Carter's Fortress - 23. Chapter 23

He had a week, the all-important final week till the polls opened to decide his fate. Will scrubbed his tired eyes behind his glasses as he tried to focus on the poll figures Alicia had left him on his desk. It was crawling past the reasonable hour for going to sleep and approaching very late.

Most of the volunteers had gone home for the night leaving the constituency office quiet and nearly deserted. There was only Brody, sitting over at his desk tapping a pencil, feet up on his desk, talking on his cell phone.

Will smiled; over the past few weeks the campaign had gone from strength to strength. He was in the lead and maintaining it. The fact that he was a gay man bold enough to run for office spoke to the gay community, the fact that he was young galvanized the younger voters behind him, the fact that he was a first generation immigrant helped him with the ethnic voters, the fact that he seemed to genuinely care about the issues didn't hurt his numbers at all. He'd been selected for the riding because he could win it, and Will, for the first time was beginning to realize it for himself.

He got up and tiredly walked into the outer office looking over at his friend. "Ready to call it a night?" he asked, as he located his heavy great coat and scarf. It was December now, and snow covered everything outside. Canadian winters were notoriously cold, and Will still couldn't get used to them. He only imagined how bad it was up in Iqaluit.

Brody closed his phone and got up himself, his sharp lined pinstripe suit looking completely unwrinkled despite the fact he had worked in it all day. But that was typical of Brody, the man looked sharp no matter what he did. He tightened the power tie and smiled over at Will.

"I'm off like a prom dress," he said with a smile as he headed for the door.

Will chuckled as he did up his coat, but didn't get a step before the phone rang.

He frowned, it was nearly one in the morning, the phones didn't just ring unless it was important. Brody realizing the same thing hung back in the doorway.

"Hello?" Will said as he picked up the receiver.

"Mister Carter," the clipped voice said into the receiver, "I think that we should meet."

Will frowned. "I'm sorry, who is this?" he asked, frowning across at Brody.

"Your fax machine," the voice said firmly and clicked off the line.

Will turned as the audible trill of the device receiving a fax began to warble. He walked across as the fax machine spat out its copy. He lifted the picture he immediately recognized as Marc standing outside the house in Ottawa. Will glanced at it, puzzled.

"What the hell?" he asked aloud as Brody joined him.

"That's Marc," Brody said taking the fax as Will walked to a phone to check in with his boyfriend.

Marc sounded sleepy when he answered the phone, much to Will's relief and Will glanced at Brody again who was drawing a second sheet from the fax machine which he stared at and held up for Will to read.

"Exhibition site, I'm waiting," Will read as he covered the mouthpiece. He looked at Brody, "What's this about?"

Brody shrugged. "Only one way to find out," he said, examining the photo. "This was taken before you decided to run for office," he observed, tapping the photo. "See the pumpkin lantern on the neighbour's steps?"

Will lifted the phone back to his ear, "Uhh Marc, I'll call you back." He hung up, taking the picture again and staring at it closely, "Is this a threat? A joke?"

Brody chewed on it a moment, "Come on, we're going."

Will blew out a sigh and dug his hands into his pockets. "Ok," he murmured, not liking the feeling of the situation in the slightest.

* * *

Brody's car pulled for a stop in the parking lot of the construction site. It was the one place that had been finished first, contrary to Robert Avery's instructions. And that annoyed Will--all that work and people had changed it to suit their own purposes.

Brody was staring hard-eyed about him as he stepped out of the car into the well-lit concrete parking lot. He walked around to the trunk of the car and popped it open, drawing out a heavy-looking tire iron that he kept in his hands. Will glanced back at his friend as he stepped out of the car, shivering in the cold as he flipped the collar of his coat up.

The door at the far end of the garage level opened up and a single man emerged; he was well-dressed, an expensive cashmere coat on that swept his legs as he walked. The very air of him was arrogant and determined, and Will took a deep breath. He'd been dealing with men like this his entire life. Gravano was just another man who hid behind a puffed-up self-image.

"I'm glad you came," Gravano said with a smile.

"I don't like threats," Will replied. "Especially when they involve someone I care about." He squared his shoulders and faced the slimy industrialist, "What do you want?"

Gravano smiled as he cocked his head to the side, "Who was threatening? I simply sent you a picture, you choosing to interpret it as a threat--that wasn't my fault."

Will stared at the man icily, "Get to the point."

Gravano smirked, "Naturally; you always struck me as a brutally direct man. All right." He reached into his coat and tossed an envelope onto the floor of the garage at Will's feet, "It seems you got a little... compromised, Mister Carter."

Will bent down and picked up the envelope, opening it and pulling out the photos of him kissing Andrew outside the log cabin. He arched an eyebrow and looked over at Gravano, "You expect to blackmail me with these?" It was almost laughable. The attempt was feeble, uncreative--so unlike a man of Gravano's reputation.

"Subtleties, Mister Carter, something Avery should have taught you. I can see now I am going to have to connect the dots for you." Gravano was enjoying his moment;"It took me awhile to find out what this 'evidence' of yours was, or more aptly the source of it. And then I remembered the answer had been in front of me the entire time. Mister Andrew Highmore."

Will glanced in confusion at Brody and then back at Gravano, "I'm sorry, what?"

