Read from the bottom up to enjoy these episodes as written.
Crole and I don’t get many visitors out at the spot, fishing.
Oh, Bucephelus T. Taggart swung by once after he ran his truck out of oil around the bend. And the Ricketts kid two farms over gets dragged here occasionally by his big doberman. I think he’s got a thing for Sue-Ann. The doberman.
So you can imagine my surprise when a long shadow fell across the rock between us, and I looked up, and there was the president of the United States.
“Durwood — it’s great, here you are,” he said. “They didn’t wanna let me come, the secret service. I said, ‘I gotta come, I gotta thank Durwood for not getting mixed up in that operation his buddy did for Sleepy Joe. Durwood’s a hero. A genuine American hero.”
Crole’s mouth hung open. His rod and reel, which had slipped into the water, were floating downriver.
I said, “Steering clear of Quaid Rafferty's messes isn’t heroic. It’s plain horse-sense.”
The president looked at me with a growing grin. Then he turned to Crole.
“How about this guy — Durwood Oak Jones. War hero. Veteran. This guy’s beautiful, I’m telling you.”
Crole tried talking, his few stray teeth bobbing soundlessly in an open mouth.
“Thank you, Mr. President,” I said. “Thank you for visiting West Virginia on our account. I know you’re busy.”
The president’s head ticked back and forth. “Durwood, I could tell you, and you wouldn’t believe. You *would not believe* the crap. I could use another word, but I heard you don’t swear. Is that right? Durwood — you never swear in your books?”
“That’s correct,” I said.
He patted my shoulder heartily. Then he said to Crole, “Unbelievable, this guy. He’s an American treasure.”
Crole, still unable to speak, reached slowly for his jug.
“Speaking of crap,” the president said, “they stole this election from me, as I’m sure you know. Everybody knows. Now I’ve got some real good lawyers trying to fix it. This Powell lady, whoa — I found this Powell lady and she’s fantastic. What a ball buster.”
He stared out across the river. He was bigger in person than what I’d figured.
Crole finally managed, “Keep fighting, Mr. President. Keep the dream alive.”
The president nodded with a far-off look. “You know the score, Crole. You understand.”
My neighbor was freshly flabbergasted, hearing his own name from the real estate tycoon’s lips.
“I know your name,” the president said. “I go someplace, they brief me. They say, ‘You’re gonna meet, uh…Jim. You’re gonna meet Jim, or Jerry. Or Crole. Doesn’t matter. I remember. People think I won’t remember but I do, I remember.”
The three of us were silent a long moment. The Smokey Mountains loomed in the distance, stately at dusk.
“I was about to say,” the president continued, “that I got this team of lawyers, and they’re great, best lawyers around — but they’re still … lawyers.” He shriveled the top of his face. “If I’m gonna get to the bottom of this injustice — if this country is — we’re gonna need more than lawyers. We’re gonna need to make witnesses talk. We’re gonna need action.”
He faced me expectantly.
Crole faced me too, giddy-up in his old catchers mitt of a face. His jug of moonshine was half drank.
I said, “I expect some did cheat, that many folks.” Something tugged my line. I ignored it. “And I hate to imagine Democrats in charge. I know you had work to finish.”
President Trump said, “Durwood — don’t do this, okay? Don’t do it. I can hear the ‘but.’ You’re about to hit me with a ‘but.’”
I looked at the man who meant so much to so many people in Appalachia and elsewhere. The man who respected them. The man who went to Washington and said what he thought, to hell with the press and how presidents were supposed to talk.
The man who fought for us.
“I’m not a political man,” I said. “It’s not my work.”
The president twisted his mouth. He seemed to consider more persuasions. Then he looked through the haze at the mountains and sighed.
To the secret service behind us, he hiked his thumb toward the road.
“Fair enough, Durwood,” he said. “I had to ask.”
He extended his hand to shake Crole’s. “Crole — you’re a helluva character, Crole. With the moonshine and the fishing? Helluva character. I’d love to see you guys down at Mar-a-Lago for a weekend. I’m serious, anytime. You pick. You’d love it. Fabulous resort.”
“Wh—why sure,” Crole stuttered. “I sure would, sir.”
They shook hands warmly, and the president left.
#BidenOp
I gave it a couple days after the election — we all needed to defuse, I think — before visiting the Klackenwockys. I wanted to close the loop with them after discovering, as part of Quaid Rafferty’s Steve Bannon/ghost plane mission, that they’d essentially hijacked their son’s vote in favor of Trump. I hoped they and Justin had gotten to a better place.
Mrs. Klackenwocky answered the door.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said.
She had sweatpants on. She’d been wearing slacks when I met her.
“Hello, it’s good to see you again.” I craned my neck inside. “Where’s the rest of the gang?”
Mrs. Klackenwocky opened her shoulders, and her husband emerged holding a Bud Light and a crumpled section of newspaper in either hand.
So much for a better place.
Mr. Klackenwocky barked, “Come here to gloat? Is that it?”
I shook my head. “Not at all. I—no, I’m non-partisan. I came the other day strictly as a favor to my friend.”
The Klackenwockys stood side-by-side, their expressions rueful. He had a few days’ stubble. She kept closing her eyes for long intervals, taking breaths.
“Listen,” I said, “the election didn’t come out like you wanted. I respect that.”
Mr. Klackenwocky re-coiled his paper. “It’s not over! There’s wards in Detroit and Philly that turned out more votes than people — if you think that’s legit, I got a bridge to sell you—”
“Fred,” his wife interrupted. “Please, that’s enough.”
Mr. Klackenwocky calmed down.
I said, “I’m not here to talk politics. I’m here to talk to you about Justin.”
Right on cue, a barrage of crashes and *blip-bloop-bleeps* came from upstairs, then a young man’s voice called, “You know it, orc — eat *that*!”
Mrs. Klackenwocky’s head dropped.
“Your son isn’t progressing along the path you imagined,” I said. “Okay — that’s not a unique issue. Have you considered having him see a therapist?”
They looked at me like I was selling basement waterproofing.
“Ah jeez, you got the Oval Office,” said the husband. “Can’t you just be satisfied? Do you really need to come shoveling your mumbo-jumbo on our front porch?”
I wanted to tell him, again, that I wasn’t here representing the other side. I wanted to tell him that therapy and the field of psychology in general aren’t mumbo-jumbo. But I could see he wasn’t ready to receive these messages.
