Political Pressure

18

Orville Flicker knew he shouldn't be in Topeka, Kansas, especially after the disaster in Denver.

He was still reeling from that—almost an entire cell wiped out in a single encounter, and this after countless hits had gone off without a single man lost.

Not that he hadn't planned for losses. Not one man in any cell knew Flicker by name. Those who met him in person, his cell generals, required personal recruitment and coaching. But it had always been performed in his disguise. Flicker was a master of disguise. After all, drama was his major at college until he switched to public relations.

So, sure, he was safe. He knew he was safe. No comebacks, as they called them in the Special Forces. The blow was strictly to his operational capabilities.

General Bernwick had trained an excellent team of mercenaries. Flicker had come to rely on Bernwick's cell for all his most dangerous assignments. Then, poof, they were gone.

Sure, they took most of their targets with them, and his people were scoring some big points using the whole messy affair.

Actually, it worked out pretty well from a PR point of view. This was the martyr factor that Flicker hadn't exploited quite as thoroughly as he should have.

Human beings felt some sort of instinct to feel sorry for dead people, even if those dead people were bad before they were dead. It was only through masterful manipulation of the media that Flicker's people had been able to nip that sympathy in the bud.

But if the people who killed the bad people got killed, too, then they could be cast as martyrs. Freedom fighters who gave their lives in the battle against oppression. Well, not oppression, maybe, but they were at least soldiers against immorality.

Flicker rolled the phrase around in his head. Soldiers Against Immorality. SAL Not good but it would have been a hell of a lot better name than the one they'd come up with.

Warriors for Ethical Politics. No, that made WEP. How about Morality's Soldiers? No, you can't say MS. How about Warriors Allied Against Corruption? Hmm, that was WAAC. Maybe they could spell it with an explanation point. WAAC! Kind of silly, but at least it wasn't wishy-washy.

MAEBE, Jesus. Do we stand for what is right and good? MAEBE! Do we believe in the extermination of corruption? MAEBE!

Flicker caught himself. This wasn't a constructive train of thought. Their name was MAEBE, and it was going to stay MAEBE. Someday, when their power was consolidated, when they were the dominant political party in the United States of America, then he'd look for an opportunity to change the name.

Right now, though, he had some lives to ruin.

That would make him feel better. By the end of the day, things would be back on track. Bernwick would have struck a very public and powerful blow for the cause. It would be pretty damn hard for the people to have sympathy for eight gang lords and a police chief who wholesaled them narcotics. Especially when he, Flicker, leaked the FBI report to the press. And he would still have Bernwick. The man was a good soldier and could exert control over a squadron of brainless thugs better than any other general in the White Hand.

Flicker was pondering this martyr angle. Maybe, when there was a questionable job to be performed, it made sense to plan on sacrificing some of his men as an insurance policy against public backlash.

After all, Flicker was a genius when it came to public relations, but no scientist or artisan achieved perfect results one hundred percent of the time. If and when he had some doubts as to the outcome, he could just throw in a little extra insurance by arranging for somebody on his side to die fighting.

But he'd have to think about this. He couldn't afford to lose good men. Like Bernwick. That maniac was irreplaceable. He couldn't risk Bernwick.

Bernwick should have called in by now, come to think of it.

Never mind. He couldn't afford that distraction. There were big things afoot in the volatile little town of Topeka.

Yes, it was a risk for him to be here. He couldn't afford to be seen, to be recognized, to be linked to the action. Not yet, anyway. But he simply couldn't pass up this opportunity to witness the White Hand wring the ugly neck of corruption.

"Can I help you?" asked the sprightly woman at the desk just inside the front doors of the restored Victorian mansion.

Flicker allowed his gaze to wander the vast parlor and the adjoining rooms.

"Just beautiful," he observed.

"It certainly is." She had the face of a grandmother, with the size and energy of a third-grader. "Prettiest campaign HQ I've ever had the pleasure to work in. The senator has it run as a bed-and-breakfast between elections."

Flicker smiled. "Have you worked in a lot of campaigns? I never have before, but I would like to join on with Senator Serval."

"Well, we're glad to have you! I'm Elly." She grabbed his hand and pumped it. "We're always looking for more bodies."

"I'm not sure what I have to offer," Flicker said, putting a nervous twitch in his voice. "I've got a little PR background."

"Well, we might be able to make use of you in that department. Tonight, though, we're stapling signs and watching the debate."

"What debate?" Flicker asked.

Elly's laughter filled the bottom story of the mansion.

An hour later he was helping to staple campaign signs. Now that he was ensconced, Flicker didn't feel at all out of place. Lucky for him the rest of the staff was engrossed in the debate that was showing on TVs in every room, so nobody wanted to strike up conversation.

The debate was critical for them. Their candidate, the larger-than-life Julius Serval, had opted out, but the outcome of the debate still might have a strong impact on his chances of winning the election.

The debate was among the underdogs, the trio of candidates running against Serval. One of the men was Gerald Cort, but he didn't stand a chance. Another candidate was Ed Kriidelfisk, considered a long shot until recently. The front-runner was Martina Jomarca, a professional politician who had held the Senate seat before.

