“Do you seriously think that the vice president is some sort of threat to the country?” the man asked.
“I think he could be, under the right circumstances.”
“What circumstances, exactly?”
“Use your imagination, laddie. Think about the pressure cooker the man is living in.”
“Joe Adams handles pressure as well or better than any man I’ve ever met,” the man said.
“He wasn’t under much pressure at that White House dinner,” Freddie said, “and he stumbled badly there.”
“He just became emotional,” the man said. “He believed passionately in what he was saying to his audience.”
Freddie was becoming annoyed now. “Son, do you take me for a fool?”
The man looked him squarely in the eye. “Frankly, Senator, I don’t know what to take you for.”
Freddie was growing red in the face, and he knew it. Why the hell was he having so much trouble confirming these rumors? This Jonah character had prevented him from getting them into the press, which might have caused them to be confirmed, and now, this supposedly weak man sitting before him was being stubborn. “Laddie, you’re about to find out whether there’s life in this town after being a White House staffer, and you’re about to find out what I can do about it.”
The man stood up. “Senator, it’s late. Thanks for the drink; I’ll be going now.”
Freddie was on his feet. “You’re playing with fire, boy.”
“No, Senator, you’re the one who’s playing with fire. I’ll tell you something: If I have to have enemies in this town, I’d just as soon you were among them. Good night.” The man turned and walked straight out of the house.
Freddie stood there, shaking. He would not be spoken to that way. Who did this little twerp think he was? He threw his crystal glass into the fireplace.
Outside on the street, the man removed a slender dictating recorder from the breast pocket of his jacket, rewound it, and listened for a moment. Every word was plain.
42
Will stood before the California delegation, the largest and, from his point of view, most important of all. They had given him a standing ovation upon his introduction. “I’ve already talked myself blue in the face all over California,” he said, “but I’d like to answer any questions you may have.”
“Tell us where you stand on the Castle Point naval base,” a man in the front row said.
Will took a deep breath. “That’s a tough one, but I’ll be frank: It’s very likely that the base will be closed.”
“You know how important that base is to California, don’t you?” the man asked.
“I certainly do. Military bases are important to every state; they’re big employers, and they pump a lot of money into the local economies.”
“Then why do you support closing it?”
“I’m still waiting for the final report from the commission before I make that decision, but I have to tell you, it doesn’t look good, and I’d like to tell you why.”
“All right, go ahead.”
“As important as military bases are to the states, they’re even more important to the country as a whole. We don’t have any weapons system that costs as much to build or maintain as a large military base costs us. Year after year, we try to close a few, so that we can make big savings on the defense budget, but year after year, congressmen and senators fight to keep them open, because it means votes to them.
“So the president set up a special commission to make recommendations on which facilities should be closed, and barring any really huge errors in their recommendations, I’m committed to accepting them. My home state of Georgia is likely to lose a big base, too, but if it makes sense for the country, I’ll accept that.
“The good news is that there’s never been a better time to reduce the number of bases. We’re in the middle of a booming economy, and that means that the people who lose their jobs will find it easier to find new ones. California has the lowest unemployment rate it’s had for thirty years, and those people will quickly be absorbed into new jobs. Remember, too, that if Castle Point is closed, it will very likely be put to private, commercial use, and that will create a lot of new jobs.” He pointed to a woman in the third row.
“Tell us exactly where you stand on abortion.”
“All right; like the country as a whole, I’m torn on this question. On a personal level, I’m opposed to abortion; I would not suggest to any woman I know that she have one. But in the end, it has to be the woman’s choice, and I won’t allow my personal feelings to intrude on that. I don’t think that I or any other politician has the right to tell a woman what to do in those circumstances, and I won’t support any law that infringes on her personal choice.”
“Where do you stand on national health insurance?” a man shouted from the back of the room.
“I think that, eventually, we’ll come up with some sort of workable program that will gain bipartisan support. The Clinton plan was shot down by a television campaign that told a lot of lies about how the plan would work — lies like you wouldn’t get to choose your own doctor. Now, as a result of the failure to pass that plan in the Congress, the insurance companies have a death grip on how our doctors treat our illnesses, and I think that’s wrong. I doubt that there’s a person in this room who doesn’t know someone who’s been denied an operation or other treatment because of the intransigence of an insurance company. You hear a lot from the Republicans about not wanting to create another bureaucracy, but in fact, what we have now is an enormous insurance bureaucracy that is making decisions about our individual medical care. Every time they deny treatment, they make more money, and that’s wrong.”
“How do you feel about the Clinton impeachment business?”
“I think it was a sustained, right-wing-Republican, political tantrum from the Starr investigation, to the Judiciary Committee hearings, to the House impeachment vote, to the presentation of the house managers. President Clinton’s sins were just that, and not impeachable offenses. The whole process was an outrage against the Constitution, and the Republican Party is going to have to bear the political consequences for what they did. It’s my hope that a great many of the instigators of impeachment will be voted out of office in November.”
That got a rousing round of applause. Will spent another half hour answering their questions, then moved on to other state delegations, where he answered, mostly, the same questions.
In the late afternoon Will returned to the Bel Air to find Kate and Peter waiting for him, Peter before the big-screen television in the suite’s living room.
“You look a little tired,” Kate said, kissing him.
“I’ve been tired since January,” Will replied. “I hope that being president is a lot less work than running for the office.”
“Don’t count on it. Listen, there’s something I have to talk to you about.”
“Let’s go into the bedroom. Peter, you okay here?”
“Sure, Will. Can I have a Coke?”
“There’s a refrigerator in the bar; help yourself, and stay out of the booze.”
“Yeah, yeah.” The boy laughed and went into the kitchen.
Will went with Kate into the bedroom and closed the door. “Is something wrong?”
Kate took a pocket dictator from her purse. “Could be; listen to this; Sue Adams messengered it to me this morning. One of the voices is John Campbell, from Joe Adams’s staff; I think you’ll recognize the other one.” They sat down on the bed, and Kate switched on the machine.
Will listened intently, and when the tape was finished, his mouth was open. “My God,” he said. “How did Freddie find out about this?”