We were at an impasse.
Now a catastrophic rattle sounded from the second floor, followed by a groan, followed by Justin Klackenwocky trundling downstairs in a Biden-Harris shirt.
“I think the wi-fi needs boosting,” he told his parents. “Warcraft is way laggy today, I got killed by an orc. Orcs never kill me.”
The Klackenwockys met their son’s proclamation wordlessly. Mrs. Klackenwocky scratched her temple.
Justin pointed at me. “What’s she here for?”
Mr. Klackenwocky looked between his wife and me, mouth twisted, seeming to grope for a story.
Finally, he gave up and just spat out the truth: “She came here the other day asking about your ballot.”
Justin’s eyes swelled. “Seriously? Yeah — it’s awesome, right? We did it! We made a plan to vote and we got rid of Trump! *Go Joe!*”
He put some funny (ironic?) accent on the last phrase. For a moment, he shifted weight between his untied shoes, energized.
Then he got confused. “Er—wait. I did vote, right? I remember I got the envelope from the, like, Secretary of State person? And I…yeah, for sure, then I opened it…”
Mr. and Mrs. Klackenwocky looked on as their son sneered and squinted and counted on his fingers, struggling with memories.
“Mom, you sent in my ballot,” he said. “You did, didn’t you?”
Mrs. Klackenwocky sucked in another close-eyed breath. Her hands were joined at the waist; she broke them to take one of her husband’s.
Then she gave me a meaningful look before telling her son, “Yes, Justin. I mailed it. Congratulations.”
He slapped his hands and whooped, pointing to the ceiling in a rock-star pose.
“Cool, I’m gonna grab some Pringles from the kitch,” he said. “If you want me to get on Amazon later and check reviews on wi-fi boosters, I can. Just stay logged into your account.”
He disappeared in search of potato chips. The Klackenwockys kept a tight grip on each other’s hands.
And I decided not to push it, to give them another month or two of defusing.
#BidenOp
It wasn’t easy getting through secret service to see Joe Biden. As you can imagine, he’s a popular man these days. Every Tom, Dick, and Harriet with an eye on an administration gig wants onto his schedule.
I handed my card to the agent. He squinted at the print. It’s possible my Indiana Jones-inspired font is rough on the eyes.
“You’re with ‘Third Chance Enterprises,’” he read. “‘The leading small-force private-arms contractors in the free world?’”
“That’s correct,” I said. “Arguably we’re the cream of the crop in the non-free parts too. But I’m not about to pick a fight with the Zhāng twins over a business card.”
The man spread his thick legs wider apart, showing no sign of allowing me past his checkpoint.
Then I heard that strained, folksy voice in the distance, “Raff! Raff — you got here. Let him through, Phil.”
Joe Biden emerged from his Cape Cod-style headquarters holding two champagne flutes — his a sparkling grape juice, of course.
The secret service agent stood down, warily. I walked a cobblestone path to meet the president-elect.
“Congratulations,” I said. “I’m not sure you covered the spread, but four years at 1600 is four years at 1600.”
“Amen to that.” Joe handed me a flute of amber tinged with red — the Cholula from my customary prairie fire. “It was a team effort. And the part you played was as big as any.”
I took a swig. Booze burned my throat.
“Well, I tried. *We* tried.” I peered into the headquarters’ windows. “Where is Kamala, anyhow?”
Joe flung his arm to one side. “Ah, she’s off picking the cabinet. But she told me all about Bannon’s ballots. How you leaped from a chopper to board his plane. How you figured out the scheme, and then that older fella, the guy, what’s his … gee, he’s married to the conservative gal …”
“James Carville.”
“Right! How Carville rides in on a jetpack and blows Bannon and his dirty ballots clean outta the sky.”
Imagining the scene, the president-elect gazed at the clouds with a dreamy expression.
I was confused.
I said, “Now did Kamala tell you she saw Carville take out Bannon’s plane? She confirmed that?”
Because I hadn’t seen it. The pilot flying the front half of Bannon’s ghost plane had circled the area several times, but we never got a definitive visual on the back half going down.
Now Joe became confused too. “Why — that’s what I … what I *thought* she told me.” He swiveled around, maybe looking for an aide. “But he must have, right? He must’ve got the ballots. I won the friggin’ thing. Didn’t I win the friggin’ thing?”
“Absolutely.”
“There you go, then. And Carville was here — he was *here*, he came to see me! Didn’t I tell you, Raff?”
“Nnno,” I said, hesitant. “What did Carville have to say? He should know whether he blew up the ballots or not.”
“He should, that’s right.” Joe squinted hard, missing his signature sunglasses. “But … but all I remember now is his smell. He smelled funny. You know how older folks can smell funny, some of them?”
I said I did. Molly McGill’s grandmother has an especially recognizable odor, strong notes of wool and dill pickle.
Joe said, “Except it wasn’t your typical old person smell.”
His thin lips bunched as he searched for a word, or words.
I offered, “Did he smell like jet fuel? Or exhaust?”
A lopsided smile came across Biden’s face — a slow, warm change. The sun overhead had just broken through a line of clouds.
“I believe that was it, Raff,” he said. “I believe so.”
#BidenOp
James Carville hovered directly ahead of us in his jetpack, bazooka aimed at the ghost plane.
The septuagenarian Democrat operative boomed — through some unseen voice-amplifying technology, “You’re done for, Bannon! I’ll give you five seconds to repent to your maker, then I blow you and the ballots sky high!”
He shouldered his weapon, which upset his balance and caused the jetpack to lurch. Carville zagged out of sight, then back in.
I said to Kamala Harris, “He doesn’t know you’re here. We have to let him know somehow.”
She scrambled past the pilot and pressed her face against the cockpit glass. She pounded and shouted and pounded more. It wasn’t clear whether Carville had all he could handle between operating the jetpack and aiming the bazooka — it wasn’t clear if he could see her.
I yelled in vain, “Stop, you’re gonna blow up the vice presidential nominee!”
But Carville showed no sign of changing course. He aligned one of his protuberant eyes to the weapon’s round sight. His mouth curled in something like maniacal delight. I wondered if he and Bannon had history, some double-cross in the smoky back chambers of the Senate fueling this counter-mission.
Before Carville could pull the trigger, a wall of wind hit my back. I staggered.
