American Fascist Read online

  “Can I help you?”

  “Are you open?”

  “Do we look open?”

  “I don’t know, it’s been so damn crazy, that’s why I asked.” He was sincere, not snarky. It was sort of charming, in a dumb way. She smiled, just a little bit.

  “Yeah. We’re open. What can I get you?”

  Her eyes caught him for a beat. He had to break her gaze and look up at the menu to stop staring, and then he realized that in this completely minimal exchange over the last four seconds, she had already caused him to forget what he was thinking. That was extremely rare for him. But he focused on the menu and recovered. “Two carnitas tacos, please. A la carte.” She punched keys on her register.

  “Actually, make it a combo. Actually, make it two combos, both with carnitas tacos,” he answered. She punched more keys.

  “Anything else?” she asked. He looked at her. Time slowed. Those deep, black eyes. What had they seen? Could she be saved from whatever tough situation she appeared to be in? Did those eyes see anything in him?

  “No, I think I’m good. Thanks.”

  “Here or to go?”

  He looked around. He would be alone.

  “To go. Thanks.”

  She rang up the order, then disappeared into the kitchen. When it was ready, she bagged it all up with some to-go utensils and handed it to him. “Sixteen twenty-nine.” He paid with a card and left her a generous tip.

  As he exited, he walked over to the old man sitting against the wall, reached into the bag, and pulled out the second combo on a plate with foil over it, and handed it to him.

  “Enjoy,” he said simply.

  “Hey, what’s this now?” the old man asked.

  “Carnitas tacos,” Eli answered over his shoulder as he walked away.

  “God bless you, son. Someday I’ll return the favor,” the old man said, as Eli turned the corner.

  ***

  After the tacos, a beer and a shower, Eli sat on his futon in his studio apartment, watching all the pageantry of the day unfold. His place was small but new, with a narrow, modern kitchen with a bar overlooking the living / sleeping area, dominated by his futon and TV. The rest of the living area by the balcony was overtaken by an Ikea desk, cluttered with three PC monitors, two laptops, plus modems and routers and cables and boxes of paperwork.

  Clips of the president, first lady and various VIPs flew by on screen, the coverage cutting between the innumerable balls, celebrities, musical acts and political heavy-weights, and close-ups of the famous chefs’ menus, all breathlessly narrated by the fawning “lifestyle anchors” holding court.

  Eli dialed a number on his cell phone. Nine hundred miles away, in a modest house in a small college town in central Florida, Ben Green was reclining for the evening in his living room, surrounded by walls of books and old vinyl records, PBS News on in the background, his wife doing the dishes after a fine meal. He didn’t want to believe any of this was happening, but he wasn’t the kind of man that could turn a blind eye. He didn’t care for the pageantry, he just wanted the facts. His phone rang. It was his son calling.

  “Hey! What’s up?” Ben sounded genuinely surprised. Not that they didn’t talk, but he knew this had been a big day in D.C. “You watching all the crap on CNN?”

  “Of course. Listen, I’ve got some news. I’ve been offered a job.”

  “That’s great! See? I knew you’d find a new gig after this was all over.”

  “Thanks. But I wouldn’t exactly call it over. It’s in the White House.”

  There was a silent pause. “Dad?”

  Ben’s voice went flat.

  “I’m here. Wow. Hey, that’s great I guess,” Ben said as he took a sip off what remained of his gin and tonic.

  Eli stood up from his futon. “Dad, listen. I know you hate Franks. I get it.”

  “I don’t hate him, I don’t even know him. I hate what he stands for. There’s a difference.”

  Eli shook his head. “You hate him, Dad.” There was a short pause, and then:

  “You’re right. I do. Actually, ‘hate’ might be too generic. I despise the racist ignorance and blatant appeal to people’s worst instincts that he represents.”

  Eli opened the sliding door and stepped outside for some night air. The rain was gone but the leafy street was still wet.

  “Yeah, I know, I know. Racist, sexist, lying con man.”

