The anchorman in the studio interrupted to promise "more on this breaking story in sixty seconds," and the station cut to a commercial.
Theo stopped at another red light.
"Wow," said Jack. "Sounds pretty grim."
Theo checked his sunglasses in the rearview mirror. "Your old man still buddy-buddy with the president of vice?"
"I'd say so," said Jack. "He was on that hunting trip."
Chapter
4
Jack was standing at his father's side as they watched the landing of Air Force One.
Jack had just signed the papers for his new Mustang when Harry called to tell him that the hunting party--sans vice president--was being transported by yacht from Everglades National Park to Ocean Reef Club. The exclusive Key Largo resort had its own airstrip, and Jack had driven down from Miami at nearly the speed of Air Force One. Steve McQueen would have been proud.
"It was all so surreal," said Harry, his voice barely audible over the roar ofjet engines at the other end of the runway. "Phil's boat was in another part of the channel, but I knew from the burst of spotlights and all the shouting that something had gone wrong. It was a Secret Service frenzy. My guide tried to motor us over there, but an agent jumped onto our boat, cranked up the outboard, and took us in the complete opposite direction. I felt like I was in JFK's limo speeding off to the hospital--without Phil."
"You think he'll survive?"
"They won't tell us if he's alive, if he's dead, if it was his heart--nothing."
"Did the Secret Service take your statement yet?"
"Yeah. I don't know what their agenda is, but they made me feel like I needed a lawyer."
One thing all criminal defense lawyers knew: if you think you need one, you probably do.
The last time Jack had visited Ocean Reef, he was fifteen years old and zipping around the club's two thousand acres with friends on a golf cart. Even back then, a vacation home there had been well beyond the financial reach of the Swyteck family. Today, it was barely within the reach of Donald Trump. Ocean Reef was a perfect place for a vice president to vacation. The club was surrounded on three sides by water, and on the fourth by protected lands under federal and state ownership. Forty-five security guards, continuous camera surveillance, and monitored water access made it an exclusive playground for people of privilege. Jack had passed a mile-long line of media vans on the entrance road, but not one got past the guardhouse. Every local station and several national networks had a microwave dish hoisted high into the air--tower after tower of modern communications systems that rose like a wintry forest from the mangroves and turquoise waters of the fragile keys environs. Helicopters were kept at bay for the landing of Air Force One, but Jack could see them hovering on the horizon, well beyond the championship golf course, the town houses that sold for over a million dollars, the new waterfront homes that sold for ten times that much, and the marina filled with yachts--many of which came at a price that made the homes seem cheap.
Two Secret Service agents pulled up in a customized golf cart that looked like a miniature Bentley. Jack said hello. They said, "Get in."
"Where are we going?" said Jack.
"The president wants to see you in his office."
"On the plane?"
"No, at the Tiki Bar."
A Secret Service agent with a sense of humor--now that was something Jack hadn't expected. The cart took them straight to the Jetway, and the door opened at the top of the stairs.
Jack felt a little rush of adrenaline, momentarily forgetting the circumstances of his first meeting with the president. It wasn't the familiar Air Force One--the runway at Ocean Reef wasn't long enough to accommodate a Boeing 747--but the smaller C-32 had an aura of its own. His father looked somber enough for both of them as the Secret Service led them aboard. Olivia Thompson, the president's blond, thirty-nine-year-old chief of staff, greeted them inside. A quick turn up the corridor took them to the state room. Thompson knocked, opened the door, and announced the Swytecks' arrival in a respectful tone.
"Welcome, Governor," said the president, as he rose to greet him.
They shook hands firmly, and then Harry introduced his son.
Another round of handshaking and good wishes followed, but the president's signature smile came across as a bit weary to Jack. Perhaps the news was bad about Grayson. Perhaps it was the cumulative weight of his first two years in the White House. Jack had seen photographic face progressions of past presidents, showing how the office aged them from one year to the next. By that standard, President Keyes was faring well. His skin was as youthful as could be expected for a man in his fifties, and he didn't have Lincoln's worry lines or Nixon's jowls. His transformation was more subtle--with the exception of the hair, which had been steadily receding since inauguration day. He was a handsome man, nonetheless, and he might have done well to throw in the towel and shave his head, like a Bruce Willis or a Yul Brynner. Keyes, however, seemed to be on track for the comb-over, preferring to hide as long as possible the Gorbachev-like birthmark at his vanishing hair line.
Jack and Harry took the seats facing the president, and the chief of staff stood quietly to the side.
"How is--"
"Harry," the president said before he could ask about Grayson, "how long have you and I known each other?"
Harry had to think about it. "I'm sure we shook hands long before this, but the first real sit-down-and-get-to-know-each
-
other conversation I can recall was at the national governors' conference in Milwaukee."
"And I recall taking an immediate liking to you."
"Thank you, sir."
"Much the same way I felt about Sunny Phil."
Sunny Phil was the nickname Harry had given his friend for his "always sunny" disposition. "He hated that name," Harry said, smiling.
"But it fit."
"Yes. As long as I've known him."
"You boys go way back," said the president. "Both of you All
-
Southeastern Conference athletes in college, I understand."
"Well, different decades, and definitely with different loyalties. He was a Georgia Bulldog. I was a Florida Gator."
The mention of a "gator" just hours after the vice president had been plucked from the Everglades triggered a moment of awkward silence. The president dug into the bowl of cashews on the tray table, then thought better of it. He had the body of a man who exercised and watched his weight.
