“Whoa. Bait and switch. You’re not off that meat hook yet.”
“We’ll discuss it. Meanwhile, that’s not all my man Speck found out. Does the term ‘RIP-ware’ ring any bells?”
Chapter 21
The president’s mood, already foul, was not improved by Bucky Trumble informing him, during the regular seven a.m. political briefing, that Senator Randolph K. Jepperson was now “not ruling out” a presidential bid. This brought the total number of presidential challengers to-five. It is unpleasant to have this many people publicly expressing the desire to have your job.
“For fuck’s sake,” the president exploded, sending a gust of hurricane-force, caffeinated breath across his desk at Bucky. “Is there anyone out there who isn’t planning to run against me? Isn’t it hard enough trying to keep this goddamn fucking country”-Bucky Trumble lived in terror that the president, a salty speaker, would one day publicly refer to the United States as “this goddamn fucking country”-“together without having to run a goddamn primary campaign? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, now you’re telling me I’m going to have to haul my ass back to New Hampshire in the dead of fucking winter so I can defend myself in some goddamn high school auditorium debate against a bunch of shitheads?”
“Uh, well, sir-”
“How in the hell did it come to this? Someone tell me! You tell me!”
Bucky Trumble trembled.
“It’s that fucking Devine woman,” the president continued, sending another shock wave of air across the room. “Should have Transitioned her ass when we had the chance. But someone thought it would be a brilliant idea to let her walk!”
“It hasn’t played out fully yet, sir,” Bucky said. “I’m efforting it very hard. By the way, you saw that Gideon went public with the, ah, ‘evidence’ we, ah, conveyed to him?”
“I saw,” the president grunted. “He goddamn well better not trace it back to us. Evidence. It’s thinner’n piss on slate.”
The “evidence” that the president of the United States and his political counselor had armed Gideon with against his tormentor Cassandra Devine and-by extension-their tormentor Senator Jepperson was in fact thin. One of the crew members of the helicopter that plucked them wounded from the Bosnia minefield had gotten drunk a few months later and told a U.S. embassy staffer in a bar in Turdje that “they were definitely fucking each other’s brains out.”
This bit of bar talk was flatly contradicted by Cass’s frantic radio reports to base that they were under attack and required assistance. But the embassy officer had duly reported in a cable to the State Department what the drunken warrant officer had told her. From there it was duly leaked to the White House by a deputy assistant secretary of state seeking to curry favor and get a promotion.
It was very far from the kind of information that, as the president had put it to Gideon, “causes tides to turn.” But it was enough to pass the muster of Gideon, who in any event was thirsting for revenge against Cass.
The president and Bucky had shown Gideon the State Department cable but refused to give him a copy of it. In Gideon’s speech in Wheeling, a historical platform for speeches purporting to reveal shocking State Department information, Gideon only said-but said with great umbrage and conviction-that he had “seen proof positive that Corporal Devine and Congressman Jepperson were doing more than fact-finding.”
Bucky said, “The media’s eating it up.”
The president said, “Well, let’s hope he doesn’t give up his sources.”
“He also called her ‘Joan of Dark.’ Wish I’d thought of that. Sir, the whip count on the Transitioning bill, it’s worrisome. Jepperson’s gotten thirty-five senators aboard.”
“This thing isn’t going to fly. You know that.”
“That’s not what concerns me. Jepperson’s using it as a springboard. A trampoline. We need to remove the trampoline. And with regard to that, I…had a thought.”
“Go ahead,” said the president, managing to sound bored. He wasn’t, but he found it kept people on their toes.
Bucky explained his idea. The president pretended to be listening with only one ear. When Bucky was finished, the president snorted, stared, pursed his lips, rubbed his chin, nose, tugged on an earlobe.
“Not bad,” he said, “but won’t Gideon shit his britches if we do that?”
“Not if we tell him-on a confidential basis-exactly what we’re up to. And…throw in a memorial on the Mall.”
“Ah, goddamnit, Buck, I don’t want to look out my bedroom window onto the Mall and see some memorial to forty goddamn million fetuses. For crying out loud. It’s undignified.”
“It won’t ever get to that. All you have to do is put it out quietly that you’re not entirely opposed to it. Tell him you’ll call in the senators and congressmen who sit on the Mall Memorial Commission and…forget about it. By then the election will be over and it won’t matter what we’ve promised Gideon. We’ll tell him we tried. Have him to Camp David for a weekend, that’ll shut him up.”
“I’m not spending a weekend with him at Camp David or anywhere. But all right. I like it. Tee it up.”
“Yes, sir.” It was the first time Bucky Trumble had relaxed in months.
Randy had never been to the Oval Office before. Riding down Capitol Hill in the car the White House had sent for him, he couldn’t resist daydreaming about a day in the future when he might find himself being driven to the White House in an even bigger car. With Secret Service agents running alongside. Sweating.
The car was turning into the southwest gate, slowing as the uniformed Secret Service men approached.
Bucky Trumble, the president’s chief political counselor, deputy chief of staff, and most trusted aide, the second most powerful man in the country, had called Randy the day before-personally-to congratulate him on the success he was having with his Transitioning bill. Trumble said to him, “The president would like to meet with you.”
At first, Randy affected aloofness. “What about, exactly?”
Bucky said, “The president admires the way you’ve stewarded this issue. As you know, we’re on the other side of it. But he’s been impressed by the way you’ve carried the ball. Very impressed, you might say.”
Randy, now all jelly, said, “Tell the president that while we may not agree on some things, I have the deepest personal respect for him.”
“I’ll let you tell him that yourself,” Bucky said brightly. Time to set the hook. “Senator, may I pay you the compliment of candor?”
“Uh, sure. Of course.”
“I must ask for your total discretion.”
“You have it,” Randy said, flush with curiosity.
Bucky lowered his voice to just above audible, which guarantees intent listening. “The president is keeping his options open with respect to the vice president being his running mate again in the election. In the event…” He let the words dangle like mistletoe. “He may choose to designate another running mate.”
Randy worried that Bucky might hear his heart going thump-thump, thump-thump. “Yes…”
“That is not the ostensible purpose of your visit. But strictly between you and me, that is the unostensible purpose for it.” Bucky laughed softly. “I’m sorry to be so gosh darn elliptical.”
Randy was by now sitting bolt upright at his desk. “I understand,” he said solemnly.
“Three o’clock tomorrow?”
“You betcha!”
Randy chided himself for sounding so eager. As a card-carrying member of the WASPocracy, he was good at the old languor; but here his training had, alas, failed him.