The Frankenstein Candidate (27 page)

“Yes. The sheer monitoring expense is extravagant. But that’s not even the real issue. The real issue is that the whole carbon movement got disguised as science, and many nations, including the BRICs, know this.”

“What specifically got disguised as science?”

“The nonsense that parts of the world are about to get submerged in water unless we reduce carbon emissions. This never had any basis in science. There is little possibility that atmospheric carbon would decrease if mankind curtailed industrial production of carbon dioxide, at least for several decades.

“This is before we get into the monitoring for carbon emissions, not to mention the difficulty of enforceability of this cult in developing countries that don’t really buy into this absurdity.

“It is time we called this a cult, for like a religious cult it is. It is an anti-industrial movement. It is the romanticizing of returning to Mother Earth and a longing for a past where humans supposedly existed in harmony with nature. But this past never existed on our planet.”

“Are you really suggesting that humans should not live in harmony with nature?”

“There is no such thing. Floods, earthquakes, and droughts are of great harm to mankind. When harnessed, nature provides us with beneficial coal, wood, water, and recreational delights. We have to deal with nature as we find it.”

“But, Mr. Stein, people have a longing for natural beauty, they feel one with it.”

“But that kind of recreation is largely a product of civilization. The harshness intrinsically present in nature has been tamed by science, which then allows you to enjoy the rest of it.”

“Dr. Tedman, the chief scientific officer of the United States, said that it is a great moral challenge of our times…”

Kayla was interrupted by a loud bang of a door being broken, the clang of metal hitting metal, and raised voices that sounded like they were a floor below. Frank’s second phone, the one supplied by Mike Rodrigo, buzzed loudly.

Frank looked at the text. “Get out of there. Now. Go to the roof. Chopper waiting. Come alone.”

Frank grabbed Kayla’s arm and pulled her with him. The cameras stopped rolling. She was yanked off screen so fast that she was at the exit door before anyone could say “commercial break.” The camera crew knew instinctively what to do—they ran a commercial.

His pull was hard…she trusted him as she went along, shouting to her assistants, “Announce a commercial break, we will be back,” but they started running too.

“No, this interview is over,” he said as he ran for the back exit to the recording room.

“What the hell was that?” she shouted as they came into the corridor.

A gunshot sounded from just outside the recording room’s main entrance, and Kayla needed to ask no more questions. She ran with him to the fire stairs and started to head down. He yanked her again as he pulled her upward.

“Chopper upstairs,” he said as they heard strange voices gate-crashing the studio.

They got to the top floor without being chased. The door to the large roof was locked. Frank banged on it twice. Then as he heard footsteps on the lower floors, he kicked it hard. Another bang was heard, this time from the roof. The door opened; Mike Rodrigo stood at the doorway.

“I said to come alone,” Mike said as he pointed his gun toward the staircase. He wore a helmet and a bulletproof vest.

Frank, still holding Kayla’s wrist, stood his ground. A shadow appeared at the corner, a boot foreshadowing the glint of metal.

“No, she comes with us!”

“Okay, go, go!” Mike fired at the arm of one the intruders. His gun fell.

The chopper’s door was open; its blades were gathering speed. Frank and Kayla swooped to the safety inside. The door closed with the press of a button. The blades screamed into motion, like strong heat lifting into the sky, threatening to take the chopper with it.

“Wait for Mike,” Frank said.

“Don’t worry, Mike and Jake have automatics.” The pilot was calm as the helicopter shot ten feet into the air and swerved ninety degrees, majestically, elegantly, and with ease, clearly in the hands of an expert.

“No, wait for Mike!” Frank shouted.

“I am sorry, I take orders from Mike. You are the person we protect, you alone,” the pilot said.

“That’s about to change,” Frank said, a good thirty feet overhead at a wide angle, relieved as he saw Mike and Jake on the roof, guns pointed at two young men who had rifles lying at their feet.

He looked at Kayla. She was shaken up but trying to stay composed. They hugged as the chopper flew over the magnificent skyline of East Manhattan. She let herself sob in his arms, shivering, vaguely aware of the glittering night sky.

“Jamie. Rob. Crystal. I—”

The pilot read her thoughts. “Ma’am, Mike’s men have taken control. He said there were no casualties.”

