The Lafayette Campaign: a Tale of Deception and Elections (Frank Adversego Thrillers Book 2)

by Updegrove, Andrew

  He took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. “That’s terrible. You must be chilled to the bone.”

  She gave him a brave smile and nodded. “I thought this was the desert. So much wind – and rain! Who would have expected?”

  Frank tried to catch the attention of a server.

  “Let’s get you something warm to drink.”

  The middle aged waitress that appeared promptly adopted Josette, returning almost immediately with a steaming mug of tea and a clean dish towel. Josette accepted both with gratitude and mopped her face and hair.

  “I am so cold and hungry! I could not cook my dinner in all the wind and rain.”

  “Then we need to get you something to eat!” He handed her his menu, and she studied it intently.

  “Tell me, please, what is ‘pork barbeque?’”

  “Shredded meat soaked in a spicy sauce. It’s served on a hamburger roll.”

  She wrinkled her nose and opted for a grilled chicken salad served in a taco shell.

  The waitress saw to it that their food arrived quickly, and Josette began to brighten. She smiled at Frank, and he smiled back.

  They chatted about this and that while they ate, and gradually he became more comfortable. Then she asked, “How is your book?” and his smile faded.

  “Oh, I’m still doing research. I’ll have to do lots of research before I can start writing.”

  “Ah! You must be very patient.”

  He cleared his throat. “Were you able to get your bike fixed?”

  “Yes, yes! My new wheel arrived at the post office this morning, thank goodness. Otherwise I would have had to walk to town in the rain.”

  “Will you be moving on to the festival now?”

  “Oh!” She looked downcast. “It took so long for the wheel to arrive. I have lost much time. Today is Saturday, and the festival begins on Monday.” Then she brightened. “But I can still, how you say, ‘hitch a ride,’ yes?”

  Frank frowned. Hadn’t this young woman seen any American movies? He was still convinced she would be picked up by some sort of crazy person before she made it halfway across the state.

  Josette covered her mouth and laughed. “You are still worried for me! Don’t be! It is not so dangerous as you suppose.”

  His ears burned. He was too out of practice to be having a conversation like this. Besides, she was young, attractive, and vibrant, and he was old, crotchety and self-conscious. It felt like his first date all over again, but without the excuse that it was a date. He waved to the waitress and made check-signing motions in the air.

  She realized she had embarrassed him and changed the subject.

  “So – do you stay in Silverlode for long?”

  “No. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  “Really? And where do you go now?”

  “Why, I… I’m not exactly sure. You see, I don’t have to be any one place at any particular time. I’m just touring – driving where my fancy takes me. I arrive somewhere, stay a few days, and then move on.”

  She put her hand on his. “Frank! I have an extra ticket – you must come and see the Burning Man! You will love it! They say there is nothing like it anywhere!”

  Under cover of encountering a sudden desire to consume a French fry he retrieved his hand. “Oh, no, I mean, I can’t do that! Really.”

  She gave him a sly look. “Ah! You are afraid of me! It is my gun, yes? Don’t be!”

  She reached into her bag, and pressed an almost weightless object in his hand.

  He stared down at what was now obviously a toy plastic gun, and stammered, “No!” more loudly than he intended. Then, more quietly, “No, it isn’t that at all. It’s just that I’ve got work to do – I can’t afford to be distracted – it’s too hard to stop and start. I’ve got to maintain my concentration.”

  The waitress brought the check promptly and he paid it immediately. He stood up, and escorted Josette to the door, which he held for her. They stepped out onto a weathered wooden sidewalk sheltered by an old fashioned tin roof.

  He was angry at his awkwardness and anxious to escape. But it was dark, and a boisterous rain was splattering noisily on the roof overhead and the street beyond, presenting him with a new problem. Now what?

  “Let me drop you off at the motel.”

  She looked down, and then up into his eyes. “Every place in town is full. I have already checked. They say it has something to do with, how you say, a ‘rodeo.’”

  He opened his mouth half way, and then shut it again. Then where could she stay? He could scarcely offer to drop her back by the side of the road, in the rain, with her shredded tent. And it must be obvious that there were at least two beds in a camper as large as his. Damn!

  Silence.

  “I guess you could, I mean, I have two beds in my camper. Would you like to stay there tonight?”

  Her shining eyes offered a “my hero!” look and his heart skipped a beat. “Oh, Frank, you are so kind!”

  She looked down again before glancing up again, serious now. “I do not want to be a bother… but what else can I do?”

  Frank found himself once again strapping Josette’s bike on the back of his camper as Josette clambered up into the passenger seat, pannier bags slung over her shoulder. She chattered happily as they drove out of town, often placing her hand on his arm to emphasize a point. Behind them, the scattered lights of Silverlode glistened wetly in the night – the yellow and orange rectangle of the Shell sign, the upward-cast, white lights that illuminated the letters that spelled “Opera House,” and in front of the motel, the small, red neon sign that read “Vacancy.”

