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

by Andrew Delaplaine

“I dunno,” said Tim.

  “I guess the party’s over.”

  “Yeah, well, it was fun while it lasted,” said Tim.

  “We still have a couple of days—we’ll get a few minutes together.”

  “Yeah,” said Tim, but Bill could tell he was disappointed they didn’t have more time right this very minute.

  They collected their masks, snorkels and flippers from the beach and waded out toward the oncoming boats, meeting them when they were about waist-high in water.

  As the lead boat idled close to them, Dumaine threw his gear over the gunwale.

  “What’s up, Carlos?” he asked. “We’re suddenly in a hurry?”

  “I don’t know, sir, an urgent call from the President.” He lifted his cell and spoke into it. “I’ve got the Vice President-elect here with me. You can patch him through to the President now.”

  He handed the phone to Dumaine.

  “Thanks.”

  “You want us to move away, sir?”

  “No.” Into the phone: “This is Bill Dumaine.”

  Another agent in the boat was also on a cell phone. He handed it over to Agent Rodriguez.

  “Washington for you.” Agent Rodriguez took the phone and listened carefully, nodding frequently.

  After Dumaine said, “Yes, Mr. President?” Tim noticed that he didn’t say much else, but started nodding as rapidly as Agent Rodriguez. There was an, “Of course, Mr. President.” And a few more “Yes, Mr. Presidents.” And finally, “We’re already packing, Mr. President. We’ll be back as soon as we can.” A pause. “Thank you, Mr. President. I’ll see you shortly.” He handed the phone back to Agent Rodriguez. “You getting all this from your people?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get what?” Tim asked, busting a gut to know what was going on.

  “Doug Mowbray just had a fucking heart attack.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Gentlemen, you better get in the boat,” said Agent Rodriguez.

  Dumaine swung his leg over the gunwale and an agent grabbed it behind the knee and pulled him up and over into the boat while Agent Rodriguez performed the same maneuver for Tim.

  After Agent Rodriguez saw that Dumaine and Harcourt were settled on an aft seat, he nodded to the agent at the controls.

  The small boat took off with a roar, leaping out of the water before planing off.

  “I guess you were right,” said Tim over the engine noise.

  “What?”

  “This party really is over.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER 61

  Shahzad was sitting with Gilani at the bar in the Café du Sud in Gustavia salivating over a Croque-Madame and loving the rich Béchamel sauce, which the chef in this little island outpost had whipped up perfectly. As the two VASAK agents ate, they kept an eye on the TV over the bar. The French and Argentine soccer teams were going at it, tied 2-2 in the second half.

  “I am very confident things will work out,” Shahzad said to Gilani between bites. “We hit them at the front gate with half our team, and over the south wall with the other half. Just at the time they sit down for their Thanksgiving dinner. When they pray to their stupid Christian god, we will be the ones celebrating a Thanksgiving,” he said with a laugh.

  Shahzad didn’t notice at first when a news anchor with a special bulletin interrupted the soccer match. Of course, it was all in French. When the pictures of Mowbray and the White House flashed on the screen, the TV drew their undivided attention. Both he and Gilani spoke fluent French.

  “A heart attack?”

  “It can’t be,” said Gilani.

  “Barman!” Shahzadcalled out. A handsome young light-skinned Algerian in his 20s sauntered over. His manner betrayed too many idle years growing up in paradise.

  “Oui?”

  “Un vere de vin rouge pour mon ami, et un Kronenbourg pour moi, s’il vous plaît.”

  “Oui, monsieur.”

  There was nothing else they could do but order more red wine and another beer and settle down to watch the news like everybody else in the world.

  President St. Clair was now in the Press Briefing Room talking to reporters.

  “As you all know, we had a meeting with senior Transition staff in the Cabinet Room, then we had lunch together, I bid him farewell, he left the Oval Office and I was having a cup of coffee with my son Jack and suddenly we got the news.”

  “Our man won’t be here tomorrow for us to kill him,” Shahzad whispered to Gilani.

  “Yes. They’ll get him back immediately.”

  Now the plan was scuttled, it occurred to Shahzad how little he and his men actually went into action. After all the rigorous training they endured, what was it? One percent of the time? Two percent? His was a life of constant frustration. Of anguish. Of internal torture. Of goals so seldom realized.

  Shahzad did not look forward to the long, dreary, endless road home: the trip back out to the fishing boats bouncing around in the Zodiacs under cover of darkness, the rendezvous with the General Soublette, the voyage back to Caracas, the ride in the convoy with a gloating General Hernandez to the airport, the long plane ride home to Tehran. Empty-handed. But he knew he had to go back the way he came to preserve the secrecy of the trip. The operatives that arrived with the usual tourist visas could return home by commercial air, but he would accompany his team back the long way. It was good for morale. They would be working together soon. Shahzad knew that with the sudden turn of events, the Iranian President and the Supreme Leader would both insist on a continuing effort to remove Dumaine.

