"Oh," Ford said lazily, "they'll dream up something different for Corey, maybe without their fingerprints on it. Once it starts, hope you bright boys and girls take the time to figure out who's behind it."
Across the aisle, Blake Rustin sat alone, consumed by his own thoughts.
THEY WERE SCHEDULED to stop in Beaufort and, later, Hilton Head--Corey's territory, filled with retirees from the North and Midwest. Driving on a two-lane road, they entered a semitropical world of palmettos, moss-draped oaks, and tidal rivers. As they passed under a bower of mossy branches, Corey saw, at the end of a tree-lined drive, a white antebellum wood home whose generous porches overlooked a rolling lawn filled with well-dressed men and women.
Their host, a trim, blond man named Henry Davis, greeted him with a firm grip and a smile. In a pleasant drawl he said, "Welcome to the New South, Senator. You got more friends here than you know, some of them even natives."
Corey returned his smile. "Thanks, Henry. I need the support of all indigenous people."
Davis's introduction was short and gracious. Standing on the porch, Corey surveyed the crowd. "If a visitor from Mars," he began, "were to drop in on us today, he or she would believe us truly blessed. And we are. But we're here because America's in trouble.
"Our country is eight trillion dollars in debt. Our political system protects those in power, and with power. Our political parties encourage us to distrust our fellow citizens. And all too few of us believe that we can change this.
"But we can," Corey said emphatically. "We still can build bridges to each other. We still can tackle our real problems with real ideas. Together, we still can heal our country.
"But that means starting with the truth--regardless of party, or religion, or where we live, or who we are. And the truth is this: our political leaders are weakening America by dividing us into factions.
"It's up to us to stop them."
The crowd began applauding. Only when the applause continued, growing louder, did Corey grasp how many others, even in this privileged place, were troubled by what they sensed might be an irreversible decline into dishonesty and disarray. "Our leaders," Corey said, "can prey on the worst in us or speak to the best in us. But which of these prevails is in our hands."
Afterward, the crowd pressed forward to meet him. "Maybe," Dakin Ford murmured to Corey, "this can really happen here." But it was his muted note of worry that stayed with Corey when they got back on the bus.
THAT NIGHT, AFTER a massive sunset rally on the beach at Hilton Head, Corey walked alone at the edge of the water, talking to Lexie on his cell phone.
"It went pretty well today," he told her. "So far, your native state's been okay."
"That's good, baby. I'm glad for you."
Even without seeing her, his sense of Lexie's moods had become acute. "What's wrong?" he asked. "I'm hearing a certain reserve. Maybe a woman who doesn't want to burst my bubble or worry me with troubles of her own."
After a long silence, she said, "I got a call this morning, from a friend I went to Yale with. A man came around to her apartment, asking if she knew me then. She didn't like his questions."
Corey gazed at the moon-streaked tide. "What questions, exactly?"
"Boyfriends, for one." Lexie hesitated. "He asked if she knew where Peter was. Lizzie said she had no idea, then cut the conversation short."
Corey's mouth felt dry. "Did this guy say who he worked for?"
"A tabloid. But the phone number on the card he gave her connected to a 'not in service' message." Lexie's voice seemed to fade. "Somebody's after me and has a notion of where to look. All I ever wanted was to put that in the past."
Corey imagined her face, sad and a little haunted. "I'm sorry," he told her. "I know what this dredges up for you."
"Not just me. All those years ago, trying to forget what those men did to me, I never dreamed I was ruining someone's chances of becoming president."
She sounded utterly dispirited. "I want to tell you something," Corey said. "I hope it's fair to say this to someone I haven't seen for two months.
"I'm in love with you, Lexie. I won't give up on whatever future we may have."
Lexie was silent. "I love you, too," she said at last. "So it's not only you who gets to choose. I need to sit alone with this."
Unable to be with her, or comfort her, Corey said good-bye.
HALF ASLEEP, RUSTIN sat on the edge of his bed, wearing boxer shorts and his daughter's oversized Dartmouth T-shirt. "She got a problem?" he asked wearily.
"Yeah," Corey snapped. "Someone's poking around in her life. Smells like Magnus Price to me."
