Capitol Threat (31 page)

57

“C
omfortable, Angel?”

“How could I be comfortable with all these television cameras around? My stomach is churning enough to make butter.”

“It shouldn’t take too long.” Judge Haskins had a front-row seat in the gallery above the Senate chamber. In only a few minutes, the confirmation debate would begin. In compliance with the President’s request, he and his wife were attending, reminding the senators that they had a ready alternative. “There’s no point in a protracted debate. He doesn’t have the support. Keyes will probably push for an immediate vote.”

“I only hope you’re right,” Margaret said. “I don’t like being in the public spotlight.”

“It won’t be for long. How many spouses of Supreme Court judges can you identify?”

“Umm, none.”

“Exactly.” He took his wife’s hand and squeezed it. “Once the confirmation process is over, no one will be interested in you anymore.”

“Well, I think you could’ve phrased that a bit more gallantly.” She grinned. “But I understand what you’re saying.”

He scooted closer to her. “I know you’re uncomfortable with all this. I apologize for dragging you through it.”

“Don’t be daft. What were you going to say? ‘No, Mr. President, I don’t want to be on the Supreme Court. It might upset my wife’s tummy.’ ”

“You’ve put up with quite a lot from me, over the years. Don’t think I don’t know that. I don’t deserve—”

She placed a finger over his lips. “Shhh.” She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “You’re my hero. My knight in shining armor. You saved my life.”

He shrugged. “That fire was no big deal.”

“I was talking about the day you married me.”

They settled back into their chairs, hands clasped tightly together.

Ben sat at his assigned desk in the Senate, staring at the mass of people surrounding him, wondering how he had ever gotten into this mess, wishing he were at home watching this on C-SPAN. Or not.

The Senate floor was packed. Every desk was filled. All one hundred senators were in attendance, and each seemed to have at least three clerks or assorted other flunkies at their bidding. The gallery was packed with spectators and interested parties. Ben, like everyone else, had noticed that Judge Haskins and his wife were sitting in the first row, front and center. Richard Trevor, the head of the Christian Congregation, was sitting directly behind him, a sure sign that his organization intended to throw its support to Haskins as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Even the lame-duck Vice President was present, making one of his rare appearances in his constitutional role of President of the Senate, just in case he should be needed to cast a tie-breaking vote. Unlikely—all the polls indicated that Roush’s nomination would fail by at least ten votes. The Republicans clearly had the forty-one votes necessary to sustain a filibuster. Ben had to count on Keyes’s promise that the threat would not be exercised, or Roush’s nomination would never come to a vote at all.

Christina was huddled in the back of the room, sitting with Bertram Sexton and Kevin Beauregard and Gina Carraway and her clipboard. Right up to the last minute, she had been analyzing data and trying to root out any potential weakness in the opposition, possible undecideds. She hadn’t found any.

Jones and Loving were also in attendance. If Ben was going to pull this off, it would be because of them.

Thaddeus Roush stepped through the back doors of the gallery. A sudden silence blanketed the room, followed almost immediately by an intense volley of whispers. Roush ignored it. It was ironic, really: this debate was all about him, but he had to sit up in the gallery.

Roush walked to the front row, looked both ways—then took a seat beside Judge Haskins, directly in front of Richard Trevor.

Ben shook his head. He didn’t care what Roush had done in his confused youth. He had guts. This country needed him on the Supreme Court.

Ben watched as Christina folded a note and passed it to a Senate page. More polling data, no doubt. Probably some new survey Gina had transmitted via Instant Messenger.

He took the note from the page and unfolded it.

I LOVE YOU, it said. GO GET ’EM, TIGER.

He had to smile.

The Vice President gaveled the Senate into session. Game on.

58

B
en was hardly surprised when the Vice President and President Pro Tem recognized Senator Keyes, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to orchestrate the debate, and Keyes promptly recognized a series of die-hard Republicans to speak first.

