‘That’s a lie! He disregarded White House procedures for which I’m responsible. I may have touched him, merely to keep him in place, but that’s all. And that’s when he took me by surprise.’
‘I don’t think so. I heard he called you a “two-bit major” and you went up.’
‘Distortion. Complete distortion!’ Dennison winced; the acid was erupting. ‘Look, I apologize for the strip search—’
‘Don’t. It didn’t happen. I accepted removing the jacket, figuring that was standard, but when the guard mentioned my shirt and trousers, my far brighter escorts moved in.’
‘Then what the hell are you so uptight about?’
‘That you even considered it, and if you didn’t, that you’ve created a mentality here that would.’
‘I could defend that accusation, but I won’t bother. Now we’re going into the Oval Office and, for Christ’s sake, don’t confuse the man with all that pro-Arab bullshit. Remember, he doesn’t know what happened and it won’t do any good trying to explain. I’ll clarify everything for him later.’
‘How do I know you’re capable of that?’
‘What?’
‘You heard me. How do I know you’re either capable or reliable?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I think you’d clarify whatever you want to clarify, telling him whatever you want him to hear.’
‘Who the hell are you to talk to me this way?’
‘Someone probably as rich as you are. Also someone who’s getting out of this town, as I’m sure Swann told you, so your political benediction is meaningless to me—I wouldn’t accept it in any event. You know something, Dennison? I think you’re a bona fide rat. Not the cute Mickey Mouse variety, but the original animal. An ugly, scavenging, long-tailed rodent, who spreads a lousy disease. It’s called nonaccountability.’
‘You don’t spare words, do you, Congressman?’
‘I don’t have to. I’m leaving.’
‘But he isn’t! And I want him strong, persuasive. He’s taking us into a new era. We’re standing tall again and it’s about time. We’re telling the crumbs of this world to shit or get off the pot!’
‘Your expressions are as banal as you are.’
‘What are you? Some fucking Ivy Leaguer with a degree in English? Get with it, Congressman. We’re playing hardball here; this is if! People in this administration move their bowels or they’re out. Got that?’
‘I’ll try to remember.’
‘While you’re at it, remember he doesn’t like dissent. Everything’s cool, got that? No waves at all; everybody’s happy, got that?’
‘You repeat yourself, don’t you?’
‘I get things done, Kendrick. That’s the name of the hardball game.’
‘You’re a lean, mean machine, you are.’
‘So we don’t like each other. So what? It’s no big deal—’
I’ve got that,’ agreed Evan.
‘Let’s go.’
‘Not so fast,’ said Kendrick firmly, turning away from Dennison and walking to a window as if the office were his, not that of the President’s man. ‘What’s the scenario? That is the term, isn’t it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What do you want from me?’ asked Kendrick, looking out at the White House lawn. ‘Since you’re doing the thinking, why am I here?’
‘Because ignoring you would be counterproductive.’
‘Really?’ Kendrick turned again to face the White House’s chief of staff. ‘Counterproductive?’
‘You’ve got to be acknowledged, is that clear enough? He can’t sit on his ass and pretend you don’t exist, right?’
‘Oh, I see. Say that during one of his entertaining although not terribly enlightening press conferences, someone brings up my name, which is inevitable now. He can’t very well say that he’s not sure whether I play for the Jets or the Giants, can he?’
‘You got it. Let’s go. I’ll shape the conversation.’
‘You mean control it, don’t you?’
‘Call it what you like, Congressman. He’s the greatest President of the twentieth century, and don’t you forget it. My job is to maintain the status quo.’
‘It’s not my job.’
‘The hell it isn’t! It’s all our jobs. I was in combat, young fella, and I watched men die defending our freedoms, our way of life. I tell you, it was a goddamned holy thing to see! And this man, this President, has brought those values back, those sacrifices we prize so much. He’s moved this country in the right direction by the sheer force of his will, his personality’, if you like. He’s the best!’
‘But not necessarily the brightest,’ interrupted Kendrick.
‘That doesn’t mean shit. Galileo would have made a lousy Pope and a worse Caesar.’
‘I suppose you’ve got a point.’
