The Run (9 page)
“I can’t tell you all the details until Friday, but around noon on Saturday, on the Capitol steps, surrounded by friends and supporters, I’m going to announce.”
Sam stared at him, speechless.
“Sam,” Tim said, “it’s all right; he’s not crazy. Say yes.”
“Hell, yes,” Sam said. “You want me to resign from the House?”
“No, keep your seat. You’re going to be based in Washington, anyway, so you can make all your votes. If you get me elected, you can come to the White House with me, and after two years, you can run for
my seat against whoever the next governor of Georgia appoints to replace me.”
Sam frowned a little. “If our Democratic colleague gets elected to that office, who do you think he might appoint to fill your term?”
Will laughed. “Okay, Sam, if I get elected, and you want my seat right away, I’ll do everything I can to get you appointed. If he won’t do it, or if the Republican beats him, then you stick with me?”
“Jesus,” Sam said, “I don’t think I can get a better deal than that.” He leaned over and shook Will’s hand.
“Welcome aboard,” Will said. “Your first job is to find us a national campaign headquarters without letting on to anybody that it’s for me.” Will scribbled a name on paper and handed it to Sam. “This guy just built a new office building downtown that’s renting. I think there’s some storefront space available, and we’ll need a floor for offices, too. Feel him out.”
“I know him a little,” Sam said. “I don’t think he’ll figure out that I’m doing it for you.”
“Good. You’ve got to play this very closely until, say, Friday afternoon. If we can really get rolling this week, we’ll have at least a few days’ jump on the competition.”
“Who else knows about this?” Sam asked.
“Just the people in this room and Kate.”
“Does Joe Adams know about it?”
“I can’t answer that right now, Sam. You’re going to have to trust me to do the right thing.”
“Shoot, Will, I trust you, and I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
“As soon as I announce, you’re going to have to get your own office organized to run pretty much without you. I’m going to keep you real busy.”
“Whooeee!” Sam said. “Sometimes your life just changes in the blinking of an eye!”
Will and his little core of a campaign staff worked steadily at adding names to their list of campaign people. They had now added, from Will’s computer files, possible state chairmen in each of the fifty states, and they were working on county chairmen in large municipalities. They divided the names among themselves, each with a list to telephone before the announcement—Will’s made up of those people who would be insulted if not asked directly by him, Sam’s of people just below that level, and Tim or Kitty to call the rest.
Late Tuesday afternoon, the vice president’s office announced that Mrs. Joseph Adams had undergone a lumpectomy at Walter Reed Hospital. In Wednesday morning’s
Washington Post
a columnist reported that Vice President Adams, the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination, was considering not running in 2000 because of his wife’s illness. The story was all over the evening network news shows, and the vice
president’s press secretary had declined comment. Adams was said to be spending a lot of time at Walter Reed with his wife.
On the day of the surgery, Will had dispatched two dozen yellow roses to the hospital in advance of the announcement, and early in the afternoon on Wednesday he called the vice president at Walter Reed.
“How’d it go, Joe?”
“Perfectly, Will; she’s already recovering beautifully, and her doctor is pretty confident that she won’t need further surgery.”
“I’m glad to hear it, and so is Kate.”
“How are you coming on your campaign plans?”
“Well, we’ve been mostly confined to making lists of people we want, but Sam Meriwether has signed on as campaign manager.”
“A great choice.”
“I’m going to want some of your people, as soon as you cut them loose,” Will said. “When can I start talking to them?”
“Not until after my announcement on Friday,” Adams said. “And, at this stage, there are only a couple who aren’t already on my current staff. I hope you won’t steal too many of those.”
“You tell me if there’s someone you don’t want me to ask.”
“I’ll leave it up to them, Will, but you have to realize that this is going to come as a great disappointment for all of them. They’ve been looking forward to the campaign. Maybe you should give them a few days to get used to the idea.”
“Sure, I will.”
“I’d better get back to Sue; I’ll tell her you called.”
“Give her my love.” Will hung up and went back to work. Ten minutes later, the phone rang.
“It’s Senator Kiel,” his secretary said.
