Capitol Conspiracy

22

Ben had not been in this most elegant of all the assembly rooms in the Senate complex since the confirmation hearings for Justice Roush. Hadn’t missed it any, either. The room was beautiful, but the ornate decor couldn’t erase the stress and trauma that he now associated with this room and probably always would.

Relax, he tried to tell himself. Enjoy the ride. You’re not defending anyone this time around. Not attempting anything difficult, really. Just offering up some testimony. Lending support to a bill. That’s what senators do. Isn’t it?

The Old Senate Caucus Room had remained virtually unchanged since the building was constructed almost two hundred years ago. The white marble columns and the gold-leaf crown molding were reminiscent of Versailles. The high ceiling made the room appear much larger than it actually was, particularly when viewed on television. It made for an impressive display, which was why the Senate used it almost any time they suspected a hearing might get significant media play.

Media play. The thought made Ben’s stomach whirl like a butter churn. He hated media play. Off on the left side of the room, he saw the single television camera shared by all the networks that would record and transmit the committee hearings to anyone who might be able to tear themselves away from The Price Is Right. The blinking red light laughed at him and dared him to speak aloud. He hated being on television and he hated seeing himself on television even more. He could always spot a flaw, something he could have done better. He’d come a long way since his early days, but he was still no Clarence Darrow or William Jennings Bryan, and he never would be.

Media play. His hands got sweaty just from whispering the words to himself. And he was considering running for a full Senate term? Who was he kidding? At least when he’d been at the White House press conference he’d had the president’s advisors to assist. Now he was on his own. Not even Christina was here. She hadn’t spoken to him for days.

There had been protestors outside, mostly from the ACLU and other civil libertarian groups. The Capitol Police were doing their best to keep them under control, but they had shaken Ben as he passed by. Some even called him ugly names. Traitor. Fascist. The press was almost equally aggressive, shouting questions and shoving microphones in his face. He should be used to that by now. But in truth, ever since the Oklahoma City attack, he had found himself more jumpy and nervous, especially in a crowd. They might be relatively harmless political protestors exercising their First Amendment rights, but now, Ben’s imagination saw every disapproving face as a potential assassin, heard every loud noise as a gunshot. It unnerved him-exactly what he did not need before testifying.

He remembered the September 2006 incident when a man crashed his car into a security barricade and ran into the Capitol Building with a loaded handgun. He had led the Capitol Police on a merry chase before they finally cornered him in the basement and took his gun-along with the crack cocaine in his pocket. Didn’t matter what precautions anyone took. If a loony with a car and a gun could get in here, no place was safe. No place and no one. The next attacker could be lurking just “You aren’t wearing the red.”

Ben jumped a foot in the air when he abruptly heard a voice in his ear. He turned and saw Tracy Sobel leaning toward him. “What are you talking about?”

“I left a message on your machine. About your attire. Blue suit, red tie.”

“I did wear a blue suit.” He only had two, and they were both blue.

“But not the red tie. Our media consultants thought that the red tie was key to persuading the home audience.”

“Perhaps we should focus on persuading the Senate Judiciary Committee. Otherwise it won’t matter what the people think.”

“It always matters what the people think,” Sobel said, checking off items on her clipboard faster than Ben could read them. “That’s why we spend so much time manipulating the people and telling them what to think.”

“Well, let Director Lehman wear the red tie.”

“No, he’s supposed to wear brown. He’s law enforcement. People want law enforcement to seem sturdy and competent-not warm. You, on the other hand, need to be warm.”

“And that is because…?”

“Let’s just say you don’t have a naturally effervescent personality. Shall we take a seat?”

Ben followed her to a pre-designated position on the front row of the gallery. “I happen to think I can…effervesce as well as anybody.”

“Yes, just keep telling yourself that. Try not to stutter when you do it.”

Ben took his seat. He noticed that Sobel’s makeup was more pronounced than usual; he assumed that was because she knew she was about to be on television. Seemed even the president’s chief of staff wanted to look good to the folks out in Televisionland. He’d heard rumors that she had ambitions that went higher than chief of staff. He was beginning to suspect they were correct.

