Blue's Code

by James Abel

In a posh, private room inside a private club in Washington D.C., the Speaker of the House sat with the Senate Majority Leader. With drinks in hand, they compared notes on what they had just heard. The Speaker set down her Blanton’s on the rocks, turned to her drinking partner, and asked “Did you hear that? She just told the world that as President, she’d defer to the states not only on gun laws but climate regulations as well.” Laughing in advance of her own punch line, she said, “The sky really is the limit!”

  The Senate Majority Leader joined the laughter and added, “Yup, a one-way street to stricter laws, while here in Washington, we stay out of harm’s way. We should’ve thought of this years ago.”

  The Speaker smiled and glanced down at the iPad in her lap. She turned back to the Senate Majority Leader and said, “Okay, let’s see how she does after the break. This next question is gonna force her into a corner.”

  At Beat Nick’s, Blue watched as the interview flashed back on the screen. Warring looked relaxed, thinking there was about to be a final wrap up. But instead, Keaster, reading from his iPad, said, “Governor, there’s one last question that, with all due respect, you’ve been ducking all night. What about Georgia? Will you or will you not support the LUV Georgia Act that is currently being debated in the state legislature? I think the people have every right to know if you are willing to help stem the tide of unnecessary violence and killings occurring every day in our great state of Georgia.”

  Warring’s face turned to stone. She awkwardly adjusted her sitting position and stared at Keaster, boring a hole through his skull.

  Why, you little piece of shit. Who the hell do you think you are?

  Keaster couldn’t take it. His eyes dropped. Ten seconds passed before he finally raised the courage to look at her and ask, “Governor?”

  A smirk slowly crossed Warring’s face. She leaned in toward him and said, “Mr. Keaster. That is how you pronounce your name, is it not? You know, the same as the body part?”

  The cheap shot seemed to pump new courage into Keaster. He looked at Warring, smiled, and said, “That’s right, Governor, just like the body part.”

  “Well, all right, then, Mr. Keaster. I’ll answer your question, in spite of the discourteous manner in which it was presented.”

  Warring turned away from Keaster, looked directly into the camera, and said, “To all the good citizens of Georgia, the following words are for you, and you alone. Even though it has been the greatest privilege of my life to serve as your governor, my plans do not include running for a second term. Should you and the people of this great country bless me with their support, by this time next year I hope to be preparing to serve you in a new capacity, as your President. As such, I think that Mr. Keaster needs to direct his question not to me, but to the candidates wishing to succeed me as governor. In that way, it will be you, the voters in Georgia, who will decide whether the LUV Act is passed into law. For that reason and that reason alone, if the legislation currently under review in our state house should get passed and cross my desk, I promise each and every one of you that I will veto it, to protect your rights as citizens of this state to make that decision at the ballot box, rather than by a bunch of politicians in a back room. Thank you, God bless you, and good evening.”

  Warring gave Keaster a tight-lipped smile as she triumphantly stood up and flashed a much broader smile to the camera. With Keaster looking like a scolded puppy, the producer had no choice but to motion for the coverage team to cut to a commercial break.

  Back in Washington D.C., the Speaker shook her head in anger, snapped up the remote, and turned the TV off. She looked over at the Senate Majority Leader and said, “Looks like we need to rethink our decision on our presidential nominee.”

  The Senate Majority Leader took a deep breath and said, “Actually, I’m not sure that what we think means a damn thing.”

  “Why the hell would you say that? We run this fucking town.”

  The Senate Majority Leader looked out of the corner of his eyes and offered a tight-lipped smile, not the kind that friends share. No, you idiot. The Guild does. But I guess you wouldn’t know that!

  The Speaker glared at him and said, “What are you smirking about?”

  The Senate Majority Leader set his drink down, straightened up in his chair and said, “Didn’t you hear what the lady just said? She wasn’t really talking to the voters in Georgia; she was talking to all of America. And she what she just told them that their votes count, that they actually mean something. Somehow, she just managed to distance herself from our little shithole here in Washington D.C. at the very time she’s running for President. I don’t know about you, but that’s what I call political genius.”

