My deep appreciation to Omegapet-58 for editing and making this a somewhat coherent tale. His questions and suggestions were invaluable in making this story readable.

The gathered reporters knew that they were gathered for the BIG ANNOUNCEMENT. They watched in perplexed confusion as the person that they were gathered to see, drove a tractor while pulling a bush hog mower erratically, rather than in parallel rows like an experienced farmer. They watched for fifteen minutes as he drove up and down the field mowing the overgrown farmland before ending the final leg and driving towards the group of reporters.

After the tractor came to a stop, the driver awkwardly stepped down onto the ground with minimal help from an assistant. The driver’s apparel was a source of additional confusion for the reporters. He was wearing blue denim bib overalls with a red and white checked shirt underneath the overalls. The overalls were obviously new and still bore creases from the packaging. The checkered shirt was starched and looked stiff and uncomfortable. Additionally, he wore a blindingly white felt cowboy hat.

The reporters watched and whispered among themselves as they took photographs and filmed the driver. His work clothes were mismatched with his black Ferragamo loafers. The formal leather shoes drew attention to the driver’s small delicate feet and hands. His small hands had been a source of speculation in the past. Some of his reputed lovers had called him out for having undersized “equipment,” commenting that in his case the correlation between hand (and foot) size and penis size was definitely true.

At a little over six feet and weighing somewhere in the 250-pound range, the driver was not exactly imposing. His dwindling dyed blonde hair nested uncomfortably upon his head, unsure if it wanted to be a pompadour or a comb-over. It was difficult to pinpoint his exact age by appearance, but public records showed he was seventy years old.

As the reporters stopped whispering, the man began to speak.

“Like many of you, I am not happy with the state of our country. I don’t believe that either party cares what’s in the best interest of the working man. I believe that the party that cares the least about the working man is the Democratic party; a party I am ashamed to say I was a member for many years.

“But I believe that today, it’s the Republican party comes closest to understanding the common everyday working man. I think that with my help, the Republican Party can change and be the political party for you, the American worker.

“That is why today I, Albert Sachs, am announcing my candidacy for President of the United States. As a businessman and an outsider, I am uniquely qualified to lead this country forward by looking backward. That is why I am adapting as my political platform, Rescue America’s Values and Economy. RAVE!”

The speaker whipped off his hat and handed it to an assistant who in turn, handed the speaker a green baseball cap with the word RAVE emblazoned in white across the front. The assistant began handing out matching baseball caps as the speaker continued. The reporters looked at the hats and each other in confusion. Did he expect them to wear the caps? Obviously so, as the reporters from Fox were gleefully wearing the caps they had been given. The other reporters looked at them with disdain.

“As I begin my campaign, I have stopped filming my television show. As each of you know, my series, ‘The C-Level’ is one of the most successful television series to ever be broadcast on television. This should let the American people know just how important this is to me. I am leaving the most successful, highest rated, most profitable show in history in order to lead this country as we take it back from the far left.”

He paused for effect and then said, “I am Albert Sachs and I want your vote.”

With that, Sachs turned and walked to a waiting black SUV followed by his assistant. As it left, it was followed by two other black SUVs and the gathered reporters were left to ponder what it all meant, what it portended for the upcoming election, and how to report it.

In the days that followed the announcement, hundreds of articles were written about the announcement and about Sachs’ motivations for running for the presidency. Sachs was notoriously thin-skinned and greeted each article that did not fawn over him with vitriol and scathing comments on social media.

When one report was published that theorized that the entire campaign was a ploy by Sachs to re-negotiate his contract with the network, he got into an online war with the reporter. The reporter noted that pop singer Ami Bertolli had recently become the highest-paid person on the network for joining the cast of a singing competition program. Sachs vehemently denied this. He argued that he was worth billions (!), so why should he be concerned about a couple of million dollars?

Another article described Sachs as the host of a TV game show in which he was famous for his acting role as a “successful billionaire hotel owner.” Sachs threatened to sue the reporter and magazine if the article was not withdrawn. After the publisher’s public statement, “Bring it on, fat boy” was released, Sachs dropped the matter.