“What’s this?” Kamala said, “What’s going on *now*?”
We swiveled and found ourselves staring out at open sky.
The back half of the plane had split off at the point of its former partition. Now its doors were closing, sealing off the four of us — me and Kamala plus the pilot and copilot.
I just did catch Steve Bannon’s lopsided smirk as his breakaway craft dropped away from us, taking the mountain of Trump votes with it. I hurried to a side window. Two cigarette-burner engines emerged from the craft’s sides, rotated ninety degrees, and lit their lamps.
Bannon and the ballots zoomed off.
Fortunately James Carville noticed in time and didn’t fire his bazooka. He grimaced and ducked one shoulder, starting the jetpack after Bannon.
Whether Carville caught up or not, whether he incinerated those ballots or Steve Bannon delivered them to swing-state election officials in time to influence the election results, I have no idea.
I never saw either man again.
#BidenOp
We’d been circling for an hour. The ghost plane was running on fumes. The pilot had called back several times asking for a destination, a bearing, anything — “or that b*tch gravity’s going to decide for us.”
Finally, Molly McGill called with her report: Justin Klackenwocky’s parents had filled out his ballot. He was a half-baked live-at-homer, passionate about “issues” but not enough to make sure of his absentee ballot’s fate.
I leveled my eyes at Steve Bannon.
“You rustled up this many woke slack-a-teers with MAGA parents?” I asked.
He turned up his hands. “If you can’t exploit a twenty-year-old kid, you don’t belong in politics.”
I turned to Kamala Harris, who was fuming, pacing the cabin.
“I am going to call each and every one of those young people,” she said, “and personally find out whom they intended to vote for. This is our democracy at stake.”
She’d been nothing but a rockstar throughout the mission, but I looked at her sideways now. Did she *realize* how many ballots we were looking at?
Suddenly I was having doubts about the practicality of the Dems’ policy ambitions for 2021 and beyond.
Bannon called over, “It’s best this way. These young people are still leeching off their parents. They’re freeloaders. They have no right to choose the next president of the United States.”
Kamala Harris’s jaw dropped. “Are you on something? You believe the rights of lawful voters should be forfeit because they don’t pass some adulting litmus test — to your specification, of course.”
They were arguing themselves straight to nowhere when a new sound began outside. It came from the cockpit end, different from the sounds of either Tammy Duckworth’s or Kamala Harris’s helicopters. This was whorling, supersonic.
The pilot’s voice came through the intercom, awed: “Now I’ve seen it all.”
Kamala and I rushed forward to see what he saw.
Buzzing a hundred yards out was a skeletal face, 70-something, topped by a shiny dome.
“That isn’t …” Kamala began, squinting. “But he can’t still be active in …”
“Apparently he can,” I said.
Hovering in midair, wearing a jetpack and toting a bazooka, was James Carville.
#BidenOp
I confirmed the address I’d written on the back of a Target receipt against the mailbox house number.
Justin Klackenwocky
6382 Pinder Drive
Morristown, NJ
Yep: 6382. This was the house corresponding to the ballot Quaid had found on Steve Bannon’s ghost plane.
I strode up the neatly manicured path to ring the doorbell.
A middle-aged woman in slacks answered. “Can I help you?”
I smiled and crossed my wrists. “Yes, I’m looking for Justin Klackenwocky.”
The woman’s eyes flitted toward the staircase. Intermittent noise was coming from upstairs, bleeps and bloops like the video game noises I hear sometimes from Zach’s room.
“May I ask,” the woman said, “what the purpose of this visit is?”
This being election season, I must look like a pollster or door-to-door campaign worker.
“I work with a team that’s, ah … we’re just confirming ballots,” I said. “Obviously it’s an odd year, and we want to ensure every voter’s intent is honored.”
She knit her brow. It seemed clear that her son, presumably Justin Klackenwocky, was in fact upstairs. The noises from the stairs were definitely from a video game — Among Us, if I wasn’t mistaken. One of Zach’s favorites.
But this woman didn’t trust me. Normally I would’ve researched her full backstory and prepared a tailored pitch, but there hadn’t been time. Quaid had called with his urgent request — he needed to unravel this bizarro Trump vote in a hurry. It might be the key to a whole slew of votes.
Enough to swing the election.
Instead of turning up the stairs, the woman — Mrs. Klackenwocky, let’s assume — called toward the kitchen, “Fred! Fred, I need you.”
The husband shuffled in, neatening his collar and fixing the tuck of his shirt.
Mrs. Klackenwocky explained in low, urgent tones, “This woman is here about Justin’s *ballot.*”
She said the word slowly, as though it were in code.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Fred Klackenwocky said. “Justin’s ballot. Well, we were under the impression it was all wrapped up and recorded.”
He grinned and brushed his hands in a “done and done” gesture.
But that was a nervous grin.
I said, “Your son is twenty years old, is that correct?”
The parents looked at each other.
Mrs. Klackenwocky replied, “That is correct.”
“And what are his interests?” I said.
Fred Klackenwocky’s mouth in place. “Justin enjoys the Marvel action hero movies.”
“Okay. Those are always fun.”
His wife said, “He used to be quite enthusiastic about graphic novels.” Her eyes brightened a moment, then dimmed. “But in the last year or so …”
They shared a melancholy look, the sort you might see from siblings facing a parent’s dementia diagnosis.
I offered, “It seems he’s an enthusiastic gamer.”
They stared at me blankly.
“Video gamer,” I clarified.
“Oh.” Frank grimaced. “Yes, he is. He sure is that.”
I continued conversationally, “I believe the game he’s playing is Among Us. It’s popular now. Did you see that news story recently, AOC doing a livestream playing with people online?”
“A…O…” Mrs. Klackenwocky began.
“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,” I said. “The Democratic congresswoman from New York?”
Frank grimaced again and glared down at the Welcome mat. Then he glared up to the heavens.
His wife was softly whimpering.
I closed the notebook I’d brought along.
“Mr. and Mrs. Klackenwock,” I said. “Would it surprise you to hear that your son cast a ballot for Donald J. Trump?”
Mrs. Klackenwocky’s eyes turned bright as cherries. “Nope! Make America Great — isn’t that what they say now? All the kids?”
She turned to her husband for support.
