Executive Actions (41 page)

J
ack Evans arrived at Langley at his usual 0545. It took him an hour to digest the overnight reports. One message in particular caught his eye. Sandman reported in. It took only 15 seconds to gather the importance of the message. He called to his driver to bring his car around. They’d be heading to the White House early today.

“Want to stop and vote on the way back, sir?” the driver, a fifty-eight-year-old CIA officer named Si Marvin asked. “They say the race is closer than predicted. I think the Chief can use your vote.”

The morning polls reported a virtual dead heat.

“You get me there as often as you can, Simon. The way I feel right now, I think it’s only fair I vote a hundred times.”

Marvin had no idea what Evans was talking about. But he laughed and put the pedal to the metal.

Ibrahim Haddad pulled the lever on his district’s voting machine. The old punch cards with the chads that decided the Bush-Gore election were retired following a primary in March 2002. Now Miami-Dade County, Florida used computers.

Haddad, an American citizen for more than thirty years, actually liked to vote. But this election was special. He cast his ballot for a man who would, as he’d promised in his campaign speeches, “Change the world.” He voted for Congressman Teddy Lodge and walked out of the voting booth happier than he’d ever been.

Michael O’Connell correctly figured he’d be on the road election day. He voted for Lodge ten days earlier using an absentee ballot.

Detective Harry Coates cast his vote for the congressman, as did St. Charles Hotel employees Carolyn Hill and Anne Fornado.

With what Police Chief Carl Marelli and Chuck Wheaton knew, they went row “A” for President Morgan Taylor.

The Idaho State Policeman, Duke Hormel said he liked the president, but he and his wife voted for Teddy Lodge.

Touch Parsons was the first in line at his polling station. He was on the President’s side, especially now. So were the rest of Taylor’s key advisors and bureau heads.

Katie Kessler had always voted Democrat until today. And Scott Roarke who tended to make up his mind in the voting booth didn’t abandon his boss.

In Burlington, Vermont, Geoff Newman voted just ahead of Teddy Lodge. The news cameras followed them as far as they could up the walkway to Ward 6’s booths located at Edmund’s Middle School.

The same was true in Washington when Morgan and Lucy Taylor cast their ballots.

And, in the complete privacy of a makeshift voting booth in Precinct 48, the so-called “tree” and “poet streets” district of Billings, Montana, Governor Lamden did precisely what his heart told him to do.

One man heavily involved in the election process didn’t vote. For that matter, he wasn’t on any registration rolls. Not as Roger C. Waterman or Frank Dolan or Dr. George Powder. The man was anonymous again, driving leisurely across the country, ignoring the early election reports on his radio in favor of a satellite station playing authentic bluegrass.

The CIA director had to wait for the president to return from a scheduled breakfast after voting. Evans sat in the West Wing, sipping some freshly brewed coffee, not once letting his briefcase out of his hand.

When the president charged into the White House he said, “Jack, you’re in a bit early this morning.”

“Something to share with you, sir.” He offered no hint of small talk. Morgan Taylor read the signs.

“Come right in.”

Once the door was closed Evans didn’t wait for an invitation to begin.

“A message from Sandman. He found what he was looking for.”

Neither man had sat down. They stood eye to eye, barely two feet from one another.

“What is it?”

“We don’t know yet. He gave us the sign that he had located exactly what we needed. Hard copies.”

“Any hint?”

“Our instructions to him were explicit. He contacted us in the manner prescribed if and when he located information. But with the chance he could be watched we have to be careful.”

“So when?” The president asked.
And why the hell didn’t this happen earlier?

“It’ll take a drop. An e-mail is too risky. He doesn’t have a satellite phone. So I’ve got to think about this. But he knows
where
it is and presumably
what
it is. Oh, and there’s one more thing he communicated.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Sandman wants out. But if he suddenly disappears people will notice. It could raise suspicions. Tip the Kharrazi’s.”

“Meaning…?”

“We’re very close and he’s far away. That puts us slam bam in the middle of a shit sandwich,” Evans explained. “It’s hard to pass the information and we can’t get Sandman out.”

T
he Constitution of the United States provides for a popular vote for president. But the overall national numbers are secondary to a candidate taking a majority of the important states. Winning a state means you’re awarded the Electoral College votes. Add enough of those votes up and a candidate becomes president.

