Electing To Murder (37 page)

“Sweet Jesus,” Mitchell muttered.

“That was with intent,” Mac stated. “The Suburban makes no evasive move. After finding Checketts dead and learning of Martin’s murder, we went to DataPoint to interview key staff about the two men to determine if the staff knew of any reason why anyone would want to kill them. Turns out Mr. Martin was dating his secretary, a woman named Ginger Bloom. The night before his death, Mr. Martin gave Ms. Bloom an envelope. An envelope she was to give to Adam Montgomery if anything happened to him.”

“I assume,” the director asked, “that we’re talking the same Adam Montgomery that …”

“Yes, sir,” Mac answered. “Montgomery and Martin were friends and apparently shared an appreciation for the integrity of the election process. Ms. Bloom tried to contact Montgomery after Mr. Martin was killed but was unable to reach him. That was on Thursday and Friday, largely the same time period in which we were trying to find him as well.” He hit a key and brought up the picture of the envelope. “When I told her that Montgomery too had been murdered, she gave me this envelope. Inside was a key to the padlock for storage locker number 137 at Kenosha Self-Storage.”

Mac displayed a picture of the storage locker.

“We opened the locker and found this inside,” he advanced to the next picture which showed the DataPoint voting machine, four memory cards and the envelope containing the letter. He then pointed to the right of the video screens. “The voting machine we found is right here.” McRyan then held up a copy of the letter, “The original of this letter and the memory cards are in the evidence bags up here at the front of the table. In short the letter explains that Mr. Martin discovered five replacement memory cards in Checketts’s office for DataPoint voting machines that were recently delivered to Iowa, Wisconsin and Virginia. The new machines went out a number of months ago but there was a manufacturing issue with the memory cards. To fix the problem, the company manufactured new memory cards with a new subcontractor. The four cards in the storage locker are from that batch of new memory cards. According to Martin’s letter, on each memory card is a virus that at noon on Election Day would cause one of every twenty votes for Governor Thomson to be rolled back and put into Vice President Wellesley’s column.”

“That’s a five percent swing, which in a tight election …”

“Would be all the difference in the world,” Mac answered.

“Sir, if I might,” Agent Berman interjected. “On the flight to Washington we verified

that these four remaining memory cards do exactly what Martin says they would. They roll back the votes. No question.”

“This is what we think the case is all about, Director,” Mac pressed. “Someone has put in motion a plan to manipulate the voting machines in these key states to push the election to the vice president and has murdered at least seven people to keep it from being exposed.”

Mitchell sat back in the leather conference room chair, closed his eyes and absorbed the enormity of what he’d just seen and heard. He sighed and looked to Mac. “Detective McRyan, I have a follow-up question or two. Do you think this is limited to just the three states you mentioned earlier?”

“I have no way of knowing, Director. These four remaining cards are part of the batch that went out to those three states, so I suspect it is limited to those states, but if I might offer an opinion.”

Mitchell nodded.

“I’d check any DataPoint machine just to be sure. We’ve found this, who knows what else might be out there. We might have just hit the tip of the iceberg for all we know.”

“I agree, Detective. We can’t take the chance,” Mitchell answered and Mac breathed a sigh of relief. He’d convinced the director. Not that he was working for Dixon, but that would make the Judge happy who would now have a field day leaking to his favorites in the press corps.

Mitchell stood up and called in his assistant. “Get me Attorney General Gates on the phone.”

“Sir, its 4:00 a.m.,” the assistant complained, not relishing calling the attorney general.

“I don’t care, he needs to hear this and we need to get moving,” Mitchell replied. “Next, we need to get the secretaries of state for Iowa, Wisconsin and Virginia lined up for a telephone conference. I understand they’ve been alerted already. Let’s get them teed up.” Mitchell next looked to Berman. “After that, with regard to the DataPoint machines, we need to get on a call with all of the secretaries of state for states that have these machines and have them inspected and tested, let’s get that process started. Now, I tend to think, or maybe hope, that only these three states are impacted, but who knows. Assuming for the moment that it is only these three states, can we get new memory cards in time for Tuesday?”

