The Gambit

by Allen Longstreet

  People don’t like those who break the rules, especially when my rebellion threatened their title. I knew my cause was backed with purpose and value. I exhaled, trying to relax, then I spotted Cole along one of the aisles with his wife on his arm, talking to a man and a woman.

  I adjusted my tie-clip and walked towards them. Immediately, Cole met my eyes and with his free hand he motioned for me.

  “Owen! Come join us, my boy.”

  His voice was always somewhat of a shout.

  “Owen, it’s been long overdue, but this is my wife, Carla.”

  “So nice to meet you! My husband tells me you are quite the leader around the office.”

  I shook her hand gently.

  “I try to fit the title,” I laughed sheepishly. Damn it. I should have said more.

  “You better watch yourself tonight, Carla, he’s a lot better looking than I am, charming all the girls at work and doesn’t know what he’s got going for him.”

  I blushed and revealed a suppressed grin.

  “Oh stop, he’s turning red for God’s sake. You better watch that mouth of yours, or I might just go home with him!”

  We all laughed. So…awkward…just bite your tongue.

  Carla and Cole looked like a couple that had similar interests. She seemed as if she had drunk too many glasses of wine and Cole probably paid off the guard to sneak in his flask. Her hair was dyed red, and Cole would rather buy a fifth than purchase something to mask the gray.

  “Hell would have to freeze over before you left me, but anyway, while we’re here I’d like to introduce you to the chairmen of the other parties. Owen, this is Marc—Chairman of the Republican Party.”

  “Marc Fleming, nice to meet you,” he said as he shook my hand with a vice-grip grasp. I returned the strength equally. He had a red tie on, naturally.

  “Same to you, Marc, Owen Marina.”

  “Owen this is Veronica Hall—Chairwoman of the Democratic Party.”

  “Veronica, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

  “Owen Marina, my pleasure,” I said.

  Her hand was as cold as ice. I could feel it transferring through my skin. Her eyes were cat-like and glacier blue. The color of her hair resembled sand when it was wet. The sensation her presence gave me almost made me pull my hand away…but that would have been rude.

  “How couldn’t I know who you are?” she quipped. “Bravo, Owen. You’ve managed to blend Hollywood and politics.”

  “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

  “Take it how you see fit. You’re like a celebrity. I can’t walk into a store without seeing your face on some tabloid.”

  I paused, thinking of a witty comeback.

  “Well, Veronica, maybe I am the first ‘celebrity’ in politics who isn’t just a puppet.”

  Her eyes turned into slits, and she pursed her lips in reaction to my statement. She looked at me as if I were an insect…an insect that needed to be squashed. I felt a tension in the air and no one else spoke. Her expression then changed quickly from scornful to a patronizing smile.

  “Well then, I guess you are a rare breed in Washington. Am I right?” she asked, glancing at everyone.

  Cole, Carla, and Marc all laughed to end the tension. I didn’t laugh, I just smiled and stared back at Veronica. Beneath her ice-blue eyes, I sensed something hostile, like inside there was a pot of boiling water about to spill over. I didn’t like her already…at all.

  “He’s a rare breed all right, just look at him! I wonder if his parents are as good looking as he is.”

  Cole’s rough slap on my shoulder broke my stare with Veronica.

  Smile. Act like nothing happened.

  “Carla, you’re going to have to tell your husband to stop hitting on me,” I joked. Everyone laughed.

  “You wish I was hitting on you, Marina! You’re not my type anyway,” he said, laughing, and grabbed the back of my neck, giving me a good shake.

  In my adult life, I’d never met anyone as abrasive and loud as Cole. He just liked roughhousing all of his friends. It probably didn’t help he was constantly buzzed.

  “Well Cole, it was nice catching up with you and your wife. Also, pleasure meeting you, Owen,” Marc said and shook my hand.

  “Same to you, Marc.”

  “I’m going to head back and talk to the rest of my party,” he announced, slipping out of our circle.

