Power Failure Page 11

  The first Republican Party debate was coming up in less than three weeks. Tomlinson would share the platform with Senator Sebastian, Governor Davis H. Hackman of Tennessee, Senator Edwin G. Morgan of California, and a grassroots candidate from Minnesota, a dentist who had polled surprisingly large numbers with a campaign based on ultraconservative values.

  Lovett was determined to get Senator Tomlinson prepared for every contingency. “You can’t simply talk about the space plan,” he told the senator. “You don’t want to be seen as a Johnny-One-Note.”

  “Or Captain Moonbeam,” Kevin O’Donnell added.

  Jake was sitting with the three of them in Tomlinson’s private office in the campaign headquarters. Unlike most of the “private” spaces in the building, Tomlinson’s office had walls that actually extended all the way up to the ceiling. And Lovett had the room swept for electronic bugs several times each week.

  The senator was in his shirtsleeves, leaning back in his desk chair. Lovett and O’Donnell had both peeled off their suit jackets. Jake was still wearing his sports coat, sweating in the room’s feeble air-conditioning.

  “It’s the financial aspect that’s going to attract the greatest criticism,” Tomlinson said. “We need a lot of support there.”

  “True enough,” said Lovett, nodding. Turning to Jake, he asked, “What have you got on that, Jake?”

  “Not a helluva lot,” Jake admitted. “Haven’t been able to find a major Wall Street type who’s willing to stick his neck out at this stage of the game.”

  Waving a hand in the air, Lovett said, “We don’t want a Wall Street man. We need somebody from the Senate. A senior figure, a respected senator who’s willing to say that the federal government should back these loans.”

  O’Donnell asked, “You mean somebody like Zucco?”

  “The chairman of the Senate finance committee?” Tomlinson asked, clearly incredulous.

  “He’s from New Mexico, isn’t he?” Lovett asked. “You’ll be launching a lot of rockets from New Mexico.”

  O’Donnell said, “Or from Texas, if he won’t play ball with us.”

  Jake objected, “Maybe he doesn’t agree with our plan. Maybe he really thinks Washington shouldn’t guarantee the loans.”

  Lovett answered, “It doesn’t matter what he thinks. What matters is, does he want his state to benefit from the program?”

  “He’s known as a man of principles,” O’Donnell pointed out. “Solid reputation.”

  Lovett shrugged. “Can’t hurt to talk to him.” Jabbing a finger at Tomlinson, he asked, “You willing to buttonhole him?”

  The senator’s usual smile was nowhere in sight. “I can give it a try.”

  “Try hard, Frank,” Lovett said. “It’s important. If the highly respected chairman of the finance committee says he’s in favor of backing the loans, it could be the difference between getting the plan approved or seeing it all go down the toilet.”

  “I’ll try,” Tomlinson repeated.

  * * *

  There was a second Tomlinson campaign headquarters in Montana, of course. Not as large or as busy as the nerve center in Washington, still Tomlinson made trips there nearly weekly, usually with his wife.

  Outwardly, Amy made an ideal candidate’s wife. Pretty, pert, her cheerleader’s smile and bright personality charmed almost everyone she met. She traveled with her husband almost everywhere he went. Almost. Only rarely did she stay home while the senator went on the road.

  It was a week before the first debate was scheduled. Senator Tomlinson was in New Mexico, ostensibly to tour the rocket launching facility at White Sands: Spaceport America. His host for this visit was Harold Quinton, head of Space Tours, Inc. Accompanying Senator Tomlinson was Senator Oscar Zucco (R-NM), chairman of the Senate finance committee.

  Jake sat alone in his condo, watching Tomlinson on the local evening TV news. Senator Zucco was at Tomlinson’s side. Both men were smiling for the cameras: Tomlinson tall, handsome, vigorous; Zucco a smallish wisp of a man, white-haired, frail-looking.

  Answering a reporter’s question, Tomlinson smiled as he said, “We’re hoping to make Spaceport America here a key part of our new space program.” Nodding toward Quinton, standing on his other side, the senator went on, “We’d like to see rockets from this private launch facility taking Americans back to the Moon.”

