RETURNING TO THE bus, Corey noted that Jake Linkletter of Rohr News had claimed a seat nearer to his own. "Can we watch my mother station?" Linkletter asked.
Shrugging, Ford changed channels.
Rohr News showed Rob Marotta and Dorrie Hoyle on the lawn of a megachurch outside Columbia, flanking the church's pastor as he addressed a noonday crowd. "In the 1960s," the minister said, "liberals with an atheistic, humanist worldview seized control of our government. Now we and they are waging the ultimate struggle over whether our country will be saved or plunged into eternal darkness.
"Today, Senator Rob Marotta has come to pray with us for America." Closing his eyes, the minister linked hands with Marotta and Hoyle. "Oh Lord," he began, "please deliver ..."
"More ballots for Rob Marotta," Ford cut in. "May the dead arise, and vote as one."
Linkletter turned to Corey. "Senator, do you believe it's inappropriate for Senator Marotta to make appearances at evangelical churches?"
Though it took considerable self-control, Corey answered in a reasonably pleasant tone: "I'm not in the business of trying to refine Rob's sense of the appropriate."
"Are you referring to the charges that you're in contact with Al Qaeda?"
Beside him, Corey felt Dakin Ford stir in warning. He studied the reporter's face--smug, lineless, and without character. "How old are you, Jake?"
For an instant, Linkletter looked disconcerted. "Twenty-nine."
"Pretty young. Ever serve in the military?"
Of course not, the reporter's expression said. "No," he answered tersely.
Corey smiled. "Then I guess you missed your chance to be in contact with Al Qaeda. These days we reserve that opportunity for the less sophisticated segments of our populace."
As Corey turned to the screen, the crowd formed a prayer circle around Marotta.
AT THE NEXT rally, held in a high school gym, Corey took questions as a swelling phalanx of reporters watched him for signs of pressure.
A trim brunette stood with her adolescent son. "This is my son Tommy," she began. "He's always looked up to you."
"Hi, Tommy," Corey said with a smile. "Hope you're turning eighteen before next Tuesday."
Though the crowd chuckled, the woman's forehead furrowed. "Last night," she told him, "Tommy answered the phone and some man told him you cheated on your wife, just like you'd betray our country. Then he turned on the TV and heard an advertisement that said you're in favor of men marrying other men.
"He still wants to believe in you, but now he doesn't know what to think. His dad and I don't know what to tell him. Could you please help us?"
Corey took in the youthful faces of the students, the worn bleachers, the cinder-block wall on which hung banners commemorating championship teams going back for decades. "All of us," he said, "deserve better than anonymous tape recordings, or TV ads placed by groups no one's ever heard of, or postcards mailed from out of state.
"I'm running for president, Tommy, because I love our country--way too much to use tactics so dirty that I have to conceal them." Corey scanned the crowd. "Tonight, all three candidates are going to debate on television. None of us can hide. And all of us will be accountable for everything we say.
"I hope all of you will be watching. If you base your judgment on what we say for ourselves--in public--then you'll win, and the cowards who can't acknowledge their own lies will lose." Turning back to his questioner and her son, Corey finished: "I'd like you and Tommy to be my guests, ma'am. I'll do my best to make you proud."
Leaving the gym, Ford said to Corey, "Guess you plan on kicking Marotta's ass."
Corey's face was set. "No choice. It may be the only time he's not hiding under Price's rock."
8
"WAIT A MINUTE," RUSTIN EXPOSTULATED. "YOU'RE TELLING ME THAT Corey's post-debate party is being hosted by a guy who runs a pawnshop out of his home, looks like a Hell's Angel, and flies a fucking Confederate flag on his front lawn?"
Ford glanced at Corey, eating barbecue with Dana Harrison as they honed his debate strategy. "Name's Boss Moss," Ford said with an easy grin. "Sunk about five grand into sprucing up his place for a visit from our future president.
"Okay, ever since Vietnam maybe Boss has been a little fucked up. Maybe some of his motorcycle buddies occupy the margins of the law. But he's got a network of ten thousand people in trailer parks who'd never vote for Corey unless Moss said to. Piss Boss off, and those votes evaporate."
