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  The people of Michigan loved it. And they loved her. The rest of the country met her in the wake of the Bellevue Chemtrail disaster and the ensuing scandal that shook the executive branch to its very core, sinking the incumbent’s hopes for re-election. At the Democratic National Convention in Toledo, in what later came to be known as the “Weevil Speech,” Governor Travis offered her views on Senator James Russell, one of the “new faces” that had shaken out of the woodwork during the scandal, and the Democrats’ panic-inspired nominee for President. Before a crowd of Russell’s adoring fans, and ignoring the speech she had given convention organizers to run on the prompter, Travis presented an unflinchingly honest assessment of the Senator’s political career, balancing praise for his fiscal acuity and legislative prowess with scorn for his environmental voting record, his own brushes with scandal, and his questionable relationships with lobbyists. Reflecting on her early years on the farm, Travis related how her father was once faced with two different crop weevils at the same time, but had the resources to deal with only one. He made the common sense choice and dealt with the more destructive pest. “And now folks,” she went on, “we’re faced with the same dilemma my Daddy faced. Two major party candidates, both major pests, and we gotta choose. I say we vote for Senator Russell, the lesser of two weevils.”

  She was booed and shooed out of the convention hall, but she was applauded and cheered in living rooms across the country. And though she was quickly disowned by the Democratic leadership, polls showed that her speech actually helped Senator Russell, who went on to defeat, by a narrow margin, his Republican challenger. It was as if the public, just knowing that there were people like Linda Travis in the government, were heartened enough to vote. Hearing what sounded like the truth from the mouth of a politician, voters were able to forgive the shortcomings and mistakes of a man who now seemed a bit more like them.

  Governor Travis returned to Michigan a hero and enjoyed her own re-election two years later. A year after that, declaring herself tired of the politics of party, and seeing how severely the Chinese “Rare Earth Crisis” and the Miami Nuke had wounded both the Russell administration and the Democrats in general, she left the Democratic fold and launched her own independent campaign for the Presidency of the United States.

  Her announcement was unusual. She stood before the assembled reporters and supporters dressed in a Michigan State hoodie and khaki slacks which, though decidedly casual given the occasion, worked wonderfully, setting the tone for her entire campaign: no pretense. Her friendly, pretty face, tanned and natural, was relaxed, her eyes full of secret jokes. Her ginger blonde hair, newly bobbed to shoulder length, gave her an air of healthy readiness and intelligence. “I’m Linda Travis, Governor of the State of Michigan,” she began. “It is my goal to be elected President of the United States next November. I will serve one term only, and I will always tell you the truth. And I promise you this: when I have finished my term of office, the government of this great nation will work more efficiently, more sensibly, and more humanely than it has in a good long while. I am an alcoholic but have not had a drink in almost twenty years. I had a miscarriage in my senior year of high school, before I met Earl. I will speak no more of that. I play a mean game of online poker. I’ve been known to cuss. And I’ve shoveled a great deal of manure in my day, which should suit me perfectly for the job. Any other dirt you’ll just have to make up for yourselves. Thank you.”

  Contributions from the grassroots flooded in. Travis would accept no corporate or interest group money. It didn’t matter. Her campaign was fueled by “people power.” She was one of them, a real person running for President. Volunteers lined up at the door. The press adored her laughing face and her blunt retorts, providing her with coverage and exposure she could never buy. When a reporter asked her about the “extra challenges” that faced her bid to become the first woman President, she just laughed. “If you think this will be the first time there’ve been two boobs in the Oval Office, young man,” she said, “then you have not been paying attention.” Her face was everywhere after that.

  In a live interview on ACN News two days after “throwing her bonnet into the ring,” celebrity anchor Stendahl Banks pressed Linda Travis on her announcement, accusing her of trying to re-write the rules of modern politics.

  Travis nodded. “Of course I am, Sten,” she replied. “The rules in place are absurd and corrupt.”