  The Speaker slammed her drink down on the table, stood up, and walked out of the room as the Senate Majority Leader watched, shaking his head from side to side. Bitch!

  Back at the bar, Blue pulled her eyes away from the screen, mumbling under her breath “Mommy dearest.” She grabbed her bar tab from the empty glass in front of her, looked at it, put down a $10 bill, and stood to leave.

  Danny noticed and walked over. He picked up the 10-spot and asked, “Need change?”

  “No, we’re good.”

  Danny nodded, picked up the remote, and turned off the television. As Blue pulled up her hood, Danny asked, “So, why the interest in politics? I never would have guessed you were into that stuff.”

  Blue nodded and said, “Never was. Not until I met her.”

  “You know the governor?”

  Blue instantly regretted her words and nervously said, “Uh, not really. I met her once, that’s all. So anyway, gotta go.” Then she walked toward the door, smiled at the three guys who once again had their eyes glued on her, and walked out. Danny was also looking at her, but not for the same reason. He was pretty sure he had just figured out who she really was.

  CHAPTER 2

  When the soundman removed the battery pack from Governor Warring’s lower back, she turned to one of her aides and said, “Please escort Mr. Keaster and his crew off the grounds. I have other business to attend to.”

  Governor Warring had started to walk out of the room when Keaster called after her and said, “Governor, I’m sincerely sorry if I said or did anything to offend you. It certainly wasn’t my intention.”

  Warring paused, turned around, and said, “That’s quite alright, Mr. Keaster. I hope things work out for you.”

  Keaster’s broad smile quickly dimmed as he pondered the meaning of her words.

  Keaster and his team had a bit of a drive ahead of them. The interview hadn’t taken place inside the current governor’s mansion in Atlanta. It had taken place at Georgia’s original governor’s mansion in Milledgeville, Georgia, which is about 100 miles southeast of Atlanta. The mansion,, built back to the late 1830s is the house from which Governor Joe Brown fled in advance of the arrival of General William T. Sherman and his Union army on their way to Savanna during the Civil War. It’s also the house that Sherman later used as his campaign headquarters.

  Two years earlier, Warring had made a generous offer of $40 million dollars for the temporary use of the house until the end of her term as governor. As part of the deal, Warring had agreed to pick up all incremental expenses for security and transportation back and forth to Atlanta needed in transacting the state’s business. She had also agreed to pay for some long overdue repairs to the mansion. The money was of no concern to Warring. Although her tax returns were not yet public, estimates of her personal fortune went as high as $15 billion.

  When Warring had first announced her desire to reside at the Milledgeville Mansion, her presidential campaign manager, Jimmy Harris, was taken completely off guard. He pulled her aside, warning her that it could be political suicide to move into the very house from which slavery had been proclaimed a white man’s privilege and where so much of the confederate succession planning had taken place. But Warring loved proving her confidants wrong. She went on the offensive, proclaiming that she wante
d to use the house as a platform to “denounce Georgia’s role in antebellum slavery and to turn to the future, seeking to unify people of all colors and creeds in a multicolored blanket of peace, hope, and love.”

  With GNN’s help, it worked—both from a public relations standpoint and as a smokescreen to cover up her real motive, which was to move out of the governor’s mansion in Atlanta. She needed complete privacy to execute her long-term plan, and the Old Governor’s Mansion in the sleepy little town of Milledgeville, Georgia, offered her a convenient solution.

  After the deal was struck, Warring immediately commissioned all the agreed-to improvements in the mansion as well as some significant temporary changes of her own design. Most of them were on the lower level of the house.

  That is where Heather Warring wanted to establish a war room for her run at the Presidency of the United States. But it was also where the original kitchen, used by slaves to prepare meals for Governor Joe Brown and his guests, still remained intact. So, Warring had new temporary walls inset within the outer perimeter within which she had built a high tech, highly secure war room that could later be removed.

