The Frankenstein Candidate Page 15

  26

  The Winner Takes All

  Colin Spain won all the delegates of New York under the winner-take-all system. He had won. Watching the results flow in late into the night, surrounded by his team in New York, he should have been thrilled.

  However, so convinced of his own success he had always been that he was in fact mightily relieved to have finally beaten Casey Rogers in an unusually close race.

  He was front and center on the news. Of the four champagne glasses on the table, one was not taken—Katrina had excused herself.

  He was happy to receive congratulatory calls well into the night.

  Then he got a call from Victor Howell.

  “Thank you, Victor, thank you,” he said.

  “I haven’t called to congratulate you. Is Larry there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Put me on speaker,” Victor said.

  Colin, Olivia and Larry gathered around the phone.

  “Shut down all communications with the press right now. Bunker down—”

  “What?” Even Larry had no idea what Victor was talking about.

  “Check this video out. I have just sent you the links…”

  “What’s in it?” Colin asked.

  “Katrina has gone public with your affair. There’s even intimate footage of—”

  Olivia and Larry were stunned to see Colin’s face turn ashen.

  “Is this a joke? Let’s try Katrina.” Larry reached for his phone.

  Colin was not speaking.

  “Please call me when you have all this figured out. I am off to visit Casey in the hospital,” Victor said.

  “I thought he got better,” Olivia said.

  “He did at first. Now we don’t know. Seems like the diner bacteria was a decoy. He may have been poisoned with a thallium sulfate derivative days before that. The symptoms can be subdued for days afterward. It’s likely to be fatal.”

  “What?” In his fifty years of campaigning, Larry had seen nothing like it.

  “They have arrested a guy named Randy Skeritt. He belongs to a white supremacist group. That’s all we know at this stage. That will be out in the press soon.”

  “Katrina? How could it be? I had her checked.” It was as though the news about Casey was secondary for Larry.

  “It’s not a hoax. Katrina is not her real name. She was Ashley Bennett before she changed her name. A con artist. She was set up by Quentin’s mob, we think.”

  Colin had his head buried in his hands; the Metcafe video was running on his laptop, confirming his worst fears.

  “Jesus, we have been had,” Larry said, half watching the video while trying Katrina’s phone. He got her answering machine.

  “Bitch, we will get you!” was the uncharacteristic message he left.

  The television was running. A Wall Street expert came on the news, blasting Frank Stein for his unpatriotic and un-American stance. A man representing the neo-green movement called Stein the scourge of corporate dirt-bags. Finally, there was one thing that Wall Street and Green Street agreed upon: Frank Stein was the biggest evil there was.

  Olivia switched the TV off to take a call from Gary. It is going to be one hell of a vilifying, dirty, and dangerous campaign from which no one will escape unscathed, she thought to herself.

  “Hi honey…I guess you heard?” she said.

  “Yeah, yeah…your guy won. Congratulations.”

  “So you didn’t hear the bad news?”

  “Listen, I almost got killed on the road the other day.”

  “What? How? Where were you going?”

  “I can’t say more now…”

  “Gary! Were you hurt? Were the girls with you in the car?”

  “No and no. You need to get back here. We need to talk.”

  “Oh, Gary, I’m so sorry. I am so glad you are okay. I…we have a major crisis here…”

  “What about here at home? It’s over, isn’t it?”

  “What…what is over? What are you talking about?”

  “Us, Olivia. Us…we…it’s over.”

  “No no no…not now, not now, Gary.”

  Olivia was shaking, choking off the tears as she realized Gary had already hung up. Larry was watching her, dumbfounded. An enraged Colin left the room.

  27

  Picture Perfect in the Public Eye

  Olivia went straight to LaGuardia and caught the next flight to DC.

  Everything was a blur. All she could think of was Gary. Her airhostess on the business class recognized her, as did many of the passengers. Some came by to offer her condolences; they had obviously heard of Colin’s political implosion—she did look shell-shocked, but that was due to Gary’s bombshell.

  Her phone rang while the plane was still at the terminal.

  “You can take that,” the airhostess said.

  Olivia saw the name come up. It was Victor Howell. She switched her phone off.

  She leaned back as far as the upright chair would let her, put on a large pair of sunglasses, and closed her eyes.

  The sunglasses hid her tears. Olivia was in a different world—a world of peace and excitement that existed fifteen years ago—only now it seemed like a prior life.

  She was climbing what seemed like innumerable steps up a mountain so high that the higher you climbed, the farther the top seemed to be. There was a drizzle. She had no rain jacket. She didn’t mind. She was at peace with the world. She was tiring, but that didn’t bother her. The climb was steep and dangerous. She didn’t mind that either. Everything was as it should be.

  She slipped. For one sudden moment, it looked like her young life would end right there. The next moment, she was being held, one foot precipitously on a rock, the other dangling in the air two thousand feet above the ground. She felt safe. Gary had his arms around her. He smiled. He had never been more than two feet behind her.

