by Glen Carter
Sarah turned her back, softly crying.
The screen went dark. For a moment, Bolt allowed a bludgeoning silence. Then spoke, solemnly. “You shot and killed four men.” The words were an indictment that had waited a lifetime. “You needed Kallum out of the way. Those other men were collateral damage.” Bolt stopped, unsteadily shook the hive from his brain. “You claimed the enemy executed your friends before the Rangers could save the day. You survived. It was the perfect lie, right Billy?”
“Sometimes soldiers don’t come home,” Rutter said. “It was all so sad.”
Bolt ignored him. “Before the ambush. You remember what happened, Billy? You were trying to pinpoint their location. Or maybe you knew exactly where you were.” Bolt was looking at Abe now. “Intel briefing said enemy units were in the area. Rutter saw the maps. The satellite stuff. It was part of his job. Maybe they weren’t lost at all.”
“You’re full of shit,” Rutter barked.
“Maybe you drew them into the ambush,” Bolt continued. “You were good at finding kill zones.”
“Shut up.”
Sarah spun, jabbed a finger. “He told them Kallum was a coward. He said if I left he’d make sure everyone knew it. I couldn’t put Diana through that after it killed Kallum’s father.”
“Is that right, Billy? Made a coward of the man who did the fighting? While you ran? Then blackmailed his widow?”
Something flashed across Rutter’s face, like a nerve had been plucked.
“You can’t forget that,” Bolt said. “What man forgets his own cowardice?”
Abe took a step toward him.
“Easy, Abraham,” said Bolt.
Rutter looked dismissively at the three of them. “The video is a fake. A desperate attempt to destroy my campaign.”
Bolt shook his head. “You think it’s about that?”
“What else?”
Bolt held his stare. “This isn’t about keeping you out of the Oval Office, although that’s a sweet bonus.”
“You’re insane.”
“Maybe,” Bolt replied. He pointed at Sarah’s legs. “How long, Sarah?”
She looked disgustedly into Rutter’s face. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Rutter was smug. “They won’t wait down there much longer,” he said. “Did you think about your way out?”
He was right. But then again, no one could have predicted the events of the past hour. The plan had been simple. Find Sarah and hand over the thumb drive. It would have been her move, then. There had been no need for an exit strategy.
Abe went to the window. “Miss Clipboard’s headed this way. There’s some muckety-muck with her.”
Sarah dashed over. “We’ve got to go.” She spun on her heel, took a few steps, and then stopped.
Rutter smirked.
Sarah lifted her arm and, with a deafening crack, swung it as hard as she could across his face. “That’s for the only man I ever loved,” she said breathlessly. “Fuck you, Billy Boy.”
Bolt tucked the computer under his arm and took off behind her.
* * * * *
Stoffer took the stairs two at a time with Rebecca not far behind, clutching the clipboard to her chest and between gasps suggesting they call for “backup.”
“Just shut up,” Stoffer wheezed.
At the top of the stairs, Stoffer deked right and humped his way to the hallway. He halted, listened for a second, and then raced through.
At the bedroom door, Stoffer halted without uttering a sound. The room was a shamble. Rutter was slumped in a chair in the middle of everything, hands tied behind him, rocking back and forth. Stoffer darted over. Fumbled a few words of outrage.
“Untie me,” Rutter commanded angrily.
Stoffer eyed the knots, stupefied. He found scissors on the floor and went to work.
Rebecca came up behind them. “I’ll get help.”
“No,” Rutter barked. “Get the fuck out and close the door behind you.”
“But . . .”
“Go,” Stoffer hissed.
Rebecca slithered out.
It took a minute of cutting before the ropes fell away. Rutter stood up, rubbing the redness from his wrists. “Bolt and that fat prick,” he hissed, kicking the chair across the room.
Stoffer wisely allowed the moment to cool. Then he told Rutter about the list. Sarah’s decision to swap out the entertainment with a pair of fools who weren’t on Rebecca’s radar. She was to blame for everything. She would be fired, of course.
