Elimination

Severn House Publishers Limited

They're still out there.

'You bitch. I hope somebody gives you a mastectomy the hard way.'

'I'm watching you. Every single day I watch you. I own about a hundred of those guns you're trying to take from patriots across this country.'

'God is planning to make an example of you for how you've forced homos on our families. He has promised me that you'll be dealt with within forty-eight hours.'

When Timothy McVeigh detonated a truck bomb, killing 168 people and injuring more than 600, I remember thinking maybe this country will come to its senses again. Move back to the center. Get together again without all the acrimony.

I was wrong. The militia movement McVeigh had championed had grown stronger than ever. The rhetoric had become bizarre, then clinically insane. Not that I disagreed with everything the far right said. I consider the massacre at Waco and the murders at Ruby Ridge reprehensible. Waco is a crime of historical proportions. Many government people should have gone to prison. Needless to say, though I work for the liberal party I don't always agree with its conventional wisdom.

But what brought all this to mind were the emails I was reading on this rainy autumn afternoon in Danton, Illinois, population eighty thousand and home of Congresswoman Jessica Bradshaw, whose reelection campaign I was running. Her friends called her 'Jess,' and we'd begun to use that in some of our radio ads.

My name is Dev Conrad. I own Dev Conrad and Associates in Chicago, a political consulting firm. Previous to that I was in the army, serving as an investigator for several years. This election cycle my firm of fourteen people was running eight campaigns. We hired freelancers as we needed them.

I was in Danton because in the past three weeks we'd dropped three points in general polling and four in our own internals. We were now only one point ahead at best. The easy excuse was that our far-right opponent Trent Dorsey was reaping the rewards of having a fanatical billionaire uncle spending five times as much on TV attack ads as we were. I'd flown in early that morning from Chicago at the request of the congresswoman's chief staffer, Abby Malone.

'Uncle Ken,' as Dorsey always referred to him, had also hired a team of hit men who were experts at using automated phone calls – called robocalling – to smear opponents. You could reach thousands and thousands of voters this way in a single day. Robocalling became widely used after George W. Bush's people started the rumor that John McCain, their opponent, just might be the father of an illegitimate black child. The phone calls were particularly effective in the South.

This district was being bombarded by robocalling, suggesting everything from Jess as Commie, Jess as lesbian, Jess as drug addict, and that Jess's rich father had been mobbed up. Jess had won before because the man who'd held the seat ended up going to prison for taking bribes that unfortunately (for him) were videotaped by the state boys and girls. This time her run was different. We'd never faced a machine like Dorsey's and anti-incumbency was a formidable platform this time.

Danton itself was a river town that was heavily leveraged by a gambling casino. It had been known for decades as the place where Al Capone had sent his soldiers when the feds were getting ready to move on them. Not much had changed. The law, police and judges alike almost always ruled in favor of the gambling establishment. Jess Bradshaw's family had made their money in the stock market. They had not only survived the Depression, they had prospered from it. Everything was cheap, and if you had the money you could become unthinkably wealthy. Jess was an example of how wealthy. And she was typical of a Congress where sixty percent of its members were at least millionaires, if not much wealthier than that.

They're still out there.

'You have a lovely daughter. I wonder what her face will look like after I cut it up. One cut for every abortion you've made possible.'

'Fun, huh?'

Abby Malone had once worked directly for my shop in Chicago. At that time she'd been married to a young attorney everybody liked. She spent part of her time in Danton keeping Jess's constituency office running well and always preparing for the next election. Then one day she came into my office and announced she was getting divorced and would like to work for Jess directly. It would help her get over the end of her marriage. How could I say no? And having her there was probably a good idea anyway, even if it meant losing one of the finest employees I'd ever had, not to mention a world-class smart ass.

'I read them every day,' she said. 'I never tell Jess about them. If they're really bad I tell Ted. Some of them are so terrifying they're funny in a strange way.' In a simple red blouse and straight black skirt she was, to understate, compelling to see.

'Yeah, like those two morons in Florida who sent ricin to the White House a few months ago. One of them was an unemployed Elvis impersonator and the other a taekwondo dude who was running for president.'

Her smile parted the heavens. She was one of those slight, efficient blondes whose comeliness almost distracts from her skills as a planner and organizer.

'How's the prep going?'

Abby had spent the past four days in a rented dance studio firing questions at Jessica in preparation for tonight's televised debate. Given the polling numbers we were looking at, tonight's debate had become damned consequential. Jessica had to respond to and overcome all the lies Uncle Ken's money had been spreading for the last five months.

