The Run

by Stuart Woods

  “Sorry to trouble you about that, Colonel,” the trooper said, “but somebody else would have stopped you eventually.” His hand came toward Zeke. “Can I have my screwdriver back?”

  “Oh, sure,” Zeke replied. “And thanks for letting me know about the plate.”

  “Not at all,” the trooper said. “Drive carefully.”

  Zeke got back into the car, sweating. “Fucking car salesman,” he muttered to himself. “I damn near killed that trooper.”

  Zeke crossed the Potomac and drove to the Fairfax Hotel, where he had booked a room. He changed into his first-class uniform, then enjoyed a good lunch in the Jockey Club restaurant. When he had finished and signed the check, he went to the concierge’s desk.

  “Good afternoon, Colonel Waldron,” the man said, glancing at the name tag on his uniform. “How can I help you?”

  “I’m interested in Ford’s Theatre, where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated,” Zeke replied.

  The concierge dug out a brochure. “Of course. They have tours there twice a day; you can still make the afternoon one.” He gave Zeke a map of the city and showed him how to get to the theater.

  “Thanks very much,” Zeke said. He went to the front door and asked the doorman for his car. He found the theater, on 10th Street NW, and parked the car, removing the briefcase containing the sniper’s rifle from the trunk. He arrived in the lobby just as the tour was starting.

  “Good afternoon,” the elderly lady who was the tour guide began, “and welcome to Ford’s Theatre. Before we start the tour, I’d like to give you a little of the rather odd history of the building. The theater opened its doors in 1862, having been converted from a former Baptist church. Some of the church members were disturbed that such a secular use was being made of what had been a holy building, and someone predicted that no good would come of it. The theater, which was originally the Athenaeum, burned to the ground within a few months.

  “Mr. John T. Ford, who owned the theater, rebuilt it, named it after himself, and reopened the doors on August 27, 1863. After the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, the War Department closed the theater with the intention of never reopening it. The government bought the property and turned it into a warehouse. In 1893 the upper floors of the building collapsed, and twenty-two government employees were killed and many others injured. The building was again rebuilt and used as a warehouse.

  “It was not until the nineteen-fifties that Congress appropriated the funds to restore the theater, and in 1968, it finally became a theater again. Now, if you’ll follow me, I’ll show you the box where Mr. Lincoln was shot, then we’ll go backstage, after which you can see the little museum in the basement. Then you may wish to visit the Peterson House, across the street, where Mr. Lincoln died of his injuries.”

  The woman led the little group of people upstairs. Zeke hung back at the rear and allowed the group to leave him behind. He walked back to the rear of the theater, checking sight lines, and then he saw a small sign pointing up another flight of stairs. It read PROJECTION BOOTH. He followed the stairs and came to a door, which was ajar. Across the little hallway was a men’s room.

  He pushed the projection-room door open and found a light switch. Two large 35mm projectors filled most of the room. There was also a table with two cranks mounted for rewinding reels, and next to the projector was a single theater seat, where the projectionist could sit and watch a movie through his own window. Zeke looked carefully at the ceiling and found a large air-conditioning duct. He stood on a chair, took out a Swiss Army knife, and unfolded a screwdriver blade. In a moment he had the grating off; then he took the briefcase and slid it into the duct, where it fit very nicely. He replaced the grate, switched off the light, and left the room. As he departed, he noted a ladder fixed to the wall. He climbed and pushed open a trapdoor in the ceiling. He stuck his head up and looked around the roof. Maybe he wouldn’t have to die after all.

  He rejoined the group, which was just leaving Lincoln’s box.

  “Oh, did we lose you?” the guide asked.

  “I was just looking for the men’s room,” he replied. As the group walked back toward the stairs, Zeke stepped into Lincoln’s box and stood, looking over the theater. John Wilkes Booth, he knew, had slipped into the box as Lincoln watched a performance of a comedy, Our American Cousin. He had crept behind Lincoln and fired a single bullet into the back of his head from close range.

