Jury Town (24 page)

CHAPTER 31

BLACKSBURG, VIRGINIA

“If you elect me to the United States Senate in November, I promise to give you everything I have every day of my term!” Angela shouted above the applause that was hurtling up into the rafters of Cassell Coliseum, Virginia Tech’s cavernous basketball arena, and then echoing back down, creating a continuous, deafening roar. “I will never, never stop working for you!” she yelled into the microphone affixed to the dais in the middle of the huge stage. “I promise you I won’t!”

Kanye West was appearing tonight on this stage, and Trent had arranged the rally through Kanye’s people and the Virginia Tech athletic department’s senior staff, all of whom Trent knew from his days as an NBA star. Somehow he’d also filled the coliseum with more than ten thousand screaming fans who seemed obsessed with a changing of the guard in Washington, DC.

She’d assumed when she walked onstage forty minutes ago that she’d be met by a polite, low-key crowd half filling the arena, which would dutifully listen to her explain her major initiatives. She’d assumed wrong. Trent had filled the place to capacity, arranged for network coverage, all prior to raising significant money for the campaign from influential people in the Blacksburg area at an intimate downtown breakfast this morning. He seemed to know everyone everywhere. He seemed able to achieve anything for her campaign—including quickly shaving points from Chuck Lehman’s lead.

“When we announced our candidacy, no one gave us a chance,” she said, signaling for quiet. “The reporters, the political pundits, even most people on the street shook their heads and said I had no chance to defeat Chuck Lehman.” Cassell Coliseum had gone pin-drop silent in an instant. “They said he was an institution in Washington, destined for greater glory when he finished his third term as senator. That I was crazy, even arrogant, to believe I could beat him. After all, he is the senate majority leader. Well, let me tell you all something,” she said defiantly, pushing her chin out, “as far as I’m concerned, there is no greater glory than serving the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia as a United States senator. That’s all I want. That’s all I’ll ever want. I don’t need anything more than that. I want to serve you. I have no other agenda.”

Trent exhorted the crowd from stage left—to which they responded immediately.

“We started out so far back, I couldn’t even see Chuck Lehman ahead of me,” she said, raising her voice along with the crowd noise. “He laughed at our campaign when we announced it. He called it ‘cute.’”

The roar intensified.

“Senator Lehman isn’t calling it cute anymore.”

When Trent waved to the crowd with both arms, the applause quickly turned wild, the loudest yet.

“Lehman needed binoculars when he snuck that first peek over his shoulder in our direction. Oh, yeah, I saw him do it.”

The crowd rose to their feet, and the building shook as people began to jump up and down.

“Well he doesn’t need those binoculars anymore. He doesn’t even need to look over his shoulder. All he has to do is look over. I’m right there with him now, and it won’t be long before we’ll need binoculars to see him in our rearview mirror!”

As Angela’s last few words evaporated into the thunder, Trent trotted to where she stood in the middle of the stage and raised her hand in his.

She smiled up at him, in awe. The polls didn’t show her drawing even with Chuck Lehman. She’d exaggerated that for effect, taken a little political liberty with the numbers to help her corner. But she wasn’t that far behind, either. Only yesterday, one of Lehman’s aides had admitted to a Washington reporter that the Gaynor campaign was far more potent than anyone had foreseen.

Her smile widened as she gazed out over the cheering crowd. All of this was thanks to Trent Tucker. As they leaned against each other, she broke her hand from his and slipped her arm around him. She wanted him . . . desperately.

DARIEN, CONNECTICUT

“Jesus,” Rockwell muttered to himself as he watched the raucous video clip of Angela Gaynor’s rally, which had just concluded. “Chuck Lehman better be worried.”

The message attached to the clip read:
some polls have her down by just six points
.

Rockwell shook his head as he moved away from the clip and began roaming the Internet again. His instincts had been exactly right. He’d found one of the Grays on the Department of Homeland Security website. Again, the man was a senior staffer, just like the man at NSA who Rockwell had found by doing this same thing.

