A hearty applause rose from the left side of the auditorium. She glanced once again at her husband in the second row. He too was applauding. She breathed a discreet sigh of relief.
“Quiet, please,” said the moderator.
The applause slowly faded. Mahwani looked away, shaking his head in visible disgust.
“General Howe,” said the moderator. “Same question. Your response, please.”
All eyes turned to the general. Mahwani, in particular, shot him a steely glare-though Allison could swear she detected the silent exchange of an insider’s smile between the two men.
Howe gripped the podium, squaring his shoulders to the center television camera.
“My fellow Americans,” he said solemnly. “Nearly four decades ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stood on the marble steps of the Lincoln Memorial and proclaimed to the American people, ‘I have a dream.’ He dreamed of a day when all people were judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
“I share that dream. All people should be judged by the content of their character. That includes men; that includes women. That includes whites, blacks, and people of all races. And most of all, that includes candidates for public office-men and women who seek a public vote of trust and confidence.
“It would seem that my opponent and I hold a very different set of principles. While Ms. Leahy refuses to answer the question as a matter of principle, I will answer it-based on my principles.”
Howe looked directly into the center camera. “No, I have never broken my vows of marital fidelity. And I would never stand silent on something that, in my view, is the most sacred test of character for any man.” He paused, then shot a judgmental glare at Allison. “Or for any woman.”
The Howe half of the auditorium erupted with a standing ovation. The moderator raised his arms. “Quiet, please. Quiet.”
The cheers only grew louder.
Allison’s heart thumped. The lights overhead suddenly seemed hotter. Her palms were sweating. She glanced at David Wilcox, who had warned her about an ambush from the very beginning. He was normally poker-faced in public. This time, however, his eyes said it all.
The rest of the night was irrelevant. She’d just been slaughtered.
3
LEAHY TAKES THE FIFTH ON ADULTERY, blazed Friday morning’s headlines.
Last night, Allison had retired to her hotel room at the Ritz Carlton with a sick feeling in her stomach. She had hoped it would be gone when she woke in the morning.
It was only worse.
She tossed the Atlanta Journal on the unmade bed. The New York Times and Washington Post were less sensational in their headlines, but by 8:00 A.M. she’d seen and heard enough to know that even the most respected print and television media were raising the same damning questions about her character. Was she hiding something? If so, would the American people elect as president a woman who had cheated on her husband?
As the warm shower waters pelted her body, she recalled her mother’s words eight years ago, when Emily was abducted-the Leahy creed that “everything happens for a reason.” This morning, not even the creed made sense. Allison had come to terms with the loss of her daughter only by reasoning that she was destined to do something else with her life, something so great that it was beyond even motherhood. She immersed herself in volunteer work, eventually landing as executive director of the Benton Foundation and head of the Coalition for America’s Children, where she became friends with the First Lady. The crusade continued as attorney general and Democratic nominee for the presidency. Losing Emily would never make sense, but she had tried to make as much sense of it as she possibly could.
The adultery scandal not only threatened her presidential hopes, but it shook the inner peace she’d built on the shaky bedrock of ambition.
“I told you so,” she whispered to herself, staring at her wet reflection in the glass shower door. It was exactly what her mother would say if she were still living. Washington was fickle, she’d warned, especially about women. But Allison had been too busy climbing to worry about falling. “Women want to be her, men want to meet her,” was the way George magazine had summed up the Leahy phenomenon four years ago. “The class of Jackie O., the charisma of JFK,” the Times had proclaimed. She’d brought enthusiasm to her post, so much so that people had good-naturedly dubbed the Department of Justice the department of energy. Talented lawyers who ordinarily wouldn’t think of leaving their lucrative private practice were flocking to her door for low-paying government positions, just to work with her. She could start a fashion trend by wearing a sweat suit into the office on Saturday morning, or make a local restaurant “chic” just by stopping in for a muffin on her way to work.
And now the slide-just eleven damn days before the election. Okay, Mom, you were right again. Now get these bastards off my back.
By eight-thirty Allison had taken breakfast in her room, her bags were packed, and she was ready for a full day of appearances in Atlanta. She and David Wilcox shared the backseat of a limo from the Buckhead Ritz Carlton to the downtown Five Points area. The FBI normally guarded the attorney general. As a presidential candidate, however, she also received Secret Service protection. A Plexiglas partition separated her and Wilcox from the agents in the front seat, giving them the privacy they desired. They said nothing on the ride down Peachtree Street, each deep in thought. The limo’s interior blackened, then brightened in the intermittent shadows of glass office towers. Finally Wilcox broke the silence.
“I need to know, Allison.”
Her head turned. “Need to know what?”
He raised an eyebrow, as if she had to be joking. “Why did you dodge the question?”
“Because it didn’t deserve an answer.”
He chuckled, but it was an angry chuckle. “Who do you think you are, Meryl Streep in The Bridges of Madison County? Maybe it plays in the movies, but extramarital sex is still a serious political liability.”
