Chronic fear

CHAPTER SEVEN

“I thought we’d buried them,” Senator Daniel Burchfield said. He adjusted his tie in the mirror, brushing some of the powder from his cheek. “Goddamned makeup. I want to look smooth, not like the corpse of a French mime.”

Wallace Forsyth looked around the small dressing room. He didn’t trust these cable news outlets. They were in the business of catching people with their pants down, looking for the gaffes that would feed the cycle until the next natural disaster, shooting spree, or Lindsay Lohan arrest.

“Is the room clean?” Forsyth asked.

“Abernethy went over it himself. But you don’t need a bug to eavesdrop, Wallace. We’ve got stuff that can pick up a conversation through the carpet if necessary.”

Forsyth looked down at the floor, which was covered in shiny vinyl. The tip of one leather Oxford was scuffed and he rubbed it against his pants leg. “You say ‘we’ like you know who is on whose side.”

“Everybody’s on my side,” Burchfield said. “Some of them just don’t know it yet.”

Satisfied with his reflection, Burchfield turned to face Forsyth. “We did everything we promised,” he said. “We leveled the Monkey House, sold that ‘limited contamination’ story in the press, hid the bodies, and pretty much let everybody else go on with their lives.”

“Even though they might snitch you out?”

“You’ve been reading too many spy novels, Wallace. Most people aren’t looking for intrigue or danger. Most people are scared as crap that they’re going to be noticed. Then they’d have to act like their job is vital, that they don’t cheat on their taxes, and that they know all the words to the Pledge of Allegiance.”

“Have you ever considered, Daniel, that you’re far too cynical to be the president of the United States of America?”

“Yes, I’ve considered it. But they say if you scratch a cynic, you find a frustrated idealist. And, I confess, I am idealistic. I love this country. I still think we’re the best in the world, and that we have a sacred duty to shape the future.”

“‘Sacred duty’? Sounds like you’re starting to cater to my crowd.” Forsyth smiled inwardly.

“Don’t worry, Wallace. Federal support of religious non-profit groups is a done deal. And it won’t even be a fight. I’ve already got a nod from the House leader.”

“You’re assuming the Republicans will control the House next year?”

“Change is in the air. Change is always in the air during troubled times.”

“Some would say your actions have helped make them troubled.” Forsyth knew the devil’s hand was involved, but Burchfield wasn’t as true of a believer as he played it in public.

“Look, I didn’t start any wars. The people wanted them. We have a moral imperative. Where governments are corrupt and people are oppressed, we lend our might. That’s been true since the Monroe Doctrine.”

“Only when it serves our corporate friends.”

“Don’t make me use up all my best material right before an interview, Wallace. Right now, we need to tie up this Halcyon thing before the primary. That’s all we need, to let one of the neo-cons catch wind of it, or that goddamned Utah governor.”

“He’ll carry his home state, but as long as you bring up the word ‘Mormon’ in every press conference, the Internet bloggers will do the job for you.”

Burchfield, who stood a good four inches taller than Forsyth, slapped the wispy-haired man on the back. “You’ve been catching up to the Digital Age,” he boomed, with the boyish grin that guaranteed him an extra 10 percent among women voters. “Good man. Before you know it, you’ll be running your own Facebook page.”

There was a knock at the door, and a woman’s muffled voice came from beyond it. “Five minutes, Senator.”

Burchfield adjusted his tie again and nodded at Forsyth to continue. The senator had been in bed with Big Tobacco before the historic settlement had gutted that lobby’s power, and then he’d eased over into Big Drugs without a hiccup. As senior member of the Senate health committee, he’d exploited killing and healing with equal success.

Now Burchfield had said the one word that had been on both their minds since receiving the same text message earlier in the day: Halcyon.

“Our boys have Dr. Morgan under surveillance, but we don’t see her conjuring up anything,” Forsyth said. “Her current research project might as well be June bugs in a jar, as far as we can tell.”

“You think she backed off Halcyon completely?”

“She didn’t get on the president’s council by being a dummy. She knows we got eyes on her.”

“And Mark Morgan?” Burchfield’s face darkened with the memory of betrayal. Mark Morgan had been a staunch ally in the pharmaceutical game, but he’d chosen his wife over his career, and then added insult to injury by refusing Burchfield’s offer to join the campaign team. And now, unaccountably, he was training to be a cop.

“I checked on his performance at Durham Tech,” Forsyth said. “Solid Bs, mediocre marksmanship, generally well-liked by his teachers but considered town-cop material at best. He won’t be enrolling at Quantico any time soon.”

“And that Underwood guy is still locked away in the loony bin?”

“They’ve got him juiced on so many drugs, he can’t tell daffodils from dandelions. You don’t have to worry about him talking none.”

“The other two, the art teacher and the drunk?”

“They moved up to the North Carolina mountains and turned into hillbillies.” Forsyth was getting a headache from Burchfield’s cologne and hair gel. “They do some of that Internet stuff but it’s all above board, nickel-and-dime web business. All art and no politics.”

Burchfield chuckled. “Well, that takes care of them. They’ll be on food stamps before Election Day. In today’s America, you either buy in, sell out, or get on the gravy train. Free thinkers learn the hard meaning of ‘free’ sooner or later.”

