by David Pepper
The overnight appearance of the buyer, some company called Digital Machines Incorporated, also raised a red flag. The mysterious company had emerged in Delaware only two weeks prior to the purchase, and its leadership team comprised names no one in the industry recognized. Clearly, a far more prominent investor lurked behind the new entity—the telltale signs of a Kazarov start-up.
As Ariens glanced over the portfolio of Abacus accounts, he also recognized that Abacus’ remaining footprint overlapped with many of the nation’s swing districts, the very districts Ariens had emailed to his Russian client.
He called his Diebold contact for additional information.
“Whoever they are, these guys are killers,” the contact said over the phone. “Within a month of the takeover, they swooped into some of our districts with cutthroat prices and promises of updated equipment. There’s no way they’re making a profit doing it, but they’re stealing a lot of our counties!”
Ariens banged his fist on his desk. Not angry at Kazarov, but at himself. The Russian’s anger had been mounting, and his questions months before had not been subtle. Ariens should have known, and now it was clear. His answers had set Kazarov on a dark course.
* * *
LONDON
“Oliver, welcome back to London,” Kazarov said, friendlier than usual. “How are we proceeding in Washington?”
Ariens sat in the Russian’s downtown office. An imposing portrait of Peter the Great loomed behind Kazarov, staring right into Ariens’ eyes.
“As you know, we are working hard but remain frustrated by a member of . . . by certain members of Congress,” Ariens responded. He had not been this nervous in years and stumbled over his words.
“What is your plan to resolve the situation?” Kazarov replied, morphing from friendly to serious in one sentence.
“We will keep working every angle, and our hope is that the pressure of next year’s elections might move some people our way,” Ariens responded. Kazarov’s squinted eyes showed he was not sold.
Ariens sat up straight, mustering the courage to say why he had requested to meet in person.
“Mr. Kazarov, there is an issue that I feel like I must discuss with you before we move any further in our partnership.”
“And what is that?” Kazarov replied curtly. He put his cigarette out in an ashtray and lit another one.
“I will be direct. You and I talked in some detail last time about the conduct of American elections. It was an interesting and challenging conversation. But I now believe that you are undertaking a plan to take advantage of the weaknesses we discussed to change the outcomes in the districts that I provided to you.”
Ariens expected some response to his charge. But Kazarov greeted it with only a stone-faced glare and a long silence. It was clear the Russian did not plan on interrupting him.
A bead of sweat trickled down Ariens’ forehead as he continued. This was the point of no return.
“I have learned about the activity of an old American election equipment company named Abacus. That company has machines in many of America’s counties, including many in the districts we discussed. I am worried that your plan is to use those machines to impact next year’s elections.”
“Impact” was the most diplomatic word he could think of.
More glaring. More silence.
Finally, Kazarov responded.
“Ariens,” he started, gruffly, “I have paid you millions of dollars because I was told you are the best in Washington. You have accomplished nothing, and now you accuse me of being no more than a criminal?”
He swatted his hand as if shooing away a mosquito.
Despite the outrage of the words themselves, Kazarov’s tone was flat, cold.
Ariens concluded, “I am both your lobbyist and your attorney. I do not make these statements lightly. I am bringing this to your attention because I have an ethical responsibility as your attorney to advise you that the course you are pursuing violates American law. There are many legitimate ways to influence the outcome of American policy and politics, but this is not one of them.”
Kazarov jumped in again, his voice louder than Ariens could remember.
“Legitimate? Such as flawed districts and meaningless elections? Politicians accepting contributions as bribes yet still doing nothing? Your entire system is illegitimate.”
“As your attorney, I can only advise you not to pursue this path. Of course, everything between us is confidential due to our attorney-client relationship, so if you do not pursue it, the actions you have taken thus far will never be shared with anyone.”
Kazarov again swatted the air with his hand.
“Let me repeat myself. I do not know why you are accusing me of this, or what motivates you to do so. I can only tell you it is not true. You are wasting my valuable time.”
As a lawyer, as a congressman, and as a lobbyist, Ariens had encountered many liars in his life. Some very talented ones. But he had never before faced one who looked him directly in the eye through the entire lie.
Five seconds later, a slender brunette assistant appeared in the office doorway. Kazarov abruptly swiveled his chair to the left, saying nothing more. The meeting was clearly over.
Ariens pushed down with both arms to lift his large body out of the leather chair and followed the assistant out of the room.
* * *
“He has guessed our intentions.”
“Disappointing,” Andersson replied, sitting in the damp chair Ariens had vacated only five minutes before. “I am surprised.”
“I am impressed,” Kazarov said. “After our prior London meeting, I never spoke of the election system again. We have covered each step of our Abacus takeover well. But still he knows.”
“Has he told others?”
“Unless he is lying, he has not shared this with anyone. And I don’t think he is lying.”
Kazarov weighed two options, neither satisfying.
