Chapter Fifteen

Hope Is a Four-Letter Word

“I hope you didn’t invite me here to debate politics,” Jimmie said, keeping a few paces between him and his new best friend. “Because I ain’t that guy.”

The man removed his hood. He wasn’t a man so much as a boy—a baby-faced boy, at that. He had short, cropped blond hair, mostly hidden by a backward blue baseball cap. He was half a foot taller than Jimmie and at least ten years younger. It would have surprised Jimmie if the kid was old enough to buy a drink.

“No phone?” the kid said.

Jimmie shook his head.

“Good. Be careful with that thing—they’re tracing your every step. Recording every conversation within range when it’s powered on.”

That didn’t seem possible to Jimmie, but he kept that to himself. What did this kid know? Well, probably more about technology than he did, but still. Jimmie Bernwood had been around the block a few times, especially when it came to hidden recordings.

“Connor Brent,” the kid said without offering a hand.

“And you know who I am, apparently,” Jimmie said.

“You’re the new ghostwriter.”

He’d signed an NDA. Nobody was supposed to know about his involvement with the project outside of the White House. Not even the publisher, Crooked Lane.

“Oh, come on,” Connor said. “Don’t act dumb. The White House visitor logs are public. Everyone who walks through that front door—tourist or staff member, doesn’t matter—is tracked online at WhiteHouse.gov. You signed in to see the apprentice. Reporters don’t get that kind of access, especially not a blogger.”

Blogger? Oh, hell no.

That prep-school accent made Jimmie eager to slap him across the face. The only reason he didn’t do it was because he was afraid of cutting his palm on those sharp cheekbones.

Those sharp, perfect cheekbones.

“I’m a journalist,” Jimmie said. “Use the B-word again, and I walk.”

“Calm your tits, bro,” Connor said. “I’m not here to start some fight over the state of modern journalism. In fact, we have mad respect for what you did to Cruz.”

That whole fiasco had been a mistake. Good to know he had a few fanboys out there. However, politics had never been all that sexy to Jimmie. Ever since his mother lined his crib with the National Enquirer, he’d been fascinated with the world of celebrity. Politics, even when there was scandal involved, just didn’t do it for him. This kid had him confused with somebody who gave two shits.

“You said my life was in danger,” Jimmie said.

Connor’s eyes danced furtively around the park. “The Donald’s last ghostwriter ended up in the Rose Garden with a broken neck. Somebody threw him off the roof.”

“That would have been all over the news.”

“A tourist accidentally caught it on camera. They turned it into a GIF, and it went around the dark web. Not a single ‘real’ news site picked it up. Granted, the video was dark and blurry . . . but this was no Loch Ness Monster.”

“Say what you’re saying is true. What’s that have to do with me?”

“The last guy in your position reached out to us. Apparently, he’d recorded some interviews with the president, and they yielded some game-changing information. His words, not ours. Unfortunately, he was dead before he could get the tapes out of the White House. Needless to say, whatever was on those tapes was big enough to kill somebody over.”

“You have no idea what this information was?”

Connor shook his head.

“You keep saying ‘we.’ I assume you’re, what, Democrats?”

“I’m a former Bernie bro.”

“Former?” Jimmie said.

“No one’s seen him since the Democratic National Convention,” Connor said. “But we’re carrying on his work. We don’t believe in the two-party system. While most of us are former Bernie bros, anyone is welcome to join the Socialist Justice Warriors. Anyone who believes America should live up to the inscription at our door: ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’ Trump doesn’t even care that the masses are huddling.

“Help us,” Connor continued. “Help us make America great again—again.”

Make America great again . . . again?

“Sorry,” Jimmie said, “I don’t have any interest in joining your little after-school club. But your secret is safe with me—I don’t have any interest in exposing it, either.”

“That’s good.”

“Why? Because otherwise you’d have to kill me?”

Connor shook his head. “It’s not us you have to worry about. And I think you already know that.”

“I said it once, I’ll say it again: You’ve got the wrong guy.”

“Really?” Connor said. “You’re a smart guy. Just look around you: The United States isn’t a democracy anymore—it’s a monarchy. We’re walling ourselves off from the world, and the world can feel that. Support for the presidency may be at an all-time high within our country, but resentment of our country internationally is higher than it’s been in decades. The resentment surpassed the W era a week into Trump’s presidency. A week. He called Angela Merkel a ‘dried-up six’ in his inaugural address. The Donald is a dangerous man. He has dangerous friends. He’s got his finger on the nuclear button, and he’s involved in some sort of Twitter war with Prince Charles. What if the Twitter beef spills over into the real world?”

“So you think I can feed you some inside dirt, is that it? Something that will finally erode Trump’s support at home and force him out of office. And then what?”

Connor said nothing.

“We’re not going to war with the UK,” Jimmie said. “But if we did, it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve fought them. As Trump has said on Twitter, ‘We’ve kicked their ass before; we could do it again.’ I hope it won’t come to that, but you know how Trump is. He’s mostly full of hot air.”

“Say it’s not just talk this time. The war won’t just be between us and the UK,” Connor said. “If a skirmish breaks out, Russia’s jumping in. Then anyone else who wants to redivide the map in Europe. It’s going to be World War III. The planet is going to go up in flames. That doesn’t bother you?”

“The president needs congressional approval to go to war—even I know that,” Jimmie said. “They haven’t seen eye to eye on anything.”

“He’s wearing them down,” Connor said. “Look, the guy had the country declare bankruptcy, and Congress impeached him. Then he sent the bulldozers in to seize all that private land along the border without authorization—do you remember that? And Congress impeached him. Then he lied under oath that he didn’t write that list ranking the entire White House staff in order of ‘bangability,’ and Congress impeached him. Each time, not only was he exonerated, but his approval rating went up, and Congress’s went down.

“Now, with the midterms coming up, they’re feeling the pressure,” Connor continued. “Trump’s found even more leverage. He gets the roll calls of the votes on every bill and donates ten thousand dollars to the primary challenger of everyone who didn’t vote his way. Then he calls the congressmen to tell them that he did it!”

“The American people know a bully when they see one,” Jimmie said. “There will be an outcry eventually.”

“Haven’t you seen the polls? Americans don’t like bullies in schoolyards, but they love it when the victim of the bullying is Congress. Change.org has forty thousand signatures on a petition for Trump to give Rand Paul a wedgie on the Senate floor. Trust me, bro. If Trump wants to go to war, we’re going to war.”

Jimmie shook his head. It sounded like this kid had been watching too much MSNBC. “I’m going to forget we had this conversation. I expect you to do the same,” he said, turning to leave.

“Have you been to the basement?”

Jimmie froze. “Of the White House?”

“Of the Alamo,” the kid said sarcastically. “Of course I mean the White House.”

“Maybe. What of it?”

“There’s another basement—a basement under the basement.”

“A subbasement. That’s not unusual.”

“That’s where his office was,” Connor said. “It’s a long shot, but his tapes might still be there. You might—”

“Whose tapes?”

“The last ghostwriter,” Connor said. “Lester Dorset.”