“Is it?” she said in a voice that challenged. “I must say that I find this whole controversy very intriguing. Think of all the philandering men this country has elected president. But the minute there’s the slightest possibility that a woman candidate may have been unfaithful to her husband, the old double standard kicks in. The entire nation is suddenly in a time warp. It’s like a throwback to 1952, when the cover of Look magazine asked about Adlai Stevenson, can a divorced man be elected president?”
Wilcox was deadpan. “I would remind you that the answer to that question was no. And he lost to a respected national war hero, a general in the United States Army.”
“Lincoln Howe is no Dwight Eisenhower.”
They fell silent again, until the limo passed a towering cylinder that resembled a seventy-story silo.
“I think you should answer the question.” He stared out the window as he spoke.
Allison shot him a look. “No.”
“Are you hiding something? Is that why you won’t answer?”
She grimaced. “I stood before fifty million viewers last night and refused to answer any questions about marital fidelity-based on principle. If I check the public opinion polls twelve hours later and decide I will answer, what would that say about my principles?”
His eyes were suddenly bulging. “It’s not just your reputation that’s at stake here, okay? I don’t make a name for myself in this business by losing elections in the homestretch. A year of my life-eighteen-hour days, seven days a week-has gone into your campaign with one goal: getting you elected. I won’t have it pissed away by some weekend romp with some nineteen-year-old campaign volunteer you won’t tell me about.”
“Is that really what you think of me?” she asked bitterly.
“I don’t know what to think. I just deserve to know the truth.”
“The only person who deserves to know anything is Peter. And you know what? Peter didn’t even think to ask such a stupid question before he left the hotel this morning. But if you really must kn
ow, I’ll tell you: No, I have never cheated on Peter. Now, would you like to know what positions I prefer?”
His cellular phone rang. He looked away and answered it. “Wilcox.”
Allison took some deep breaths as he took the call. It surprised her that even her own strategist would question her integrity. It hadn’t occurred to her until now, but maybe Peter could have used a little reassurance, too. Maybe it wasn’t really “business” that made him check out of the Ritz earlier than expected.
Her glance shifted back to Wilcox. He was massaging his temple as he switched off the phone. She asked, “What is it?”
“The results of last night’s Gallup poll are in. Your six-point lead is down to one and a half. With the statistical margin of error, you and Howe are in a dead heat.” He blinked hard, then looked her in the eye. “You realize what this means, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” she said in disbelief. “It’s 1952 all over again.”
From a hotel suite fifteen stories above Atlanta, Lincoln Howe smiled down upon the scene of last night’s rout. The old Fox Theatre was built like a mosque, complete with onion domes and minarets, a grandiose monument to America’s passing fascination with “anything Egyptian” after the discovery of King Tut’s tomb in 1922. The marquee above the main entrance on Peachtree Street still proclaimed, PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES, TONIGHT 9:00 P.M. The general’s eyes lit up, wishing it were tonight, wishing he could live it all over again.
“Ironic, isn’t it?” he said as he turned away from the window. But his campaign director wasn’t listening. As usual, Buck LaBelle was on the telephone with five lines holding.
For years, General Howe had known the forty-four-year-old LaBelle by reputation as a cigar-chomping former Texas state legislator, a graduate of Texas A &M University, and a campaign spin doctor who could have made the Alamo sound like a resounding American victory. As chairman of the Republican National Party in the early nineties, he was a tenacious fund-raiser and a principal author of the Republican National Committee Campaign Handbook. Howe had personally recruited him to serve as his Texas state chairman in the Republican primary, seeing him as the perfect experienced complement to a candidate who’d never before run for public office. By Memorial Day, LaBelle had earned himself the top spot as national campaign director.
Howe shot a commanding look across the room. LaBelle dutifully hung up the phone, lending the general his full attention.
With a quick nod, Howe pointed out the window. “You see that fire escape on the side of the theater? Over there,” he indicated. “On Ponce de Leon Avenue.”
LaBelle walked to the window and gazed down. “Yes, sir. I see it.”
“When I was a boy, my aunt brought me and my brother right here to the Fox to see a Saturday-afternoon matinee. I thought she was sneaking us in. I couldn’t understand why we had to go in through the fire escape. But that was the only entrance for colored people. White people used that fancy entrance up the street. The one that looks like a shrine.”
LaBelle blinked, embarrassed for his race. But he was suddenly all business. “I’m glad you didn’t mention that in last night’s debate, sir.”
“Why?”
He grimaced, uncomfortable. “White people will do a lot of things out of guilt. We’ll smile at you. Invite you to our home. Even let you walk in the front door of the Fox Theatre. But so long as there are secret ballots in this country, guilt will never get a black man elected president.”
“And character will?”
“You bet it will. The media is feasting on this already. Just wait until our local organizations turn up the heat. We’ll have every preacher, priest, and rabbi talking about adultery this weekend. Talk radio and television will be flooded with phone calls. Concerned parents will barrage the local papers with letters to the editor. Teachers will be lecturing about morality in schools. The potential here is endless.”
“What about me? What am I going to say?”