  Veronica began to leave also.

  “It was a pleasure to meet you all. Oh, and Owen…with your success at running a campaign at such a young age, I’m sure you will have a bright future ahead of you in Washington.”

  “Thank you,” I replied.

  Veronica didn’t mean those words. I could tell by her tone.

  They walked away and joined people in the other aisles.

  “Well who pissed in her cheerios?” Carla said, leaning in toward us.

  Cole and I laughed, but I wasn’t looking at him or his wife. My eyes were locked on Veronica. I was watching her gestures, her demeanor. So prim and proper she appeared, but there was something about her that was cold and rigid. I knew who she was from being a part of the Convergence Party, but I had never met her in person until today.

  She glanced up at me. Our eyes locked. I returned her stare, and in the depths of my being I suddenly sensed something malicious. Veronica then smiled and turned back to her colleagues.

  “You done checking Veronica out, Marina?”

  I phased back to reality.

  “Hell no, she’s far from my type.”

  “You know you like cougars!”

  “Shut up, Cole. Carla, I think you need to take your husband’s flask away from him. The debate hasn’t even started and he’s half-drunk.”

  “I would, but so am I!”

  We all laughed, with Carla hanging on to Cole’s arm to keep herself balanced.

  “Well if you two need a taxi, I’ll treat. I’d be the DD, but I doubt we all want to spoon on my bike.”

  “Maybe I do?” Carla quipped in a whimsical, feminine tone, and brushing my arm as she latched on her husband’s.

  “You guys are crazy,” I replied, shaking my head.

  “All right, well let’s go talk to the other members,” Cole suggested.

  I glanced at my watch—8:47 p.m. The auditorium was engulfed in the dim glow from sconces that lined the walls. Spotlights shone brightly on the three podiums on the stage. It was about to begin. I could hear the soft conversations from the news networks that lined the back of the room. Cole was sitting to my left with his wife beside him.

  “Now all we have to do is sit back and relax. Goodman is going to crush the other candidates,” Cole whispered to me.

  I nodded in agreement. He was right, Senator Goodman had dominated the previous debates. There were too many gaps of information in their rhetoric, and they had no credible answers to who was behind the Confinement and why it lasted for three months. The republican and democrat nominees had been attempting to use dying ideologies to support their plight. They used sayings such as, “This was what our country was founded on.” It sickened me when I heard that said in the first debate. Our country was founded on freedom. We seceded from Great Britain because of taxation and forced war debt on the Colonies. The most disgusting truth was that they had the nerve to say things like that, and yet they imprisoned their own citizens. I felt the singeing flames of anger licking at my insides. I snuffed them quickly and exhaled to relieve the anxiety that accompanied thinking of the Confinement. November 8th would be the day I could finally breathe again, knowing that Senator Goodman would clean house in Washington and never allow another Confinement.

  The moderator of the debate walked out, took his seat in front of the stage, and shuffled some papers in his hands. It was about to begin. I saw the security guards standing in front of the exits, securing them.

  “Attention attendees and news crews, please remain silent throughout the duration of the event. All exits are secured, no one is permitted
to go in or out until the debate has concluded and gone off-air. The debate lasts ninety minutes. We ask that you use the restrooms now if you need so.”

  “Senator Blanton, what are your plans for health care reform?” the moderator asked.

  “The republican platform calls for more affordable health care premiums and prescriptions for Americans. We will tweak Obamacare to where the people who already had preexisting insurance will not have to lose coverage. We will not implement any kind of socialized medicine, due to higher taxes on the middle class, and more limited options of choices from the universal system. We have seen it many times where citizens of other countries come get care here because they aren’t forced to wait because their procedure is not necessary. There is no reason to force people to pay for the care of everyone else. We need to lower taxes for business owners in order to get the economy back to how it was before the Confinement.”

  “Senator Goodman, rebuttal?”

