Part 1

The Plan

The Chairman was caught in a hallucinatory nightmare — bound to a golden throne in the thick and wild heart of a humid jungle, trees clipping the faint twilight, and the vision of peering eyes on the edge of shadow, probing his sweat and every twitch of his naked form as he struggled against the bindings. He heard whispers from all directions, and the growl of carnivorous beasts. As he struggled, the bindings only gripped tighter, and when he glanced down at his body he was horrified to see that he was both growing and transforming — a hideous figure, torso ballooning, skin graying and wrinkling, hands and feet flattening to pads, a tail sprouting from his ass, ears fanning out, the alarming sensation of tusks emerging from the sides of his mouth, and finally his nose stretching into a long, slender tube.

The weight became too much for the throne. It teetered, and then fell backwards to leave the Chairman’s monstrous body flailing, the bindings digging into flesh, his eyes helplessly staring up into the twilit sky. He scarcely noticed as the sound of the shrieking creatures in the distance gradually gave way to the unnerving rattle of the vibrating smartphone across his desk.

He was awake, startled back to the office. The air was smoky with incense, and in the corner of the room a massive saltwater fish tank gurgled, as it did.

And that terrible vibrating. Sometimes it felt like it was inside his skull.

The Chairman reached for the phone from his horizontal office recliner, but it tipped over and he tumbled out, striking the desk with his head and knocking the phone across the floor. He quickly crawled to it, but when he saw the caller ID he felt the flash of hatred, and then the first pang of anxiety — it was the Speaker.

“Mr. Speaker,” he answered, reaching his other hand to apply the corner of his shirt sleeve to his bleeding forehead. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Are you alone?” asked the Speaker.

“I’m in my office.” Although he usually expected the worst from the Speaker, the Chairman was a little taken aback by the question. “Why?” He eyed the cracked door on the far side of the room and yelled to his secretary. The door closed.

“Were you asleep?”

“No.” The Chairman braced himself for the lecture, about the Speaker “ball busting” for his districts while the Chairman was “shitting” on the Speaker’s career and legacy. Maybe he’d even tell the one about the Reagan movie with the monkey.

“Whatever,” said the Speaker. “Did you see it?”

“See what — something about our Candidate?”

“Of course it’s about him. Everything is about him. And it’s all your fault.”

“You keep saying that. What this time?”

“Let’s not get started. For the loyalty pledge alone, you owe me your firstborn.”

“You mean when I saved us from a third party wrecking ball?”

“And delivered us straight into the mouth of the beast. You groveled. You went to his tower” — the Speaker had made this point before — “let me tell you something about making a deal,” he continued. “You don’t cut your head off to keep your legs. And even when you’re prepared to lose a leg, you start with a toe. Jesus Christ. Do you not realize how fucked we are because of you? Now get out of bed and look at the damn news, or I’m calling Frank.”

At the mention of Frank, the Chairman jumped to his feet and grabbed the laptop off his desk. He began to tap the trackpad repeatedly. The last time Frank had spoken to him, the Chairman had ended up with his name on a party autopsy recommending broader outreach to “Hispanic, black, Asian, and gay Americans” — boy, the years had been long.

“You know, maybe I should call Frank,” the Speaker continued. “He seems to be the only one making any sense around here.”

“It’s not necessary, sir,” said the Chairman. A number of pages had come up on his screen, headlines about the election. He scrolled through without reading them. “If you would just listen,” he began with a few lines from his staff, “we’re seeing some negatives here. But the principles of conservative, freedom, and solutions are, no, what I mean is — ”

“Shut up,” the Speaker cut him off. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

For the first time the Chairman actually looked at the pages in front of him. The headlines were all the same. “My God.” The words escaped him unconsciously.

“There we go, some gravitas from the chairman of the party.”

“I mean,” the Chairman quickly composed himself. “I mean, this is nothing we can’t temper with a statement. I can get an appearance on the networks.”

“You will do no such thing. I’m trying to get my people re-elected, in districts we thought we made good for them. This should not even be a concern at this stage — it’s unprecedented.”

The Chairman was confused. “If we’re not doing a statement, what— ”

“Simple. You are going to physically go and deal with this problem.”

“You mean,” the Chairman hesitated, “to the estate? What about the travel warning?”

“I know, I know. Maybe I’ll get some vaccine funding approved if your trip goes well. Maybe let the Junior Senator know that while you’re in the neighborhood.”

“Is this some sort of joke? You seriously want me to go.”

“You know what?” the Speaker snipped, “just for the attitude, I am getting Frank on here.” There was a rustling sound, and then a click on the line.

The Chairman was exasperated. “You had him on hold the whole time?”

“Sure. Hey Frank, you hear me?”

Another voice, a calm voice. “Yes, loud and clear.”

“Great” — the Speaker. “Now, Frank, I was just getting Bedtime for Bonzo up to speed on the plan. But I thought you could do better with the bigger picture.”

“Yes,” Frank spoke slowly, deliberately. “We need to get you to the estate. But I want to propose a question: how are we defining our success?”

The Speaker jumped in. “He tweets, we’re done.”

“Yes, I agree,” said Frank. “Perception is the key. The press would start talking about an ‘intervention,’ and the blood would already be on our hands. You understand?”

The direction of the conversation confused the Chairman. “Okay.”

“The essential thing is you reach the estate with your head intact.” Frank let the statement hang there. “You love your wife and children, don’t you?”

“What?” the Chairman nearly stammered. “What are you talking about?”

“See? I caught you off guard,” said Frank. “I made you fearful. You cannot be fearful when you arrive at the estate. It gives him power.” Frank drew another long breath, audible over the phone line. He began again. “Would you consider it morally wrong to poison someone, if you knew they would eventually kill you?”

“No, I mean, maybe.” The Chairman was flailing. “It depends on the situation.”

“Never mind,” said Frank. His interest seemed to fade. “Mr. Speaker, do you want to fill him in with the situation on the ground?”

“The bad news,” began the Speaker, “is that he’s erected something of a barricade over a critical access point. That means we have to approach the estate from the golf course.” The Speaker sounded like he was reading from notes. “But it’s not all bad. You’ll find a boat at a loading dock which will let you bypass the barricade, and even take cover in the marsh, if necessary.”

“I’m sorry — ” the Chairman was incredulous. “You want me to hide in the grass?”

“It’s really more of a bog,” said Frank.

“And we’re providing you with a golf cart,” said the Speaker. “An electric,” he added with some disdain, “for the sake of discretion.”

The Chairman felt an anger rising within him, a heat beginning in his temple and extending all the way to the tips of his toes and fingers. It was the inverse of his usual state of low- to high-grade panic and the only time when — for as long as he could remember — he had said or done things based entirely on his own thinking. “What the fuck are you both talking about?” he erupted. “Meeting him, that’s one thing. Element of surprise, sure. But I’m not driving an electric golf cart, for God’s sake. I’m not wading in a bog. Explain to me what is happening. Now.”

There was a long pause on the line.

Finally, the voice of Frank. “We’re asking you to kill him.”

At this, the Chairman’s first response should have been to throw the phone into his fish tank, but his outburst had already relieved some of his anger, and his anxiety made him numb. “Holy shit,” he said instead. “You can’t say that.”

“Calm down,” said the Speaker. “This is a secure line.”

The Chairman felt a lightness in his head. He righted his leather recliner and sat down. “How is killing him going to solve the problem?”

“Well, let’s define what we mean by problem” — it was Frank again. “I think the elephant in the room is that both of you have publicly supported him, and Mr. Chairman, you have really put us in a situation with that loyalty pledge you made everyone sign.”

The Speaker jumped in. “Like a little weasel, trying to be a fox.”

