Black Swan Rising

by Lisa Brackmann

“What do we do about media?” Jane asked. “We want coverage, but we don’t want a circus.”

  “You think there’s that many clowns in the clown car who’d be interested?”

  “With everything that’s happened? Sadly, yes.” Jane stood up and opened the door to the minifridge for a bottle of beer. “They’re going to want to see how Matt handles himself. How people react to him.”

  “And hey, there’s always a chance someone else might get shot. They wouldn’t want to miss that.” Angus stretched out his long legs, tilted his head back. “I gotta say, this is a shitty way to get earned media.”

  “Yes, it is.” Jane sat down and took a sip of her beer. “But we’re just going to have to try to turn it into something positive.” She sighed heavily. “Presley’s not wrong. It’s a branding opportunity.”

  “Okay. So what do we do, send out a press release?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. What if we get too many responses?”

  “Optimistically,” Angus said.

  “Optimistically. Say there’s a lot of interest. We really don’t want a half dozen news crews following Matt around a precinct. There’s security considerations, for one thing.”

  “How’s that piece going to work?” Angus asked. “SDPD and the Capitol Police and, I don’t know, the FBI are all going to get together and game plan? That’s not really going to happen for a precinct walk, is it?” He shook his head, huffed out a laugh. “Because that’ll look like a great use of public resources. It’ll feed right into Tegan’s narrative about a wasteful Washington insider and Thresher’s line about a paranoid warmonger with anger-management issues.”

  Jane chuckled. “Yeah. Isn’t this fun?” She closed her eyes for a moment. “It won’t be that elaborate. We’ll let all of them know and maybe ask for a squad car. We just need to find a precinct with limited entrance and egress and keep the location quiet till the last minute.”

  “And disguise that Morgan dude as a volunteer?” Angus was giggling now. “Can you see him canvassing voters? ‘Stand clear of the door, ma’am, and keep your hands where I can see them. Now tell me how important you think a clean energy economy is to District 54. Don’t you think it will enhance our national security as well as create good jobs in our community?’”

  Jane snorted, spraying a little beer. She lifted her hands, struggling not to laugh, finally managing to swallow.

  Sarah found herself smiling too. It really was funny, in a horrible way. And seeing Angus and Jane like this, seeing who they really were …

  This is what it feels like to belong to something, she thought suddenly. To care about other people.

  Then she remembered Wyatt’s package, stuffed in her messenger bag.

  “Okay, okay.” Angus was still grinning. “We don’t want too many news crews. So what do we do, give someone an exclusive?” He turned to Sarah. “Our pal Casey Cheng?”

  “Well, Casey’s definitely been friendly to us,” Sarah said. Her mouth was dry from nerves, thinking about what was in her bag. She took a sip of her beer. “And her stories give some context to Matt’s claim that the campaign is being deliberately targeted to advance a political agenda.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Yes,” Jane said. “That’s what’s going on, isn’t it.” Like she hadn’t really thought of it in exactly those terms. “Okay.” Jane straightened up. Refocusing. “We definitely want Casey, assuming she’s interested. But I think we need to be careful that we’re not playing favorites here. Or that we’re not being too obvious about playing favorites.”

  “How about a pool?” Angus said. “You know, tell them because of security we can’t have too many crews, and see if they’ll agree to pool the coverage. Then offer a press event with Matt after.”

  “I like it. One camera. They can take turns if they want and share the footage.” Jane turned to Sarah. “Why don’t you get in touch with Casey, give her a heads-up?” She smiled. “We can give her a little extra access, on the down-low.”

  And suddenly Sarah knew what to do with Wyatt’s package.

  “Another campaign worker has been shot in a hotly contested congressional election, this time in Florida—”

  “Shit,” Casey said.

  Rose paused the video on her laptop. “Yeah. At least this one didn’t die.”