Rustin blinked, his eyes still adjusting to the light. "Surprise. You knew this woman was a magnet from day one. There are no Hollywood endings in politics--especially for someone from Hollywood." Rustin drew a breath. "I want you to consider something, okay?"
"What's that?"
"Unless she's squeaky-clean, break it off with her; then put out that it was your decision. If she's the woman you think she is, she'll understand."
Corey placed a hand on his shoulder. "Sorry," he said and left.
IT STARTED THE next morning.
Finishing his speech at the Battery at Charleston, Corey saw the signs at the edge of the sizable crowd--Lexie with a giant X across her face. A chant rose up from those who held the signs: "Just say no! Just say no!"
Near a clump of demonstrators, a camerawoman from Rohr News recorded their shouts and placards. Determined to ignore them, Corey waded into the friendly crowd with Dana Harrison and saw Dakin Ford edging toward the back. "I just loved your speech," a plump young woman told him. "Could you please sign my T-shirt?"
"With you still in it?" he inquired with a laugh.
The woman grinned, turning her back. As he scrawled his name in felt pen, Corey saw Dakin Ford grab a bearded man by his shirt collar, barking into his face. "Go get Dakin," he murmured to Dana.
"HIRED HANDS," FORD said in disgust. "These thugs wouldn't know a legitimate issue if it bit them in the ass."
Corey and Rustin sat with him in the back of the empty bus, a swiftly improvised meeting from which they had excluded the press. Outside, reporters milled about, peering at them through the windows.
On the tray in front of Ford were his laptop and a flyer he had wrested from one of the demonstrators. "'To secure the favors of his black girlfriend,'" Ford read, "'Corey Grace has agreed to outlaw the Confederate flag.'"
"Yeah," Corey said, "right after I abolish the First Amendment."
"There's more," Ford told him. "A friend forwarded this e-mail he just got. Near as I can tell, it's viral--my friend's on an e-mail list for donors to Carl Cash University." Peering at his computer screen, Ford read aloud: "'Electing Corey Grace means mixed-race children cavorting in the Rose Garden.' And so on.
"Problem is, we can't tell where this shit comes from. Best you can do right now is ignore it. But can I give you some advice on our sacred flag?"
"Sure."
"We've come a fair distance since the whole flag ruckus started. A few years ago, we removed it from the statehouse flagpole and planted it a hundred yards away, near the monument to the Confederate dead. Not everyone was happy, but the idea was to calm things down a little." Ford flipped his laptop closed. "Whoever put out that flyer is stirring up old trouble to put you on the spot.
"What's gonna happen, I predict, is hundreds of thousands of these flyers will start popping up in people's mail. The flyers will come from out of state; they'll have stamps so no one can track who sent them; we won't figure out who paid for them before Election Day. And as soon as that asshole from Rohr News gets back on this goddamned bus, he's gonna ask you about the flag.
"So here's what you do, Corey: embrace the compromise." Leaning back with his eyes closed, Ford intoned, "'South Carolinians are working toward resolution without the interference of outsiders. I endorse those positive efforts and condemn the efforts of others to exploit the wounds of the past.' Or," Ford add
ed wearily, "some other crap like that.
"The flag nuts won't like that much, and neither will black folks. But the flag nuts aren't voting for you, and blacks in South Carolina aren't ready for a Republican. At least you can come out of this with a shred or two of dignity."
Gazing at the windows, Corey saw the Rohr News reporter, wiry and bespectacled, pacing beneath a palmetto tree with a flyer in his hand. "At most a shred," he answered.
AFTER DELIVERING HIS canned response to the inevitable question from Jake Linkletter at Rohr News, Corey lapsed into silence.
On the screen above them, a washed-up country-and-western singer monopolized the afternoon talk-show broadcast on Rohr's Charleston station, expressing his indignation that Corey Grace "disrespects the precious heritage of the South."
Dakin Ford grimaced in disgust. "Dorrie Hoyle hires this turkey to warble at Creation Park," he told Corey. "Without her, he's drinking cough syrup in a gutter. Fucker can't even spell 'Confederate'--hell, he can't even spell 'flag.'" Turning to Rustin, he said, "Just got another e-mail. Last night they were passing out those flyers at high school basketball games."