“I would not criticize him so harshly,” said Frank. “Your performance, Mr. Speaker, has been most draining. For a lover of Ayn Rand and a gym rat, it does seem a bit forced to picture you with the world on your shoulders. But I digress. The Chairman will have to do.”

“You still haven’t answered my question,” said the Chairman. “Why kill him?”

“It’s the most straightforward solution,” said Frank. “To get you both out of your endorsements, and to stop him from saying things. There is a direct correlation between his words and a certain type of emotion. And you know me — emotion is never a bad thing, as long as it can be manipulated. But this type of emotion…” Frank trailed off. “Mr. Chairman, we have reason to believe he has a few people there, our people, people who’ve been ignoring our calls for months. At this point, they may be loyal to him — it’s powerful stuff, not your garden variety. Our words have no effect. Bribes, either. If we’re going to get a handle on things, we need to produce what I call a ‘sudden phase transformation.’ That’s where you come in.”

“You mean kill him,” said the Chairman.

“We need to give his people a gift. And what better gift than a martyr? A martyr can be shaped by words to mean nearly anything. He can be more powerful as an idea than he ever could as president. The situation is simply too fraught. Our consolidated advantage, conservatism, freedom — I hope you can bear the weight. Mr. Speaker, anything to add?”

“We’ve got the arrangements all taken care of,” said the Speaker. “We have two of our people, senators actually, to meet you at the airport. They’re eager to get things rolling. You’ll start when it’s dark.”

“Any questions?” — again the voice of Frank.

The Chairman had many, but he also recognized when he had been outmaneuvered. “Why can’t we get someone else to do it?”

The Speaker burst into laughter. “You idiot. No paper trail. No unknown agents.”

“It’s best to handle these things internally,” Frank agreed. “Even if you do get detected, you should be able to conceal your motive. At least for a little while.”

“He would never think you capable,” the Speaker added. “Okay, we done?”

“I guess,” said the Chairman.

“Cheers” — the Speaker.

“Good luck” — Frank.

“Thanks,” the Chairman formed the word, but the call had already ended.

The Chairman put his phone on silent, and then threw it at the wall. It slapped the side — delivering less satisfaction than the Chairman had hoped for — and landed safely on the carpet. And then, the silence returned to the office, complemented only by the gurgling of the fish tank.

Everything had been so fucked up recently. One moment he had been chatting up billionaires, upgrading old voter databases, and going on the networks to talk about the evils of the progressive agenda, and the next he was being asked to kill this man, this man he had — so far — managed to stay on pretty good terms with, for all intents and purposes.

Sure, a lot of mean things had been said, but that was politics — what do people really expect? And he’d always been nice to the Chairman.

There was something about him, something about his energy. In a weird way it reminded him of the incumbent president, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

It wasn’t the manner of speaking. The president spoke well enough, for a liberal, but the Chairman had never met a man who talked quite like this. His words, his sentences, were broken. He was a bit unpracticed, and he wouldn’t say anything they told him to say. And all these… distractions.

But as far as he could tell he was drawing in the big crowds, and he had a bit of the messianic quality that got people excited. So what, he was kind of a mess. The people were kind of a mess. That’s what they liked about him.

We need to give them a gift. Frank’s words disturbed the Chairman’s idle thoughts, again making him uneasy.

To set his mind on something else, he tried focusing all his attention on lifting the incense burner over the waste bin and emptying the ash without making a mess. Then he pulled another stick from a drawer, and with the touch of a lit match, the fragrant scent of cinnamon and cloves once again filled the room. The ritual complete, his mind veered dangerously close to the subject of the phone call, but he felt the wrenching anxiety so he stood from his desk and focused on moving his body, shaking out his arms and legs and doing a few stretches — twists for his thoracic spine — before his gaze settled on the fish tank.

Everything about it was calming. The shade of azure blue reflected off the rear of the glass, the gentle sway of the aquatic plants in the filter-generated current. The tropical hues of the fish themselves — ocean fish, existing in a peaceful harmony that the Chairman imagined was typical for life out on the reef. He noticed the yellow tang peering out from behind the vibrant green of the turtle weed, and felt an acute joy. He began taking attendance of the others. The hippo tang was hanging in the back. The spotted puffer was sniffing the pebbles on the bottom. The orange clown fish —

Where was the orange clown fish? The Chairman examined the tank until he found it, hiding where it should have been obvious — in the anemone. He watched it for a few minutes before he became impatient. He pulled back the lid of the tank and gazed into the refracted water. Why wasn’t it coming out? It had been so forthcoming with the journalist.

The Chairman had told the journalist about the fish tank. He’d even let him watch a feeding — lowering down the small piece of shrimp with the tongs. And what had that journalist done? Just the thought of the article made the hairs stand up on the Chairman’s pale skin. He’d let him get too close.

Remind you of anyone? The question still rang in the Chairman’s head.

The orange clown fish, an unwitting actor in the saltwater tank, now mocked the Chairman with its every movement, every swish of its tail. It emerged from the anemone and flitted lazily among the kelps.

Suddenly, the Chairman plunged his arm deep into the tank and pinched the translucent edge of the clown fish’s tail. He hoisted it up out of the water and watched as it thrashed and writhed in the air, its orange face gasping for oxygen, the white stripes undulating with every twist of its tiny body.

The Chairman slipped the fish into his mouth and felt its slick texture before gnashing his teeth on soft flesh, the crunch of thin bones. He swallowed it in pieces.

Junior and Senior

The SUV glistened black and the inside of the car was spacious and comfortable — thank God for air conditioning — but the meeting had so far proven awkward. Junior was driving, he was a young man, his hair was parted neatly and he wore a collared shirt, freshly pressed, with a crisp pair of khakis. He spoke as he drove.

“It’s so good to have you both in my backyard. Wish it was for a better reason.”

They were on the freeway. The landscape was indistinct in the clouded night, streets and palm trees along the side of the road, a few medium-sized skyscrapers in the distance. The Chairman was sitting in the back with Senior, with enough space that no part of their bodies touched. For that, at least, the Chairman was grateful.

Senior was an elderly man, partially balding but not unattractive. He wore a rugged leather jacket and jeans. The Chairman knew both of them, casually, and they knew each other from working together on immigration reform, which had failed.

The needling from Senior had started back at the airport. “Hey whippersnapper, how do we know you’re not jumping ship once we get to the estate?”

“Senator, I wanted to pass immigration reform just as much as you did,” said Junior. “But I have to listen to my constituents, even when they’re wrong.”

“Well, at least I know which way the wind is blowing.”

And neither was the Chairman spared from Senior’s venom.

“Mr. Chairman, I’m so sorry, I never read your autopsy report. But I wonder, do you think this mission counts as making inroads with minorities?”

“Very funny, senator. Did you remember your water, or is that only for debates?”

Senior gave him a look of death.

It was all bluster. The Chairman remembered Senior’s TV advertisement. “Complete the dang fence,” he’d said. It all felt so tame now.

Although he tried, Junior was unable to reframe the conversation in a productive way. “You know that nightclub shooting was quite the opening for me,” he said at one point. “Really a tremendous opening.”

So they sat in silence. The Chairman’s thoughts turned to the Speaker and Frank, and the decisions that had already been made. The Chairman had only a passing knowledge of how to murder someone, let alone a presidential candidate, and he had imagined the Speaker would have chosen a set of capable individuals, deep party insiders, to help fill in the details. Instead, he was presented with these two. It wasn’t enough to get stuck with the octogenarian bad boy. He also had to deal with the beta version.

Both faced deathly close reelections. Both had been declared “weak” by the Candidate — Senior for getting captured and held captive for five years by the Northern Vietnamese, and Junior for the relative size of his penis. Both had endorsed the man in the interest of party unity. That part made sense. But it was so risky for the three of them to get involved in something like this. The Chairman wondered for a fleeting moment if the entire setup — the murder plot, his accomplices, the golf cart — was somehow part of the Speaker’s fucked-up vendetta. It was a depressing possibility.

