Sam Bourne - The Chosen One

She had wondered if this morning’s revelation would see all that come crashing down. She didn’t care about herself; she wouldn’t mind if she never went to another Washington party. But she couldn’t bear to imagine what her children might be put through. Stephen had agreed they would maintain the no-newspapers rule they had observed back west. Nor was it any kind of sacrifice to ban cable TV. And the staff were wonderful, never mentioning a thing.

But, she knew, that was not where the danger lurked. It was school, specifically the meanness of other children, that frightened her. She knew how cruel they could be. Yes, most of the pupils at the school they had chosen would be fawning over Katie and Josh, but it would only take one rebel, one troublemaker who saw there was sport to be had in teasing the daughter of the President of the United States. And what ammunition any would-be playground tormentor had just been handed. Psychiatric treatment.

And yet the children had said nothing about it. They had come home, picked up from the school gate by Zoe, the Secret Service agent masquerading as an au pair – albeit one who drove an armour-plated minivan with blacked-out windows – and bounded up the stairs as if nothing were out of the ordinary. In Josh’s case, Kimberley Baker knew that meant all had been well. Her son couldn’t hide anything, even if he wanted to.

But Katie offered no such assurance. Was her silence proof that nothing had happened, that she had survived the day without mockery – or evidence that she had suffered an indignity so great it could not be expressed?

There was a message from her friend Alexis.

Hi K, hope you’re feeling OK this evening. Sorry today was so hard. You seemed to be coping really well though. You’re one tough chick!

Katie Baker read it again, checking the name. It was definitely from Alexis, but it made no sense. Alexis hadn’t been at school today. She’d got that bug that was going round. How would Alexis know how she’d been coping?

She typed out a reply.

I don’t understand! Aren’t you in bed with that yukky bug thing?!!

Katie clicked open another window: tour dates for the band Emily and Hannah had said were the hot group of the year. She was about to hit the preview to hear some of their music when she heard a light knock on the door.

Her agent, Zoe, poked her head round the door, taking care to stay outside her room. ‘Your mom says it’s time you came down for dinner.’

“Kay. Be right there.’

The door shut and Katie closed the tab open to the band’s website. She was about to close down Facebook when she heard the message alert announcing Alexis’ reply. She glanced back towards the door. It would only take a minute.

The First Lady looked over at her husband, now chopping garlic for a tomato sauce. He was sitting on a stool tucked up against the breakfast bar, both tie and shoes off. Whenever she regretted her husband’s choice of career – which was often – Kimberley Baker fell back on this consolation. She had deployed the same line when he was Governor, too. As he had put it in at least three dozen interviews, before flashing that million-kilowatt smile, ‘At least I get to live above the shop.’

So she tried to savour this little scene of domesticity – the four of them having an evening meal together – and pretend that the National Security Advisor was not waiting just along the corridor.

Actually, it was still just the three of them. Katie had not yet come down despite Zoe’s summons. Kimberley decided she’d had it with relaying messages via the Secret Service agent, and was poised to shout with the full force of her lungs for her daughter to come to the table – and to hell with the dozens of officials and staff who would hear her screeching – when the door swung open.

‘Ah, good evening, young lady,’ said the President, his eyes still focused on his painstakingly slow work at the chopping board. He didn’t see what his wife saw: their thirteen-year-old daughter standing there with every last drop of blood drained from her face.

‘Katie, what is it?’ Kimberley cried. ‘Katie!’

The girl was staring straight ahead. Her mother grabbed her by her shoulders, trying to shake a response out of her.

‘What’s happened? What’s HAPPENED!’

Instinctively, Stephen Baker looked to the door. Had there been some kind of attack, had an intruder broken into the White House Residence? Zoe, having quietly entered the room behind her charge, read the President’s expression. She shook her head. We’ve seen nothing.

When he spoke, his voice conveyed the same steady calm that voters had warmed to even before he was elected. He knelt down so that he could look his daughter in the eye. ‘Was it something on the computer?’

She nodded.

‘One of your friends, saying something mean?’

‘I thought it was. At first.’

The President and his wife looked at each other.

‘What did they say?’

‘I don’t want to tell you.’

The President stood up and gestured towards Zoe. Swiftly, she left the room, returning a matter of seconds later holding an open laptop computer, its shell a blaze of tie-dye style, psychedelic swirls. Teen chic.

Kimberley took the machine from Zoe and looked at the screen. It was her daughter’s Facebook page. Katie had begged to be allowed to keep it and her parents had eventually relented, reluctantly and with strict conditions. No photographs of herself or anyone else who might identify her. No real names. No contact details. And an IP address arranged through the White House comms department that would reveal only the United States as her place of residence, with no town or city specified. Only her closest friends from back home in Olympia, with perhaps a few more added this week in DC, knew that Sunshine 12 was in fact the daughter of the American President.

Stephen Baker scanned the screen, searching among the multiple open windows, banner ads and thumbnail photos for what had so distressed his daughter.

And then he found it. A message from one of Katie’s schoolfriends: Alexis. He’d heard the name mentioned a few times.

No, I’m not in bed. I’m not really sick. And I’m not really Alexis either, to be honest. But I am sorry about your Dad. Must have been such a shock to find out about his past medical problems. Did he ever tell you about that when he sat at the end of your bed, stroking your hair and telling you a bedtime story? Did he tell you Grandma was a pisshead and he had to go to the head doctor because he was a mental case? My apologies for spilling the beans. Ooops. Silly me. But I wonder if you would be a doll and take a message to him from me. Thanks, sweetie. Tell him I have more stories to tell. The next one comes tomorrow morning. And if that doesn’t smash his pretty little head into a thousand pieces, I promise you this – the one after that will. Make no mistake: I mean to destroy him.

Washington, DC, Tuesday March 21, 05.59

Maggie got the call before 6am: Goldstein, sounding caffeinated. ‘Put on MSNBC. Now.’

She fumbled for the remote, down at the side of the bed. It wasn’t there. She reached across to the blank, empty space that made up the other half of the bed and found it marooned there, stabbed at the buttons until finally the screen fired up into a too-bright light.

‘It’s an ad for car insurance, Stu.’

‘Wait. We got a heads-up.’

There was the portentous sound of a station ident, a whizzy graphic and then the morning anchor, all glossy lips and improbably static hair. The image over her shoulder showed the President, the words strapped across the bottom of the screen: Breaking News.

‘Papers seen by MSNBC suggest Stephen Baker received campaign contributions that came, indirectly, from the government of Iran. Details are still sketchy but such a donation would constitute a serious violation of federal law, which prohibits candidates from receiving contributions from any foreign source, still less a government hostile to the United States. Live now to…’