Born to Run

by John M. Green

  Contrary legal arguments were dredged up, of course; even with just two lawyers you get three opinions.

  But what was swaying the general public was the absurd notion that a fusty old legal judgment, based on the state of world politics more than a century ago was still the law today; surely it was merely a dreary relic of a quaint and distant past. The Wall Street Journal led that charge, reminding its readers that 1898 was the year the USS Maine was sunk in Havana Harbour triggering the Spanish-American War and the Cuban blockade; it was the same year a nest of white supremacist ideologues from the Democratic Party—yes, the Democratic Party—signed the scandalous “White Declaration of Independence” in Hank Clemens’ home town of Wilmington, North Carolina: “we will no longer be ruled, and will never again be ruled, by men of African origin.”

  But The Journal wasn’t the deciding forum, and the antiquity of the decision cut no ice with the lawyers.

  All the pro-Diaz legal lobby could do was say that the old case should be limited to its own facts; the most popular arguing that while Isabel was the daughter of a diplomat, despite his visit to see LBJ, he hadn’t been an official envoy to the United States itself, so it didn’t matter, or that since he was long dead, it rendered the Supreme Court decision irrelevant. There was merit in the counter-arguments, but the RNC’s own experts didn’t see them guaranteeing a positive outcome since it was inevitable the Democrats would challenge everything before the Supreme Court, the diversion throwing the election into total disarray.

  Bill Edwards wasn’t going to be deflected by legal maybes. He knew that with Isabel standing firm behind Hank and Perry, carrying the momentum on as best she could, they’d at least have a shot.

  26

  TWO WEEKS AFTER the Close-up close-down, as dispirited Diaz supporters had dubbed the depressing night, the temperature was dropping, not as fast as the Republicans’ electoral prospects had plunged, though out in the skipping heart of the seniors’ sunbelt, you wouldn’t have known it. According to the placards, the crowd hailed from not only Phoenix, Arizona but from miles around: Scottsdale, Sun City, Mesa, Chandler, Peoria, and even the quaintly named Surprise.

  To Isabel—up on the stage forcing a laugh and swaying arm-in-arm with Hank Clemens and Perry Patein—two things seemed remarkable. One was the vast difference from yesterday’s rally in Long Beach, California: there, they’d been surging on a roiling sea of predominantly sun-bleached hair yet today they’d submerged into a languid grey lagoon, where the only buzz came from the faulty hearing aids and pacemakers down in the mush pit. The other was that Isabel was here at all.

  As a tentative “Isa-bel” quivered over the somewhat ambiguous “Go Hank, Go” chants of the new campaign, she stepped forward to the microphone.

  “Friends,” she said, launching into the stock introduction she’d perfected over the last ten days, “Let’s give a big, warm Arizona welcome to the two men with my vote for the next president and vice-president of the United States… my very good friends, Hank Clemens and… Perry Patein.”

  It wasn’t as bad as Bobby Foster’s rockstar version of “Hel-l-o-o, Phoe-e-e-nix,” or Pi-i-tts-burgh, or wherever he happened to be, but she knew it wasn’t a whole lot better.

  TRAMPING city-to-city and breakfast-to-dinner, Isabel was doing her best to repair the damage she was responsible for, unwitting or not. Putting the Republican team back on top was what drove her, regardless of the painful fact she wasn’t going to be the one enjoying the trappings of office. Despite her reservations about Hank, shared by many, she was convinced that the country would be better off with him in the White House than Bobby Foster. Especially with backup from Perry and with her in Hank’s Cabinet, as his secretary of state.

  Isabel had strong-armed her own campaign team to embrace Hank; especially Gregory, though he held Hank at a distance. They hired extra speechwriters. Hank’s skills in the insight department followed the edict that genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety-nine percent perspiration. Merely giving Hank a pen made him sweat.

  Isabel’s stocks were still booming with the public, perhaps more so due to her demonstrable altruism. Almost instantly, “We was robbed” became a rally mantra.

  The Karim Ahmed affair fizzled as an election truncheon since it was Isabel-specific and the Democrats couldn’t beat Hank over the head with it; though Ahmed’s disappearance did linger as mainstream news, peaking if someone reported a sighting. Between Elvis and Ahmed, shopping malls were getting crowded.

