Promise of Joy (4 page)
Authors: Allen Drury
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Political, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Spies & Politics, #Assassinations, #Thrillers
“And why are you so gloomy and apprehensive all of a sudden?” he asks, not knowing now that one day he will look back and wonder if she was the only one of the four about to meet at the Monument Grounds who felt that way. “I’ve been anointed by the
Times,
the
Post,
the networks, Walter Dobius, the Russians, the Chinese and the whole wide world—not very heartily, but they’ve done it. Ted Jason is going to keep me on the straight and narrow, the forces of imperialistic reaction have been put in check, God’s in His heaven and all’s right with the world. We’re going to be under the greatest security and protection the country’s ever seen, today, so we might as well relax and enjoy it. Anyway, Hank”—and though still joking a bit, he becomes more serious—“you’d better not keep on in this vein or you really will give me the heebie-jeebies. And I can’t afford to have them. Too much depends on how we launch this campaign. Plus the fact that it’s all out of character, for you. You don’t normally go off on this kind of tangent.”
“No,” she says, rising with a smile and sudden decisive air that brings him a feeling of genuine relief, for he has been more disturbed by her uneasiness than he has wanted her to know. “It isn’t, and I apologize for being gloomy. I know we’re protected, I know everything is going to be all right. I expect we’d better go down. They must be almost ready for us.”
“Of course,” he says, suddenly serious, a perverse but inescapable reaction now that she is abandoning the subject, “if you really have a hunch, Hank—”
“Nonsense,” she says firmly, linking her arm through his as they hear cars and motorcycles downstairs, a sudden bustle through the lower part of the house which indicates that it is time for them to go and keep their appointment with the country. “It was just a thought, and a foolish one at that. Come along, maximum leader. Your panting multitudes await.”
“I hope they’ll like what I have to say,” he replies, and abruptly he turns and takes her face between his hands.
“Thank you for everything, Hank,” he says softly. “For all the kindnesses, down all the years.”
She blushes, a rare thing for Beth Knox, looking suddenly very shy and, in some curious way that of course does not exist except in mind and memory, youthful and freshly beautiful again as she had been when they first began courting.
“It’s mutual, my dear,” she says. She returns his kiss youthfully, too, and then, with a little smile at herself for not resisting the urge to become practical again, “Be good today. They expect a lot from you, and you have a lot to give.”
“Hank,” he says with a sudden enthusiasm, almost boyish in his turn, “with you beside me, I can’t be anything else
but
good. We’ve got a great four years ahead of us. A
great
four years!”
“Well, we know one thing, anyway,” she says with a chuckle as the first sirens begin below. “It won’t be dull.”
So the hour of acceptance comes bright and hot and clear, and from all the corners of the two cities, all the corners of the nation, the great throng gathers on the Monument Grounds around the stark white obelisk to fatherly George. Krishna Khaleel, the Ambassador of India; Soviet Ambassador Vasily Tashikov and his agricultural/secret police attaché; British Ambassador Lord Maudulayne and Lady Kitty; French Ambassador Raoul Barre and Celestine; and almost all their colleagues of the diplomatic corps, are there. Somewhere in the enormous multitude that laughs and yells and chatters, shoves and pushes and jostles in amiable contest for position, are the brilliant, twisted young black, LeGage Shelby, chairman of Defenders of Equality for You (DEFY); pompous, dough-faced Rufus Kleinfert, Knight Kommander of the Konference on Efforts to Encourage Patriotism (KEEP); and most of their fellow members of NAWAC. (Only Senator Van Ackerman is missing. Whispering now, he is in his fourteenth hour of filibuster against the Administration-backed
Bill to Curb Further Acts Against the Public Order and Welfare.
)
The Chief Justice is there, his wife already upset because she can tell from the way Mr. Associate Justice Thomas Buckmaster Davis is bustling about near the platform that he must have some preferred assignment she doesn’t know about. Senate Majority Leader Robert Durham Munson of Michigan and his wife, Dolly, are there, along with Majority Whip Stanley Danta of Connecticut, Crystal Knox’s father, and more than half the Senate. From the House, Representative J. B. “Jawbone” Swarthman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and possible strong contender for the Speakership next year, and his wife, “Miss Bitty-Bug,” are rubbing elbows, not too comfortably, with California’s giant young black Congressman Cullee Hamilton and his soon-to-be wife, Sarah Johnson. More than two hundred of their fellow House members are also on hand. All the members of the National Committee have already taken their seats on the platform.