“I’ll script something myself. I didn’t like what our speechwriters came up with. They’re a little timid, which is somewhat understandable. Lots of people have had affairs or have forgiven someone who’s cheated on them. They’re afraid we’ll sound too judgmental-like we’re condemning them, instead of Leahy.”
“What do you think?”
“Sir, I firmly believe you should never underestimate the hypocrisy of the American people.”
“You’re a political genius, Buck.”
“Just leave it to me, sir. Between now and the election, I’ll have every man and woman in America talking about marital infidelity.”
The general turned to the window, glancing again toward the Fox marquee heralding last night’s debate. “Everyone,” he said smugly, “except Allison Leahy.”
4
Friday was a waste. Allison had tried to talk substance. She’d even pitched her proposal for “zero tolerance” of teenage drinking and driving-any amount of alcohol in a teenage driver’s blood should be illegal, since it’s illegal for teenagers to drink in the first place. But all anyone wanted to hear about was her sleeping habits.
Her mind really had been elsewhere since the morning limo ride, when the accusatory tone of her own campaign manager got her to thinking that perhaps her husband, too, had doubts. His uncharacteristic failure to return her phone call at lunch hadn’t exactly allayed her fears. She canceled her final Friday-evening appearance to make sure she was home in her own bed tonight, with Peter at her side.
At 10:55 P.M. the private Carrier jet finally landed at Washington National Airport. From the terminal she rode home alone in the back of her limousine. Her usual escorts rode in front, two of the four FBI agents who had guarded the attorney general even before she’d announced her candidacy and became an even more appealing target in need of Secret Service protection.
The trappings of Washington power and history illuminated the night sky along the expressway. The crowning Jefferson Memorial. The towering Washington Memorial. The Capitol dome in the distance. The ride brought back memories of her first family trip to Washington, forty years ago, when she’d slugged her ten-year-old brother for telling her only boys could become president. Viewed through the cracked windshield of the family station wagon or the dark tinted windows of the attorney general’s limousine, the impressive stone monuments had a way of inspiring dreams and dignifying politics.
What an illusion, she thought.
She switched on the small television mounted into the console. The screen blinked on, bathing her in flickering light. It was just past eleven-thirty. Out of morbid curiosity, she wanted to see what the talk show hosts were saying about her tonight. Jay Leno was just beginning his Tonight Show monologue. He was standing before a cheering crowd, wearing his usual dark suit and devilish grin.
“But in all fairness to Attorney General Leahy,” cracked Leno, “she has been hit with some really tough questions. Just today, a reporter asked her point blank if she ever talks dirty to her husband while having sex. Ms. Leahy candidly responded, ‘Only if I answer the telephone.’ Now that’s a classy lady, folks. She is simply not going to take this sex controversy lying down!”
Leno grinned, the crowd roared. The band banged out a heavy-guitar version of Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman,” an old song now best remembered as the theme from Julia Roberts’s movie about a street-walking prostitute.
Allison switched off the television as the limo stopped at the curb outside her nineteenth-century Federal-style townhouse at 3321 Dent Place. It was a simple abode rich with nostalgia: Freshman Senator Jack Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, had made it their first Washington home nearly fifty years ago. It wasn’t Allison’s first choice and wasn’t even listed for sale at the time. But Peter figured that if they were going to own real estate in the capital, they might as well get a piece of Camelot.
The car door opened, and her FBI escort stepped to the side. She gathered her purse and briefcase and stepped onto the sidewalk, wrapped in her navy blue trench coat. Her esco
rt walked her past the twelve-foot-high iron-picket gate to the front door. The porch light cast an eerie yellow glow in the darkness. Her breath steamed slightly in the chilly night air as she dug for her house key. It lay buried at the bottom, naturally.
“Good night, Roberto,” she said with a polite smile.
He responded with a simple nod, then turned away without saying a word. Allison watched from her front porch as he headed down the old brick sidewalk, back to the limo. He had always been the strong and silent type, but he seemed even more silent tonight. Perhaps he, too, thought less of her now.
Or maybe you’re just paranoid.
She opened the front door, stepped into the marble-floored foyer, and deactivated the alarm.
“Peter?” she called. The downstairs was completely dark. Allison dropped her briefcase and hung her coat on the rack, then flipped on the hall light and started upstairs. Her heels clicked on the old oak steps. As she reached the top she could hear the television playing in the bedroom. Her stomach knotted. She hoped Peter wasn’t watching the Tonight Show.
The bedroom door was half open. With a gentle push, it opened the rest of the way. A Tiffany lamp on the dresser softly illuminated a room filled with French antiques, most of them purchased straight from the Louvre des Antiquaires in Paris. A Baccarat chandelier hung from the fourteen-foot coffered mahogany ceiling. The décor was more her taste than Peter’s, though she’d have been the first to admit that it wasn’t her government salary that made it affordable. Early in their relationship, Peter had seemed to derive a sense of purpose from buying her expensive things, replacing her memories, bankrolling the complete makeover that passed for life after Emily.
From the doorway, she first noticed the beam of light from the walk-in closet, and then the suitcase lying atop the four-poster bed. She took the remote control from the nightstand and switched off the television.
The Abduction Page 3
