White House Years

21

About 10,000 people each year are diagnosed with tumors in their pituitary gland. As cancers go, pituitary brain cancer is one of the least deadly.  Most are benign. Statistically, 60 to 90 percent of those diagnosed with pituitary brain cancer are still alive ten years after diagnosis.

The tumor found next to Reed Guess’s brain tested malignant. A surgical team at Bethesda Naval Hospital probed through his sinus cavity deep above the back of his throat and removed the pituitary gland immediately behind it, a routine procedure. Whether all the cancerous cells were removed with the tumor could not be guaranteed. These things take time and frequent, close medical monitoring.

Guess could have continued his campaign for president with a reasonable chance of living through one, or possibly even two terms in the White House. The Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries were just four months away. He led all the polls against his only serious challenger, Virginia Senator Roderick Theodore Rusher, champion of what could be called the conservative wing of the Democratic Party. The Republican primary was a stampede of eighteen candidates with no clear favorite. Guess had better odds of becoming president than he did of being cut down by brain cancer before he could serve.

But election campaigns are seldom as rational as cold statistics. A candidate with a brain cancer diagnosis is a candidate facing a billion dollar wall of press scrutiny, and a politically organized death watch. Guess recognized that immediate widespread sympathy and prayers for his condition would quickly be redirected into more critical channels. He had to abandon his campaign.

Managing the Guess campaign’s strategy and organization was Susan Cipriani, a political veteran and rival of Sage and Searer at the top rung of Democratic Party candidate politics. For the past three years, she had built the organization that would make Reed Guess president. For the past three nights she had been at the hospital with Guess and his family sharing their anguish, and the campaign’s undoing. This morning, sleep deprived, powered by endless rounds of caffeine, but tightly focused on her mission, Cipriani appeared at the Georgetown office of Sage and Searer.

“It’s true,” she confided in Ben and Lee, “Senator Guess is withdrawing from the presidential campaign. You know how close he’s been with Senator Tennyson in the five years she’s been here. Their styles are different, but they agree on just about everything important. Rather than just fold up everything we’ve built for this presidential campaign, Reed wants to turn it all over to Senator Tennyson and try to convince her to run instead. I can keep the Guess campaign intact so you won’t be starting in first gear. We’ve built a great group. Transition wouldn’t be a problem since both Guess and Tennyson are on the same page when it comes to issues and outlook.”

“Has he talked with her?”

“Not yet. It’s up to you. You two know her better than anyone else in the campaign world. She’s not likely to agree unless you both are aboard. And as a practical matter, you’d know how to adjust what we’ve built for Reed to her style and strengths. I’d like to stay involved, but I can’t win her trust for this or manage her anywhere near as effectively as you guys could. Not in the short time before the primaries begin. So the question is—three questions, really. Can she handle a presidential campaign? Would you encourage her to get into it? And if she does, can you pretty much devote all your time to making this work?”

“You mean handling a Tennyson for President campaign with your people like it’s our own?” asked Lee.

“Yes. With the organization we’ve already built and whatever help you want from me.”

Tenny for president? It wasn’t the first time the possibility had been considered. In the days after her election to the Senate, that idea had bounced through the writings of a number of well-known political columnists and commentators. A brief boomlet to draft her even resulted in an internet petition. Tenny quickly squelched all of that by announcing her support for Reed Guess. She was the first Democratic senator to endorse Guess and never wavered. Ben was certain that she had never seriously considered running for president herself. Would she now?

“Yes,” said Ben. “She’s ready. She may not know it yet, but she’s ready.”

“And you?”

“We’re in if she is,” said Ben. “And we’d want you with us, Susan. Have Senator Guess make the call.”

Three hours later Ben was in Tenny’s Senate office.

“You’re in on this, too?” Tenny greeted him.

“Not the instigator, but, yes, an advocate.”

“How on earth do you think I can win? A so-called far-out liberal in a nation of centrists? A Latina at a time we’re gridlocked over immigration?”

As she spoke, Tenny rose from behind her desk and walked to where Ben was standing.

“Wall Street’s worst nightmare at a time when they can spend unlimited secret campaign money? A divorced woman whose former husband is god-knows-where doing god-knows-what? A single woman who hasn’t exactly lived the life of a saint? Talk about a mountain to climb. Reed might have made it because he’s a war hero with a beautiful family and a more restrained way of pushing issues. Me?” She poked a finger into Ben’s chest for further exclamation. “I’m a walking political disaster!”  

Ben smiled, captured her extended arm, reeled her into a hug and kissed her on the cheek. She rapped him on the forehead playfully with her knuckles and broke free.  

“I’m not kidding, Ben. How do you think I can win?”  

Ben settled down in a chair and motioned her to sit next to him.  

“I didn’t say you would win. I’m not sure you can. But I’m sure you should run.”  

“What are you talking about?”  

“Look, win and you’re president. Lose and you still have two years left in your term as senator.  You’re beating your brains out trying to get immigration reform and change the financial system. And for all your work, and speeches and crowds and enthusiasm, what’s actually happened to change things? Nothing. You run for president and you elevate these issues to the biggest stage in the world. You make your case to tens of millions who haven’t heard it. You win and you actually change the world. You lose and you’ve got a much bigger constituency for change than you could ever create as a senator. If you don’t get into the primary, we get Rusher as our candidate and maybe as president. Even worse, we could get a Republican. Everything you’ve worked for goes backward.”  

She turned from him and paced a few circles around the center of her office.  

“Damn you, Ben. You always make the most ridiculous ideas sound almost sensible when you’re trying to get me to run for something. But why me? There’s lots of others.”  

“Really? Who? Who else would raise a billion dollars for the campaign this close to the first primaries? Who else would put together an organization as strong as the one Reed has now? That organization folds if you don’t run.”  

She paced a couple of laps more. Ben didn’t push. He allowed her space for silence.  

“But how do I win it? I’ve got all the vulnerabilities I just told you about. Admit it.”  

“How do you win it? Damned if I know. Susan Cipriani just blew my mind a few hours ago. Now I’m here blowing yours. You agree to run. I’ll figure out how to elect you.”  

“Get out of here you trouble-maker. I’ll think about it. I need to talk to a few people with more common sense than you. I need some time.”  

“You don’t have much before the window closes and the Guess team begins scattering. Everything else gets a lot tougher.”  



Her first call, as always, was to Carmie, whose career had moved to the penthouse level of the Wall Street elite.  

“Carmie, they’re pushing me hard to run for president. What do you think?”  

“Well,” said Carmie, “I personally know eighteen of my fellow banker friends who would jump off the Brooklyn Bridge if you take over the White House. In my small world, your picture is on dart boards in every executive suite.”  

“But what do you think?”  

“Me? I’d immediately take a leave of absence, or quit my job if they made me, and knock on doors for your campaign. And if you win, I’d be golden because I likely would be one of just three people on all of Wall Street whose phone calls you’d take. I’d be in high demand.”  

“And if I lose?”  

“Then you and I would start a socially conscious venture fund and get even more rich than you already are. Or, even better, we’d just travel the world together breaking hearts and getting into trouble. That’s how we started out as I remember.”  

“Hey, come on. This is serious. Do you think I could win?”  

“Of course. The country’s ready for Madam Hot. You’re fiery, passionate. They’d love you. A lot of people already do.”  

While she was talking with Carmie, the call came in from Hal. “The governor’s on the line,” said the voice from Sacramento.  

“Tenny,” said Hal, “Ben’s running a big campaign to get you into the race and I’m shilling for him. He wouldn’t let me off the phone until I promised to call you.”  

“Well, my friend, you’ve done your duty. Now you have to say no more.”  

“But I do have more to say. Two words. The same two words I said when I asked you to run for Congress: Do it. You win California hands down. Washington, Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, maybe even Arizona. Then you take all of the states Obama won twice.”  

“Hal. Honestly. You know me better than almost anyone. Can I do this? Forget the numbers. Can I be what people see in a president? I’m totally different than anyone else in the history books. And if I win, what kind of leader would I be? I know myself pretty well and I’m not going to change much. I have so little tolerance for idiots. I’m more a lone wolf than good manager of people and things. When I start being eaten alive by ducks pecking on my ankles there’s no telling what I might do or say. And I’m talking here about generals and admirals and leaders of other countries.”  

“Agreed. You’re likely to screw up royally. But someone’s going to get elected and whoever that is just as likely to screw up. Better that it’s you.”  

“I just talked with Carmie. She says Wall Street would do everything it could to stop me.”  

“Sure they would. You know I’m pretty cozy with a lot of those types. They’re terrified of you out here in California and still think I lost my mind when I appointed you. Expect the worst from them. But this isn’t their year. In fact, the harder they push against you the better off you’ll be. It just makes you more credible.”  

“Why don’t you run? You could beat Rusher and get elected more easily than I could.”  

“Well, now that you mention it, I did spend some time last year testing whether I should.   When I looked at getting in it was pretty clear I’d split support with Reed Guess and almost guarantee that Rusher would win the nomination. So I backed off. That’s why I never asked you to support me or raise money for me. But while I was trying to make that decision I seriously had to ask myself whether this was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and I got some really good answers. I have a great family situation. I’ve never made much money, but after I leave office I can make a ton, and have time to enjoy it. By the time I heard about Reed’s cancer, I’d drifted really far away from wanting to run for president. But even if I did want it, let’s be real. You’re way more popular than I am. You have natural support groups everywhere, women and Latino, that I don’t have. And you can write a check for your whole campaign if it comes to that. I’d start off late with an empty bank account. The fact is, I just don’t want to do it anymore. But I want you to. I really want you to. You can beat Rusher. And you, me, the whole country needs to beat Rusher.”  

“Hal, you left something out. What about us? We both saw how ugly that got in the Senate campaign. What was ugly then is bound to be horrible if I run now.”  

“I can handle my end of it. Can you handle yours?”  

“I don’t want you to get hurt. The Senate campaign was so hard on Sally and your kids.”  

“The only way I can be hurt now is if you don’t run. Anyway, I’ve got my answer ready when the media quizzes me about us.”  

“And what’s that?”  

“I didn’t appoint you to the U.S. Senate because you were good in bed. You just paid me more than any other candidate.”  

“Goddamn it, Hal,” Despite herself she couldn’t help laughing out loud.  

Tenny moved on.  

Fish was still a member of the U.S. House, winning re-election every two years and rising in influence.  Republicans held the majority, but Fish was able to avoid the worst of political partisanship.  She had friends in both parties. Alaska’s an exotic destination and Fish was a valuable conduit for arranging trips there for congressional business, and often the hunting and fishing side trips that came with them.  

“Of course you should be president,” said Fish. “Why do you think we organized Great Cooks and Tough Cookies? Remember? Our version of Nixon’s old Marching and Chowder Society?  The whole idea was to elect you president.”  

“You bull-shitter! I thought the idea was to elect you.”  

“California has a lot more votes than Alaska, my dear. Besides, you can’t pry me from Alaska.  It’s an ugly job, but someone has to do it. Best that it’s you.”  

“So, will you carry Alaska for me?”  

“Not a chance. But I promise you this. I’ll be first in line with my hand out after you get elected.”  

Tenny had been trying all afternoon to locate Federico. Now he was on the line.  

“Federico, where did I find you?”  

“In Medina. Bell, I’m so very pleased to hear from you.”  

“You are well?”  

“Quite well, my dear. I think of you often.”  

“Federico, I’m seriously thinking of running for president of the United States.”  

“Then my prayers have been answered. I’ve often thought that such a possibility existed. What a treasure that would be for so many people in the United States and everywhere. Someone with both a head and a heart and the power to make a difference.” 

“Federico, you’re the only one who can really understand this. If I run, it would be because I feel the same obligation you do to make things right after what our family business has done.  I can’t change what’s past but maybe I can do something about what’s ahead.”  

“You’ve already done much good, Bell. Everyone here knows about you. You inspire people with hope.  I’m so very proud of you, Bell.”  

“All my years as a small girl I heard from Papa that Aragons were different than most people. Leaders. Born to rule. He didn’t use the word aristocrat much, but that’s what he meant. We were a class apart. I believed that as a girl, then didn’t believe it after you told me the truth.”

“It’s not the blood of ages, Bell. It’s the good heart God gave you and the good sense to use it properly.”  

“Federico, you’ve always been my mentor, my wise adviser. Should I do this? Should I run for president?”  

“Your taking the time to call me is the answer. You know the answer. You know you should.”  

“If I get elected Federico, you and I together will visit with Pope Francis. Would it be out of order for me to ask for his autograph? I am such a fan.”  

“Most certainly. First we will ask for his blessings. If you win you will need all the blessings he commands, in writing.”  



While Tenny made these and other calls, calls were moving the other way, into her U.S. Senate office. Word that she was jumping into the presidential race was filtering out. The political spotlight of Washington was being focused on her third-floor office in the Senate’s Dirksen building.  

Henry Deacon, her Senate chief of staff, saw that she was off the phone and felt it was time for a talk.  

“Deacon, I think I’m going to go for it.”  

She didn’t have to define “it” for Deacon.  

“You know what this means. You have to keep the Senate operation going as if I’m here even though for most of the next twelve months I won’t be.”  

“When do we tell the staff?”  

“I guess that’s a question for Ben. It needs to fit whatever schedule he’s got for us. I’d better see him now.”  

“Well he’s not far away. He dropped by about a half hour ago and said he’d be in the coffee shop waiting for your call.”  

In a few minutes Ben was there. It was just the two of them.  

“Ben. I’m scared.”  

“Then you’ll do it?”  

“I’m in. Now what? And don’t answer the way you did after talking me into running for Congress.”  

“What did I say then?”  

“You said, what would you like to do? Right now I’d like to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head.”  

22

Was the United States in a collective mood to turn the White House over to a president deeply rooted in Mexican culture? Barack Obama had been born in the United States and raised by an American mother and American grandparents, yet he endured years of grief from millions who could not reconcile his Kenyan father to his U.S. nationality. Tenny’s Mexican roots went much deeper. Her attachment to her Mexican family was much stronger. She was more politically vulnerable on the citizenship question than Obama ever was.  

Conventional wisdom would say to mask your vulnerabilities. Announce your candidacy in Iowa or New Hampshire or somewhere with a sea of supporters and leave it to the opposition to call attention to your potential weaknesses. But Ben knew political prejudice all too well. He’d been in countless campaigns working for women and minority candidates where polls failed to show hidden resistance. A published ten-point lead a week before election could shrink to a cliff-hanger on election night. Few express their prejudice aloud or on poll questionnaires. In the privacy of the polling booth, though....these issues could not be finessed. They had to be met up front with enough drama to change perception.  

For that drama, Ben and Lee selected a most improbable site to launch Tenny’s campaign, a contrarian gambit given Tenny’s Mexican roots and immigration’s political sensitivity. She would announce at the Alamo. The Alamo, shrine to Davey Crocket, Jim Bowie, and other iconic historic figures who died fighting the Mexican army in a battle central to the annexation of Texas from Mexico.

“People will think we’ve lost our minds,” said Lee.

“Do you?”

“No. I think it’s one of the best ideas you’ve ever had. But we need to explain it and make sure the media understands what the Alamo was all about. The Alamo was about a fight for Texas independence. But at the time, Santa Ana had become a dictator in Mexico. He’d overthrown a democratic government and was trying to consolidate power in all the Mexican states. So this wasn’t just an us-against-them war. Mexicans were also fighting Santa Ana in lots of places. It wasn’t just Americans against Mexicans. It was freedom-loving people on both sides of the border fighting against dictatorship.”

“Good. Very good. Common purpose between Americans and Mexicans. Not adversaries. Strong points for the media and her speech.”

“And don’t forget,” said Lee, “the Alamo garrison was begging for reinforcements. Authority in the form of Sam Houston’s government didn’t see the Alamo as defensible or the fight worth fighting, so they just let Bowie and Crocket and the others hang out to dry.”

“And die.”

“Yes. Patriots abandoned by their own team.”

“Another good point to make. We take care of our own, no matter where, no matter what.”

“That’s why your idea of launching at the Alamo is brilliant,” said Lee. “Handled right it makes points most Americans can agree with, and helps erase the sense of difference.”

“Brilliant, or lucky guess?”

“Does it matter?”  

The advance team had only two weeks to make arrangements with the Alamo Foundation and to set up the stage, recruit high-profile speakers, work through details with city officials, contract for buses to bring in supporters, and publicize the event widely and well enough to draw a crowd that looked respectable in the next day’s media. Susan Cipriani had built a strong organization for Reed Guess. It seamlessly wheeled into service for Isabel Tennyson. Despite the short notice and hurried planning, a sea of humanity poured into San Antonio. Traffic came to a standstill on nearby Interstate 37. San Antonio was accustomed to large street crowds, but this one’s size and enthusiasm would be considered a new high-water mark in Texas presidential politics. Downtown San Antonio was all but shut down during the hours of Tenny’s campaign launch. Hotels and motels were sold out despite all of the chartered buses bringing supporters on day trips.  Tenny fans rode all-night buses from as far away as California. 

Tenny had served nearly seven years in the U.S. House, more than five in the Senate. Her career and popularity had been built on a platform of frequent and passionate speeches. She and the speaker’s platform were hardly strangers. But this was her debut as a presidential candidate. It would be the largest live audience she ever faced. Having the Alamo as a backdrop, with all its emotional symbolism, was risky enough. Compounding the risk was the one of first impressions. A weak, even a so-so performance could suffocate the campaign and her entire future political career with poor reviews even before it was out of its cradle.  

Senators and governors, movie stars and other celebrity supporters had preceded her to the microphone. Bands had serenaded the crowd. Everything said to feed supporters hungry for rapturous adjectives drew rounds of cheers and thunderous applause. The bigger the buildup the higher the expectations. As she awaited her turn at the microphone, her anxiety level rose in tandem with those expectations.  

Then it was time. She marched confidently onto the makeshift stage, a curtain of American and Texas flags draped behind her. Tenny’s outward appearance masked her growing inner terror. Her throat turned dry. Her confidence drained. She walked into an ovation lasting fully seven minutes while hands were thrust at her for touching, children were raised up to camera level by beaming parents, and chants of Tenny, Tenny, Tenny echoed for literally a mile around. The bedlam stunned her. The outpouring brought tears. When it was finally time to speak, her eyes were so misted from emotion that the teleprompter ready to guide her through her prepared speech was a washy blur. She tried to focus but could not read the words. The longer she remained silent, the more silent the crowd became.  

Spontaneously, since it was the only thing she could think to do in her emotional state, she turned to an American flag and began, “I...”

“...pledge...”

The words came slowly, each with its own space.  

“...allegiance...” 

“...to the flag...” 

“...of the United...” 

“...States of America...”  

As she continued, others joined in, at her pace.  

“...and to the Republic, for which it stands...”  

By now 100,000 were with her.  

“...one nation, ...”  

“...under God, ...”

“...indivisible, ...  

“...with liberty...”  

“...and justice...”  

She hesitated, and raised both arms to the crowd.  

“...for  all.”  

And she repeated.  

“for  All.”  

She was regaining her voice.  

“For  all,” she said again.  

This time the crowd joined her.  

“For All!” she all but shouted.  

And the crowd shouted back.  

She had not intended to lead the pledge of allegiance when she took the stage. It was a desperate handle that kept her from making a blithering fool of herself. Neither did she intend to sing. But the song came so naturally after the pledge. A rich soprano honed in church choirs through her teens.  

“This is my country,

“Land of my birth,”  

Quick to respond, the band fell in quietly with her.  

“This is my country,

“Grandest on earth.”  

Once again the crowd lit up as a monumental chorus.  

“I pledge thee my allegiance, America, the bold.

“For this is my country, to have and to hold.”  

The crowd cheered wildly again as the verse ended. But Tenny wasn’t through. As silence resumed, she sang the second verse.  

“This is my country, land of my CHOICE.”  

Immediately seizing the political significance of that line, the crowd once again erupted. When she could, Tenny continued.  

“This is my country, hear my proud voice.”

“I pledge thee my allegiance, America, the bold.

“For this is MY country, to have and to hold!”  

Tenny’s impromptu opening and the crowd’s response became one of the most watched clips ever on YouTube. It dominated evening newscasts and next day headlines. Ben and Lee watched this unfold from behind a curtain to the left of the stage.  

“A knockout in the first round,” said Lee.  

Ben, amazed beyond belief at the brilliant spontaneity of this reluctant candidate, could just stare ahead, trying to etch the scene permanently into memory, a golden addition to a full basket of life experiences. Tenny’s brilliant opening perfectly set up the speech he had written for her.  

“Greetings, my fellow Americans,”  

The crowd responded with a roar.  

“Saludos, mis compatriotas americanas.”  

The roar was even louder.  

“I am here to begin a campaign which with your help will result in my becoming president of the United States.”  

(Applause and cheers lasting 2 minutes and 33 seconds.)  

“And we begin on hallowed ground. Ground where so many brave Americans died. Why did they die? Because those living in Texas at the time would not tolerate losing their freedom to a Mexican dictator who had robbed that very freedom from the Mexican people. The Alamo heroes fought and died to be free and independent. As president of the United States I will do everything in my power to preserve and protect those freedoms and to extend those freedoms to all those who live without them.”  

(Applause and cheering lasting 1 minute and 23 seconds.)  

“Why else did those brave Americans die within the walls of the Alamo? Because others did not come to their defense. They could’ve had help and reinforcements. They should have had help and reinforcements. But they were left to fight this battle alone, two hundred against thousands. As president of the United States when it is necessary to place our brave military in harm’s way, they will not be abandoned. When we have to fight, we will. And those who we ask to fight our battles will never be abandoned. Not during the battle, or after the battle is won, or after they return home to a grateful nation. That is my pledge.”  

(Applause and cheering lasting 1 minutes 46 seconds.)  

“Let me tell you some things about myself—before others do.  

(Laughter.)  

“I was born Isabel Aragon, named for Queen Isabella of Spain. Isabella bought Christopher Columbus’s cruise ticket to this new world. Isabella was married to King Ferdinand Aragon, and so, yes, my friends it was my ancestors who helped make Columbus possible. That makes me an American don’t you agree?”  

(Round of laughter and applause.)  

“Here’s another thing that makes me an American. I was born in New York City and have the birth certificate to prove it.”  

(Extended laughter and applause.)  

“I’m proud of my family’s heritage. It’s a heritage that made possible emigration to this continent of so many others from Spain, and France and England, and Germany and Italy and Russia and China and Japan and Korea and Vietnam and Ireland and just about every country in the world.”  

(Applause.)  

“This is a big part of the exceptionalism we all feel for our great country. We live what we preach. So many cultures and talents temper our steel. So many cultures keep our national heart healthy and our achievements the wonder of the world.”  

(Applause.)  

“For many years I worked in the neighborhoods of Los Angeles. I helped the jobless find jobs. I worked to get living wages for those who had jobs. I helped care for the sick and elderly and those who could not care for themselves. I helped feed the hungry and transport those who could not otherwise visit doctors or stores, or attend schools or visit loved ones.  Many of those I helped were U.S. citizens. Many were not. Many were of my own Hispanic or Latino heritage. Many were not. But they all had this in common. They were decent, loving, family-oriented, law-biding human beings who asked for little except for the opportunity to work, to educate themselves and their children, to get medical assistance when needed, and to retire, when the time came, without being hungry or homeless or to die untimely deaths for lack of money to pay for care. And for those who need such help, if I become your president, I will not just say nice words on their behalf, I will move heaven and earth to bridge the gap from hopelessness to opportunity.”  

(Applause and cheers.)  

“Liberty and justice for all! For all!”  

(Crowd joins in.)  

“For ALL!”  

(Cheers and extended applause.)  

“I’ve also spent years of my life with those who never had to worry about a meal, or a job, or a car, or the visit to a doctor. I managed the wealth of the wealthy. I suggested investments. I helped them buy businesses. I arranged for them to get huge loans. I directed them toward ways to save money on their taxes. I was successful in a business called ‘wealth management.’  Most of that wealth was honestly earned by those who had creative ideas, who worked hard, who managed enterprises well, and who invested wisely in growing businesses that created good paying jobs and strengthened their communities. This is the positive side of our economic system, the best economic system ever created to provide ladders of opportunity. “ 

(Applause and cheers.)  

“But the rungs on that ladder are growing wider apart. And too many at the top are trying to pull the ladder up behind them so others can’t reach it. They’re not paying their just share to maintain our communities. They’re not paying their workers just wages for what they do and produce. They corrupt our political process with their wealth. I know them. I’ve worked where they work and know who they are, and I promise you this: As your president, I will treat honest business fairly and with all the support and encouragement we can provide to keep our economy healthy and growing. But dishonest tax evasion, financial intimidation, and business practices that devastate homes, neighborhoods, communities, industries, and that prey on workers, I will go after with no quarter.”  

(Applause and cheers.)  

“I’m a great believer in shareholder value. And I’m also a great believer in worker value, community value, family value, retirement value. Right now, our value system is dangerously out of balance, too richly rewarding the wrong things, starving living standards and opportunity for everyone else. We are better than this. We can do better than this. We will do better than this!”  

(Applause begins to grow as she speaks.)  

“This is America for all. For ALL! For ALL!!!”  

(Thunderous roars of approval.)  

For ten more minutes Tenny outlined what she had done while a member of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate to show that her words today were the culmination of years of action. She neatly interlaced policy with anecdotes from her years in Los Angeles and her extended family in Mexico. She closed with this:  

“My brother, Federico, has dedicated his life to helping others as a Jesuit priest. I am so very proud of Federico. He could be sharing in the family wealth and living the life you see in glossy magazines. Many call him crazy to be living and working in poor Mexican villages rather than in a penthouse in New York or the beaches of the Costa del Sol. Federico is not with me here today because today he is in the Mexican village of Batopilas, one of Mexico’s poorest, waiting to assist with the birth of twins due to be born there any moment. He will help the midwives and bless the newborns.  

“Federico has chosen a life of service. And so have I.  A different line of work than the priesthood, but the same goals: Helping people to make the most of the lives God has blessed them with. Free of fear. Free of hunger. Free to enjoy what our own U.S. Constitution mandates for all of us, ‘the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.’  

“For Federico, for our children, for those who find every day an unnecessary struggle, for all who ask only for opportunity for a fair chance to live their lives to the fullest of their capability and ambition, I ask for your support to be the next president of the United States.”  

23

Officially, it’s the World Economic Forum. For most it’s simply known as “Davos,” the idyllic Swiss mountain retreat where the world’s rich and powerful assemble each January to play, plot, and deal. Among the 2,500 or so with official name tags are many who don’t really need them, immediately recognizable world leaders, entertainment celebrities, and captains of industry, finance, and commerce. 

The media focus always divides between the official program of speeches and workshops and the epic drunken after dark socializing. But, as with most conference activity, whether the price of admission is $100,000 or $100, the real action is generally off site, in hotels and other venues where cards can be dealt beyond the eyes of those who don’t play for such stakes.  

