Brent Colton is a retired CIA operations officer now in the employ of the Creighton Corporation, a privately owned think tank that advocates various opinions on world issues, but it’s his clandestine job to solve the dirty problems for their private clients for a million dollar fee with no questions asked. When recovering stolen technology from a Vietnamese industrialist, Colton obtains evidence that he secretly partnered with a U.S. Senatorto rig the recent presidential election and elect him to the nation’s highest office.

The President-elect Must Die!
by Terry Heath, 2005

CHAPTER ONE

ELECTION DAY, 09:02 P.M.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Two older looking gentlemen wearing luxurious business suits, one being of Caucasian extraction and the other bearing dominant Asian features, were sitting in identical brown recliners in front of a burning fireplace in a wood paneled den of a two story brick townhouse in the exclusive Georgetown area of the nation’s capital on a blustery cold night in which the citizens of the United States were going to their respective voting precincts throughout the country to make the choice of who gets to be their next president. The two men’s eyes and attention were situated to their left as a television set in the room was on and tuned to the Global News Network cable channel broadcasting the latest voting tabulations now that the polls had closed in every state of the nation with the exception of those in the west and Alaska and Hawaii. The results so far indicated the race between the incumbent president seeking a second term in office and his opponent, the senior U. S. senator from the state of Michigan, was neck and neck and the television broadcasters, political experts and beltway pundits were now predicting what could be the closest presidential election in United States history with more exciting, up to the minute details to follow right after the viewers spend their time watching a brief commercial break.

The Caucasian shifted his eyes from the television when the commercials came on, turning to address the Asian staring back at him. “How does it look like it will go, my friend? Two years of my life campaigning all over the country have gone into this effort and I don’t want our side to come up short.”

“It should not, my friend,” the Asian responded. “I’ve got those in the know over at the Voters Reporting Syndicate carefully monitoring the tabulation at all of the state capitals and they have been instructed to delay as long as possible calling the states that are leaning to your opponent.”

“But you know the major television networks won’t stand for that very long,” the Caucasian countered. “The networks will go with their own backup contacts at the voting tabulation sites and start making their own determination of the voter’s intent just to get the scoop on their competition even if those guesses turn out to be wrong.”

“Relax,” the Asian smiled. “This won’t be a repeat of your country’s 2000 presidential election. The company that tabulated that election for your TV news networks was discredited and disbanded. The company I founded to replace that entity for the news networks have corrected those mistakes and will call the election on a timely and correct basis.”

“Which is?”

“That our side will win.”

The commercials being broadcast on the television ended and election coverage resumed with the so-called political pundits predicting this election was going to be so close that it could be classified as the tightest race in the annals of presidential campaign history. They then recapped the story that once the fall presidential campaign began in early September following the two political parties nominating conventions in the summer both nominees for the presidency campaigned hard and vigorously throughout all fifty states and the polls taken daily crisscrossed back and forth between the two men as neither ever enjoyed a double-digit lead in voting preference in the ten week campaign season from Labor Day to Election Day. Three debates between the two men held in Ohio, Kansas and Utah on consecutive Sundays in October offered the voters a chance to examine the respective candidates’ styles, thoughts and opinions on issues facing the country and world and each candidate held their own during the debates, not making an on air gaffe that could prove fatal to their chances.

By the time Election Day was reached in early November at the conclusion of the fall campaign well over one hundred million voters across the country were expected to spend some part of their Tuesday casting a preference in all sorts of political races including the selecting of the next President of the United States. The incumbent president spent Election Day morning in his home state so to be photographed casting his ballot at his local precinct in his hometown before boarding Air Force One to fly back to Washington and await the results of the ballot box from the comforts found in the White House. His opponent, the senior senator from the state of Michigan, voted at a precinct situated at an elementary school near his family home in Grand Rapids before he and his wife and top staff took a chartered jet back to the nation’s capital to also await the verdict of the public at his private residence away from the broadcast media’s intrusive cameras.

The polls began closing first in the states on the eastern seaboard and the tightness of the race to get the majority of the 538 Electoral College electors being selected by the fifty states and District of Columbia became apparent almost immediately to the experts monitoring the contest. The smaller states were the first to designate their presidential preferences. Maine and New Hampshire went for the incumbent while Rhode Island and the District of Columbia voted overwhelmingly for the challenger. By nine p.m. eastern time the TV newscasters were reporting that the challenger was narrowly leading and should win Pennsylvania while the incumbent was going to take Florida and Connecticut with New York too close to call that early in the evening as more tabulations and voter preference data were needed to be examined by the news networks and their experts at the Voters Reporting Syndicate based in the nation’s capital monitoring the vote counting across the country for the large media outlets.

