Kaitlin Lungford was in the middle of two wars and was losing both of them. To add insult to injury, the first one, which involved official orders from President Brooks to supervise the pillaging of WP from other countries, was a direct result of the second—her complete inability to stand up to her uncle, Senator Charles Lungford. She let out a deep sigh as her aide got out of her government-issued Chevrolet SUV to open the door for her, seizing the handle in frustration.
“I actually have the ability to open doors without anyone’s help,” she quipped, then regretted the words the moment she saw the man's disappointment.
Save that sass for your uncle. She made a mental note to apologize to the staffer when she returned to the car after her meeting.
The aide, too paralyzed to respond after being reprimanded by the Defense Secretary of the United States of America, simply let go of the door and allowed her to step out into the hot humidity of Washington, DC. Outside the Russell Senate Office, Kaitlin closed her eyes and prepped herself for the meeting to come.
I’m in charge, not him. I’m in charge, not him.
No matter how many times she said it, no matter how many times she told herself she believed it, her image of independence always shattered the moment her uncle scolded her. She might’ve been Defense Secretary of America, but he was King of the Family.
As she walked into the Senate building, the heat of the sun on her neck dissipated, giving way to a shiver down her spine. It’d been eighteen months since her uncle had dismissed her from his New Year’s Eve party to go run a war she didn’t believe in, and she’d done a good job avoiding him during that period. She could count on one hand the number of times they’d shared the same room; the war had given her no shortage of excuses to avoid his disapproving frowns and pointed tongue. Still, she remembered his words that night as if he’d spoken them yesterday.
“Get a hold of yourself. We have guests.”
Ah, yes. Losing composure in front of company ranked as a cardinal sin in his book. So he rarely raised his voice and never hit her, but even before her father had died, her uncle had fine-tuned his casual cruelty through subtle words and actions: buying her ice cream as a child, but never asking what flavor she wanted. Telling her in front of guests at a piano recital when she was seven that she had a gift and should’ve been born a man so he could’ve sent her off to an exclusive academy abroad to become the next Beethoven.
Kaitlin looked at her hands as she walked up the stairs to his office, her heels clicking against the marble floor. I shouldn’t have stopped playing just because of his words. I shouldn’t have given him that power.
And yet, knowing what she should do and actually doing it were two different things.
The door in front of her was emblazoned with her uncle’s name in bronze:
SENATOR CHARLES J. LUNGFORD
R-UT
Kaitlin opened the door and saw Victoria, her uncle’s secretary, at the front desk, clad in a red pantsuit and a white blouse. The necklace she wore, a blue stone embedded within, capped off her tribute to America.
“Madam Secretary!” Rising from her seat as if in the presence of Uncle Sam himself, Victoria began to stammer. “What, uh, brings you here?”
“What else but my uncle?” Kaitlin said. “Is he in?”
Fiddling with her hair, Victoria glared at a man who must have been a junior staffer. “Connor! Go let the senator know his niece is here.”
As the man dashed off, Kaitlin moved closer to Victoria’s desk. “Work going okay?”
Looking at the floor, Victoria answered. “Can’t complain.”
More like won’t complain. Kaitlin recognized the shame on the forty-year-old’s face. Her uncle never slept with any of these women, but she knew through her brother Chad that he delighted in shaming them with inappropriate jokes and public mocking.
I should say something comforting to her. And yet…
“Madam Secretary…” Connor stepped back into the room. “He’s ready for you.”
As Kaitlin approached the double doors of her uncle’s private suite, she turned back to wish Victoria a good weekend. When their gazes met, tears welled in Victoria’s eyes. Kaitlin found comfort in knowing her uncle wasn't just cruel with her.
And at least I never cried.
Kaitlin suppressed a laugh as her uncle, seated at his desk, scrolled through Twitter on his phone. It was rare to see this septuagenarian serpent struggle, and she wasn’t afraid to relish the moment. She still remembered him asking her to install Twitter on his phone because, in his words, “I guess that’s the only way I’m going to be able to keep up to date with this buffoon.”
