Landfall Read online

  BOOKS BY THOMAS MALLON

  FICTION

  Arts and Sciences

  Aurora 7

  Henry and Clara

  Dewey Defeats Truman

  Two Moons

  Bandbox

  Fellow Travelers

  Watergate

  Finale

  Landfall

  NONFICTION

  Edmund Blunden

  A Book of One’s Own

  Stolen Words

  Rockets and Rodeos

  In Fact

  Mrs. Paine’s Garage

  Yours Ever

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2019 by Thomas Mallon

  Chart on this page courtesy of William Inboden, Clements Center for National Security, The University of Texas at Austin

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.

  Pantheon Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Mallon, Thomas, [date] author.

  Title: Landfall / Thomas Mallon.

  Description: First edition. New York : Pantheon Books, 2019.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018018277. ISBN 9781101871058 (hardcover : alk. paper). ISBN 9781101871065 (ebook).

  Subjects: LCSH: Bush, George W. (George Walker), 1946– —Fiction. Presidents—United States—Fiction. United States—Politics and government—2001–2009—Fiction. Political fiction. GSAFD: Historical fiction

  Classification: LCC PS3563.A43157 L36 2019 | DDC 813/.54--dc23 | LC record available at lccn.loc.gov/​2018018277

  Ebook ISBN 9781101871065

  www.pantheonbooks.com

  Cover photograph by Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

  Cover design by Jenny Carrow

  v5.4

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Thomas Mallon

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Cast of Characters

  Prologue: West Texas, Fall 1978

  Part One: January 20-August 28, 2005

  Chapter 1: January 20, 2005

  Chapter 2: January 30, 2005

  Chapter 3: February 2, 2005

  Chapter 4: February 23, 2005

  Chapter 5: March 14, 2005

  Chapter 6: After Palm Sunday; March 21, 2005

  Chapter 7: March 29-31, 2005

  Chapter 8: April 30, 2005

  Chapter 9: May 9, 2005

  Chapter 10: May 11, 2005

  Chapter 11: May 23, 2005

  Chapter 12: June 7-28, 2005

  Chapter 13: July 4, 2005

  Chapter 14: August 11, 2005

  Chapter 15: August 26-27, 2005

  Chapter 16: August 27-28, 2005

  Part Two: September 4, 2005 - March 21, 2006

  Chapter 17: September 4, 2005

  Chapter 18: September 15, 2005

  Chapter 19: September 24, 2005

  Chapter 20: October 19-21, 2005

  Chapter 21: November 2, 2005

  Chapter 22: November 16-17, 2005

  Chapter 23: December 5, 2005

  Chapter 24: December 15-31, 2005

  Chapter 25: January 15, 2006

  Chapter 26: February 24, 2006

  Chapter 27: March 21, 2006; 10:00 A.M.

  Part Three: April 26, 2006 - January 25, 2007

  Chapter 28: April 26-29, 2006

  Chapter 29: May 11, 2006

  Chapter 30: June 12, 2006

  Chapter 31: July 12-14, 2006

  Chapter 32: August 29, 2006

  Chapter 33: September 12-14, 2006; 5:10 A.M.

  Chapter 34: October 7-9, 2006

  Chapter 35: November 13, 2006

  Chapter 36: December 26-30, 2006

  Chapter 37: January 2-6, 2007

  Chapter 38: January 10-13, 2007

  Epilogue: August 1-3, 2013

  Author’s Note and Acknowledgments

  A Note About the Author

  For

  John McConnell

  …war appears

  Waged in the troubled sky, and armies rush

  To battle in the clouds…

  —Paradise Lost, Book 2

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  (Persons with names in quotation marks are entirely fictional.)

  Buzz Aldrin: American astronaut; landed on the moon with Apollo 11

  Mohammed Yusef Asefi: Afghan physician and painter

  “Kevin Barden”: U.S. embassy staffer in Baghdad

  Cherie Blair: prominent barrister; wife of the British prime minister

  Tony Blair: prime minister of the United Kingdom

  Kathleen Blanco: governor of Louisiana

  Lindy Boggs: former member of the House of Representatives (D-LA) and former ambassador to the Holy See

  Josh Bolten: director of Office of Management and Budget; White House chief of staff (April 2006–January 2009)

  John Bolton: U.S. ambassador to the United Nations

  “Emile Bourreau”: assistant concierge at the Hotel Monteleone, New Orleans

  Stephen Breyer: associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court

  “Bill Bright”: builder and political operative from Slaton, Texas

  Tom Brokaw: author and former network anchorman

  Sherrod Brown: Democratic senator-elect from Ohio

  Barbara Bush: former First Lady of the United States

  George H. W. Bush: forty-first president of the United States

  George W. Bush: forty-third president of the United States

  Laura Bush: First Lady of the United States

  Neil M. Bush: younger brother of the president of the United States

  “Mrs. Randolph Caine”: New Orleans realtor and preservationist

  Steve Cambone: undersecretary of defense for intelligence

  Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall: wife of the Prince of Wales