  The story had made the national news. Probably because of the Cason shooting, Casey thought. Cason was national news now, something similar happened elsewhere, ergo …

  “Do you think there’s a connection?”

  “You mean, are those assholes tweeting and posting with the True Men and AJLA hashtags?” Rose leaned back in her swivel chair. “Yeah. Your guess is as good as mine what that actually means.”

  Rose had photos of her and Diego up in her cube now. One was the classic heads-together selfie, with Rose holding a particularly over-the-top umbrella drink in a tiki mug. The cube walls had a metal surface, so you could stick things up there with magnets, which Casey had always liked. You could put up documents pertaining to a story, notes, cartoons, kid’s drawings. Casey had even had a photo of Paul up in her cube, briefly.

  “So what are we up to?” she said. “A campaign worker shot in Florida, firebombing of a campaign headquarters in Flint, shots fired at a congresswoman’s car in Pennsylvania, racist flyers in … ?”

  “I think it’s North Carolina.”

  “And we’ve got people praising all these actions using the hashtags.”

  “Yeah. But we don’t know what that really means. Are any of them involved with the incidents themselves? Are any of them connected or are they just randos who jerk each other off online?”

  Casey found herself staring at the photo of Rose and Diego. Diego had on a Hawaiian shirt with giant tiki heads on it. Rose wore what looked like a Hawaiian print dress from the sixties and a chunky Bakelite bead necklace. Maybe they’d gone to the annual Tiki Convention at the Hanalei Hotel in Mission Valley.

  I want someone to go with to a tiki convention, she thought. Except maybe not to a tiki convention. More like, a trip to Bhutan.

  “Obviously we can’t speculate too much on that,” she said. “But we can talk about the connections that we do know about. The phenomena. Why do they use the hashtags? What do these guys support? Who do they hate? Maybe we can get a couple of the people tweeting this stuff to talk to us.”

  “Just message them and see who bites?”

  “Sure. Why not?” She had a flash of that pompous ass George “I’m just a storyteller” Drake. “There’s going to be somebody in that crowd who’s enough of a narcissist to want to spout his nonsense on TV. There always is.”

  Her phone rang—the X-Files theme, the ringtone she used for sources.

  She looked at the screen. Sarah Price.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s Sarah.” Her voice was low, but it wasn’t weak, or hesitant. “I have something for you.”

  52

  “If we didn’t think it was safe, we wouldn’t be doing it.”

  Lindsey Cason stood next to her husband, their bodies nearly touching. Funny, Casey thought, in all the campaign events she’d covered so far, she’d never seen the two of them together like this. She knew that Lindsey was very much involved—the finance director, if Casey remembered right, and money was what made campaigns run. But she’d only ever seen Lindsey at a distance.

  The campaign suggested doing the take at the park—the South Clairemont park where Lucas Derry had killed five people and tried to kill Matt Cason. Matt and Lindsey stood by a picnic table, where the bright sunlight was muted by the shade of a big tree—a hot, dry day for the last weekend in September. To the left and behind them was a memorial to the dead and the wounded, a small fountain with a stone obelisk in its center where the names of the victims were inscribed, the water burbling from it gently. Casey couldn’t beli
eve the city had moved so quickly on it, even though the money had been donated.

  The memorial was just visible in the shot, which was a nice touch, Casey thought. Diego had made sure to get some B-roll of the fountain on its own—it would be a good visual for a voice-over, Casey thought. “A poignant reminder of the true cost of hatred.” Something like that.

  What the camera didn’t show, and wouldn’t, were the campaign staffers in the background: Angus, Sarah, and the big man with the shaved head—“Our driver, Morgan,” Matt had said.

  Driver, Casey thought. Hah.

  For a moment, Matt seemed to scan the park. Looking for trouble, maybe. Or just remembering that day, and what had happened here. He circled an arm around Lindsey’s shoulders, and she wrapped hers around his waist. He wore a white, open-necked shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, and chinos, she a colorful print blouse and capris. They were both a little taller than average, both fit, Lindsey with a blush to her cheeks that wasn’t about makeup.