  Ben sat up in his chair as his wife Nancy came in from the kitchen, drying her hands on a dish rag. “Is it Eli?” she asked. He nodded yes.

  Eli stiffened. “Why can’t you just be happy for me?”

  Ben killed off his drink and sat forward. His voice dropped a few notches as Nancy stood by, trying to imagine the words coming from her stepson on the other end.

  “Listen, I’m proud of you for where you’ve gotten, and what you’ve been through to get there. We all are. But I’m not happy you’re going to work for a man who has no respect for the office, no regard for history, and no… I don’t know what to call it… no moral center. You know? Why would I be happy about that?”

  “I just got offered a job in the White House. Can’t we put politics aside for one damn minute and acknowledge that?”

  Ben stood up. They didn’t argue like this. “Eli, listen to what I am trying to say. We are proud of you. And this is a huge accomplishment, but not in a vacuum, you know? Context matters. I mean, if it were any other person, it would be —“

  “I don’t want you to be happy for me in a vacuum, but disappointed in me in reality. You either give a shit or you don’t.”

  “Of course I give shit, don’t be ridiculous. Is it wrong for me to think you’re better than this? That’s exactly why I give a shit.” Nancy put her hand on Ben’s shoulder but he shrugged it off.

  Eli shook his head in disbelief. “Maybe I can make a difference. Maybe having people like me around, with real data, can help steer things the way they should go, you know?”

  “Real data? Like the kind you’d need to put Muslims into a database?”

  “Come on, you know he isn’t going to do half the shit he said in the campaign.”

  “Maybe not, but words matter. They always matter.”

  Eli heard this constantly growing up. “Yeah, I know. And that goes for all of us.” There was a long silence. Eli forced himself to calm down. “Listen. I didn’t call to get your approval.”

  “You don’t need my approval, you know that.”

  “I just wanted you to know. Okay?”

  “Sure. I appreciate that.”

  “Take care Dad, I’ll be in touch.”

  “Eli…”

  “Wish me luck.” Eli hung up and went back inside, tossed his phone on the desk and slammed the slider shut, locking out the night.

  ***

  He spent the rest of the night completing the 127 page SF-86 form for his background check and security clearance. David sent him a link where he could submit the form online. The form was “Accepted” and then he was informed “Agents for the Bureau will be in contact with you.” It was reassuring and disconcerting at the same time.

  He knew the FBI was slammed with background checks. Some new hires in the West Wing could be brought on without a security clearance, and there were rumors that Franks might be giving temporary waivers to his kids, but not an IT guy like Eli. He would need access to locked-down systems, and nobody really had a definitive list, because most were yet to be set up. That would be part of Eli’s new role. He had to be cleared first.

  He texted Walter Donnelly at the number David gave him and let him know he submitted the form and was available to meet any time. Walter texted back “Got it. Why don’t we meet for a drink tomorrow night, say 6 p.m. at the new Franks Hotel?”

  “Sounds perfect,” Eli replied.

  ***

  Around five, Eli put on the best of the three suits he owned and called a car. He wanted to be at least fifteen minutes early.<
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  It was after dark when the Uber dropped him off at the Franks International Hotel. As he exited, he was struck but how large and lit up it was. The Old Post Office Building, which Franks leased and converted into his newest hotel, had an imposing presence, its central clock tower being the third tallest building in Washington. It wasn’t meant to be a hotel when it was built at the turn of the century, but it made an impressive one now. Franks did have a flare for the visual, and the flags under the spotlights above the arched portico that covered the entrance gave it a grand, European feel. But the grandeur was punctured by the strange sight of giant words projected onto the high stone facade: a performance artist had set up across the street with a high-powered projector pointed at the hotel, blasting a giant message in light: TRAITOR.

