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

by Mark E Becker

  Postlewaite and Staffman saw no utility in putting Max back in a room with the other candidates riding on his coattails. Max was making better progress as the challenger and by addressing issues of his choosing in the format of his choice. he had learned that one bad debate can destroy an election, and the remaining debates, absent Max, Scarlett, and Blythe, were watched by the smallest audience since the networks began broadcasting them in the 1960s. The only debate of substance was the single debate that Blythe would agree to, and Max was able to focus on that event.

  “You can’t win this election. We control the result.”

  Luke Postlewaite sat with Presidential Advisor Ted Schoolcraft and White house Chief of Staff Roscoe Walsh in a conference room. As usual, Schoolcraft was controlling the conversation in his Yale accent.

  “What do you mean?” Luke was immediately put on the defensive. I don’t like being ambushed by these pompous assholes one little bit.

  “We control the mechanics of this debate. Your boy hit a home run with the third-party candidates, but he can’t play that silence game with the president. People want to hear, in detail, what he has to say about the issues, and we decide what issues they will talk about,” bellowed Schoolcraft. “I don’t think he has the balls to try that with an incumbent street fighter like Blythe. he’s going to look like a schoolboy fighting a gladiator with a Wiffle bat.”

  Postlewaite knew Schoolcraft and Walsh from his early days on the hill when the senator was defending his efforts to preserve privacy for Americans. he didn’t like anything about them; their imperious attitude, their no-compromise scorched-earth approach to conflict, and most of all, their shifty little eyes. he couldn’t trust them to do anything that they said they would do, even though their Ivy-League tough-guy aristocratic approach would scare the bejesus out of lesser political advisors. he felt certain about Max’s chances of bumping off Blythe. The polls were amazingly supportive of this new figure on the political scene, and he was privately surprised by his confidence in an untested newcomer.

  “You didn’t invite me here to try to intimidate me. You read the same polls as I do, and you’re running scared,” he replied.

  “Don’t be naïve, ” intoned Walsh.

  Postlewaite paused, feeling the flush of anger. Nobody, especially these prima donnas, called him naïve. he realized that his face must be crimson and that he didn’t need to speak to convey his feelings. he waited until he stopped sweating and internally composed himself as he had done countless times on the hill. They were taunting him to provoke a reaction, and he knew that whenever a person reacts in anger, their mind shuts off. he could wait until they began to question their words, and then he would counterattack from a position he could more easily defend.

  Walsh was the first to budge.

  “I have worked with you on several campaigns, Luke, and I thought you were smarter than this. Your boy has no experience. how does he expect to pull this one off? he has the pedigree, but no history . . .”

  “Why am I here? For you to talk to me in rap lyrics? What are you going to tell me next, ‘If the office don’t fit, you must quit’?” he hunched his shoulders and moved from side to side to enhance the folly of their words. “I was in your seat thirty years ago. Don’t try to tell me how to run a campaign. I’ve never done it this way before, but Max is kicking your incumbent’s ass, and Blythe hasn’t taken his head out of it for so long that it must feel like he’s being kicked in the teeth.”

  Their attempt at intimidation was not going to influence Postlewaite to do anything. This meeting was over. Besides, thought Schoolcraft, Old Luke is right. A gambler holding all the cards never bets against himself. With no more words to say, Luke Postlewaite picked up his iPad and stood facing the president’s men for the last time. With a quick sweep of his arm, he knocked his opponents’ coffees into their laps and ambled slowly out of the room.

  u ChAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  Blythe stood facing his opponent, foil in hand. A mask covered his face, and not much else covered the rest of him except burgundystriped boxer shorts and white ankle socks. his opponent was similarly attired; her blonde hair jutting out behind her mask like a lion’s mane flowing down to her shoulders, below which her abundant breasts were restrained by a pink Victoria’s Secret bra together with matching panties. She wore ankle socks, too, but no man she had ever encountered could recollect anything she wore below her curvy hips. On their chests was an electronic device that glowed and beeped loudly if the foil reached its mark. Clothes, both his and hers, were scattered around the perimeter of the room.

  Schoolcraft burst into the room to report the results of his meeting with Postlewaite, but he wasn’t prepared for the sight that met his eyes. he’d made no effort to enter quietly, but the president was so absorbed in attempting to score with his young fencing opponent that he failed to notice. “Mercedes, if I score two more times, you’ll be naked, and I win. Three times, and I get anything I want, those are the rules,” he announced as he parried to the right.

  “Mr. President, you always get whatever you want,” she replied. As she spoke, she thrust the foil to the center of his chest and scored again. She squealed with delight. “Now what do I get?”

  Schoolcraft took this opportunity to clear his throat and announce his presence.

  “Schoolcraft, what have you got for me?” he removed his fencing mask and walked toward his assistant, ignoring his compromising state of undress. Mercedes began to assemble her clothing and covered her breasts, to the disappointed scowl of the president.

  “Sir, I have just left our meeting with your opponent’s people, and you told me to report immediately,” he said, uncertain if his political career would be over by the time he left the room. Droplets of sweat appeared on his forehead, not caused by the temperature of the room.