  If you wanted a picture of a solid, supportive couple, this was it.

  Funny, Casey thought again.

  “But you must be a little worried,” she said. “We’ve just had a report of another campaign volunteer shot at in Texas, in another battleground district. Thankfully no injuries this time, but—”

  “And that’s exactly why we’re determined to walk.” Lindsey’s voice was strong. Steady. “We’re not going to let thugs who are afraid of democracy intimidate us. Not in our city.”

  She sounds like a candidate for something, Casey thought.

  “I couldn’t put it better.” Matt gave Lindsey’s shoulders a squeeze. “Casey, we’d love to chat a little longer, but we need to get going. See you at the press op later?”

  “Definitely.”

  She watched as “driver” Morgan escorted them over to the car, a black SUV with tinted windows. Sarah and Angus followed, Sarah turning once to acknowledge Casey with a small wave.

  She’d see Sarah later too.

  “The press op’s at the North Clairemont Community Park—it’s next to the precinct we’re walking,” Sarah had said on the phone. “I’ll leave the walk early and meet you there ahead of time. There’s a picnic table behind the restrooms in the southeast corner. Bring a backpack or a bag—you’ll need one to carry them.”

  “What?”

  “Documents.”

  That was all Sarah would tell her.

  “I better head out,” Diego said.

  Casey felt a knot of dread in the pit of her stomach. She knew it was irrational, that Matt Cason wouldn’t be doing this walk if it were dangerous, but she didn’t want Diego to be the pool photographer. Rose was freaking out about it, for one thing.

  “You don’t have to do it,” she said again. There were four local news orgs participating in the pool, last she’d heard. Let one of them supply the photographer.

  “Too late now.” Diego shrugged. “I flipped Charlie at News 12 for it. I lost. It’s no big deal.”

  If he was feeling nerves about going, he didn’t show any.

  “So, what do you want to do?” he asked. “Come over with me and Jason in the truck and wait for the press op?”

  “Ugh,” Casey said. She didn’t really want to sit in the van for a couple of hours while the walk went on, but the campaign had made it very clear: One photographer. No reporters.

  “Actually, maybe you should hang at the Starbucks in Clairemont Square, someplace like that,” Diego said suddenly. “It’s close to the park.”

  That sounded good. She could get some work done and walk over for the press op when it was time. On the other hand, if something did happen … shouldn’t she be as close to the scene as possible?

  “Truck’s fine,” she said. “At least it’s not the Prius.”

  Diego looked almost embarrassed. “I don’t know. Maybe you shouldn’t wait in the truck all that time.”

  She thought about it. “Right,” she said. It hadn’t occurred to her until he’d said it. She was still getting death threats, and sitting for an hour and a half in a van clearly marked News 9 was probably not a great idea.

  She gave him a quick hug, his backpack and the camera still balanced on his shoulder making it a little awkward. “Just be careful, okay?”

  “No worries,” he said. “After we wrap tonight, Rose wants to go for a beer and a bite. You in?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Definitely.”

  It’s fine, she told herself, watching him head to the van. But she still didn’t like it.

  Everyone thought she was crazy for volunteering to go on the walk.

  “Honey,” Angus had said, “you really do not need to do that.”

  “I just want to get some Snaps and things for Social. And I’m not worried.” Not about getting shot at, anyway.

  “Okay,” he’d finally said. “As long as none of it’s live. We don’t want to clue any haters in to the location.”

  She’d nodded, though she knew a precaution like that only went so far. What would stop someone they met in the precinct from tweeting out where they were?

  But she was really more worried about Angus having decided to come with them. “Somebody’s gotta candidate wrangle, and I’m not asking a volunteer to do it,” he’d said.

  She didn’t want any questions asked when she needed to slip away and go to the park to meet Casey Cheng.

