CHAPTER 36
Senator Harrison HQ
Baxter Road, Nantucket
An important announcement concerning the next phase of the campaign read the invitation from Walter Fitzgerald to the ten most senior members of the Harrison staff.
Fitzgerald took the tack of a coach reviewing the starting team for a Friday-night game. They would play according to the rules—his rules.
“At this point in the campaign,” he reminded staffers over cocktails, “we have three weeks to play ball. Both sides are scrambling for the win. What we need is one key play that will send our candidate to Pennsylvania Avenue.”
In the large living room of the borrowed house, the staffers waited expectantly to learn what that play might be.
Fitzgerald stunned them with the reveal.
“There are favors that need to be repaid,” he said. “Donors and high-ranking members of the party demand that a young female fill a key role, so the Harrison campaign is launching a preemptive strike before the primary.”
He marched directly to a beaming Aimee Sullivan and shook her hand. “Everyone, please welcome the youngest National Security Adviser in the history of the United States.”
His tone left no room for debate or further discussion. The silence was deafening. But the more the staff reeled, the better Fitzgerald felt. Their turmoil perfectly set up the next and most critical piece of the exit strategy he had planned for Aimee.
“We’ll officially release word on Monday,” Fitzgerald explained.
“Friends of the campaign have arranged for Aimee to take an immersion course in foreign policy at the Kennedy School in Cambridge. They will stack the deck with Harvard’s heaviest-hitting intellectuals—the greatest strategists in the world.
“You know the saying, people: It’s Christmas in July for the Harrison campaign,” Fitzgerald said. No reason why the coach shouldn’t finish with some cheerleading.
The aides lined up with their hands extended, and Aimee Sullivan graciously shook them. Coleman Harrison glided into the room. Sullivan took both the candidate’s hands in hers and squeezed.
The show of loyalty complete, the party started to fade.
What only Walt Fitzgerald knew was that the redheaded bitch would never make it to Monday.
By the time she reached her apartment in Boston tomorrow night, the appointment charade would be over.
The only thing left to do would be the spin required to distance the Harrison campaign from the woman soon to be revealed as a coke-addicted former staffer.
By 9:30 p.m., the house was quiet. Apart from Harrison, Fitzgerald, and Sullivan, only the Secret Service agents and a senior aide remained. The campaign manager and his aide left for the study to work on the press release, leaving Sullivan and Harrison alone for the first time in days.
Without a word, Harrison walked across the room toward the staircase. Sullivan followed him upstairs to thank him in her own unique way.