Only one person is left.
“Philip?” Nash says, turning to the vice president of the United States. If everyone else has offered advice, and the vice president isn’t even asked, the already diminished former rival of Nash would look even smaller.
“Honestly, Mr. President, I’ve been skeptical all along of the so-called third way that Judge Madison espouses. I don’t think there is a third way. Once conservatives cast everything they don’t like as liberal and activist and began to groom and advance ideological judges, they set us on a path that there would be a fairly distinct line between Republican judges and Democratic ones. The parties have polarized. And so have the judges. This is an arms race. To win it, we need bodies, not middle-ground arguments.”
The vice president uncrosses his legs. This is a speech he clearly has wanted to make for some time to someone other than Nash.
“The way to do that is with a strong liberal voice. The interests of the country, I believe, are served by moving on.”
However neutered the emotional Tennessee Democrat has been in the cool Nash administration, Moreland has thrived as a southern Democrat by seeing things in black and white—the way a lot of voters do.
“Thank you, everyone.” The president stands.
“Thank you, Mr. President,” the group answers in a staccato chorus.
“Randi, please take Peter home to recuperate.”
Brooks smiles.
“Spence, Phil, mind staying?”
As they head in the car back to Rena’s town house, he feels his phone receive a text. A glance while Brooks is looking at the road. The number is unfamiliar.
“Call me. C.W.”
The sneaky old army cop, Carter White, whom Rena has asked to investigate his friends and partners, the man Rena has asked to find their mole.
Fifty-seven
Wednesday, July 1, 9:30 A.M.
Washington, D.C.
Rena decides he should come into the office four days later. He has gotten thoroughly bored at home, watched too much TV, done too little reading, and found himself sitting in the kitchen answering work email anyway—many of them from people worried because he was still at home. Brooks picks him up and drives him in.
The staff is gathered in the lobby.
“We wanted to say, well, how much we were worried,” Ellen Wiley announces. “How brave we think you are. And how glad we are that you’re okay. And, of course, that we are praying for Hallie.”
Some people are crying.
“Thank you. Everyone,” he says.
“How are you feeling?” asks Arvid Lupsa.
“I’m fine. Sore,” Rena says.
They are expecting more.
“Now back to work.”
There is a smattering of nervous laughter. They had sent him balloons at home, and most of them had visited at the hospital. He should say more.
“We’re not ready to go back to work yet and you’re in no shape to make us,” Smolonsky says. The laughter this time is genuine.
Maureen O’Conner comes up to him with an odd look. “I’m just going to kiss you,” she says, standing on her tiptoes, and she gives him a peck on the cheek. “And I’m not even going to ask if I may.” A tear forming, she turns on her heels.
More greetings and gingerly given hugs and people crossing that line between work friendship and their personal feelings.
Then Rena turns to his partner. “You got a minute?”
“Be there in a second.”
In Rena’s office, Eleanor O’Brien has arranged the morning papers on the coffee table for him. Rena has already read them electronically.
The front page of the Tribune is upside down on the table.
“Madison Wins Unanimous Approval in Committee. Confirmation Now All But Assured. Judge Wins Vote While at Hospital with Daughter.”
“We have that other thing to take care of,” Brooks says, entering the office. “You ready?”
Rena scratches his wounded shoulder.
“How did he figure it out, anyway?” he asks her.
“Carter White found a family connection, an uncle, that had been the tip-off, someone connected to Albin.”
Brooks hands a file to Rena, who takes a minute to read it.
“You want to do it?” he asks her.
“I thought you would.”
“Gee, thanks,” Rena says.
“You’re welcome.”
Rena dials the number and hits speakerphone.
“Hey, can you come in, please.”
He and Brooks look at each other. Brooks takes a deep breath. O’Brien appears in the doorway.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi,” Rena says back. “You’d better sit down.”
She settles uncomfortably on the sofa.
Rena tosses the file with the name of her uncle and his connection to Albin on the coffee table in front of her.
When she looks up, she has tears in her eyes.
“We know you were the leak about Madison to Albin. Walt Smolonsky is going through your desk right now and putting your things in a box. Ellen has your computer. I will take your phone,” he says, holding out his hand.
O’Brien looks terrified.
“Here is what is going to happen, Eleanor.”
Rena is standing over her, leaning against the side of his desk. “You’ve been badly misused in this. People being sent to be spies in each other’s offices. But you’re young. Too young. So no one will ever hear about this from anyone here. If anyone ever finds out, it will be because Albin bragged.”
O’Brien is crying harder.
Rena looks over at Brooks to see if she has something she wants to add.
She speaks to the young woman with a hard edge people rarely see in his partner. “Eleanor, you know what we do here. We investigate things. So we’re going to keep track of you. We will know where you work from now on. And if it’s someplace fishy, where we think you may be acting like some kind of spy, we will make the call. From now on, for the rest of your fucking life, we are watching.”
O’Brien’s expression freezes.
“If you want a life in politics, we want you to have that chance. But you have to do it right, Eleanor,” Brooks says.
“Why are you doing this?” O’Brien manages through her sobs.
“Because this wasn’t your idea. And because at your age you should have a second chance,” Rena says.