"So we're taking the media to a pawnshop run by a wacko named Boss."
"Who's already drunk," Ford added mildly, "and just ran a brand-new Stars and Bars up the flagpole."
Rustin rubbed his eyes. "Dakin," he said, "I don't care what you have to do. If Corey sees that fucking flag, he'll blow."
"All I can do is try," Ford said dubiously. "Gonna tell him?"
"The mood he's in?" Rustin exhaled. "The latest poll is bad enough."
TEN MINUTES BEFORE the start of the debate, Rustin sat with Corey behind a partition. "This is surreal," Corey said. "We're about to debate in an abandoned shopping mall jammed with tables full of drunks. I can already hear them yelling."
"Linwood Tate is speaking," Rustin explained. "Tate bought most of the tables and packed them with Marotta people. It's like a football game out there, and you're definitely the visiting team.
"I want you to be careful, Corey. I don't like breaking this to you now, but the latest tracking polls have you sliding badly among Republicans." Frowning, Rustin put his hand on Corey's arm. "You need at least a third of them to win. The last thing you want is to make a slip Marotta can beat you up with until Tuesday."
"Then give me some time alone, Blake."
For the moments remaining, Corey thought of Joe Fitts; his brother, Clay; and the last time he had spoken to Lexie. "Whatever happens," she had told him, "just be yourself. That's the one thing they can't take from you."
Looking up, Corey saw the Reverend Bob Christy. Smiling, Christy said, "They told me I'd find you here." He placed a hand on Corey's shoulder. "We really don't know each other," he said in an avuncular tone. "And we sure don't agree about much. But I want you to know this poison isn't coming from me."
"Believe me, I know that."
"Then it seems like we've got a common enemy." Christy gave a sudden, surprising grin. "So let's have at each other. But maybe us boys can have some fun with Marotta--I'll hit him from one side, you from the other. Don't know what your people are saying to do, but I'm in this to save America from men like Magnus Price."
Corey smiled. "Funny, Reverend. That's how I feel, too."
THE RULES WERE simple and brutal: though John Coburn, a news anchor from Columbia, would moderate, the candidates would simply face off with one another. From the moment they stepped onstage, Corey sensed that Rob Marotta was tense.
The cavernous indoor mall was filled with tables whose occupants, prosperous Republican donors, cheered and applauded with the mass enthusiasm of fans at a sporting event. Shaking Corey's hand, Marotta mustered a sheepish smile that, Corey supposed, was meant to reflect their common plight. "Wild, huh?"
Corey eyed him quizzically. "I've been watching you on the tube, trying to figure out what's wrong. Now I can see what it is. You're shrinking, Rob, right before my eyes."
THEY SAT AT a table--Corey and Christy flanking Marotta--facing Coburn, a soft-chinned man with his back to the audience. From his opening statement, Christy seemed determined to make up for the attention Magnus Price had conspired to deny him.
"Americans are engaged in a second civil war," he began. "This time the prize is not land or cotton or sovereignty, but the hearts and minds of our children.
"We can lose our children to the siren song of sex education and sleazy entertainment--this whole seductive notion that sin exacts no spiritual or moral cost. Or we can point them down a righteous path and transform our entire culture in a single generation." Sternly, Christy scanned the crowd, as though searching out the inebriated, the inat
tentive, the cynical. "But that requires a leader. I am that leader. For me, putting faith at the heart of our public life is not a matter of convenience, a cheap maneuver taught me by political handlers." Abruptly turning on Marotta, he demanded, "Let us hear your testimony, Rob."
For an instant, Marotta looked so startled that Corey almost smiled. "Testimony?" Marotta parried. "I didn't know this was a trial."
"You just don't talk our language," Christy said with a sorrowful smile.
"To born-again Christians, our testimony describes the moment we were saved. I sure remember mine." Facing Corey, Christy inquired, "What about you, Corey?"
"I have no testimony," Corey answered calmly. "Only beliefs. I believe that God endowed man with certain qualities--including the right to personal autonomy in how we worship our Creator."