  Soon, Zeke mused, he would add another interesting page to the history of Ford’s Theatre. He’d give the tour guides something new to talk about.

  58

  THE WILL & EFT SHOW

  Part Two

  By our political editor

  Last night, a national audience was treated to the second of two debates between the presidential candidates, but with a difference. This time, Representative Howard “Eft” Efton didn’t show. Well, not exactly, anyway. Mr. Efton, after taking a bit of a drubbing in the Atlanta debate three weeks ago, backed out, citing a campaign schedule that was too busy to include the city of Chicago, his advisors having apparently told him that he had less to lose from canceling than from showing up.

  But Senator Will Lee seems to have gotten better advice from his people. Not only did he show up, he dragged Eft Efton in by the scruff of the neck, as it were, and debated him whether he liked it or not. The audience arrived for the telecast to find a big-screen TV set up on one side of the stage (Efton’s), and a lectern on the other (Lee’s). A moderator introduced both candidates, and the debate began. Lee’s staff had assembled a series of Efton’s statements from campaign appearances, speeches on the House floor, and from Efton’s acceptance speech at the Republican convention. When Efton was called on to speak, he appeared on the TV screen and made his statement; then Senator Lee was allowed to rebut. When the process was reversed, Efton clips were chosen to state the opposite position.

  But if the audience was surprised by this turn of events, the biggest surprise came in the way this spectacle was conducted. The Lee campaign could have chosen Efton clips to make him look bad or to set him up for Lee’s punch lines, but they didn’t do that. Instead, they treated the Republican candidate respectfully, showing clips that Efton might have chosen himself. The result was not just a political stunt, but something very close to a real debate. Furthermore, the Lee staff issued a statement claiming that Senator Lee had not been told in advance which Efton clips would be used, so that his responses would be spontaneous.

  Although Efton himself had no comment on any of this, his advisors were incensed. “This just shows how low Will Lee will stoop to win political points. This was an unethical, unfair, and un-American carnival sideshow,” Efton’s campaign manager said to reporters, conveniently ignoring the fact that Efton could have made it fair simply by showing up, as he had promised to do.

  Who won? Far be it from me to offer an opinion, but an unscientific telephone call-in poll on the eleven o’clock news gave Lee the nod by a twenty-point margin. We’ll have to wait a day or two for the national pollsters to do their work and tell us how much Lee really benefited, if at all.

  But one thing Will Lee seems to have accomplished is to pretty much guarantee that Eft Efton will not duck out of the final debate from Ford’s Theatre in Washington next week. And that may have been his intention all along.

  Kitty put down the newspaper, from which she had been reading aloud. “And what’s more,” she said, grinning, “we’ve pulled in more than a dozen editorials from major newspapers around the country, saying pretty much the same thing.”

  Will smiled and sipped his coffee. “You’re a very smart woman, Kitty,” he said.

  “We’re redoing the schedule for the last week,” Tim Coleman said. “All your appearances are going to be in Illinois and California, with one or two others on the way to or from. It’s driving the Secret Service advance men crazy, but they’re getting with the program.”

  Will turned to Moss, his pollster. “You think this is the right thing to do, then?”
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  “Will, it’s the only thing to do. My newest numbers project that Efton can win if he takes either Illinois or California, but for you to win, you have to take both.”

  Will shrugged. “Let’s do it, then.”

  Zeke was at the office of the League of Women Voters two hours before it opened, and a line had already formed. He cursed himself for not getting up earlier. His plan was all worked out, but in order to make it happen, he had to get inside the theater on the night of the debate, and that meant getting a ticket.

  The doors opened, and the line inched forward. Finally, there was only one person ahead of him, a small woman with a child in tow.

  “This is the absolutely last one?” she asked, holding aloft the ticket.

  “The very last,” the woman behind the counter responded. “You’re very lucky.”