  Eli heard the new president tried to get the D.C. police to arrest the artist, but the store across the street lost its lease, and the artist legitimately rented it out for a month, and Franks’ people hadn’t been able to figure out a way to stop him, other than threatening to sue him, which the artist didn’t seem to care about, and so they did sue him, and he just went right on projecting, with new offensive phrases every night.

  Eli chuckled, trotting up the stone steps and passing through massive doors opened by a capped bellman in gold trim. Inside the lobby, he looked up. The atrium was five stories high, with arched gold-painted metal rafters supporting massive chandeliers over blue velvet seating areas spread across the floor. On the far side of the lobby he saw a long, open bar with huge TV screens, and spotted Walter at a table in the corner, meeting with a man in a suit.

  Walter spotted Eli and pointed at his watch, indicating he needed a few more minutes, and Eli nodded, found another seat facing away from them, and sat down to read the news on his phone and people watch.

  Once Walter finished, Eli came over and Walter invited him to have a seat, and the waiter came over and took Eli’s drink order. Walter was candid and told Eli he had others besides Eli lined up in the bar each evening, and kept them moving through, so he was taking it slow on the drinks. Eli suspected he was drinking club soda with lime, not vodka soda like Eli ordered, but he didn’t mind.

  Walter Donnelly had an easy charm. He was in his late 50’s with short salt and pepper hair, a tan, trim figure he attributed to lots of golf, and always a well-cut suit. As an experienced hand in Republican campaigns, Walter had been brought in late as deputy campaign manager, to act as a buffer between the Franks Campaign and the party, whereas the campaign manager (and Walter’s boss at that time) was the cranky and overweight, coffee-swilling alt-right media kingpin Mack Martins, who also came on board after the primaries, and now carried the torch for Franks’ populist base as his chief strategist inside the White House.

  Walter and Eli crossed paths during the campaign, although most of Eli’s time was spent inside Paragon doing detailed voter analysis and media targeting.

  Over the course of the next hour, Walter reacquainted himself with Eli, praised his work, and made sure he was committed to the cause, loyal, and unlikely to leak. Even though the offer had been put out, Walter had to be sure his instincts about Eli hadn’t changed. It was clear what he was doing. All of Walter’s interest in Eli’s impressive technical background, and the prestige of graduating from Stanford, and the campaign data, and housing pricing in Northern California vs. D.C., and his curiosity about whether Eli was finding the locals of the opposite sex to be friendly — Eli knew all of it was cover for a deeper inspection of his political leanings, or if he even had any. Eli didn’t really care for politics or policy, but he didn’t outright say that, because it might sound like he was trying too hard to appear agnostic, and besides, Walter didn’t outright ask. So Eli just kept going back to “big data” and “AI machine learning” and “disruption.” That was exactly what Walter expected from all his previous interactions with Eli, and exactly what he wanted to hear now.

  Then he confirmed what Eli’s first assignment would be once he came on board. The president was confident that millions of people voted illegally in the election. He’d been tweeting about it since the day after the election, and even though there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud, and Republican secretaries of state in critical swing states said they were confident in the integrity of the election processes, the president was very concerned about fraud, and something had to be done to prevent it in the future. Dead people had voted; illegal aliens had voted; people had voted twice in two different states; all to help his opponent. The president would be forming a Commission on Election Fraud, to track down the millions of illegal voters, and would staff the new commission with Republican “experts” who had successfully implemented strict voter ID laws and voter roll purges in other states. Eli would be assisting the commission, gathering the data needed to form a single massive voter database that would support the policy recommendations going forward.

  “Sounds like a lot of data….” Eli mused.

  “Terabytes. We want every voter roll, from every state, including social security numbers, addresses, voter history, the whole enchilada. Once we have that data, you’ll be doing analysis to identify the fraud patterns.”

  Eli was up to the task, and Walter agreed he was the right guy for it. At the end of the meeting, Walter said simply “Great, now it’s just up to the FBI. Get ready to roll, and I’ll ping you as soon as we’re clear.”