  “Well, dammit, report, and then get the hell out of here!” The mighty Blythe had spoken.

  “Sir, Postlewaite won’t budge. he has seen the polls, and he was bold enough to predict that Masterson will be the next president. I recommend that we implement Plan B.”

  “Then do it, Son! I have to get back to my workout. I’ll expect a full report of the meeting on my desk by the time I’m done with my break.”

  “Yes, sir.” he backed out of the room as Blythe returned his attention to his shapely fencing partner, who had unclasped her bra and was stepping into a sauna in the corner of the room.

  u ChAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  The dirt road opened onto County Road 270, and the ride became smoother. Elias had been taciturn during the bumpy ride from the river, but when he could speak without yelling, he opened up like the floodgates of the dam that appeared in the distance. “Ever since the guv’mint took mah pension from me, mah family been livin’ hand to mouth. That’s why ah fish. We sho’ could use some sto’ bought goods, an’ ah’ll need ta top mah tank,” he began. Without waiting for a response from his two passengers, he launched into the story of his life, how he was born downriver from Chattahoochee and spent his days working on the dredges and barges that kept the river channel open for the Army Corps of Engineers. he went on and on about how Atlanta, “the big city upriver” had sucked all of the water from the river, leaving his livelihood high and dry.

  Rachel sat between the two men, and held her breath when he leaned close. his aroma of sweat and fish was overwhelming at times, and she was silently thankful that the open windows of the truck allowed the man’s smell to escape her confinement.

  “We need to get to the Quincy Municipal Airport,” she finally said, interrupting his continuous monologue. “I’m a pilot,” she continued. “I need to file a report with the FAA. My plane crashed. I don’t want to lose my license. They need to do an investigation and find out what happened to us up there.” She turned to Max, who had spent most of the ride in deep thought.

  “Elias,” Max responded, “Quincy it is. But when we get there, we’ll stop at the Winn-Dixie and get you some groceries, and I’ll leave you
with some gas money. You have been good to us, and I take care of my friends.”

  “Thank ya, Mistuh President,” responded Elias Petrie, smiling ear to ear. “Ah’ll be votin’ fer ya in the fall.”

  u ChAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

  At Quincy Municipal Airport, Rachel met with local FAA official Buddy Godby, a local legend in rural north Florida for his ability to down more beer and shucked oysters at one sitting than any living person in the long and colorful history of the Panhandle Seafood Festival. Although Buddy was famous in his own right, he was positively overwhelmed by the sudden appearance of the popular presidential candidate and his girlfriend.

  While Rachel filled out the crash report to fulfill her duty to the FAA, Buddy occupied his time by closing his office door and calling every news agency in a fifty-mile radius to announce the arrival of his even more famous guests.

  “Ah hope ya’ll don’t mind,” Buddy announced upon emerging from his cluttered office, “but one of mah duties as airport manager and the regional FAA official is to report all plane mishaps. The local news is sending a crew over to do an interview of you and the little lady here, and I told them that they could use mah office to conduct the interview. I imagine there will be a contingent of politicians from Tallahassee right behind them wanting to get their picture taken with ya’ll, considerin’ it’s an election year. They sounded real excited about it, considerin’ that you are runnin’ fer president and all.”

  Max turned to Rachel, panic-stricken. “What do we do now? We have to get out of here.”

  Rachel gave Buddy her best annoyed look and began scanning the airport for possible escape vehicles. At the end of the runway was a Beechcraft Premier III, the most advanced single-pilot business jet in the world, its sleek outline looking very odd in its present setting. She was already envious of the pilot, who could be seen going through his preflight checklist. From the look of things, he appeared to be flying without passengers, although it could hold four adults. “Come on!” exclaimed Rachel, grabbing Max by the hand and propelling him with a lurch toward the door.

  Max turned to see Buddy mouthing words with a surprised look. The sound of the idling jet drowned out his voice, but he was certain that he was using colorful language to express his disappointment at the lost opportunity to be the center of attention in his quiet corner of the universe. Max wondered how Buddy would explain their departure when the press and the politicians converged on him, but sprinted behind Rachel toward possible escape.

  Rachel arrived first and could be seen talking to a large man adorned with three thick gold chain necklaces, a Dale Earnhardt ball cap, and a tank top that prominently advertised “Lou, the King of Barbecue” across his chest. Beneath the slogan was a cartoon pig wearing a chef ’s hat and apron, holding a spatula. The man inside the costume was Lou, himself. Lou Sossman was nationally known among aficionados of good barbeque as the entrepreneur who franchised a chain of barbeque stands throughout America. his success

  AT RISK OF WINNING

  came from catering to the customer’s choice of the best from Texas, Kansas, and two recipes from North Carolina, depending on whether the customer preferred east Carolina or west Carolina barbeque. his trip to north Florida came as the result of a rumored new recipe that he planned to test-market in his popular Quincy location.

  As Max came to a stop next to Rachel, he and Lou simultaneously exclaimed, “You’re him!”—Max from his recognition of Lou from his many TV commercials and billboards that seemed to sprout spontaneously from lonely hillsides, and Lou from his obvious surprise at running into a presidential candidate on a rural airstrip that sprouted tufts of grass from cracks in the runway.

