Hero (5 page)

“Tom Harriman was smart enough to know that a person can never escape his or her identity,” Senator Kerrigan said. “You can try to ignore it, but you can’t hide from it. Tom Harriman hid from no one.”

The room burst into applause, Zach clapping harder than anybody, feeling the tears in his eyes.

Senator Kerrigan wasn’t finished. “Tom Harriman was the finest man I’ve met,” he said. “He’s the one who convinced me that I was the right person to succeed Bill Addison. So here I am, trying to do that, asking for your support.” He grinned. “And trying to empty your pockets.”

When the laughter died down, he was serious again. “It is time for all of us to embrace the destiny, the true mission for the United States of America, in good times and bad. We must all be strong; we must all be brave.” His voice rising now, as if the windows were open and he wanted the whole city to hear him. “We must honor this country’s ideals in the same way I honor the memory of the man who lived in this home where we have come together tonight.”

The room exploded with applause again. Even the ones who had been sitting on couches and chairs jumped to their feet. Zach looked across at his mom, who seemed to be smiling and crying at the same time, applauding along with everybody else.

“Wow,” Kate said. “Wow wow wow.”

Zach said, “I want to start campaigning for him tonight.”

“Take me with you,” she said.

They went upstairs then, Kate to finish her homework, Zach to get back on his laptop. About an hour later he heard a surge in the conversation level, walked briefly out of his room, looked downstairs and saw people starting to leave.

A few minutes later there was a knock on his door. When he opened it, Senator Kerrigan was standing there. He had taken off his tie by then, unbuttoned the jacket to his suit. It occurred to Zach that the senator reminded him a little bit of George Clooney, but with even grayer hair.

“Awesome speech,” Zach said.

“You listened from up here?”

Zach said, “I was hiding in the back.”

“They seemed to like it.”

“Are you
joking
?” Zach said. “They loved it. Now I know why my mom is working so hard to get you the nomination.”

Senator Kerrigan placed a hand on Zach’s desk chair and said, “May I?” Zach nodded. The senator sat and Zach took a seat at the end of the bed.

“This probably won’t come as a shock to you,” Senator Kerrigan said, grinning. “But sometimes I feel as if I’m working for her.”

Zach heard a buzzing sound. Senator Kerrigan whipped out his BlackBerry, nodded in a tired way.

“Listen, I’ve got to be going. I’m flying to Ohio tonight. But before I left, I wanted you to know how I felt about your dad. That wasn’t just another campaign speech downstairs. That came from the heart. He really
was
the finest man I’ve ever known.”

“Thanks,” Zach said. “Me too.”

The senator said, “The world became less safe as soon as he was gone. And our enemies probably see an opening.”

Zach just sat there, listening to him now the way he had downstairs, still trying to process the fact that somebody who might be the next president of the United States was actually sitting in his room.

Senator Kerrigan stood up. So did Zach. The senator said, “We’ll have a longer talk about this the next time we’re together.” He put out his hand and Zach shook it, hearing his dad’s voice in his head as he did, making sure he looked Senator Kerrigan right in the eyes. “Your father was willing to do whatever it took to keep our enemies from winning. So am I.”

“I believe you, sir,” Zach said.

“Be strong,” Senator Kerrigan said. “You be strong, Zach Harriman.”

Then he turned and left.

Zach stood there in the middle of the room, feeling the man’s presence even with him gone.

Then he quietly said what Kate had said earlier.

“Wow wow wow.”

 

The loud voices from downstairs woke him up, his clock radio saying it was three minutes after midnight.

At first Zach thought he might have been dreaming, but then the voices got louder.

He got out of bed, pushed his door open a couple of inches, realized immediately that it was his mom and Uncle John. He had never once heard them argue about anything. But they sure seemed to be arguing about something now.

“John,” Elizabeth Harriman said, “lower your voice.”

“Just because I don’t agree with you,” he said, “doesn’t mean I’m shouting.”

“Well, it certainly sounds that way to me.”

The two of them were standing in front of the elevator, Uncle John’s coat over his arm.

“I’m right about this,” he said. “Sometimes it seems as if you’ve joined a cult.”

“I’m working for a candidate I believe in,” she said. “One my husband—who was your best friend in the world—believed in just as passionately.”

“Tom only saw the things in Bob Kerrigan he wanted to see,” Uncle John said. “The same slick, polished Bob Kerrigan the voters are seeing.”

“You’re saying he’s a phony?” she said.

Uncle John shook his head. “They’re
all
phonies,” he said. “He just happens to be the one who’s trying to become president. He’s neither prepared nor strong enough, despite all his fancy words about strength and toughness.”

“Were you
watching
the audience tonight?” Zach’s mom said. “Did you see how his message resonated with them?”

“They’re in love with the
words.
Everybody is these days. But it takes more than words to lead this country.”

Now Zach heard the anger in his mother’s voice again, her voice rising even though she had just told Uncle John to keep his down. “It’s not just rhetoric, John. It’s ideas. And ideals. He’s a man of great substance.”

“He’s a man of great style.”

“You’re wrong,” she said. “I’m not sure I’ve ever heard you be this wrong about anything. And you’re not going to change my mind about him.”

“It’s the obligation of the family lawyer to do that,” he said, “even when it’s the head of the family who’s wrong.”

“You can do that the next time I am,” she said. “Now good
night.”

Zach watched as she pressed the elevator button for him, turned and walked into the kitchen.

So she didn’t see the look on Uncle John’s face, the anger in it as he watched her go, an Uncle John even Zach didn’t recognize.

Next to the elevator door, on a table for everyone who entered the apartment to see, was a framed photograph Zach’s mom had placed there: Tom Harriman and Senator Kerrigan when they were much younger, the two of them standing on Pennsylvania Avenue with the White House behind them, arms around each other.