  Another potential West Wing hire was waiting at the bar. Eli thanked Walter for the opportunity and the drink, and headed out.

  ***

  Over the course of the next three days, Eli stayed busy. He finished the pack-up and shut down of the Paragon office, bought five new suits, and got in a run every day.

  On the fifth night, as he was about to call Ben and calm the waters, his phone buzzed with a message from Walter: “All clear. 7:30 a.m. tomorrow at the Penn staff entrance. Suit and tie.”

  3

  Day One

  The air was crisp on that first February morning when Eli arrived at the outer security checkpoint to the staff entrance of the Eisenhower Building. He looked trim and smart in his new suit, with his brown leather messenger bag over his shoulder. He was now officially an employee of the U.S. Government, and the Franks Administration. All West Wing employees would enter the White House complex through this heavily-guarded staff entrance on Pennsylvania Avenue. The White House Policy Office was on the third floor of the Eisenhower Building, and Eli would have a cubicle. His new boss Walter Donnelly was now the president’s chief policy advisor, and his office would be across the street, on the first floor inside the West Wing, within spitting distance of the Oval Office.

  Eli showed his ID to the Capitol police and passed through the outer checkpoint, and then into the building, where he passed through an airport-style security check, then proceeded to a desk where his ID was checked again, and then he was greeted by Ms. Jeffers, an operations director for the General Services Administration, which ran the facility operations for the Eisenhower Building and the West Wing. Eli never got her first name, but she’d been expecting him, and checked him off her list.

  Ms. Jeffers was in her fifties, a no-nonsense civil service lifer on her fourth administration. She shook Eli’s hand and asked him to follow her, walking quickly down the halls, heels echoing off what felt like miles of black and white tiled floors. She pointed out various historical spots and artifacts, especially the massive library filled with rows and rows of U.S. government publications that Eli could now access as part of the policy team, and then lead him into the staff orientation office.

  Over the next hour and a burnt cup of coffee, he was assigned a secured government laptop and email account, photo ID badge, and a parking pass for West Executive Avenue, the private street that separated the Eisenhower Building from the West Wing. He didn’t have a car, but that might change, so he held onto the pass. Besides, according to Ms. Jeffers, less than one hundred staffers could park on Executive inside the complex,
and if you had a pass, you had rank. She then escorted him to his cubicle in the policy section.

  Two former campaign staffers that Eli already knew, Lindsey Bennet and Mike Garner, swung by his cubicle to welcome him as he booted his laptop. They exchanged chit-chat with Eli, and since they didn’t appear to know what he would be working on exactly, and he didn’t offer it up, they dubbed him “Eli, the data guy.”

  That was fine. Flying under the radar was how he preferred to operate, and secretly in his heart, being right next to the White House, it made him feel like a morally apathetic spook from one of the Le Carre’ spy novels he rabidly consumed in college. The less they knew the better. They offered to show him the cafeteria downstairs for lunch — “not bad, really,” according to Mike.

  After they left, he spent the morning quietly examining his government laptop. Just basic things, like what version of Windows it was running; what service packs had been installed to the OS; every application that was installed, including hidden utilities; the domain his machine was on, and any files, drives or other domains he could see across the network; the admin setup that was controlling his user ID on the machine; the hard-drive encryption app they were using; the settings used to connect to the White House VPN.

  He decided not to go any further, like knocking on the door of the network using a command prompt; he knew they could see all his app usage if they took the time, and it was only his first day. He had no idea who “they” might even be. Who, if anyone, was monitoring his laptop? The IT department of the General Services Administration? They didn’t sound intimidating. Or could it be the Secret Service, NSA, FBI or CIA?

  He had to assume the U.S. government was smart enough to keep watch on all White House employees, but then again there could be a legal and ethical firewall. Maybe it was outsourced to one of the “black budget” defense contractors, like Boon / Andersen. He probed the machine and the network just enough to be credible for the role he was hired for — after all, it wasn’t like they didn’t know who he was — and then he pulled back.