The Dirty Secret (14 page)

“At issue here are the memory cards from nine voting machines that apparently malfunctioned on Election Night. Sources from both campaigns say they expect the legal wrangling to continue
regardless
of the Commission’s decision this afternoon. But according to CNN’s legal experts, the future landscape will be framed by this vote because it will determine which side gets to defend its margin of victory, and which side has to bear the burden of proof when this battle shifts to the courts.”

Rikki muted the television and focused on her email. The first message that grabbed her attention was sent by Jack an hour ago.

Sheez! He was up and at ‘em awfully early this morning!

Re: Partnership Opportunity
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
bcc: [email protected]
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 5:53 am

Dear Mr. Beria,

Thank you for your recent email.

Based on my initial research, I agree that Petromica and McCallen Resources appear to be a good match. My company has the leasehold assets, combined with over fifty years of on-the-ground experience in West Virginia and Ohio, which would assist your company in expanding into Appalachia. Petromica has the financial wherewithal to help us fully develop the properties we currently have under lease. At first glance, pairing our companies’ strengths seems a no-brainer for both firms.

The spreadsheet attached to your email accurately reflects our current financial state. Accordingly, if Petromica remains interested in exploring a partnership along the general parameters outlined in your email, I’d be happy to discuss ways we might move forward with such a venture.

Should you desire to discuss this matter in greater detail via telephone, feel free to contact me at the office or on my cell. See the attached vcard for those numbers.

Thanks for your interest in doing business and I look forward to hearing from you.

Very truly yours,

Jack McCallen
Managing Member,
McCallen Resources, LLC

P.S. How long have you been with Petromica? I couldn’t find anything about you on the company’s website.

Nicely done
, Rikki thought to herself. Despite his pressing financial problems, Jack expressed his interest in Petromica’s proposal without seeming too eager. Jack sent the email to her via blind carbon copy, so Beria would not know he had involved his attorney so early in the negotiations. All-in-all, a fine performance.

Seeing no other messages of interest, Rikki signed out and headed upstairs toward the shower. So far, this was shaping up to be a very interesting Monday.

CHAPTER 24

VIENNA, VIRGINIA
MONDAY NOVEMBER 17, 8:05 A.M.

Yuri Petrenko reviewed the daily planner on his smartphone. As he took a drink from his cup of steaming hot black tea, he cynically realized all of the tasks cluttering his calendar were best classified under the heading, “Taking Care of Mazniashvili’s Shit.”

The boss paid him handsomely, however, so Yuri did not complain. But Petrenko did find the sheer
scope
of Mazniashvili’s business interests maddening. The man had his finger in everything under the sun and, as his unofficial “fixer,” Yuri’s energies were necessarily directed across a spectrum of enterprises just as far-ranging.

His phone vibrated and his calendar faded from the screen, replaced by a phone number from the 304 area code.

“Hello?” he asked, recognizing in his own voice the faintest remnant of the Russian accent that once heavily tainted his words. A Bluetooth device was wedged in his mangled left ear, empty space protruding below it where an earlobe should have been.

“Yuri, my friend! It’s Dick Bowen here. How’s the weather over in D.C.?”

Looking out his living room window, Petrenko saw light gray skies stretching from horizon to horizon over a row of townhouses. His Audi’s windshield was covered with beads of water and a fine mist continued falling from the sky. “Shitty. What’s up?”

Bowen coughed. “The current project should be completed at half the original estimate. Have your investors wire their money to the account we discussed on Friday.”

Yuri manipulated his phone, grumbling beneath his breath. Political code-talk drove him bonkers. Using coded language had been necessary when he ran ops for the Spetsnaz. To communicate otherwise would have subjected him to deadly serious risks like falling into the hands of Chechen rebels.

The mere thought of his two tours in Chechnya made him shudder. Those crazy Muslim bastards were
hardcore
. If a sensitive political communication here in the United States was intercepted by the authorities, he might do a stint in prison for bribery. Probably be deported, too.
Whoopty-friggin-doo
.

