UCLA, will give students and citizens an opportunity to address their concerns directly to the candidates. Please take advantage of it. Ask tough questions. Call us to answer."
He bent his head reflectively. "My favorite reminder of my years as vice president is my passport. A lot of people don't know this, but the president and vice president of the United States, just like everyone else, have to turn over their passports to immigration control before entering a country. As you can imagine, mine is filled with
stamps. They remind me of the privilege of the post. But more important, they remind me that no man is above the law. Every American, no matter his post, no matter his privilege, can be faced down, called to answer. We must call this president to answer for the blunders he has made. And you can do that most powerfully with your vote."
The dais literally shook with the standing ovation, and Caruthers waved and grinned, then moved toward me, agents rotating around him like electrons. The focus of the entire ballroom seemed to follow him as he strode over, and then he clasped my hand in both of his, his amused eyes snagging on my shirt, which he seemed to sense wasn't my fault, and said, "Nick, thank you for coming. I promised June I'd hurry back to the condo--will you please join me?"
At first I wasn't certain I'd heard him correctly over the noise, but I nodded anyway. He waved again, camera flashes dotting the sea of faces, and then he was gone through the back door.
I was frisked and wanded twice between the lobby and the door to Caruthers's apartment. The limo had dropped Alan and me off before the tallest building along the Wilshire Corridor, L.A.'s stretch of pseudo-high-rise condos where retirees intermingled with pining Manhattanites and Angelenos too rich to live on ground level. I wasn't surprised when the elevator stopped at the
ninth floor--Frank had always said that was the highest story accessible by hook and ladder in case of emergency. They'd spent months trying to convince Caruthers to move seven stories down from his penthouse when he'd been elected vice president. They'd finally appealed to June, and she'd closed the deal in twenty-four hours.
Two more agents in the hall checked out my pass and Alan's face, then opened the double doors leading to the condo. The first thing that struck me was the space. I'd never been in a residence that large, particularly not one in the middle of a building. Several pods of chairs and tables and sofas, a bar, a dining area, wall-to-wall floor-to - ceiling glass--tinted and ballistic--three or four plasma TVs, a treadmill, and at least five doors leading back to hallways or other rooms. The place was alive with voices and movement. As Alan whisked me through different clusters and discussions, I strained to make out snatches of conversation, but as we passed, the volume dropped as if electronically regulated. Instinctively I kept track of the exits, the turns, the routes back out to freedom.
We landed in a conference room with an intimidatingly long marble table, a statue-still Secret Service post-stander, several ominously titled "state operatives," and a heavyset woman with horn-rims and an air of unflinching competence, introduced as the architect of the campaign. Adorning the walls were pictures of Caruthers-- lost in thought in the Yellow Oval Room, on the distinctive trails around Camp David, at dinner sharing a joke with Gorbachev. At the end of the table was the man himself, cocked back in an Aeron chair, facing the window, shirtsleeves cuffed, phone pressed to his ear. Seated beside him and also facing away, June spoke simultaneously into another line. Her willowy form was accented by her sleek outfit, its flaring sleeves and pant cuffs echoing the lines of her sweeping red hair. A former prep-school dean, she was as tall as her husband and widely thought to be even smarter. They'd each been married before and their divorces made much of by the
He bent his head reflectively. "My favorite reminder of my years as vice president is my passport. A lot of people don't know this, but the president and vice president of the United States, just like everyone else, have to turn over their passports to immigration control before entering a country. As you can imagine, mine is filled with
stamps. They remind me of the privilege of the post. But more important, they remind me that no man is above the law. Every American, no matter his post, no matter his privilege, can be faced down, called to answer. We must call this president to answer for the blunders he has made. And you can do that most powerfully with your vote."
The dais literally shook with the standing ovation, and Caruthers waved and grinned, then moved toward me, agents rotating around him like electrons. The focus of the entire ballroom seemed to follow him as he strode over, and then he clasped my hand in both of his, his amused eyes snagging on my shirt, which he seemed to sense wasn't my fault, and said, "Nick, thank you for coming. I promised June I'd hurry back to the condo--will you please join me?"
At first I wasn't certain I'd heard him correctly over the noise, but I nodded anyway. He waved again, camera flashes dotting the sea of faces, and then he was gone through the back door.
I was frisked and wanded twice between the lobby and the door to Caruthers's apartment. The limo had dropped Alan and me off before the tallest building along the Wilshire Corridor, L.A.'s stretch of pseudo-high-rise condos where retirees intermingled with pining Manhattanites and Angelenos too rich to live on ground level. I wasn't surprised when the elevator stopped at the
ninth floor--Frank had always said that was the highest story accessible by hook and ladder in case of emergency. They'd spent months trying to convince Caruthers to move seven stories down from his penthouse when he'd been elected vice president. They'd finally appealed to June, and she'd closed the deal in twenty-four hours.
Two more agents in the hall checked out my pass and Alan's face, then opened the double doors leading to the condo. The first thing that struck me was the space. I'd never been in a residence that large, particularly not one in the middle of a building. Several pods of chairs and tables and sofas, a bar, a dining area, wall-to-wall floor-to - ceiling glass--tinted and ballistic--three or four plasma TVs, a treadmill, and at least five doors leading back to hallways or other rooms. The place was alive with voices and movement. As Alan whisked me through different clusters and discussions, I strained to make out snatches of conversation, but as we passed, the volume dropped as if electronically regulated. Instinctively I kept track of the exits, the turns, the routes back out to freedom.
We landed in a conference room with an intimidatingly long marble table, a statue-still Secret Service post-stander, several ominously titled "state operatives," and a heavyset woman with horn-rims and an air of unflinching competence, introduced as the architect of the campaign. Adorning the walls were pictures of Caruthers-- lost in thought in the Yellow Oval Room, on the distinctive trails around Camp David, at dinner sharing a joke with Gorbachev. At the end of the table was the man himself, cocked back in an Aeron chair, facing the window, shirtsleeves cuffed, phone pressed to his ear. Seated beside him and also facing away, June spoke simultaneously into another line. Her willowy form was accented by her sleek outfit, its flaring sleeves and pant cuffs echoing the lines of her sweeping red hair. A former prep-school dean, she was as tall as her husband and widely thought to be even smarter. They'd each been married before and their divorces made much of by the
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