The Run Read Free Page B

said. “You are superbly qualified by temperament, training, and intellect. As far as I’m concerned, nobody in either party comes close.”
    Will warmed to the praise, but he was being sucked into this little conspiracy, and he wasn’t entirely comfortable with it.
    Adams seemed to sense his disquiet. “Will, all I’m asking you to do is to help me make a graceful exit from public life, while accomplishing as much as I canin the time remaining to me. Is that too much to ask of a close friend?”
    “No, certainly not,” Will replied.
    “Good,” Adams said. “Call me when you’ve made a decision about announcing.”

4
    Will took off from College Park Airport and called Washington Center for his clearance, as the Marine lieutenant had instructed him to do. To his surprise, he was cleared direct to his home airport in Warm Springs, Georgia, instead of being routed on airways. He climbed to his assigned altitude of 18,000 feet, leaned the engine, punched the identifier for Warm Springs into his GPS computer, switched on the autopilot, and sat back, doing an instrument scan every minute or so.
    Hardly a word had passed between him and Kate on the helicopter ride back to College Park, and until now, he had been too busy flying to talk. He wanted to talk.
    “This whole thing scares me to death,” Will said.
    “You? Scared of running for president?”
    “Not that, so much; it’s Joe’s situation. It’s like a bomb that may or may not go off.”
    “Do you really think he’s doing the right thing?”

    Will shrugged. “I’m not sure there’s only one right thing,” he said. “It would be right if he announced his condition publicly and resigned, but who’s to say that what he’s doing is wrong? He has some very good points about his usefulness to the party and the country over the next months. I certainly wouldn’t deny him that.”
    “You understand that, if the bomb goes off, it’s going to hurt you, as well as Joe.”
    “Maybe; that’s entirely unpredictable. I’ve been thinking back over the history of the presidency, and the only thing I can think of that resembles this situation is Woodrow Wilson’s illness in office, and his wife’s acting for him. Of course, it’s not quite the same thing; Joe’s not president. If he were, I think he’d have to resign, regardless of the consequences.”
    “Do you think Reagan was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s during his last term?”
    “I don’t know; it’s possible, I guess, and it’s also possible that nobody really noticed. After all, he was the oldest president, and you’d expect some slowing down at that age.”
    “Remember when he had to testify in court? He said ‘I don’t recall’ dozens of times. At the time I thought he was dissembling, but maybe he really didn’t remember.”
    “Maybe not.”
    Kate was quiet for a while, then she spoke. “If you do this, it’s going to play hell with our lives.”
    “That’s true of everybody who ever ran for the office,” Will replied. “Do you not want me to do it?”
    “Oh, Will, I think you’d make a superb president, you know that.”
    “I’m glad you think so. What we have to get clear between us is what your role is going to be.”

    “What do you want my role to be?”
    “We have two choices, I think: One is that you resign from the Agency and play the campaign wife. I know you don’t want to do that, and I don’t expect you to. The other is for you to remain at the Agency and do your job. I can say, in campaigning, that my wife and I are both public servants and that we decided, together, that the country would be best served by your remaining at the Agency.”
    “Sounds good to me,” Kate said.
    “Understand, though, that there are times when I’ll want you at my side: at the convention, for instance, and, if I get the nomination, on election night.”
    “At the whole convention, or just for the smiling and waving at the end?”
    “At the whole convention, I think.