If the
Chechens
had intercepted an uncoded message, the repercussions would have been much worse. Being sodomized with a bayonet was just an appetizer on their smorgasbord of torture techniques. Being fed his own testicles after they were pulverized by a sledgehammer (while still in his scrotum, of course) … Avoiding
that
was worth using code words.

Petrenko shook the image from his mind. “I can do that. But first, our investors need to know their money’s not being wasted.”

“We still might have to spend the amount we discussed on Friday,” Bowen replied. “We don’t want to run out of money if our new estimates prove overly optimistic.”

Yuri paused, wondering if Bowen was telling him the truth. The boss was not afraid to spend money to accomplish his goals, but he was a stickler when it came to tracking his investments. If Yuri could not account for the money, he knew Mazniashvili’s retribution would make the Chechens’ treatment of Russian prisoners look like a Sunday School picnic.

“I’ll wire the money this morning,” Yuri said. “But only after your bank sends me written confirmation the wire is reversible. The funds will be available in that account, but they may not be disbursed without my personal approval.”

“What the hell do you mean? You can’t do that!”

Yuri took a deep breath, summoning the reserves of patience and willpower that had served him so well in the military. The resolve that helped him learn how to speak English more fluently than most people who learn it as their native tongue. The determination that allowed him to survive the grueling Spetsnaz selection course and all the physical brutality, mental abuse and sleep deprivation it entailed. The patience and stamina required to lie awake, camouflaged in a freezing-ass ditch for almost forty hours, until he finally got the chance to blow out a Chechen rebel commander’s brains with one clean shot from his sniper rifle.

“It is
our
money, Mr. Bowen,” he said bluntly. “And I’m not going to release it to you carte blanche. Accept our money on our conditions or call someone else who’s willing to wire you millions of dollars without strings attached. Your choice.”

A full 30 seconds elapsed before Bowen responded. “Fine. I’ll have the bank send you a fax. But remember West Virginia is the only state still in play in this election. And if your boy wants to keep Jonathan Royal out of the White House, he better whip out his checkbook.”

Yuri smiled. “Mr. Bowen, we are
fully
committed to helping Senator Wilson win West Virginia. Trust me.”

CHAPTER 25

MINGO COUNTY COURTHOUSE
WILLIAMSON, MINGO COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 12:45 P.M.

The demand for seats inside the courtroom was so overwhelming the county staff had worked all weekend trying to fashion a system that would appease as many people as possible. The end result, however, had pleased no one while angering quite a few.

West Virginia media outlets were allotted twenty seats at the canvass, which got the national press corps grumbling about “home cooking.” When Williamson’s newspaper and AM radio station received two of
those
spots, the rest of the state’s media got peeved.

The national TV networks were positioned at the back of the courtroom in a space 15 feet wide by 8 feet deep where they placed two cameras whose video and audio feeds would be shared by the world. Foreign TV reporters, whose viewers were just as interested in the canvass as the American audience, were clustered together in an identical strip of floor space immediately adjacent to their American counterparts. However, that space was occupied by twice as many reporters speaking twenty different languages. Dave had no idea how those people could possibly concentrate with so many conversations taking place in such a small area.

A well-behaved mob of photographers sat and squatted on the floor between the Commission’s platform and the tables where the campaigns’ lawyers were seated. With their powerful cameras honed in on the platform, the shutterbugs studiously attempted to avoid hindering the lawyers’ field of vision while maintaining a clear view of the three commissioners.

Newspaper and magazine reporters, as well as radio journalists, had been assigned all of the seats on the left wall of the courtroom plus many on the right. The remaining fifteen seats were reserved for lucky members of the general public selected in a random drawing the previous night.

Dave glanced down at his watch. It was 12:50 p.m. Ten minutes to go.

“I’ll talk to you later,” Spence whispered into his cell phone before snapping it shut.