'She's good. So smart. I wish Ted was.' She allowed a wry smile for Jess's vainglorious husband. 'God, he's as narcissistic as a gigolo.'

'I guess I hadn't noticed that.'

'Yeah, right. You hadn't noticed. The old Dev Conrad deadpan. Cory told me he can't tell when you're joking sometimes.'

'The intern?'

'Yeah. He's good. I like having him drive me places. Makes me feel like a movie star.'

Cory Tucker was a political science major at Danton University. He was an amiable twenty-year-old who considered politics to be a cool and desirable calling. He also admitted that with so many young female volunteers it offered the possibilities of frequent hook-ups.

Then she said, 'Are you nervous about tonight?'

'Very.'

'Dorsey's an idiot but he does well onstage.' She checked the delicate silver watch on her delicate wrist. 'Hey, lunchtime. You really scared me when you said you were scared.'

'I didn't say I was scared. I said I was nervous. Big difference.'

'Well, whatever. So come on and have lunch with us.'

'"Us" being?'

'"Us" being me and Joel.'

'Well, it's tempting. I'm just so damned busy.'

'There's a very nice little restaurant about two blocks from here. And it's "Take an Old Dude to Lunch Week." I can find you a walker if you need one.'

'The arrogance of youth. I'm forty-three.'

'C'mon,' she said, that slash of a smile always preceding a cynical remark. 'You remember Joel. He's always got really interesting bad news for us.'

And so he did.

I'd seen family photos of them when they were young. Ted and Joel Bradshaw. There was no doubt they were brothers – they were virtual twins. And poor ones at that, growing up in a tiny white-frame house in New Hampshire, their mother working in a laundry and their father a philandering husband who stopped in occasionally between his benders and his shack jobs. But even then Ted stood tall and straight while Joel slouched. As a teenager Joel had been put in a psychiatric hospital for depression. The county had had to pick up the tab, he'd once told me, making his situation all the more humiliating.

I thought of the photographs as I saw him walk toward our booth. He was an impeccable dresser, a man who preferred good suits and shirts and ties to any other kind of attire. And though he'd gotten even better looking as he'd gotten older, he walked with his head down and still had the slouch. I always feel sorry for the very obese ones, the crippled ones and the deformed ones who have to cross streets in full view of cars waiting for the light to change. Many of them keep their heads down. They know they're being judged and all too often found to be creatures of amusement or contempt.

'Here's a nice surprise. Great to see you, Dev. Sorry I'm late.'

'Hey, Joel, it's great to see you, too.' Abby overdid it but that temptation was always there with Joel. You just wanted him to feel better about himself. All the millions of assholes in the world and here was a decent if troubled man who couldn't seem to muster the least respect for himself.

He sat next to Abby and nodded to me. 'I'm sure glad you're in town, Dev. We really need help. I've been crunching all the numbers three times a day.'

He really did enjoy bad news. There was so little good news in his life, apparently, that his only succor was drawing energy from the bad.

I said, 'It's not over yet, Joel.' He always made me sound like a cheerleader.

To the waitress, he said, 'Steak sandwich and Diet Pepsi, please.'

'Dorsey's not a very good debater,' I said. 'I think Jess can turn everything around.'

'I've never seen her this scared before a debate and she's been in a lot of them. She knows what's on the line. It's never been this close before.'

And that was true. While Jess had never won with runaway numbers she'd always ended up with a two- or three-point win.

'Isn't Ted giving her his usual pep talk?'

Joel touched Abby's hand. Sometimes when I saw them together I wondered if Joel had a crush on her.

'He's trying. But it doesn't seem to be working. And I'm not sure he's giving her the right advice. He's back on the "maternal" kick again.'

'Great,' I said. 'Him and his "maternal" bit. He finally got us to try it in one debate last election cycle – she got pilloried by the press and we went down two points.'

'I love my brother but you know how he is when he gets an idea in his head. You really need to talk to Jess. Katherine flew in from college to be with her for good luck.' A wan expression came over his face as he said, 'Poor Katherine. I wish she'd meet somebody. She's always gotten these painful crushes on older men. I think she has a bit of a one on you now, Dev. Jess was always trying to get her interested in boys her own age. But instead she'd fall in love with the UPS guy or somebody who was working around the house.'

