Electing To Murder

by Roger Stelljes

  “Was there some relationship between McCormick and Montgomery?” Mitchell asked.

  “No, but there was between Stroudt and McCormick, they went to law school together at the University of Virginia,” Mac answered. An aide walked into the office with two pots of coffee.

  “Coffee?” Mitchell asked.

  “Please.”

  The director poured Mac a cup. “Cream? Sugar?”

  “Right now, black,” Mac answered.

  “That tired, huh?”

  “You could say that, Director,” Mac answered with an exhausted smile. He took two quick sips of coffee and then pressed on. “When Montgomery arrived at McCormick’s house, he explained to McCormick and Kate Shelby, a deputy campaign manager for the Thomson campaign who was also there, that Stroudt traveled to the Twin Cities to get in contact with McCormick. However, before he could he was killed. Montgomery began to explain why he wanted to meet with McCormick when this man,” Mac put up a photo of McCormick’s killer, “came in the back of the house and shot Montgomery in the head and McCormick twice in the chest.”

  “Who is that man?” Mitchell asked, standing and walking to the screen.

  “Sir, we don’t have a name yet,” Mac answered. “Agent Duffy has been efforting that for us but has not yet been able to identify him.”

  “That man killed McCormick and Montgomery but not Shelby?” Mitchell asked, confused. “How does she not end up dead?”

  “Dara Wire,” Mac answered. “During the day on Friday, she was here in DC trying to find Stroudt and Montgomery and had been working with the Alexandria, Virginia, police in that regard. Stroudt’s home as well as the offices of The Congressional Page were broken into and ransacked, while Montgomery’s was not. So she decided to sit on Montgomery’s building and see what turned up. While watching, she noted what she thought were two different two-man teams watching the apartment building that abruptly left their surveillance detail, speeding away. She suspected that Montgomery had been located. She also knew, at this point, that Stroudt had been murdered and began to surmise that a cover-up of the Kentucky meeting was in motion. A little later on Friday, Wire and Judge Dixon flew back to the Twin Cities. When they landed, they each had voice mail messages from McCormick alerting them to the fact that Montgomery was coming to McCormick’s house. Wire intuitively knew the danger McCormick was in. She and Dixon sped to McCormick’s house. In fact, Judge Dixon called me while they were on their way asking me to get over there as well. I was en-route but Wire beat me there, realized what was going down and managed to get inside in time to save Ms. Shelby.”

  “Where is Ms. Shelby now?”

  “She’s in joint protective custody of the Secret Service and the St. Paul Police Department.”

  Mac flipped back to the picture of the killer. “Wire shot this man in the chest three times and helped Ms. Shelby escape the home out the back before the killer’s backup got to the house.” Mac described the back alley shootout and Wire’s escape with Dixon and Shelby from the scene.

  “Detective, this killer, is the man the media has reported is dead?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now you found him, correct? How?”

  Mac explained how he tracked down the killer to the off-the-books doctor. He didn’t mention Fat Charlie’s name but he didn’t need to, the director understood. “That’s pretty quick work, Detective.”

  “It helps to know people who know people.”

  “Sources are everything and good cops have them,” Mitchell replied, impressed. “Continue.”

  Mac shifted gears.

  “Wire and Shelby escaped McCormick’s house with Montgomery’s backpack, which included his laptop, camera and notebooks. An hour later, while I was working the crime scene at McCormick’s house, I was again contacted by Judge Dixon, who was with Wire and Shelby. He asked to meet and we agreed to do so at my family’s bar near downtown St. Paul.”

  “Why at your family’s bar?” Mitchell asked quizzically. “Why not police headquarters?”

  “That would have been my first choice as well, sir,” Mac answered, taking a sip of coffee. “However, Ms. Wire wasn’t in the trusting mood at that point. Dixon and Shelby told her that they could trust me. Wire insisted on a meeting place, other than headquarters, where I could trust everyone.”

  “And that’s your family bar?”

