Parties in Congress (30 page)

The video ended and everyone stood for a moment in silence.

“What, they didn’t play ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ in the background?” someone in the back asked.

Several people tittered nervously, perhaps too uncomfortable with the reality of Colleen’s accusations to respond any other way. Bijal locked gazes with Janet, who swallowed loudly but said nothing.

*

Colleen had already taken her seat on the plane scheduled to take off from Dubai and land about four-and-a-half hours later in Kabul, Afghanistan. The trip to Dubai had been long and taxing. But at least it was on a commercial aircraft. This last leg of the journey would be aboard a C-130 Hercules military transport plane—a far less luxurious ride.

“Shit,” she muttered as she recognized that she still had no signal on her BlackBerry. It was frustrating not to be able to access her e-mail. Cut off digitally from her congressional office as well as her campaign headquarters, Colleen had immersed herself in the documentation she’d brought outlining the CODEL—where they were going, who they were meeting, and what they were ultimately hoping to accomplish.

“Colleen,” someone called. Looking up, Colleen recognized the smiling face of Congressman Steve McAllister, an affable Republican from Ohio. “Of course you’re working. Why wouldn’t I have assumed that?”

“Hey, Steve. I
would
be working, if I could get a signal.”

“Yeah, I haven’t been able to get one either. Mind if I sit next to you?”

“Not at all. Take a load off.”

Steve slipped his carry-on bag off his shoulder and sat beside her. “The flight out of DC seemed like it lasted forever. Did you get any sleep?”

“Not enough,” Colleen replied wistfully. She had tried to nap several times during the nearly thirteen-hour flight, but her mind had been racing and wouldn’t let her relax. Even her most random ruminations somehow ended up transitioning to thoughts of Bijal. Those seemed to start out pleasant enough—the tone of her rich voice, her warm mahogany eyes, her full lips, the knee-weakening way she kissed.

Then, like a terrible boomerang of despair, somehow everything wondrous would fade into the twisted, unpleasant confines of their ugly political battle, and she was left feeling a horrible fusion of arousal and anguish. The combination was neither satisfying nor tolerable.

“How’s your election coming along?” Steve asked, little realizing the pot of viscous shit-soup he was stirring.

“From a polling perspective, fine. From a mud-slinging perspective, it completely sucks.”

Steve scoffed. “Come on, you must be sitting pretty after your opponent called the Department of Justice the ‘Justice League of America’ last week. That was
hilarious
. He’s a real Einstein.”

“Sorry, you’ve got the wrong Einstein. That guy’s running against Bob Gutierrez. I have the anti-gay pants-shitter as my opponent.”

Steve laughed loudly for several seconds before visibly restraining himself. “Right! How could I forget? Wait, when you say ‘antigay,’ does that mean she played the gay card on you?”

“Like a dealer in Vegas.”

“Ouch, sorry.”

It was a genuine comfort to Colleen, albeit a wee one, that Steve seemed to empathize with her. “That means a lot coming from someone who’s running unopposed, Steve,” she joked.

“Look at the bright side. At least you weren’t pretending to be straight and they outed you.”

“True, but I’m in the wrong party for that.”

Steve feigned horror. “Ooh, well, that may be, but you’re in the right party if you plan to embezzle.”

“Well, maybe someday we’ll get as good at covering up our financial irregularities as you guys are.”

Steve dipped his head discreetly, “Hey, speaking of irregularities, I flew in to Dubai with Zeller. Have you seen him yet?”

“No, why?”

“I passed him in customs. Apparently he—”

As Steve spoke, Congressman Harlan Zeller—Georgia Democrat and horse’s ass—walked onto the plane with a woman who could best be described as a truck-stop-bathroom-stall lay who was past her prime, but more than likely still smelled of diesel fuel and urine. “Harlan!” Colleen shouted, trying to diplomatically interrupt Steve’s gossip. “How are you?”