“…and what are we to tell our children, good Christian American children who have been taught to exercise restraint, to practice abstinence, that abortion is a crime against God and nature? Are we to tell them that the murder of an innocent fetus qualifies them for appointment to the highest court in the land? Is that the message we want to send to the children of America? Or perhaps, do we want to send a different message? A message that says that there is still such a thing as morality in government. That strength and character still matter to the people of the United States. That the Supreme Court is no place for those who would desecrate and offend the fundamental values of this great land.”

Ben saw the senator subtly adjust his speaking position. At first, he thought the man must be positioning himself for the C-SPAN camera, but then he realized that what he was really doing was turning his back to Judge Roush, seated above and behind him in the gallery. Apparently the coward wanted to confront him without confronting him. He needn’t have bothered. Roush maintained a perfect stone face, neither smiling nor scowling, just letting it all roll off him.

“…but if not now, when do we draw the line?” the senator continued. “Do we want to live in a world where homosexuals control the law of the land? This man has been engaged in an ongoing relationship with another man, a relationship that is still illegal in many states and will always be an abnegation of God’s word. Now we learn that before he embarked on one sinful relationship, he had yet another, that he actually paid for a murder. A legalized murder, to be sure, but no less horrendous for it, no less shocking to the conscience, no less offensive to our collective consciousness.” His voice boomed. “What will happen to us as a nation if we allow this abomination to be enshrined in the Supreme Court?”

Ben pondered. A plague of locusts? Death of the first-born? Armageddon?

“Judicial activism! That’s what will happen!”

Ah. Well, that was my next guess.

“We cannot open the door to judges who seek not to interpret the law, but to make the law. Lawmaking is the sovereign right of this body, this Congress, and no judge has the right to force his own decadent beliefs on the laws we create. Look where these people have put us today. No prayer in school. Immigration run rampant. A Swedish minister arrested for condemning homosexuality. The world is in chaos! This is no time to allow—”

“Pardon me,” Senator Keyes said, gently interrupting. “I believe that your five minutes on the floor are over.”

That was the first time today Keyes had enforced his own time limit. Was it possible he was just as tired of this tirade as Ben was? One could only hope.

“Mister Chairman,” said Senator Bening from Colorado. “Could I be permitted to say a few words about a man from the great state of Colorado who does tremendous justice to the bench on which he sits, Judge Rupert Haskins?”

“Point of order,” Ben interrupted, before Keyes had a chance to respond. “Aren’t we supposed to be debating the nomination currently before the Senate?” His voice dropped a notch. “Rather than speculating about the possibility of any future ones?”

Keyes made a clucking sound. “Well, I’m sure Senator Bening intends his remarks to relate to the matter at hand. The Chair recognizes Senator Bening of Colorado.”

Ben didn’t need to listen to the oration to know where it was headed. He’d seen the crowd of Haskins supporters, many of them bused in from Colorado, outside the Capitol building carrying signs with slogans like:
HERO OR HOMO
?

“…and I concur with Senator Scolieri about the need for judges who know the meaning of the phrase ‘judicial restraint.’ Judge Haskins has been on the bench for almost twenty years and his record is utterly unblemished. He decides the cases before him without overreaching to reshape society in his own image. He knows what it means to be a judge of men and a defender of the law.”

Ben rose to his feet. Bening saw him from the corner of his eye.

“…and so as we consider the nomination of Judge Roush—”

Ben sat back down. Very smooth transition.

“…this is not an all-or-nothing proposition. It is not as if the rejection of this candidate will create a permanent vacuum on the Supreme Court. It only means that we can return to the drawing board and reconsider, perhaps make a more measured analysis of what this Court needs, what this country needs. I think you all share my conviction that—” He glanced toward Haskins, sitting in the gallery, and smiled, “—that it will not be difficult to find an alternative candidate.”

He paused, then looked squarely into the television camera. “Ladies and gentlemen. When you have the chance to go with a hero, why settle for anything less?”

