The Race (8 page)

Marotta understood immediately that this was a crucial moment: he was seated between two arrogant men who believed that they controlled his future, and who needed to know that he—like Christy—could not be controlled. "This is all very nice," he said with an edge in his voice, "and I'd be very grateful if you'd support me. But you're forgetting a couple of details. The first is that I'm where I am for a reason, and I got here without you. If our beliefs coincide, fine. But I'm going to trust my instincts and run my own campaign." Pausing, he looked from Rohr to Price, underscoring his words. "The second detail is all the things you don't control. Starting with stem cells."

"True enough," Price responded. "Seems like they're Bob's excuse for running."

Marotta nodded. "If we lose that stem-cell vote, he runs."

"If
you
lose, Rob—you're the majority leader." Turning to Rohr, Price asked, "Suppose we find some scientists to say the whole stem-cell thing is bogus. Think you can give them airtime?"

"Of course," Rohr answered with a trace of impatience. "But if you'll forgive my amateur opinion, you're overlooking the biggest problem of all."

"I haven't forgotten," Marotta said softly. "Corey Grace."

Nodding, Rohr repeated with equal softness, "Corey Grace."

"He's surely a problem for
you,
Alex—the phrase 'Hook-Up' comes to mind." Marotta's voice turned cool again. "So let me spell it out for you. In effect, Grace is a creature of Christy. If Christy enters, siphoning off Christian votes, that's Grace's invitation to run—"

"Not if
I
can help it," Rohr interrupted harshly. "I don't want that careless sonofabitch anywhere near the White House. No one I know wants him."

"Which," Marotta answered dryly, "absolutely breaks his heart. Corey lacks what you might call the normal incentives. Including any discernible interest in how you feel about him."

Rohr fixed the senator with a hard stare. "Isn't there anything you can give him?"

"Nothing I've been able to identify."

"It's better not to even try," Price interjected. "Why give our hero ideas?"

"He already has them," Marotta said flatly. "I was watching him during Christy's speech, and he looked absolutely chipper. Whenever he looks like that, it's a lousy day for me. In his heart of hearts, Corey is certain that he should be president of the United States, and he knows that his only chance depends on the Reverend Christy."

Rohr stared at his drink. "Let us pray," he said in a tone of disgust.

"Oh," Price answered with a smile, "I think we can do better than
that
."

THE DAY AFTER CHRISTY'S SPEECH, COREY MADE A POINT OF WATCHING his daily television show.

Perched in front of the television in Corey's office, Corey and Jack Walters ate Reuben sandwiches. Head bowed, Christy stood alone on a sound-stage. "Thank you, Lord," he intoned, "for causing Hurricane Sarah to veer away from our beloved state of Virginia ..."

"Problem is," Jack remarked, "it's about to hit Long Island. Seems like Christy's pull with the Almighty is strictly regional."

Corey shrugged. "Hitting Long Island is part of God's plan."

On the screen, Christy raised his head, his voice thick with emotion. "I can feel the presence of God today, hear the stirrings of His people. In the words of John F. Kennedy, 'Here on earth God's work must truly be our own.'"

"God's one thing," Jack opined, "but channeling JFK is shameless."

Intently watching the screen, Corey held up his hand to ask for silence. "I'm facing a great decision," Christy told his audience. "Should I run for president, or should I resist the siren song of temporal power? Please, I remind you, tell your Senate to spurn the abomination that is stem-cell research. Most of all, keep our country in your prayers."

Jack gave the screen a blank, puzzled look—though his appearance was guileless, Jack had seen two decades of Senate infighting and was used to gauging politicians thoroughly grounded in this world. "This guy really
is
from some other planet. Didn't you tell me you'd once met him?"

For a moment, Corey was silent. "Our paths crossed," he amended. "We never actually met."

He said this dismissively, as though the memory were of little moment. But this was far from true—for reasons too personal, and too painful, ever to reveal to Jack. When Jack turned back to watch Christy, Corey's gaze, inevitably, lit on the photograph of his brother, Clay.

Throughout the rest of the program, Corey was silent. When it was over, he left to meet the adviser he valued most.