A few minutes later, they were joined by Senator Jeffrey DeMouy and Homeland Security Director Carl Lehman. DeMouy was the first to crush Ben’s hand. “Good to see you again, Kincaid. Ready to sell this bill to the committee?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Ben said, and he meant it. “I assume you’ll go first.”

“Actually, I’m not going at all.”

“What?”

Sobel intervened. “The president was concerned about having both of his designated hitters appear before the committee.”

“Then use him!”

Sobel smiled slightly. “No. Traditionally, the committee calls witnesses who have actual knowledge of the matter at hand. True, they are usually advocates, but the advocacy is based on some experience or education. And they usually aren’t senators. Why should one senator have to listen to the opinion of another senator in committee? That’s what they’ll have to do when the bill goes to the floor.”

“Then why-?”

Sobel held up her hand impatiently, as if to prevent him from asking a question to which she already knew the answer. “You’re in an entirely different situation. For one thing, you only barely count as a senator.”

“Thank you so very much.”

“Moreover, your background is in criminal defense-the exact antithesis of law enforcement. You’ll make a good contrast with Director Lehman. You sit on different sides of the courtroom and yet you both support this bill.”

“But that part about experience and knowledge-”

Again she cut him off. “You were there on April nineteenth. You experienced the attack firsthand. Forgive me if this seems callous, but it’s a fact-your close friend was critically injured. That gives you an enormous amount of credibility. No one’s going to question your right to address the committee.”

There it was, just as plainly as it could be put. In the world of politics, even the potential loss of a dear friend ultimately became nothing more than grist for the political mill.

“Got some good news,” DeMouy said, grinning. “The House Rules Committee just voted in favor of the amendment. It will go to the floor of the House next week.”

“Where it’s certain to be adopted.”

“That’s what the pundits tell me.” He gave Ben a pointed look. “Which means it’s all down to the Senate. Where the president put us in charge.”

That’s just dandy, Ben thought. If he hadn’t been nervous before (and he had been), he was certainly nervous now.

Sobel withdrew a stapled bundle of papers from a manila envelope and handed it to Ben. “Here are some remarks we had one of our top speechwriters prepare for you.”

“What? I don’t need a speech.”

“Fear not-no one expects you to deliver it verbatim. Just look it over. After your statement, there will be questioning. You might see something in there you can use.”

“Like what?”

She shrugged. “Who knows? A persuasive argument. A clever turn of phrase. A witty bon mot. You can never tell what you might need when the time comes. Best to be armed with everything that’s available.”

Ben tried to hand the bundle back to her. “I don’t need anyone to tell me what to say.”

“I’d give it a good look-see if I were you.” Director Lehman leaned forward, catching Ben’s eye. He was so tall, he towered over Ben. “Goodness knows I read mine. Several times. I was happy to get the help. Words don’t come naturally to me like they do to you.”

Hmm. Ben reconsidered. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to look the script over just once…

A few moments later, the committee hearing was called to order. The audience, mostly senators, staff, friends of senators, and a few carefully chosen members of the press, rose as the committee members filed into the room.

They took their seats, and the designated chairman for this hearing, Senator Byron Perkins, a Democrat from Arkansas, called the hearing to order. “A proposed witness list has been submitted and agreed upon by representatives of both parties. Do I hear a motion?”

Senator Bening, a Republican from Colorado, jumped in. “I move that the witness list be accepted as drafted, with the possibility of additional witnesses being added if the committee deems it desirable.”

“We have a motion on the table,” Perkins said. “Do I hear a second?”

He did. The motion passed unanimously. And the first witness was called: the newly confirmed Director of Homeland Security, Carl Lehman.

Sobel had suggested that Ben was the emotional choice for the witness stand, but as Lehman strode toward the table at the front of the room, the camera following his every step, Ben realized that it would be impossible for anyone watching him to forget why the country had a new director of Homeland Security-because the previous one had been tortured and killed, probably by the same forces that masterminded the April 19 attack on the president.

