The Candidate (Romantic Suspense) (The Candidate Series) (10 page)

Sukie was thunderstruck. “Oh my God! Now some 80,000 women think he’s a Weiner-esque man-ho!” 

A cold chill ran through Ben’s veins as he dialed Fred’s secure cell number. It was immediately obvious to him that Fred wasn’t at CIA Headquarters when he heard some chirpy voice in the background call out, “Can I take your order?”

Of course Fred was already clued into both situations. His first comment was that the vile sex act being performed on the new Mansfield welcome page was something he’d never experienced, but had been privy to once while on a surveillance mission in Bangkok.

“That’s city’s name is no malapropism, all things considered,” he said, between bites of something much too greasy for seven o’clock in the morning.

Ben was in no mood for any jokes. “Is that all you have to say on the matter?” 

After a gulp and a sigh, Fred responded with just one word: “Digits.”

Then he hung up.

A half-hour later there was a single, loud knock on the door. Standing in front of Ben was a skinny olive-skinned kid with a large curly afro. He could not have been more than sixteen years old. The kid handed him a card. On it was written one word:
DIGITS
.

Before Ben could say a word, the kid put his finger to his lips, indicating that Ben should keep his mouth shut. Then he opened the computer bag he was holding and pulled out a laptop. 

Whatever software program he clicked onto created what looked like a 3-D architect’s rendering of the office. Several hot spots lit up on the computer-generated image. Pulling out a cell phone, Digits walked over to where the spots were indicated, then pointed the phone at the location while tapping out a series of numbers. When he was done, he sat back down at the computer and started hacking away. “Okay, we’re clear. Got any java in this joint?” 

Ben nodded, and moved toward the coffeemaker. “Don’t tell me you work with Fred.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t.” The kid didn’t even look up when he answered, but tapped the keyboard while scanning the sequence of numbers that filled his screen. Ben noticed he had just a bit of a Spanish accent, more Caribbean than, say, Mexican. Perhaps Puerto Rican? It was too slight to place.

“By that I mean, you look too young to be at Langley.”

Digits stopped typing and smirked. “Shit, dude, you gotta be kidding! Langley is the very
last
place I’d work.”

“Why is that?”

“Because those bastards killed my pop.” The kid shrugged. “At one of their black sites. They call  it Hotel Transylvania. Outside of Bucharest. He had the unfortunate luck of being one of their ‘guests’.”

 “How do you know all this?”

“Because I hacked into their computers and saw his file.”

Ben blinked hard. If this kid was smart enough to do that, well then hell yeah, he wanted Digits on their side. “Do you mind telling me—what was his crime?”

Digits’s fingers roamed the keyboard, but he didn’t look up. “He tried to assassinate Manolo Padilla.”

 “No shit!” Ben sat down hard. “The Venezuelan president?”

 “Yeah, their little puppet.” The kid nodded, and started typing again. “Want to hear something funny? If he tried to do it today, well hell, he’d get some kind of damn Medal of Honor from those bastards!...Wait—” 

He typed in one last backspace, then nodded toward the computer’s screen. “There, your site is secure again. I’ll have your network’s server cleared up within the hour. Fred says that the Talbot campaign is claiming that they’ve been hacked too, but I agree with him: that’s just some CYA bullshit. They just want to throw some stank on the Dems.  But here’s the beauty part: as payback, I created a file they won't be able to resist. It's labeled ‘VIP Donors’, but it's really a Trojan dropper.”

“What the hell is that?”

 “A super-virus that corrupts the hacker’s system. It will also search their server for any Ghost Squad activity. Whatever it finds will be forwarded to one of Fred's email accounts, and archived in a secure cloud that only he and I can access. ”

Ben shook his head in awe. “Jesus...So, how did Fred find you?”

“He didn’t. I found
him
.” The kid looked up again. “When I hacked into my father’s file, it included a report from Fred. He’d been observing my dad’s key interrogator, some sadist named Smith. Something my dad said made Fred realize that Pop wasn’t the attempted assassin. He tried hard to override Smith, to get my father released. Unfortunately the asshole who was running the agency denied the request. Not that it mattered. By the time it made it to his desk, Smith had killed my father. They claimed it was a suicide.”