This year, Davos predated the Iowa presidential caucuses by two weeks, a collision of timing much on the minds of all who disembarked from their private jets. A select few found invitations to a private discussion of the U.S. political situation waiting for them when they checked into their hotels and villas. The invitation came not from an American, but a Mexican: Javier Carmona, CEO of Groupo Aragon, one of the largest conglomerates in Latin America, and for many, a major partner in sizeable finance, energy, agricultural and other pursuits. Carmona was a man you could not ignore.  

Jack Hurley couldn’t ignore him, even though Hurley ran Blue Bancorps, one of the four largest financial giants in the United States. Neither could Pete Garner, CEO of Texas Global Oil. Irving Pounds was there. He was one of the few who knew that Carmona was the source of tens of millions of dollars spent in the unsuccessful campaign to defeat Senator Tennyson when she ran for election years earlier. There were four others in the invited group. Rene Delgado, like Carmona, leader of one of Mexico’s largest business conglomerates; Carlos Mungia, former president of El Salvador, known to be one of the 100 richest people in the world; Kurt Bass, executive director of the Swiss equivalent of the American Bankers Association; and Bassam Zaman, an under-the-radar figure known to be close to the Saudi royal family and a conduit for many high-level deals in the wide arc of the oil rich Middle East.  

Carmona had chosen his invitees carefully, for their wealth, influence, and the vast army of intelligence operatives and political power they controlled. 

“Be assured, gentlemen,” Carmona said, “we are together without ears from the outside. My security people have carefully swept this villa. We may all speak freely.”  

“About what?” asked Blue Bancorps’ Jack Hurley. “It’s nice to see all of you, but looking around, I’m not sure what for and why us.” Hurley was blunt and manically protective of his time.  He ran a behemoth with a market cap of more than $200 billion and a quarter of million employees. Hurley was a man without time or energy to waste.  

“Let me get quickly to the point,” said Carmona. “I’ve asked you here to discuss Señora Tennyson, a woman who could well become president of the United States unless measures are taken to stop her. I have particular insight into this lady, since many years ago she worked for me and I was forced to dismiss her from our enterprise, even though Aragon was built by her family and she was one of our largest shareholders.”  

“Twenty years ago, wasn’t it?” said Pete Garner. Not still holding a grudge, are you, Carmona?”  

“It’s not the past that concerns me. She did no damage. But what happened long ago still matters, and all of you need to know why. She was not just an employee who was fired. Not just the granddaughter of Miguel Aragon. In his will Miguel specified that she should be groomed to be Aragon’s chief executive. And with respect to Don Miguel, we would have honored his wishes. In fact, having an American face as CEO would have been quite useful for us to compete with U.S. companies.”  

“Glad it didn’t work out then,” Hurley smiled.  

“Think about this,” Carmona went on, undeterred. “She was offered one of the most important positions in international business. And what did she do? She came to our board, the first board meeting after Miguel’s death, really just to be introduced so we could start her executive training program, and she demanded that Groupo Aragon totally change the ways we do business. Demands of the kind none of us could ever agree to. Ever. The board, of course, rejected them and we found ways to remove her from our organization.”  

“What kind of demands?” asked Kurt Bass.  

“The kind you and others in Swiss banking are feeling this very day. Demands to disclose depositor files, and to minutely track the flow of money. Demands you in America see from her since she became a senator, to remove your investment business from your banking business, to criminalize simple errors in business judgment. We all see how she would close benefits we all enjoy from our energy businesses. “  

“Well, we certainly know her,” said Hurley. That’s why we did everything we could to try to defeat her when she ran for the Senate. It was just bad luck and poor timing that we didn’t. But this isn’t the first liberal Democrat we’ve had to deal with as senator. And we feel pretty confident we could keep control if she becomes president. We have a lot of experience taming them down.”  

“This is a lady you think you can tame? I don’t think so,” said Carmona. “Let me tell you something. “Señora Tennyson has a role model from our ancient past. It was a Mayan princess by the name of Ix Wak Chan Ajaw. In the ancient city of Naachtun, which is now within Guatemala, there’s a huge statute of Ix Wak Chan Ajaw, in full battle gear, standing on the back of her conquered victim. This warrior princess was ruthless with all her enemies. Many of the cities she conquered were burned to the ground. We’re only now uncovering them and discovering how powerful and vicious she was with any who stood in her way.” 

“Interesting,” said Hurley, growing agitated by the conversation. “What’s the point?”  

“The point is this,” said Carmona. “Don Miguel told me about this to assure me that Señora Tennyson’s choice of role models when she was young meant that she would have what we might call the killer instinct needed to run Groupo Aragon. He was right about her killer instinct, but he seriously misjudged whom she would find the enemy.  

“We’re the enemy, my friends. All of us. Anyone and everyone with wealth. If we don’t stop her she will torch us all. You, me, and the entire class of people we associate with. She will go after all of us like no one ever has. I’m warning you, not just to save you, but because we at Aragon have similar interests. If she destroys your markets she destroys ours.”  

“So what do you suggest, Carmona?” said Pete Garner. “We’re supporting Rod Rusher in the Democratic primaries. And if she beats us there, which is unlikely, we’ll do everything we can to beat her in November. Our people tell us she’ll be out by March, April at the latest. She got in late and has no experience running for president.  The first thing she did as a candidate was pull that damn fool stunt at the Alamo that likely will kill her chances with a lot of voters. Personally, I don’t see the threat.”  

Irving Pounds had been listening to all this. He was wealthy, but not in the league of others sitting around the room. Carmona had asked him to come for a reason. Pounds understood the reason.  

“Gentlemen,” he said. “Five years ago, after my fool son-in-law appointed her to the Senate, I sat in a room just like this with many of what I consider the smartest, most successful people in California, and I argued just like you’re arguing, that she could not win a statewide election and that, no matter, we had all the resources we needed to keep her under control. How wrong we all were. We savaged her in her election campaign. Savaged her. She beat us, and has spent the past five years savaging us. I don’t know about any Mayan princesses. I think of her as our own Margaret Thatcher, but on the wrong side. Don’t take this threat lightly.”  

“So what do you want us to do?” said Hurley.  

“Destroy her,” said Carmona.  

“Destroy her?  Meaning...?”  

“Take her down politically. We can’t let her succeed.  I’ve asked you here because you have all the resources you need to ruin her for good. Money, access to media. Research. Legislative traps. Everything. And whatever else you need, Bassam, Kurt, Rene, all of us and others would provide. Nothing is more important.”  

Hurley and Garner were both surprised and impressed at Carmona’s intensity. 

“You’ve made your point,” said Garner. “We’ll see what we can do.”  

With that the meeting ended. 

Hurley and Garner stopped for a minute on the curb outside the villa, before getting into their separate cars.  

“What do you make of all that, Jack?” asked Garner.  

“Family feuds,” said Hurley. “Irving Pounds and his daughter. And for the Mexicans it must be some kind of a clan thing.”  

24

Despite the money and resources his corporate allies poured into his campaign, Roderick Rusher could not overcome what many perceived as a cardboard personality. Momentum created at the Alamo carried Tenny to big wins in Iowa and New Hampshire.  Roderick Rusher hoped southern state primaries would stop the accelerating landslide. He carried South Carolina and Arkansas, but he could not recover after losses in North Carolina and Tennessee. He was out after Florida. By April, Tenny was the consensus nominee.  

The traditional business community was in panic. Rusher was their guy, the one who they bet on heavily to win the nomination. When it became obvious that Rusher would fall short they convinced him to concede gracefully, throw his support behind Tenny and try to use his influence for appointments and policy if she won. It wasn’t an easy sell. Rusher had spent his adult life building toward this year’s run for the White House. It was there, within reach, and then snatched away by the most implausible of circumstances. The opportunity of a lifetime was gone. He would have no more lifetimes. Decades of planning, working, compromising, would wash up on a barren shoal. It was not easy for him to accept. Harder still for him to pretend to be sporting about it.  

The Republican field began with eighteen candidates, but by April it was clear that the winner would be either Senator Dorie McHenry from Michigan or Senator Chet Freeman from Oklahoma, neither of whom could count on enough delegates to nail down the nomination. The intraparty battle between the far right and the not-so-far right would continue right up to the convention, sapping financial strength and encouraging attacks that would prove ugly in the general election for whomever emerged.  

All of this looked to be setting the table for a November walkaway for Tenny. But the Republicans proved resilient. The league of billionaires who had financed the various GOP candidate campaigns through the primaries were not about to back a predictably lost cause in the general election. The party’s presidential candidate had to be competitive if for no other reason than to save Republicans lower on the ballot and to keep majorities in Congress.  

After three ballots made it clear that neither McHenry and Freeman could gain enough delegates to win the nomination, wealthy patrons engineered a third choice, Jake Larson, governor of Wyoming. Larson hadn’t run the obstacle course of primaries and caucuses, but he had received Wyoming’s favorite son delegate votes, plus a scattering of others. Technically, he was a candidate, and the deeper the McHenry and Freeman feud sunk into an abyss of rancor, the more appealing Larson looked as a serious alternative. People said of Larson that he was right wing without being fright wing. He would prove a charismatic new face for a public weary of those who had been campaigning for nearly two years.  

Larson’s running mate was Lucy Bravo. Like Tenny, Bravo came from a Latin background. She was chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, solid on conservative issues, and a woman who played her politics as tough as a pro football nose guard. Bravo and Tenny knew one another from their days butting heads when Tenny served in the House. Bruising fights. Passionate differences. Bravo was clearly on the ticket to break some bones.  

“Not good,” said Ben as he watched the birth of the Larson-Bravo ticket on television. “The bastards worked some magic to turn disaster into a pretty attractive alternative.”  

Democrats would convene next week. The heat was on to counter a saleable Republican ticket with one of their own. Tenny’s first choice for vice president was her old friend from Alaska, Sheila Fishburne, now a senior Democrat with a solid record of accomplishment but a very low public profile.  

“We’d be great together,” said Tenny. “We’re on the same page with most things. I could trust her always to back me up.”  

“Can’t do it,” said Ben. “Two women. Two westerners. Two progressives. She adds nothing.  Maybe she carries Alaska’s three votes, maybe not.”  

Tenny was determined, but finally the full force of outside opinion came down hard on her.  Reed Guess weighed in. So did Susan Cipriani, Reed’s campaign manager who played such an important role in Tenny’s own nomination. Finally, Fish herself convinced Tenny it wouldn’t work. “You’re almost there,” said Fish. “Don’t go for a moonshot.”  

The battle for Fish consumed valuable days. Now they were on the eve of the convention. A decision had to be made. Ben and the core strategy group poured over poll research to match potential names with battleground state electoral votes. One name kept rising to the top of the list. At first they dismissed it out of hand, until its logic became overwhelming.  

“Rod Rusher? Not on your life! We don’t agree on anything! I hate the bastard and everything he stands for...and everything he doesn’t stand for. No way. Go back and get me someone else. Anyone else.”

Tenny was adamant. She was also sleep deprived, tired of living the life of pointless convention parties, meetings, inane questions—the gauntlet that faces any nominee in the weeks, days and hours between when the nomination is secure and finally affirmed on the convention floor. Her inexhaustible stamina had been severely tested. Her patience with minutia always had a shallow threshold. They had to wear her down further to get her to agree to a Tennyson-Rusher ticket.  

All the internal polls showed that the general election would be too close for comfort. Except when Rusher was added to the ticket. Just as Tenny could trace her family back to the rulers of Spain, Rusher’s family tree was rooted with Virginia settlers who worked with Thomas Jefferson to create the Virginia Declaration of Rights, precursor to the Declaration of Independence. Ben saw in a Tennyson-Rusher ticket the elements of an America-for-All campaign, historic figures uniting the Anglo and Hispanic colonies and interests. Powerful messages. Powerful media possibilities. With Rusher they were likely to carry Virginia and they also could be more competitive in North Carolina and Georgia. Pennsylvania was a more comfortable prospect. They couldn’t ignore Rusher. Rusher’s many years in the U.S. Senate also helped Democrats in key competitive Senate races.  

Tenny wasn’t the only one needing convincing. Rusher wasn’t thrilled about it, either. Her agenda was not his. But his patrons urged him to take it on and help influence their cause from the inside. After all, they argued, she might lose and being a good soldier now could make him the front runner next time.  

Despite all the reservations, on the convention’s closing night Isabel Aragon Tennyson and Roderick Rusher stood side-by-side fielding the blizzard of balloons and confetti that rained down from the arena’s roof, the unity ticket that would carry the party’s hopes into the general election. It would be the first and only time that Tenny and Rusher would ever hold hands and link arms with the pretense of being a team.

Powered by an enormous war chest, Republicans ran a replay of the sex and crime charges that dogged Tenny during her campaign for the U.S. Senate. These proved to be red meat issues for reliable Republican voters but failed to move independents. Too improbable. Too scurrilous. Not believable. As in the California Senate race, efforts to bring down Tenny through sex and crime allegations proved more backlash than asset to the opposition. Too liberal? It didn’t seem to matter. Voters were ready for new and different. Too Latina? By campaign’s end voters had a much stronger sense of Tenny as a person—a fighter, a likeable, competent advocate for their interests. Rusher proved valuable to the cause, particularly in Virginia and other southern states where he was known and respected. Once on the ticket, Rusher campaigned as he always had—hard, and to win. 

In November, Tennyson-Rusher carried 300 electoral votes. Isabel Aragon Tennyson would be the next president of the United States.  



Almie  

Even in our earliest days together, when paying the electric bill was a problem and our books came from the second-hand shop you told me that someday I would elect a president. Not once did you say that, but who knows how often. So often that I began believing it. I didn’t love you because you believed in me. But I loved knowing that you did and that you were so willing to eat of out cans trying to get me there.  

Well, we’re there, Almie. President Isabel Tennyson. You would approve. I’ve never felt compromised in all the years I’ve worked with her. She’s genuine, nothing artificial about her.  She knows herself and why she ran and what she wants to do.  

I’ll never forget that day you were with me in Santa Cruz and saw the poster for that candidate for sheriff, Peter Demma. Work to help the country be a place where someone can win with a poster like this, you said. I grabbed the poster off of a phone pole and kept it all these years.  

Moves with creative imagination

Powered by love and devotion  

Guided by inner lights of awareness

Through the darkness of fear and suspicion

Toward beauty and joy

Beyond the images of life and death  

Peter Demma lost, even in Santa Cruz, even at the height of the tribe movement there. I doubt anyone could win today with this message. But I’ve used it ever since to measure candidates. You would be surprised, or maybe not, at how many I’ve rejected because they were such ill fits.  But Tenny comes close, and to think she’s now president, with all that power to use her creative imagination, love, and devotion. For what purpose? We never know, do we? Good intentions are seldom enough. Reality is what we live, not what we expect.  

We know so little. Even what makes up most of the universe, what we call dark energy, that’s all around us, moving through us, we have no clue what it is. I’ve always thought that of you, Almie. What I feel and what I say. Words are poor agents. Are you part of the matter we still don’t understand? You continue to pass through me, even though we’ve lost touch.  

Love always,

(mean it)

Ben

25

January of the presidential inaugural year is a time like no other in Washington, D.C. Elaborate platforms are constructed next to the Capitol building and the White House. Parade grandstands line Pennsylvania Avenue, constricting sidewalks. Bunting hangs from hotels and offices. Throughout the city, people nervously check weather reports and generally find that January 20 almost always will turn up bone-chilling. Historic records show that for twenty-five days in January average temperatures are at freezing or below. But January is also the driest month of the year in Washington, averaging about three inches of precipitation, usually snow. Will it snow during inaugural ceremonies or the inaugural parade? Even without snow, will the wind be so conspicuous as to drive its way through the wools and furs and microfibers deployed against it?  

Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural was the warmest on record, 55 degrees. His second was the coldest, 7 degrees Fahrenheit, so cold the ceremony had to be moved indoors.  The weather gods can be real pranksters. They interrupted George W. Bush’s plan to use the George Washington Bible. Too risky to transport that day because of snow and high winds.  Eight inches of snow greeted John F. Kennedy on his inaugural day. Army flamethrowers had to be used to clear the path for the parade.  

Forecasts for the inauguration of President-elect Tennyson did not look promising. Relatively warm at somewhere between 35 and 40 degrees, and sunny. But in keeping with her high-voltage personality, the winds would be whipping hard—up to twenty miles per hour. Those lining the parade route or waiting four hours on the Mall for the swearing-in ceremonies would have to be hearty of spirit and creative in dress. Ski masks would be frowned upon.  

For weeks, Tenny had been living in Blair House, a stately brick townhouse complex directly across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, assembled through the years by the U.S. government as safe quarters for visiting heads of state, former presidents and other dignitaries, and now the president-elect. While platforms were being constructed and plans were being made on the outside for the inaugural events, Tenny was inside Blair House working with staff to assemble her cabinet and to decide on those who would help create policy and manage the federal government. Carmie was Tenny’s first choice to take the job of secretary of the treasury, but Carmie had other ideas.  

“Let’s start with this,” said Carmie. “I am in no way qualified for that job. Just because I’m a big deal on Wall Street doesn’t mean I have a background in everything touched by money.”  

“Then bring in people around you who know what you don’t. The biggest thing we have to do is get the financial system under control. The banks. The credit system. All the ways the big asses are gaming taxes. We’ve got to put the brakes on all that. I need a treasury secretary who sees it the way I see it. I can’t worry about having a person who just says, ‘Yes, Madam President. Right away, Madam President.’ And then finds ways with his equity-fund buddies to undermine me.”  

“You could trust me as Carmie your friend and policy soul-mate. But you wouldn’t be able to trust Carmie to be the wise and knowledgeable counselor who could beat this crowd at their own game. Believe me, there are thousands of ways I could be danced around until in all sincerity and trust, I’d be giving you bad advice. And here’s the second problem. Everyone who matters knows I’m not qualified. They would tear me apart at confirmation hearings. They’d use me to question your judgment and whether you were up to the job.”  

“But Carmie, I need you with me.”  

“Then make me commerce secretary. Nobody really cares who becomes commerce secretary.  I’d slide through confirmation easily. Make Phil Stein treasury secretary. Phil and I are buddies. He’s got credentials up the wazoo. The last few years at Harvard, he’s sounded more academic than political, but believe me, Phil’s one of us. He and I worked together on that European Union trade deal and I learned to love the guy. What’s great about Phil is that he’s not a loudmouth. No bull horns or bull shit. No grandstanding. But impressive as hell, respected everywhere. When the policy war starts, the Masters of the Universe will never know what hit them. Phil knows his stuff and would be such an unexpected choice. And best of all, I’m pretty sure he’s a registered Republican.”  

“Republican? You want me to appoint a Republican to the most important job in the cabinet?”  

“Don’t you love it? He’d get minimal opposition from the Republicans. The Democrats will squirm, but they can’t refuse your first appointment. The public will see you reaching across the aisle to end gridlock. And you’ll get a reformer as ferocious about it as we are. Tenny, one thing about us, you and I always have had fun together, no matter what. Consider it just another in our lifelong girlie pranks. I can’t wait until I’m at the New York Economic Club lunch where Phil first announces that he favors a return of Glass-Steagall, which I know for a fact he does.”  

Tenny pressed her friend Fish to take over the Interior Department. But Sheila Fishburne said she was perfectly happy being in Congress.  

“Here’s what you don’t know about the Interior job,” said Fish. “I’d have to defend land and resource policy that Alaskans hate. Nothing personal, but I’d much rather stay in Congress and fight you, and at the same time, of course, drop by now and then for a late-night nip so we can figure out how you can give me what I want.”  

Would Hal join her in Washington?  

“And give up running one of the biggest countries in the world? Our GDP’s bigger than India’s, Canada’s, Spain’s. I should be invited to those G whatever meetings your economic people put together. Tell you what, Tenny. You win a second term and then appoint me ambassador to Paris or London. Sally would love that. She’d preside at all those formal dinners like a queen.”  

Although many of Tenny’s closest friends were demurring appointments, she was finding strong talent compatible with her planned policy battlegrounds over the next few years. Most who agreed to enter her cabinet and other top jobs shared her sense of excitement and her passion.  

Two nights before inaugural day, a visitor slipped quietly into Blair House, late, near midnight.  The rest of the household was asleep, except for those whose job it was to stay awake, alert, armed and trained to treat with aggressive ingratitude any uninvited guest who might spoil the tranquility of the evening.  

This visitor, however, was invited and expected. The guardians at the gate checked his credentials, escorted him to what would be his bedroom for the following four nights and bid him good evening. Then the front desk phoned the sleeping president-elect as instructed. She awoke quickly, splashed water on her face to wash away remaining elements of dream, donned a terry cloth robe over her night gown and hurried to the visitor’s door. He answered promptly. She threw her arms around him in an embrace so complete and so forceful it could have lasted forever.  

“Federico. Federico.” She kept repeating. “Oh, God, how I’ve missed you.”   

Federico returned her embrace. He kissed her forehead, a gesture he had performed so often in his lifetime, on so many occasions, for many people. No occasion fraught with more meaning and significance than the pending inauguration of his sister as president of the United States.  

Federico escorted her into his room, kissed the tears that had found their way down her cheeks, and said softly, “Bell, dear Bell, surely you must be tired. I’m so sorry to be here this late. You were so kind to send an airplane for me. But then there was a mechanical problem, and weather....”  

“It doesn’t matter. You’re here now. You’re hungry, I know. I’ll order food. I can do that you know.”  

They smiled at one another, a thousand thoughts racing at byte speed through their minds, flashes of his life and hers, such different voyages.  

“Tomorrow is soon enough. We will have time to talk then.”  

“No, I no longer belong to myself, Federico. I belong to a thousand people demanding my time. But they leave me alone now. This is our time. We’ll eat, we’ll drink, we’ll talk now. Until dawn if we want. No one will interrupt us.”  

Four years had passed since Tenny and Federico met in Tampico, Mexico, drawn together by concerns that someone, for some reason, was following Federico’s travels. Nothing had changed since then. More often than not, someone was watching Federico. Many of those Federico had ministered were asked the nature of their contact, what was said, what was promised. Federico was told of these encounters but had little concern. His work was to bless births, minister to the dying, teach children, renew faith in the faithful. He found sources of food when it was needed, provided medical assistance as he could, shared helpful information to villagers and did all that could be expected of a traveling Jesuit priest. In time, Tenny’s fears for him subsided, but not his for her. 

“I don’t want to spoil this wonderful occasion, Bell. You should know, though, that people have been asking questions about you. Not just curiosity questions. Questions such as exact dates you traveled to one city or another working for the Aragon company, or as a member of the United States Congress. Who you met with. Even sexual encounters. These all began soon after your election in November.”  

“Who’s asking? What people?”  

“I’m trying to find the source. It’s alarming, but some I believe are tied to the cartels.”  

“Drug cartels?”  

“Yes, drugs and more.”  

“More?”  

“The gun trade. Pay-offs to border officials. Assassinations. The worst people possible.”  

“How do you know this?”  

“After all my years of travel, Bell, I have many friends, many people who care about me and my safety. More than once I have been alerted to leave places that were about to become violent. Many criminals still respect the Church and my robes. They protect me. They talk to me.” 

“Why would they be looking for things about me? The election’s over. I’ve won.”  

“Maybe they fear what you will do now.”  

“I’ll tell you one thing I plan to do, Federico. I plan to spend much time in Mexico. I plan to become as known and popular in Mexico as in the United States. And with my influence, I plan to push the Mexican government to make the kinds of reforms that you and I have talked about for so many years. And I am going to restore the family’s good name.”  

“What a wonderful plan. You already are so very respected where I travel. Everyone asks me about you. But about that good name, Bell, don’t consider us orphans of a great family that died before our eyes. Papa Miguel told that great family story to us so often, and with such feeling. But it’s not true.”  

“Not true! How can you say that?”  

“I’ve done my own research during these past few years. Queen Isabella had people burned to death for failure to convert to Christianity. She expelled all Jews from Spain, most leaving behind all their possessions. It was a fifteenth-century holocaust. As for King Ferdinand, he was even worse. A liar, a thief. He promised Isabella on her death bed he would never marry again, but months later he did. He promised he would help his daughter assume the throne but then plotted to have her confined as mad. No, Ferdinand of Aragon should be no one’s role model. You, however, dear Bell, now have power such as Isabella and Ferdinand never dreamed. You will be a wise and humane ruler. But do it for now, for the living, not for the ghosts of the past.”  



The next day, four blocks west of Blair House another meeting, another reunion of sorts. Blue Bankcorps’ CEO Jack Hurley entered Javier Carmona’s suite at the Ritz Carlton hotel. Both were in Washington to attend the inaugural.  

“A cordial?”  Carmona, displayed a bottle of Dalmore 21, which Hurley immediately recognized as one of the world’s most desirable Scotch whiskeys.  

“Not usually an afternoon drinker,” said a grateful Hurley. “But for Dalmore I’ll make an exception.”  

“Good. To your health and continued good business fortune.”  

“I guess whether we have continued good fortune depends on the new lady in the White House. Sorry I doubted you when you warned us. She’s tough.” 

“So now we must take a bit more extreme measures to destroy her popularity with the people and your Congress. “You have ways to influence members of Congress and the American media?”  

“Yes, of course. Through our own people, through the association, the chamber. We spend millions at it and are really good at it.”  

“Very good. Then we will have to open channels between us. I will designate one of our most trusted people as a contact on my side. We will need one on yours. I’m also in touch with those we met with at Davos and others.  Among us we will have a campaign that makes the very popular President Tennyson quickly a very unpopular and disgraced idol. If we do our work well, we can defeat her. If we do it very well, maybe we can see the last of her before her four years in office are over. We certainly cannot allow her to win re-election.”  

“Can you fill me in on what you have on her?”  

“It’s best that I don’t say now. But let me assure you, you provide a way to make the stories known and to insure that members of your Congress interfere with her success. I will arrange the scandals.”  

26

While not all Tenny’s prescriptions for future policy were popular, her intensity advancing them was. The country was aching for strong leadership. Now it stood before them in the person of a woman whose eyes glowed with energy seeking an outlet, a lightning bolt ready to touch down, a passion that flooded stages wherever she appeared.  

Years earlier, after arriving in Congress where “why do they call you Tenny?” was a predictable, pervasive question, Isabel Aragon Tennyson decided to learn more about Alfred Lord Tennyson, the Victorian era poet whose name she shared. She was surprised that many of his words could have been hers. And she began using them.

Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade,” particularly its opening passage:  

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

All in the valley of death

Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!

"Charge for the guns!" he said:

Into the valley of death

Rode the six hundred.  

