Like most of the gambles he’d taken throughout his life, this one had paid off. After nearly four years of increasingly bureaucratic rule by buttoned-down Washington insiders, people were hungry for a candidate who seemed fresh, alive, and genuine — a candidate who wasn’t afraid to break stale, old political rules.
With a final wave to the shouting, cheering, foot-stomping crowd, Farrell clapped his cowboy hat firmly back onto his head. Making sure to shake every hand he could reach, he left the stage and passed through doors into a hallway that led out back, where his motorcade was waiting. His security detail closed in on all sides.
As soon as they stepped outside into the warm, humid evening, a throng of reporters mobbed them, yelling questions in his direction. Bright klieg lights lit the scene. Cameras clicked and whirred.
Farrell held up a hand. “I’m real sorry, ladies and gentlemen.” He grinned at them. “Ordinarily I love talking with y’all, but right now my security folks tell me we’ve got to get a move on.”
A young blond-haired woman wearing a CNN press badge elbowed her way out of the crowd. “That’s my question, Governor. Who are these all-powerful security people of yours exactly? They’re not members of the Secret Service. Why not? Surely, as the nominee of your party, you’re entitled to Secret Service protection.”
Farrell shook his head. “I hate to correct you, ma’am, but I am not yet the nominee. That won’t come until we hold our convention in a few weeks.”
“Isn’t that just a formality?” another journalist asked. “You’ve got the delegates you need to win sewed up.”
“Maybe so. But I learned a hard lesson after drilling my first dry hole,” Farrell said. “There’s no such thing as sewed-up in life.” He grinned again. “Except if you wave a bunch of taxpayer dollars in front of corporate big fish, they’re guaranteed to cut you a nice, fat campaign check.” That drew laughter. “And President Barbeau’s sure got that routine down cold,” he added.
This time, his quip drew a mix of pained laughter and sour looks. No surprise there, Farrell thought in amusement. Most of the press corps were not so subtly rooting for Stacy Anne Barbeau. Their slant was something he had to factor into every political calculation he made. At least in this day and age, between the Internet and other new media, he had more ways to get his message to the voters without running headlong into their ideological buzz saw.
“Anyway,” he said, “I don’t plan on using the Secret Service for protection even if I win the nomination.”
“And why is that?” the CNN reporter pounced. “Don’t you trust them?”
“I’ve no doubts at all about the professionalism of the Secret Service,” Farrell said patiently. “But I’m not in this race to cost the taxpayers even more of their hard-earned dollars. So I’m sticking with the folks I’ve brought to this dance — a collection of fine men and women from the Texas Capitol Police and the Texas Rangers, together with several decorated veterans of our nation’s armed forces.” He nodded at the grizzled, tough-looking man standing next to him. “Men like Sergeant Davis here.”
Former U.S. Special Forces sergeant Andrew Davis looked pained. Years of covert fieldwork for the Army and later for Scion and the Iron Wolf Squadron had taught him to avoid the limelight, not to relish it.
“But those Rangers and Capitol police officers are paid by your state’s taxpayers, aren’t they?” the woman CNN reporter said with an audible sneer. “So isn’t this just a PR stunt?”
“No, ma’am,” Farrell said politely, with just the barest hint of an edge to his voice. “As it happens, I’m reimbursing the good people of Texas out of my own pocket. When I’m not conducting official business in my own state, nothing I do costs any Texan one red cent. Unlike some candidates, I pay my own freight.” He donned another wide grin and doffed his hat to her. “You know, the country might be better off if more politicians did the same.”
With that parting shot, he climbed into the big black SUV idling at the curb and waited while Andrew Davis took the jump seat across from him. The doors slammed shut and they pulled away — followed by several more SUVs carrying his staff and the rest of his security detail.
Farrell sighed and closed his eyes briefly. “Good God,” he muttered. “What a snarling, snapping pack of hyenas.”
“Comes with the turf, Governor,” Davis said unsympathetically. “Nobody forced you into politics, did they?”
“Nope,” Farrell admitted with a self-deprecating smile. “That was all my own big damned ego at work.” He looked at the other man. “Sorry about turning the spotlight on you back there, Sergeant. I know that’s not real comfortable for you.”
Davis shrugged. “Like I said, it comes with this turf.” With a grimace, he shifted in his seat. “I figure not many people would think having their picture taken was rougher than getting shot at by the Russians or some other goons.”
Farrell nodded. Davis had been invalided out of the Iron Wolf Squadron after being badly wounded in a raid on Russia’s cyberwar complex. After months of intensive physical therapy, the veteran special forces noncom had recovered enough to find himself bored as hell in civilian life. He and Farrell were from the same part of rural Texas, and when mutual acquaintances suggested Davis would be a good fit for his campaign security team, Farrell had jumped at the chance to bring him on board.
“Do you miss it?” he asked seriously. “Fighting for the Poles and Scion?”
“Do you miss wildcatting?” Davis asked him in return.
Farrell thought about that, remembering the sheer thrill involved in staking every penny he had on the chance of striking oil in desolate places conventional geologists had already ruled out. “Sometimes,” he admitted. “But then I figure that shooting for the presidency’s a pretty big gamble all on its own. And God knows, this country needs someone better than Stacy Anne Barbeau and her crowd running things.”
Davis raised an eyebrow. “And you figure you’re that someone better?”
Farrell shrugged with a wry half smile. “I do.”
“There haven’t been many really good presidents,” the other man said meditatively. “Washington, Lincoln, Reagan… maybe a few more.”
“You seriously think I’m on that level?” Farrell asked, still smiling ironically.
Davis shook his head. “With all due respect, Governor… hell no.”
“Then why exactly are you working for me?” Farrell wondered. “Since I’m a miserly son of a bitch, I sure as hell know it’s not the pay.”
“Not hardly,” Davis agreed with a snort. He grinned. “Mostly, I guess, it’s because you’re smart enough to hire guys like me who’ll tell you straight out when you start sounding like you’re full of shit.”
Laughing now, Farrell tipped his hat in salute and then sat back to enjoy the rest of the ride to the airport.
Eight
More than two hundred kilometers east of Novosibirsk, rugged, stream-cut foothills rose higher and higher — climbing steadily toward the iron-, manganese-, and gold-rich slopes of the Kuznetskiy Alatau Mountains. Dense fir and pine forests covered most of the region. Digital and paper maps showed only a handful of dirt roads, mostly used by logging companies cutting local timber.
Those maps were out-of-date.
For several months, troops from the Russian Army’s 60th Engineer Regiment had labored under enormously long stretches of carefully erected camouflage netting to cut and pave a new road through the woods. Wide enough for heavy trucks, this concealed thoroughfare tied into the P-255 Novosibirsk-Irkutsk highway. It ended at a new top-secret military training area set aside for use by RKU’s Kiberneticheskiye Voyennyye Mashiny, its Cybernetic War Machines.