"Don't play stupid, Mister Carter, you know full well Mister Highmore's firm represents my company. More specifically, Mister Highmore is my barrister." Gravano looked smug, "The pictures prove the two of you are... connected. So let me make my position clear for you: if you go public with your 'evidence' I will go public with those pictures and claim Andrew Highmore broke client-attorney privilege, his career will be over and your 'evidence' will be dismissed from any court in the country."

Will blinked slowly, Andrew was Gravano's lawyer? But Andrew hadn't mentioned it at all... he stared at the photos and then up at Gravano and smiled, "Boy did you get the wrong end of the stick." He shook his head gesturing to Brody, "I think we're about done here."

Gravano frowned, that wasn't the reaction he had been expecting. "Carter!" he snapped, "I mean it, if you go public so do I!"

It wasn't till they were driving that Brody looked at him, "I think you'd better fill me in."

Will shrugged, and explained about the woman, the envelope and Thorpe. Brody sat quietly for a moment digesting it all carefully before he spoke, "Even if he doesn't have the right facts, he can still prove the connection you have to Andrew." Brody shrugged, "And since you can't prove where the evidence you had really came from... if he does go public he can still have your evidence dismissed and Andrew disbarred. It would be the end of Andrew's career... and that's not even touching on what that photo will do to you and Marc when he sees it."

"So what you're saying is... we're shit out of luck?" Will said, glancing down at the photo, a moment of insanity that had come back to haunt him. It wasn't enough to damage him politically; there was no time stamp on the pictures, they could have been taken at any time, and Will and Andrew's relationship had been anything but private when they had dated. But the fact of Andrew's career, not to mention Marc's happiness, were hanging in the balance. He was faced with a choice: hurt the two people that were closest to him to do the right thing, or just walk away.

"Fuck!" he swore, letting his head sink back against the seat, "of all the... damn."

"You want my advice, bud?" Brody said as he drew the car for a stop outside of the town house. "You need to talk to that boy of yours, explain what's happening, and then you need to get on the phone to Andrew. He has a right to know as well."

Will nodded, "Thanks."

Brody shrugged, "It's what friends do for each other."

Will smiled at him gratefully, "Some friends go above and beyond the call of duty."

"Remember that when you're prime minister," Brody said. "I always wanted to be the head of the Bank of Canada."

The house was quiet when he walked into it; still clutching the photographs he walked up the stairs and into the bedroom he shared with Marc. The young man was sitting up watching TV. He hadn't gone back to sleep after Will had called to check that he was okay. He was sitting up in a pair of sweat pants and a tee-shirt; he looked up at Will and knew something was wrong.

Will looked down at the photos in his hand, and he took a deep breath, "I need to tell you what's going on, and I need you to hear me out before you say anything."

Marc studied his eyes and simply nodded in concern.

"I'm being blackmailed," he said softly, "over the whole Canadian Exhibition Center business. The guy that is embezzling funds is threatening to go public with my history with Andrew."

Marc frowned but kept silent.

Will lifted up the photos and tossed them onto the bed, "I was given evidence that something has been happening to the books at Gravano construction and that a member of parliament is accepting bribes to help him cover it up. He thinks the information was given to me by Andrew because of those."

Marc picked up the photos and his eyes tightened in the way they did whenever he was upset. It was heartbreaking for Will to watch, but he steadied his nerve, he needed Marc to understand.

"Why?" Marc asked, dreading the answer.

"I kissed him... I..." Will sighed. "It was one kiss; I was taken by surprise, I wasn't thinking, there's a hundred reasons for it... but I got one thing from the kiss that I didn't have before. I realized that I was thinking about you."

"I see," Marc said angrily as he folded his arms. "And you weren't thinking about me before the kiss?"

"I didn't say that," Will said, struggling to justify something that couldn't rationally be justified. "I made a huge mistake, but I realized it and I stopped it... and I said no."

"Why didn't you feel you could tell me this?" Marc said sounding hurt. "I knew you still had feelings for Andrew..."

"That's the point," Will said. "I have stronger feelings for you, I didn't want to upset you."

"So I have to find out like this?" Marc said, holding up the photos. "Way to avoid hurting my feelings."

Will sighed, shrugging out of his jacket and crossing to sit down on the far side of the bed, his back to Marc as he rubbed his face, "I fucked up, Marc..."

Marc looked across at him, "And what, you think I've never fucked up? I'm the king of screwing up his life... least... until you showed up and changed things."

Will laid back on the bed staring up at the ceiling, "I'm sorry."

Marc sighed and stuffed the photos back into the envelope and stuck them on the bedside table, laying down next to Will and wrapping an arm around him as he stared down at him. "You've been kinder to me than anyone else; you're generous, considerate and smarter than me... usually..." he glanced at the photos to illustrate his point, "but you forget I've been around the block a few times... If you kissing a guy once and thinking about me when you do it is the worst thing you'll ever do to hurt me... then I'm a very lucky guy..." He shrugged, "Yeah, I'm upset, but I'll get over it 'cause you chose me over him. That has to mean something."

Will smiled, "You're a short goof, it was love at first sight."

"You're a lousy liar," Marc said, resting his head on Will's chest and looking up at his face. "It was love at first sight for me, you took a bit of convincing."

"Convincing...stalking...depends on your perspective," Will said with a smile.

"So totally the wrong thing to say to make me feel better," Marc said, laughing in spite of himself. "I had a reason to be persistent, you're here aren't you?"

"I'm not going anywhere," Will replied, gently running his fingers through Marc's hair and looking at those eyes and losing himself in them awhile.