The Run Read Free

Kate, then back at Will. “I’m in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.”
    Will had been holding his breath; he let it out in a rush. “Joe…” he began.
    Adams held up a hand. “Please; let me tell you everything. I know your first question will be, shouldn’t I get a second opinion. My testing encompassed three opinions, independently arrived at. They were all in complete agreement. I have it; it’s going to get worse; and, unless I get lucky and have a coronary, I’m eventually going to die from it.”
    Sue Adams returned from the window and took her seat. Her eyes were red.
    Kate put her hand on Sue’s.
    “Joe and I have a hard road ahead of us,” Sue Adams said, “and we’re going to need your help.”
    Adams continued. “Your next question is going to be, I know, will I resign? The answer is no, and I’ll tell you why. I talked with the president yesterday, before he left for California, and I told him I was thinking of resigning my office in order to pursue my presidential campaign full-time. He neither encouraged nor discouraged that action. As you know, he hasn’t made any promise to support my candidacy. We weren’t the best of friends or the closest of colleagues before we were elected—he picked me as his running mate for purely pragmatic reasons—and we’ve disagreed as often as we’ve agreed on issues. So I asked him, frankly, who he would appoint as my successor if I resigned.”

    Given what he had heard so far, Will was very anxious to hear the president’s answer to this question.
    “To my surprise,” Adams continued, “the president told me he had anticipated my thoughts about resigning. He knew that not being vice president would allow me to disagree with his policies more often. As a result, he said he had given a lot of consideration to whom he might appoint. I half expected him to ask for my recommendation, and I was going to recommend you, Will.”
    “Why thank you, Joe,” Will managed to say.
    “But he didn’t ask. Instead he told me he had decided not to appoint a new vice president. He’s under no constitutional obligation to do so, of course, and he said that, with barely more than a year left to serve, he thought that the speculation surrounding the appointment and the jockeying for advantage by various groups would create too much distraction from the important issues he wants to resolve before he leaves office. As it happens, I think he’s right, but if I resigned, his failure to appoint a successor would leave us with an unacceptable situation: It would put the Speaker of the House in line to succeed the president, if he should die before his term ends.”
    Will nodded his understanding.
    “Now, I’ve always made a great effort to have good relations with the Speaker, and I’ve tried to consider his position on various issues, but I have to tell you that his positions are so bizarre, sometimes, and always so self-serving and partisan, at the expense of the country, that I swear, if he became president, I’d have to shoot him myself.”
    Will and Kate both laughed.
    “But rather than entertain that possibility,” the vice president continued, “it seemed simpler just not to resign my office and continue to campaign for the presidency as vice president.”
    Will blinked. “ Continue to campaign?” he asked incredulously.
    Adams held up a hand. “Easy, Will; I’m not crazy yet. In my condition, I’d never try to be elected president. There’ll come a right moment to leave the race, and when it happens, I’ll recognize it, but it’s not now. The best medical advice I can get is that the progress of my disease will be slow, and that there’s no reason why I shouldn’t serve out my term. I’d like to do that, especially because I know now that I can never be president. I think that I can have a positive influence on events and, particularly, on the next session of Congress, if I remain in office.”
    Will conceded to himself that that was