Royal Digs (7 page)

The room was once again silent. She had their
undivided attention and several members were nodding their
heads.

“That provides a lot of fantastic and very
unique opportunities for issue-advocacy groups who will be
attending and putting on demonstrations at the convention,” Bunny
used her iPad to bring up the convention’s website.

The site’s homepage alone showcased exactly
what she meant by a social media blitz of available information and
platforms tuned-in to monopolize on it.

“Ah, I think I see where you’re headed with
this. We can use our very own super PAC, Mission Green Freedom!” I
said.

Bunny was brilliant! I may be able to design
killer gadgets, but Bunny knew how to work masses of people with
one little tablet.

“Exactly, Big Brother,” she said, a wicked
twinkle lighting up her pretty face.

“We can have a very informative two-way
conversation with all Americans. Actually, with the world,” Ross
added. “It’s time the truth was revealed.”

I was so glad to have Ross at the meeting. He
was well-respected in these circles. People trusted him, and we
needed all the trust we could muster.

“Ask yourself, where do people turn in
today’s world for breaking news?” Bunny continued, while pulling up
Facebook, Twitter, and several other social media platforms with
just a tap here, a pinch there, and a cache of quick swipes across
her screen.

“Twitter, Facebook, You Tube...” Someone in
the room said.

“Bingo.”

“The blogosphere.” Another nameless person
volunteered.

“Yes. Now you’ve all got it. Nothing works
better than social media to take something off-script,” Bunny
said.

She cued up the Daily Show’s homepage, which
got her a room full of nervous laughter.

“In an instant, we’ll have a global audience
of millions. Now that’s the kind of buzz we’ve got to generate. If
we want to get the truth out and bring The Governor’s campaign to a
screeching halt, this is the venue,” I added to Bunny’s stellar
presentation.

I didn’t need to add anything to increase the
effectiveness of what she was saying. She had the room totally with
her. But I just wanted her to know again how proud of her I
was.

“It only takes one unfiltered Tweet or
Twitpic or Instagram to go viral,” Bunny said, looking to her right
and signaling the woman next to her that she could take it from
here.

“And I can guarantee the unfiltered part,”
Grams said, holding her head high and imitating her tiny, bony
fingers working their magic over an imaginary airborne
keyboard.

I
sat in the small,
sparsely furnished room that served as the conference room for our
super PAC, Mission Green Freedom.

Normally, I liked to keep up with all of the
groups my family and friends’ money supported. But with my
full-time, although, temporary job protecting The President and the
upcoming election, I didn’t know a lot about Mission Green Freedom,
outside of their basic brochures and everything I could Google
about it.

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting, Mr.
Bellesconi.”

After turning toward the velvety smooth voice
behind me, I made a mental note to adjust my schedule. Evidently, I
should make it a priority to learn everything I could about our
super PAC.

Standing before me, with her hand held out to
shake mine, was our stunning director, Giavani Rancic.

She was a beautiful woman. Thin, almost too
thin for my personal taste, but striking nonetheless, and waiting
for me to acknowledge her, which didn’t happen very quickly. I was
tongue-tied.

She had gorgeous olive skin and large brown
eyes that brought to mind a doe stepping from a forest, intent on
gauging her security before she stuck out her neck too far. With a
head of copper and blond hair I’d love to run my hands through
falling in loose waves to her tiny waistline, and a style that made
it seem she should be on the cover of fashion magazines instead of
running a super PAC, I was head over my Italian loafers.

“No problem. No problem at all,” I said,
having to clear my voice between the first and second response
while also trying to remember what she’d even said to me, hoping
what I was saying back made some sort of sense to her, because it
sure as hell wasn’t registering with me.

I was in the Secret Service for cripe’s sake
and second in line to a Mob Boss throne. Why the hell was this
enigmatic beauty flustering me to no end?

“Beautiful name, by the way. What’s the story
behind it?” I asked.