He mustered a thin smile. “That’s right. Justin is a, uh, real believer in lawful immigration. And holding China accountable in trade. And …”
He couldn’t think of number three.
I said, “And if we walked upstairs right now, and I asked Justin about his ballot, what do you expect he’d say?”
They hesitated.
“Election fraud is a third-degree crime in New Jersey,” I said. “Punishable by 3 to 5 years in jail and a $15,000 fine.”
They kept hesitating.
I started up the stairs.
“Wait!” Fred said, bursting after me. “No, if you asked him about his ballot he’d say …”
His wife finished, “He’d say it got lost with the junk mail.”
Fred added, “Or buried under the filthy clothes on his floor.”
Mrs. Klackenwocky smirked ruefully. Then she walked very close to me and gripped her hands in a beseeching ball.
“You don’t understand,” she began, “he’s an absolute *idiot.* He watches that woman all day, on cable news. With the short dark hair? On that MSNBC?”
“Rachel Maddow?”
Fred Klackenwocky put in, “That’s her, alright. She fills his head with this nonsense. He thinks college should be free. He should never have to pay a doctor bill in his life. He thinks Donald Trump is solely responsible for 230,000 American deaths due to Covid.”
Mrs. Klackenwocky’s face pinched like she was sucking a lemon.
“It’s a virus,” she said. “Look around the world — it has to run its course. Any intelligent person knows this.”
“I—I take your point, but in fairness to Justin—”
“The stakes are too high,” Fred interrupted. “This election is just too important.” He looked resolutely upstairs, to where his son was playing Among Us. “We had to do something.”
I looked him level in the eye. “And did that something involve Steve Bannon?”
Fred dropped his head.
Mrs. Klackenwocky said, rushing, “But Steve—Steve said he was taking care of it! Steve said it would be great, it would be beautiful and great, we were putting Justin on the right side of history. One day, he was going to thank us …”
Listening to her go on, I felt spent. I felt sad — that any parent would feel this way about their child.
But apparently, if Quaid’s description of the insides of that ghost plane were accurate, a whole bunch of parents did.
#BidenOp
Steve Bannon explained, at my and Kamala Harris’s insistence, that there was nothing fishy about the ballots in back of his ghost plane.
“They are lawfully cast ballots,” he said. “Each and every one. Native-born citizens who reject socialism and believe Donald J. Trump is the only thing standing between the United States and surrender to the globalist agenda.”
I cut my eyes at Kamala. *Were we buying this?*
She asked, “Why can’t they deliver the ballots themselves? Why do you have them”
The ruddy features of Bannon’s face worked against each other for a moment.
“They—er, various reasons,” he said. “Some voters don’t have the, uh, the means to deliver their ballot. People get sick. People …” Bannon bit his lip, casting about the plane’s cabin. “People have disabilities. Yes, disabilities! Certain voters have to be met halfway in order for their franchise to be realized …”
He went on, casting this murky enterprise in high-minded superlatives.
Now I don’t have the X-ray-vision psychology skills of @MollyMcGill3rd, but I could tell — by the inventive flickers of his eyes — that he was lying.
I walked coolly past Bannon and his group to the ballots. “Then you won’t mind if I peruse one or two?”
“Course not,” Bannon said. “Be my guest.”
But again, there was an uneasiness there, a stiffness when he extended his arm invitingly.
With Kamala providing cover, I approached the stack of ballots. “Mountain” would be more appropriate. They were hauling enough votes to tip the election in four swing states plus American Somoa.
(Kidding about American Somoa — they don’t get a vote for prez.)
I picked out the nearest ballot. It had a Post-It note attached to its outer envelope. They all did.
The Post-It read, “Aiden Rasmussen, DOB 7-10-2000, FL”.
I said to Kamala, “We need to know what the deal is, whether he’s dead or coerced or what.”
She sighed and set her eyes fixedly away from me. “I’m not seeing a thing.”
I slipped my fingernail under the envelope flap. After all — if these ballots were on a plane with associates of one the campaigns, their integrity was already shot.
*Right?*
I read the ballot.
“So a twenty-year-old male … from Florida … voted Trump.” I scanned down the rows of filled ovals. “Republican straight down the line.”
I read the next.
“Chloe Kidd … nineteen years old from Wisconsin … also Trump. Also straight Republican.”
Every one I checked followed the pattern: young, swing state, Trump.
I mused, “That age group isn’t exactly Big Orange’s bread and butter.”
Kamala contemplated the ballots.
“No,” she agreed. “It’s not his bread. It’s not his butter. It’s not his damn dill pickle on the side.”
What we really needed was to drill into one of these ballots, to find the face and circumstances — the true story — behind that vote.
I rifled through the stack until I found the address I needed.
Justin Klackenwocky
6382 Pinder Drive
Morristown, NJ
#BidenOp
Bannon’s order to the pilot was simple and immediate:
Fire at will. Take her out.
The ghost plane rattled and bounced and lurched, unloading its full arsenal on Kamala Harris’s attack chopper. I couldn’t see the battle — the plane had no windows in back — but judging from the plings and thuds all around, the junior senator from California was vigorously returning fire.
Bannon roared at the cockpit, “Destroy her! We’re private citizens — this is deep state tyranny!”
Deep state or not, the dogfight continued. The rear of the plane was being pummeled. Bannon’s pilot fired rounds and rockets and tried evasive maneuvers, but Harris’s chopper never lost its bead on us.
The intercom crackled on.
“Once again, ’pologize for the interruption,” the pilot said. “But we are all out of ammo.”
He punctuated the news with a falling whistle.
Bannon huffed more orders, but it was too late. The chopper soon realized we weren’t shooting anymore and closed in.
Bannon grumped, “What the hell kinda pilot” and “You boobs said we were untouchable,” among other things.
I was tiptoeing toward the back of the plane — toward the votes.
In another moment, several *klunks* sounded against the plane’s aft side. The exterior door bowed, bowed again, then burst open.
Kamala Harris hurtled inside. She wore a navy jumpsuit and mask reading, “VOTE.”
Bannon’s crew was starstruck, or panicked, or drooling — I couldn’t quite tell.
Bannon gestured to the mask. “It’s really not necessary to—”
“I wear it for you,” Kamala said.
She scanned the cabin and quickly noticed me. “You’re not part of this clown crew, are you?”
I explained my mission.
