Access to Power (2 page)

“I need someone to read a spot,” he said. “Call Sammy or Rick. We need to be recording the voice track in thirty minutes. Then call Vintage Video. Tell them to clear out a room. I want to be editing in an hour.”

“You want messengers?” she asked, writing everything down.

He nodded, turning back to Lou Kay’s spot frozen on the monitor and pointing the disclaimer out to his interns. “I want you guys to call the TV stations. Tell them that Lou Kay’s disclaimer violates the election code. It’s too small. Tell them if they air it again, they’ll be fined. And try to act like you know what you’re talking about.”

Harry leaned toward the monitor, adjusting his glasses. “It looks okay to me.”

“It is okay,” Linda said. “But they’ll have to pull the spot to check. It won’t be running.”

Harry laughed as it sank in. Vintage Frank Miles.

It was a trick used to buy time. Frank knew that the television stations would have to pull Lou Kay’s spot against Mel Merdock out of the rotation in order to electronically measure the size of the disclaimer. The size of the disclaimer, PAID FOR BY FRIENDS OF LOU KAY FOR THE U.S. SENATE, measured in scan lines, had always been a sensitive issue because consultants like Frank had always tried to hide it, bury it, particularly when on the attack. Depending on how busy the TV stations were, how much time it took, it was possible that Frank could respond with a new commercial before Lou Kay’s ad did any damage at all.

“What about script approval?” Tracy asked, smiling.

“Forget it,” Frank said as he bolted out the door. “I’m gonna kill these guys.”

Chapter 3

Frank cut through the war room into his office. Beneath neatly framed prints of Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Jack Kennedy, and LBJ, he sat at his desk, grabbed his keyboard and got started. This was what he liked most about his job, the thing that kept him alive. Striking back. Going for the takedown with his back against the wall.

“The guy is a lie, Frank.”

He looked up, not realizing that Woody had followed him into the room.

“It’s a lie,” Frank repeated excitedly. “I like that.” He turned to the monitor, repeating the words as he typed them. “
It’s a lie
.”

Frank’s corner office was larger than the rest. An antique table made of solid cherry and four matching chairs stood to the right of the glass door with bookcases running the entire length of the room. His desk stood in the corner so that he could look through the plate glass walls into the war room and still have a view of the Capitol outside his window. Off to the side, a couch long and deep enough to sleep on sat before a coffee table and two overstuffed reading chairs.

Tracy stuck her head in the door. “Sammy and Rick are both available. Who do you want to read the spot?”

“Find out who’s pissed off.”

“Sammy’s wife just left him. She wants a divorce.”

Frank stopped typing and looked at her with an inquisitive smile. Tracy was the best assistant he had ever had. She was extremely loyal and possessed an uncanny feel for everything happening all over town. A bit on the hefty side and only twenty-five, she had a wholesome face and was engaged to a man who would soon be graduating from Harvard Law School. Frank knew that he would lose her one day and dreaded the thought.

“How do you know that?” he asked.

She shrugged. “He’s on the phone. He’s in a bad mood.”

“Tell him we’ll fax the script over in ten minutes.”

Tracy nodded, vanishing from the doorway. Then Frank noticed Woody standing by the window in another one of his moods. It seemed to Frank that Woody had been in a bad mood since the last election cycle two years ago.

“I’m busy, Woody. What do you want?”

“I want you to drop the Merdock account.”

Frank laughed and turned back to the monitor. “You’re ridiculous. Get out.”

“Merdock’s trying to buy a seat in the Senate with his father’s money. He’s a dick, an incompetent boob.”

“
The victim of a negative campaign
,” Frank said, typing the words onto his screen.

“He’s morally bankrupt. He’s gonna spend fifty million bucks.”

Frank smiled. “
What Virginia needs
. No,” he said, correcting himself. “
What Virginia REALLY needs
.”

“This is the U.S. Senate, Frank. Merdock hasn’t talked about one real issue. He doesn’t stand for anything!”

“I’m sure he stands for something,” Frank said, reviewing his script on the monitor. “If you don’t want your share of the media buy, then don’t take it. Simple as that.”

Woody reached over Frank’s shoulder, opening his desk drawer and taking a cigarette from the pack Frank kept for emergencies. Then he settled into the deep cushioned chair. There was a long silence. Frank glanced at him briefly, checking to see if he was still in the room.

“This isn’t what we had in mind when we got into this,” Woody said finally, almost whispering.

Frank let go of his keyboard and sighed. He looked at his friend slumped in the chair with his feet on the coffee table.

“What we got into was the business of getting people elected,” Frank said.

“No matter what?”

Frank smiled, turning back to his work. “Children and puppies,” he said.

“What?”

“He’s for children and puppies.”

“Fuck you.”

Woody got up and left the room enraged. Frank shook his head. Arguments with Woody had never been personal before. They’d been through too much together. Arguments were a game for Woody, part of the show. But Frank wondered if it was still true. He wondered if Woody hadn’t seen the handwriting on the wall. When they started the business, elections were tough, but day-to-day politics had been a clash of ideas and philosophy brought together by the strength and character of men and women willing to work with each other and compromise for the sake of the country. Now the two parties had circled the wagons, trying to hold their positions whatever the cost. Compromise and moderation were dirty words. Strength and character in short supply. Campaigns were never ending, more like a war with the winner the one left standing. And Frank knew that his partner was having trouble making the transition. If you didn’t kill your opponent, your opponent would kill you.