Harlan stopped in front of them, but Colleen couldn’t look away from the bleached blonde in the gold lamé miniskirt beside him. Though clearly in her mid to late forties, she still had a visible tattoo on her upper arm of Hello Kitty sitting on a toilet, melting heroin in a spoon.

“Hey there,” Harlan said. “I don’t know about y’all, but I’m about as tired as a bag of beat dicks. This trip is grueling.”

Steve stood politely and extended his hand. “And is this Mrs. Zeller?”

Colleen had tried to stop Steve before the question came tumbling out of his mouth, but even humming the word
no
and subtly shaking her head had no effect.

“Hell, no!” Zeller cackled. “You obviously haven’t met my wife. This is my aide, Cha Cha Staines.”

Colleen and Steve were both momentarily struck mute. Was he serious? “Nice to meet you,” Colleen finally managed to say.

Cha Cha whined a wordless greeting and nodded pleasantly. It was not beyond the realm of possibility that she spoke a language other than English—or possibly no language at all.

“Go on and head on back, darlin’,” Harlan said, slapping Cha Cha playfully on her bottom. “Good Lord, honey, your jugs are out. Wrap those puppies up before any of our fine fightin’ men come onboard and want to rub ’em.”

She responded with a nasally giggle before making a futile attempt to pull at the sheer fabric of her clingy blouse. “Sorry.”

Harlan and Cha Cha shuffled to the back of the plane and sat as far away from Steve and Colleen as possible.

“Holy shit,” Colleen muttered.

“I’m glad he’s a member of your caucus,” Steve said softly.

“I’d rather not claim him, if it’s all right with you. Did he say she was named after vaginal discharge?”

Steve laughed loudly and shook his head. “Maybe.”

“What is he thinking? Why would you bring your mistress into a war zone? And what’ll happen when we get to Afghanistan? Do you think either of them have the foggiest notion of the societal restrictions on women there?”

“I’m pretty sure your boy Harlan sees this as a fun trip he can take with a”—his voice trailed off as he clearly struggled for a noun that wasn’t disparaging—“lady other than his wife.”

“In the words of every Star Wars movie, ‘I have a really bad feeling about this.’”

Because she was unable to think about anything else for more than a few minutes at a time, Bijal had sent Colleen a couple of text messages over the last two days to test the waters. When the first one went unanswered, she sulked, fearing she had indeed alienated the most attractive and scintillating woman she’d met in years.

The following day she texted Colleen again and obsessed over her wording—wanting to masterfully walk the fine line between sounding needy and just seeming earnest. Again she’d gotten no response. It was only after she went to Colleen’s website that she remembered about the CODEL to the Middle East and realized Colleen probably wasn’t in range of cellular phone service.

CODELs in classified locations weren’t allowed to broadcast their location in real time, as doing so was considered a threat to security, so perhaps Colleen wasn’t even allowed to have her phone with her.

Bijal pushed back from her work desk and stretched before reaching for her coffee mug. She really needed to let this go. Worrying and fretting all day wasn’t getting her anywhere other than a bleak and oppressive dwelling somewhere near the intersection of Sleepless Boulevard and North Anxiety Drive.

Perhaps when Colleen got back, Bijal could send her flowers. She shook her head at how tired and clichéd that sounded. What could she do that would, instead, be charming? Refreshing? Conceivably captivating?

Maybe she could have an adorable puppy delivered to Colleen’s house, with a note on its collar about how much Bijal missed talking to her. She could name the animal after someone else from Xena, to perpetuate her canine theme. Um…who else was a character in that show? Chlamydia? Why did that name sound familiar? Wait, wasn’t that what her college roommate contracted after staying out all night with three members of the school lacrosse team?

She sagged in her chair. Scratch that idea.

Maybe she could send her a fancy invitation for an evening on the town—a lavish dinner somewhere and possibly a carriage ride. Did DC have horses? If so, she’d never seen one, though downtown she’d certainly smelled shit often enough for her to
hope
horses were nearby.