  * * *

  4

  Frank’s Long Day’s Journey into Night

  The sun was baking the road ahead as Frank drove west, making its surface shimmer uncertainly. Just the day before, he had been sitting in his clearing swearing at his laptop, and now he was off on what could prove to be two wild goose chases – the first, to find someone a government agency that didn’t exist claimed was hacking into pollster computer systems, and the second to chauffeur a young French woman to a countercultural festival for reasons he was trying hard to pretend he did not understand.

  He yawned. Then he yawned again; it had been a long and sleepless night. While Josette was taking a hot shower, he’d gotten into bed as quickly as possible and turned off the light, lying on his side and facing the wall of the camper. He’d been divorced for twenty years now. With all too rare exceptions, those had been twenty very solitary years. Gazing appreciatively at an attractive young woman when she wasn’t looking was one thing, but more than that was unthinkable. Still, he’d had a few beers at dinner, and he was determined not to give himself a chance to make a fool of himself.

  The muffled click of the light switch in the camper’s tiny bathroom came at last, followed by the sounds of a door quietly opening and closing. He all but held his breath until he heard the soft rustling sounds subside in the other bed, just three feet away. With a silent sigh that was equal parts relief and longing, he tried to empty his mind and get some sleep.

  He had almost succeeded when he became aware that someone was slipping into bed beside him. His eyes snapped open, and most, but not all, of his body went rigid.

  “Shhh.” She settled her head against him, and began gently massaging his shoulders.

  “So tense − you must relax.”

  He said nothing, and tried to focus on breathing slowly and evenly. It took many minutes, but at last the tension in his body began to seep away. Finally, his heart leapt as a wave of confidence began to rise within him. He turned toward Josette.

  And then she whispered three short words in his ear − the three most unwelcome words a man can hear in the unshared heat of a not to be consummated moment.

  “Just
hold me.”

  In the blazing light of day, Frank decided they sounded even worse in a French accent.

  He’d been afraid to move for the rest of the night for fear of waking his gently breathing companion. Wretched and sleepless, he had finally eased out of bed at dawn and started driving, leaving Josette to sleep peacefully on. He told himself that it was only because he had no other destination, anyway, that the direction he chose to drive was towards Burning Man.

  A few hours later she joined him in the front of the camper, belting herself in and tucking her long, tanned legs beneath her. He was mildly shocked to see that she was wearing one of his T shirts, and not much else. “I hope you do not mind,” she had explained, “Everything I have, you see, is still so wet!”

  “Here,” she said, “I have made us coffee.” She handed him a cup.

  “It smells different.”

  “It is French. So much better than what I found in your cupboard.” She laughed.

  Frank’s spirits rose as he sipped his coffee and listened to Josette comment on the scenery rolling by. It had been so long since a woman had made him coffee, or passed the time of day with him as they traveled.

  “Tell me Frank,” Josette said, “this book of yours, what is it about?”

  He was sorry for the change of topic. “Security – I mean, cybersecurity. Do you know the term?”

  “Yes, we use the same words in France, except we say it like this: la cyber-sécurité.”

  He nodded. “Yes, and it’s a very big problem. There are criminals that steal your credit card information, foreign companies that make off with your product designs, spies that steal government information, terrorists that try to penetrate national defenses, and much more.”

  “Of course, of course. It is the same problem everywhere. But what exactly is it that you will write?”

  He wondered how to make what he had in mind sound more heroic and less dorky than he expected it would. Then he had a thought.

  “You recall the Maginot Line?”

  “But of course. It was a great folly – and a great failure. We French spent many millions of francs building hundreds of miles of defenses facing east after the First World War. But the Germans built hundreds of tanks and then drove around it.”

  “Exactly. Well, that’s something like what I believe is going on today on the Internet. We fool ourselves into thinking we’re doing what needs to be done to protect ourselves from our enemies. But really we’re just building another Maginot Line, only this time in cyberspace. Criminals and terrorists and spies are already getting around it as if we had no defenses at all.”

  She gave him a coquettish smile. “I am told that our French companies, they have not found it so very hard to get to your companies’ information.”

  He laughed. “And you’ve been told right. The French and the Chinese are the worst of the lot when it comes to stealing corporate trade secrets. Your government even helps them! But there’s much worse going on. Why, not long ago it came out that someone had hacked the controls of the Pentagon’s Predator drones! We think the Taliban did it, but we don’t really know. And shame on the Pentagon, because not long before that, someone hacked their way into the video feeds the drones were transmitting back to their targeting bases.”

  “Ah yes. But what is it that your book will say about this?”

  That stopped him. He hadn’t really taken the concept much beyond his general sense of outrage at the inability of people to appreciate the dire straits he was personally convinced the world was in.

  “Well, I’ll… give lots of examples of bad things that have already happened, and then examples of even worse things that are bound to happen if nothing is done. Then I’ll describe what we need to do to prevent those things from happening.”

  “I see.”