Another Tennyson favorite was the closing line from Ulysses:  

“To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”  

The hot breath of her campaign had swirled the political winds of national opinion in her direction, sweeping up Democratic Party candidates who otherwise might have been left behind. When the final votes were counted, the Democrats controlled the Senate.  The House remained in Republican hands, but reduced to just a slim five-vote majority. Not only had the Republicans lost dozens of House seats, those who lost were mostly right-wing zealots who for years had been obstacles to compromise. Twenty-two of the Republicans who survived represented districts that gave Tenny comfortable vote majorities. Those members could not afford to be total obstructionists. To extend their own political careers, many Republicans would have incentive to work with the new White House and the Democrats in Congress. 

Tenny rode into office with an economy surging and world conflicts becalmed after a run of tempestuous years. This allowed her a wider range of focus. She had big plans to convert this good fortune into a fast start. As soon as the final blue state reported its election returns, sealing her victory, Tenny switched off her political circuits. She disappeared behind a wall of Secret Service protection and into a vortex of transitional issues and top-level team selections.

Ben had not seen Tenny since the raucous election night party in Los Angeles. That’s when she claimed her victory from a platform at the fifty-yard line of Pasadena’s Rose Bowl. More than 100,000 filled the stadium. Outside, hundreds of thousands more watched on giant Jumbotrons. Ben wanted no job, no part of the transition effort. He was neither surprised nor offended that his candidate had abruptly become inaccessible after more than a year of constant mind melds with her. He was impressed by the quality of the people Tenny was appointing and by the policy initiatives taking shape. What concerned him was the thin political depth in her appointments, a lack of interest in keeping the political organization together or transferring that organization’s assets and still-potent voter reach to the Democratic National Committee. 

On inaugural eve, for one last time, they assembled at Blair House, the key campaign staff, state managers, top fund-raisers, and others who had just donated a year of their lives to helping President Tennyson take up residence at the White House. Ben knew this would give him a rare chance to spend a few moments alone with Tenny. His carefully rehearsed warning went like this:  

“The first few weeks and months are critical. The longer you can keep the glow of the campaign burning, the deeper the impression it makes. It fortifies you for later, when you put your popularity to the test with inevitable contentious policy battles. For those battles, you need campaigns as well-planned and executed as the one that elected you. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both took nasty hits their first year because they dropped their guard.”  

Tenny listened to Ben’s advice then grabbed his arm and escorted him into a small office away from the rest of the party.  

“Ben,” she said, “I ran and got elected to do things. I hope we manage to do a lot of things, but I’ll judge myself by just two. The first year we get immigration. It’s way too personal for me to fail. Whatever it takes, we’re going to get it. And when that’s done, we’re going to break up the capitalist system we have now.”  

“Break up the capitalist system?”  

“I’m aiming high, Ben. The whole financial system’s become rotten and it’s rotting the political system. We’ve got to get control of it before it tears the country apart.”  

“Well we beat them at the election game this year despite ....”  

She didn’t let him finish. Tenny was a passionate woman, and her passion was clearly aroused.  

“Ben, rigging elections, media monopolies, control of the regulators, hiding from taxes, all of that. Worst of all, turning the public against their own government and convincing way too many people that government’s a problem, not a resource.  

“Do you know what we’re becoming? We’re becoming a nation of customers and shareholders, not citizens. Think of the danger in that. It’s all based on money, not community, not pride. If business does it, it’s good. If government does it, it’s bad. Why pay taxes since government just wastes it and screws things up. Business should run everything—the schools, the health system, the Social Security system, all the utilities, the airports, the FAA, the national parks.  Just get out of the way and let the markets—oh, those efficient markets—decide what’s best.  

“How long since you’ve gone through the visitor’s center at the Capitol? Or the National Archives, or the memorials to Lincoln and Jefferson and FDR and MLK on the Mall? I took dozens of groups from California around personally when I was in Congress. You look at the exhibits and see the movies and it all makes you incredibly proud. Common good. Common purpose. No matter how many times I’d go to those memorials and exhibits, or just see them, I’d choke up. I still do. Not only because I believe in our common purpose, because I’m so concerned we’re losing it.  

“I’ve lived a good share of my life where democracy doesn’t work right. I used to look past it because I was okay. Not my problem. But then my brother Federico opened my eyes and I saw it was my problem. And then I had an experience I may tell you about some time that showed me what happens when economic power gets out of control. And then I worked those years in L.A. with Hal and on my own and saw things every day that made me ask why? This is personal for me, too, just like immigration. I’m putting together a plan to stop what happened in Mexico from happening here. We’re a nation of citizens, not customers or shareholders.”  

Ben looked at her curiously. This was a Tenny he had never seen. Sure she was a fireball in campaigns and a terror in Congress. But all that focused on specific issues. Immigration. Health. Housing. Now he realized that this woman had set her sights on something far more ambitious: to change the national culture, or more accurately, to return the culture to those times seen mostly in war and national disaster when something else emerged, a sense of self, of place, participation, custodians of a revolution, where people think and act together for common good and purpose.  

“What you’re talking about, Madam President, is a campaign against nearly every entrenched powerful institution in the country. Not to be disrespectful, but you can’t hope to win a campaign like that by winging it. We have the advantage of time. We should use it to recruit, to plan to organize. “  

She had been semi-pacing as she spoke, agitated and exhilarated, both emotions powering her legs, arms, voice. Now she stepped right up to Ben and embraced him, hard.  

“I love you, Ben. I really do. You’re brilliant. You’re decent. You’re honorable. I’m proud to have been with you these past years.”  

She kissed him on the lips and then backed away, holding one of his hands.  

“I did everything you told me to do during the campaign. When to wake up, when to go bed.  When to smile and when to feign concern. I read your words as my own in speeches. I even gagged on Rusher. We did everything except have sex. Physical sex, that is. Mentally we bonded as tightly as two people can. I was on your turf. You were the expert. And you were right. I wouldn’t have won without you. Hell, I wouldn’t even have run for Congress, the Senate, or president if you hadn’t set it all up and been so convincing.  

“But now the political campaign’s over. My days of partisan political elections are over. I’ll do anything for you. Just ask. But what you’re suggesting I see as a huge distraction from where I am now. “  

“But, Madam President, it doesn’t have to be...”  

She cut him off in mid-thought.  

“For Christ’s sake, quit calling me that. For the rest of the world I’m Madam President. And I’ll insist on that. For you I’m Tenny. I’ll insist on that, too. Now I have to get back to the others or they’ll think we are having sex in here. Ben, your work is done. Relax, read, travel, write books. Help more good people get elected or stay elected. If I run into trouble I’ll call you, but for now, and I hope forever, I’m out of the political pool.”  

“No you’re not,” said Ben. “You’re in the very deepest end of it, where more hungry predators than even you can imagine live and stalk and feed.”  

Ben smiled at her. A smile of genuine warmth and affection. He understood her better than most. In all her life she had rarely been denied. Now, with all the weapons available to her in the most powerful office on Earth, she saw no reason why that winning streak should end. You had to admire her sense of purpose. Her confidence. You also had to fear, really fear, her lack of experience with defeat.  



President Tennyson’s first months in office would be compared by historians with President Franklin Roosevelt’s first hundred days, an explosion of compressed demand for change. No one doubted that immigration reform would be first up. The surprise was how quickly it became her first major legislative success. With Democrats back in control of the Senate, Reed Guess, in remission from cancer, returned as majority leader. He managed to steer an immigration bill through the Senate eighty-eight days after Tenny took office. The Republican-controlled House finally caved when Democrats agreed to a more onerous and expensive border control plan than the White House had recommended. The result was a bill barely different than the one George W. Bush had submitted during his presidency or the one the Senate had passed during the Obama years. Three months into her White House term, President Tennyson signed the new National Security Immigration Act, sending the decades-old battle into the courts, a battleground where opponents promised they would contest it for years.  

Embittered by their legislative loss on immigration, and in an effort to calm their furious base of supporters, House Republicans revived Obamacare repeal. What followed was one of the most surprising cases of legislative jujitsu in U.S. history. Democrats allowed the repeal bill to come to the floor. Then, with the support of all House Democrats and fifteen Republicans, they amended the bill to delete the eligibility age for Medicare. Then they voted to repeal Obamacare. Within days the Senate passed the House bill and it was on the president’s desk. The effect: a universal single-payer healthcare system built on extended Medicare would be phased in over a five-year period. It was a stunning development, totally unexpected. A strategy that post-mortems would reveal was hatched in the White House.  

Next came an omnibus bill with money to subsidize day care for most lower- and middle-income families, thirty days of paid parental leave, and federal grants for two years of college or occupational training. All paid for by taxing high-speed financial transactions.  

The Tennyson-Guess team was proving formidable in the Senate. In the House, Sheila Fishburne had risen into the party leadership and was the White House’s most reliable pipeline for House Republican leadership plans. For Tenny, these were golden days. She came to office believing she could make good things happen, and they were happening. You could feel the excitement at every staff and cabinet meeting.  

Tenny decided that now, after a frenetic, successful first eight months in office, it was time to reveal to Reed Guess the most ambitious plans of her presidency. With little outside attention, she had been meeting privately with Phil Stein, her treasury secretary, Carmie, her commerce secretary, and an ad hoc selection of experts in economics, finance, banking, housing, and community development. Tenny ran for president with a mission to perform major surgery on the nation’s economic system. Her working group was formulating plans for accomplishing that mission. Reed Guess and their other allies in Congress were going to have to make it happen.  Now it was time to tell him that.  

They met for dinner at the White House, the two of them, privately, on a stormy night in early September, just before Congress returned from its annual August recess. Guess had been monitoring his cancer closely. His condition remained stable, his energy level high, his mind as sharp as ever.  

“You and I,” said Tenny, “are going to do something that will change the course of United States history forever, or, at least the next fifty, maybe hundred years.”  

“Haven’t we already?” said Guess. “Immigration, healthcare, all the help for middle-income families. We’ve blown through a big part of the agenda.”  

“All good stuff. But think of what we haven’t done. The money crowd still calls the shots. The economic system is still dangerously out of balance, most people are still desperately insecure about their futures, the country is still way behind in all kinds of development where we should be leading—like education and transportation.”  

And then she unwrapped her vision. An omnibus bill, the America’s Future Act, a centerpiece for righting so many things that are wrong. The act would bring the financial system under control with a twenty-first century version of Glass Steagall, regulating hedge and equity funds and stopping banks from playing in the stock casino with the public’s money. Anti-trust laws would be strengthened to restore competition among the richest and most important U.S. industries—banking, communications, airlines and others. Executive pay limits would be tightened and enforced. Worker participation on management boards would be mandated, the way they do it in Germany and elsewhere.  

The reform would include the largest infrastructure building and repair effort since creation of the original interstate highway program. Accelerated conversion away from fossil fuels, integrated road sensors, battery stations, rail. A major overhaul of U.S. urban areas that would include technology rich schools and communications, housing built with new low cost materials, long-needed repair to water and sewer systems.  

At the personal level, a much higher minimum wage would be guaranteed, social security would become a real pension program, not just a safety net. AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps would be expanded to provide wider pathways to education, job training, and jobs of last resort. Everyone who wants to work would find it in public service.  

Postal banking, land trusts for low-cost housing, coops for small businesses, all would be encouraged. Just as Uber, Airbnb, Amazon, and others are changing how we shop and get around, the government would promote new and innovative ways to end poverty and unemployment, promote education and health, and restore America’s assets and its faith in itself.  

The dinner table was too small for Tenny’s passion. She stood, as the evangelist she was, pacing back and forth, hands slicing through air for emphasis, voice rising and falling. And finally, as if to close the deal, she pulled her chair close to Guess, eyes fixed on his eyes, knuckles rapping the maple dining room table. 

Guess leaned back in his chair, thoughtfully weighing his words before responding.  

“All of this in one package?”  

“Yes, one bill to sell. One sweeping vision of the future.”  

“And to pay for it?”  

“I’ve had Phil Stein and others working on that. They’ve come up with a really strong package. People who make money from money pay the same tax rate as people who work for pay checks. We put a cap on total deductions, a minimum tax on foreign earnings, a tiny new tax on high-speed stock transactions. A small increase in the gas tax. Then we combine it all with making companies pay tax on the trillions in profits they’re hoarding overseas, and crack down on the hidden billions like the ones the Panama Papers showed us. And we’re there. If it doesn’t work out to the last dollar, we make the case that all the work and construction and development that the America’s Future Act would create would generate self-sustaining revenue.”  

Guess closed his eyes. “Good God, Madam President, think of what you’re asking. I’m trying to visualize the power that will descend on us if we try this.”  

“Don’t you agree with it?”  

“Of course, I do. Every last public policy goal on your list, I agree with it all. But to try to do it all at once? Guaranteeing that every powerful interest in the world will join forces to fight us? It’s so audacious. It’s like launching a nonmilitary World War Three.”  

“And you need to be my Eisenhower.”  

As a senator, Tenny earned a reputation as an impatient firebrand, disrespectful of age and seniority, and with little understanding of legislative history and nuances. She was no less impatient as president. Reed Guess and other supporters tried to tame her touch when she pushed against inflated egos. Guess had what she lacked, a collegial style that bridged the political aisle. He was always popular with senators in his own party. His war injuries, his cancer, the courage he displayed in handling his unpredictable future and his voluntary withdrawal from the presidential race, earned him even more respect. Guess said he would keep his Senate seat and leadership role until his Senate term ended, or his body told him it was time to go home and die.  

Tenny was now asking him to direct a legislative war that if successful could change life on the planet. If they failed, it could be the end of her presidency, along with the political futures of many of those who supported her. Guess was in a place he never expected to be. He felt his days on earth were limited. The cause was worthy. She intended to pursue it with or without him. He knew that without him she would fail. With him she had a chance.  

“I’ll get our leadership together with your working group,” said Guess. “Let’s see what we can put together.”  



Isabel Aragon Tennyson entered the White House with rock star celebrity. Twelve months later, her image was frayed around the edges but less than one might expect, given the intensity of the issues that crossed the legislative battleground since her inaugural. The public still liked President Tennyson, and liked the idea that Congress was actually taking care of business that had been warehoused for far too long. Her first year in the White House forged an unbroken chain of legislative success with little negative impact on her popularity. It was understandable why Tenny assumed that chain would remain strong, and why she failed to sense the forces that would soon bring her presidency to the edge of destruction.  

27

In January of her second year, the State of the Union speech became the launch platform for the America’s Future Act. It was a stunning concept, one plan, one piece of legislation to address the broad sweep of legacy issues facing the country. Her professional team had designed a plan solid enough to withstand the intense scrutiny of impartial experts. While many powerful interests would be losers, many others would benefit, enough to insure a deep reservoir of allies. Opening night was a hit. The show ran for weeks to positive reviews. Then, as the early wave of enthusiasm dissipated, the forces aligned to reject the America’s Future Act merged with those determined to bring down President Tennyson.

Autocrats can say “do it” and it’s done. Plutocrats can throw enough money at it and it’s done.  The U.S. form of representative government was intentionally designed to keep things from being done. Among their greatest concerns, the nation’s founders fretted that immediate passions could overrun long-term common sense. All along the path to change they erected high hurdles.  It was not difficult for obstructers to derail the America’s Future Act. Even though it was presented as a single piece of legislation, House leadership sent sections of it to nearly every standing committee, insuring extended review and in many cases, no review at all. Those on the losing end of proposed changes organized an advertising campaign designed to terrify the public. Lost jobs, lost revenue for communities, increased crime, bad people moving into good neighborhoods, higher taxes, failing banks. The plan’s broad sweep allowed for an infinite number of narrow targets.  

That November, the Republicans picked up a dozen seats to retain the House. They gained four U.S. Senate seats, one short of a majority. Republicans and Democrats now had fifty senators each. Democrats kept Senate control only with tie-breaking votes by the vice president, Roderick Rusher.

President Tennyson accepted much of the blame for the midterm defeats. Her job approval ratings dropped into negative territory, 43-49. Three weeks after the disastrous off-year election, Reed Guess announced that he had fallen out of remission. The brain tumor was growing. He would need more radiation. The governor of Connecticut, a fellow Democrat, would appoint a replacement. Tenny’s best Senate strategist and deal-maker would be gone.

28

President Tennyson’s third-year State of the Union address was substantively rich and packed with admonitions to Congress to move America’s Future forward. The argument was sound. But given the change in the political climate from a year earlier, it was received more as a voice of desperation, a plea to save the ship, a stark difference from the buoyancy of its launch.

With Reed Guess no longer there to direct legislative traffic, Tenny lost a reliable conduit for moving White House programs through the Senate. Guess’s replacement as majority leader, Sidney Alcorn from Oregon, had no majority to lead with the Senate now divided. Alcorn was not the tenacious leader who could overcome gridlock, and he and the president had not been close working partners when she served in the Senate. Senate action drifted inconclusively. Misunderstandings between the Senate and the White House increased. Washington’s lobbying machine had adjusted itself to the wrenching proposals of the America’s Future plan. Opposition obstructions erected during the past year were proving formidable.

In early February, shortly after Tenny delivered her third State of the Union address, a memo landed on the desk of Drew Vine, managing editor of the San Diego Beacon.

Drew:

See attached. I understand there is more to this story worth checking out. Please send someone.

I.P.

Attached was a clipping from a Mexicali newspaper. The article was in Spanish and it wrapped around a three-column wide photo of a strikingly handsome man who appeared in the photo to be about forty to fifty years old.

The first sight of him is captivating. Broad shoulders, open collar, gold chain, mildly hairy chest, thick and dark head of hair that says, “run your fingers here.” His eyes, under dark and prominent eyelashes, are deep brown and penetrating. He’s wearing a gold blazer, the jacket’s gold perfectly accentuating his darkened features.

Drew Vine and most reporters at the Beacon were multilingual, a requirement for a newspaper so close to the Mexican border. The man in the photo is identified as Gabriel Montes, a Peruvian banker who handles wealth management accountants for Premier Group of the Americas, one of the largest financial firms in South America. Montes, a former soccer star, was arrested in Mexicali on charges of laundering money for one of the area’s most violent drug cartels.

Why the boss wanted to send a reporter to Mexicali to follow up this story was unclear to Vine, but Irving Pounds owned the newspaper. Mostly Pounds stayed clear of the newsroom. But now and then he had what the staff came to know as “a project.” Gabriel Montes, for some reason, was a project.

Dianne Worsley, Vine’s reporter who drew the assignment, returned from Mexicali barely able to contain her excitement. In Montes’ address and log book, police found the name and phone number of President Tennyson. Mexicali police were unusually cooperative with Worsley. They provided her with photos and full background information about Montes and the cartel. The White House wouldn’t comment, but it didn’t matter. There was enough for a long, above-the-fold front page story for the San Diego Beacon. The AP wire carried that story to publications throughout the United States. Montes became the focus of a media herd. His only response:

“Some things a gentleman simply does not discuss.”

The relationship soon became clear. Tenny and Montes had been, and some speculated they still were, lovers. The president involved with someone deep into money laundering and drug gangs? The story took on a life of its own.

A hotel keeper in Cusco, Peru, near Machu Picchu, remembered them together there for a few days. An industrialist spoke of having dinner with them, together, in Buenos Aires. All of that was long ago. Fifteen years.  Why would Montes still have her name and phone number in his pocket fifteen years later?

As a U.S. Senator, Tenny had been on a special committee investigating drugs and money laundering.  Committee records were analyzed, revealing that Senator Tennyson had disappeared from her hotel in Mexico City during one committee trip and refused to say where she had been. A most unusual occurrence.  Was she secretly seeing Montes? Were they still in contact? If not him, who?

All of this triggered old suspicions raised in her U.S. Senate and presidential campaigns, discarded then, but not so easily now.

As the cherry blossoms created their annual floral halo around Washington’s tidal basin, Chris Santos, editor of the El Paso Daily, another newspaper in the Pounds chain, found a “project” on her desk. A former agent for the Drug Enforcement Agency claimed he was pressured to look the other way and abandon an investigation that involved Montes’ bank, Premier Group of the Americas. The agent had refused to give up on the lead and soon after lost his job.

“Where did you get this, boss?” Santos asked Pounds.

“Overheard in conversation at a party I attended,” replied Pounds.

The former agent, who asked that the newspaper not reveal his name, confirmed Pounds’ news tip. And more. He claimed the White House was taking an unusually high level of interest in what was happening in the border drug trade.

Next came a widely-publicized arrest of midlevel drug cartel member Santiago Flores, captured by border guards as he tried to smuggle a van of high-powered weapons out of the United States. Among his possessions was said to be a note from a higher up in his organization telling him that $20,000 had been paid for his safe passage. According to the note, arrangements had been made at the highest levels of the U.S. government. Apparently, someone on the border didn’t get the same message.

By summer, journalists from publications that could afford it, freelance writers, and Republican Party operatives were swarming the border looking for evidence of White House interference in illegal drug and gun trafficking. Others were searching for, and finding, men who said they had had affairs with the president. Two congressional committees were checking the Banking Committee files for irregularities that might be linked to the president’s time on that committee. The Treasury Department was trying to keep up with congressional requests for information that could link the president to money laundering.



“Hey, lady We had a deal. We were going to tell each other about our men, just as we did our boys.”

“Who can remember?” said Tenny. “It’s not that there were so many, it’s just that so many weren’t memorable or worth talking about.”

The friends were sharing a late super in the White House, along with Fish, who had brought with her the disturbing news that the Judiciary Committee staff was looking into the drugs, guns, and money-laundering accusations.

“Not their jurisdiction, is it?” asked Carmie.

“Only if they want to build a case for impeachment,” said Fish.

“Impeachment?” Carmie was appalled. “Because of a bunch of off-the-wall stories the media’s been chasing?”

“Larry Anderson tells me he thinks they’re trying to build a case for a full-scale impeachment investigation. Subpoenas, depositions, the works.”

“They wouldn’t!”

“Larry says he thinks they will and to get prepared.”

Larry Anderson was the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. A veteran legislator, sometimes irascible, but a vote and voice the White House had learned to rely on.

“Hard for me to believe,” said Tenny. “I’m still pretty popular and they’d be taking a big risk. They couldn’t get enough committee votes to do it, could they?”

“Not sure,” said Fish. “Zach Bowman, the chairman, is hurry-up ambitious. Wouldn’t even be surprised if he was planning to run against you if you go for re-election. Larry’s kind of a wild man, but he’s with our staff all the time. He’s our early warning system. Take it seriously and get ready.”

“I don’t know how to get ready,” said Tenny. “It’s all so far from real I don’t even know what I’m fighting.”



Ben Sage didn’t know whom or what they were fighting, either. What he did know was a brilliant campaign when he saw one. For originality and effectiveness, the anti-Tennyson campaign he had been watching develop was hugely impressive. So impressive he found it hard to believe that any of his professional counterparts were masterminding it.

Ben speared an olive from the bottom of his martini glass. He and Lee were at the Big Fish in Rehoboth, making a quick escape from a day of high tension. Earlier, Henry Deacon, Tenny’s chief of staff, had called to alert him that the House Judiciary Committee had scheduled a vote on whether to launch an impeachment investigation. Could Ben and Lee get ready for action, just in case it passed? The rest of the day was spent reorganizing their other campaign commitments. Then a quick flight to Delaware’s Eastern Shore getaway. They needed some time to talk, to think, to get perspective.

“I just learned about the history of the martini glass,” Ben said.

“Tell me,” said Lee, “Another jokey accident?”

“No. The gin needs to stay cold to stay good, so that’s why the long stem. The wide brim at the top helps the gin’s flavor to open up. Then the cone shape keeps the gin and vermouth from separating.”

“And why such a narrow vee-shaped bottom?”

“For the olives, of course. They can’t just float around aimlessly. And the slanted side of the glass supports the toothpick. Brilliant engineering, don’t you think?”

“I don’t think about it at all. I just enjoy it.”

“Lee, what do you think we’re up against here? I don’t know anyone who we compete with who could dream up and run a campaign as effective as the one they’re running against Tenny.”

“You don’t think it’s just the Republicans getting smarter?”

“Possible, but unlikely. What has me stumped is where they’re getting all of this shit out of South America, Mexico, and all the places outside the U.S. Your guess?”

“The oil companies are my prime suspects. They work all over the world. They have their own FBI and local armies. They pay off everyone. And they’ve got a lot to lose if she wins the Future’s fight.”

“Maybe so. How about the banks? What goes for oil goes for them, too.”

“Maybe both?”

“But these guys have never run campaigns like this before. They have enough clout in Washington to get their way without being part of an international conspiracy.”

Ben drained his martini glass and motioned to the waiter for another.

“Is it that important to know where it’s coming from?” asked Lee. “Isn’t it enough to know what the Republicans are doing with all this stuff and try to beat it back?”

“No, it’s not. We need to know who and why. Unless we know who we’re up against, we won’t know what to expect next. We’ll just be running around trying to fix holes they punch in her. How do we get ahead of it and punch back?”

“Let’s add the health insurance people to the list of suspects. They demolished the Clintons, even when health reform was at eighty percent in the polls. They’re really good. Now Tenny’s moving everybody to Medicare, pretty much wiping out private health insurance. That’s plenty of motive and a track record of great campaigning, besides.”

“Good point. But I think I’m leaning toward the oil guys because of the international angle. To collect evidence or invent it, they need to be deeply embedded in Mexico and Central America and South America. Contacts everywhere. Strong enough contacts to find nuggets of information others can’t find, and to buy or intimidate people who usually can’t be bought or intimidated.”

“Yeah. You may be right,” Lee said. “You know, I read Steve Coll’s book about Exxon, Private Empire. He tells the story of a time when Lee Raymond was running the company and there was a lot of concern in America about gasoline shortages. One of Raymond’s key guys suggests that the company should build more refineries here to make America more energy secure. Raymond says, why would I do that? We’re not an American company. That’s the way these guys think. The term banana republic started with all the military horsepower we threw into the poor Central American countries to make them safe for the United Fruit Company. These guys have been pushing smaller countries around forever. They’re incredibly good at it. They may lose a battle now and then but they hardly ever lose a war they really want to win.”

“Well I’m pretty sure this isn’t about bananas. So are we settling on oil? Are those the guys we’re fighting?”

“Not settling. But they’re prime. They have the contacts and the power to do it. And they’re smart enough to get others to pick up the tab so that their fingerprints aren’t all over it. If it fails, you can be sure some of the guys in Congress will take the rap, not them. That’s the way they play.”

Plates of fried oyster appetizers interrupted the conversation. The two partners munched through them hungrily. Food for more thought.

Ben had spent all of his years in politics working in the United States. He had little experience elsewhere, the way some political consulting firms did. He had been thinking domestic politics, not international conspiracies. Until impeachment showed up on the radar. Now he was struggling with a whole new range of unfamiliar possibilities.

“One more thing,” said Lee. “Who stands to gain immediately if Tenny is thrown out of office?”

“Immediately? The Vice President. Rusher,” said Ben.

“Exactly,” said Lee.

29

“NO!!” Congressman Anderson shouted.

In his frustration he repeated his vote three more times: “No! No! No!”