Will picked up the phone and spoke to the minority leader of the Senate. “Afternoon, George,” he said.
“You okay, Will?”
“You bet. What’s up?”
“I was a little annoyed that I didn’t know Susan Adams was having surgery, until I saw it on CNN.”
“I don’t think she wanted anybody to know until she was sure it went well.”
“But you knew.” Kiel sounded a little peeved, but then he usually did.
“Sue called us over the weekend. She and Kate are…” Will let his voice trail off; he had been about to say that they were close, and that wasn’t exactly true. He knew what was coming next.
“What about this thing in the
Post
this morning?”
“I haven’t read all the
Post
yet. Which thing?”
“The thing about Joe might be dropping out.”
Now Will was stuck. “I heard about that,” he said.
“Is it true?”
“If it is, I’m sure you’ll be hearing directly from Joe,” Will said.
“If it’s true, are you going to run?”
Will knew that Kiel would likely be his biggest opposition. “Tempting, isn’t it?”
“Sure is. You know damn well
I’ll
run. What about you, no kidding?”
“You never know,” Will said. “But if I do, you’ll be among the first to know.”
“I like you, Will,” Kiel said, “and I’d hate to have to clean your clock in the primaries.” He chuckled unconvincingly.
“I’d hate that, too, George.” Will laughed.
“Who do you figure for the Republican nomination?”
“Eft Efton, Hale Roberts, or Mike Knowles.” Howard “Eft” Efton, congressman from Texas, was Speaker of the House, Hale Roberts was governor of Ohio, and Michael Knowles was senator from Kansas.
“That’s what I figure, too. You reckon either you or I could beat one of them?”
“Why not?” Will replied. “Of course, I’d rather have been vice president for the past seven years, like Joe.”
“Joe won’t give it up,” Kiel said. “He’s wanted this for a long time, and it’s his for the taking. Nobody just walks away from the presidency.”
“That would certainly be unlike Joe,” Will said.
“Okay, see you later,” Kiel said, and hung up. Will punched a button and called Tim Coleman into his office. “I want you to call Moss Mallet and commission a nationwide poll of likely Democratic voters and find out who they’d vote for in the primaries with Joe Adams out of the race.”
“That’s going to cost.”
“We’re going to have to have it anyway, and I’d like to have it before Joe withdraws and muddies the waters. Don’t tell Moss anything, and swear him to secrecy on who ordered the poll. Tell him we might let him release the results as his own poll—
if
we like the results.”
“And if we don’t?”
“He can reveal all in his memoirs.”
“I’m on it.”
“And I want it no later than noon Friday. Tell me to make sure there are half a dozen names on the list, not just George Kiel and me.”
“Done.” Tim went back to his office.
Will realized he had been reluctant to commission the poll, because he might not really want to know the
results. George Kiel was on television three or four nights a week, and he was a lot better known than Will.
Thursday morning, Sam Meriwether called. “I think I got that real estate I was interested in,” he said guardedly.
“How much?”
“More than I want to pay, but it’s a prime location.”
“Nail it down.”
“I can’t write a personal check for this, Will; I’m not a senator, you know.”
“Nail it down with your personal word of Southern honor, instead of money.”
Sam laughed. “Yeah, that ought to do it.”
“Tell him he can have a check on Saturday.”
“Okay—hang on a minute, Will.” Sam covered the telephone.
Will waited impatiently; he had a lot to do.
Sam came back on. “Turn on CNN,” he said. “I’ll hang on.”
Will took the remote control from a desk drawer and switched on the TV, which was already tuned to CNN. A reporter was standing on the White House lawn.
“…unusual for this president to cancel all his appointments without some sort of announcement from the White House press secretary,” he was saying. “The Israeli ambassador was told only after he had arrived for a meeting with the president. We’ll keep you posted.”
“What is that about?” Sam asked.
“I don’t have a clue; he canceled his morning appointments?”
“All his appointments for the day, apparently.”
Tim Coleman and Kitty Conroy walked into Will’s office, and he pointed at the TV.
“We heard,” Tim said. “What’s going on?”
