The Running Mate (A Jack Houston St. Clair Thriller)

by Andrew Delaplaine

  “Take a look at that.”

  “What?”

  “Didn’t Mowbray just collapse?”

  Suddenly, there was a scramble as the reporters and camera operators rushed over toward the line of cars waiting to take Mowbray and his party back to Blair House.

  Uniformed White House Secret Service police just as quickly moved forward to contain the onslaught, so reporters couldn’t actually get that close to the stricken Mowbray.

  Aides frantically lifted the President-elect, put his arms over their shoulders and dragged the now unconscious man back toward the White House.

  Broadcast reporters immediately set up for live remotes.

  “The President-elect has just collapsed on the driveway outside the West Wing as he prepared to go back to Blair House,” said one.

  “There’s a fully staffed emergency room unit inside the White House,” said another reporter, “so this is certainly where they are taking the President-elect.”

  “We will be on this story continuously till we get a confirmed report on the President-elect’s condition,” said another.

  Cable news anchors were fed emergency bulletins and programming was interrupted on all networks as the news flashed around the world.

  Inside the Oval Office, President St. Clair and son Jack were just sitting down with a cup of coffee. Jack had just come from the butler’s pantry in an alcove off the room with his special blend of café con leche.

  “Lonnie’s the only one on the staff who can make a good one,” said Jack.

  Suddenly, Clougherty threw open the door and rushed into the room.

  “Mr. President!”

  St. Clair saw the ashen look on Clougherty’s face and rose from his chair.

  “What in God’s name, Francis—?”

  “Mowbray just collapsed outside getting in his car.”

  “What?” Jack jumped up, spilling his coffee.

  “Collapsed? What do you mean, ‘collapsed’?”

  “I don’t know. They say he just keeled over—getting in the car.”

  “What was it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Clougherty.

  “Where is he?”

  “They’re taking him to the Medical Unit—he’s not even there yet.”

  “Well, get the hell down there and keep me advised,” said St. Clair as he came around the desk. Secretaries in the outer office scrambled back and forth like hysterical chickens in a coop. “And close that damned door!” Clougherty left. St. Clair turned to Jack. “He had some heart problems, didn’t he?”

  “It’s mentioned in his bio, but nothing major. An enlarged heart, but that’s not a big deal. He was on high blood pressure medicine.”

  St. Clair’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Who isn’t?”

  Jack rubbed his chin.

  “We’d better reach out to Dumaine.”

  “Yeah,” said the President. “Definitely. Get hold of him so I can talk to him. His little vacation is over. Contact the Secret Service agent in charge down there with him. Agent Rodriguez.”

  “Yes, Agent Rodriguez.”

  “Fill him in. What about a plane?”

  “The plane that took him down never left—it’s waiting for him at the St. Martin airport. You remember that little airport down on St. Barts. They have to take puddle jumpers to get back to their plane.”

  “Yes. That’s one scary airport, St. Barts. All right—see to all this.”

  Jack went to the outer office and gave all the orders, then came back into the Oval Office where his dad had taken his seat.

  “Let’s get some more coffee in here, Jack. This stuff is cold.”

  “I’ll get it myself, Dad,” said Jack, noticing his dad nibbling on his lower lip.

  Jack went into the butler’s pantry and came out with two new cups of coffee. He sat down opposite his dad and saw that he’d pulled out the “eyes only” report they’d been going over earlier.

  “You’re thinking the same thing I am, aren’t you?”

  President St. Clair nodded.

  “Yes. I’m wondering exactly how things’ll play out if Doug Mowbray dies on us…”

  “And Bill Dumaine moves into the White House with his wife, two little girls… and a handsome young boyfriend.”

  St. Clair paused as he looked at his son.

  “Something along those lines, yeah.”

  “What can we do about it?”

  “I don’t know that there’s anything we can do about it… legally.”

  “What do you mean, legally?” asked Jack. He didn’t like the train of thought his dad was pursuing.

  The President got up and turned his back to Jack to look out the window onto the South Lawn, ravaged with wind and rain.

  “Bill Dumaine has every right to walk into this room on Inauguration Day and take over my office.”

  “Yes?” Jack asked slowly.

  His dad turned suddenly and rested his hands on the desk, looking sharply at Jack.

  “But what’s going to happen to the country when they find out he’s got some boy on a short leash here in the White House?”

  Jack let out a heavy sigh.

  “C’mon, Dad. Tim Harcourt is not some teenage faggot with a drug habit who’s hustling Dumaine.”

  “How do you think the media’s going to portray him once this gets out.”

  “Who says it has to get out?”

