Leon Uris - A God In Ruins

“On behalf of my courageous buddies who gave up their lives, I cannot dignify you.”

“Sham!” Tomtree repeated. “Convenient of you not to answer.”

“There are seventeen survivors of the Urbakkan raid,” Quinn said. “We have remained close down through the years. We have never missed an annual reunion. I have been stalked about Urbakkan since I first ran for state office over a quarter of a century ago. I knew this was going to come up. Fifteen of these Marines were able to come to New York and are in the audience. Both the former commandant of the Marine Corps and the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff are now in the process of issuing statements to answer the Longacre Institute’s terrible lie. The reason the facts of Urbakkan were kept secret was because of the raid’s success. We did not want the enemy to learn how we did it. Moreover, the plane itself and many of its systems were kept secret for national security reasons. In fact, the surviving members of Urbakkan will hold a news conference in the McGraw Rotunda directly after the debate.”

Darnell hustled Thornton into a side office at intermission. A string of damage-control people trailed in. Darnell sat the President down. The President was a tombstone with eyes, staring at the floor. Darnell hovered over him like a manager whose fighter has undergone a beating.

“Mr. President, according to a snap poll at the Oyster Bar—“ Mendenhall began.

“You, Mendenhall, out!” Darnell commanded. “And you, Turnquist, out, and you, you, and you—out!”

“Mr. President—“ Turnquist demanded.

“Out!” Darnell yelled.

“Do what Darnell tells you to,” Thornton rasped.

Secret Service Agent Lapides moved everyone into the corridor quickly and closed himself in with Mr. Jefferson and the President.

Thornton looked up, crestfallen. “I fouled up,” he mumbled.

“Big-time.”

“Why, how did I do wrong?”

“You tried to turn this debate into a search-and-destroy mission,” Darnell snarled.

“It’s hard to get a handle on O’Connell,” Thornton went on.

“Yeah, he can beat you to death with the truth. If we are on a losing slide, you go out with dignity, Thornton. It’s liar’s poker, and you got called. You walked into a couple of sucker punches with your fucking ocean floor and Urbakkan raid. Who the hell at Longacre did you assign to write this newsletter?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Darnell turned to the door. “Lapides, the President is soaking wet. He has a clean shirt in the bathroom.”

Thornton was led to the sink and mirror. The damage was not beyond repair. He freshened up. Darnell tied his tie, watching his man’s mood go from self-pity to anger.

“Five minutes!” they heard a voice from the corridor.

“I think I’ll go back in early,” Thornton said.

“I know by your expression what you’re thinking,” Darnell said. “You can’t do it.”

“It’s legitimate!” Thornton said, gaining authority by the instant.

“You will not bring up an affair Rita O’Connell had thirty years ago.”

“She left her wedding bed to run off with a drug cartel lawyer!”

“You will not bring that up,” Darnell cried.

“I’m the president. I can do any goddamned thing I want!”

Darnell held him by the lapels. “Pucky has been having an affair for two years. O’Connell knows about it.”

Thornton tried to brush Darnell’s hands off him, but Darnell held on tightly. Thornton blinked, and blinked again.

“Was this affair with a male or a female?”

(( \ v

A man.

“Well, thank God for that. Do you think O’Connell will sit on it till after the election?”

“I warn you, don’t go after his wife.”

“I see,” Thornton said. “And you’ve known about this all along and didn’t tell me?”

“I learned about it when I meet with Greer Little and Professor Maldonado in Chicago.”

“Greer Little!” Thornton spat. “That bitch!”

“You’ve got it backward, Thornton. Greer uncovered Pucky’s affair. O’Connell made her swear to keep it a secret. Maldonado was the one who spilled it to me. When O’Connell learned, he fired Maldonado on the spot, his own father-in-law.”

“Who the hell is this O’Connell?” Thornton moaned.

“One minute!” the voice called from the corridor.

“Darnell, what should I do?”

“You have to apologize. You say that in Longacre’s zeal to get O’Connell, they fed you disinformation which you disavow!”

Thornton nodded his head. “Darnell, are you going to leave me?”

“No, I won’t leave you, Thornton.”

For the first time in their long years, Thornton threw his arms about Darnell and hugged him strongly, then went to the door.

“Thornton.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t you want to know the name of Pucky’s .. . lover?”

“What the hell’s the difference? How could Pucky have done this to the presidency?”

Thornton Tomtree had a hundred seconds to resurrect himself, and he did. He spread his options out. The news of Pucky’s affair was annoying. Who the hell could have wanted her? That’s not the point, he told himself. How much damage would it do before the election? If O’Connell showed enough desperation to make an attack, Thornton’s spin people could throw it back in O’Connell’s lap and show the American people his Democratic opponent would stoop to anything. With the knowledge out Thornton would get to play “the wounded Lincoln” suffering.

Even as he followed Darnell to the door, a plan evolved. The Urbakkan raid still had enough mystery to it to cause confusion over the real facts.

The crowd had thickened in Times Square a few blocks away under the great news screen.

In this home and that, the intermission chores were closed up with a final flush of the toilet, snap of the Coke and beer bottles, and gathering in about the television.

America’s downtowns were empty.

This land, so diverse, realized that a particular moment of epiphany was about to take place.

“Thornton,” Darnell whispered, “the people know you are still the president. There is a fear of O’Connell. This next hour is the moment of your life.”

Thornton nodded to Carter Carpenter as he cozied to his lectern.

“Mr. Carpenter,” Thornton said, “because of the nature of our debate before the break, I’d like to make a statement.”

“It is not your turn, sir,” Carpenter said.

“I’ll cede to Mr. Tomtree,” Quinn said.

“It’s a rock-bottom humiliation for a politician to look in the mirror and see egg on his face. This Longacre report was only published today, and because the issue of the truth about Urbakkan has become vital to this election, I accepted it because of Longacre’s decades-long devotion to the truth.”

The loved ones in Quinn’s section paled. There seemed to be loved ones in Thornton’s seats besides Pucky, but they were faceless to a father who didn’t know their birthdays.

“Why did this spring up now? If Longacre published this account and it is proved false, then I would be greatly embarrassed. But, my fellow citizens, Urbakkan has been sealed for three decades. I believe the truth is that someone on O’Connell’s staff deliberately fed disinformation to the writer of this article. What media power fits the bill, and will she answer?”