“M. T., he’s the President now.”

He noticed her eyes were puffy.

“But just hand him the friggin’ keys?” She waved her gangly arms. “So he can toss them to his scummy cronies? There’ll be no legacy. Zippo. Didn’t you want a second term?”

I wish I could say, “More than anything.”

But he couldn’t. The past three years had been filled with too many political dogfights that ended in bland compromise. Hanover had not hollered when his proposed political reforms were ignored by Congress. Want your budget passed? the party leaders told him, Then keep out of how we raise money. The bombing raid in Lebanon—that had been pointless and it killed several civilians, including a prominent Jordanian journalist. But Mike Finn, the political director, had pushed Hanover to order the air assault after the press reported on a terrorist scheme to assassinate a U.S. ambassador. Otherwise, Finn said, the media would brand Hanover with one word: wimp.

Brew McGreer was always waving poll results, living in fear of the slightest downward tick. He said no to a top-to-bottom review of military spending. Don’t want to get the generals too pissed, he argued. He nixed proposals to bolster the antitrust division at Justice and to strengthen the collection of corporate taxes. Could hurt with fund-raising, he explained. Let’s not scare the business community: “Gotta keep the fucking markets fucking happy.” And Mumfries constantly chimed in about the need to respect political realities.

It was easy, Addis knew, to blame McGreer or sneer at Mumfries. It was harder to admit that Hanover shared McGreer’s belief that the guiding principle was, avoid providing the slightest opening to the opposition—for imagine how much worse it would be if they were in the White House. There would be one measurement of success: reelection. But that meant steering clear of the tougher fights.

Addis had agreed that the priority was reelection, but in his mind that did not require all the caution counseled by others. And until recently, he had wanted, above all else, a second term. One in which Hanover might be less receptive to the cries of his risk-averse advisers. One in which Hanover could wage the right battle or two. Addis was certain that neither Hanover nor McGreer would worry about what the polls said about Mumfries’s future prospects. Only weeks ago, Addis had hoped that the next term would prove that he had made the right decision years ago in New Orleans.

That hope was gone. For Addis, it had slipped away before the assassination. But he wasn’t going to tell O’Connor about the phone call. Not now. It no longer mattered. Like so much, it was moot.

“What’s to be done?” he asked.