Despite their previous conversation, Ben was still surprised when Keyes’s fickle finger of fate turned next toward him. “The Chair recognizes the junior senator from the State of Oklahoma.” He smiled thinly. “You have five minutes, sir.”

There was an audible stir in the chamber, including the gallery. Ben wasn’t the only one who was surprised.

“Then I’d best get started.” Ben stood beside his desk and turned so he could see the entire assemblage. He’d never spoken to such a large group in his entire life, certainly not if you considered the countless people who must be watching on television. He felt his knees wobble a bit just thinking about it. So, he reasoned, it was best not to think about it. Concentrate on what he was doing. Even if this wasn’t a courtroom, the primary rule of closing argument for the defense was the same: bring it back to the person.

“This has been a very long process,” Ben began, trying to slow the pace of the rhetoric a bit. “At least, it seems like a long time to me. It seems like an eternity to me.” Mild chuckles from the gallery. “But imagine how it must feel for Thaddeus Roush. Imagine how it must feel to have your name dragged through the public dirt, to have your secrets revealed, your previously unblemished reputation tarnished, and for what? Because the President chose you for the Supreme Court.”

He turned, wondered briefly if his better profile was to the camera, then got on with his speech. “Thaddeus Roush never asked to be on the Supreme Court, never expected to be asked. Sure, he didn’t turn it down when it arrived—what sane jurist would?—but he never asked for it. The President came to him. And where is that President now? Well, as we all know, the President has silently withdrawn his support from his own candidate. What can you say about a President who commits his people but then does not support them? And what is the basis for the President’s withdrawal of support, and the vast majority of the abuse that has been heaped upon Judge Roush since his nomination? The fact that he refused to hide in somebody else’s closet. He resolved that if he was going to present himself to the American public, he was going to present himself as the person he truly was. He wouldn’t try to fly under the radar. He wouldn’t try to be bland and innocuous so he could slippery-slide through confirmation, even if what he did was controversial, even if it might destroy his chances of confirmation. Why would anyone do such a thing? Because, for some people, honesty is more important than popularity. Integrity is more important than success.”

Ben paused, hoping some of this would soak in. “Isn’t that the kind of man we want on the Supreme Court?”

He turned again, facing a different part of the floor. He didn’t have as much room to maneuver here as he might in a courtroom, but he would have to make do.

“I know some of you are disturbed because, when Judge Roush was a very young man, he assisted a woman in obtaining an abortion, a fact which, I would remind you for the record, he has never attempted to deny or excuse. The fact is, Thaddeus Roush regrets it more than anyone. He considers it the greatest mistake of his life. But which of us did not make some mistake when we were young, hmm? I’d like to see that person cast the first stone. We all make mistakes when we’re young because, frankly, we’re so stupid. And I’m not sure I’m that much smarter now. But I know this: a good man should not be rejected because of a mistake he made twenty-some years ago and has regretted ever since. If youthful transgressions, even serious ones, were a prohibition to public service…” He smiled a little. “…this chamber might well be empty.”

He paused. Was this getting through to anyone? Was he persuading the undecideds? Were there any undecideds to persuade? There was no way of knowing.

Less than two minutes on the clock. He had to plow ahead.

“I listened with great interest to the remarks made by Senator Bening, but I must respectfully disagree with his conclusion. It is not appropriate to reject one candidate because we think we have inside information about the President’s mind and prefer another choice to this one. You don’t reject your meat and potatoes because you think there might be dessert. And it seems particularly inappropriate when the dessert has been stage-managing events from behind the scenes, promulgating negative information about the current nominee, actively campaigning for the job in contravention of the history of judicial practice in the United States.”

The stir in the chamber wasn’t loud enough to drown out the clattering of the gavel or the outrage of the senator from Colorado. “Will the speaker yield?”

“I will not,” Ben replied.

“Mister Chairman, I move that the speaker’s remaining time be revoked!”

“Senator…”

“I will not stand here and allow this partisan advocate to tarnish the reputation of a great Coloradan, a bona fide hero. I ask him again to yield.”

