The Frankenstein Candidate Page 17

  31

  What Were They Hiding?

  On the weekend before Black Monday, Olivia stayed with Gary, trying to talk through their differences. The children had been sent off to stay with Gary’s parents. Sometimes Olivia listened, sometimes she shouted; once she slapped him hard, then at times she cried, and there was even a time she felt sorry for him. Gary had seemed sure he wanted out, but sense finally appeared to percolate through the dense wall he had built around himself.

  He confessed to his affair, and expressed his deepest love for Olivia and the girls, but he just couldn’t see how they could make things work.

  She tried hard to get him to delay any decision till they sought counseling and insisted that he not see the other woman till a decision was made by Christmas. Gary agreed to seek counseling, but he thought the delay was manufactured to suit her political interests. He also could not easily agree to keep away from his new love interest. He wanted to stay separate, free to meet “the other woman” while in counseling to see if that would work to bring them back together again.

  They never went out of their house on Monday. The radios and television sets were off, and Olivia refused to return Victor’s messages, which numbered fifteen. Black Monday came and went, and it had not even registered for a vice presidential candidate who was a favorite of the media’s just a week prior. Finally, on Tuesday morning, they both relented at almost the same time, and then Gary threw a bolt from the blue.

  “How can I carry on when you tried to get me killed?”

  “Gary! Why on earth would I—”

  “Well then, how do you explain—”

  “I thought it was an accident.”

  “It was a hired killer. The more I think about it all—”

  “You are still alive and well.”

  “Because it was a warning shot. They said so.”

  He showed her the text message, which he had preserved. She froze.

  “I had a private detective investigate this.”

  “What about the police?” Olivia was stunned.

  “Didn’t go there.”

  “Why?”

  “Didn’t want to say…”

  “Who else was in the car with you,” she completed it for him. “Well, what does this private investigator think?”

  “He found someone trailing me. The trail goes back to the party.”

  “Who is the person?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I must know. I want to find him.”

  “So do I. If it is the party, though, you asking questions there could alert them.”

  “All right,” she said. “Oh, Gary…I am so sorry. I had nothing to do with this.”

  He believed her. They kissed for the first time in weeks. As they lay in each other’s arms, Gary began once again to believe that the situation was not irretrievable. Perhaps the party was involved, but so long as Olivia was not behind the attack on him, he could still love her as before. He did not say anything as he held her in his arms; he felt he did not need to.

  Soon, she pulled herself together. She got up to change and get ready for work in her study.

  He sensed that she was still mad at him—the unspoken had remained unresolved.

  32

  The Presidency

  Olivia finally called Victor back. He was inflamed. Victor believed he was the party’s kingmaker, and he thought the election was there for the taking. Now the favorite had nose-dived following sexual revelations, some redneck mercenary group has poisoned another crowd pleaser, and the one he wanted to anoint had not been returning his calls.

  Victor suggested meeting at his residence or hers. Olivia certainly didn’t want to have a furious and unstable Gary around. She knew the attack on Gary was off the agenda, much as she felt like interrogating Victor about it.

  Victor’s place was a quaint, Victorian mansion in suburban Arlington. He was courteous at the door, inviting her to enjoy a Colombian coffee and Swiss chocolates in his expansive, immaculate garden. He let her compose herself, but they both knew why she was there. She had news for him, and he had some breaking news for her. Olivia went first.

  “I am having marital problems.”

  “At some stage, we all do.”

  Olivia was taken aback—if she was expecting sympathy, she wasn’t getting any.

  “Colin’s campaign is finished,” he said.

  “You told me that before. I don’t know what you want from—”

  “No, before was different. Colin…he…had a heart attack last evening.”

  She stood up, hand to her mouth.

  “No, sit down. He is all right. He is out of danger. He is at Sibley Memorial. There is no suspicion of wrongdoing—he had clogged arteries, they said.”

  “Victor, you could have told me…”

  “I was wondering when you would return the calls I left you. I only found out this morning anyway. The thing is…now even he accepts he can’t run anymore. That’s two strikes. He thought he could survive the scandal, I didn’t. Did you?”

  “It is an unusual election in some ways.”

  “Forget the diplomacy, so you didn’t either. But he is pulling out for health reasons, which looks better for him. He will announce this evening.”

  “Is this really his decision?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It does to me.”

  “Ask him when you visit him. Ganon’s a wild card really, and we didn’t want him to run. Now we have no one unless…”

  “I told you, I am having serious marital problems.”

  “We will throw everything behind you, Olivia. Perhaps you don’t know just who is prepared to back you.”

  “Who is?”

  “The Obamas, the Kennedy clan, the Clintons…I mean everybody who matters. We have been talking. Larry has been in touch with them.”

  “What about that woman?”

  “Katrina Marshella, a.k.a. Ashley Bennett? No, we haven’t located her. She may have disappeared overseas. We may not have enough to bring charges against her unless we can prove she took money. You won’t get a confessional from her before November. Don’t worry, one day we will find her, wherever she is…Hawaii, the Caribbean…and we will make life wonderful for her.”

  “I need time.”

