“We arrived there and met Joe and Sue Adams, and after some small talk, Joe got serious. He told us that they had just spent a few days in New York, shopping and going to the theater. There was more to it, though—Joe had had some medical tests, most of them in their suite at the Waldorf, and the results were troubling.”

Stone nodded and had another sip of his drink.

So did Will. “He told us, in the strictest confidence, that he had been diagnosed as being in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, and that he hadn’t told anybody else.”

“I never knew that,” Stone said.

“No one did, for a while. Remember, this was eleven months before the election, and the President couldn’t run again. Joe was everybody’s favorite for the nomination and the election.”

“That, I remember.”

“Joe told me that I was his personal choice for President, and he wanted me to announce almost immediately.”

“A big surprise.”

“An enormous shock. I’d given thought to running, but I didn’t expect to do that for another eight years. Joe said that he would announce in another month or so that he would not be a candidate, but he didn’t want anyone to know why. He was giving me a heads-up to give me time to get a team together for an announcement of my own.”

“That was very good of him.”

“He knew that George Kiel, the minority leader in the Senate at the time, would jump right in, and that he, being better known than I, would be the immediate favorite. Anyway, we went back to our airplane, flew home, and I talked with my folks about it. They were all for a run, and eventually, as you know, I came around. Something odd happened, though, while we were still at the homeplace. Kate received a letter there.”

“Why was that odd?”

“Because no mail had ever been addressed to her at my folks’ house. She borrowed the car, disappeared for about four hours, then returned. She said it was business, and I knew better than to ask any more. She was deputy director for intelligence at the CIA at the time.”

Stone nodded. “Did you ever find out where she went?”

“Yes, but not until after the election. The letter was from a man named Ed Rawls. Does that ring a bell?”

“Of course—a CIA mole for the Russians. He went to prison for it, and you later pardoned him.”

“Right. At that time he was in the Atlanta federal prison. Kate had been responsible for exposing him, and she went to see him.”

“Why?”

“Because he alluded to Joe Adams’s illness in the letter.”

Stone sat up straight. “But you had only learned about it that morning, right? And you and Kate were supposed to be the only ones who knew.”

“Right again. You can see why she went to see him.”