He was safe.
Q: Hey, Lanning! What do you think of Seabrook’s new ad?
A: The one where he says he’s not afraid of America? He might reconsider if he took a walk on Chicago’s South Side at night. [LAUGHTER]
BILL O’REILLY: That was Dan Lanning, the president’s campaign guru, two days ago with some reporters on the press bus. Only he might not be laughing now. The Curtis campaign is under siege from protesters who say Lanning’s comment was racist and inappropriate. Several groups, including the Republican National Committee, have called on Curtis to repudiate Lanning’s statement and fire him from the campaign.
We’re going to take a look at the fallout from that so-called joke and we’re going to ask the hard question: should the president fire his campaign manager for an off-the-cuff remark? Is this a sign of deeper problems inside the Curtis campaign? And finally, can the president get reelected without Dan Lanning? We’ll be right back, on the Factor, right after this.
—The O’Reilly Factor, October 25, 2012
WOLF BLITZER: More bad news for Daniel Lanning today. The Rev. Al Sharpton has called upon President Curtis to fire Lanning to quote—“make an example of him”—end quote for his comments about Chicago and minorities. Sharpton’s comments come just a few hours after Jesse Jackson’s Operation PUSH threatened to withhold Get Out The Vote activities on Election Day if Lanning is not fired.
—The Situation Room, October 26, 2012
(THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT, provided for the information and convenience of the press. For questions, contact THE RED-EYE—CNBC2.)
TOM KOEBEL, REPUBLICAN CONSULTANT: I don’t think Lanning meant to be racist. I think if you look at his comment in context, you’ll see a not very veiled threat against Skip Seabrook. He was basically saying, come to Chicago and our goons will kick your ass.
JANE GARDNER, DEMOCRATIC CONSULTANT: Oh that’s ridiculous.
TOM KOEBEL: Try telling that to Al Capone’s victims, Jane.
JANE GARDNER: What?
—The Red-Eye, October 26, 2012
Daniel Lanning, a consultant to President Samuel Curtis’s 2012 reelection effort and the manager of Curtis’s previous run for the White House, has resigned after remarks seen by many to be offensive.
Political observers said despite his decisive victory in a debate against Governor Waverly “Skip” Seabrook earlier this week, the controversy threatened to derail Curtis’s momentum heading into the last week of the campaign.
Lanning said only he was resigning to spend more time with his family.
—“Under Pressure, Curtis’s Longtime Aide Resigns,”
the New York Times, October 27, 2012
OCTOBER 27, 2012, SHAWNEE COUNTY MORGUE, TOPEKA, KANSAS
Helen’s eyes snapped open. She blinked the gumminess out of them and realized they’d never been closed. They’d dried out, staring open and empty while she’d been unconscious.
She tried to bring her hand up to wipe the bleariness from her vision, but all her limbs were more reluctant than usual. She realized she was naked, lying on cold metal in a bright room.
She’d been inside enough of them to recognize it immediately: a morgue. She was in a morgue.
It all came back to her in a rush: that little fucker Barrows. He shot her. He’d actually shot her.
With great effort, she raised her head. It wobbled as if attached by a Slinky. Something crunched, something else squished and squirmed. It took everything she had, but she got up and swung her feet to the floor.
A toe tag scraped on the tile with every step she took.
She found a mirror. A good portion of the back of her head had been blown out, along with much of the back of her neck and most of one side of her jaw. In their place, the undying side of her body had spread like scar tissue, growing like a tumor to fill the bloody gutter carved by the bullet.
Her hair was also a mess.
Her head wobbled dangerously again as she began looking around for something to wear. Helen thought she’d have to get a neck brace or C-collar until the new tissue solidified. It was still soft and spongy, but she knew it would harden like bone. For now, she used her good hand to rummage in a drawer of surgeon’s scrubs.
She barely noticed that her body was moving much more smoothly by the time she got dressed. Or that any pain she had felt was completely gone.
Helen thought only one thing, over and over, like a mantra:
All right. Now I’m really pissed.
OCTOBER 28, 2012, THE RELIQUARY,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Cade stood at the bottom of the stairwell as Zach entered. He stepped back to allow his handler to pass. Zach walked to his desk and put down his bag as if this were any other night.
Cade waited. Zach would not face him. Zach’s head bowed. Cade heard him sigh heavily.
“What do you expect me to say, Cade?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
Zach gave a short bark of laughter at that. “Yeah. Me either. I went over and over it. And I still don’t know how to handle this. I know why you did what you did. I just don’t know what it means.”
“It means the same thing it always has. I did my job to the best of my ability.”
“You used the president’s family as bait,” Zach said. Cade noticed he’d aged visibly. The lines around his eyes were deeper.
“I knew where the Boogeyman would be. I put myself in the best position to stop him.”
“They could have been killed.”
“They would have been killed,” Cade said, “if I hadn’t been here.”
“You left the president,” Zach pointed out.
“I knew he was in no danger. And if you’ll recall, no one ordered me to go with him.”
“I know,” Zach said. “I told you, I’ve been thinking about it.”
“Then what’s got your britches in a bunch?”