  That’s where Governor Warring was now headed. She left the interview room and walked down a center hallway to a 10-by-10-foot square foyer at the back of the house. Both the hallway and the foyer were under camera surveillance, monitored 24/7 by off-site Warring Pharmaceuticals security personnel. The foyer had one exterior wall to the left of the hallway with a solid steel door that opened to the backyard. To the right of the hallway was a door leading to the family’s private living quarters. Warring had never married, so it was only her and her adopted daughter, Jessie, who lived in that wing of the house.

  Directly across from the center hallway was a solid wall with no windows or doors, adorned with an early painting of the mansion from the 1840s. Directly to the left of the hallway was a recently installed elevator. With an old stairway temporarily sealed off as part of Warring’s changes, the elevator was the only means of access to the lower level.

  When Warring reached the foyer, she turned to her left, entered the elevator, and swiped a key FOB. The door closed, and the elevator descended. The foyer on the lower level was identical in size to the one above it. But there were no doorways, windows, or surveillance cameras. It appeared to be a dead end. When Warring exited the elevator, she approached a large set of bookshelves directly across from the elevator, walked up to a small black metal box sitting on one of the shelves, and stood in front of it, moving her eye up close to the retinal scanner inside. A split second later, she heard a clicking sound and watched as the bookshelves separated, revealing a doorway into another room. She walked through it, and the bookcases closed behind her. She was now in her war room, a masterpiece of modern design, technology, and security. It was about 25 feet long and 20 feet wide with no windows. But it was well lit with LED lighting placed throughout a white, suspended ceiling. The white-panel walls were supported from behind with aluminum studs, and the flooring was a light gray industrial-style carpet.

  Twelve television monitors, three on each wall, were flush-mounted using an aluminum bracing system to support them from behind. Some of the screens were streaming news from media outlets, while others were receiving feeds from strategically placed cameras throughout the mansion, and still others were currently blacked out—their specific purpose unknown. In the middle of the room was a conference table with seating for 12. Behind all the modern architecture of Warring’s war room stood the old kitchen, still in its original state. The governor had built a room within a room.

  Governor Warring sat at the conference table and punched a button on a large panel. A phone could be heard dialing from overhead speakers. Within seconds, one of the screens was filled with the face of Jimmy Harris, her campaign manager. He was in his mid-fifties with a shiny, shaved head, squinty eyes, and a deep Southern accent. Warring offered no greeting, instead asking, “So, who was the son of a bitch that just tried to throw me under the bus?”

  Harris offered a weak smile, a nervous habit trait of his, and said, “I have it on good authority that the decision came from none other than the Speaker of the House. She wanted to test your mettle.”

  “Why that dried-up old prune!”

  “Now, now. You still may need her help up here in D.C., whether you like it or not. Besides, the post-interview polls show that you just kicked ass. Nobody in Washington’s gonna be able to stop you, not if we stay on plan. You’re the fresh-faced outsider, and you were spectacular governor—truly spectacular. Sometimes I don’t think you need me at all.”

  The flattery worked. Governor Warring was noticeably pleased with herself. She shifted direction and asked, “So, were you able to find out what’s going on in New York? The LUV Act should be a piece of cake for those guys.”

  Jimmy grinned widely and said, “Apparently, the governor’s been caught with his pants down. Quite literally.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Turns out, he decided to run the LUV New York Act by his court of appeals for political cover upstate. You know, so they could rubber stamp its constitutionality. Hell, there’s only one conservative left on the court.”

  “So, what’s the hold up?”

  “That one conservative, a guy by the name of Jim Nichols, pulled the governor aside two weeks ago and told him that he’s in possession of some very explicit conversations between the governor and not one, but two of his former romantic liaisons. And get this: One was a woman; the other was a man. The judge even played the recordings for him.”

  “Okay, so what does this Nichols guy want?”