  She knew she was taking a risk. Things like this could get back to the campaign. But if it did, it couldn’t go any further than her. The damage could be contained.

  Mail ballots went out in less than a week. By the time Casey and her crew researched what Wyatt had given her and prepared a story, voting would most likely be underway.

  If it somehow got traced back to her, hopefully the election would already be over.

  Maybe she was screwing up her chance for a future with Matt’s office in DC, but maybe she didn’t have a chance at that anyway.

  After everything that had happened, with everything that was still going on, what mattered was that he won.

  53

  “Congressman, I recommend you let me knock on the doors and do a quick check for security before you engage with the household members.”

  Matt snorted. “Okay, these are people who are committed supporters, soft supporters, and persuadables. I might not be able to convince every one of them to vote for me, but I really don’t expect any of them to greet me at the door with a shotgun.”

  “Well, you never know with some of those persuadables,” Angus said, his voice sliding low.

  “He’s joking,” Lindsey said. “Morgan, we really do appreciate your concern. But I think we can handle the knocking on doors.”

  Watching Matt and Lindsey, Sarah felt a hollowness in her chest, a tightness in her throat. That could have been me, she thought briefly. I could have had him. The moment came and went, and she’d done nothing.

  But you wouldn’t have had him, she thought. Not like that, and not for long.

  What was their relationship about? she wondered. Why did they stay together? She didn’t know if she’d ever understand how people made it work.

  Morgan had parked the Expedition at the beginning of the block, on the border of the precinct they were going to walk. A police car slowly cruised the street. Another was stationed on the corner. This was the biggest street in the precinct, the street you’d take to get to the boulevard that led to the freeway. The most likely place that someone would enter the neighborhood.

  It’s fine, Sarah thought. We wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t okay.

  “Do you want to do a Snap?” she asked. “Just a quick one, before we go to the first house.”

  Matt grinned. “Snap away.”

  Sarah pressed the red Record button on her iPhone screen. Matt circled his arm around Lindsey’s back, resting his hand on her d
eltoid.

  “It’s a beautiful day, and we’re ready to knock on some doors,” he said, smiling.

  54

  A poignant stark touching reminder of the true cost of hatred political extremism

  What was it? Was it political extremism that motivated Lucas Derry?

  Casey leaned back in her chair, sipped her coffee, and stared at the words on her screen, words she’d typed. She’d found a seat at a small table at the back of the Starbucks, where the hiss and steam of the espresso machine and the grinding of the blender competed with the soft Brazilian jazz playing on the sound system. A good place to work, but she was struggling with the script.

  Focus on Lucas Derry, she told herself. What did she know about him? That he hated Matt Cason. Hated his immigrant coworker. Hated two of his neighbors enough to shoot them down in cold blood. Hated her, for that matter.

  From the literature they’d found in his apartment and what he’d posted online, he’d hated a lot of things. Women. People of color. “The State.” He’d liked gaming, and comics, and guns. A lot of people liked those things, and most of them weren’t crazy, murderous assholes. What made Lucas different?

  She supposed you could construct an ideology of sorts from the scraps Lucas had left behind, from the people he’d killed and tried to kill, from his targeting of Matt Cason. Depressingly predictable stuff.

  He wasn’t getting what he deserved.

  Other people were taking things from him.

  True Men Will Rise.

  But the main residue was anger. Raw rage that had attached itself to disconnected slogans. Maybe that was all it was.

  Hatred.

  Her phone buzzed—a text from Diego, sent to her and Rose.

  So far some good shots of Cason and his wife, a couple cool reactions from voters. Nothing exciting.

  Good!!

  That one was from Rose.

  Casey checked the time. 2:36.

  The press op was scheduled for an hour from now. Backtiming, if she hit at 6:15 (they weren’t going to lead with this package, unless something awful happened), the script needed to be in and approved by 5:15. In a perfect world, that meant the footage they were using should be logged and reviewed by 4:15.