The Chosen One. Sam Bourne

girl’s—’

      ‘Alexis,’ the President added.

      ‘Right. Into her account. Smart.’

      To her surprise, the President suddenly turned and fixed Maggie with his deep green gaze. Though this time, the steadiness was gone. He looked hunted. ‘You should have seen my daughter, Maggie. She looked terrified.’

      ‘It’s horrible.’

      ‘I always promised Kim that whatever happened we’d keep the kids out of it.’

      Stuart replied. ‘And you have, sir.’

      ‘Until now, Stu. Until now.’

      Both Maggie and Goldstein remained silent, while Baker resumed his pacing. Finally, she felt she had to speak.

      ‘Sorry, Mr President. I’m not sure I’m completely clear on what needs to be done here. On what you want us to do.’

      Baker looked to Stuart and nodded, giving Goldstein the cue to answer on his behalf.

      ‘This has to be handled extremely carefully, Maggie. We need to know who this man who contacted Katie is. If he really is the source of these stories and is determined to reveal more, we need to identify him. Fast.’

      ‘Can’t the Secret Service help? He made a direct threat against you.’

      Once again Baker said nothing, looking to Stuart.

      ‘The agent assigned to Katie is running a trace.’

      ‘Good,’ said Maggie. ‘So we’ll see what she finds out.’

      Now the President spoke. ‘I need someone I trust involved, Maggie.’

      ‘You can trust the Secret Service.’

      ‘They will investigate the threat to my life.’ Stuart leaned forward. ‘But this is not just a physical threat, is it? This is political. Someone is out to destroy this presidency. Two leaks, carefully timed for maximum impact. And threatening another.’

      Maggie nodded. ‘I know.’

      ‘Which is why we need our own person on it. Someone who cares. Someone who has the resources to do, you know, unusual work.’

      ‘What do you mean, unusual?’

      ‘Come on, Maggie. We know what you did in Jerusalem. Put it this way, you weren’t just drafting position papers, were you?’

      ‘But I don’t even work for you any more!’ It had come out louder and angrier than she had planned. The intensity of her outburst surprised even her.

      ‘I’m sorry about that,’ the President said quietly.

      ‘Longley runs his own show, you know that, Maggie.’ Stuart paused, then brightened. ‘But it doesn’t mean you can’t help. If anything, it’s better. You have distance. Arm’s-length.’

      ‘Deniability, you mean. You can disown me.’ She was staring hard at him.

      The President drew himself up to full height and let his eyes bore into her. ‘I need you, Maggie. There is so much we hoped to achieve. Together. To do that, I need to stay in this office. And that means finding this man, whoever he is.’

      She held his gaze for a long second or two in which she thought of the conversation they had had in this same place twenty-four hours earlier. She thought of the barely started options paper for Darfur on her computer, of the helicopters that this president was ready to send and the lives they would save. She pictured a Darfuri village about to be torched to the ground and the militiamen on horseback poised to set it ablaze; she saw them reining in their animals and turning around, because they had heard the sound of choppers in the sky that told them they would be seen and caught. She thought of all that and the certainty that nobody other than Stephen Baker would lift a finger to help those villagers.

      ‘All right,’ she said, still looking directly into the deep green of his eyes. ‘We find him. Then what?’

      Stuart answered. ‘We see what he wants. We ask what—’

      The President wheeled round to address his closest advisor directly. ‘I hope you’re not suggesting I engage in dialogue with a blackmailer—’

      ‘Not you. Nowhere near you. A million miles from you.’

      ‘You mean you?’

      ‘Not even me. Or at least not a me that anyone could identify as me.’

      ‘No way.’

      ‘He said he has one more story that will—’

      ‘Well, I’m not going to authorize any such thing. And you know better than to ask.’

      Stuart gestured an apology, heaved himself up out of his chair, muttering a ‘one, two, three’ under his breath as he undertook the necessary exertion. Maggie followed his lead and headed for the door.

      I’m not going to authorize any such thing. Both Maggie and Stuart knew what that meant. They had been given their orders. Deniability, the lubricant of high-level politics. The message had been clear. Do whatever you have to do. Just make sure it has nothing to do with me.

      As they walked back to the West Wing, Maggie turned to Stuart. ‘We better start drawing up a list.’

      ‘A list of what?’

      ‘Of everybody who wants to drive Stephen Baker from office.’

EIGHT

       Washington, DC, Tuesday March 21, 09.16

      In the office of the junior senator from the great state of South Carolina, they liked to pride themselves on the knowledge that a visitor had only to cross the threshold to feel as if he had stepped inside the Old South. The receptionist on duty was usually blonde, under thirty, wearing a floral print and always ready with a welcoming smile, a ‘Yes sir’ or a ‘Yes ma’am’. Nearly always a ‘Yes sir’. Outside that door, they could offer no guarantees. You entered the swamp that was Washington, DC at your own risk. But here, once you were a guest of Senator Rick Franklin, you were south of the Mason-Dixon line.

      The visitor, once he’d helped himself to the pitcher of iced water in the waiting area, would notice more than the Southern smiles. His eye would be caught first, perhaps, by the bronze plaque above the reception desk depicting the Ten Commandments, as if etched on two tablets of stone. Not for Senator Franklin the niceties of separating Church and State in a public building.

      Then, if he were especially vigilant, he would spot the TV monitor tuned not to CNN or MSNBC, as would be the case in most Democrats’ offices, nor even Fox News, as in most Republicans’, but to the Christian Broadcasting Network. Midterm elections might be nineteen months away, but there was fundraising to be done – and it paid to give the folks the right impression.

      That was the outer area. Once a visitor had pierced the perimeter, and entered the private office of the Senator himself, he would get a rather earthier glimpse of the realities of political life. In here, it was Fox or MSNBC, usually the latter. ‘Know thine enemy,’ Franklin would say.

      In the last twenty-four hours, however, it had hardly felt like an enemy. The network, usually pilloried in Franklin mailings as news for arugula-munching liberals, had been making the weather on the Baker presidency; and for those on Franklin’s side of the aisle it had felt like sunshine. Some of his colleagues had simply sat back and enjoyed the show. First, St Stephen of Olympia revealed as some kind of wacko, in need of treatment. The joy of it was that story still had some distance to run. What kind of treatment exactly? Were electric shocks involved? Was he ever an in-patient? Was there a ‘facility’ that might be photographed, complete with exterior shots of a building reminiscent of the Cuckoo’s Nest, that could run on a loop on Fox?

      Senator