Television crews are everywhere, and through the crowd there are many television sets in place to bring the ceremonies to the farthest reaches. Police with walkie-talkies are also everywhere, moving constantly, efficiently, yet amicably, their presence giving rise to a few catcalls but otherwise no indication of hostility. At regularly spaced intervals groups of four soldiers stand back to back facing their countrymen, guns, bayonets and gas canisters ready. Around the flag-decked platform and the dignitaries’ circle at the foot of the Monument, a tight cordon of Marines stands guard. Overhead the ubiquitous helicopters whir and hover.
Yet somehow, despite these precautions, there seems to be something in the air that indicates they will not be needed. Press and police estimate more than four hundred thousand present on this day that belongs to Orrin Knox and Edward Jason, yet with no visible exceptions they seem to be almost on picnic, so happy and relaxed do they look and sound. Even NAWAC’s banners are good-natured, and this seems to put the final touches on it:
Orrin and Ted: the Unbeatables … Hey, hey, great day! Bad times, go away! … Ted and Irrin have got us Roarin’ … We’ll have peace tomorrow and no more Sorrow …
Presently from far off there comes the sound of sirens, hailed with a great roar of greeting and approval. The sleek black limousine from Spring Valley comes along Constitution Avenue in the center of its police motorcycle escort, turns into the Monument Grounds and proceeds slowly to the foot of the obelisk. Two minutes later, more sirens, another great roar; the sleek black limousine from Dumbarton Oaks in the center of its police motorcycle escort comes along Constitution Avenue, turns into the Monument Grounds, proceeds slowly to the foot of the obelisk.
Out of their cars step the nominee for President and the nominee for Vice President, and their wives, and for a moment, in the midst of a wave of sound that seems to blot out the world, they stare at one another with a questioning, uncertain, hesitant yet friendly look. Then Orrin steps forward and holds out his hand, and as the picture flashes on all the television sets, a silence falls.
“Ted,” he says, and his words thunder over the Monument Grounds, the nation, the world, “Beth and I are glad to see you.”
“Orrin,” the Governor replies, “our pleasure.”
Impulsively and with a completely natural friendliness, Ceil steps forward and kisses Beth and then Orrin. Beth gives her a warm hug and then turns to embrace Ted. The television cameras zoom in, the still photographers push and shout and scramble. A shout of happiness and approval goes up from all the vast concourse.
Orrin links his arm informally through Ted’s and leads the way to the platform, through the dignitaries’ circle where friends and colleagues, opponents and supporters, greet them with an eagerly smiling, unanimous cordiality.
“It seems to be a happy day,” Orrin says quietly, words no longer overheard as the police hold back the press. “I’m glad.”
“So am I,” Ted says. “I think we have a great responsibility.”
“We do,” Orrin agrees. “I’m going to make a conciliatory speech.”
“I too,” the Governor says. “I had thought of sending it over for your approval this morning, but—”
“Oh, no,” Orrin says quickly. He smiles. “I trust you.” The smile fades, he looks for a moment profoundly, almost sadly, serious. “We’ve got to trust each other, from now on.”
“Yes,” Ted says gravely. “We must. I think we can.”
Orrin gives him a shrewd sidelong glance as they reach the steps of the platform.
“I have no doubts,” he says quietly.
“They’re going to need our help,” Beth says to Ceil as they, too, reach the steps and start up after their husbands.
Ceil smiles, a sunny, happy smile.
“I think,” she says with a little laugh, “that you and I can manage.”
The wild, ecstatic roar breaks out again as they appear together on the platform, standing side by side, arms raised in greeting, framed by the flags against the backdrop of the gleaming white needle, soaring against the hot, bright sky.
“Mr. Secretary and Mrs. Knox! Governor and Mrs. Jason! Look this way, please! Can you look over here, please? Mr. Secretary—Governor—Mrs. Jason—Mrs. Knox—this way, please! Can you smile and wave again, please?”
Finally Orrin calls:
“Haven’t you got enough?”
And from somewhere in the jostling tumult below them, of heads, hands, flailing arms, contorted bodies and cameras held high, there comes a plea of such anguished supplication that they all laugh.
“Please,
just once more, Mr. President! All together again,
please!”
“The things we do for our country,” Orrin says with a mock despair as they all link arms and step forward once more.
“Yes,” Ceil says happily. “It sometimes seems as though—”
But what it sometimes seems to Ceil at that moment will never be known, for they are interrupted.
No one in the crowd hears anything, no one sees anything. For several moments the import of the sudden confusion on the platform does not penetrate.
It is so bright and hot and sunny.
It is such a happy day.
