The Rule of Nine Read Online Free PDF Page A

Washington and a seat in Congress.
    It was where he and Nick crossed paths once more. By then Nick had graduated from law school. After spending a year clerking for a judge on the federal circuit court in D.C., he was working in the office of the solicitor general. The two men renewed their friendship.
    Cynical though he might be, Josh was learning how to survive in office. If the only way to effect political change was to turn to the dark side, Root was prepared to do it. He mastered the finer arts of duplicity. He seemed to thrive in the shadowed crevices that form the boundary between perjury and politics. He won two more terms in the House before a vacancy in the Senate yawned open before him. He ran and won.
    It was there that the light of good fortune finally spread to encompass Nick. Four months after Josh arrived in the Senate, a vacancy developed on the Supreme Court. The president filled it with a nomination, but his candidate soon found himself in trouble. The nominee had a history of recreational drug use in his youth, something he had not disclosed to the White House.
    As it turned out, the high court candidate was a native of Oregon. He sat on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. As a matter of courtesy, the White House consulted the senior senator from the state. This was not Root; still, he was sufficiently inside the loop to have influence and to know how to use it. The question was whether the senior senator from Oregon would continue to back the man from his home state.
    Root discovered that on the short list of other candidates for the appointment was the name Nicholas Merle. Nick was still working in the solicitor general’s office. He was a dark horse for the high court, but he had a subtle advantage, and Josh saw it immediately.
    Though Nick had argued cases before the Supreme Court, he had never handed down a decision or an opinion because he had never been on the bench. Consequently he was a clean slate withno controversial baggage that might erupt in a battle during Senate confirmation. Caught in the crosshairs of a drug scandal, the White House was already gun shy, Root realized. Josh convinced his senior cohort in the Senate that they could no longer afford to support the current candidate. It was the political kiss of death. The nominee withdrew his name from consideration the next day.
    That was more than fifteen years ago.
    As Root sat there sipping his Amaretto in the dimly lit lounge, it seemed almost surreal. His friend who had sucked tear gas with him and thrown bricks at police on the barricades had now spent the past decade and a half on the United States Supreme Court while he himself served as chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Surely the gods must be laughing.
    â€œI wanted to talk to you about something,” said Root.
    â€œShoot,” said Nick.
    â€œHave you ever thought about retiring?”
    â€œWhat?” Nick looked up at him.
    â€œFifteen years on the bench is a long time. You’re not getting any younger. And now might be a good time to think about stepping down.”
    â€œJosh, I know you had your own set of health issues. We all start to feel our own mortality at some point in life, but I’m not quite there yet.”
    Most of Washington was aware that Senator Josh Root had serious health concerns even though his staff tried to keep a lid on the details. He had been in and out of Bethesda Naval Hospital as well as several other treatment facilities for the past two years. What troubled Root most was his increasing loss of short-term memory. Whether it had to do with the new medications or other factors Root couldn’t be sure, but there were periods of time for which he could not account. He collected his thoughts for another pitch to his old friend.
    â€œThe president would be able to fill the vacancy with someone younger who would have a much longer tenure on the court,” saidRoot. “And he would have no problem