  Andrew Card: White House chief of staff (January 2001–April 2006)

  James Carville: Democratic political consultant and commentator

  “The Chairman”: head of the “National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities”

  Charles, Prince of Wales: heir to the British throne

  Dick Cheney: vice president of the United States

  Liz Cheney: daughter of the vice president; principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs

  Lynne Cheney: wife of the vice president

  Jacques Chirac: president of France

  Bill Clinton: forty-second president of the United States

  Hillary Rodham Clinton: Democratic senator from New York; former First Lady of the United States

  Stephen Colbert: comedian; host of The Colbert Report

  Howard Dean: former governor of Vermont; chairm
an of the Democratic National Committee

  Tom DeLay: member of the House of Representatives (R-TX) and majority leader

  John Dingell: member of the House of Representatives (D-MI)

  Christopher Dodd: Democratic senator from Connecticut

  Bob Dole: former Republican senator from Kansas and defeated presidential candidate

  Elizabeth Dole: Republican senator from North Carolina; wife of Bob Dole

  David Herbert Donald: retired Harvard professor and Lincoln biographer

  Matt Drudge: Internet news aggregator; editor of the Drudge Report

  John Edwards: former Democratic senator from North Carolina and defeated vice-presidential nominee

  Betty Ford: former First Lady of the United States

  “Gary Fowler”: community activist in Holy Cross neighborhood of New Orleans

  Bill Frist: U.S. senator from Tennessee; Republican majority leader

  Michael Gerson: chief speechwriter to the president

  Gabrielle Giffords: U.S. representative-elect (D-AZ)

  “Tim Gleeson”: Australian contract security officer in Baghdad

  Jim Granberry: mayor of Lubbock, Texas (1970–1972)

  Merv Griffin: television host and show-business entrepreneur

  Stephen J. Hadley: national security advisor

  Joe Hagin: deputy White House chief of staff

  Kent Hance: member of the House of Representatives (D-TX), 1979–1985

  “Fadhil Hasani”: interpreter for Allison O’Connor in Baghdad

  “Pirnaz Hasani”: infant daughter of Fadhil and Rukia Hasani

  “Rukia Hasani”: wife and widow of Fadhil Hasani

  Dennis Hastert: Republican speaker of the House of Representatives

  Mary Hatfield: Democratic party activist Lubbock, Texas

  Carol Blue Hitchens: journalist; wife of Christopher Hitchens

  Christopher Hitchens: journalist

  Karen Hughes: former counselor to the president; undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs

  Rielle Hunter: videographer and mistress of former senator John Edwards

  John Irving: American novelist

  Bobby Jindal: member of the House of Representatives (R-LA), 2005–2008

  Frederick W. Kagan: resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute

  Hamid Karzai: president of Afghanistan

  Brett Kavanaugh: White House staff secretary

  Karen Keller: personal secretary to the president

  John Kerry: Democratic senator from Massachusetts; defeated 2004 candidate for president

  Zalmay Khalilzad: U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan (November 2003–June 2005) and U.S. ambassador to Iraq (June 2005–March 2007)

  Larry King: host of CNN’s Larry King Live

  Michael Kinsley: journalist and editor

  Henry Kissinger: former secretary of state

  Junichiro Koizumi: prime minister of Japan

  “Matthew Lang”: archivist, George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum

  Trent Lott: Republican senator from Mississippi

  John McCain: Republican senator from Arizona

  Scott McClellan: White House press secretary (July 2003–May 2006)

  Sean McCormack: assistant secretary of state for public affairs

  Peter MacKay: Canadian foreign minister

  “Anne Macmurray”: babysitter and nanny for Holley Weatherall O’Connor

  Mary Matalin: book editor; advisor to Vice President Cheney

  Harriet Miers: White House legal counsel

  “Charles Montoya”: Army private wounded in Iraq

  “Lucinda Montoya”: Private Montoya’s aunt and caregiver

  “Father Anthony Montrose”: New Orleans parish priest

  “Mrs. Morris”: U.S. embassy staffer in Kabul, Afghanistan

  Ray Nagin: mayor of New Orleans

  Gordon Novel: New Orleans resident with ties to assassination conspiracy theories

  “Allison O’Connor”: staff member of the National Security Council

  “Holley Weatherall O’Connor”: daughter of Ross Weatherall and Allison O’Connor

  “Patricia O’Connor”: mother of Allison O’Connor

  Sandra Day O’Connor: associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court

  Peter Pace: chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  Dina Powell: deputy undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs

  Vladimir Putin: president of Russia

  Lyudmila Putina: wife of Vladimir Putin

  Nancy Reagan: former First Lady; widow of President Ronald Reagan

  William Rehnquist: sixteenth chief justice of the United States

  Condoleezza Rice: U.S. secretary of state

  Ann Richards: former governor of Texas

  John Roberts: seventeenth chief justice of the United States

  Karl Rove: White House deputy chief of staff for policy

  Donald Rumsfeld: U.S. secretary of defense

  Salman Rushdie: Indian novelist

  Terri Schiavo: (1963–2005), central figure in protracted right-to-die legal battle

  “Rolf Schmidt”: German constitutional lawyer working in Baghdad’s Green Zone

  Brent Scowcroft: national security advisor to President George H. W. Bush

  Cindy Sheehan: war protester; mother of soldier killed in Iraq

  Mina Sherzoy: founder of the Afghan Women’s Business Federation

  Tony Snow: White House press secretary (May 2006–September 2007)

  Jack Straw: British MP and foreign secretary (June 2001–May 2006)

  Andrew Sullivan: political journalist and blogger

  Margaret Thatcher: former prime minister of the United Kingdom

  Greta Van Susteren: television journalist, Fox News; host of On the Record

  Donatella Versace: Italian fashion designer

  Michael G. Vickers: analyst, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments

  John Warner: Republican senator from Virginia

  Gene Washington: former professional football player for the San Francisco 49ers

  “Carlotta Watson”: resident of New Orleans’ Holy Cross neighborhood

  “Archer Weatherall”: son of Ross Weatherall

  “Caitlyn Weatherall”: daughter of Ross Weatherall

  “Darryl Weatherall”: attorney in Lubbock, Texas; brother of Ross Weatherall

  “Deborah Weatherall”: university librarian; wife of Ross Weatherall

  “Donna Weatherall”: mother of Ross Weatherall

  “Ross Weatherall”: director, Homeland Heritage Division, National Endowment of the Arts and Humanities

  Allen Weinstein: archivist of the United States

  Jim Wilkinson: senior advisor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

  Tom Wolfe: American novelist and essayist

  Paul Wolfowitz: deputy secretary of defense and president of the World Bank

  Prologue

  WEST TEXAS, FALL 1978

  Monday, September 18

  There ain’t nothin’ ’tween Lubbock and the North Pole ’cept a barbed-wire fence, and it’s blowed down.

  Pedaling up Nineteenth Street, sixteen-year-old Ross Weatherall recalled the many times he’d heard this stark declaration from his grandfather, who’d given up farming during the Dust Bowl and moved into town to start a hardware store. Grandpa had prospered in Lubbock, though the winds that drove him off the land sometimes even now roared through this city on the South Plains. Ross had seen the scratched windowpanes of the house Grandpa built in the thirties, the tiny striations made by grains of dirt whirled against t
he glass.

  The wind was kicking up now, and there was no collar to turn up on the shirt Ross had recently purchased at Buster Hanks’ Men’s Store, imagining it to be both fashionable and sort of British-looking. The heat was concerning him even more than the wind: it was 8:15 p.m. and still 88 degrees according to the Texas Bank sign he’d passed a few minutes ago. At one point this afternoon it had hit 96, and all day Ross had been sweating through the shirt, whose checkered pattern, he now realized, didn’t live up to its supposedly daring lack of a collar.

  He headed west along the southern rim of ever-expanding Texas Tech University, whose new buildings seemed to have sprouted into existence via time-lapse photography or some other sci-fi miracle. We are not alone: Ross hummed the signature notes of the theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a movie that still seemed to him superior in every way to last year’s Star Wars.

  Across Nineteenth Street sat the city’s best and biggest homes, even nicer than the house he lived in on Twenty-first. One of them, a mile or two up, was his destination. Wanting to make sure he had the right address, he switched to no-hands, a risky mode given the wind, and reached into the pocket of his blue jeans for the newspaper ad:

  BUSH

  BASH

  8:00 p.m.

  4907 19TH

  Free Beer—Music

  In smaller type at the bottom, it read:

  Pd. Pol. Adv. George Bush

  for Congress Committee

  Joe I. O’Neill, Treas.

  Ross had torn the announcement from today’s University Daily, which his brother, a politically minded pre-law senior at Tech, had previously circled. Darryl lived in a campus dorm and this afternoon had left the paper behind when making a pit stop at the house to drop off laundry with their mother. Tonight, after finishing his usual early dinner and what little homework he had from Lubbock High, Ross had noticed the ad and thought: Why shouldn’t I go? The beer didn’t interest him, but music of almost any kind did—not to mention the chance of some company. Everyone was out of the house tonight, as they were on most nights: Darryl at school; their father, an orthopedic surgeon, back at the hospital; their mother off to listen to some unfamous author give a lecture at the Lubbock Women’s Club. Ross imagined there’d be a big crowd at a political event like this “Bush Bash,” so even if Darryl showed up—unlikely, since he was always doing twenty things at once—he might still escape his big brother’s notice.