Jim McGill 04 The Last Ballot Cast, Part 1 Page 13

  “I’ve already been informed about that, sir.”

  Most times McGill would have told her to can the sir stuff.

  Not now. He’d had his fill of the Secret Service for one day.

  And he saw a nurse coming his way, smiling, thank God.

  “Find another ride back to the White House, Special Agent Kendry. I’ll be safe with Captain Yates for company.”

  Elspeth thought to object, but she knew what would happen if she did.

  Hola, Tierra del Fuego.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Having mentioned Welborn, McGill thought he might be someone else who —

  No, he couldn’t do that. Welborn was just married. He shouldn’t be asked to take the risk.

  McGill went to see his son.

  “Dad!” Kenny said. His bed had been inclined so he could sit up slightly.

  McGill’s heart swelled with joy at seeing Kenny. It seemed almost as if he were coming into sharper focus right in front of his eyes. A 3D Polaroid photo. He wanted Patti to see this; Carolyn, too. Abbie and Caitie. He wanted all of them to tell him he wasn’t just imagining things. Kenny was looking visibly better.

  He wanted to throw his arms around his son and kiss him.

  But Kenny’s visitors still had to wear caps, gowns, masks and gloves.

  He contented himself by saying, “You’re looking good, champ.”

  Kenny tilted his head in surprise. “You never called me that before.”

  “Things change. If you don’t like it though …”

  “No, no. I do like it, kind of. Maybe, though, we could keep it between us.”

  McGill put a gloved hand on Kenny’s shoulder, and looked over at the room nurse.

  “I won’t tell,” she told them. “Though I do agree.”

  The two McGill’s smiled at her. Then the elder McGill felt a tug at his sleeve.

  “Dad,” Kenny said in a soft voice, “Dr. Jones just told me she’s never seen anyone make a better start on their recovery than me. Maybe I am a bit of a champ in that way. I’m actually starting to feel good. There was a time I didn’t think I was going to feel this way again. There was a time I thought I might not feel anything again.”

  Tears came to McGill’s eyes.

  “You had a lot of people pulling for you, praying for you.”

  “I know. Man, do I have a lot of thank you cards to write. Thing is, I want to write more than that. I want to write how one day you’re just going along the way you always do and the next day everything is changed. How you learn more about who you are than you ever imagined.”

  “You’re going to be a writer now?”

  “And a doctor. And who knows what else? I’m not going to fence myself in.”

  McGill and Kenny talked another thirty minutes, until exuberance gave way to fatigue. McGill stroked his son’s head. Promised him he’d bring Patti next time. Watched him sleep for five minutes. Made sure he hadn’t forgotten how to breathe.

  The Mandarin Oriental Hotel — Washington, D.C.

  Sir Edbert Bickford glowered at his nephew, Hugh Collier. The two of them occupied the end cushions of facing silk sofas. Sir Edbert had planted his flag in the presidential suite; it consumed thirty-five hundred square feet of the hotel’s ninth floor. The suite included four bedrooms and a number of bathrooms that Hugh had yet to tally. Certainly more than Sir Edbert would need no matter how inelastic his bladder might have become.

  “What did you say Ms. Booker told you?” Sir Edbert demanded.

  Uncle’s ears were not among his declining parts, Hugh knew. The old goat could hear the rustle of money during an artillery barrage. No, he was asking for an encore of the insults he’d heard only a moment before so he might more fully indulge his outrage.

  “Ellie told me to sod off, Uncle. Then she said you should go fuck yourself.”

  She’d also said Hugh should bugger Sir Edbert, if he wasn’t up to the job himself.

  Some things, though, a chap kept to himself for his own amusement.

  Sir Edbert, however, had heard enough. His head bobbed and his wattles wobbled.

  His ire was at perfect pitch now.

  He said, “I’ll sue. I’ll sue until she doesn’t have —”

  “Uncle, she doesn’t have enough money to cover your lawyers’ fees.”

  Ellie Booker had signed a contract with Center Ring Books, WorldWide News’ publishing arm, to write an unauthorized biography of Patricia Darden Grant. Now she was telling them to stuff that, too. She’d also quit her job as a producer for WWN, and had left the aforementioned parting words for her former employers.

