ch-fig

24

NEW YORK CITY

“It isn’t that easy,” Will said into his iPhone. “I wish it were, but it’s not. I can’t make a decision that quickly.”

He’d stopped to take the call during his daily run through Central Park. His first mistake was running with his iPhone, and his second mistake was stopping to check the caller ID. Once he saw who it was, he’d decided to bite the bullet and deal with the call. He knew Kiki Estrada, the executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, well enough to know that she’d just keep calling until she got him . . . and his answer. Will had to hand it to her—she was persistent and a straight shooter.

“I know the primary is soon,” he said, “and that you don’t have anyone with the resources or a decent name ID interested in the race. I’m not even sure I’m all that interested. I’m really focused on something else right now. It comes first.” He tried to calm himself, slow his breathing. He’d been about halfway through his run and had started to hit a decent pace.

Kiki wasn’t easily dissuaded, though. If she had been, her party would never field any first-tier candidates like William Jennings Worthington VI. Everyone in Washington knew she was relentless once she had her target in sight. And now she’d clearly focused her sights on the Worthington family, Will in particular.

“Come on, Will, don’t tell me there’s anything more important than taking back the Senate,” Kiki said. She’d been a Senate chief of staff and then a Democratic National Committee official for more than 20 years before finally agreeing to run the DSCC in an attempt to bring control of the Senate back to the Democrats.

Kiki was well known for recruiting more diversity into the Democratic Party single-handedly than almost anyone, ever. Nearly every Latino in either the House or the Senate had Kiki to thank for something memorable in their campaign life. In only six short months at the DSCC, she already had six strong female Senate candidates lined up. That kind of record was unheard of.

Kiki really only needed four good candidates who could flip incumbent seats to take a good run at winning back control of the Senate, and Will was near the top of her wish list. A Senate campaign in New York was as expensive as they came, and very few candidates could challenge an entrenched incumbent and raise the money necessary to run a credible campaign. That certainly wouldn’t be a problem for a Worthington.

Even more, right now there were a couple of third-tier candidates with no money, no name recognition, and no chance whatsoever in the general running in the Democratic primary. Will knew in his gut that he, with his immense wealth, connections, and network, was their best hope to unseat James Loughlin. So it made sense that Kiki was determined to do whatever it took to get him at least interested in the possibility. If that agenda didn’t work, she’d try to lock in his financial interest for their efforts to take back control of the Senate.

“You’re more interested in running American Frontier? Some giant oil company? Seriously?” She sounded skeptical.

Will had heard all the arguments before, and he wasn’t inclined to go through them again with Kiki. Big Oil was every bit as evil to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party as Big Tobacco. Except that he believed they weren’t. For years, until it had become apparent that burning fossil fuels was killing the planet, nearly everyone respected the American oil companies that strove for new, creative ways to make the United States energy independent. The demonization of the big oil companies was a relatively new phenomenon, and Will had never bought into it.

He could do a great deal more good from inside the oil and gas industry than he ever could from outside it—at least, that was what he rationalized. Part of his plan as CEO of American Frontier, should that come to pass, was to put an end to the company’s longtime anti-environmental stance and bring it fully into the twenty-first century. He would create a highly entrepreneurial venture group inside the company with a mission to find and develop a broad, efficient renewable energy portfolio.

AF was already aggressively pursuing natural gas development and was now making a considerable sum from natural gas to go along with their oil exploration. Will fully intended to accelerate that progress and make certain they were researching and developing new technologies to capture and sell methane that leaked in the natural gas mining and development process. That would also help out with environmental questions.

Though he had never shared his vision with anyone outside his own family and advisors, Will fully planned to define American Frontier as a whole energy company—not simply a big oil company that made money drilling for expensive oil in hard-to-reach places like the bottom of the ocean floor. The world needed lots of cheap energy, and Will was convinced that American Frontier could lead the way toward solutions for providing cheap, abundant energy that didn’t rely solely on burning fossil fuels.

“Look, Kiki,” Will said, trying not to sound exasperated. He came to a complete halt in Central Park. He looked up, a bit disoriented about where he was until he saw the tennis courts on the north side of the park through the trees. “Don’t you start in on me too about how evil the big oil companies are. I don’t have the time, and I don’t want to hear it. Not right now. It won’t help you in your arguments with me.”

“I wasn’t, actually,” Kiki said. “I admire American Frontier, if you want to know the honest truth. I’ve always liked them. You don’t become the biggest, baddest, toughest kid on the block without learning how to win a street fight. And AF pretty much wins every street fight they get in. No, what I was going to say is that I don’t know why you’d want to be their CEO when you don’t have to. You’re already their largest shareholder. You can tell them to jump, and they have to ask you how high.”

“Right.” Will laughed. “You and I know it doesn’t work that way.”