  “I would love to give it to you. But we are really suffering now. Colin will withdraw tonight to stop the scandal. Super Wednesday is only a few weeks away, and the Wednesday states are not prepared to delay it. The good news is that the economy could not be worse.”

  “Victor!” Olivia was aghast.

  “It’s the way things are, and you know it. Makes Kirby vulnerable. It’s so bad it can only get better from here on. Everything noble that you ever wanted to achieve, Olivia, this is your chance. This is your moment.”

  “What about Frank Stein? Do we have a strategy for—”

  “What about him? He is not one of us. But you could use him.”

  Olivia looked at Victor quizzically.

  “He is damaged goods. Severely damaged. He is seen as pro-business, anti-environment, a foreign policy isolationalist, and a Wall Street cowboy. Paint him as close as you can to Young and Kirby. He used to be friends with Kirby. We know he met Young a few times, we have photos of Wall Street parties…no,” Victor continued, concerned at the look she was giving him, “I mean you stay pure, we will do the rest. We have new ads I want you to see. Kirby’s old footage, which sounds like Stein talking…”

  “They are completely different, Victor.”

  “Anyway, that’s not the real issue. You knew you could be in for this in eight years, Olivia. Opportunity knocks but once, sometimes early. It’s what happened to Obama back in 2008 and to Kirby in 2016. Everyone thought they were making a move too early…”

  “Give me forty-eight hours.”

  “All right. But then I can no longer stop the super-delegates from swarming all over Sidney Ganon. You know what that means.”

  “I do.”

&
nbsp; She left the Howell residence. It wasn’t an easy choice—a shot at the presidency of the United States of America in its most turbulent phase or putting all her energies into saving her marriage.

  There was a man she had to see. Dr. Rohan Joshy’s cell switched to his answering service. First though, she went to Sibley Memorial.

  Colin Spain was in ICU, lying on his bed with several tubes attached to him. The attached ECG showed a steady heartbeat. He was in a private room, the lack of flowers and cards suggesting the news had not been made public yet. Olivia stuck some orchids in an empty vase.

  “Even my wife hasn’t come to see me,” he said softly.

  “Isn’t she in California?”

  “Yeah. She is taking a flight back east tonight. With my daughter. No rush. It’s just daddy.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Not so bad. Yesterday, I thought I was going to die. I thought an elephant had its foot on my chest. I couldn’t move.”

  “Who found you?”

  “I called 911 myself. I will be here for a week at least. The doctors said I am lucky. It could have been fatal.”

  She put her hand on his shoulder. Her touch was kind and warm. She knew he needed it.

  “I was going to be the next president of the United States,” he said.

  “That could still be the case.”

  “Doc says it could kill me. The campaign itself. Gee, it has already claimed Casey.”

  “I went to see Victor. It’s his idea, but if you—”

  “I don’t mind, Olivia. In fact, I suggested it. I am being pushed, Olivia. After twenty-four years of a flawless record in the Senate, you think I would get a second chance. But no, one mistake and you are gone.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “You don’t need to be. It is your opportunity, your moment in the sun.”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You must take it. Even if you lose to Ganon or later to Kirby, which is unlikely, you can run again. You are only forty-four.”

  “Are you sure you are okay with that?”

  “That’s what makes you nice, Olivia. You asking me like it’s mine to give.”

  “Well, you are the one who got me into the campaign.”

  “And I would have hated it if you went behind my back. But I am out anyway. Use Larry. Call me anytime. I will campaign for you to the extent I can.”

  She smiled at the irony of it all as it hit her—Olivia Allen, the imposter, the reluctant leader, the female George Washington—her mother would have loved it, but Olivia was leaning toward a no. Her hand was still on his left shoulder, now trapped by his right hand. Olivia waited till the next visitor, Colin’s half-brother, arrived in the lobby.

  “Bye, Colin. I will let you know.”

  “No, don’t call me if you decide not to run,” he wore a wry smile.

  Having dinner with Gary that night, she knew she had to make the hard call.

  “Will you stay, Gary?”

  “For now, yes. I really don’t know long term. I am not the first gentleman type.”

  “That’s what I was going to ask you.”

  “It’s what you do, Olivia. It’s what you have done all your life. Don’t give up now. It will make no difference to us.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “If you sat at home, and I left anyway, you would kill yourself.”

  “No, I would kill you,” she said. He laughed a nervous laugh.

  “If it is going to work, it’s going to work with the way you being the way you are.”

  “You are not going to see her then?”

  Gary was silent.

  “You can’t even promise me that?”

  “I can. I won’t see her for a little while. That I promise.”

  “How long for?”

  “Until we decide what we are doing with us.”

  For all his infidelities and insecurities, Gary was a refreshing change from the fake, double-talking politicians she always dealt with. She could not imagine being married to a politician. Her BlackBerry buzzed. The text from Dr. Joshy said he was able to see her the next day. She felt relieved.

  Her BlackBerry buzzed again. She thought she was past the tears, but that was before she saw the text message. It said that Dan Curtis had been shot in Black Monday’s riots and that he was critical.

