Jim McGill 04 The Last Ballot Cast, Part 1

by Joseph Flynn

  He’d been charmed and was won over when she promised he’d be a working vice president with real responsibilities. She’d been as good as her word. He was the administration’s political point man on education, energy and immigration. He thought he’d done a good job in each area, but he always stayed within the president’s philosophical guidelines.

  There had been more than a few times when he’d have liked to improvise.

  Take more than incremental steps.

  Lead the way.

  A contradiction if ever there was one for a vice president. He had to be the ultimate loyal follower. He could offer advice certainly, but always defer graciously if his advice was ignored.

  Then Kenny McGill had fallen sick and, wouldn’t you know it, that led to Mather Wyman’s return to executive power. Not just at the head of one state but of the entire union. And, God, did he love it.

  Now, having heard that his party might draft him to be its nominee, he wanted it.

  That surprised him no end. He’d never entertained the idea of running for the presidency. Having had a taste of what it meant to be president, power so pure it was like a drug, he could not resist yielding to the addiction.

  Certainly, the president must have felt the same inexorable pull.

  All of her predecessors, too.

  In his lifetime, he could think of no one other than Lyndon Johnson who had stepped aside voluntarily when there was still a chance to hold on to power. Was there a lesson to learn from Johnson? He’d been a vice president, too. Had first sat in the Oval Office only after fate had placed him there.

  Sure there was a lesson.

  Don’t start a war you can’t win, and when you do win get out fast.

  Johnson hadn’t had Colin Powell around to articulate that for him.

  Mather Wyman would follow the Powell Doctrine, should things ever come to that … and he would be sensible about everything else.

  Including not coming out as a gay man before he was elected or even before he left office. Once he returned to private life, then he could go public. Having run the question through his mind innumerable times now, he’d come to the conclusion that the president wouldn’t expose his secret.

  If he’d misjudged her on that — or if she’d told James J. McGill — he was lost.

  He finished his dinner and went to bed. Early the next morning, he called press secretary Aggie Wu. He told her he wanted to speak to the media at ten a.m. tomorrow.

  Hart Senate Office Building — Washington, D.C.

  “Galia Mindel called me at home this morning,” Majority Leader John Wexford said.

  Gathered with the Democratic senator in his office were his assistant majority leader, Richard Bergen of Illinois, House minority leader, Marlene Berman, and her assistant leader, Diego Paz. Coffee, tea, croissants and cinnamon rolls sat on a serving cart untouched.

  Wexford continued, “The White House chief of staff said as a courtesy she was letting me know that the president will be returning to work in a couple of days.”

  “A couple?” Paz asked.

  “In the literal sense, no more than two. I asked the same question.”

  The four leading Democrats in Congress looked at one another. All of them had heard the rumor that Patti Grant had decided to run as a self-financed independent. There hadn’t been any hint that she would field or even endorse any independent candidates for seats in the House or Senate, but it was not hard to imagine that —

  “If she does what we’ve all heard she’ll do,” Begen said, “we might be about to witness politics in this country becoming an entrepreneurial activity.”

  “Maybe even a venture capital enterprise,” Marlene Berman suggested.

  “People with money or access to it running for Congress without any party connections,” Paz elucidated. “Talk about scary.”

  Wexford laughed with no sign of being amused. “I don’t know. Isn’t that what George Washington wanted? He said parties distract the government from its duties to the people.”

  “Guy must have had a crystal ball,” Paz said.

  “More likely human nature has persistent flaws,” Bergen countered.

  Asserting the voice of practicality, Marlene Berman said, “Gentlemen, let’s table the history and philosophy discussions for the moment and ask ourselves whether Patti Grant and/or Galia Mindel is playing us. Those two sharpies have to know we’re worrying about Patti Grant’s health and the chance we’d be taking by making a commitment to the president to be our nominee.”

  Wexford said, “She may be playing us, Marlene, but I have no doubt we’ve just had a forty-eight hour deadline set for us. We confirm without reservation that we want the president to be our nominee and we do all we can to discourage any challenger to her nomination or she runs in the general election with her own line on the ballot.”

  “Galia Mindel would run her campaign, you think?” Paz asked.

  Bergen said, “Might be her right-hand guy, Stephen Norwood, would do it. He’d handle all the nuts and bolts and that’d leave Galia free to scheme.”

  “Something at which she excels,” Marlene offered. “You’ve all heard about the bills making their ways through the legislatures in New York, Illinois and California to piggyback their primary elections to the one in New Hampshire?”

  Paz laughed. “I think that’s great. It’s about time the big states get to have some pull on who the presidential nominee is gonna be.”

  Wexford said, “You mean when we’re not trying to put the fix in ahead of time.”

  “Damn political parties,” Paz said with a grin.

  Bergen suggested, “At least the new primary lineup should have a moderating influence on the Republicans. Wing-nuts aren’t going to win in three big, diverse states outside the South.”

  Wexford thought about that and said, “Do you think the fix could be in on both sides of the aisle? Look at the polls. Everybody hates Congress. Who’s the one Republican with a high approval rating right now?”