The exit came up and they pulled off into some neighborhood, and still more palm trees.

“Alright,” said Junior. “Can we get on with it?”

“I talked to Frank,” said the Chairman. There was that uneasiness again.

“Frank?” — Senior.

“Yeah. He’s got it all mapped out — how we can make this work for us.”

“I’m sure he does, him and his focus groups.” Senior laughed. “I wonder if he’s asked them how they feel about killing a man who’s already partially embalmed.”

It took a beat for the Chairman to make the connection. Then he broke into a short, painful laugh. “Oh, that’s good.”

“I mean just look at that face,” said Senior.

“I don’t get it,” said Junior.

“It’s a grown-up joke.”

The Chairman made a whiny voice, “Are we there yet?” It got a chuckle from Senior.

“Ah, yes,” said Junior. “It’s just a quick drive to the estate. Or — it would be, but there’s a bit of trouble up ahead. I guess I can just show you.”

He took the SUV off the road, bouncing over the curb and across a grass median to park on a pedestrian walkway. He got out of the car and the Chairman and Senior followed.

The indistinct landscape of palm trees and upscale houses had come to an abrupt end. Before them was a vast waterway, straddled by a bridge running from the road up to a gloomy coast on the other side. The water itself seemed to be running to the right, and through the moonlight a few small islands could scarcely be identified by the way they broke up the shimmering flow.

“Oh wait — before I forget.” Junior reached into his pants pocket and produced a small plastic container, equipped with a spray nozzle. “Welcome to swamp country.” He gave himself the once-over before moving to the Chairman and Senior. “You understand, with the mosquito plague.” He began to unload, making big sweeping motions with his arms. When he was done, Junior tossed the empty container into the water.

Almost nothing about the scene appeared out of the ordinary, but in the distance, a mile or two down the coast on the other side, there was some kind of bright, unnatural light.

“What’s that?” asked the Chairman.

“That,” said Junior, “is the Intracoastal Waterway. It’s an inland route — ”

“No, you idiot,” Senior interrupted. “He was asking about the light.”

“Oh,” said Junior. “That’s the barricade.” He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a pair of binoculars. The Chairman took them, but when he looked through, the scene only became more bizarre. It was actually four distinct lights, projected from towers posted in the water around a bridge, in front of a massive concrete slab that extended across the roadway and into the water on either side. The Chairman saw guards stationed in the towers, a line of idling Humvees.

“My God,” said the Chairman. Everything was coming together. “It’s the wall.”

Junior nodded. “There’s no getting around it.”

“At least not on that road,” added Senior, taking the binoculars.

“I thought it was just words,” said the Chairman.

“So you see why we need to approach from the golf course,” said Junior. “Now, I’ve got some connections with a golf cart manufacturer — my daughter was in an accident a few years ago, you probably remember. She’s fine. But I had them leave one near the entrance. The keys are under the seat. It’s an electric. I know, I know. But we have to keep quiet. I can drive. We’ll make our way down to the dock, and I’ve got us a real nice boat, and we can just cruise on past the barricade and sneak onto the estate. We do have another problem, though. Check above the wall with those binoculars.”

Senior looked, and was silent for a moment. “What are they?”

The Chairman grabbed the binoculars back from Senior, and cast his gaze just above the illuminated concrete. He was scarcely able to make out a formation of small, flying objects circling the defense perimeter.

“Drones,” said Junior. “Don’t wanna let one of those spot you. Alright, so we get into the estate, and our first problem — the Secret Service — is taken care of. The Candidate has gone against protocol and has them on border patrol, so once we get inside, he’s vulnerable. But I’ve never killed anyone before. You two?”

Senior laughed in a sort of hack. The Chairman shook his head.

“Well, let’s take a look at what I brought.” Junior popped open the SUV trunk and slid out a sleek black case. He unlatched the front clasp and opened it to reveal a glisteningly seductive piece of metal.

“Down boy,” said the Chairman. “Do you even know how to handle that?”

“Well I’m no Boy Scout,” said Junior. “But I hear the basic idea is pretty simple.”

The Chairman and Junior obsessed over the gun, but when Junior went for his phone — he was trying to reference some manufacturing detail — it was gone. “Where’d it go?”

“Here, let me call you,” said the Chairman. But his pocket was empty.

They turned to see Senior stacking all three of their phones on the ground. He raised his foot in the air and the Chairman and Junior nearly leapt for the devices, but Senior crushed them with a surgical precision, striking each phone repeatedly with the edge of his steel-toe boot. When he was done, he picked up the pieces and tossed them into the waterway before looking back at his stunned companions. “What? Don’t either of you take this seriously?”

“Okay yeah,” said Junior. “I guess that’s what you’re supposed to do.”

The Chairman was not as easily assuaged, but as he realized that the terrible vibrating was finally over, he felt his anxiety at the destruction subside.

“Well come on,” Senior motioned his arms toward the SUV. “We gonna get going?”

Junior climbed back in the driver’s seat and Senior assumed shotgun this time, leaving the Chairman to sit alone in the back. The two senators chatted more about logistics while the Chairman felt a bit insecure about not contributing.

As they drove across the bridge, a cloud shifted in the sky to reveal a full moon perched high above the distant barricade. When the SUV reached the center of the bridge, a perfect alignment formed between the moon, the artificial lights of the guard towers, and the moon’s pale reflection in the water.

The Chairman felt his calm return. Maybe it was alright to let someone else take charge. He turned away from the moonlight to face the looming coast and the endless darkness.

The Golf Course

Junior left the SUV in a strip mall parking lot and the three conspirators crept up to a manicured hedge lined with palm trees. Without consulting anyone, Junior tossed his black case over the hedge and began to climb, making a ruckus as he snapped a few branches and grunted in pain. Senior and the Chairman crawled under without much trouble.

They tiptoed across an open lawn before arriving at the entrance to the golf course, a gated parking lot with a large sign in cursive script. There was a small adobe building with a light still on, but otherwise the place looked empty.

“The cart should be somewhere around here,” said Junior.

They peered into the shadows for a few minutes, crouched on the edge of the empty lot, before Junior exclaimed. “Ooh!”

Senior shushed him. “Jesus Christ,” he said under his breath.

“Sorry,” said Junior, in a lower voice. “Look over there.” He pointed just to the right of the adobe building, toward some kind of dark shape in the grass. “I bet that’s it.”

They crouched down and crept along just beneath the building’s illuminated window. The Chairman heard the inaudible chatter of a two-way radio.

When they reached the shape, Junior yanked off a tarp to reveal the golf cart. It was a three-seater, two facing forward and one back. Junior got in the driver’s side and pushed the black case up against the base of his seat before clipping into his seat belt. Senior climbed in next to him, again leaving the Chairman to sit in the back.

The Chairman brushed off a few spiders before sitting down, and immediately noticed the cheapness of the seat cushion. He managed to get himself reasonably comfortable before Junior clicked the key into position and the ascendant whine of the electric motor sent a shiver down his spine. Despite the high frequency, the vehicle was remarkably quiet.

Soon they were moving, and Junior took them down a paved walkway with the fairway in the distance. He flicked on the headlights, but they weren’t very bright.

“Turn those off,” said Senior. “You want to blow our cover?”

Their pace was middling, and the silence made the Chairman uncomfortable.

They continued for a while that way, with Junior navigating and Senior occasionally offering a comment about their surroundings. The Chairman, facing backwards, wasn’t much help. He visualized his favorite stress ball — it was blue and he had forgotten to bring it with him. He opened and closed his hand a few times in the empty space, trying to coerce the tension out of nothing to facilitate a release. It didn’t work.