"I'm sorry to tell you this, Harry. But Phil Grayson has passed."
Jack felt goose bumps, and instinctively he took his father's hand. It was shaking. Harry started to speak, then stopped to gather his composure. He was normally not one to express emotions, but it was as if the events of this overwhelming day--hunting alligators, battling the Everglades, working through a friend's medical emergency, and now his death--had struck him down. For the first time in his life, the sixty-four-year-old former governor truly looked old to his son.
"Sorry," said Harry, reeling in his emotions. "How's Marilyn?"
"Twenty-eight years of marriage. About what you'd expect."
Jack said, "Are you okay, Dad?" Harry nodded.
The president said, "The White House will release a statement in about twenty minutes. I'll make a public television address from the East Wing this evening. I'll order flags to fly at half
-
staff for thirty days. It's appropriate that we mourn as a nation. But I don't want that period of mourning to turn into national anxiety over Phil's replacement. The Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution doesn't say how quickly I have to move, but I plan to make an announcement on a vice presidential designate as soon as possible."
Jack bristled. Talk of a replacement so soon after death was a bit unseemly. But most everything about Washington struck Jack that way.
"That's wise," said Harry. "As you know, I'm retired from politics, but if I can be of any help formulating a short list, I'd be honored."
The president cast a half smile in the chief of staff's direction. "Didn't I tell you Harry's the most humble guy around?" "You did, sir," she said.
The president said, "You're a good man, Harry. You were certainly a huge help in delivering Florida for the Keyes-Grayson ticket in the last election."
"That was my pleasure, sir."
"Hard to believe we're less than two years away from another election. Florida will be a key state again."
"It's the political story of the twenty-first century: Florida
,
Florida, Florida."
"You're one of the most popular governors that crazy state has ever had. If it weren't for term limits, I would have put my mone
y o
n a third term for you."
"Thank you for saying that, but I have no regrets abou
t m
oving on."
"Well, you have certainly kept moving. As you should. You're a young man."
"Not as young as you, sir, and getting older every day."
"Hell, you're not even eligible for Medicare yet. The bipartisan leadership role you've played in disaster relief efforts since your exit from politics has been nothing short of amazing."
"It's fulfilling work."
"Not to mention high-profile. Everyone from Floridians and their hurricanes to Californians and their earthquakes has taken notice." The president leaned forward in his chair, looking Harry in the eye. " Voters have taken note."
"Sir--"
"The work you and Phil were doing in the Everglades shows your commitment to the environment. And who knows more about dealing with the burdens of immigration and illegal aliens than a former governor of Florida? Another hot-button issue."
"Sir, I'm retired, and I--"
The president silenced him with a slow but firm shake of his head.
"I'm not taking no for an answer, Harry. I went through this short-listing exercise a year ago when Phil had his heart surgery. My list hasn't changed since then. I want Governor Swyteck to be my new vice president."
"Whoa--" said Jack. It was purely a reflex.
"Double whoa," said Harry.
Chapter
5
Washington was dressed in black. Flags were flying at half
-
staff. The country was in an official period of national mourning.
It had nothing to do with Jack approaching forty.
"The nation has lost a great and faithful servant," President Keyes said in a televised address from the White House, "and I have lost a dear friend."
William Grayson was the eighth U
. S
. vice president to die in office, only the second since the passing of President McKinley's would-be successor in 1899--and the first to be chomped by an alligator. The official cause of death was myocardial infarction, which gave his loved ones the comfort of believing that he'd probably never felt the removal of his right foot and ankle.
Funeral services began the following Monday on Capitol Hill, where Grayson's body lay in state in a flag-draped oak casket atop the Lincoln catafalque. Family, friends outside the Beltway, and a short list of dignitaries assembled on Thursday to pay their final respects in the vice president's hometown of Madison, Georgia. The flu kept Mrs. Swyteck from traveling, so Harry brought Jack.
"Name, please," the Secret Service agent said.
Jack and his father were standing where the taxi had dropped them, outside an iron gate at the entrance to a long and winding brick driveway.
Madison was the historic Georgia town that Union general William Tecumseh Sherman had refused to burn in his march to the sea. The Graysons lived in one of the surviving antebellum mansions, and it was mildly ironic that Phil Grayson became the first vice president to die in office since James Sherman, a relative of the scorched-earth general who had spared the Grayson home. It was a handsome Greek revival-style mansion with a sloping front lawn that was a leafy blanket of kudzu beneath a forest of oaks, magnolias, and dogwood trees. Jack imagined that in spring it would have been a colorful setting, but today's skies were fittingly gray, and a cool mist in the air was turning colder by the minute. Jack had heard that north Georgia could be balmy even in December, but there must have been some kind of meteorological law against it whenever a thin-blooded Floridian showed up with no coat or umbrella.
"Jack and Harry Swyteck," his father said.
The agent checked the printed guest list and then double
-
checked by radio communication. The gate opened, and a black Town Car took them up the driveway to the front door. An attendant escorted them inside. An old friend immediately pulled Harry into a circle of guests, and Jack let him go it alone, opting out of the "this is my son" tour.
The first thing Jack noticed was not the period antiques or priceless artwork, but the fragrance. The interior French doors that connected the foyer, parlor, and living rooms had been opened to create the effect of one continuous room that ran the length of the house, and it was a bower of southern smilax, green palms, white roses, and chrysanthemums.