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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, organization, places, event, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  © 2014 Mike Gilmore. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

  Published by AuthorHouse 09/30/2014

  ISBN: 978-1-4969-4381-1 (sc)

  ISBN: 978-1-4969-4380-4 (hc)

  ISBN: 978-1-4969-4379-8 (e)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014917487

  Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

  and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

  Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

  Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Author’s Notes

  Levels of Power

  Other Books

  by

  Mike Gilmore

  Levels of Power:

  The Senator

  The Legislator

  The Diplomat

  The Chairman

  The Toilet Salesman … The oh so … Necessary Guy

  Acknowledgments

  Many years ago, at the age of fifteen, I started my professional career. It was the summer holiday from school, and my uncle needed help at his wholesale sales company, the Home Candy Company. My uncle, Richard G. “Dick” Olinger, was the owner. He recently passed away at the age of eighty-six.

  My job was far from important in the scheme of things. I unloaded and loaded trucks. I put freight away and stocked shelves. I carried orders out to customer’s cars and trucks. I loved the work and the people.

  It was a male-dominated business at the time. My uncle’s father worked in the business, and my uncle’s father-in-law, my grandfather, was the bookkeeper. He checked in the drivers and kept a record of the accounts receivables.

  The other men who worked there were survivors of the Great Depression, and many had served in World War II. They understood the value of a job and steady income. Each morning they arrived and immediately started to work—no talk about last night’s sports events or some crazy party they attended. They were simple men with a quiet dignity. They taught me the basic work ethics I have used throughout my career. Every one of them I remember with great fondness.

  As with many characters in my novels, I have used the names of relatives, either first or last names, and sometimes both. I have used the names of high school classmates, like Brad Guilliams and Renee Stockli, and I thank them. I have also borrowed names of my fellow employees at American Standard Brands, an excellent company. I have used their names with great respect.

  This book features the name of the last survivor of my old original friends at the Home Candy Company, John R. Laird. He was a sales representative and later a tavern owner. He is one of the best friends I have ever had. My wife and I always visit with him at his home in Coshocton, Ohio, on every trip back to our birthplace.

  Thank you, John, for a lifetime of wonderful memories and funny stories.

  Chapter 1

  Washington, DC

  Tuesday, November 24, 2015

  7:45 a.m.

  President Harold Miller was relaxing in his private office in the White House residence. The surface of the desk was invisible under the normal complement of six to eight daily newspapers from major metropolitan cities across the country that he scanned each morning. The two papers whose front page he paid the closest attention to were the Washington Post and New York Times. Both papers used large font for the headlines on the front page.

  The Post proclaimed, White House Corporate Tax Bill Heads to Senate.

  The New York Times referred to the same subject, Senate Talks Taxes After Thanksgiving Recess.

  The sixty-five-year old president leaned back in the comfortable executive swivel chair until the chair’s mechanism reached its stop. He was holding the Times newspaper in his right hand and ran the fingers of his left hand through his thick salt-and-pepper hair. His hair was grayer now than three years before when he took office, no doubt a side effect from the responsibilities of being president of the United States.

  It was a slower than normal day in Washington. The Thanksgiving holiday approached. Congress was in recess until December 1. The White House barber was due shortly for his weekly trim. Afterward Miller would head down to the basement gym for his daily workout, knowing it was important to maintain a healthy, trim figure for the American voters.

  He continued to scan through the top story in the papers. As a native New Yorker, Harold favored the Times. The Post editorials tended to favor his rivals, but he could not ignore the paper. Its large readership carefully read the stories and followed the columnists.

  If there was one topic in politics that would provoke a response in almost every American citizen, it was taxes. Increased or lowered taxes, deferred or deducted taxes, someone always felt on the short end of the stick. Taxes could make the gentlest person offer a cuss word or two.

  Two months ago, the US Senate had confirmed Miller’s nomination for the new chief justice of the Supreme Court. Any president would be happy when their nominee was sitting on the high c
ourt. Their legacy, shaped by the court’s decisions, would be a subject for historians for many years, long after the office holder left the White House. Every court historian will review the decisions and ask if a different Supreme Court justice might have made a difference.