  “But don’t you think the American public has a right to know about your alcoholism, or your pre-marital affairs?” Banks smiled.

  “If the American public decides it can’t handle having an alcoholic in high office, we’re going to see a great many empty executive suites in Washington. As for my sex life and my miscarriage, that’s between myself and forces way larger than you or anyone else who may feel entitled to have some say in the matter. I’ve said all I’m going to say. The people of this country will have to choose.”

  Banks sat back, a look of disbelief on his face. “Are you saying you won’t answer the question, Ms. Travis?”

  Travis smiled. “I’m saying, Mr. Banks, that this is one of those times when you’re just going to have to go fuck yourself.”

  Her handlers cringed, leaping into emergency damage control mode, but the public and press ate it up, quickly pushing those thirty-nine seconds of video to the top of YouTube’s “most viewed” category. Against all expectations, Travis’s exchange with Stendahl Banks actually helped her with evangelicals; confession, honesty and personal power apparently trumping foul language and “past mistakes.”

  One morning, two weeks before Election Day, Linda Travis’s southern-Michigan farmhouse burned to the ground, for reasons the fire chief was never quite able to determine. Back home for a weekend’s rest, she managed to escape the fire unharmed. But her old beagle, Marlin, was not so lucky. Some said that the Democrats were behind it. Others pointed at the Republicans. A few thought Travis had lit the match herself in a ploy for sympathy. Travis refused to comment on the speculation. “Houses burn down all the time, folks,” she said, “I’m just grateful to be alive.” Whatever the “real” story, the incident could only help Travis. Sympathies and suspicions could weigh heavily in the minds of many voters. And voters seemed determined, at times, to thwart the polls. Though the consensus had Linda Travis still trailing by fourteen points the day before the election, the individual surveys were all over the place. One even had Travis in the lead. So she and her campaign staff stayed on message: it was still anybody’s race.

  For most of Election Day, it looked as though Linda Travis would go back to Michigan empty-handed. Early results showed the incumbent, Russell, the clear winner, to the point where ACN News as much as declared him so. But a last-minute blizzard of lopsided returns pulled the red carpet out from under Russell’s celebration party and put Linda Travis squarely on top, giving her the popular vote, the Electoral College and the White House. It looked like just the sort of electronic fraud people had been complaining about for years, but as it worked against the party establishment this time, nobody could imagine that the results had really been tampered with. Surely the independents and the regular folk could never have pulled off such a coup. And none of the inevitable post-election examinations and challenges proffered any proof. It was just one of those things, a statistical fluke, a five-hundred-year-flood of votes that had to happen sometime.

  Linda Travis had pulled off a miracle.

  So what the hell was she doing here, bloodied and battered in a rusty Oldsmobile in the Vermont mountains? Cole stepped back from her gun. He had no idea.

  1.5

  The President stood now, balancing on her good leg, steadying her weight between Cole’s shoulder and the open door. Pulling the President from the car had proven easier than Cole had imagined. The shard of dashboard had cut wide but not deep and the bleeding had already slowed. Thankfully, the President’s resolve seemed to override her pain; either her tolerance was high in the first place or the shock of the acci
dent was keeping the hurt from really sinking in. Cole had heard of this latter possibility, and had reasons of his own to hope it was true.

  Together he and the President looked up the hill, through the hole the car had punched in the knotweed. A spray of sumac, now bright red with autumn, reached across the field of view like a party decoration. The sun, rolling higher, brought a laundered brightness to the grassy slope before them. Drops of flickering air splashed into the shadows where the two rested, hinting at the warmth of the day to come. Cole scrunched his nose.

  “I can’t carry you up,” he said, noting the President’s clenched face. She looked as if she was determined to contain her pain and fear within a thick outer layer of commander-in-chief. “It’s too steep and the grass is still wet.”