  Sir Edbert sensed further treachery in his nephew’s words of caution. He directed a look at Hugh that had made prime ministers around the world tremble. It might have concerned Hugh as well, if he hadn’t been thinking of throttling the old bastard where he sat.

  Might take a moment to force his fingers through all that fat and grab hold of his throat, but it would be worth the effort. Things were not looking up for WorldWide News. Uncle’s attorneys had been advised that very day that the United States Department of Justice was looking at WWN for possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the law that forbade the bribery of foreign officials by American companies.

  WorldWide News, though global in its reach, was a Delaware corporation.

  WWN also had more cops, court clerks and politicians on its payroll than the Mafia had ever dreamt of. It should have come as a warning to Uncle, Hugh thought, when the DOJ started looking at competing media empires for the same reason.

  Delusions of the divine right of business moguls, however, were not easily pierced. Not if Sir Edbert had anything to say about it. He spent money furiously when threatened: witness his present surroundings. Hugh had heard Uncle had even taken to carrying outlandish sums of cash with him at such times. Doing in Uncle and scarpering with the loot had a real appeal, if only there hadn’t been security cameras everywhere.

  In the face of that reality, Hugh opted for logic and persuasion.

  “Peace be unto you, Uncle,” he said. “I think Ellie might still be persuaded to share her tales of adventure at Salvation’s Path with us for the right considerations, those being contrition on your part and mine —”

  Hugh held up his hand before his uncle could start a rant.

  “Contrition, cash and courtesy. We admit that we were blackguards to leave her alone in the company of armed zealots; we make her a monetary offer no one else will match and we treat her as a peer not a vassal. That way we get what we want, we double-cross her as soon as we can and we dare her to spend the fortune we’ve given her on lawyers to sue us.”

  “She’d be a fool to do that,” Sir Edbert muttered.

  “Yes, Uncle, and our Ellie is anything but a fool. It might be that her crude language was just a bargaining ploy.”

  Sir Edbert raised his bushy brows. “Really?”

  “Women these days, Uncle.”

  “Very well,” he grumped. “See if you can strike a deal.”

  Hugh said he would. It was staggering, he thought, the amount of shit you had to shovel just to complete a publishing deal these days. But the tiff with Ellie was just a bagatelle.

  The real battle would be the confrontation with the government.

  If the Department of Justice truly sought to wound Sir Edbert, he would do his best to destroy Patricia Darden Grant in return.

  Hillside Drive, Bloomington, Indiana

  Sheryl Kimbrough interrupted her daughter’s reading. The two of them were in the kitchen of their new home, a lovely old frame house with thirty-four double-hung windows. Old windows. On a late summer afternoon, the house was bathed in warm yellow sunlight. On a subzero morning in January, Sheryl could imagine the old furnace in the basement straining to compensate for all the drafts of arctic air.

  The house had come at a great price, especially for its location in a wonderful neighborhood, but it had been accurately billed as a fixer-upper. Thing was
, neither mother nor daughter was in the least handy with any tool that didn’t include microchips. They’d found a retired gentleman who was skilled in the building trades, but he worked slowly and charged appropriately for his years of experience and meticulous craftsmanship.

  Sheryl soon realized that she’d be working for him as much as he’d be working for her.

  Even so, it felt wonderful to be home. She was an Indiana girl.

  Cassidy, however, had spent all of her formative years in suburban Washington, D.C.

  “How’s school starting, honey?” she asked.

  Couldn’t keep herself from intruding on her daughter, even though she was doing assigned reading. She chided herself. She should have been content to marvel at the girl in silence. It surprised her anew each day at how comely her daughter was. So unlike her plain mother. She had her father to thank for her good looks, and for at least half of her shining intellect.

  Blake was back in D.C., when he wasn’t on the road. He worked for the State Department, recruiting college grads with fluency in critical languages. The truly gifted were given free rides to grad school to become multilingual so they might serve at embassies around the world throughout their careers.

