by Stuart Woods
“Good party, Will.”
“Thanks, Paul; we’re glad you could come.”
“Will, while I’ve got you here, there’s something I need to ask. Certainly, I won’t quote you on your answer.”
Will said nothing, to show disapproval that a journalist would question him in his own home.
“One of my people heard that Joe Adams might not be well. Anything to that?”
“Jesus, Paul.” Will sighed. “Walter Reed published the result of his last physical less than a month ago. You want to know his cholesterol count? His triglycerides? I’m sure Joe’s office would be happy to send you a copy of all the results. And I happen to know that Joe played squash this afternoon with somebody twenty years his junior, and Joe cleaned his clock. You ever played squash?”
“No.”
“The game is a man killer; I wouldn’t touch a squash racquet with a fork.”
“Will, we hear it might not be physical.”
Will pointed to the living room. “He’s sitting right over there; go talk to him and tell me if you think he’s nuts.”
“Well…”
To Will’s relief, the powder-room door opened and an undersecretary of state vacated. “See you later, Paul,” Will said, closing the door behind him. He used the toilet, noticing that his pulse rate was up. He splashed some cold water on his face and looked at himself in the mirror. The face that stared back at him looked worried. “Come on, boy,” he said to his reflection. “Go back out there looking happy.”
11
On New Year’s morning, Will arrived at his hideaway office in the Capitol at ten. Tim Coleman, his chief of staff, and Kitty Conroy, his press secretary, were waiting for him.
“Happy New Millennium!” Will cried, eliciting flinches from both people.
“Senator, I hope this isn’t your idea of a joke,” Tim groaned. “I was out until four.”
“I haven’t even been to bed,” Kitty said.
“Sorry about that; my last guests didn’t leave until after two, so I’m a little fuzzy around the edges myself.”
“So what’s up?” Kitty asked. She was the less patient of the two.
“I wanted to talk to you today, because the building is pretty much empty, and I didn’t want anybody around.”
“You firing us?” Tim asked.
“No, I’m doubling your workload.”
“Swell,” Tim replied.
“This stays among the three of us, until I say differently, agreed?”
“Agreed,” the two said in chorus.
“No spouses or lovers to know.”
“Agreed,” they said again.
“I want you two to start—today, right now—to put together a plan for a run for the presidency.”
“The presidency of what?” Tim asked, looking blank.
“The United States of America.”
Tim’s expression didn’t change, and Kitty looked just as blank.
Will sat there and let it sink in.
“Okay,” Kitty said finally, “I’ll bite. What’s the punch line?”
“I started with the punch line,” Will said.
“Senator,” Tim said slowly, “don’t you think it’s a little early to start planning a campaign for eight years hence?”
“I’m running this year,” Will said.
Kitty piped up. “I didn’t see the Post this morning; did Joe Adams drop dead last night?”
“I saw him at midnight, and he looked fairly alive to me.”
“Let me get this straight,” Tim said. “You, of all people, are going to run against Joe Adams?”
Will took a deep breath. “I can’t answer many questions,” he said. “Just take my word for it.”
Tim and Kitty exchanged a long look.
“Well,” Tim said, “can we assume that you know something we don’t?”
“Tim, Kitty, it’s not inconceivable that someday someone may ask you for an account of this conversation. I’d like you to be able to answer, truthfully, that I didn’t tell you anything, except that I intended to make the run, and that you took my word for it.”
“All right,” Tim said, “you’re running, and I’m going to do everything I can to help.”
“Me too,” Kitty echoed.
“But we can’t tell anybody we’re helping?”
“Not for the moment.”
“Then how can we organize a campaign?”
“I want you to put together a structure that will serve us from the day I announce until the second Tuesday in November—everything from issues to fund-raising. Make a chart. Next to every box I want you to write a name—more than one—we won’t get everybody we want. There should be a campaign manager at the top, and I don’t want a figurehead; I want a working manager. You know what the other boxes will be; they won’t be all that different from the senatorial campaigns.”
“Are we going to get Tom Black in on this?” Kitty asked.
“Not yet. Tom’s on hold; he won’t commit to anybody else. I want to keep this as close as the three of us and Kate—and Kate, although she knows, will be at arm’s length throughout, for obvious reasons. She’s not going to quit her job.
“Back to your chart: On the day we’re ready, I want to be able to call everybody we need very quickly. When this happens, it’s going to happen fast; I doubt if we’ll have a week between the moment of the final decision to go and the announcement, and I want to have everybody who’s really important to us aboard during that week. I want to hit the ground running so fast that nobody will ever be able to catch us. Right now, our only advantage is that my eventual opponents don’t know they’re running.”
“How much time do we have before you make the absolutely final decision? I mean, when is go day?” Tim asked.
“I can only guess, but I should think it will happen this month.”
“How much can we spend?”
“Nothing. We’ve got about three-quarters of a million in my campaign fund, but we can’t touch it yet. One of the first things we’ll have to do on go day is round up enough people in enough states to get enough signatures on petitions to qualify for federal campaign funding. Pay particular attention to that.”