  “But what about my husband?” the woman demanded. “My husband has to be there, too.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” the woman replied, “but you’re holding the very last ticket available to the public. The rest have already been issued to the two campaigns and the press.”

  Zeke wanted to strangle the woman and take her ticket.

  “Why does this always happen to me?” the woman wailed.

  “I don’t know,” the woman behind the counter said. “Do you want it, or not?”

  The woman turned and faced Zeke. “Here, soldier,” she said, holding out the ticket. “You take it.”

  Zeke accepted the ticket with a big smile.

  “Congratulations, Colonel,” the woman behind the counter said. “Now if you’ll just step over there and give the Secret Service agent some information.” She pointed to a man behind the desk.

  Zeke walked over. “The lady told me to see you,” he said to the man.

  “Right,” the agent replied. “I’ll need your name, your date of birth, and your social security number. You’d better give me your military serial number, too.”

  Zeke was happy to give the man all of that.

  59

  As the Boeing set down at Van Nuys airport, Will braced himself against the shower wall. There was something very strange, he thought, about a shower that moved around. Plumbing was supposed to be in a fixed position. As the airplane taxied toward the FBO, Will got into trousers and a shirt and toweled his hair as dry as he could get it. There was a knock at his cabin door. “Come in.”

  Tim Coleman walked in. “Senator, we’ve got a little problem,” he said.

  “How little?”

  “I’m not sure. Charlene Joiner is standing at the bottom of the boarding steps, and she insists on seeing you.”

  Will winced. “Tell the Secret Service to shoot her.”

  “I’d like nothing better, but I think you’ll have to let her on board.”

  “And let her be photographed here?”

  “She’s already been photographed,” Tim said. “There’s the usual media greeting party outside; she’s chatting them up and getting interviewed now.”

  Will thought for a moment. “All right, get all the traveling press off the airplane, then show her into the office area. After three minutes, interrupt us with the greatest possible urgency, and get me off the airplane. Tell the crew to keep her on until we’ve driven away and the press has followed us.”

  “Got it,” Tim replied, then left.

  Will was tying his necktie when Charlene arrived, so she was unable to embrace him. She looked sensational in a tailored suit that still managed to show a considerable amount of creamy cleavage. “Hi, there,” Will said. “What brings you to Van Nuys? It’s a long way from Malibu.”

  “Will, I’ve got to talk to you,” she said, leaning against a desk and giving him a better view of the cleavage.

  “Better hurry; I’ve got to be out of here in just a minute. I’ve got sixteen campaign stops in the L.A. area before noon tomorrow, and I have to be back in Washington for the debate tomorrow night.”

  “It’s about Larry Moody.”

  He’d thought it would be. “Oh?”

  “His appeal has been turned down by the Supreme Court.”

  “Oh? They didn’t think I was incompetent?”

  “Apparently not. Now Larry’s only hope of living is a commutation of his death sentence to life by the governor of Georgia.”

  “Hmmm,” Will said.

  “I’ve got a plan to get the governor to change his mind,” Charlene said, “but I need your help.”

  “Charlene,” Will said, getting into his jacket, “Bill Mackey is a Republican; I have zero influence with him.”

  “Just call him, Will; it might help.”

  Charlene, if I get elected, Bill Mackey is going to take the greatest delight in appointing someone I despise to my Senate seat, possibly even himself. He and I have absolutely nothing to say to each other.”

  Charlene put her hands on her knees and pushed her shoulders forward, turning what had been cleavage into an inspiring view of her breasts. “Will, I read that there’s a bed on this airplane; any truth to that?” She kept her chin down and raised her eyes to his, evoking in Will a memory of a photograph of Grace Kelly with John F. Kennedy many years before.

  “Ah, now.” Will laughed. “That could work.”

  “Huh?”

  “That look, that angle on the boobs, that invitation. Bill Mackey reputedly has a Clintonesque weakness for women, and he’s not accustomed to encountering many as beautiful as you. That’s your best shot, Charlene, believe me.”

