The Presence

by T. Davis Bunn

  On the surface, all went as planned. Underneath, however, Congressman Silverwood was not so sure.

  He met TJ at the Occidental, the restaurant in the Willard Hotel just a block down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House. Although he did not often have an opportunity to come here, it was fast becoming one of Silverwood’s favorites. The entire place had been renovated to the grandeur of an earlier era and reeked of political lore. Julia Ward Howe was said to have penned “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” there. President Ulysses S. Grant would come over and sit in the ornate lobby, smoking his cigar and drinking a brandy, and try to escape from the pressures of running a nation. He was said to have created the term “lobbyists” right here, for all the characters who used the opportunity to bend the President’s ear.

  The wood-lined restaurant was filled with murmuring voices, the air heavy with the smells of rich perfume, richer food, and power. It was a heady mixture. Silverwood felt a satisfying thrill in going through such restaurants nowadays—to be recognized and need to stop and chat with people along the way gave him a sense of belonging, of importance.

  When TJ joined him and declined his offer of a drink, Silverwood recalled the man’s religious bent. The discussion began immediately, with TJ offering very clear and intelligent assessments of the political and the structural difficulties he would need to overcome in making his assignment work.

  Nonetheless, as the luncheon progressed, Silverwood became increasingly perplexed. TJ did not discuss these matters as though talking to a confidential ally. Regardless of how sensitive the information might have been at this stage of policy development, Silverwood was convinced that TJ would have said the very same thing to anyone who had asked.

  Silverwood tried to discuss the need for secrecy, the essential fact that political power was won by being the first to present a new idea. The media focused on one person, the leader. All spotlights turned his way. If a foe was to hear of this and steal the limelight, TJ would gain nothing for all his hard work.

  TJ listened intently, nodded occasionally, said nothing. Silverwood was left with the feeling that the man disagreed in some fundamental way. But for the life of him, Congressman Silverwood could not understand why. Like himself, TJ Case had everything to lose and nothing to gain by premature disclosures.

  Upon mentioning the fact that TJ owed him for both the job and for the furthering of his future career, TJ replied with a very solemn note of thanks. He promised to do the very best job possible. But even with this, Congressman Silverwood remained unconvinced. TJ Case had seemed like a man who really, deep down at heart, did not care.

  When Silverwood finally asked him if everything was all right, TJ replied, I was just about to ask you the same thing. Silverwood, surprised, asked, what do you mean by that? Well, Case said with a voice of eerie calmness, you seem a little concerned about something. I was worried that maybe you were facing something you didn’t know how to handle.

  For a moment, fear clutched at Silverwood. He wondered if there was some way the man could have known about the problems he faced with his wife. If one person knew, all of Washington would be discussing it over breakfast the next morning. Silverwood pushed it away with a short laugh. Stress and pressure are always a part of this job, he said. TJ Case answered, yet peace and fulfillment are always a part of God’s plan. It is those who know the greatest stress that remain in the greatest need.

  Before Silverwood could recover, a man approached their table. When Silverwood realized who it was, his shock deepened.

  Senate Minority Whip Richard Atterly was a tall angular man in his late sixties, ramrod straight and impatient to the point of curtness with anyone he felt was wasting his time. He looked down at Silverwood’s luncheon companion, said, “You’re TJ Case, aren’t you?”

  TJ removed his napkin, stood respectfully, said, “Yes, sir, I am.”

  “Thought so. Heard so much about you I figured it must be you. You fit their description exactly.”

  “I don’t believe I—”

  “Atterly. Richard Atterly. Senator from Rhode Island. I’ve got two secretaries and four staffers who went to your prayer meeting this morning. Came back determined to make every one of them from now on, even if it means crawling off their deathbeds. Even got me to wrangle passes out of Personnel so they won’t have trouble getting in from now on.”

  “That’s rather flattering,” TJ said mildly, “but there must be some group meeting in their own building.”

  “That’s right, there is. A Bible study every Thursday. I was one of the people who got it started. Haven’t had time to get to it recently, what with one thing and another.”

  “What could be more urgent than giving time to prayer and studying the Lord’s Word?” TJ’s voice was respectful, yet direct.

  Senator Atterly regarded him from under bushy eyebrows, laughed a short bark. “You’re just exactly like they say. Have a way of making the impossible swallowable.”

  “Nothing the Lord wills us to do is impossible,” TJ replied.

  “I wonder about that sometimes,” Atterly said, growing somber. Then, “What is it you’re doing here in Washington?”

  “I am Special Assistant to the President for Education.”

  “Well, I’m not on the Education Subcommittee myself, but some people think I do have a little clout. You run into any problems, come by and see me.”

  “That’s very kind of you, sir,” TJ said, showing no emotion over an offer that would have sent any other Washington insider into orbit. “Perhaps you would do me the honor of joining us for one of the prayer meetings.”

  Piercing blue eyes regarded him steadily for a moment before Atterly replied, “Why not? I’ve got some meetings over there Monday morning. I’ll see if I can’t get there early enough.” He looked over to where Silverwood stood waiting to be recognized. “Haven’t I seen you around?”

  “Congressman Silverwood, sir. We met at the Republican party meeting last month.”

