Levels of Power

by Mike Gilmore

  Chip’s small smile formed into a big, all-knowing grin. He nodded. “A filibuster.”

  Chapter 6

  London

  Saturday, November 28, 2015

  6:00 a.m.

  United States senator Randy Fisher slowly came awake in the hotel room he was sharing with his wife Annie. Their bodies were in the “spoon” position, his left arm draped over her waist and his right arm pinned under her slender neck.

  The automatic mental alarm clock in his head would normally wake him within several minutes of when he wanted to rise in the morning. Today the time difference between London and Washington, DC, on their eighth day on vacation in England had set his internal clock slightly askew.

  Careful not to wake Annie, he started to remove his arm from beneath her neck. He had just worked his elbow free when she gave a little sigh and asked what time it was.

  “Early, babe. Go back to sleep. I’m just going for a run.”

  Out of bed, he walked into the bathroom and closed the door to prevent the light from shining into Annie’s eyes when he flipped the switch. Randy had stayed in hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hotel rooms during his years as the sales manager for the entire southeast when he worked for Emerson Electrical Apparatus, traveling every week. The biggest difference in hotel rooms in England versus the United States was the bathrooms.

  The electricity was 220 volts instead of 110 volts as in the States. Luckily, the hotels normally provided one electrical outlet that operated at the lower current in the bathroom for charging shavers and cell phones. While he was not an expert on plumbing fixtures, specifically toilets, he could tell the European fixtures operated a little differently than what he was accustomed to in the States. He was not certain how their internal hydraulics functioned, but one had to think that no matter where you were, water still flowed downhill.

  He washed his face, brushed his teeth, and rinsed his mouth out with cold water. He quickly donned his heavy, warm running outfit and then laced up his running shoes. Grabbing the plastic room key-card and his BlackBerry, he quietly opened the suite’s outer door and headed for the elevator.

  A few minutes later, he gave the hotel door attendant a quick wave and started to go through some warm-up exercises to stretch his muscles before he began his run. He had forced himself to maintain a jogging/running routine since he had left the army nearly twenty years ago. Now, at forty-two, he was still in great shape. He kept his six-foot-tall body at 175 pounds; his muscles were still firm and lean.

  He started at an easy pace but within minutes was at a full jog. He would normally run between five and eight miles, depending on his available time. Several times during the run, he would increase his speed to a flat-out run until his lungs and legs burned from the effort. His heartbeat would increase until he could feel the pulse in his temples. Today was no different. After the second maximum-speed burst, he settled back to a normal jogging rhythm.

  As he reached what he estimated to be the three-and-one-half-mile mark, he started to think about the last full day of their vacation in England. Actually southern England. Annie had planned the overnight stays. Randy had focused on their daily activities.

  Normally during the holiday seasons, Annie and Randy would travel from their apartment in Alexandria, Virginia, south on I-95 to Glenn Oaks near Richmond to spend about half of their holiday with Annie’s parents. Then they would fly west to California and spend the balance of their time with Randy’s only living relative, his aunt, Frances Ward. This year, Annie decided the whole family was going to spend the Thanksgiving vacation in an entirely different way.

  She had told all of them that Randy and she were going to England for the holiday. She wanted her husband to get away from Washington, DC, and the American press coverage of his activities in the US Senate. Annie decided since she was an only child and Frances Ward had no other relatives, her parents and Frances could come with them to England.

  To Randy’s surprise, Frances quickly agreed to fly east to Washington. She spent a few days with them in their apartment before they joined Arthur and Millie Willis for the long overseas flight to Heathrow Airport in London.

  Randy could not remember when he had had such a great time. Ever since he came into the national spotlight slightly over three years ago by stopping a terrorist from completing the setup on a nuclear device, he had been moving at a nonstop pace.

  After the incident in Columbia and two months recovering from his gunshot wounds, he received an appointment to fill the vacancy in the United State Senate when his friend Robert Moore retired from the Senate with two years still remaining in his current term. A few months later, Randy met Annie Willis at the Department of Energy. Together they unwrapped a plot by the cabinet secretary to steal millions of dollars from his own department’s research budget. During the process, Annie had nearly lost her own life when one of the co-conspirators attacked her.

  It was an embarrassing moment for the president to have one of his political appointees caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar. Randy ran afoul again of the chief executive when he spearheaded two controversial pieces of legislation on immigration and border security. He thought he would have a relatively quiet time when he received an invitation to attend the ASEAN annual conference in Southeast Asia. Suddenly he found himself in the middle of a war between China and Vietnam. He and the president, whom he was growing to dislike and distrust, joined forces to keep the war from escalating outside the South China Sea.

  Only a few months ago, the Senate had selected Randy as the temporary chairperson of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He led the Senate’s efforts to confirm the president’s nomination to fill the open chief justice position on the high court. The meeting in the White House when Randy exposed the nominee wife’s corruption and murder was still making news back in Washington.

