The Short Drop

by Matthew Fitzsimmons

  He was about to quit when he stumbled across a box labeled “Family Media.” Inside were CDs of photographs from Suzanne’s school and family get-togethers, all neatly cataloged by date and place. He spent hours hunting in vain for the photograph of him reading to Suzanne in the armchair, but it was nowhere to be found. A CD labeled “Memorial Day, 1998” caught his eye. He couldn’t remember 1998 in particular, but, curious, he slipped the CD into his laptop. He didn’t have any pictures of Duke and hoped to find a few that he could show Ellie. There would come a day when he would have to tell her about her grandfather.

  The disk turned out to be a gold mine. Duke seemed to be in every third picture. Unfortunately, Lombard was in most of them too, right beside his father, smiling his unctuous, fox-in-the-henhouse smile. Gibson found a couple of shots that he could crop and moved them to his hard drive. Just to be sure, though, he went back through the CDs one more time. His perseverance paid off with a photo that captured Duke the way Gibson liked to remember him—on the back porch at Pamsrest, beer in hand, grin on his face, holding court, and spinning what you could tell was one tall political tale. His audience hanging on his every word.

  Gibson looked at it a long time. He missed that version of his father. He missed being able to think about Duke without bitterness, without his mind leaping to the basement—that miserable, god-awful basement where Duke stepped away from his life, stepped away from his son. It had been easier when he had Lombard to blame. When he thought Lombard had betrayed Duke and not the other way around. That had been wishful thinking. Duke Vaughn was nothing but a criminal, and rather than face the consequences, he’d gone down into the basement. It was his life, his decision to make, and Duke had made it, thinking only of himself. That was the truth, and there was nothing else to be said. Even if there had been, there was no one left to whom Gibson cared to say it.

  The sad truth was, Gibson had believed in Duke blindly, and his life had been in free fall ever since. It was a terrible sensation, and he wanted it to be over. There was an old joke—it’s not the fall that kills you but the abrupt stop. Well, a lucky few survived the impact, didn’t they? Gibson would take his chances with the unforgiving ground. Anything was better than this, the series of rash, ill-considered decisions he’d made at the mercy of his high-velocity swan dive. There had been days since the end of his marriage when Gibson thought he understood Duke’s choice. Understood, but not forgave. He couldn’t imagine doing that to his daughter. To any child.

  He forced himself to close the photo file, but first he made a copy. For better days… if they ever came. He was about to eject the disk when he spotted a thumbnail image that sparked a memory. He opened it to see a photograph of himself: He couldn’t have been more than ten, and he stood in front of a small fountain, holding, at arm’s length, an enormous bullfrog out to the camera. Like the frog was radioactive. The bullfrog just hung there, legs dangling indignantly, like a celebrity who’d been dragged into posing for pictures with a pushy fan.

  Beside Gibson, practically attached to his hip, was Bear. Wearing an ill-fitting, saggy-bottomed bathing suit, her hair a chaotic tumble of curls, she looked up at the frog as if he’d wrestled a lion into submission. He’d forgotten all about catching that damn frog. It had taken all afternoon. They’d finally cornered it by the old well on the back of the property, where he’d chased it back and forth while Bear pointed unhelpfully from a safe distance.

  Once they’d had it, they both realized chasing it was a lot more fun than actually catching it. The bullfrog agreed and peed on him to drive home the point. But the Lombards’ photographer had spotted them and insisted that they take a photograph with their trophy. They’d kept the frog just long enough to take the photograph by the fountain and then released the savage beast back into the wild. Bear had stood on the edge of the well and waved until the frog disappeared into the brush.

  The memory made him smile. It was one of the few times Bear left the safety of her books to go on an actual adventure. What a distance that image was from a teenager with a mystery boyfriend. From the tired girl in the Phillies cap so far from home. Hell, she wasn’t even a baseball fan…

  Gibson froze. That hat… Something about the Phillies cap bothered him, now that he thought about it, but he couldn’t put his finger on the reason.