  Rachel had already explained their predicament to Lou, and he was sizing them up with great amusement. “Turn around,” said Lou with a high-pitched chuckle. Max and Rachel spun in unison to see a caravan of press vans and black official-looking cars roaring into the chain-link fenced parking lot. A considerable cloud of dust rolled in behind them. “Get in,” hollered Lou. “I could use the company, and I can fly you faster to Kansas City than anyone in this pretty baby.”

  As they taxied down the runway, the radio crackled with Buddy’s perplexed voice, “Now Lou, I ain’t cleared you ta take off yet, dammit!”

  “Sorry, Buddy, I’ll leave you some free coupons the next time I’m in town,” Lou replied, and with a “Yeehaw,” Lou’s plane achieved escape velocity and banked north toward freedom.

  By the time the Beechcraft touched down at Kansas City International Airport, Max and Rachel had eaten more barbecue and learned more about the difference between Lou’s trademarked recipes than anyone has a right to know. Lou had been touring his franchises solo for too long, and his constant bravado made Rachel privately weigh the benefits of flying against bumping silently along in an old truck on a country road. She admired Max’s ability to fall asleep at any opportunity, which he accomplished even in the presence of a commanding personality like Lou, but she was able to finally fly in one of the most technologically advanced flying machines on the public market. The trade-off was, in her mind, a good one. Max could extract himself from the conversation, and she could learn to fly a jet most pilots have never seen outside of a glossy magazine.

  u ChAPTER SEVENTY-EIGhT

  Where is he? You assured me two days ago that he would be here on time and ready to go, and the only way I have to track his whereabouts is to look at that map!” Staffman had been berating Andrew for the past two hours, and the abuse was taking on the tone of a street fight.

  “he’ll be here. he won’t fly commercial, won’t spend the money on a private flight, and when he called from Kansas City, he said he and Rachel were going to get here the American way, whatever that is. Judging from the speed at which he’s traveling, he must be driving across the plains. he seems to be stopping in small towns along the way, but they aren’t campaign appearances that we set up. I haven’t seen any news reports since he left Kansas City.” Andrew was getting nervous, but Max made everyone nervous. he did everything on his schedule and in his way.

  While other candidates were attending political appearances and making speeches, Max did whatever he chose, much to the consternation of the people who worked for him. This time, though, his habit of falling off the radar screen was giving them fits. Andrew had been trying to contact him on his communicator, but it had been turned off since the press had obtained his private number. They had tried to change it time after time, but a day would pass and the information was mysteriously back in their possession. The last call from the press had prompted Max to toss the device into a cypress swamp, and although it was waterproof, it was no longer attached to its owner. Andrew had no way to speak with him until he showed, if he showed at all. “I thought that Max was being tracked by satellite by his communicator, but since he cut me off, I don’t know how they are tracking him now. That map on the grid is current, and it shows that he will be here in about an hour. Then we’ll hike up to the staging area if he can say his piece, and then it’s off to the Oregon coast for another visual backdrop for his next sound bite.”

  Bill looked weary. he hadn’t slept well for days. he longed for his memory-foam mattress and his own bedroom. “I meant that Max and the video crew will do that while I sit here at eight thousand feet. Did you know that you can get pleasantly drunk on one beer at this altitude? I plan to test that theory with this here bottle of brandy,” he drawled while waving the amber spirits in front of the video cam. “I’ve got to tell you, Andrew, this campaign is wearing me out. I need to be back in Washington polling delegates, not here in the middle of nowhere wondering if he’s going to show.” Staffman was ready to return to the familiar cocoon of his office. he feared the unknown and the unpredictable, and Max, by design and behavior, set off all of the anxiety he could handle. Andrew had youth and optimism to get him through his day. Staffman needed his coffee served in his cup, the way he had come to expect it, everything as it had been for the past forty years.
Predictable.

  u ChAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  he had been on assignment for two days now, ordered to set up his observation station at the curve in the road where the highway to Aspen passes between two fissured granite bluffs. he answered to his superiors in Washington and had been in deep cover for so long that he had almost forgotten his true purpose for being there. he had been trained as a sniper in advance of his first mission to Kuwait, parachuting in from high altitude at night when the moon was at its ebb and the Iraqis were celebrating their recent conquest of their fellow nation. he had been in and out before sunrise, his prey dispatched silently in a pink spray of blood. Since then, his training was narrowed toward one objective—to kill without a trace, his victim dying without a forensic road map back to the cause of death. he considered himself a professional, but he was only a lackey doing what they wanted, whenever it was requested, wherever he had to be.

  Max and Rachel sat in the backseat of Lou’s limo, unsure of where they were headed. They needed to traverse the eight-hundred-mile expanse of prairie and mountain terrain in two days, and they weren’t going to make it on foot nor risk their safety by using public transportation. his campaign stops were becoming more dangerous each day. They had managed to make it this far by providence, but for the moment, they lacked the link to their destination. They were waiting, strategizing about the next step. Max continued to stare out the window deep in thought, willing a solution to their predicament. he had promised to be there, and he kept his promises, not only to the people he met but to the people he chose to represent.