  “The Convergence Party calls for a single-payer universal system. A system where any man, woman, or child can walk into a doctor’s office, or a hospital, and receive basic care free of charge. We have tried insurance reform before. Obamacare was a first step towards a change, a misguided step at that. We are going to leave behind the lies and misconceptions that have been handed down to us by previous generations, politicians, and the pharmaceutical industry. We have a mindset that we cannot afford it, or that taxes will become exorbitant in the process. We can afford it. If we can afford to spend billions of dollars on our defense budget every single year, we can afford to take care of our citizens.”

  Cole nudged me, and I smiled. Our party was the innovators, the game-changers. We wanted to keep what had always worked in America and get rid of what didn’t. When Goodman took office the playing field would be level.

  I looked around. I was surrounded by purple ties, vests, and pocket squares. “Sporting the royal colors tonight I see.” I flashed back to the words of the first reporter that saw me. That was wording many magazines and tabloids used to describe our party’s colors—royal. During the Confinement, Cole and I would brainstorm about the details of the Convergence. We wanted our colors to reflect our name as closely as possible, so we combined republican red and democrat blue to get purple.

  Our party was seated in the middle of the auditorium and faced directly in front of the podiums. On my left were the democrats, and my right were the republicans. I caught sight of Veronica’s sandy-brown hair. Her hands rested in her lap and her blue suit blended in with the others around her. I slowly turned to the right and spotted Marc’s weathered skin and red tie. He was staring intently at the debate.

  I sat smack-dab in the middle of my competition, and suddenly I felt unsettled. Was I the sheep between the wolves? Perhaps the event planners took into account that our ideas and colors were a blend of both parties. I felt a draft and a chill raced across my skin. It reminded me of when I shook Veronica’s hand. Her cat-like eyes flashed again in my mind. The way she had looked at me was almost frightening.

  My eyes continued to wander around the auditorium. I saw in front of me were many of the sponsors who funded our campaign since the beginning, with their wives or immediate family. As I scanned the familiar faces, in the row in front of me a few seats to my right, I halted.

  There was a man who I didn’t recognize. His hair was white-blond and so short you could see the skin of his scalp clearly. He had a stern, protruding jawline, and pale skin. His appearance made me infer that he was of European descent. Swedish? German? Russian?

  I began to feel the tension growing in my gut. He was wearing our colors and I didn’t recognize him at all. My brow creased as I attempted to draw his face from my memories…nothing. Who invited him? This was my party. I would have known someone that was involved in even the smallest positions. There wasn’t anything that was done that wasn’t cleared with Cole or me first. I craned my neck back to see the rest of our party sitting behind us. There wasn’t one I didn’t recognize—except him.

  I nudged Cole with my elbow and leaned closer to him.

  “Cole, who invited that guy?” I asked, whispering.

  “Who?”

  I nodded to my right and held my index finger low to point in his direction.

  Cole didn’t answer. He seemed to be confused, and the skin on his forehead was scrunched up.

  “The blond?”

  I nodded again.

  “He’s probably a sponsor.”

  I wasn’t buying it. Cole and I were the founders. After my quick scan around the room, I had recognized every face. These were people we had held meetings with, organized fundraisers, and even shot the shit at the bar. These faces, these people, were our friends. This man was not.

  “Turn around and look. We know everyone except him.”

  Still holding his wife’s hand, he peered back for a moment, then turned to lean into me and whispered, “You’re right…”

  Who invited this guy? The thought bombarded my mind over and over again.

  “Relax, he got through security.”

  Cole’s words didn’t help calm me the least bit. I looked over at the rogue man and scrutinized him for any traces of malevolence. He slightly raised his left hand and glanced down at his watch. He pressed a button on it, and I saw a digital timer begin to count up.

  What the hell is he timing? This isn’t a jogging track.

  The debate still had forty-five minutes remaining. Him fiddling with his watch only made my suspicions multiply. How could I begin to trust a stranger who was wearing the colors of my party, and yet we had never met face-to-face? The man’s expression hadn’t changed from the moment I laid eyes on him. He stared outward, without reaction to anything the candidates were saying—almost stoic.

