The Cassandra Project (16 page)

“Firearms distribution. I think I can set you up—”

—

Most of the offers were coming from public-relations firms. McCrane and Whitney. Dobbs, Bannister, and Huffman. The big ones. He’d make far more money with them than he’d ever get in a government job. But the prospect of writing commercials did nothing whatever for him.

He and Susan went back to the Olive Garden for dinner. And drank the wine. “The library could use you,” she said with a smile. “Of course, we couldn’t pay you the big bucks like NASA.”

Thank God for Susan,
he thought. That night he needed her. She felt like the only safe harbor in a world turned suddenly hostile. “I’d never given it much thought until recently,” he said, “but most of the jobs out there, the stuff I’m qualified for, I don’t really want to spend my life doing.”

The dark eyes were fastened on him. “But you’ve always done public relations, Jerry. I thought you enjoyed it.”

“That was before NASA. The job really meant something there. I don’t know. I bought into the mission. Like, I guess, everybody else. Except maybe Mary and the rest of the people on the sixth floor. And to tell you the truth, I’m selling them short. It’s the system, not the people. But I don’t think I could make a living hustling toothpaste.”

The pizza arrived. But Susan never looked away from him. When the waitress was gone, she finished her wine. “You know, Jerry, most of us don’t get to move the world. Just maybe a very small part of it.”

“You suggest I take a job with McCrane and Whitney?”

“Not necessarily. But you might want to lower your sights a little.”

—

In the morning he had a call from Leslie Shields, who identified herself as one of the producers at the Target Channel. “Mr. Culpepper, I can’t flat out offer you a position with us. But we’re preparing a series that we’ll be calling
Serendipity
. We’ve put together some films depicting how we got lucky, how historical events very easily could have gone the other way. For example, I’m sure you know that George Washington, when he was an officer in the colonial militia, applied for a commission in the British army. The Brits didn’t believe that colonials were especially competent, so they rejected him. Imagine a Revolution in which he’s on the other side.”

“Sounds interesting,” said Jerry, wondering why they were calling
him
.

“Then there’s the Kansas-Nebraska Act.”

Jerry was a little foggy on that. “What about it?”

“At the time it was passed, in 1854, Lincoln had served one term as a member of the House. But he lost interest in politics and returned to Springfield and a successful law practice. He would probably have stayed there had it not been for the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which would have extended slavery beyond its original borders. So the idea is that we’d prep a film and bring in a historian. You and he would introduce it, and afterward, you’d do a discussion about the possible consequences. Had Lincoln not been in the White House, had there been someone more willing to compromise—say, Stephen Douglas—might the Civil War not have happened? And if so, where would we be today? And so forth.”

“Sounds interesting,” said Jerry.

“We feel it’s a great concept. It’s not the sort of issue that comes up in everyday conversation. Anyway, we’d like to have you come in and audition to host the show.”

“Why me? Wouldn’t you do better to get a historian?”

“No. We’ll
have
a historian each week. We need someone to ask the questions that an ordinary person would ask.”

“I see.”

“I guess I didn’t phrase that very well. Mr. Culpepper, we need someone who can put himself into the mind of the viewer and move the conversation in appropriate directions.”

Shields was blond, blue-eyed, about forty. She wielded the easy confidence of someone accustomed to success. To having people take her seriously. She flashed a convivial smile that promised good times ahead. The Target Channel logo, a bull’s-eye pierced by an arrow, occupied the wall space behind her. “You’d enjoy the challenge,” she said. “And the Target Channel is a good place to work. We have creative people and good management. You’d be at home.”

“I don’t think I’d be the right guy for the job,” he said.

“We also have a show about the Revolution.” She showed no inclination to let up. “If things had gone a little differently in the royal family, they’d have had a smarter foreign policy. The Americans would have been happy, and Lexington would never have happened.”

Jerry thought about it. “No Revolution?”

“There’d have been no United States. We’d be like Canada.”

NASA popped back up in Jerry’s mind. “That might have been a distinct improvement,” he said.

Jerry collapsed into a chair, switched on the TV, and sat back to watch the closing segment of
Koestler Country
. He didn’t particularly like the host, but he enjoyed watching him hassle politicians. They were on commercial, so he changed over to ESPN, and dialed in the Cincinnati Reds. They were in the third inning and already had a four-run lead over the Giants. First good news of the day.

But he watched Big Charlie Tinker walk two in a row, sighed, and went back to
Koestler
. The host was sitting in his book-lined studio with Brandon Janiwicz, one of the policy experts they were always trotting out. Koestler wore a skeptical frown, while Tinker was demonstrating his trademark smirk. “—Which is very strange,” Janiwicz was saying. He was pressing his fingertips together while gazing out of the screen with unrelenting skepticism. “It’s just an odd coincidence, that’s all I’m saying, that, at this particular moment, they had to pull him out of that assisted-living facility and run him over to Lackland. Where they’ve sealed him so nobody can talk to him.” “So what does that tell you, Brandon?” “Well, I’m not a conspiracy guy, Al. You know that. But obviously Bartlett’s hiding something. I don’t know what it is. But something’s not right.” —Jerry killed the sound. Froze the picture, Koestler leaning forward with that shopworn smile that suggested he’d uncovered another piece of corruption, and Janiwicz amused that anyone could have expected to fool
him
.

