12:51 A.M.: “Uh, Andrew, it’s John. If you could call me back at 402-998-3400, room 8030.
6:47 P.M.: “Andrew, it’s John. Call me back on this number. Thanks.”
6:49 P.M.: “Andrew, if you get this message, too, you can call back on this number. Thanks.”
7:13 P.M.: “Uh… Andrew, call me back as soon as you can on this phone. It’s now-” (Cuts off.)
7:26 P.M.: “Andrew, I keep trying to reach you. I have called you a bunch of times. I have talked to Elizabeth and I think it’s under control, so I just wanted to talk to you about it, but I have to go into an event now. I will try to call you guys later. Thanks. Bye.”
9:09 P.M.: “Andrew, it’s John. It’s nine-ten P.M. East Coast time. I just got out of my last event. I’m on my way to the airport to get on a plane. I’ve got about ten or fifteen minutes if you can call me back. If not, I will talk to you from Des Moines. Thanks.”
When we did actually speak, the senator talked anxiously about the scandal-related press calls coming into the campaign but also kept telling me how grateful he was for my help. He went out of his way to make me feel important, as if I were saving him and therefore the country from a catastrophe. He said he was worried about calls the campaign had had from a reporter for The New York Times who said he had evidence that I had undergone a vasectomy after our last child was born with heart problems. He claimed that Rielle’s child couldn’t be mine. This wasn’t true, of course. I hadn’t had a vasectomy
In this conversation, the senator told me his wife was now calling supporters and saying derogatory things about me but that he would try to get her to stop. He acted as if we were partners now more than ever, and he reinforced this connection by sharing inside information. When Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Pakistan, he told me about how Pervez Musharraf had called him directly to consult. Strangely, he made these observations on world and national affairs with less urgency than he brought to his comments about keeping Rielle happy and quiet. He was careful, though, to avoid using her actual name. Typical was this message:
I’m in Nashua, New Hampshire, about to get on a plane to go to Iowa… I’m sorry I couldn’t reach you, but we’re just, you know, I’ve got four CBS reporters on the plane with me so I’m standing out in eighteen degree temperatures to call you. And please tell her I said hello and I will call later tonight. Thanks.
Rielle required the senator’s constant attention, because now that she was playing “fugitive on an expense account,” she was even more demanding and, at times, less careful. Although her picture was displayed on the front page of the National Enquirer, which was on the rack in the lobby newsstand, she traipsed around the resort as if she owned the place. With Rielle indulging in this risky behavior, and Cheri and me anxious to reunite with our kids for the holiday, Fred Baron arranged for us to get out of Florida on Christmas Eve aboard another private jet. At checkout, I noticed that we had racked up a bill totaling more than eight thousand dollars in seven nights. The clerk also gave me a FedEx envelope from Fred. It held one thousand dollars’ cash and a note that said, “Old Chinese proverb: Use cash, not credit cards.”
The plan called for us to travel to southern Illinois to pick up the kids and then to Aspen, Colorado, where we would stay in Fred Baron’s vacation home. Aspen was going to be our temporary haven until we found a place where we could live together in seclusion until Rielle gave birth. The only hitch in the plan, other than the fact that we were giving up our normal lives, involved a friend-a trial lawyer from Georgia-whom Fred had invited to use the house from December 27 to January 2. During this time, we would have to hide ourselves at a hotel in San Diego which Rielle chose. Complicated as these arrangements may sound, I was used to juggling campaign travel for the senator, who might take half a dozen flights in a single day, so this itinerary seemed easy to me.
As we left Florida, we phoned Cheri’s dad to ask him to bring the kids to the MidAmerica Airport, a little-used facility outside St. Louis where we would be unlikely to attract any attention. We asked him to come alone, because her mom wasn’t too crazy about me. (She had good reason to feel this way.) To his credit, he didn’t say anything even after he saw Rielle and her swollen belly and realized she was with us. Like everyone in my family, Cheri’s folks were aware of what was on the front page of the Enquirer and must have guessed what was going on, but her dad said nothing as he said good-bye to his grandchildren and they climbed aboard a private jet for some mysterious adventure.
Because we knew the kids would miss their regular Christmas celebration, Cheri and I had bought a tiny artificial tree with lights and installed it inside the plane, so as they climbed aboard it looked as if they were getting a ride on Santa’s private jet. We had never been separated from all three of them for so long, and they hugged us as though we had been lost in the jungle for a year. Rielle, whom they called “Jaya,” did her best to smile and be friendly during the flight, although she must have felt like an outsider at a family picnic. The kids ate candy, visited the pilots in the c‹pilockpit (where they helped “fly” the jet), and screamed with roller-coaster delight when we landed and the plane wobbled from side to side as the crew applied the brakes to bring us to a halt on the icy runway.
At the FBO, which is a stone-and-timber building that looks like a ski chalet, the crew shut down the engines, opened the door, and lowered the steps. The kids ran outside and immediately grabbed some of the fresh snow to throw at one another. Two SUVs waited for us, and the driver of the one that carried our family narrated the journey through a development started by the singer John Denver: “That hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar house belongs to Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to the United States; this one belongs to Robert Wagner, the actor…” When we drove up Fred Baron’s driveway, we discovered a stone-and-wood mansion secluded by evergreens and staffed by a house manager, a chef, and a masseuse, who were all on call.
Fred’s sprawling house was lavishly furnished. Pictures of his frequent guests Bill and Hillary Clinton were placed in conspicuous places, and the coffeepot in the kitchen was, we were told, the property of Lance Armstrong, who had lived in the place during training. I was impressed by the home gym, which was filled with equipment. The kids loved the racquet-ball court, which they called “the ballroom,” and the indoor pool/Jacuzzi/sauna complex, which was enclosed by a ceiling painted to look like the night sky, with twinkling lights to represent the stars.
Within an hour of our arrival, the kids were splashing and floating in the pool as Cheri, Rielle, and I watched them. For a moment, we forgot the craziness that had brought us to the place and allowed ourselves to enjoy it. Rielle got so relaxed that she again started talking about her sexual escapades with the senator, including specifics about where, when, and how they performed certain acts. We interrupted her with cries of, “Whoa! TMI!”-too much information-and she retreated from this subject. But the details about their affair would come up again and again in our time on the road.
After Cheri and I put the kids to bed and the quiet overcame us, we remembered that it was Christmas Eve and we were far from friends and family and unable to give our kids the holiday they usually enjoyed. On Christmas Day, we managed a small celebration with a tree Fred had arranged and the few presents we had brought from home. Cheri and I called our families and had some awkward conversations, and we had fun playing in the snow with the kids. Rielle was unhappy to be out of contact with the senator over the holiday and impatient to move on to California, where she hoped that Fred Baron would set us up in a house in either San Diego or Santa Barbara. The latter was her first choice because it was the home of her spiritual adviser-a guy called Bob-who was her most important source of “spiritual” support.