  My curiosity was consuming me. I had to protect my party. My hands began to sweat as I acknowledged how preposterous my assumptions were of this man who sat peacefully in the crowd. What if I was wrong? Perhaps the press would presume I analyzed him in a discriminatory manner. If he did turn out to be Russian, it would be an even worse outcome for me.

  No—my gut insisted. Something isn’t right.

  I stood up out of my seat. Instantly I felt dozens of eyes on me, and as I walked up the steps security was already meeting me.

  “Sir, you need to sit back do—”

  The deafening noise made my ears ring so loud that I could hardly hear the screams behind the buzzing drone. Heat and the smell of blood filled my nose. I clutched my side as something sharp pierced me. I heard another ear-splitting explosion. Smoke clouded my vision and I coughed violently as I choked on the fumes. My hand was moist from blood. Flashing lights and sirens were distorted in the background of screams. People were scrambling over seats and running towards the exits, with blood staining their face and clothes. Where were Cole and his wife? My heart raced with adrenaline, and I fought my way through the crowd. The smoke was so thick my vision began to fade out.

  No…I have to find Cole. My vision went black, and my body hit the ground.

  - 4 -

  A heart-rate monitor was beeping, over and over—so smooth and rhythmic. The overly-sanitized smell that was distinct to hospitals filled my nose. I shivered beneath a thin sheet. The room was too chilly to be comfortable.

  Sensations. Indications that I was, indeed, still alive.

  “He’s waking up,” a female voice said.

  “The sedatives are wearing off,” a male answered her. “When he comes to his senses, inform him of what happened. Then we can discharge him. His wounds weren’t nearly as severe as some of the others.”

  Wounds? I felt a sharp, stabbing pain in the right side of my abdomen. I clutched the area with my hand, and I felt the tug of my IV as I did so.

  “Slow down there, Mr. Marina.”

  I blinked, opening my eyes to see a man, presumably the doctor, looking down at me with a half-hearted smile. Behind his eyes was emptiness. I could tell he had information that I did not.
/>   “Where am I? Is Senator Goodman alive?” I asked, sounding frantic. The beeps of the heart-rate monitor sped up.

  “Yes, all the candidates made it out with only minor lacerations. I was worried too. If something happened to Senator Goodman, who would I vote for?” the doctor asked me smiling and placed his hand on my shoulder. The moment I felt the weight of his hand on my shoulder, it reminded me of Cole.

  “The Chairman,” I sputtered. “Cole Pavich. Is he alive?”

  His face turned solemn.

  “He is in critical condition in the ICU.”

  My stomach sank. I felt nauseous, and my gut began to heave as if I was going to puke.

  “I’ll get the pan,” the nurse said, darting off to the side.

  “What happened to him?” I asked, my voice rising.

  “I’m afraid that’s confidential,” he said.

  “Confidential my ass! He is my partner for God’s sake!”

  He displayed a quick look of sympathy.

  “Mr. Pavich sustained multiple injuries from shards of metal and nails that were used to create the pipe bombs.”

  “Pipe bombs?” I stared at him blankly with disbelief.

  “Yes, Mr. Marina. I’m sorry to inform you, but there was an unknown terrorist attack on the debate last night. There are seventeen dead, and eighty-eight injured.”

  I noticed my ears were ringing and I felt a dull ache inside of them, almost like they had been damaged. It was then I remembered the deafening sounds of the bombs exploding, and the attendees’ screams that followed.

  “I have to see Cole. I can’t just check out of here without seeing him.”

  “Unfortunately you can’t see him because his condition is unstable. You can look through the glass, though, in the O.R.—I can get you in.”

  “Thank you for offering. Also, Doc, honestly, do you think Cole will pull through?”

  He recomposed himself and changed back to being professional.

  “Right now I can’t say. If he wants any chance of living, he needs to become stable first. Diana, if you could please get his discharge papers.”