Saving Faith By: David Baldacci

She leaned away from him and rested her back against the sissy bar,

pushing herself deep into the leather. And away from him. Her shining

white knight with the bedeviling blue eyes.

So much for memories. So much for dreams.

CHAPTER 26

DANNY SURVEYED A FAMILIAR SCENE. The event was typical of Washington:

a political fund-raising dinner at a downtown hotel. The chicken was

stringy and cold, the wine cheap, the conversation high-powered, the

stakes enormous, the protocol tricky, the egos often impossible. The

attendees were either wealthy and/or well connected, or underpaid

political staffers who worked long, frantic hours during the day and

were rewarded for these prodigious efforts by being compelled to work

these sorts of events at night. The Secretary of the Treasury was

supposed to have attended, along with some other political

heavyweights; ever since he had become engaged to a well-known

Hollywood actress with a thing about exhibiting her cleavage at the

drop of an intern, the secretary had been more in demand than the

keeper of the cash normally was. Then, at the last minute, he had

gotten a better offer to speak at another event, which was often the

case in the endless game of “where is the political grass greener?” An

underling had been sent in his place, a gawky, nervous person no one

really knew or cared about.

The event was another opportunity to see and be seen, to check the

ever-changing pecking order of a certain subgroup of the political

hierarchy. Most never even sat down to eat. They just dropped off

their check and then it was off to another fund-raiser. Networking

flowed through the room as though from a well-fed spring. Or open

wound, depending on how one looked at it.

How many of these events had Buchanan attended over the years? During

the frenzy of key fund-raising periods when he used to represent Big

Business, Buchanan would attend breakfasts, luncheons, dinners and

assorted parties nonstop for weeks. Exhausted, he had sometimes shown

up at the wrong event-a reception for the senator from North Dakota

instead of a dinner for the South Dakota congressman. After taking

over for the world’s poor, he had no such problems, for the simple fact

that he now had no money to give members. However, Buchanan was well

aware that if there was one truism in political fund-raising, it was

that there was never enough money. And that meant that there would

always be the opportunity for influence peddling. Always. After he

got back from Philly, his day had really started, without Faith. He

had met with half a dozen different members on the Hill and their staff

on a myriad of matters, and set up appointments for future meetings.

Staffs were important, particularly committee staff, especially

appropriations committee staff. Members came and went. The staff

tended to stay forever; they knew the issues and process cold. And

Danny knew that you never wanted to Surprise a member by trying to

dodge the staff. You might be successful once, but you were dead after

that, as the angry aides took their revenge by shutting you completely

out. A late luncheon followed, with a paying client whom Faith had

typically taken care of. Buchanan had had to make excuses for her

absence, * and he did so with his usual aplomb and humor. “Sorry, you

get the second string today,” he told the client. “But I’ll try not to

mess things up too badly for you.” Though there was no need to bolster

Faith’s excellent reputation, Buchanan had recounted to this client the

story of how Faith had once 4,”personally hand-delivered-in a gift box

with a big red ribbon, no less–to all five hundred and thirty-five

members of Congress detailed polling data that showed the American

public was fully in support of funding for global vaccination of all

children in the world. She’d included in the gift box accompanying

briefing materials and before-and-after photos of vaccinated children

from distant lands. Sometimes pictures were the most important weapons

Danny and she had. Then she had worked the phone for thirty-six hours

straight enlisting Support here and overseas and made exhaustive

presentations with several of the larger international relief

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