by Jason Pinter
In December, Time magazine named outgoing President Owen Gladstone their Person of the Year.
Though the Gladstone presidency will be damned, most likely, with faint praise, it can be looked at as the harbinger of a new era of politics, where decorum and experience play second fiddle to bombast and anarchy. In the wake of President Gladstone, we have witnessed the detonation of the Republican Party, the seamy cronyism of the Democratic Party, and the rise of a man who seems to have the greatest chance at electoral victory from a third party candidate since Teddy Roosevelt formed the Progressive Party in 1912. In 50 years, Owen Gladstone may not be remembered for much. But what he wrought on the country might be felt for generations.
Rawson continued to hold massive rallies that purposefully conflicted with the presidential primaries. Twenty-five thousand people packed the Ladd-Peebles stadium in Mobile, Alabama, which coincided with the second Democratic debate, which had been whittled down to Annabelle Shaw and Herman Levine, an ultra-progressive congressman from Connecticut.
Another thirty-four thousand packed the KI Convention Center in Green Bay, Wisconsin on the night of the GOP primary at Hofstra University. The moderator led off the debate by stating, “Rawson Griggs is currently campaigning in Governor Garrett’s home state. At each stop, he has drawn massive crowds. My question is for each of the candidates: why do you think Mr. Griggs’s message is appealing to so many Americans?”
When word about the debate questions filtered down to Rawson prior to his event in Green Bay, he took the stage in an arena filled with over thirty thousand supporters and said, “I’m proud to say that, tonight, Rawson Griggs has won a presidential debate he did not even participate in.”
Remy went weeks without setting foot in his own apartment. Rawson Griggs appeared to be firmly in the driver’s seat. The negative coverage only seemed to embolden Rawson’s drive and strengthen his bonds with his supporters, who saw him as a victim of the media.
Remy watched with awe, fascination, and dread. Yet everywhere he went, he couldn’t shake what he’d learned from Paul Bracewell, Michael O’Brien, and Doug Rimbaud. He thought about Rawson’s barely veiled threat at the Hollywood Bowl. It gnawed at him every time he boarded Griggs Force One, every time he woke up in a hotel bed unsure of what city he was in or why he’d agreed to give up his life for this.
He wanted to leave the campaign. Needed to leave, desperately. But if Rawson really was capable of doing to Paul what Rimbaud and O’Brien thought, what would he do to Remy?
Money was pouring into pro-Griggs Super PACs like a busted hydrant. Ben Scott’s PAC had spent nearly one hundred million dollars, and every FEC report had them raking in more and more cash.
An investigative report in the Gazette by a reporter named Eric Celsun claimed that billionaire Las Vegas mogul Ira Morgenstern would be contributing nearly seventy-five million dollars to Griggs alone. Photos had caught the two having dinner at the St. Regis hotel in Manhattan. Morgenstern had donated nearly fifty million dollars to Republican candidates in the previous election, which was spread over thirty campaigns, including Bobby Garrett of Wisconsin. Between his own campaign war chest and the Super PACs, Rawson had enough money to support three campaigns.
Remy knew that every time the campaign posted their event schedule, every time Rawson tweeted his approval for an ad campaign, it was a sly nod to the fact that he was not beholden to the typical rules of campaign finance. Rawson himself had spent fairly little of his own money. He held campaign events at his own resorts, which he could then reimburse from campaign funds. He held private dinners at his restaurants, wrote off tens of thousands of copies of his own books which were given as gifts. For a billionaire, Rawson was being surprisingly thrifty.
The Griggs train appeared unstoppable. Which was why when Remy saw Rawson approaching their private airplane hanger at LaGuardia airport one morning, jabbing his finger at Jerry Kapinski and cursing like he was getting paid per swear word, he knew something was very, very wrong.
“Where does that bitch get the nerve?” Rawson shouted, his face as red as the tie on his neck.
Kapinski stammered, “I honestly don’t know. We’re looking into everyone who has access to our servers. It’s very possible she’s going on pure speculation.”
