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  “I appreciate his support, along with thousands of other Americans who have been sending in twenty, fifty, a hundred dollars at a time.”

  “That’s so generous of the commoners to help you buy bumper stickers,” she said. “But Vonner is paying for everything else. Why?”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Raton, I don’t think you have your facts right.”

  She looked at him, a crooked smile growing on her face. “Really?” She stepped closer to him. It was then that he realized they still hadn’t sat down. Fonda came in close, too close, too personal, as if they were on their fifth date. “I understood you were an honest Midwestern boy, Hudson. I must have been misinformed.” She looked him up and down. He could feel her warm breath, smell a floral scent. “Is this how you want to play it? Really?” She waved a finger close to his lips in what could only be taken as an admonishment.

  Hudson was knocked off his game. Even before the campaign, he’d always thought he was good with the press, but that false sense only came from the fact that he was a kind of folk hero in southern Ohio, and also an advertiser. The local press had been easy on him about school board issues, hospital events, Little League, and all his other community work. But compared to Fonda Raton, the local press were two-bit amateurs. The morning shows had been easy for Vonner’s people to control, but Fonda was a surprise, not settling for his prepared statements and catching him without his handlers.

  What the hell, she came uninvited and unannounced.

  Her charmingly hostile manner left Hudson suddenly feeling attacked, ambushed, vulnerable. His instincts told him to be truthful, but she scared him, and in that instant stir of emotions, he realized for the first time that he was willing to fight to become president. Without any further calculations, he decided to lie.

  “My campaign is original in the modern era. The Founding Fathers envisioned a country governed by its people in the true sense of the word—farmers and merchants, common folk who would take time from their regular lives and give service to their country, then return home to resume that ordinary life.”

  “Ah, yes, the history teacher.”

  “It may sound corny to a sophisticated media mogul like you, but Vonner and many others see it as the authentic return to our roots, to a time before big money and special interests had overtaken the system.”

  Fonda laughed indignantly. “Hudson, do you not see the hypocrisy in your statement? ‘Before big money and special interests?’ Vonner, your largest supporter, is the ninth richest man in the world. He is big money and special interests. He could buy you the presidency.” She allowed a dramatic pause, squinted her eyes, and shot her next question as if it were a revelation. “Is that what he’s doing, Hudson? Is Arlin Vonner buying you the presidency?”

  Hudson stared at Fonda coldly. “You’ve insulted me, Ms. Raton.”

  “Oh no, have I? I’m sorry, and remember, we’re friends, it’s Fonda.” She forced a smile.

  “We are not friends, Ms. Raton. And I am not for sale. I am an honest, honorable man. My life speaks for itself. Now, I’d like you to please leave.”

  “Is that really what you want Hudson?” Her gaze was at once pleading and threatening. “We’re not talking about raising test scores in county schools or why your brand of paint covers better than Home Depot’s anymore. This is about leading the free world, about the nuclear codes . . . This is the big leagues, the very biggest. Are you ready to take that on?”

  “I like to think so.”

  “Do you? And you can’t even handle sweet little me.”

  “With all due respect, Ms. Raton, you are not the American people. You are a reporter.”

  “I am a voter, Hudson.”

  “Something tells me that you won’t be voting Republican.”

  “Stranger things have happened.” She smiled. “But I could never vote for a liar.”

  “Then that eliminates most of my opponents. Maybe you’ll vote for me after all.”

  “Are you going to talk to me?”

  “Not today.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Hudson had already made two big mistakes that day: first, agreeing to see Fonda Raton, and then deciding to tell her to leave. So, when Trixie chased him down, just as he was reaching his car to head for home, he should have known more trouble was coming.

  “Guess who’s on the phone,” his sister said.

  “I’m in no mood,” he replied, opening the car door.

  “You’d never guess anyway. This one goes back to when we were kids.”

  Hudson felt the adrenaline rush and tasted the acidic memory that had begun one horrific night when he was seventeen. For nearly three decades, he’d tried to forget, tried to pretend, but it would not let him go. He looked at his sister. Even without knowing the secret, she could tell something was wrong.

  “Are you okay? Don’t worry about Fonda Raton, she can dig all day and won’t find anything in your boring life other than all the good you’ve done,” Trixie said, misreading the cause of his anxiety.

  “Thanks,” he said, feeling as if his mouth was full of cotton. “Who’s on the phone?”

  “It’s the Wizard,” she sang, as if this might cheer him. “Can you believe it? How long has it been?”

  Hudson sank into the driver’s seat and closed his eyes. This was the last call he wanted. He’d been expecting it, or rather dreading it, since the announcement, but part of him had hoped it might not come. Hudson had even convinced himself that maybe the Wizard wasn’t even alive anymore.

  “Okay, I’ll be there in a minute.”

  She nodded and jogged back inside.