  “Things like this always get out. And what about the blackmail potential? The extortion? Anybody who does find out about it will have the next President by the balls. Does Dumaine use his special executive powers to send assassination squads after them to keep his dirty little secret?”

  “I don’t know,” Jack said, putting his empty cup down on Teddy Roosevelt’s desk. “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know, either.”

  “But what can we do about it, Dad?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You can’t declare martial law and prevent him from taking over the office.”

  The President paused again, thinking dark thoughts.

  “What if the story did leak out? What would the consequences be?”

  Jack shook his head.

  “You wouldn’t?”

  “I’m not saying I would. But let’s say it leaked out. Forget who leaks it. What are the consequences? The ramifications?”

  “What happens, you mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Off the top of my head, I think there would be such a firestorm that he’d have to resign.”

  “That’s the way I was thinking.”

  “Putting next in line the Speaker of the House,” said Jack.

  “And after him, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate,” said the President. “And both those positions are occupied by men in their eighties.”

  “And who happen to be among two of your most vicious political enemies,” said Jack.

  “Yes, they hate me and I loathe them. Both of them.”

  “Well, if Dumaine can keep his dirty little secret a secret, he might still make a pretty good President.”

  “He’s better for the country than those other two jerks.”

  “More coffee, Dad?”

  “Yes, then let’s call down to the Medical Unit and see if Mowbray’s in any condition to see us.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER 58

  At the precise moment Mowbray hit the ground in the White House driveway, Bill Dumaine and Tim Harcourt were snorkeling in the pristine waters of a lagoon off a small, uninhabited island near the much larger Ile Frégate off the north coast of St. Barts.

  They were blissfully alone as they came out of the clear, turquoise water and tramped up onto the sandy shore. Out about a quarter mile two small power boats carrying their Secret Service detail were anchored.

  Bill pulled off his mask and kicked off his flippers and dropped down to lie on the beach, the hot sand burning his skin, sending hot shockwaves of pleasure through his body.

&n
bsp; “Ahh, that feels great. I hear it’s still shitty weather up in D.C.,” he said.

  “It couldn’t get more perfect than this,” said Tim, looking at the paradise around them.

  Bill leaned up on his elbows, looking out to the two boats. He saw Agent Rodriguez scanning the beach with a set of binoculars, keeping his eye on them.

  “It’d be a little more perfect if those guys would disappear for an hour or two.”

  “Yes,” Tim smiled. “A little romp in the jungle would be nice.”

  The cool water lapped at their feet, the sound of the little wavelets soothing and reassuring. A healthy breeze swept across the little island, rustling the palm trees and lush tropical foliage just up off the beach behind them.

  “You know, we could sneak in there for a few minutes. I can’t even kiss you out here,” said Bill.

  “It has been tough, not being able to touch you.”

  “And it’s only going to get worse.”

  “I know,” Said Tim.

  “I’ve been thinking about Camp David a lot.”

  “Camp David?”

  “Yeah,” said Bill.

  “Why in God’s name Camp David?”

  “You ever been there?”

  “No.”

  “I was there twice—when the President had a casual meeting for all the senators on the Foreign Relations Committee to go over this whole nuclear arms issue that became such a big deal in the election.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, it’s really private. I mean, the place is surrounded by armed guards, practically behind every tree. Lots of cameras and all that crap. But once you’re in a cabin, there’s a lot of privacy.”

  Tim smiled, then turned his gaze to the agents with the binoculars trained on them.

  “You suppose those guys can lip read?”

  Dumaine laughed.

  “I hope the hell not, but I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “C’mon, let’s walk,” said Tim. Tim enjoyed being the boss when they were alone. In public, there was never any question who was boss.

  They got to their feet and strolled down the beach, leaving their gear on the sand behind them.

  “Let’s drift up into that little clump of palm trees where I can get my hands on you for ten seconds,” said Dumaine.

  “See if they move closer to shore?”

  “Why not? We’re gonna have to test the boundaries, aren’t we?”

  They casually walked up into a cluster of palms trees, with a lot of low-lying sable palms, butterfly palms, lady palms, needle palms, saw palms—just out of sight of the agents on the power boats. Once behind a thick tree, they grabbed each other and started kissing passionately. Bill’s hands ranged freely over Tim’s body. Tim held Bill in a tight hug while they kissed.

  Tim pushed back.

  “Okay, let’s walk out, down another few feet, and back in the bushes again, just so they get a glimpse of us.”

  “Right. Good,” said Bill.

  They came out into full view and walked down another twenty or thirty yards before easing their way back into the bushes for another hurried make-out session.

  Then back out again.

