Jim McGill 04 The Last Ballot Cast, Part 1

by Joseph Flynn

  A pout appeared on the face of the RNC chairman.

  He looked as if he might like to kick the vice president on his shin.

  “We can not run a liberal candidate to be president,” Dix said. “That would duplicate Patti Grant.”

  “President Grant won the last election,” Wyman reminded Dix with heat in his voice. “I was there and had a front row seat. If it hadn’t been for the members of the party …” The vice president took a moment to rewrite his thoughts. “If it hadn’t been for people driving our car toward the ditch, President Grant wouldn’t have left our party. Then, again, maybe the party left her first.”

  Crockett took a sip of Dickel and said, “Well, I think the three of us have made our sentiments clear. How do you feel, Peter?”

  “I want to win, and neither Beau Brunelle nor any of his toadies is going to have any say over the House, if I can help it. I think Vice President Wyman is our only chance to win the White House.”

  Reynard Dix got to his feet and looked at the other three.

  “I’ll submit my resignation first thing in the morning.”

  The door had barely closed behind him before Crockett added, “But you’ll start working for Howard Hurlbert this very night.”

  Georgetown University

  What had begun as an impromptu social gathering ended as a political rally. McGill kept his word and picked up the tab for the eats and drinks. He thanked everyone for their kind thoughts and prayers for Kenny. He wished them well with their studies

  McGill kissed his daughter goodbye, drawing another cheer, and told her he’d be back on Friday to take her to Camp David. He and Deke Ky stepped outside.

  “I’m sorry, too,” the special agent told McGill.

  “Yeah?” McGill asked.

  Deke nodded. “I gave you my word; I went back on it. Problem is, I wasn’t supposed to make a side-deal with a package. I’m supposed to follow the rules.”

  McGill and Deke walked the campus by themselves after dark.

  Elspeth Kendry was back at Darnall Hall watching Abbie.

  “So what happened?” McGill asked. “You got caught up in the excitement of shadowing the president’s husband?”

  “Yeah, you know me, giddy all the time.”

  McGill laughed.

  Deke said, “I should have told SAC Crogher I needed to be reassigned.”

  “Would he have gone along?”

  “No offense to the president, but I think SAC Crogher fell in love with Wyman. Having a new, inexperienced guy in the Oval Office gave Crogher an edge he’d never have had otherwise. I think it went to his head and, no, he wouldn’t have given me an easy out.”

  “So you decided to be a good soldier.”

  “Must be genetic or something, on my dad’s side.”

  Deke’s father had been an army man and later a cop. His mother was a successful criminal, currently residing in Hanoi.

  He asked McGill, “The president tell you about Crogher yet?”

  “I heard Celsus leaves the White House after the election.”

  “Word is, unofficially, he’s going to retire.”

  “And do what?” McGill asked.

  Deke looked at him. “We’re working up a pool on that. I’m betting he goes on display in a diorama somewhere.”

  McGill grinned. “A speaking tour would seem unlikely.”

  “You hear about Elspeth Kendry moving up?”

  “Yeah. What do you think about that?” McGill asked.

  “I’m okay with it. Never was my ambition. Elspeth is smart in ways most of us aren’t. Probably comes from growing up in the Middle East. She’ll be good.”

  A moment later, Deke added, “The other thing is, there’s going to be a rotation of Secret Service personnel in the White House detail.”

  “Including you? I feel good having you watch out for Abbie. I can put in a word for you if you want.”

  Deke shook his head.

  “I’ll make sure my replacement can do the job. Then I think I’m going to call it quits, too.”

  “Leave the Secret Service?”

  Deke nodded. “They’ll probably start a betting pool for me, too. Maybe I’ll just live off the ill-gotten but squeaky clean bequest my mother left me.”

  McGill said, “Leo found employment in the private sector.”

  “Maybe after I get tired of living the life of the idle rich. Ought to take at least a week.”

  They left talk of the future there.

  Got down to planning how to protect both Abbie and Daryl Cheveyo.

  Dumbarton Oaks — Washington, D.C.

  Galia Mindel and Stephen Norwood were ignoring the pitcher of orange juice, basket of croissants and bowl of fresh strawberries that might have been their breakfast to pore over piles of lists, charts, opinion polls and maps that would be turned into the campaign infrastructure needed to win a presidential election.

  Because the work was political in nature and Stephen had resigned his White House post to become Patti Grant’s campaign chairman, their activities had to take place on private premises, and there were no premises Galia felt were more securely private than her own home.

  As was necessary, the first point of discussion was money.

  Norwood said, “We can describe our donations compared to this time in the last cycle in two words: holding steady. That’s true for both small and large donors, men and women, young voters and old, whites, African Americans and Latinos. We’re even on a par with where we were last time with white men.”

  White men usually skewed conservative.

  Galia gave a knowing grin. “We’d never admit it publicly, Stephen, but there’s something compelling about having a gorgeous woman running for office.”

  Norwood asked, “You think that would hold true across lines of ethnicity and skin color?”

