At Risk of Winning (The Max Masterson Series Book 1) (6 page)

“here it is,” spoke Postlewaite, dressed in the formal attire of the successful political advisor. “All campaigns start out the same. You must look the part. When people speak your name, everyone must know who they are talking about, and most of all, they must have a favorable opinion of you on a subject that you agree about. Do you understand?”

The shout was louder this time. “Yes, sir!”
Postlewaite was a veteran of political campaigns beginning with the demise of Richard Nixon and throughout the nine presidential campaigns that followed, and he was highly regarded by each politician who had attained public office, whether they had hired him and won or hired his competition and lost.
Luke had been on the losing side of an election only once since the 1980s, when he worked on the campaign of John Anderson during Reagan’s first run for the presidency. Of all the campaigns his candidates had won, that one loss had taught him the most, and now his wisdom was called upon full-time for huge compensation. Today, he was running a camp for baby politicians, and he looked at it as recreation in the interest of job security. Someday, these kids were going to be the people he worked for.

AT RISK OF WINNING

“Elected officials are, first and foremost, narcissists who surround themselves with ‘Yes’ men and women, and by doing so, they isolate themselves from the pulse of the American public. Issues that inflame the voter sometimes fail to reach the level of attention necessary to prompt a politician to action, and when the voice of the voter is not heard and heeded, a certain form of helpless alienation grows.” he scanned the classroom for recognition on their faces. Feeling that he had achieved partial success on that, he continued.

“If it persists, the voter’s interest wanes and apathy sets in. With apathy comes a disconnect that becomes impenetrable for the politician when they run for reelection. If you let this happen, you stand a good chance of losing when it comes time for reelection. This invisible wall of discontent is the barrier between the person in office and the vote that keeps them there.” he knew he was talking over their heads, but he was speaking more for himself than teaching something they would retain and use.

“This isolation gradually leads to widespread discontent among the voters until the alienation is nearly universal. The irony of it all is that the politicians inside the Beltway don’t have a clue. It is only when the voice of the American public becomes louder than the whispers of the lobbyists will the legislators begin to listen. I am counting on you to make a difference.”

Postlewaite was speaking to a group of privileged children, but among them were two types that held his fascination: the children of politicians, and a scattering of those poised and talented offspring of parents of average status, whose presence was made possible by their genius. They had no reason for being there other than their almost cradle-driven ability to bring notice to their talent of working a room and speaking their mind. It was in these prodigies that he privately maintained the most hope.

Out of this class of possibles, he had filtered two young hopes for the future. Max Masterson, the son of his friend Senator John Masterson, was the first offspring of notice, and a fiery girl from South Carolina, Scarlett Conroy, was the other. They were bright, savvy, and promising, and his private focus was on them. The other kids were destined to hold positions of high office, but they didn’t possess that gusto that would propel them to the top.

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ChAPTER FOURTEEN

A visit to the Masterson estate, named Fairlane after automaker henry Ford’s nineteenth-century estate home in Dearborn, Michigan, was a journey into the finer aspects of the past. Luke Postlewaite had driven this path hundreds of times, but he never stopped marveling at how entering through the automated gate made him feel like he was entering a nineteenth-century utopian fantasy. The red bricked driveway wound between huge live oaks, the Spanish moss dripping in light green swatches from the lower branches. In each direction, the natural beauty of the wildlife preserve was enhanced by trees and plants that were indigenous to the eastern United States.

The home of John Masterson, a massive stone castle designed by a team of architects trained in their youth by Frank Lloyd Wright and Buckminster Fuller, spread over a full acre. Perched at the top of a cliff above the Potomac River, the house was surpassed only by the beauty that could be seen through each massive window.
The grandeur of the home was enhanced by the use of state-ofthe-art computer controlled imagery that projected the art of the masters on the walls at preprogrammed intervals. In the foyer, a waterfall flowed under the stairs from the second floor sleeping quarters, giving the impression that the visitor was walking into a Maxfield Parrish‒inspired paradise. The entire back of the home was glass and opened onto a grotto surrounded by flowering plants. A geodesic dome allowed natural light to enter each room and could be adjusted to allow more or less light at the whim of the owner. holographic sculptures appeared to talk as the visitor moved from room to room, quoting inspirational phrases in an intimate whisper that changed on each pass. The effect was a seductive invitation to a sanctuary where the troubles of the world were left behind, and as traditional as the façade appeared, the technological innovations of the interior afforded each visitor a unique experience.

