Ballots and Blood Read online

  18

  A wooden Adirondack boat glided up to the dock, the bow cutting through the water, small waves rippling out across the glassy surface. Tall pines cast shadows across the lake as the sun’s fading rays lit up the mountains in a lush palette of green, blue, and yellow. G. G. Hoterman helped Dierdre out of the boat and walked up the lawn to the Lake Placid Lodge. The peaceful setting provided a needed escape from the turmoil roiling G. G.’s world. In spite of Walt Shapiro’s herculean efforts, he was on the final witness list for Mike Kaplan’s trial, which was scheduled to start the following week.

  Washington was riveted by the Kaplan trial. Politico headlined its story, “Kaplan Watch: The Witness List,” citing sources close to the defense, who vowed on background to go after G. G. if he turned on Kaplan. Roll Call reported Nicole Dearborn, the striking brunette who spied on the Stanley campaign, might testify as well.

  That was why G. G. and Dierdre escaped to Higher Ground, his home in the Adirondacks. As he often did at times like this, G. G. anesthetized his pain with booze. He ordered a double bourbon on the rocks for himself and a chardonnay for Deirdre. Suddenly a single-engine seaplane buzzed overhead, floating to a perfect landing on the lake, its pontoons leaving a small wake as it taxied toward the dock. The propeller churned to a stop as the plane glided into its berth. The pilot, a short, balding man in his fifties wearing a blue blazer and tan slacks, climbed out of the cockpit and assisted a tall brunette onto the dock.

  “Dan certainly knows how to arrive in style, doesn’t he?” chuckled G. G.

  Dan Friedman, the pilot and president of ABC News, was accompanied by his wife, Elizabeth, who everyone called by her nickname, “Bitsy.” A raven-haired beauty with an impossibly thin figure, fair skin, and full lips, Bitsy was known for her cutting wit, flirty repartee, and fashion sense. Tonight was no exception: she wore white Chanel pants, a blue tank with a brown leather Dolce & Gabbana aviator jacket, and Dior heels.

  “I come to dinner by Adirondack boat, and you top me with a sea- plane!” exclaimed G. G. when they reached the table. He air-kissed Bitsy. “Bitsy, you look stunning as always.”

  “Thank you, darling,” she replied as she slid into her seat and removed her jacket.

  “The plane is fun,” said Dan, warming to the topic. “I got my pilot’s license when I was flying around the country visiting local stations as head of the ABC O & O division. Started with a single-engine Cessna, then bought an Aero Commander, then a King Air.”

  Bitsy leaned forward as if to share a confidence. “The seaplane is perfect for picnics and moonlit dinners.” She shot a knowing glance at Dierdre. “Very romantic, dear.”

  “But the cockpit isn’t big enough for extracurricular activity,” needled G. G.

  “I’ve performed in smaller quarters than that, honey,” volleyed Bitsy, patting G. G.’s hand. “Right, baby?”

  Dan sat silently, grinning from ear to ear.

  G. G. laughed, but the mirth masked an inner funk. Dan’s poise and Bitsy’s beauty and effervescence filled him with self-pity. He was jealous of Dan’s wealth, career, gorgeous (second) wife, seaplane—heck, his entire disgustingly charmed existence. By contrast G. G.’s life was unraveling. Edwina was divorcing him, his legal bills totaled $1 million and counting, and he was about to testify in the biggest criminal trial in DC in decades.

  The trial eventually reared its ugly head. “Word is Kaplan’s going to call Sal Stanley as a witness,” said Dan. “That might help Mike, but it sure won’t help Stanley’s reelect.”

  “They’ve been friends for a quarter century, so I don’t see how Sal can avoid it,” G. G. replied. “He looks bad if he testifies; he looks worse if he doesn’t because he’d be turning his back on a friend. The good news is it’s still early enough in the campaign for Sal to recover.”

  “Not if Mike is convicted, right?” asked Bitsy, running her fingers through her hair.

  “I don’t know. He is the Senate Majority Leader. Beating him won’t be easy.”

  “Stick a fork in Stanley,” said Dan. “Kaplan’s going to be convicted of perjury at a minimum. He might as well get measured for the orange jumpsuit now.”