  “Ah yes, the young man from North Carolina. Heard some nice things about you.” They shook hands. “Well, don’t let me disturb your lunch. Hope to see you on Monday, Mr. Case.”

  Congressman Silverwood had watched the senator stride away, and decided that clearly he was dealing here with something which he did not understand.

  ****

  Silverwood eased himself into his seat at the hearing table with a nod to Bobby, already in his place directly behind Silverwood, and another to the congressmen on his right. He pushed the thoughts of TJ Case away. The HUD investigative hearings required a clear head and all of his attention, especially on a day when he intended to seize the lead in the questioning.

  It was becoming increasingly easy for him to switch off the emotions and thoughts of one conflict, problem, or event, and train his total attention on the next item. It was a requirement of this job. Literally hundreds of issues clamored for attention every day. It was impossible to deal with them adequately unless he brought his mind to an ever-tighter focus.

  Congressman Silverwood opened the file case before him and extracted the documents related to the next witness. As the gavel banged the meeting to order, television lights switched on.

  Press attendance had been sporadic the first few days. The media surfaced only when there was a tip-off in anticipation of a fireworks display. Nowadays, however, the explosions were fast and frequent. Rarely did a session pass without something occurring which was worth mentioning in the evening news.

  Even a young freshman congressman reaped the benefits of the growing attention. Silverwood had been interviewed so often that he no longer bothered to keep count. All he had to do was delay his own departure from the hearing room long enough to allow the senior heavies to leave first. He didn’t mind, as it gave him a moment to collect his thoughts and to select a few one-shot items that would fit well into the thirty-second mentality of television news. Because he was earning a reputation as someone who gave usable quotes, he was in increasingly greate
r demand.

  There had been some debate as to whether these hearings should be declared confidential and the press left outside. The further the investigation progressed, the more widespread the abuse of funds and power seemed to become. There were political reputations to be made, however, and a hungry press to be fed. So the hearings remained open, and the news people multiplied.

  The congressional committee assigned to investigate possible HUD wrongdoing had been forced to change venues twice, as the audience continued to grow. In the beginning they had been in a hearing room barely large enough to hold the oval conference table and three rows of spectator seats. Now they were in the second largest hearing room in all of Longworth Building. The congressmen sat at a slightly curved table facing an amphitheater with rising banks of seats. A long front table for the witnesses and their attorneys faced the congressmen. Against the right-hand wall was a small desk for the technician with recording equipment. The television cameras and light tripods were behind the last row of audience seats and along the left-hand wall, so that both the congressmen and the witnesses could be covered.

  This afternoon, officials from one of the largest construction companies in the United States, the Atlas Group Incorporated, would be questioned. Two senior executives sat at the center of the opposing table, flanked by a battery of dark-suited lawyers.

  Congressman Silverwood carefully reviewed his list of questions, hammered out with Bobby the day before. He felt a thrill of anticipation. There was every indication that this Atlas company had been heavily involved in the misallocation of funds, and possibly even the bribing of government officials. Bobby and Silverwood had spent long hours poring over the contracts supplied them by HUD. The conditions this company had received were incredible, and the projects they had worked on absolutely beyond belief. One was a massive public swimming pool, ostensibly for the underprivileged, yet built in a New Jersey community with the highest per capita income of the entire state. Another was a camp in California, originally built during World War Two to house interned Japanese-Americans. The houses were to be converted into apartments for migrant workers. The contract was on a cost-plus basis. The final bill came to $85,000 per apartment unit.

  The investigation was continuing at a very rapid pace. There were two factors involved here. First, the issue was so new and the proportions of the scandal were expanding so swiftly that neither party as yet had developed a comprehensive position on the matter. Both parties were walking on eggshells as the issue of adequate housing for the homeless became more politically sensitive. Whatever policy was presented would have to both condemn the abuse of funds and suggest a solution that would put more money into the hands of those who needed it the most. At the same time the big contractors would be fighting like crazy to keep as much of the HUD funding directed toward luxury projects as possible; there was very little profit in housing the poor.

  The second factor was simpler. There was a rumor that the Senate was planning to set up its own investigation. The potential for political glory was too great for them to leave it to a House subcommittee. This meant that the more ground the congressmen covered before this happened, the more the press and the public would continue to look to them as leaders in the unfolding drama. The Senate would simply be following in their footsteps, along a path already laid out by the House.

  Because of these two factors, only a minor amount of petty squabbling was heard between committee members representing the two parties. In fact, there was an impressive amount of cooperation. For the moment, the two parties were working together, and the speed at which they dispatched witnesses was remarkable.

  The committee chairman was a Democrat, as the House majority was Democratic. The chairman composed his face as the television lights came on. He droned through his opening statement, the same address he used to begin every hearing. Congressman Silverwood shuffled quietly through his papers and worked to shut out the voice. The only reason all the committee members were present and seated for the opening remarks was because of the television coverage. If a network other than C-Span was covering a hearing, the cameras would normally shoot only the initial ten to fifteen minutes, from which a sixty-second filler would be used as a backdrop while the reporter summarized what had taken place. No politician dared miss this coverage, or risked having the nation see his committee seat empty on the six o’clock news.