Left alone with his thoughts, the Chairman considered their mission, and the Candidate. As absurd as the mission was, it was dwarfed by the absurdity of the Candidate himself. What drove the man? What had brought him to this point? The Chairman remembered when he was just another billionaire to court for donations, happy to write a check in return for legal flexibility for his nebulous business practices. The man was accomplished — he ran a beauty pageant, a reality TV show, he’d flirted with the lucrative beef market, and he’d even gotten into the business of charging other people to put his name on things. Why would a man like that be interested in the presidency?

The Chairman was mulling it over in his head when the golf cart stopped.

“Did you see that?” — the voice of Senior.

“Yeah, but what was it?” said Junior.

The Chairman cranked his head. The paved road ran past a sand trap and a few palm trees before veering onto a bridge over a small creek. Everything was still. “What’d you guys see?”

“Not sure,” said Junior. “Some kind of movement. Probably nothing.” Against Senior’s protests, he switched on the headlights. “Just for a second.”

They drove forward, making their way past the sand trap and beginning to round the curve to the bridge. The headlights cut through the darkness to reveal a clear straightaway.

“Check this out,” said Junior. He reached for the electric ignition and clicked the key into a higher slot. The whine of the motor raised by an octave, and the golf cart surged forward with a new speed. Junior laughed like a maniac and the Chairman gripped the metal bar supporting the roof, the tips of his fingers digging into his palm.

Suddenly, a primordial form crawled out of the darkness, emerging from the shallow creek to bare teeth and eyes that reflected red, a massive, muscular body covered in scales that dwarfed the tiny golf cart, and a thick tail that stretched out of view.

It advanced onto the roadway, the golf cart on a collision course. The headlights shone on its terrible face, piercing and cold. It dwarfed the Chairman’s nightmares.

Junior screamed, his body buckled into the seat. Senior tried to grab the steering wheel, but Junior was fixed in paralysis.

The Chairman made a split-second decision and pushed out of the cart. He flung at high speed, his body hitting the ground so hard he bounced and tumbled before landing in a heap. He heard the crash behind him and the booming roar of the alligator.

His adrenaline surged. He jumped to his feet, driven by panic.

He saw Senior’s body in the grass, a stone throw from the crash. He wasn’t moving. In the shadows he saw the massive tail rip through the air and crumple the golf cart’s frame.

The Chairman ran to Senior and saw he was still conscious, and hauled him up onto his back. They took off on the fairway, leaving Junior’s shrieks and the wild gnashing behind them.

He carried him for as long as his adrenaline would last, as the minutes stretched into what felt like hours, trying to create as much distance as possible. The Chairman scanned the darkness for anywhere they could be safe from that creature. Could it smell their blood? Luckily it had seemed distracted enough with Junior.

Eventually the Chairman felt his legs beginning to weaken, on the verge of giving out.

“There! To the saw grass,” said Senior, after what felt like an eternity.

The Chairman could barely make it out — a clearing off the green, it looked rugged and swampy, but at least it had visibility in every direction, and they’d be out of sight.

The dawn was coming and their cover was nearly up. They had to hide. Senior had been murmuring those words into the Chairman’s ear for at least an hour.

The Chairman waded into the bog. The water was tepid and came up to his knees. A tree from the golf course had toppled into the brush, forming a bridge that hung just above the water. The Chairman unloaded Senior, propping him as best he could on the fallen trunk and an adjacent branch. The Chairman waded to the other side and found a comfortable angle.

He breathed deeply and tried to avoid the panic. He went through his mantras, reminding himself it was not a logical construction and that nothing in life was permanent, but his body was so exhausted and his adrenaline so depleted he wasn’t capable of anxiety.

Not that it was any help. He wasn’t going to get out any faster whether he was anxious or not. He couldn’t magic the Candidate dead and go home, as much as he wanted to. He couldn’t change the choices he’d made. No choices could have prevented this, anyway, not without creating something worse. Perhaps he could have saved his dignity, though.

“Where do we go from here?” the Chairman wondered aloud.

Senior’s eyes were closed. For a while, he didn’t say anything.

Then he took a breath, and began to speak. “When I was a POW, there was this one guy, a Vietnamese officer, probably younger than I was, a real fucker. He was cruel, of course — from my perspective, they were all cruel — but there was something else, too.”

The Chairman couldn’t believe Senior had chosen now to tell one of his war stories. He supposed there wasn’t much he could do about it.

“He didn’t see the world the same as other people,” Senior continued. “The other officers, they would hang me upside down, beat me, force me to write statements against the government, and many of them were angry or very serious, or at least, they would pretend to be. But this guy, he would do it with a smile.”

The Chairman glanced up. Senior’s eyes were still closed. His position was different. He looked uncomfortable. The Chairman wondered when he’d moved.

“He would beat me, and bleed me, sometimes harder than the others, sometimes he’d get in trouble, but he didn’t seem to take any of it seriously. It was all just a big joke. And I could hate the others. How I hated them, for years, and years. But this man, I could only fear.”

The Chairman shifted his position to face Senior. Where was this going?

“But it’s all war, right? Maybe this guy, maybe he saw it for what it really was. And who’s to say I wouldn’t have done the same thing, if I was on his side. You can’t know.”

“Are you saying — ”

“All I’m saying, is I barely got out with my head, after five years. A lot of guys were in it a lot longer and for much worse. You’re nothing dying a losing battle. You stay engaged, and you do what you can to survive. No matter how humiliating.”

The Chairman began to consider this, but then he noticed a dark, wet spot beginning to pool at the waist of Senior’s jeans. “Sir, are you okay?”

“Ah, it’s just getting worse.” Senior reached into his pants and pulled out a Bowie knife, the blade covered in blood. He stuck it into the tree with a thud, and grimaced in pain as the flow of blood increased. “Take it,” he said. He was breathing with a greater intensity. “Conceal it. Don’t fall on it, like an idiot.”

The Chairman realized what was happening. “Sir, hang on, it’s— ”

“I’m fine,” said Senior. His voice had become quieter. “Can you just do me a favor? Let me drift. Push me out, and let me drift.”

Part II

The Heart

The rhythmic sound of lapping water.

A lone and distant bird call.

The faint whine of mosquitoes.

The Chairman opened his eyes. The sun was high and he was lying in a rowboat surrounded by tall grasses, scattered in patches. How long had it been?

He felt a sharp pain deep in his stomach that seized his whole body, and he rolled onto his side. The boat rocked with the shifting weight. The pain washed over him, the tide rising up, the rumble of a storm.

The Chairman managed to prop himself up on his arms, and then foolishly tried to stand. He immediately stumbled, falling against the side of the boat and vomiting into the water.

Junior was dead. Senior was dead.

The golf cart. The sound of Junior’s screams. The thrashing creature in the dark.

Senior… he couldn’t think of it. He felt the weight of the sheathed Bowie knife strapped beneath his wool slacks. His shirt and jacket were ripped open. His clothes and everything else had gone into the river with Junior. Senior had destroyed his phone.

And here he was, in the small, wooden rowboat he’d found in the dim light. The mosquitos buzzed in the thick air, but none landed.

He was hiding. But from what? By the time he had found the boat it was nearly morning. He had paddled away from the golf course, heading downriver when he looked up to see a mechanical shape hanging silently in the air a few hundred feet from his boat. It flew away.

The Chairman didn’t know what was coming. But he knew that they knew.

What had happened to the plan?

The Chairman pulled himself up onto the bench of the rowboat. There was a white ibis, wading through the bog on its long legs, just a few feet from the boat. It snatched up insects with the long downward curve of its red-orange beak.

What had happened to the plan — well, there hadn’t really been much of one. They had gone in wholly unprepared for the pitfalls. Junior’s brazen attitude. Senior’s apparent indifference. The Chairman’s indecision, his failure to provide, yes, leadership.