“Maybe. But you have more to say about their direction as their largest institutional shareholder than you ever would as their CEO. You don’t need the money or their salary. You’re on the board of directors right now—you tell the executives what to do. Why would you ever want the job that Eric Sandstrom has—so that your peers on the board can tell you what to do and how high to jump? That’s what I was going to say.”

Will couldn’t help but grin. The woman was good. “That’s not bad, Kiki. But tell me this. Why would I want to win a job as just one of 100 senators, all of whom believe they’re the single greatest gift to humanity? Who have egos as large as the Grand Canyon, yet virtually no real power in a dysfunctional town that has no knowledge any longer of what actual bipartisanship looks like?”

“Because I said so? That works with my kids, by the way.” She chuckled.

“That’s nice. It never works with mine.”

“Look, how about this?”

Will rolled his eyes as Kiki tried one more direction.

“Don’t turn me down right now,” she cajoled. “See how this American Frontier thing plays out. See how you feel about all of it after this situation in the Arctic has had a chance to play itself out on the evening news for a bit. But keep your options open. You may decide you’d like to be a United States senator after all, if they don’t give you a chance to run AF. Because—and this is the only real incentive I can ever offer someone like you who doesn’t need the money, fame, or power that comes from being in the Senate—it may be the right thing for you to do for the good of the country. And it also may be the right stepping-stone for you to consider if you’d ever like to consider running for that place on Pennsylvania Avenue. So think about it. Okay?”

“I have no plans to ever run for president,” Will replied.

“Said like a true candidate who’d like to keep his options open.”

“I’m not keeping my options open. I am genuinely not interested in running for public office—any public office.” Will had thought about running from time to time, but he’d always been too focused on the AF CEO position to explore the idea fully. Perhaps it was because he wasn’t really a Democrat. Not in any meaningful way. His heart and sympathies actually lay with the values of the Republican Party. He simply didn’t like big government solutions. Instead he trusted corporations to create wealth and employ people. He was an entrepreneur and a calculated risk taker, as well as fairly conservative in his moral outlook. So he didn’t fit fully with either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party.

“That may be,” she fired back. “But circumstances change. From everything I’m hearing, this thing with AF is likely to get really ugly really fast. It’s going to get everyone associated with it dirty. Not even someone like you, Will—who has a pure heart, no ulterior motives, and nothing more than a sense of duty to run a great company correctly—could keep from getting dirty when mud is flying from one corner of the room to the other.”

“I’m interested in running American Frontier,” Will said firmly. “I believe in its mission and what it stands for. I believe I can make a difference while running it. That’s where my focus is.”

“Fine,” she said. “I acknowledge that and respect it. But if it doesn’t happen, for whatever reason, can we talk then? Can you give me at least that much?”

Will smiled. He knew Kiki wasn’t going to give up. But this was as good a stopping place as he could manage right now. “All right, sure, I’ll give you that. If it becomes apparent I’m not going to be running American Frontier as its next CEO, we can talk again. But you really are wasting your time. No Worthington has ever run for public office in New York, and I seriously doubt that the first one to do so in six generations is going to be yours truly.”

“There’s a first time for everything, Will—even for the Worthingtons. So, go do your thing. We’ll talk soon.”

divider

“I have to hand it to Kiki,” Will told his wife later that day as they sipped decaf coffee at the kitchen table. “She’s determined. She doesn’t give up. She goes after what she wants.”

“But what do you want, Will?” Laura asked, her expression thoughtful. “That’s what matters to me. You’ve spent your whole life doing what you think you ought to do. To uphold the Worthington name. To make your dad proud. But what do you really want? If you could go after anything?”

She sure knew how to hit the nail on the head. He grinned weakly. “I’m thinking about it.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sounds like a way of avoiding the issue.”

He sighed. “Okay, you got me. I can’t help but think about what Drew said—about the risk, especially right now, not only for me but for all of us. The entire family. I—we—could be caught in a firestorm.”

She lifted a brow. “So? You have before. It’s one of the costs of being a Worthington. What makes this one different?”

“Ironic, isn’t it?” He frowned. “I’m the one who opposed the board decision to drill in the Arctic. Now I might be the one who has to clean the mess up.”

“You’re a pro at cleaning messes up. But that’s not the real issue here, is it? Is it because you’re not sure if you should pursue the CEO, or you’re wondering, as Drew stated, if there’s a ‘bigger prize’?”

In that moment his resolve solidified. He would follow the trajectory his life had been on, rather than sidetracking himself with what-ifs. “I believe I can make a difference right here, right now, as the CEO of American Frontier,” he said slowly. “But Sandstrom isn’t going to go down without a fight.”

“So,” she replied, aiming a one-two fist move in his direction, “give it right back.”

He laughed. It was so Laura.