“Catching up on the president’s day?”
Charles huffed before responding. “Used to be that a president worked once in a while. This one just watches FOX all day and tweets from his phone.”
“Isn’t that what you prefer?”
“It is,” Charles said. “Brooks is so much easier to manipulate this way.” Standing, the senator cracked his knuckles before giving his niece a perfunctory hug. “Still, three years into the job you’d think he’d show a bit more curiosity. Does he still not read his daily intelligence brief?”
“No,” Kaitlin said. And it’s just as well. He wouldn’t understand them, anyway.
“I’m glad you were able to come,” Charles said. “The convention’s July thirteenth, so I’ll be headed out to Jacksonville in a couple days. And then, between the presidential campaign and trying to win back the Senate, well, we wouldn’t be able to do this until Thanksgiving.”
The Republican National Convention. Kaitlin hadn’t been to one since Senator Lungford had been called Governor Lungford, twenty years ago. “Are you making a speech there?”
The senator shook his head. “We can talk politics later, and believe me, we will. I’ve got a funny story about the convention.” Leaning against his bookcase, his copy of The Art of War by his shoulder, Charles went on. “How’s the war going? All I know comes from what I read on the news; the president’s national security team is still in his ear.”
“What do you mean?”
“I talk to the president and he says it’s no problem to get me a copy of the Presidential Daily Brief, but then, without fail, we go our separate ways and I never hear about it again.”
So at least someone in the White House listens to me over you.
Family aside, Kaitlin could be a hard-ass when it was warranted. National Security Adviser Stephen Bannon had told her months ago that her uncle had requested access to quite possibly the most sensitive pieces of paper assembled on a daily basis. The Presidential Daily Brief included all kinds of information about covert operations run by the CIA, not to mention intelligence gathered from the FBI and friendly governments abroad. She'd be damned if her uncle would get that intelligence before she did. He might know more about politics, but she'd never cede her advantage on global affairs.
Besides, she thought, it'll be a nightmare if he's jailed for insider trading. The defense stocks he owned rose in direct correlation with the body count for this war he'd bullied the president into.
Kaitlin smiled, pleased that she was not completely helpless, pleased that she could be the one to deliver exclusive news to her uncle. “The WP Force is getting ready to launch an assault in northern Guatemala.”
Hunger flashed in her uncle’s eyes at the prospect of learning something new, something very few others knew. And as much as she hated him, it warmed her heart to know she was the only person in the world who could whet his appetite.
“Why?” he said, leaning in.
She took her time answering, savoring her fleeting power. “Ademir Hernández died three months ago.”
“The head of FGRN-14?”
“We just got DNA confirmation last week.”
Charles whistled. “If word gets out that we’ve already killed the head of the group, we’ll lose the public. In their minds, we’re at war to kill the terrorists.”
Kaitlin nodded. “But no one outside the president’s national security team knows Ademir was the head of FGRN-14.”
For the first time in her life, she witnessed her uncle display true shock. As his eyes widened, she smiled again.
“Kaitlin?”
Selling my soul is worth it for moments like this. “Aiden DeLeón’s been angling to become the top terrorist in Latin America for years, and he and Ademir both used the Silk Road, that black-market site the FBI investigated last year.”
“And?” The look on her uncle’s face told her he knew what she was going to say.
He wants me to admit it. He wants me to admit I’m just as power hungry as he is. She hoped that wasn’t true, but the feeling in her gut refused to agree.
“The president’s political team is ready to plant some stories in the press. DeLeón was a no-name player who, in Ademir’s final days, was able to usurp him and merge their two groups. So when Ademir died, he was just DeLeón’s deputy. DeLeón is head of FGRN-14 now, he’s the main threat.”
And the war still needs to rage on.
A chill ran down her spine as he shook his head. He drew his next words out slowly, as if they were swords leaving a scabbard. “Why would Saint Kaitlin lie to the American people?”
“I know the president. Approval for this war could drop into single digits and he’d still insist on fighting it.”
“And?”