If he could, Congressman Lawrence Anderson would have yelled loud enough to sway the crystal chandeliers in the U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing room. He considered all of this talk about impeaching U.S. President Isabel Aragon Tennyson pure nonsense.

After thirty years in the U.S. House of Representatives, Representative Anderson looked, sounded, and indeed was authoritative in many things. But for the last few sessions of Congress, he and his fellow Democrats had been in the minority. Even as ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, he had little power or authority. Years ago, when he was just a freshman member of Congress, Anderson also had a front row seat for an impeachment effort, Bill Clinton’s. That was, as he saw it at the time, a shameful hunt for nothing more than dirty underwear.

Now, once again, members of the House Judiciary Committee were being asked to vote on whether to launch a full-scale impeachment investigation of a Democratic Party president.

It was July, months into the committee’s inquiry. Committee staff had been sifting documents, traveling to U.S.-Mexican border locations, interviewing supposedly talkative drug dealers and cartel members, listening to current and former U.S. border guards and Drug Enforcement Agency agents. They were piecing together a story, a case, and none too quietly. Periodically there were leaks, exclusives. Always followed by official “no comments.” Committee members were being briefed in executive sessions. The official public silence was more damning than the evidence. If this was too serious to discuss in public, it must be really bad. A petri dish for rumor and conspiracy theories.

The media chased anonymous tips, whispers, hunches. Media investments need pay days. And so scraps appeared often, most of them lightly sourced, or non-sourced, or spun from loose threads in unmatched socks. The total affect for President Tennyson was the creation of a lead weight, slowly dragging her into a sea of yet unproven guilt.

Finally, a press conference. Committee Chairman Zachary Bowman announced the committee had enough cause to ask the full House to approve an official pre-impeachment inquiry.

Representative Anderson’s “no” vote was the seventeenth “no” on the roll call. There were three more votes to go, and only one more vote was needed to derail the Republicans from moving any further down the impeachment track. Before the roll call began most who thought about it expected the resolution to lose. The Republicans were used to bringing up votes just to embarrass the president, losing, and then bringing them up again. They had never tried for impeachment, until now.

“Mrs. Diaz.”

Lenore Diaz, Latina American member from New Mexico, Democrat, first-termer, winner of her seat in an election so close it required a recount.

“Yes,” said Ms. Diaz.

Yes? For a resolution that could wind up unseating her own Democratic president? A sister Latina?

A stunning vote. Republican members of Congress, watching on television from the cloakroom off the House floor certainly didn’t expect it. Neither did White House staffers, watching from their offices near the Oval Room, or reporters covering this story.

A day earlier Lenore Diaz had received a brief, meaningful message. Either vote for this or your son Ralph pays. Ralph Diaz was serving three months in the Albuquerque Corrections Center for his role in a gang fight. The message was stark. No explanation. No qualifiers. But from the way that message was delivered Lenore Diaz knew it was not a bluff. Ralph was eighteen, a bit on the wild side like so many eighteen-year-olds, but a good son. It had broken her heart when the judge sentenced Ralph to jail. She blamed herself and her own political ambitions. Time bought at the expense of being with Ralph. Ralph already was paying a price for her career. She could not take a chance that the price would get even steeper. There were some very bad people in New Mexico. She knew who they were. And how bad they were.

The clerk moved on.

“Mr. Foster.”

Darrell Foster was scared stiff. Foster didn’t tolerate pressure very well. Foster the flake, his colleagues called him. You could never count on him. Easily swayed. Never consistent. Not particularly trustworthy even when he claimed he was with you. Diaz’ vote put him in a place he did not expect to be. Foster’s vote would be decisive. A congressman whose entire career modus operandi had been one of ducking, running and crouching as low as possible was about to be the judge, the last word on whether a popular president of his own party might be railroaded out of office.

“Mr. Foster.”

Earlier in the day Foster had come to a decision. He planned to vote “yes,” for the investigation. In his Maryland suburban congressional district, Foster had been fighting a growing reputation for being a mindless puppet for the president or whatever his party leaders wanted him to do. He had voted in favor of each bill the president had sent to the House—immigration, single payer healthcare, and others nearly as whopping big and controversial. Each vote had added to a growing legion of political enemies. By his count, the impeachment resolution was going down anyway. A “yes” vote from him would show his independence with no consequences. How he voted wouldn’t matter.

But he hadn’t considered Diaz.

The pros and cons spun in Foster’s head like tumblers in a slot machine. Create a months’ long investigation that could remove President Tennyson from office? Incur the wrath of fellow Democrats? There would be a lot to answer for at home and right here in Congress.

But...congressional wrath could be short-lived because there’s always another vote they want from you tomorrow. An impeachment hearing would be televised live, not bad for his reputation back in the district. He could always vote against impeachment itself later. And if Tennyson wasn’t guilty of all of the messy stories about her, the investigation would clear her.

The clerk was looking his way. So was Judiciary Chairman Zachary Bowman. So were all of those television cameras. The eyes of the world. The voters in his district. Nowhere to hide and no more time to think about it.

“Yes,” said Congressman Foster.

Foster’s vote was like the starter’s gun at a track event. House members gazed at the cloakroom television in disbelief. Suddenly, and for most of them unexpectedly, impeachment would rise to the top of the House agenda, and each member would have to deal with it.

The final “yes,” from Arizona Republican Congresswoman Paige Lerner, came as anticlimax and only after heavy gaveling by Chairman Bowman.

The House Judiciary Committee had decided that all of the sordid stuff circulating in the tabloids and swirling in sludgy media backwaters would be transformed from rumor and innuendo into prime time coverage with live witnesses, under oath.



Ben Sage and Lee Searer watched the vote in their Georgetown office, surrounded by their staff. The air hung heavy, coated by the shock and uncertainty that usually follows the announcement of a death. No one said a word. No one could think of anything to say.

Ben felt something he had not experienced for a long time, and seldom in life. Nausea, evoked by dread. From countless past experiences he knew that when he was uncertain of an outcome, it usually meant he lost.

Ben’s cell phone dinged within moments of the vote.

Deacon.

“How soon can you get here?”

“On my way.”

“I’ll pull together a core group.”

“Deac, don’t do or say anything until I get there.”

“Not that easy. The media guys are all over Carlton in the press room. They want her. They’ll take him. Christ, they’ll take anybody.”

“Resist it. Tell Carlton to close and lock the gates. No leaks. And for God’s sake don’t let her talk to anyone.”

“Wait,” a ridiculous notion just struck Ben. “Does she even know?”

“She knows. Fish called her right away. It’s the only call I let in there. She’s still with the OMB people about the budget. My guess is she treated the news from Fish like it was a social call.”

Brief pause while they both considered the fact that the President of the United States had not watched her own impeachment proceedings on television, had not reacted when the vote went against her, and had kept working with the budget nerds even after hearing the news.

“Ben Do you think any of this is true?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I hoped you’d be more definite than that.”

“Sorry. That’s all I’ve got right now. Getting to either no or yes is going to take a lot of work. Lock the doors and get her cell phone away from her.”



The next morning’s meeting in the Oval Room was no different than others—six days each week whether in Washington, D.C., or traveling. It was a management tool Tenny picked up from the guys in the Pentagon. Meet at 7:00 a.m. No chairs. Everyone stands. Tight, specific agenda assembled by the overnight staff. Today’s opportunities and crises. Things that happened while we were asleep that need tending or watching. Loose ends from yesterday. Here are the jobs. Who’s doing this? What resources do we need to get it done? Objective? Deadline? Who’s got responsibility? Anyone have anything else we haven’t covered? Meeting adjourned. Seldom more than thirty minutes. Staff always. Plus, key players from inside and outside the administration who happened to occupy that day’s hot seat. That meant Ben was there this morning, the day after the Judiciary Committee vote.

“Ben?” she said, when it was his turn to speak. “You’ll work closely with Deacon and others on the House impeachment problem?”

“Yes, Madam President. We’ve already started. White House counsel needs to prepare a paper defining what can be done by government staff and what we’ll need to outsource. I’ll work with him on retaining private counsel that understands the politics of this. I’m arranging a defense fund from private contributors. Talking points have been prepared and distributed. We will keep your personal time and involvement at a minimum.”

For Ben, Lee, their staff, and Deacon’s, it had been a long night.

“Thank you,” said President Tennyson. “Deacon, see that Ben is properly credentialed as a counselor to the president for the duration of this problem.”

And then it was on to the federal response to the drought problems in Arizona.

Meeting over, Deacon pulled Ben aside.

“She wants to see you. Wait here.”

Others filed out until there were just the three of them left. Tenny gave Ben a quick hug and motioned for him and Deacon to sit opposite her on the sofa.

“I’m going to say this upfront,” she said. She had an earnestness that always accompanied tough situations. “I had that affair with Gabe. It went on for maybe a month and I loved every minute of it. He swept me away, that gorgeous, smooth-talking cad. It took a while before I found out he was a scoundrel and a dangerous one at that.

“So if the charge is did I have sex with that man, I plead guilty. Not that it’s anyone’s business any more than all the goings on among the guys. I was a private banker, held no public office and did what consenting adults do every day of the week. That’s the beginning and end of it. Anything else you may hear will be a lie or a forgery.

“You know my relationship with Hal. Hal’s going to be dragged into this—one more time. God, I’m sure he wishes he’d never heard of me. But at least he’s in his last year as governor and won’t have to deal with it in a re-election campaign. Ben, you know better than anyone that he did not appoint me to the U.S. Senate because we slept together. He appointed me against his better judgement because you talked him into it. Admit it!”

“You give me too much credit for that,” said Ben.

“Bull shit. He knew we could wind up where we are right now, him being accused of appointing me as a consolation prize for not marrying me. Me being accused of being a slut. Ben, face it, you may have to testify to clear the air on that.”

Ben started to speak but she left no commas or periods, took no breaths to give him an opening.

“There’s absolutely nothing to the other stuff. The banks? Christ, I’ve got billions I don’t know what to do with. Why would I risk everything to steal more? Drugs? Guns? Come on. I know I’ve brushed it off for months, thinking that if I ignore such crap it would eventually go away. I can’t believe they actually got eighteen votes in that committee to set up an impeachment hearing. So, here we are. I’m not sure any of us could have stopped this earlier. They seem so determined to get me.”

“Oh, they’re determined all right,” said Ben. “The House Judiciary hearings will be ugly. And the full House voting for impeachment is almost a slam dunk, since they’ve got control. We just have to stop it in the Senate, like Clinton did. They need sixty-seven votes you know.”

In tough political situations, Ben, like Tenny, became all business.

“Madam President, we will hire our own investigators and our own research team to walk in their tracks. We need to know what they know to disprove anything they throw at you. Whatever happened, happened and we can’t afford to be surprised when it comes up in the hearings or media headlines. We’re going to dig as deeply into all this as they do. All of your personal finances and business dealings. All your travel in the years you were on the road. All the paper that’s moved through the White House that has anything to do with any of this. Even, I’m sorry to say, all the men you slept with who might turn up to do you harm. Much deeper than we did for any of your campaigns. If they find anything that would hang you, we need to have found it first. Can you stand that kind of scrutiny?”

“Dig away. Ben, you know my flaws and weaknesses better than most people. Scratch them ‘til they bleed. Make the worst case you can against me. But do it on facts. That’s the only way I know how to fight back. About the sleeping around part. The fact is that over the years I’ve been with many men. Let’s face it, I enjoy good sex. I’ll try to remember them all for you to check out. I may forget a few who were forgettable. You need to find my former husband, Andres Navarro. I got a very nice letter from him after being elected. His contact information is in our data base. I don’t think he’ll be a problem. I made some deals when I worked with Groupo Aragon that I’m not proud of. That was years ago, and should have nothing to do with this. But I’ll give you enough to get started just in case. My finances? Hell, I’ve got nothing to hide. Maybe just some embarrassing losing investments.

“Dig into all of it. We can win this on truth. But I don’t know how we fight what they make up. I’m trusting you to figure that out. Win this campaign, Ben, but don’t bother me with the details or take any more of my time than you absolutely need to. I ran for president to be president, not a criminal defendant. There are precious few days for that and I don’t want to waste them.”

She stood up abruptly. As Ben and Deacon walked to the door she stopped them.

“By the way, if I survive this I’m going to run for re-election.”

They both spun in surprise. She had never said a word about re-election even though Ben had prodded her for months to do or say something to head off competition. Already two other serious Democratic candidates had announced and were building campaign teams and bank accounts. A wounded incumbent draws plenty of interest from those ready to bury the final sword.

“Just thought you should know. Oh, and while I have your attention, those pictures of me they’ve been running in the tabloids, the ones that make me look like a cheap hooker...I actually look pretty good in them, don’t you think?”

She struck a seductive post, winked and lifted her skirt just above her knee.

President Tennyson had not been so oblivious to the media campaign against her after all.

30

The Nixon impeachment hearings had broken ground untouched since Andrew Johnson’s trial in 1866. Twenty-five years after Nixon there was Clinton. Now, Tennyson. Much of what was mystery in 1973 had become almost routine.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Zachary Bowman had not even been born when Nixon was president. New to the committee chairmanship, George Clooney looks, quick wit, unlimited ambition, Bowman was a good bet to run for president himself.

For the moment, he was at the center of the biggest political story in Washington. He would chair the hearings that would decide whether President Tennyson would be the third recent President to be impeached. Convening in Bowman’s office this morning was Lawrence Anderson, the ranking committee Democrat, a polar opposite of the telegenic Zach Bowman. Receding line of gray hair, slightly stooped from age, and corpulent from too many nighttime fund-raisers. Anderson was from New Jersey, a safe place to be if you’re a Democrat. He had been entrenched in Congress since his first election and had been through all this impeachment stuff before, voting in the House minority against impeaching Bill Clinton.

Also sitting in on this meeting was Bo Willard, Speaker of the House, and the one who would inherit the spotlight should the House Judiciary Committee find Tennyson impeachable. Willard had become Speaker when the House flipped back to the Republicans during the George W. Bush years. It took savvy to navigate a Republican House caucus since the emergence of a sizable right wing party-within-the-party. Willard was hell-bent for impeachment so that his friend, Rod Rusher, the vice president, could become president. What a great pair they would make. Even though they were in different political parties, on most issues they were of the same mind. As Speaker, Willard would be next in line for the White House, if they could get rid of Tennyson.

“I want to do this very quickly,” said Bowman. “It’s July. I’d like to see hearings in September and be ready for a House vote in October. I think we can finish this whole business by the end of the year. We don’t want to drag this into the election year.”

“No reason we can’t,” said Speaker Willard. “The committee votes out impeachment resolutions, the House votes on them. It goes to the Senate. The reasons for doing this are clear enough. I think everyone’s ready to make the case.”

“Then why even bother with the hearings?” asked Democrat Anderson. “You already have a guilty verdict. No need for a trial. But if you want to do this fairly, she has to have time to send up her own witnesses, hell, come and defend herself right here if she wants. We give axe murderers months to mount their defense. The president just gets weeks?”

“Hey, Larry, get off your soap box. How much more evidence do we need that she helped that old bank of hers launder the drug and guns money?”

“So you’re going to parade a bunch of losers through here who claim that one of the richest people in the world risked her job as United States president to make a few extra bucks laundering money? Who believes that crap? And all the sex stuff. I guess we’ll have a replay of Lewinski and publish a report called fifty shades of Tennyson. And what do you expect her to say, ‘I am not a crook. I am not a whore?’ This is all political bull shit and you know it.”

“Let her defend herself with everything she has, Larry. She can afford the best lawyers, the best private investigators. And, hell, she’s got the whole federal government to use against us. This won’t be rigged. It’s a fair fight.”

Anderson slumped in his seat.

“Huh. Do what you want. I can’t stop you.”

Bowman turned to Willard.

“I’ll need $10 million to get staff assembled and the investigation in gear. And I’ll need temporary assignment from your chief counsel. Also, we’ll need to build out a platform for the TV guys. Cody over here, my media guy, has been studying how they handled Clinton, and that’s a good roadmap for us. We’ll also need a separate room for the internet people, podcasters, and all.”

“Can’t they just cover it by watching it on TV?”

“No,” thundered Anderson. “Everyone needs to be part of the circus.”

“Larry, will you object to any of this?”

“Handle all the arrangements the way you want as long as our side gets its share of the money for staff and research. But don’t mind me if you read that I’ve told the press we’re going into this with a hang-her-first and then have the trial mentality. I’ve had my problems with the president, too, She’s not the friendliest lady ever to be here. We go back plenty of years, since she was in the House. She used to drive me nuts there. Push. Push. Push. She’s even worse now. But having differences in style and policy hardly makes her a criminal. There’s a high bar for impeachment. This committee dropped it as low as Lewinski’s drawers when I first got here. Now you’re making it even lower so eventually every president can expect to be impeached if they wind up with the wrong Congress.”

“Don’t worry, Larry, we’ll do this by the book. But from what I’ve seen, it looks pretty grim and we won’t sugarcoat it. By the way, have you been in touch with the vice president?”

“No. Why?”

“Well I think you should. Over the next few months, anything could happen. Remember, after this committee asked the House to impeach Nixon, Goldwater and a bunch of other Republicans went to him, told him it was time to go, and he did. It never even got to the House floor. Not everybody stays ‘til the bitter end, like Clinton. The vice president needs to plan his schedule to be around for whatever happens. You’re the best one to tell him that.”

“You’re probably right. Coming from me he’ll understand the committee is likely to take this all the way and that he’s a good bet to be delivering the next State of the Union speech.”

“Although his defense of her I saw on TV last night was pretty strong and looked authentic.”

“What else would you expect from him? It’s what vice presidents have to do. Until they don’t.”



The weeks between the House decision to hold impeachment hearings and the hearings themselves resembled the peak days of election campaigns—each side jockeying to command the heights of Mount Validity. Tenny’s opposition was prepared for this combat. Within days of the Judiciary Committee vote, Republican support groups were on television with frightening ads of guns and drugs being trucked across the border into the United States with drivers showing White House passes to border guards.

Tenny’s defense, caught off guard through wishful thinking and Tenny’s refusal to take the impeachment threat seriously, moved quickly to play catch up.

A support organization was quickly formed to raise money and to manage her counter-attack. At the group’s center was a small strategy team: Ben and Lee; Alistair Seltzer, one of the lead defense attorneys; Chip Fanning, CEO of Fanning and Frazier, a political research firm relied on for years by Sage and Searer; Henry Deacon; and Bruce Han, chief White House legislative assistant.

Platoons of respected leaders and organizations were enlisted for her defense. Campaign-style paid media was produced to compete with the opposition’s. Mail and email blanketed digital and snail mail boxes. Supporters swarmed talk shows and wrote op-eds and letters. Tenny herself was on the move, obediently heading to cities and states the strategy team labeled pivotal.

Compared with the House and Senate Watergate hearings that led to Nixon’s demise as president, the Tennyson hearings drew a meager television audience. Back then, before cable, before the internet, before smart phones, you either watched what any of three broadcast networks gave you or you didn’t watch anything at all. When all three networks broadcast the same program, you had no choice. Besides, the Nixon hearings were historic, the first serious proceeding in a century that could lead to the removal of an elected president. While the Nixon hearings were rare, the Tennyson hearings were not. In fact, for many Americans, it was the third time they were asked to sit through an impeachment trial. The last one, Bill Clinton’s, was considered a farce by most Americans, devaluing what was once seen as a solemn process. Now, the impeachment show was back for a rerun. Many found the game show “Jeopardy” more interesting than the jeopardy confronting the White House.

So it was a meager viewing audience that watched live while Judiciary Committee Chairman Zachary Bowman opened the impeachment inquiry with a brief statement of its purpose.

“For the past two months, committee staff has been reviewing certain allegations made against the president of the United States, which, if true, would rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors, the bar set by our nation’s Constitution for impeachment and removal from office. Committee staff has interviewed dozens of witnesses, including the president herself, under oath. Staff members have traveled to various locations where the inquiry has taken us to obtain first-hand information and to review circumstances related to the allegations. Tens of thousands of documents related to this inquiry have been obtained, verified, and analyzed. All of this information has been reviewed by members of this committee. To summarize, our hearings will focus on the following topics:

“One. Was the president of the United States complicit in a scheme to launder money obtained illegally in a manner that violates U.S. banking, currency, and national defense laws?

“Two. Was the president of the United States complicit in a scheme to violate laws for the transport of illegal substances and weapons across the United States–Mexico border?

“Three. Did the president of the United States willingly misuse her high office to conspire with foreign nationals to enrich herself and her family and for other illegal purposes?

“These hearings will take testimony from those making such allegations, possessing documents alleging such crimes, and from those who will speak on behalf of the president to counter those allegations. The president will be welcome at any time to address these charges personally. The committee begins these hearings without prejudice or bias. We will form no judgements until all of the witnesses have been heard and the evidence presented. Now, counsel, please call your first witness.”



At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, in a small White House office, the president’s core strategy group was completing its first head count of U.S. Senate votes. Thirty-four senators would be enough to block the president’s removal. Now the legislative staff was evaluating each Senator’s current thinking. Others were suggesting ways to influence Senators’ votes, through wives, children, close friends, contributors and pet projects. True, the current action was in the House. But Republicans were in the majority there. The president’s defenders had little expectation that they could win either in the committee or on the House floor. But marshalling thirty-four votes in the Senate seemed possible. Even likely. That’s where they focused their resources. In the midst of a lively exchange, suddenly, the chatter stopped. Deacon had turned up the volume on one of the room’s three television sets. All eyes swiveled to it.

Filling the screen was a full-frame image of a startlingly handsome middle-aged man. His photos had been so widely published that anyone paying attention to the impeachment story would instantly have recognized him. For those who had not, the words on the screen spelled it out. Gabriel Montes. The camera pulled back to reveal him at the witness table being questioned by Katherine Polaski, chief Judiciary Committee counsel.

“I want to review this again, Señor Montes, because it obviously is important to our deliberations. You say you have been involved in a long-time affair with president Tennyson.”

“Sí.”

“When did the affair begin?”

“Twenty years ago.”

“And you say it began when you both were young international bankers. Can you please elaborate on that?”

“Yes. We met at a conference in Peru. She and I were competitors for wealth management accounts in Latin America. She worked for Groupo Aragon. I was with Premier Group de las Americas. We were on the same conference panel. She was very smart, very quick. And quite beautiful to my eyes. After the panel, I suggested that we have a drink in the hotel lobby. That led to dinner. We talked of many things, including the ancient arts of Latin America. Her mother had been an art student and filled their home with many rare and beautiful artifacts. It became a passion, also, of Señora Tennyson. I could feel that passion she had for art. That raised my passion for her. I asked if we could have dinner the following night, too. But she was occupied.

“Before the conference ended, though, I had a chance to speak with her again. She was much in demand, representing a major Mexican bank group and a member of the famous Aragon family of Mexico. A very rare combination of assets. Señora Tennyson, I asked, have you ever been to Machu Picchu? That got her attention. She had never been to this important site.

“I have many connections there, I told her. And it was true. The owner of the Cima del Mundo hotel in Cusco was a long-time friend. In fact, I had helped him finance his purchase. The chief of the major guide service was from my home city of Chiclayo, in Peru. I told the señora we could have excellent accommodations, with service and a tour such as others seldom enjoy.

“Señora was quite interested. She was scheduled to visit Buenos Aires, but said she would try to change the schedule. Señora Tennyson met me in Cusco three days later. We spent four days, seeing Cusco together, traveling to Machu Picchu, and enjoying one another’s company.”

“And it was then and there that your affair began?”

“Sí. It was quite romantic. Golden sunsets. Candlelight. Incredible vistas of a world that doesn’t exist outside that valley. Everyone should experience it sometime with someone they love.”

The audience and many of the members on the dais could not suppress laughter. Gabe was telling a love story and the listeners were enthralled.

“Christ,” blurted Ben, out loud, to no one. He was not feeling the love, but rather a creeping sense of dread. These people were on stage with a very good show.

“Mr. Chairman!” Congressman Anderson thundered, “Are we conducting a daytime talk show here? Is this a soap opera? Oprah? Sex, sex, sex. So an unattached woman and this witness had an affair long ago. So what? What does this line of questioning have to do with anything related to this committee’s inquiry?”

“Mr. Chairman,” responded counsel Polaski, “the relevance of the questions will be apparent if you allow me to proceed.”

“Proceed,” nodded chairman Bowman.

A cutaway of Congressman Anderson showed him shaking his head in apparent disgust.

“Now, Mr. Montes, you say this was not the only occasion you met with President Tennyson romantically.”

“No, no, no,” said Gabe emphatically.

“She had to resume her business travels with that trip to Buenos Aires. I met her there, where we spent three very exciting days together. Two weeks later we met again in Mexico City where she introduced me to certain members of her family, including Don Miguel, her famous grandfather. A month later I was required to be in Los Angeles.”

“Señor Montes, I want to remind you that you are under oath and that to not tell the truth is perjury punishable by a severe prison sentence and personal fine. What you have just described aligns with what President Tennyson has told our committee in her deposition. And in fairness to the president, I will point out we are talking about a period in which she was a private citizen, held no public office, and was a single, divorced woman. Your testimony to our staff diverges from hers after the Los Angeles meeting. I want you to fully understand you are questioning the veracity of the president of the United States, who also was under oath.”

“Sí, I understand señora counselor. I can only say what I know to be true. I wish the lady no harm. I feel only fondness for her. In fact, I’m not embarrassed to say I love her.”

The audience tittered with nervous laughter. Chairman Bowman rapped his gavel twice. Gently.

“Please go on and tell the committee of your contacts with President Tennyson since that time in Los Angeles.”

“Well, as I told your staff. There have been so many. In the years since, we have spoken often, and corresponded. “

“What did you speak and correspond about?”

“After we stopped seeing each other romantically there were a few times where our travels took us to the same cities. There were a few evenings together. Not like before, but very pleasant. The tone changed from the excitement and freshness of a new romance to more of a businesslike relationship.”

“Businesslike?”

“Yes. At first when we were romantically connected, she asked many questions about the bank that employed me, the Premier Group de las Americas. She wanted to talk about clients, prospects, much of it confidential. I am a guarded person but in situations where you give your heart, it’s not easy to resist giving more. Like what’s in your head. I regret that in the heat of passion I disclosed some trade information—clients, prospects, fees. Those kinds of things.

“And so you had a sense she was using you to gain a business advantage”

“I would not say such a thing. But I believe that was the result. Yes.”

“And then when the relationship changed, the conversation changed?”

“Yes. I didn’t know why. But she was more guarded than when we first met, and so was I. But once she went into your Congress, it was like before.”

“Romantically?”

“No. I would not say romantically. Sexually sometimes, but not romantically.”

“And what did you discuss, when you were talking?”

“She was on the committee that had an interest in the Americas and money. You know, how money passed around. Those kinds of things. Sometimes she would appear in Peru and would call, and we would get together. She asked many questions. She asked about accounts we had of what you might say were not quite usual.”