  “Our bar is many things, including a cop bar. On a Friday night, sir, it’s full of police, all of whom I trust, so yeah, other than HQ it was the place to go,” Mac answered. “As we were meeting up on the street outside the pub, we were attacked drive-by shooting style by men riding in a panel van and Chevy Suburban, two of whom Ms. Wire and I managed to mortally wound while returning fire.” McRyan described the shootout and chase that lead to the Suburban, which exploded, leaving another two men dead.

  “I saw something about this on the news, didn’t I?” Mitchell asked.

  “You probably did, Director,” Mac replied. “Although I’ve been so consumed with this case, I haven’t seen any of the news reports on that.”

  “Can I step back for a moment, Detective McRyan?” Mitchell asked. “How was it the shooters knew to find Wire and Dixon at … what’s it called?”

  “McRyan’s Pub.”

  “Right, how did they find you there?”

  “We think it was through a LoJack tracking system in Montgomery’s laptop.” Mac described how Jupiter found the LoJack tracking system on the computer.

  “So whoever these men are working for, they were able to get into LoJack’s system and track the computer? That’s not something the average person can do. That requires certain … resources … and … skills,” Mitchell commented, his arms folded, giving it some thought.

  “That was our thought as well, Director,” Mac added.

  “Detective, you mentioned the laptop, camera and notebooks, what did you find there?”

  “We were able to get into Montgomery’s laptop and found that he conducted extensive web searches on DataPoint and their voting machines. It was actually through the DataPoint website that we identified Checketts as one of the men at the meeting in Kentucky. At this point, our investigation shifted to Milwaukee.”

  Mac poured himself another cup of coffee and this time put in a little cream and sugar. He took a sip and then changed to a picture of Checketts’s house. “After we found our killer in Eden Prairie, I, along with former Agent Wire, traveled to Milwaukee to investigate further, looking to speak with Mr. Checketts.”

  “How did you get to Milwaukee so quickly?”

  “Judge Dixon arranged a flight.”

  “Did he now?” Mitchell replied, a whimsical smile on his face.

  Mac shrugged his shoulders. “If it makes you feel any better, he cleared it with Chief Flanagan before I accompanied Ms. Wire to Milwaukee.”

  “And how is it that former Agent Wire suddenly became part of your investigation?”

  “My partner was wounded in the shootout outside my family’s bar,” McRyan replied. “Our other detectives remained back in St. Paul to watch over our killer in the hopes that his friends tried to retrieve him before his death. Ms. Wire offered her assistance. She is quite capable.”

  “Yes she is,” Mitchell answered knowingly.

  “The next morning, along with two Milwaukee detectives, Wire and I went to the home of Peter Checketts where we found him dead, hanging from an exposed beam over his family room.” Mac put up a photo of Checketts hanging. “At first blush it appeared to be a suicide. Mr. Checketts is apparently in considerable personal financial distress. He was significantly indebted to a couple of casinos in Las Vegas. So at first, it looked like a suicide.”

  “But it wasn’t, was it?”

  “No. It looks like his death was staged as a suicide and he was murdered.” Mac added details about Checketts’s personal finances as well as the footprints leading to the house. “Add to that the fact that Checketts is dead and this Domitrovich and Khrutov are dead.”
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  “Domitrovich and Khrutov are dead?” Mitchell asked, surprised, sitting up in his chair now.

  “Yes, sir. Domitrovich was found in his Kiev apartment with a bullet in his head on Friday and just a few minutes ago, just as I arrived here at the Hoover Building I received a text from Agent Duffy that Khrutov was found dead at his dacha northwest of Moscow, also a bullet in the head, killed execution style. You add that with Checketts, not to mention the deaths of Montgomery and Stroudt and McCormick, and someone is covering up.”

  “You’re right,” Mitchell answered, looking again at the photos of Khrutov and Domitrovich, shaking his head. “Care to tell me what is being covered up?”