"I'M THINKING ABOUT running for president," Corey said bluntly. "And I still don't get Bob Christy. Never have."

Standing at the helm of his powerboat, Cortland Lane steered them at a leisurely pace down the brown-blue waters of the Potomac. Even here, Corey thought, Lane's close-cropped steel-gray hair made him look more like a general than a recreational boater. But at sixty-four, Lane was now retired: four years before, while he was secretary of state, his quiet but persistent reservations about the president's Middle East policy had led to his resignation. Yet Lane was still so widely admired that some in the party, and many around the country, had hoped aloud that he would run for president.

Instead, Lane had withdrawn from public life to pursue his lifelong interest in religion at Harvard Divinity School. Over the years, Senator Grace had sought Lane's council, first on military matters, then on foreign policy, until the general who'd once daunted Corey had become a friend. But the purpose of this meeting was unique: to seek Lane's thoughts on the intersection of politics with religion—a subject, Corey readily conceded, to which he had never given enough thought.

Scanning the water, Lane inquired, "What precisely don't you 'get'?"

"His whole worldview." Corey took a sip from a bottle of mineral water. "To me, Christy's a cousin of Alex Rohr, a man who seeks power by narrowing the American mind. And he's succeeded to the point where you damn near can't admit you believe in Darwin and hope to
win
our party's nomination.

"As far as I can tell, he's never read
On the Origin of Species
. To him, the Flintstones are a documentary—people living with dinosaurs. I find that incredible."

In profile, Lane's mouth showed the trace of a smile. "A word of caution, Senator. First of all, more Americans believe in the Virgin Birth than the theory of evolution. Second, Christy is nothing new: evangelists have been in and out of politics for the last two hundred years, mostly to advance progressive causes like abolition and women's suffrage."

"_And_ the temperance movement," Corey pointed out. "In that inspiring episode, they set out to make us sober and wound up giving us Al Capone."

"True enough," Lane conceded. "That was one of the things that helped drive them to the political sidelines. But the biggest factor was the Scopes monkey trial, where the great fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan prosecuted a high school biology teacher in Tennessee for implying that monkeys were, in fact, our ancestors."

"When I saw the movie about Scopes in high school," Corey said, "I thought it was a comedy. But now they're running the government—albeit with the help of that southern-fried Machiavelli Magnus Price."

Steering to avoid a water-skier, Lane was quiet for a time. "Magnus," he said at length, "may think he's Moses. But it all began with the sixties, and a chain of social shocks that, in Christy's words, 'caused the believers to awaken from their trance'—abortion, drugs, promiscuity, flag burning, gay teachers, and barring prayer in school. To Christy, these issues symbolized the moral and intellectual arrogance of a self-selected liberal elite toward ordinary Americans. I'd think a boy from Ohio would grasp
that
well enough."

"I do," Corey said softly. "I'm my parents' son, after all."

Nodding, Lane asked, "They still don't know about your brother, do they?"

"No." Corey paused. "Last night I had a flashback in the middle of a thousand donors, most of whom can't stand me. Suddenly, I just looked at Christy and thought, You helped kill my brother, you sanctimonious bastard."

Lane stared straight ahead. "Not your parents?"

"Them, too. My mother's still convinced that Christy and the Bible have all the answers." Voice rising in frustration, Corey added harshly, "My God, Cortland, the Old Testament God is a psychotic monster. Now even Jesus—if you believe people like Christy—is coming back as an avenging angel to slaughter all the bad people. What am I supposed to do with
that
?"

"Detach yourself." One hand on the wheel, Lane faced him. "Years ago, you learned to perceive Christy as a messenger of hate. But to his followers, he's only trying to defend their families and their country against a government bent on destroying the moral fabric of our society. And it's pretty hard to argue that AIDS, familial breakup, and sleazy popular entertainment are changes for the better."

"Who thinks
that
?"

"So what are you going to do about it? At least Bob Christy has an answer."

"Yeah," Corey replied. "The Apocalypse."

"That's the point. In Christy's mind, he's a patriot, trying to save the America of God's design before we—quite literally—commit suicide. Tell me this: do
you
think we're on the brink of a national decline?"

"Yes."