“Illegal?”

“I don’t know from illegal, madam counselor. Let’s say different. Accounts that called some extra review to themselves. Especially she wanted what I knew about her own family company, Groupo Aragon. That surprised me. I didn’t realize until much later that she had no contact with them for many years.”

“No contact? With her own family company?”

“Sí. She told me during our time together that she had been forced out of the company and that it was her intention to get even with them.”

“Let me understand this, Señor Montes. The allegation has been made that the president has done illegal things in office to benefit Groupo Aragon, a company her grandfather began and which employed the president and her father and other family members for many years. And is it your testimony that rather than trying to help Groupo Aragon she actually was trying to hurt the company, to get revenge?”

“Sí.”

“Why?”

“Because she had wanted to run the company. The board didn’t believe she was qualified and they dismissed her.”

Only a few people knew the inside story of the dismissal of Isabel Aragon Tennyson. Few had thought to ask. The assumption was that she willingly had taken her large inheritance and moved on to other things.

“She told you this?”

“Sí. Pillow talk works from both sides of the pillow.”

“And do you have other reasons to believe what she told you?”

“Sí, señora. It was confirmed to me by others in Aragon management when I asked. I gave your staff names to contact.”

“So how did she intend to get revenge?”

“She was very successful. She told me and others of accounts held at Aragon, the amounts and the names. And she advised us how to take those accounts away and make them ours at Premier.”

“And did you?”

“Quite successfully.”

“So, to clarify, President Tennyson, then a United States senator, knew about specific Groupo Aragon accounts— for laundered money, for gangs in the illegal drug trade, for the illegal gun trade—run by people who murder and terrorize whole communities, and instead of reporting them to the authorities, she reported them to you so you could grab those accounts. And she did that as revenge for being fired by her own company. Is that your testimony?

“The story is perhaps more complicated, señora counselor. But it would appear so.”

“And are those accounts still with the Premier Group?”

No, drug enforcement people in Mexico, working with yours, found those accounts, many of them belonging to Escuadrón de la Paz.”

“The drug cartel?”

“Sí. They were disclosed after the arrest of Rafael Pecheco, who ran the organization. Premier paid suitable fines of course.”

“And you, as the account manager?”

“After my arrest in Mexicali I paid fines as well.”

“Do you still live in Peru?”

“Señora, I finally got the message. I was in a dangerous place and had to get out. I left the bank and moved to New York where I began my own private investment firm.”

Committee counsel Katherine Polaski paused to sip from a water glass, moved a few papers on the table and let the damning weight of Gabe’s testimony settle in. Live television took that time to get in quick station breaks and comments from their news staffs. Comments like “Blockbuster!” “Revealing!” “Sensational!” As Gabe’s testimony wore on, the live television audience increased. Images of this gorgeous man and their president together flashed on the screen. What they did together strolled through the minds and fantasies of not an insignificant number of those on the viewing side of the tubes.

“Once again, Señor Montes,” Polaski resumed, “I want to remind you that President Tennyson denies much of what you just told us. Under oath. At risk of being removed from office if it is proven she did not tell the truth. Why should this committee believe you?”

“Señora Counselor, I’m just a humble man, caught in the middle, trying to do the correct thing. You might say I romanced the wrong lady and it is more difficult than if I had to confront a jealous husband. As a gentleman, I destroyed the letters she sent me over the years, destroyed the emails after reading them, and when we signed into hotels I used names other than our own. I have given your staff the names and contacts of some people who I believe will agree with my story.”

“We have spoken with them and some will appear in following days of hearings.”

“One more thing that I didn’t tell your staff because I wasn’t certain I could find it.”

“What’s that?”

“My diary. It’s not complete, but señora was an important part of my life for many years, and after our meetings I was inspired to write about them.”

“You’ve found that diary?”

“Sí, señora Counselor. Here it is.”

The commotion in the House committee room was audible. Her word against his would pit two even hands against one another. Credible written evidence, if confirmed, would add a heavy thumb to the balance—against her.

Committee Chairman Bowman rapped for order, and when he gained a semblance of it, he adjourned the hearing for lunch.

Ben’s strategy group sat transfixed in the White House conference room. Gabe’s testimony was stark, direct, with enough naive honesty to seem believable, enough sex to hold and build the audience, and enough questions about the president to raise anyone’s doubt level.

Deacon, obviously flustered by what he just heard about his boss, the president, grabbed Ben by the arm.

“What do you think?”

“I’m just in awe at how good these guys are.”

You don’t think the diary is authentic?”

“Of course not. It’s great theater and perfect timing. And it’s going to be a bitch to disprove.”

“And this guy Gabriel?”

“Tenny sure knew how to pick them. I hope there aren’t a bunch more like him.”

31

He was about ten years old, alone at home. Home was a three-story townhouse. Sitting in the first-floor living room. Doing something. Listening to the radio? Reading? Playing a game? Didn't matter.

He heard a noise from the floor above. Steps it sounded like. But he was alone. There couldn’t be steps. Unless. But there were. Now he heard them on the stairs. Coming down the stairs.

Terrified, he forced himself to the stairwell and looked up. To this day, decades later, the image remains vivid. A woman. A strange woman. In a military uniform. Descending ever so slowly. One step at a time. Staring straight ahead. Zombie-like. Eyes wide. And what he could not forget, what he never forgot, were her eyeglasses. They were floating in front of her eyes, unattached to her head.

What did she want? Where did she come from? What should he do?

Until the universal antidote to unwanted dreams, escape to wakefulness, saved him from having to answer any of those questions. Why the floating eyeglasses? Why had that night of terror stayed with him through life?

For a while, in those pre-adolescent years, Ben had many nightmares. They all began with the same nocturnal brand. Like watching MGM’s lion in the first frames of a movie, his nightmares introduced themselves with a whirling vortex. He was inside the eye of a multicolored tornado, spiraling down the funnel until he reached its tip. Then a nightmare would begin.

Tonight the vortex again appeared to him in dream, decades removed from his youth, introducing another threatening storyline that he quickly forgot once the light of wakening vaporized it in his mind. Ben jumped from his pillow, sweaty, heart pumping. Moments of undefined terror and the wonder that childhood fears had returned, packaged as before.

Ben sat on the edge of his bed. Alone, straining to untangle his thoughts and body from the last few moments. His room was dark as his dream. He reached for a light switch and struggled to unwrap himself from the tug of the sheets twisted around his legs.

Even though his bedside clock informed him it was barely 5:00 a.m., returning to the uneasy peace of sleep did not feel like an option. Better to face the nightmare of this day’s waking hours.

32

Ben was no stranger to campaign attacks, and tough ones, and last minute ones, and well-financed ones. The longer Ben stayed in the business, the more attack ads there were, until it seemed that’s all there were. Longer campaigns. More negative campaigns. More money and more avenues to spread bad news.

The campaign against Tenny was different from any of those. Here, it had become clear to him he was up against more than a single campaign or political party. This was taking on the smell of a legalized coup, managed and bankrolled by opponents who preferred not to be identified, working through their friends in the media and Congress, with some assistance by their allies within the government itself. Who designed this strategy? Who was running it? It’s not easy to run a conspiracy. The more people involved, the more potential there is for leaks. People with secrets usually burst at the lips to treat their knowledge of a secret like valued currency. So far, in this conspiracy, they could find no one with loose lips. To Ben that said fright. Those involved were too frightened to drop clues about their involvement. What did Gabe say? He left Peru because he was in danger? From whom?

Until Gabriel Montes’ testimony at the committee’s first day of hearings, Ben felt his campaign was holding its own, keeping the president’s poll numbers strong enough to prevent a collapse of support among fellow Democrats. President Tennyson’s defense team had its own deep research effort in place and so far they had found nothing to contradict her own version of events. That version aligned with much of what Gabriel Montes had just testified to, including their time together in Peru and other meetings over nearly the next two months and the abrupt breakup, which, she testified, came after she had more background on Montes and was warned off by friends and others who knew him as a shady operator in the darkest corners of money laundering.

President Tennyson’s research team found no contradictions, but on all the occasions Montes claimed they met, and which she denied, records showed both Montes and Tenny were in the same cities. Was he stalking her? Did they meet, or didn’t they? Or had someone gone to a lot of work to rig hotel registers and other documents that aligned his supposed travels with hers? The witnesses Montes named to verify his story were a motley bunch. It didn’t take much detective work to come to that conclusion. Ben and the legal team all felt they could raise enough questions about their veracity to at least win a draw with that round.

So far, so good. But what about this new element, the diary? If it proved to be authentic, and included names and dates and places that conform to Montes’ testimony, and if the diary seems to have been kept at those times, not quickly prepared now for show time, it would be hard evidence, and hard to counter. It could tip the balance. And what did Montes write about their amorous encounters? Whether fact or fiction, it would make hot reading—like the book the Starr commission published about the blue dress and Clinton. That was downright pornographic. And did it sell!

Just as worrisome was all the talk about narcos and possible corruption of the DEA, prodded by higher ups in the U.S. government, a trail Republicans were trying to have end at the White House door.  A few fired agents and other discontents would testify to such allegations, but a hard scrub of data could find nothing in the records to suggest any impropriety. Democrats on the Judiciary Committee were pressing to have these authorities called as witnesses to counter the charges.

Mercifully, there was a two-day break in the hearings to allow members of the committee staff to review the diary and authenticate it, or not, for the committee. Ben and the staff took the break time to revise their public campaign messages to fit the dialog as it was unfolding and to develop options based on what might be coming. He was at work on this with staff members in midafternoon when Father Bob Reynolds called. Bob Reynolds was a Jesuit priest and professor of theology at Georgetown University, the Catholic Church’s flagship academic center in the Washington, D.C., area.

“Ben,” said Reynolds. “I’m so glad I caught you. I was afraid that with the mess you have on your hands you’d be as cloistered as a monk, with your head in a prayer book and hoping for divine intervention.”

Ben enjoyed Reverend Reynolds, or Bob, as he insisted on being called. Years ago, Reynolds had persuaded the diocese to hire Sage and Searer to develop a public relations and advertising campaign. As Reynolds explained it at the time, they had no intention of glossing over pedophilia or any of the other sins so visible in the Church’s immediate history. Their goal was to restore confidence among the faithful—and just as important, restore the flow of the donations being squeezed ever tighter with each new ugly revelation. This was the first contact Ben could remember having with Bob Reynolds since then.

“Bob, good to hear your voice. I hope you’ve saved many souls since last time we spoke.”

“Well that couldn’t have been too many souls, after all it was only last month.”

Before Ben could respond Bob Reynolds rushed on.

“You remember, well apparently you don’t, that we’re getting together tonight to work on the next steps in our campaign. Can’t blame you for forgetting with all else on your plate. Anyway, I just got authority to move ahead with it. It’s sure overdue. And it occurred to me I should remind you about it rather than trust your appointment book. By the way, Hank is in from Philadelphia and will join us.”

Appointment? Tonight? Hank? He hadn’t talked to Bob a month ago. He was sure of that. And who the hell was Hank? Bob obviously was talking in code. Why? Through months of preparation for the judiciary hearings Ben never considered that his phone might be tapped. Bob Reynolds obviously suspected that it was and was talking gibberish just in case. Well if someone else was listening he already had let his silence go on too long.

“Bob sorry, these days I’ve got six phones ringing at once and somebody was talking into my other two ears. Who did you say was joining us?”

“You remember Hank. The graphics guy. He’s staying with us for a few days.”

Now Ben was sure that Bob was giving him signals and that the real topic was so sensitive they couldn’t discuss it on the phone.

“It sure would be fun to see Hank again. Look, you were dead on. Tonight’s meeting would have blown right past me. I see it now on my calendar. Let me cancel a couple of things. If I run into trouble I’ll call you back, otherwise I’ll be there. What time’s best?”

“Any time after 7:00. And we’re in a new place here now. Come to Healy Hall, Room 202.”

In all the tough campaigns he’d been through, including presidential campaigns, Ben was fairly certain no one had ever tapped his phones. This obviously was a different kind of combat. How come the Reverend Bob Reynolds had figured it out? Maybe he hadn’t. Probably he hadn’t. It must have been “Hank,” whoever that was.

That evening, Ben drove from his office in Georgetown to the University campus, usually no more than a five-minute trip. But now, suddenly conscious of the possibility he was being watched as well as tapped, he wound his way around Georgetown’s narrow streets, an eye constantly in the rear view mirror. It didn’t look like he was being followed. Then he realized they wouldn’t need to follow him. If they’d listened to the conversation they knew where he was going. Ben, he said to himself after slapping his forehead, you’ve got a lot to learn about how to play in this league.

He parked on 37^th street, bordering the campus, and walked the path across the grassy Copley Lawn to Healy Hall. Was he being followed now? He didn’t think so. Fall classes were just getting under way and the campus was buzzing with new arrivals. The night was temperate, making the outside world appealing, drawing to it hordes of young company.

Healy Hall, an imposing, neo-medieval structure, was the backdrop for the movie The Exorcist. Its interior even provided scenes for the follow on, Exorcist II: The Heretic. While its exterior profile can be either picturesque or ominous depending on one’s point of view, for Georgetown University, Healy Hall is a campus nerve center. Many of the world’s most important leaders in politics, the arts, literature, and science have spoken in Healy’s Gaston Hall auditorium. Healy houses monumental libraries that would hold their own for their architecture and collections with most university libraries. Healy is where Georgetown’s president has his office. And it’s where Father Reynolds wanted to meet him.

Ben entered the building through the main entrance and walked the stairs to the second floor. “Development office” was etched on the brass plate next to the number 202. The door itself was locked. He could see nothing through the door’s glass. The lights were off.

Puzzled, Ben stood looking at the door. He was sure Bob said 202. Maybe there was another entrance. Focused on this problem he didn’t hear the figure approach him from a dark corridor.

“Ben.” It was a low, vaguely conspiratorial voice, out of the darkness in the stairwell behind him. Ben thought he was alone in the semi-darkened hallway of office suites, long-shuttered for the evening. The voice was so sudden and unexpected Ben physically jumped at the sound.

“Bob, you scared the shit out of me. Oh, Christ. Sorry for the profanity.”

“Nothing I haven’t heard before.”

Father Bob Reynolds was a bear of a man, shaped like the football tackle he was when he played for the College of William and Mary. The years and too many covered-dish suppers had added girth, and with his shaved head and generally light facial features Bob had the appearance of a clerical snowman.

Ben started to say more, but Bob raised his fingers to his own lips and motioned for Ben to follow him—down the same darkened corridor from where he appeared. The corridor led to a stairwell. They walked silently down two flights of stairs. Then another door, unmarked, which led to another flight of stairs. Now they were in the bowels of the building. Near the boilers and water systems and radiant pipes that kept Healy Hall going. The corridors were wide. An opening led to a large, bare, gym-like space marked with a sign that read “Civil Defense Shelter.”

Finally, Bob spoke.

“You know in the age of GPS and microphones that can record through walls you can never be too sure who’s tracking or listening.”

They walked a few more steps, to the end of the corridor. Bob opened a door to a small room, a meeting room capable of comfortably holding no more than a dozen people. As they entered the door, Ben was met by an unusually slim, almost pixie-like man with weathered features and, like Bob Reynolds, wearing the habit of a Jesuit priest. The visitor held out his hand like an old friend.

“Ben. So good to meet you at last. I’ve heard so much about you from my sister.”

Ben had never met this man.

“Ben,” said Father Reynolds, “Meet Father Federico Aragon.”

Ben looked at him, puzzled, still not immediately grasping the significance.

“The president’s brother.”

33

Federico Aragon’s olive features could not hide the cracks, the wrinkles, the used flesh that becomes nature’s own when devoid of human comforts. He appeared to be a man in his sixties, fully gray, including eyebrows that seemed half again too large for his otherwise oval, slim face. His shoulders formed too small a hanger, causing his clothes to float around him. A small man in a big tent. While slight physically, when Federico spoke, what emerged as voice was a surprising contrast. Deep but soft, mellow, comforting. His trade was giving comfort to the discomforted. His voice and demeanor were in harmony with his work.

Federico interrupted Ben’s awkward silence. He spoke near flawless English.

“Of course you’re surprised to see me and in these circumstances. I am what you would call something of a marked man these days in Mexico. Hopefully, no one from there knows that I am here. Bob Reynolds and I were seminary classmates and during our years there and in later work we have become good and trusting brothers. My presence here must remain a secret, and so we could not let you know beforehand.”

“The phone call...”

“My clumsy attempt to be an undercover priest,” laughed Reynolds.

“Well it worked. I’m here and I managed to get here without telling anyone.”

He turned to Federico. “So why, why are you here, and why in such secrecy?”

“Señor Ben, for many years now I have been what my people call the wandering priest. I move from village to village to serve those where there is no full-time parish. All around me there are the conflicts that come with politics and drugs, and cartels and even murders. But it’s as if I’m in a bubble. I see only the wreckage left behind. I pray for victims, I help with births and sickness. I minister the old and the penniless and all those who remain faithful even though they live in conditions where no one could blame them for cursing God for abandoning Him. All of the players in the drama around me know that my singular mission is the Church’s mission, no others. It doesn’t hurt that they know I am the grandson of Don Miguel Aragon, with whatever that might mean. Even years after his death, many violent people fear retribution if they were to harm an Aragon. It gives me a measure of safety others might not have. In fact, at times, the criminals even help support my mission.”

Bob motioned them all to sit. The room was fitted with a simple pine table and six hard backed pine chairs. On the table Bob had placed a bottle of wine and three glasses. Two of the glasses had been in use before Ben’s arrival. Now, Federico poured himself another.

“Excuse me, this wine is quite good. I enjoy comforts, you see. I haven’t forgotten how.”

Ben was taken with this priest. He spoke with ease and feeling, and despite his physical size, he had a commanding presence. The peasant priest was himself no peasant. He was an Aragon.

“So, let me explain why I’m here now. Isabel, my sister, is in a great deal of trouble, and I can help. You see, while my eyes may not reflect recognition at the evils around me, I still see them. My ears hear them. Those whom I comfort tell me many things. They know me, my background and the fact that Isabel is my sister. They know the people who are now saying that she was involved in guns and drugs and they know these are all lies. Some have been paid to lie. Others have been threatened. These facts are known where I travel.”

“Have you evidence? You simply saying it would be dismissed as a brother trying to help a sister.”

“The court you are in, Ben, is not a legal court. It’s political. And I believe I have collected and can continue to collect enough evidence to win in the political court. The question I have for you is at what point should I present it? I will do it now, or I will return when timing may be better. I will do it publicly and in any forum where it will help Isabel.”

Ben refilled his wine glass and looked hard at this unlikely man who was promising to save the Tennyson presidency.

“Why are you contacting me, and not your sister directly, or people on her staff or our legal team?”

“Isabel would send me back to Mexico with an armed guard if she knew I was here, and especially if she knew I was walking on dangerous ground. We are very close. She cares deeply about my welfare and worries constantly about my travels through dangerous areas. Whatever I do publicly must be done in a way that she suspects nothing in advance.

“As for why I wanted to speak to you, it is because of the danger. If I were to contact anyone in your government or your legal team, they would know immediately. They are everywhere. Of all those helping her, you are the least likely to be watched by them. And if you are watched, Bob Reynolds is your client. You being with him is a business call. I believe this is the safest way to get my message to all of you. Now I have. Discuss this with those defending her and let me know when and where to appear. But it should be a time when it makes the most difference, when it can move the most of your public and the votes she needs to survive and clear her name. If it’s too soon they will have time to defame me and others and find other ways to question my evidence.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

Federico looked quite surprised at the question. Ben didn’t know?

“The rich. The powerful. The strongest and most dangerous interest group in the world.”

“Rich and powerful? Do you mean banks, oil companies? Who are they?”

Again, Federico was struck by the question.

“Señor Ben. The wealth of the world is held in very few hands. Some are in my country. Some are in yours. They are everywhere. On every continent. And they are into everything. Oil and banks, yes. But they have fortunes they inherited. They are dictators and others from corrupt regimes. They own and control great parcels of land and great industries. Look at the people who run the drug cartels and who thrive in the world weapon trade.”

“Are you saying these people are connected?”

“They have more in common with each other than they have with any nation they live in. They are their own interest group, powerfully influencing what others do in finance and trade and transportation and everything else that matters to them, even military actions, even selective enforcement of laws where that suits their interests. Everyone talks about the one percent, or maybe the tenth of one percent. These are the hundredth of one percent. So few but so powerful.  Did you know that just sixty people—sixty—have as much wealth as three billion on the lowest rungs of income? Of course, not everyone in this class is so motivated by greed or use their power selfishly or criminally.  But many do.  I know this from my own experience with the Aragon Company.  I was once apprenticed to be one of them. 

He paused for a minute to take another sip from his wine glass, enjoying his brief encounter with the spirits inside.

“Isabel knows these things, too. That’s why they are trying to destroy her. As long as she is president of the United States she is a threat to them.”

Ben turned to Bob Reynolds.

“Do you agree with Federico, there’s a conspiracy among an element of the super-rich to bring down the president?”

“Ben, the Church is everywhere, too. We see things we don’t or can’t talk about if we want to stay on our primary targets—saving souls and helping the poor. We do what we can, but we’re not big enough to take on the people Federico’s talking about. If we openly tried it would go hard on the Church and even harder on our people. We’re totally aware of this problem and danger.”

For the next two hours, Federico described to Ben the nature of his evidence, the names of others who would testify on Tenny’s behalf, the pressure, the bribes, the threats, all connected with those testifying against her.

They knew of Gabe’s affair with Tenny. He didn’t know how they found Gabe, but once they did, they set up the arrest in Mexicali to own him. Gabe was a fraud. Hotel registers had been forged to show Tenny and Gabe as guests where they never were, at times they never were there. Drug enforcement people who testified were doing so either because of cartel threats or for pay or because they or their families were being blackmailed.

How did Federico come by all this information? His connection with President Tennyson was well known. His friends throughout the region began warning him as soon as she was elected president. Questions were being asked. People were being made offers. Villagers don’t need fiber optics to communicate with one another.

They parted as they met, with handshakes in the evacuation center, sealed from GPS and unwanted listening devices.

“Where will you go now?” asked Ben.

“Back to my mission. It would be suspicious to everyone if I did not keep my schedule.”

“Where do they think you are?”

“Houston. At a week-long retreat Jesuit priests attend each year. We wear hoods a lot, you know. It’s hard to tell one of us from another when we are together. It’s quite a good disguise.”

Federico could be as impish as his sister. It must run in the family, Ben thought.

“And how do we find you again?

“Through me,” said Reynolds. “Tomorrow I will sign a contract with your firm to update our PR program. You’ll have business reasons to be in contact with me on a regular basis. It won’t appear suspicious. I’ll know how to find Federico on short notice.”

They left Federico alone in the small room while Reynolds escorted Ben up the stairs. Before they reached the top landing, Ben stopped and turned to Reynolds.

“How is this peasant priest able to come to Washington in secret and have enough cover so that anyone else might think he was at a Catholic retreat in Houston?”

“The Church is a big organization, Ben. We’ve got a lot of resources.”

“So you’re not the only man of the cloth who’s in on this?”

“Me? No, he laughed. I’m the messenger boy.”

“Who else knows?”

“He’s got a lot of fellow priests in Mexico. The confession booths are quite a grapevine of information—sort of like an ancient internet.”

“And these priests can act politically on their own?”

“In a tightly structured organization like the Catholic Church? Hardly.”

“You mean,” here Ben hesitated before saying what just popped into his head.

“The Vatican knows and is trying to help us?”

Father Reynolds gave him a wink along with a final handshake.

“The Church greatly admires President Tennyson.”

34

The small strategy group gathered in the conference room of Delacott and Seltzer, the lead law firm handling Tenny’s impeachment defense, listened transfixed as Ben related the details of his meeting with Federico Aragon. A number of those present being lawyers, Ben became the object of rapid cross examination. Federico’s manner of telling. Did it seem authentic? Did he perspire? Fidget? Stumble at inappropriate times? How strong were his sources? Would they be accepted as confirmation? Some at the table remained skeptical that Federico’s testimony would be credible, given his family relationship.

Alistair Seltzer, the lead litigator and the face of the defense, saw nothing but opportunity in Federico’s testimony and fended off the concerns of others on his team. Their case was thin enough. They could use all the help available, and if Federico was as convincing as Ben described, a collared priest who could handle hostile cross examination would at least increase the level of doubt about the charges. Doubt was their first line of defense. The more uncertainty, the less likelihood of the opposition getting to sixty-seven votes.

The Senate vote was genuinely in doubt. Revealing Federico in that forum, at the right moment, could break the impeachment fever. There were two beneficial effects of waiting until near the end of the process to reveal Federico. It would give the opposition little time to discredit him before a final vote. And it would keep Tenny from protecting him by quashing his appearance. Although it was exceedingly irregular, the accused could not know about her most important defense witness until he was called to the witness stand. They all would have to deal with her wrath afterward.



Chairman Bowman ran a tight ship. The House Judiciary Committee compressed its hearings into three weeks, a fraction of the eight-week marathon the public endured during the Clinton impeachment. With Clinton, the public ultimately overdosed on relentless carping and turned aggressively negative against the Republican accusers. This Republican leadership was determined not to repeat that mistake. Also driving the accelerated committee timetable was the presidential election year calendar. President Tennyson had now made it clear to all that, unless she was removed from office, she would run for re-election. The Republicans felt they had to dispose of President Tennyson before year’s end, before the primaries gave her more forums to raise her positive profile.

During those tightly scheduled three weeks, a conga line of remarkable witnesses snaked in and out of the witness chair. Juan Manuel Ibarra, a clerk at Hotel Bolivar in San Salvador, verifying a signature for Gabriel Montes, one room, king-size bed, two people, on a night Montes’ diary said he and Señora Tennyson shared a room.

Carl Tessen, a Chilean bank examiner, testifying that señora Tennyson committed fraud in withholding vital information as the Temuco bank merged with Groupo Aragon.

Jesus Guzman, identified as a regional cartel boss, shown on video, face in shadow and voice garbled to hide identification, testifying he had connections inside the management of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency helping move heroin across the border from Ciudad Juarez to El Paso, Texas.  

The governor of California, Harold Thompson, denying that he appointed Isabel Aragon to the Senate because of their “personal” relations.  

No, said the governor, Ms. Tennyson did not blackmail him into the appointment with threats to expose their history. And no, he knew of no situation where the president used her body to gain any advantage during her terms in Congress or their work together in the L.A. Lights movement.

Richard Legar, an American who worked at the Fiesta Hotel restaurant in Tampico, testified to seeing President Tennyson, then a U.S. senator, meeting a man there. Legar was from San Diego, California, and was certain the woman he saw was his senator, but because he feared the criminal climate of Tampico, he was afraid to approach her. She obviously did not want to be recognized. He didn’t know the man, but it could have been Montes. Senate records showed her in Mexico City on that date. Why the subterfuge in a place as dangerous as Tampico if she had nothing to hide?

