“Not a violent act, no. In fact, quite the opposite. I would simply observe that it would not be difficult after a long evening of social imbibing to place a person with the rather substantial carnal appetites of Randall Wellhead in the way of irresistible temptation. Two irresistible temptations, in fact, and both shy of the age of consent. Needless to say, it would all look quite festive on videotape, even given the low quality of YouTube.”
“But the scandal would destroy the administration!”
“Only if the video were to be made public, and I hardly think that will be necessary; at heart, the man’s a shameless coward. Inviting him to a private screening shouldn’t give someone his age an actual stroke, but it should be sufficient to convince him to play along when we suggest announcing that he has suffered one. And also to persuade him to go on to do the right thing shortly thereafter.”
“Which would be?”
“Which would be to spare the nation another interlude like the second term of Woodrow Wilson, when the country limped along with an executive too incapacitated to govern effectively, and too stubborn to resign. After Wellhead does step down, he can enjoy a steady and miraculously complete recovery. Historians will always wonder what might have been had he not given up his elected office so precipitously.”
Barbash exhaled and studied Wellhead through the slowly coiling patterns of dissipating smoke. The new plan had a certain merit, not least because he found the personality, if not the politics, of the candidate insufferable. Most importantly, there would be no need for Barbash to be personally associated with the execution of the plan in any way. Of course, Fetters had left out one extremely important detail. Barbash suspected he already knew how Fetters would propose to address that gap.
“I assume that you have already given thought to who Wellhead should select to be his Vice President?”
“Of course.”
“And who do you propose for that honor?”
“I’m pleased to say that I enjoy Wellhead’s complete trust. If called upon, I could hardly refuse to serve the Republic we both love so well.”
* * *
16
Midnight in the Garden of Fast Food and Evil
First the engine of the minibus died, and then the headlights. In the sudden darkness, Frank’s bedazzled eyes could see nothing, leaving him frozen in place. He heard the door to the VW open and close, and then a quiet voice from a shadowy figure by his side.
“Hello, Frank. How have you been?”
“Fine. And you?”
And then, a familiar, musical laugh. “I think I have some explaining to do, yes?”
“Yes, Josette, I think you do.”
As his eyes readjusted to the darkness, he tried to collect his thoughts. Should he be angry? Happy? Suspicious? All of the above? He needed a few moments to sort it all out.
“Let’s go to my camper. I can make us something to drink, and you can tell me what’s going on here.”
“No, Frank, not there. Get in my bus, please. We will find somewhere to go and talk.”
What? She’d been happy to climb into his camper when he found her by a desert road, but now that he’d caught her hacking into his server they had to talk on neutral ground? But she was already climbing into her car, so he followed her lead and climbed in.
He was about to vent his displeasure when she put a finger to her lips. He stopped, thought better of it, and was about to let loose anyway when she held her finger to his lips instead. Flustered by her touch, he turned and stared out the window, feeling simultaneously hurt, annoyed and helpless. It was not an emotional cocktail he was enjoying.
The unmistakable sound of a vintage VW’s air-cooled engine spinning up into life filled the night for a second time. Josette let out the clutch pedal and eased the minibus into gear. She accelerated quickly through the silent motel grounds and onto the brightly lit strip of motels, fast food restaurants, and gas stations clustered around the highway interchange. A few hundred yards later, she turned into a deserted burger chain restaurant and got out of the car. By now, Frank was seething. He intercepted her before she could go inside.
“Alright, I want to know right now why you hacked into my system, and what you were uploading? And what’s wrong with my camper, anyway? You were pretty grateful to hang out there before!”
Once again, she held her finger to his lips. With her other hand, she reached up and pulled his head down to hers, until their eyes were only a few inches apart.
“Your camper − it is bugged,” she whispered. “Perhaps mine as well.”
She took her hands away and he slowly straightened up. Slipping her arm through one of his, she led him obediently into the restaurant.
A few minutes later, they were sitting across from each other in a brightly colored, uncomfortable booth as far from the order counter as possible. Josette reached across the table and took one of his hands in both of hers, her face earnest and concerned.
“Frank, you must forgive me, please, for my rude behavior. I saw you in the bar last night and wanted to say hello, but it was so crowded. And then, when I tried to use the motel Wi-Fi, the connection was so slow. I thought you would not mind.” Then she perked up, and gave him a coquettish smile. She traded his hand for her coffee cup. “But now you have caught me, so what can I do?” She gave her musical laugh and looked at him over its rim.
He tried not to melt, at least visibly. Was she manipulating him? Of course; but why? He’d be damned if he’d let her play him for a fool, especially since she must know by now how easily she could push his buttons.
“You can start by answering my questions. What are you up to? And how did you hack into my system without a password?”