  Galia said, “Let’s put it this way: If you took Patti Grant and applied any human hue to her, she’d still make men look twice and more of them would vote for her than would vote for me, even if we advocated exactly the same agenda.”

  “Only because they don’t know what a sweetheart you are, boss.”

  Galia laughed and swatted Norwood affectionately.

  “Yeah, well, that’s another closely guarded secret,” she said.

  They went on to vet the campaign chairmen and chairwomen for all fifty states, reviewed requirements and deadlines for placing their candidate’s name on ballots, added and deleted names from the list of media people who would be granted exclusive interviews, who would be denied all but the most perfunctory access and in the case of a select few who would be favored with major leaks. Galia joked that if the careers of talking heads were traded like shares of stock they could do some serious insider trading.

  As if her ears were burning, Press Secretary Aggie Wu chose that moment to call Galia.

  “Sorry to intrude,” she said, “but I thought I’d bring you up to date on a few things, in the way of general news.”

  “Please do,” Galia said.

  “Governor Eugene Rinaldo of New York just signed the legislation fixing the time of New York’s presidential primary election to one minute after that of New Hampshire. Governor Edward Mulcahy of Illinois will sign identical legislation for his state in an hour, and Governor Lara Chavez of California will follow that by two hours.”

  “And?” Galia asked.

  Aggie said, “And Democratic National Committee Chairman Henry Melchior has sent advance word to media outlets that after Governor Chavez signs her bill and makes her statement, he will announce that the party will recognize the move by the three states but urge others to wait until the next presidential election to move up their elections.”

  “No word from Reynard Dix on the Republican reaction?”

  There was a pause on Aggie’s end of the conversation before she asked, “You haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “Dix has left the Republicans for True South.”

  “Oh.”r />
  Galia wanted to say more, like, “Do you think Mather Wyman engineered that?” But Aggie had called from the White House and that hallowed ground was off limits to such speculation, even voiced on a phone.

  “There’s one more thing,” Aggie said. “John Patrick Granby called.”

  “To curse my name?” Galia asked.

  She had to think the secretary of state for New Hampshire knew by now who was responsible for stealing his state’s thunder.

  “No, he was pretty good natured, all things considered. He wanted to know if the White House would get behind an idea he has.”

  “That we should all drop dead?”

  “Galia, come on. What he’d like is to make the most of the minute head start you’ve given him. He’s going to ask voters in his state to select one worthy citizen, not a pol or a poobah, to have the honor of casting the nation’s first vote live on television and streaming on the Internet. There’d be maybe a thirty-second intro, then the selected person would drop his or her ballot into the box and, bang, everybody could follow along with their votes coast to coast.”

  Galia smiled. She liked the idea.

  “Give some old sweetheart, colorful character or local hero the first vote, that’s great. I’ll talk with the president, but I’m sure she’ll agree.”

  “Good. That’ll make the last part easier.”

  “What last part?” Galia asked.

  “Granby said he’d like to meet with you. Show you there are no hard feelings.”

  J. Edgar Hoover Building — Washington, D.C.

  FBI Deputy Director Byron DeWitt had offered to come to the offices of McGill Investigations, Inc. to brief McGill and Sweetie on the bureau’s plan to interview Lydell Martin and persuade the upwardly mobile former truck driver to go along with the plan to draw Dr. Damon Todd into a trap. The gesture was in keeping with DeWitt’s air of geniality and cooperation. But neither McGill nor Sweetie had ever been to FBI headquarters. They wanted to see the place and observe how DeWitt behaved in his native habitat.

  Both of them were surprised upon entering DeWitt’s office to see an Andy Warhol serigraph of Chairman Mao on the wall. Declining an offer of tea or soft drinks, McGill and Sweetie sat opposite DeWitt in a grouping of leather arm chairs.

  “I thought you guys were supposed to hunt Communists,” McGill said.

  DeWitt nodded. “We still do, but the big threat has moved to cyberspace these days. China has more than a few extraordinary hackers. The print on the wall is a reminder that they’re always trying to snoop on us.”

  “You didn’t get any grief about putting it up?” Sweetie asked. “The ghost of J. Edgar hasn’t haunted you?”

  DeWitt said, “Given my personal history and the director’s support, the bureaucracy has humored me, and I had the office spiritually cleansed before I moved in.”

  Sweetie looked at McGill. “Maybe we should have Francis Nguyen bless our place.”

  He smiled and asked DeWitt to bring them up to speed.

  The deputy director said, “We did background checks on Martin and the principals of the company that employs him. Everybody came up clean. Nothing more than traffic violations and one drunk and disorderly on a VP of marketing. Otherwise, the executive suite is composed of solid citizens. We found only one person who’d been married more than twice, so they’re pretty stable in that way, too. We have every reason to believe the company will readily assist us in approaching Martin, and that he will be willing to help out, too.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” McGill said. “The way that Todd avoided prosecution last time by slipping into the identity of a child shows that he’s both clever and cautious. He might have left some safeguard tucked away into Lydell Martin’s mind. Push Martin or probe him too hard, he might become somebody else, adopt an identity of which he’s unaware.”