Committee counsel Polanski also presented a thick file of executive branch documents that committee staff authenticated as having passed through the Department of Treasury and the Department of Homeland Security, messages that could be interpreted as coded instructions to clear a path for Mexican contraband. Was the White House tampering with border enforcement and banking practices in ways that helped cartels and Latino banks? The paper trail was suggestive, but not clear cut.

How do you respond to such charges? Deny. Deny. Deny. But it was like taking a scissors to smoke. The charges were sensational. Those making them seemed so certain. A few pieces of hard evidence were like anchors, holding the looser accusations in place and making it difficult for the defense to sweep circumstantial testimony aside. Worse, it was good theater. Novel entertainment. As the hearings continued, the committee’s viewer rating increased. Networks were finding they could charge more for advertising during the live daytime hours and the nightly reruns of the day’s testimony. That was all they needed to give the hearings more air time and to promote them more heavily.

The president had given her deposition early, heeding advice from her strategy team not to appear live before the committee. That would only draw a larger audience and subject her to the hostile questions of the committee’s Republicans. The growing wall of testimony refuting her sworn statements prompted a decision to have her return for a second round of closed-door depositions. Many of the lies had to be challenged. Her research team provided strong rebuttals, backing up her own memory and testimony.

Would Tenny’s denials and the weak case against her allow her to survive? No one on her team felt particularly confident. As Federico correctly pointed out, this was a political fight, not a legal one. The media sowed considerable doubt about Tenny’s integrity. The accusations were grafted onto embedded nativist prejudice against Tenny’s Latino background. A strong minority of Americans still hadn’t overcome that hurdle.

On straight party-line votes, the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment.

Article One accused the president of illegally interfering with the proper enforcement of border security by using her office to directly abet the movement of weapons and narcotics across the United States-Mexico border.

Article Two accused the president of participation in an illegal scheme to hide drug cartel money from authorities.

Article Three accused the president of lying to a committee of Congress about her involvement in these alleged crimes.

The action would move to the House floor, where Speaker Bo Willard and his Republican majority were waiting with barely concealed glee. The Democrats had sent President Nixon off to inglorious early retirement. Republicans had failed to return the favor with Bill Clinton. They would not miss this time. Willard lost no time in scheduling the debate.

During the Clinton impeachment, more than 200 members spoke. Willard expected no fewer than that for and against President Tennyson. Even with tight speaking time limits, the whole process would likely take three weeks. No one on either side of the debate believed the outcome was in doubt. This was a battle the President was not likely to win in the House. And she didn’t.

The day the House voted to impeach President Tennyson was also the day Senator Reed Guess died.

Guess died at home, his family at his side. Tenny had been a frequent visitor there, and for weeks earlier at Bethesda Naval Hospital. The call informing her of his death was no surprise. For the past two days he had been in a coma. But the finality touched her as deeply as the deaths of her own mother and father had. She rested her head on her desk in the Oval Office and did something she rarely did—let tears flow freely.

The Senate went into temporary recess so that members could travel to Connecticut for the final services. Tenny was there as well, delivering a eulogy for her friend, the man whose untimely cancer diagnosis made it possible for her to be president.

35

Removing a president from office is not civil war or a military coup, but it is wrenching to democracy. The majority of voters have elected a president. Now a majority of Congress is asked to override that decision. Because impeachment awls to the very core of a democratic process, the Constitution sets up a number of safeguards and hurdles before a president can be removed. The chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, not an active political figure, presides over the Senate trial. Senate rules require each senator to walk to the front of the chamber and sign an oath book pledging to do “impartial justice.” The vote needs to be overwhelming: two-thirds of the body, 67 of the 100 senators must agree. There is no cross-examination. Senators submit questions in writing. The Chief Justice reads them and the prosecution and defense answer them.

The House sent ten “managers” to the Senate to argue for the removal of President Tennyson. Eight defense lawyers represented the president. For two days the prosecution argued its case. On the third day the body was stunned to see President Tennyson in the Speaker’s well. An enormous risk, but a calculated one. The defense team looked ahead and saw only uncertainty. Every argument in its arsenal would need to be deployed, including the president herself.

She stood alone in the Speaker’s well of the United States Senate, stripped of the trappings that go with the State of the Union address and other symbols of presidential power. A lonely figure, armed only with a lapel microphone in the fight to salvage her honor and her legacy. No written speech. No teleprompter. No aides handing her notes.

But President Tennyson didn’t need any of it to keep 100 Senators, a packed visitor’s gallery, and a television audience counted in the tens of millions riveted on her performance.

For thirty-eight minutes she held the floor, extemporaneously answering each of the impeachment articles voted on by the House. Point-by-point, she defended herself, with names, dates, and context. While her presentation was heavy with facts, it also was light with personal vignettes, even humor when she discussed her relationships with men. And no surprise, considering the pummeling she had endured through the U.S. House impeachment proceedings, she often surfaced barely concealed anger.

The usually staid senators could not suppress smiles and even some laughter as she dismissed the charge that she helped former Peruvian banker Gabriel Montes launder Mexican cartel money.

“Did we have an affair?” she said, “We certainly did, and it was a great one while it lasted. As most woman and even many men will agree he’s a handsome and charming devil. But he’s also a lying, thieving scoundrel. It took me a few months to catch on to the real Gabriel Montes. When I did I promptly ended the relationship. Mr. Montes stalked me for years afterward with notes and phone calls. His testimony that we resumed a relationship or that we have had any contact since I stopped seeing him is total fabrication.

“Numerous handwriting experts have testified that the hotel registers he presented as so-called evidence were doctored to make it seem we were there on later dates. Analysis shows that his so-called diary was created not over a period of years, but over the course of a few days to fool gullible people who preferred not to accept the scientific proof of its forgery. I’m stunned that the majority of the Judiciary Committee would fall for this charade. If this were a court of law none of what he presented as evidence of my involvement with him or money laundering on his behalf would be accepted. There is no evidence of it. There is no case. There are no grounds for this article of impeachment.

“For those of you who are happily married, I envy you. But let me ask, did you have relationships with others before marriage? Were there some relationships you would prefer to forget?  And for those of you who no longer are married or have never been married, have you had relationships that are no longer enduring? That’s life, isn’t it? We move on, don’t we? These are not criminal acts. And neither was mine with Mr. Montes.”

In comparing her love life with theirs, the president connected with many of the senators sitting in judgement. Her comments evoked considerable nods, smiles and more than one senator to exhibit momentary embarrassment.

Countering charges that the White House had interfered with border enforcement of drug and weapon control laws, the president reaffirmed what her counsel had argued during House impeachment hearings, that incriminating agency documents were forgeries.

“Ask yourselves,” she demanded of the senators, “why on earth would I do such a thing? Where is the motive? Money? Really? I’ve revealed my wealth. Check it out. My interest in getting more Americans hooked on drugs? I spent six years of my life working the streets of Los Angeles, helping drugs’ victims. Helping the gun trade? The NRA has spent millions trying to defeat me in elections. It makes no sense at all. I have no answer for how those documents got there or who put them there. But I do have an answer for whether I or anyone I instructed tampered with border security. The answer is an emphatic no.”

In interviews that followed her speech, the president’s supporters were ecstatic.

Senate President Pro tem Stuart Alcantra said, “I believe she secured her position today. From beginning to end, it was one of the most powerful presentations I’ve heard in my thirty-six years in the Senate.”

Senator Lisle Garabali of New Jersey said, “She came through the fire stronger than ever. She’s like steel.”

When the president completed her testimony there was no applause. Neither was there anyone to immediately challenge anything just said. She spoke long enough to consume the morning session and require a break. It was the ultimate in media management. All of the day’s stories were about Tenny and her defense.

The media generated by Tenny’s performance flowed like fine champagne. She had delivered many perfect edit points for broadcast news to clip and air. Her frankness was jarring and rang of truth and authenticity. Her energy was compelling and contagious. The print media, which for months had feasted on ominous stories about her, radiated with writers and editors won over by her. It was a great day for the home team.

Ben had known her for twenty years, through multiple political campaigns, countless speeches on her own behalf and for other candidates and causes. With her Senate defense she had reached the top of the mountain.

It was too early to declare victory, but the scent of it was in the air. Federico was scheduled to deliver his evidence the following Tuesday. After Federico’s testimony, Ben planned to double down on the media campaign to win public support.

That was on Friday. On Saturday, the defense team met to discuss Federico’s appearance and final arguments. With momentum clearly on their side and poll numbers confirming it, Ben allowed himself a second martini Saturday night during dinner with Lee. Later, back in his apartment, still in an upbeat frame of mind, he watched the movie Moneyball for the third time. He loved that movie. The path to success in sports was presented as he had walked it in politics. Decades ago, in his first political campaigns, Ben had to overcome generations of campaign dogma. Until then, campaign decisions were about feeling things in the gut, getting Charley in ward six to deliver, distributing enough campaign pins and bumper stickers and yard signs. Ben was a pioneer in changing all of that.

He demonstrated that gut decision making worked much better if based on polls and other research data. He was one of the first consultants to go all-in on television ads, even if it meant no money for bumper stickers. In Moneyball, past performance was dissected and analyzed, and where it competed with the gut of the long-time team scouts, the numbers won. And so it was in politics. For his first six years in the business Ben didn’t lose a campaign. Not one. No matter the odds or how steep the hill to climb.

Tonight, Ben emptied much of the bottle of his favorite gin while he watched baseball parallels of his own career flick by.

So when the phone rang at 7:30 Sunday morning, he was groggier than usual. At his age, getting up was more of a process under any circumstance. Feeling the first aches and pains of the day. Compounded this morning by something he seldom felt any more. An alcohol-driven hangover.

“Ben, Deacon.”

That woke him up. Deacon? At this hour on Sunday morning?

“Federico’s dead.”

“How?”

“Bullet in his brain.”

“Oh my God, they murdered him.”

Ben was standing now, fully awake. Ice replacing blood in his veins.

“They found a suicide note.”

“Suicide? Federico didn’t commit suicide.”

“The note said he realized his sister was guilty and he couldn’t live with the shame.”

Ben sat back on the bed. Legs weak. He suddenly felt a powerful urge to defecate.

“Does she know?”

“She’s in with the White House counsel team now. I think she’s working on a letter of resignation.”

36

In little more than half an hour, Ben managed to compose himself, pick up Bob Reynolds in a taxi and arrive at the White House. The front lawn was shoulder to shoulder with television cameras and media people waiting for anything, a blowing leaf, a passing sentry, or expectantly, a chastened president prepared to make a statement.

Ben and Bob Reynolds didn’t pass through that gauntlet. They entered on the National Mall side where the White House cooks and cleaners and other functionaries enter and leave. If they were seen by media eyes, they were not recognized. Ben was counselor to the president, a familiar figure to White House security. Reynolds was used to faking his way past surprised guardians. Few want to quibble with a priest, especially when accompanied by a known insider like Ben Sage.

The West Wing was in a state of paralysis, an army without marching orders, not knowing whether to gird for a fight or turn over their swords to a conquering enemy. Phones were ringing but few knew what to say other than, I’ll call you back. Ben stopped at Deacon’s desk.

“Where are we?”

“They’ve been in there for about an hour. The only others except her counsel are Lawson and McKitrick from the national security team. I’d guess they brought her more details about what happened. “

“How did she take the news?”

“With a stony stare. No screams, no tears, no words at all. I’d say if that bullet had hit her brain, not Federico’s, that’s how she would look in the first seconds after. Like she was either instantly dead or only temporarily upright before the body recognizes that it’s all over.”

“We’re going in.”

“You can’t. She said absolutely no one. Including me.”

Without a word, Ben grabbed Reynolds by the arm and sprinted into the Oval Office, past a very surprised Secret Service agent at the door, who quickly collected himself and barged in after them.

The president was at her desk. The White House counsel and national security executives were seated in chairs facing her.

“It’s all right,” said Tenny when she saw Ben and Reynolds, “Leave them be.”

The guard retreated.

“Sorry, Ben. I can’t talk with you now. You’ll have to leave.”

“Not until you hear what Father Reynolds has to say. This is Father Bob Reynolds, a friend of Federico’s, a great friend. Federico trusted him to deliver a message to you if anything happened to him.”

She stood up, startled.

Without waiting for an invitation to speak, Reynolds told of Federico’s secret visit to Washington weeks earlier. The letters, the copies of emails, photos from hidden cameras, the audio recordings. The network of priests and other Federico loyalists who had been collecting this evidence for nearly a year, ever since the first rumors began. That’s what he hoped to deliver in person at the critical time, to break the back of the conspiracy. He was supposed to be here today. He was planning to go public with all of this right here in Washington Tuesday. That’s why he was murdered.

Tenny stood staring at Reynolds, both arms on her desk for support, leaning forward, straining forward, as if with effort she could hear Federico himself.

“Madam President, please understand, Federico was incredibly brave to do all of this while ministering inside the climate of death and torture that raged all around him. It’s to Federico’s lasting credit and the bravery of many others that all of this testimony was collected and recorded for you. You must continue this fight or else Federico’s death and the probable death and torture of others will be for nothing.”

She stared at Reynolds for a moment, sat back down and closed her eyes.

“He didn’t commit suicide. I know that,” she said quietly.

“It is a sin against God to take a life, even one’s own,” said Reynolds. “He didn’t commit suicide and he didn’t write that note. How could he, when his life for the past year has been dedicated to saving yours.”

“Our counterparts in Mexican intelligence also don’t believe it was suicide.”

She rose from behind her desk and walked to the curved bay window looking out on the National Ellipse. Her back was to everyone else in the room.

“I’ve prepared my letter of resignation. Even if everything you say is true, after today my reputation is ruined. People will always doubt. Even if I survive the Senate vote, how effective can I be?”

The gravity of the moment pressed down on everyone in the Oval Office. It became harder to breath, to think, to talk. Ben broke the silence.

“You can’t resign. You simply can’t.”

He moved around the desk to face her.

“Federico spoke of a conspiracy, and when I asked him who was behind it, who were the “they,” he said the rich and powerful. You’re their target because you were once one of them. You know what they do and you know who they are. That makes you dangerous, really dangerous to them. And indispensable to everyone else. If you go now the rest of us are their victims. It’s not just your fight.”

“He loved you,” said Ben. “But he also saw you as a vehicle to bring justice to the very people and causes he’d devoted his life to. He enlisted a small, dedicated, heroic army to protect you. It’s their fight, too. Theirs, mine, everyone’s. Everyone who trusted you. Who still trust you.”

Reynolds had been present to comfort the afflicted in countless moments of grief. Now he did what his life’s instincts trained him to do. He stepped toward Tenny and grasped her hand. Her head bowed from the weight of her sorrow. Her hand tightened in his. The room remained quiet while they appeared to silently pray together.

Deacon burst through the door.

“Sorry to interrupt, Madam President, but you’ve just had an urgent message. I felt you should see it immediately.”

He handed it to her.

She read the note and closed her eyes as if to shut out everything she had heard and seen this ghastly Sunday morning.

The note read “May God be with you and guide you in your hour of sorrow. Father Aragon was our brother, too, and we, as all who knew him, grieve. We pray for him and for your continued stewardship of your great nation.”

It was signed, Monsignor Alfredo Moretti

Without disclosing the contents of the note, Tenny turned to Father Reynolds.

“Who is Alfredo Moretti?”

“The Holy Father’s personal secretary,” said Reynolds.

Apparently Reynolds had been in contact with a higher power before getting into Ben’s taxi.

37

The camera crews began gathering on the White House lawn shortly after sunrise. Overnight desks picked up the story of Federico’s death from Mexican news sources. The initial stories featured the damning suicide note with little questioning of authenticity. The note was universally seen by the media as the death knell for the Tennyson administration.

Network anchors and their A reporting teams were roused from their Sunday morning beds to handle what clearly would be one of the biggest news events in years. Throughout the morning hours, news editors scrambled to fill time until hard news came from the White House. Members of Congress who had been on the front lines of the impeachment effort were like hounds unleashed, recapping the worst of the accusations with glowing self-actuated auras of righteousness as early diviners of corruption. Tenny’s most devoted supporters were cautious in their defense, this morning’s high watermark being to urge everyone to forgo judgment until the facts were known—responses dredged from a well of sadness rather than spirited conviction.

In the absence of news, there was rumor. A White House staffer seen carrying a box to her car. That set off a pack chasing the idea that staffers were told to empty their desks. Someone said they thought they recognized a doctor entering the White House through the adjacent executive office building. That could only mean that the president was physically or emotionally in distress. A standard 8:00 a.m. changing of the security team at the vice president’s residence sent cameras racing there on the presumption that the Secret Service had been alerted about a change in command.

The media anticipated a resignation and wasn’t shy about passing on that expectation to the public. Sunday morning talk shows cancelled their planned guests so that their crews and anchors and all their resources could stay focused on what was happening at the White House. That presumption was justified by two events. White House press secretary Carlton Bliss had confirmed that the president was with top members of the White House counsel staff and also with leaders of her national security team. These meetings certainly would be needed prior to any formal resignation. Then, at 11:00 a.m., the leadership of Congress appeared on the front lawn, in full view of the cameras. Their unity made its own statement. They walked silently, faces grim. None would answer questions.  

When they filed into the Oval Room, Tenny rose, greeted each of them with hugs, and with tears in her eyes.

“Madam President,” began Senator Pro Tem Stuart Alcantra, “please accept our deepest sympathy for the loss of your brother.”

Still standing, she hushed Alcantra with a wave of her hand.

“Thank you, Stuart. Thank you all. I know why you’re here, and I’m willing to abide by your judgment. But before you make that call, I’m going to leave you to talk privately with George McKitrick and his intelligence team about what they’ve learned from Mexico. They are in the cabinet room waiting for you. Let me introduce Father Bob Reynolds, who I imagine you don’t know. He has information you should be aware of. Please use my office. I’ll be in my residence. Call me when you’re ready to talk.” With that, she, Carmie, and Fish, who had arrived to comfort her, were gone. The others remained.

It was a cloudless November day in Washington. The lack of cloud cover sent temperatures into the mid-20s. Despite the cold, thousands of people had gathered in Lafayette Park, around the Ellipse, along Pennsylvania Avenue, waiting, sharing what appeared to be a memorable moment in history. No waving signs in support or to protest. In fact, there was the silence of mourning. Mourning for what? Promises either not kept or unfulfilled? Hopes dashed, again, with the pain of disappointment? A mourning for a country, a process, a friend gone bad? At 1:18 p.m., the congressional delegation reappeared on the White House lawn, this time ready to speak to the cameras, and through them to the by now tens of millions of Americans drawn to the drama unfolding at the White House.

Senator Pro Tem Stuart Alcantra, Democrat from Wisconsin, the longest serving member of the Senate, was the lead spokesperson for the group. He had no prepared speech, but from long experience before cameras and crowds he needed none.

“This is a time for honesty, for total candor, for the absence of partisan politics and pettiness. That’s the spirit that motivated all of us to come here today. We came to suggest that in light of the tragic death of the president’s brother, and the circumstances of it, the president should consider resigning her office in the best interest of the people of the United States. That was our assessment of what we knew then. But during the past two hours we have been made aware of new circumstances, new evidence, all of which raises serious questions as to whether the death of Father Federico Aragon was in fact a suicide and whether the note left at his side was authentic. We have seen written documents and spoken with Mexican authorities that place the matter in much doubt. The president was as frank with us as we were with her. In fact, she offered to abide by our judgment on whether she should resign the presidency.

“After discussing this among ourselves we advised President Tennyson to remain on the job she was elected to do. The evidence and whatever information may yet be revealed should be presented through the Senate’s consideration of the articles of impeachment now before it. The full Senate should be given an opportunity to resolve this question in the constitutionally proscribed way.

“We all extend to the president and her family our deepest sympathy for her loss. Given the fact that the future of her presidency is being litigated in the Senate, and that the Senate is the forum for the presentation of facts and evidence, we will take no questions. Thank you.”

The members quickly retreated to the White House door where two black SUVs waited to spirit them away.

The media crews, the anchors, the thousands on the streets and the tens of millions connected electronically had been waiting all day for a final chapter of the Tennyson presidency. Instead, as the day ended, they were left with nothing but the expectation of more to come.

38

There was no precedent for all of this. No rule book. The House had made its case for impeachment, published its report, cast its vote. That record now had to be considered against the evidence supplied by the late Reverend Federico Aragon. Much of it was authenticated in the days following its release to the Senate leadership. The Mexican government was cooperating fully. President Isabel Aragon Tennyson was hugely popular in Mexico. She was, after all, a native daughter, the strongest and most successful advocate for immigrant rights, a woman who had been generous supporting Mexican art and scholarship and those in need. If she were to run for president of Mexico she would be a landslide winner. Mexico’s leaders understood all of this. Their popular support now was tied to hers. Federico’s death and a suicide note that at first seemed to be a smoking gun in the case against President Tennyson now increasingly appeared to be the strongest evidence on behalf of her innocence. Indeed, her victimization.

In the two weeks since that dramatic Sunday, public opinion polls had shifted wildly. From narrow approval of her on the eve of the Federico’s death, to free fall in the days following the original reporting. With the new evidence the polls showed a recovery for her of sorts. That recovery would have been more robust but for a massive right-wing campaign to stunt it.

Opponents were everywhere with suspicions of CIA complicity, cover-up, corrupt Mexicans coming to her defense, forged documents. Conspiracy theories were rich Internet currency. All of this fed into the now riveting debate on the floor of the Senate, where managers for and against her continued to argue the impeachment indictment, all being telecast for an audience of hundreds of millions, in the United States and around the world. Tensions and audiences were building. A final vote deadline was scheduled within a week.

When Ben rushed Father Reynolds to the White House, he hadn’t seen the evidence Federico had left behind. His only information had come from the conversation with Federico. In the days since the drama at the White House he had time to review that evidence thoroughly. Aside from the details, a number of questions continued to puzzle him.

How, for instance, did Federico, a single, penniless priest, traveling alone in the poorest byways of Mexico, manage to recruit and organize so many others to his cause? What he presented was a significant portfolio, collected over many months, obviously requiring more travel and money than Federico had time for and possessed. Ben kept thinking of that wink Father Reynolds had given him at the end of his meeting with Federico, when he asked whether the Vatican knew about this. The timing of the message that arrived at the White House after Federico’s murder was exquisitely perfect to influence Tenny’s decision. Was there a war room in the Vatican mirroring their own? Was the Pope himself aware, or even directing it?

And that led to the second question. The campaign to remove the president was too clever and on too grand a scale for it to be a creature of domestic politics. Certainly the Republicans knew opportunity when they saw it and jumped aboard with glee and relish. At this very moment, they were fighting hard in the media and on the floor of the Senate to finish the job. But those were not the guys who recruited Gabe and the others to testify against Tenny, or who created bogus written evidence that backed up lying testimony. Republicans certainly did not kill Federico. This was the stuff of intelligence professionals. Working at whose bidding? Was it so crazy an idea that there existed a sort of super-wealthy Spectre as in the James Bond books and movies?

Tenny quickly recovered from her bout with doubt and her flirtation with resignation. Once she had decided to remain in office and fight efforts to remove her, she went into full campaign mode. She regrouped, composed herself and asked the networks for five minutes the following night to deliver a message. It was a message that expressed her love for Federico, her pain at his loss, assurance to other nations of U.S. leadership continuity, and a willingness to abide by the Senate’s decision, whatever it might be. That was a lot to pack into five minutes, but she did it reverentially, and forcefully.

Then she hit the road and the phones to shore up public support and to put pressure on senators who her team believed still could be persuaded to vote against the impeachment resolutions. Ben and Lee had mapped out a full schedule, and she agreed. She was theirs, just as she was during the campaign that elected her. But she insisted on one detour. The leaders of the immigration reform movement had scheduled a long-delayed victory party, shelved until the Supreme Court made its final judgement on the act’s legality. That judgement was in, the act was preserved, and now it was time to party. Tenny was not going to miss it.

Henry Deacon, her chief of staff, was scheduled to accompany her that night, but a crisis in the South China Sea kept him chained to his desk. Rita Gonzales, Tenny’s long-time top aide on immigration policy went to the hotel early to help the advance team with arrangements. It was unusual for Tenny to travel alone, but everything about the last few weeks had been unusual. She headed to the Washingtonia Grand hotel with just her security escort and the knowledge that tonight would be tonic after all she had endured in recent weeks.

39

She arrived at the hotel later than scheduled. The president had hoped to be there for the earlier cocktail party, to shake hands, stand for photos, share the evening personally with those who meant so much to her and her campaign to win immigration reform. No matter, she would stay later. This was a festive evening. Pleasure does not keep time as rigorously as pain.

A two-story elevator ride lifted the president and her security team to the ballroom floor. Hotel manager Glen Freiberg greeted her as the elevator doors opened into the hotel’s enormous kitchen, alive with staff in the final stages of preparing the largest sit down dinner the new hotel had ever served. As was her custom before making any public appearance, the president asked to take one last look at herself before becoming the center of attraction. Freiberg escorted her to a bathroom to the left of the elevator doors. Check your hair, your lipstick, assess your appearance and how you will look close up on television. Take a few deep breaths to calm yourself. It was a ritual she followed through her political career.

Four minutes later, a brisk walk through the kitchen with frequent handshakes—cooks, waiters and other staff, many of whom themselves secured by the new immigration law. Now she was behind a curtain veiling her from the banquet floor, greeted by long-time friend and ally Leon Rivas, chairman of the Immigration Reform Coordinating Committee. They embraced warmly and exchanged whispered words.

“Ready?” he asked. She nodded.

“Great night,” he added.

She breathed deeply and closed her eyes.

Rivas cued the evening’s master of ceremonies, Florida Senator Carson Coulter. Coulter had been filling time on stage, introducing notables, raising the emotional temperature of the crowd for the president’s arrival. With the signal from Rivas, Coulter lifted his arms dramatically as if to levitate everyone in the room.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” his rich baritone boomed, “the president of the United States.”

A brassy “Hail to The Chief” bounced off the ballroom’s hard surfaces, amplifying both the sound and the excitement. President Tennyson strode quickly onto the stage, an energetic, hands-waving entrance, the image of victory.

The moment she stepped onto the stage was a rush back in time. Time when her presence ignited spontaneous crowd combustion. Her first campaign for Congress in Los Angeles, the victory march through California for the Senate, the amazing Alamo presidential campaign launch and the tens of thousands who would come to see her, touch her, hear her words as she went from city to city running for president. Tonight, for the first time since descent into the ugly world of impeachment, she could feel the love, and the trust, and the expectation. Worn thin lately, but not tonight. Tonight was hers. These were her people.