  Hudson took a deep breath and tried to think. What was the Wizard going to say? Was this going to be the end of the shortest run for president in history? He thought back to his teen years when the Wizard had been his best friend. They’d known each other since seventh grade, when Hudson stupidly started a fight with Gouge, a tougher kid who quickly shoved him head first into a porcelain water fountain. The Wizard, new that year from South Korea, who had already earned the nickname for his ability to take apart and rebuild any electronic device, witnessed the event. Gouge and the Wizard helped get Hudson to the school nurse. Gouge, not interested in fighting, had only meant to push Hudson away, but the principal suspended him for three days. When Hudson found out about the unjust punishment, he confessed to being the one who’d started the fight and took the suspension instead. Somehow, out of the mess, the three kids became best friends, and no one could recall what had prompted the fight in the first place. For the rest of junior high, and all through high school, the trio remained inseparable.

  By the time Hudson reached his office in the back of the hardware store, his trip down memory lane had fast-forwarded six years to the night that destroyed their friendship while simultaneously ensuring they’d be bound together forever. With those dark and grainy images swirling in his head, he picked up the receiver.

  “Man, is this true?” the Wizard asked as soon as Hudson said hello, as if it hadn’t been nearly a quarter of a century since they last spoke.

  “Is what true?”

  “Are you joking? How about the part about you running for President?”

  “Yeah. Crazy, isn’t it?”

  “My best friend from the old neighborhood running for effin’ president of the effin’ United States of America. Whoa.”

  “I know. I still don’t believe it. How’ve you been, Wizard?”

  “Dude, how did this happen? I mean, I know it’s been like three decades since we hung out, but president of the United States!” The Wizard sounded the same as when they’d last seen each other. Hudson had forgotten how much he liked him, how much he’d missed him. “The enormity of the universe! Big cosmic flips happening, man.”

  “It’s kind of a long story.”

  “It would sure as hell have to be.” The Wizard’s voice filled with enthusiasm. Hudson remembered his old friend always sounded like he was delivering a joke, even when he wasn’t, a
s if the world constantly amused him. “I guess probably all kinds of long lost pals from back in the day have been calling you out of the blue.”

  “There have been a few,” Hudson admitted. “Including relatives I never knew I had.”

  “Have you heard from Gouge?”

  No, thank God, Hudson thought. The Wizard was at least somewhat stable and predictable, but Gouge was a complete wild card. “Isn’t he still in prison?”

  “No, he got out seven or eight months ago. I lent him some money. I mean, I don’t have any money, but I found him some.”

  “You know you’ll probably never see that cash again.”

  “Old times, you know? He’s a good guy, just got on a bad road.”

  “Have you heard from him since?”

  “Nah.”

  “Right.”

  A long silence left Hudson wondering if the connection had been dropped.

  “So, you’ve done pretty well for yourself, Hudson. Hardware stores, big shot on the school board, and now . . . ” He laughed like he was stoned. “And now running for Supreme Commander. Aye yi yi.”

  Hudson braced for the blackmail. Only two people on earth could derail his campaign—his two oldest friends. They had both been there that night. Before then, the three of them would have done anything for each other, and after that night, they did, but it destroyed them.

  “Where you living these days?” Hudson asked, trying to keep it neutral.

  “San Francisco.”

  “Expensive city,” Hudson said, recalling the Wizard had just told him he didn’t have any money.

  “Tell me something I don’t know. I live in an eight-by-ten storage shed in someone’s backyard.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. Well, as a kid, back in Korea, I lived in far worse places before moving to the States. And it’s temporary.” He paused as if remembering something bleak, and then his voice perked up again. “Anyway, I’m working on something big.”

  “Such as?”

  “I’m a computer guy. Programmer, hacker, designer, write code, you name it.”

  “Still the Wizard, huh?” Hudson said, remembering how the Wizard always defended his perfect grades by saying it was expected because he was Asian. “Let me guess, you’re with some hot new start-up?”

  “Nah, I’m working on an extraordinary secret, unifying thing, but it’s waaay too much to go into now.”

  “Sure,” Hudson said, definitely not wanting to lengthen the call.

  “So anyway,” the Wizard continued, “what’s with this Super PAC funding you? Why you?”

  “I’ve asked myself the same thing a thousand times,” Hudson said, still uneasy with that question, which had churned in his gut since that first meeting with Vonner a month earlier. “But basically I’m the quintessential outsider. Seems they don’t think a career politician can get elected anymore.”

  “So you’re gonna be their puppet.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Then why would someone pour millions into you? Come on, Dawg, you know they expect something.” Hearing his old nickname, a derivative of “Dog Pound,” which only Gouge and the Wizard ever called him, took him back to where he didn’t want to go, a time and place where frustration and rage were waiting, as always, to smother him again.

  “All they expect from me is that I beat whoever gets the Democratic nomination. And if I do . . . ” He hesitated. “Sure, they’ll have access. I can’t deny that. That’s just the way the system works.”

  “System works? There’s an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one,” the Wizard said.

  “I’m sure you’re one of those guys who thinks the system is rigged.”

  “Nah, it’s not rigged, Dawg. The system isn’t even real.”

  “We haven’t talked in twenty-five years, you call as I’m just starting the biggest undertaking of my life . . . and all you have to say is a bunch of cynical garbage? Nice.” The anger grew in him from deep in the past, anger that had nothing to do with the call.