“And I say again that I will not.” Ben glanced up at Chairman Keyes. “And I’d like the time consumed by the senator from Colorado’s interruptions added back to my remaining time.”

“It will be,” Keyes answered. “You have a minute and a half remaining, Senator. Speaking for us all—this had better be good. Congressional immunity won’t save you if you’re making accusations without proof.”

“In my world, Mister Chairman, we don’t say boo without proof. Wish that were the case here in Washington.” He turned back toward the chamber. “Many people have remarked upon the coincidence that the dirty secrets of Thaddeus Roush’s past were only revealed after he was approved by the committee. Almost as if someone was holding them in reserve, only using them if it became necessary. There was a great deal of inquiry directed toward determining whether the information was correct. But I’ve heard very little inquiry about where that information came from. There’s a reason, of course. Ultimately, the information was revealed by a reporter for the
Post,
and there is a tradition of journalists not revealing their sources even when ordered to do so by the courts. There was a widespread feeling that even if the reporter in question were brought before the courts or the Congress, she would remain silent. She had committed no crime and did not appear to have abetted one. There was no reason for her to talk.”

Ben took a deep breath. “So I didn’t bother asking. I sent her a Congressional subpoena for the original documents that were leaked by her anonymous source. And then I had them fingerprinted.”

Creased brows crisscrossed the gallery. Everyone seemed to be practically leaning out of their desks. He had their attention now.

“Good thing all law students preparing to take the bar exam are required to be fingerprinted. Guess who touched the documents?” He paused a beat. “Judge Haskins.”

The murmuring in the chamber rose to a full buzz. Ben raised his voice; he couldn’t afford to let the tumult consume his remaining time.

“I don’t imagine for a minute that Judge Haskins did the investigating. The documents were provided to him…” He glanced up at the gallery, where Richard Trevor sat behind Judge Haskins. “…by some other interested source, who in turn received them from an agent of the woman who obtained the abortion in question. But Judge Haskins leaked them when he saw his chance. It was all part of his campaign for the job, perhaps the most clever campaign imaginable—a campaign based upon appearing to refuse to campaign. It worked. He became the heir apparent. Even before the previous nominee had been rejected.”

“Point of order!” Senator Bening practically screamed. “I will not continue to listen to this defamation of Judge Haskins. The man is a national hero!”

“I think it mitigates against your status as a hero,” Ben said quietly, “when you’re the one who set the fire.”

This time, the chamber exploded. Both the Vice President and Senator Keyes were pounding their gavels, to no avail. Everyone talked at once, some fascinated, some outraged. Judge Haskins had a stricken expression on his face; he shook his head vigorously from side to side. His wife clutched his arm apprehensively. Judge Roush looked at both of them, his expression still blank, but his eyes scrutinizing them carefully.

“Point of order!” Senator Bening continued shouting. “I demand an apology. I demand an explanation!”

Chairman Keyes pounded his gavel a few more times. “I’m afraid Senator Kincaid’s time has expired.”

“I respectfully request a five-minute extension,” Ben replied.

“Absolutely not!” Senator Bening exclaimed. “I oppose!”

“Well,” Ben said, “he did demand an explanation. How can I do that if I can’t talk?”

Maybe it was Ben’s wishful thinking, but Chairman Keyes appeared to be suppressing a grin. “I’ll give you another three,” he said, “with an option for two more if you’re saying anything of interest.”

“Thanks,” Ben replied. “I will be.” He turned back toward the gallery. “I don’t have time to go into the details, but all the supporting documents will be made available to the press by my Chief of Staff—” He nodded toward Christina. “—as soon as we recess. My investigator has been working the past month to uncover much of this information. He was trying to learn the identity of the woman who was killed at the Roush press conference, an investigation that led him into the world of art theft because, as it turns out, the murdered woman was a longtime thief. A thief available to anyone who needed a dirty job done.”