And where was he now? Already set down on this path. The bog before him. The ruin behind him. And yet — maybe he could still turn it around. He could quit his job, flee, and maybe even leave the country, this awful, dead country.

He had connections. His own office passed out travel visas like candy. He could move somewhere nice, like Thailand, and forget about the election, the fate of the party, whatever conservatism was supposed to mean. No more autopsies of defeat. No more casual threats from the Speaker, or Frank, or having to pretend to care about poor people.

He visualized his great escape, returning to the golf course to find Junior’s car keys, or maybe just cruising down the waterway and knocking on a few doors to see if anyone would let him borrow a phone.

In the middle of all this, a mosquito had worked its way through one of the rips in his shirt, and begun to feast. The Chairman felt the prick, but by the time he realized what had happened, the little bugger had already flown away. Slowly, the horror dawned on him. The mosquito plague. The Chairman didn’t know much about science, but he knew he was screwed. Sexual transmission, horrible birth defects, and it lingered for years.

How could he tell his wife? What about Thailand? Such a short-lived dream. Maybe they could go anyway, he could avoid telling her. They had enough kids, and if she ever got pregnant, maybe they could get… His thoughts trailed off.

But she would be so angry. At the disease, yes, but also at how he got the disease. The Chairman would have to explain. God, he could barely think of it, when she realized that he’d had an opportunity to kill this man, after everything she’d said to him about how much she despised his face, his fake hair, the spray-tanned color of his skin, the cheap fit of his suits, the beads of his eyes, the tone of his voice, the words themselves, the shape of his mouth, the sound of the words as they came out of his mouth.

He could never face her. It would be the end of their marriage. Maybe it was already over. The Chairman felt a void open in his heart, but it fast filled with a new resolve for vengeance.

He had the disease. He was already up the creek, so to speak. The only way out was through. His therapist had told him that. He would finish this or die trying.

He began to paddle forward, the nose of the boat parting the grass to reveal more grass, an endless sea of grass. For about half an hour the Chairman paddled, but the grass continued, farther than he could see. How had he even ended up here? Was he going in circles?

A low rumble grew from some direction, and the Chairman stopped. As it became louder, it took on a percussive guzzling sound.

A flatboat with a massive fan mounted on the back approached. It pulled up right alongside the rowboat and the Chairman put his hands up as men in military uniforms grabbed him and secured his arms behind his back, bound together his legs, blindfolded him, and carried him onto the vessel. The Chairman’s entire body shook in fear as the fan kicked into high speed and the airboat vaulted across the grass.

The Estate

The boat came to a halt and someone grabbed the Chairman’s arms and pulled him up onto his feet. The blindfold was removed and the Chairman saw a neat row of palm trees, spaced perfectly along the water’s edge. A huge, manicured lawn stretched before him, forested with more palm trees and tropical plants. There was music in the distance — the sound of electric guitars — and the salty scent of the ocean.

The men in military uniforms escorted him off the boat and a large man with a round, spray-tanned face and an overflowing suit came shuffling across the lawn. The Chairman recognized him as a governor from his own party. The Governor called out. “Let him go, come on.” He was breathing heavily as he moved. “The ropes, too.”

The men released the Chairman and undid the bindings on his arms and legs. The Governor came right up to face him, sizing up his dirty skin and tattered clothing. “We weren’t expecting you, Mr. Chairman. Sorry for the rough treatment.”

Underneath, the Chairman was a white-hot ball of flame, but he was determined to play it cool. “Who are these people?”

“They think you’ve come to hurt him, and I hope that isn’t true.”

“Hurt who?”

“Him! The Candidate. These are all his children. As far as you can see. Hell, out here, we’re all his children.”

The Chairman felt a growing sense of alarm. There was something wrong with the Governor. “Can I speak with him?”

“Hey — you don’t talk to the Candidate. You listen to him. The man’s embiggened my mind. He’s sort of a philosopher, a holy fool, in the classic sense. I mean sometimes, you say hello to him, and he’ll walk right by you, like he won’t even notice you. And then suddenly he’ll grab you by the pussy and throw you against the wall and say, ‘Listen — a lot of folks are losing their heads, okay? Smart people — it happens. And they blame it on me, because I have a very nice head. But you know, if you can keep your head — and people are always telling me I am so calm, so calm even when everyone else is losing it, those people who doubt me, so sad,’ and he says these things and I mean I know, I can’t, I’m a little man, a little man. And he’s a great man. That’s why I’m so happy to do anything, anything for him…”

The Chairman pushed past the Governor and started to walk onto the lawn.

“Hey don’t go without me, okay?” The Governor scurried to keep up.

The Chairman walked past a tennis court, the fence emblazoned with the Candidate’s name in a shiny gold scrawl. Over a grassy knoll, the Chairman could see the white marble, the Spanish columns, and the red adobe roof tiles of the mansion at the other end of the lawn.

“I just want to tell you, he can be terrible, and he can be mean, and he can be right. He’s fighting the war. He’s a great man. I mean, I wish I had words like him. I wish I had words. I can tell you something, the other day he wanted to kill me. Something like that.”

The Chairman turned to face the Governor. “Why did he want to kill you?”

“Because I forgot the ketchup.”

The Chairman resumed walking, beginning to climb over the knoll. The Governor kept talking. “He said, if you forget again, I’m going to kill you. And he meant it. So you just lay cool. Lay cool, laid back. He gets friendly again, he really does. But, you know, you don’t judge the Candidate. You don’t judge the Candidate like an ordinary man.”

The Chairman had stopped listening, because at the top of the knoll he was confronted with a scene — the pool in front of the mansion, a fountain with statues of half-bird women, and scores of people dancing to music, some kind of Led Zeppelin cover band, playing “Immigrant Song,” of all things. There were men, and women, stripped down to their bathing suits, frolicking in the grass, in the water, and dancing with some kind of intoxication.

But they weren’t just any people. In the crowd the Chairman recognized old staffers, media, pollsters, B-list celebrities, and even a few politicians from his own party.

They were all white — it went without saying — but the mass of bodies, mostly pale, shared another commonality, in their faces. They were orange.

The Chairman made eye contact with a man who used to work for him, but his gaze seemed to travel over the Chairman without recognizing him, as he continued to contort his lanky body in the presence of a female.

“You’re looking at… the heads,” the Governor interjected. “Yeah, sometimes he goes too far. He’s the first one to admit it.”

“He’s gone crazy,” said the Chairman.

“Wrong, wrong. If you could have heard the man, just two days ago. If you could have heard him. God. You were gonna call him crazy?”

“I just wanna talk to him.”

“Well, he’s gone away. He took his helicopter off to one of those big sports arenas, and he’s with his people. He feels comfortable with his people. He forgets himself with his people. He forgets HIMSELF.”

At that moment, the three sets of ceramic doors behind the Corinthian columns opened with a grand movement, and a flurry of well-dressed people flocked through in procession. In the very center was a tall man, a bit thick in the middle, with a tailored suit and a fat, red tie. His skin was orange, an unknowable combination of genetics and cosmetic products, and his hair swirled like frozen yogurt. It was the Candidate.

The Candidate waved his hand in the air. “Hello, hello, listen up.” The band stopped playing and the partygoers grew quiet.

“Listen up,” he said again. “I’ve gotta say, you people are great. Really great. You all look so good out here. Now you know about the assault, all the words and the lies from the media — very unfair, very mean spirited — and you wanna talk about a group of people — and I know some of you used to be part of that world, I know — a group of people that is guilty of assault, let me talk about the assault from the media, you know, because really this is just about good fun. You know me, fun-loving guy, always been a fan of fun. And you love my house, right? Such a beautiful house. I am very generous to you. So let’s have some fun, okay?”