  Randy crossed Trafalgar Square, approaching Nelson’s Column. His hotel was located a short distance from the famous landmark in Central London. He slowed his run to a fast walk and finally down to a normal walking pace. To look back at the last three years was to acknowledge his busy schedule. The highlights of the period were his marriage to Annie and his reelection to the Senate during the last midterm elections.

  He was glad for the break in his hectic life, traveling to England together with his whole family. Upon his return to Washington in a few days, his upcoming schedule appeared to be very busy. The Fair Share Tax Bill would be the first item on the Senate’s agenda when it reconvened next week. There would certainly be a vocal group of senators as they tackled the bill recently passed by the House.

  Randy was approaching the entrance of the Hilton-Trafalgar Hotel at 2 Spring Street. He crossed over the street that circled Trafalgar Square onto Cockspur Street and walked the short distance to the intersection of Cockspur and Spring streets. From the front entrance, the Hilton Hotel appeared triangular. The main door faced the intersection at an angle. Four stories directly above the main entrance was a large clock, showing the time at nearly eight thirty. He must have run near the limit of his normal eight-mile distance.

  He wondered if the others would be up. They had arrived in London eight days ago, in the morning, after an overnight flight from Reagan National in Washington. As recommended by most travel guides, they stayed up and visited Winsor Palace and some tourist spots close to the hotel. Randy went to the British Imperial War Museum on his own. He had been a history major and wanted to see the many displays from the Second World War. He had been surprised at the number of British taking their grandchildren through the exhibits. The most popular section had been the film of the London Blitz. Many of the grandparents had been very young children during the war. They wanted their grandchildren to remember the sacrifice made by the British people almost seventy-five years before.

  Chapter 7

  London

  Saturday, November 28, 2015

  10:30 a.m.


  Randy and Annie were waiting in the lobby of their hotel when Aunt Frances walked down the hallway from the elevators. She sent them a little wave of her hand and walked over to meet them.

  Randy rose from the lobby table. He was drinking a cup of coffee, and Annie was working on something on her own new BlackBerry Q-10. Randy thought that Annie had selected England for their vacation to get him away from his heavy workload back in Washington, DC, but she had spent considerable time keeping up with her own projects back in the States. As the senior electrical engineer for the Global Architectural Firm, Annie was involved in overseeing a number of schools and hospitals under construction in third-world countries.

  Frances went up to Randy, and he wrapped his long arms around her shoulder and accepted the light kiss on his cheek. Released from his bear hug, she leaned over to give Annie a kiss on the top of her head. Annie responded by lifting her head up and leaning forward to apply a kiss of her own on the older woman’s pale cheek. The two women had grown very close over the three years they had known each other since Randy and Annie had married.

  “How did you sleep last night, Frances?” she asked?

  Frances settled down in the chair next to her nephew. “Wonderful. I never thought I could sleep so well away from my Pacific Ocean, but this London night air seems to do wonders for me.”

  She looked over toward Randy. “That doesn’t mean I’m not ready to head back toward California tomorrow. I can feel the waves of the ocean pulling me home.”

  Randy laughed with his aunt. She lived in a small two-bedroom bungalow overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Malibu, California. When constructed back in the nineteen forties, it was an equal to the other homes nearby at the time. Today it was the smallest home in the neighborhood. The other homes from the same era were long gone, replaced with grand palatial constructions. Her little home almost seemed out of place. Randy knew Frances had turned down almost seven-figure offers from several real estate agents. He also knew she would never sell the home she had retired to after the death of his uncle.

  Randy looked at his aunt. “Did the food at the Spice Market give you any problems last night?”

  Randy was referring to the restaurant located five or six blocks from their hotel. The swanky W Hotel provided space for the Thai- and Asian-accented food created by superstar chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s US-based chain.

  Frances gave a little wave of her right hand to emphasize her answer. “Not a bit. I loved it. I can still eat just about anything as long as it is properly cooked. You can keep all that raw fish stuff to yourself, but other than that, I am ready for the next meal.”

  Randy was about to mention he was allergic to most of the raw fish dishes himself, but Arthur and Millie Willis walked up to their table.

  Millie looked at her daughter, still working the BlackBerry. “Annie, put that darn thing away and greet your father. Beside, you’re supposed to be on vacation.” She walked up to Randy and planted a good morning kiss on his cheek in almost the same spot Frances had selected only a few minutes earlier.

  Mille leaned over to kiss her daughter’s cheek, continuing her light scolding. “After all, you told us Randy was the one who needed a vacation out of the country. He has spent more time not thinking about his heavy workload than you have.”

  Randy saw the look on his wife’s face. Two years ago, he could not decide if Millicent Willis really liked him or not. Now, after three years of marriage, he noticed her siding more with him, against Annie. The last time he brought this up with Annie in the kitchen of their apartment she had smiled but stuck out her tongue at him. He had just laughed at her.

  Arthur gave Randy an affectionate pat on his right shoulder. “Randy, I just want to thank you again for last night. After almost eight days away from Virginia, it was nice to have a touch of home. That was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.”