O’Brien wipes her eyes with the bottom of her palms, then looks at Brooks.
“You think I didn’t know what I was doing?” she says.
“Not in the slightest, even if you thought you did.”
O’Brien smiles grimly. “You two are such hypocrites. You dig up dirt on people for a living and tell yourselves if you behave well and just tell the truth, things will turn out right,” O’Brien says. “Well, that is why everything in the world is going to hell. Because things don’t just turn out all right by themselves. We have to save this country.”
Rena’s shoulder starts to throb.
“I’ll escort you to the ladies’ room, Eleanor,” Brooks says. “You can wash your face. And then get your scrawny little butt out of here.”
O’Brien looks defiantly back at her. “I’m fine,” she says, rising from the sofa and marching, quickly, self-consciously, out of his office. Brooks follows her.
Rena sinks into an armchair and closes his eyes. He feels bent and rattly—like an old car with too many miles. They’d won, hadn’t they? Or is that only because they trained the nominee not to answer questions, withheld the truth about his antiwar history, and used the discovery of a mole in their office to flip it against their opponents? Then they had skirted over Madison’s biggest regret, presiding over the conviction of a possibly innocent man.
What was Nash’s old campaign slogan? “Get it done”?
He gets up and walks to the window. Down on Nineteenth Street, he sees a young couple about O’Brien’s age walking toward M Street, both in suits, starting thei
r Washington day, hair still wet from showering. They are holding hands. They are coming from the metro station a block away. Behind them the street begins to fill with other people pouring out of the subway, most of them young, serious-looking, full of hope and purpose, mature for their age. That part of the city hasn’t changed. Every year another wave, like another subway car. He and Katie and all their friends had that shining look. A city of the exceptional, the best of their generation, come to give back, to make a difference. It is one of his favorite things about the city, and one of the things that makes it feel tragic.
The phone is ringing.
He wonders if it might be Vic.
The receptionist’s voice crackles through the phone intercom: “Peter, it’s Gary Gold calling from the Tribune.”
Rena looks back out the window at more people flowing out from the subway. Then, slowly, he heads to his desk.
Acknowledgments
There are more people to thank than I can count. The list begins with my parents, who had different tastes in fiction from each other but who both passed on their passion. I owe an enormous debt to Antonella Iannarino. She believed in this journey and made the manuscript immeasurably better. And, like Peter Rena, she was always blunt.
Thanks also goes to David Black, who is no less candid and always has my back. I am ever in his hands. Thanks, as well, to many others at the Black Agency who have helped me over the years, now including Jennifer Herrera.
I am grateful to many friends in politics, left and right, who inhabit this story. That list includes elected officials whom I have covered and who shared time with me, many gifted and dedicated staff who make up so much of government—consultants, lobbyists, communications experts, and interest group activists. It is popular today to see such work in the most cynical light. The facts, I find, are different.
Thanks to countless friends in journalism; a few in particular will see parts of themselves here. The irrepressible Gary Cohn, a long-ago friend, may be surprised to be here. The gentle Jim Wooten, a teacher and good man, may also be. Many in the law contributed to this story. Thanks especially to the Honorable Beth Freeman, who shared the story of her own nomination, and the no-less-honorable Bill Freeman, who shared many thoughts about the law.
Drew Littman helped the manuscript with wonderful and encouraging suggestions at just the right time and with many insights from inside the game. Katherine Klein made Peter Rena better. Craig Buck showed me the power of the keepin’ on. Martha Toll continually inspires me by her example, and Dan Becker has been her supporter and mine.
I owe special gratitude to two people: John Gomperts not only read nearly every version of this book but also debated every plot turn with me. Forty-five years of friendship and we’re just getting started, pal. Zachary Wagman, my editor at Ecco, found this story and these characters and believed in them. With a deft hand, Zack, you made this book much better. I couldn’t be luckier. Thanks, as well, to many others at Ecco, including Emma Janaskie who believed in this story—my team.
I am grateful above all, and as always, to my three special women: my girls, Leah and Kira, who have always believed in their dad; and my bride, Rima, who has put up with me and also lived this dream.
Last, to those who write, not the oldest profession but the best.
About the Author
TOM ROSENSTIEL is a veteran observer of the political and media scene in Washington, D.C. The executive director of the American Press Institute and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, he was the founder of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, as well as a correspondent for Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times. Rosenstiel has written seven books of nonfiction. Shining City is his first novel.
Discover great authors, exlusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Also by Tom Rosenstiel
The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect (with Bill Kovach)
Blur: How to Know What’s True in the Age of Information Overload (with Bill Kovach)
Strange Bedfellows: How Television and the Presidential Candidates Changed American Politics, 1992
Warp Speed: America in the Age of Mixed Media (with Bill Kovach)
The New Ethics of Journalism: Principles for the 21st Century (editor)
Thinking Clearly: Case Studies in Journalistic Decision-Making (editor)
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
shining city. Copyright © 2017 by Tom Rosenstiel. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
first edition
Cover design by Allison Saltzman
Cover photograph © PlainPicture/Image Source
Digital Edition FEBRUARY 2017 ISBN: 978-0-06-247538-1
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-247536-7
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