Rutter seethed as he recounted Bolt’s criminal attack. He was crazily demanding his father’s name be restored. That Rutter recant his account of what happened in Iraq. “Power has thrown in with him out of some twisted sense of loyalty to a ghost.”
“And Sarah?”
“Sarah’s with them. Having some kind of breakdown.” With that, Rutter walked to a dresser and opened a drawer. He removed a revolver and checked the safety.
“That’s not an option, Senator,” Stoffer implored. “Let the Secret Service handle them.”
“Not a chance. They’ve stolen a computer and a storage device that belong to this campaign. We need to get them back. I don’t want the detail anywhere near this. Is that understood?”
Stoffer told him he didn’t like it. Two desperate men had just attacked him in his own home. His wife was gone. The entire leadership of the Republican Party was on the estate, and reporters were swarming at the gates. “Understood,” Stoffer replied anyway.
“Good,” Rutter said, stuffing the gun in his sports jacket. “Let’s go. I have a speech to make.”
* * * * *
They had waited silently in the bathroom while Rebecca and David Stoffer ran past them in the hallway outside. With the coast clear, the three of them escaped down the stairs and out the front door. Security wasn’t a problem, with a lone agent distracted by a late arrival. A golf cart was parked at the side of the driveway. Casually they climbed aboard, and Sarah got them moving.
Bolt looked over his shoulder to confirm no one was in pursuit. When they were out of sight, Sarah hit the accelerator, swerving dangerously close to trees in a race toward the ocean.
Abe smiled at her. “You drive like ’em like you stole ’em.”
“I did. It’s his.”
“Where are we going, Miss Andretti?” asked Bolt.
Sarah told them, and a few minutes later, they parked at the back of the log guest house. “Kallum’s favourite place.”
Bolt got out and stared and was suddenly struck by an odd sensation. What happened in the shower had unlocked plenty more like it. He tucked them away.
“What’s wrong, Samuel?” asked Sarah.
“Let’s get inside.”
When they walked around to the front of the house, Abe and Bolt stopped cold. The wharf ran a hundred feet out where the water was still and black. Its pilings were sunk into bedrock that had emerged from the earth’s molten crust at the beginning of time. Mystic Blue floated majestically at the end of the dock. Complete in her place and time. She was Bolt’s link to everything. As a boy, he had carved her as some mysterious relic from a past life. One final dispatch from a dead man, before he sank away to a place where Bolt would not recollect him, except for the vignettes of his murder.
Bolt headed to her, but Abe tugged him back.
Five minutes later, inside the guest house, Bolt flipped open Sarah’s laptop. He turned the screen to Sarah. “Password, please.”
She tapped a series of keys, and with Abe keeping watch outside, Sarah held out her hand. “Thumb drive,” she said, and then went to work.
* * * * *
“Ladies and gentlemen of this Grand Old Party. Please put your hands together for the next President of the United States, Senator William
Rutter.”
The crowd applauded and cheered, drowning out the campaign’s theme song. Rutter, Rutter, Rutter. Faces beamed, fists pumped. At the front of the tent, a boozed-up couple spun to the music.
Rutter took his time as he walked to the microphone, smiling, shaking hands, and slapping the occasional back.
In a roped-off area, a dozen cameras captured the moment. Elizabeth Munroe scanned the crowd but saw no signs of Samuel or Abe, even though she was told they would be here. The senator’s wife was also nowhere to be seen. Something was up, and Liz would have to stay on her toes.
“What are we going to do?” Nigel asked, still smarting from his dust-up with the network’s lawyers. Liz understood his frustration. What else could they do, but their jobs? Even though none of the reporters seemed too excited about another stump speech, with not a lick of real news.
The Fox reporter was live, speaking in hushed tones. “Senator William Rutter is the front-runner in this race. A dark horse during the Republican primaries, he has dominated for weeks now, with a message that is resonating across the vast political landscape. A message of hope and renewal. Rutter is looking very confident. Even his critics would say presidential. But today, at his seaside estate in Maine, there are only supporters. Burgers and fish are on the menu here, but these Republicans, like so many others, taste a sweeter victory. Let’s listen in.”