Closing his eyes, Corey tried to sleep.
Marotta's voice awakened him. On the set of the same talk show, Marotta sat with the hostess, Dolly Reed, an officious brunette with tightly coiled hair. "For almost ten years," she told him, "the NAACP has persuaded out-of-state groups not to hold conventions in South Carolina--all because the Confederate flag still flies in a little corner of our statehouse lawn. Just a short while ago, our own country star Ace Harwood expressed concern that Senator Grace supports that boycott. What do you have to say about that?"
Frowning, Marotta straightened the crease in his suit pants, a portrait of reluctance. "As you know, Dolly, we've never raised this issue. But others have, so it seems important for the candidates not to duck it.
"Racism in any form is wrong. For too long, southerners have been the victims of racism in reverse. And it's dead wrong to make South Carolina pay in dollars and cents for honoring its history." After a pause, Marotta continued: "I support flying the Confederate flag and condemn any boycott of this state. I call on Senator Grace and Reverend Christy to join me in that stand."
Ford shook his head. "The heart of darkness just swallowed Rob Marotta. It's an awesome thing to watch."
Staring at the screen, Corey said nothing.
7
AN HOUR LATER, COREY, FORD, AND RUSTIN SAT AT A TABLE IN COREY's hotel suite in Charleston, nerves raw with tension and fatigue. "Price is baiting you," Rustin said. "He wants to make you lose your temper--or, better yet, leap to Lexie's defense."
"Or," Corey snapped, "just act like a spineless robot."
"How about like a president, for Godsakes. This isn't a school yard."
"Close enough," Ford put in. He placed a tape recorder on the table. "Y'all better hear this. It's the tape of an anonymous call--they're happening all over white rural areas. A quick-thinking friend pushed the record button on his answering machine."
The disembodied voice was itself clearly a recording. "This is an information alert for all citizens who intend to vote in our presidential primary.
"Would you vote for a man who gave his ex-wife AIDS, is conducting an illicit affair with a radical black actress, supports interracial marriage, opposes banning marriage between men and men, supports taking away your guns, and wants to ban the Confederate flag?
"If these values are your values, then Corey Grace is your candidate."
Ford hit the pause button. "What you gonna do?" he asked Corey wearily. "Get out a press release denying you've had AIDS?
"You can't prove where this comes from. You sure as hell can't blame Marotta and Price. You can't even complain--all you'd be doing is giving Price a megaphone. Only thing left, Corey, is ignore this."
Rustin looked from Corey to Ford. "Play the Al Qaeda tape," he said.
Ford inserted another cassette. "During his capture," a tinny, anonymous voice said, "Corey Grace was brainwashed by Al Qaeda. That's why two Al Qaeda terrorists raided the capital: to sacrifice their lives so Grace could be a hero. And why?" The voice finished in a conspiratorial tone: "Because Corey Grace promised to let Islamic fundamentalists plant nuclear bombs at the heart of America's cities."
The tape ended. "Sorry," Ford said softly. "Lousy payoff for surviving torture. But your connection to Al Qaeda sure puts Lexie in perspective."
Though taut with anger, Corey remained silent. "You know how it's done," Rustin said. "Phone calls come from out of state, or maybe outside the country. No caller ID shows up, and the tape's programmed to switch off if they get an answering machine. And there's no way to trace these calls, so the lazy bastards in the media just move on."
"This is the first level of attack," Ford interjected. "Next, someone starts spreading the same crap on the Internet. Then people show up in churches saying that they've heard this stuff. Then surrogates with no obvious connection to Marotta will start appearing on Rohr's TV stations, taking this slander all the way from anonymous phone calls to the mainstream of public conversation." Ford's brief smile was sardonic. "Last night another friend of mine went to church, and heard you're supported by an entire 'gay army.' Probably a crew of Islamic sodomites.
"That's the Carl Cash-Dorrie Hoyle connection--e-mail lists and church phone trees being used to spread this sewage."