  DeWitt said, “That would be a complication, but wouldn’t necessarily throw a monkey wrench into the plan.”

  “You mean we can still run the disinformation campaign,” McGill said. “As long as Martin doesn’t come out and personally contradict the lies we tell about him, we can still suck Todd into our trap.”

  DeWitt nodded. “If we grab Todd, he can bring Martin out from behind any mask he places on him.”

  “You can do that if you can keep Todd from slipping into another identity again,” McGill said.

  “We’ve thought about that, consulted with our own psychiatric specialists. One of the problems you faced with Dr. Todd was that he was conscious when he was taken into custody. Our thinking is to zap him, say with a taser, before he can make a shift. Then before he completely regains his senses we start talking to him. Tell him if he goes away again he gets locked in a rubber room for good.”

  “You mean that?” Sweetie asked.

  “At a minimum, we have to make him believe we do,” DeWitt said.

  McGill took the next step. “So the person delivering the message has to believe it’s true.”

  DeWitt nodded.

  “But it’s not true, right?” Sweetie was a devout believer in redemption.

  DeWitt said, “That’s a very good question. We’ve yet to achieve a consensus around here. What do you think, Mr. McGill?”

  McGill replied, “I don’t want Damon Todd or any of his people to be a threat to my family, my friends or me ever again,” McGill said.

  “So the rubber room it is?” DeWitt said.

  McGill said, “There’s no question Todd tried to kill me with a baseball bat. This time instead of handing him over to the CIA we go to trial and ask a jury to find him mentally incompetent but guilty of attempted murder, and lock him up in solitary confinement in a supermax prison. See if that can hold him.”

  The deputy director nodded. “Legal, ethical and —”

  “A threat that will really scare Todd,” McGill said. “Make him face up to who he is and what he’s done.”

  DeWitt asked McGill if he wanted to be present when the trap was sprung.

  He said he’d trust the FBI to get it right.

  Leaving unsaid but understood three words: Don’t blow it.

  Key West, Florida

  Jackie Richmond never had a better idea of the shock and distress he must have caused by stealing people’s cars than when he checked his account in the Marlborough Bank on Grand Cayman Island and found that the balance was one hundred dollars. There should have been more than four hundred thousand dollars. Seeing most of his life savings gone — like he’d been some chump hustled by a financial scammer — left him feeling so hollowed out he had to sit down before he fell.

  He sat for hours on a park bench trying to figure out what the hell he should do next. He’d been thinking of leaving Key West anyway. He didn’t need any more bullshit from a gang of white slavers. He was sure those pricks had put a bounty on his head by now.

  Probably had done the same for Alice.

  He’d been thinking of jetting off to Isla de Margarita. He’d heard it was a pretty place belonging to Venezuela, just off the coast from the mainland. He thought he could set himself up there, make some contacts, start a business. Get an order for a specific vehicle from somebody in Caracas, fly up to Florida, bag it, ship it and head back to his island hideaway.

  Who the hell would ever look for him in Venezuela?

  So the thing to do was get away soon.

  He still had better than twenty-five grand in cash …

  That, goddamnit, he’d tucked into a hidey-hole at Alice’s house.

  Meantime, he knew a good-looking woman who had a nice big boat. Ought to be able to sail down to Grand Cayman so he could raise hell at his bank, get some kind of compensation, and then cruise on to Isla de Margarita no sweat.

  And he really should throw a scare into that pretty woman.

  Tell her how dangerous Key West had gotten.

  George Town — Grand Cayman Island

  Welborn couldn’t get his conversation with Kira out of his mind. She had quit her job at
the White House. Just like that. He snapped his fingers. Who knew what other drastic changes she might make on impulse, a new wife without the stabilizing influence of her husband? He felt a compelling urge to —

  Willa Pennyman, the daughter of the café’s owner, was looking at him like she was the Queen of Hearts about to issue her favorite command, “Off with his head!”

  She’d figured out the second day Welborn had plunked himself down at the table in Pennyman’s Cafe, that he soon came to think of as his own, that he was no ordinary tourist.

  “You’re some kind of crook or copper,” she told him that second day.

  Made the accusation quietly enough that no one else had heard.

  Welborn had dismissed her appraisal and said, “I’m an astronaut.”

  She considered that possibility but only briefly. “Too young,” she said.

  Willa said she figured him for about her age, twenty-seven.

  “A bit younger than that,” Welborn told her, “and it’s true I lost my chance to go into space after suffering damage to my inner ear, but I still hold astronaut status.”

  Willa laughed and told him, “You’re a pretty boy and you tell a pretty story, but I’ll figure you out.”

  Their relationship had become amicable, to the point that Willa would reserve Welborn’s preferred table for him, but now she was furious at him because … the light dawned for Welborn. She thought he’d snapped his fingers to summon her to his table, reducing her status from a budding friend to a menial serving person.

  He waved his hands at her to dispel the idea that he’d behaved improperly.

  That didn’t stop Willa from storming over to his table and glaring at him.