  Miller should be riding high now that his successful nominee replaced the longest-ever sitting chief justice, Arnold Allen Lansdale. However, his first nominee, guilty of having used his position on the Federal Court of Appeals for personal gain, had marred the nomination process. The judge’s inside information on court decisions had allowed his wife to make millions of dollars to fund her failing business.

  To make the situation even worse, it was the Democratic senator for South Carolina, Randy Fisher, who discovered the backroom activities of Judge Wade Titus Walker. Even after the president’s handpicked team had conducted their own investigation into Walker, the senator and his staff had discovered the Walkers’ secrets. Walker and his wife were now starting their prison sentences, which included two counts of murder for Jennifer Walker.

  To some degree, that disaster had dampened the president’s victory, which was to be the springboard for his upcoming reelection campaign, starting very soon. Now he needed something else to drive his approval rating higher and bring the voters back to the Republican side of the ledger.

  Before the confirmation process for his Supreme Court nominee, Miller had taken a long weekend at Camp David to plan for the upcoming election and ponder his next step. What could he do to attract the moderate conservative Republicans and moderate Democrats? He needed to move the voter’s perception of his presidency more toward the middle. He had no hope of earning the very left liberal Democratic voters. His fight against the new Path to Citizenship bill, passed by Congress over his objections just before the mid-term elections, would put those voters behind his rival.

  Miller threw the newspaper on the desk and laced his fingers together behind his head, remembering the long weekend with his most trusted senior staffers. To say the least, it had strained their relationships, but in the end, they came away with a plan.

  Chapter 2

  Camp David, MD

  Sunday, June 14, 2015

  1:00 p.m.

  The group had been arguing since they arrived on Friday morning. The president had opened the long weekend of meetings with an unusual statement. “I want you to clearly understand this meeting. I know what the polls are saying. If we held the elections today, the Democrats would win the White House. Therefore, we are here to develop a plan to get the American public to take a new look at my presidency. I’m currently considered too far to the right and hard-headed, and we’ve got to develop a plan to move my image slightly to the left to attract a larger portion of the voters.”

  The president paused for several moments to allow his words to sink into the minds of the people at the meeting. “Everything is on the table for discussion and everybody must speak their mind. We must not withhold any idea, no matter how unusual, from consideration. If we are to figure out a way to get my approval rating out of the low forties, we need a plan. I do not want you to be afraid to speak your minds. Any questions before we start?”

  The three team members gathered in the main lodge of the presidential retreat looked at each other as they settled into their chairs or on the sofa. Early Friday morning they had all arrived at the private retreat used by presidents going back to FDR’s time in the White House. The wooded hills were about sixty miles north-northeast of Washington in Catoctin Mountain Park near Thurmont, Maryland. Naval Support Facility Thurmont was the official name of the retreat, technically a military installation. The public knew it simply as Camp David.

  The team was small but trusted. His chief of staff, Warren Fletcher, was both the former Republican governor of Virginia and the chairman of the National Republican Party. The president highly valued his opinion.

  Allison Warden, the White House press secretary, was a slender, attractive woman in her mid-thirties with long red hair. Married and the mother of two boys, she had earned her position as a trusted staff member. Before she went to work for Harold Miller, she had a strong reputation as a crisis manager. Miller considered his presidency to be in a crisis.

  Lewis Drake was Miller’s campaign manager from his first run for the presidency. Together they had unseated a popular Democratic president, assisted by some questionable television ads about former president Blakely’s ability to protect the country against terrorists. Shortly before Election Day in 2012, a nuclear device planted in Columbia, South Carolina, by a still-unknown terrorist had changed the election outcome. The bomb had been discovered in time to prevent a terrible accident affecting the eastern portion of the country, but Drake had immediately ordered a series of television commercials showing the old 1950s nuclear test explosions; onscreen captions asked people if they could sleep at night with Blakely as their president. The ads had worked. Miller erased a 5 percent deficient and won the election. Now Drake was here at Camp David to help plan a framework for a new strategy for the 2016 election.