Other articles were even less flattering. They detailed how his grandfather, Fritz Sachs, immigrated from Germany and owned a hotel in the Yukon during the 1896 Klondike gold rush. Sachs had acquired the hotel under suspicious circumstances. He had arrived one day with a bill of sale signed by the previous owner, Larsen, who was never seen again. Sachs’s story was that Larsen wanted to return to his hometown in Virginia. The claim smelled fishy to acquaintances who knew Larsen had been reared in Indiana, but there was no proof of any wrongdoing and the matter was not pursued.

Shortly after acquiring the hotel, Sachs turned it into a brothel. Through fear, intimidation, and a willingness to beat his whores into submission, Sachs thrived as a pimp and hotelier. After three years in the Yukon, Sachs sold his brothel and moved to New York City where he purchased a hotel across from Central Park.

This was the beginning of the Sachs Luxury Hotel Company. Over the next few years,
Fritz purchased several more hotels around the New York area. After a return visit to Germany, Fritz returned with a heavily pregnant bride. They named the child Fritz, Jr. By the time Fritz Sr. had turned over the company to his son Fritz Jr., the company owned eight hotels in major US cities. By the early ‘80s, the Sachs Luxury Hotel Corporation (as it was now known) numbered thirty-five hotels and one casino on the New Jersey Boardwalk.

When Albert Sr. turned over operations to Albert Jr. in 1982, the board had some concerns about Junior’s ability to manage the hotel chain. The board’s chief concern was Albert’s temperament. Volatile and thin-skinned, Albert was quick to take offense and lash out at those who offended him. Hotel guests frequently had meals or stays comped to them due to Albert’s emotional outbursts in hotel lobbies and restaurants.

One board member had even asked if Junior had some sort of learning disability. “I think that boy’s semi-retarded,” the board member had asked. The other board members remained silent, but privately many of them had wondered the same thing.

But Albert did have a knack for self-promotion. As Albert’s fame grew in the 1980s, so grew the hotel chain. When Albert married a Polish figure skater, the board saw a new Albert emerge. One that was more thoughtful and not as quick to take every perceived slight as a personal attack. They saw the influence that Albert’s wife, Bette, had on him, and they were happy. As children entered the picture, Albert seemed to mature.

Those who knew that Albert was a serial cheater turned a blind eye to his philandering. When F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me,” he very well could have been writing about Albert. Albert played life by Albert’s rules and if you didn’t like the game, well too bad. Bette understood the game better than most and let Albert have his little dalliances with porn stars and strippers and wannabe actresses and models. He paid for their abortions and kept his sordid secret life quiet. Bette was okay with the status quo.

Until Albert met Willow Woods. Willow was a tall blonde out of Florida who seemed to strike something in Albert’s heart. Willow had done some modeling and had been seen on the arm of a few rock stars, but it was Albert’s full-court very public wooing of Willow that caused Bette to seek advice from a divorce attorney.

Albert and Bette were married before pre-nuptial contracts became ubiquitous among the rich. The divorce would cost Albert tens of millions of dollars; a fact that Bette did not hesitate to pass on to Albert. But the heart wants what the heart wants, especially if that heart was just advised that the other heart was three months pregnant. So, the divorce between Albert and Bette proceeded. The day that the divorce was finalized, Willow Woods became Willow Sachs.

For a while.

Willow was not at all interested in exploring Albert’s kinks with him. He had once attempted to urinate on her while she luxuriated in her large garden tub. Willow reacted by screaming obscenities at Albert and throwing bottles of shampoo and conditioner at him as he made a hasty retreat from their bathroom. Willow also ordered Albert to a guest room while she re-evaluated her life decisions.

If Willow thought that Albert would change his ways for her and their daughter, she was deluding herself. The ink on the marriage license was not yet dry before Albert was balls-deep into porn star Tiffany Wilder. In her films, Tiffany had not been averse to participating in extreme sexual acts. Anal? Pfft. Boring. Choking and slapping? Yes, please. Water sports and golden showers? Open wide ... So Albert developed some kinks.