Outside somewhere, somebody was trying, without success, to start a car.

Bartlett, of course, was the sole survivor of the two lunar missions that might, or might not, have touched down on the Moon. Jerry googled him.

—

“Look, Maria,” said Jack Marquetti, host of
The Morning Show
, “the guy’s almost a hundred years old. And what have we got? The media going after him and claiming he’s hiding from them in a hospital. I’d like to see how well Al Koestler will be doing at that age. What we’re seeing here, and it embarrasses me to admit it, is the media trying to make a story where there is none. We have a deranged billionaire buying time to make silly claims, and sure, people get excited, and next thing we know everybody’s talking about a conspiracy. Neil Armstrong wasn’t first on the Moon. We’ve had it wrong all these years. It was really Harry Myshko.” “
Sidney
, Jack.” “Beg pardon?”

“His first name was
Sidney
.” “Whatever.”

—

Eddie Bancroft, the host of
The Eddie Bancroft Show
, pointed his index finger in the general direction of Air Force Colonel Max Eberhardt. “I’ll tell you what I think, Colonel. It’s not a coincidence that next year’s an election year. This whole business is an effort by the Republicans to suck the president into a ridiculous story. To force him to make a statement. Then, when it all turns out to be a joke, no matter what he’s said, he’ll look idiotic. Dumb. I mean, that’s the only explanation that makes any sense.” —Meredith Capehart, on
The Rundown
, scribbled something on her notepad, waved the pencil at her audience, and frowned. “I’m not supposed to mention this in public,” she said, “but the whole story was dreamed up by the media. Look, you have a couple of nitwits, Bucky Blackstone and what’s-his-name, Jerry Culpepper, saying crazy things during a slow season. Of course the media are going to run with it. What would you expect?” She touched her earpod. Faked a look of surprise. “Wait one, Louie, they’re telling me archaeologists have just discovered a working radio buried in the Great Pyramid.”

George Cunningham loved fund-raisers. He got no greater pleasure anywhere than mixing with the party faithful, hearing the enthusiasm when he walked into a room, seeing the gleam in everyone’s eyes, the hands outstretched to touch him. There was nothing quite like telling those jokes on himself, like the one in which the First Lady confessed to him that she’d fallen in love with him because he’d looked so much like her family’s pizza delivery guy back in Ohio. “She loves pizza,” he added. It always got a laugh.

The first requirement, if you want to succeed in politics, is to stand for something. The second is to pretend to be modest, to disguise yourself as an ordinary person. The guy down the street. And to play that role to the hilt. Be an average American with the right moral values. The kind of guy the average voter would like to sit down with over some beer. Pull that off, convince the voters, and nothing will ever stop you.

Cunningham would have been delighted to be able to say what he really thought, to be brutally honest with the voters, to point out that the country couldn’t go on forever watching the dollar lose value. That we couldn’t continue indefinitely packing more people within our borders. He owed it to the electorate to mention that sometimes the country needs a little socialism. (That it’s okay; we’ll just call it something else.) And so on. That was all political poison. To stay in power, you had to play the game. But that didn’t mean he didn’t believe in country over party. Everybody
said
that, but Cunningham
believed
it. It was a position that often alienated his allies. But he’d do what he could to stay in power because it was important to keep his political opponents well away from the Oval Office. They were inclined to approach every problem with a hammer.

He was at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Beverly Hills. There were some Hollywood people in the audience. Among them was Grant Barrin, the action star. Grant was at the far end of the president’s table. You couldn’t go wrong if the heroic types came out for you. Comedians were good, too. And leading ladies. But you couldn’t do better than someone like Grant.

Within minutes after he was seated, they rolled out the dinner. Steak, mashed potatoes, corn, red cabbage, and apple sauce. George’s kind of meal. He had never developed much of a taste for ethnic food. He was basically a meat and potatoes guy. Senator Andrea Gordon was on his left, and state party chairman Bill Merkusik on the other side. He expected to name Andrea as his running mate in 2020.

The party was anticipating problems holding on to its California House membership. And that became the topic during the meal. The voters were unhappy with the runaway inflation, and they wanted overseas bases closed down. The United States, many of them felt, had developed serious imperial ambitions, which it could not afford. The watchword in the 2020 election was going to be “time to come home.” George would have loved to pull out and bring everybody back to the States. He’d already done some of that. But the country had made promises under previous administrations. And some places were inherently unstable. Leave, and people who had supported the United States would die. He didn’t want that on his conscience.
The
New York Times
was leading the charge against him. It was an easy enough call, he told Merkusik and Gordon, for
The Times
. They wouldn’t have to live with the results when people started getting butchered.