“Joe hired *you?*” She looked me up and down, then muttered half to herself, “Why do they keep leaving him alone …”
I said, “I did rescue society from worldwide anarchy.”
This didn’t impress her.
Turning her ire on Bannon, she said, “Now tell me, before I have to show you how real law and order works” — her eyes flashed dangerously — “what’s this scheme of yours?”
Bannon considered the would-be veep. His foot was twitching. His lips wanted to smirk but couldn’t quite manage it.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll talk.”
#BidenOp
They were hiding something behind that false wall. There was something in the rear of the plane — rigged voting machines, commandos, election officials with their wrists zip-tied.
*Something.*
I looked into Steve Bannon’s eyes and saw — in that hard, resolute cold — that I needed a carrot.
I smacked my hands together and rubbed. “Tell me this: how can I be useful to you?”
Briefly I detailed my repertoire: the foiling of doomsday plots, the suppression of coups, various and sundry other capabilities.
Bannon stroked his whiskered chin. “Coups, did you say?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m quite versed in armed insurrection.”
He sat forward eagerly and nudged one of his associations, a man with metal teeth and a triangular neck. “Because we happen to need one.”
He explained that his nativist movement had achieved a tipping point in a certain Eastern European country. Could I go in and tug some threads? Find those moldering malignant masses and cultivate?
My skin started going creepy-crawly. He was assuming, of course, I could do either — suppress or cultivate. Probably I could. How many supervillians did I know in that part of the world?
Kaspar Kirrilianovich would pick up a phone call. Misha the Maniac owed me a favor.
But did I have the will? Was getting rid of Big Orange worth *this*?
On the “do it” side of the ledger, there was no telling what Bannon actually had brewing. He could be working with total incompetents. The whole dumpster fire could flame out.
I might never have to hold up my end of this Faustian bargain.
“I’ll help,” I said. “One coup over easy, coming right up.”
*I hope you’re reading this, Joe. I oughta get a cabinet position for this, and nothing dinky like Small Business Administration.*
Bannon flashed a wolf’s grin to his associate. His associate grinned back, metal teeth creaking and gnashing.
“Fantastic,” Steve Bannon said. “We love to bring newcomers into the fold.” He opened his shoulders to the false wall. “Ready to see what’s back there?”
“Very much,” I said.
He strode to the partition and held his palm to an infrared reader. The partition broke at the middle and accordioned away, revealing a mountain of envelopes.
“Votes, baby,” he said. “All the votes we need to keep 45 for another four years.”
I was just puzzling out what precisely this meant when roaring thunder began behind me. It came from outside the plane — thwap, thwap, thwap.
The intercom crackled. Bannon and his gang flinched and looked to the cabin speaker.
“Copilot and I do apologize for the interruption,” said pilot announced breezily, “but I’ve got at an attack chopper on my 6. And if I’m not mistaken, I believe that’s Kamala Harris staring us down through the sights of a Gatling gun.”
#BidenOp
I eyed Steve Bannon and his cohorts, trying desperately to ID them — and to guess their game. Bannon had just been getting rolling at Breitbart when I’d left politics, and we had never crossed paths. These pals must’ve emerged from a similar primordial muck because I didn’t recognize a one.
“Gentlemen,” I said, adjusting to the cabin’s quiet. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t mask up. I am vaccinated.”
They laughed uproariously. Bannon slapped the thigh of his slacks.
Good start.
“We know you hitched a ride with Tammy Duckworth,” Bannon said. “Which means you’re on Biden’s payroll.”
“Not at all,” I said.
Which was technically true. I hadn’t taken a dime from Joe. I do a lot of these progressive sidehustles pro-bono.
Bannon sat back and folded his arms. His wavy hair looks something like mine, only gray, greasier.
“Then what’re you here for? People don’t jump out of helicopters at 3,000 feet for chitchat.”
“No,” I agreed. “I’ve got a play, like you. I’m here about November three.”
As we talked, feeling each other out, I cast about for clues. The plane featured the full complement of creature comforts — stocked bar, chandelier and gold trim, 90” screens tuned to CNN, Fox News, and OANN.
“You’ve been making a circuit of the swing states,” I said. “Why?”
Bannon cut his eyes left, right, gauging his gang. “We want a free and fair election. The silent red wave is coming — unless the socialists rig it.”
I lodged my tongue in the side of my mouth, considering possibilities.
*Voter suppression?*
*Intimidation?*
It occurred to me, my sense taking its sweet time coming back after that wild freefall, that this plane’s interior was too small for its exterior.
Way too small.
Ten feet behind Bannon stood a beige panel, which featured none of the stately leather and tidy stitching the plane’s other walls showed.
Because it wasn’t a wall. It was a partition.
I nodded that direction. “What do you have cooking in back?”
Bannon smugly scratched his whiskers. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
#BidenOp
I was freefalling through gray clouds, drifting left, my chin rotating softly forward, searching the furious sky for Steve Bannon’s ghost plane.
Tammy Duckworth had dropped me roughly a thousand feet above its radar signature. That meant five seconds to impact.
Five.
Four.
Three.
If I hit zero and *didn’t* encounter a plane? Then I’d keep falling until I landed on western Pennsylvania.
At one-and-a-half, I pulled my parachute cord. Harness straps gouged into my armpits and my head bobbled a second before I regained orientation.
I’d made it through the clouds and was peering into bright, cold blue.
*Where? Where is Bannon’s plane?*
My parachute above tugged and twisted like some enormous bouncer holding me back from a fight. I wobbled about, head on a swivel, squinting, seeking.
*There!*
Below and slightly behind was the shimmering silver top of an airplane. I pointed my toes that direction and tried steering the chute like Durwood Oak Jones had taught me — using small, precise moves.
My course changed, first gradually and then suddenly.
I slammed into the steel, *oof!*, my shoulder taking the worst of the impact. I began rolling off one side like a Slinky down stairs. Flinging one arm up, I scrabbled for a handhold. Any handhold. My fingernails scratched and slicked and finally caught some panel by its edge.
I gripped the outside of the plane, cheeks flapping in the violent air, struggling up the slope. Generally tasseled loafers are a great look for me, but they weren’t providing much traction. I humped myself up, ooching with every muscle and fiber of my knees, gut, chest, nose.
Finally, I made it.
I’d just taken my first breath in forever when a void opened in the plane’s steel — a hatch. My legs dropped and felt suddenly warm.