  The Foster-Taylor campaign finally catapulted over the important 45-percent approval rating poll barrier, and was now tickling 50. With Hank cast against him, voting for Foster became enticing, like sliding into the driver’s seat of a blood-red V-8 Mustang convertible with the top down. With Hank, it would be sitting astride a well-mannered thoroughbred, or rather a sculpture of one: graceful and born to lead, but going nowhere. Even if Isabel was in his Cabinet.

  The Independents were thriving, too.

  The only good news for the Republicans was that with Isabel their effort was resuscitating, and the Clemens-Patein team were pushing back up, to 35 percent and higher.

  Inspired by Isabel’s apparently selfless example, her supporters wiped away their tears and resumed campaigning for Hank. If Isabel could do it, they’d do it with her.

  The Democrats fired off new sharpened barbs to keep their rising opponents down, especially on the theme that if Clemens-Patein won, they’d be Isabel’s—or worse, Ed’s—puppets in the White House. But they miscalculated the strength of the public’s “she was wronged” sentiment, and the tactic backfired, boosting the Republicans up a few notches. Most Americans still hankered for Isabel in the Oval Office, so if Clemens-Patein was the only way to do it, well, that might be worth considering.

  MIKE Mandrake’s hate mail had started even before Close-up ran its credits that Sunday night. Within three days, he’d tallied six death threats and CBS was forced to give him a 24/7 bodyguard. Security in CBS studios around the country was bumped up: targeted protests were breaking out everywhere. It might have been synchronicity, but within four days, after several separate and nasty incidents of “mistaken beard”, there was not a single hair left on any CBS chin apart from Mike’s, and his was fast turning grey.

  The network became a hackers’ haven. For three days running, the nightly news bulletins were interrupted and each time it was with the same vision: Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd and the old Looney Tunes gang with the signature finale, Th-th-that’s all, f-folks played on a loop for fifteen very long seconds, with Mike’s face fading in and out before it burst into flames.

  If Mike dared emerge in public, he was hissed and jeered. His car, a new Mercedes, was key-scratched along both sides and sprayed with ugly graffiti. Even his wife turned against him, courtesy of an anonymous phone call about his fidelity. What should’ve been Mike’s finest hour was a fiasco.

  The following week, CBS announced that Mike was on assignment outside the country. It was a lie. He’d gone into hiding.

  27

  “THREE WEEKS LEFT… this campaign needs something big... something to really stoke the votes… to start a stampede…” The six joined on this conference call were no bunch of hand-wringers or nail-biters; these were women and men who knew their duty.

  “Obviously, I have to tread carefully about how far I go publicly,” Isis added. This time the voice-masking software turned the words into those of a robotic Arnold Schwarzenegger, adding a creepy tone to the call, though any chance eavesdropper would have shuddered at the conversation even without that.

  “Doing it in private is more fun,” laughed Diana, her voice-mask mimicking the actress Meg Ryan.

  Isis ran through the latest research. Even though the Clemens-Patein ticket was picking up steam, the experts predicted it would top out at 40 percent. The numbers were running marginally better in some of the all-important swing states, and even some traditional blue states, but whichever way the data was stretched, the magic 270 el
ectoral college votes stayed just out of reach.

  “We’ve upped the effort,” said Isis. “I’m out there every day now, but we’ll still have to activate…”

  “The shockwave?” guessed Diana.

  “Yes,” said Isis.

  Diana’s face cracked into a smile; her work with Jax Mason wouldn’t be wasted.

  THE “One Hundred Club” dinner was at Harvard’s Museum of Natural History. Hank’s idea was to shift the campaign focus to his intellect, away from his wealth. Gregory sniped it would backfire: “So now they’ll say Hank went to Harvard… for dinner.” Isabel opposed the event for a different reason: the campaign couldn’t afford to waste precious time preaching to the converted, especially this pile of withered old bones who shared more with the museum’s skeletal exhibits than with the swing voters they needed to win over.