“We’re monitoring them anyway. E-mails, phone calls, we’re even scanning some of their postal mail.”

“Spoken like a true paranoid patriot.”

The knock came again. “Three minutes.”

Burchfield looked at the door as if speculating on the chances of a romantic rendezvous with the young production assistant. Burchfield had gotten married six months before, enlisting a charming and guileless former debutante he’d dated at NC State. The wedding fulfilled the voters’ need for perceived stability in their leaders, although it had done nothing to dampen Burchfield’s lascivious nature.

Which brought them to the last survivor of the Monkey House trials: Anita Molkesky, known during her porn career as “Anita Mann.”

“And the one that died?” the senator asked, reaching for the glass of water on the makeup table.

“Nothing surfaced,” Forsyth said. “As far as the world knows, she was just another messed-up kid with a drug problem. The only wonder is it took her so long to OD.”

“And she wasn’t…helped?” Burchfield searched his friend’s eyes.

Forsyth kept his face as stolid and stony as he had while practicing law in Clay County, Kentucky, moving from divorce court to civil litigation before making a successful run for district attorney. From there, he’d risen quickly through the party ranks and, with his drawling brand of hellfire and brimstone mixed with down-home values, he settled into eight consecutive terms in the U.S. House before the last Democratic sweep had dumped him to the curb.

Burchfield had kept him close as an advisor, since Forsyth knew all the snake handlers in the capital, as well as most of the snakes. But some things, even Forsyth didn’t have the stomach for.

“Our people weren’t involved,” he said. “As far as I know.”

Burchfield looked off in the distance, perhaps fondly recalling his disgusting behavior on that long-ago night, when he’d rutted sinfully with Anita while under the influence of Seethe. If he ever needed a reminder, Forsyth had stashed away a video recording, the one Burchfield had assumed was destroyed with the rest of the facility.

“Collateral damage is sometimes necessary,” Burchfield said. “But we need to nail that down and make sure the autopsy shows no foul play. Primary season is when those little rumors start percolating. And I have a few hand grenades of my own, but I need to lay out some landmines and tear gas first.”

“The Monkey House is ancient history, Daniel,” Forsyth said. “Hell, I barely even remember it, and I was there.”

“But somebody remembers besides the CIA. And we better find out who it is, before Fox News and MSNBC and that goddamned Diane Sawyer get wind of it.”

“We got a saying back in East Kentucky. It goes, ‘If you don’t stir in the outhouse, it don’t stink so much.’”

“If we could fit that on a bumper sticker, we’d have this thing won already,” Burchfield said.

The knock came again.

“I know, two minutes!” Burchfield shouted. CNN had tight live programming, as did all the cable news networks, and Burchfield’s swing through Atlanta had allowed him a chance to drop in on the Centers for Disease Control. In addition to providing a great photo op of a somber Senator Daniel Burchfield talking with medical researchers, he’d been able to buttonhole a few of them and inquire about any breakthroughs in drugs treating post-traumatic stress disorder.

While the inquiries sounded like those of a leader concerned about the country’s combat veterans, it was also a chance to see if Sebastian Briggs’s experimental compounds had somehow entered the black market and made an end run back into the system.

Since Forsyth wasn’t officially a candidate for anything, he didn’t have to campaign, and thus could devote time and energy to working behind the scenes and tracking potential threats.

But it also meant retrofitting the past, making sure Burchfield was spotless, no matter how much whitewash it took. And some of that wash might be red if necessary.

“Scagnelli’s snooping around the NSA, FBI, CIA, the usual,” Forsyth said. “I’d say you have about eighty percent support there, which means nobody’s likely to knock your legs out from under you. But there might be a rogue agent somewhere, somebody who wants to freelance on the side.”

“Be sure to check out Scagnelli, too,” Burchfield said, straightening his tie for the third time. “He’s an opportunist just like the rest of us. He might have learned something and decided to turn it into a lottery ticket.”

“He learned that your last consultant died from a sudden heart attack,” Forsyth said. “But that may not work again, because Scagnelli ain’t got a heart.”

“Whoever is behind it, before we take them out, I need to know one thing.” Burchfield’s face grew serious, and even the Botox regimen couldn’t diminish the hard wrinkles around his eyes.

“What’s that?”

“Whether or not Seethe and Halcyon still exist. I’m not even sure they were real.”

“They’re real. Those drugs have changed you.”

“How?”

“You’re more intense now. It goes over as passion. And I think you can ride that to the White House if you can keep a lid on it.”

“I am in control.” Burchfield brushed past him and opened the door, where the pretty production assistant was waiting to outfit him with a wireless, clip-on microphone. He grinned boyishly as she attached it to his breast pocket.

“Be careful, I’m ticklish,” he said.

“Bet you say that to all the voters.”

“Only the pretty ones.”

She blushed and finished the job, giving him an extra pat to make sure the wire was completed concealed. Burchfield’s smile stayed with him as he was escorted before the bright lights and cameras.

Forsyth watched from the wings in admiration as Burchfield masterfully fielded questions about his foreign policy, budget plan, and the all-important controversy over whether the Tea Party was going to fracture the Republicans and create an opening for a third-party candidate.

When Burchfield deftly dodged questions about a potential running mate, it was Forsyth’s turn to smile.

Seethe and Halcyon changed both of us, Daniel.