No Corner to Hide (The Max Masterson Series Book 2) (2 page)

This time, he retained that cherished idea in his head. Every detail was there for him to see; his synesthetic memory kept it in extreme detail. The only plans for the generator that would remain, after death had extinguished his thoughts forever, had been given in trust to the president of the United States many years before. The vultures could pick over what they wanted, but the invention that would be his ultimate legacy would remain entrusted to the American people.

They must build it. My generator will make the world a better place.
M

ax Masterson stood on the balcony on the brisk, clear, November night. It was the kind of evening that made you think about how big the universe is, and how insignificant we are: tiny fleas on a small planet somewhere in the

vastness of it all. The day before he had hope, but now he
knew
how the presidential election would end.

Only a week before, the babbling incumbent had been dragged out of the debate feet first, and Max was left standing at the podium without an opponent. Then there was the pitiful assassination attempt which left the nation laughing. The final factor made winning inevitable: To the voters, Max Masterson was not the lesser of two evils. He was the only choice of a desperate nation. He went to bed at 9:30, when it had become a sure thing.

He was the President-Elect of the United States of America.
H

e was elected on the first Tuesday in November of that year, in a landslide that would have been even bigger if the undecideds hadn’t simply voted the party line. It got everyone’s attention. He was an Independent, and Independents

weren’t supposed to win. But Max Masterson had won the popular vote, and with it the hearts and minds of the people of the United States of America. That development had smacked “the powers that be” from behind, and they were determined to thwart the new administration’s efforts to disturb the status quo. To do nothing would threaten their privileged status.

He remembered the words of his father many years before, and the responsibility of it all washed over him like a cold wave.
“On election day, the voters will turn out and start to roll a massive, invisible boulder toward you. With every vote that is cast, that boulder will roll closer, until at the end of the day, it will be firmly nestled in your lap. You’ll feel the weight of it every day for the rest of your life, and it will be your job to carry it.”

He was going to be president; the boulder had been rolled into his lap. Hope had become responsibility, and the weight of that responsibility was already becoming an ever-present burden. It went with the territory.
Max was acutely aware of the responsibilities of being president. He had been trained since early childhood for the position, spending his summers at a secret camp in the Adirondacks under the tutelage of his father’s best friend, Luke Postlewaite. When he and the other children weren’t playing, they were being trained for a life in politics. The rich and powerful families sent their most promising offspring there in the hope that one day their children would become the politicians of the future, occupying positions of great prestige and honor. Max’s training continued from infancy through to the date he announced that he was running for president. First, from the wisdom and teachings of his father, Senator John Masterson, and by Postlewaite, who continued the training long after the senator’s death.

The most-coveted position was a private goal that few would attain, but Max was single-minded in his approach: He would not hold any public office before running for president, and he would follow a path to the presidency that had never been tried before. He was not a politician. He believed that politics prevented the presidents of the past from accomplishing great things. To conceal their motives for voting a certain way, his modern predecessors hid behind the badges of conservative and liberal, and those of party loyalty. He would have none of that. The presidency of Max Masterson would transcend politics.

CHAPTER 3
I

have come to the point in my life where I realize that I can’t make anyone do anything, and now they want me to be the head manipulator,” said Max, fresh from his morning swim and speaking to the only person within earshot, his Vice-President,