On the Monday following the second Wednesday of December, each State’s Electors convene in their state capitals to cast their electoral votes for president and vice president. Larger states hold more electoral votes; smaller states fewer. The system is flawed. A candidate can win the plurality of national votes, but not earn enough state Electoral College votes to move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Al Gore could still bend an ear on that topic. He won the national vote in 2000, but George W. Bush came out ahead in the electoral numbers.

The same scenario threatened to keep the Taylor-Lodge election in limbo for hours. It was definitely going to be a close call today. One state could make a difference.

Voting picked up in the late afternoon. People went to the polls on their way home after work, following school car pools, and before the late shift began. Instant polls shed no new light on where it would end up. The final hour of votes from commuters would decide it.

All of the networks, independent stations and news organizations continued the policy of not reporting precinct, city or state results until the polls were closed in each time zone. By 7:00
P.M.
, as initial tallies began coming in, graphic boards behind the anchors lit up. Blue for states going to President Taylor. Red for Congressman Lodge. Some of them switched back and forth since the earliest numbers didn’t necessarily reflect the ultimate direction of the entire state.

New England was assuredly Lodge country, as predicted. Even conservative New Hampshire. So was New York. But Pennsylvania, first given to Lodge went to Taylor. The same for Delaware and Maryland. The President also took the District of Columbia and the Southern states in the Eastern Time zone, with the exception of Virginia and North Carolina.

As the polls closed in the Midwest, the same flipping occurred. Consequently, no one could accurately predict the outcome. Fox got caught twice trying to make a reliable prediction only to see the numbers swing. NBC and its affiliated news channels decided not to call a state until 50 percent or more of the vote was in. CBS said it for everyone. “We might as well settle in. It’s going to be a long, nerve racking night.”

Two hundred seventy out of a possible 538 Electoral College votes are required to win. At 11:30 Eastern Time, Morgan Taylor had 237 to Teddy Lodge’s 196. A half hour later, the close results from Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. And still no winner. 249 Taylor. 216 Lodge. Both within striking distance.

The Western states would decide the election. Together, Washington and Oregon carried 18 Electoral votes. The President was projected to capture those, which would leave him just three electoral votes short. California’s 55 were a toss up. The state posted a record turnout, but early precinct results failed to show a decisive trend. San Francisco and Los Angeles went to Lodge. Orange County and San Diego belonged to the President. The critical votes would be in Central and Northern California, but due to downed phone lines and computer issues, they were slow to be reported.

And this is how it went. Up and down for the next two hours.

“Wine country to the Oregon border will go to Congressman Lodge,” offered CNBC. The anchor circled the massive land area south of San Francisco, north of L.A. on his tele-strator. “Now this is where it’ll come down to. California’s Central Valley. The region is composed of eight counties: Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Merced, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and Tulare, amounting to ten percent of California’s population. To put it another way, the Central Valley outranks 20 states in population.

“One portion of one state. Roughly three million voters will decide for the entire country who will serve as president.”

Of course, Fadi Kharrazi didn’t understand any of the process. He watched the numbers rise and fall over a satellite feed of CNN International. He believed that many commentators were merely Taylor’s paid mouthpieces; that they’d only report what they were told.
How things would soon change.
In his naïve view of American free speech, he wondered which members of the press the new president would fire first.

At 1104 hrs Tripoli time, well after midnight in the United States, CNN analysts felt they could finally declare a winner. Fadi Kharrazi turned up the sound.

So did Morgan Taylor in Washington, Teddy Lodge in Burlington, and millions of other viewers who were still up at 4:04
A.M.
in Washington—1:04 in the morning on the West Coast.

T
he bookseller’s eyes didn’t give him away. But for a brief moment the old man peered over a stack of magazines piled on his desk and noted the familiar customer who was interested in Gilgamesh. He shifted his eyes downward and lost himself in the lies of the day’s newspapers. For Hamid Salim Sahhaf, reading was required for his cover. He had quietly served as a CIA information officer for twenty-nine years, surviving two regimes to become the longest living mole in all of Libya.