Lehman began with his opening remarks. “I may be new to Homeland Security,” he explained, “but I’ve been a member of the law enforcement community almost all my life, first at the state and now at the federal level. I’ve worked with good men and women, hardworking dedicated souls. And we’ve done good work. Put away a lot of bad guys and, I like to think, made this country a little bit safer. But it’s no surprise to anyone that we have constantly been hamstrung by lawyers trying to get clients off on technicalities. People using the Bill of Rights as a Get Out of Jail Free card for some of the most vile criminals who ever walked the face of the earth. The crime, the people, even the welfare of the nation, seem not to matter sometimes. If there is some way to get the accused off, no matter how certain his guilt, these lawyers will use it.”

He turned, adjusting his gaze slightly. Although it made little difference to those on the dais, Ben realized this would have the effect of allowing him to look directly into the camera. He’d be making eye contact with the television audience.

“We now enter what I believe is the most dangerous time in the history of this great nation. Our enemies have a greater capacity for destruction than they did at any previous time. We cannot be lazy, we cannot be indecisive, and we cannot allow hypothetical principles to compromise our safety. That was the route Rome took, and you know the result. After hundreds of years of dominating the world, they fell to the barbarians, a people less civilized, less technologically advanced-but far more brutal. I don’t want to see that happen to America.”

Ben knew the fall of the Roman Empire was much too complex to pin on a single cause, but he had to admit this was an effective piece of rhetoric, one likely to score well with the home viewer.

“Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. That’s all this amendment is about. In times of great need, we will give the law enforcement community the powers they need to maintain domestic tranquillity-just like the Constitution says. In a perfect world, the privileges found in the Bill of Rights would be absolutes and there would be no need for this bill-but we do not live in a perfect world. When the choice is between an abstract principle and the survival of this nation”-he paused, letting the words have their intended effect-“I choose survival. I hope the members of this committee feel the same. I strongly urge you to recommend that this amendment go to the floor for a vote by the full Senate, and I hope you will do so as soon as possible. No one can know how much time we have. Or how little.”

A few senators asked Lehman questions, but they led only to reiterations of the position he had taken in his opening statement. His feelings were clear. There was no point in browbeating a sincere and intelligent witness. Ten minutes later he stepped down. The somber mood he had created permeated the room. The gallery was silent as he took his seat next to Ben.

Ben knew the lackluster questioning did not in any way mean that the committee was convinced-he was certain some of the Democrats still intended to oppose. That was what he was here for.

Was he sure he was doing the right thing? he asked himself for the millionth time. He had thought so when he agreed to do this. He still thought so. And yet, when he heard the director talk about the Bill of Rights as an implicit security threat, a cold shiver ran up his spine. He was talking about fundamental American civil liberties. The philosophical cornerstone of the nation. The American invention that, slowly but surely, was in fact spreading across the world. Could he really be sure-?

One thing he could be sure about. He knew what Christina thought.

In the past, he had always relied on her instincts. Now, in the early days of their long-delayed marriage, he was directly opposing them. It didn’t feel good.

And then he thought of Mike, lying in that hospital bed, barely breathing. He thought of the sorrow in his sister’s voice as he spoke to her for the first time in years. He thought of the terror in the eyes of the people in Oklahoma City when the attack began. The mother holding her dead child. The bullet-ridden corpse of the first lady…

What would Mike want?

Did he really need to ask? Mike was law enforcement, a dedicated cop who spent half their time together griping about defense attorneys and the laws that made it so difficult to catch and convict criminals. He knew what Mike would want.

“Thank you, Director Lehman,” Chairman Perkins said. “I think you’ve given us all something to think about.” He glanced down at the itinerary on his desk. “And for our next witness…the chair calls Senator Benjamin Kincaid.”

Tracy Sobel gently touched Ben’s shoulder. “Are you ready?”

Ben drew in his breath, then slowly released it. “I’m ready.”