"So do I. And so does Christy. I'd say most religious conservatives, just as we do, fear for our society in the here and now. For example, wouldn't
you
feel better if there were fewer divorces?"

The question, Corey suspected, carried a trace of the personal: Lane's wife's battle with depression, he had confided, had come to shadow his own marriage. "Depends on the marriage," Corey answered. "Some days I'd just feel better if
I
weren't divorced."

Lane turned to him. "When
was
the last time you heard from Kara?"

"Two months ago—in a postcard. I was so pathetically grateful I wrote her a four-page letter, the kind of newsy thing that you'd put in a fucking Christmas card. But then it's hard to communicate with a daughter who's grown up half a world away."

Looking to their right, Lane studied the Pentagon, his old workplace. "Open to trying again?" he asked. "Marriage, I mean."

"In theory. There are good reasons why I haven't."

"In that case, I give you credit for placing principle above ambition. As I'm sure Rustin has told you, we haven't elected a single man as president for a century and a half or so. As for an avowed agnostic, never."

Corey cocked his head. "What makes you think I am one?"

"Agnostic? Or avowed?"

Pondering this, Corey thought of his friend Joe Fitts, explaining his unbelief over a glass of Scotch. "I've never been sure."

"You'll need a better answer if you decide to run for president. Within our party, the religious are as essential as the money people."

"Oh, I know," Corey said. "I've come up with a slogan for Marotta's campaign: 'Out of Rohr's wallet and into
your
bedroom.' Or, for that matter, your freezer. That's why we've got this stem-cell debate—Marotta is being forced to love frozen embryos as much as Christy does."

Briefly, Lane laughed. "What
are
you going to do about that one?"

Unbidden, Corey thought about Lexie Hart. "It's tricky."

"No doubt." Lane faced him now, his expression troubled. "For your own sake, Corey, you need to find a way to talk to Christy's people.
And
to people like me, who believe deeply in God—though perhaps a different one—and believe that mankind is lost without a spiritual dimension.

"You
have
one, I know. But it would help you to acknowledge, if only to yourself, that most of Christy's followers are as sincere and idealistic as Magnus Price is cynical and calculating. That's why they often find it hard to compromise. And putting aside frozen embryos, you and I both know that a fetus is the beginning of a life."

Corey felt himself smile. "Funny, I made that point just yesterday. Unfortunately, to a woman who's also a liberal. Bad timing."

Lane's eyes lit with interest. "Lexie Hart? I saw she was making the rounds. Tell me, is she as gorgeous as she looks on-screen?"

"At least. But what struck me is how smart she is. And complicated, I think."

"The best ones often are, in my experience."

This tacit reference to his wife's depression triggered another thought. "Tell me why," Corey ventured, "we always talk about
me
when the presidency comes up."

Lane's smile, Corey thought, was faintly melancholy. "Because nothing else makes sense."

"You might have been president, Cortland. You still could be."

Lane slowly shook his head. "The time for me has passed," he answered. "And probably never was. I just hope that yours will come."

DRIVING BACK TO his office, Corey found he had much to ponder: the lingering toxin of racism in politics, the ways in which politicians invoked, or abused, religion. And then, as Corey knew they would, his thoughts—and his memories—fixed on his dead brother.

IN THE MONTHS AFTER HE HAD LEFT THE AIR FORCE TO PURSUE A SENATE race, Corey came to accept that, however hard he tried to reach his six-year-old daughter, his interactions with Kara were far less warm than those with his teenaged brother, Clay.

Perhaps the ever-observant Kara had learned to treat him with reserve by watching her parents' marriage. At the urging of his political patrons, Corey and Janice had returned to Lake City—as one adviser put it, "to the place and people who made you who you are." But whereas Corey—newly chastened by Joe Fitts's death and the captivity that followed—tried to view the town and its citizens with a more tolerant eye, Janice saw it with a merciless clarity, a place in which the symmetrical rows of bungalows symbolized a stifling conformity of thought and action made worse by the well-meaning but constant attention of ten thousand fellow citizens. "It's like an air force base for civilians," Janice said tartly. "I'm still in temporary housing, and I'm still the general's daughter."