  He made a copy of the frog photo before he ejected the disk. God how he missed that little girl. His ferocious Bear. She was all that was left of his childhood that he loved unreservedly—everything else in his memory was tainted. And someone had stolen her.

  Gibson found George in his office. Gibson knocked on the open office door. George looked up and beckoned for him to enter.

  “Gibson, what brings you by?”

  “Are you going after him?”

  “After who?”

  “After WR8TH. If he uploads my virus. You’re not going straight to the FBI. You’re going after him yourself.”

  Abe’s eyes went to his still-open office door. Gibson took that as a yes.

  “I want in.”

  “Gibson…”

  “I need to go.”

  “Would you shut the door,” George said and waited until they had privacy. “Please believe me: I have great respect for the work you’ve done, and I will never question your loyalty to Suzanne. But I hired you to help us locate WR8TH. That’s all. In the field, you would be a liability.”

  “A liability?”

  “Jenn and Dan have thirty-plus years’ experience between them.”

  “I was in the Marines. I’m not a goddamn liability.”

  “I’m well aware of your military record. But if we do get that far, Jenn and Dan will handle it.”

  “No.”

  “No?” George looked genuinely taken aback.

  “You need me.”

  “I need you?”

  “Yeah, you do.”

  Abe took a long look at him and put his pen down. “All right. Convince me.”

  “Seriously?” He hadn’t expected to get this far.

  Abe chuckled. “Yes, I’m serious. Assuming we get lucky and your virus produces a lead on WR8TH. Convince me why I should send someone with no experience out there.”

  “Simple. You need someone on computers. Who are you going to send? Mike Rilling? I may not have any field experience, but I’m Jason Bourne next to that guy.”

  “Isn’t your virus supposed to give us his location?”

  “It will give us a location. And, yeah, maybe he’s cocky enough to risk his home IP, but I doubt it. Based on what we’ve seen so far, my money is on him being cautious as hell. Odds are, he’s stealing wireless from somebody. What if it leads Jenn and Hendricks to a coffeehouse with free Wi-Fi? Would they know what to do then? Look, WR8TH isn’t a person; he’s a figment of the Internet. Now, if you want to find the man behind WR8TH, then you need a figment that thinks like him. This is my world, George. Let me go with them.”

  Abe leaned back in his chair. He sat for a few minutes, mulling it over before finally responding. “I need to sit with the idea for a few days and talk to my people. Acceptable?”

  “Acceptable.”

  “And if the answer is still no, you’ll respect my decision?”

  “I’ll give it a shot.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “We’ll be on the ground in San Francisco in forty-five minutes, Mr. Vice President.”

  “Thank you, Megan,” Lombard said and returned his attention to Abigail Saldana, who was reviewing the latest polling data.

  A stern, brilliant woman, Saldana had stabilized his numbers and restored confidence to a floundering campaign since joining the team last month. They weren’t out of the woods by any means, but they weren’t bleeding support the way they had been a month ago.

  The California primary was four days out and had the potential to swing the nomination one way or another. It w
as Fleming’s turf, so there was no expectation of winning, but if he could take 30 percent in her home state, it would serve as a statement and give them momentum heading into the final primaries. It was an aggressive strategy that wasn’t without risk. But Saldana felt Fleming was vulnerable at home, so they had poured time and money into California over the last month. It would all come down to Tuesday.

  The vice presidency didn’t come with a dedicated aircraft—Air Force Two simply referred to whichever plane the vice president was on board. It could be any one of a number of aircraft that were shared among the cabinet. The planes tended to be cozy affairs, with fewer amenities than Air Force One—a perk to which Lombard was very much looking forward. At the fore of the plane was a small office, but you couldn’t seat more than three or four comfortably. Lombard preferred his people clustered together, so he spent flights midcabin, where eight could work in relative comfort at a pair of open tables.