“What did your father do in civilian life?”

“He was a CFO for Dia Petróleo, the Venezuelan subsidiary of Sundial Oil.” Digits shrugged. “Wouldn’t hurt a flea, but knew where the bodies were buried. And the money, too.”

“How long ago was this?”

“
Eleven years ago
. Padilla had only been dictator for a year.”

Eleven years ago. At that point in time, Ben realized, Clemson Talbot was CIA director.

It was too much of a coincidence. 

Chapter 20

“He’s got them on the run, and everyone knows it!” In her excitement Abby clenched Ben’s hand so hard that her wedding ring struck a nerve in his palm.

He winced but didn’t let go. Heck, why would he? Every time she touched him, he imagined it was Maddy. 

It was late March. They were standing in the back of the Air Force One Pavilion at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, watching as Andy, Clemson Talbot, and the only other Republican in the race—the evangelicals’ candidate of choice, Congressman Clyde Dooley—debated each other in the first of a series of multi-candidate appearances sponsored by the Republican National Committee. Political pundits had already pronounced it Talbot’s to lose, whereas Andy only had to reiterate the key points of his platform to come out the victor.

He was doing that with his usual charismatic ease. “Vice President Talbot wants to placate America with half-truths and fear. Why not just the facts, Mr. Vice President?” 

He played to the camera, which zoomed in on his handsome, square-jawed face. “Here’s one very important fact: Our government now wastes 35 billion dollars on subsidies to the oil industry—an industry in which one company alone, Exxon Mobil Corporation, earned 9.92 billion dollars in profits, in over just three months. Here’s another fact, Mr. Vice President: That amount would cover all Social Security benefit payments for a full ninety days. Fact Three: It would also pay for Ivy League educations for some 60,000 students.” His hand swept toward the audience. “I’m sure the Morrisons—that nice couple from Milwaukee, sitting there in the front row—would appreciate seeing the tuition covered for their seventeen-year-old son, Jeff—”

Ben was just as excited as Abby, but he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to tease her just a little about her adoration for her husband. “That’s why they say love is blind, Abby. Though, I’ll admit, it does seem he’s won this thing hands down. Talbot looks green around the gills.”

Abby’s laugh was deep and sweet. Surprised at being so unguarded, she finally let go of his hand in order to cover her face in mock shame.

Damn, if only I’d kept my mouth shut, he thought. He rubbed his thumb over the spot on his palm indented by her ring, not because it hurt but because it proved how far they’d come together in such a few short months. Since the day she took him into her confidence about the infertility drugs, both had come to understand and appreciate their respective roles in Andy’s life. 

Abby was keenly aware of Ben’s contribution to the campaign. He had an innate genius for correctly guessing Talbot’s next moves, and he zealously safeguarded the senator’s All-American persona to the media. But it was his tireless enthusiasm in front of the campaign’s staff that inspired her to cast off her shyness, to make herself readily available for any event they deemed necessary for her to attend. 

And realizing that she might otherwise have used that precious time to address her infertility problem, Ben’s appreciation for her increased tenfold, too—although it was plain to anyone near them how much she and Andy enjoyed the time they spent together on the road. On the campaign’s plane, they snuggled and held hands. 

It helped, too, that Abby never played the diva. Nor did she complain about some unimportant slight, or offer an opinion—that is, unless she was asked for one. 

Over the next four months, Ben found himself asking her quite often. In fact it surprised him how completely he came to trust her innate instincts about Andy’s constituents; and more importantly, about Andy’s mood. 

Without doubt, Abigail Vandergalen Mansfield was proving to be a seasoned road warrior and a team player. 

Ben wished that Maddy was also there at his side, instead of thousands of miles away, doing who knows what. Maybe with the Invisible Man...He tried not to think about that.

And yet, standing so close to Abby, Ben couldn’t help but compare her to Maddy. One was gracious and accommodating, while the other was a tempestuous wild child. Not just physically, but emotionally too, they were different as night and day… 

“—coming around. Don’t you agree?”

Abby’s worried tone pierced his guilty fantasy like a bubble. “I’m sorry, I was daydreaming. What were you asking?”