  Tim Coleman burst into the office. “Senator, you’ve got to leave right now! The Secret Service say there’s some sort of threat against you!”

  “Good God!” Will said. “I’m sorry, Charlene, but I have to go. You stay aboard the airplane until we’re gone, and the crew says it’s okay to leave; I don’t want you to get shot at. Bye.” He sprinted up the aisle, and Tim closed in behind him, leaving Charlene staring after them.

  Will dived into the car. “Very good, Tim,” he said. “Or was there really a threat?”

  “The threat is still on the airplane,” Tim said as the motorcade sped away.

  60

  THE VIEW FROM HERE

  by Hogan Parks

  It’s been one hell of a run. Not since the Nixon-Humphrey contest in ’68 has a presidential race been so tight. As we come down to the final of the three campaign debates (well, two and a half) tonight, Howard “Eft” Efton still seems to have a razor-thin margin, but it could go either way.

  My sources in both campaigns agree that the race is going to be won or lost in Illinois and California. For some weeks it has been clear to pollsters that either state could give Efton the margin of victory, while Lee would need to win both, but since Efton stumbled by pulling out of the Chicago debate, and Lee so masterfully capitalized on his nonappearance, Illinois seems to have shifted narrowly in Lee’s favor. Which means that California, with its fifty-four electoral votes, is now the 400-pound gorilla in this race.

  If any further evidence of that fact were necessary, one need only look at the campaign schedules of the two opponents. Neither has drawn a breath outside California for the past four days.

  Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this race is how Eft Efton, at a time when the Democrats seem likely to win at least the House, and maybe the Senate, has managed to run so strongly nationally. He has done it by seeming less a Republican than a centrist independent, co-opting Democratic positions wherever he could and downplaying the traditional Republican rhetoric on tax cuts and abortion.

  Efton has touted a plan to save Social Security that is almost indistinguishable from one proposed by the Democrats more than a year ago; he has rejected an across-the-board tax cut and opted, instead, for targeted reductions, mostly to the middle class; he’s come out for new expenditures on education, although he wants school districts to spend it as they see fit, instead of being made to use the money to build and repair schools. And, most un-Eft-like, he has restrained himself from personal attacks on Lee and, es
pecially, on Lee’s wife, an important CIA official, something voters seem to appreciate.

  Lee, whose political positions have often been undercut by Efton’s sidestep toward the center, has chosen to campaign almost as though Efton didn’t exist, touting his New Center as the way to go for the 21st century and ignoring Efton’s attempts to join him in the middle of the road. Lee’s great strength has been his personal charm, which, although it falls short of the kind of animal magnetism Bill Clinton projected, has done much to make him stick in the minds of voters. He has also proved an agile wiggler. When some right-wing Republicans tried to hang movie diva Charlene Joiner around his neck like a latter-day Gennifer Flowers, he managed to tap-dance his way around their insinuations by the simple device of being innocent of the charges, except for a single dalliance when they were both single. I’m told there is even some polling evidence to indicate that white males’ opinion of Lee was lifted by the fact that he once slept with someone who is now a movie star.

  All of which brings us back to Ford’s Theatre tonight and the debate that Lee supporters hope will give him the final push he needs, especially in California, to edge past Efton and into the presidency. Look for Efton to give us more of the same, and for Lee, perhaps, to inject some fireworks into the proceedings. And look for both to offer some special incentives for California voters.

  Kitty put down the Washington Post. “Well, that’s depressingly close to the truth, isn’t it?”

  “We can always rely on Hogan Parks to state the obvious, can’t we?” Will sighed. “Now let’s get back to work on these debating points. We either blow Eft out of the water tonight, or we sink trying.”

  Charlene Joiner got off the Centurion Studios G-V jet at Atlanta’s DeKalb Peachtree airport, and, unspotted by the press, got into a waiting limousine. “Take me to the governor’s mansion,” she said to the driver.