“Why you gave it to me, of course.”
He stared blankly, and then opened and shut his mouth several times without speaking. Of course he had. The day he picked her up by the roadside she had asked for it, and he had given it to her, imagining that he would never see her again.
“But how did you remember such a long password? My settings wouldn’t allow you to save it.”
“Ah, well, you see, I decided to type it first on my notepad so I could save it.”
Damn it! Ever since he’d met this beguiling French scamp, five minutes couldn’t pass without her managing to take him by surprise. How had she gotten so good at that?
She took his hand again. “But still, it was wrong, and I am sorry. Let me start at the beginning, Frank. I will tell you everything, and perhaps when I am finished, you will forgive me, yes?”
* * *
17
You Want Lies with That?
Frank sat stony-faced across the table from Josette at the fast food restaurant, an un-touched diet soda in front of him. Josette looked around as much to buy a little time as to be sure they were alone.
There was nothing to fear in that regard; the restaurant was empty but for the late-night skeleton shift, watching videos on their mobile phones somewhere behind the counter. Beyond the windows, the garish signs of motels and gas stations populated the black void of the sky like alien galaxies. Inside, they were awash in bright fluorescent light, as isolated as when they’d first met.
“So okay,” Josette began, then hesitated, looking down at the cup of coffee she was holding between both hands.
She looked up, but he gave her no reassurance.
“Okay, so it is like this. You know, you Americans have not been so very good about picking your presidents lately, yes?”
“Who says?”
“Oh Frank, I know you agree – we had this conversation before, when we first met. And you make fun of your politicians all the time. So you shouldn’t be surprised if we think the same in Europe.”
“Of course I shouldn’t – I think you’d be crazy if you didn’t. But what does that have to
do with anything?”
Now the words rushed out. “It has everything to do with everything! Don’t you remember how your president treated us after 9/11? We had nothing to do with it, but he said if we weren’t with America, he would treat us as if we were against you? He started a war we thought was unjustified, and then insisted we help!”
“Well, yes, of course. He wasn’t very good at treating allies like allies, and that was wrong. But our current president doesn’t think or act that way.”
“That is true – and thank goodness. But what if he doesn’t get re-elected?”
“Well, we’ll all be in trouble. But that doesn’t explain or justify your hacking into my server!”
“Um, perhaps it doesn’t justify, but it will, I think explain.”
Frank went silent again, determined not to help her out. After a moment she took a deep breath and began to speak in a more deliberate voice.
“You see, Frank, some of us in Europe are thinking that maybe you Americans can’t be trusted to elect your own president. You are very fond of referring to him as ‘the Leader of the Free World,’ are you not? And in a way, you are right – what he does affects everyone else, whether we agree with him or not. Sometimes it is good for us, yes, but sometimes it is not so good. If you want to say your president is the Leader of the Free World, shouldn’t the rest of us have some say in the matter?”
Hmm. He might have come up with that one himself, just to provoke an argument with someone for the fun of it.
“Alright, I’ll grant the point, at least in theory. But where are you going with it?”
She shifted in her seat. Finally, clutching her coffee cup more tightly than ever, she blurted out, “So my friends and I decided we should do something about it.”
It took a moment for the implications of her statement to sink in.
“You! It was you that hacked the pollsters!”
She looked up and nodded.
But he couldn’t put it all together. “I don’t get it – every new candidate jumped to the top of the polls, but none of them ever stayed there. So what were you trying to achieve?”
“All of them, Frank?”
Hadn’t it been all of them? “Well, all of them except Hollis Davenport and Vance Cabot.”
She nodded quickly.
Now he was even more confused. “But if you’re worried about getting another bad president, why would you only inflate the numbers of idiots?”
She frowned. “We thought we had such a good plan, but it did not work. You see, we did not want to pick a candidate for you – that would go too far. We thought if we made it look like one of the terrible candidates might get elected, it would make the smart voters work harder to support the good candidates. We did not plan to change any votes – just make you Americans think harder about who you want as your president. But it did not work.”
“Well of course it didn’t work! You were controlling the poll results!”
“No, Frank, it really didn’t work. Your Mr. Davenport and Mr. Cabot never did well at all in the real poll numbers.”
But he had stopped listening. If this was all true, then something he’d thought was a coincidence might not have been a coincidence at all.
“You didn’t just happen to be stranded by the side of the road in Nevada, did you?”
Josette shrank back in her seat; she hadn’t thought this far ahead when she decided to come clean. At last she shook her head from side to side.
Frank’s mind was racing now. “Why did you want me to stop? What does your crazy project have to do with me, anyway?”
Her eyes darted around the room. They were still alone, but she lowered her voice anyway.
“Frank, you must never tell this to anyone – do you promise?”
He nodded.