  Jake knew that Tami was among Tomlinson’s entourage. And he heard the results of her work when the sleek-looking female reporter asked, “And you plan to do this without spending a penny of taxpayer money?”

  Tomlinson’s smile turned boyish. “I think Senator Zucco can answer that better than I can.”

  Zucco took half a step forward, enough to upstage Tomlinson ever so slightly. “It should be possible to finance this new space effort entirely from private sources—with backing from the federal government.”

  Suddenly Jake’s TV screen showed the local news anchor pair. “And now here’s Peter Panetta with tomorrow’s weather forecast.”

  “Shit!” Jake snapped, and reached for the remote. He tried several more channels but none of them were showing Tomlinson.

  Glancing at the wall clock, he punched the speed dial for Lovett’s private number. Busy.

  As he tried to decide whether or not to phone Tami, the phone on the end table jingled.

  He reached over and picked it up. “Hello.”

  “Jake, are you busy?” Amy’s voice. “Can you come over to the house?”

  Amy sounded different: tense, strained. Before he could reply to her, she added, “Please, Jake. I need your help.”

  Help

  Despite warning bells ringing in his head, Jake drove to the Tomlinson home and parked his convertible well up on the driveway, behind the screening azalea bushes.

  To his relief, the butler opened the front door.

  “You are expected, Dr. Ross,” he murmured, then turned and led Jake down the hall to the library.

  Amy was standing in the far corner of the book-lined room, by the wheeled cart that held a small forest of bottles, wearing a soft blue sweater over a white pleated skirt. Cheerleader’s outfit, Jake thought. She clutched a stemmed martini glass in one hand. As soon as the butler closed the door she rushed across the carpeting to Jake.

  “Jake, I’m in trouble.”

  “What? What’s wrong?”

  She made a tight little smile. “I had dinner with the wrong man.”

  Jake felt his face pull itself into a puzzled frown.

  Almost automatically, Amy asked, “What are you drinking? Scotch?”

  “Club soda,” said Jake, thinking, Keep your head clear.

  Amy went back to the improvised bar. “I know Frank keeps club soda here someplace.”

  Stepping up beside her, Jake said, “Never mind. What’s the problem?”

  She turned to face him, her usually sparkling blue eyes downcast, her golden hair tumbling to her shoulders.

  She raised her eyes squarely to meet Jake’s. “Last week, when Frank went to Helena, I invited a friend over here to dinner.”

  Oh, Christ, Jake moaned inwardly. “A friend?”

  “An acquaintance. I’d met him a couple of months ago at one of Lady Cecilia’s parties.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Herb Manstein. He’s a public relations guy for some major corporation. Nice guy, I thought.”

  “I don’t know him,” said Jake.

  “Well, anyway, we had dinner here—”

  “Butler’s night off?”

  Amy winced visibly. “Yes, Ian had the night off. Like when I asked you over for dinner.”

  Jake said nothing.

  “I was lonesome,” Amy said, almost whimpering. “I invited Herb over, we had a quiet dinner together, and then he went home.”

  “That’s all that happened?”

  “That’s all.” Amy stood before Jake like a witness trying to face down an accusing district attorney. Then her bravado seemed to crumble. “He phoned me this evenin
g and said he was going to tell Lady Cecilia about it.”

  Jake felt the breath gush out of him. “Cecilia? So she can splash it all over her Power Talk blog?”

  “Nothing happened!” Amy insisted. “We had a nice dinner and he went home. Period. End of story.”

  Jake walked across the library and sank down onto the big sofa beneath the portrait in oils of a Tomlinson ancestor.

  “It’s not the end of the story, Amy. You know that.”

  “But nothing happened!” she repeated, still standing by the bar. “Nothing!”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Jake. “Cecilia puts the story on her blog and in a flash it’ll look like you’re screwing this guy while Frank’s off in Montana. Great.”

  Crossing to the sofa and sitting beside Jake, Amy pleaded, “Can you stop him? Get a lawyer to put an injunction on him or something?”