  Travis scanned the woods around her nervously, her eyes dark and wet. Nodding her head, she pushed the gun into her belt. She looked up through the treetops to the sky above, then back at Cole. “What’s your name?”

  “Cole. Thomas.”

  “You live around here?”

  Cole shrugged his bony shoulders. “A couple of miles away. I was headed home when…” He motioned toward the crumpled car.

  “Got it. So, Cole Thomas, help me get out from behind these damned bushes so I can see. Then we’ll find a way to get me out of here.” Linda grabbed Cole’s farther shoulder, pulled herself to him to lean against his weight. Cole put his arm around her back to help steady her. With the President hopping and Cole holding back the vegetation, they moved slowly along the car and out into the tall grasses that ran along the embankment’s bottom.

  Travis stopped. She searched the pale morning sky for a long time, motioning Cole to silence, listening. Cole scanned the sky as well, trying to see what the President was looking for. Nothing but unblemished blue, one of those cool, clear mornings that promised a beautiful fall day. Cole had a fleeting fantasy of dropping her and running, but he knew his feet would not obey. There was no hiding now. He’d given his name. He’d be found and tried and stuck in prison. Or something. He stood quietly and held firm as the President watched the sky. He was afraid to speak.

  Travis, apparently satisfied at last, dropped her gaze to the terrain around her. She looked along the ditch in both directions. To the right, back toward Boston Spoke Road, the hill grew steeper, with trees and brush pushing up toward the road, reaching the shoulder not ten yards away. To the left, the grassy embankment continued, falling gently at first as the bottom fell away, then rising in the distance as the slope eased off. The line of trees and undergrowth bent back from the road, leaving an open view. Travis could just make out the end of a drainage pipe.

  “What’s that?” asked the President with a wave of her hand.

  Cole peered up the road. “Looks like a driveway.”

  “Okay. Good. Let’s go there.”

  It took at least ten minutes, hopping and resting, the President relying more and more on Cole to carry her weight. She insisted that they stay out of sight in case a car approached, hugging the embankment where it was high, venturing near the undergrowth as the slope fell off. No cars passed by. They came to a gravel driveway that led off to the left, into the woods. They could see no house from where they stood. Using Cole for support, Travis eased herself to the ground with a quiet grunt.

  “This is crazy,” said Cole.

  The President wiped the sweat from her forehead with the sleeve of her flannel shirt. “Yeah.”

  Cole knelt down, noticing how colorless was the President’s face. “You okay?”

  Travis rolled her eyes. “My leg hurts.”

  “Why can’t we call for help? What are you doing here anyway?” Cole looked out over the road, then crouched further into the concealing shadows of the overgrown ditch. Something strange was going on, that much he knew. It seemed best to hide. “You are Linda Travis, right? You know? The President?”

  Travis looked him in the eyes as if searching for something. After a moment she gave him a thin, fleeting smile.

  “Okay. So where is everybody? Secret Service, CIA, guys like that?”

  “It’s a long story, Mr. Thomas. Not sure it would do you any good to hear it. I don’t—” The President stopped at the sound of an approaching car. Quickly she lay down, hiding in the tall grass at the driveway’s edge. Cole sank back into the brush. The car sped past.

  Cole scrambled back out on hands and knees. Travis was sitting up again, her gun drawn and aimed at the sky. The President’s eyes were moist and ruined and her hands shook like a starving dog. Cole’s attention bounced between her face and the gun, as if uncertain where to make his appeal. “I’m sorry about the gun,” said the President. “I don’t much care to use this thing. But we’ve got to get out of here. And we must not be found.” She motioned back down the road with the pistol. “Go get your car. It’s time to go.”

  1.6

  Cole thought about running again. His car was a ways up the road now. Maybe he could ditch her. Make it up to the next house. Call the police. They could handle this better than he could. He was just not up to having guns pulled on him. This was not how his morning was supposed to go. He struggled to his feet and stepped cautiously to the edge of the pavement, squinting in the sun. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Travis turned to face the road, pulled up her good knee to use as a rest, and sighted the car with her pistol. “I’m a good shot, Mr. Thomas. Earl and I spent a lot of Saturdays at the firing range. You just keep cool and bring the car back here.”