They cannot quite comprehend, in that bright, hot, sunny, awful instant, the dreadful thing that has occurred so swiftly and so silently before their eyes.
It is not clear then, nor perhaps will it ever be, exactly what those who planned it had intended. But whatever they had intended, by some possibly inadvertent and unintentional miscalculation, they have accomplished more.
A husband and wife—but they are not the same husband and wife—stare at one another for a terrible moment suspended in time and history. Then she begins to scream and he begins to utter a strange animal howl of agony and regret.
Their puny ululations are soon lost in the great rush of sound that engulfs the platform slippery with blood, the Monument Grounds sweltering under the steaming sky, the two cities, the nation, the horrified, watching, avid world.
Edward Jason, Beth Knox slain … vice presidential nominee, running mate’s wife assassinated in Washington … secretary Knox, Mrs. Jason narrowly escape death in mêlée at monument grounds … police hold fake photographer suspect … nation’s leaders join in mourning governor Jason and Mrs. Knox … party thrown into confusion by loss of candidate … congress in recess … world appalled by new violence in U.S.…
And the second day:
Jason, Mrs. Knox lie in state at capitol … state funeral for both to be held tomorrow … secretary Knox, Mrs. Jason “improving,” remain in seclusion … presidential election scene clouded … party heads confer on new running mate for knox … anti-war elements restive at chance secretary may pick pro-war candidate … President Abbott reconvenes national committee for day after tomorrow …
And the third day:
Governor Jason, mrs. Knox interred at Arlington in somber state funeral … secretary, Mrs. Jason unable to attend … president says national committee faces “supreme responsibility” in choosing new running mate for Knox … furious political battle expected as pro-, anti-war forces seek to claim second place on Knox ticket … secretary’s son says he “must and will” choose his running mate … world still stunned by horror of double assassination as U.S. politics roars into high gear …
And life and history, as they must, go on.
2
“Rarely,” wrote Walter Dobius with a grimness that showed in the heavy-handed way he pounded the keys of his electric typewriter at beautiful “Salubria” near Leesburg in the hot Virginia countryside, “has a nation prepared for joy been plunged so rapidly into mourning.
“Rarely have hopes for peace been raised so high, only to be dashed tragically and instantaneously to the ground.…”
America’s most distinguished political columnist, aware that the readers of his 436 client newspapers were waiting avidly for the definitive word on the tragically sudden change in the nation’s political geography, gnawed his thumb knuckle thoughtfully for a moment as he paused to look out the den window at “Salubria’s” rolling acres, now somnolent and exhausted in the steaming twilight of the day on which Edward M. Jason and Elizabeth Henry Knox had been laid to rest. Not only his countrymen but the world waited for Walter Dobius. It was an awesome responsibility and, as always, he was prepared to discharge it.
Prepared, and indeed, eager, for now all his work and that of his friends for many patient weeks was abruptly undone, and he knew they faced an enormous task to set it right. Together with his colleagues of the
Times,
the
Post, The Greatest Publication That Absolutely Ever Was,
CBS, NBC, ABC, Frankly Unctuous and his other friends of the networks, Walter had labored long and hard to put Ted Jason on the ticket. Not because they loved Ted Jason, but because they hated Orrin Knox. And “hate,” though he felt it to be an exaggerated and rhetorical word he never used to himself, was probably not too strong for the combination of contempt, repugnance, disapproval, mistrust and plain, downright dislike with which they had all, over so many long, embittered years, regarded the Secretary of State.
And now, God help the country, there was nothing left to restrain him unless Walter and his friends could do the job. They had entertained great reservations about Ted Jason, who had been equivocal, tricky and devious as he played with the violent in his attempt to wrest the Presidential nomination from Orrin. But at least he had been
Right
on all the essential issues. And in Walter’s world, when you were
Right,
you could be forgiven failings that would bring universal condemnation when indulged by lesser men.
Thus Ted’s flirting with NAWAC and all its dangerous and even sinister components could be blandly ignored and smoothly brushed over in newsprint and on the tube. The Governor of California believed in Peace with a capital P, he was against the old, outmoded big-stick-brandishing that had so often marred America’s past, he opposed the wars in Panama and Gorotoland, he believed in meeting the Communists half- or even more than halfway, he would apparently make enormous concessions to avoid any kind of confrontation with them—he was simply, classically
Right
on the issue that Walter and his colleagues saw as determining whether mankind would live or die.