  And Shahzad would be ready.

  Then more on the TV, as St. Clair now answered questions from reporters.

  “How serious is the President-elect’s heart attack?”

  “We’re not releasing any information until we get it from the medical people.”

  “Will this impair the President-elect’s ability to serve?”

  “We don’t know yet. As a precaution, I’ve already alerted Vice President-elect Dumaine who’s on vacation in the Caribbean, on St. Bart’s. A Government jet is already in St. Martin waiting for him because the airport at St. Barts is too short to accommodate larger craft. But as soon as we can get his party over to St. Martin, they will return to Washington immediately. He’s not in the air now, but he will be shortly.”

  Shahzad looked at Gilani, leasned over and whispered when the Algerian bartender had passed.

  “You think it’s too close to try something at the airport here? The security is poor. They will be in a big hurry, you know?” he asked.

  “Too many unknown factors, Reza. We haven’t scouted the airport, damn it! We’ve spent all our time observing the Villa Mauresque.”

  “We’d better hope this Mowbray does not die on us,” said Shahzad.

  “True. Then our man become the President and our worst nightmare becomes the new reality. What can we do?”

  Shahzad took a mouthful of the ice cold Kronenbourg.

  “Pray for Mowbray to live. And make another plan to get Dumaine if he doesn’t. He’s not President yet.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER 62

  Bianca and Phil were sitting by the pool baking in the sun after a swim in the ocean, drinking margaritas when a Secret Service agent came out and told them the news.

  They immediately exchanged looks, but neither had to say what was on the other’s mind:

  What if the son of a bitch dies?

  “Where the hell is Bill?” asked Phil. “Out diving or something, right?”

  “Yes, out with Tim snorkeling somewhere.”

  Bianca called out to an assistant to get Bill on the phone, but a couple of minutes later, she got a call from Bill, just to coordinate, but she and Phil were already getting the whole party packed and ready to return to Washington immediately. They’d be out of there in an hour.

  Bianca gave the Thanksgiving turkey they’d ordered to the staff.

  “Have a party,” she said. “I could care
less.”

  It took Dumaine and his two power boats a full hour to make the trip at top speed to Anse des Cayes where they were able to rendezvous with a chopper that took them to the Aeroport de St.-Jean in eleven minutes.

  The Secret Service already had several chartered turboprops under twenty-four-hour guard. These were the small craft able to negotiate the notoriously short runway on St. Barts.

  Over on St. Martin, at Princess Juliana International Airport, their Air Force Boeing C-32 jet was fueled and ready to return the Vice President-elect and his party to Washington.

  By the time Bill and Tim arrived at St.-Jean, they found that Phil, Bianca and the girls had already flown out. It took eight turboprops and other small craft to get the Dumaine party back to St. Martin. Bill and Tim, still in their swimsuits, had Polo shirts on, but nothing else. The Secret Service had a quick change of clothes ready for both of them. An agent came over to Agent Rodriguez to confer, and Agent Rodriguez told them they could change in the men’s room. They rushed in and stripped down.

  When Bill saw Tim’s body, he couldn’t help smiling.

  “What I wouldn’t give for an hour just now,” he said.

  “For God’s sake, Bill, Mowbray just had a heart attack.”

  Bill shrugged.

  “Sorry, seeing you naked like this gets me all stirred up.”

  Pulling his shirt on and tucking it in, Tim came over and took Bill by the shoulders.

  “Bill, if he dies, you’re the next President.”

  A sobering look consumed Bill’s face as he looked at the floor.

  “I know, I know,” he whispered. Then he looked up into Tim’s eyes and stroked his cheek, kissing him lightly on the lips. “Don’t run away from me, okay? Don’t leave me alone.”

  Tim had never seen Bill in such a vulnerable moment. Even while his whole future hung in the balance.

  “Okay. I’ll stay. We’re going to go to hell for it, but I love you and I’ll stay.”

  Then they went out and boarded a turboprop, zoomed down the tiny runway, and lifted into the sky.

  Just minutes later they landed on the tarmac at Princess Juliana. Air traffic control directed the plane not to a gate, but to the huge C-32 already powered up and stationed on a feeder road in a far corner of the runway.

  Dutch customs officials and top military personnel were on hand along with representatives from the U.S. Consulate to expedite their departure, so it was just a matter of shaking a few hands and boarding the plane.

  Bill greeted everybody on board and immediately made his way to the private stateroom where he found Bianca and Phil already deep in conversation with Cornelia Strate and a couple of other staffers.

  “What’s the latest?” he asked as he came in and gave Bianca a perfunctory kiss on the cheek.

  “You smell like salt,” she said. “Salt water.”

  “Serious but stable condition,” said Phil.

  “Jesus,” said Bill, dropping into a seat.

  Tim had followed Bill, of course, but now saw that he didn’t belong. He didn’t say anything, just left, closing the door behind him.

  When he went back to the staff section of the plane to grab a seat for takeoff, he mulled over his position with Bill if something worse should happen to Mowbray.