  “How can you be so sure, Dan?” asked G. G.

  “I’ve got a friend, one of the top criminal attorneys in the country, who interviewed with Kaplan to represent him,” replied Dan, lowering his voice to keep from being overheard. “According to him, when Mike sat down with the FBI, he had the campaign’s attorneys sit in on the interview. He didn’t even show up with a criminal lawyer. The guy walked into a gunfight with a knife.” He held up his knife, pointing it. “He made misstatements of fact. That’s a felony, pal. Section 1001.”

  “How well I know,” said G. G. morbidly.

  “Of course you do!” exclaimed Dan. “You lawyered up, right?”

  “Big time. My lawyer is Walt Shapiro. He’s a killer. Never lost a case.”

  “There you go,” said Dan, popping another bite of steak into his mouth and chewing.

  “Didn’t Shapiro represent that ex-senator in a paternity suit with the bimbo?” asked Bitsy.

  “Yep. Walt forced her to recant her story in a videotaped deposition. Reduced her to tears. It was on YouTube within twenty-four hours,” said Hoterman. “They don’t call Shapiro the Hannibal Lecter of the courtroom for nothing.”

  To G. G.’s relief, the conversation, lubricated with red wine, turned to other topics. They covered the usual subjects: who was sleeping with whom, who was getting divorced (awkward!), whose career had gone up in flames, who lost their shirts on the stock market. But after dinner, over coffee, Dan returned to the Kaplan trial. “G. G., I hope you’re going to be all right if you have to testify. I know the lead defense attorney. He represented us in a libel case once years ago. He’s a barracuda. A regular flesh eater.”

  G. G. gamely pretended not to be worried. “Is that so?” he asked.

  “Oh, yeah. The guy’s a cannibal.”

  “Dan, please!” said Bitsy, cutting him a dirty look.

  “I’m ready,” vowed G. G. in his best manly baritone. “Like Walt always says, tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may. That’s what I intend to do.”

  Dierdre had hung back until now, letting G. G. spar with Dan. “I don’t know the attorney, but I wouldn’t want to see him after he goes twelve rounds with G. G.”

  “Here, here!” said Bitsy, trying to buck up G. G. “You’ll do just fine, doll.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” laughed Friedman, raising his glass. They all lifted their glasses and clinked them in a toast.

  Under the table Dierdre placed a hand on G. G.’s leg, which sent an electric shock through his body. He decided it was time to go and waved for the check. They rose from the table, and Dan and Bitsy walked down the dock to their plane. G. G. and Deirdre watched as the seaplane taxied, its pontoons streaking across the water, then rose into the pitch-black sky, blue taillight blinking, its propeller buzzing in the distance.

  G. G. wrapped his arm around Deirdre and started walking back up the hill to the Lodge.

  “Where are you taking me now?” she asked, surprised. “Aren’t we going home?”

  “It’s too dark to take the boat back.” He winked. “I reserved a cabin. This way we can sleep in late and have breakfast in bed . . . in a feather bed.”

  “Is it breakfast in bed you want . . . or something else?”

  “I’m open to suggestions,” joked G. G.

  “I’ll just bet you are,” giggled Deirdre. She slipped her hand under his coat, hooking her index finger through a belt loop, and pulled him along the gravel path leading to the cabin.

  WHEN IT BECAME CLEAR DON Jefferson planned to jump into the Republican U.S. Senate primary, Dolph Lightfoot’s campaign team went into full-blown panic mode. Jefferson, a favorite of the Tea Party crowd and the religious right, posed a threat. Florida’s closed primary permitted only registered Republicans to vote. Lightfoot’s advisors decided it was time to
burnish their candidate’s right-wing street cred by booking him on FOX News.

  Lightfoot sat in a chair under hot television lights. The clock read 7:12 a.m. He would be live in six minutes.

  “This show is pure softball,” said a media advisor, wearing jeans and a polo shirt. “It’s a coffee clatch. Just be sunny and inject humor.”

  “How am I supposed to be funny when Jefferson is out there engaging in personal attacks?” groused Lightfoot, sucking on black coffee from a Styrofoam cup. “Did you see the video they posted on the Internet?”