“I was commenting on some of the GOP’s deep pockets. Like Rosalyn and Collin Davenport. They’re old friends of the family…well,
my
family. Do you recall a contribution from them as of yet?”

Ben shook his head. “No. But you know Andy. He can be both stubborn and cocky, particularly when he has a chance to tweak the noses of the old boys’ club. Of course we knew we’d make some enemies along the way, but I’d still like to keep a few of the party’s bigger donors as our friends. We’re coming up to another fundraising deadline, and things are tight.”

“Let me see what I can do,” she murmured. 

Within a week’s time, Andy’s off-the-cuff comments were less caustic regarding his own party, and Abby was hosting some private teas at their Georgetown townhouse with some very influential wives, including Rosalyn Davenport.

Before the end of the month, the Davenports sent in two checks for $250,000 each. 

Chapter 21

The paid agitators sent to the Tampa “Andrew Mansfield for President” rally by Talbot’s handlers were kids in their twenties: actors, really, not the fresh-faced college kids they were pretending to be. They carried placards with anti-war slogans, and their chants—hollered at the top of their lungs—accused Mansfield of being a warmonger. The worst kind at that—one who’d bombed innocent civilians from the safety of his fighter jet. 

Instead of having his security detail throw them out before some of the hotheaded vets in the audience could beat them bloody for disrespecting country and flag, Mansfield invited them onto the stage with him. 

Scripted chants were one thing; improv against one of the Senate’s best extemporaneous orators was another. The faux protesters knew they were out of their element. Thrown into the spotlight with Mansfield, they listened, slack-jawed, as he described the depth of his loss after the untimely death of his parents; the fellowship and sense of purpose he found in the Marine Corps; and yes the horrors of war, even as seen from the cockpit of an F-4S. “Great nations, those with the will and the might, must use it sparingly. Only when attacked. And never to claim the natural resources of another country.” 

It was the perfect segue into Mansfield’s speech on 100 percent energy independence. His eyes never once wavered from the protesters as he talked.

Afterward, when buttonholed by an NBC reporter, one of the agitators proclaimed he was voting for Mansfield. Another said he was joining the Marines.

Talbot fired his Missouri state campaign manager that night.

Chapter 22

By June Maddy no longer left before dawn, but lingered in Ben’s bed with him. 

On the few Sundays he found himself in town, she allowed him to make her breakfast in bed. Then they’d share the
Washington Post
while lounging out on his postage stamp-sized deck for an hour or two, before she disappeared again—for a night, or a day, or a week. 

He soon learned not to count the many days they were apart, but to appreciate the precious hours they spent together.

Then in July, something changed. She showed up at his place with a sack of groceries and proceeded to make him the most delicious overcooked spaghetti he’d ever eaten. He was well aware that they had finally turned a corner.

In August, when she wrote down her cell phone number for him and stuck it on his fridge under a
Mansfield for President
magnet, he realized they were finally a real couple. 

That’s when he suggested she join Abby, the senator and him on one of their many out-of-town campaign trips.

Because it was Maddy he was asking, he knew he was going out on a limb to even suggest it. Still, he wasn’t prepared for her reaction. The way she laughed at him—raucously, incredulously—rubbed against the rawest spot on his ego.

 “What’s so funny?”

“I don’t know. I just assumed there were enough campaign groupies out there already.” She busied herself with the
Post’s
crossword puzzle. “I’d hate to cramp anyone’s style.”

“Yeah, sure, I turn a head or two, but you know I’m a true blue guy.” It was the truth. If he were a horn dog, if he weren’t so head over heels in love with her, there were plenty of opportunities for one-night stands. “And you’re no groupie, you’re my girlfriend. Only you won’t let anyone know that.”

“You’re wrong, Ben. I’m not your girlfriend. You’re
my
lover. And no one else knows that because that’s the way we both want it.” She busied herself with the puzzle’s 42 Down. “What brought this on, all of a sudden?”

“Just something Andy said. I guess that...Well, sometimes I wouldn’t mind having what Andy and Abby have.”

Her sly smile hardened into a grimace. “Oh yeah? And what is that, pray tell?”