Phillip Margolin - Executive Privilege

“Working late?”

Charlotte jumped. She’d been so focused she had not heard Tim Moultrie slip up behind her. Moultrie was a junior at Georgetown who was an avid supporter of Senator Gaylord. He also had the hots for Charlotte and had hit on her as soon as she started working as a volunteer. Moultrie wasn’t bad-looking, and he was awfully smart, but he was just a college boy, and boys her age didn’t interest Charlotte anymore.

“Hi, Tim,” she answered, unable to keep a tremor out of her voice.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said, laughing. “I guess I just have that effect on women.”

Charlotte managed a weak smile. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the pages collating in the plastic tray attached to the copier.

“What are you up to?” Tim asked.

“Just copying a report on the Asian trade deficit. Senator Gaylord wants to hammer Farrington on his trade policy.”

“That should be easy. Farrington’s trade policies have been a disaster. If he gets elected we’ll be a Chinese territory before his term is through.”

“I agree completely,” Charlotte said, egging Tim on in the hopes that he’d be so busy expounding his theories that he wouldn’t pay any attention to the papers she was copying.

The ploy worked, and the last page shot out of the machine halfway through Tim’s tirade against the evils of the subsidy Japan was giving to one of its industries.

“I’m glad you’re around to explain this economic stuff to me,” said Charlotte, who’d aced her course in international economic theory.

“Not a problem,” Tim answered as Charlotte stacked the original and the copy in two neat piles.

“Say, it’s almost dinnertime. Want to grab a bite?” he asked.

Charlotte glanced at the wall clock. It was only a little after six and she had a few hours to kill before her meeting.

“Gee, I’d love to. Where do you want to go?”

Tim named a Thai restaurant a few blocks from campaign headquarters.

“Thai sounds great. Give me a few minutes to straighten my desk and do a few odds and ends. Can I meet you in the lobby?”

“Sure thing.” Tim beamed.

Charlotte stalled for time in the copy room by leafing through one of the paper piles. As soon as Tim was out of sight, she extracted the five stolen pages from the stack of originals and returned to Reggie Styles’s office. She had just finished putting them back in the lower drawer when Tim walked up.

“What are you doing?” he asked, sounding suspicious this time.

“God, Tim! You’ve got to stop sneaking up on me. You’ll give me a heart attack. Instead of having dinner with you, I’ll be in the hospital.”

Tim’s face cleared and he smiled. “Wouldn’t want that to happen,” he said.

Charlotte placed the economic report in a stack of papers in Styles’s in-box and carried the copy with the list of slush fund contributors to her desk.

“I’ll see you in a minute,” she said as she slipped the documents into her backpack and began straightening papers in a way that made her look as if she were actually doing something.

“See you in the lobby.”

The door closed behind Tim. Charlotte sagged with relief. She’d done it. Of course, she’d have to fake enjoying dinner with Tim. She couldn’t think of a way to get out of it without raising his suspicions, but that was a small sacrifice. Her adventure in political espionage had made her ravenously hungry anyway, and she was sure Tim would insist on paying for the meal. A narrow escape and a free meal; not a bad evening so far, she reckoned, and it would only get better in a few hours.

Early in his presidency, Christopher Farrington had felt like a fraud, and he’d wondered how many other presidents had felt this way. Farrington was certain that every person who went into politics harbored a secret dream of one day being the president of the United States, but once the chosen few achieved their dream, he wondered if holding the office felt as surreal to them as his ascension to the presidency felt to him.

In his case the dreamlike quality of his presidency had been heightened by the fact that there had been no election, only an early morning visit from a Secret Service agent telling him that President Nolan had suffered a fatal heart attack and he was now the commander in chief. One minute he was serving in the relative anonymity of the vice presidency and the next minute he was the Leader of the Free World.

No one watching Christopher Farrington walk down the hall to his son’s room would have guessed that he harbored doubts about his ability to lead the nation. Farrington looked presidential. He was tall and broad shouldered, his full head of glossy black hair had enough gray to give a simultaneous impression of vigor and maturity, and his welcoming smile told you that he might have risen to the heights, but he was still a guy with whom you could share a cup of coffee at your kitchen table. Tonight, as he stood in the doorway watching his wife tuck in the covers around Patrick, their six-year-old son, he also looked like any proud parent. His chest swelled with pride when Claire leaned over and kissed Patrick’s forehead.

President Farrington’s son would have none of the childhood memories the president had. Chris had grown up poor in rural Oregon with only a dim recollection of the father who’d deserted him, his mother, and his brothers and sisters. Most evenings, his mother had been too tired from working two jobs to tuck in Chris or his siblings. On the occasions when she’d bothered, her breath had been a mixture of mint and cheap liquor.

Sports had saved Farrington’s life. He was six five and had a good enough jump shot to corral a scholarship at Oregon State, where he’d guided OSU to two appearances in the NCAA tournament. He was no slouch in the classroom either and his grades and financial need had earned him a full ride to law school in Oregon. There was a good chance that he could have gotten into one of the nation’s elite law schools, but political office had been Christopher Farrington’s goal since being elected class president in high school. A degree from Harvard or Yale didn’t appeal to him as much as the possibility of making influential contacts during his three years in law school, and at this he succeeded. Powerful backers and his notoriety as a sports hero helped him win a spot in the state senate on his first try. He’d risen to the position of majority leader when he decided to take on an incumbent governor, who was brought low by a financial scandal uncovered by an intrepid reporter two months before the election. Farrington’s closest friend and top aide, Charles Hawkins, had learned about the governor’s peccadilloes before advising his boss to make the run and had fed the information about them to the reporter when the time was right.

Claire lowered the shade in Patrick’s room, and the spotlighted Washington Monument disappeared from view. She turned toward the doorway and smiled.

“How long have you been standing there?” she asked when they were in the hall.

“A few seconds,” Farrington answered as he closed the door quietly behind them.

The hall outside the family bedrooms reminded the Farringtons of a floor in a colonial inn. A plush blue carpet went well with the old-fashioned, off-white wallpaper that President Nolan’s wife had selected. A few oil paintings from the 1800s depicting rural America in all its glory were interspersed with portraits of some of the lesser-known presidents. Freestanding lamps and a few small chandeliers lit their way. The Farringtons didn’t care much about interior decorating so there had been no change in the décor since Christopher had ascended to the presidency.