The accused in this case awoke in his house on the grounds of the Naval
Observatory on Massachusetts Avenue, North West, to find his senior aides
downstairs and waiting for him.
“Oh, shit,” Ed Kealty observed. It was all he had to say. There was little
point in denying the story. His people knew him too well for that. He was a
man of an amorous nature, they all rationalized, a trait not uncommon in
public life, though he was fairly discreet about it.
“Lisa Beringer,” the Vice President breathed, reading. “Can’t they let
the poor girl rest in peace?” He remembered the shock of her death, the way
she’d died, slipping off her seat belt and driving into a bridge abutment at
ninety miles per hour, how the medical examiner had related the inefficiency
of the method. She’d taken several minutes to die, still alive and whimpering
when the paramedics had arrived. Such a sweet, nice kid. She just hadn’t
understood how things were. She’d wanted too much back from him. Maybe
she’d thought that it was different with her. Well, Kealty thought, everybody
thought they were different.
“He’s hanging you out to dry,” Realty’s senior aide observed. The im-
portant part of this, after all, was the political vulnerability of their principal.
“Sure as hell.” That son of a bitch, the Vice President thought. After all
the things I’ve done. “Okay-ideas?”
“Well, of course we deny everything, indignantly at that,” his chief of
staff began, handing over a sheet of paper. “I have a press release for start-
ers, then we will have a press conference before noon.” He’d already called
half a dozen former and current female staffers who would stand beside their
boss. In every case it was a woman whose bed he had graced with his pres-
ence, and who remembered the time with a smile. Great men had flaws, too.
In Edward Realty’s case, the flaws were more than balanced by his commit-
ment to the things that mattered.
Kealty read quickly down the page. The only defense against a completely
false accusation is the truth . . . there is no basis in fact whatever to these
accusations . . . my public record is well known, as is my support for
women’s and minority rights . . . I request (“demand” was the wrong word
to use, his personal counsel thought) an immediate airing of the allegations
and the opportunity to defend myself vigorously . . . clearly no coincidence
with the upcoming election year … regret that such a groundless accusation
will affect our great President, Roger Durling-
‘ ‘Get that son of a bitch on the phone right now!”
“Bad time for a confrontation, Mr. Vice President. You ‘fully expect his
support,’ remember?”
“Oh, yes, I do, don’t I?” That part of the release wouldn’t so much be a
warning shot across the bow as one aimed right at the bridge, Kealty
thought. Either Durling would support him or else risk political meltdown in
the primaries.
What else would happen this year? Though too late to catch the morning
papers in most of America-too late even for USA Today-the Kealty story
had been caught by the broadcast media as part of their own pre-show media
surveys. For many in the investment community, that meant National Public
Radio’s “Morning Edition” show, a good program to listen to during the
drives from New Jersey and Connecticut because of its repeating two-hour
length. “A copyrighted story in this morning’s Washington Post…” The
coverage on it began at the top of both hourly segments, with a preamble like
a warning bell to get the listener’s attention, and though political stories out
of Washington were about as common as the local weather report, “rape”
and “suicide” were words with unequivocal meaning.
“Shit,” a thousand or so voices breathed simultaneously in the same
number of expensive automobiles. What else is going to happen? The
volatility of the market had not ended yet, and something like this was sure
to exert the kind of downward pressure that never really made any economic
sense but was so real that everyone knew it would happen, and because of
that planned for it, and because of that made it even more real in what com-
puter engineers called a feedback loop. The market would drop again today.
It had trended down for eleven of the past fourteen days, and though the
Dow was replete with bargains by any technical measure, the little guys
would make their nervous sell orders, and the mutual funds, driven by calls
from more little guys, would do the same, adding institutional momentum to
a totally artificial situation. The entire system was called a true democracy,
but if it was, then a herd of nervous cattle was a democracy, loo.
“Okay, Arnie.” President Durling didn’t bother asking who hud leaked it.
He was a sufficiently sophisticated player in the game that he knew ii didn’t
matter. “What do we do?”
“I talked to Bob Holtzman,” Ryan told the Boss, prompted by a look
from the chief of staff.
“And?”
“And, I think he believed me. Hell, I was telling the truth, wasn’t I?” It
was a question rather than a rhetorical expression.
“Yes, you were, Jack. Ed’s going to have to handle this one himself,”
The relief on Ryan’s face was so obvious as to offend the Chief Executive.
“Did you think I was really going to do this?”
“Of course not,” Ryan answered at once.
“Who knows?
“On the airplane?” van Damni asked. “I’m sure Bob spread it around
some.”
“Well, let’s clobber it right now. Tish,” Durling said to his communica-
tions director, “let’s get a release put together. The Judiciary Committee’s
been briefed in, and I have not put any pressure on them at all.”
“What do we say about the delay?” Tish Brown asked.
“We decided jointly with the leadership that the matter deserved to
have-what?” The President looked up at the ceiling.’ ‘It deserved to have a
clear field…”
“Sufficiently serious-no, it is sufficiently important to deserve a Con-
gress undistracted by other considerations?” Ryan offered. Not bad, he
thought.
“I’ll make a politician out of you yet,” Durling said with a grudging
smile.
“You’re not going to say anything directly about the case,” van Damm
went on, giving the President advice in the form of an order.
“I know, I know. I can’t say anything on the facts of the matter because I
can’t allow myself to interfere with the proceedings or Realty’s defense, ex-
cept to say that any citizen is innocent until the facts demonstrate otherwise;
America is founded on… and all that stuff. Tish, write it up. I’ll deliver it on
the airplane before we land, and then maybe we can do what we’re supposed
to be doing. Anything else?” Durling asked.
“Secretary Hanson reports that everything is set up. No surprises,” Ryan
said, finally getting to his own briefing. “Secretary Fiedler has the mone-
tary-support agreement ready for initialing, too. On that end, sir, it’s going to
be a nice, smooth visit,”
“How reassuring that is,” the President observed dryly. “Okay, let me
get cleaned up.” Air Force One or not, traveling in such close proximity to
others was rarely comfortable. Presidential privacy was a tenuous commod-
ity under the best of circumstances, but at least in the White House you had
real walls between yourself and others. Not here. An Air Force sergeant
strained at his leash to lay out Durling’s clothing and shaving things. The
man had already spent two hours turning the Presidential shoes from black
leather into chrome, and it would have been ungracious to push the guy off.
People were so damned eager to show their loyalty. Except for the ones you
needed to, Durling thought as he entered the small washroom.
“We got more of ’em.”
Sanchez emerged from the head adjacent to CIC to see people gathered
around the central plotting table. There were now three groups of the dia-
mond shapes that denoted enemy surface ships. Charlotte, moreover, had
position on a “V” shape that meant an enemy submarine, andAsheville sup-
posedly had a good sniff also. Best of all, the joint patrol line of 8-3 Viking
ASW aircraft two hundred miles in advance of the battle group had identi-
fied what appeared to be a patrol line of other submarines. Two had been
caught snorting, one on SOSUS and one by sonobuoys, and, using a line
defined by those two positions, two others had been found. Now they even
had a predictable interval between boats for the aircraft to concentrate on.
“Sunset tomorrow?” the CAG asked.
“They like the rising sun, don’t they? Let’s catch ’em at dinner, then.”
“Fine with me.” Sanchez lifted the phone at his place to alert his wing
operations officer.
“Takes long enough,” Jones murmured.
‘ T seem to remember when you were able to stand watches for a real long
time,” Wally Chambers told the civilian.