  At the table across the aisle, his wife was being quizzed on the biographical details of the key individuals on this afternoon’s campaign stop. People responded to a personal connection—ask after their children by name and they never forgot it. It was an old political parlor trick, but it took practice and study. Grace Lombard glanced up and smiled wearily at him. Although she had never been a fan of the campaign trail, he had yet to hear her complain in twenty-five years. In his opinion, it was precisely her disinterest in the trappings of power that made her so appealing to voters. So many in the public eye cultivated an image of being normal and down-to-earth, but his wife was the genuine article. He knew that she helped to balance him. They made an ideal team in that way.

  “Leland,” he asked his chief of staff. “What are my dinner plans?”

  “Senator Russell. After your speech,” Reed said without looking up from his laptop.

  “Push it back. See if he’d let me buy him a scotch at the hotel around eleven instead.”

  Reed stood with his phone and walked down the aisle to make the call. Lombard looked back across the aisle to his wife’s assistant, Denise Greenspan.

  “What’s the name of the restaurant my wife likes so much with the view of the Bay Bridge?”

  “Boulevard, sir. On the Embarcadero.”

  “That’s it. Get us in there. Seven thirty.”

  “How many, sir?”

  “Just two.” He smiled at his wife, who blew him a kiss across the aisle.

  Abigail Saldana was nodding her approval at the idea. The personal sacrifice and forced intimacy required of political campaigns was daunting. Duke Vaughn had taught Lombard that lesson. It was hard to work on them without investing in the couple at the center. Particularly to the young, idealistic staffers who did the thankless grunt work, this wasn’t merely a job. This was their family, and they needed to believe in their candidate. A quiet dinner with his wife would be good for everyone’s morale. The same way children were reassured by small acts of affection between their parents.

  “Ben,” Grace stage-whispered. “Everyone’s been pushing so hard. How about we send the team out while we’re at dinner?”

  Lombard didn’t like that idea at all, but it was Grace to a tee. Too kindhearted for her own good. Or his. Still, he laughed magnanimously like it was the best idea he’d heard in years. Actually, when he thought about it, he liked how it would work itself out. Reed and Saldana would decline, which meant their people would have to skip it. That would leave a few lower-level staffers going out for dinner on his nickel. It would look good without costing him much in terms of work—a win, coming and going.

  “And that is why I married this woman,” he said. “But after dinner, right back on the chain gang, everyone!”

  That brought laughter all around, but his message was clear: there was work to be done. Things were turning around, and people liked working for a winner. He’d take care of them once he was in the White House, but for now a small taste of his largesse would tide them over.

  One of Reed’s phones was ringing, but he wasn’t back from shuffling his appointment with Senator Russell. Reed’s aide glanced at the number but let it ring.

  “Would you get that?” said Lombard.

  The aide answered the phone, asked a few questions, and covered the mouthpiece with his hand. Lombard knew immediately that he’d made a mistake.

  “Sir, I have a Titus Eskridge? He has an update for you on the ‘ACG situation’?”

  Lombard kept his expression even and disinterested but felt his wife’s gaze on him. Colonel Titus Stonewall Eskridge Jr. was the founder and CEO of Cold Harbor Inc.—a private military contractor based out of Virginia. Cold Harbor had been a major contributor to his Senate campaigns, and Lombard went way back with Eskridge. Grace could find something redeeming in most people, but she couldn’t even pretend to tolerate the man. Years ago, Lombard had severed political ties with Cold Harbor at her insistence, so he would need a very compelling reason for taking his call. A reason he didn’t currently have.

  A career in politics might have taught him the art of the bluff—he could take a knife in the back and whistle a happy tune—but somehow Grace had always been immune to such deceptions.

  “Titus Eskridge? Well, they sure do come out of the woodwork this time of year.” He waved the phone away. “Give it to Leland or take a message.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the aide.

  He glanced over to his wife, but she had already turned away. He would wait for her to bring it up later. One thing was for sure—his quiet, romantic dinner had just been canceled.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Jenn Charles sat at her desk and went back through her report on Vaughn. It had been one thing to bring him in to consult, but now George was contemplating inserting him into her team for phase two. It was a mistake. She knew it in her gut but couldn’t articulate it beyond that. She needed more to back up her hunch.