One well-known peculiarity about the Sachs Luxury Hotel Corporation was its attitude towards sex workers. If an escort presented herself in a certain manner and fit in with the hotel’s clientele, management turned a blind eye to their activities. Many models and actresses had been able to supplement their income by meeting wealthy men in the lounge of a Sachs Hotel. Along with models and actresses, Olympic athletes, doctors, and lawyers picked up extra cash by working as part-time escorts. Sachs Hotels were safe spaces for them.

Albert often used the escorts frequenting his hotel’s lounge. Money was never mentioned (and if it was, the girl was “encouraged” to find a different hotel) in their liaisons with Albert and he would on occasion find one that allowed him to indulge his kinks.

Which made him falling in love with a Latvian sometimes model named Laima Klavins so unusual. Unquestionably beautiful; Laima had a hardness around the eyes that let you know that she had seen things in life. That hardness was not always present, but she occasionally wore it like armor when dealing with the men she encountered while picking up a little extra cash. “Dating for dollars” as she called it. Laima had modeled for what the British called “Lad Mags” as well as lingerie catalogs. She had demonstrated a willingness to pose for shots that other models balked at. Not quite obscene, but neither would anyone call the poses modest. She had no hesitation about pushing her own limits and if the clients were willing to pay ... Laima was willing to go there.

The first night she spent with Albert started off in an ordinary fashion. A blow job followed by a rim job? Ho-hum. Just another Tuesday night for Laima. But in between bouts, Albert asked her a question, the answer to which got her an engagement ring.

“Can I piss in your mouth?”

And Laima’s reply in heavily accented English, “It cost you extra thousand,” sealed the deal for Albert. Sure, sex was fun, but sex was also boring. But degrading someone by pissing on their face? That was the turn-on to end all turn-ons for Albert. Albert and Laima were married as soon as his divorce from Willow was finalized.

And life moved on for Albert Sachs. The New Jersey hotel and casino failed but so what? It was fucking Jersey, and besides it was owned by a different company than the rest of his hotels. File bankruptcy and fuck the creditors. So, what if most of them were small businesses that were themselves driven into bankruptcy by Albert? If you can’t run with the big dogs, then stay under the porch, right?

And then TV came calling. The C-Level was a reality show in which contestants competed via weekly challenges for roles as the COO, CFO, and CIO of a fake company set up for the season by the producers. Albert was the CEO and the contestants were pitted against each other in dog-eat-dog challenges that would see them temporarily take on the various C-Level roles within the fake company. It was vicious and it was brutal. The competitors lied, cheated, and stole to advance their position. Business leaders across the country looked on in horror and were appalled by how corporations and business executives were portrayed.

It was a ratings juggernaut.

Albert would have gladly continued to appear on his TV show. The hotel business was not doing that well. Albert had licensed the Sachs’ name and so he had only a small share of the profit for many of the hotels that bore his name. He needed the income from the C-Level show to maintain his lifestyle.

So, when Ami Bertolli was offered a salary that dwarfed his to be a judge on the latest season of the talent show “Sing Your Ass Off,” Albert was enraged. The network refused to negotiate with him, pointing out that he had signed an ironclad contract and he better get used to it.

Albert’s attorneys verified that the network’s attorneys were correct. The contact was iron-clad and could only be broken if Albert was called up for military service, something that due to his age and the fact that the US was not at war with anyone, was unlikely to happen. Albert listened to them and then asked the question that was destined to alter history.

“This military service ... does that include being the Commander-in-Chief?”

In the days that followed Albert’s announcement, he was widely mocked in the press by both conservative and liberal media. The incongruity of Albert wearing overalls and Ferragamo loafers was ridiculed. Photos showing the smallness of his feet juxtaposed with his small hands were displayed across all forms of social media. The rumors about the size of his “package” (or lack thereof) were dredged up and laughed at on late-night talk shows.

Albert’s campaign was in danger of falling apart before it had even begun.

Albert fired his publicist and hired a headhunter to find him the best flack in the business.