As such, Ted Jason could be forgiven for being what they had come to perceive in these recent weeks—a weak, vacillating, overly ambitious man. He could not only be forgiven, he could be protected, as they always protected those who agreed with them. Around his essential weakness could be drawn the cloak of an incessant and unvarying drumbeat of press and media adulation. The public could never get through to him because the media kept the public out. Inside the charmed circle of their determined protectiveness, Edward M. Jason flourished and grew great in the eyes of his countrymen, who “only knew what they read in the newspapers or saw on television.” What they read in the newspapers and saw on television often was not the truth, but that was beside the point. The point was to defeat that irresponsible, headstrong, desperately dangerous, warmongering fool, Orrin Knox. Anything could be excused and justified in the pursuit of that goal. And anything was.
For some strange reason, however—no doubt caused by the essential frivolity, stupidity and unworthiness of the American people, characteristics often observed and commented upon by their mentors—the massive onslaught of the media had not been enough. Orrin, though politically battered and bloodied, had somehow managed to hang on to a basic constituency in the country whose members persisted in seeing him as a man whose personality was sometimes prickly but whose honesty, courage and integrity were constant. This hard core the media had not been able to erode; and when the showdown had finally come earlier in the week at the National Committee meeting, it had proved to be something more than just a hard core. By some miracle of direct communication that rested more on what people sensed about him than on what they were told by those who tried to persuade them differently, he had been able to get sufficient support to win the nomination. Enough genuinely spontaneous public pressure had descended on the committee to persuade enough—just enough—of its members to vote for Orrin. It had been a very narrow victory but there was no doubt it had been approved by a majority of his countrymen. And even his opponents had been disposed to fall in line when Orrin had decided, with what Walter and his friends could only regard, grudgingly, as genuine statesmanship, to pick Ted for his running mate.
Thereby, as Walter shrewdly knew from his twenty-five years in Washington, Orrin had drawn most of the teeth of his liberal critics—while at the same time producing an erosion of doubt in his basically conservative constituency that he would have a hard time overcoming. A hard time, that is, as long as Ted lived and could exercise an influence on Orrin’s policies—as long as he provided a focal point for the liberal point of view that would hold Orrin in check.
But now Ted was gone and the check was no longer there.
Why
was it no longer there?
Suddenly, as he later told his chum the executive director of the
Post,
it was as though Walter heard a great voice from the sky, a genuine revelation. Into his mind like a slither of lightning came the question:
Why was Ted Jason no longer there?
One of the shrewdest political brains in the world came to a dead halt. Across its owner’s face passed a strange look of astonishment, speculation and the beginnings of an almost gleeful triumph. Not openly gleeful, for such blatant satisfaction would not have suited Walter’s image of himself, but a genuine satisfaction, nonetheless.
He drew a sharp breath and his mind began to race. Out of its headlong plummeting came the column that was to mark the beginning of the last great attempt to get Orrin Knox—the attempt that would carry Walter and his friends into strange and dangerous alliances with deadly enemies of theirs whom they believed, in their naïve sophistication, to be friends.
It was to be an attempt undertaken, by those who launched it, with an absolute self-righteousness and an unshakable, uplifting, thoroughly comforting self-congratulation. Walter and his friends would be convinced, as they had been in the case of so many other savage attacks upon public figures they knew were clearly unworthy to serve the great Republic, that what they were doing was best for America. This justified all, even the type of attack he was beginning now as he turned back to his typewriter with a sudden determination, his pudgy fingers racing over the keys as both his ideas and what his less friendly colleagues (and there were some) called “Walter’s hysteria quotient” began to flow:
“In this dreadful hour, when American politics are in disarray and when the peace-loving have lost perhaps their last, best hope who might have restrained a war-obsessed Administration, all Americans who love their country must now reassess their attitudes and approaches to the coming campaign and the election in November.
“As of this moment, it appears an all but total certainty that the nominee chosen to run against Orrin Knox will be the amiable and worthy Minority Leader of the United States Senate, Senator Warren Strickland of Idaho. But when one says ‘amiable and worthy’ about Senator Strickland one has said it all. He has served for twenty years with notable diligence and unnoticeable accomplishment. Nothing in his record indicates Presidential stature. Nothing in his personality indicates the kind of national charisma that will be needed to defeat Secretary Knox. Secretary Knox,” (and Walter gritted his teeth as he wrote it, but one had to give the devil his due, unfortunately) “whatever one may think of his policies, does have a dominant and commanding personality. It may frequently be prickly, sharp-tongued, impatient, intolerant and unattractive” (and that, he thought with satisfaction, put the devil’s due in proper perspective) “but there is no denying that it is a powerful one. Like him or dislike him, trust him or mistrust him, Orrin Knox is
there
and he cannot be ignored. That poses, for all those many millions in America who deplore his pro-war policies and his harsh impatience with dissenters at home, a major problem.
