a good shot of you walking in with some babe in a slinky black dress,” recalled a slim, bushy-haired man with a Mickey Mouse watch and blue jeans. “I never pegged you as being the political type. If I was you, I’d still be in bed with the babe, but her dress would be in a pile on the floor.” They all laughed a kind of nervous laugh, as if they didn’t know whether Max would have a sense of humor at this time of morning.

  “I know what you mean.” Max laughed at the initial comment. “I don’t remember which babe you’re talking about, but if it was Mitzi, I don’t think her dress made it back to the house.” They all laughed again, looking around to make sure no women were eavesdropping on their communal male moment. Once they were satisfied that they were in the clear, each nodded knowingly, as if they had all escorted a supermodel to an event and had her naked in the passenger seat by the mere force of their male sexuality. They admired him and wanted to share in his magnetic persona, but they knew that his world was as remote from theirs as if he had been talking about vacationing on Mars.

  “Those days are gone, boys. I’m a grown-up now. I’m running for president.”

  “Why?” A slim, scruffy cameraman sat in a folding nylon chair, his equipment stowed in a black bag at his side. “You have the life every man wants, and you want to screw it up by doing a damn fool thing like that? You want to give up all that to have people gunning for you all the time, criticizing you every day, and not being able to take a piss without Secret Service telling you it was safe? You’re fuckin’ crazy, man.” he paused, his face revealing concern that he may have said too much—and to a guy who may be the most powerful man on the planet someday.

  Max was smiling at the beginning of the outburst, but his look became suddenly serious. “Thanks for your opinion, my friend. Everyone needs to have meaning in their lives. But I never said I was giving it all up.” They laughed again, sharing a joke that only males could understand.

  “I intend to serve my term as president with all of the dignity that the office commands,” he said in a quiet tone, which produced more laughter from the mostly jaded camera crew. Much of the spicier news they had produced had ended up being discarded by producers who wanted to continue working in Washington and couldn’t risk getting on the wrong side of news-making politicians with secrets to hide.

  A black BMW wheeled into the parking lot. Out stepped Greg huffington, capitol correspondent for News Tonight. his wet hair revealed his lack of preparation and retreating hairline. he charged past Max and the broadcast crew as if they were nothing more than yard ornaments.

  “I need Lacey! Where’s Lacey?” he bellowed. Lacey, his cosmetician, poked her head out of the satellite truck, and huffington launched his paunchy body in her direction. “We’re on the air in forty-five minutes, and I’m not even close to ready,” he said to nobody in particular, disregarding those around him who may have cared enough to notice.

  “I’ll see you later,” said Max as he walked toward the Jefferson Memorial, Styrofoam cup in hand. At precisely 6:47 a.m., the lights illuminating the Jeffers
on Memorial extinguished for the day, and Max emerged at the top of the steps. he waited a moment for silence as a flock of Canadian geese flew overhead honking loudly, then looked straight into the cameras. “I’m Max Masterson, and I’m running for president of the United States.”

  Only the slight breeze that rustled the early leaves of spring and the sourceless drone of the city, a combination of car traffic and machines, kept the moment from being totally silent.

  “I have decided to run because I believe that Americans need a leader who will restore our country to greatness. I am not a politician, and I will not engage in ‘politics as usual.’ We need someone who can lead America to peace and prosperity. We need a president who has ideas for making the future a better place and will place Americans first. I am that candidate. Thanks for coming.”

  Max turned and walked away. his message was less than a minute long, and he had accomplished what he had set out to do. That didn’t satisfy huffington and the correspondents from the five other news agencies who had staked out Max’s news conference, though. They didn’t have enough air time to justify getting out of bed, and the networks were left with next to nothing to occupy the daily news. In an effort to turn the occasion into an impromptu press conference, huffington led the entourage behind Max’s retreat like a gaggle of baby chicks.

  “Mr. Masterson! Would you care to comment on your chances of defeating an incumbent president? Mr. Masterson, I need a moment of your time . . . Please, Mr. Masterson!” huffington turned and glared at his camera crew as if they were to blame for the candidate’s unorthodox behavior. “Turn the damn cameras off! Set up the lights with the Jefferson Memorial behind me. Dammit, where’s Lacey? Someone give me a comb and a script!” As Max walked out of sight, the newsman stepped between the cameras and the Memorial and began his commentary. “I have never seen anything like it. A presidential candidate who invited us out here in the dead of morning to make a speech, only to speak for a mere minute. Surely, this is an indication of how inexperienced and insincere Max Masterson is in his pursuit of the highest office in our land. This is nothing more than a publicity stunt!” raged huffington, clearly exasperated that he had been taken out of his warm bed at such an early hour for copy that didn’t amount to more than a sound bite.

  The News Tonight ran Max’s announcement in its entirety. There wasn’t anything to cut and paste, except the commentary of huffington, which went on for thirty minutes. All Greg, all the time. Because the commentary exceeded the time allocated for the piece, huffington’s words were reduced to two minutes. The effect was to contrast a calm Max Masterson, illuminated by the golden morning light in a patriotic, pastoral surrounding, followed by a red-faced and cranky news correspondent complaining about everything except the words Max had spoken. The brevity of Max’s statement allowed it to be run repeatedly, but after the first run of huffington’s commentary, the complaints to the network forced the editors to cut his negative portions. That left Max with a minute of on-air time, followed by fifteen seconds of the commentary before and after. For the second time in a week, huffington had been left on the cutting room floor.

  u ChAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  TV anchormen don’t start at the top. Some of them begin their professional life as print reporters, and Andrew Fox took the position with the Chicago Tribune as an assignment that would lead him to fame and fortune in the media world. At twenty-three, Andrew had done his obligatory stewardship on the staff of the State News while at Michigan State and interned at below poverty level for a weekly in Detroit that reported exclusively about cars and the inner workings of the automotive industry. he had made his way to Chicago to hit the “big time” reporting political news from Washington D.C. Or so he thought.