For a moment, I hung on for dear life, feet dangling below, before realizing I was half inside the plane.
I winced and gritted my teeth. *Here goes nothing.*
Then I gave up my grip on plane’s exterior, and fell.
I landed in a heap on something plush, cushiony. The parachute was still attached and draped outside. A pair of hands slammed the hatch shut on its surface.
Shaking out the cobwebs, I looked up.
I was sprawled on a velvet couch, and sitting before me — in velvet places of their own — were Steve Bannon and a crew of the hardest jackals you’d ever want to meet.
#BidenOp
I don’t generally bring my phone to fish. But my son, Luke, has been calling lately to check on me. He’s in New York City. Investment banker at Goldman Sachs. I suspect he’s worried about me and this virus.
So I took the phone to the river today. I set it on a rock between me and Crole.
It was twilight. The river flowed by, its surface still and showing a purple sheen. We’d taken out a few speckled trout. The bites had slowed down.
My phone rang.
I glanced over and saw the caller’s name was longer than “LUKE.”
I kept fishing.
Crole looked at me, then at the phone. Then back at me. “You gettin’ that?”
I shook my head.
We fished more.
The phone rang again. Sue-Ann, sleeping against my boot, roused at the noise. She looked at me. Crole looked at me too.
I didn’t bother checking the caller. Likely it was political. Somebody asking for money, or whether I supported LGBTQ rights.
The phone continued to ring. Finally, Crole couldn’t take it. You’d think a man with eight decades under his belt would have more patience.
He checked the phone. “Yowser, look it! Says, ‘Tammy Duckworth.’ Isn’t she a senator?”
I said I didn’t know.
Crole said, “Yeah, yeah — I think she’s part of that *Squad*.” He made his leather ballmit of a face sinister. “They’re socialists.”
“Only squad I know about,” I said, “is my Mountaineers. We got Texas Tech Saturday.”
Then we talked about football, how nice it was seeing blue and old gold back on the field.
Eventually, I did answer my phone.
The caller’s words were quick. “Your partner just jumped out of my chopper, I thought you should know. Maybe you want to help? Go back him up? I have reached Durwood Oak Jones, correct?”
“That’s correct, ma’am.”
Now I recalled my conversation with Quaid Rafferty a few days back. He’d wanted me to join a mission for Joe Biden.
Tammy Duckworth continued, “Now our politics differ, Mr. Jones. I realize that. But your friend just risked life and limb to ensure a free and fair election on November 3rd. Isn’t that important? Isn’t that worth something?”
Crole could hear every word of the conversation. He whispered behind his hand, “*Socialist.*”
Into the phone, I said, “As I heard it, a man’s flying around the country in a plane.”
The senator said nothing.
I said, “Him being Steve Bannon doesn’t make a crime. Besides, I got a funny feeling he and Quaid might hit it off.”
Tammy Duckworth clucked her tongue over the line. “There’s nothing I can say to get you off the sideline?”
I thanked her for the call but said no — Quaid was on his own.
We hung up. I put the phone back on the rock, then I reeled my line in for one more cast.
#BidenOp
Tammy Duckworth was available.
“If it’s for Joe,” she said over the phone, “I’m ready. Reporting for duty.”
I needed a pilot capable of intercepting Steve Bannon’s ghost plane, which was en route to Pittsburgh International Airport. I knew Tammy from her days in Veterans Affairs, back when I was governor of Massachusetts. She helped us get vets off the streets in Boston and Worcester, and in return, I lined up an endorsement or two in her run for Illinois-8. She was going to win it anyway, but I might’ve saved her a little sweat on election night. The margin ended up around 10 if memory serves.
Now I explained, “I tracked down an Mi-17 transport chopper. They can have her gassed up and at the gate in two hours. Can you get yourself to Pennsylvania?”
Tammy said she could.
“And you can fly an Mi-17?” I said.
The junior senator from the Land of Lincoln humphed. “Can the Bears stuff a tailback dive up the gut?”
“Fair enough,” I said, and hopped a charter jet to Pittsburgh. Tammy was waiting for me at the gate, already suited up in flight gear.
Inside 10 minutes, she had the bird aloft. We chitchatted about the Coney Barrett hearings and Trump’s debate strategy (”It’s a stand-up act nobody’s drunk enough to laugh at.”)
Mostly, though, the senator focused on flying. She handled the stick deftly, zipping us through the night sky, banking smooth and firm through turns.
A faint green pulse appeared on radar.
Tammy snarled, “Bannon” as though it weren’t a bland green circle on the cockpit display — but the ruddy, self-satisfied face of the provocateur himself.
She maneuvered us directly overhead, confirmed the other craft’s identity using my information from Madam Xor, then set the autopilot to match the ghost plane’s speed and heading.
“Need help with your chute?” she asked.
I was cinching the waist strap double-tight. “I think I’m good.”
*As good as you can be when you’re about to jump from one speeding aircraft to another.*
Tammy Duckworth extended her elbow, and I banged it with mine.
“Stop him — whatever he’s up to,” she said. “Let’s get Joe over the finish line.”
I nodded. “Good luck in 2022, Senator. Thanks for the lift.”
Together we heaved the exit hatch open, wind screaming into the cabin. I had a flashback to a couple years back when Durwood Oak Jones and I had jumped from a Rivard LLC plane to escape armed commandos — in pursuit of information to end the first sustained anarchy in world history.
My target then had been the Hudson River.
Now it was a plane of unknown size and shape.
I jumped and instantly couldn’t see, enveloped in gray cloud.
#BidenOp
Madame Xor eyed me for five seconds. I heard a crack — either from her brain or some unseen supercomputer.
“You’re looking for Steve Bannon,” she said.
I flinched and whipped my head around. “Wh-but how did—”
“In the last 72 hours,” she cut in, “you searched ‘Steve Bannon sighting,’ ‘Steve Bannon lair,’ and ‘does Bannontracker exist?’.”
“Oh.” I peeked down at my phone in the pocket of my sport coat. “You never know, there could be one. A kid living in his parents’ basement makes an app sorta thing?”
Madame Xor squinted ponderously. “It is a time of great innovation we live in.”
The wise-ass.
“Anyhow, yeah, I’m after Bannon,” I said. “He’s flying around to swing states in some stealth plane, presumably planning to rig the election for Trump.”