Sometimes, he regretted having gotten into politics. He didn’t like the life-and-death decisions that periodically faced him. Twice he’d stayed out of conflicts while his critics screamed for intervention. And he’d watched while dictators massacred thousands. Blood on his hands whether he acted or stood by.

Damned job.
Sometimes, he was tempted to announce that he’d back off at the end of his first term. Let somebody else try his luck. If there were a graceful way to do that, he probably would. But it would hurt the party, and, consequently, damage a lot of the people who’d supported him.

—

When they’d finished eating, Merkusik rose to applause, took his place at the lectern, and introduced him. The applause was deafening. Andrea smiled at him. Go get ’em, cowboy.

He shook hands with the chairman. “Thanks, Bill,” he said, turning to the audience. He had to wait for them to settle down. When they did, he held up both arms. “I love California.”

More cheers.

“Thank you,” he said. “It’s always a pleasure to be among friends.” He told a few jokes about his early ambitions to break into the movies. “I always wanted to be a leading man,” he said, looking toward Grant as if trying to suggest they would both have been in the same class. Grant smiled and pointed a finger. You and me, baby. And the laughs came. He stayed on message. The party would win big next year, he told them, but they couldn’t do it without the efforts of the people gathered in that room. He thanked them, and expressed his hope for their continued support. He outlined his objectives for the second term. Social Security would be kept on track. The administration would continue its policy of closing overseas military bases deemed nonessential. “The problem we face,” he said, “is that two decades after we were saying that history had essentially ended, we are still dealing with an unpredictable world. And, unfortunately, the very act of taking precautions sometimes tends to create more potential enemies. The really good news, of course, is that the destruction of the global nuclear stockpile continues on pace.”

That line always got applause. Decades from now, if he was remembered for anything at all, he’d get credit for pushing, and finally bringing to fruition, the Nuclear Weapons Elimination Treaty. His father had been appalled that the world had stored tens of thousands of atomic bombs in its arsenals and, when the Cold War ended, made no move to get rid of them. “There won’t be a future,” he’d told George one evening after they’d watched a scientist on the History Channel make dire predictions about the next half century. “Eventually,” he’d said, “either by accident or design, one of them, or maybe a lot of them, will go off, and take three million people into oblivion with it. Once that happens, civilization will come apart.”

The treaty had been signed in 2018, in Hiroshima. Remarkably, every nuclear-capable government on the planet had gotten on board. There’d been promises, some coercion, a lot of compromises. To make the system work, the United States, and everyone else, had granted unrestricted and unannounced access to I.A.E.A. inspectors. Passage had been branded a miracle, accomplished in the face of outrage around the world. He wished his father could have lived to see it.

—

Cunningham made it a point never to talk longer than twenty minutes. At fund-raisers, he’d found it best to cut off at about fifteen and turn the program over to the audience. So he assured everyone that, whatever it took, he would maintain a balanced budget. Then he asked for questions.

Clyde Thomason, a vice president at Paramount, wanted to know whether the president saw an economic turnaround coming. That led to a discussion about the administration’s efforts to get inflation under control.

How had he managed to get the Koreans to agree to a peace treaty?

Was the United States going to get involved in the effort to get global population under control?

Were we going to continue sending aid to Cuba?

What was his reaction to Morgan Blackstone’s comments?

That came from a guy near the front. Cunningham was pretty sure they’d been introduced at one time, and he seemed to recall he was a banker. But he couldn’t remember a name. “Blackstone?” he said, stalling for time. Merkusik, who’d taken a seat beside the lectern, wrote the questioner’s name on a slip of paper and placed it where the president could see it.

“To be honest, Michael,” he said, “I really don’t know how to respond to his comments. I think you’ll have to ask him to explain a bit more. While you’re at it, you might check with Mr. Blackstone to see if he knows what’s going on in the Bermuda Triangle.”

—

Bill Merkusik rode with him to the El Segundo Air Force Base. “Good show, Mr. President. You were great in there.” He was heavyset, had lost most of his hair, and had a face full of wrinkles. Still, when he laughed, an entire room could light up. He was a physician though he’d given up the practice long ago. He’d hated the health-care system. Cunningham had promised reform, but hadn’t gotten to it. It was complicated, and nobody really had a workable answer.

Without Merkusik, Cunningham knew, he would very likely not have taken California. And that would have cost him the race. “Thanks, Bill,” he said. “They were a good audience.”

“They believe in you.”

“What’s on your mind, Bill?” He’d seen a shadow in his eyes.

“Michael’s question. About Blackstone.”

“Yes?”

“Mr. President, it’s becoming an issue. Blackstone lit a fuse last week. You’re going to have to lay it to rest.”

“Lay
what
to rest, Bill? There’s nothing to tell.”

“You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“Okay. Just be aware that Bucky has some friends here. And they trust him. Word’s getting around that, well—”

“Look, Bill, I can’t shut down a nonstory. The more I talk about it, the more credence it will get. Just relax. It’ll go away on its own.”