Political Pressure

38

Orville Flicker felt his aircraft come to a halt and the engine noise dropped and died. He was back in D.C. He arrived not in a moment of victory, but in a moment of desperation.

Every ten minutes on this long flight there had come another slap in the face. It started with a small-time MAEBE state representative in Missouri and snowballed from there.

The worst thing about it was the skill with which the campaign was executed. Whoever these people were, this Truth-Be-Told Organization, they knew just how to strike at MAEBE with effectively damning marketing.

"But there wasn't a video camera in the hotel room!" the judge from Cleveland protested when Flicker called. "That hotel didn't have shag carpeting!"

"Doesn't matter," Flicker responded.

"Of course it matters if the evidence is faked. It won't take much to prove it."

"It will take too much to prove it. Too much time and too much publicity. The fact is, you nailed a junior high school girl. That will come out."

"Not necessarily," the judge insisted.

"It will. It already has. Look at the television."

"What channel?"

Flicker hung up on the judge. Didn't matter what channel. Pretty soon it would be on every channel. The girl was seen walking into the police station to file her grievance, and she glanced for a moment at the camera with big, gentle, sweet eyes. Dammit, she was photogenic!

The judge was doomed.

So was the state's attorney in Alabama and the governor of Oregon and the senator from Alaska and dammit, so was Lamble. Son of a bitch Lamble faked his doctorate from a nonexistent college. There were lots of ways to get yourself a degree that would stand up to scrutiny, and Lamble used an amateur's trick.

Whoever was gunning for them had penetrating resources and a knack for using them. The Truth-Be-Told Organization, or TU-TO, as the networks were calling it, could be none other than a branch of the government, and likely the same assassin's branch that had been harassing the White Hand for days.

Give him time, Flicker thought, and he could find out who they really were. He could expose them. He could propagandize those bastards out of existence.

He smiled ironically. It would be too late, just like the pedophile judge in Ohio proving the incriminating video was a fake.

"Mr. Orville Flicker," said his assistant darkly.

"What?" Flicker asked. He had never seen Kohd looking so stern. "What's wrong now?"

"What's wrong is you, sir," Kohd declared through gritted teeth. Kohd never gritted his teeth. "You are destroying yourself."

Flicker laughed, a bitter bark. "In case you weren't paying attention, Kohd, MAEBE is crumbling."

"Wrong, sir. MAEBE is you. MAEBE lives and dies with you. All those others are just the rungs in the ladder."

"The ladder is splitting up the middle, Kohd."

"But a strong man at the top can hold it together, sir, and stay upright. That is you, but all I see is a man who is giving up. I see you letting go and allowing yourself to slide down into the pool of cold mud. You are failing us all."

"You're an asshole!"

"Because I'm insulted by your weakness? Mr. Flicker, you are the greatest public-relations man ever. Nobody could have pulled this off except you. You're on the verge of being President."

"Kohd—"

"Orville, you still have the means to be President. We know how to make Senator Whiteslaw go away. We know how to exert control over the current President. The man at the top of the ladder, whether the ladder has rungs or not, stands just as tall as long as he keeps his balance. So I ask you sir, will you strive to remain erect, or will you allow yourself to topple?"

Flicker thought about it, then slowly sat up and spoke resolutely. "I choose to stay erect."

Kohd nodded and pulled out two mobile phones. "Good. Then I have calls to make."

Flicker got to his feet. "And I have a senator to assassinate."