“It’s not speculation,” Griggs spat. “I know Rivas. She doesn’t print shit unless she steps in it. Somebody leaked information to her. Somebody on our side. And if I don’t know who within forty-eight hours, I’m firing everyone on my staff and replacing you with the next truckload of illegals that crosses the border. At least if they fuck things, they’re only making five bucks an hour.”
Jerry began to climb the staircase to board Griggs Force One, but Rawson stopped at the door and said, “Not yet, Jerry. I haven’t decided if I’m going to let you on board.”
Kapinski stopped and waited for Rawson to disappear inside.
Remy, large coffee in his hand, walked tentatively up to Jerry.
“What the hell is going on?”
Kapinski rubbed his eyes. He looked like he’d aged a year overnight. “The Gazette ran a story saying a source from inside our campaign confirms we’re coordinating with PoliSpill. That we encouraged the leaks of the Bertrand and Shaw files. So now people are calling for an official investigation into the possibility that we’ve been working with a foreign entity to undermine the RNC and DNC.”
“Jesus. Where did that come from? Who’s the source?”
“I have no idea. But now that it’s out there, it’s a hard bell to un-ring.”
“I mean, it’s because of PoliSpill that Richard Bertrand dropped out of the race and Annabelle Shaw took a hit in the polls.”
“Yeah. It looks bad. But Rawson is denying it emphatically.”
“Did we?” Remy asked.
“Did we what?” Kapinski answered, narrowing his eyes.
“Did we coordinate with PoliSpill?”
“Absolutely. Not,” Kapinski said, his voice unwavering. “Rawson says we didn’t. So we didn’t.”
Remy thought back to the flight back from Spokane. Bertrand had appeared to be making a move. And the next day, PoliSpill leaked the pay-for-play scandal, nuking Bertrand’s campaign and half the GOP.
Remy knew Kapinski was lying.
“Are you two done jabbering?” Rawson shouted from atop the stairway. “Get on board. Conference room. Now. We need to counterpunch.”
Kapinski and Remy boarded the plane. Remy checked his Gazette app. Grace Rivas’s story topped the front page. The headline read:
Inside sources:
Griggs campaign coordinated with PoliSpill to release Bertrand/Shaw emails
The article reprinted half a dozen emails sent from a blacked-out email server with a GriggsForAmerica.com address. The PoliSpill reply emails contained a .kg URL, which meant they’d been filtered through a server located in Kyrgyzstan. Though PoliSpill was headquartered in Sweden, several foreign governments were providing them with sanctuary and secure servers, which could then filter the group’s communications through global networks to avoid regulation and law enforcement.
This signaled the possibility that the Griggs campaign, and potentially the next president of the United States, was coordinating with an unauthorized intelligence agency to influence the election on his behalf. And if that was the case, it could influence Rawson’s future policy positions, allowing foreign governments influence over the leader of the free world.
The speculation was frightening. Damning. And Remy was a thousand percent sure that if those kind of allegations were made against any other presidential campaign, it would signal that candidate’s death knell. But Rawson had proven damn near invincible.
The Kyrgyzstan connection bothered him. There were PoliSpill servers based in Kyrgyzstan. And following the failed attack on Paul Bracewell, Dastan Nogoyev and Alexay Usenov were scheduled to fly to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s capital.
Remy felt nauseous. But he couldn’t let it show. Not just yet.
Suddenly, something occurred to him. He took out his wallet and found the business card Michael O’Brien had given him. Written on the back was the text Paul had sent the night of his death. TK GZP.
They joined Rawson in the conference room aboard Griggs Force One. They drafted a response to the Gazette piece. By the time Remy finished reading it, he had made up his mind. Things were out of control. It was time to leave the campaign.
Griggs For President: UNLEASH THE BEAST!
Griggs campaign denies outrageous smears
The New York Gazette, which is less a newspaper than a propaganda machine run by the liberal elite, has resorted to spewing flat-out lies in order to see their preferred candidate enter the White House.
Grace Rivas is a parasite on journalism, and should be fired immediately. When Rawson Griggs is elected president, he will create new regulations in order to deal with media outlets that knowingly print false stories in order to defraud the American people. Rawson will make these outlets suffer legally, financially, and forcefully if necessary.