  Jake shook his head. “All he has to do is tell what actually happened. You invited him into your home while your husband was out of town. People will draw their own inferences.”

  “But I didn’t do anything!” Amy insisted, sounding desperate.

  Jake grabbed her wrists. “Listen to me. It doesn’t matter. People love scandals, and they don’t have to strain their imaginations to turn your dinner into a sexual liaison.”

  “Oh, god!” Amy broke into tears.

  “This could ruin Frank’s chances, destroy him completely.”

  Amy leaned her head on his shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably. Jake slid his arm around her.

  “How could I have been so stupid?” she choked out.

  “You weren’t stupid,” Jake said gently. “You were innocent. Naïve. You thought this Manstein, whoever he is, was a decent guy.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  Jake flinched inwardly at the “we,” but he lifted Amy’s tear-streaked face with a hand under her chin and said, “I presume Frank doesn’t know anything about this.”

  “Nothing. He’s in New Mexico today, giving speeches and all.”

  Jake thought, Tami’s out there with him. To Amy he said, “Let me talk to Cecilia. She can be pretty decent when she wants to be.”

  “You think so?” Amy asked, in a little-girl voice.

  Nodding, Jake answered, “I’ll try.”

  Lady Cecilia

  Jake pulled his phone from his pocket and punched Lady Cecilia’s number. She answered on the third ring.

  “Jake.” Her voice sounded amused. “How nice to hear from you.”

  Trying not to sound anxious, Jake asked, “Cecilia, how are you?”

  “I’m fine. And you?”

  “Plenty busy with Frank’s campaign.”

  “Yes, I can imagine.”

  With a glance at Amy’s tear-streaked face, he asked, “Do you have a few minutes free? There’s something I’d like to talk with you about.”

  Archly, Cecilia replied, “Jake, darling, isn’t that ending a sentence with a preposition?”

  He forced a laugh. “I suppose it is.”

  “Can you come over now? I’m not doing anything special.”

  “Now?” Don’t appear too eager, Jake told himself. “Yes, I’m not doing much of anything tonight, either.”

  “Good. Come right over.” And she hung up.

  As he clicked his phone off, Jake said to Amy, “She sounds as if she was expecting me to call.”

  Biting her lip, Amy nodded wordlessly.

  Jake got up from the sofa. “I’d better get over to Cecilia’s place.”

  Amy remained seated on the sofa. “Jake … please. Do whatever you need to do. But get her to drop the story.”

  “I’ll try my best.”

  * * *

  It started to rain as Jake drove through the night and the wet streets, squinting through his flapping windshield wipers. He wondered what he could say to Cecilia, how he could convince her to ignore what she undoubtedly considered a choice morsel of insider gossip.

  He hadn’t come up with any ideas as he drove up the driveway and parked in the back of Cecilia’s house. A rear door opened, revealing a butler—or somebody—standing there, opening a big golf umbrella. Jake waited for him to sprint to his car, then got out and together they hurried into the house.

  Cecilia was waiting for Jake in the small room she used as a studio to send out her blog, Power Talk. Short and curveless, she was wearing a hip-length pumpkin-orange tunic over a pair of charcoal slacks. To Jake she looked like a fireplug with legs.

  Without preamble, she said, “This is about Amy Tomlinson, isn’t it?”

  Jake nodded. “Yes, it is.”

  Gesturing to the padded leather chairs in front of her desk, Cecilia glanced at the rain-spattered window and said, “Nasty weather out there. Do you want a drink?”

  “Uh, no thanks.”

  Cecilia smiled, her thick lips peeling over her teeth. “Well, sit down and tell me her side of the story.”

  Jake perched tensely on the chair; Cecilia arranged herself on the identical chair next to it. Still smiling, she said, “Relax, Jake. This isn’t the Spanish Inquisition, you know.”

  For lack of any better ideas, Jake came straight to the point. “What did Manstein tell you?”

  Her brows rising slightly, Cecilia replied, “He said Amy invited him to her home for a quiet dinner for two. Nobody else there but the cook, who served the food. Her husband was in Montana and she said she was lonesome.”

