The Run
The Run
Stuart Woods
A respected senator from Georgia, Will Lee has aspirations of more.But a cruel stroke of fate thrusts him onto the national stage well before he expects, and long before he's ready, for a national campaign.
The road to the White House, however, will be more treacherous -- and deadly -- than Will and his intelligent, strikingly beautiful wife, Kate, an associate director in the Central Intelligence Agency, can imagine.A courageous and principled man, Will soon learns he has more than one opponent who wants him out of the race. Thrust into the spotlight as never before, he's become the target of clandestine enemies from the past who will use all their money and influence to stop him -- dead. Now Will isn't just running for president -- he's running for his life.
The Run
A Novel
Stuart Woods
This book is for Melody Miller
Contents
1
United States Senator William Henry Lee IV and his wife,…
2
As they approached Camp David, it began to snow, and…
3
The vice president took a sip of his coffee and…
4
Will took off from College Park Airport and called Washington…
5
They were met at the Warm Springs airport by Henry,…
6
By midmorning they were up and dressed and had stopped…
7
Will left the farm and drove into Delano, to his…
8
Christmas dinner at the Lee farm was much the same…
9
Will and Kate returned to Washington after Christmas, and Kate…
10
On New Year’s Eve Will and Kate threw a dinner…
11
On New Year’s morning, Will arrived at his hideaway office…
12
Kate looked at him across the kitchen table. “How do…
13
Will had already made coffee in his hideaway office when…
14
Will and his little core of a campaign staff worked…
15
Will picked up the phone and called the vice president’s…
16
Will was discussing Joe Adams’s TV address with Tim, Kitty,…
17
Will and Kate sat before a blazing fire in his…
18
Will worked on a combination of Senate and campaign business…
19
Will stood on the Capitol steps in the still, cold…
20
Zeke Tennant woke habitually at dawn, and Sundays were no…
21
It was Will’s third Sunday-morning television program. He sat behind…
22
Will stood at the factory gate, freezing his ass off…
23
The anchorman gazed into the camera, rustled the useless papers…
24
It was midnight, and ninety-eight percent of the ballots in…
25
Zeke Tennant got down from the pickup truck at the…
26
Will let himself into the Georgetown house. A Secret Service…
27
Terry Cogan drove through the flat south Georgia countryside toward…
28
Will and Kate were delivered to the White House by…
29
Before dawn, Will kissed a still-sleeping Kate good-bye, went downstairs,…
30
Senator Frederick Wallace strolled down a Capitol hallway toward his…
31
Zeke Tennant read the syndicated column in the Las Vegas…
32
Freddie Wallace let himself into his hideaway office and found…
33
Zeke checked out of his room at La Fonda around…
34
Ed Rawls was released from solitary confinement one week to…
35
Will stood and looked at his campaign airplane. It was…
36
Zeke Tennant drove west across New Mexico and Arizona. He…
37
As his campaign airplane approached Los Angeles, Will picked up…
38
As the 737 landed, Will looked across a taxiway into…
39
The motorcade turned into the back drive of the Bel…
40
Zeke presented himself for work as requested, and Hiller, who…
41
Freddie Wallace answered the door himself at his Georgetown home.
42
Will stood before the California delegation, the largest and, from…
43
Zeke crept out of Rosa’s bed and, leaving his clothes…
44
Will pulled his black bow tie tight and examined it…
45
By the time they were on dessert, the noise level…
46
If Will had felt busy before, the tempo of his…
47
The Secret Service car drove up Sunset Boulevard, past the…
48
They all sat down to breakfast at eight o’clock. Will…
49
Will waited for the governor of California to come on…
50
Will and his inner circle of around two dozen people…
51
Zeke waited in line with the other workers while the…
52
While the convention was nominating George Kiel for vice president,…
53
The van drove slowly down the street, past the row…
54
Will and Kate were filing into the National Cathedral for…
55
Zeke logged on to the Internet and did a search…
56
Will stared out the window of the Boeing at the…
57
Zeke Tennant was driving north through Virginia toward Washington when…
58
Kitty put down the newspaper, from which she had been…
59
As the Boeing set down at Van Nuys airport, Will…
60
Kitty put down the Washington Post. “Well, that’s depressingly close…
61
Zeke prepared carefully. First, he dressed in civilian clothing and…
62
Will followed a young woman to the wings at stage…
63
Agent West stood in the open doorway between the lobby…
64
Will looked out the window of the Boeing as it…
65
Will, Kate, Peter, and Will’s parents walked into the hotel…
66
Will came awake very slowly in the darkened room. Kate…
67
Will Lee stood coatless in the bright January sunshine on…
United States Senator William Henry Lee IV and his wife, Katharine Rule Lee, drove away from their Georgetown house in their Chevrolet Suburban early on a December morning. There was the promise of snow in the air.
Kate sipped coffee from an insulated mug and yawned. “Tell me again why we drive this enormous fucking car,” she said.
Will laughed. “I keep forgetting you’re not a politician,” he said. “We drive it because it is, by my reckoning, the least offensive motor vehicle manufactured in the state of Georgia, and because Georgia car workers and their union have shown the great wisdom to support your husband’s candidacy in two elections.”
“Oh,” she said. “Now I remember.”
“Good. I’m glad I won’t have to put you in a home right before Christmas.” He looked in the rearview mirror and saw another Suburban following them. “They’re there,” he said.
“They’re supposed to be.”
“How did they know?”
“Because I called them last night and gave them our schedule.”
The week before there had been a terrorist attack on CIA employees as they had left the Agency’s building in McLean, Virginia, and certain Agency officials had been given personal protection for a time; Kate Rule was the deputy director for Intelligence, chief of all the CIA’s analysts, and was, therefore, entitled.
“Oh,” Will replied, sipping his own coffee and heading north toward College Park, Maryland, and its airport. “They’re not going to follow us all the way to Georgia, are they?”
“I persuaded them that wouldn’t be necessary.”
“Good.”
“It’s a little like having Secret Service protection, isn’t it?” she nudged. “Does it make you feel presidential?”
“Nothing is going to make me feel presidential, at least for another nine years.”
“What about the cabinet? If Joe Adams is elected and wants you for Defense or State or something, will you leave the Senate?”
Joseph Adams was vice president of the United States and the way-out-in-front leader for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president the following year. “Joe and I have already talked about that. He says I can have anything I want, but he doesn’t really mean it.”
“I always thought Joe was a pretty sincere guy,” Kate said.
“Oh, he is, and he was sincere with the half-dozen other guys he told the same thing. But I don’t really have the foreign-policy credentials for State, and while
I think I really could have Defense, I don’t want it. I don’t want to spend eight or even four years doing battle with both the military and Congress; the job killed James Forrestal and Les Aspin, and it’s ground up a lot of others.”
“What about Justice? Your work on the Senate Judiciary Committee should stand you in good stead for that.”
“I think I could have Justice, if I were willing to fight for it tooth and nail, and there’s a real opportunity to do some good work there.”
“Well?”
“I think I’ll stay in the Senate. Georgia’s got a Republican governor at the moment, and if I left, he’d get to appoint my replacement, and we don’t want that. Also, if Joe’s elected, three or four top senators will leave to join the administration, among them the minority leader, and I’d have a real good shot at that job. And if we can win the Senate back, then the job would be
majority
leader, and that is very inviting.”