A blonde woman in a pink skirt whispered something into the Candidate’s ear, and his eyes flitted briefly over to the Chairman, before returning to the center of his gaze. The band resumed playing and the people started to dance again. The well-dressed entourage broke into a few parties and the Candidate led a small group around the perimeter of the pool.

“Here he comes,” said the Governor. “And what an entrance, wow.”

The Candidate approached them. “Switzerland!” He was beaming.

They shook hands and the Chairman nearly stammered. “Sir!”

“It’s good to have you with us,” said the Candidate. “Now, everybody,” he addressed his entourage. “This is Switzerland. You know why I call him that?”

The sharply dressed people — some grizzled old men, a young brunette woman in a stylish dress, and a clean-cut bro with hair combed back like a comic book villain — murmured to one another. Finally, several of them shrugged their shoulders.

“Because he keeps the peace!” the Candidate exclaimed. They all laughed in unison. “Folks, folks,” the Candidate quieted them. “All throughout the primary, Switzerland was the guy, very tough, and fair. Very fair to me. He said, let’s make an agreement, he said, you lose, you endorse the winner, which makes sense, right? Gotta endorse the winner. And if I win, he promised, they endorse me. Very simple. Common sense. We put it into a contract, and you know I take contracts very, very seriously.”

The Chairman smiled as the gathering radiated positive energy toward him.

“But seriously folks,” the Candidate continued. “Switzerland has accomplished something very noteworthy.” He turned to face the Chairman, staring him directly in the eyes. “He has gotten around my wall.”

The Chairman gulped like he had never gulped. The moment seemed to hang there, frozen in time, until the Candidate reached over and patted him aggressively on the shoulder. “But we are so happy to have him! A boat, can you believe it ladies and gentlemen? And look at his clothes, my God, I almost feel bad. You really look like you’ve crawled through some stuff. Hey, Fatso,” he turned to the Governor. “Great work on the bridge. Really, tremendous. You didn’t think of a boat? Get out of here.”

He shooed the Governor away with his hand, and turned back to the Chairman. “Now, Switzerland,” he said. “Can I call you that? Is that okay?”

The Chairman nodded.

“That’s great, really. Have you had the tour yet? I wanna show you around. Is that okay?”

Before the Chairman could respond, the Candidate reached out and grabbed him, his fingers barely making it all the way around the Chairman’s average-sized hand, and began to pull him away. The entourage dispersed as the Candidate made his way past the pool — the Chairman in tow — pausing a few times at the round tables to make little greetings with the ladies in their bathing suits.

The Candidate dragged him into the mansion and from room to room, boasting about the origins of the furniture and listing off the many events that had taken place in each location. They stood in a lacquered chamber hosting a long dining table beneath a glistening chandelier. The ceiling glowed with a traditional plaster molding, painted gold to match the shimmering trim of the chair upholstery and the floor-length curtains.

“This is where we served the first steaks,” the Candidate said, referring to his steak business. “Only the best, the reddest. More sizzle per ounce than anybody else.” He held his forefinger aloft and gesticulated forcefully. “Guaranteed.”

He rested his other hand on the Chairman’s back and led him through a redwood doorway into an elegant ballroom. The walls were white, with the same gold trim that was on everything, and more pillars, a row of five chandeliers, and curtained window arches so the daylight could shine onto the polished golden floor.

“This is a very special place,” said the Candidate. “You know, when I bought this house, and this club, in the eighties, there were no African Americans. And that was very unfair to them. So, you know, I ended racial segregation. Kaput. And everyone was so happy with me, they said, you’ve done more for African Americans than anybody. Anybody.”

The Chairman nearly cringed, but the weight of the Bowie knife strapped under his slacks reminded him to stay on good terms. “Yeah, that’s great.”

“Yes, and I was so proud, very proud, a number of years ago we had Maya here, the poet, you know, for her eightieth birthday. And guess who arranged it, just guess.”

The Chairman had no response. The Candidate mouthed a thin-lipped O.

“And well,” he continued, “I was just standing back here thinking, wow, how far have we come. From a segregated club, to me owning the club, and then a few changes that I made, to say, listen, we love the African Americans, and look, thirty years later, we can have someone like Maya here.”

“That is incredible,” said the Chairman.

“She read this poem, and I’ll never forget, a great poem, right here in this room. It began, ‘The corrupt, lying media’ — I’m pretty sure that was the first line — ‘they put you in the history, and they are very bitter, they love to lie, more than anybody. They love to drag you through the mud’ — and they have no idea, by the way, but I love the mud, you see me in this suit, but nobody loves the mud more than I do. And well, then the last line, ‘But just like the dust from the mud, I rise’ — and I’ve gotta say, again, this is where you fire somebody, just leaving dust around, it’s disgusting. ‘But just like the dust from the mud — neglected by the lazy people who are not doing their jobs — I rise.’ She loved it, absolutely loved it.”

“That’s beautiful,” said the Chairman.

“So when people say, you know, that I’m not a friend of the African Americans, I say look, let’s look at the evidence. And I say, I’m one of the best things to happen to that community. Believe me, it’s very unfair.”

The Candidate led the Chairman from the ballroom, and back out to the poolside, where everybody was milling about in the sun. A beautiful young woman came running up to them. “Daddy!” she called. “Did you see the latest numbers? I really think it might be a good idea for you to talk more about — ”

“Hush, hush, sweet,” said the Candidate. He kissed her forehead a few times, cupping her chin in his hand. “You don’t need to yell. We’re all having a good time, right? Now, what were you going to say? Remember, your inside voice.”

“I was saying,” her voice was lower, “if you would just make a statement about — ”

“Excuse me, sir,” the woman in the pink skirt cut in. The Candidate turned away from his daughter. “Yes?” She was surrounded by the entourage.

“We need you to approve some things, sir.”

“Alright, alright.” The Candidate whipped his finger in the air. “Bring them out!”

The side doors burst open and a multitude of millennials flocked out carrying huge reams of poster board. The Candidate turned to the Chairman. “I’m sorry, my schedule is very demanding. But maybe I can use your help.”

The millennials arranged themselves beside the pool, and the Candidate and his people grew quiet. The Chairman had no idea what was happening.

Two of the millennials held up one of the large posters between them. It was a blown-up image from the internet, black and white, with a large formation of soldiers standing under flags emblazoned with swastikas. Across the top of the image was a single line of text, in all caps: “LIBERAL POLICIES: FAILING SINCE 1933.”

The Candidate’s lips pursed and the skin around his eyes creased as he stared at the image, and the crowd remained silent. The only movement was from his daughter, who pushed over a chair as she left the poolside and went back to the house. But the Candidate was not disturbed — his expression only became more intense as he concentrated. Finally, he waved his finger at the poster. “This one, gotta be this one!”

Everyone applauded and the millennials set it to one side. One of them approached the image furiously tapping at a smartphone.

The second poster was presented. It was a few Barbie dolls, completely naked, hair torn out, and missing arms. “FEMINISM: DISMEMBERED EQUALLY.”

The Candidate cocked his head to one side and squinted, before he swiped the air with his hand. “I don’t get it. Get rid of it!” It was gone.

The third poster was a cartoon of the Candidate’s face, handsomely stylized as the sun, his light burning away the skin of the rival party’s candidate, who was cold, and dead. The Candidate nodded, smiling. “Of course, of course.”

And so it went. The millennials propping up posters, and the Candidate considering each one individually before making a decision. It was beginning to wear on the Chairman, but he needed to look supportive. Finally, he tapped the Candidate on the shoulder.

“What, yes?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I just wondered, if maybe they could just email you?”

“Email?” The Candidate looked confused. “Why would I buy into a scam like email? Switzerland, I really thought you were smarter than that. I’ve never sent a single email in my entire life. That’s how they get you.”

“Well,” the Chairman was flustered, “can we at least get to the policy?”