  The subjects discussed by the group covered the entire political spectrum. Civil liberties, welfare, education, and family values dominated the domestic agenda. Foreign relations, cuts to foreign aid to puppet governments, and aid to foreign militaries drew a lot of conversation.

  Everybody had their pet issues, but nobody seemed to be able to convince the others their idea would work. For his part, the president asked a few questions, but mostly he sat in his overstuffed chair and allowed his advisors to argue among themselves. Usually the two White House insiders tag-teamed against the campaign manager, but he would stubbornly hold his position against their ideas while defending his own.

  After a brief break for lunch, Alison asked if the president would excuse her so she could take a short walk around the cabins and in the woods. President Miller suggested they all might benefit from a walk in the fresh air.

  Alison stood at the lunch table. “Sir, please don’t take this wrong, but I need to walk alone. I think best on my feet, and I want to review an idea that is developing in my mind. I would like about thirty minutes alone, if you don’t object.”

  The president allowed a small smile to break over his face. “Never interfere with a woman on a mission.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “It’s just past one o’clock. Why don’t we all agree to be back here by one forty-five?”

  Alison grabbed her light sweater. It was June, but Camp David was in the mountains and the temperature was a little cooler than she preferred. Leaving the men to organize their walk, she hurried from the room and headed for the outdoors.

  The sun was bright, but the wind still had a chill to it. She was glad for the extra layer. She pulled the sweater around her body and flipped her thick red hair up, free of the clothing, with both hands. She decided to stay to the roads and out of the woods. With all the security provided by the United States Marines deployed for the president’s protection, she would not get lost. She did not want to trip and fall while walking in the wooded area.

  She simply followed the road system, which allowed her to concentrate on her idea, not any specific path within the confines of Camp David. The new idea had developed late last night as she prepared for bed. They needed something that every person would like, democrat or republican, man or woman. They also needed an idea that the president could call his own. Ever since Miller had entered the White House two and a half years ago, he had either been playing catch-up with ongoing issues or responding to the Democrats in Congress. He needed something big to bring the focus of the voters back to him rather than Congress, specifically Senator Tom Evans, who would, in all probability, be his Democratic rival next year.

  Evans had already formed his presidential exploration committee and would no doubt be making his own big announcement very shortly. If Miller was to have a chance to reverse his place in the polls, he needed something before Evans started his campai
gn. They needed to put Tom Evans on the defensive for once until the voters went to the polls next year.

  Alison walked, ignoring the beautiful surroundings. Sometimes she walked with her arms folded across her chest. When she worked the idea within her mind or envisioned making her presentation to the president and the other members of the group, her arms would swing beside her. She knew her habit of wildly swinging her arms as she talked sometimes distracted her listeners. During White House Press Room briefings, she always maintained her position at the podium and kept her hands locked on the wooden platform. As a self-taught remedy, it worked well. Only when she pointed to reporters to authorize them to ask a question would she allow her right hand to leave its fixed position.

  Finally, the idea was there, nearly fully developed. She glanced at her wristwatch and saw the time was almost two. She had not realized that she had been walking so long. Alison looked around to determine her location. This was her first time at Camp David, and she did not recognize the landscape. She was on a narrow paved road within the thick pine forest. From her location, she could see none of the buildings or familiar landmarks.

  Unlike some people, who seemed to have a built-in GPS system, Allison could not determine which way to go. She had decided to reverse her path back the way she had come but was concerned with how long it would take to return for her meeting with the others. She had just started to walk in the opposite direction when a golf cart came over the rise; two marines were riding in the front. They pulled up beside her. The marine riding as a passenger spoke first.

  “Hello, Mrs. Warren. We thought you might need a lift back to the main cabin.”

  Alison’s mind flooded with relief. “Yes, I certainly need a lift. I’m just glad you happen to come along. I was walking and not paying any attention to my location or the path I took to get here. Can you get me back to the president’s lodge? I’m already late for the next session of the meeting.”