  I see? That wasn’t much of a response. She was looking out the window again, but after a few minutes suddenly turned around.

  “Ah! It is ten o’clock. May we listen to the news?”

  “Of course.” He turned on his satellite radio. The announcer had just started to deliver the lead story.

  “…announced his campaign yesterday at a press conference.”

  “Oh no,” Frank groaned. “Now who?”

  To his surprise, Josette reached forward and turned up the volume.

  The Texas governor’s decision was immediately acclaimed by the host of supporters that has been urging him for weeks to throw his hat into the ring. With the addition of Julian Johnson, the Republican field has now expanded to six.

  Frank snapped off the radio.

  “I cannot believe the stupidity of the American people! How anyone could consider Julian Johnson for dog catcher, much less president of the United States, is completely beyond me. How does Texas keep coming up with these jugheads? It’s like they’ve got a closet full of them down in Central Casting!”

  Josette giggled. “This Mr. Johnson – he is not so good?”

  “Not so good! He’s appalling! He panders to every single bias and know-nothing creed in the ultra-conservative book of beliefs. He’s signed the no-taxes pledge, claims global warming is a hoax, and says he’ll wipe out the federal deficit without raising taxes. You tell him what he needs to say to get the nomination, and he’ll be saying it before all the words are out of your mouth.”

  “So you think he does not believe in what he says?”

  “Who knows? I can’t decide which would be worse – that he’s stupid enough to believe what he says, or corrupt enough to say what he doesn’t believe. Either way, he better not get elected.”

  “If he is so bad, how can you worry that he could be elected?”

  “D’you remember the last guy we elected who came from Texas?”

  “Ah yes. You elected him twice, in fact. It did not turn out so well, did it?”

  “No! No, it didn’t.”

  “So tell me – these other candidates – do you think that they are any better?”

  “Hah! I wish! Every species of loony ever hatched seems to be represented in the race this year. There’s the Libertarian who thinks we should shut Washington down and hand the keys to the Capitol over to Wall Street. Then there’s the former Dairy Queen of Wisconsin who wants the mothers of America to unite and throw every progressive out of government. And that just scratches the surface.”

  “Why is it that no one who is both conservative and capable runs for president?”

  “They do. But it’s the ultra-conservatives that come out to vote in the primaries, and those are the votes you need to get the nomination. Anyway, there is a guy in the Republican race who’s sane, and intelligent besides – Hollis Davenport. But he doesn’t stand a chance.”

  “Because?”

  “Well, first off, he’s a Unitarian Universalist. Most of them live in New England, so not many evangelicals have ever met one. That makes them immediately suspicious. Plus, Unitarians are pretty skeptical about traditional Christian doctrine. Most don’t believe in Hell and damnation, for example, so Unitarians must be some kind of pagan cult, right?”

  She laughed, but Frank was still picking up speed.

  “Then there’s the fact that when he was a governor, he led the charge that resulted in his state becoming the first in the nation to pass a universal healthcare bill. The conservatives have never forgiven him for that.”

  “But why? Everyone in Europe gets healthcare. It makes so much sense!”

  “And guess what? Going into the 2008 presidential election, both parties agreed that universal healthcare should be adopted nationwide.”

  “So? What changed?”

  “Only one party won, and it wasn’t the conservatives. So anything the winning Democrat wanted to accomplish immediately became nonsense or worse to some of the Republicans in the Senate,
and a whole lot more in the House. If the President tried to make Mother’s Day a federal holiday, the conservatives would call that Socialism.”

  “I do not think I will ever understand your politics.”

  “Why should you? I don’t.”

  She stared out the window for a while before replying.

  “You know, Frank, you Americans really should choose your presidents more carefully.”

  “No kidding. I couldn’t agree with you more. Judging by the things they say, some people shouldn’t be allowed to vote at all.”

  “But seriously, Frank. Your president wields so much power. What he wishes to do, he can do, whether other countries want him to or not. Look at Iraq and Afghanistan. Look at Vietnam. Look at so many other invasions – Panama, Grenada, Santo Domingo. The Bay of Pigs. All those military actions in just the last sixty years, not to mention all of the coups the U.S. supported! You Americans really should be more careful who you put in charge, because the rest of the world suffers the consequences, too.”

  He looked at her in surprise. Where had this come from?

  “I suppose… I mean, of course, the President does have a lot of power.”

  “It’s not the power that’s wrong! If your President Roosevelt had not persuaded your country to enter World War II, Hitler would have won. It’s when you elect a foolish president! You Americans insist on calling your president the ‘Leader of the Free World.’ If your voters want to elect a leader of the free world, then they should be sure they pick one who is up to the job!”

  “Well sure…”

  “Look who is running now! Roxanne Rollins! Roland Overby! Landa Goshen! And now your Mr. Johnson! What is the rest of the world supposed to do if you allow one of these fools to become president?” She stopped abruptly.

  He drove on in silence, wondering how to respond to Josette. Because, of course, she had a point.

  * * *