The Nominee

Seven

TWO HOURS EARLIER GOVERNOR Lance Randolph sat in the Cabinet Room of the White House, his chin in his palm, staring out the windows at the technicians and crew of advance men setting up the Rose Garden for his upcoming event. His mind wandered half an hour ahead to the speech he was planning to give.

He would accept this nomination to be the attorney general of the United States with enormous pride in what he accomplished in Massachusetts, with an unyielding belief that now more than ever he could have an impact on a national stage, and with strong conviction that by crossing the partisan divide, he could play a role in helping the two parties end their festering name-calling and constant bickering and work together toward common, crucial goals.

He nodded to himself, liking the key phrases, the lines, the message. He brought his gaze around the Cabinet Room, across the polished wood table, at all the leather swivel chairs in a perfect line, at the original paintings that hung on the walls. Someday soon he would be sitting here in a cabinet meeting, listening to the president, providing his own insight, the lone Democrat helping to guide the government of the United States.

His top aide, Benjamin Bank, paced back and forth at the far end of the room yammering into his cellular telephone. Finally, he hung up and walked back toward Randolph, taking the seat right beside his boss.

“You’re all set, you know your lines, you’re comfortable?” he asked.

Randolph looked at him and nodded.

Bank said, “You should know, I just got word from Leavitt”—Boston Police Commissioner John Leavitt—“thatRecord publisher Paul Ellis has been found dead this afternoon, possibly killed. No further details known.”

Randolph exclaimed softly, “Holy shit. We should offer the state cops and the FBI crime lab.”

Bank nodded. Randolph looked at him absently. His closest aide had a thick mop of constantly unkempt brown hair. Aside from that, he was almost painfully ordinary, neither handsome nor ugly, neither fit nor fat, but always somewhere in between, the type of guy you meet and then forget twenty minutes later.

He was, though, one hell of a political strategist, and a ruthlessly loyal friend, and for that, Randolph thought, he would offer him the job as his chief of staff at the Justice Department and hope that he was willing to expand his horizons beyond Boston and make the move.

Bank broke his silent musings and asked, “Tell me about Fitzgerald. The story came out well. We couldn’t have asked for anything better. But did he seem happy for you?”

“You know the old guy,” Randolph responded. “He’s brooding. He’s always got another question. And even though he’s an old family friend, he always makes you feel like you’re not giving just the right answer.”

Randolph paused and asked, “Any word from any of our friends on whether Jack Flynn is still nosing around on that bullshit story?”

At that moment, the door to the room clicked open, and a short, bald presidential aide, recognizable to both men from so many appearances on national television, walked into the room. He shut the door behind him, extended his right hand and said, “Governor, I’m Murray Ferren. A pleasure to meet you.”

Before Randolph could barely respond, Ferren shook Bank’s hand and said, “I just want to give you the quick lay of the land here. The event will obviously be covered by the entire White House press corps — a notoriously fickle crowd. I’m going to take you in to see the president right after we finish here. You’ll chat with him in the Oval for about ten minutes, then the two of you will walk out his private doors, across the veranda, and into the Rose Garden.

“The president will speak for approximately six minutes. He’ll discuss your record in Massachusetts, and his hopes for the future. He’ll stress that, by selecting a Democrat, he is opening himself up to further investigation, and by doing that, is hopeful of putting any hint of further scandal behind him.

“Then he’ll turn the podium over to you. I’ve seen the faxed copy of your remarks, which are quite good. The president would appreciate it if you would linger for a while on the point about crossing party lines. Plan on talking for about four minutes, then we’ll open it up to questions.

“It may get a little tricky at that point. You’re an unknown to the White House press. The story was broken by a Boston paper. They’re not happy about any of this. So you might sense something of an attitude out there. On television, that’s going to play to your favor — the outsider comes to Washington and takes on the establishment. Just stay calm and collected. And also be prepared, they might be asking the president about a change in our Iraq policy. That’s not because you’re not an interesting story, but because this is his only public availability of the day.”

Ferren, one of President Clayton Hutchins’s closest aides, paused and looked long and hard at Randolph.

“You were a surprise choice, governor,” Ferren said. “And when I say that, I mean that the choice surprised even me, and I’m not surprised much in this White House. I make it my job not to be.

“Now because of this, you did not undergo our typical, rigorous vetting process. So I want to ask you this, and this is the only time I’ll have the opportunity to do that. It will also be the last time you have the chance to save the president and yourself from any sort of colossal embarrassment, if there is anything in your record, or in your past, that might prove embarrassing. Now is there?”

He asked the question as he stared across the shiny table into Randolph’s pale eyes. Ferren thought to himself how young the governor looked, how inexperienced, and he wondered if he was prepared for the onslaught of national publicity to come, some good, some invariably, inevitably bad.

In a long moment of awkward silence, Randolph stared back, then let his eyes fall to the table. He thought about his father, felled by gunfire, the smoke, the burst of red, the sickening feel of his still flesh. He thought about Fitzgerald’s reaction two nights before. He wondered what Jack Flynn might ask in the next few days.

Then he thought about his future, his destiny, the speech he was prepared to give in the Rose Garden of the White House to the most seasoned, most famous reporters in the world.

“Nothing that comes to mind,” Randolph replied at last, his gaze again fixing on Ferren.

Ferren slapped the table with his palms as he stood up. “Good. Then it’s almost show time. Come with me. The president would like to see you for a few minutes before we head out.”

Bank clapped Randolph on the back. Ferren flicked open the door. At this moment, Randolph should have felt elated. But what nagged at him was a sense that he might have just lost all control.