He knew that whatever he did had to be done quickly. Now.

“I need someone to read a spot,” he said. “Call Sammy or Rick. We need to be recording the voice track in thirty minutes. Then call Vintage Video. Tell them to clear out a room. I want to be editing in an hour.”

“You want messengers?” she asked, writing everything down.

He nodded, turning back to Lou Kay’s spot frozen on the monitor and pointing the disclaimer out to his interns. “I want you guys to call the TV stations. Tell them that Lou Kay’s disclaimer violates the election code. It’s too small. Tell them if they air it again, they’ll be fined. And try to act like you know what you’re talking about.”

Harry leaned toward the monitor, adjusting his glasses. “It looks okay to me.”

“It is okay,” Linda said. “But they’ll have to pull the spot to check. It won’t be running.”

Harry laughed as it sank in. Vintage Frank Miles.

It was a trick used to buy time. Frank knew that the television stations would have to pull Lou Kay’s spot against Mel Merdock out of the rotation in order to electronically measure the size of the disclaimer. The size of the disclaimer, PAID FOR BY FRIENDS OF LOU KAY FOR THE U.S. SENATE, measured in scan lines, had always been a sensitive issue because consultants like Frank had always tried to hide it, bury it, particularly when on the attack. Depending on how busy the TV stations were, how much time it took, it was possible that Frank could respond with a new commercial before Lou Kay’s ad did any damage at all.

“What about script approval?” Tracy asked, smiling.

“Forget it,” Frank said as he bolted out the door. “I’m gonna kill these guys.”


 

 

 

 

Chapter 3

 

 

Frank cut through the war room into his office. Beneath neatly framed prints of Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Jack Kennedy, and LBJ, he sat at his desk, grabbed his keyboard and got started. This was what he liked most about his job, the thing that kept him alive. Striking back. Going for the takedown with his back against the wall.

“The guy is a lie, Frank.”

He looked up, not realizing that Woody had followed him into the room.

“It’s a lie,” Frank repeated excitedly. “I like that.” He turned to the monitor, repeating the words as he typed them. “It’s a lie.”

Frank’s corner office was larger than the rest. An antique table made of solid cherry and four matching chairs stood to the right of the glass door with bookcases running the entire length of the room. His desk stood in the corner so that he could look through the plate glass walls into the war room and still have a view of the Capitol outside his window. Off to the side, a couch long and deep enough to sleep on sat before a coffee table and two overstuffed reading chairs.

Tracy stuck her head in the door.