Nobody in the room knew the answer.

“We need to find that out like fifteen minutes ago,” Mitchell stated. He picked upon his phone and made a call. He put his hand over the receiver, “Election fraud is a Civil Rights Division Issue so I’m calling the deputy director for that division.” Director Mitchell spent a few minutes on the phone with a groggy deputy director. Mitchell said, “Yes, I’m serious,” more than once. Once his phone calls were complete, Mitchell looked at Mac.

“So Mac, there’s one thing we haven’t tackled,” Mitchell stated, sitting back down in his chair, looking Mac straight in the eye. “Who’s behind this? Is it Heath Connolly? Is the vice president’s campaign manager fixing the election?”

Mac hedged a little. It looked like Connolly was running the show but he wasn’t entirely certain. That one photo from Kentucky, the limousine that arrived last, still gnawed at him. There was someone yet unaccounted for. But if there was another player, or if that person, and not Connolly, were in charge, there was still only one person who could answer the question. “Connolly is the most likely for one specific reason.”

“Which is what, Detective?” Mitchell asked.

“He’s still alive. Everyone else is dead.”

T
he director and Mac briefed Attorney General Josiah Gates a little before 5:00 a.m. Gates had served as attorney general for the past two years and was a close personal friend of Vice President Wellesley. The attorney general had a reasonable expectation of holding his job if his good friend were elected. So it was with a little surprise and much to Mac’s great relief, Attorney General Gates had no intention of keeping his job via potential election fraud.

A half hour after the briefing, Mac sat and listened as Mitchell and Gates held a conference call with the secretaries of state for Iowa, Wisconsin and Virginia. By a little after 6:00 a.m., each state was already starting the process of arranging to test their DataPoint machines. By 6:30 a.m., the secretaries of state for the other DataPoint states had been brought into the loop as a precaution and would be testing their machines as well.

At 7:00 a.m., Attorney General Gates and FBI Director Mitchell left to brief President Barnes. Thankfully, Mac did not have to give that briefing. “No offense, Detective, because I suspect you’re most concerned with the murders,” Attorney General Gates stated seriously, “but the president will have to be most concerned about the elections on Tuesday.”

“Understood,” Mac answered, and he did. “Sir,” Mac asked FBI Director Mitchell, “will you be needing me for the next few hours?”

“No, Mac,” Mitchell answered with a small grin, having anticipated McRyan’s question. “My driver is downstairs and he will take you to the Marriott. I already have a room reserved for you. Go crash. I’ll probably want you back here when we get Connolly in.”

Mac didn’t hesitate. He went to the Marriott, checked into his room, crashed on the bed and immediately fell asleep.

While he slept, a lot happened.

Following his early morning briefing, the president moved decisively, issuing an executive order to have all DataPoint machines inspected. A follow-up conference call with the secretaries of state occurred at 8:00 a.m. and by 9:30 a.m., results started flooding into the FBI office of Civil Rights that in fact the rollback virus was on the memory cards for the DataPoint machines in the three keys states. The good news was that in other states with DataPoint machines, it didn’t appear there was an issue, so the rollback virus was limited to Iowa, Wisconsin and Virginia.

A conference call was then held at 10:15 a.m. with the campaigns wherein the rollback virus was disclosed and the measures that needed to be taken were explained. For the machines to operate properly, the memory cards had to be replaced. The scramble was already on to manufacture the cards. The previous manufacturer DataPoint used for the memory cards was contacted and agreed to immediately begin production of the memory cards, at an extremely high markup, of course.

And then there was the media.

The early morning briefing by the FBI director and attorney general was not on the president’s original schedule. When the FBI director and attorney general show up unannounced, something is up. That caught the attention of the White House Press Corps and they picked up the scent quickly. That gave the Judge an opening to start the ball rolling on DataPoint. Word of the conference call with the secretaries of state leaked and it appeared on a political reporter’s Twitter feed, followed by a quick Huffington Post blog post that went viral within minutes. It even made its way onto the Sunday morning political shows as breaking news. It was all the pundits could do to avoid looking at their cell phones while debating who would win on Tuesday night. Even the great George Will wasn’t sure what to say.