Kelly Claire Carnahan was a PR wet dream. Mid-forties, light brown hair, gorgeous classic features, and a killer body with a bubble butt that she spent hours in the gym to maintain. KC, as she was known to everyone, was a marketing professor at Central Texas State University. She also had a NikNak channel that received hundreds of thousands of views of her videos in which she dissected how celebrities and their PR flacks were screwing up.

An A-list rapper beats up his baby mama and then issues a public apology to his fans? KC was on it, releasing a video the next day excoriating the rapper for his missteps in making the video. Her NikNak channel was now widely followed and when celebrities got in trouble or screwed the pooch in the very public ways in which they do, KC was their first call to unfuck whatever canine found themselves on the end of a celebrity’s dick.

But KC seldom took these jobs. It usually took more than saving some dumbass that got caught banging his or her underage neighbor or talk show host jerking off outside a playground.

But when the campaign headquarters reached out to her, KC found that she was intrigued. When she was told how much Sachs was willing to pay her for her services, she used the quote from Django Unchained, “Gentlemen, you had my curiosity, but now you have my attention.”

This wasn’t watching a Jonas Brother spin out of control as his divorcing wife kicked his ass in the court of public opinion.

This was the big time.

This was the SHOW.

KC’s husband, Cameron Carnahan was not in favor of his wife joining Albert Sachs’ campaign.

“This guy is a major creep. I don’t keep up with celebrity BS at all and even I know the reputation he has. Besides, you don’t go along with half the crap he’s advocating.”

“He’s pro-life. The Catholic in me likes that,” KC said.

“I’m a lapsed Catholic. I get it. But I also know that your feelings about that issue change almost daily.”

“I know,” KC sighed. “I did check with the producers of his TV show and the network VP that greenlit the show. They did a thorough background check on him. There was plenty of smoke, but no actual fire.”

“If you get this guy elected, can you live with that?” Cam asked.

“That’s the question, isn’t it? If I can’t get him elected, no one can. And if I do get him elected, will I be putting a monster in the white house?”

Against her husband’s better judgment (and to an extent her own) KC agreed to join the Sachs’ presidential campaign.

It did not take long for KC to make her mark on the campaign. When she joined, they were still reeling from the reaction and ridicule of his announcement. The attention paid to his loafers and (more pointedly) the size of his feet was particularly frustrating.

“What’s your plan to fix this?” Sachs had asked during his first meeting with KC.

“I’m going to retcon the hell out of it,” she said.

“What does retcon mean?” asked Jerry Kowalski. Kowalski was Sachs’s campaign manager and hatchet man. He had been with Sachs for years, cleaning up messes for the boss sometimes meant going beyond just paying for abortions and making hookers leave the boss alone. He had been with the boss standing next to the tractor when he made the announcement. It was a personal failure, he felt, that he didn’t catch the need for work boots for the boss to wear instead of his fucking Ferragamos.

Because they actually did make the boss’s feet look tiny when wearing the overalls.

“Retroactive continuity. It’s rewriting future events to reshape past events.” Seeing the confused look on Sachs and Kowalski’s faces, she chose an example they could relate to.

“Do you remember the TV show Happy Days?” Sachs and Kowalski nodded their heads.

“Do you remember the older brother, Chuck?” Sacks and Kowalski looked at each other. They had no idea what KC was talking about.

“In the first episode, we’re introduced to the oldest brother Chuck Cunningham who’s in college. Chuck goes out to play basketball after lunch and is never seen or mentioned again. He’s completely written out of the series and nobody noticed or cared. We’re going to Chuck Cunningham the hell out of your speech.

“You’re going to stop with the BS common man nonsense. You’re a billionaire! You’re going to act like a billionaire and the voters are going to eat it up with a spoon.”

And they did.

KC’s first act was to relaunch his campaign using TV reporters instead of the mostly print reporters who had been there for his first announcement. This time, he wore a $5,000 Tom Ford suit paired with his Ferragamo loafers, instead of the ridiculous overalls he had worn on Announcement 1.0. He had tried over-sized shoes with inserts and it was like walking in clown shoes. Sachs had immediately fallen on his face while walking across the room. So bigger shoes were ruled out.

