“Last Friday, three good men and two good women lost their lives in the service of our country. They were there to protect my daughter, Katie. But there were other children there, too, and in protecting one child, you protect all children. People like that do not ask for much more than your respect. They deserve that. They deserve it because they do things that we cannot easily do for ourselves. That’s why we hire them. They sign on because they know that service is important, because they care about us, because they are us. You and I know that not all government employees are like that. That’s not their fault. That’s your fault. If you do not demand the best, you will not get the best. If you do not give the right measure of power to the right kind of people, then the wrong people will take more power than they need and they will use it the way they want, not the way you want.
“Ladies and gentlemen, that’s why your duty tomorrow to elect the right people to serve you is so important. Many of you operate your own businesses and you hire people to work for you. Most of you own your own homes, and sometimes you hire plumbers, electricians, carpenters to do work for you. You try to hire the right people for the work because you pay for that work, and you want it done right. When your child is sick, you try to pick the best physician–and you pay attention to what that doctor
996
does and how well he or she does it. Why? Because there is nothing more important to you than the life of your child.
“America is also your child. America is a country forever young. America needs the right people to look after her. It is your job to pick the right people, regardless of party, or race, or gender, or anything other than talent and integrity. I can’t and I won’t tell you which candidate merits your vote. God gave you a free will. The Constitution is there to protect your right to exercise that will. If you fail to exercise your will intelligently, then you have betrayed yourselves, and neither I nor anyone else can fix that for you.
“Thank you for coming to see me on my first visit to Colorado Springs. Tomorrow is your day. Please use it to hire the right people.”
“IN A SERIES OF speeches clearly designed to reach conservative voters, President Ryan is stumping the country on the eve of the House elections, but even as federal officials investigate the vicious terrorist attack on his own daughter, the President flatly rejected the idea of improved gun-control laws. We have this report from NBC correspondent Hank Roberts, traveling with the presidential party today.” Tom Donner continued looking into the camera until the red light went off.
“I thought he said some pretty good things today,” Plumber observed while the tape ran.
“Invoking / Love Lucy must have come from Gallic Weston on a serious PMS day,” Donner observed, flipping through his copy. “Funny, she used to do great speeches for Bob Fowler.”
“Did you read the speech?”
“John, come on, we don’t have to read what he says. We know what he’s going to say.”
“Ten seconds,” the director called over their earpieces.
“Nice copy for later, by the way, John.” The face broke into the smile at “three.”
“A huge federal task force is now investigating Fri-
997
day’s attack on the President’s daughter. We have this report from Karen Stabler in Washington.”
“I thought you’d like it, Tom,” Plumber replied, when the light went dark again. So much the better, he thought. His conscience was clear now.
THE VC-25 LIFTED off on time, and headed north to avoid some adverse weather over northern New Mexico. Arnie van Damm was topside in the communications area. There were enough important-looking boxes to run half the world here, or so it seemed, and hidden in the skin of the aircraft was a satellite dish whose expensive aiming system could track almost anything. At the chief of staff’s direction, it was now getting the NBC feed off a Hughes bird.
“WE HAVE THIS closing comment from special correspondent John Plumber.” Donner turned graciously. “John.”
“Thank you, Tom. The profession of journalism is one I entered many years ago, because I was inspired in my youth. I remember my crystal radio set–those of you old enough might recall how you had to ground them to a pipe,” he explained, with a smile. “I remember listening to Ed Murrow in London during the blitz, to Eric Sevareid from the jungles of Burma, to all the founding fathers– giants, really–of our profession. I grew up with pictures in my mind painted by the words of men whom all America could trust to tell the truth to the best of their ability. I decided that finding the truth and communicating it to people was as noble a calling as any to which a man–or woman–could aspire.
“We’re not always perfect in this profession. No one is,” Plumber went on.
To his right, Donner was looking at the TelePrompTer in puzzlement. This wasn’t what was rolling in front of the camera lens, and he realized that, though Plumber had printed pages in front of him, he was giving a memorized speech. Imagine that. Just like the old days, apparently.
998
“I would like to say that I am proud to be in this profession. And I was, once.
“I was on the microphone when Neil Armstrong stepped down on the moon, and on sadder occasions, like the funeral of Jack Kennedy. But to be a professional does not mean merely being there. It means that you have to profess something, to believe in something, to stand for something.
“Some weeks ago, we interviewed President Ryan twice in one day. The first interview in the morning was taped, and the second one was done live. The questions were a little different. There’s a reason for that. Between the first interview and the second, we were called over to see someone. I will not say who that was right now. I will later. That person gave us information. It was sensitive information aimed at hurting the President, and it looked like a good story at the time. It wasn’t, but we didn’t know that then. At the time, it seemed as though we had asked the wrong questions. We wanted to ask better ones.
“And so we lied. We lied to the President’s chief of staff, Arnold van Damm. We told him that the tape had been damaged somehow. In doing that, we also lied to the President. But worst of all, we lied to you. I have the tapes in my possession. They are not damaged in any way.
“No law was broken. The First Amendment allows us to do almost anything we want, and that’s all right, because you people out there are the final judge of what we do and who we are. But one thing we may not do is to break faith with you.
“I have no brief for President Ryan. Speaking personally, I disagree with him on many policy issues. If he should run for reelection, I will probably vote for someone else. But I was part of that lie, and I cannot live with it. Whatever his faults, John Patrick Ryan is an honorable man, and I am not supposed to allow my personal animus for or against anyone or anything to affect my work.
“In this case, I did. I was wrong. I owe an apology to the President, and I owe an apology to you. This might well be the end of my career as a broadcast journalist. If so, I want to leave it as I entered it, telling the truth as best I can.
999
“Good night, from NBC News.” Plumber took a very deep breath as he stared at the camera.
“What the hell was that all about?”
Plumber stood before he answered. “If you have to ask that question, Tom–”
The phone on his desk rang–actually, it had a blinking light. Plumber decided not to answer it, and instead walked to his dressing room. Tom Donner would have to figure it out all by himself.
TWO THOUSAND MILES away, over Rocky Mountain National Park, Arnold van Damm stopped the machine, ejected the tape, and carried it down the circular stairs to the President’s compartment in the nose. He saw Ryan going over his next and final speech of the day.
“Jack, I think you will want to see this,” the chief of staff told him, with a broad grin.
THERE HAS TO be a first one of everything. This time it happened in Chicago. She’d seen her physician on Saturday afternoon and been told the same as everyone else. Flu. Aspirin. Liquids. Bed rest. But looking in the mirror, she saw some discoloration on her fair skin, and that frightened her even more than the other symptoms she’d had to that point. She called her doctor, but she got only an answering machine, and those blotches could not wait, and so she got in her car and drove to the University of Chicago Medical Center, one of America’s finest. She waited in the emergency room for about forty minutes, and when her name was called, she stood and walked toward the desk, but she didn’t make it, instead falling to the tile floor in sight of the administrative people. That caused some instant reactions, and a minute later, two orderlies had her on a gurney and were wheeling her back to the treatment area, her paperwork carried behind by one of the admissions people.