The Abduction

3

LEAHY TAKES THE FIFTH ON ADULTERY, blazed Friday morning’s headlines.

Last night, Allison had retired to her hotel room at the Ritz Carlton with a sick feeling in her stomach. She had hoped it would be gone when she woke in the morning.
It was only worse.
She tossed the Atlanta Journal on the unmade bed. The New York Times and Washington Post were less sensational in their headlines, but by 8:00 A.M. she’d seen and heard enough to know that even the most respected print and television media were raising the same damning questions about her character. Was she hiding something? If so, would the American people elect as president a woman who had cheated on her husband?
As the warm shower waters pelted her body, she recalled her mother’s words eight years ago, when Emily was abducted—the Leahy creed that “everything happens for a reason.” This morning, not even the creed made sense. Allison had come to terms with the loss of her daughter only by reasoning that she was destined to do something else with her life, something so great that it was beyond even motherhood. She immersed herself in volunteer work, eventually landing as executive director of the Benton Foundation and head of the Coalition for America’s Children, where she became friends with the First Lady. The crusade continued as attorney general and Democratic nominee for the presidency. Losing Emily would never make sense, but she had tried to make as much sense of it as she possibly could.
The adultery scandal not only threatened her presidential hopes, but it shook the inner peace she’d built on the shaky bedrock of ambition.
“I told you so,” she whispered to herself, staring at her wet reflection in the glass shower door. It was exactly what her mother would say if she were still living. Washington was fickle, she’d warned, especially about women. But Allison had been too busy climbing to worry about falling. “Women want to be her, men want to meet her,” was the way George magazine had summed up the Leahy phenomenon four years ago. “The class of Jackie O., the charisma of JFK,” the Times had proclaimed. She’d brought enthusiasm to her post, so much so that people had good-naturedly dubbed the Department of Justice the department of energy. Talented lawyers who ordinarily wouldn’t think of leaving their lucrative private practice were flocking to her door for low-paying government positions, just to work with her. She could start a fashion trend by wearing a sweat suit into the office on Saturday morning, or make a local restaurant “chic” just by stopping in for a muffin on her way to work.
And now the slide—just eleven damn days before the election. Okay, Mom, you were right again. Now get these bastards off my back.
By eight-thirty Allison had taken breakfast in her room, her bags were packed, and she was ready for a full day of appearances in Atlanta. She and David Wilcox shared the backseat of a limo from the Buckhead Ritz Carlton to the downtown Five Points area. The FBI normally guarded the attorney general. As a presidential candidate, however, she also received Secret Service protection. A Plexiglas partition separated her and Wilcox from the agents in the front seat, giving them the privacy they desired. They said nothing on the ride down Peachtree Street, each deep in thought. The limo’s interior blackened, then brightened in the intermittent shadows of glass office towers. Finally Wilcox broke the silence.
“I need to know, Allison.”
Her head turned. “Need to know what?”
He raised an eyebrow, as if she had to be joking. “Why did you dodge the question?”
“Because it didn’t deserve an answer.”
He chuckled, but it was an angry chuckle. “Who do you think you are, Meryl Streep in The Bridges of Madison County? Maybe it plays in the movies, but extramarital sex is still a serious political liability.”
“Is it?” she said in a voice that challenged. “I must say that I find this whole controversy very intriguing. Think of all the philandering men this country has elected president. But the minute there’s the slightest possibility that a woman candidate may have been unfaithful to her husband, the old double standard kicks in. The entire nation is suddenly in a time warp. It’s like a throwback to 1952, when the cover of Look magazine asked about Adlai Stevenson, can a divorced man be elected president?”
Wilcox was deadpan. “I would remind you that the answer to that question was no. And he lost to a respected national war hero, a general in the United States Army.”
“Lincoln Howe is no Dwight Eisenhower.”
They fell silent again, until the limo passed a towering cylinder that resembled a seventy-story silo.
“I think you should answer the question.” He stared out the window as he spoke.
Allison shot him a look. “No.”
“Are you hiding something? Is that why you won’t answer?”
She grimaced. “I stood before fifty million viewers last night and refused to answer any questions about marital fidelity—based on principle. If I check the public opinion polls twelve hours later and decide I will answer, what would that say about my principles?”
His eyes were suddenly bulging. “It’s not just your reputation that’s at stake here, okay? I don’t make a name for myself in this business by losing elections in the homestretch. A year of my life—eighteen-hour days, seven days a week—has gone into your campaign with one goal: getting you elected. I won’t have it pissed away by some weekend romp with some nineteen-year-old campaign volunteer you won’t tell me about.”
“Is that really what you think of me?” she asked bitterly.
“I don’t know what to think. I just deserve to know the truth.”
“The only person who deserves to know anything is Peter. And you know what? Peter didn’t even think to ask such a stupid question before he left the hotel this morning. But if you really must know, I’ll tell you: No, I have never cheated on Peter. Now, would you like to know what positions I prefer?”
His cellular phone rang. He looked away and answered it. “Wilcox.”
Allison took some deep breaths as he took the call. It surprised her that even her own strategist would question her integrity. It hadn’t occurred to her until now, but maybe Peter could have used a little reassurance, too. Maybe it wasn’t really “business” that made him check out of the Ritz earlier than expected.
Her glance shifted back to Wilcox. He was massaging his temple as he switched off the phone. She asked, “What is it?”
“The results of last night’s Gallup poll are in. Your six-point lead is down to one and a half. With the statistical margin of error, you and Howe are in a dead heat.” He blinked hard, then looked her in the eye. “You realize what this means, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” she said in disbelief. “It’s 1952 all over again.”


