'I think we need to see what he has to say.' The quintessential lawyer's reply.
'How long at Justice?' Jack asked next, returning to his seat.
'Twenty-three years. Four years in the FBI before that.' Martin poured a cup and decided to stand.
'Here we go,' van Damm observed, unmuting the TV.
'Ladies and gentlemen, with us here in our Washington bureau is Vice President Edward J. Kealty.' CNN's chief political correspondent also looked as though he'd been dragged from his bed and genuinely shaken. Ryan noted that, of all the people he'd seen that day, Kealty looked the most normal. 'Sir, you have something unusual to say.'
'Yes, I do, Barry. I probably need to start by saying that this is the most difficult thing I've ever had to do in over thirty years of public life.' Kealty's voice was quiet and restrained, speaking in the tone of an essay by Emerson, slow and clear, and painfully earnest. 'As you know, President Durling asked me to resign from my post. The reason for this was a question of my conduct while a senator. Barry, it's no secret that my personal conduct has not always been as exemplary as it should have been. That's true of many people in public life, but it's no excuse, and I do not claim that it is. When Roger and I discussed the situation, we agreed that it would be best for me to resign my office, allowing him to select a new running mate for the elections later this year. It was his further intention to have John Ryan fill my post as interim Vice President.
'Barry, I was content with that. I've been in public life for a very long time, and the idea of retiring to play with my grandchildren and maybe teach a little bit actually looked pretty attractive. And so I agreed to Roger's request in the interests of—well, really for the good of the country.
'But I never actually resigned.'
'Okay,' the correspondent said, holding his hands up as though to catch a baseball. 'I think we need to be really clear on this, sir. What exactly did happen?'
'Barry, I drove over to the State Department. You see, the Constitution specifies that when the President or Vice President resigns, the resignation is presented to the Secretary of State. I met with Secretary Hanson privately to discuss the issue. I actually had a letter of resignation prepared, but it was in the wrong form, and Brett asked me to redraft it. So I drove back, thinking that I could have it done and resubmitted the following day.
'None of us expected the events of that evening. I was badly shaken by them, as were many. In my case, as you know, well, so many of the friends with whom I'd worked for years were just snuffed out by that brutal and cowardly act. But I never actually resigned my office.' Kealty looked down for a moment, biting his lip before going on. 'Barry, I would have been content even with that. I gave my word to President Durling, and I had every intention of keeping it.
'But I can't. I just can't,' Kealty went on. 'Let me explain.
'I've known Jack Ryan for ten years. He's a fine man, a courageous man, and he's served our country honorably, but he is, unfortunately, not the man to heal our country. What he said last night, trying to speak to the American people, proves it. How can we possibly expect our government to work under these circumstances without experienced, capable people to fill the offices left vacant?'
'But he is the President—isn't he?' Barry asked, scarcely believing what he was doing and what he was hearing.
'Barry, he doesn't even know how to do a proper investigation. Look at what he said last night about the plane crash. Hardly a week has passed and already he says he knows what happened. Can anyone believe that?' Kealty asked plaintively. 'Can anyone really believe that? Who has oversight over this investigation? Who's actually running it? To whom are they reporting? And to have conclusions in a week? How can the American people have confidence in that? When President Kennedy was assassinated, it took months. The investigation was run by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Why? Because we had to be sure, that's why.'
'Excuse me, Mr. Vice President, but that really doesn't answer my question.'
'Barry, Ryan was never Vice President, because I never resigned. The post was never vacant, and the Constitution allows only one Vice President. He never even took the oath associated with the office.'
'But—'
'You think I want to do this? I don't have a choice. How can we rebuild the Congress and the executive branch with amateurs? Last night Mr. Ryan told the governors of the states to send him people with no experience in government. How can laws be drafted by people who don't know how?
'Barry, I've never committed public suicide before. It's like being one of the people, one of the senators at the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson. I'm looking down into my open political grave, but I have to place the country first. I have to.' The camera zoomed in on his face, and the anguish there was manifest. One could almost see tears in his eyes as his voice proclaimed his selfless patriotism.
'He always was good on TV,' van Damm noted.
'I do have trouble believing all this,' Ryan said after a moment.
'Believe it,' Arnie told him. 'Mr. Martin? We could use some legal guidance.'
'First of all, get someone over to State and check the Secretary's office out.'
'FBI?' van Damm asked.
'Yes.' Martin nodded. 'You won't find anything, but that's how it has to start. Next, check phone logs and notes. Next, we start interviewing people. That's going to be a problem. Secretary Hanson's dead, along with his wife, and President and Mrs. Durling, of course. Those are the people most likely to have knowledge on the facts of the issue. I would expect that we will develop very little hard evidence, and not very much useful circumstantial evidence.'
'Roger told me that—'
Martin cut him off.
'Hearsay. You're telling me that someone said to you what he was told by somebody else—not much use in any court of law.'
'Go on,' Arnie said.
'Sir, there really is no constitutional or statutory law on this question.'
'And there's no Supreme Court to rule on the issue,' Ryan pointed out. To that pregnant pause, he added: 'What if he's telling the truth?'
'Mr. President, whether or not he's telling the truth is really beside the point,' Martin replied. 'Unless we can prove that he's lying, which is unlikely, then he has a case of sorts. By the way, on the issue of the Supreme Court, assuming that you get a new Senate and make your nominations, all of the new Justices would ordinarily have to recuse themselves because you selected them. That probably leaves no legal solution possible.'
'But if there's no law on this issue?' the President—was he? — asked.
'Exactly. This is a beauty,' Martin said quietly, trying to think. 'Okay, a President or Vice President stops holding office when he or she resigns. Resignation happens when the office holder conveys the instrument of resignation—a letter suffices—to the proper official. But the man who accepted the instrument is dead, and we will doubtless find that the instrument is missing. Secretary Hanson probably called the President to inform him of the resignation—'
'He did,' van Damm confirmed.
'But President Durling is also dead. His testimony would have had evidentiary value, but that isn't going to happen, either. That puts us back to square one.' Martin didn't like what he was doing, and he was having enough trouble trying to talk and think about the law at the same time. This was like a chessboard with no squares, just the pieces arrayed at random.
'But—'
'The phone logs will show there was a call, fine. Secretary Hanson might have said that the letter was poorly worded and would be fixed the following day. This is politics, not law. So long as Durling was President, Kealty had to leave, because—'
'Of the sexual harassment investigation.' Arnie was getting it now.
'You got it. His TV statement even covered that, and he did a nice job of neutralizing the issue, didn't he?'
'We're back to where we started,' Ryan observed.
'Yes, Mr. President.' That elicited a wry smile.
'Nice to know that somebody believes.'
INSPECTOR O'DAY AND three other agents from Headquarters Division left their car right in front of the