“It is a problem, it seems likely, which cannot be solved by voting for Senator Strickland, whose personal friendship and basic sympathies in any event lie with Secretary Knox, even though he is theoretically in opposition. It can only be solved by placing on the ticket as Secretary Knox’s running mate a man in the Ted Jason mold, dedicated to the Ted Jason policies—as strongly, immovably and implacably opposed to war, to phony hostility towards our peace-seeking Communist friends, and to the outworn tenets of shotgun diplomacy, as was Ted Jason himself.”
(And where, Walter asked himself with a savage inner sarcasm, do you find this paragon? Roger P. Croy, that fatuous fool, the demagogic silver-haired, silver-tongued, former Governor of Oregon who had managed Ted’s campaign for the nomination? George Henry Wattersill, that constantly publicized young legal defender of the sick, the misfit and the misbegotten from the underside of America? Some other Senator, shopworn and unappealing even though he might parrot the Jason line? Some other Governor, arriving too late on the Presidential scene for any effective buildup? There was nobody sufficiently big in his own right so that Orrin could be forced to take him, that was the problem. But the thought must be given one more boost for the record, before Walter turned to matters more subtle and long-range.)
“That there are such men in American life,” he assured his readers, “there can be no doubt. A dozen, starting with the outstanding former Governor of Oregon, Roger P. Croy, come instantly to mind.” (He knew he did not have to name them, because over the years his readers had become so conditioned that if Walter said something “comes instantly to mind” his readers would instantly start racking their brains to
make
something come to mind.) “Therefore, the first task before the vast millions who believed in the idealism, the purposes and the sheer human
goodness
of Edward M. Jason is this: to bring sufficient pressure on Secretary Knox, and on the National Committee, to persuade them to accept such a man.
“To do otherwise—to allow a handpicked Knox Vice Presidential nomination—would be to permit the unthinkable. It would be to endorse the creation of a ticket completely unbalanced, completely lopsided, completely dedicated to the war policies of Secretary Knox and the last two Administrations.
“National tickets must be balanced. It is one of the most honored traditions of American politics. It would be unthinkable to permit a ticket in which the opposing point of view within the party had no voice to speak for it. Balanced tickets have not become a time-hallowed feature of our politics for nothing.
Balance means balance.
It is absolutely imperative if the American democracy is to function fairly for all its citizens.
“Therefore, all those Americans who believed in Edward M. Jason, all Americans of good faith and good heart, must instantly make their wishes known on this issue, in overwhelming force and unanswerable unity. The country can accept no less.”
And now with that clarion call to the faithful out of the way, he decided—with a sudden overwhelming dislike for the man who had won the Presidential nomination over his bitter and implacable opposition—that he would give Orrin Knox something to think about. He would not do it frivolously, lightly or vindictively. A genuine thought had occurred to Walter Dobius and he did not consider it at all beyond the realm of possibility that it might be an entirely valid one. Not that Orrin himself could have been personally involved, of course; he would grudgingly but honestly give Orrin that much toleration. But somebody could have been involved … somebody could have been. And once he expressed the thought in print, he knew very well that for many millions it would be easy to accept. He and his colleagues lived happily in an age in which they could create “the truth” simply by stating it emphatically in print or on the tube.
If Orrin could not be defeated—and Walter was realist enough to doubt very seriously that he could be—and if he could not be restrained by a running mate handpicked by Walter, his colleagues and the peace-loving elements of the country—then he must be prevented from pursuing his insane war policies by other means.
Righteously, as he always chastised those who deserved it in American public life, Walter began to lay the groundwork—completely and honestly convinced that he was doing so in the best interests of the nation to which he owed, in odd but undeniable fashion, allegiance and a curious kind of jealous and possessive love.
“With this much said,” his talented fingers hurried on, “the mind inevitably returns to the terrible events that took place three days ago at the Washington Monument Grounds. And after all due sorrow has been expressed to the Secretary for the loss of Mrs. Knox—after all the universal mourning that has accompanied the end of the amazing career and infinitely valuable life of Governor Jason has been expressed to his widow—the questions begin. Americans have to acknowledge that they are not pleasant questions. But Americans must also acknowledge that they are questions that have to be faced, for they go to the very heart of the basic worth and potential capabilities of a possible Knox Administration.
“If these questions have any foundation at all—and many here in this capital” (another favorite phrase that dutiful readers out in the country could never verify but always accepted) “believe they may have foundation—then they throw the most grave and disturbing light upon Secretary Knox and all around him.