  The animated short portrayed Lightfoot as a broken-down, old thoroughbred who was put out to pasture, only to be saddled up by the party bosses to run one last race. As a caricature of a frenzied Mike Birch (playing the jockey) whipped the horse mercilessly, urging it to run faster, the horse turned around and said, “I didn’t know I actually had to run. I thought all I had to do was show!” Up in the stands the lobbyists and special interest bosses bet furiously on the horse named Dolph, only to curse him when he couldn’t run.

  “Okay, he’s got a Web site. Let’s see if he can actually get on TV with real points behind it,” said the media adviser dismissively.

  “Amateurish,” said Lightfoot with disgust. He took another swig of coffee. “Childish!”

  “He’s desperate,” said the advisor, stroking his client.

  “My wife saw him on television the other day. She said, ‘What’s with the hair?’” He laughed. “What’s he using . . . shoe polish?” He chuckled. “I mean, it’s practically blue.”

  The advisor laughed. “It’s either Grecian Formula or black ink.”

  “He claims to be as pure as the driven snow,” said Lightfoot, his voice dripping with contempt. “That’s crap. He was a lobbyist after he left the state legislature.” He paused. “A lobbyist!”

  The floor director walked over. “Um, sir, that mike is live,” he whispered.

  The media advisor’s eyes grew wide. He made a cutting motion across his neck with his hand.

  “What?” asked Lightfoot, narrowing his eyes, which were blinded by the klieg lights.

  “Your mike,” whispered the media advisor.

  Lightfoot nodded in recognition.

  At that moment the host of the FOX morning show appeared on the screen of the monitor. “Mr. Lightfoot, thank you for joining us,” he said politely.

  “Thank you for having me,” said Lightfoot.

  “Do you prefer to be addressed as senator or governor?” he asked. “You’ve been both, now,” he said with a chuckle.

  “Senator is fine. That’s my current job.”

  “We’re coming to you in just a moment,” said the director in Lightfoot’s ear. He heard the sound of theme music, and then they were live.

  “Joining us this morning from Orlando, Florida, is former governor Dolph Lightfoot, the new United States Senator from the Sunshine State. He was appointed by Florida Governor Mike Birch to serve out the remainder of the term of the late Perry Miller, and he is currently running for election in his own right. Good morning, Senator!”

  “Good morning,” said Lightfoot.

  “So, you’ve been in the Senate for a month now. Have you found the bathroom yet?” joked the host.

  “Oh, I’ve found a lot more than that,” replied Lightfoot, laughing nervously. “I’ve hired staff, been workin’ hard to get to know my colleagues, gotten fully immersed in my committees. I’m very grateful to have been appointed to the Foreign Relations Committee, as well as transportation, both of which are important to the people of Florida.” He dropped his gs to sound more friendly.

  “Senator, you just missed participating in the confirmation of Marco Diaz to the U.S. Supreme Court,” noted the host, his face animated. “Your predecessor voted against confirming Justice Diaz. How would you have voted had you been a senator, or do you know?”

  “I wasn’t there to review every aspect of Justice Diaz’s record, so I can’t really say. He seemed qualified from where I sat, but having not been there, I couldn’t really say for certain.”

  The media advisor visibly flinched. Diaz was only the second Hispanic justice in U.S. history, and Florida had one of the largest Hispanic populations in the country.

  “Well, let me turn to Iran, a topic before you now,” said the host. “The Senate is about to begin debate on a bill slapping some pretty stiff sanctions on Iran to try to stop its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Do you think that will be effective? Do you support it?”

  “I support doing whatever we can through diplomatic pressure with our European allies to stop Iran from threatening its neighbors and other civilized nations with nuclear weapons,” said Lightfoot, his voice steady, rattling off his talking points. “We cannot allow the world’s most dangerous regime to obtain the world’s most dangerous weapons.”

  “What about the so-called trigger mechanism that would authorize military action against Iran if the sanctions don’t work?” asked the host. “Where do you stand on that issue?”

  “Military action is a separate matter,” said Lightfoot. “If it can be effective, that’s one thing. But many experts believe the Iranians have buried many of their nuclear installations underground, meaning a bombing raid similar to that which the Israelis did against nuclear plants in Iraq in 1981 and in Syria in 2007 may not be effective.”

