Sam Bourne - The Chosen One

Maggie looked away from the computer towards the midafternoon passengers, some flicking through magazines, others mutely watching CNN on the airport screens. Then she moved her cursor to the Search field and typed ‘Stephen Baker + Roger Waugh’.

To her surprise, the first entry was billed as a ‘News’ result, posted a matter of hours ago. It took her to a page on politico.com listing the President’s appointments for the next day. There at 9am was ‘President Baker meets representatives of America’s financial community’, listing the personnel involved.

So that was why Waugh was travelling to Washington tonight. He was going to meet the President.

And yet Waugh was somehow tangled up with the death of Forbes and maybe everything else that had happened in this crazy week. A sudden alarm drove through her like a surge of electricity. It would be madness to let Waugh come within a hundred yards of the Oval Office before the President understood what the hell was going on. And that meant Maggie had to find out.

She opened up a new tab and checked out Teterboro Airport, reading that it was a tiny ‘relief’ airport in New Jersey, but very popular with ‘private and corporate aircraft’ because it was just twelve miles from midtown Manhattan. Slightly farther from JFK, but she could make it if she got going right away.

Just then there was a tap on her shoulder.

She froze. And then she heard his voice.

‘I nearly didn’t recognize you. What’s with the haircut?’

She hadn’t planned it; she’d had no idea how this moment would feel. But the sight of him now, in his trademark dark jeans and white shirt, his full head of lustrous, almost-black hair, made her stand up and close her arms around him.

They stood like that, saying nothing, holding each other like any other couple having an airport goodbye, for a minute or longer. It had been so long since she had felt the warmth of another human being, so long since she had felt his touch. She wanted to breathe in the smell of him, the scent that instantly transported her back to the thousand different moments of love they had shared.

It was Maggie who eventually broke the embrace, stepping back to take a good look at him. ‘This is so crazy. Now they can see you.’

‘I can take care of myself, Maggie. It’s you we need to worry about.’

She smiled, childishly pleased that he hadn’t let go of her hand. ‘So what couldn’t wait that you had to rush over here like a manyak ?’

‘I told you, Maggie, that word doesn’t mean what you think it means. But your Hebrew accent is getting better. I’m impressed.’ He smiled. ‘It’s better than your haircut anyway.’

‘Uri.’

He sat on the stool next to hers, so that they were both facing the observation window. ‘You know the Baker film I’m making? I’ve come across something – I don’t know – odd.’

‘What kind of odd?’

‘Maggie, do you know how Stephen Baker became Governor?’

‘Uri, I’d love to get into this, but I’m really under the-’

‘Just listen, Maggie. How Baker became Governor. Do you know?’

‘I know he won big.’

‘Very big. Massive, in fact. Ran against a total nobody who hadn’t lived in the state for twenty years.’

‘OK.’

‘You know why? Because the Republican opponent he was meant to face imploded three months before election day. During the campaign his divorce papers suddenly surfaced; showed he had a thing about watching his wife have sex with other men. He would hide in a closet, filming it with a video camera.’

‘I really don’t see-’

‘But that’s not all. Baker was never even expected to be the Democratic candidate. Everyone thought he’d lose the primary. He was up against a really popular mayor of Seattle. Except someone produced a tape of the mayor talking on the phone, saying there were too many “chinks and spics” in the city. Baker just glided to the nomination.’

‘Where’s this going, Uri?’

‘I don’t know. It just seems that – until all this impeachment stuff – somebody up there really liked Stephen Baker. Liked him a lot.’

There was a time when that would have been enough to make Maggie tell Uri to piss off. When they were going out, Baker had been a constant source of tension: Uri pointing out flaws in his speeches, little missteps in his tactics, Maggie always getting defensive. It seemed ridiculous now, but Maggie had long suspected that Uri had become jealous of this other man in her life – and took every opportunity to do him down.

Now, though, she was ready to hear anything that might help explain the bizarre and lethal chain of events that had unfolded this last week. Not that she could yet work out how this fitted in. ‘Uri, I have to leave here any minute now. If I need to reach you, where will you be?’

‘In the edit suite. I can’t get any work done at home at the moment. My sister’s visiting from Tel Aviv – she’s decided her mission in life is to clean every surface of my apartment.’

A different cog in Maggie’s mind started turning. ‘Your sister?’ So that had been the woman Maggie had heard in the background on that call to the New York apartment. Not a new lover after all. She felt a knot deep inside her – one she had only been dimly aware of until this moment – begin to loosen and unravel.

‘Are you sure I can’t come with you, wherever you’re going? I might even be useful. I have some experience you know.’ He did a little mime suggesting a man of action.

‘I know, Uri. And I’m really grateful. But I’ve drawn too many people into this mess already.’

She could see that he wanted to insist, but stopped himself, aware that he was in no position to do so. ‘OK. But take care of yourself, Maggie.’ They were standing now, close together, with the same hesitation they felt when they would part at Penn Station on a Sunday night before she headed down to Washington. ‘I mean it. Do it for me, if not for you.’ He leaned forward and kissed the top of her head. Then he turned and walked away. She watched for several long seconds, wondering if he would turn around. But he didn’t.

An announcement came over the tannoy, prompting her to look at her watch: she really would have to leave right now if she was to get to Teterboro in time. But she had the guilty, nagging sensation of something she was meant to do, some task left incomplete. She was about to switch off the computer when it came to her: Liz.

Her sister had sent that text hours ago: Call me urgently. Something strange is happening, when Maggie had still been at the airport in Idaho. But then, straight afterwards, there had been that message from Sanchez about the police and she had put everything else out of her mind.

She picked out one of the unused, disposable phones and dialled Liz’s number.

‘Christ, thank God Almighty.’

‘Liz, what is it?’

‘Jesus, when I hadn’t heard from you, I thought maybe-’

‘I’m OK. Liz, calm down.’ She could hear her sister’s breaths coming quickly, as if she were about to cry.

‘You may be able to handle all this, Maggie, but I’m not sure we can. Not if something happened to you. Ma and me-’

‘You haven’t told her anything!’

‘Course I haven’t.’ A loud sniff. ‘But Jesus, Maggie, you had me worried.’ Now the contagion seemed to have spread, as the phone was filled by the noise of a child sobbing. ‘Oh, it’s OK, Calum pet. Mummy’s OK.’ There was rustling and more sniffing. ‘There you go, love. Oh look, Peppa Pig’s on.’

‘Liz, I can call another time.’

‘No! You’ve got to see this.’

‘See what?’

‘Get your computer out, get online.’

‘Hang on. I haven’t any time, I’ve-’