He’s sick. He can’t get enough of me admitting I’m just as craven as him. Tightening her hands into fists, she gave the man what he craved. “A Defense Secretary of an unpopular war has no chance of becoming president.”
Clapping his hands, Charles showed all his teeth as he smiled.
I am allowed to be ambitious.
She’d fought her uncle’s wishes for so long, but ever since the night Brooks had vetoed WP legalization, she’d come to understand what needed to be done. Her uncle, the president—they were such weak men. None of them would ever be able to restore the promise of America, nor would any politician who served with them.
But me?
Kaitlin would see the war ended responsibly, under President Begaye. Then she’d run as a political scion of the West, with bipartisan credentials as a Cabinet secretary of the first non-white president. She’d finally make the Lungford name proud.
I’ll finally make my father proud.
“You’re ready to embrace the Lungford destiny?” Charles asked.
“Yes,” she said, “I am.”
But it will be my destiny, not yours.
With talk of the war behind them, Charles launched into politics.
“You’ll be pleased to know Hammond’s humiliation grows with every passing day,” he said. “The number of meetings I’m in with Brooks, I may as well be the Senate Majority Leader instead of that Texan.”
Kaitlin rolled her eyes. Though she loathed talking politics, she supposed she’d have to get used to it if she was going to have a shot at fixing the country. “And here I thought the president would just forgive him after being embarrassed on the WP vote.”
“Hammond lost his walk-in privileges to the Oval Office after that debacle,” Charles said. “The president said to him, and I quote, ‘You send Lungford here if you ever need to cut a deal. He’ll keep you in the loop.’”
Kaitlin raised her eyebrows. I fucking hate it, but I do have so much to learn from this arrogant fossil.
And she would. Only then could she be free of his tyranny. In gaining his approval once and for all, in seeing his ambition come to light, she would be free to pursue her own dreams.
“It seems like everything’s going according to your plan,” she said.
“Our plan, Kaitlin. One day this war will end, and America will be celebrated. And when that day comes, the public will be eager to reward the woman who saw us through to victory.”
The war will end, she thought. But you don’t need to know how.
“Just like I took care of Chad,” he said, “I’ll take care of you.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“That Baliga boy messed with my nephew, so I messed with him.”
Messed with him by arranging for him to be arrested and then throwing him into the military for me to handle, she thought. Thanks a lot. What we really need during a foreign war is a bunch of untrained newbies who can't be trusted because they're ex-cons.
Out loud, she only said, “All you did was put him in the WP Force…”
“Yes, but the pain had to extend beyond just him. His girlfriend put in a visa request for her parents to visit from India. I’m holding it up…indefinitely.”
Scrunching her forehead, Kaitlin tried to remember the situation with Rakshan and his fellow convicts. She’d met them before they’d deployed, but that had been months ago. “Rakshan Baliga? He doesn’t have a girlfriend.”
“Oh.” Charles smiled. “Did they break up? No matter. The fewer browns in the country, the better for all of us.”
Kaitlin bit her tongue. This is why I need to be president. This is why it’s worth it.
“Besides,” he continued, “now that the Baliga boy is on the WP Force, I’m sure he’ll prove useful to our plans. The visas will be a good bargaining chip.”
“Why would he care about his ex?”
Charles rolled his eyes. “Really, Kaitlin? He’s an ex-con who’s at war, away from all the comforts of women. Men will do anything for the fairer sex.”
“All this for my idiot of a brother…”
“Kaitlin.”
That tone. Goosebumps lined her arms.
“This isn’t for Chad,” her uncle snapped. “This is because someone dared insult a Lungford, and that cannot stand.”
She gulped before responding. “Yes, Uncle.”
As Kaitlin turned to leave, hoping her scolding doubled as an end to their interaction, her uncle called out.
“Kaitlin, did you have somewhere more important to be?”
Feeling heat rise in her cheeks, she turned around. “Of course not, Uncle.”
“Didn’t I tell you I had a funny story about the RNC?”