“Who was that?” Dave asked.

“Melissa,” Spence replied. “My girlfriend.”

“You have a
girlfriend
?” Dave deadpanned.

Spence looked wounded. “I’ve been known to be popular with the ladies,” he blurted.

Dave laughed. “Must not be much competition around here.”

Realizing his leg was being pulled, Spence’s face relaxed. “Ha ha ha. Very funny.”

Ten minutes later, the three commissioners took their places on the platform. Sitting in the middle of the table, Mark Monroe banged his gavel three times. “I hereby call this meeting of the Mingo County Commission, sitting as a Board of Canvassers, to order. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?”

Sitting at a small clerical desk at the far right end of the platform, the County Clerk stood up, holding a yellow legal pad. “Commissioner Monroe?”

“Here,” he quickly answered.

“Commissioner Thompson?”

Staring out over the courtroom, Ruth Thompson looked petrified and her eyelids twitched. “Here,” she responded.

Well, that sounded hesitant
, Dave thought.
God only knows how she’s going to vote.

The Clerk scribbled on her pad. “Commissioner Warner?”

Pete Warner, the Democrat who not-so-secretly supported Governor Royal’s campaign, cleared his throat. “Present,” he replied loudly.

“All three members of the Commission being present, we have a quorum,” the Clerk declared and sat down.

“Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Mark Monroe, and I am the President of the Mingo County Commission. I want to thank everyone for their patience this afternoon. We’re running behind schedule and I apologize for the delay.”

As Monroe continued talking, Dave’s attention drifted away. He felt sure the hearing itself would be brief as things could only unfold a few ways. First of all, Monroe personally could not advance any motions during the canvass because he was serving as the Commission’s presiding officer. He could
second
a motion to use the backup data to calculate vote totals cast on the disputed machines, but he could not put such a motion on the table. Pete Warner opposed taking that route, so if any such motion would be made, Ruth Thompson was the only person who could do it.

On the other hand, Warner tended to move quickly and aggressively when the Commission was divided on an issue. Under such circumstances, he almost habitually threw a motion on the table hoping Ruth Thompson would second it, because when Warner was at odds with another commissioner, it was usually Monroe.

Warner’s voice interrupted Dave’s train of thought. “We’ve gone over this repeatedly,” he said, leaning forward with his forearms resting on the desk. “Both sides have their points, but there’s no point talking this thing to death. I’ve been a Democrat my whole life, but I don’t buy the argument that the results we got on Election Night aren’t any good because these memory cards aren’t working now. That doesn’t explain why no malfunctions were detected on Election Day. If the cards weren’t doing what they were supposed to do, the vendor should have found those problems and alerted us. They didn’t.

“Thus, despite my loyalty to my party, my constitutional duty requires me to move that we accept the initial returns reported on those machines and have the final results of the county’s canvass tabulated on that basis.”

Dave watched the audience literally turn its attention toward Ruth Thompson. She scanned the courtroom and then Dave suddenly found himself locking eyes with her. Leaning back in his chair with his arms folded across his chest and his legs kicked out in front of him, Dave smiled peacefully.

Vote whichever way you think the law requires
, he mentally willed the Commission’s swing vote.
If God desires it, Governor Royal will win the White House. If not, he won’t
.

Dave thought he saw the woman nod. Then she bucked herself up in her chair and said, “I second that motion.”

The audience began to hum as it processed her action. Dave felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. Commissioner Monroe’s mouth hung open beneath his moustache and his eyes looked glassy. Ten seconds later he still had not uttered a word.

“I believe the motion has been made and properly seconded,” Pete Warner noted. “Will the chair call for a vote on the motion?”

Monroe whirled to face Warner. Ten more seconds elapsed. Then he exhaled softly and rotated his chair ninety degrees to the right, facing the audience. “The motion has been duly made and seconded. All those in favor will signify by saying ‘Aye.’”