  Sure, Bill would need a Body Man, but how long could they get away with it? And with Bianca and Phil watching their every move, how long could he expect them to put up with him?

  And how long before they confronted Bill and forced him to take action? Would Bill stand behind him? Force Bianca and Phil to keep their mouths shut? They had as much to lose as he did if word ever got out about his relationship with Tim. And if Bill ever agreed to show Tim the door—whether he chose to do it or was pressured into it—wouldn’t Tim be a loose cannon that would keep them all up at night? Forever?

  There was no question in his mind how Bill felt about him. But since Bill had just come out, Tim had no way of knowing how firmly Bill was committed to him.

  Tim had had a few gay relationships in the past, but not long-term ones like the one with Bill felt like it was shaping up to be. He didn’t know if Bill would waver, cave in under pressure. Or take a strong stand with Bianca and Phil.

  Maybe Bill would bluff them when the time came.

  He didn’t know when that time would come, but Tim knew it would come someday.

  And he knew that with Mowbray sick in the hospital, that day was likely to come sooner rather than later.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 63

  Late that afternoon, President St. Clair met with Jack in the Oval Office.

  As Jack busied himself in the butler’s pantry making coffee, something it seemed like he did before every meeting with his father, the elder St. Clair paced back and forth in front of the large windows behind his desk. He turned and looked at the portrait at the other end of the room, right above the two chairs in front of the fireplace where a President always sat down with a visiting head of state for a photo op before serious negotiations began. The portrait was of his favorite President, James Knox Polk, the eleventh President who, like St. Clair, had been a one-term President, serving from 1845 to 1849.

  Polk had come into office with a definite set of goals, and he accomplished them all, leaving office after threatening war with Great Britain over ownership of Oregon. When the U.S. annexed Texas and Mexico balked, he started the Mexican-American War, resulting in acquiring what is now the entire southwest portion of the country. He reformed the Treasury and put in place financial controls that endured until 1913, when the Federal Reserve was formed. He opened the U.S. Naval Academy (where St. Clair and son Jack had gone to school), opened the Smithsonian Institution, built the Washington Monument that St. Clair was looking at through his window. He put the second “sea” in the phrase “from sea to shining sea” by riding the crest of the doctrine of Manifest Destiny that proclaimed that America would control all the land between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

  But he himself had not achieved many of his goals, St. Clair thought, and how much more modest were they?! Back then, people like Polk were building a country. Here he was, just trying to hold it all together. The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced the problems confronting a modern President were not as cut-and-dried as in the old days. The problems were far too complex and involved too many interested parties around the globe to be dealt with efficiently in a single four-year term of office.

  Jack finally emerged from the butler’s pantry with cups of café con leche for the two Miamians.

  “I love café con leche, but I liked coladas more,” he said. “My stomach doesn’t like them, though. Sofia and I used to drink gallons of coladas.”

  There was the slightest of pauses while they both thought of the President’s second wife, who died suddenly of ovarian cancer in the first year of his term only a few weeks after the diagnosis.

  “Well, it’ll be good to see Rafael here in Washington,” said Jack.

  “Yes,” said St. Clair.

  A ceremony commemorating the establishment of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy (1876) was scheduled for tomorrow up in New London, Connecticut, and St. Clair had invited his younger son to come up for the event. He was due in any minute.

  St. Clair took the coffee from Jack and sat down at Teddy Roosevelt’s desk.

  “Teddy Roosevelt built the West Wing, you know?”

  “I didn’t know that,” said Jack. “I thought it was Woodrow Wilson.”

  “Nope. It was Teddy,” the President said, looking to the side of the room where a Frederick Remington sculpture of Roosevelt astride a horse during his Rough Rider days in the Spanish-American War dominated a table against the wall.

  His glance rested on the “eyes only” folder Jack had prepared with information from Agent Rodriguez.

  “Tell me, Jack, what do you think about—that?”

  His eyes remained riveted on the file folder.

  Jack’s gaze drifted over to the
folder as well. He heaved a heavy sigh.

  “I don’t know, Dad. More important, what do you think of it?”

  The President pursed his lips, ran a free hand through his silvery hair.

  “Part of me regrets not using it in the campaign. I’d have been reelected and we wouldn’t be facing this… nasty situation.”

  “You really don’t want to leave here, do you?” said Jack, looking around the historic room, the room that Teddy Roosevelt had built.

  “That, plus there’s something else. I don’t have to tell you what the country’s going to go through when this shit hits the fan.”

  “If the shit hits the fan, Dad.”

  “Yes, if…”

  “There’re a lot of narrow-minded people out there, Dad.”

  “Forget that they’re narrow-minded. They’ve been lied to!” St. Clair said, his voice gaining some of the old campaign heat. “This man—Dumaine—is living a lie!”

  “Well, we didn’t use this—or even the rumor of any of this crap—during the campaign, and now they’ve won the election, what can we do with it?”