"While Marotta," Rustin added, "stays above the fray. When Rohr's media people ask him whether you're an Al Qaeda agent, he'll say he can't believe it--spreading the rumors while disclaiming them. Then Rohr will give a megaphone to whatever nuts and whores Price hired to slander you flat out."
Propelled by restlessness and frustration, Corey stood. "We don't have the personnel or money to pin this on Marotta, do we?"
Rustin glanced at Ford. "Not before Election Day."
"Then all we can do is keep running our campaign and encourage the press to dig." Corey turned to Ford. "You told me South Carolina would be a test of character. Let's hope, in the end, that it matters."
AT NOON, AFTER Corey's first two speeches, the passengers in the Silver Bullet watched the screen, riveted by Dolly Reed's newest guest. "Here's how I put the pieces together," the retired air force colonel told her with spiteful vehemence. "Question: Why did the Arabs kill Grace's navigator but not Grace?
"Answer: They needed to eliminate the only witness to Grace's treachery."
As Corey felt his stomach tighten, Dolly touched her throat in a gesture of alarm. "Do you truly believe that?"
"'Absolutely,'" Dakin Ford said for the colonel. "'Ever since Magnus Price put the computer chip in my brain ...'"
"Question," the man continued. "Would Corey Grace have become a senator if those Arabs hadn't first made him a hero?
"Answer: No way--his candidacy would have been a joke."
"So you think this is Price's work?" Kate McInerny asked Corey.
"It's the press's job to find that out," Corey answered with some asperity. "Merely reporting crap like this is cheap and easy."
"Question," the colonel went on. "Why did Corey Grace just happen to be around when Al Qaeda tried to assassinate Senator Marotta?
"Answer: Grace knew exactly when they were coming."
"In other words," Dolly Reed gasped with apparent horror, "you're saying that Senator Grace is like the 'Manchurian candidate'--an agent of our enemies?"
The man bit his lip impatiently. "How else did one unarmed man kill two terrorists who'd already cut down an armed member of the capital police?" His tone became conspiratorial. "You know Grace's sentimental story about the Arab who kept loosening his bonds? That's his propagandistic way of insinuating that Arab terrorists really aren't so bad. So when Al Qaeda asks us to abandon our oil fields in the Middle East, 'President Grace' will have softened us up for complete capitulation."
Despite himself, Corey laughed. "That's what I get for saving Marotta's life. Next time, I'm opening the door and inviting them inside."
Above them, The Dolly Reed Show was interrupted by a commercial. Startled, Corey gazed at the face of his ex-wife.
The photograph had been taken during his first campaign. Standing beside him at a picnic for supporters, Janice might have looked discomfited, save that the X across her face obscured her eyes. "Do all your women wear X's?" Ford asked.
"Corey Grace," the voiceover said, "divorced his wife and abandoned his daughter. Now he's busy romancing an actress in opulent foreign love nests ..."
As the familiar photograph appeared--Lexie in her bikini--Ford murmured, "Left out the X this time."
The picture changed to two men in tuxedos, holding hands next to a three-tiered wedding cake. "Maybe that's why," the narrator concluded, "Corey Grace opposes a ban on homosexual marriage. If you don't believe in marriage, why should it matter who gets married?"
The small print beneath the wedding cake read, "South Carolinians for the Defense of Marriage." "Who are they?" Kate McInerny wondered aloud.
"That was my point," Corey snapped. "Why don't you find out?"
BY THE NEXT stop, at the quadrangle of the University of South Carolina, Corey was glad to escape the bus. "Beginning to feel claustrophobic," he mumbled to Ford.
"Easy, boy," Ford said under his breath. "The press folks are watching your face."
The platform was at the center of an expanse of grass crisscrossed by brick paths and shaded by symmetrically planted trees, the dogwoods and magnolias displaying the first buds of spring. Gazing out at the lawn filled with students both black and white, Corey sensed what Lexie and he might yet come to mean.
As he ascended the platform, the campus bell tower began to sound. Lighter of spirit, he said solemnly to Ford, "A sign."
"A portent," Ford said with a smile. "Never ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for Rob Marotta."
The Race Page 20