“One of us works inside one of your very secret agencies. She works for one of the top managers, and he is not so careful always as he should be. Sometimes she is able to find things out. One of the things we learned was that you had been asked to find us. We wanted to be able to keep track of you so that we would know if you were getting close to doing that. Of course, we were very disappointed when you did.”
Frank brightened a bit. “What’s the agency’s name?”
“Even the people who work there do not know. So we call it ‘Voldemort.’”
“‘Voldemort?’”
“You know, ‘he who cannot be named.’ What do you call it?”
Voldemort clearly trumped Marvin as a snarky nickname. “Oh, nothing. I just always wondered what it was called.”
Frank felt his anger giving way to curiosity.
“What else were you able to learn about Voldemort?”
She leaned even closer. “That they have bugged your camper. That’s why I would not go back there to speak.”
That bastard Butcher! When and how had he done that? Had he used the bathroom while he was there? Maybe pressed something down between the seat cushions while they spoke?
Then Frank remembered – he’d left Butcher alone in the camper when he went outside to speak with George. How long had that taken? Ten minutes, at least? The microphone and transmitter could be anywhere, but he’d have time to think about that later. There must be more he should ask right now, but he was struggling.
“So does your group have a name?”
“Yes – we call ourselves the Daughters of Lafayette. You see, although we do not approve of all of your presidents, we still believe in America. And sometimes, we think, you still need some help. It is true, yes?”
“No men at all?”
She smiled at the look on his face. “Why do you look so surprised? Do you not think that women can be good hackers, too?”
Frank sat back and studied her amused face. There was so much information to absorb, and he suddenly noticed that he was exhausted. He looked at his watch and saw it was almost 2:00 AM. But there was one more question he needed to have answered.
“Who designed the hack of the pollsters’ software?”
“Ah! It was such a simple thing. We could not believe it took so long for such a little trick to be discovered.”
Her answer took him aback, but only for a moment.
“Yes, but who came up with it?”
With that, she gave her tinkling, musical laugh. “Why, it was me. Did you like it?”
* * *
Frank sat alone in the single chair in his motel room trying to make sense of everything he had heard. Most of what he thought he knew just a few hours before had been turned upside down, and he wasn’t sure where he should go with the new information.
Assuming he could trust Josette (which was a quandary in itself), the Daughters of Lafayette had no further plans to influence the American elections. But if he shared that information with Butcher, Josette and her friends would surely end up in jail. He wondered if he could end up in jail if he didn’t – especially if he continued to take a weekly check from Voldemort to watch out for someone he’d already found.
And then there was the biggest shock of all: that the nemesis he had been pursuing, the cracker he had come to grudgingly admire, should turn out to be not some sinister Romanian working for a puppet master yet to be discovered, or a cadre of black hats funded by the Chinese government, but, of all people in the world, Josette!
It was more than he could grapple with in the wee hours of the morning. Maybe in the clear light of day after a good night’s sleep it would all make sense.
* * *
18
Breakfast at Epiphany’s
Frank stared bleakly at the bowl of dry oatmeal and fruit the waitress in the motel dining room placed in front of him. Could a life without bacon and eggs be properly called “life” at all?
Glancing up, he saw Josette sta
nding by the hostess station. She had already noticed him, and gave him an awkward smile. With mixed feelings, he shrugged and motioned towards the second chair at his table.
When she had joined him, he waited for her to speak.
“I am happy you let me join you.”
Was she, he wondered? One of the things that the light of day had made clear to him was how consistently she had toyed with him.
“Aren’t you concerned about us being seen together?”
“I think not. No one is sitting close enough to hear us, and from the bug your Mr. Butcher planted, Voldemort is already aware that we know each other. If they are suspicious already, then they must be tracking me as well. And if they are not, why should we not meet for breakfast?”
For the first time in his life, Frank began to sense what it must feel like to be a person of interest living in a police state. At any time, you would need to assume you were being watched. And yet, what could you do, but continue to go about your normal life? It left him feeling more than a little unsettled.
He changed the subject. “So what will you and the DoLs do next?”
She made a face. “Please! If you must have a short name – we call ourselves the ‘FdL’.”
Frank felt he should be up to working out such a small byte of French, but his furrowed brows gave him away.
“Filles de Lafayette,” she said primly.
“I just about had it – you should have given me another second.”
She realized too late that she would have been smarter to have done just that. She began studying her menu.
“Well?” Frank said.
She looked up. “Well what, Frank?”
“What will you and the other ‘fillies’ do next?”
“Not ‘fillies,’ Frank, ‘filles.’”
He gave her a smug smile. “You can look it up.”
The Lafayette Campaign: a Tale of Deception and Elections (Frank Adversego Thrillers Book 2) Page 11