principal for fifteen minutes before he rescued her.
“Now there’s an important moral to the story,” said the president, wrapping up, “which many people do not realize. And that is this…”
He paused for effect. The kids and their teachers were practically breathless, waiting for some pearl of unexpected wisdom.
“Never bring a frog to school,” mimed Corrine, edging toward the door as the auditorium erupted with laughter.
Fred Greenberg, the president’s chief of staff, was standing just inside, a cell phone pressed to his ear. One of the Secret Service people opened the door, and Corrine slipped into what turned out to be a cafeteria.
“He’s running late,” said Jess Northrup, McCarthy’s schedule keeper. “You’re going to have to talk to him in the car.”
“Here we go,” said someone else, and Corrine heard the auditorium erupt in one last thunderous round of applause. The small group of aides began filing toward the rear; McCarthy was suddenly alongside her, joking with one of the local congressmen about how he had to be careful not to give students too accurate a picture of his childhood, lest he be accused of leading them “down the crooked path.”
“Hello, Counselor, glad you could make it all the way up heah from Washington,” said McCarthy, tapping her arm. “You know Mark Caren, don’t you?”
“Congressman.”
“Josh Franklin is outside, and Senator Tewilliger,” said McCarthy. “Come ride with us to the hospital.”
Tewilliger? Corrine wanted to ask what he was doing here; New Hampshire was a good distance from Indiana.
Unless, of course, you were planning on running for the presidency in three years… against McCarthy.
Corrine put on her courtroom face as she walked to the limo and SUVs. Secret Service agents flanked the procession, aides scurried to the vehicles, and the national press corps sauntered toward their bus, trying to pretend they didn’t like looking important in front of their local brethren.
Corrine couldn’t talk in front of the others, so she simply followed along as they walked to the limo. Franklin and Tewilliger seemed to have just finished sharing a private joke and were smirking like schoolboys as they got in. Congressman Caren gave the president a pitch for more funding in a highway appropriations bill, mentioning that the road they were to take was one of those that would be improved.
“And there are plenty of potholes in it,” said Caren. “I have to warn you.”
The president winked at Corrine as he got into the limo.
Though in theory there were six passenger seats in the back, three facing front and three facing rear, the president generally sat without anyone next to him. Corrine found herself sandwiched between Tewilliger and Congressman Caren, her arms folded.
“Senator, I was surprised to see you in New Hampshire,” said Corrine.
“My Senate subcommittee is holding a hearing on the coast guard,” said Tewilliger smoothly. “This afternoon as a matter of fact. I made my plans before I knew the president was coming.”
“The Senator joined me at the state party dinner last night,” said McCarthy, grinning. “It was quite a night.”
“They put on a good party,” said Caren, oblivious to the president’s irony
Tewilliger, of course, had arranged to be in New Hampshire specifically to attend the dinner, where many of the state’s top politicos could be glad-handed at the same time. It was hardly an accident that he’d shown up when the president did, nor was it likely that he had made his plans before the president. Everyone in the car knew it, though general political etiquette kept them from contradicting him.
“Are we making progress on Korea?” asked Tewilliger as the sedan began moving toward the president’s next appointment.
“I think we are,” said McCarthy.
“The Undersecretary seems to think North Korea is holding out,” said Tewilliger, turning to Franklin, “if I’m reading him correctly.”
“I just think it’s a possibility, not necessarily a fact,” said Franklin.
“What do you mean?” asked Caren.
“I think it’s very possible that they have nukes we don’t know about.”
As a general rule, First Team missions were kept secret from the cabinet, and neither Franklin nor his boss had been informed of this one. The president gave nothing away now, his manner still pleasantly accommodating. Talking to children always charged him up; he had dozens of schoolboy stories and loved to tell each one. Chatting with the kids, even from an auditorium stage, made him feel as if he were breaking out of the bubble that surrounded the presidency.
“If the international organizations do their jobs, we won’t have to trust North Korea,” Caren said.
“Assuming the North Koreans cooperate,” said Tewilliger.
“A difficult thing to assume,” said Franklin.
Corrine had not realized that Franklin was so skeptical. Defense Secretary Larry Stich was a proponent of the agreement, partly because he believed the North Korean regime was on its last legs and the agreement would not only freeze developments but also avoid the possibility of the weapons disappearing if a successor took over. But Franklin clearly had a different opinion; he began speaking about increases in the size of the North Korean army recently, mentioning improvements in the forces around the capital and the pending purchase of new Russian equipment. Details rolled off his tongue. There was a program to replace the type 63 light tank and another to update the North Korean version of the Russian type 85 armored personnel carrier, equipping it with better armor and fire-and-forget missiles.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to monopolize the conversation,” said Franklin, suddenly cutting himself off midsentence. He turned to Corrine. “Ms. Alston, what do you think about the Koreans? Can we trust them?”
“I don’t really have much of an opinion on trust,” she said. “And in any event, my opinion would be the same as my client’s.”
McCarthy started to laugh.
“What brings you to New Hampshire, Ms. Alston?” asked Congressman Caren.
“I have a few things to go over with the president,” she said, “and since he couldn’t come to me, I came to him.”
Caren nodded. He suppressed a smile, as if he were afraid his oval egg of a face would crack.
“I haven’t been to your state in a long time,” added Corrine. “It’s beautiful in the fall.”
“You should have seen the trees a few weeks ago. It is pretty, though. But chilly, very chilly.”
He could have been describing the temperature in the limo for the ten minutes it took to reach the hospital where the president was scheduled to meet with staff and patients before meeting with a doctor who had won a humanitarian prize for helping wounded children in Iraq. McCarthy picked up the phone just as the limo arrived; the others, sensing not only that the president wanted to be alone but that they would have a chance at giving exclusive interviews to the media, got out quickly.
“Just a second, Corrine,” said McCarthy. He asked the person on the other end to connect him to Senator Freely, then looked at her. “Assistant Secretary Franklin is here to accept an award from his alma mater this evening. I thought it would be useful to have him nearby; hold your enemies closely, as the philosopher once said.”
“Josh Franklin is an enemy?”
“Only of late and only with respect to Korea,” said McCarthy. “A slight difference of opinion. We can tolerate that. Sometimes I even disagree with you.”
Senator Freely picked up on the other end. McCarthy asked him how he was, how his family was, how his grandchildren were, how his constituents were.
“Now by and by, Lawrence, are you coming back to Washington for the treaty vote? It will help us get a great many other things done, both in that region and elsewhere… Well I do appreciate that, I do. Yes, I share your concerns. They are serious concerns. Nonetheless…”
Corrine watched the president listen to the senator. Like all the great politicians, McCarthy had a remarkable ability to make the person he was speaking to believe that he or she was the only person in the world he wanted to be with at that moment.