Over the din and the crackle, they heard Mike Rodrigo on the chopper’s radio.

“We are holding three, Mr. Stein. Five injured workers, none too serious. We have medics on the way.”

“Oh, thank God,” Kayla said, still trembling. “Who were they?”

“The carbon racketeers, probably wanting to scare us.”

The chopper began to lower near an isolated airfield and hovered, waiting for permission to land. Kayla was calling her friends and colleagues on her phone, desperate to talk to whoever was well enough to answer.

When they landed, a man arrived to fetch Frank. Rodrigo had organized a car to drop him off at a new location, a hotel, not on the original manifest. Frank asked for two rooms; he didn’t want to risk Kayla going back alone to her apartment. They checked in ten minutes apart. Then they shared a drink in her room as he was told not to risk being seen in the lobby. Two of Mike’s security men were five feet away, seated on another lounge. Frank also carried a gun, alert, his eyes fixed on the door. Kayla had not stopped trembling.

“Why would they try to kill you?” she asked.

“Perhaps only scare rather than kill. The vested interests are getting desperate. Their scare campaign hasn’t quite worked. The last thing they need is an exposé.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Research. Convictions. Networking. Decades of thinking.”

“Do you always talk like that?” she asked, her hands still trembling.

“Like what?”

“Like you know everything?”

“But I don’t.”

“What will you admit that you don’t know so well?” she queried.

“Love…romantic love.”

She smiled. It had been one heck of a day, but perhaps there was a human touch to him after all.

He hugged her to stop her trembling; his touch felt warm—it soothed her. Her sobs came again, this time more from relief than anguish. The security men were unmoved, emotionless.

Frank allowed himself a long hug, finally admitting, but only to himself, that he too needed it. She lifted her profile off his chest. Her watery eyes locked into his; he held her gaze.

On the weekend before Black Monday, Olivia stayed with Gary, trying to talk through their differences. The children had been sent off to stay with Gary’s parents. Sometimes Olivia listened, sometimes she shouted; once she slapped him hard, then at times she cried, and there was even a time she felt sorry for him. Gary had seemed sure he wanted out, but sense finally appeared to percolate through the dense wall he had built around himself.

He confessed to his affair, and expressed his deepest love for Olivia and the girls, but he just couldn’t see how they could make things work.

She tried hard to get him to delay any decision till they sought counseling and insisted that he not see the other woman till a decision was made by Christmas. Gary agreed to seek counseling, but he thought the delay was manufactured to suit her political interests. He also could not easily agree to keep away from his new love interest. He wanted to stay separate, free to meet “the other woman” while in counseling to see if that would work to bring them back together again.

They never went out of their house on Monday. The radios and television sets were off, and Olivia refused to return Victor’s messages, which numbered fifteen. Black Monday came and went, and it had not even registered for a vice presidential candidate who was a favorite of the media’s just a week prior. Finally, on Tuesday morning, they both relented at almost the same time, and then Gary threw a bolt from the blue.

“How can I carry on when you tried to get me killed?”

“Gary! Why on earth would I—”

“Well then, how do you explain—”

“I thought it was an accident.”

“It was a hired killer. The more I think about it all—”

“You are still alive and well.”

“Because it was a warning shot. They said so.”

He showed her the text message, which he had preserved. She froze.

“I had a private detective investigate this.”

“What about the police?” Olivia was stunned.

“Didn’t go there.”

“Why?”

“Didn’t want to say…”

“Who else was in the car with you,” she completed it for him. “Well, what does this private investigator think?”

“He found someone trailing me. The trail goes back to the party.”

“Who is the person?”

“I don’t know.”

“I must know. I want to find him.”

“So do I. If it is the party, though, you asking questions there could alert them.”

“All right,” she said. “Oh, Gary…I am so sorry. I had nothing to do with this.”

He believed her. They kissed for the first time in weeks. As they lay in each other’s arms, Gary began once again to believe that the situation was not irretrievable. Perhaps the party was involved, but so long as Olivia was not behind the attack on him, he could still love her as before. He did not say anything as he held her in his arms; he felt he did not need to.

Soon, she pulled herself together. She got up to change and get ready for work in her study.

He sensed that she was still mad at him—the unspoken had remained unresolved.