When the clock on the wall in the room reached ten o’clock and a bell inside the device chimed that event the Caucasian turned to his companion who was reviewing numbers indicating voter trends from a laptop computer he was juggling on top of his knees. “How does it look like it will go? Do we have enough votes in the states that still matter?”

The Asian shrugged. “We still don’t know. It’s too early to tell as there is still voting going on in the west.”

“So it’s going to come down to who wins in California, correct?”

“Yes, it probably will.”

Both men silently acknowledged the fact that California as the nation’s most populated state with its fifty-five Electoral College votes comprising a tad over twenty percent of what a candidate needs to win the presidency would be the deciding state in this election. As time moved on through the evening the TV broadcasters resumed reporting the results from each state as the counting continued and the tightness of the race became even tighter as the national vote tally between the two went back and forth with a less than one percent difference separating the candidates of just a few hundred thousand votes out of over one hundred and seven million ultimately cast and being counted on behalf of the citizens of America.

The Caucasian watched the tallies continue being updated by the TV broadcasters when he turned to address the Asian and observed the man whispering instructions to someone via a cellular phone being held next to his mouth. The Asian noticed the glances he was receiving and put the phone down. “Who are you talking to?” the Caucasian inquired.

“My people at the Voters Reporting Syndicate. I’ve reiterated my instructions to slow down announcing the results in favor of the incumbent president for this last hour of voting going on in California and other west coast states in hopes of discouraging the last minute voters in his camp from voting if they think it’s not worth it if it appears like he’s going down to defeat anyway.”

“Good thinking. What is the tally right now?”

The Asian glanced at his laptop for the updated numbers. He then turned to answer. “The incumbent has a one hundred fifty thousand vote lead in the national tally but at least twenty-five states are still listed as undecided in the electoral tally. It’s still too close to call.”

“Can we make certain the remaining votes to be counted go our way?”

“Well,” the Asian began, “in a democracy it’s not the ones who votes that counts but the one who counts the votes that is truly important when determining who rules. And the one counting the votes in this election happens to be me.”

“How apropos,” the Caucasian answered.

Two more hours elapsed as the by now exasperated television broadcasters were taking their ulcer medicine during the ever increasing commercial breaks while trying to keep up with the frenzy occurring with the current vote tabulations now pouring in from all fifty states. The incumbent president was now 700,000 votes ahead of his opponent in the national tally and 190,000 votes in the lead in the important state of California as the winner of that state should have the Electoral College majority and be declared the next president. Then the broadcasters went apoplectic when it was reported that the California Secretary of State’s office announced it was having trouble receiving full and accurate tabulation counts from the northern bay area of the state due to phone lines being down following a fire at a telephone communications relay center near downtown San Francisco.

“Do we have the necessary numbers from our base voters in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas to stop any gain made by the incumbent from the more conservative voters residing in the central valleys of California?” the Caucasian asked after both men heard the announcement of the vote counting delays in the nation’s most populated state.

“I have my people working on it,” the Asian responded. “Plus I’ve ordered the data entry operators at VRS to stop projecting or at least delay as long as possible the vote tallies by the incumbent in other close states that he is leading so we can see if we can find additional votes to counter his expected gains from precincts in the middle of California.”

“If that what it takes,” the Caucasian glumly answered as the Asian began speaking into his phone to relay instructions to his subordinates on what needed to be done.

It was almost nine a.m. Wednesday on the east coast and reaching six a.m. in California when the tired and increasingly irritable broadcasters were finally calming down as returns were now flowing in fast and furious and they were finally able to predict that the incumbent president was going to squeak out a victory over his opponent and carry the state of California with its fifty-five Electoral College votes by a razor thin margin of just over 160,000 votes before the news anchor switched to a reporter broadcasting from the newly crowned winner’s campaign headquarters where the fans and supporters of the incumbent president were screaming and cheering upon the news that all of the TV networks had projected their candidate to be the winner by an electoral vote of 283 for him and 255 for the challenger.

“We’ve spent a lot of time, effort and money for this day to come and yet we still have failed by fifteen electoral votes,” the Caucasian spoke with finality and disgust in his voice as they continued to watch the broadcasters proclaiming the incumbent president as having successfully won re-election. “Should we concede now then regroup in four years for another try at the brass ring?”