  “Why’d they call it the One Hundred Club?” Isabel had asked Gregory before either of them knew it was the capacity seating.

  Gregory scanned the crowd, “Minimum age of membership?”

  The function ended at ten, late enough for most guests, so Hank decided to treat the travelling campaign team to drinks at the Railcar, a nightclub overlooking the tracks near the B&M Rail Yard. His family trust owned a one-third share of the club.

  Once inside, Isabel turned to both Ed and Gregory—Ed was now also full-time on the campaign—“Not many voters… it’s fake-ID-city in here.” But over the pounding doof-doof of the music, if you could call it that, neither man could hear her.

  Hank hustled them over to his showpiece. “My idea,” he pointed to the Cocktail Wall.

  “He’s had an idea!” Gregory tisked.

  Isabel didn’t catch the comment, though his smirk told her it was a slam of some sort. She scanned the Wall, which was entirely black apart from the flashing fluoro discs, which were the glass faces of, she counted, thirty refrigerated cylinders slipped horizontally into the wall and filled with every vibrantly coloured liquor and cocktail imaginable. For a few seconds when the music faded down to the mere landing squeal of a passenger jet, Hank pointed out the six kinds of Daiquiris—from raincoat-yellow mango to fire-engine red strawberry—the hot-pink Cosmos and the Sex-on-the-Beach, even more candy-pink than the Cosmopolitans if that were possible. When he mentioned the Screaming Orgasm, Isabel lowered his arm, “Enough.”

  The sound built up and the spotlights behind the Wall started strobing randomly through the cylinders, making them jump like bouncing balls.

  “Cost a fortune,” Hank mouthed. He pointed to the nearby bank of speakers, now pumping harder than a steroid-sucking body-builder. “More power than the Pentagon.” He laughed, but the strobes prevented him noticing that none of the others thought it was funny.

  AFTER Isabel and Ed got to the sanctuary of their hotel—set back from Boston Common—the manager came up to their room to hand-deliver an envelope. It was marked “Isabel Diaz: Important but not Urgent.”

  The term jolted her—until a few years ago she’d seen it typed on memos every day, until its devotee vanished, along with four million dollars.

  “It arrived a few minutes ago,” the manager told her.

  How did Karim Ahmed know she’d be staying here? “Who delivered it?” she asked.

  “Here’s the thing,” said the manager, “it just appeared on the bell desk… while the night boy was helping a guest to the elevator.”

  The letter weighed on her as she closed the door.

  “What is it?” asked Ed, wiping his hands on a towel as he came out of the bathroom.

  She waved it at him. “I think it’s from Karim.” She lifted it to the light and saw it contained only one sheet.

  Ed took her wrist and brought it to his nose to smell the packet. He nodded and let go. Isabel sat at the desk and flicked on the lamp. She slit the envelope open. A single sheet… typed, but with Karim’s signature. A scrawl that looked genuine.

  Dear Isabel,

  Like so many, I too prayed you would become President, so I desperately share your disappointment.

  My only consolation is that ultimately your loss had nothing to do with me. But even so, I apologise for the pain I have caused you.

  I was thrilled, as you would expect, when Judge Thomas threw out the trumped up charges against me.

  Why then, you will ask, did I choose to ‘vanish’ after that? Not because of any guilt, I assure you, but simply to protect my family from again becoming a public freak show.

  I had become very depressed when I saw how your opponents were using my disappearance against you. My heart went out to you. It still does.

  For now, I will stay in hiding, though I will still do what I can to make amends. (You can be confident that I have some ideas.)

  Please tell my parents I truly love them, no matter what everyone thinks of me. I am with good people.

  Kindest regards,

  Isabel sat quietly. Where was Karim? Who was he with?

  Ed ruffled her hair.

  Isabel knew what had to be done.

  28

  BY THE TIME Davey had scampered off to his bed, Isabel was dog-tired. They’d had a rare weekend at home, and just farewelled George who’d flown back to California. The stress of the last few months, especially the last couple of weeks, was catching up.