The familiar chime sounded, signaling that she’d received an e-mail. Setting her coffee back down, she pulled up her in-box to see that it was an automated alert—one she’d set up to notify her when something was posted online about Colleen.

Opening the e-mail, her stomach dropped at the title of the article: “Explosion in Afghanistan May Have Hit Congressional Delegation.”

Clicking the link, she scoured the brief piece for details. A bomb had gone off in or near the location where Colleen’s CODEL had been. They were reporting both injuries and fatalities, though the identity of anyone had not yet been confirmed.

“Holy shit,” Bijal muttered softly.

Frantically, she began to search the Internet for additional details, combing search engines and news outlets. No one seemed to have any more information for the moment.

Bijal stood, her legs rather wobbly. She wandered in a haze toward Janet’s office, knocking and waiting for a response for what seemed an eternity. Her pulse was pounding in her temples.

Eliot opened the door. “What’s up?” He stared at Bijal for a moment, then said, “Oh, God. What’s wrong?”

“Um, a bomb apparently hit O’Bannon’s congressional delegation in Afghanistan.” Bijal’s voice cracked as she struggled to keep it together.

“Are you serious?” Janet asked. “Oh, my God!”

Bijal nodded and looked back at Eliot, who motioned for her to step inside.

He shut the door softly and crossed his arms nervously. “Is she dead?”

“They don’t know. They’re still trying to identify the bodies.”

Eliot drew in a long breath. “This is very bad.”

Bijal felt a momentary kinship with Eliot. Perhaps compassion and altruism had finally broken through the political artifice.

“What do we do?” Janet asked.

Eliot sat down, rubbing his palms repeatedly on his thighs. “If O’Bannon’s injured, she’ll have the public’s sympathy for her harrowing ordeal.”

“What?” Bijal was astounded.

“And I need to look at the Virginia Election Code to see how they’d handle it if O’Bannon dies this close to Election Day. Chances are the Democrats will replace her with someone else, and unless whoever they choose is awful, they’ll be the odds-on sentimental favorite. The best thing that can happen to us is for O’Bannon to emerge totally unscathed—safe, but because she did something reprehensible, like she hid behind a group of schoolchildren and let them take the brunt of the shrapnel.”

Bijal was now livid. “What is
wrong
with you?”

“What?” Eliot seemed genuinely confused.

Something inside Bijal snapped. “People were killed, for God’s sake! Do you two really not see what’s wrong with this campaign? What’s been wrong all along? We have no humanity. At every turn, where we could have taken the path of inclusion or sensitivity, we consciously chose not to. We dance around public opinion daily, pretending we’ve always held some particular view or other, hoping that no one will notice that we don’t have the courage of our convictions. Now we have the gall to take a horrific terrorist attack that may have killed our opponent and try to spin it so it looks best for
us
. And while we wait for the details of who’s dead and who’s maimed, we’ll continue to run our vile television ad full of hateful lies.
That’s
why we’re behind in the polls.”

As Bijal’s angry words evaporated into the ether, a stunned stillness fell over them. Bijal braced for the inevitable string of profanity that would surround the declaration of her termination—like a fluffy kaiser roll of four-letter words that enveloped a meat patty of poverty and despair, with maybe a pickle slice of failure for garnish.

“She’s right,” Eliot said.

Bijal was certain her heart stopped for at least a second. “Really?”

He rubbed his jaw and squinted. “We should stop running the gay-marriage ad until we get confirmation of O’Bannon’s health. Rao, go ahead and get on that. And let me know if there’s any news one way or the other.”

Astoundingly, the words that had been flowing without impediment from Bijal’s mouth just moments earlier had now vanished, leaving her an empty husk, just whistling in the breeze. She glanced at Janet, glimpsing what was possibly guilt and dejection on her face before turning and leaving the office.

*

“Bij, wake up.” Fran shook Bijal’s shoulder gently. “You can’t stay out here all night.”

Bijal, sprawled on the sofa, groggily sat up and rubbed the back of her neck. “What time is it?”