Mounting Fears

24

THE FOLLOWING MORNING WILL WALKED WITH HIS SECRET SERVICE DETAIL THROUGH the gardens of the hotel to the parking lot where his limousine was to be waiting. The Secret Service would have much preferred the car to come in the back way to his suite, but the driveway had been torn up by workmen repairing a water main.

He walked over the bridge that straddled the little pond with the swans and came to the end of the awning. The car was not there.

A Secret Service agent was on his radio immediately. "I'm sorry, Mr. President, there was an accident on Stone Canyon Road, and the car was held up for a couple of minutes. It will be right here."

"It's all right," Will said. Then he heard the click of running high heels on the bridge behind him and a female voice, shouting.

"Mr. President!"

He turned to see Charlene Joiner running toward him. A Secret Service agent stepped in front of her, and she ran into him with a sound like a deer striking an oak.

"Will!"

Will sighed. "It's all right," he said to the agent. "Let her through."

Charlene strode quickly toward him, and he held up a hand. She grabbed it and pressed it to her considerably exposed bosom. "Please, Will, I just need a moment."

"What is it, Charlene?" he asked, attempting to disengage his hand from her left breast.

"It's Larry," she said. "I know it's early to be talking about this, but once you're reelected, you can pardon him."

"Pardon him?" Will asked, incredulous.

"Yes, you can do it without political consequences, once you're reelected."

"Charlene, the man is a rapist and murderer, and I will never, ever loose him upon an unsuspecting citizenry."

"Will, Larry has done nearly ten years," she said, and a tear trickled from the corner of an eye and down her cheek. "Please do the humanitarian thing. I'm going to set him up in a little business, and he can live a quiet and respectable life."

"Charlene," he said, finally recovering his hand from her bosom, "I will not pardon Larry Moody, and if you ever so much as mention him to me again I will not speak to you further, under any circumstances, and I don't care how much money you give the party. I hope that's perfectly clear." The car rolled up, and an agent quickly had the door open. "Good-bye, Charlene," Will said with a wave, and dove into the car. He looked back through the darkened glass as they drove away, and she was standing there, waving.

AIR FORCE ONE TOOK OFF half an hour later from Van Nuys Airport, and Will was very happy to be putting the entire country between himself and Charlene Joiner, though he was not sure it was enough. He had a long day's travel ahead, with campaign stops in Denver, St. Louis, and Indianapolis on the way back to Washington, and there was work to deal with in his office between stops. It was dark when Marine One set down on the White House lawn.

"Where's Kate?" he asked Kitty as they got off the copter.

"On the way in from McLean," she said. "She should be here in twenty minutes."

"Call her and tell her we're having Martin Stanton to dinner in the quarters this evening," he said. "Tell her she can take her shoes off."

"Will do," Kitty replied, flipping open her cell phone.

Will's own cell vibrated on his belt, and he opened it. "Yes?"

"It's Sam Meriwether, Mr. President," his campaign manager said. "The Senate confirmed Martin Stanton as vice president a couple of minutes ago. We kept them here late to get it done."

"That's great news, Sam. Thank you for calling."

"He's at the White House now. I suggest a swearing-in ceremony in the East Room tomorrow morning, then Marty can head west for Mike Rivera's swearing-in. We're lining up half a dozen stops in California for him after that. There's a real celebration going on among Hispanics in L.A. and San Diego, and we want to take advantage of that mood."

"Good idea. Have you cleared my schedule for the swearing-in?"

"We have to move only one half-hour appointment with the Pakistani ambassador and the secretary of state to tomorrow afternoon."

"Have the secretary call the ambassador personally about that. I don't want him to feel shunted aside when we shunt him aside."

"Right. That's all. Talk to you tomorrow."

"Bye-bye." Will put away his cell phone and continued to the family quarters.

Martin Stanton was sitting before the fire when Will walked in. "Congratulations, Mr. Vice President," Will said, shaking his hand. "That went about as smoothly as we could have hoped for. Have you talked to Sam Meriwether?"

"Yes, Will, and thank you again for the appointment. Where's Kate?"

"She'll be here in a few minutes. Can I get you a drink?"

"I'll have some of that bourbon you like," he replied.

Will tossed his jacket on a chair, loosened his tie, and went to the bar.

"I hear you handled Charlene Joiner nicely last night."

"Yes, but not so well this morning." Will told him about the early-morning encounter."

"She really expected you to pardon the son of a bitch?"

"Charlene is a force of nature," Will said, "and she's accustomed to getting what she wants. Did you know she went to Atlanta and screwed the governor of Georgia to get Moody's death sentence commuted?"

"I'd heard that, but I thought it was just a bawdy joke."

"Nope. The embarrassing thing is, I facetiously suggested she do that, just to get her off my back. I was astonished when she actually pulled it off… ah, so to speak."

Stanton laughed. "That's unbelievable."

"So is Charlene," Will said, sipping his drink. "Oh, don't mention her when Kate gets here."

"Right."

"Don't mention who?" Kate said, closing the door behind her and kicking off her shoes.

"Never mind," Will said.

"Congratulations, Marty," Kate said, pointing at the bar. "Will, I've got to talk business for a minute. You want to go down to the double O?" They had a rule about not talking business in the family quarters.

"Oh, go ahead," Will said.

"It's not good news. We've got a report from a previously reliable source in Pakistan that the nuclear warhead taken from the last of the missile sites, south of Islamabad, has disappeared and has, possibly, fallen into the wrong hands."

"Oh, shit," Will muttered.