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She knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted to live the life of an ordinary person. She wanted to shop in a grocery store without everyone staring at her, to walk down a small-town street eating an ice-cream cone and smiling, just because she felt like it, not because she had to. She wanted the freedom to speak her mind, to make mistakes. She wanted to see the world as it really was, not polished up for an official visit. Maybe then she would finally be able to figure out how to live the rest of her life.
Nealy Case, what do you want to be when you grow up? When she was very little, she’d told everyone she wanted to be President. Now she had no idea.
But how could the most famous woman in America suddenly become an ordinary person?
One obstacle after another sprang up in front of her. It was impossible. The First Lady couldn’t simply disappear. Could she?
Being guarded required cooperation, and contrary to what people thought, it was possible to get away from the Secret Service. Bill and Hillary Clinton had stolen away in the early days of his administration, only to be reminded that they had given up that kind of freedom. JFK had driven the Secret Service crazy with his disappearances. Yes, slipping away was possible, but there would be no point if she couldn’t move freely. Now all she had to do was find a way.
A month later, she had her plan in place.
At ten o’clock on a July morning, an elderly woman slipped into a White House tour group that was making its way through the rooms on the State floor. She had snowy white hair in tightly curled corkscrews, a green and yellow patterned dress, and a large plastic purse. Her bony shoulders were bowed, her thin legs encased in elastic stockings, and her feet encompassed in a pair of lace-up brown shoes. She peered at a guidebook through a large pair of glasses with pearly gray frames and a bit of swirled goldwork at the stems. Her forehead was patrician, her nose aristocratic, her eyes as blue as an American sky.
Nealy’s throat worked as she swallowed, and she had to resist the urge to tug on the wig she’d ordered through a catalogue. Another catalogue had supplied the polyester dress, shoes, and stockings. To preserve her privacy, she’d always relied on catalogue shopping, using the name and address of her chief of staff, Maureen Watts, plus the phony middle initial C, so Maureen would know it was Nealy’s order. Maureen had no inkling of the contents of the packages she’d recently delivered to the White House.
Nealy stayed with the crowd as it crawled from the Red Room with its American Empire furnishings into the State Dining Room. Video cameras were recording everything, and her fingers felt cold and numb. She tried to steady herself by gazing at the portrait of Lincoln that hung over the fireplace. The mantel
piece beneath was inscribed with the words of John Adams that she’d read so often. I pray heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under its roof.
A female tour guide stood near the fireplace politely answering a question. Nealy might be the only person in the room who knew that all the White House guides were members of the Secret Service. She waited for the woman to spot her and sound the alert, but the agent barely glanced in her direction.
How many Secret Service agents had she gotten to know over the years? They’d accompanied her to high school and then college. They’d been with her on her first date and the first time she’d had too much to drink.
The Secret Service had taught her how to drive and witnessed her tears when she’d been rejected by the first boy she’d ever liked. A female agent had even helped her pick out a prom dress when her stepmother had caught the flu.
The group headed into the Cross Hall and from there, out through the north portico. It was muggy and hot, a typical July day in Washington. Nealy blinked at the bright sunlight and wondered how many more steps she could take before the guards realized she wasn’t an elderly tourist, but the First Lady.
Her heart rate kicked higher. Next to her, a mother snapped at her young son. Nealy walked on, growing tenser with each step. During the dark days of Watergate, a tortured Pat Nixon had disguised herself in a scarf and sunglasses. Accompanied only by a single Secret Service agent, she’d escaped the White House to wander the streets of Washington window-shopping and dreaming of the day it would all be over. But, as the world had grown angrier, the time when First Ladies were permitted that kind of solace had disappeared.
She struggled for another breath as she reached the exit. The Secret Service code name for the White House was Crown, but it should have been Fortress. Most of the tourists passing by didn’t know there were microphones located along the fence so that the security detail inside could monitor whatever was said around the perimeter. A SWAT team appeared on the roof with machine guns whenever the President entered or left the building. The grounds were armed with video cameras, motion detectors, pressure sensors, and infrared equipment.
If only there were a less complicated way to do this. She’d thought about holding a press conference and simply announcing that she was retiring from public life, but the press would have dogged her every step, and she’d have been no better off than she was now. This was the only way.
She reached Pennsylvania Avenue. Her hand trembled as she slipped the guidebook into her plastic purse, where it bumped against an envelope that held thousands of dollars in cash. Looking straight ahead, she began walking along Lafayette Park toward the Metro.
She spotted a policeman crossing toward her, and a trickle of perspiration slid between her breasts. What if he recognized her? Her heart nearly stopped as he nodded to her, then turned away. He had no idea that he’d just nodded to the First Lady of the United States.
Her breathing slowed. All members of the first family wore tracking devices. Hers, as slim as a credit card, rested under her pillow in the bedroom of the private apartment she kept on the fourth floor of the White House. If she were very lucky, she’d have two hours before her disappearance was discovered. Although Nealy had told Maureen Watts, her chief of staff, that she wasn’t feeling well and needed to lie down for a few hours, she knew Maureen wouldn’t hesitate to wake her if she thought a matter was urgent. Then she would find the letter Nealy had left along with the tracking device, and all hell would break loose.
Nealy forced herself not to hurry as she walked into the Metro. She headed toward one of the fare card machines she hadn’t even known existed until she’d overheard a conversation between two of her secretaries. She needed to change trains, and she calculated the fare. After she’d slipped in her money, she pushed the correct buttons and received her fare card.
She managed to make it through the turnstile to the platform. Then, with her nose tucked into her guidebook and her heart pounding, she waited for the train that would begin her journey into the Maryland suburbs. When she got to Rockville, she intended to pick up a taxi and head for one of the used car dealerships along Route 355. There she hoped to find a salesman greedy enough to sell an old lady a car without seeing her driver’s license.
Three hours later, she was behind the wheel of a nondescript four-year-old blue Chevy Corsica heading toward Frederick, Maryland, on I-270. She’d done it! She’d made it out of Washington. The car had cost more than it should have, but she didn’t care because nobody could link it with Cornelia Case.
She tried to relax her cramped fingers, but she couldn’t. The alarm would have been raised at the White House by now, and it was time to make her call. As she got off at the next ramp, she couldn’t remember how long it had been since she’d driven on a freeway. Sometimes she took the wheel when she was on Nantucket or at Camp David, but seldom otherwise.
She spotted a convenience store on her left, pulled in, then got out of the car and made her way to a pay phone mounted on the side. She was accustomed to the efficiency of the White House operators, and she had to read the directions carefully. Finally, she punched in the number of the most private of the Oval Office telephone lines, the one she knew couldn’t be intercepted.
The President himself answered on the second ring. “Yes?”
“It’s Nealy.”
“For God’s sake, where are you? Are you all right?”
The urgency in his voice told her she’d made the right decision by not delaying this call. Her letter had obviously been found, but no one at the White House could be certain she hadn’t written it under duress, and she didn’t want to raise more of an alarm than she had to.
“I’m fine. Never been better. And the letter’s genuine, Mr. President. Nobody was holding a gun to my head.”