Sahhaf’s only duty was to fold down pre-determined pages of books as instructed and in turn, let his contact know what pages he discovered were folded down. He never knew what it meant and he didn’t care. In fact, he regularly complained to customers to be good to the books. “You illiterate fools,” he would complain. “How am I supposed to make a living selling books when people turn them into shit?”

At one point, the grumbling worked its way to Abahar Kharrazi’s Office of Internal Security. But Sahhaf was easily dismissed as senile and harmless. The paperwork never even reached Abahar.

Even Sami Ben Ali failed to peg Sahhaf as a spook. He simply knew that the bookstore was his primary drop. It worked this way. He browsed the shelves again. Replies were always on a shelf below where the questions were left. It was the third day of the week. So he counted in three books from the left. This is where he’d find the answer, if one was there for the day. To any other browsers, it looked as if he was searching for a text. Sometimes there would be nothing. Like yesterday. He hoped his people would have something for him today.

He found it in a novel titled
Sirat Bani Hilal,
a story of a fictitious black tribal prince named Abu Zayd. Sami didn’t know the tale. Perhaps one day he’d read it—hopefully back in Detroit. Quite a few pages were flagged. His coded flash pad for the day would help him turn the numbers on the pages into meaningful content.

After three rounds of haggling with the shopkeeper who barely gave any ground this time, Sami finally paid.

He casually walked back to his office at Abahar’s OIS, trying not to draw any attention to himself. Sami kept thinking about the Lions and how well he heard they were doing this season. He was oblivious to the real news that was breaking on the radio.

The ABC anchor looked straight into the camera. The alphabet network was ready to make the call exactly the same time CNN committed. NBC was 30 seconds behind. CBS and Fox, which had gotten it wrong before; made the announcement barely a minute later.

The full frame picture of the veteran anchor effected to a three-way split screen allowing room for live shots from both the Taylor and Lodge headquarters.

“We now feel confident to tell you,” he stated, “that we have a clear winner.”

The anchor noted the time. “Exactly 4:04
A.M.
” He explained again that the California results were later than expected because phone lines were blown down during a blast of Santa Ana winds across Southern California resulting in late computer tallies. That’s where Fox had made their projection errors.

As he continued, worn out volunteers and staffers waited patiently, holding onto every word. The reaction wasn’t immediate. It took time for it to sink in. Then viewers saw the contrasting shots. One campaign headquarters erupted into chaos. The other fell totally silent.

The anchor repeated the announcement. “The most closely contested Presidential election in American political history now has a victor. Closer than Kennedy-Nixon. Closer than Bush-Gore. With a total of 271 Electoral College votes, just one more than required the winner of California will be sworn in as President of the United States on January 20
th
—Theodore Wilson Lodge.”

Fadi leaned back in his chair, quite satisfied with the report on CNN International. It was a good day; the second critical date he had circled on his desk calendar. One more remained.

A
t the end of the day, Sami was back in confines of his pitiful apartment closet. He sealed the cracks between the door and the door frame with duct tape. His radio was turned up to cover the sound of his work should any eavesdropping devices be in place. If only the communiqué would guarantee his ticket out. Twenty minutes into the deciphering he learned he wasn’t going anywhere. Not yet.

Sami had to get his disk to Langley. The company needed the whole thing.

He wished he could simply walk up to one of Tripoli’s many Internet cafés, like Al Dalil at 15 Gargach or Sendibadat at Hai Demashq, and e-mail the data to a safe address. But that was not wise. Tripoli was fairly open to Internet use, however loading an incriminating disk would be plainly stupid. So would typing a coded message out in the open. It could be easily observed by another patron or stored in backup hard drives that were likely hidden somewhere in the cafés.

He certainly couldn’t take the chance of sending it out through his apartment phone and a cell phone was completely out of the question. Kharrazi had outlawed cell phones for all but high level government use.

Sami Ben Ali had to rely on the old fashioned methods. This would require more thought. But not tonight. He was sweaty and exhausted sitting so long in the closet. And having heard the election results on the street, he wondered what the news back home would mean.

At 10
A.M.
Washington time, the President of the United States spoke to an audience of housewives and executives, the people generally watching daytime TV. It was an intentional low impact appearance for a concession speech.

