Sam Bourne - The Chosen One

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.’

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 inpatient? 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 Franklin could feel the saliva welling as he imagined the meat still to be picked off that particular bone.

And this morning the Iranian Connection. Iron law of scandal: gotta have a good name. ‘The Iranian Connection’ did the job perfectly. Exotic and dramatic, like a movie, but with the added threat of somewhere dark and scary. Sure the details were obscure, the experts unintelligible bald guys captioned on TV as ‘forensic accountants’, but that only made it better. The liberal editorial boards could sweat through their tieless shirts explaining that there was ‘no case to answer’, but that wouldn’t wash with the folks. Oh no. They would see a blizzard of numbers and laws and rules – and they would conclude that, whatever the fine print might say, Mr Perfect President was no longer as pure as the driven snow.

Which is why he had got on the phone to his Democratic colleague within minutes of the story breaking. Calling for an independent counsel was the no-risk move. If the investi gation found nothing, then Franklin could claim to have performed a public service, getting to the bottom of baseless rumours. If it found something, then bingo! And, in between, day after day of stories full of mind-numbing detail on campaign finance law and on the horror show that was the Iranian regime. The mere fact that these subjects were raised in the same breath as Stephen Baker would generate a quite perfect stench of scandal. Voters would be forced to conclude, as they had so many times before, ‘Ain’t no smoke without fire.’

He knew Vincenzi would be a reliable ally. Sure, he was a Dino – Democrat in Name Only – and sure, everyone knew he couldn’t stand Baker, but Vincenzi’s presence at his side would give Franklin the lofty, bipartisan patina the media could never resist. ‘This is above party politics,’ they had both said in their statements. The press always lapped up that shit.

As for the phrase ‘special prosecutor’, that particular bolt of inspiration had only come to him as he headed over to the hastily arranged press availability. The nerds would say it was inaccurate, but they’d be too late. The poison arrow would already be in flight.