'That's sad,' Abby said, 'but maybe she's just compensating for neither of her folks being around very much. We thought of putting her on the campaign trail about five years ago but we could never be sure what she was going to say. That's when I got to be her sounding board. She was a really lonely kid.'

'I still think she could be an asset on the campaign trail.' The only time Joel sounded as if he had the right to speak was when he talked about working on his sister-in-law's campaign. In the D.C. office he was numero uno traffic manager. He had this ability to keep things moving. If somebody was a half hour late with a report Joel was standing at his desk. He had this enormous chart on his wall that he, along with most of the people in the office, called the Bible. He knew where everybody was for most of their twelve-hour days. What they were – or should be – doing. And if they needed him to stand at their desk or track them down by phone, so they could get their work done.

He'd had a failed marriage, two trips to rehab for alcoholism and several serious investments that had gone wrong. Ted's offer to work in the Washington office was seen by most people as an act of pity. But they were wrong. Few Congressional offices worked as smoothly and efficiently as Jess's office.

While Joel ate, the three of us gossiped about the latest D.C. rumors. Half of them were outright lies started by bitter enemies, but some of them were at least funny, especially a high-ranking congressman so fed up with the bathroom wait at a fancy party (apparently he was too drunk to realize there were two other bathrooms on the first floor of the mansion) that he pissed in a goldfish bowl.

It was always fun to hear Joel laugh. Even his eyes gleamed. The high drama and high silliness of Washington had given him his own world to play in. And find acceptance in. Even a few of the people on the other side – the ones who showered at least once a month and visited their dentists at least once a decade – admired and liked Joel. He'd also made a good number of friends through the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings that many Hill staffers attended. Joel went four times a week.

Abby said, 'You know they'll hit us with something at the debate. Have one of their questioners try to put Jess on the spot with something reprehensible.'

Joel said, 'Dorsey's people love hanging abortions on other candidates. In this district you've got almost a majority who are right-to-life.'

Abby said, 'They also like that three-way thing.'

'Wrong district. Won't work here. Very conservative voters. That's unthinkable to them. They wouldn't believe it.' He slipped out of the booth. 'Well, if I don't see you two before, I'll see you at the debate. Thanks again for coming out here for a couple of days, Dev.'

'My pleasure, Joel.'

After he'd gone, Abby said, 'I've always wanted to date a boy like him. Just, you know, out of curiosity.'

'What stopped you?'

'Are you kidding? I couldn't find any. I was in the wrong crowd.'

'The curse of being a cheerleader.'

'You'll never let me live that down, will you, Conrad?' But she'd started giggling.

'You're right,' I said. 'I never will.'

We'd heard rumors that men (and maybe women) with guns would show up that night to protest against the appearance of our congresswoman, who had apparently just returned from 'Islamia' where she'd learned how to implement Sharia law and had helped to plan the ultimate invasion of Islamists on the red, white and blue soil of the USA.

This was happening in all sections of the country; the gunslingers wanted to show off their hardware and their strange, perplexing views of our Constitution.

It was fully dark by six o'clock so the temperature was in the high thirties by the time the debate attendees showed up.

With my head still full of all the threatening emails I'd read, I stood outside the entrance of the university auditorium watching people come inside. The crowd was about what I expected.

In the old days the supporters of the other side would generally have been better dressed and more reserved. But such issues as abortion, gun rights, gay rights and education had changed the (if you'll forgive the jargon) psychographics.

Driven mostly by women, the shift to our side had been in process since the first Bush administration. This left the male vote heavily in favor of people like Dorsey, and you could see that in his supporters. Blue-collar and white-collar merged and their behavior was boisterous as they filed into the building and then into the auditorium.

But they were no less boisterous than the women and men on our side, who were hoping for an outright knockout.

There were six uniformed police officers bundled up in winter jackets and caps. Security was always heavy for these events. Some directed traffic as parking spaces began to disappear, while others walked the perimeter military style.

I didn't pay any particular attention to the old, tan-colored van. I saw it swing into the large parking lot and then be directed to a spot far down the line.

I went back to assessing the people walking inside the building. There was a lot of laughter, a lot of camaraderie, a lot of anticipation. A good old political debate, and it was encouraging to see that both sides had turned out so many people.

I heard the shouting before I was able to see, far down the wide central lane, what was going on. A pair of men toting AK-47s were walking fast toward the building. They were being pursued by another pair of men, these two happening to be police officers.

Let the drama begin.