  Gibson Vaughn, son of Sally and Duke Vaughn. Born and raised in Charlottesville, Virginia. His mother passed when he was three. Ovarian cancer. Hard way to go, she thought. Gibson Vaughn had been raised, if one could call it that, by his workaholic father.

  Duke Vaughn had been a legend in Virginia politics. Undergraduate and master’s degrees in political science were both taken at the University of Virginia. A larger-than-life personality, Duke was a born charmer who put friends and foes alike at ease. He lived for the political dogfight and found his life’s calling as Benjamin Lombard’s chief of staff. They made a great pair—Lombard, the stubborn, principled brawler, and Vaughn, the master of the backroom deal. Vaughn was widely credited for guiding a green and largely unknown Benjamin Lombard to the US Senate and for helping him win a second term in a landslide.

  From what Jenn could tell, Duke’s devotion to Lombard came at the expense of his son. The demands of the job caused Duke to spend long stretches in DC or on the road with the senator. It was a seven-days-a-week job, which meant that Duke spent most of his weekends with the Lombards.

  By all accounts, the Lombards treated Gibson like family; Duke and Gibson each had their own bedroom at both the senator’s home in Great Falls and his beach house at Pamsrest near the North Carolina border. However, Duke had been determined not to uproot his son from school, so during the week Gibson was often left home in Charlottesville. Duke’s sister, Miranda Davis, lived nearby and would look in on Gibson. But she had a family of her own, and as Gibson grew older she didn’t always get over to check on him. So, by the time he was twelve, Gibson Vaughn was effectively living on his own from Monday to Friday.

  A lot of children would resent being abandoned that way, but Gibson showed no signs of bitterness or anger. On the contrary, the young Gibson Vaughn quite clearly worshipped his father and had been determined to pull his weight. Gibson kept the household going while his father was away—organized the bills, cleaned the house, did yard work, and saw to minor upkeep. In a lot of ways, Gibson Vaughn raised h
imself.

  On the surface, he had done a good job of it. Good grades. No disciplinary record of any kind. That was if you excluded the time he was pulled over for doing forty-six in a twenty-five. Of course, it was understandable that a thirteen-year-old might not be crystal clear on speed limits. According to unofficial reports, because there was no official report, Duke and the senator had been on a fact-finding tour to the Middle East. Gibson had run out of milk. Rather than call and risk waking his aunt, the boy had done the only reasonable thing and driven himself to the supermarket.

  The arresting officer’s report stated that when stopped, the boy had politely asked, “Is there a problem, officer?” Gibson Vaughn had been perched atop The Collected Writings of Thomas Jefferson to help him see over the steering wheel. When asked where his parents were, Gibson had pled the Fifth. Afraid of embarrassing his father, he’d refused to speak until the police were able to track down his aunt.

  No charges were filed, and the entire incident became a piece of Virginia lore. Partly because the police chose not to pursue charges against a thirteen-year-old, but it didn’t hurt that Duke Vaughn was a close personal friend of the Charlottesville chief of police. It seemed there wasn’t much of anyone in the great commonwealth of Virginia with whom Duke Vaughn hadn’t been a close personal friend.

  That anecdote made Jenn smile. She’d been raised by her grandmother and knew what it was like to have to be self-sufficient at a young age. It could make you or it could isolate you, harden you. She would have liked that little boy—resourceful, proud, and a little foolhardy. They’d been a lot alike once, and she could still see traces of that boy now. The problem was she didn’t see enough to reassure her. Duke Vaughn’s suicide had seen to that.

  Duke Vaughn had driven home from Washington unexpectedly one Wednesday and hanged himself in his basement. Jenn flipped through the autopsy photographs that she’d culled from the conference room before Vaughn settled in. What kind of selfish prick hangs himself where he’ll be found by his fifteen-year-old son? No note, nothing. It was unforgivable.