The ovation was deafening, sustained, overriding the orchestra. Many in the room had lived their adult lives with the uncertainty of place and belonging. For so many, the war now was over. Victory achieved. This was V-J Day and for tonight, this ballroom was Times Square.

Television cameras were live, as they were at most of the president’s events these days, recording what could be the last moments of her historic presidency. The images shown now were caviar to cable television directors, a rich visual feast of expressive faces, tears, embraces. The president, triumphant, love enveloping her, love she requited with each air blown kiss.

Then the cameras went dark. Black. Suddenly and ominously. All of them at once. Those watching on television could no longer see anything.

Those in the ballroom saw hell.

The explosion shattered the south wall of the ballroom. Through that opening rocketed a fireball so intense it incinerated those directly in its path. Lethal black smoke roared through the wall’s splintered openings. The ballroom’s thunderous cheers dissolved abruptly into total silence. It happened so quickly. Too quickly for screams. Now, only occasional shattering of falling glass. A throat, gagging. Little else. Table salads dressed a sea of bodies. Exit signs blinked red, too late for warning.

Lincoln Howard, the Washingtonia Grand’s chief of security, quickly regained his feet and raced up two flights of stairs from the security office to the ballroom level. The dark cloud blowing through the ballroom doors flashed scenes etched in his memory from two tours in Iraq. Howard ducked into a bathroom, surprising three women standing immobile at the sinks. “Get out!” he shouted to them. “Get out of the hotel!” They ran. He grabbed fistfuls of cloth hand towels, soaked them in water and raced into the ballroom through a door closest to the stage, wet towels covering his face.

Howard was no stranger to dead and wounded bodies. But his years in the Marine Corps never produced a scene like the one at the other end of his flashlight beam. It was as if a deranged choreographer had positioned a vast expanse of bodies on the floor, bodies partially hidden by white table cloths. Shrouds. Shrouds adorned with memorial wreaths of flowers, scattered from dinner tables by the force of the explosion.

Despite the arc of horror framed by the blackness beyond flashlight range, the stench of something, what, chemicals of some kind, he took a few tentative steps on a floor now slippery, sticky with salad oil and vinegar, water from overturned vases, wine, the color of blood, mixing with the still bleeding bodies all around him. Howard edged into the ballroom swinging his light’s beam, searching for movement, any sign that someone was alive, anyone who might claim priority for removal from this grotesque tableau.

Back and forth he swung his light, one delicate step after another, feeling the terrible softness of draining life under his shoes. Then he saw her. With disbelieving eyes, he saw her. On her back, as still as the parquet floor beneath her, a woman in a green suit, right sleeve hanging from her shoulder, skirt pock-marked with what appeared to be charred holes from tongues of flame, blood painting her forehead and cheeks. The president of the United States was in the tight beam of his flashlight, for the moment, a star, spot-lit, the center of his attention, his alone, her eyelids tightly shut. Nothing about her suggested life.

Howard lifted her gently, arms tightly wrapped around her as precious cargo. Once in the light of the hotel lobby he carefully laid her on a sofa and used a wet towel to wipe blood from her cheeks and forehead.

Only one television remote truck survived the blast, the one from local Channel 6. Gloria Graham, a tech intern pressed into on-air commentary, was the only voice of live coverage. Harley Littlefield, a Channel 6 videographer, manned the only live camera at the scene.

Littlefield’s daily grind was covering traffic accidents long over and fires long extinguished. He had learned long ago to be inventive about how to make stale stories seem interesting. Here he needed no camera tricks. Everywhere he turned there was anguish, panic, smoke and suffering. He was in the front row while the show was still in act one. No shortage of powerful images. He headed for the large glass main entrance doors of the hotel. Gloria had no choice but to go with him, terrified that she might have to interview survivors, responders, anyone at all. Gloria had never interviewed anyone and never planned to. Her ambition was to one day be in the truck, turning dials, not on the street in the midst of chaos.

The main lobby was a sea of bodies and walking injured. No ambulances yet, no emergency workers, no fire trucks. Not even a wailing siren. Hotel employees and guests were braving the remnants of smoke to carry survivors from the ball room. Sounds of pain wove around excited voices. The lobby’s rich golden carpet was washed with pools of fresh blood. Hotel workers were arms deep in blankets, sheets, and pillows. Everywhere, a chorus of ring tones from cell phones never silenced.

Harley Littlefield was recording all of this on the camera he shouldered, transmitting it through the long trailing cable that tethered him to the Channel 6 truck directly across the street. Gloria followed his lead, trying to add voice to the images on the screen.

“So many victims. Oh, so many look so bad. So hurt. And more coming out of the ballroom all the time. It looks like whatever happened, happened there, in the ballroom. I’m looking for Peg Merchant, our news director. She was in the ballroom. And Bill Crawley, our cameraman, was there, too. I hope they’re okay. I don’t see them here. I hope the ambulances get here soon. Injured people are even giving first aid to each other.”

Harley continued to scan the room with his camera, recording quiet bedlam. Faces in pain, improvised tourniquets, rescuers with towels for masks braving entry to the still smoking ballroom. The ballroom was his destination, too, the apparent center of the carnage. As he edged closer to the ballroom entrance, Gloria moving as best she could ahead of him, trying to stay in camera view, his viewfinder came across a tall man, dressed in suit and tie, guarding a figure on a sofa. He focused tightly on that cameo.

“Gloria!” he shouted abruptly. “It’s the president.”

Gloria turned where Harley motioned. She had seen so much in the last few moments. She heard herself speaking as if a disembodied presence, barely thinking words before she spoke them. Was this really happening, or was it just an intern’s dream? If this was happening, was it really the president? Yes, it was. It was her. Before she realized what she was doing, out of pure instinct, she tried to conduct her first interview.

“Madam President?”

No answer. The image of the president seen by tens of millions watching on television was startling, particularly for those who only moments before had seen her clothed impeccably, chin high, awash in love and triumph. Her hair now a mat of gray ash and dust. One cheek charred, the other bloodied. Her wool suit jacket, the color of healthy green summer grass, ripped to the lining at the right shoulder, her matching skirt riddled with what appeared to be burn holes from the erupting blaze.

“Madam President?” Gloria repeated.

Lincoln Howard held his arms out to wave off Gloria and Harley.

“Please,” he pleaded, leave her be.”

The sound of sirens suddenly filled adjacent streets, uniforms appeared, men and women with medical bags and equipment. Gurneys, oxygen tanks, people in full fire gear, hoses. Help had arrived.

A team of Secret Service agents swept into the lobby. Lincoln Howard waved them toward the president. Harley’s camera showed two agents lifting the president, one carried her toward the lobby door. They didn’t speak nor did they ask anyone’s permission. Harley’s camera followed them as far as he could until another Secret Service agent blocked his way at the door.



In 1981, President Ronald Reagan was rushed by ambulance to the George Washington University Hospital suffering from gunshot wounds. Now it was another president, Isabel Tennyson, lying in the same hospital’s emergency room, the entire building in downtown Washington ringed by police cars, Secret Service agents, remote television trucks with extended antennae, and adjacent streets filled with people waiting for word of her condition. She was thought to be alive, possibly even conscious, but no one could be sure. Speculation filled news casts. Some who had been at the hotel recalled seeing Secret Service agents carry her from the lobby, not waiting for EMT workers, equipment or even a stretcher. The fear of further explosions or building collapse motivated a quick exit. She had arrived prone, in the back seat of a black Suburban, sirens screaming, at the hospital’s emergency entrance. Medical crews were waiting.

Now there were more sirens, more Secret Service agents parting the waiting crowds. A recognizable face, Vice President Roderick Rusher, emerged from one of the caravan’s limousines and walked quickly through the ER entrance surrounded by guards. Rusher had insisted on this visit. Oscar Samoza, his chief of security this terrible night, could do little but comply, even though no one was certain that the threat of more bombs, more violence, was over.

“Control of the U.S. government is at stake here,” said Rusher. “I have to know her condition and not rely on reports.” Rusher had spent decades in Congress. He knew how suspect second-hand reports could be in times of unexpected crisis. He had to see for himself.

Chief surgeon Maurice Winegard was leading a surgical team behind doors where even the vice president was not permitted. It was hospital director Sarah Isaacs who met Rusher and gave the preliminary evaluation.

“Concussion, broken ribs, broken collar bone, broken left leg, multiple cuts, some deep. The medical team is evaluating her for possible blood on the brain, internal bleeding. She was barely conscious and in shock when she arrived. Now she’s under sedation while the team works on her various injuries. Fortunately, Dr. Winegard was delivering a dinner seminar for new medical residents when the hospital was alerted to prepare for an unknown number of blast and burn victims. Many of our top people were already here.”

Rusher thanked Isaacs. His chief of staff, Beverly Rawley, would be here soon and remain as long as needed with an open line to him. For now, said Rusher, he would give the public this news: the president is alive, her injuries are being treated and her condition is being evaluated. More information will be given as soon as it’s available. Isaacs agreed that this was all that could be said for now. It was too soon to know whether her injuries were life-threatening.

Ten minutes later, after hospital staff alerted the media that there would be an announcement, Vice President Rusher delivered the president’s condition report. With these additions: Rusher, his family, and all Americans were praying for the president’s recovery; no effort would be spared to determine the cause of the explosion; and he, Roderick Rusher, would be at the helm until President Tennyson was able to resume her duties. There would be no gap in continuity for the United States government.

There was general agreement that the vice president handled this night of crisis with composure, respect, and the assurance required for an anxious public.

40

Crime scene investigators arrived in the second wave of emergency vehicles. If there was one bomb, there could be two or more, with fuses delayed to cause maximum fatalities. Experience in Iraq and Afghanistan changed investigation protocol. Tread with care, expect the worst. While fire fighters worked to extinguish the blaze, bomb squad specialists from the FBI, the U.S. Army, and other agencies combed three square blocks around the hotel, searching for anything suspicious, anything that could be that second, or even third bomb.

The direction of the explosion was obvious, the hotel’s south side, where the rail tracks were located and damage most severe. Television trucks, police vehicles, motorcycles, the entire presidential vehicle entourage and the bodies of many who arrived with them, formed a scene of carnage from which no one appeared to have survived.

By dawn, fire still smoldering but no longer an obstacle, bomb crews were able to climb to the uprooted tracks and twisted steel that faced the hotel. Four rail cars were lying at various places along the track bed, two were blown completely off the tracks onto the pavement 20 feet below.  Rail crews were working at fever pitch to remove some type of milky substance still draining from damaged tank cars to adjoining streets.

One tank car had been cut in two by the explosion.  It now lay on its side, two gigantic wads of steel. Little science was required to determine that this car was the source of the explosion. By noon, investigators concluded that the explosive device was an IED, an improvised explosive device, the most deadly weapon used against U.S. troops in Iraq. The bomb had been attached to the underside of the rail car, a car transporting ammonia nitrate.

In a cruel duplicity of popular applications, ammonium nitrate is both a valuable and widely used soil additive that enhances crop growth, and an extremely dangerous compound that mining companies use to blow off the tops of mountains. One of the worst disasters in U.S. history, one that all but destroyed the port of Texas City, Texas, in 1947, was triggered when 2,600 tons of ammonium nitrate aboard the cargo ship Grandcamp exploded so powerfully that it broke windows forty miles away and brought down two small planes flying at 1,500 feet. Ammonium nitrate was used by Terry Nichols to destroy Oklahoma City’s Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, an explosion felt fifty-five miles away and recorded at 3.0 on the Richter scale.

Who attached the explosive to the rail car and why remained a mystery to be solved. This much was clear to those walking the ruined tracks even as fire fighters worked to extinguish the last glowing embers around the hotel: It was an act of terrorism.

41

Members from both chambers were gathered on floor of the U.S. House in an extraordinary special sesssion, not for the purpose of hearing a presidential speech or an appearance by a visiting head of state, but to pay tribute to fallen colleagues and to respond to an attack aimed at the heart of the U.S. government in the center of the nation’s capital.

Florida Senator Carson Coulter had died in the explosion, moments after introducing the president at what was to have been the celebration gala. Four members of the U.S. House, honored guests seated near the dais, where the explosion’s force was most deadly, also were killed. So was Rita Gonzales, the president’s long-time staff member who had labored through the Senate years and early months of the presidency to achieve immigration reform. Most members of the Washington, D.C., police patrol that escorted the president to the hotel had been killed instantly. They were parked and waiting directly across the street from the obliterated tracks and took the full force of the blast. The death toll included Secret Service agents, media people, hotel workers, members of the band, dozens of guests standing and cheering their president as their final acts on earth. Hundreds more had been treated for injuries, many remained in local hospitals, some in critical condition.

Before a watching nation, religious leaders of all faiths paid homage to the victims from the well of the U.S. House. Vice President Rusher spoke with emotion about his visit earlier that morning with President Tennyson, who had been moved to the Bethesda Naval Hospital for longer-term recovery from her head injuries, now diagnosed as serious, but not life-threatening. Her body had been battered. Healing would take time. Rusher praised the president’s strength and courage and promised that the terrorists, whoever they might be, would feel the full force of retribution from the United States government, a promise that drew an extended standing ovation from the assembled members of Congress. It was a day of sorrow, a day of resolve for a nation always quick to unite when under attack.

Following the joint session there was another meeting. House and Senate leaders of both parties met in the ornate Capitol office of Democratic Senate leader Sidney Alcorn.

The subject of this meeting was impeachment. At the time of the blast, the U.S. Senate was within days of a decision on whether to remove President Tennyson from office. Now the nation was in mourning, the president was hospitalized, there were funerals to plan and attend. National shock to be calmed. Assassination attempt or not, the charges against the president remained to be resolved. The House had voted. The U.S. Constitution required the U.S. Senate to act. But it could not act now. The assembled leadership decided to delay a Senate vote until the president’s medical condition became more certain. Best case, after she returned to the White House. The day of judgement would be delayed. It could not, though, be avoided.

42

A busy rail freight line crosses the Potomac River from Virginia to reach Washington, D.C. at 14^th street, in the district’s Southwest quadrant, about a half-mile from the White House. Once in the district, the tracks turn to the east, roughly paralleling many government agencies and the National Mall with its many museums. At 7^th street, the tracks turn diagonally southeast, along the riverfront.  This rail line, running through the heart of the nation’s capital, is an important link in rail’s north-south traffic corridor. It also has long been a controversial link, one that the city’s leaders and federal safety experts have tried to relocate for its obvious dangers to local and national safety.

After years of effort an agreement was struck. The line would be moved to less congested surroundings. Hazardous material transport through the city would be avoided. The agreement had been signed last year. Construction of the new route was under way. A year too late.

Despite the agreement, it was commonly known that the rail line would occasionally ship hazmats on this corridor, generally with advance notice so that in the unlikely event of a spill or derailment, emergency crews would be available. In fact, the day before the explosion, officials were notified that a small amount of ammonium nitrate was on the transport schedule. The Secret Service asked that the shipment be delayed until the president left the Washingtonia Grand hotel.

Clay Bergman puzzled over this. Bergman was chief of the FBI’s national security branch and the designated lead officer assigned to investigate the explosion. Pressure was intense to find the bombers. The U.S. military was on alert to respond, and in fact, eager to respond at any definitive sign that this was an al Qaeda or Isis operation. Many congressional voices were demanding action, even without firm evidence. Who else could it be?

Bergman was not so sure. No one had claimed responsibility. That was unusual for terrorist groups after a successful operation. And this was no hit and run event like the Oklahoma City bombing. Someone had access to avoid detection while attaching the bomb to the rail car. The car exploded precisely when it was opposite the hotel and exactly at the time the president was speaking. The device was not timed to explode; it was remotely detonated. For Bergman, this operation had all the earmarks of an inside job.  

While the labs continued to analyze the twisted remains of the tank car for finger prints and other clues, Bergman and his team scanned railroad employee lists and interviewed the train’s crew and rail officials. Yes, rail officials were aware of the request to delay shipment of ammonium nitrate. Yes, the request had been relayed to operational people both verbally and in writing. Each member of the operational staff was quizzed. None had an explanation for why the request was ignored, why the car was sent, why, in fact, the train had come to full stop opposite the hotel at that critical moment.

The train’s operating engineer ordinarily would have been a prime suspect. But he had no role in sending ammonium nitrate on this particular run. Perhaps it was opportunistic. He knew the cargo from the train’s manifest. He could have planted the bomb without raising suspicion. Maybe. But he needed an accomplice to press the trigger. Backgrounds were checked, phone logs requested and received. Nothing suspicious.

While there were other possible avenues to pursue, the deeper Bergman’s team delved into rail operations, the more convinced he was that the answer lay in the control room, with four people on duty that night, anyone of whom could have ordered the train crew to stop where it did, when they did.

The break in the case came from an alert D.C. traffic cop. Officer Jerry Riles was driving west on Independence Avenue when the explosion rocked his car. Disoriented by the source he pulled to the curb just as a speeding car careened onto Independence from 2nd Street and raced west at high speed. Instinctively, Riles clocked the speed and snapped an image of the car. Then, seeing the explosion’s fireball, he followed its source to the hotel. All night Riles remained on duty at the hotel. It was two days later, after learning about the IED device and its remote trigger, that Riles recalled the speeder. He checked his instruments, saw that he had captured the license plate number and forwarded it to the FBI investigators.

“Turk Winslow?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

Winslow was at home when two members of Clay Bergman’s FBI investigation team arrived at his door.

“FBI,” said agent Bryce Dent.

Winslow’s eyes widened and immediately lit up the words “guilty of something” for the trained agents on his doorstep.

“We’re here to talk with you about the explosion,” said Dent.

“God,” said Winslow, “How on earth did you find me?”

Winslow had been caught totally off guard, expecting from all media reports that the bomb trail would lead to Middle Eastern Islamic terrorists, not to his suburban Virginia home. He had pushed the button that triggered the tanker car to hurl death and destruction through the Washingtonia Grand, a confession impulsively made, impossible to withdraw.

Hours later, Clay Bergman and six other agents arrived at another suburban Virginia home, this one belonging to Paul Rendowsky. Rendowsky was the railroad’s night traffic supervisor. At work, a day earlier, he had denied any involvement. Now Winslow had involved him.

Turk Winslow and Paul Rendowsky were members of a Virginia militia group whose members considered the new Immigration Act treasonous. They were convinced that unless Congress repealed the law, the United States would soon be transformed into just another Latin American country. An act of terror by home-grown patriots, they believed, would convince Congress that the opposition would never tolerate the inevitable invasion. President Tennyson, whom they considered a secret agent for Mexican interests, had steered this threat through Congress. With her out of the way, her successor could end it.

When they learned about the event at the Washingtonia Grand they realized that with a single bomb they could not only strike down the hated president, but also destroy the leadership of the immigration reform movement. It was too rich a prize to pass up. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols blew up the Murrah building hoping to trigger a right wing revolution. Winslow and Rendowsky’s goal was more modest. They just wanted to repeal a law.

Rendowsky had gone to work the afternoon of the explosion, like all afternoons, after picking up his young children from school and depositing them at home, just across the Potomac River, in Arlington, Virginia. Coworkers at the railroad reported he performed that night, as any other, with no outward sign of nervousness or tension. Winslow had sat in his car, alone, six city blocks from the hotel, watching a video stream of the banquet on his cell phone, waiting for President Tennyson to take center stage before activating the explosives.

It took only four days from explosion to the filing of criminal charges, not just against Winslow and Rendowsky, but also against five other militia members who took part in the conspiracy.

––––––––

43

In ancient China, when there was flood, plague, pestilence, hunger and other hard times, it was commonly believed that the ruler had lost the mandate of heaven. That’s when empires were overthrown. In a twenty-first century context, even though economic times were improving, the bombing seemed like a final dreadful act in a particularly fretful reign. Members of Congress were anxious for a breather, some time to inhale and get relief from an unending push for controversial change, much of it unpopular and threatening to their own careers.

Counterintuitively, the hotel attack on Tenny weakened her support among many of the Democratic Party senators she needed to fend off conviction and removal. Think of it as sensory overload. For nearly three years, they were shoved into the center of a legislative caldron, forced to make definitive decisions on long-stalled issues—extended healthcare, immigration, reining in of the big banks, serious climate initiatives, the most massive infrastructure program in U.S. history, election law reforms, and for the past two years the massive America’s Future Plan, which forced them to choose among every powerful interest group in Washington. In tandem with the hard choices and possibly career-ending votes, the senators had to defend the president against a roaring bonfire of rumors and testimony that linked her with drug cartels and gun runners, sordid tales of sex for profit, the strange circumstances of her brother’s death, and now, all that capped by the worst terrorist attack since 9/11, aimed not at the United States as a nation, but at the president herself.

Three weeks had elapsed since the assassination attempt, six days since President Tennyson was released from the hospital, far from healed but determined to return to the White House. She arrived in a wheel chair, a boot protecting her broken left leg.. Her bandages required freshening twice a day. Her left arm was elevated by a sling to keep her repaired clavicle in place. The days immediately following the explosion remained a blur to her. There was a period of short term memory loss. Episodes of odd behavior. Now that was behind her. Her mind was clear. She was back in charge. For how long was a matter for the U.S. Senate to decide. The final vote would be held in two days. The Senate had resumed its debate about her future.

The last day of summation on the impeachment resolutions dawned without a clear picture of how the saga would end. The mood was not positive in the West Wing. Internal head counts had every senator’s commitment, except for four. Tenny needed two of those four to survive.  With one last shove, Senator Jane Lyman of North Carolina could be persuaded to oppose the resolutions. She feared a primary against her in next year’s election and she knew that a coalition of women’s groups that had always supported her could head that off. Fish was delegated to broker such a deal.

Ken Geary, from Montana, said he wanted to be with Tenny. But his wife, who remained in Bozeman while Geary served in Washington, was surrounded by fiercely anti-Tenny friends and neighbors. She told her husband she would be mortally embarrassed if he sided with the president. Family harmony would be at risk. That deal was much harder for an outsider to broker.

And those were the most likely two votes.

The other undecided senators were long-time opponents, Democrats who had not supported Tenny in the presidential primary and gave only lip service after she defeated their favorite, Rusher. Now if Rusher ascended to the Oval Office, they would have a friend in the White House and an altogether more productive working environment for themselves.

That should have been enough to put them in the conviction column. But in each of their states, Iowa and New Hampshire, Tenny was more popular than the national norm. Voting against her carried electoral risks and both were up for re-election next year. Ben’s advertising and PR efforts had squeezed them hard locally. That succeeded in freezing each of them from making a declaration of intention. There was still hope.

On this day of summation, Ben wasn’t sure they could get two, or even one of the uncommitted votes. When you’re a winner, you know it. You feel it. When you’re not, you hang your hat on hope...a very thin reed if you are out of options to do anything more about it.

Tenny didn’t have such doubts. She was a winner. She always had been a winner. How could a Latina woman who wound up president of the United States consider herself anything but invincible? After Federico’s murder she plunged into deep despair. For a time, she considered the possibility that her streak of fortune may have outlived its expiration date. But the fact that she had survived that massive explosion, which killed and maimed just about everyone on the stage with her, an explosion aimed explicitly at killing her, removed her doubts for all time. A slight hearing loss, a few facial scars that one day could be surgically erased, a mild concussion that required her to take care not to have any further head trauma. Minor stuff compared to all that went on around her. No, this was her destiny. She would not, could not lose.



In his office in the Executive Office Building, Vice President Rusher was decidedly on edge. Everyone around him knew it. His staff, his family, his Secret Service detail. For the thirty years he had served in the Senate, he learned how to be an accurate judge of voting strength. Because many of his former colleagues still served there, he had a pipeline to information few others could tap into. He knew exactly where the vote count stood and who remained in doubt. Publicly, he fully supported President Tennyson. He had been properly deferential during the weeks of her incapacity. Twice he had visited with her at bedside. Privately, he had tasted the power of the West Wing. It was delicious.

During the months’ long slog from Judiciary Committee hearings to now, the eve of the final vote, Rusher had played the good soldier. Privately, carefully, ever so carefully, he did what he could to undermine her. It was a risky game in an arena where there was little trust, even among supposed friends.

For Rusher, everything about the past two and a half years had been risky. Agreeing to join a ticket with a woman he personally disliked and whose political agenda was far from his own, the humiliation of taking second place to someone who didn’t have a tenth of his knowledge and experience about how things worked, who knew nothing of foreign policy, and then having to bite his lip until it bled watching her get that damn fool agenda passed through Congress.

Tennyson didn’t seem to care what he thought. She was so convinced of her own righteousness. It was like she knew the ten steps to heaven and she was climbing them, unconcerned with any advice not to be so almighty certain. Except for occasions where the two of them had to share a stage, they didn’t. They didn’t have breakfast, lunch or dinner together. Their families didn’t socialize. He went on obligatory trips around the country and around the world. They were cordial, like urban neighbors with nodding acquaintance but too busy to stop and talk.

One of those obligatory trips before impeachment fever infected the House Judiciary Committee was to Nigeria, eight months ago, for the inauguration of its new president. He led the U.S. delegation that included four members of Congress, the secretary of energy and a half-dozen corporate types closely tied to Nigeria’s oil and mining industries. At the reception following the formal ceremony, Pete Garner, Texas Global Oil Company’s CEO gripped Rusher’s elbow in a friendly gesture. They had known each other and worked together for more than a dozen years. Rusher was one of the shrinking number of senators who oil men felt really understood their industry and could be counted on for support.

Garner steered Rusher to a corner of the cocktail reception where they could be alone among the crowd.

“That president of yours is a real handful, Rod.”

Rusher smiled, nodded knowingly and shook his head in easy agreement.

“That she is. I hope she doesn’t do so much damage it can’t be corrected later.”

“You mean the next election?”

“Of course. I don’t see how she can be re-elected with all the wreckage she’s causing.”

“We can’t take that chance. Our assessment is she could be re-elected.”

“Good heavens. What a dismal prospect. Well, it won’t be with me on the ticket. I never should have agreed to be on it in the first place.”

And then, Garner’s words sunk in.

“What do you mean you can’t take that chance? What’s your alternative?”

“I wondered whether you knew. You should. We’re going to make you president. Impeachment. You should know it’s coming and it’s all set up. You’re going to be president before the term is over.”

“Impeachment! What’s she done?”

“That’s all being taken care of. Some of us are handling the details. I can’t tell you anymore, and probably shouldn’t anyway. But you need to know so that when some things come to your attention that you may not understand, you’ll know why. It may be that we’ll need some help from you and your people.”

“To do what?”

“Be a conduit for some information. Confirm a few things. This is all in good hands. You’re going to be president, Rod. Count on it.”

Rusher remembered that conversation nearly word for word. As it turned out, he wasn’t asked to do much. He verified a few erroneous dates and names of people who supposedly were in places they actually weren’t. Some notarized papers to generate. Simple stuff, but the kind of things “truth” depends on.