Corey paused, gathering his thoughts. "I believe in the God of the New Testament--in the power of human love, and in a society that cares for the least of us." He turned to Marotta. "What do you believe, Rob? Seeing how you spent your first morning here pandering to a man who calls Catholicism--your faith of choice--a 'satanic cult.'
"Is Catholicism a cult? Or was your obeisance to Carl Cash, to paraphrase Bob Christy, a 'matter of convenience'?"
"Reverend Cash," Marotta responded, "endorsed me as the Christian candidate qualified to be president. I did not endorse, nor did he ask me to, every statement he has ever made."
"Nor did you repudiate them," Corey said sharply. "That would have shown leadership. But that would involve actually running your own campaign."
"Let's move on," the moderator hastily interjected. "Obviously, the role of religion in our civic life has become a major issue. Beginning with Reverend Christy, do you believe that Darwin should be taught in our public schools.?"
Corey scanned the crowd, made newly attentive by the edgy start of the debate. "Darwin?" Christy answered with a smile. "Utter nonsense. Using evolution to explain our world's design is like believing that a hurricane can hit a scrap heap and a 2007 Honda Civic will just pop out and drive away on its own."
Facing the audience, Christy continued in a tone that was slow, insistent, and resonant. "For me, intelligent design is the only answer. I believe that God designed us as a species, and that is what I would teach our children."
To Corey's surprise, scattered applause echoed in the cavernous mall. "Senator Marotta?" the moderator asked.
"I'm with Reverend Christy," Marotta replied smoothly. "I believe that intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution. Evolution is theory, not fact. Besides," he added with a smile, "God has been with us a lot longer than poor, dead Darwin."
The audience chuckled. "Senator Grace?" the moderator asked.
In the front row, Corey saw Blake Rustin arch his eyebrows, a warning to be cautious. "This is a tough one," Corey said. "Most people think that a candidate can't embrace Darwin and get our party's nomination.
"But as far as I can tell, Darwin was right. I can't claim to know how God set about creating man, so I don't dispute that He did so by means of evolution." Facing Marotta, he said, "In rejecting Galileo, the religious leaders of his day insisted that the earth was flat. Are you okay with Galileo? Or should we balance every hour of astronomy with an hour of flat-earth science?"
A ripple of nervous laughter told Corey he had struck a chord--for skeptics, Marotta's parsing of issues smelled of calculation. "I believe in freedom of inquiry," Marotta shot back. "Seems like I'm the only one up here who does."
This sound bite, showing Marotta's resilience, was greeted by applause. "In that spirit," Marotta continued, "I'd like to ask Reverend Christy if he believes in the theory of the rapture and, if so, how that relates to the Middle East."
This, Corey thought, was shrewd and even daring--by challenging Christy to defend dogma at its most apocalyptic, Marotta might paint Christy as too extreme for mainstream evangelicals. But Christy appeared unruffled. Leaning forward, he fixed Marotta with an unwavering gaze. "The nation of Israel is more than land and people. It is the place God chose for the return of our Messiah--"
"There's no greater friend of Israel than I," Marotta interrupted. "I'm asking you about the rapture."
Christy seemed undeterred. "Can you recite the first book of Thessalonians, chapter four, verses sixteen and seventeen?"
"Not by heart, no."
Eyes raised to the ceiling, Christy quoted from memory. "'The Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout. And the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to greet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord.'"
The audience was hushed. Corey felt a mixture of horror and fascination, as though witnessing the first moments of a terrible blunder. But Christy still seemed oblivious. "On the day of the rapture, the faithful will be 'caught away.'"
"Suppose you're on a highway?" Marotta asked.
Now Christy cocked his head. "Wherever they are," he asserted, "those who believe will be lifted up and simply disappear."
"And then?"
"Jesus," Christy answered firmly, "will return to the biblical land of Israel at the head of an army of raptured saints, and defeat the Antichrist at Armageddon. Only then will the Lord Jesus Christ sit upon the throne of David in Jerusalem."
From somewhere in the audience came a drunken whistle of amazement. Taking the offensive, Christy asked, "Do you believe in God's Word, Rob?"
