He picked up the phone. “Excuse me, I should tell Holly Barker about this.”
25
Stone dialed Holly Barker’s secret cell number, and to his surprise, she picked up immediately. “Hey!”
“Hey, yourself. Got a minute?”
“I have the luxury of two minutes before I have to receive the ambassador from France.”
“I just got a call from the redoubtable United States Senator Joseph Box, informing me — before anyone else, he claimed — that he is now a candidate for the Republican nomination for president. He’s in New Hampshire, filling out papers, no doubt with serious help, and he wanted a campaign contribution.”
“I hope you gave it to him,” Holly replied.
“What did you say?”
“I would like nothing better than to have Joe Box muddying the Republican waters for the next few months. He’ll drive them crazy and entertain the members of the media. I may contribute to his campaign myself.”
“I admit I had not thought far enough ahead to consider that. It’s difficult to plan when you’re laughing so hard.”
“I have the feeling that, at some point, he’s going to get a lot less funny,” she said. “We’re going to have an opportunity to find out how large a slice of the Republican electorate shares his incomprehensible views.”
“You have a better political mind than I,” Stone said.
“I certainly hope so,” she said. “Tell me: Are you the ambassador from France?”
“Not since I last checked.”
“Then I can’t talk to you anymore because that gentleman is about to replace you in my affections.”
“Come to New York, and we’ll re-replace me in your affections.”
“I’m not going anywhere near you, until well after I’ve taken the oath of office. Love ya, though!” She hung up.
Nearer the southern tip of Manhattan, Hank Thomas was taking his regular, early-morning meeting with his grandfather, who now exhibited only a small cough. Rance Damien joined them.
“Gentlemen, I have news,” Hank said. “I’ve just had a phone call informing me that Senator Joe Box of Florida is announcing his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president, starting in New Hampshire. This is very good news.”
The two men stared at him. “You’re pleased about this?” his grandfather asked.
“I am positively delighted,” Hank said.
“Please tell us why,” Henry said.
“Certainly, Poppa. One of my objectives in running was to do what I could to destroy the Republican Party, so I could start a new one. I no longer have that opportunity, but Joe Box, whether he realizes it or not, does. He’s going to drive them nuts, and he’s going to win some primaries, too, in the South and in the Rust Belt.”
“Surely not enough to win the nomination,” Henry said.
“Of course not, but he’s going to get a lot of votes and thereby weaken the party’s chosen candidate. They’re much more certain to lose the presidency now, and after eight years of Holly Barker, the party will crumble to dust. When and if I get back into it, it will be as the head of a new conservative party, one that shuns the yahoos, one that can draw support from independents, women, and educated whites. I’m going to have a better shot at it then than I would have had now.”
“Actually, that makes a lot of sense,” Henry said, bestowing a warm smile on his grandson.
“I think so, too,” Damien said.
“Rance, we have a PAC kicking around somewhere, don’t we?”
“We do.”
“A fairly anonymous one?”
“Yes.”
“How much is in it?”
“Something like sixty million,” Damien replied.
“Then let’s get twenty million into Senator Box’s campaign war chest, anonymously. The new campaign law we got past the Democrats will allow us to do that.”
“I’ll get it done today,” Damien replied.
“That will cheer Joe Box no end, and he won’t care that he doesn’t know where the money is coming from. Before the week is out he’ll be driving his party crazy.”
Henry Thomas rubbed his hands together. “This is going to be fun,” he said, with a little giggle.
Hank had never heard his grandfather giggle before.
Stone tuned in to the evening news to find Holly Barker and the French ambassador answering questions from the press about tariffs on French cheeses. At the end of it a bold reporter stood up and said, “Madam Secretary, you’ve always been very guarded about your privacy. When are you going to loosen up and tell us something about your social life?”
“Eh?” Holly asked, cupping a hand behind her ear. “I don’t believe I’m familiar with that term.” A good laugh.
“You know, going out to dinner with friends, perhaps even a man?”
“Well,” Holly said, “I hope one day to have such a life, and when I do, I promise that you in this room will be the very last to hear about it.” More laughter.
“What about this fellow from New York, Stone Barrington? We used to hear about him, from time to time.”
“That name is vaguely familiar to me,” Holly said, eliciting more laughter. “Unfortunately, he and I reside in different municipalities and are only infrequently colocated. Nice fellow, though.”
“Didn’t you see quite a lot of him once?”
“I saw quite a lot of quite a lot of people once, until I got this job. I don’t knit or play solitaire, and a girl’s got to get somebody to buy her a steak now and then, but not now or for the foreseeable future. Now, I’m getting out of here before you try to marry me off to somebody or other.” She picked up her papers and left the room.
The reporter handed off to the anchorperson in New York. “Thank you, Gracie,” she said. “It’s worth remembering that although she has never married, Holly Barker is known to enjoy the company of men. In fact, she was very nearly married quite some time ago, when she was serving as chief of police in the small Florida town of Orchid Beach. But on the day before the wedding, her fiancé, a local attorney, went to his bank to buy traveler’s checks for their honeymoon and, while he was waiting in line for a teller, four men wearing masks and carrying shotguns came into the bank to rob it.
“When her fiancé objected to the way they were treating a teller, one of the men turned and fired his shotgun into his chest. He died on the way to the hospital.
“Oddly enough, the man Ms. Barker used to see now and then, Stone Barrington of New York, was in the bank on other business and witnessed the killing. He and Ms. Barker first met when she was investigating her fiancé’s murder, and reportedly, they remain friends. Although they see each other infrequently, he is a major contributor to her campaign.”
Stone switched off the TV, feeling crowded somehow. Holly was right. They shouldn’t meet again until after the election.
26
Stone and Dino were having lunch at their club with no name when the junior senator from New York entered the dining room. He was Peter Rule, the son of the president, Katharine Lee, by her first marriage to one Simon Rule, deceased, who had once been a major figure at the CIA. The senator waved at them, then went to his table.
“That kid has turned out well, hasn’t he?” Dino asked over his lobster bisque.