Sam Bourne - The Chosen One

He talked for a while about education and the environment, with a short passage on social security. He seemed to be getting into his stride. And then he turned to international affairs.

‘I cannot promise to be the same as my predecessor. We are different men. But Stephen Baker was full of great plans and some of those now fall to me. One in particular I want to mention tonight.

‘A slaughter has been underway for too long far away from here in Sudan, a terrible war against women and children and men who want only to live in peace. No, I’m not going to threaten to invade that or any other country we don’t like. Such heavy-handed interventions do not work. But nor am I going to suggest we stand by and do nothing.

‘Which is why tonight I am ordering the Department of Defense to prepare the despatch of three hundred of our best-equipped helicopters to the African Union. They will be the eyes watching over that troubled land. If the killing continues, those killers should tremble – because they will be watched.’

Maggie shook her head in delighted incredulity. She had assumed that the Darfur plan she had discussed with Baker had been buried the instant he resigned. It was a pet project of his and hers; there were no votes in it. And yet he had clearly handed their plan to his successor. Baker must have told Williams it was a priority too, or it would never have been included in an occasion as important as this one. And then she remembered Baker’s parting words to her: I hope one day to find a way to repay you.

Washington, DC, three months later

Maggie surveyed the crowd in the Dubliner bar, trying to work out who worked for whom, which group were Republicans and which were Democrats, who worked for the administration and who on the Hill. Within a minute she had given up. The men in their buttoned-down shirts, chinos and blue jackets, the women in their regulation Ann Taylor suits – they all looked the same. And not one of them would know a real Irish pub if they walked headlong into it.

She knocked back the dregs of whisky in her glass and contemplated ordering another. Uri had texted to say he was running late, so there was no point in watching the door. But still she kept glancing up, hoping to see him come in. She pictured him, his skin warm after a day in the June sunshine. He would be in a good mood: the distributors had just told him his documentary – The Life, Times and Curiously Short Presidency of Stephen Baker – had been picked for the Toronto Film Festival.

But still she could not help feeling a little on edge. Why had Uri suggested meeting here, rather than at the apartment? You only selected a neutral venue if you thought negotiations were going to be tense and complicated, she had learned that long ago. So what choppy waters did Uri want to negotiate?

She raised the glass to her lips again, even though she knew there was nothing left in it. It was true that the last few weeks had not been great. After those lunatic final days of March, they had decided to get away, to go on holiday together. They plumped for the volcanic, Aegean islands of Santorini.

Some absurd cloak-and-dagger arrangements had followed, ensuring that their destination remained secret. At the insistence of Zoe Galfano, the Secret Service agent tasked with what was officially called ‘after-care’, the US consul in the region had been notified and a ‘discreet’ security presence arranged. When Maggie had objected, protesting that Roger Waugh and his pals were now behind bars, Zoe had shaken her head and said plainly that former President Baker had been adamant: Maggie Costello had earned the protection of the US Government.

She would like to be able to blame the guards for what followed, but it was hardly their fault. They had indeed been discreet: close enough to deter anyone planning mischief, distant enough that no regular person would even spot that they were there. What happened was nothing to do with them.

It had started off well enough, Maggie relishing the chance to catch up on sleep, food and…Uri. They would wake up late, she waving Uri off as he went for a run on the black sand, and then they would eat an unhurried breakfast together. They would make slow, tentative love in the afternoon – slightly unsure of each other after their time apart – then walk and talk until sunset before eating late. She would look at Uri, still handsome enough to make other women turn their heads, whether he was splashing in the sea or dozing in the hammock, and marvel at her luck. After a few days of the quiet and peace, though, she had found herself itching to pick up the BlackBerry. At first Uri merely rolled his eyes.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Nothing.’

‘A special kind of nothing that requires a hand-held device.’

‘ The New York Times is running a series on Williams’s first hundred days.’

‘And you want to read it. Even though you’re on vacation.’

‘It’s nothing to do with you, Uri, so why should it bother you?’

‘It doesn’t bother me. I just don’t know why you can’t lie on a beach and relax like a normal person.’

‘I don’t like being in the sun, that’s why. I’m Irish. I burn.’

‘But you’re in the shade.’

‘That’s so I won’t burn.’

Those clouds would pass eventually, but as the week wore on they came more often.

‘What about a swim?’ Uri might suggest.

‘I’ve already had one.’

‘But that was yesterday.’

‘I think you’ll find it was today.’

‘It was definitely yesterday.’

‘I’m amazed you can tell: one day is the same as the bloody next.’

‘We’ve only been here five days, Maggie! Why don’t you read?’

‘I don’t want to read. I don’t want to swim. I don’t want to jog and I don’t want to get sunburn. I want to do something.’

She smiled about it now, recalling that Liz had always said her definition of hell would be a two-week holiday alone with her sister. She had been impossible, no doubt about it. Irritable, scratchy and bored.

Since then, Uri had been working flat-out finishing the film. She had spent some time with him in New York, and he had come down to DC for a few last-minute interviews. And now it was completed, he had needed to be in Washington for a dinner with PBS executives to discuss transmission dates. He had suggested they meet for a drink straight afterwards.

She was about to go to the bathroom to sort out her hair, now grown back to its familiar colour and length, when she saw him walk in. Those eyes – at once those of a strong, brave man and a haunted boy – melted her the way they always had. He sat down next to her at the corner table she had been zealously keeping as her own since she had arrived nearly twenty minutes earlier. But when she tried to kiss him on the lips, he offered her his cheek. That alone gave her a small shiver of anxiety.

‘So, well done on Toronto!’

‘Thanks.’

‘This film is going to be massive, Uri, I’m sure of it.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Who knows, it might go down in history as the one successful achievement of the Baker presidency.’

‘Don’t forget “Action for Sudan”. The helicopters.’

‘That’s true.’

‘Your legacy, Maggie.’

She nodded, felt a fleeting stab of guilt at what she hadn’t told him, then ordered drinks. Another whisky for her, a beer for him.

He took a swig straight from the bottle, then said, ‘Maggie, we should talk.’

‘That sounds ominous.’

‘Hear me out.’

‘That sounds even worse.’

‘Just listen. Remember that night on the beach in Santorini, when we’d finally settled in and we went for a walk by the sea? There was a full moon.’