‘I certainly do. Now the scenario—the explanation—is simple and all too damned familiar. Some son of a bitch leaked the Oman story and you want it forgotten as soon as possible.’
‘I do?’
Dennison paused, studying Evan’s face as if it were decidedly unattractive. ‘That’s based directly on what that jerk Swann told the chairman of the Joint Chiefs—’
‘Why is Swann a jerk? He didn’t leak the story. He tried to throw off the man who came to see him.’
‘He let it happen. He was the CO of that operation and he let it happen and I’ll see him hung.’
‘Wrong past tense.’
‘What?’
‘Never mind. But just to make sure we’re both using the same scenario, why do I want everything forgotten as soon as possible?’
‘Because there could be reprisals against your lousy Arab friends over there. That’s what you told Swann and that’s what he told his superiors. You want to change it?’
‘No, of course not,’ said Kendrick softly. ‘The scenario’s the same.’
‘Good. We’ll schedule a short ceremony showing him thanking you on behalf of the whole damn country. No questions, just a restricted photo session and then you fade.’ Dennison gestured to the door; both men started towards it. ‘You know something, Congressman?’ remarked the chief of staff, his hand on the knob. ‘Your showing up like this has ruined one of the best whispering campaigns any administration could ask for—public relations-wise, that is.’
‘A whispering campaign?’
‘Yeah. The longer we kept quiet, deflecting questions on the basis of national security, the more people thought the President forced the Oman settlement all by himself.’
‘He certainly conveyed that,’ said Evan, smiling not unkindly, as if he admired a talent he did not necessarily approve of.
‘I tell you he may not be an Einstein, but he’s still a fucking genius.’ Dennison opened the door.
Evan did not move. ‘May I remind you that eleven men and women were murdered in Masqat? That two hundred others will have nightmares for the rest of their lives?’
‘That’s right!’ replied Dennison. ‘And he said it—with goddamned tears in his eyes! He said they were true American heroes, as brave as those who fought at Verdun, Omaha Beach, Panmunjom and Danang! The man said it, Congressman, and he meant it, and we stood tall!’
‘He said it as he narrowed the options, making his message clear,’ agreed Kendrick. ‘If any one person was responsible for saving those two hundred and thirty-six hostages, it must have been him.’
‘So?’
‘Never mind. Let’s get this over with.’
‘You’re a fruitcake, Congressman. And you’re right, you don’t belong in this town.’
Evan Kendrick had met the President of the United States only once. The meeting lasted for approximately five, perhaps six, seconds, during a White House reception for the freshmen congressmen of the chief executive’s party. It had been mandatory for him to attend, according to Ann Mulcahy
O’Reilly, who practically threatened to blow up the office if Evan refused to go to the affair. It was not that Kendrick disliked the man, he kept telling Annie, it was just that he did not agree with a lot of things Langford Jennings espoused—perhaps more than a lot, maybe most. And in answer to Mrs. O’Reilly’s question as to why he had run on the ticket, he could only reply that the other party did not stand a chance of being elected.
The predominant impression Evan had while briefly shaking hands with Langford Jennings in that reception line was more in the abstract than in the immediate, yet not totally so. The office was both intimidating and overwhelming. That a single human being could be entrusted with such awesome global power stretched any thinking man’s mind to its limits. A miscue during some horrible miscalculation could blow up the planet. Yet… yet… despite Kendrick’s personal evaluation of the man himself, which included a less than brilliant intellect and a proclivity for over-simplification as well as tolerance for such zealous clowns as Herbert Dennison, there was about Langford Jennings a striking image that was larger than life, an image that the ordinary citizen of the republic desperately longed for in the presidency. Evan had tried to understand the gossamer veil that shielded the man from closer scrutiny and had finally come to the conclusion that scrutiny itself was irrelevant compared to his impact. The same might be said of Nero, Caligula, any number of mad, authoritarian popes and emperors, and the ultimate villains of the twentieth century, Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler. Yet this man displayed none of the evil inherent in those others; instead, he conveyed a strong, pervasive trustworthiness that seemed to radiate from his inner self. Jennings was also blessed with a large, attractive physique, and a much larger belief, and the purity of his belief was everything to him. He was also one of the most charming, ingratiating men Kendrick had ever observed.