  In his spare time, he wrote books analyzing the state of the world. He had to submit them for State Department approval before they went to his publisher. But he’d never been told to delete more than a few words. His bosses knew he’d quit if they ever came down too hard.

  He spoke six languages himself. Not bad for a kid from Central Indiana. He’d taught Cassidy both French and Russian. She’d be ready to take paid internships with State when she got to college. By dint of grueling effort, Sheryl had learned Spanish so she could be more useful to Senator Talbert and so she wouldn’t be the only one in the family who was monolingual.

  “School’s okay, Mom,” Cassidy told her. “Pretty nice really.”

  Cassidy was at one of the best public schools in the state, but everything was relative.

  “Not too white bread, mainstream, inbred?”

  “Well, yeah, sure, all of that. Can’t find anyone else who’s read Tolstoy in Russian. Aside from that, though, everyone’s pretty cool. My French teacher is actually Parisienne; she’s helped me refine my accent.”

  “That’s great,” Sheryl said.

  “You’re worried about me?” Cassidy asked.

  “Only when I’m awake. Or dreaming. I do a lot of REM worrying.”

  Cassidy laughed. “If you’re going to ask if I miss D.C., yeah, I do. It helps to talk to Dad, ask him about the latest in world events. The kids at school are really friendly, but not … not exactly interested in the wider world.”

  Sheryl smiled and said, “Not everyone has a U.S. senator for a godfather.”

  Cassidy had been meeting the top politicians in the country since she was a toddler.

  “Yeah, it’s all your fault, yours and Dad’s, that I’m a political junkie. That’s what I miss the most, a good political debate. My classmates like to talk about music, sports and each other. I understand that; I like it, too. But I miss talking about, you know, the bigger things. The world. What other countries are doing. What our country should be doing.”

  “Maybe you could audit a class at the university. Plenty of political debate there.”

  Cassidy’s eyes brightened. “That would be great.”

  “Who knows? Your old mom might even have some news to share with you.”

  Sheryl had been reluctant to tell anyone that she was going to be an elector, but then Cassidy was far from being just anyone.

  “Like what?” her daughter asked.

  “Can you keep a secret? I mean, really keep a secret.”

  Cassidy put a hand to her lips and mimicked turning a key in a lock.

  “Okay,” Sheryl said, “here’s the deal.”

  Cassidy jumped to her feet and spun around when she heard.

  She embraced her mother and …

  Slumped back onto her chair as if her batteries went dead.

  Alarmed, Sheryl asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “You’re a Republican elector, right? Because Tal is a Republican.”

  “Yes,” Sheryl said, waiting for the punch line.

  “But Patti Grant isn’t a Republican, not anymore.”

  “No, she’s not. She left the party.”

  “But I love Patti Grant. It kills me that I’m too young to ever vote for her.”

  Cassidy would be only seventeen come the next presidential election.

  Truth be told, Sheryl also had been crestfallen when the president had left the party.

  She hugged her daughter. “I’m sure the GOP people in Washington know they have big shoes to fill.”

  Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C.

  Senator Howard Hurlbert sat at the head of the table in the conference room of his office suite. He was joined by thirteen of his colleagues in the Republican senate caucus. Neither the senate minority leader nor the minority whip was in attendance. It was a strictly rank-and-file affair. Hurlbert had been tempted to have a shot of bourbon to stiffen his resolve to go through with the announcement he planned to make, but he didn’t want anyone to think it was just the liquor talking.

  Hurlbert’s chief of staff and campaign manager, Bobby Beckley, closed the door behind the last of the guests to arrive. Beckley knew what was coming. He was darkly amused by Senator Hurlbert’s ambition. He never thought the old fart would have had the wit to come up with the idea or the balls to see it through.

  But here they were and the train was about to climb that first big roller coaster hill.

  Bobby gave Hurlbert a nod, thinking maybe he’d back down while he still had time.

  He didn’t, though. He got right to it.

  Senator Hurlbert said, “I’d like to thank y’all for coming. I know your schedules are as busy as mine. What I’ve got to tell you today is the kind of thing you might want to tell to Fox or WorldWide News the first chance you get, but I’d appreciate it if you’d allow me to make my formal announcement first.”