Scarlett Conroy.
“You are not expected to be a manipulator,” she responded. “You
are the dream-maker, remember? That’s what you told me when you
asked me to be your running-mate, and I believed you. When I saw
the size of the crowds that turned out for you—rallies that you never
bothered to attend in person—I knew you were at risk of winning.” Max stood in the kitchen of Fairlane, his home on the banks
of the Potomac. The water from his morning swim dripped onto
the terrazzo floor. He was oblivious to his casual status: standing
in front of the Vice-President barefoot, clad only in his swimming
trunks. “You can have all of the speech-making, except the State of
the Union, and you can sit in meetings while I’m out doing important stuff. You can even do most of the big parties, except the ones
I’m attending. I’ve already been informed that the President and
Vice-President don’t appear together in public. Something about if
terrorists get to one of us, the other one has to take over to prevent chaos, or something like that.” Max was rambling, and Scarlett was ignoring him. She was intent on sipping her morning tea while she
scanned the news and an intelligence report on her iPad. Scarlett didn’t like Max—sometimes her disdain bordered on
contempt—but she respected him more than she would admit.
From their childhood days in training for future political office,
she secretly bore a crush for the brash, handsome son of a retired
senator. She watched as Max grew into adulthood, and she saw his
easy way with women. For Scarlett, her relationships were more of
a distraction from her core purpose.
Women in politics are the serious pursuers of perfection and
principle, and she simply did not have time to pursue him or any
other man. She was single-minded in her quest to become the first
female president of the United States, and she ran for every elected
position that she considered to be another rung on the ladder that
led to her goal. She had done well.
Elected to the House of Representatives at the age of 25 from
by her home state of South Carolina, she defeated long-time
congressman Dempsey “Bubba” Chambers after he was caught up
in a scandal caused by his sleeping with a string of buxom prostitutes. His long-suffering wife and five children back in Charleston
had no clue about his philandering until Bubba was the feature of
a five-part video expose. The salacious report showed him out on
the town with a different woman each time he was in Washington,
seemingly oblivious to the fact that he had been married to the same
woman for 28 years.
All Scarlett had to do to score her first win in national politics
was to run campaign ads before and after each report. She used a
clip of her speech to the League of Women Voters. She was seen
dressed in a conservative blue dress, her red hair standing out against
a white blouse, with the American flag proudly displayed on her
lapel. Her words were succinct, and her message clearly contrasted with the public image that Bubba’s indiscretions had created. She calmly announced, in her best Charleston accent, “Now is the time for a woman to take back South Carolina and restore dignity to our state and all of our citizens. Women in politics simply don’t do those
sorts of shameful things.”
When Scarlett was 30 she was elevated to the Senate by default.
Senator Terrell Parks, an icon in the South for having been the first
African-American to be elected to the Senate in the former confederate state, quietly passed away in his sleep at the age of 77. He was
the victim of too many years on the campaign trail, eating fried
food and being waited on hand and foot. He had been a talented
linebacker at Clemson and played for the Chicago Bears for six years
before blowing out both of his knees. Reel footage of the pileup that
ended his professional football career was continually played more
than 50 years later, a painful image of the fragility of a human body
destroyed by a mountain of muscle.
He never exercised again, and the senator’s waist grew ten inches
in the time he held public office. When the senator was in the room,
he occupied more than his share of space, but that worked for him.
He was always the center of attention. At the time of his death,
Senator Parks was morbidly obese, and his doctors had long-since
given up any effort to diminish the acceleration of his demise. The image of a petite, red-haired woman as the successor of the
formidable senator was striking. Scarlett wasted no time in proving
what she was made of, and she took on the Washington political
establishment at its core. The party had appointed her to finish
out the term of her predecessor, but it was a decision that was not
well-received by the men’s club within the United States Senate. No
woman had dared to enter the Washington headquarters of Skull
and Cross or to demand membership, but Scarlett did just that.
She entered the male refuge accompanied by three film crews and
a contingent of woman politicians carrying signs.
The doorman had been trained to deny any female access to the
male sanctuary, and members used their special status to enter the
building from a private underground entrance using an electronic key
that only Senate males possessed. Although a complete investigation
was later conducted by a committee of enraged members during the
year after the “intrusion”, Scarlett’s possession of a duplicate key was
never satisfactorily explained.
“I’m here to apply for membership,” announced Senator Scarlett
Conroy to the desk clerk, who was startled to see a woman inside the
traditionally male refuge, no less the film crew that was memorializing the encounter. While her female followers launched a diversion
from the front of the building, Scarlett had slipped away and gained
access by way of the parking garage next door.
Scarlett’s foray into the exclusive lives of her male counterparts
never resulted in the first female membership in Skull and Cross.
The day after she entered the building, the club filed an action for
an emergency injunction to prevent her from being considered as a
member. Scarlett counter-sued as a matter of principle, but joining a
male club was not a goal. Publicity and fame were her only goals, and
she reveled in the way the public reacted. She now could command
an audience at will, usually just by showing up.
It became sport for her to appear at an event, make a short speech
about the issues of the day, and then do a few press interviews from
prepared statements. These statements were prerecorded and copied
to flash drives, which she would then palm in her hand and deliver
during a handshake. Each evening, her message—misquoted—ran
on every major network, and she soon began to develop a national
persona.
Scarlett’s fellow statesman in Washington was long-time Senator
Hamilton Simpson, the king of Washington earmarks. He had
earned the adoration of fellow South Carolinians by his ability to
bring federal funds and jobs to his home district. He was an old Southern gentleman, and he looked the part. Ham was known as an accomplished orator, and when he spoke, words would slide out
of his mouth like butter on a hot biscuit.
In public, the senator took on the personality of everyone’s jovial
old uncle, telling jokes and amusing stories at every opportunity. He
could work a room like nobody else. In public, Ham referred to his
junior senator as “Little Lady,” much to Scarlett’s eternal embarrassment. In private though, he referred to her as “that manipulating,
scene-stealin’ bitch.”
As the oldest living member of Skull and Cross, Senator Simpson
treated Scarlett with polite disdain in public and with vituperous
contempt over bourbon and cigars among his peers. Their relationship was cordial in public, as that was expected of elected officials in
South Carolina. In private, the cotillion-like atmosphere had quickly
dissolved into mutual disdain for the remainder of Scarlett’s Senate
career. Scarlett was denied access to Simpson’s private world of back
room deals and the privileges of his male world.
While Scarlett was the prototypical female politician, Max didn’t
fit any of the molds that had shaped the political careers of any of
his male counterparts. He had no political career, and he held the
deeply ingrained view that the President of the United States should
not be a politician.
The election wasn’t much of a contest. The incumbent president,
Warren Blythe, had been carried from the final debate, raving like a
madman. In a moment, there was only one person to be president.
The popular vote of the citizens had voted Max Masterson into office,
and Scarlett was his surprise running mate. He had literally stolen her
from a probable third-place finish after being rejected by her party’s
elite, and she was the best choice to balance the ticket. A man who
had never held political office had been elected to the presidency
for the first time since Dwight Eisenhower. At least Eisenhower had
been a general. Scarlett had been a United States Senator. Max wasn’t even a politician.
He had only been trained to be one thing in life; President of the
United States of America. Scarlett was the Vice-President-elect of
the United State of America, and she was a diligent public servant
without peer. She was the first woman to reach that pinnacle, and
she was better-qualified than Max to be President. He knew that,
too, and it had become a private joke between them. Scarlett had
done everything right, but her gender was a God-given impediment
in politics. Politics is, and has always been, a boy’s club. Max, on the opposite end of the political barometer, was a renegade, and that made the political establishment perch on the edge of
incontinence. He was the President-elect whether they liked it or not,
and in his irreverent way, the political world of Washington, DC, was
about to be turned on its ego-swelled head. Max and Scarlett had
the potential to transform the executive branch in ways that would
become the new standard that America would follow for generations,
but for now, they were just President-elect and Vice-President elect.