THE SENATOR SAT DOWN and beamed at his son. He had a feeling of happiness he supposed was parental pride. Hank had to admit to himself that that was a feeling he never expected to experience—he hadn’t had that much to do with raising Mark, after all. Still, whatever he’d done, it must have been the right thing. Hank chuckled.
Mark was sitting on the sofa, his legs stretched way out in front of him. He’d been staring at his toenails in apparent fascination, as though they were tiny television screens. Now he lifted his head and looked at his father. “What are you laughing at, Dad?”
“Oh, just a thought I had. This family has had everything but the White House and a motto; I expect you’ll take care of the White House.”
Now Mark smiled. “One way or another, Dad,” he said, “I promise I’ll take care of the White House.”
“Well, I just came up with the motto—Whatever we do, it must be right.”
“I like that,” Mark told him. “Nice double meaning and everything.”
The Senator frowned. He thought hard for a few seconds, then he got it and grinned. “My God, we might actually be able to use it.”
“Well, let’s save it for a while, okay, Dad?”
“Whatever you say, son.” Hank Van Horn had probably said those words a hundred times over the years, but they were empty things, a way to get the kid off his back. “Whatever you say, son,” had really meant “Go bother the housekeeper about it, or your mother, or Ainley, or the driver, or whomever. Don’t bother me.”
This time, for the first time, he meant the words literally. Hank had thought he was smart and tough. Van Horns were raised to be smart and tough. But Mark had them all beat—the dead war hero, the dead astronaut, all of them all the way back to the patriarch. What Mark had done was simply—staggering.
And he had done it all for his father.
Hank had found out about what Mark had been up to shortly after the Russians had returned him. They’d gone back to the Van Horn town house for the first of these little father-son chats.
And Mark had told him. Twelve of them. His son had killed twelve of the bastards without a second thought. Just to get him out from under, which, as Mark had pointed out, the kidnapping and Helen’s murder by the Russians proved it was essential to do.
“They said they’d look out for you, didn’t they?” Mark had demanded. “This proves they won’t care.”
At first, Hank had refused to believe it. But when Mark told him the whole story, beginning with his having cracked the wall safe the Senator had been so careful to have installed, and ending with the death of the last possible wiretapping bastard in Minneapolis, the Senator could do nothing but sit there shaking his head in awe.
He had begun to see why Ainley had always been so gaga over Mark. Hank would ask his son questions, and Mark would deflect him with, “Don’t worry, Dad, it’s all part of a plan I have,” and the Senator wouldn’t even mind. For now, Mark said, all they had to do was to follow whatever instructions Gus Pickett passed along from General Dudakov. The General himself had stayed back in Washington. Apparently he wasn’t feeling too well, and anyway, it might look a little fishy for a Russian general to follow the band to a key primary.
Since all Hank had been doing was following instructions in any case, Mark’s plan was easy to keep to. They had run into a bit of trouble when they’d run into that Albright character, on the way out of the meeting where Gus Pickett had finally told Hank who the hell he was supposed to endorse.
The black man bothered Hank. “I think we ought to finish him, you know,” he said to his son.
“Of course, Dad,” Mark said. “But we’ve got to find out who he’s working for, and what he might have told them.”
“You told me Ed and Jeff don’t think he knows anything.” Ed and Jeff were muscle that worked for Gus Pickett. Mark hadn’t been too impressed with them. He said they got their ideas of how to be smart and tough from reading private-eye novels.
“I’ll find out for sure tonight. After your speech, and the interview with Regina Hudson.”
“Oh, son, I want you with me during the reception.” Hank tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice; he didn’t entirely succeed.
Mark shook his head. “As much as I’d like to, Dad, no. This is your night, yours and the candidate’s.”
“If it’s my night, then I should be able to have my son with me if I want to.”
Mark shook his head again. “No, Dad, the press would see it as my political ‘coming-out’ party, and I’m not ready for that, yet. Plus, we don’t want to upset the General. He’s planned for years and years for you to make just this statement at just this time in such a way that it will make the greatest possible impact. If anything happens to dilute the attention your endorsement is supposed to get, he may be angry. And we’re not ready to defy him, yet.”
Hank scratched his head. “You’re right. Of course, you’re right. Should have seen it myself.”
That’s okay, Dad,” Mark said.
“There’s still one thing I don’t understand, though.”
“Yes?” Was that a trace of impatience in his son’s voice? No, couldn’t be. No man had ever had more convincing proof that his son loved him.
“I still don’t understand how taking care of those twelve ... people is going to help. There’s still a tape, and you-know-who still has it. What’s to stop him from playing it once we do defy him?”
“I told you, Dad, it’s all part of the plan. Nobody who hears that tape will believe it, I promise.”
“Well, okay, but—”
“Dad, if I work this right, the General won’t dare even play the tape.”
And his son smiled so warmly that the Senator could do nothing but believe him.