Now he was looking for the third man—and it didn’t take long to find him. The third Gray was CIA—at the very top of the pyramid there—exactly as Rockwell had anticipated. Rockwell was doing this just from memory, but the face on the screen was too familiar to mistake. It was the same man whose hand Rockwell had shaken immediately after the blindfold had come off in the Maine cabin.

He reached for his small, black, leather-bound datebook, which was lying beside the computer, and wrote down the man’s name beneath the name of the man from DHS, whose name was immediately below the name of the man from the NSA.

Now he needed to find that fourth man.

As he began to search, his phone rang. “Yes?”

“We believe we have success,” the voice spoke up quietly. “The message you wished to convey should be conveyed later this afternoon. All has been arranged.”

“Excellent,” Rockwell whispered, “excellent.”

“What about the money?”

“I’ll have all hundred thousand to you by COB today. And by the way,” Rockwell spoke up as he thought about how ecstatic the other Grays, one in particular, would be when he related the news, “there will be more, much more.”

“Better be.”

WASHINGTON, DC (GEORGETOWN)

“Can she beat you?”

Chuck Lehman glanced over at Martha. He’d been gazing into the full-length mirror of their bedroom in the four-story Georgetown town house in which they stayed while the Senate was in session. They were attending a reception this afternoon at the French Embassy. Then it was on to a formal White House dinner for the president of France later tonight.

He’d been admiring himself in his tuxedo. Now he was admiring Martha. She looked delicious in her lacy, short slip and high heels.

Lehman had wandered into the adultery swamp a few times in the early days. He and Martha had been married when they were both twenty-two, only a few months after they’d both graduated from the University of Virginia, but before he’d finished sowing his oats.

But he hadn’t strayed since those early days, and not once in Washington despite the almost daily invitations from younger women who were drawn to his undeniably dashing good looks and immense power. He was almost as proud of his record of being faithful as he was of being senate majority leader.

Martha had delivered two perfect sons to him. Both were handsome, spitting images of him. Paul would graduate from Princeton in May and go to Wall Street, while Peter was a sophomore at Harvard. She worked tirelessly at several charities, in Washington and Richmond. She only ever had one drink at any function and spoke four languages, so foreign dignitaries were routinely enthralled with her. Through the years she could have had her own affairs with powerful people from around the world. But, according to the CIA and the FBI, she never had. She had classic beauty, the gentleness of an angel, the poise of a president, and the heart of a lioness.

She was the perfect political wife.

“What did you say?” he finally asked in a distracted tone so she understood how much he was still attracted to her.

“Can Angela Gaynor beat you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I saw a poll today that claimed she’d cut your lead to single digits.”

“She’s getting a bang out of something new. We’ve seen it before. We’ll see it again. It won’t last.”

“The basketball player seems to be helping her quite a bit.”

Lehman glanced back into the mirror. Looking in the mirror pleased him. Hearing about Angela Gaynor and Trent Tucker did not. “This country’s obsessed with sports,” he muttered. “It’ll end up being our downfall.”

“Maybe you should counter Trent Tucker with a sports celebrity of your own.”

Lehman straightened his black bow tie, then moved to where she stood and slipped his arms around her slender frame. “Then I’d look like I was imitating her. I’d give her credibility by doing that. As the senate majority leader, I shouldn’t be derivative of anyone.”

“I don’t like this woman gaining on you,” Martha admitted. “It makes me nervous. You’ve worked hard to get where you are. I don’t want to see a fickle and mostly uninformed public make a big mistake.”

He kissed her gently on the forehead. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Chuck.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got this all taken care of.”

“Do you? Do you
really
?”

He grinned as he stared into her flashing eyes. “I’ve never seen you like this before.”

“I’ve never felt like this before. If she beats you, well, that would be unthinkable. It would ruin your chances for the White House, and I want you to be president, Chuck. More importantly, you deserve to be president. Even more importantly, the
country
deserves it.”