David J. Hearne Hulagu's Web Contributor: Brandi Brown David J. Hearne weaves together an extraordinary tale of contemporary politics, combining some of its most explosive elements, in Hulagu's Web: The presidential pursuit of Senator Katherine Laforge. Hearne traces the unusual presidential run of Katherine Laforge, a Texas Republican, as she tries to maneuver the political landmines of the early twenty-first century. The story, told through the eyes of one of Laforge's childhood friends, begins with a brutal massacre on the Laforge campaign bus. Hearne begins the reader at the grisly scene of the accident, a place where "a frozen patch of red slush and small red icicles" dot the campaign bus carrying the Senator and her staff, killing several of them, including Laforge's husband, Ira. Kat's old buddy finds himself utterly stunned upon hearing this news. Laforge, preparing for 2004's New Hampshire primary, has become a popular target of assassins over the past two years, and the narrator traces this rise from relative political obscurity to political target. The namesake for Hearne's book is Hulagu Khan, a famed warrior known for his destruction of Baghdad in ancient times. Hulagu, the grandson of Genghis Kahn, visited absolute annihilation on the places he visited, giving many Iraqis, including Saddam Hussein, bitter feelings about him – even now. Hearne speculates through Laforge's campaign run that Hussein now views the United States as Hulagu, believing the nation will visit ruin upon his own country, which he heralds as the mother of civilization. Laforge plans a secret meeting with Hussein in which she plans to make headway in dealing with the dictator. This meeting should set Laforge up with a strong run going into the primary election season. Laforge knows that she is a long shot candidate without this leverage, and she understand instinctively that dealing with Saddam is a major issue for the next president. Hearne posits through his main character that having outlasted three presidents, Saddam's power is gaining and must be curbed. Laforge's unlikely advisor, her childhood playmate, unofficially joined the campaign after a high school reunion allowed him to spend an evening with Laforge again. She needs sanity from someone who does not play political games, but her rekindled friendship proves much more useful. Laforge informs her friend in a quiet Bellows Falls Diner of her plans to meet with Saddam and seek a diplomatic relationship with him. Having worked for the National Archives and Records Administration before retirement, Laforge's unnamed confidante researches information about the various planks of the Senator's campaign platform, particularly information related to fundamentalist Islam and Saddam's regime in Iraq. Her confidante throws himself into the work, happy for the break from retirement and because he feels as if he is part of something larger than himself. Besides dealing with Iraq, Hearne brings in other political landmines throughout the work. Laforge's second plank – and the only other major part of her campaign – is her belief in a national sales tax to replace the income tax. "A higher sales tax will be levied against luxury items and rebates given to those who are living on social security or under a certain income level," Laforge explains to her somewhat shell-shocked friend. The libertarian plan makes sense to Laforge, who believes that the government spends too much money maintaining the Internal Revenue Service and that the plan will be fairer. Laforge believes that adding this part to her campaign positions her as a strong candidate. Opposition from accountants and liberals alike will put her on the hot seat with this plan, which opponents will argue unjustly benefits the wealthy, but her meetings with Saddam will provide media fodder as well. She knows she must make a strong mark with her positions because of her relative position of anonymity in the political world. Laforge also gets into the women and politics arena during her time with her new associate. "The majority of women vote for men...it is just some old patriarchal culture ingrained into our female subconscious," Laforge explains to her old friend. She continues to discuss the position of American women, despite the belief that they are free and unencumbered. This bit of gender politics gives Laforge's character an edge but shows that she does not use her sex to create her political identity. Hearne drops these issues on the reader and moves on, much like the world of modern politics requires one to think and act quickly and decisively. The relationship between the narrator and Laforge continues to develop while Laforge's official political aides plan the top-secret trip to Iraq. When Laforge finally is able to make the trip, she is ecstatic. Laforge's friend tells the reader "Kat had confessed to me how elated she felt" as the meeting approached. She arrived in Iraq as an honored guest – leery of the "show" she knew Saddam put on for her about his generosity and kindness of spirit but wanting desperately to make the meeting a political success. On the way to the meeting, Laforge suffers the first attempt on her life as the car she is in is bombed. Laforge survives with serious injuries and becomes part of a media heyday for Saddam. Unwilling to allow Laforge to be transported back to the United States for care, Saddam shows the world that he can take care of the American politician with world-renowned doctors and round-the-clock care. As Laforge slowly gets better, Hearne drops another bombshell on his readers. When Laforge finally can speak and think rationally, she gets on the phone with Ira, who has stayed in the United States to work with the press and on Laforge's campaign. The conversation between the two seems tense but believable for someone who has endured something so traumatic. Then, as the reader settles in to find out more about Laforge's recovery and her anonymous friend's concern for her, Laforge's dual identity takes center stage. As the reader discovers one Senator Laforge is lying in a hospital bed thousands of miles away and the other is standing beside her husband in their home, she laments that "this was her new reality." Before knowing exactly what the new reality is, the reader is whisked back to the 2004 New Hampshire primary where Laforge's supporters grapple with the death of people so close to the senator. After recovery from the first murder plot, the Senator continues her run for the presidency. As the narrator switches back and forth between the Iraqi recovery and the New Hampshire massacre, the reader discovers that Hulagu is more than an ancient warrior. Instead, he is a historical figure whose symbol Laforge adopted. The unnamed confidante, along with two other friends, meet up in New Hampshire and break their vows of silence in their quest to find Laforge. Here Hearne complicates the story, slowly bringing the two Laforge characters into place at the same time he introduces cloning to his audience, proving that simple and one-dimensional cannot define contemporary political ideology. Laforge volunteered herself for secret government experiments to create a clone-like replica who would share Laforge's history, feelings, and thoughts. The clone, aptly named Hulagu, was part of Laforge's secret identity. Although Hearne does not immediately disclose the work of ComDef1, as the cloning experiment is known, when the confidante reveals the story, it does explain the duality of the senator's existence. Held in a dark and secret lab, the ComDef1 experiments allow two senators to exist – one as a martyr for the other. The story continues to unfold as the narrator explains to his friends the details of Laforge's secret. Hearne's work takes the reader along the road of politics, intermingling ideology and deception on the part of Laforge. The confidante, whose vulnerability and naiveté make him an "any person" sort of character, explains with the meticulous detail the political career of Katherine Laforge. Hearne throws Iraq, cloning, and the aftermath of women's liberation, along with a captivating storyline, at the reader all in the first five chapters of Hulagu's Web. Through his narrator, Hearne, who takes 12 chapters to cover Laforge's political campaigning, promises to explain and challenger the reader even more in the remaining pages. The narrator will take the reader through the book with pit stops along the way but always staying the course, however complicated and obstructed it may become.