It is time to return this great country to its roots. Rawson Griggs was placed on this earth to bring back hope and prosperity, and god help his opponents who aim to prevent that.
—Rebecca Blum, Griggs Campaign Manager
After the release was out, Remy logged on to social media to see the reaction. Within minutes, near universal condemnation began to pour in. It was called dangerous, unconstitutional, totalitarian. Remy went to Grace Rivas’s Twitter feed and checked her replies. He was horrified. They threatened to cut her. Kill her. Rape her. Find her family.
Remy stood up from the table. Griggs and the others were preoccupied watching the cable news reaction. Remy left and went back to the main cabin. He took a seat, opened up his personal email, and composed a note to Grace Rivas.
It’s Remy Stanton. We need to talk.
The campaign rally at the First Niagara Center in Buffalo drew over twenty thousand ravenous Griggs supporters. Fred Hadley, the bombastic and portly head coach of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills, offered an enthusiastic introduction.
“Only one man is capable of bringing back the country we know and love,” said Hadley, his jowls shaking. “I know tough men. I spent twenty hours a day working with the toughest sons of bitches alive. And this man I have the honor of introducing today is the toughest son of a bitch I’ve ever met. We need tough men to take this country back. So let’s join Rawson Griggs and unleash the beast!”
Remy worked the press pen, answering questions from reporters, pretending to care about his job, all the while praying the camera didn’t pick up the fact that he felt like puking. He refreshed his personal email every thirty seconds, hoping to hear back from Grace Rivas.
Halfway through his speech, Rawson Griggs pointed at the back of the auditorium and said, “I would like everyone here to turn around. Look at the sorry group of men and women who get paid to print lies. After this wonderful event is over, they will print false stories and then go home in their limousines and drink wine from bottles that cost more than your mortgage. They will mock you for supporting Rawson Griggs. So look closely. See what the opposition looks like with your own eyes.”
Thousands of attendees turned around and began to boo the reporters penned in behind traffic dividers like cattle. They had nowhere to go, nothing to do but take the abuse. Several attendees walked right up to the press pen, stuck out their middle fingers, and spat on the floor.
Remy refreshed his email again. There was an email from Grace Rivas. It read:
Name the time and place.
Remy checked the campaign schedule. Rawson had a dinner that night with the mayor of Buffalo and some influential county legislators, and in the morning would tour the shipping port on the northeast shore of Lake Erie. Griggs Force One was scheduled for wheels up at 1 p.m., and they’d be back in the city by three. Once they landed, there was a strategy meeting back at the Castle that would last several hours.
Remy wrote Grace back.
Tomorrow night. 10 p.m. Liberty Inn off the Meatpacking District. Room under the name Phil Rawlings.
A minute later, he got a reply.
10 p.m. at a no-tell motel under a fake name? Either you’re really forward or you weren’t kidding about needing to meet ASAP.
He replied.
Just be there.
He thought about Alena. He had no idea what to tell her, or how. Things were going to get ugly. He didn’t care about Rawson, the campaign, or this godforsaken election any longer. But he cared about her. And he had no idea how to go forward without losing her.
The Liberty Inn was one of the few hotels in Manhattan that accepted cash. He needed to limit any electronic records. Given that Rawson knew about his conversation with Doug Rimbaud, he knew there were eyes and ears everywhere. Possibly in his own apartment. He had to take precautions.
Rawson’s speech ended, to a round of thunderous applause. He exited the stage to You Can’t Always Get What You Want by the Rolling Stones. The staff met backstage.
“That went well,” he said.
Rebecca Blum pulled out an iPad and opened up their scheduling spreadsheet. “We have surrogates lined up to appear on four different networks this evening. Pushback on the Gazette piece is solid, there’s a ‘cancel the Gazette’ movement on social media, and Costanzo is looking into Grace Rivas.”
“What does that mean?” Remy said.
