Free Fall by Kyle Mills Read Free Book Online Page A

manufacturing plant in Maine. Over the following two decades, Hallorin had clawed his way to the top of the industrial heap with an aggressive program of embracing and often creating new technology in the field.
    Hallorin had explained his transition from manufacturing to politics as a need to give back to the country that had given so much to him.
    He'd won one of Maine's Senate seats in his first go-round, promising to bring the efficiency and can-do attitude of American business to the government, and begun a policy of outspoken criticism of the political elite.
    The media had always given him a little more than his due time-wise, but it had been mostly for his entertainment value on slow news days. It was usually Hallorin decrying the moral bankruptcy of the country's leaders Hallorin predicting doom for the then booming economy, Hallorin proposing a long-term plan that included a substantial amount of shortterm pain for an electorate with a low threshold for such things.
    Like most of America, Beamon had given Senator David Hallorin a hard second look when Asia's economy had stumbled, recovered slightly, and then crashed violently almost exactly as he had predicted. When the rest of the world's economies followed Asia into the toilet and the former Soviet Union had briefly turned dangerously nationalistic, Americans had begun to ask why Hallorin had been the only person watching the store over the last decade. This change in attitude had not been lost on the astute senator, and six months ago, he had announced his bid for the presidency.
    It had been an unorthodox campaign from the start, beginning with introductory television spots that spun the yarn of Hallorin's rise in the world of manufacturing and entry into politics.
    His opponents had seen blood in those early spots, laughing behind closed doors at their colleague's surprising ineptitude at campaigning on a national level. They'd instantly mounted a counteroffensive, pointing out the fact that Hallorin had replaced people with machines at every opportunity. The strategy had seemed sound until Hallorin had shown the American people the jobs that he'd created building the machines, operating them, repairing them, exporting them. And it had then turned into a disaster for Hallorin's opponents when he pointed out that not one of his companies used any foreign labor and that many of the companies supporting his political competition manufactured in such exotic locations as Vietnam, Mexico, and Korea.
    Pundits everywhere took notice, asking themselves if Hallorin was a lucky amateur or a brutal player who had drawn his opponents in for the kill. As far as Beamon knew, the jury was still out on that.
    "You wouldn't have any idea why Senator Hallorin wants to see me, would you?" Beamon said over the quiet hum of the mahogany-lined elevator as it took them to the second floor of Hallorin's twenty-thousand square-foot home. His escort, an efficient-looking woman who's name he'd already forgotten, looked horrified.
    "I'm sure I wouldn't."
    Of course not.
    They finished the ride out in silence. When the doors finally opened it was into a room so large that Beamon literally wasn't sure where the other end of it was. Pausing after he'd stepped out of the elevator, he looked up at the ceiling at least thirty feet above him and examined the elaborate frescoes that covered it. His escort must have been used to the reaction, because she seemed to automatically pause as his eyes wandered to the heavy gold-leaf molding running along the top of the walls and then to the pandemonium in front of them.
    Despite the fact that it was closing in on nine o'clock, the room was packed with people of all ages, sizes, and races charging back and forth carrying boxes, computer printouts, cell phones, portable computers, whatever. No one seemed to notice Beamon and his escort as they threaded their way through the room.
    "He runs his campaign out of his house?" Beamon had to raise his voice to be