Three months before the Washingtonia Grand explosion, with impeachment very much on track and being artfully managed toward its conclusion, Rusher was in Mexico City, the president’s representative at a conference on world hunger. Rusher had little to do there. Hordes of others in the U.S. delegation were talking soil nitrogen levels, genetic modification, and other language of the new agriculture. Rusher’s role, similar to most events he attended, was merely to wave the U.S. flag and to excuse the president from having to make the trip.

The opening conference reception was hosted by Para-Gon, the energy and chemical division of Groupo Aragon. It was an evening featuring Mexican food delicacies, carefully calibrated not to seem too opulent for a conference about hunger, but impressive enough to appeal to the delegations from the eighty-four attending countries.

Javier Carmona, long-time CEO of Groupo Aragon was there to welcome the delegates, sharing the stage with the president of Mexico and Vice President Rusher. As they sat together, waiting to be introduced, Carmona leaned in toward Rusher and quietly invited him to his private hotel suite for brandy and a cigar as soon as social etiquette permitted them both to leave the reception.

Rusher was well aware of the entwined history of his president and Groupo Aragon. It was hard to miss, given all the sordid testimony passing through Congress on the way to an impeachment vote. That testimony also peaked curiosity. There were things to be learned from this man, Carmona, one of the most influential business people in the world, and no doubt the repository of many secrets about President Tennyson.

Later, in Carmona’s suite, they sat on the balcony smoking fine Cubans and drinking Armagnac. Carmona was in an ebullient mood, talkative about his company, world affairs and his history with President Tennyson. Carmona knew much about conspiracies from decades of masterminding them and attempting to foil them. All his instincts born of that knowledge warned him to not say what came next. But he could not resist. The future president of the United States was sitting here, on his balcony. The two of them, alone. How many times in life do such opportunities occur?

“Señor Vice President, we appreciate your participation in our project to make you the next president. We look forward to your ascension.”

Rusher was startled. The only personal contact he had had about it was from Pete Garner, months ago, in Nigeria. Since then, papers and contacts related to the president had floated through his office. He dutifully signed off on and forwarded documents he otherwise would have questioned had it not been for Garner’s heads-up. Garner had said “some of us are handling the details.” But he didn’t know who else. He could assume, though, that oil people were certainly involved. That was encouraging. Oil people were very reliable and dependable. Carmona was also an oil guy, through his Ener-Gon division. Not just oil, but huge worldwide chemical operations. That and Aragon’s many other interests put him in a much higher league than Garner.

“May I ask the nature of your participation,” asked Rusher, cautiously.

Carmona laughed, unable to restrain his claim to bragging rights. Rusher would have to know the incredible debt he was about to owe to Carmona.

“In America, you might call me the ringleader. Señora Tennyson I knew as a little girl. She was bright, lively, and pleasant. But as a woman, she is most dangerous. We knew that before anyone else. From the beginning I warned my close friends that something had to be done. Fortunately, others agreed.

“I want you to know you are in the best of hands, Señor Vice President. The small group of us who are managing this project have all the wealth needed to support it, and all the contacts required to make it successful.

“My card, with my private phone number, Señor Rusher. Please, contact me whenever you believe I can be of assistance.”

Rusher hardly knew how to respond. But sitting in the richly paneled suite, drinking expensive brandy, smoking a Fuente Don Arturo AnniverXario, the finest cigar he had ever smoked, listening to one of the richest men in the world tell him that he and his friends were organized to make him president, Rusher could only say, “Thank you.” No further questions or answers were necessary.

For Carmona, it was mission accomplished. The next president of the United States, just as the current president of Mexico, would be beholden to him.

That was three months ago. Before Federico’s murder, a development that terrified Rusher, who, for the first time, sensed the danger in the game that was being played on his behalf.  

That terror was compounded when he was told of the hotel explosion. Waves of guilt washed over him then, and remained until the FBI found the militia clowns who had detonated the bomb. That was all behind him now. Tomorrow, as planned, as predicted, Rusher felt confident that Carmona and those Carmona had enlisted in this cause, whoever they were, had spent their money wisely and that they would, in fact succeed.

44

Attorney General Robin Birch was frantic this morning. If tomorrow’s Senate vote removed the president from office, as seemed possible, the attorney general’s role would be central to the transition. Already understaffed and deeply enmeshed in countless major investigations and ongoing proceedings, Birch had no time for distractions. If the president was removed, she most likely would be sent packing, too. Rusher would want his own AG, and right away. She had diverted six key staff people to plan and manage the transition, if it came to that. Now here was the national security director asking her to make the forty-five-minute drive to NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, for a talk.  

“Can we do this tomorrow?” she pleaded.

“I need to see you right away,” was the curt message. “No. It can’t wait. I’ll send a chopper for you.”

Birch climbed aboard the chopper, accompanied by two staff aides, a number of work binders and considerable apprehension. A request like this meant serious trouble.

Robin Birch was surprised that President Tennyson had appointed her out of a very talented group of other possible candidates. Her background was corporate law, financial corporate at that—the very target that had been in Tennyson’s sights all the while she had been in Congress. Birch had represented some of the very people Tennyson considered the biggest obstacles to reform. When Tennyson called Birch for an interview they had pulled no punches with one another. The new president was out to shrink the banks, toughen Dodd-Frank, get a twenty-first century version of Glass Stegall passed, and she needed an AG who was so familiar with all of the ins and outs of global corporate banking that she would not be tricked, fooled or bought off. The key question was whether Robin Birch shared those goals.

In fact, she did. She had become increasingly soured on the whole megabank enterprise. She voted for Tennyson and was excited that someone who might actually take up reforms was elected. Not many of her colleagues knew of Birch’s passion for reform. She wasn’t overtly political. But one of her clients, Carmen Sandoval, knew. Carmie was outspoken, a known friend of Tennyson’s. It was easy to share private hopes and doubts with her. After the election, Carmie steered Tenny to Birch with confidence that she would be a good fit for their agenda.  

None of this, of course, had much to do with the activities of the NSA. Birch guessed that the summons to the meeting had something to do with domestic terror. Maybe a potential attack NSA had in its sights. One of those accompanying her on the chopper ride was a key FBI terrorism expert.

Birch was ushered into the NSA director’s office.  Her aides were told to wait outside. It would be just the two of them.

“Can I get you anything?” asked NSA Director Kenneth Kloss, “coffee?”

“No.”

“I’m having a double espresso and suggest you have one too. You may want to fortify yourself for what I’m about to tell you.”

Kloss used his office coffee machine to make his drink, then gestured to her to sit next to him on a sofa. He pulled a digital device from his coat pocket.

“I know being here’s an effort for you, with a possible transition tomorrow. But after you hear this you’ll know why this couldn’t wait. You had to know this now.”

Kloss punched the play button.

45

The U.S. Constitution mandates that a Senate impeachment trial be presided over by the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. That role fell to Brian Kamrath, who had led the Court for the past ten years. It was said of Kamrath that the best thing about him as chief justice was the fact that he looked like a chief justice. A trim, tanned outdoorsman, Kamrath had been plucked from the Tenth Federal Circuit bench and appointed to the Supreme Court by then President Marcus Lowell. Kamrath and Marc Lowell had been Yale classmates, partying together for years. Brian Kamraths’s family had been rooted in Boston for six generations. But Kamrath felt constricted by life in New England. After his obligatory two years in a Wall Street law firm he moved to Colorado where the skiing was better, where the hiking trails were longer and more challenging, and where there was more opportunity to floor the hot Porsches he loved to drive.

Brian Kamrath proved an effective corporate lawyer at a time when Denver was transitioning from an overgrown western town to the financial capital of the Rocky Mountain west. Kamrath was not a particularly driven personality. He did not burn the midnight oil or give up weekends and vacations to make a few extra dollars. Despite that, his legal practice thrived. For decades, he had settled into a very appealing routine. Tennis or hiking or skiing on weekends. A month during summer steering his sloop, the Betty Bee, along the Maine coast. He and his wife and two daughters would migrate to Camden, Maine and their rustic, comfortable cabin, just two blocks from the dock where lobstermen brought their daily catch.

For Kamrath, corporate legal work was both lucrative and incredibly boring. So when his good friend, Colorado Senator Robert Rager, asked whether he would like to be considered for an opening on the Tenth Circuit, Kamrath was interested. The new job gave him considerable time freedom and flexibility, and he found it for the most part only mildly challenging.

Then came the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Joseph Jacobs, the call from his old friend, Marc Lowell who explained that he was being pressed to appoint any of three ideologues, none of whom he agreed with. Kamrath, on the other hand, came from the same New England Republican DNA as Lowell. Proper Republican. While legal scholars rolled their eyes at a Kamrath appointment, no one could find anything particularly wrong with the way he’d lived his life nor with decisions he had written, speeches he had made, or clients he had represented.

And besides, Kamrath looked like a Supreme Court justice. He charmed the Senate Judiciary Committee at his hearings and displayed just enough irreverence to charm the media as well. Two years later, Chief Justice Alfred Wagner died suddenly, and President Lowell moved Kamrath into the presiding chair.

Now here he was, Brian Kamrath of Denver, Colorado, in December, in Washington, presiding over an impeachment trial and not a bit happy about it. For one thing, he considered the charges against President Tennyson thin and suspect. If this were his case to decide on the Tenth Circuit, he would have dismissed it long ago and spent the summer where he should be, in Maine, on the Betty Bee, eating lobster fresh out of the traps and corn three hours off the stalks. But it wasn’t his trial or his say. He was merely a figurehead, plunked down to establish and maintain decorum in a chamber that had lately lacked much of it. Tomorrow it would be over, one way or another, and he could begin thinking seriously of the two weeks the family would spend at Aspen over the Christmas holidays.

Finally, after weeks of testimony interrupted by the delays necessitated by Federico Aragon’s death and the Washingtonia Grand explosion, the Senate was ready to render a final judgement on the fate of President Isabel Aragon Tennyson. The public already had made its judgement.

Judgement 1: the public was weary of the story, seemingly the same story each day after the early revelations. She was being pummeled like a boxer on the ropes and the public just wanted the beatings to stop.

Judgement 2: Whatever prompted the impeachment process, while originally shocking and at times pornographic, the public was unconvinced that President Tennyson was either a crook or a sexual pervert. Since Washingtonia, her favorability numbers had been rising. Now they were as high as they had ever been, except for the weeks after her election.

Chief Justice Kamrath sat through it all, saying little, answering parliamentary questions, and trying as best he could to adhere to precedent. After the summations, Kamrath announced that the roll call vote would take place tomorrow, the appointed hour of noon, when the Senate would reconvene for this, their only piece of business. Kamrath then adjourned himself to his comfortable apartment in Washington’s upscale Kalorama neighborhood, its balcony overlooking busy Connecticut Avenue and the National Cathedral.

As the chief justice, Kamrath had a small security guard to protect his person, and also, among other things, to periodically sweep his apartment for listening devices. There wasn’t much contact with neighbors, although they were friendly enough. He drew little attention to himself. The locals were used to political celebrities. Rarely did anyone create a fuss when they saw him.

Kamrath was packing up for a quick exit from Washington after tomorrow’s vote when his private cell phone buzzed. It was the attorney general.

“Mr. Justice, General Birch. Sorry to disturb you at home but Ken Kloss and I have to see you on a matter of the gravest importance. May we come to your apartment in about half an hour?”

Strange. The attorney general and the head of NSA, coming here? On short notice?

“Can you give me a preview? What topic?”

“Can’t say by phone. But I assure you it’s important and very time sensitive.”

“Well, of course,” he agreed.

He didn’t know Attorney General Birch very well. His legal world had been in the West. Birch was what Kamrath was groomed to be, a New York corporate lawyer. Their paths seldom crossed, though his impression was that Birch was an excellent lawyer and certainly a great choice for what President Tennyson was doing to rein in the banks.

Ken Kloss, on the other hand, was an old buddy. Kloss, a retired Air Force general, had been head of the North American Air Command at Colorado Springs. They belonged to the same local golf club. Their wives became good friends and the couples socialized together. In fact, the Klosses and the Kamraths had dinner right here in this apartment not six months earlier. That’s probably why Kloss felt comfortable asking to meet here. He knew it was secure, and away from prying eyes.

Birch and Kloss came with company. Two technicians swept the apartment for any bugs that might have been installed since the last sweep. All clear. Then they were gone, leaving three of the most important figures in the U.S. government alone at the dining room table.

“Let me get right at it,” said Kloss.

“As soon as we heard about the explosion at the Washingtonia we enhanced all of our monitoring. We needed to know if this was a solitary act or a major effort to take down the government. We monitored everyone of importance in the DC area.”

“Even me?”

“Even you. At a time like that we have no idea what’s happening. The prelude to a major attack on a disrupted leadership? A coordinated effort to bring down the top leaders in government? We just don’t know. So, yes, we monitored your phones and computers, too. But we were particularly alert to calls made to or received from foreign countries. One of our devices blanketed the vice president’s home. And here’s what we heard:

Kloss punched play on his digital recorder and played this conversation:

“What have you done? I didn’t sign up for this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Murder, not impeachment, that’s what I mean.”

“The bomb. The bomb. You didn’t have to kill her.”

“Kill her? Why should we kill her? Nothing’s changed since we spoke. The plan’s working. It’s all working just as I told you it would. I know nothing of a bomb.”

“Then who?”

“Wait. Where are you calling from?”

“My residence. My cell phone. It’s secure.”

“Secure!? There are no secure lines, you damn fool.”

The party on the other end abruptly hung up. One of the voices was immediately recognizable to Justice Kamrath.

“The vice president knew there was a conspiracy to get rid of the president and he was in on it?”

“Pretty evident, isn’t it? But that’s not all. We tracked the person on the other end of the call. It’s Javier Carmona, CEO of the Aragon Group, the president’s old family company.”

“Really? Her own company trying to depose her?”

“It gets worse. After the vice president’s call, Carmona heard about the explosion. Not knowing whether the president was alive or dead, Carmona sort of panicked. It could have been one of his operatives who went rogue on him. He had to know. So he made a number of phone calls himself, even after warning Rusher about phone security. Listen to these:

“Peter, you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“I think your president is dead.”

“Dead! No! What happened?”

“You don’t know, then?”

“Javier, what are you talking about?”

“I just had a call from Rusher. He says she was killed. Sounds like a bomb.”

“My God! Why should I have known?”

“We need to know whether any of our people are involved.”

“Do you think that’s possible?”

“Anything’s possible with, well, with those we’re working with.”

“You mean the cartel guys?  I thought you had them under control.  After what happened to her brother...

“Stop! It’s best we say no more. We’ll talk later.”

“Who’s Carmona talking with?” asked Justice Kamrath.

“Pete Garner, Texas Global Oil.”

“Texas Global!”

“There’s more.”

Kloss punched play again.

“Jack. Pete. You heard?”

“Shit, I heard all right. What have those Mexican idiots done?  First that priest, now this. We were going to win the vote.”

“Carmona called me. He heard it from Rusher. I don’t think he had anything to do with this one.”

“Who, then?”

“Carmona thinks maybe some of the cartel guys got nervous and needed to make sure. You know, if she survives and beats the vote there’s a trail of stuff that could lead right back into their laps.”

“We weren’t going to lose the fucking vote. It was all arranged.”

“Time to start burning paper and wiping out hard discs, just in case.”

Kloss hit the stop button.

“That’s Peter Garner talking to Jack Hurley”

“Jack Hurley! Blue Bank’s Jack Hurley! My God!”

“One more,” said Kloss.

“Javier, Pounds. I hope this isn’t what it looks like. That you people took a shortcut.”

“Not me. Not anyone here. I’m checking up and down our group now. So far no one is involved. They say it and I believe it.”

“I hope to high heaven that’s true. I promise you, if you or any of the people you’ve enlisted in all this are responsible I won’t defend you. I was aghast when I learned about the president’s brother. Just sick about it. You assured me you had nothing to do with that. Now this. You know what this means, don’t you?  Every intelligence agency in the government will be crawling all over to find out who did it. Well, when they come asking questions about how I got all those news stories that set her up I’ll tell the truth.  We hated that woman. I wanted to run her off, not run her over.” 

“Please. Stay calm. We’ll talk when I know more....Wait. Wait. I hear now she might not be dead.”

The conversation ended.

“Is that who I think it is?”

“Yes, Irving Pounds.”

Kamrath was as focused now as he had ever been in life.

“There are other calls,” said Kloss. “We’ve counted eleven people who very clearly are part of the conspiracy, half of them like Carmona, not even Americans, none of them foreign government people but all them well known and personally powerful. They didn’t set the bomb. They were far too clever for that. But they were involved in a scheme to take down the president and replace her with Rusher. And with a deeper dive into all this we’re likely to find that Federico Aragon’s murder was totally connected.”

“Good lord! And you’re here because you think I need to stop the impeachment vote tomorrow?”

“Someone has to. Or else this crowd will wind up running the country through the vice president, who obviously is one of them, and would be in debt to them. This is nothing less than a coup to take over the United States government.”

Kamrath walked to the open balcony window. Long seconds passed.

“The Constitution is written, for the most part, in very general language, leaving much room for interpretation. That’s what gives so many of us judges lifetime employment. But when it comes to impeachment, the words are detailed and specific. The chief justice presides and the Senate decides. That’s it. Cut and dried. I’m powerless to intervene in the process other than to see that it happens.”

“But you can meet with the Senate leaders before the session and give them this information,” said Birch.

“Yes, I can. Then what happens? They call off the day’s vote while they consider the evidence and the options. Do they tell the real story and place cuffs on the vice president? Or is there a cover story because it gets entangled in partisan politics? With this Congress, that’s the most likely outcome. What a mess that would be. We have to think through all the consequences of anything we do.”

“But what if we go to the media in the morning, before the vote and just reveal what we’ve learned,” Birch pressed on.

“Well, you’re the attorney general with a lot of skin in the game. Her guy. Excuse me. Her woman, making a last ditch effort to save her. Ken here loses credibility to protect the nation’s security because the other side will accuse him of interfering with a political decision. And me? What am I doing here? I review cases that require interpretation of the Constitution. Where’s the case? What interpretation is in question? There’s a delicate line here between legality and politics, and if we make the wrong move, or possibly any move, the credibility of all our institutions are compromised.”

“But we can’t just let this happen,” said Birch.

“We don’t know that it will. The vote tomorrow could go either way. If she’s retained, you can go to her with the evidence and decide how to move the case through the normal criminal process. If she’s not.... well let’s hope we don’t have to face that.”

“You will talk with the Senate leadership tomorrow, before the vote, won’t you? Ken and I will stand by to be there with the evidence and help.”

“I just don’t know,” said Kamrath. “I just don’t know. There’s nothing in the Supreme Court manual that tells me how to proceed. I guess I have to set my own precedent.”

NSA Director Kenneth Kloss and Attorney General Robin Birch picked up the digital player and their papers. They had no idea what to do when they decided to consult the chief justice. After consulting him, they still didn’t. Obviously, neither did he.

46

Crowds assembled early. Many carried signs supporting the President.  Others demonstrated noisily for her removal. Some brought babies and small children to witness history. A Mexican-American contingent numbering in the hundreds marched up Constitution Avenue from the White House wearing tee shirts emblazoned with the words, “Impeachment? Never!” By noon, thousands of demonstrators encircled both the White House and the Capitol.  The line for seats in the visitors’ gallery formed the moment guards opened the Capitol doors.  The few fortunate enough to be ushered into the gallery found many seats already occupied by members of the House, congressional and Senate spouses, staff and others who jumped the lines of priority.

There would be a delay, the chief justice announced.  The climactic Senate session would not begin at noon.  He was said to be meeting privately with the speaker of the House and the president of the Senate, presumably about transitional issues should the vote for removal pass. 

Delay increased anxiety.  In the White House Carmie and Fish joked and shared stories with the President, thin veneer to blanket the tension of the moment. 

The vice president went through the motions of an ordinary business day, but it was not an ordinary day and he was not his usual genial self. 

The one hundred senators waiting to cast historic votes were themselves on edge. For months, each had been pressured by mail, email, phone calls and visits.  Aggressive media buys had flooded their local stations, raising the stakes no matter how they choose to vote.  The senators wanted it done. Over. Behind them.  

Those in the galleries, some who had been waiting for three hours, grew increasingly restless, constrained from demonstrating impatience by an enhanced crew of gallery guards.  

Delay provided time and space for arguments and fist fights among opposing sides mobilized on the Capitol lawn. 

Cable TV filled its space with pointless interviews and repetitious review of the events that brought matters to this decisive moment.

Shortly after 1 p.m. the chief justice and the congressional leaders emerged. Events then moved quickly. The clerk called the roll. All 100 senators answered. There was only one item of business on the agenda and Chief Justice Kamrath went right to it.

Head counts, for and against, had been reported in the media for weeks, as one senator after another declared where he or she stood on conviction.  Now those votes were being cast. Ninety-six votes accurately followed the script. Only four senators who entered the chamber that day were officially undecided. The time for decision expired when their names were called.

The final tally was announced:

67 to remove President Tennyson. 33 against.

With announcement of the final tally, Carmie and Fish walked to the wheel chair where the president was seated and embraced her. Long, hard embraces. Her White House years, the last months of impeachment turmoil, Federico’s death, her own miraculous survival, all seemed now to blend into exhaustion. She had just become the first president in the history of the United States to be removed from office by the United States Senate. At this moment of loss she felt little else but relief that the ordeal had ended.

“I suppose I should go on TV and announce my resignation,” she said.

“I’m announcing mine, too,” said Carmie. She sat next to her friend, arm around her shoulder. “We go together. We’re still alive with plenty of life in us. This may be over,” she said, sweeping her arm around the room, “but this,” pulling both their heads together until their cheeks met, “is just beginning a whole new chapter.”

Deacon entered, as respectful as if he were confronting death.

“Madame President, the chief justice just called. He asked that in the interest of orderly transition, you not submit your resignation until arrangements are made.”

“Do they know when?”

“Apparently not. He just ask that you do nothing until he calls back.”

“I imagine there’s a thousand cameras downstairs waiting for me to say something.”

“He asked that you do nothing, not even talk to the press.”

“Well, there’s something the chief justice can’t object to. Have the staff pack my bags. I’ll be ready to leave when it’s time.”

Contingency arrangements for Tenny already had been made. A helicopter was standing by to take her and Carmie to Andrews Air Force Base. From there, Air Force Two, the vice president’s plane, would fly them to Los Angeles. A friend’s seaside estate in Malibu would be a halfway house for her return to a new life. Whatever that might be.



By pre-arrangement, Vice President Rusher presented himself in the Chief Justice’s chambers an hour after the vote. A small group would witness the swearing in. Mrs. Rusher, the attorney general, the president pro tem of the Senate and the Speaker of the House. It would be closed to the press and public, a decision that provoked an uproar from the media, which was hardly appeased by the fact that a reenactment would be scheduled afterward in the cavernous House rotunda. Only one person was present who was not on the previous list of transition witnesses, NSA Director Kenneth Kloss.

Rusher, in his finest navy blue Brooks Brothers wool suit and brick red tie, entered to mild applause from staffers lining the halls. The door closed behind him.

“Mr. Vice President,” said Kamrath, looking every bit the chief justice he was, smartly robed and as an erect as a statue, “I realize you are here to be sworn in, but before we do, Director Kloss has something you should hear.”

Kloss hit play on his recorder.

The vice president’s words tumbled into the room.

“What have you done? I didn’t sign up for this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Murder, not impeachment, that’s what I mean. The bomb. The bomb. You didn’t have to kill her.”

“Kill her? Why should we kill her? Nothing’s changed since we spoke. The plan’s working. It’s all working just as I told you it would. I know nothing of a bomb.”

“Then who?”

“Wait, where are you calling from?”

“My residence. My cell phone. It’s secure.”

“Secure!? There are no secure lines, you damn fool.”

Each word hit Rusher’s body like a dagger.

No one spoke to interrupt the moment. Justice Kamrath had met earlier in the day with Speaker Willard and Senator Alcantra and had played these tapes for them. They agreed then that if the removal vote failed, the president would handle the next moves personally. If it succeeded, they would be here, now, like this.

The vice president moved quickly through triumph at the expectation of becoming president to shock at hearing his own compromised voice, to anger that now he was the center of a what appeared to be a conspiracy to deny him this office. But Rusher was an old pro, not easily deterred.

“Thank you, Justice Kamrath, may we now move on to my taking the oath.”

“Not yet said Kamrath. The attorney general has something to say.”

“Mr. Vice President, you are under arrest for treason, for threatening the president of the United States, for lying under oath to the Congress of the United States, for violation of your oath to uphold the Constitution and for entrapment of the president to do criminal harm. Each charge is a felony. You have the right to remain silent...”

That was too much for Rusher. He interrupted the reading of his rights.

“What is this nonsense,” he angrily exploded. “The Senate has voted, President Tennyson no longer is the president and I am in the next in line. I demand to be sworn in.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Vice President,” said Justice Kamrath, “I cannot swear in as president someone who is charged with treason and other felonious acts. President Tennyson is president until she resigns and the resignation is accepted by the Congress. Neither action has occurred.”

“This is outrageous.” Rusher’s eyes darted to the others in the room. Ominously, no one else appeared surprised by this drama except for Mrs. Rusher, who gripped Kamrath’s desk, until someone helped her to a seat.

“Yes, it is,” said Kamrath. “It’s outrageous that you would plot to overthrow the elected president in concert with foreign nationals who have organized a monstrous set of lies against her.”

Attorney General Birch spoke up.

“Mr. Vice President, we have two choices here. I can take you from this room in handcuffs and you can fight these charges through the courts, or you can resign as vice president and all charges will be dropped. You can say you were an innocent victim of a scheme for which you were unaware, but on learning of it you did the right thing by exposing it and resigning.”

“You’re blackmailing me. The attorney general of the United States is blackmailing me. The chief justice of the United States is blackmailing me. This is patently unconstitutional,” roared Rusher. “There’s absolutely nothing in the Constitution that supports any of this.”

Kamrath reached into his inside jacket pocket and dramatically pulled out what appeared to be a tally sheet.

“Let’s see here. I’ve got at least five votes that say it is constitutional,” said the chief justice. I couldn’t reach Justices Padillo and Arlen this morning. But I did speak with Justices Dillingham, Steele, Chang and Redwood a few hours ago. Their votes and mine add up to five. How many votes do you have?”

Rusher was stunned. He was being railroaded by the chief law enforcement officer of the United States and the chief justice of the Supreme Court.

“But the Senate has impeached the president. It’s done. It’s over,” he pleaded.

“Not exactly said Senate pro tem Alcantra. Before this meeting I spoke with two senators who voted for impeachment who now have decided to change their vote. Since the Senate makes its own rules on this matter we can certainly vote for reconsideration. Once this story becomes public, I imagine just about everyone will want to change their vote.”

“Mr. Vice President. Your choice?” asked Justice Kamrath. “Jail? Or pats on the back all around that you wound up on the right side after all?”