“It’s not important,” Blum replied. “If this does dent our polling, it will be minimal and short-lived. On the plus side, nobody on earth is talking about Bobby Garrett or Annabelle Shaw.”
Remy said, “What about Grace Rivas? What’s Costanzo doing?”
“We need them to know,” Remy said, “that there are consequences.”
As soon as they got back to their hotel, Remy emailed Grace: Watch your back.
She responded: ?
I don’t know exactly. But just be careful.
He spent the next few hours attempting to work, but couldn’t take his mind off tomorrow’s meeting with Grace. Remy had chosen to step off a cliff. He just prayed he wasn’t attached to anyone when he fell.
The following day, after Rawson’s tour of the port, complete with photo ops with the mayor and local stevedores’ union, the Griggs campaign headed to Buffalo Niagara airport and returned to Manhattan. Remy barely said a word, and thankfully, the rest of the team was duly exhausted.
When they landed, they loaded into a van and a security caravan took them back to the Castle. In the War Room, they buckled down for a four-hour strategy session. Blum ordered half a dozen pizzas from the gourmet kitchen on the second floor. Remy scarfed down six slices of a meat lovers pie on his own.
At eight o’clock, the meeting ended. Rawson would stay to work with Rebecca Blum, but the rest were free to leave. Remy took the private elevator to the lobby and got a double espresso from the café. He noticed several tourists taking his photo. Remy stopped to pose for pictures, struggling to maintain a smile.
He had a small rolling suitcase, but Remy didn’t want to go home to drop it off. His meeting with Grace wasn’t for another hour and a half. So he withdrew five hundred dollars cash from an ATM, found a liquor store a few blocks from the Castle, got himself a six-pack of a good IPA, and took a cab to the Liberty Inn.
Remy checked in under the name Phil Rawlings, paid cash for one night, and went to his room on the fourth floor. The room was chilly and smelled like mold. He emailed Grace. Room 412.
Then Remy popped open a beer and drank. He watched the clock nervously, unaware of just what this night would set in motion.
At nine fifty, Remy heard a knock at the door. He looked out the peephole and opened it. Grace Rivas stood there, along with a man Remy did not recognize. She wore a Burberry pea coat, a smattering of rouge, and a touch of lipstick. She smelled like perfume, and looked like she’d come directly from a nice event. A date, perhaps.
The man was about forty, very thin, with a shaved head, rimless glasse
s, a bookish demeanor, and wore a Ghostbusters t-shirt under his jacket. He stuck out his hand before Grace could introduce him.
“Eric Celsun, New York Gazette,” he said. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Stanton.”
Remy shook his hand.
Celsun looked around the room. “Any bugs in here?”
“I just checked in,” Remy said. “I doubt we’re being recorded.”
“Not bug,” Celsun said. “Bugs. Like, the crawly ones. This looks like the kind of hotel that has a lot of bugs.”
“I honestly don’t know. I can get you some Off if you’d like.”
“It’s okay for now,” Celsun said. “Just…keep your eyes open.”
“Thanks for coming,” Remy said. “You didn’t tell me you were bringing anyone.”
“Figured this was important. Eric is a pit bull. Don’t let the t-shirt fool you. I thought he should hear whatever you have to say.”
“Fair enough,” Remy said.
“So, this had better be important,” Grace said. “I have to be in Ohio tomorrow morning to cover Rawson’s rally in Hamilton County.”
“You’re going to that?” Remy said. “After I told you to be careful?”
“I’m not letting Rawson Griggs get in the way of my job,” she said.
“I’m not worried about your job,” Remy said. Grace seemed to understand that Remy was not overreacting.
“I assume you wanted this meeting because of the PoliSpill article.”
“Partly,” Remy said.
“It must have really struck a nerve with Griggs. That’s why you emailed, right? Rawson sent you to ask for a détente?”
“Rawson didn’t send me,” Remy said. “Rawson doesn’t know I’m here. Nobody knows I’m here. Except you two.”
Celsun shifted. They looked at each other, starting to understand.
“So why are we here?” Grace said.
“Because I think Rawson may have done some terrible things. But I can’t prove them. But I think maybe you can.”