  “Election fraud that could have massive consequences on Tuesday’s election,” Mac gestured towards the voting machine that was sitting on the end of the conference table. “Let me show you how,” Mac put up a new picture. “This is Gabriel Martin. He was the chief information officer for DataPoint. At about the same time as the meeting was taking place in Kentucky at the Hitch cabin Wednesday night, Martin was killed in Milwaukee. I have some video,” Mac pulled up the video supplied by Detective Ring and played it for the director. Mac pointed to the screen to a man standing in the median of the street, “This is Wednesday night. This man is Gabe Martin and I’ll just let this roll.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” Mitchell muttered.

  “That was with intent,” Mac stated. “The Suburban makes no evasive move. After finding Checketts dead and learning of Martin’s murder, we went to DataPoint to interview key staff about the two men to determine if the staff knew of any reason why anyone would want to kill them. Turns out Mr. Martin was dating his secretary, a woman named Ginger Bloom. The night before his death, Mr. Martin gave Ms. Bloom an envelope. An envelope she was to give to Adam Montgomery if anything happened to him.”

  “I assume,” the director asked, “that we’re talking the same Adam Montgomery that …”

  “Yes, sir,” Mac answered. “Montgomery and Martin were friends and apparently shared an appreciation for the integrity of the election process. Ms. Bloom tried to contact Montgomery after Mr. Martin was killed but was unable to reach him. That was on Thursday and Friday, largely the same time period in which we were trying to find him as well.” He hit a key and brought up the picture of the envelope. “When I told her that Montgomery too had been murdered, she gave me this envelope. Inside was a key to the padlock for storage locker number 137 at Kenosha Self-Storage.”

  Mac displayed a picture of the storage locker.

  “We opened the locker and found this inside,” he advanced to the next picture which showed the DataPoint voting machine, four memory cards and the envelope containing the letter. He then pointed to the right of the video screens. “The voting machine we found is right here.” McRyan then held up a copy of the letter, “The original of this letter and the memory cards are in the evidence bags up here at the front of the table. In short the letter explains that Mr. Martin discovered five replacement memory cards in Checketts’s office for DataPoint voting machines that were recently delivered to Iowa, Wisconsin and Virginia. The new machines went out a number of months ago but there was a manufacturing issue with the memory cards. To fix the problem, the company manufactured new memory cards with a new subcontractor. The four cards in the storage locker are from that batch of new memory cards. According to Martin’s letter, on each memory card is a virus that at noon on Election Day would cause one of every twenty votes for Governor Thomson to be rolled back and put into Vice President Wellesley’s column.”

  “That’s a five percent swing, which in a tight election …”

  “Would be all the difference in the world,” Mac answered.

  “Sir, if I might,” Agent Berman interjected. “On the flight to Washington we verified

  that these four remaining memory cards do exactly what Martin says they would. They roll back the votes. No question.”

  “This is what we think the case is all about, Director,” Mac pressed. “Someone has put in motion a plan to manipulate the voting machines in these key states to push the election to the vice president and has murdered at least seven people to keep it from being exposed.”

  Mitchell sat back in the leather conference room chair, closed his eyes and absorbed the enormity of what he’d just seen and heard. He sighed and looked to Mac. “Detective McRyan, I have a follow-up question or two. Do you think this is limited to just the three states you mentioned earlier?”

  “I have no way of knowing, Director. These four remaining cards are part of the batch that went out to those three states, so I suspect it is limited to those states, but if I might offer an opinion.”

  Mitchell nodded.

  “I’d check any DataPoint machine just to be sure. We’ve found this, who knows what else might be out there. We might have just hit the tip of the iceberg for all we know.”

  “I agree, Detective. We can’t take the chance,” Mitchell answered and Mac breathed a sigh of relief. He’d convinced the director. Not that he was working for Dixon, but that would make the Judge happy who would now have a field day leaking to his favorites in the press corps.

  Mitchell stood up and called in his assistant. “Get me Attorney General Gates on the phone.”

