Off The Record (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798233882289)

Off The Record

The machine is always watching. But who is watching the machine?

In the neon-lit corridors of Washington D.C., Leo Vance is the "Iron Tongue"-a strategist with a clinical gift for turning chaos into cold, hard polling data. For Leo, voters are algorithms, and his latest creation, the Mercury Shadow, is a masterpiece of digital deception designed to simulate the very soul of a nation.

Across the political divide, Silas Vane is the "Dreamer." As a lead speechwriter, Silas believes in the weight of the word and the unvarnished truth of the American ideal. He is the conscience of a campaign that doesn't know it's running on a lie.

When a chance encounter in a rain-slicked bar pulls them out of their respective war rooms and into a "Negative Space" beyond the reach of the cameras, the record begins to fracture. As the general election reaches a brutal fever pitch, the two men are forced into the Anacostia Protocol-a secret pact to bury the darkest chapters of their lives to keep the Presidency intact.

But when a buried past in the Democratic Republic of the Congo resurfaces, and the true cost of the Mercury Shadow is revealed, the silence they fought for becomes their greatest enemy.

From the high-stakes galleries of The Hague to the isolated wheat fields of Kansas, Leo and Silas must decide if they are willing to burn their legacies to the ground to save their humanity. In a city where every word is calculated, the only way out is to go finally, truly, Off The Record.