“Hello, everyone. Early this morning, it was reported that there will be a new president.” He didn’t mention Lodge by name. “He’s going to have a great deal on his plate. The vote, as you know, was extremely close, the circumstances of the election were quite unexpected. But for now, as true Americans we must prepare for the transition and let the unique and wondrous constitutional process unfold.”

“To my supporters, I offer my heartfelt gratitude. To my successor, I ask only one thing.” He stared directly at the camera lens; his expression deadly serious. “Be true to the United States of America.” His face then warmed up again. “And to all citizens, I continue to pledge
my
allegiance to our great country. Thank you. God Bless America.” He left the podium bearing the symbol of the president, passing on the opportunity to talk to reporters.

The president had done the expected, but with words that asked more questions than they answered. Morgan Taylor conceded the election without acknowlegement of defeat. Some commentators looked for meaning and intent. Others considered it merely tired ramblings from the loser. Teddy Lodge heard exactly what he was supposed to.

“He didn’t even fucking congratulate me.”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s out,” Newman said to the infuriated Lodge.

“Out? He was giving me the finger on national television.
‘…be true to the United States.’
What kind of bullshit was that?”

Lodge brushed his hair back off his forehead, but not in the sexy manner he did for the cameras. He felt pure rage. “He’s setting me up.”

“Forget him. He’s nobody. Now it’s your turn to talk to the country. Tuck your shirt in and get ready. I’ve had the makeup girl waiting all night for you.”

“But he’s…”

“History. Just another ex-president.”

Newman was exerting his decades-old control over his puppet. And Lodge, as always, listened. “Pull yourself together. You’re the new President of the United States. Put him out to pasture with style. The press won’t give a damn about Taylor after you say thank you for honoring your wife’s memory by the way they voted.”

Lodge nodded as he straightened himself out and fastened a bright yellow print tie.

“That’s a new one,” noted Newman. “Where’d you get it?”

“Christine gave it to me. Oh, and I want you to keep her around.”

“Well, hi there,” proclaimed Teddy Lodge over the cheering of his campaign staff. “Did you have a good night?” he joked. “I sure did.”

The screams were ear shattering. The glass in the Sheraton Burlington Hotel ballroom windows, site of the Lodge victory party, actually shook.

“I guess we did it!”

The chants of “Ted-dy…Ted-dy…Ted-dy…” took over for a good two minutes, until the Congressman lowered his arms from over his head. The network cameras all had the same handsome three-buttoned shot.

“It wasn’t me,” he continued. “It was all of you!” And with another burst of enthusiasm, the crowd showed exactly how they loved him.

Newman watched on TV. His man was doing what he did best: Rewarding his followers and seducing new devotees. He’d been doing it ever since college. Even the people who abandoned him because of his performance in the last days of the campaign would come back. The polls would bear that out after this speech.

A question nagged at him, though.
Did Taylor really know anything?
He bit his lip.
No. He’s nothing but a powerless lame duck.
Newman turned his attention back to the television screen.

“I want to thank President Taylor for his clean and spirited fight. I think I speak for the nation when I say, Thank you for your service, Mr. President. You have distinguished yourself honorably throughout your term. The country owes you a great debt of gratitude.”

The crowd politely applauded, which allowed the congressman to move on. That door was now shut. With the accolade, Teddy Lodge had ever so nicely willed Morgan Taylor to the corn field.

“Now to the future, which is hard for me to separate from the past. I am here because you are ready for a change and you’ve made it happen. I am here because I wanted to be your president and you’ve granted me that privilege. And I am here because of your love and the love of my wife. Thank you on behalf of Jenny. Thank you.”

The crowd, hypnotized by a run of Lodge’s triplets, began its chanting again.

“Governor Lamden and I will begin talking later today about our transition team. We will assemble a vital group of men and women who will help plot a course for greater prosperity, a stronger nation, and a better world. I thank you for all of your support. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll head home. I suddenly have a bit of packing to do.”

Teddy Lodge waved goodbye and left, making sure he shook as many hands as the cameras were willing to cover.

Morgan Taylor turned off the TV set. He’d run out of time and ways to stop Teddy Lodge before the election.

Now he wondered if he’d even have the means to prevent him from assuming office.

Proof. I need some goddamned proof.