  33

  Decision Time

  After yet another trip to a hospital, where unfortunately Olivia could not see Dan as he was still critical, she went to Dr. Joshy’s office. Dr. Rohan Joshy wasn’t the sort who could be a political confidante for Olivia. Nevertheless, she thought this was as much a personal as a political decision. In any event, she knew no one else in whom she could confide her marital problem, no one else whom she could trust more, and no one else who could be absolutely trusted to not inform anyone else, professional ethics aside.

  “Ambition is excited, isn’t she?” he said. Interesting—he had never raised her in-the-head parents with her so directly before. Perhaps he felt it was time.

  “It’s not necessarily the right time.”

  “Explain that to her.”

  “The country suffers enormously. There are more unemployed and more poor than ever before, yet those with connections in high office are doing just fine, thank you very much. Big banks like IFG and Sixth are unofficially bankrupt, but some senior executives get paid seventy-five million in golden parachutes. Seventy-five million dollars? That could feed the whole nation of Botswana.

  “Casey Rogers is almost dead from an assassination attempt. Colin Spain was entrapped into having an affair and now he has had a heart attack. Who will be next? I can’t risk Georgia and Natasha. The president is dying of cancer, the economy is shot to pieces, and Victor thinks that is a great opportunity. Gary had an affair, has admitted to it. Then someone tried to kill him or warn him…and he thinks I was behind it. Obviously, I wasn’t. So no, it’s not the right time.

  “Jacques could have got killed in a riot. Perhaps I may have been too. The man who saved us is now dead. My aide sent a text from the hospital just before I walked in. Dan is no more. Oh my god, Dan, all he was ever trying to do was to curb the street violence. Four months ago, I celebrated Thanksgiving with Gary’s folks, and life was as near perfect as it could have been.”

  “Was it really?”

  “Relatively speaking, yes.”

  “Are you confident Gary will hang around?”

  “No.”

  “Are you confident that he will stay if you don’t run, if you resign from your job as a senator?”

  “No.”

  “Are you confident you can make a difference to all the suffering that is out there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why don’t you go for it?”

  “This time, I even feel like I deserve it…sometimes.”

  “Sometimes you won’t. But that feeling will stay whether you run or not.”

  “Is that imposter syndrome, incurable?”

  “No. But it could take time. Perhaps a long time…but not necessarily.”

  Olivia realized she needed to be true to herself. She went home to talk it over again with Gary. He was patient and understanding, supportive of her decision. He had a new idea—that he should hit the trail, working on her campaign himself in whatever capacity possible. He was happy to do whatever was required in the campaign office. She was thrilled. It meant that he would be kept away from the other woman. Perhaps she was going to get everything she bargained for and more after all.

  She rang Victor. He was ecstatic. He called her over to Colin’s old campaign office. Within hours, an army of advisors, security experts, political analysts, campaign strategists, and public relations personnel had congregated into the small space. Victor was there as well. Larry Fox arrived in the evening, looking surprisingly refreshed given what everyone had been through.

  “I am so sorry, Olivia, I should have seen that coming,” he said. He not
iced Gary Allen in the office. Larry felt relieved; the last thing he wanted was for Olivia to have a strain in her marriage on top of the lethal forces swirling around her.

  Larry’s plan was simple.

  The idea was to maximize the sheer number of voters reached personally. To cover twenty-four states in about three weeks was impossible. She had to do more television, and if they had learned anything positive from the unorthodox Stein campaign it was: more television, more Facebook, more Twitter, more YouTube.

  “Very few newspaper interviews, no small town-hall meetings, no gatherings of business leaders or even union leaders or any special interest faction,” Larry advised, “unless you can control the written word.” Larry opined that she had to be living on camera, maximizing exposure so that every word said had ninety thousand witnesses—otherwise, there were to be no meetings or interviews. She had a lovely and endearing face and a pleasant personality, and that worked better than printed interviews, unflattering photographs, and comments taken out of context.

  It worked. Olivia, for all her insecurities, was by far the most personable of all the candidates currently on the road. Quentin Kirby had taken it for granted that he would win the Republican nomination, and it showed. Frank Stein was guilty of professorial misconduct, which meant he was too intellectual, too direct, and impersonal. Sidney Ganon was a loose cannon, and it was apparent. Reed was nervous at the best of times, and Logan was, excluding Stein, the most radical of the conventional candidates. Olivia was the most human.

  Just before Spain imploded, some polls had him leading the Democratic trio. Once he imploded, everything changed. Rogers, even as he was very ill, shot to the lead, more from a sympathy vote than anything else. Once the scandal was no longer today’s news, Ganon had the lead. When Rogers fell into a coma, the Ganon camp had no qualms about discreetly leaking their “deal” to the media—if any of them were to win the nomination, the other would be appointed as a vice presidential running mate. When asked, Ganon would not deny it, protecting his sick friend’s ability to change it, knowing full well that the poor comatose man was unlikely to recover, let alone actually be well enough to contest the election. By the time Olivia re-entered the fray, Ganon was leading 60-40 over Spain. Then Spain announced his heart attack and withdrawal at the same time, and by then it was pretty much Ganon 100, everyone else 0; there was just simply no other candidate around.