On the one hand, he could terminate the entire enterprise. Toss out the months of planning—the Abacus purchase, the costly acquisition of county accounts all across the United States, the design of the new machines to achieve the desired outcome. He could give away the billions that would come if he executed the plan successfully.
He could halt it all in its tracks.
Or he could eliminate Ariens.
He liked Ariens. And he disliked violence, only committing it when absolutely necessary. But the American’s sloppy actions stupefied him.
“Only an American would engage so enthusiastically in the corrupt, dishonorable system of American politics, but then feel so compelled by ethical scruples to walk into a room and reveal what Ariens just did.”
“Indeed,” Andersson replied. “It only makes the next step too logical. Too inevitable.”
Kazarov frowned as his underling said the words, contemplating the long-term consequences. With a few exceptions, avoiding violence had always set him apart from his Russian colleagues. This would change that. Eliminating Ariens to keep his plan moving forward would cross a threshold. And he would have to be prepared to do it again.
Ultimately, Ariens had left him no choice. He pressed the buzzer under his desk, summoning his chief of security.
* * *
Given the cool conversation, Ariens flew commercial that afternoon, grabbing a first-class British Airways ticket on the next Heathrow-Dulles flight home. Except for a few cat naps, the long daytime flight allowed him to wind down from the tense meeting and to consider his next steps.
The plot called for more than a law enforcement response. It required the attention of the highest ranking political leaders in Washington. He would start by confidentially informing the congressional leadership of both parties: Speaker Williams, Minority Leader Marshall, and their top lieutenants.
As the Airbus passed over the southern ti
p of Greenland, Ariens removed his Dictaphone from his briefcase and recorded all he knew about the plot: the origins of Energy 2020, the conversations with Kazarov, the activity involving Abacus. The next day, he would ask his assistant to transcribe his dictation into a long memorandum for House leadership.
After landing in the late afternoon, Ariens grabbed a cab from Dulles. Rather than returning to his K Street office, he headed back to his century-old townhome in Alexandria, a few blocks from the Potomac. He had lived alone ever since his nasty divorce five years before, and even at his portly 255 pounds, he enjoyed walking the cobblestone of Old Town whenever he found a spare moment.
It was a near-perfect evening, unusually warm for the spring. After dropping his bags and changing into more casual clothes, he strolled to the cozy harbor and back to get some fresh air and an ice cream. Once home, he poured himself his evening glass of bourbon. It went down smoothly, as always. So smoothly that he had another.
A few minutes later, he walked into his study and sat down at his desk. He reached back into his briefcase for his Dictaphone, planning on finalizing his dictation for tomorrow’s big day.
Odd. It wasn’t there.
The next moment, a huge arm darted across his left shoulder from behind, grabbed the right side of his neck, and pulled him back against his chair. From his right, an equally large hand blanketed his face with a damp cloth. His eyes immediately stung, his nose burned, and he gasped, trying to breathe but failing. The four coughs he managed to get out were muffled by the enormous hand now covering the lower half of his face.
Within seconds, he passed out.
* * *
“People will not wonder why he died. They will wonder why it took so long.”
Even though he paid an entire security team to weigh different techniques and tactics, Kazarov himself suggested inducing a heart attack. He had watched Ariens waddle in and out of enough meetings, and each time the man seemed dangerously unhealthy.
“Da.”
Boris Kondrakov laughed as he answered. Kondrakov also hailed from St. Petersburg and served as a KGB agent in East Germany in his twenties. Kazarov hired him in the late ’90s. Now, armed with a buzz cut of gray hair, a barrel chest, and a slight limp from a bullet still lodged in his left leg, he led Kazarov’s security operation. Usually, they only played defense. Not this time, which is what the former Soviet spy preferred, and why he insisted on disposing of Ariens personally.
“There is a way to do it with no trace,” he said. “We have ready access to the chemical.”
“Will it appear natural?”
“Of course. That is why the CIA was so fond of it.”
“Poschli.” Do it.
Fourteen hours later, Kazarov picked up his phone.
“It’s done.” Kondrakov spoke in Russian. “He is gone. There will be no trace.”
“Kharasho.”
Chapter 22
COLUMBUS: 141 days after the election
Papers covered the conference room desk in The Ohio State Department of Political Science. In a frenzy, Jones walked me through her findings. She had called Monday morning, celebrating her breakthrough over the prior weekend. Here we were, two days later.
Although I only wanted to know how Abacus stole the election, she insisted on telling me how she had figured it out.
“I wasted a week looking at all 435 districts, which only complicated things. The statistically relevant universe was far smaller—the set of thirty-five districts where Abacus placed itself in the driver’s seat. These thirty-five districts had far more in common with one another than they did with the 400 other districts, which were highly gerrymandered and generally uncompetitive.”
“Okay.” The less I said the better.