Zach didn’t even smile at Cade’s language. He wasn’t going to be distracted. “You played me. I thought we worked together. You could have told me sooner. You should have told me sooner.”
“You’re wrong,” Cade said. “I couldn’t tell you. I had no choice. You would have objected. Or you would have insisted on being on the plane. Either way, I could not take the chance.”
“I think that’s my decision, not yours.”
“On the contrary, it is exactly my decision. The president is not the only one I have to protect.”
“Putting me in an enclosed space with Helen Holt is your idea of protecting me?”
“She was the lesser of two evils. Quite literally. I thought you could handle it.”
“Am I supposed to be flattered?”
“You’re supposed to be breathing. That’s enough for me.”
Zach laughed again. “I never believed it before, but politics is exactly the right field for you. What about Megan Roark?”
“She’s dead. The president isn’t.”
“Is that all that matters?”
“To me? Yes. I gave you the video because I knew your answer might be different. Obviously, it wasn’t. If that causes you discomfort, I can’t help you. All I can tell you is: I fulfilled my oath.”
“That’s pretty fucking cold.”
“I’m a vampire, Zach. You had your chance to be rid of me. You made your choice.”
“Yeah,” Zach said. “I hope neither of us lives to regret it.”
OCTOBER 29, 2012, MADIGAN MEDICAL CENTER,
FORT LATHAM, WASHINGTON
Tom Fowler didn’t like working at the Army Medical Center at Fort Latham. He didn’t like Washington, didn’t enjoy the gloomy weather, never really understood why the locals were always going on about the natural beauty. It all looked like trees to him. He much preferred sunny spots and once held half-assed plans to retire to the desert somewhere. But he didn’t have much choice now. This was the only place anyone would still call him “doctor.”
To be fair, Fowler was a pretty good surgeon when he had his license.
He rarely ever hurt a patient. But he was an addict—drugs, gambling and sex, usually at the same time. (In retrospect, his decision to take a position with a hospital in Las Vegas was probably not the smartest move.) The Nevada medical board was lenient with him for his first half-dozen offenses, but then he began supplying drugs and meth precursors to the local mobsters to pay off his gambling debts. The DEA got involved, and he was stripped of his credentials and forced to testify against his former clients. He was completely screwed: no way to earn a living and a bunch of pissed-off criminals with heavy grudges against him.
One of the feds involved in his case gave him a number. He called it, and within a week he was at Madigan, new ID, crisp new medical license, new job in the trauma department.
Sometimes he thought he might have been better off taking his chances with the mob. Most of the time, he dealt with soldiers and their occupational hazards: bullet wounds, broken limbs, burns—normal, comprehensible problems. But up on the restricted floors, Madigan was home to some deeply weird shit, and he was called in to stitch up the messes.
Those late-night calls, the patients without names, the quarantine rooms, the inexplicable injuries. He’d once been part of a team that operated on two men who were fused together at the waist, like Siamese twins, except these men were not related and they came in screaming and even their uniforms had melded together, the cloth blending seamlessly into one garment where they met. He still had nightmares about that.
And then there was Cade.
Cade showed up a few times every year. He always just appeared on the restricted floors and the military staff there deferred to him. Nobody ever called him anything but “Cade” or “sir,” so Fowler had no idea of his rank or agency. Fowler assumed he was with some high-level, off-the-books operation with unlimited funding and a mysterious acronym. But the only thing Fowler knew for sure: Cade scared the hell out of him, and he had no idea why.
Cade stood over the newest patient’s hospital bed when Fowler entered the room. Fowler suppressed a shudder.
Cade didn’t look up. He watched the patient very closely while checking the restraints that kept him pinned to the bed. He didn’t even glance at the TV on the wall, which was more than Fowler could manage. As Cade had ordered, it was set on a constant loop of porno flicks. Nothing too kinky. Fowler had seen a lot worse. Just 24/7 fucking.
Fowler didn’t know why that was so important. Or why the heavy-duty straps were on the patient, or why the medical staff could never remove them without armed guards present. After all, the patient had been in a coma since his arrival.
“Mr. Fowler. What’s your prognosis?” Cade asked without turning around. He never called Fowler “doctor,” and Fowler never insisted on the title with him.
Fowler picked up the chart and checked the latest notations.
When the patient had been brought in, nearly every bone in his body had been shattered. Whole limbs were nothing more than bone splinters and meat. All of his internal organs were damaged, and he teetered on the edge of death. An emergency trauma team had kept him alive, somehow, on a plane from whatever catastrophe had left him in that condition. Fowler and the other surgeons had worked around the clock to save him. Just to get him stable was a feat. If Fowler were allowed to bet by the terms of his agreement or his sponsor, he wouldn’t have placed money on the man surviving another twenty-four hours.
Now, miraculously, the patient was healing. Although he still needed a respirator to work his lungs for him, he was improving steadily.
“Amazing,” he said to Cade. He still couldn’t get over it. “He just keeps getting better. The tears in the cardiac wall are gone. Liver, kidneys, spleen—all functioning again. We’re seeing his blood counts rise and EEG response. Even the bones are starting to knit.”
“How long before he wakes up?”