From a hotel suite fifteen stories above Atlanta, Lincoln Howe smiled down upon the scene of last night’s rout. The old Fox Theatre was built like a mosque, complete with onion domes and minarets, a grandiose monument to America’s passing fascination with “anything Egyptian” after the discovery of King Tut’s tomb in 1922. The marquee above the main entrance on Peachtree Street still proclaimed, PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES, TONIGHT 9:00 P.M. The general’s eyes lit up, wishing it were tonight, wishing he could live it all over again.
“Ironic, isn’t it?” he said as he turned away from the window. But his campaign director wasn’t listening. As usual, Buck LaBelle was on the telephone with five lines holding.
For years, General Howe had known the forty-four-year-old LaBelle by reputation as a cigar-chomping former Texas state legislator, a graduate of Texas A&M University, and a campaign spin doctor who could have made the Alamo sound like a resounding American victory. As chairman of the Republican National Party in the early nineties, he was a tenacious fund-raiser and a principal author of the Republican National Committee Campaign Handbook. Howe had personally recruited him to serve as his Texas state chairman in the Republican primary, seeing him as the perfect experienced complement to a candidate who’d never before run for public office. By Memorial Day, LaBelle had earned himself the top spot as national campaign director.
Howe shot a commanding look across the room. LaBelle dutifully hung up the phone, lending the general his full attention.
With a quick nod, Howe pointed out the window. “You see that fire escape on the side of the theater? Over there,” he indicated. “On Ponce de Leon Avenue.”
LaBelle walked to the window and gazed down. “Yes, sir. I see it.”
“When I was a boy, my aunt brought me and my brother right here to the Fox to see a Saturday-afternoon matinee. I thought she was sneaking us in. I couldn’t understand why we had to go in through the fire escape. But that was the only entrance for colored people. White people used that fancy entrance up the street. The one that looks like a shrine.”
LaBelle blinked, embarrassed for his race. But he was suddenly all business. “I’m glad you didn’t mention that in last night’s debate, sir.”
“Why?”
He grimaced, uncomfortable. “White people will do a lot of things out of guilt. We’ll smile at you. Invite you to our home. Even let you walk in the front door of the Fox Theatre. But so long as there are secret ballots in this country, guilt will never get a black man elected president.”
“And character will?”
“You bet it will. The media is feasting on this already. Just wait until our local organizations turn up the heat. We’ll have every preacher, priest, and rabbi talking about adultery this weekend. Talk radio and television will be flooded with phone calls. Concerned parents will barrage the local papers with letters to the editor. Teachers will be lecturing about morality in schools. The potential here is endless.”
“What about me? What am I going to say?”
“I’ll script something myself. I didn’t like what our speechwriters came up with. They’re a little timid, which is somewhat understandable. Lots of people have had affairs or have forgiven someone who’s cheated on them. They’re afraid we’ll sound too judgmental—like we’re condemning them, instead of Leahy.”
“What do you think?”
“Sir, I firmly believe you should never underestimate the hypocrisy of the American people.”
“You’re a political genius, Buck.”
“Just leave it to me, sir. Between now and the election, I’ll have every man and woman in America talking about marital infidelity.”
The general turned to the window, glancing again toward the Fox marquee heralding last night’s debate. “Everyone,” he said smugly, “except Allison Leahy.”