She also was not sure what to do about his undersized hands. She had looked at hundreds of photographs of previous presidents. Nixon? Big hands. LBJ? Huge hands. Even Bush 41 had big hands. Clinton’s hands weren’t huge, but Jesus Christ on a pogo stick... 13D shoe size! That was even bigger than Obama’s size 12. Sachs’ size 8 was barely bigger than Rutherford B. Hayes’ size 7! Christ, Nancy Pelosi’s size 10 meant she was swinging more than Sachs.

So, Sachs’ small feet and small hands were a huge (KC snickered) issue because ... well, everyone knew why.

As it turned out, they didn’t have to do anything about Sachs’ little feet or little hands. Because a big wallet compensated for a lot of things, as older men with younger hotter, wives had known for years. Every time Sachs’ little hands and little feet were brought up, the conversation was turned towards a discussion about his oversized net worth.

“Are you going to tap that ass?” Sachs asked Jerry Kowalski.

Kowalski looked in the direction in which his boss was looking.

KC.

“I’ve been trying. I’ve worked every angle I could on the bitch. Nothing. She looks at me like I farted in church. Cunt.”

Sachs chuckled. “You want me to show you how it’s done? Maybe you can learn from the master. She’s a little older than what I usually go for, but there’s something about her...”

“I hear you. I want to take her into my office, break her down like a shotgun, and piledrive her until she forgets her own name.”

“I want to piss in her mouth and watch her swallow,” Sachs said.

Kowalski grimaced at that. He and the boss shared a lot of the same sexual peccadilloes, but water sports and golden showers were not one of them.

“Tell you what,” Sachs said, “Let’s make a bet on who nails her first.”

“You mean like with Breezy?” Albert and Jerry had made a bet with each other as to which of the two would have sex with porn star Breezy Davis first. Albert had won and gotten into her pants first. Jerry suspected that it took a combination of roofies and molly to win the bet, but Albert was the boss, so what are you going to do? Jerry paid Albert his thousand dollars and the way Albert gloated and carried on; you would have thought that he had won a hundred million on lotto instead of a grand by banging a chick that was one daddy issue away from being a streetwalker. Ungracious fucker.

“Let’s go two thousand for KC. I don’t think blow’s going to her rev up like it did Breezy so getting her to rail a few lines isn’t going to work. We’re going to have to work the bitch.”

“We’ve done it before, boss. Maybe Eiffel Tower her ass...”

Presidential Suite
Sachs Hotel Central Park
New York City, NY

The key members of Albert Sachs’ campaign committee were gathered around the twelve-person dining table in the ornate hotel suite. Heavy on gold plating and baroque styling, the room would not have been out of place in an 18^th-century French palace. While most people would have considered the ornate furnishings tacky and gaudy, Sachs considered them to be the epitome of culture and refinement. As KC Carnahan looked around the table, she wondered (not for the first time) what had possessed her to take on this job.

Jerry Kowalski, Sachs’ campaign manager, was a creep of the first order. Every time that he glanced her way, she felt she needed a shower. Good looks but totally lacking in character; she knew that he had married the widow of a Navy Seal who had been killed in Afghanistan and that they had four children together. She also knew that he seldom saw either his wife or his kids and that he had been rumored to have had many affairs. It was rumored that his current affair partner was the married governor of a Great Plains state whose husband had moved out of the governor’s mansion because of the affair.

Sachs’ driver and general factotum, Willie Malva was also seated at the table for some unknown reason. KC could not figure out the relationship between Sachs and his driver. Willie seemed to be totally devoted to Sachs but Sachs treated Willie with indifference bordering on disdain. Willie had been vetted by the FB I and was present in many high-level meetings.

Retired Lieutenant General Jonathan Bryant was Sachs’ national security advisor. Bryant’s entire military career was a perfect example of someone always being in the right place at the right time. A mediocre commander who knew how to play the political game, Bryant was seen as a bit of a weasel by other flag officers.

Senator Jack Mathers from Alabama was acting as Sachs’ foreign policy advisor. Mathers had jumped on the Sachs bandwagon in the early days of the campaign and had been a vocal supporter of Sachs from day one. His simplistic foreign policy platform could be summed up as “America in front, everyone else can kiss our ass.”