Following the morning shows, Barnes Administration and Thomson campaign sources, mostly off the record, confirmed that there was a significant problem with and tampering of the voting machines in three key battleground states. The Wellesley campaign was oddly silent and simply was providing “no comment,” and for good reason. At 11:30 a.m. eastern time, the attorney general and FBI director held a press conference and disclosed the attack on the electoral system, explaining what the virus would do and what its possible impact would have been.

Neither the attorney general nor the FBI director minced words. The murders were tied to the manipulation of the system, indicating the attack had both domestic and foreign components. However, the implication was clear. Someone who was a supporter of Vice President Wellesley had conspired to manipulate the election results and murdered seven people in the process.

The media, already in overdrive two days before the election, went ballistic with wall-to-wall coverage. Never had the actual mechanics of voting machines been so thoroughly and quickly dissected as was now being done on FOX News, NBC News Channel and CNN. With the help of smart boards, the networks demonstrated what the impact of the rollback of one vote of every twenty for Governor Thomson would have been in those three states, assuming the current polling numbers and projected voter turnout. Clearly the manipulation would have caused the states to slip to Vice President Wellesley.

The headlines were predictable.

Electoral Theft.

Rolling Back Democracy.

Manipulating the Franchise.

Hacking Democracy.

Virus Politics.

The one that caught Mac’s attention was the FOX News headline—”Electing to Murder.” To him, that captured what the case was really about, the victims. It was also the headline that led to the question: “Who was behind this?”

That part of the story had yet to be told, but the media was asking and digging.

Attorney General Gates and Director Mitchell were clear that they did not have a suspect although there were people of interest they were looking to talk to and would do so very soon. In actuality, it was one person of interest—Heath Connolly. Connolly’s name was never uttered but his name started percolating to the surface within fifteen minutes of the end of the press conference. Judge Dixon at work again. Khrutov’s name leaked as well and that escalated the story further, Russians and Republicans conspiring to fix the presidential election.

The reaction of the Political Left was outrage and one of let’s not jump to conclusions on the Political Right.

The problem for the right was it was hard not to jump to a conclusion because it was all so obvious to see. Damage control mode was the operating mantra of the vice president’s campaign as well as Senate and Congressional Republicans. The vice president himself had met with reporters immediately after the press conference and said anyone involved needed to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

“Does that include if this involves someone in your campaign?” an ABC reporter asked.

“Without question.”

Five minutes later came the first report of Connolly’s name.

Once Connolly’s name came out, the interview of any Republican on any political show, even FOX News, was uncomfortable to watch.

After his nearly four hours of sleep, Mac took in all of this chaos from the couch of his suite at the Marriott a few blocks from the Hoover Building. A quick shower and some good room service had him feeling somewhat refreshed. Now, 1:00 p.m., he was lounging in a bathrobe and his boxers watching a football game, when there was an expected knock on his door which he opened to find Wire. She’d gone to her Arlington, Virginia, home to get some rest, a shower and she offered to buy some clothes for Mac, who’d flown to Milwaukee and then Washington with nothing but the clothes on his back.

The few hours of rest had done her well and she looked good. Skinny blue jeans accentuating her long shapely legs, tight black top, black leather jacket, makeup and her long black hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail. “I say this as a man utterly in love with his girlfriend and without any hint of lecherousness, but Dara Wire, you clean up really nice.”

“Thanks,” Wire replied with a bright smile, appreciating the compliment. “Here you go,” she handed him two bags that contained two pairs of jeans, a package of boxers, socks, T-shirts and two Henley shirts, one gray and one black.

“Thanks, partner,” Mac replied as he darted into the bedroom although he left the door open a crack so they could talk.