Rutter faced the crowd but chose the cameras as his audience. “My friends,” he said. A hush swept over the crowd. “And to Americans who are watching in every corner of this great nation. I say thank you for sharing this moment with us. Thank you for your support as we walk these last few steps toward a stronger and greater tomorrow, a new prosperous, proud time for all of us. To those of you who have gathered here, the hard-working professionals of the Republican National Committee, I can find no words to express my gratitude.” Applause crackled across the lawn. Rutter waited for quiet. “To the hundreds of thousands of volunteers in the counties, cities, and the precincts, who have worked so tirelessly these many months, I owe an immeasurable debt of thanks that can never be fully repaid.”
The crowd erupted. “Make America proud again,” someone yelled. “That’s payment enough!”
Rutter smiled. “Consider it done, my friend. You have my word, and to my fellow Americans in every part of this great nation, if elected, I will make this my solemn duty.”
More applause. Heads nodded. Hear, hear! There were high-fives throughout the crowd. The sun broke through low-slung cloud, divine in the way it bathed Rutter’s face. The candidate counted the live cameras while he waited. The television audience would be enormous, and now he was about to deliver the killer line of his speech. The unforgettable clip. When suddenly . . . cellphones chirped and rang and buzzed. In pockets and purses all over the Vanderson lawn. The crass interruption of alerts and notifications brought sheepish looks. But they were slaves to the technology, and they shamelessly dug out their smart phones.
Liz and Nigel checked theirs, too.
“Holy shit,” Nigel exclaimed.
* * * * *
Stoffer’s phone played a guitar lick from some rock band. His dalliance to the teenager he could not remember. It was a panicked message from his director of communications. There was a link to YouTube. Stoffer tapped it and waited.
In a few seconds, the page opened with a headline. marine first lieutenant william rutter. iraq, 1991. The video started. Stoffer squinted. It took a moment to get what he was looking at. Rutter standing there. The gunshots. The falling bodies. The digital zoom on Rutter’s young face. It was seventy-two seconds long, and when it was over, Stoffer locked on the other people watching the same thing. Astonished gasps rolled through the crowd, causing others to pull out their phones, and they watched it, too. The confusion morphed into collective shock. Stoffer could not move. Mouth agape, he watched. Hopelessly, he struggled for oxygen.
Rutter stopped. Eased back from the microphone. Puzzled, he looked to Stoffer, who slowly held up his phone, as if it would explain everything. Stoffer gestured frantically for him to exit the stage, which he did, without a word, shuffling slowly to the margins of the crowd. People parted to allow him to pass. Faces interrogated, some punished. Rutter avoided them all. The Texan grabbed his arm, slurred something in his ear. Rutter pulled angrily away.
One after another, the cameras came off their tripods. Reporters pushed out of their enclosure and rushed forward. Secret Service agents quickly encircled the candidate. The crowd closed in, a wave of menace, and in an incredibly stupid move, for which the agent would be drummed from the Service, a weapon was drawn and fired into the sky. Women screamed. The crowd stampeded. A cameraman was knocked to the ground, trampled by the herd. Journalists shouted uselessly at Rutter to scrum.
Rutter rushed past his campaign chairman and disappeared into the house along with his protective detail.
Liz watched it all in shock. “Rolling?” she asked.
“Got it all,” Jeff replied.
Nigel’s phone rang. It was the network, demanding to know what the hell was happening. Only hours ago, the video had been an exclusive. Cast aside by the pinheads in the front office. Nigel would hold off on the gloating. The network wanted Liz on-air.
Nigel ran to the media enclosure. Liz and Jeff were right behind, and in a few seconds, Jeff snapped the camera onto the tripod and checked his focus. It took a few frantic seconds to make sure New York was receiving pictures and sound. Then, Jeff pulled Liz into position and handed her an earpiece and a mic. “Ten seconds,” he yelled.
