original words were. If we tried, we’d be stoning people to death every day. Billy Graham’s greatness wasn’t because he could shout out passages like a nineteenth-century orator, but because of the way he interpreted them and wove them into a modern message of personal salvation.” Landon grinned. “He spent his life as a Frankenstein’s monster, too. Always a registered Democrat.”
The waitress placed a basket of dinner rolls and their salads on the table and winked at Landon before she turned away.
“Apparently she can’t see where Dr. Frankenstein made the stitches,” Gage said.
“She must be blinded by my star power among the blue-collar crowd.”
Landon bowed his head in prayer, then picked up a dinner roll and buttered it.
“How about your star power in Washington?” Gage asked.
“I guess that’s going to be up to you.”
“How do you figure?”
“I’m pretty sure I can survive a TIMCO scandal and-”
“You fly commercial this time?”
“I always fly commercial to Iowa. And because of our conversation today, whether your allegations are true or not, I won’t be accepting TIMCO’s largesse in the future.” Landon nodded with pursed lips. “Helluva fleet they have.” He set the uneaten roll onto his plate. “Let’s put it this way. Washington, and by Washington I mean President Duncan, will bless me if I get his nominations-”
“His nominations? That’s not what the press is saying.”
“Okay, my nominations… through the Senate. And you, my friend, are the only person in the country who can derail them. If you leak any of your, shall I say, suspicions to the press-”
“If your campaign funding scheme is legal, what difference does it make?”
“The public wouldn’t understand, at least right away. And people fear what they don’t understand.”
“You mean they’ll think it’s a corporate conspiracy to manipulate the electoral process, like the way many voters view super-PACs?”
Landon thumped a finger on the Formica table.
“The corporate conspiracy to manipulate the electoral process is called the liberal elitist media.”
Gage rolled his eyes. “Not this again.” He spread his hands on the table, “And now you’re going to tell me it will be the fault of the media if the public comes to the conclusion that your brother’s law firm-”
“Ex… ex-law firm-”
“-obstructed justice using a Cayman Island bank account later used to funnel loans to political campaigns?”
“I… no. If you put it that way, no. But that has nothing to do with me, and it’s not the issue.”
“Then what’s the issue?”
“The issue is political.”
“I’m not a political person.”
“You’re the most political person I have ever met.”
“What party do I belong to? Who did I vote for in the last presidential election?”
“Not that way.” Landon pointed at Gage. “Everything for you is a moral issue. If it’s between you and someone else, it’s called ethics. If it’s between you and world, it’s called politics.”
It was true, but Gage had never expected to hear it as an accusation. Except he recognized that Landon was dissembling, for by “political” he really meant “partisan,” exploiting the double meaning of the word to conceal- maybe from himself-the degree to which his own ethics had mutated since his first campaign.
“I didn’t realize I was a subject of your psychological analysis.”
“I pay attention to people who have become dangerous. And, at the moment, you’re the most dangerous man in America.”
“To these nominations, maybe, but not to America.”
“You don’t get it.” Landon started thumping the table again. “These nominations are the future of America, and I’m not sure you want to compromise that future because of some silliness by my brother-allegedly by my brother-fourteen years ago.”
S illiness.
The word ricocheted around in Gage’s mind as he stood in the boarding line at the Des Moines airport.
Four men incinerated on the top of TIMCO’s fractionating tower wasn’t silliness.
Obstruction of justice wasn’t silliness.
Bribing an OSHA investigator wasn’t silliness.
Paying off a witness wasn’t silliness.
What happened to the Landon Meyer I used to know? Gage asked himself. The Landon Meyer who prayed to a God he believed would someday judge him? He can’t really believe God is on his side in this one.
The man behind Gage tapped him on the shoulder and said, “The line’s moving, pal. Put it into gear.”
Gage closed the gap between himself and the woman in front of him.
It had all come too fast. Gage knew he hadn’t asked all the questions he should have. Even when he was sitting across from Landon in the Flying J, he knew it. Landon’s people had a decade to work it out, he only had a fraction of that time to grasp it.
He felt his stomach turn.
For a while, Landon had said about the debts his chosen candidates had shouldered during their campaigns. Only for a while.
And Gage then knew he needed to find out when that while would end, and where.
Chapter 72
Marc Anston glanced at his airplane ticket as he walked from American Airlines Admiral’s Club at the San Francisco Airport toward his departure gate. He hated his first name. Not the sound. Seeing it in print. The spelling: French. Like a recurring nightmare. The language of the self-important. The self-delusional. A nation that had been defeated in just days by the Nazis during the year of his birth, and despite having been rescued by soldiers such as his father, proclaimed itself one of the victors at the end of the war.
Fellow students at Andover called him Frenchie, but that ended after three bloody noses made their way to the school nurse. And by the time he’d arrived at Yale, word had gotten around to not even try. Nonetheless, Anston grew up feeling like the kid in “A Boy Named Sue,” and nauseated by the fact that it was a song written by a Jew and sung by a country hick.
Anston surrendered his boarding pass and walked down the ramp toward the first-class cabin. In a few hours he’d be at the Rocky Mountain Center for Corporate Responsibility in Aspen.
That, too, he realized as he stepped across the threshold into the plane, was a boy named Sue.
A nston climbed out of the limousine in front of the St. Regis Resort and took a long look at the brick facade. He knew it would be the last time he’d breathe the alpine air or be seen in public until he checked out two days later.
After tipping the porter, he inspected the three bedrooms of his sixth floor suite in the Residence Club. One had been converted into a conference room. The second into an office. He walked to the master bedroom and changed from his suit into slacks and a sweater, then inspected the stocked refrigerator in the kitchen and brewed a cup of tea. He had just settled onto the couch in front of the stone fireplace when three quick knocks on the door brought him back to his feet.
“Am I the first one here?” Preston Walters asked as he strode across the threshold.
With his magisterial white hair, tan face, and self-satisfied expression, Anston thought Walters appeared even more presidential than Landon Meyer-and felt annoyance that he was stuck dealing with politicians like Meyer because the American public was unlikely to ever let anyone step from a corporate suite directly into the presidency.
Anston nodded. “How was the flight?”
“Cramped.” Walters made a show of shifting his shoulders. “I hate playing the part of the worthy corporate