The senator had spent the early years of his ownership of the property restoring the land to the era before Europeans first set foot in the region. his knowledge of native flora and fauna had reached the point where local professors at the surrounding universities’ biology departments could no longer answer his questions, and he resorted to spending occasional afternoons in their online research libraries to satisfy his urge to learn. The plants that he found were rare, but not by their ability to adapt to the environment. They had been scraped from the landscape over centuries of urban development and were gone, for the most part.

A wild turkey ran ahead of his Cadillac Escalade, wary of his intrusion. It ran in a zigzag pattern until it spotted a gap in the sparkleberry bushes and then disappeared as fast as it had come into his path. he slowed, not because he needed to, but because he wanted to savor the feeling of calm escape that the approach provided. he crossed a small bridge over a rocky stream. Then the driveway straightened out, and the pillars appeared. The white of the house contrasted with the green of the trees.

There was no lawn. The senator saw no utility in copying the high maintenance English tradition of converting natural space into a golf course. Instead, he had planted wildflowers, the seeds spread by the sack load, and in the thirty-two years since he had bought the house, they spread to fill the space previously occupied by the previous manicured green space. The lawn had been replaced with the special colors that only those wild seeds could provide. The effect was a palette of colors out of a Monet painting, and at any season of the year, even winter, the colors greeted the eyes of visitors with a special flourish.

he drove past the front entrance and circled around to a large parking garage hidden by a grove of sugar maples. Their leaves had turned bright red with the approaching autumn, providing a flashback to the days he’d spent in college at Ann Arbor, where the smell of burning leaves combined with the distant roar of football fans at Wolverine stadium. But that was forty years ago, and he had to attend to the task at hand. Minuteman Masterson had summoned him to Fairlane for a reason, and he didn’t have the luxury of living in his memories for long.

“Postlewaite, you old goat! You’re late!” The senator stood behind him with his camera equipment slung from his shoulder. he seemed to delight in sneaking up on people, and his bemused smile betrayed his amusement at surprising his longtime friend and campaign advisor.

“You’re the old goat! have you looked in the mirror lately? You look like you just slept under the bridge!” Masterson stood in front of him, dressed in bib overalls, flannel shirt, and work boots. By contrast, Postlewaite’s trademark three-piece suit and bow tie were definitely out of place, and he shed his gold silk tie in one smooth movement, tossing it on the passenger seat as he retrieved his briefcase.

“Come on in! I was about to have some brandy and cider to take the chill out of my bones. Care to join me?” he didn’t bother to wait for a response. he knew that Luke had a weakness for good brandy, and he kept the liquor cabinet well stocked with vintage Armagnac varieties, collected over fifty years by his favorite vintner at the Capitol.

The senator poured, and Postlewaite settled into a chair near the wood fire roaring in the cavernous fireplace. he wasted no time in formalities, as if he was in a hurry to get on with his retirement. On the Senate floor, he was known to go into a rage at filibusters, moving to end discussion and calling the vote within minutes of any long-winded speech. If the words continued beyond his patience, he would storm out of the chamber and instruct his legislative assistant to page him on his communicator when the “blowhards,” as he loudly called them, were done “wasting my time and the taxpayers’ money.”

Postlewaite knew that their meeting would be short, direct, and no-nonsense, and he would be out of there within an hour. It must have been important for his old friend to call him out to speak to him in person, he thought, or it would have been handled in summary fashion over the phone.