  Even so, out of habit, Isabel flicked on the TV:

  “…at least thirty people died in a nightclub fire close to Harvard University. Over fifty people are being treated for severe burns and many others for smoke inhalation. The Cambridge Police and Fire Departments have cordoned off the area. At this stage, it is unknown how the blaze began, but there is mounting speculation it was faulty wiring. The…”

  Isabel’s eyes were drawn to the building on the screen. The shot was from across railway tracks. It was… she was sure… Hank’s nightclub. Railcar.

  Her hand flew to her lips.

  NO matter what Hank could say to distance himself from the club—he only had a one-third share, he kept repeating, and even that was behind a trust so he had no involvement in management—the Republican ticket was again in diabolical trouble. The early reports of faulty wiring were accurate, and investigators had pinned it down to the Cocktail Wall, the wall which Isabel knew Hank took credit for.

  The networks and cable channels were running newsclips of the blaze with tawdry newsbars like “Republican campaign in flames” and worse.

  By the following Monday, the weekend polls were out and Bill Edwards’ stomach was churning. Twenty… twenty percent! He phoned up Isabel and, with classic insensitivity, said, “We’re dead.”

  THREE days later the CBS “eye” logo was overlooking a deserted Beverly Boulevard near West Hollywood in Los Angeles. This was the famous Television City.

  The perpetrators had picked the hushed shadows of 2 AM to magnify the explosion’s noise and minimise casualties. The stolen blue Mazda sedan lumbered slowly down Beverly and drew close. Telltale, it hung low on its wheels. It humped over the kerb and bounced up onto the sidewalk, pulling up sharp outside the newly remodelled front entrance. The car driver wore a red full-face helmet, curious only until he jumped out of the vehicle, sprinted to the rear and sprung himself onto the back saddle of the black BMW motorbike that had been trailing him. If anyone had later been able to view the security video shooting the street scene, they would have observed that the bike’s plates were taped over with “Diaz for President” bumper stickers.

  The bike rider, also helmeted, high-revved the throttle of the 1750cc engine for all it was worth, reared the machine up on its back wheel and squealed off leaving a black trail of rubber on the road behind them.

  Ten seconds after the pair hurtled off, the pillion passenger pressed “redial” on his cell phone and swivelled around to rip the bumper sticker off the back plate. He tapped the driver’s shoulder and she leant forward to do likewise to the front plate.

  Five blocks back, the 300 pounds of explosives that were packing down the Mazda detonated with a fury.
Even over the roar of the engine the rider heard it, shooting up her right hand in victory, and her passenger slapped the back of her glove for a plan well-executed.

  The ground floor façade of the building sheared off. The blast ripped a wide gash, first across the pavement, then into the street, carving across five thankfully empty lanes. Four parked cars blew into the air. Car parts and leaflets showered over a two-block radius. Glass from the building’s front doors flew inwards, spraying shards through the lobby, the force shattering even the bulletproof screen intended to shelter the new security desk. Fortunately, the night guard was up on the second floor and miraculously, no one was injured. Spouts of water from burst pipes gushed over the debris and, capped with heavy black smoke, the entrance flooded.

  Thousands of charred pamphlets fluttered back down through the choking fumes… “The Truth has Consequences.”

  Within thirty-five seconds, a coordinated hack attacked CBS stations across the country. “We have our eye on you, CBS,” were the chilling words that unfurled out of the pupil of CBS’s famous eye logo. “And you, too, Mike Mandrake…The Truth has Consequences.”

  For Mandrake, it was after 5 AM. He had his back slumped against the pillows in a small room in Washington DC’s infamous Watergate Hotel where he’d been holed up for days. His gut ached.

  The truth has consequences… He didn’t need these jerk-offs to tell him that. It was drummed into all journalists. But this morning, the words pressed in on him, the beads of sweat stinging his recently shaved upper lip.

  Only an hour earlier the porter had slipped a copy of the paper he previously wrote for, The Washington Post, under his door. It was splayed open on his lap, at the editorial, “Truth at all costs?”

  What did these people want from him? He’d done his job… and fucking brilliantly, he added for no one to hear but himself. Sanctimonious bastards! No one wrote this pious crap when Woodward and Bernstein busted Nixon over the Watergate scandal… here, in this same fucking building.