“My mother was very much into saving the
earth, so she named me for the Greek Goddess of The Earth, Gaia.
But she liked the sound of Gee-a better than Gay-a or Guy-a.”

Well, Giavani’s mom was definitely right on
that account. There was no question her daughter was a goddess.

“I can see the Greek Goddess resemblance,” I
said, knowing it was a corny line, but unable to help myself.

“My friends call me, Gia,” she said, choosing
to ignore my stupid comment.

I couldn’t blame her for that. She’d turned
me into a babbling idiot. For a big, tough guy, when it came to
women, I was totally clueless.

“So, then, if we could get this meeting
started. I’m afraid I’m due at the convention center to rehearse my
speech right after lunch.”

“Very well. I’m sure, as our super PAC
director, you’re well aware of the formidable opponent we’re facing
in Governor Crumley,” I began, not sure I could even do what I came
here to do, as she still had me fumbling for words.

“I know voters have a huge choice this time
around. A choice that really is, without a better way to say it, a
choice between life and death.”

Little did she know how right she was, I
thought, but I wasn’t going to burden her or risk her safety with
more information than was necessary.

“How is it a life or death decision from
Mission Green Freedom’s perspective?” I asked, not sure what she
meant by that.

“Because the air we breathe, the food we
consume, the containers we use, the vehicles we drive, they’re all
killing us. And Governor Crumley only understands green when it
comes to the American dollar and how many he has control of in his
foreign accounts.”

I couldn’t have said it better. Wow. The girl
was damn smart. She was going to fit very nicely into my family’s
plan.

“Let’s say, hypothetically speaking, that
there’s a life-altering message at this year’s DNC Convention that
would advance the causes of Mission Green Freedom, as well as make
it very clear who’s the best choice for President.”

“Okay. I’ll bite. And of course we’re just
hypothetically speaking,” she said, sweeping a piece of hair out of
her eyes and tucking it behind her ear.

Everything about this woman made my stomach
turn tight flips. I was used to living on the edge, but this was a
whole new sensation.

“How many people could you reach with this
message through Mission Green Freedom’s social media circles?” I
asked, unsure of the PACs established reach.

“Millions. And that would be internationally
speaking. Our online magazine alone has over nine million
subscribers. And with the addition of our super PAC donor list to
that audience base, we’ve grown to over twenty million followers
across all platforms in less than a year.”

“Okay. Very good. Now then...how are your
acting skills?”

“Excuse me?”

“Have you ever been a Thespian or whatever
they call it?” I stammered.

I was way out of my league on this one, but I
knew Bunny needed this information to finalize her convention
plans.

“Actually, I was,” she said, laughing. “At
one time, I dreamed of acting on Broadway.”

Her olive skin took on a rosy glow that was
the cutest thing I’d ever seen.

“Well, until I see your performance, I can’t
promise you Broadway. But, in the meantime, I can give you an even
larger stage.”

“I’m not sure I’m following you.”

“We’d like you to perform in a Mission Green
Freedom skit at the convention along with a friend of mine, who’s
quite a performer.”

“This sounds interesting...”

“Oh, it will be. Trust me.”

“I’m not sure why, but I
do
trust
you,” she said without a moment of hesitation.

I hoped she still did when all of this was
over, I thought. There’s a lot more I’d love to get to know about
her and Mission Green Freedom.

A
s the lights dimmed,
so did the roar and chants of the convention delegates. They
returned their colorful signs to their laps or to the stadium floor
as they took their seats for what I’m sure they thought would be
just another convention-style video about President Ruvama and the
ideals he stood for.

“I guess were about to give The Royal Digs a
whole new meaning, right y’all?” Grams asked, taking a huge swig of
her Southern sweet tea.

She took her seat as well and enlarged the
picture on her monitor to full screen mode. She then made that
image fill the entire bank of oversized monitors in our secret
control room underneath the stage.