  “Well that’s the crazy part. He doesn’t want anything—at least not of monetary value. Hell, we offered him 5 million dollars, and he wouldn’t take it. All he said was that if the governor jams the LUV Act through, he’s gonna release the recordings to the press.”

  “Well, that’s certainly odd.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How many people do you know who still believe in the Constitution but are willing to play as dirty as we do?”

  Jimmy let out a deep belly laugh and said, “I hear ya, Gov! So, what do you want me to do, follow the Pennsylvania blueprint?”

  “Of course, but please, no details.”

  “As always, Governor. As always.”

  “Okay, now that that’s settled, all I have to do is get that insolent daughter of mine back home.”

  “Still MIA, huh? Isn’t she scheduled to make one of her presentations next week? At Cornell if I reacall correctly.”

  “She is, and she will. We’ve located her and Travis is en route as we speak.”

  “Where did you find her?”

  “Atlanta. Now you get back to your business, and let me handle mine.”

  “Roger that, Governor.”

  The screen went black. The governor stood up, glanced around, and walked toward the bookcases. When she passed an electrictronic eye, the bookcases opened up, and she walked out of the room.

  CHAPTER 3

  Three blocks north of Beat Nick’s, an overweight, middle-aged man with thinning salt-and-pepper hair and the flushed complexion of a drinker shielded his face with a newspaper as Blue walked past his black BMW 750Li. She continued down the sidewalk, crossed the street, and entered a small bungalow-style home.

  The house, built in the 1920s, had Arts and Crafts styling cues, including clapboard siding, gingerbread trim, a small covered porch supported by two angular white wooden pillars, and a solid oak front door. But it had not yet been restored to its former glory. Its once colorful trim paint was faded and peeling, some of the wood showed signs of rot, and the lawn was full of weeds and bare patches. It was one of several houses in the neighborhood owned by slumlords who used them as a source of easy cash from the college kids and artist types attracted to this section of Atlanta.

  When Blue disappeared inside, the man in the BMW tossed his newspaper aside, opened the car door, and stepped out onto the stree
t. He hitched up his pants, glanced around, and pulled his overcoat closed, careful to make sure his shoulder holster and the .38 special it held were hidden from sight.

  Inside the house, Blue took off her hoodie and hung it on a hook by the front door. She paused in the small entryway, listening for signs of life. She glanced up the steps and called out, “Hey, Peanut, you up there?”

  Blue heard a thin, frail voice say, “Yup. Be down in a minute.”

  “Okay, take your time. I’ll see what we can do about dinner.” Then, Blue walked down the narrow center hallway and into the kitchen.

  The kitchen needed an upgrade. It still had its original cast-iron sink and wooden cabinets that had been painted far too many times by people in too much of a hurry to remove the hinges. Its 70s-era drop-ceiling hid the sagging plaster ceiling above. The faded, green linoleum on the floor dated to the late fifties, was ripped in spots, and pulled up from the plywood underlay where moisture had seeped in from the crawl space under the house.Blue walked up to the fridge, opened the door, and peered inside. Twenty seconds later, she pulled out an Arby’s bag from behind an aluminum covered casserole dish and triumphantly called out, “Hey, we’re in luck. We still have some roast beef sandwiches from the other d—”She never finished the sentence. When she turned around, she found herself face-to-face with the man who, minutes earlier, had been sitting in the BMW. He was blocking Blue’s escape, and his coat was now open, revealing his shoulder holster and gun. But Blue didn’t panic or scream. She casually set the Arby’s bag on the table, smiled, and said, “Travis. You found me.”

  He returned the smile and replied, “You knew I would.”

  “Yeah. I guess so.” Then, Blue walked up to Travis, and they shared a quick hug.

  Travis pulled back.“So, then you know why I’m here.”

  “Of course. But I am an adult, and she can’t run my life forever.”

  “Ha! Good luck with that. I’ve been trying to leave her for the past 15 years.”