“Not yet,” responded the Asian. “We now have to go to the backup plan to ensure our win in this election.”

“The backup plan? What does that entail?”

“As a student of history you should be aware that the Founding Fathers of your country decided the average American citizen should not decide who shall be elected to serve as their president. Your voters merely select the delegates to serve on the Electoral College and it is those delegates who then meet in mid-December of that election year to chose the next chief executive. If no one gets a majority of those electors, then it goes to your House of Representatives and Senate to decide who shall be selected as the president and vice-president. You should know that, my friend.”

“Yes, there have been several close races in our election history that were ultimately decided in the House of Representatives and the most famous close race of all was in the election of 1876 when Rutherford Hayes lost the popular vote tally yet won the right amount of Electoral College delegates to give him a one vote electoral count win over his opponent Samuel Tilden. I don’t see that happening here.”

“But isn’t there precedence for Electoral College delegates to switch their votes from one candidate to another?”

“True, but that was a long time ago and now when the Electoral College meets to vote their state’s presidential preference it’s usually just a formality based on ceremonial tradition,” the Caucasian answered. “The delegates to the Electoral College are chosen from the winning party’s own elite members and they rarely change their vote once the state’s preference has been chosen by the voters on Election Day.”

“But it has happened on occasion, am I not correct?” the Asian then countered. “Several times over the years there have been electors who have voted for a candidate other than who they were delegated to do by the state’s voters.”

“Yes, that has happened occasionally over the centuries but usually it’s just one or two electors making some type of outrageous political statement as the reason for switching their vote from their intended candidate to someone else.”

“If I recall from your history books that in the 1960 election fifteen electors abandoned John Kennedy and voted for Senator Harry Bird of Virginia as a protest. And there have been others, yes?”

“Yes, that’s true but these renegade electors have never affected the outcome of an election. In this case we’re fifteen votes short of obtaining a majority in the Electoral College giving us the win. How do you plan to get fifteen delegates to switch their votes by the time they announce their preferences on December Eighteenth?”

“I have already taken that possibility into consideration and have my people working on it,” the Asian smiled. “Don’t concede anything pending a recount in several states that we can arrange through our paid operatives who will file objection notices with the various personnel of the different states in question during this short term while we work on getting the necessary electors to switch to our side.”

“I’m not sure I want the country to go through another election debacle. Would it really be worth it to put the American citizens through that nightmare again?”

“What about all that we have worked for over the past three decades?” the Asian inquired. “Too much time and money have been put into this endeavor to call it quits now.”

The Caucasian stood up to stretch his legs as the Asian continued gazing at the remaining burning embers emanating from the fireplace when another Caucasian man of a younger age with brown hair and blue eyes and was taller than both men already in the room approached the pair then leaned over to the older Caucasian and began speaking to him in a whisper. “Sir, the press are awaiting a statement from you at the campaign headquarters regarding the returns so far,” the younger man explained. “Time constraints indicate we should make an appearance for the television networks right away to get the momentum rolling our way if we imply there were election irregularities as we work on getting public opinion behind us and the networks are projecting the largest viewing audience possible right now to get that going.”

“Very well,” the older Caucasian responded then prepared to leave. He then turned to his Asian companion. “My supporters await me. Is what you propose the best last chance for us to win the White House?”

“Yes, I’m afraid it is,” the Asian answered. “It’s now or never with you. There will be no second try. What will your decision be?”

“Now!” the Caucasian defiantly answered. Both men then stood up to shake hands before they embraced. “Very well, my old friend. I will not go out and concede the election but demand a recount in California and several other states to buy us time so you can implement your plan.”

“Good. I will get started on persuading the necessary amount of electors needed to switch to you. We must win this election to ensure the plans developed over the last three decades are finally implemented for the betterment of this country and the world.”

“See to it that it is done.”

“I will and let me be the first to salute you with the title of ‘Mr. President,’” the Asian beamed.

“Thank you,” the Caucasian answered. “I just hope it’s not too premature at this point.”

“It’s not,” the Asian responded as he removed a CD-ROM disc from his pocket and waved it at the Caucasian. “A title you rightly deserve but don’t forget it is also something that I have worked and paid for to achieve for the past thirty plus years of time. You shall be sworn in as president if it’s the last thing I do. I guarantee it.”

Terry Heath California E-Mail readermail@terryheathbooks.com