  “I cannot tell you what a moral outrage it is,” the committee chairman concluded, “even to contemplate that the agency responsible for providing housing for the homeless has instead been lining the pockets of major developers.”

  At this Congressman Silverwood drew himself erect in his seat. That final sentence was what was known as a “media bite,” a hard-hitting, fast-grabbing phrase that the reporters could take and run with. The same one was used at every hearing, and it became a signal for the cameramen to pan the entire committee.

  Congressman Silverwood’s favorite media bite came from Senator Cranston, when he had chaired the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearings on revisions to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Senator Cranston daily lamented a law which “had a loophole big enough to fly a Lockheed through.”

  His attention was drawn to the sight of a wraith-like figure descending the stairs and entering the light behind the bank of television cameras. Congressman Silverwood felt an unexpected chill as he recognized Shermann, the lobbyest. The man gingerly seated himself in the first row behind the witnesses’ table, and fastened his shaded gaze on the committee chairman.

  The chairman seemed to hesitate momentarily as he bent his head and shuffled through the papers strewn before him. He raised his face to the cameras, cleared his throat, said, “Ah, in view of his keen interest in our first witness, I would like to invite my honorable colleague from the state of North Carolina to open the questioning. Congressman Silverwood?”

  The announcement surprised him so greatly that Congressman Silverwood turned and gawked openmouthed at the chairman. The man refused to meet his gaze. Silverwood collected himself swiftly, conscious of the cameras, yet not understanding at all why this was happening. Anyone who had taken even the most fleeting glance at the material would have known that this company had its hand in the federal till. Why on earth was the chairman passing up such an opportunity, and turning the plum over to a member of the opposition at that? Silverwood had been pressuring the man for over a week to be allowed second position in questioning the witness, hoping that the chairman would leave at least a couple of stones unturned. To be given the green light with no prior questioning at all was beyond his wildest expectations.

  Mentally he shrugged off the confusion, set a stern visage for the cameras, and asked his first question. “Mr. Tompkins, you are senior vice-president of the Atlas Group, is that correct?”

  The gray-haired gentleman seated at the middle of the seven-man witness group leaned toward the microphone, said, “Yes, sir, that is correct.”

  “Then could you please give the committee an explanation of the events leading up to your company’s being awarded a public housing contract by HUD for Princeton, New Jersey, in January of last year?”

  The man glanced down at the typewritten page in front of him, replied, “Congressman, this matter is one best answered by our counsel.”

  The lawyer seated immediately to the left of the Atlas Group senior vice-president leaned toward his own microphone, said blandly, “Congressman, Mr. Tompkins is unable to supply the committee with that information at this time as the events and the contract in question lie outside the direct line of his responsibility. However, if you would be so kind as to allow us adequate time, we would be most happy to gather all the necessary documents together and present you with a very precise explanation of everything related to this specific contract.”

  Congressman Silverwood waited for the committee chairman to criticize both the lawyer and Mr. Tompkins for such a blatant attempt to avoid the question. The committee’s subpoena had specifically instru
cted the company to produce both the documentation and the officers responsible for this and other questionable contracts. When the chairman remained silent, Silverwood turned toward him. He saw that the man’s face had taken on a waxy sheen, and was literally covered with perspiration. The chill returned to Silverwood’s belly as he realized that the chairman was truly afraid.

  ****

  The peace of sharing Bible passages and a morning prayer did not erase the concerns TJ carried with him throughout the remainder of his workday. He returned from his lunch with Congressman Silverwood determined to get away from the incredible distractions that surrounded him. He was looking for ways to anchor himself upon a clear direction, ways to define and clarify his role. It was an absolute necessity, yet it seemed as though the entire world was out to confuse him and to fill his days with frantic unproductivity.

  His telephone rang constantly. And not only his. The offices’ cramped quarters were a chaos of jangled nerves and brassy voices and calls to answer three phones at once. Computer terminal printouts spilled onto photocopying machines that spewed papers all day long. Mail came in by the canvas-bag load twice a day. Other letters were rerouted and transferred up or down the halls, with scribbles in the corners clamoring for immediate response. His in-box was lost under an avalanche of position papers, newsletters, hearing documents, and interagency policy analyses. Staffers popped in and out in a constant stream, grabbing his elbow, asking his opinion, seeking him for a meeting, requesting updates. And everything was always, always urgent.

  His own staff was made up of hard-line campaigners. They lived by the creed that power was solidified and votes guaranteed through making contacts. They spent an incredible amount of time in meetings that TJ Case considered unproductive and they called essential. They liked that word a lot, essential. It was essential that he meet with a well-connected gentleman who had no direct tie whatsoever to educational policy-making. It was essential that he be on best terms with senior-level members of the Department of Education, even if it meant back-pedalling on the issues he considered most important. It was essential that he develop personal links with key committee staffers, essential that he attend endless briefing sessions where men and women droned in tired voices from prepared statements that left his head full of cotton stuffing, essential he fill his calendar through appointments with lobbyists from a plethora of coalitions and interest groups. It was essential that he agree with them, or at least let them feel that he was on their side.