“You have to understand, this is all freakishly abnormal. It should be impossible. I can’t guarantee he’ll continue to recover at this speed.”
“Just assume he will.”
“That’s my point. He won’t. Even with this kind of recovery, his brain was mush. His nerves were severed. You are looking at a slab of meat in pajamas, do you understand? He will never—”
Cade wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at the patient’s hand.
Fowler followed his gaze.
The patient was moving his index finger. It was only a small twitch.
“That shouldn’t be possible,” Fowler said.
And yet the patient’s finger was definitely twitching, the small bones in the hand visibly moving below the cuff of the restraint at his wrist.
“How long?” Cade asked again.
Fowler looked at him, then back at the patient in his bed. Fowler realized this was another one of those things he would never truly understand. At least, not if he was lucky.
So he did the math as fast as he could in his head, cleared his throat and answered the question. “At this rate, he could be off the respirator in a week. Walking again in six months.”
Cade nodded.
“Then I’ll be back in five,” he said.
Cade leaned over the bed and spoke to the patient. “Better get used to the view. This will be your home for a long, long time.”
Then he reached over to the patient’s hand, grabbed the twitching finger—and snapped it like a twig.
Fowler jumped as if the muffled crack of bone were a rifle shot.
“I promise,” Cade said, and then walked out.
Fowler lingered a moment longer. He was sure his ears were playing tricks. It seemed like the patient, with his jaw wired shut and his lungs pumping only because of the tube forced down his throat, made a noise.
Impossible. But Fowler could have sworn it sounded like a scream.
OCTOBER 30, 2012, COLUMBUS, OHIO
Wyman entered the private office at the back of the president’s bus. Curtis looked up and dismissed the Secret Service agents with a nod.
If Butler was here, he would never allow it. Secret Service procedure demanded one agent be in sight of the president at all times when away from the White House. No exceptions. Not even for the bathroom. But Cam Butler was on personal leave in Oregon at the memorial service for one of his agents.
So the agents on the job, after hesitating, nodded to the president and left the small office.
As soon as they left, closing the soundproofed door behind them, Curtis greeted him. “Les,” he said.
“Sam,” Wyman responded. It was the first time he’d spoken to Wyman directly in months. They had a campaign appearance scheduled for later today. It was inevitable that they would have to talk sometime, but Curtis seemed to be trying to get through the rest of his term with as little of Wyman’s presence as possible.
“I wanted to tell you this face-to-face,” Curtis said. “We were friends once. I honestly believe that. But I don’t trust you anymore, Les. I’m not sure I ever should have.”
Wyman nodded. He’d seen this coming. “I suppose you’re asking for my resignation.”
“No,” Curtis said. “It’s too close to the election. And you know that. In a couple of months, during the transition, you’re going to announce your retirement. I’ll be able to appoint a replacement.”
“You seem awfully certain that you’re going to win,” Wyman said. “I’ve seen the poll numbers. I’m not sure you should make that assumption.”
“You haven’t seen the latest internal tracking from Ohio,” the president said. “Even Seabrook’s pollsters are pulling the same results. The bus tour worked. I’ve got a double-digit lead there now. He can’t claw it back; not in two weeks. It’s all going to come down to election night, but the race is more or less decided now.”
“In that case, you seem awfully certain I’m going to go along with this.”
Curtis looked grim. “I don’t know for certain what you’ve been doing behind my back, Les. If I did, we’d be having a different conversation entirely. But I know enough. I know about th
e encrypted phone in your office. The Secret Service has monitored the transmission bursts from you to numbers that can’t be traced. Unfortunately, they only noticed this recently. If you hadn’t been with me when those creatures attacked the White House two years ago, I’d suspect you might have even been involved in that. But they nearly killed you, too.”
Wyman said nothing. He felt his chest unclench. Curtis still didn’t know. He couldn’t even suspect all that Wyman had done, because it was too unthinkable that his own judgment would be so flawed as to have an enemy in such a close position to him. Or perhaps the president simply didn’t want to believe Wyman would deliberately cause the deaths of so many people. After all, as he said, they had been friends once.
Either way, it was a blind spot that hid Wyman quite nicely once again.
“I don’t know if you’ve been aiding the traitor in our midst or just covering up for him,” Curtis went on. “Hell, for all I know, you’ve just been saying shitty things about me to the press behind my back. But somehow, I suspect it’s worse than that. You don’t use hardware like that just to leak an anonymous comment to the Washington Post. Whatever you’re doing, I’ve allowed it to continue for too long. You have to go.”
Wyman shrugged. “I still haven’t heard anything that tells me I should just give up,” he said. “Even if you really believed what you’re saying, you’d never let anyone prosecute me. It would taint your administration forever. You’d go down in history as a dupe and a fool. And if the Republicans hang on to the House, you might even be impeached. Who’s going to believe that you didn’t know what I was doing? You’re either blind or an accomplice.”
“You’re right. About all of it,” Curtis admitted. “I never want this to become public.”
“So maybe I’ll stay where I am. After all, this is a pretty good job. And there’s room for advancement.”
Curtis gave him a bitter smile. “And maybe I’ll send Cade to visit you after sunset.”
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