  Then suddenly, she was in Aspen, Colorado. She was enjoying it. The cross-country traverse was vast and largely sparse. She took a detour. She didn’t know why. It just seemed so exciting. She sped past a large conifer at twenty miles an hour. The snow cover was thicker and softer than it had ever been. She felt safe, even at this speed. She carved a large G as the slope evened. She went down again. The bumps didn’t bother her; she was good at this. She was on a mogul. She did a blue line and then a trough line. She had never done a zipper line outside a mogul class. It was on the edge of crazy but joyous. The cool air sped past her freezing face, but the moment had stopped in time. How good it must be to be frozen in pure joy. She must have been going forty miles an hour, knees bouncing up to her ears, when her left knee twisted, the ski went with it, and she landed hard on her backside, legs in the air. Her head slammed toward the snow line. She slid down at frightening speed, unable to stop. She screamed in terror, wrenching to her side as she saw a large conifer twenty feet from her. The blur next to her was a lean figure that zipped past and did a turn right in front of the tree, pushing her gently away, his momentum pulling her off course. No tree—she had run into Gary instead.

  Olivia’s knee was broken. She spent the next week recovering from cruciate ligament surgery in the local hospital. She insisted that Gary get at least two hours in the snow every day, but he never left her room. She fell asleep within her dream and woke up still within her dream, just after her first caesarean section. Georgia was born, and Gary was cradling her even before she did.

  Olivia dozed off again, humming a tune in her sleep.

  Her hyperactive mind took her to the day she came home late from her work as a senator to find that Gary had fed the girls, read the bedtime stories, and left her a perfect plate of brandade canapes and cornichon pickles. There was a note pasted under the plate. It said, “Olivia, my joie de vivre.”

  She decided to go to work late the next day. It was the day she remembered feeling very powerful…not like an imposter at all. She stayed back to finish her work. That’s when she saw Claire Derouge nestled in the corner of a conference room, looking depre
ssed. She reached out to help her. Their friendship blossomed. After that, Claire always looked up to her.

  “If you could please fold your tray and fasten your seat belts.” The announcement broke her reverie.

  She wiped her eyes and straightened her seat. One earplug was still in her ear, the music barely discernible. The other earplug dangled—sometimes her whole life seemed to be one dangling, incomplete half. She looked around—the aircraft was full, and many in business class were stealing looks at her; she was famous. She smiled radiantly. She had learned that every public appearance is a photo op and a voter op. A teenage girl came up to her, wanting her autograph. She obliged. Another wan smile…no wait, she really felt like smiling. The airhostess warned the girl off. The wheels had dropped, the runway visible.

  The girl made it back to her seat just in time. Seven hundred metric tons of metal screamed at three hundred miles an hour as the screeching rubber on the tarmac and the roar of the reversed engines almost drowned out the captain’s landing announcement. Olivia looked at the window, feeling more rested after her little nap than if she had slept through eight hours.

  Stewards and airhostesses from first class left their section to bid her good-bye. She smiled, calm, poised, getting used to all the attention.

  She hadn’t even reached the taxi ranks when Victor appeared before her.

  “Now is really not a good time. I have an urgent matter…at home,” she said.

  “Five minutes, Olivia.”

  She nodded in a manner that said, “Fine, your time starts now.”

  “Actually, I have a car waiting. Why don’t I drop you home?”

  “It’s not on your way, Victor.”

  “Well, I need more than five minutes, and I just saved you twenty.”

  “Really? Five was all I was going to give you,” she said, tongue-in-cheek, realizing the length of the cab rank and finally letting him in, the patriarch of her society, the man who could make or break a whole life’s career with just a little remark.

  Victor always had the best cars and chauffeurs. Once they got in, he got straight to the point. “The press is hounding Martha as well. Have you met Colin’s wife?”

  “Surprisingly, no.”

  “Well, she’s had it. This is the third time.”

  “This time he was entrapped.”

  “True, but they picked at his weakness. Larry should have seen it coming. Anyway, Colin wants to go on, but he is damaged goods. He can’t beat Quentin now. Especially not after Martha goes on air.”

  “What’s she going to say?”

  “That she is leaving him. And that she should have left after the previous two affairs, which are not out there yet.”

  “She talked to you?”

  “No. But I have my sources. As you do…in this business.”

  “Of course. I’m sure you tried to talk her out of it.”

  “The problem is that someone is paying a lot of money to the first two women.”

  “So it will be out there whether Martha says it or not.”

  “Exactly. Better she beats them to it…the bitches.”

  “Ow…I have never seen you this way, Victor.”

  “I am sorry, excuse my French. Age is making me bitter. Plus, there is…anyway, forget that. The reason I want to speak with you is that I…we in fact, Edward, Tom, myself…we all want you to go on.”

  “I thought you said Colin is finished.”

  “He is, even though he won’t admit it. Yet.”

  “Then what’s the point of me going on? Even his own wife won’t stand by him.”

  “I mean on your own.”

  “You don’t mean as a presidential candidate?”

  Victor nodded. She gasped, looking at the glass door between her and the chauffeur. Here was the elder statesman of the party, supported by powerbrokers and super-delegates, asking her, Olivia Allen, to declare herself as a candidate for the U.S. presidency. She thought of Gary and Natasha and Georgia.

  “I don’t know, Victor, too much is happening. I need to lie low for a while. I need time at home.”