She took the news with bored eyes — as though it wasn’t news at all. “Our greatest ever president embraces a laissez-faire regulatory attitude that dovetails nicely with my future plans.”
I was afraid of this. “Aw, what difference will it make? Are you really quaking in your boots about a federal law enforcement effort led by *Joe Biden?*”
I made my eyes wide and wobbled — a slapdash impression of old and infirm.
Madame Xor smirked. “It’s a fair point. What can you offer then? Of course I can locate Bannon. His QAnon fingerprints litter the web like geese droppings.”
I tapped the toe of my loafer, thinking. What *could* I offer? Intel on a competing supervillain? On another tech giant?
“I could put a scare into Google for you,” I tried. “There’s plenty of progressives who’d get behind greater oversight.”
Madame Xor made a brush-off motion over one epaulet. “Google concerns me like asphalt concerns a fleet of tanks.” Her eyes took on a faraway cast. “I do have a slight interest in Lowe’s.”
“The home improvement stores?”
She nodded.
“Sure — I can get the inside dope on Lowe’s. Durwood might even be up for a ridealong. Fixtures and hexbolts, heck, that’s his sandbox.”
We agreed in principle to the exchange of favors, then Madame Xor told me what I needed to know.
Bannon was in the air, on track to land in three hours at Pittsburgh International Airport.
#BidenOp
It was expected, of course, that Durwood Oak Jones would pass on a mission benefiting Joe Biden. Fine. I could track down this ghost plane of Bannon’s without the old crank. While I was at it, maybe I’d find another accomplice — somebody whose conversational range exceeded johnsongrass control and the fish of Appalachia.
Still, I would need to adjust the approach. Durwood might well have had some high-tech gadgetry for sniffing out stealth planes, but I was going to have to rely on good old-fashioned sources.
*Who do I know with ties to Bannon?*
My closest political contacts, unfortunately, play on the left side of the infield.
My Rolodex is fairly thick with supervillain cards, and supervillains — as a rule — aren’t ideologues. They’ll take their world domination however they can get it. Totalitarian means. Mass socialist delusions. They don’t quibble.
I drove a Zipcar to Los Angeles. Well, not quite Los Angeles — a nondescript suburb east of the city. I pulled into the vast parking lot of a left-for-dead mall, five anchor stores and four levels worth of vacant retail. All entrances were chained. I parked in the closest non-handicapped spot and took out my cell.
Before I’d so much as unlocked my screen, the phone made an unfamiliar tone and blurted, “NORDSTROM UTILITY BAY.”
I found the faded Nordstrom sign, which now read *Nrdrom*, and slinked along the building perimeter until I came to the utility bay. Its grate was down.
The moment I’d stepped within five feet, my phone sizzled — another thing it’d never done — and the grate slid smoothly away.
Madame Xor awaited within, 3’7” in a high-buttoning jacket with epaulets.
“Our April transaction is complete,” she said. “If you’re fishing for an online review, message me. But I won’t pay a single bitcoin more.”
I chuckled, remembering Madame Xor’s sense of humor — a rarity among supervillains.
“I’m not here for cash,” I said, “though I’m forever interested in customer satisfaction. I take it you’re happy with the, uh, regulatory relief I provided?”
She narrowed her eyes. Madame Xor leads a consortium responsible for 99.97% of the world’s internet backbone. There’s nothing she can’t know, no rumor she can’t seed, no trend that eludes her — staggering power she plans to deploy in the very near future.
She can’t trust traditional lobbyists for the obvious reason that they’re bigmouths. So earlier this year when Draconian internet privacy bill had come before Congress, she’d enlisted my help.
“The bill appears dead,” she said. “So long as it stays dead, I’m happy.”
I snapped my sport coat lapels. “Great, I aim to please.”
I’d actually set the wheels in motion with my progressive contacts for a substitute bill with much the same provisions for consumer protection. Hopefully I would get what I needed from Madame Xor here before it hit committee.
“Then tell me,” she said. “Why are you here?”
“Information,” I said.
She folded her arms, light glinting off the epaulets. “Leave the dry wit to me, Mr. Rafferty.”
“Right, gotcha,” I said, aware for the first time of a barely audible hum coming up through the floor, the walls, everywhere. “I need to hunt down a ghost plane. It’s carrying one or more provocateurs.”
#BidenOp
There aren’t many subjects I like less than politics. Septic tanks. Golf. It depends who I’m talking to.
If it’s Quaid Rafferty, I’d just as soon talk sewage.
“… isn’t the most dynamic leader, granted, but he’s decent,” Quaid was saying. “Biden is a decent man. If somebody’s plotting to steal the election from him, and he asks for our help, don’t we have an obligation to take the case?”
I was busy. Two of my downspouts were loose, the L-joints where they meet the ground. I was forcing the segments back together. They never will fit flush.
I said, grimacing with effort, “Steve Bannon’s plotting to steal the election.”
“Yes,” Quaid said. “That’s what I just told you.”
Kneeling in my blue jeans, I looked into the downspout. I suspected chipmunks. I hear scurrying through the metal at times. #Sue-Ann was nosing around the opening the other day, prancing.
There aren’t many scents she prances over.
I said, “And who told you?”
“Biden!” Quaid said. “Joe Biden told me.”
“Hm,” I said. “How ’bout that?”
“Look, I don’t wanna do this as a sidehustle. I need your help. Bannon’s flying around to swing states on some ghost plane, doing God knows what. This is a job for the both of us.”
I finally got the one downspout flush — or flush as it was likely to get. I carried my hammer to the other spout at the northeast corner of the house.
“Next thing,” I said, “you’ll have me going door to door for the Sierra Club.”
Quaid huffed a laugh. “Right. That’s *exactly* what I’m up to. Come on, Wood. Did you watch that debate last night?”
I said I hadn’t, but that my neighbor Crole had told me all about it. “He said old Trump won. Took the gloves off.”
The former governor of Massachusetts spluttered over the line. “Please. Crole must’ve gone through his whole damn jug of moonshine if he said that.”
I bent the downspout’s mouth with my fingers. “Could be.”
Crole had also said the liberals were getting ready to knock off Sleepy Joe as soon as he took office. Make way for Kamala. They just needed to keep him upright for another month and change.
I’m not sure of his source for this theory.