  “They haven’t pulled up anchor,” said Bill.

  “No, I guess they’re okay with us if they can see us, at least most of the time.”

  They were coming up onto the outward side of the curve in the lagoon, and stopped before rounding the point.

  “Let’s go back the other way,” said Tim. “If we go around that point, they’ll have to pull anchor to follow us.”

  “Okay.”

  They turned back and walked slowly back to the spot where they’d left their gear.

  If they thought they were fooling Agent Rodriguez, they were sadly mistaken. He kept tabs on them through the high-powered binoculars, and knew they were slipping into the overgrown jungle that hugged the shoreline so they couldn’t be observed by his unit on the two boats. Then, a few minutes later, they’d emerge from their little hiding place. He could see the smiles on their faces, the easy banter, the way they looked at each other. They were acting like any other two people in love. They just happened to be… who they were.

  When the Vice President-elect had asked Agent Rodriguez to set up this little trip, he’d been very specific about wanting a “deserted lagoon,” and of course, there were several to choose from when he did his scouting to select which one they’d go for.

  Dumaine had also told him to tell the other agents not to bring swimsuits. He didn’t say so explicitly, but he made it clear he didn’t want their company in the water.

  Still, it wasn’t a surprise—to Agent Rodriguez in any case—when —Tim Harcourt showed up in his swimsuit.

  Then, when they entered the lagoon on the little island off Ile Frégate, Dumaine had told them to anchor a good quarter-mile offshore and to wait while he and Tim went snorkeling.

  “We may go as far up as the beach, but no need for you guys to follow us,” he’d said, when normally they’d beach the boats in order to be close to him.

  So they just sat out there in the water while the Vice President-elect stole kisses from his boyfriend behind sable palm bushes.

  Agent Rodriguez looked over his shoulder. The other agents in his unit were just casually watching Dumaine and Harcourt off in the distance. They had no idea what was going on between the two men.

  Maybe that’s why he was chief of the detail. It wasn’t just that he noticed the “little things.” It’s that he read meaning into them.

  Like that little two minute trip to the cabana by the pool. All those little moments added up.

  And what they added up to… was Trouble.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 59

  At NBC headquarters in Rockefeller Plaza, Brian Williams was on the air with a special news flash.

  “The world stands shocked this afternoon as President-elect Douglas Mowbray fights for his life in a small emergency room at the White House Medical Unit. Our own Chuck Todd was the first reporter to actually see the President-elect fall to the ground, and he has more.”

  Chief NBC News White House Correspondent Chuck Todd appeared on camera.

  “That’s right, Brian. The word we’re getting is that the President-elect has suffered a major heart attack. Earlier, he’d been fighting off a bad cold. The White House has a fully equipped medical facility, including all the features of a hospital emergency room, in the basement here, but I’m told by the President’s press secretary that they will get President-elect Mowbray over to Bethesda Naval Hospital as soon as doctors think he’s stable enough to make the trip.”

  “Let’s reiterate this latest news, Chuck, for our viewers: President-elect Mowbray has suffered a major heart attack just after a lunch with the President following a Transition meeting with senior staff, but he is alive. Any more you’ve been able to learn, Chuck?”

  “Not a thing, Brian. They’re not releasing anything except to confirm that the initial diagnoses is a major cardiac incident.”

  “Have they notified Vice President-elect Dumaine yet?”

  “Well, as you know, Dumaine is in St. Barts taking a little vacation after the tough campaign. He was scheduled to come back over the weekend after spending Thanksgiving day there tomorrow, but we’re sure they’ve notified him and that he’ll be returning to Washington immediately.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER 60

  Bill and Tim returned to the spot where they’d left their gear and walked into ankle-deep water and sat down, letting the cool, clear water rush over them as the waves rolled in and out.

  “This sure is nice,” said Tim, looking at the sea and sky, a few puffy picture-perfect clouds rolling along ahead of a strong breeze.

  Bill jerked his head over their shoulders at the jungle behind them.

  “That was nice, too.”

  “I hope they can’t see a hard-on through those binoculars,” laughed Tim.

  They were looking at each other now, qu
ietly.

  “I don’t know how we’re going to do it, Tim, but we’re going to make this work. Somehow.”

  “I want it to work, Bill, but it’s going to be impossible.”

  “I know. I’m not approaching any of this with a clear head.”

  “The best thing is for me to go away, you know that.”

  “That’s the part I know. And that’s the part I don’t want.”

  Suddenly, the sound of engines roaring shot across the water and they turned to see one of the power boats coming at them at full throttle. The second boat was pulling in its anchor.

  “What’s all this?” said Bill.