"Of course. But we must work in earthly ways to ensure the survival of the state of Israel."
"What does that mean?" Corey asked. "Does Armageddon have a place in U.S. foreign policy?"
"The Bible," Marotta temporized, "is subject to interpretation."
"You're a great interpreter," Corey said sharply. "It's your answer that's hard to interpret. Here's mine: the very idea of Armageddon breeds a scary fatalism, where an apocalypse--perhaps nuclear--becomes integral to God's design.
"I'm not prepared to consign humanity to destruction. With all respect to Bob, I have trouble imagining the smug, smiling saved being wafted from their cars or levitated from lawn chairs, while the rest of us die in highway wrecks and nuclear catastrophes. I prefer that we make the planet as it exists a safer place."
"So do I," Marotta responded. "By fighting the war on terrorism. About which you've been strangely passive."
To Corey, the oblique reference to the "Manchurian candidate" whispering campaign was deliberate and unforgivable. "'Strangely passive,'" he repeated in a low, chill tone. "As I recall, the last time you and I encountered terrorists only one of us was busy.
"But perhaps I should be charitable. Maybe you're confusing Iraq with the war on terror, and courage with sending other people to die." Catching himself, Corey continued in an even voice: "To my regret, the war in Iraq has made us far less safe. And by this time, only a fool believes that 'terror' is something you can invade."
As a smattering of applause greeted Corey's retort, he saw the first glimmer of uncertainty appear in Marotta's eyes.
"Closer to home," Coburn said, "you, Senator Marotta, have taken a strong position in support of the Confederate flag. Why should that be an issue in a presidential campaign?"
"Because I'm tired of people who divide us up by race." Turning to Corey, he said, "You've been waffling on this issue, Corey. Do you believe in punishing South Carolinians for honoring their heritage?"
At a front table, Blake Rustin shook his head, his gaze imploring Corey to deliver a politic answer. "Do you believe in slavery?" Corey asked Marotta. "To many Americans, black and white, that flag is the symbol of a cruel and degrading institution that haunts us to this day." Facing the audience, Corey said, "This is your state, not mine. But were it up to me, I'd put it in a museum with the other relics from a hundred-and-fifty-year-old war. I don't think we need to honor the dead by insulting the living."
"That's not what this is about," Marotta cut in. "And South Carolinians know it."
<
br /> "Fine," Corey shot back. "So the next time you tell a group of African-Americans in Michigan that they should vote Republican, explain to them why black voters in South Carolina are being oversensitive. But you won't, of course. You're just trolling for votes until next Tuesday, desperate to pull out a campaign that's basically on life support. And I think South Carolinians know that."
A second spattering of applause made Marotta flush. "I'd like to associate myself with Senator Grace's remarks," Christy offered in an amiable tone. "I sincerely feel for those who love that flag. But I doubt you gave this five minutes thought, Rob, until someone told you there were votes in it. That's just not worthy of a president. And neither is your campaign."
Surprised, Corey repressed a smile. "That's uncalled for," Marotta shot back. "My campaign is about who's qualified to be president. You have no qualifications."
"Oh, I've got a couple," Christy answered, unperturbed. "One of them is that I say what I believe, and don't use other people to say what I'd be ashamed to say.
"Today--on a station owned by one of your great supporters, Alex Rohr--some former air force colonel showed up claiming that Al Qaeda sent two terrorists to your office so that Senator Grace could kill them just to make himself look good." Christy smiled. "All of us saw the picture, Rob. But do you really believe that Corey and Al Qaeda are conspiring against America, or do you agree with me that anyone who says that belongs in an insane asylum?"
A bark of nervous laughter came from a nearby table. Corey perceived anew the power of Bob Christy: neither a politician nor the product of conventional politics, he was free to do or say what he pleased, secure in the conviction that he spoke for a higher power. "That question," Marotta said with rote disdain, "doesn't deserve an answer."
Christy's eyes widened. "Are you saying," he asked in an incredulous tone, "that your campaign manager and his minions didn't put this colonel up to it? Are you telling me this lunatic got on Rohr's TV station based on the power of his own ideas?"
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