As the elevator door opened, Uncle John took the picture out of its stand, took a long look at it, one hand holding the door open.

Then he slammed it hard on the table and left.

BE
strong,” Senator Kerrigan had said to Zach.

It just made him more determined than ever to find out the truth behind his father’s death.

He had yet to find anything he could classify as a clue, despite
weeks’
worth of reading. It was why he wasn’t ready to bring Kate in on this yet, even knowing she could probably help. As good as Zach’s brain was, hers was usually better.

Yet there was another reason he was keeping her in the dark: because he was afraid that when he did tell her, even if he had something, she was going to think this was the total exact opposite of moving on with his life.

So for now he’d just keep at it on his own. He’d book-marked some stuff on the Web, printed out some of it and stuck it in the bottom drawer of his desk with old school papers, into a clutter he figured even one of those
CSI
units would have a hard time sorting out.

Zach Harriman was staying strong.

 

Zach’s mom was out of town on a trip to help Senator Kerrigan. Zach, Kate and Alba had just finished dinner together.

Alba told them both to shoo, despite Zach’s offer to help clear the table. “I don’t need your help in my kitchen,” she said. “Go.”

And it
was
hers, Zach knew. Oh man, they all knew. Even Elizabeth Harriman acted like she had to get permission to go into the kitchen when Alba was cooking.

Zach and Kate went to the second-floor den and turned on the Knicks game. Kate didn’t care about basketball, but she’d started watching the games at night just to keep Zach company, knowing that when his dad was around—when his dad was still alive—watching the Knicks was something Zach had done with him.

Tonight, though, he sensed that she wasn’t just there to keep him company; she had something else on her mind. She was paying even less attention to the game than usual.

Which was saying something.

“Okay,” she finally said from her end of the couch. “I’ve got a fun game we can play. How about we each tell the other the secret we’ve been keeping!”

This was not good, he knew right away.
Definitely
not good. He could tell by the tone of her voice, the fake excitement in it.

Zach’s immediate response was to just stare at the Knick on the foul line as if he were about to take the most important free throw in the history of the NBA.

“Should I go first?” she said. “Or do you want to?”

Zach said, “Why don’t we just
watch
the game instead of playing one?”

“Okay, if that’s the way you want it,” she said, ignoring him, folding her legs underneath her as she turned to face him. “I’ll go.”

The Knick made the first free throw.

“Oh, wait,” Kate said. “I
can’t
go first. Want to know why?”

“Not a clue.”

He turned his head. She was at least smiling at him. “Your turn,” Kate said.

“I haven’t been keeping any secrets from you, either,” Zach said.

“Liar.”

“I haven’t.”

“Yeah, you have,” she said. “All the closed doors at night. You saying you’re doing homework when I know better than anybody that you don’t have it in you to sit that long for anything having to do with school.”

“Since you know so much,” Zach said, “why don’t you tell me what it is? Then we’ll both know.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” she said. “Why don’t
you
come clean with
me
and save us both a lot of time. And you a lot of misery.”

She was going to wear him down on this, Kate style, the way Spence could wear him down
about
her. If there was one thing about Kate that came closest to annoying him, it wasn’t that she was so smart. It was that she could be so cocky about it.

She always thought she was right. And she wouldn’t give up until you admitted it.

He tried to explain it to his dad one time and his dad had laughed and said, “She looks like a sweetie pie, but if Kate Paredes goes up for a rebound, she
is
coming down with the ball.”

It was like that now, Zach Harriman knowing he was going to lose this battle sooner or later, deciding it might as well be sooner.

“Okay, I give up,” he said.

“A wise decision,” Kate said. “You’re just one eighth grader from the Parker School trying to stop my eventual plans for world domination.”

He muted the TV set. The room was completely quiet now. There was just the blur of the action from the game.

“I’ve been reading up on my dad’s crash,” he said.

Kate said, “And why, more than a month after it happened, are you doing something like that?”

“Why?” he said. “Because I want to
know
what happened, that’s why.”

“You do know,” she said. “Everybody does. The engines failed and your dad tried to land in the bay. He didn’t make it and crashed into that field instead.”

She held up a hand, letting him know she wasn’t quite finished. “And I thought the whole goal right now was to put as much distance as possible between you and all that.”

What did his dad used to say? Another one of his goofy expressions?

In for a dime, in for a dollar.

If he was going to tell Kate some of it, he might as well tell her all of it.

“I don’t think it was an accident,” he said.

“Wait a second,” she said. “You’re saying that you think somebody sabotaged your dad’s airplane?”

“Yes.”

“When he . . . when it happened, you said no way your dad would let a plane he was flying crash,” Kate said.

Her eyes were on him hard, like a flashlight being shined on him in the darkened room.

“Right,” Zach said. “And we agreed that no one
lets
an accident happen. It just happens.” He put air quotes around
happens,
shrugged and said, “I was lying.”

“To me,” she said.

“Not just to you, to everybody,” he said. “I didn’t buy that it was an accident when it happened and I’m not buying it now. He was just too good a pilot. Like he was too good at everything else.”

Except being around, of course.

Except being
here.

“But it wasn’t pilot failure,” Kate said. “It was engine failure.”

“That’s what the investigators said. I know that’s what they
think.
But they don’t
know.
Because on top of everything else, they can’t find the black box. And there’s no record of him making a distress call to the airport in East Hampton, which was the closest one, or anywhere else.”

Kate said the next part in a soft voice, like she was telling him that she didn’t want to argue with him, or have a debate about this, or beat him up on it. “Planes crash all the time,” she said, “all over the world. Sometimes there’s an official explanation, sometimes there isn’t. Remember that paper I did on Amelia Earhart? Sometimes the plane just disappears.”