  The other three said in unison, “Mather Wyman.”

  Wexford nodded. “And now Acting President Wyman has Oval Office experience. If the Republicans don’t draft him, they’re even crazier than we think they are. But if they do draft him and Patti Grant runs as an independent, our nominee will be facing a sitting president and a former acting president. How do you think we might do?”

  Three glum faces were the only answer necessary.

  “Me, too,” Wexford said.

  “We better make sure we get the first appointment to see the president whenever she gets back to the White House,” Paz said.

  Marlene Berman shook her head. “No, the thing to do is get to her while she’s still at Camp David. If it’s all right with you gentleman, I think I’d be the best one to get a true read on how the president is doing, health wise and otherwise.”

  The three men in the room were smart enough to agree.

  And let the woman shoulder the blame if things went wrong.

  Charlottesville, Virginia

  “Little fucker has some grit, I gotta give him that.” Olin Anderson said.

  Crosby nodded and said, “From everything I’ve seen, the Company should’ve welcomed him with a flourish of trumpets, like he was a sheik willing to sell us oil at half off.”

  The two former rogue operatives were playing hide and seek with Todd in the woods along the James River. Only in their version of the game they’d told the headshrinker they would kill him if they caught him in the first fifteen minutes. If they caught him in the first thirty minutes, they would give him a painful but not disabling beating. If he evaded them for thirty to sixty minutes, they would congratulate him and buy him a drink. If he remained undiscovered for more than an hour, he’d get the drink and the pleasure of watching the two of them go at it in close-quarters combat.

  The game had been underway for fifty-five minutes.

  With no sign of the prick.

  Who was carrying both a knife and two Vietnam t
omahawks.

  Purchased off the internet. Weapon instructions provided by YouTube videos.

  Crosby and Anderson looked for footprints, snapped foliage and frightened animal life. They listened for any sound that had no place in a woodland. A cough, a sneeze, a fart. They lifted their noses to the breeze, hoping to inhale human body odor or fear; they knew both.

  Wouldn’t be long before they’d have to call out, “Olli, olli oxen, come in free!”

  Look like a couple of dicks not legendary badasses.

  “You think we lost it?” Anderson asked.

  “Sure as hell seem to have lost him,” Crosby said.

  “A few weeks ago, I might’ve thought he just drifted off with the breeze.”

  That was then. In the time since, Todd had been working out like a madman. Twice a day at first, then three and four times. Not for hours on end, but intense bursts of twenty to thirty minutes. In between, he’d run for both distance and speed. He stretched, too.

  Shamed the two tough guys into keeping up with him.

  Which was getting harder all the time.

  Simple truth was, Todd was younger than they were. Not by a lot but enough to show. You could work out and eat right all you wanted. If a younger guy did the same training regimen at the same intensity, he was going to get better results.

  That led Anderson to wonder, “You think we should start using steroids? Take some human growth hormone?”

  “I think what we ought to do is pull our punches with each other ‘cause time just expired.”

  Each of them did a slow three-sixty, expecting Todd to step out from behind a tree, maybe descend from a cloud holding a lightning bolt, and sneer at them. It was going to be hard, they knew, to keep on scaring a guy who had made them look like chumps. If they tried, it might turn out he could kick their asses, too.

  It was almost as if …

  Crosby looked at Anderson and asked, “I know the bastard didn’t hypnotize us, but is there any way he could have drugged us? Slipped something into our food or water. Slowed us down just enough to lose our edge.”

  Anderson told him, “If he managed that, we’ve already lost our edge.”

  “Maybe we should just di-di.” Bug out.

  “And go where? ”

  Crosby nodded. “Yeah, that was never a big part of our plan.”

  “Fuck it,” Anderson said. He yelled, “You win!”

  Adding under his breath, “You miserable little hemorrhoid licker.”

  As if to chastise him, a Vietnam tomahawk whistled past Anderson’s head and stuck in a tree. He and Crosby turned and saw Todd had thrown the weapon from his knees. His face and arms had been smeared with dirt. Vegetation sprouted randomly from his clothes. He’d been underfoot the whole time. They might have tripped over him.

  Crosby and Anderson just couldn’t understand how Todd had gotten so good so fast, and how their games had gone to hell.

  Crosby wanted to ask what Todd had done to them, but he said, “What’d we do wrong?”

  “You both sleep at the same time.”

  There was only one thing to make of that: he’d fucked with them while they were unconscious. But neither of them could believe Todd had sneaked into the room where they slept and had messed with them physically. Professional pride demanded that they figure out what had happened on their own.

  Failing that, they’d have to see if they could torture it out of the prick.

  “You want us to fight now or later?” Anderson asked.

  “Don’t bother,” Todd told him. “You can beat yourselves up metaphorically.”

  They watched him walk past and pull his tomahawk out of the tree.

  “Yeah, we’re real big on metaphor,” Crosby said.

  Todd smiled and told him. “You’ve seen how I can help people. If you’ll trust me, I can do the same for you. One at a time, if you want, so you can make sure I’m not doing something I shouldn’t.”