  Cole whirled back on wobbly legs. “Listen. I don’t know what—” He fumbled for his words. “I got kids, you know? Whatever’s going on—” Cole’s shoulders slumped.

  The President lowered her gun a bit and smiled weakly. “Listen to me. I’m sure this is all very confusing. But you’re doing fine. Lots of people would have fallen apart by now, what with the President showing up in the middle of nowhere and pointing a gun at them. But the truth is that I need you, Mr. Thomas. Cole. It’s more important than you can imagine. I can’t do what I need to do without your help.”

  Cole bowed his head, rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. Had he been ten seconds later at the stop sign none of this would have happened. The President would have gone speeding by with Cole none the wiser. Cole had moved to the country to get away from crazy shit like this. He just wanted to play on the farm, grow something, raise the kids, do a bit of writing. This was the last thing he needed. But this was the President. And she was hurt. And no matter how scared he was, Cole knew that he couldn’t just walk away. He looked at Linda Travis, still seated in the grass. Without the business attire and the Presidential Seal, dressed in khakis and a flannel shirt, she was just another human soul, frail and afraid. “Okay. I’ll help you. Just don’t shoot me.”

  The President nodded. “Got it. But you need to know one thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s something I have to do. I can’t afford to fail. I’ll use this gun if I have to.”

  Cole stared at the pistol, now hanging loosely in the President’s hand. “What is it you have to do?”

  The President shook her head and waved him away. “Just get me out of here,” she said, glancing again at the sky. “The rest will have to wait.”

  1.7

  “Watch your leg.” Cole pushed the car door closed, then circled around front and climbed in. At six-foot-four, with long legs and a growing paunch, Cole found the Forester a good fit. He started the engine. “We should get you to a hospital.”

  The President shot a glance at Cole, a look of both amusement and frustration. “You don’t give up, do you? I think it’s best if you take me to your house.”

  “But—”

  “Cole, listen to me.” The President’s eyes were dark and tight. “They’re out there. Right now. Looking for me. If they find me…” She ran a hand along her fractured leg. “We’ll handle this. There’s no other choice. You have to hide me.” Her face softened. “Please.”

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sp; Cole nodded. “Okay.” Checking his rear-view mirror, he pulled out onto Gray Mountain Road, the gravel grumbling beneath his tires. “Mrs. President, I—”

  “Call me Linda. Please.”

  Cole paused. He didn’t know if he’d be able to do that. “Alright. Are you ever gonna tell me what’s going on?”

  Linda reached out, punched on the radio. She raised a hand. “Listen.”

  “... but as of now there has been no word from the White House. Vice-President Singer has flown back from Brazil and is now meeting with congressional and military leaders and law enforcement officials. A press conference has been scheduled for 9:30 this morning. Once again, President Travis was kidnapped last night from her vacation retreat in West Virginia. No group has yet come forward to claim responsibility.”

  The President reached out, clicked the radio off. “They wish.”

  “What?”

  Linda motioned toward the radio with a sardonic huff. “Kidnapped, my butt.” She looked at Cole with a guilty smile and a defiant lift of the chin. “I escaped.”

  Cole smiled feebly in return. There was too much he didn’t know. In silence he drove on, turning off Gray Mountain onto Bent Hollow, the gravel road that would take them to the farm.

  The land rolled dramatically here, the fields cut and baled, thick clots of trees now stained with the first colors of fall. Cole had seen it all so many times: the land, the trees, the farms and homes and fields. This was his home. And today none of it looked real.

  The President spat a soft curse and pounded the car door with her fist.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Cole.

  “My sleeping pills! Fuck!”

  “What about ‘em?”

  “I need them, Cole. We have to go back.”