  “Sir, its 4:00 a.m.,” the assistant complained, not relishing calling the attorney general.

  “I don’t care, he needs to hear this and we need to get moving,” Mitchell replied. “Next, we need to get the secretaries of state for Iowa, Wisconsin and Virginia lined up for a telephone conference. I understand they’ve been alerted already. Let’s get them teed up.” Mitchell next looked to Berman. “After that, with regard to the DataPoint machines, we need to get on a call with all of the secretaries of state for states that have these machines and have them inspected and tested, let’s get that process started. Now, I tend to think, or maybe hope, that only these three states are impacted, but who knows. Assuming for the moment that it is only these three states, can we get new memory cards in time for Tuesday?”

  Nobody in the room knew the answer.

  “We need to find that out like fifteen minutes ago,” Mitchell stated. He picked upon his phone and made a call. He put his hand over the receiver, “Election fraud is a Civil Rights Division Issue so I’m calling the deputy director for that division.” Director Mitchell spent a few minutes on the phone with a groggy deputy director. Mitchell said, “Yes, I’m serious,” more than once. Once his phone calls were complete, Mitchell looked at Mac.

  “So Mac, there’s one thing we haven’t tackled,” Mitchell stated, sitting back down in his chair, looking Mac straight in the eye. “Who’s behind this? Is it Heath Connolly? Is the vice president’s campaign manager fixing the election?”

  Mac hedged a little. It looked like Connolly was running the show but he wasn’t entirely certain. That one photo from Kentucky, the limousine that arrived last, still gnawed at him. There was someone yet unaccounted for. But if there was another player, or if that person, and not Connolly, were in charge, there was still only one person who could answer the question. “Connolly is the most likely for one specific reason.”

  “Which is what, Detective?” Mitchell asked.

  “He’s still alive. Everyone else is dead.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “Electing to Murder.”

  The director and Mac briefed Attorney General Josiah Gates a little before 5:00 a.m. Gates had served as attorney general for the past two years and was a close personal friend of Vice President Wellesley. The attorney general had a reasonable expectation of holding his job if his good friend were elected. So it was with a little surprise and much to Mac’s great relief, Attorney General Gates had no intention of keeping his job via potential election fraud.

  A half hour after the briefing, Mac sat and listened as Mitchell and Gates held a conference call with the secretaries of state for Iowa, Wisconsin and Virginia. By a little after 6:00 a.m., each state was already starting the p
rocess of arranging to test their DataPoint machines. By 6:30 a.m., the secretaries of state for the other DataPoint states had been brought into the loop as a precaution and would be testing their machines as well.

  At 7:00 a.m., Attorney General Gates and FBI Director Mitchell left to brief President Barnes. Thankfully, Mac did not have to give that briefing. “No offense, Detective, because I suspect you’re most concerned with the murders,” Attorney General Gates stated seriously, “but the president will have to be most concerned about the elections on Tuesday.”

  “Understood,” Mac answered, and he did. “Sir,” Mac asked FBI Director Mitchell, “will you be needing me for the next few hours?”

  “No, Mac,” Mitchell answered with a small grin, having anticipated McRyan’s question. “My driver is downstairs and he will take you to the Marriott. I already have a room reserved for you. Go crash. I’ll probably want you back here when we get Connolly in.”

  Mac didn’t hesitate. He went to the Marriott, checked into his room, crashed on the bed and immediately fell asleep.

  While he slept, a lot happened.

  Following his early morning briefing, the president moved decisively, issuing an executive order to have all DataPoint machines inspected. A follow-up conference call with the secretaries of state occurred at 8:00 a.m. and by 9:30 a.m., results started flooding into the FBI office of Civil Rights that in fact the rollback virus was on the memory cards for the DataPoint machines in the three keys states. The good news was that in other states with DataPoint machines, it didn’t appear there was an issue, so the rollback virus was limited to Iowa, Wisconsin and Virginia.