  “Dude, take it easy. I just called to wish you luck, but after talking to you, I do have a little warning for you.”

  Here it comes.

  “There’s an old saying that politicians should never believe their own press, and an even older saying. Never believe your own lies.”

  Chapter Twelve

  After the call with the Wizard, Hudson took a couple of ibuprofens and headed to Melissa’s, where they’d been living since the wedding. His place was already on the market.

  The conversation with his childhood friend had left a nagging dread, but it wasn’t something he felt comfortable talking to his new wife about. He didn’t know how to tell her about the Wizard and Gouge without discussing what happened that horrible night twenty-nine years earlier.

  But he knew that the Wizard would want something, and sooner or later, Gouge would, too. He knew them. There’d be others, too, if he made it to the presidency, or even the nomination. Power like that would attract all kinds of characters with bluffs and scams, looking for a piece of it. But Gouge and the Wizard wouldn’t need a scheme if they wanted to make trouble. His old friends knew the truth—the hard, dark truth.

  Melissa saw it on his face.

  “You look awful,” she said, hugging him. “What happened? Did Oprah decide to get in the race?”

  He couldn’t help but chuckle. “No, Fonda Raton ambushed me today.”

  “Oh, damn!” Her irritation surprised him. “What did she write?”

  “Nothing yet. I only spoke with her a couple of hours ago.”

  “You talked to her?”

  “Yeah, she just showed up at my office.”

  “In person? Fonda Raton is in town? She got in to see you?”

  “It’s not that bad. I didn’t give her much, but I did manage to tick her off pretty good.”

  “Maybe you better call Vonner,” Melissa suggested.

  “Why? I know he owns a lot of the media, but isn’t part of Fonda’s claim to fame the fact that no one influences her?”

  “How should I know? And we certainly don’t know what Vonner can and cannot do.”

  “I think it would make things worse. She was looking for something, some Vonner angle that made us look like co-conspirators. Why is it so hard for everyone to believe that a wealthy businessman and a down-to-earth school ex-board member might see eye-to-eye on a vision to get the country back on track? It’s certainly no secret that the voters are sick of politicians. Am I the only one who sees how much sense my candidacy makes?”

  “I’m glad you’re finally starting to believe in yourself.” She glanced outside as a member of the security detail, provided by Vonner, passed the window. “Let’s at least check the Raton Report and see if that barracuda has posted anything about you yet,” she said, reaching for her laptop.

  “I’m afraid to look,” Hudson said, grabbing a beer.

  “Oh my God,” Melissa breathed as the Raton Report website opened.

  “What did she write?” Hudson growled as he raced over.

  “No, not you. It’s the NorthBridgers. They’ve struck again.”

  “What’s happened?”

  In the weeks since the revolutionary group had first burst into the national consciousness with the brutal assassination of Senator Uncer, they’d abstained from further violence. However, almost daily they leaked all kinds of hacked materials and data dumps which had been covertly accessed from a variety of government servers. NorthBridge seemed to be able to reach anywhere.

  “They’ve bombed the Federal Reserve Bank building in Kansas City.”

  “How bad?”

  “It’s demolished,” she said, reading the screen. “Quick, turn on the TV.”

  Moments later, a news anchor relayed the facts. The bomb was detonated at five-forty p.m. local time. Most employees were already gone for the day. At five-fifteen, NorthBridge had apparently notified the local media, police
, and fire department, as well as the Federal Reserve, of the planned attack. An immediate evacuation took place. It was believed that only members of the bomb squad were still inside at the time of the blast. The NorthBridgers released a statement that officials were warned not to send anyone in to attempt to defuse the bomb. A NorthBridge leader called AKA Jefferson released a statement simply saying, “Banks are the conduit for oppression.” The anchor noted the similarity in the real Thomas Jefferson’s words: “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.”

  “Cowards,” Hudson said. “Using the names of the Founders and twisting their words to justify violence. This is not the way to bring about change.”

  “The country figured that out in the sixties,” Melissa said.

  “You really think we learned?” Hudson asked.

  “You’re sounding like Schueller,” Melissa said, and kissed him.

  Hudson’s special “phone” buzzed. It had to be Vonner, since it connected only to him. Vonner had tried to explain the encryption and untraceable technology, but Hudson still thought of it as an exclusive cell phone, and dubbed it “the communicator.”

  “You’ve seen the news?” his benefactor asked.

  “We have it on right now,” Hudson responded.

  “A damned mess . . . I’ve sent your statement to your campaign email account.” Hudson did understand that about being on a secure server. Fitz had reminded him about the email scandal that had plagued Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

  “What statement?”

  “About the NorthBridge attack. You didn’t have to make a statement when they killed Uncer because you weren’t a candidate yet. As we speak, three of your rivals are live on various cable news channels discussing the bombing and calling for more funding for the FBI and all kinds of exotic anti-terrorism measures. And, incredibly, that idiot Thorne is off on some inappropriate anti-Fed tirade.”

  “Okay, let me look.”

  “Fine, yes. Review it. I’ve already sent a copy to Fitz. Assuming you’re good with it, we’ll get it to all the outlets right away.”