  “So you’re not in favor of military action?”

  “I am if it has a reasonable prospect of working,” said Lightfoot. “I think the jury’s out on that. I’m not sure I support putting ground forces in Iran when our guard and reserve troops are stretched thin in Iraq and Afghanistan. We can’t be the policeman of the world.”

  “But on Iran, it sounds like you favor sanctions but oppose military action,” said the host, moving in for the kill.

  “Well, here again, I’d have to know more than just a ‘trigger.’ What are we talking about?” said Lightfoot. “As governor I was the commander in chief of the Florida National Guard, and many families saw their loved ones go to Iraq and Afghanistan on repeated deployments. If we’re planning to take military action against Iran, we need to get serious about increasing the size of our regular Army forces.”

  “Alright, Senator, that’s all the time we have today,” said the host. “Thanks again for being with us.”

  “Thank you,” said Lightfoot.

  As the floor director removed his microphone and handed him a wet cloth to remove his makeup, Lightfoot glanced at his media advisor. He looked crestfallen.

  “What?” asked Lightfoot.

  “We’re going to get calls about the Diaz comment,” he said.

  “Yeah,” said Lightfoot. “Probably. I said he was qualified as far as I knew.”

  The media advisor nodded. It was going to be a long day.

  19

  A “money bomb” blast e-mail from the Faith and Family Fund—Andy Stanton’s political action committee—on behalf of Don Jefferson for U.S. Senate went out to its 4.2 million-member e-mail list at 6:00 a.m. on Monday morning, two days after Jefferson formally announced his candidacy for the Republican Senate nomination in Florida. Text messages were blasted to a million mobile phones simultaneously. The e-mail was strategically timed to benefit from the earned media over Jefferson’s entrance to the race and take advantage of higher open rates on Monday mornings. The conventional wisdom: Jefferson had a strong following among evangelicals and the Tea Party crowd, but he couldn’t raise the dough. Thus the money bomb.

  Ross Lombardy pulled into his reserved parking place at the Faith and Family Federation headquarters in Alpharetta, a prosperous suburb on the north side of Atlanta, in his silver Lexus 450 at 8:40 a.m., strolling to his office carrying a Starbucks Café Americano in one hand and his laptop in the other hand, breezing past his assistant, and sitting behind his desk. Not more than two minutes transpired before his PAC director, brown hair mussed with a cowlick at the back of his skull, appeared at his door in a pair of pressed khakis and blue blazer, eyes wide op
en, body twitching, visibly excited. He held a sheaf of papers in his hands.

  “What’s up?” asked Lombardy. “You look like you’re about to wet your pants.”

  “You remember the Jefferson money bomb?” asked the PAC director.

  “Remember it? I wrote it,” joked Lombardy. “How’s it doing? We need to give Don a big, fat, wet kiss, if you know what I mean.”

  “We’re doing more than kissing him,” said the PAC director. “He’s going to have our baby. This thing is blowing the doors off!”

  “Really? That’s great.”

  “Way better than great,” he added. He glanced down at some figures on the papers he held. “We’re sitting at $1,272,325 so far. That’s after only two and a half hours.”

  Lombardy let out a long whistle. “That’s insane. That’s just nuts. Are you sure?”

  “You bet. We’re already at a 15 percent open rate and half of those people are linking to Jefferson’s campaign Web site. This thing could end up with an open rate north of 50 percent.”

  Lombardy shook his head in wonderment. “That’s mind-boggling. What’s the industry standard open rate again?”

  “Twenty percent. We’re usually around 30 to 32 percent because we have such an engaged and active membership. But we’ve never seen anything like this in any endorsement e-mail soliciting contributions for a candidate. Not even Long.”

  “Let’s call Andy and give him the good news.” Lombardy hit the speaker phone. He punched in the number for the dressing room at New Life Ministries, where he knew Andy would be preparing for his daily television show, a folksy mix of commentary, news, and celebrity chat resembling the Today show with a sprinkling of the gospel.

  The makeup artist answered on the first ring. She put Andy on the phone.

  “Ross, what’s up?” asked Andy abruptly. He generally didn’t like to be bothered right before he went on the air.