“What do you mean?” I asked, at a loss as to
what she was referring to as The Royal Digs.

“Well...this ain’t no show-us-your-posh-crib
reality gig from one of those entertainment and music TV shows.
You’re the royal family and, in this skit, we’re diggin’ on pretend
organic, earth-friendly farms. But not for produce, right?”

Even after working with Grams on a couple of
cases now, I still couldn’t get used to the way her brain
worked.

I watched the monitors, noting all of our
actors were in place, including Clito and Star Fish, who I was sure
would turn out to be the world’s first organic farmers in drag. Old
MacDonald had never looked so RuPaul fabulous.

In a huge stage set-up made of a large
compost heap, a barn, real barnyard animals – hell, they even had a
cow and a couple of chickens too - the convention audience, and
soon the world, thanks to Grams’ and Bunny’s skills, would be
treated to a skit about much more than supporting farmers and
eating local food.

“Did you know that the average morsel of food
travels 1,500 miles from field to fork?”

Gia’s captivating voice filled the stadium’s
speakers as a small spotlight shown down on her and the bale of hay
she was sitting on off to one side of the stage.

“It’s true. The majority of food you see in a
grocery store comes from other states,” she continued.

“Most of what we eat can be grown close to us
and can be preserved naturally for non-seasonal consumption.”

So far, we were sticking to the script, but
not for long.

“Apples, barley, cabbage, carrots, pork,
tomatoes, wheat...and the list goes on.”

I could have sworn that Vinnie shivered at
Grams’ feet. He wasn’t too keen on the locally raised pork spiel.
But now that he’d gone from being my brother Roman and Zoey’s
sidekick to Grams’ BFF, overall, he was a very happy pot-bellied
pig. Grams rubbed his back and tossed him a celery stalk. All was
once again right in his world.

“Just like you can’t have a viable local food
system without the commitment of community leaders...”

“That’s my cue,” Grams said, hitting a button
on her control board.

I had to hand it to her, it was super savvy
of her to go ahead with the scripted video as planned so as not to
alert anyone to the fact that things were about to go dramatically
off script.

“You can’t have a viable economy, whether on
the local, state or national level without your elected officials’
commitment and full support,” Gia continued, playing the part of
the well-practiced narrator to Broadway standards.

That got a huge shout-out from the convention
floor, where the delegates quickly transitioned from being
concerned about farming to the dollars no longer in their
pockets.

Suddenly, a screen slid down behind the
compost piles and spotlights came up over the drag persona heads of
Clito and Star Fish.

Clito was over-the-top magnificent and raring
to go in a sequined headpiece that looked like a gigantic bowl of
glittering fruit and vegetables. Star Fish, on the other hand,
looked like a deer in headlights – okay a mermaid, actually -
instead of an attention-loving Queen in the spotlights.

Clito made a huge show of her shovel hitting
some kind of metal object beneath the dirt.

“What is this? What have we here?” She
asked.

The music changed to a much more sinister
tone, and the filled to capacity stadium went totally still.

For added drama, Clito once more tapped her
shovel against whatever piece of metal had yet to be dug up.

Gia left her hay bale and helped Clito
unearth the surprise as a new bank of huge monitors surrounding the
top of the stadium whirred to life and captured all the action,
making it so that each delegate had an IMAX-like view and total
immersion experience.

With great care and thespian theatrics, Clito
raised a large metal box high into the air.

Seeing her next cue on the screen, Grams
fingers flew across her control board so that every delegate had a
live shot of the front of the box.

The stamped metal label on the box filled the
screen.

Box 438

A murmur began in the crowd, and continued to
gain steam as a live stream video was played about the significance
of what was inside that box and what it meant to the opposing
party’s presidential nominee.

With each new fact displayed on the screen
highlighting the depth of the corruption, the crowd’s anxiety and
outrage reached higher and higher levels.

I notified my agents to be on alert. This was
bound to get ugly quick.