‘And then there’s me,’ KC thought somewhat sardonically. The more time she spent with the Sachs campaign, the more progressive her own political feelings became. Ironically, Sachs had been embraced by not just the political right, but by the religious right as well. “We’re not voting for him for Sunday school teacher,” pastors frequently shouted from their pulpits while trying to justify their backing of Sachs’ candidacy.

He claimed to be pro-life and that was good enough for them. Being a good Catholic, KC was also pro-life. But, since joining the Sachs’ campaign, she had heard persistent rumors that his personal doctor was also an accomplished abortionist.

KC knew that her days of working on Sachs’ presidential campaign were numbered. The more that she was around him and his staff, the dirtier she felt. From being required to wear a stupid green RAVE hat to issuing press releases denying allegations of sexual impropriety, her days had become one long fire drill. She missed her husband and she was about done.

“That brings us to the topic of our friends in Russia,” General Bryant said. “KC, you’ll need to leave the room for this part.”

“Why can’t she stay,” Sachs whined. He liked being surrounded by his loyal staff. Even if that loyalty was bought and paid for.

“She has been cleared for Confidential files, but what we are about to discuss is classified Top Secret. Until she is fully vetted, she cannot be here for these discussions.”

Truthfully, KC didn’t mind, although she did find irony in the fact that Willie, the guy who picked up Sachs’ laundry was authorized to sit in on these meetings but she was not. She glanced at her watch. Her husband should be in his office at this time of day so she would place a quick call to Texas.

“What’s the hold up on her security clearance?” Sachs asked his security advisor after KC had exited the suite.

“It’s her husband. We’re having a hard time with his background check. There’s really very little known about him before he immigrated to the US,” Bryant said.

“When was that?”

“1981,” Bryant replied.

“What!” Sachs exploded in anger. “What was he ... like thirteen? You’re holding up her Top-Secret clearance because you can’t background him to when he was a fucking kid? Un-fucking-believable. Get with the FBI. Get with Treasury. Get with whoever the fuck you have to get with, but I her expect to have her top-secret clearance by the end of the week!”

Office of Sir Keith McCall,
Director General, MI5
Thames House, London

The American entered the DG’s office escorted by Lois, the DG’s longtime secretary who introduced him as FBI Special Agent Robert Riley. Riley was ushered to the one empty chair in front of the DG’s desk; the other chair being occupied by an older man in a sharply tailored, Saville-row suit. The DG sat at his desk. Sir Keith was young for his position, being the first person to hold the position of Director General who was not of age during “the Troubles.”

“Thank you for taking the time to see me, Sir Keith. I am surprised that a simple request for background information was brought to your attention and requires DG intervention.”

The DG sipped his tea and studied Agent Punic. Younger than the DG by a dozen or so years, he had the looks and manner of an up-and-comer. This was not the second string sent to trudge through files.

“This is a matter of some delicacy and it predates the beginning of my time with either SIS or MI5.”

The director nodded his head in the direction of the occupant of the other chair. “This is James Mahoney. Mr. Mahoney was with MI5 during the seventies and is much more aware of activities in Northern Ireland during that time than I am. I have cleared him to answer all your questions.”

The American nodded. This obviously ran much deeper than anyone in the Secret Service or the FBI knew. He could not imagine what the Irish Troubles in the 1970s had to do with Cameron Carnahan. Carnahan was born in 1969 which would have made him ten years old when the 70s came to an end.

“So, Cameron Carnahan ... What can you tell me about him?”

“What do you know about him so far?” Mahoney asked.

“We know his parents were killed in the mid-70s and he lived a few years with his maternal uncle, Gary O’Neil. At the time, O’Neil was one of the leaders of Sinn Fein and went on to be elected to Parliament. After living with his uncle for a few years, he was shipped off to the United States to live with his maternal uncle in Austin, Texas. His uncle and his wife adopted Cam and he attended high school in Austin where he competed in long-distance running on the track team. He finished second in the state finals in his division. He then went to the University of Texas on a track scholarship. He majored in literary studies while also being in Army ROTC.