Liz gathered her thoughts, but there was no way she could prepare for what was about to happen. It was seat-of-the-pants. Time to soar, or crash and burn. The pressure was drug-like, familiar. A second later, the anchor’s voice boomed in her ear. “Joining us live is our Elizabeth Munroe. Liz, what’s going on?”
Liz began to speak. “Jack, an incredible few moments have just played out here on the grounds of the Rutter estate. I can tell you the senator, right now, is huddling with his advisors in the home behind me. Meanwhile, Americans are trying to comprehend a piece of video of something too horrible to comprehend.”
“Tape’s rolling,” a producer said in her ear.
Liz clammed up as she watched the small monitor at Jeff’s feet. The scene played out with the senator’s remarks. Everything’s good. Everyone’s enjoying the speech. Then the interruption of cellphones. The camera got wonky when Jeff and the other cameras rushed Rutter. A gun was fired, followed by panic.
“The senator was not hurt,” Liz chimed in. “However, one member of the media was injured when he was trampled by the crowd.”
“That’s an incredible piece of tape,” the anchor interrupted. “Let’s move on to the reason for that chaos.”
The man was playing it out. One element at a time. Liz got it. “It’s a piece of video, Jack, shot long ago, and what it shows is monstrous. The cold-blooded murder of four US Marines during the Gulf War in 1991. The man pulling the trigger, allegedly, First Lieutenant William Rutter, who served and was decorated in that same war. I can tell you now that one of those murdered men was a Marine named Kallum Doody, the late husband of heiress Sarah Vanderson, who is William Rutter’s wife. And a warning. What you are about to see is extremely graphic.”
“Tape’s in,” the producer blurted in her ear.
The IFB went deathly quiet. Not a word from New York. Then there was a pitiful groan at the other end of her earpiece, followed by a collective cry in the control room. Liz did not need to see the tape again. It was the nation’s turn now, and seventy-two seconds after it began to roll, the tape faded to black.
Dead air. For the television eternity of five full seconds. Then . . . “Jesus Almighty.” The New York anchor had violated the most basic rule of broadcasting.
Always assume your mic is hot.
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The house was empty. The party was over. Cars were bumper to bumper, down the driveway and speeding past the satellite trucks at the gate. Reporters rapped on windows, cameras were pressed against glass. There were demands for the politicians and the party apparatchiks to stop and fess up. Cellphones bleated with assignment editors and domestic desks demanding information. Where was the senator? Damn it, he had to say something. Network anchors were taking air, trying to keep the goat fed, pundits were brought in, drained of their insight and then shuffled off to make room for the next talking head. The damning video had been removed from social media, but that made no difference once the networks had it in their news servers. Not to mention the millions who had downloaded it already.
A television was on in Rutter’s den. The senator was watching, chin to his chest, in a daze. David Stoffer was on his phone, staring at the exodus from the window. “Of course he’ll respond,” Stoffer shouted. “Communications will be issuing a statement.” Stoffer ended the call and waited for the next.
“It’s a fraud,” Rutter mumbled between clenched teeth. “Bolt’s work. He wants to destroy me. It’s been his goddamn plan from the start.”
“We’ve got to get out in front of this,” Stoffer urged.
“Prepare something,” said Rutter. “The son of a man who died while serving with me in Iraq. He blamed me for his father’s cowardice. Insane with vengeance and blackmail. I wouldn’t give in, so he produced the fantasy we saw today. Write it.” Rutter wasn’t worried about his wife. Fucking bitch. By the time they finished with her, she’d be under sedation in a mental asylum. For good.
Stoffer opened his laptop. It would take some thinking to get it right, but at that moment, key surrogates were being prepped for the media onslaught. Communications flaks were contacting reporters who were friendly to Camp Rutter. The video was a fake, they’d say, with whispered warnings for the news outlets that said otherwise.
There was a loud knock at the door.