  Everyone chimed in with words of appreciation. Knowing they might be getting a little homesick, through the Internet he had purchased five tickets for “Sinatra in London” from the apartment in Alexandria.

  After the late crooner passed away, relatives had discovered nearly one hundred fifty reels of thirty-five-millimeter film taped during his television program back in 1957 and 1958. The recording technicians did not use the cheap quality film used by the television networks at the time but the best available in its day. Shot from only one camera in a fixed location, the film showed Frank Sinatra singing some of his best work, with three or four musicians providing the background music. Specialist removed the film from the family vault and restored it to almost original quality. Listening to the best music from their own time proved a wonderful experience for the older members of the group.

  Frances had to speak up. “You know, I met Frank and some of the Rat Pack boys back in my old days in Hollywood, when my husband was producing movies at Warner Brothers Studios. I have never met a man more full of piss and vinegar. I loved being around him, and his talent was unbeatable, but he was a rascal.”

  Randy leaned over to kiss his aunt again. “Someday you need to write your memoirs about the old Hollywood. It would be a bestseller.”

  Frances shook her head. “Oh, no, Randy. I would not trade my days in Hollywood or with your uncle for all the gold in Fort Knox, and I would never make any money on my wonderful memories. They are just for us—when you can force me to talk about the secrets this old memory contains.” She lightly tapped her temple. Randy knew she loved to tell stories about her time on the old Hollywood film studios. Maybe she was in her seventies, but her body and mind still behaved as if she were in her middle fifties.

  Arthur spoke up, rubbing his stomach. “Hey, folks. Last night’s wonderful dinner is long gone, and I am ready to eat. Where are we going for lunch, or brunch, or whatever you call it?”

  Annie responded with a smile as she turned off her BlackBerry and stowed it away in her large shoulder bag. “That’s Randy plan for today. He said we would probably want to eat something closer to home after eating British food all week.”

  The group turned their attention to Randy. “I thought we would eat a little American food and then do some sightseeing right around Trafalgar Square. We’ve got a long flight out of Heathrow early in the morning, and I didn’t want us to get too tired from sightseeing today.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Frances said as she rose from the chair. “Lead on, Macduff. We will follow you.”

  The group gathered their coats and gloves, followed Randy out of the main hotel entrance, and turned left to walk along Cockspur Street. They chatted about the many historic locations they had visited during their eight days in England. The foot traffic was heavier than typical for this time of the year because the weather had been warmer than normal. However, the local weather forecast was promising a change back to normal conditions, starting with a drop in temperature, with rain moving in during the early afternoon hours. The weak sunshine seemed to indicate the forecast was accurate.

  They reached the end of the block and crossed the street at the intersection. They only needed to walk a few yards before they came to a building with the Texas flag swaying in the London late morning breeze.

  Randy stopped and raised his arm toward the flag. “Welcome to the Texas Embassy Cantina and some of the best Tex-Mex food you will find in London.”

  Chapter 8

  London

  Saturday, November 28, 2015

  11:00 a.m.

  Even in London, Randy Fisher’s fame could not escape him. One of the managers of the restaurant chain was an American working in London who recognized the famous senator. He insisted on seating them at a large round table next to a window, allowing them to look out onto Pall Mall East Street, with a view of the Londoners out for their own lunchtime.

  Randy’s family settled into their chairs and opened the menu to browse the food selection. After eating bland English food for most of eight da
ys, their appetites were looking forward to a taste of home.

  Mille had to speak up. “Randy, this is wonderful. We’ve stayed at some really nice hotels on this trip, but the food is simply too bland for my taste.”

  Annie said, “Hey, don’t forget the French restaurant in Bath where we had dinner. My waistline is still showing the huge plate of beef stew and mashed potatoes I consumed all by myself.”

  Mille smiled toward her daughter. “I seem to remember telling you about the three secret ingredients always used in French cooking.” She was about to continue, but the other four people chimed in.

  “Butter, butter, and butter.”

  Millie looked around the table, and they all burst out laughing.

  The group placed their orders and continued to talk about the castles and palaces they had visited. One commonly unknown fact by most Americans was that castles by design were fortifications and used to protect the land. Palaces with their grand designs became the home for the royalty of England. The consensus among the group was it made no difference if the structure was castle or fort; they were physical proof of what real financial wealth was all about.

  Their food arrived, and the group tore into the American-style food that reminded them of home. It might be lunch, but all of them had ordered steak and baked potatoes. Not having eaten since an early dinner last night, they were all famished.

  Afterward, with the main plates cleared away, they were content to just sit and sip their coffees. It was their last day in England, and the nonstop pace was catching up with Annie’s parents and Frances Ward.

  Annie looked at her husband. “Randy, what are you going to do with the Fair Share Bill when we return to Washington?” Annie knew it was never too far from his mind.

  “I’m not really sure. My feelings toward the president have not changed in any way. I will support Tom Evans in his run for the White House. I will make speeches and conduct fundraisers, even though I hate to ask people for money. I’m determined to see that Harold Miller only has one term in the White House.”