“Crucially, Abacus made the decision not to win every one of the seats it controlled. This made sense as a way to mask its overall plot. If all thirty-five districts went to the Republican, the plot would’ve been exposed instantly. But by winning some and losing others, Abacus provided the statistical clues as to precisely how it manipulated the results.”
I nodded along.
“So the difference between the Abacus districts won by Democrats and those won by Republicans shows exactly how they manipulated the results. This comparison tells the story.”
“And what was the difference?”
“The undervote! It’s all about the undervote.”
“What about it?”
“One of the least understood phenomena in politics is a voter’s decision to skip races down the ballot. They don’t vote in races they don’t know about or care as much about. We call them drop-off voters, and no one studies exactly why it happens, or by how much. But it affects the results of many elections.”
I knew this but listened patiently. She was a teacher. Let her teach.
“It looks like Abacus took advantage of this drop-off tendency, systematically but subtly taking votes away from Democratic congressional candidates in the districts where they wanted to win. And in the close districts where Abacus has machines, a drop-off of several thousand votes can make all the difference.
“No one would notice this because we expect to see drop-offs, and we never know by how much. We simply assume voters are less interested in that lower race.”
It’s true. I had never analyzed the “drop-off” phenomenon in any serious, data-driven way. I figured people were less interested as they proceeded down the ballot and left it at that.
“So how can you prove that? Are there more drop-offs in these districts than in those where Abacus doesn’t have machines?”
“No, it’s more complicated than that. There are actually fewer drop-offs in Abacus districts than most congressional districts. But that’s because most districts are so gerrymandered they aren’t close elections. So people vote less because they don’t think their choice matters or because the race hasn’t received nearly the same amount of attention. Ironically, the Abacus districts have fewer drop-offs, which is one reason what they did is hard to detect.”
I shook my head as I imagined explaining all this to my editors. Yikes.
“So how can we prove they reduced votes in this way?”
“Ironically, because they didn’t always reduce votes. As you saw in your own research, they didn’t attempt to win every race. Some districts under Abacus control were not manipulated, like in the Toledo area. They didn’t want to get greedy.”
“Right. Would have made their plot obvious.”
“Exactly. But in doing so, they unintentionally created an apples-to-apples comparison that proves precisely how they cheated. And that’s exactly what I found. In the Abacus districts where Democrats held on to win, the drop off in votes was 20 percent less than the drop off in Abacus districts where Republicans won. That difference alone explains the different outcome.”
“How do you know that’s not caused by natural voting behavior?”
“It’s too large a difference. These Abacus districts are similar, so you would expect to see similar patterns of voting. But the drop-off differential when Democrats won versus when Republicans won is significant. But I also found several other things that seal the deal.”
First, she explained, not every county in each district used Abacus machines. For example, even though Monroe, Athens, and Washington used Abacus in Ohio’s Sixth District, Mahoning did not.
“In congressional districts where Republicans won, Abacus counties saw a much bigger drop-off rate than the non-Abacus counties. In the districts where Democrats won, there was no difference between Abacus and non-Abacus counties.”
“Interesting.”
“More than interesting. Statistically decisive. But that’s not the most damning evidence.”
Good. My case would have to be overwhelming to ever get this published.
“There was one type of vote Abacus could
not manipulate: mailed absentee votes. Those create an independent paper trail that cannot be tampered with, and county staff handles and tabulates those paper ballots separately from all the others. Abacus can’t simply erase the mail-in vote for a candidate like it can on its machines. In fact, Abacus never touches those ballots at all.”
“And?”
“The drop-off rate for mailed-in absentee ballots in Abacus counties was exactly the same as the non-Abacus counties. It was only the drop-off rate for the in-person voting that was statistically different.”
“I’m confused. Run that one past me again, Doc.”
“Basically, Abacus had no way to manipulate mail-in ballots, so the drop-off rate on mail-in ballots is the same across the board. But the drop-off rate for in-person voting, which Abacus had the ability to manipulate, is far greater in Abacus counties than in the non-Abacus counties.” Jones concluded, “Only manipulation of the in-person voting results can explain the differences.”
“I gotcha. So the mail-in ballots serve as a control group. They reflect the real voting.”
“Exactly.”
“And that’s why Kelly led with absentees, and only lost with the later votes.”
“Exactly. You’ll find that pattern in every district where the Democrat lost.”
“Last question. Why would the paper trail feature on the Abacus machines not capture the problem? Wouldn’t the voters notice?”
“Like I said when we first met, because it’s all run from the same machine, that paper trail can be manipulated. One study found that most voters never even check the paper receipt anyway; so many voters might confirm a manipulated paper ballot without even knowing it. And in a close county, it just doesn’t take that many to change the outcome.”
Chapter 23
WASHINGTON, DC: 19 months before the election
“We have lost a great man, a patriot who believed in the best our country has to offer and dedicated his life to making it greater.”