“Maybe we’re at war, or something,” Sam said over the phone.
“With whom?” Will asked. “We’re not that mad at anybody, are we?”
“I don’t know,” Sam said. “Wait a minute, here comes more.”
Will turned back to the TV. The anchorwoman was being handed a sheet of paper.
“We’re going to the White House, now, for some sort of announcement by the president’s press secretary.” The camera switched to the White House briefing room, where the press secretary was approaching the podium.
“I have an announcement,” he said, “and I will not take
any
—repeat—
any
questions. This morning, before dawn, the president’s valet found the president on the floor of his bathroom in the White House family quarters, unconscious. He had apparently fallen and struck his head. He was seen by his doctor a few minutes later, and as a precaution, he was taken by helicopter to Walter Reed Hospital, where he is undergoing tests. I do not expect to have any further announcement about the president’s condition until around three o’clock this afternoon, when the test results are expected. The vice president has been informed and is meeting with the White House staff as I speak. I stress that this is a normal procedure, in the event of the president’s illness or temporary incapacitation. I will speak to you again around three o’clock.” He turned and walked off the stage and through a door as a chorus of questions was shouted at him.
“Holy shit,” Sam Meriwether said.
Will picked up the phone and called the vice president’s private office number. The phone rang six times before someone picked it up, but no one spoke into the phone, although he could hear voices at the other end. “Hello?” Will said repeatedly. Finally he recognized the VP’s secretary’s voice.
“Yes?” she said.
“Catherine, it’s Will Lee; is the vice president available?”
“Hello, Senator,” she replied. “I’m sorry, he’s over at the White House. He’s asked me to tell everyone calling this line that he won’t return any calls today, and probably not tomorrow, but I’ll add your name to the list. I’m sure he’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
“I understand, Catherine, and thank you. Can you tell me what’s going on over there?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know any more than was said at the news conference. All I know is that the congres
sional leadership and some others are meeting with the vice president now.”
“Thank you, Catherine; good-bye.” Will hung up and looked at Tim and Kitty. “Joe is meeting with the congressional leadership now, and he won’t be calling me back today.”
“Sounds bad,” Kitty said.
“Not necessarily,” Tim said. “This is all standard operating procedure when the president is ill.”
“Yes,” Will agreed, “and we don’t know how ill. It might just be a bump on the head.”
CNN had another report. Trading had been halted on all the stock exchanges for the remainder of the day after stocks had taken a steep dive.
“Tim, Kitty, start calling your contacts at the White House,” Will said. “See if you can get any information at all.”
They left the room, and as they did, Will suddenly remembered something: at their meeting at Camp David, Joe Adams had said that, if he resigned the vice presidency, he would recommend to the president that Will be appointed in his place. Now it occurred to him that, should the president die, Joe might very well wish to appoint him vice president. And that was an earthshaking thought.
Kitty came back into the room. “Nobody I know at the White House is taking calls. In some cases, the switchboard wouldn’t even put calls through to their offices.”
Tim joined them and gave the same report. “Senator,” he said, “has it occurred to you that, if the president dies, Joe Adams might appoint you vice president?”
“It crossed my mind,” Will said.
“That would certainly change everything to do with our plans,” Tim said.
“None of our planning would be wasted; I’d still be running this year.”
Tim looked at him oddly. “Do you really think that, if Adams became president, he’d decline to run?”
Will shrugged. “I can’t get into that. Just continue to work on the campaign as if nothing has happened.”
Tim and Kitty looked at each other, then at Will, askance.
“Don’t ask,” Will said.
At three o’clock they gathered around the TV set and waited for the press conference. The White House press secretary strode onto the platform and took his place at the podium. A hush fell over the room. “Same rules as this morning,” the man said. “Absolutely no questions.” He took a sheet of paper from his inside coat pocket and read from it. “Tests being conducted on the president at Walter Reed Hospital are not yet conclusive. The press office will issue bulletins as information comes in. The vice president will address the nation on television at six o’clock this evening, eastern time. I will be making no further statements between now and then.” He turned and walked from the stage.