“The policy?”

“You know, like the tax code, or even just a list of cuts would be good.”

“Oh, that.” The Candidate waved the millennials away. “I’ve got people for that. My job is to make America great again.”

The Chairman fought the eye roll. Oh, how he fought it. The Candidate seemed to pick up on something. “Hey Switzerland, what’s wrong with your face?”

The Chairman pulled himself together. “Nothing, I’m fine. Just tired.”

“You know, Switzerland, I have an idea.” He put his arm around him again. “I think it could do you a lot of good, because I know that face, I know what it’s like, believe me, I rarely have any time these days, I am so busy, which I love, don’t get me wrong, but some people, you know, more than you or I would like to admit, some people are lazy, but not me. I’m a hard worker, and do you know why? Because I care. I care about my people. So you look at me and you say, how does a man like that, who is so unbelievably successful in the world of business, and television, and politics, how does a man like that keep up with a schedule that, frankly speaking, is rough?”

The Chairman was drowning. “I’m sorry, what — ”

“Let’s get a massage.”

The Chairman was stunned, but the Candidate seemed sincere, so he went along with it. Maybe this was his big moment, him and the Candidate alone, when he could finally realize the plan and be done with this nightmare.

They walked back into the house, and the Candidate led the Chairman through a long series of marble hallways, as his mouth dribbled out words that the Chairman did not actively listen to. The Chairman visualized the swift manner by which he would execute the Candidate, slitting his throat as he lay on the massage table, wiping the blade clean with a nearby towel, and then making like a bandit.

They went through a door in a part of the mansion the Chairman didn’t recognize and descended a staircase into a dimly lit temple of stone and marble. There were a number of sinks arranged around the perimeter of the room, a couple stone tables, and a shallow pool in the center. It was a bathhouse.

“Now the women here,” said the Candidate, recapturing the Chairman’s attention. “They are truly incredible. World. Class. I come down here all the time. Sometimes I just, when I’m in the middle of making a point or doing something really big, I feel all this tension, you know, and I don’t think anybody else sees it, but I get all agitated inside, and nothing will do it for me. Here, it’s all about the body, all about an intimate relationship with your own body, and the women, they don’t say a thing, just help you relax. Sometimes it is the only thing, and I mean it, the only thing that works for me.”

The Chairman realized the Candidate must have been referring to the masseuses. Two of them emerged from doorways the Chairman could not see and urged them to remove their clothing. The room began to fill with steam.

The Chairman realized that he had to conceal the Bowie knife, but before he could make a move one of the masseuses was peeling off his ripped shirt and pants, and encouraging him onto one of the stone tables. As his pants slipped below the blade, the masseuse shot him a mischievous look. The Chairman pleaded with her with his eyes. She undid the strap and put the Bowie knife into a basket with his shredded clothing and slid it underneath the table. The Chairman considered the situation, and decided to go along with it.

The Chairman was now completely naked, his body disgusting, plague-ridden, and reeking of swamp. He looked up to see the Candidate, distinctive like a cantaloupe, rising out of his thin suit. His body shed the old skin and perched itself up on the edge of the other stone table, the various folds and flaps hanging down as gravity intended.

As the Chairman began to feel the gentle application of oils and warm water, he saw the Candidate receiving the same treatment. He realized that his mouth was still moving. The voice was lighter, somehow.

“If I just relax here, I can get myself in a good way, I can keep things going the way I like them, the way they have to be.”

The masseuse started to apply a rhythmic pressure to the Chairman’s shoulders, and he felt a deep release of tension that shook his whole body in a wave. For a moment he forgot where he was, before he faded back into the Candidate’s words.

“If I can just get a little more mileage, I’m nearly there already, already in with the good way, and I will be so calm and so pure, and the words will be the good words, and they will ring like the clearest bell, like the ones from the academy, in the morning, in the evening, as I woke up, and fell asleep, my soft pillow, the softest pillow…”

The masseuse eased the Chairman onto his stomach and began to massage his back, and he felt himself return to a deep breathing and sense of calm that he had once known in his life but had forgotten somewhere along the way. The Candidate’s voice had become a sort of low and resonant monotone, and the Chairman found himself continuing to focus on its strange melodic sound, even as he stopped trying to comprehend it. In a weird way it was nice not having to think about anything, the murder plot, or his likely death. He didn’t have to do anything right now, it was okay to let things play out. Everything was okay. The Chairman felt his own thoughts begin to slow down, and it felt okay, and when he tried to think about why it wouldn’t be okay, he found that he couldn’t remember. The only thing that was there was a vast emptiness that filled easily with the sound, the sound that was completely whole.

The Candidate giggled in pleasure as the masseuse tickled the side of his belly, and the Chairman felt the laughter wash over him, and through him.

“Mommy,” said the Candidate.

The Chairman felt the warmth of a bosom.

“Puppy.”

True love, and a sadness.

“Father.”

Harshness, a long shadow.

“Me.”

Emptiness.

“Mine.”

The Chairman dropped off.

The Horror

The lights came to and the Chairman was hanging, his arms and legs bound vertically. It was dim, aside from a spotlight pointed directly in his face, but it seemed like he was in some kind of dungeon, or maybe it was the temple from earlier. He hung there, he couldn’t do anything else, he was naked.

He had been so determined, what had happened? He remembered everything up to the fog, his body relaxing, the Candidate had been saying something. Where was the Candidate? Had he brought him down here? Where was his Bowie knife? Why had he let that lady put it in a basket? Had she turned him in, or had the Candidate suspected him the whole time?

Why had he been so stupid?

He tried to get a sense of where he was, but it was hard to see with the spotlight shining in his face. He thought he could make out some kind of table against a wall, and a few ropes hanging from other parts of the room.

He heard a voice, muffled behind a closed door, gradually becoming louder. The latch clicked and the door swung open. It was the Candidate. He was re-suited, and talking.

“Okay, yeah.” The Chairman caught the trail end of a conversation. “For your own good, you just make sure we don’t have any more like this, okay?”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir. Thank you, sir.” It was the Governor.

The Candidate turned to the Chairman. “Switzerland.” He said it with a nag. “I’m gonna need some answers from you, okay?”

The Chairman knew then that everything was over. “Uh, okay.”

“Fatso and his people discovered something very interesting on my golf course. Would you like to tell him about it?”

The Governor stepped forward into the light. He was holding a shallow metal bin. He held it up so the Chairman could see its contents — a bloodied hand and the thick woolen cuff of a suit jacket. The fingers were clinging to Junior’s gun.

“That’s… what did — ” the Chairman stammered.

“Exactly,” said the Candidate. “What else have you not told me? And don’t give me any of that open carry bullshit, either.”

“I have no idea who that is,” the Chairman lied.

“Whatever,” said the Candidate. “I have very effective, proven methods for getting the information. Fatso, get out of here. One more fuck up, you’re dead. Switzerland, I mean, you’re a nice guy, but you’ve gotta see my position, right? You’ve forced my hand. Now hang on a second, don’t go anywhere.” He exited the room from a different door than he entered.

The Governor quickly scanned the area before shifting closer to the Chairman. “Now, why would a nice guy like you want to kill a genius?”

The Chairman stared back at him, trying to not let his face betray him.

“Why?” the Governor repeated. “Because they told you he was crazy? The Candidate is not crazy!” He grabbed the Chairman’s face and dug his stubby fingers into his jaw. “The man is clear in his mind, but his soul is mad!”

The Chairman tried to bite the Governor’s hand, but he pulled away just in time. “Well, you’ll get what’s coming.” He putzed out of the room.

The Candidate returned, swaggering, and turned the spotlight away from the Chairman’s face. His vision returned, and he saw the basket with his clothes, and maybe even the Bowie knife, sitting on the table in the back.