“Did I mention the ghost plane?” Quaid said. “It’s got *stealth countermeasures.* The thing lands and takes off and lands again, and Biden’s people have no clue.”
“That I believe.”
“You know, it’s probably beyond us.” Quaid’s voice turned airy, down. “Even if we tried. I figure Bannon’s hooked up with the best, some ascendant supervillain. I guess they’ll get away with it.”
Quaid Rafferty is a skilled negotiator. I’ve watched him talk captives off a firing line. I’ve heard him convince a mobster’s mother to wear a wire.
But when it comes to psychology, reverse or otherwise, Molly McGill has him beat.
“Guess they might,” I said.
And went back to repairing my gutters.
#BidenOp
I should’ve known, if the Democratic nominee for president needed operative work, that Steve Bannon was involved.
“Whoa, boy,” I said. “What’s he up to?”
Joe Biden stood and walked to the window. My room as Caesar’s has a view of the Strip, which looked hot and hazy today.
“Bannon’s crisscrossing the country on a private jet,” he said. “And not just any jet — it’s got stealth features that make it very difficult to track. We think he’s stopping in swing states. He flies at night.”
“Like a bat,” I said. “Or some nocturnal sludge.”
Joe smirked. “Sludge. That’s about the size of it.”
I asked what they suspected Bannon of doing. Slandering democrats in local races? Fomenting unrest among right-wing nationalists?
“All that, sure,” Joe said. “But he doesn’t need to do any of that under the radar. He doesn’t need a jet with countermeasures. Something more sinister is going on.”
I considered the accusation. Certainly if somebody were going to be pushing the boundaries of political subterfuge, you’d put your chip on Bannon — the dark prince of nativist zealotry — to be the one.
But how, exactly? Tampering with polling stations? Hacking voting machines?
I asked where the plane was currently.
Joe’s mouth twisted under his mask. “Hard to say. We’re relying mostly on union members, boots on the ground, for tips. Bannon was last seen in the Detroit suburbs, stuffing suvlaki into his face with some autoworkers. But that was ten days ago.”
I tapped the arm of my chair. “So I’ve got to track him down, too? If the integrity of the election’s at stake, seems like the G-men should be your first stop.”
“The FBI? Ah, Raff, quit with the comedy,” Joe said. “Trump controls the apparatus. Official channels aren’t gonna do diddly squat on this. I need you.”
We looked each other manfully in the eye. Like a lot of people, I don’t know quite what to make of Joe Biden. Which is shocking given how long he’s been on the scene, available for us all to inspect.
Does he have this moral compass that’s going to lead us to the light — to a better place than DJT? Or is he just gliding into the presidency because it’s there, because the political Plinko pegs have lined up just so for him?
He asked, “Why can’t you track the plane? Can’t @durwoodOakJones rig up some radar doohickey?"
Now it was my mouth’s turn to twist. “I don’t know that we can count on Durwood’s involvement. More than likely, this case will have to be a sidehustle.”
The full Third Chance Enterprises team — myself, @MollyMcGill3rd, and Durwood — only assembles in times of global crisis. Durwood does help me out with minor jobs now and again, but he’s fussy. He needs to feel he’s on the righteous side.
“No Durwood?” Joe gazed out the window, bewildered. “But this is right up his alley. Finding a ghost plane? Getting to the bottom of a bunch’a …” He hunted around for the word. “Bunch’a fat cats making trouble. Chicken hawks like Bannon?”
I was nodding along. “You’re preaching to the choir. Look, I can ask. But he’s a former marine who lives in coal country. He travels with a minor arsenal. What do you think your poll numbers are with folks fitting that profile?”
This sobered Joe. He raised his silver eyebrows.
“So,” he said. “Just you?”
I brushed a thread off my sport coat lapels. “You sure know how to make a fella feel under-appreciated. I do think Molly could be roped into this, potentially.”
The candidate released a long sigh.
“Alright,” he said. “We’ll make it work. We have to.”
#BidenOp
“Here’s the deal,” Joe Biden said. “I got this thing going — this thing I need help on.”
The Democratic nominee for president was sitting in my suite at Caesar’s Palace, six feet away and masked. He wore a navy suit, fresh off a virtual rally.
“The election?” I asked. “Are you here about a political consult, or more of—”
“No, hell no,” Joe cut in. “The politics I got nailed. Trump? He’s a clown. I’m just the guy to yank off his honky red nose.”
The reference was crooked, but I was impressed with his vigor — which is what most of us donkeys are fretting over nowadays.
“Great,” I said. “Then you’re looking for an operative.”
He nodded solemnly, hands joined as though in prayer at his mask.
Me, I was bare-faced. “You know, you can take that off. I’m vaccinated.”
He cocked his silver brow. “You didn’t take Putin’s, did you?”
“Nope.”
“The Chinese one? You do realize they’re cutting corners every which way but—”
“Fabienne Rivard,” I said. “She’s got a nifty one, it uses a modified shark virus to incite the antibody response.”
Joe asked when I’d gone and lost half my lugnuts. Fabienne Rivard, who’d shot at me with a space laser? Who’d been behind that worldwide anarchy a few years back?
I explained, “We have a complex relationship. Look, these Moderna people have never brought a vaccine to market. Fabienne’s cadre of evil scientists has *created new subatomic particles out of whole cloth.* They literally wobbled the moon to sabotage Rivard LLC’s main rival in the satellite biz. It’s a helluva track record.”
Joe said, “I’m keeping the mask on.”
I raised my hands deferentially. “Fair enough, you’re the prez-to-be. So. How can I help?”
The candidate scanned the room as though checking for spies or secret cameras. He crooked his brow again at me, hard, perhaps reconsidering his request.
Joe and I got to know each other in the mid 2000s, horse-trading on behalf of our respective states. I helped him prop up the chicken trade in the Northeast (Delaware cranks out the birds, Sussex County in particular) while he opened a market for Massachusetts-made integrated circuits. He was a pragmatist like me. We got stuff done.
“Raff?” he said.
He’s the only person who calls me that.
“Yes,” I said.
“Can I count on you? This is important.”
I smoothed my sport coat lapels. “I want Big Orange gone badly as the rest of the country.”
Joe nodded. He might’ve been biting his lip. I couldn’t be sure with the mask.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. It’s about Steve Bannon.”
#BidenOp