  “And that’s it.”

  Cecilia’s smile turned sly. “Is it? Just the two of them in that big old house? Manstein’s a handsome guy, you know. Amy’s … well, she can be flirtatious.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Isn’t it? She invited you over for dinner, didn’t she?”

  She knows about that! Jake tried to hide his surprise, but knew he didn’t succeed.

  “We’re … old friends.”

  “Yes, I know. From back in Montana. You two had quite a thing going during Tomlinson’s first campaign.”

  “For god’s sake, that was six years ago. She married Frank.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Look, Cecilia, nothing happened between Amy and Manstein. Just dinner. That’s all.”

  “How do you know that’s all?”

  “She told me.”

  “And you believe her?”

  “She’s never lied to me.”

  “Really?”

  Jake started to answer, but held himself back. Cecilia was grinning at him, like a fat cat confronting a juicy canary.

  Pulling in a deep breath, Jake said, “You know this could hurt Frank terribly. It could ruin his chances—”

  “Oh, Jake. He’s running a distant third in the polling. He’s barely ahead of that dentist from Minnesota.”

  “It’ll hurt his marriage, too.”

  Cecilia’s grin widened. “You mean he doesn’t know she invites men to dinner while he’s away?”

  “Cecilia, don’t run it. Please.”

  She shook her head. “If I don’t, Herb will simply go to some other outlet. Then where would I be?”

  “Who is this guy, anyway?”

  “Herb Manstein? He works for Rockledge Industries, in their advertising department. Kind of a dashing figure. Handsome, knows how to spend money.”

  Jake asked, “Married?”

  “Divorced, I believe. Unattached, at any rate.”

  “I’ll have to talk with him.”

  “That seems like a good idea,” Cecilia said, still grinning.

  “Look … can you sit on the story until I’ve had a chance to talk to Manstein?”

  Cecilia’s face went serious. For a long moment she said nothing. Then she reached to her desk and pulled the telephone receiver from its base.

  “His number’s on the speed list. Under Manstein.”

  Herbert Manstein

  Manstein did not answer Jake’s call, so Jake left a terse message for him. Then he left Lady Cecilia’s home, splashing across the parking area to his conver
tible and driving homeward.

  As he edged the car through the rain-spattered night he wondered if he should tell anyone in the office about this mess. O’Donnell? He’s Frank’s chief of staff; Kevin might know what would be best to do.

  But then he thought, Frank doesn’t know anything about this! If I tell Kevin I’ll have to tell Frank, too. And I can’t do that. I can’t mention this to anyone in the office. Pat Lovett? No, not him either. Best not to say a word to anyone, at least until I’ve talked with Manstein.

  Jake remembered Benjamin Franklin’s dictum: Three people can keep a secret—if two of them are dead.

  And he remembered Mr. Jacobi, Senator Santino’s muscle guy from Rhode Island. Jacobi would take care of Manstein, all right. He damned near killed me. That’s why he’s in a federal penitentiary.

  Jake almost laughed when he realized how desperate his thoughts were. Jacobi. The beast from the east.

  His smartphone buzzed in his pocket. Tami, he told himself. Startled out of his thoughts, Jake put the incoming call on the car’s Bluetooth receiver.

  “Dr. Ross?” A man’s voice, with just a trace of a European accent. “You called me?”

  Jake’s mind clicked. “Mr. Manstein.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Senator Tomlinson’s science advisor. I’d like to meet with you, if I can.”

  A moment of hesitation. Then, “The senator’s science advisor, you say.”

  “And a friend of his wife’s.”

  Another hesitation, longer. Jake saw the fountain of Dupont Circle illuminated against the steady rain. Almost home.

  “You want to meet with me?”

  “Yes, the sooner the better.”

  “I agree. How about breakfast tomorrow?”

  “That would be fine.”

  “Capitol Grill? That’s near K Street and—”

  “I know where it is,” Jake said. “What time?”

  “Oh, say nine thirty.”

  “Nine thirty, Capitol Grill. See you then.”