“Yes, Uncle.” Pinching her leg through her pants, willing herself to feign interest, she continued. “Please tell me.”
“If you insist,” he said.
For the next ten minutes, she adopted her fakest smile as her uncle discussed the vice president, Alan Westbrook. She’d been in meetings with the man, of course, but hadn’t paid him much attention. The Baptist preacher-turned-Mayor of Jacksonville-turned-Governor of Florida-turned-Vice President had lobbied hard for the RNC to be hosted at his home city, and the president had delivered. It made no sense to her, but Baptists remained the president’s strongest supporters, as evidenced by their votes and donations, and the president delighted in rewarding loyalty when he thought it was due.
“I’ve never particularly cared for the vice president,” Kaitlin said.
“Want to know a secret?” Charles continued before she could say anything. “Neither does the president! Lucas offered me the vice presidency last week.”
She’d been standing this whole time, but now Kaitlin seized the chair in front of her for support. “The national committee must’ve had a stroke after hearing that.”
“It never got that far,” Charles said. “The president hardly keeps his chief of staff informed about his thinking, let alone the committee. I think this was just an idea he cooked up and told me about without a second thought.”
Yeah, Kaitlin thought. Why put any thought into who’s a heartbeat away from the presidency?
Gritting her teeth, she told herself she was doing what needed to be done to restore honor to the country. There’s nothing more important than getting people like Uncle Charles and the president out of positions of power. The ends will justify the means.
“Of course, I said no,” Charles said, oblivious, “but I thought about saying yes for a moment, just to see how those suits at the RNC would react to seeing a true conservative in the White House for once.”
“That would’ve been quite the insult to Westbrook,” Kaitlin said. “Rejecting him in his own city.”
“The president’s always enjoyed exercising power for power's sake, but since his neutering of Hammond, he's delighted even more in kicking people while they're down."
That must be why you two get along so well, Kaitlin thought. You love exercising power for no other reason than to show others you have it, as if anyone could forget your influence if you didn’t shout it from the rooftops every day. She realized for the first time how deeply insecure her uncle must be.
“Why did you say no?”
Charles grinned. “You’re learning, aren’t you?” Moving to open a drawer in his desk, he took out a notepad and tossed it to her, along with a pen. “I can see the thirst in your eyes. It’s the same way you looked when you played field hockey in high school. You’re hungry to learn politics, the same way as any other sport.”
Politics isn’t a sport, she thought. It’s people’s lives. And besides, how would he know how she’d looked? He’d never come to any of her games because field hockey was a “butch” sport.
“I said no,” he continued, “because unlike the president, I can do basic math. I’ve been in office for over a decade and there’re many more years to come. Brooks's VP would only be relevant for another four years at most, and there's always the chance he loses to Begaye.”
“What happens if Begaye wins?” Kaitlin asked.
“Even Begaye can’t stop the war overnight,” Charles said. “It almost doesn’t matter who wins the election at this point.”
He really does think it’s just a game. Kaitlin scoffed, setting the pen and paper her uncle had tossed her aside. “How can you not care who wins?”
“It’s not that I don’t care,” he said, “it’s that I already know the answer.”
“What?”
“Whatever happens with the election, I’ve already won. The war is here, and it isn’t going away. I always win, Kaitlin.”
Instead of acting on impulse by balling her hand into a fist and slamming it into her uncle’s head, Kaitlin picked up the pen and paper again and slipped them inside her suitcoat.
“It’s always good to be seen with a notepad by the voters,” Charles said. “It makes them think you care.”
Furrowing her brow in frustration, she hoped she’d be dismissed soon.
“I just wanted you to know before I leave for the RNC, Kaitlin, that I’d be okay with a President Begaye. I bet you voted for him in the primaries, didn’t you?”
Stay silent.
“Not answering?” Charles smiled. “Good girl. Maybe you can be taught politics. Maybe I'm finally rubbing off on you, after all.”
Leaving the room, leaving the building, returning to the unrelenting humidity outside, she found that the goosebumps on her arms had returned.
I am not going to become him.