She stood a chance against Julius Serval and, in fact, Jomarca and Serval had made careers for themselves trading off the Senate seat on an almost regular basis for twenty years. There were half-serious rumors that the pair were secretly lovers.

In fact, they both had their share of skeletons in the closet. If they were lovers, it would have been the least damaging secret for either of them.

For the first time in three campaigns, Martina Jomarca was seriously undermined by a campaigner other than Serval. Ed Kriidelfisk was a poor campaigner but he hired good researchers, and they had unearthed potentially damaging information about Ms. Jomarca's private life and the funny accounting kept during her second Senate run, back in the late 1980s.

It took awhile, but finally the debate reached the critical moment when Ed Kriidelfisk laid out his charges regarding Ms. Jomarca's fiscal anomalies.

"Mr. Kriidelfisk," she said, the picture of a poise and stateliness, "you have made this accusation again and again to the press, and so far the only evidence you have is that I took a weekend trip to Las Vegas in 1987. I believe it is only right and proper for you to come clean, once and for all. Show us your evidence or cease and desist with the false accusations."

"My accusations are not false," Ed Kriidelfisk shot back.

"Prove it."

"While I can't prove it yet—"

"You sound like a broken record, Mr. Kriidelfisk. If you do not have proof, I think it is in your best interest to withdraw your accusations."

There was an awkward moment, Flicker knew. One of his fellow sign staplers snickered. "Kriidelfisk is fucked."

Yeah. Fucked, indeed, thought Flicker with amusement. Ed Kriidelfisk didn't seem to know it, though, cool and comfortable, as if unaware he had pushed Jomarca too far. She was threatening to charge him with slander if he kept tossing out unproved charges. If he backed off, he'd look weak. It didn't take a political analyst to read the writing on the wall for the Kriidelfisk campaign, barring a miracle.

"I have proof," said a voice in the crowd at the high- school auditorium where the debate was being held.

"And you are...?" Ms. Jomarca.

"Just a citizen who is concerned with making sure the people know the truth about the people who want to represent them."

"Sure, you are," Ms. Jomarca said. "All right, let's see this proof."

"I don't have it with me," said the man in the audience. "It's a videotape."

"And I'll bet I know where it is," Jomarca said sarcastically. "With Mr. Kriidelfisk's evidence?"

"No," said the man in the audience, "I gave it to Channel 3. They are airing it now."

There was a murmur in the crowd at the debate, and in the campaign headquarters of Senator Julius Serval somebody shouted, "Quick! Channel 3!"

The TV in the parlor switched to Channel 3, and through the miracle of two-hundred-dollar electronics they still had the feed from the live debate going on in a smaller window in a bottom corner of the TV screen. The candidates were looking offstage, obviously also watching a television set toned to Channel 3.

It was a camcorder videotape from inside an opulent but virtually empty casino. The legend in the corner

was "11/06/89 05:06 a.m." A woman was being muscled out by two security guards, both muscle-bound bruisers, but it was all they could do to hang on to the bobcat in their custody. She thrashed, she shouted obscenities that would probably be edited out of later broadcasts of the footage—and Flicker knew it would be broadcast many, many more times.

It had cost him twenty grand for that piece of videotape, and worth every penny.

The camera moved in for a very tight close-up, which was nothing more than a blur of motion until the thrashing woman grew still, her breath heaving.

"I gotta get that money back! I gotta!"

Flicker smiled. The campaign headquarters filled with the sounds of jubilant disbelief. The face and the voice belonged to none other than Martina Jomarca.

It got better.

"Please," the woman said to the big security guards. "Let me stay. I'm on a roll. If I stop now, I'll lose it."

"You already lost it all, lady," one of the bruisers pointed out. "You're broke."

"Maybe...maybe you gentleman would be willing to spare a few dollars?" She gave each a look that was supposed to be provocative, but it was pitiful.

"How about we give you five bucks for cab fare?"

She became a bobcat again, but only until the bruisers dropped her on the sidewalk outside and held the doors shut so she couldn't get back in. She banged onthe glass anyway, then stopped, stood unsteadily for a moment and vomited onto the glass.

The tape stopped and the announcer from Channel 3 came on, but he was muted and the sound came back on at the debate, where everybody looked as if they were in freeze-frame. Nobody moved a muscle. Martina Jomarca was openmouthed but said and did nothing.

Finally, Ed Kriidelfisk leaned into his microphone and said, "See?"

In the campaign headquarters of Julius Serval a cheer erupted. Martina Jomarca was finished. Since Ed Kriidelfisk and the other guy, whatever his name was, didn't have a prayer, there was no other viable candidate to run against Senator Serval. He had already won the election.

A moment later, an ebullient Senator Serval himself came down from his private suite on the second floor, basking in applause from his campaign staff.

"He's as good as won, now, hasn't he?" Flicker asked one of the campaign workers.

"You better believe it! What's to stop him? It sure isn't going to be her!"

At the debate, Martina Jomarca looked lobotomized. Jomarca's trusted aide took her by the shoulders and steered her offstage.

Act One curtain, Flicker thought. Now for the intermission. Then came Act Two of Topeka Takeover. And Act Two was where this drama really got exciting.