  Within one week of settling into his humble office at the Tribune, a full year before the presidential election, Andrew was put on assignment. Since Andrew had, so far, been able to dodge the bonds of matrimony and realizing that prolonged absences had ruined many marriages of media correspondents before him, the bureau chief treated Andrew with the same disdain showed other reporters of the same generation.

  “They all want to be Walter Cronkite. What’s wrong with print? They all can’t get their face plastered all over the big screen!” his new boss was stuck in the past, but he seldom passed up fresh news. Roger Van harken was accustomed to growling first thing in the morning, followed by coffee, then more growling.

  Andrew stood before his new boss with wide eyes. his eyebrows squinched to the point where they became a single brow separated by a wrinkle. he waited for the gravelly voice to finish devastating his long-suffering office assistant, Judy, and inevitably redirect his attention to the new guy standing at attention in front of his huge desk.

  Pausing to take another swallow of the second cup of the day, Van harken focused his steely grey eyes on Andrew. “You haven’t been here long enough, Fox, but I’m sending you out in the field. Carver just quit to take a job doing the news in Minneapolis, of all places. I don’t have anyone to handle the third-party candidates, and they’re coming out of the woodwork this year. here is a list of the five candidates, their phone numbers, campaign managers, fax numbers . . . hell, it’s all right here. Just take this, line up interviews, and give me an Op-Ed and bio on each one.”

  Andrew was rapidly getting the feeling that he was sliding into deep water. “Do I go to the candidates or just talk to them by phone?”

  “I don’t care how you do it. Just get me something printable by Tuesday. That gives you five days. If you need to line up transportation, talk to Judy.”

  The meeting with the boss had concluded, and the door to his office slammed loudly behind him. Andrew realized he was standing in the hallway staring at the list; five hardy individuals with no more chance of getting elected president than he did. Pasted below the names and numbers were party affiliation and a brief biographical narrative pulled from the internet. Each candidate had a web page that promised to further inform the citizenry of their views on important issues, and two of the five appeared to be single issue candidates: those who ran for the office to promote their views on their sole interest were resolved to one thing—a soap box. Their political life was over after the primaries, leaving the major candidates to do battle with a heavily fortified and financed incumbent president, Warren hudson Blythe.

  u

  Andrew took the list and began researching the third-party candidates. If he was going to be around these people, he needed more than a few paragraphs and contact numbers. he needed to know what they stood for.

  he compiled most of his background information from news feeds and internet bios. Most of the third-party candidates stood and fell on a single issue. The United States was mired again in an unpopular war in a part of the world that Americans didn’t much care about. America could never master Middle-Eastern names, and it seemed that every member of al-Qaeda that died was reported to be the leader, only to be replaced the next day by another nameless terrorist.

  The evening news was peppered with casualty statistics and bloody videos of suicide bombing victims. The voting electorate became numb to the gore on TV, and the numbness seemed to spread geometrically as the war droned on. Those who didn’t vote never cared anyway, and the malaise spread until politicians were more universally disliked than any other era in the nation’s history.

  Surprisingly, in spite of growing antiwar sentiment directed at the present administration, a segment of the population was pro-war. This group grew under its charismatic leader, a young tattooed Texan named Foster Gates. Gates was not political, and he never pretended to be. his public life was marred by drunken brawls and a contempt for authority that had put him in jail on a regular basis. he needed his agenda to be fronted by the only person he could find who could stand in front of a group of people and lie convincingly. his handpicked candidate needed to be able to convince the public that the only way to preserve the American way of life is to kill anyone who is not an American.

&n
bsp; Samuel hilton was the figurehead anti-gun-control candidate, or, at least that is what his web page said. his party, the Free America Party, was affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan in the distant past but in recent years had also aligned itself with opposing the new world order. hilton talked of returning the country to pre-1960s values, and his campaign was mainly restricted to white church appearances throughout the south.

  Gates bankrolled the Free America Party with his inheritance, received from a trust funded by the income from his grandfather’s chain of appliance stores and gun manufacturing facilities. At the time of his death in 1978, his grandfather was a multimillionaire, and his fortune was wisely invested in a trust managed by a team of financial advisors who ran the family financial empire like a military operation.

  Gates, however, never saw military service. If he had, his warmongering tough talk may have been tempered by the horrors of death caused by the weapons that created the family fortune. Contracts with the U.S. military to produce state-of-the-art lightweight field arms fed the family coffers for three generations, and each military conflict spurred another round of contract bidding that seemed always to be won by Gates Arms. But as is the tradition in military service, the rich seldom enlist to serve their country as foot soldiers. Gates had chosen hilton to be the candidate of the Free America Party. There were no caucuses or primaries for the third-party candidates. After all, they didn’t plan to win the election.