“Luke, I have been thinking about my own demise.” he paused, and waited for Postlewaite’s bushy brown eyebrows to settle back into their customary position.

“Ten years ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. Back then, the doctors said that they could contain it, but they couldn’t remove it without killing me. They did a good job, keeping me going all this time. But now it has metastasized to my lymphatic system, and once it does that, they say I’m a goner. I told them last week that I don’t want to lose my hair or my sex drive, but they told me that chemo wouldn’t work anyway.”

“John, I never knew. You’re my closest friend, and you didn’t tell me a thing.” he paused, considering what he would do if placed in the same situation. John Masterson was a proud man who wouldn’t want well-meaning friends to begin a deathwatch while he had productive years left. Postlewaite pondered the revelation, realizing that he was the only person who knew outside of the team of physicians who had silently kept the senator alive for over a decade.

“Well, I always wondered if you were still boinking at your age.”

They both laughed long and hard, until tears streamed down their cheeks. The relief brought by their laughter was like a tonic, making the news easier to take. They were both talking about Adrianna.

“You were one of the few who knew how much I cared for her. I was devastated when she left us.” Masterson stared out the window at a hummingbird, its wings a blur as it hovered over a coneflower.

Postlewaite hesitated for too long before asking the question outright, not wanting to step inside the senator’s mind. It was an unspoken message, and Masterson anticipated that the truth needed to be told. “I loved her, Luke. I just couldn’t commit to marriage, and at some point, she decided that she had waited long enough, but she stuck with me.” he paused and returned to staring at the hummingbird, which apparently had alerted six of the bug-sized birds of the bounty outside the window. They buzzed loudly, their wings flapping faster than the human eye can follow. After a minute of silence, he continued.

“She was happier that evening than I had seen her. Before we took the limo to the party, I took her out in that garden, right there.” he gestured toward the grand vista outside of the windows. “There was a beautiful sunset. I sat her down on that bench there and got down on one knee. I asked her forgiveness for keeping her waiting all of those years, and for the second time that day, I asked her to marry me. They never found the ring. It disappeared at the same moment they took her life from me.” A tear formed, and he looked away, not wanting to show his emotions. It was a feeble attempt, but the senator was unaccustomed to revealing a crack in his composure. Postlewaite took the opportunity to speak, softening the moment for his old friend.

“John, I loved her, too, you know that. I kicked myself for introducing her to you after your reelection party, and the only reason I didn’t kick your ass for stealing her away from me was the way she looked at you . . .” Now they were both reminiscing about her. They hadn’t spoken of Adrianna since her funeral six years before.

A photo of Adrianna, flanked by Masterson and Postlewaite, revealed the three in happier times. It showed them smiling and tanned in the back of a fishing boat. Adrianna had just landed a huge marlin, which was stretched lengthwise at their feet. Even then she had her head turned toward Masterson as he stared directly into the lens. The object of her adoration was unmistakable.

“To this day, I swear that bomb was meant for me. Why would someone want to kill her? She was a beautiful soul without an enemy in the world.” Masterson took a long sip of brandy. This time, he drank it straight. his standby cider sat unused in a pitcher on ice. “Sober times sometimes call for strong spirits,” he remarked as the brandy had its desired effect.

he replayed the memory in his mind once again. A bomb had exploded at a black-tie party attended by most of their peers, sponsored by the Patriot Group. It was an intimate gathering, not more than fifty. Masterson was there with Adrianna and had excused himself to confront a party crasher who he had seen standing close to her, whispering in her ear as she stood across the room. he noticed that the man looked like one of Pryor’s assistants, a man known in political circles by the name of “Darkhorse.” Can’t be. He wouldn’t show his face in this crowd, Masterson had thought. As he approached the dance floor, he noticed that the man who had spoken to her was moving quickly toward the main entrance, and he took off in pursuit.

As Masterson reached the outer hall, he saw the figure bounding up the escalator toward the exit door. his pursuit ended when the metal door slammed shut, and as he turned to reenter the ballroom the explosion came and the lights went out.