  “C’mon, Howard,” Senator Darrin Neff of South Carolina said. “I know it ain’t been ten seconds, but the suspense is killing me.”

  “You’re right, Darrin. No point in waiting. So here it is.” Hurlbert shot a glance at Beckley and then took the plunge. “I’m leaving the Republican Party.”

  “You’re retiring?” Senator Adel Wayne of Texas asked.

  “No, I’m not retiring. I’m going to start my own party and run for president.”

  Senator Jim McKee of North Carolina said, “Never quite saw you as a political entrepreneur, Howard.”

  McKee’s remark drew more than a few chuckles.

  Senator Beau Brunelle of Louisiana, the senior member of those present, held up a hand requesting silence. He got it. If Brunelle had made the same announcement, it would have been a real shock.

  “I thought you were going to run for the GOP nomination, Howard,” Brunelle said.

  Hurlbert said, “I was, until I saw the fix was in.”

  “A fix? By whom and for whom?” Brunelle asked.

  “By Pete Profitt and Reynard Dix for Mather Wyman.”

  Brunelle saw the appeal. “That would be an astute move.”

  Around the table, other senatorial heads nodded.

  “You see, you see?” Hurbert asked. “It’s gonna happen and none of us can stop it. Mather Wyman is a moderate at best. He does not represent what we’ve worked so hard to make the Republican Party these past forty years. Somebody’s got to stop him.”

  Senator Dan Crockett of Tennessee said with a grin, “The person best positioned to do that, if Wyman buys in, might be Patti Grant.”

  Few of those around the table found that amusing.

  Brunelle returned to the subject at hand.

  “You have a name for your new party, Howard?”

  “I wanted to call it the Conservative Party, but Bobby tells me there’s already a small part
y using that name in New York.”

  Crockett couldn’t resist. “Imagine that, conservatives in New York.”

  Hurlbert ignored him. “So I came up with the name True South, and Bobby came up with a great tag line to go with it, true conservative.”

  Crockett continued to play the devil’s advocate.

  “Y’all are aware that the eleven states of the old True South, formerly known as the Confederacy, have only, let me see …” Besides his sense of humor, Crocket was known for a facility with numbers. “One hundred and sixty electoral votes. Even if you threw in Kentucky, West Virginia and Oklahoma, you’d get only another twenty. It seems to me your new party comes up short both geographically and numerically, Howard.”

  Crockett paused before adding, “You do know it takes two hundred and seventy electoral votes to win the presidency, right?”

  “Of course, I do,” Hurlbert said. He wished, though, that Bobby had provided him with those other numbers Crockett had brought up. He was starting to feel foolish. The only thing left for him to do was improvise.

  “There are other states that are truly southern in their hearts.”

  “Maybe South Dakota,” Crockett cracked to general amusement. “Other than that, name one.”

  Beau Brunelle took Hurbert off the hook. “Now, now, everyone. Let’s not be too hard on Howard. There are interesting possibilities here. Were you thinking of recruiting candidates for Congress, Howard?”

  “Well, I …”

  “No? I think you should. In terms of electoral votes, our part of the country does not constitute a majority, but as a voting bloc in the Senate and the House, we would be a force that couldn’t be ignored. If we didn’t get our way outright with legislation, we’d certainly influence it or we’d kill it. In terms of an identity and a reason for being, I think True South could be quite powerful.”

  Dan Crockett shook his head and stood up.

  “With all due respect —”

  “Meaning with none at all,” Hurlbert said.

  Crockett said, “As you like, Howard. There is no true south as some of you might imagine it. The African American population would justifiably hate the name True South; the growing Latino communities would likely feel the same way. So would the Asian immigrants. The white people who’ve relocated from the North over the past twenty years are not going to pick up banjos and start singing ‘Dixie.’ Then there are the white people who were born in the South and have modernized their views a mite since 1865. Y’all do what you want. I’m not going to warn you. If you can’t see why Howard’s idea should die in this room right now, you’re beyond my help.”