Born to Run

Chapter 7

“Some party, huh?” said Jack.

“Sure,” said Andie, “if you call a press party without Playgirl a party.”

They were standing before the magnificently decorated Douglas fir in the White House Blue Room. Andie was gorgeous in her red dress, even if there were two other women wearing the same design.

Tonight’s party for six hundred members of the press marked the halfway point of a presidential Iditarod of holiday receptions and dinners at the Executive Mansion. As always, the president and First Lady were fully committed to a two-hour block of handshakes, posed photographs, and thirty-second conversations that would test the superhuman strength of their smile muscles. It was a veritable Who’s Who in White House press coverage, and Jack’s unofficial business was to keep his ears open and find out who his father’s friends and enemies were in advance of his congressional hearings. Jack looked off toward the Cross Hall, where guests were streaming through a forest of red poinsettias toward the State Dining Room. The sense of history here was inspiring, but Jack could see in their ambitious eyes that it was mostly about proximity to power. Some would have sacrificed a vital organ for the promise of an invitation to next year’s party, and no matter how blase the regulars pretended to be about it, they would for months find a way to work into every conversation a sentence beginning with the words “When I was at the White House Christmas Party….”

“Happy Birthday,” said Andie, raising her glass.

Jack raised his. “Not a bad way to celebrate my fortieth, even if it is a couple of days late.”

“I still wish you would let me and Theo throw you a party.”

“No. Absolutely not. No party.”

“Crab cake?” asked the server.

“No, thank you,” said Jack.

Not that the food wasn’t tempting. The White House chef had cooked up everything from chicken-fried tenderloin (good with gravy) to marzipan. Even the gingerbread replica of the White House looked good enough to eat. The whole experience struck Jack as somewhere between magical and over the top, from the boughs and lights twinkling in the East Room to the Marine Band playing Christmas songs by the grand piano in the foyer.

“Would you mind snapping our picture?” said a young man with a British accent.

“We just got engaged,” said his fiancee, flashing her ring.

“Mazel tov,” said Andie. It wasn’t a term Jack had heard her use often, but it seemed to pop from her mouth instinctively, as if the Christmas overload had struck an ecumenical funny bone in her body.

Jack snapped their photo, and Andie moved closer as the love-birds walked away, arm in arm, the crystal ornaments on the tree glistening like the 2-karat diamond on the bride-to-be’s finger. Holidays were notorious turning points in relationships, and Jack wondered how many women at tonight’s party would get diamonds this season, how many would throw their arms around their man and say yes, and how many had their stomach in knots just thinking about it. He wasn’t anywhere near ready to pop the question, but he wondered if Andie was on the latter end of that continuum.

“Quite the ring,” said Andie.

Jack’s cell rang, and they both laughed at the mechanical play on word.

Jack checked the number. He didn’t recognize it.

“You’re not going to answer that, are you?” said Andie.

“Aw, come on. I’ve never taken a phone call in the White House.”

Jack hit Talk and said hello, but no one was there.

“Still never taken a call in the White House,” he said.

It rang again. This time it was an e-mail. Again, Jack didn’t recognize the sender, but the subject line was enough to give him the creeps.

“What’s up?” said Andie.

Jack’s first reaction was to delete it, and his second was to open it up and read the entire message. He did neither. Jack wasn’t entitled to his own Secret Service protection, but they had warned him about this, and he knew the protocol.

“Jack?”

He heard her, but he didn’t answer. He took her hand, and they didn’t stop walking until they approached the south portico, where the lighting was better.

“Something wrong?” said Andie.

He showed her the screen, and they read the message together.

I can make your father president. No bullshit. Meet me.

Suddenly the fact that they were standing in the White House mansion, just a short walk away from the Oval Office, was even more surreal.

“It’s officially started,” said Andie.

“What?” said Jack.

“The wackos have arrived.”

Paulette Sparks staked out a strategic position in the State Dining Room beneath the watchful eye of Abraham Lincoln. Harry Swyteck didn’t know it, but for the past ten minutes, he’d been in Paulette’s journalistic crosshairs. He hadn’t moved in over an hour, a steady stream of reporters plying the nominee.

“Good luck getting near him.”

Paulette looked away from her target just long enough to respond to her friend.

“Watch me.”

“You really are working tonight, aren’t you?”

“Isn’t everybody?”

Paulette covered the White House for CNN International, and by all accounts a soon-to-be-announced transfer would land her on the fast track toward White House correspondent-one of the youngest in the press corps. Seven years earlier she’d been an engineering student at Northwestern University. Much to the dismay of her honors physics professor, Paulette burned one of her electives in broadcast journalism-and loved it. She changed her major and never looked back. Internships more than class work led to a job as a general correspondent with a network affiliate, and she was quickly promoted to Washington. A “going home” piece she did on Vietnam-the village where her American GI father had met Paulette’s mother before the fall of Saigon-won her a Peabody Award and triggered a slew of job offers that took her national. Her hard-hitting but poised and professional style during a ten-month assignment to the Keyes-Grayson campaign earned her even more respect and credibility-not to mention an invitation to the White House Christmas party.

“One more glass of holiday cheer should loosen the governor’s tongue,” said Paulette. “And then I move in.”

Her friend smiled. “You can always tell the first-timers. They’re the ones who don’t know the White House eggnog has even more kick than calories.”

Paulette’s BlackBerry vibrated. She would have liked to ignore the thing, but her day never ended, and she was hopelessly addicted. The number on the display screen was a bit of a shocker, one she hadn’t seen in almost ten months. It was her younger sister.

Paulette followed a server into the pantry, away from the noise of the crowd, and took the call.

“Chloe, is that you?”

“Paulette! Listen to me!”

The frantic tone concerned her. It sounded like the bad old days. “Calm down, okay? Just breathe in and out. Did you take something?”

“No-no!”

The call was breaking up. Paulette could only imagine where her sister was calling from. The last time they’d spoken, Chloe was on the verge of passing out in the backseat of a taxi at 3:00 A.M., no money to pay the fare. She only called when she was in real trouble. Seven years apart, Chloe the offspring of their father’s second marriage, they had never been as close as Paulette would have liked. Still, it had been heartbreaking to watch Chloe’s decline after getting fired from her White House internship for suspected substance abuse. Chloe denied any drug use, of course, and she refused rehab. Paulette had done her best to help her land on her feet, but it was no easy task when Chloe hated her for being everything she would never be.

“Are you in trouble?” said Paulette. “I’m at the White House party, but just let me know if I need to come get you.”

“No, you don’t-just…listen!”

She sounded out of breath, on the verge of hyperventilation.

“Chloe, what are you doing?”

“Working. A story. A really big one.”

“I’m worried about you.”

There was no reply.

“Chloe, are you still there?”

Paulette heard a scream.

“Chloe!”

The line was silent.

“Shit!” said Paulette, as she punched 911.