  Like introducing an aerosol into the ventilation system feeding your bedroom, Todd thought. There were more means to put a drug into a person’s body than there were ways to skin a cat. Under sedation, he’d had Crosby and Anderson give him a primer on many of their skills. Give him a list of contacts for useful, if illicit, goods and services. That and blur the recall of the information they had provided to him.

  Had they really told him those things or were they imagining it?

  In many respects, they’d already become his creatures.

  But there was no way to own someone like sending him down a K-hole.

  “I’m just trying to be helpful,” Todd said, heading back to their cabin.

  The White House

  Captain Welborn Yates sat behind the desk in his office just down the hall from the Oval Office. He had a laptop computer open on his desk and was staring intently at the monitor when Kira appeared in his doorway. She wore a frown.

  Welborn looked up and read her expression. He told her, “I’m not looking at pictures of naked women.”

  “Of course, you’re not. You’ve told me many times I blind you to other women.”

  “A compliment that’s only somewhat fanciful,” Welborn said with a smile. “What’s the cause of your discontent, my beloved?”

  Kira closed the door and took one of Welborn’s guest seats.

  “I was thinking of ordering monogrammed towels for my bathroom.”

  Their new home had his and hers sanitation facilities, something they’d agreed was a necessity not a luxury.

  “And how might that have become a source of vexation?” Welborn asked.

  “I thought it only proper to use my married name as the source of my initials.”

  Welborn needed but the blink of an eye to understand the problem.

  “You think the initials KY are a mite too … commercial?”

  “Goo from a tube,” Kira said, “that’s what those letters are for.”

  Ever helpful, Welborn said, “You might use KFY. Married women these days often add a name rather than displace one.”

  “I thought of that, but I’m still bothered that I hadn’t foreseen this problem.”

  “I could change my family name to Smith, if you like,” Welborn said. “Or you might tell me if there’s something more substantial that concerns you. I believe baring your soul to me is now your prerogative.”

  Kira leaned over the desk. Welborn lowered the lid of his laptop and met her halfway for a kiss. They returned to their seats, each feeling better.

  “What are you doing with that computer?” Kira asked.

  “I’ll tell you after you tell me what’s upset you.”

  “Very well. I heard through the grapevine the president will be returning soon.”

  That struck Welborn as wonderful news.

  “What’s the problem?” he asked, but then he saw. “Oh. When the president comes back, the acting president exits the stage, his moment in the spotlight come and gone.”

  Kira nodded. “I like seeing Mattie in the Oval Office. He’s done a good job. He’d make a wonderful president.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, but you have to be elected or succeed to office as a result of death or resignation to hold the position more than momentarily.”

  “Thank you, Professor Yates.”

  “Logic isn’t really much of a comfort,” Welborn agreed.

  “Mattie’s going to hold a press conference in fifteen minutes. I’m going to watch. Would you like to come with me?”

  Welborn lifted the lid of his laptop. Glanced at the monitor.

  “I think, I hope, I should be able to make it. Why don’t you go ahead and save me a seat?”

  “What are you doing?” Kira asked.

  “Promise not to tell? Anyone? Ever?”

  Kira considered the conditions and nodded.

  “With the help of some other government employees who shall remain nameless, and the approval of a court order, I’m robbing a bank in the Caribbean.”

  The idea struck Kira as u
nusual but not impossible.

  “A court approved of that?” she asked.

  “The judge is an Air Force veteran.”

  Kira’s eyes widened. “The money belongs to that guy who —”

  “Killed Keith, Joe and Tommy, yes. We found his money and we’re going to —” Welborn smiled and made a fist. “We have just taken his money, a bit more than four hundred thousand dollars.”

  “But what good will that do you?” Kira asked.

  Welborn told her, “The thinking is — and I bet it works — that the sonofabitch will show up at his bank and demand his money back.”

  “And you’ll be there to catch him.”

  “That I will.”

  Welborn shut down his computer, closed the lid and locked it in his desk.

  He gave Kira another kiss and took her hand.

  “Let’s go hear what the acting president has to say.”

  Kira opined, “Maybe he’s going to announce a coup.”

  Welborn said, “If he’s wearing camouflage fatigues, we’ll know.”

  Sunset Marina — Key West, Florida

  Carina Linberg sat in the stern of Irish Grace and looked out at the marina, seeing the other boats and the adjacent condo buildings. She’d been lucky to spot a slip-for-lease ad just as she decided that tying up at the Waldorf Astoria resort was getting to be a bit extravagant. The slip was fifty feet long, exactly what she needed, and the terms were far more reasonable than at the resort. She could have lingered at the Waldorf for several more months but she wasn’t the sort of woman who spent money unnecessarily.

  By living just a bit more modestly, she could give herself the peace of mind not to feel compelled to go back to work at WWN. Sir Edbert Bickford had called her personally. Hadn’t even had his secretary place the call and make her wait while he came on the line.

  He said he was disturbed that Carina had let her old contract lapse.

  Had been unavailable when the network’s business affairs people had tried to reach her.