“Of course,” Tim said.
“Forgive me for stating the obvious, but I want every base covered. Kitty, of course you’ll pay particular attention to the press operation, but I want you also to concentrate on finding us the right person to assemble and train a staff of advance people. We’ll want someone who can pick up the phone and recruit at least a dozen experienced people on day one.”
“We’re going to need a campaign headquarters in Washington,” Tim said.
“Put that at the top of your list.”
“Can I feel out some people on real estate?”
“Absolutely not. Your effort has got to be completely secret until we go, and I’ll tell you how secret: I gave you both briefcases for Christmas?”
“Yes, thanks very much,” Kitty said.
“Me too,” Tim echoed.
“They have locks on them. I don’t want you to create a piece of paper that won’t fit into those briefcases, and I want you to be practically handcuffed to them. In the unlikely event that you have time to go out to dinner or to the movies, I want those briefcases securely locked in a safe. You are to talk to no one, not even each other, about this on the telephone. You are to create no computer files, not so much as a memo on this subject. You are not to talk to each other about this anywhere except in this room, in your offices or homes, or in my office, and then only behind a locked door.
“You’re going to have to keep regular office hours and do your regular work. I don’t want anyone on the staff to know or even suspect what you’re doing. Don’t say anything to anybody that might make them think you’re working on anything special.”
“Whew!” Kitty said. “This is going to be tough.”
“It won’t have to be secret for all that long; just in this initial organizing phase. We ought t
o be able to get a lot done today, since nobody is going to come looking for us until dinnertime.”
They both nodded.
“And I want you to find me a Holy Man.”
Tim’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
“I don’t mean a guru or a television evangelist; I mean a man or a woman—a lawyer—who is so clean, so upright, that no one would ever believe him capable of doing a wrong thing. I want this person to be in charge of two things: one, to see that we strictly conform to both the letter and the spirit of the campaign-finance laws; and two, to serve as a sounding board on ethics, so that if anyone on the campaign has the slightest doubt that what he is about to do comes close to the line, he can call the Holy Man and get advice. The Holy Man’s opinion will be final.”
“Someone from academia,” Tim said.
“Or a retired federal appeals court judge,” Kitty chimed in.
“You’re getting the picture. If Oliver Wendell Holmes could be resurrected, he’d be ideal.”
“How are Kitty and I going to divide our time between the office and the campaign, once we’re under way?” Tim asked.
“You’re not. It has to be one job or the other; I don’t want anyone to be able to say that I’m using Senate staff to run my campaign. Frankly, I’d like you both on the campaign, but I’ll leave the final decision to you.”
“I want the campaign,” Kitty said.
“Me too,” said Tim.
“Fine with me. Start thinking about finding your replacements, and think about who else from the staff we’ll want on the campaign.”
“You know,” Kitty said wonderingly, “until a few minutes ago, I had a hangover; now it’s gone.”
Will laughed. “Me too. Now let’s get to work.”
12
Kate looked at him across the kitchen table. “How do you feel now that you’ve started?” she asked. She had whipped up a dinner of leftovers from their New Year’s party and had opened a bottle of merlot.
“Strange,” he said. “Exhilarated; tired; a little scared.”
“I don’t blame you, on any of those counts.”
The phone rang.
Will picked it up. “Hello?”
“Will, it’s Susan Adams; how are you?”
“Great, Sue; let me put you on the speaker so Kate can hear.” He pressed the speaker button. “Okay, we’re here.”
“First of all, I want to thank you for such a wonderful evening on New Year’s Eve. It was a great way to finish out the millennium.”
“We were delighted to have you both,” Kate said. “How’s Joe?”
As you saw the other night, he’s doing well. Which brings me to my point. I have some good news, some bad news, and some good news.”
“Shoot,” Will said.
“First, the good news: Joe is going to make his withdrawal announcement next Friday.”
That took Will’s breath away; he hadn’t expected Joe to move so soon.
“We both felt we should get it over with and give the other candidates as much time as we can.”
“I expect you’re right,” Will said.
“I know this won’t give you as much time as you’d like to prepare, Will, but at least, you’re getting most of a week.”
“I can’t complain, Sue.”
“Now the bad news: I’m going into Walter Reed tomorrow for a lumpectomy.”
“Oh, Sue,” Kate said, “I’m so sorry. I assume it’s contained, if you’re not having a radical mastectomy.”
“That’s what my doctor assumes, too. I’m not real exercised about it; I’m sure everything is going to be okay. The other good news is that Joe is going to have an excuse to drop out of the race: more time with me, and all that, and it won’t be a lie. We’ve both become very conscious that our time together will be a lot shorter than we’d planned.”
“I see your point,” Will said. “It’s going to be a shock any way you put it, but—”
“We’re going to let a rumor out starting on Wednesday,” Sue said, “just to give some sort of media transition. By Thursday night, it’ll probably make the news. Joe thinks you should announce on Saturday; that’ll give you a shot at the Sunday-morning TV shows.”