  “Lie low? Super Wednesday is in four weeks, and it’s not going to wait for you. Everything all right, Olivia?”

  “No, but I really can’t go into it right now.”

  “Well, think about it. I will make sure you can retain Larry Fox. That’s if you want to retain him, of course. By the way, the real news on Casey is worse. The poisoning is likely to be…well, as I said before, fatal. He may not make it to November unless they can find a miracle cure.”

  She unbuckled her seat belt as she arrived, thanking him for the ride.

  “Victor,” she said, opening her own door before the chauffeur could get to it, “there was something else…you stopped after you said age has made you bitter.”

  “Prostate. The news has leaked. But I will be cured, doctors say.”

  “Oh, I am so sorry to hear that,” she said.

  As she got off, her head was spinning. Only a few weeks ago, the man she loved was right beside her, and the man she admired had not only announced he was running for president but had anointed her as a vice presidential candidate. In those few weeks, her country had been challenged with more problems than in the five years before that. Her personal challenges were even greater. What possibly could she have done to push Gary away?

  28

  Inconsistent Forthrightness

  Dr. Mardi Tedman got off the podium to thunderous ovation at the Climate Challenge Symposium. He looked older than his fifty years. With a receding hairline, a skinny body in a five-foot-three frame, which had hardly grown since his high-school days at the Cypress Academy, and glasses as thick as magnifying lenses, he looked more like the famous scientist Stephen Hawking than any other man alive. People close to him even nicknamed him Steevee. Mardi was not wheelchair bound, but he could only walk in slow, measured steps. But he had an excellent, clear voice and a rapaciously high intelligence that he was never afraid to demonstrate.

  People often wondered how so tiny a creature could be so intimidating. But growing up devoid of social skills and years of seeking approval had made him well aware of human needs and desires, which he simply factored into his human interaction. Mardi could ruin careers with an offhand remark about someone’s work. Mardi knew his strong suit. He had published over four hundred scientific papers across a wide range of disciplines. No one was as smart as him. With time, that got him to the post of the chief scientific officer for the federal government, a newly created post. Mardi had extraordinary bipartisan support, and he had been the United States’ first and only chief scientific officer, having held the post for over five consecutive years. His second three-year term was scheduled to finish shortly after the new president was sworn in. At various times, he had also been the chief scientist at a major alternate energy research organization in the private sector, the head of the Atomic Energy Department, and the professor and head of environmental science at Harvard University.

  Those who didn’t know him well called him the CSO. In Mardi’s five years as CSO, new laws were passed that made it mandatory to require carbon abatement programs in almost any conceivable industry.

  When it came to scientific judgment, Mardi’s word was law. Mardi himself didn’t necessarily believe everything he said was true, but what mattered to him was that everyone else did. Mardi was like a ferocious advocate. Once you got him on your side on any scientific issue, you never lost, justice be damned.

  “Dr. Tedman, may I see you for a moment?” It was his friend and admirer, Dr. James Roxburgh, who thought it was endearing to call his friend Dr. Tedman sometimes instead of just Mardi. Mardi loved admiration from any and all quarters.

  “Sure, James.”

  They stepped aside.

  “Mardi, we have word that Frankenstein is going to air about the environment.”

  “Who?”

  “Frank Stein, the independent. I recall you said you know him…a friend of yours at school, I heard.” />
  Mardi tensed up.

  “It could be good news. I mean if this guy knows what’s good for him, his environmental stance would be upright, surely…”

  “I don’t know…we haven’t talked for thirty-one years.”

  “He sort of went all funny last week you know…I mean, he was doing so well in the polls, polling ten, twenty points ahead of Spain and Kirby…but then he went all pro-business. He doesn’t have the right advisers, does he?”

  Mardi looked blankly at James.

  “Anyway, Mardi, I think he will try to revive his campaign in a major way. I think you should call him…you know, just proffer some advice.”

  Mardi’s hands were sweating.

  “I can try to organize this. Let’s meet him, say just the three of us. You are world famous, Mardi…he won’t say no, surely? I mean Spain has already agreed to pressure Russia and China. India and Brazil would follow, I think. Quentin is ours, always has been…another of your schoolmates I believe. Venice will be the final nail in the coffin…there was Kyoto and Copenhagen and Durban and Lisbon and Rio…wasn’t that a masterstroke, Rio…oh, Rio got all the Third World real serious about carbon abatement. Once the BRICs sign, the world is all ours.”

  Mardi now had a full-blown headache.

  “Are you with me, Mardi…hey, are you feeling well?”

  Mardi was getting a full-blown anxiety attack. He sat down. He was given a glass of water. Several conference attendees rushed to his side.

  “I’m all right, I’m all right.”

  Mardi struggled to his feet.

  “James, no…let’s just wait…see what he says, shall we?”

  “Sure, whatever you say, Dr. Tedman. You’re probably right. He may just self-destruct, he is halfway there even now…why bother?”

  “I need some air.”

  Mardi left the conference. He never made it back. Something kept driving him up the streets, randomly at first, then with the sole purpose of getting as far away from his scientific brethren as possible. No, he could not face them today.