Frank printed two copies of his spot, looked up and noticed Linda in her office on the other side of the war room. She stood by the window with the sun on her face, gazing at the Capitol as she spoke on the phone and twirled the cord between her thumb and forefinger, probably checking in with a client or campaign manager. As he looked at her long legs, his memories of the body underneath her tweed suit came rushing into his head. The times they’d had when they were together. It was like that every day he saw her. It was like that even when he was alone and only thinking of her in his head.

He missed her. He missed everything about her.

They had met in New York during the governor’s campaign and spent long hours on the road together in what had become an unexpectedly tight race. Linda was a smart campaign manager, had a natural instinct for politics and they had become good friends. When she expressed interest in moving from Albany, Frank asked her to join the firm and taught her everything he knew. Linda was someone he could talk to. Someone who got it the first time. Then, on a snowy night in February, it finally happened. He remembered her green eyes lingering on his mouth. The taste of their first kiss. The feeling in his chest when they touched each other. He could still feel it even though it had ended more than a year and a half ago.

Linda laughed into the phone. Frank tried to look away, but couldn’t. Maybe she wasn’t talking to a client after all. Maybe it was someone more personal, more intimate. He’d wondered for the past few months if she hadn’t been dropping hints that she was ready to begin seeing other men. Just two days ago, someone had sent her flowers but not included a card. He didn’t think that she would never hurt him willingly. It wasn’t in her and they had remained friendly. Still, at a certain point you had to begin living again and move on.

Tracy walked in, breaking the spell as she grabbed a copy of the script. “The Merdocks, Frank.”

He heard the anxiousness in her voice. He looked up and saw Mel Merdock storming into the war room with his brother and campaign manager, Jake. Both looked worried as they headed for the conference room.

“Sammy’s at the recording studio,” Tracy said. “You need to get out of here.”

He checked his watch. “We’ll do the voice track by phone. Have the sound studio set up a patch so I can listen from here. Let me know when they’re ready.”

He walked out, then turned back. Tracy was already behind his desk, dialing the phone.

“You know what?” he asked.

“What?”

“You’re the best. That’s what.”

She flashed an embarrassed smile and turned back to the phone. Then Frank crossed the war room. He didn’t need to ask why his clients were here. He’d sent them a copy of Lou Kay’s attack ad by messenger. It was a mistake, he realized now. He had to move fast. There wasn’t enough time to hold anyone’s hand.

Chapter 4

Frank glanced at Woody brooding in his office as he entered the conference room and closed the glass door. Merdock and Jake turned from the window, the worry on their faces still burning like a grass fire.

Merdock was a young thirty-eight. Frank knew that if his light features and boyish face read like schoolboy charm, his looks would be an advantage. A fresh face going up against all the old hacks voters associated with Capitol Hill. But if it went the other way, if it read like naiveté
, wh
ich was exactly what Stewart Brown was trying to do with Lou Kay’s negative ads, then Merdock’s good looks would work against them and they wouldn’t stand a chance.

“Did you see it?” Merdock asked, his voice shaking.

Frank nodded. He poured a cup of coffee and remained standing as Merdock and Jake took seats at the table. Jake was younger than his brother, but darker and more shrewd-looking.

“How do you think this affects Mel’s chances?” Jake asked.

“If we work quickly, the spot won’t have any effect at all,” Frank said. “It’s the first hit. And Stewart Brown did just what I said he would. He kept Lou Kay off the air. They saved their money. Now they’re gonna hit hard. Negative all the way to election day.”

“How do we fight that?” Merdock blurted out.

“We hit back harder. And we do it more times.”

Merdock dug into his briefcase, pulling out a copy of
The Washington Post
. “A poll came out in this morning’s paper. We’re losing. Maybe we should make a change on some of our issues.”

“What issues?” Frank asked. “You don’t have any.”

Merdock dropped the paper, looking at Jake for help.

Frank let their jitters pass. More money would be spent in the Merdock/Kay race than any other Senate campaign in the history of the country. The total media buy would better what was spent on a presidential campaign just ten years ago. Because most of the money would be dumped in three short weeks, it would be a campaign to remember. No one watching television at any hour of the day would be able to hide their head in the sand. Even if they had cable.

Frank leaned over the table, staring at them. “What you say or do after you’re elected is none of my business. Until you’re elected, I write the copy.”

“If I want to win,” Merdock said.

Frank nodded. “We’ve got polling data that shows people who read newspapers think the most important issues are jobs and education. But it also shows that people who don’t read newspapers and watch TV think crime’s the real issue. How’s that possible when almost every study shows crime going down?”

Frank looked through the glass at Tracy waving at him from her desk. His recording session was ready.

“Local TV news isn’t news anymore,” Merdock said.

Frank pushed his coffee aside, untouched. “It’s a crime report designed to scare the shit out of people. So here’s what we do. When we’re on TV, crime’s the big issue. In print, it’s jobs, education and social security.”

Jake leaned forward and grinned. “In other words, we give the audience exactly what they want. But what about their spot? What are you gonna do about that?”

“Turn it around,” Frank said, swinging the door open and hustling toward his office. “Make them wish they never made it.”

Chapter 5

Parked across the street from Miles, Darrow & Associates, George Raymond sat in his Honda Accord trying to get one last look at the place in the afternoon light. He had already scouted the location two days before, but another look never hurt.

The building was surprisingly informal, more like a house than an office, and he guessed that there had to be a history to the place. But what he liked most about the layout was the privacy. The political media firm was the sole occupant and owned the property. Tucked away from the street, the building stood hidden in the trees behind thick, ivy-covered walls.