“That makes sense, I guess,” Will said.
“You can say that I told you today. Let’s not refer to our meeting at Camp David; it would hurt a lot of feelings around town, if people thought you knew that far in advance.”
“Good point.”
“You won’t have to lie, Will; I know how you feel about that. After all, I did tell you today, just now.”
“I’m okay with that,” Will said.
“Oh, I’m being called to dinner,” Sue said. “I’d better run.”
“Thank you, Sue, and thank Joe for the warning. And our prayers will be with you tomorrow.” They both hung up.
“Well, it’s really on, I guess,” Kate said.
“Looks that way.”
“I’ll tell you the truth,” she said, “I’d half suspected that Joe would have second thoughts and let the clock run out through the campaign before he pulled out. That would have made him more the kingmaker.”
“That wouldn’t be like Joe,” Will said.
“I know, and I feel guilty about thinking that.”
The phone rang again, and Will picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Will, it’s Joe.”
Will punched the speaker button. “Hi, Joe; Kate can hear you, too. We were both sorry to hear about Sue’s illness.”
“It’s going to be okay; don’t worry. The reason I called is that Sue forgot to tell you something.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m going to wait a while after my announcement on Friday before I make an endorsement. I’m not sure just how long.”
This was a blow, but Will took it as well as he could. “I understand, Joe.”
“I think my endorsement will mean more after all the candidates have had an opportunity to establish a presence in the campaign and had an opportunity to have their positions on the issues known.”
“You have a point, Joe,” Will said.
“Don’t worry, Will; I still think you’re the best man for the job, and I’m sure I’ll still think so closer to the convention.”
“Thanks, Joe.”
“They’re holding dinner for me, so I’ll say good night, and thanks again for the great evening.”
“Good night, Joe.” Will hung up.
“Well,” Kate said, “now I don’t feel so guilty about thinking Joe wanted to be a kingmaker.”
“Oh, I don’t know; this might be the best thing. The endorsement might mean a lot more later, when he can say he’s considered everybody.”
“You noticed, didn’t you, that he didn’t exactly say he was going to endorse you?”
Will poked at his food. “Yeah, I noticed that.”
“He’s playing his cards close to his chest; he’s going to want something when the time comes.”
“He already knows he can have anything in my gift.”
“So, how do you feel now?”
“A little deflated, and more scared than ever. Somehow I thought I was going to have most of January to plan. I guess not.”
“Six days is better than nothing, which is what the other candidates will have.”
“Don’t worry about them; when the rumor hits the streets, people all over town are going to start making plans.” He punched the speaker phone and started dialing. “Excuse me.” It took less than a minute to conference Tim Coleman and Kitty Conroy. “You both listening?”
“Yes,” they said simultaneously.
“I’m going to announce on Saturday,” he said.
“This coming Saturday?” Tim said, aghast.
“It can’t wait; you’ll know why later in the week. We’ll start calling the people on our list on Friday. Kitty, wait until then to stake out the Capitol steps for the announcement.”
“This is all very strange,” Kitt
y said.
“It’ll make a lot more sense by the end of the week,” Will said.
“Will,” Tim said, “I think our first calls on Friday should be to your Atlanta office. You’ve got a hard core of supporters there who’ll volunteer to man a campaign office until we can get up and running. Let’s get a couple dozen people on a chartered bus Saturday morning and have the office open on Monday.”
“Sounds good, but we’re going to have to find a headquarters, and we can’t start looking until Friday.”
“Can’t we fudge the date just a little?”
Will thought about it. “All right, you can start on Wednesday morning, but do it through a third party. I’ll see what I can do, as well.”
“Okay,” Tim said.
“Kitty, start working on a draft of a two-minute announcement speech, with the appropriate built-in sound bites.”
“Right. I’ve got an idea for Saturday.”
“Shoot.”
“Let’s get that bus started up here from Atlanta on Friday night and have you surrounded by supporters for the announcement.”
“Good idea. Call the Atlanta office and tell them to book the bus, but don’t tell them why. Book some hotel rooms around town for these folks to stay in.”
“Consider it done.”
“Okay, people, I want to see you both in my hideaway at 7 A.M., so get a good night’s sleep. It might be your last for a while.” He hung up.
Kate put a hand on his cheek. “I think maybe you’ve had your last good night’s sleep for a while, too.”
13
Will had already made coffee in his hideaway office when Tim and Kitty arrived. “First things first,” Will said. “I want each of you to write a campaign manager’s name on a piece of paper; I’ll do the same.”
They each did so.
“Let’s see yours, Tim,” Will said.
Tim held up a sheet that read Sam Meriwether.
Kitty held up hers: Sam Meriwether.
Will grinned and showed them his: Sam Meriwether. “It’s unanimous. You both realize, you’re going to be working for him, as well as me.”