The Candidate was holding some kind of vial. “Tell you what, Switzerland,” he said, as he twisted off the top. “Maybe you’ll find this a bit weird, but I’m not much for delegating.”

“Are you going to waterboard me?”

The Candidate laughed. “I’m gonna do a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.”

He removed the screw cap to reveal a spray nozzle. He opened his small, circular mouth and gave himself two quick shots from the vial.

“Mm, yeah, that’s the stuff. Now let me tell you something, Switzerland. Running a campaign is not easy. I’ve had some real bad hombres, and I’ve tried all sorts of things. Thumbscrews, for one. Good reaction, but it ruins the thumbs. No good if you need your people to have thumbs. And some other things, like you mentioned waterboarding, and waterboarding, really, is very tame. It’s just water, right? But it’s a lot of work, a lot of equipment, and I don’t have the time. And the thing is, a lot of the people I torture are tough, very tough people. Regular torture doesn’t work on those people. But I have found something very, very effective, more effective than anything, for getting people to my level, and I can already tell it’s working. Listening to me talk. So go ahead, ask me some questions.”

“You’re just going to hang me here, and make me listen to you?” The Chairman felt his body tense up against the bindings. He remembered what Senior had said. But there was also an anger, bubbling up from deep inside him, pushing aside his fear.

“The thing is, Switzerland, I am very important, I’ve created a movement, that’s bigger than anybody else’s movement, and my name, my brand, my words, they’ve got people excited. And you know, I don’t know what you were trying to do here, but Fatso says you wanted to kill me, and that’s fine. A lot of people have wanted to kill me. But I wonder, do you think I sit around worrying about death? Does it seem like I would have the time for something like that? And, let me tell you, even if they did, even if you had succeeded, somehow, and your attempt, it was really very feeble, but even if you did, can you imagine how great the eulogies would be? They would be the biggest eulogies, every newspaper, everyone on the internet, would be talking about it. So yes, you’re going to listen to me, and you’re going to hang on every word.”

“But you know they’re just making fun of you. You realize that, right?” It felt good to get that one off his chest.

“You think that bothers me? I have skin, Switzerland, that is made of the thickest material, the strongest material, just the other day someone called me the Teflon elephant. You think about that.”

“But you’re going to lose the election.”

“The election? We’re well beyond the election, Switzerland. I thought you were a smart guy. We have this country, you know, we all live in it, it has some things going for it, but it’s just not, you know, great. But we are right on the edge, the technology these days, and people are just fed up, you know, and we have the technology to make something new, it doesn’t have to be a country, it can be sort of a new country, a separate country, and no one can take it from me because all I have to do is believe it’s there, and it’s mine. We’ve had a nice little country for a long time, but not everything lasts, too bad. This is the future, and you had a chance to be a part of it. If you hadn’t, and I hate to bring this up, I really do, if you hadn’t been so concerned with helping your president with that embarrassment, those things he said about me at the press dinner. Shameful. It’s absolutely shameful you would associate yourself with that.”

“I’m sorry, what are you talking about?” The Chairman had no idea.

“You know exactly. He got up there, he showed the Disney cartoon, and then he said something like, ‘no one questions your credentials and breadth of experience,’ and the room erupted, and you know, nobody laughs at my experience, that’s how I knew you were involved. Especially when he brought up the steakhouse, and the celebrities, because you had tasted those steaks, with me, when I told you I was donating to the penguin. And you know, to have this man, who gets to say he’s the president, to have him spend all those minutes talking about me, just totally out of line, and I said, you know, a man like that needs to be domesticated, and maybe I could do it, but you know, again, I don’t have the time. But I know you were involved. You wanted to get me out of the way so you could have your penguin. But the joke, yes the joke, it’s always on people like you, Switzerland. Because you’re not very funny, you’re not very smart. And look who’s laughing now, you tied up in my house, and I’m running for president.”

The Chairman said nothing in the face of this new lunacy. He stared ahead, straight into the Candidate’s eyes, and waited. Somewhere deep inside of him, a vision emerged — a Jeep, open top, a pile of sawed-off tusks. All around was fire, the jungle was burning. Napalm.

“You know, I’ve seen horror, you know, like that woman told me I was the horror, but you have no right to say that. You have a right to kill me, I already said that, but you have no right to judge me. I have great words, you know, nobody has words like I do, and nobody can say what we have to do, but I can. Me and horror, we’re not best friends. But we are friends, because you’ve gotta at least be friends. Because if you’re not it’s your enemy. Some very bad strategy, we’ve had for a long time. I remember, when your president said those words, and I will never forget the way he disrespected me, but you want to talk about horror, that woman is a horror. Someone said to me the other day, the children, and I don’t even want to say it, the children that she has eaten, bloodied and pulled apart with her own hands, and then she sold them, a pile of little arms, to ISIS. And you know I cried, when I heard that. I cried like a woman.”

The words moved through the Chairman, but he was deep in the jungle. The stacks of flayed elephant carcasses, the blood pooling on the ground, and then there was the Candidate. His face, his hair, his eyes. He felt the Bowie knife in his hand.

“But you know that man who calls himself the president, and you helped him, I realized that he shot me, it was a real hit job, right through my forehead. And I thought, you know, from genius to genius, the genius of that. The will. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we were. Because I have to deal with men like you, Switzerland.”

The Chairman raised the Bowie knife, and went low. He severed the Candidate’s penis and testicles, before cutting off each finger like carrot sticks. The hair he sawed off, the lips he peeled like the rind of a clementine, and then he sunk the blade deep into the face, twisting and pulling down, as a river of red flowed out of the orange. Finally, yes finally, the voice box, still reverberating, somehow.

“And they have the strength. If we had the strength like that our troubles would be over very quickly. Believe me. You have to be moral, but at the same time you have to be able to kill, without being so politically correct about it, without feeling, without passion, without judgment, without judgment. Because judgment is why we don’t win anymore.”

The Chairman’s eyes felt like they were about to pop out of his head, but the Candidate stood there, unharmed. The Chairman was immobile.

The Candidate moved to the bindings on one of the Chairman’s arms, and began to undo the knots. “So you know,” he said. “If you have to do it, just, if you could do something for me. Just tell Barron, Switzerland. Tell him everything. Everything I did. Everything you saw. I want him to know about his dad, I want him to see me, as you see me.”

The Chairman’s arm fell down to his side, and the Candidate went to undo the other one.

“And if you understand me, Switzerland, you will do this for me.”

---

Epilogue

The Chairman stood on the beach, under the stars, in the warmth of the bonfire. He had new clothes. A new attitude.

The ocean crashed against the shore and the Led Zeppelin cover band played “Since I’ve Been Loving You,” a classic, one of the Chairman’s favorites, although he’d never known it. The people were dancing, waving their arms and undulating their hips, their pale skin bare to the moonlight. The Chairman was among them, he danced, and at last he felt peace.

He didn’t have to answer to anybody. Not to the Speaker. Not to his wife. Not to Frank. He had thought about Frank a little bit, what he had said to him such a long time ago, about the special emotion, the gift.

He no longer feared Frank. When he thought of him he almost felt sorry for him, coming at everything from the wrong angle. Such a sad man, afraid of what he could not understand. Always going on about the votes. But why would murder be the way to find them?

Everywhere he looked the Chairman saw votes, they weren’t exactly hard to find. There were votes all around him, and while they were alive they danced, and they believed.

A bell rang and the band stopped playing. The people grew quiet, and someone up at the house called, “The re-tweets! The re-tweets are here!”

The Chairman felt an overwhelming joy, a melty, tingly feeling in the core of his soul. He ran with the crowd back up to the house, sand between their toes, smelling of smoke and salt.

They all gathered around the pool, in front of the balcony. The glistening hair was the first to emerge, and the tailored suit, and the Chairman looked up in awe.