Anthony Horowitz - Nightrise

“I’ve been thinking about Charles Baker,” Susan Mortlake replied. “The presidential campaign. In view of what’s happened, it’s even more critical that he should win.”

“Yes.” The single word showed that the Chairman was getting impatient.

“You’ve seen the latest figures…”

John Trelawny was edging further ahead in the polls.

“Of course I’ve seen them, Mrs Mortlake.”

“And our agent in New York has been unable to come up with a strategy?”

“I’m afraid Mr Simms has resigned.”

Two days before, Mr Simms, the New York executive, had plunged head first into the Hudson River. In fact, his head had entered the water several minutes before his body. The two of them had later been found washed up, fifty metres apart.

“I believe I may have a solution to the problem, Mr Chairman. As a matter of fact, it was something that Mr Simms suggested himself… while he was still with us. He said that the only answer might be to assassinate Trelawny.”

“I don’t think he was serious.”

“But I am, Mr Chairman.”

The chairman considered. Killing a presidential candidate was possible but it would not be easy. Quite apart from the fact that Trelawny was continually surrounded by secret-service men and that nobody with a gun could get close, the real problem would come later, if the attempt succeeded. There would be a public outcry and the police investigation would be huge and never-ending. It might even lead them to Nightrise. You pay someone who pays someone who pays a madman to fire the fatal bullet – but still the line can be traced back. Assassination was messy and full of danger. It was always a last resort.

But Susan Mortlake was confident.

“Suppose Trelawny was shot by someone who was close to him,” she said. “Someone who had absolutely no link with us. Suppose the killer was caught immediately and was unable to explain his actions but seemed to have suffered some sort of massive nervous breakdown. There would be no doubt about his guilt. He would be tried, sentenced and executed. There would be no further investigation. Trelawny would be dead and that would be the end of it. Of course, someone would take his place, but it would be too late. He’d never catch up. Meanwhile, Charles Baker would look sad and sombre. He might even attend the funeral. In fact, that would help his poll ratings. Nothing would stop him becoming the next president of the United States.”

“Can you do this?” the chairman asked.

“Yes, Mr Chairman. I can.”

The chairman thought for a few seconds. But he knew Susan Mortlake well. He recognized the confidence in her voice.

“Then do it,” he said. And hung up.

He reached out again and lifted up the precious brandy, contemplating its colour swirling in the glass. The Old Ones needed time. More than that, they needed a world that was ready to do things their way. He had no doubt that Charles Baker would be the right man in the right job at the right time. He smiled to himself and lifted the glass to his lips. At the last second he changed his mind and up-ended it, pouring the last inch into a potted plant.

Expensive fertilizer.

Then he got up and walked quietly out of the room.

New York

The car carrying John Trelawny pulled up outside the great tower at the southern end of Broadway in Lower Manhattan. There were two men with him. The driver, as always, was a secret service man. Trelawny knew that he was armed and in constant contact with his back-up team who would be in a second car, probably just a hundred metres behind. Warren Cornfield was sitting next to him. He was such a large man that he barely left enough room for the senator but, over the past few months, Trelawny had got used to it. From the day he’d started his run for president there had been many things he’d had to get used to – and never being alone was the first of them.

“I’ll be one hour,” he said, and reached for the door handle.

“I’m coming in with you, sir,” Cornfield announced.

Trelawny hesitated. This was an argument he’d had a hundred times. He appreciated what Cornfield was doing. Essentially, it was his job. He just wished he liked him more. “It’s all right, Warren,” he said. “This apartment building has its own security and nobody knows I’m here. I’m having lunch with an old friend and you’re not going to tell me she’s a security risk.”

In the end, they compromised. Cornfield came with him through the lobby but allowed him to enter the lift on his own. There were times when Trelawny wondered if all this security was really necessary – but he supposed it only took one crazy person with a gun to prove that it was. And, of course, it was so easy to buy a gun in America. That was one thing he planned to look into one day, if…

He barely felt any motion as he was whisked up to the seventieth floor. The owner of the penthouse knew that he was coming and had programmed the lift to take him there. Trelawny thought about the woman he had come to see. The two of them had known each other for most of their lives – although he sometimes thought that what the two of them didn’t know about each other probably outweighed what they did. She was very wealthy. She had made a fortune creating and selling low-cost computers to inner-city schools, hospitals and youth clubs. She had supported his campaign from the start, holding a series of fund-raising dinners on both the East and West Coasts. The strange thing was, he probably trusted Nathalie Johnson more than any woman on the planet, even including his own wife. And she knew things. She had connections all over the world and seemed to be in tune with the stories that never made the news. He thought of her as a keeper of mysteries. That was why he had come to see her now.

The lift doors opened directly into a fan-shaped living room with windows giving extraordinary views over the Hudson River on one side and the East River, with the Brooklyn Bridge cutting across, on the other. His eye was instantly drawn to the panorama. There was the Statue of Liberty, looking very small and distant at the entrance to New York harbour. And there was Ellis Island, where the great waves of immigrants in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries had first arrived. The floor-to-ceiling windows were like a picture postcard on a gigantic scale and captured one of the most famous views in the world.

“John! How are you?”

Nathalie Johnson had come out of the kitchen carrying a tray with two glasses and a bottle of wine. She set the tray down and the two of them embraced. She was about fifty years old, slim and serious-looking, with dark reddish-brown hair that came down to her shoulders. She was wearing a simple black dress. In all the time that Trelawny had known her, he had never seen her in jeans.

“It’s good to see you,” she went on. “How long are you in New York?”

“Just a few days.” Trelawny sighed. He was never in one place for very long. “I have to go back to Washington, then Virginia and then next week I’m heading back to California. My home town is giving me a parade.”

“Auburn?”

“It’s my birthday. They’re closing the whole place in my honour.”

“That’s very sweet! Maybe I should come.”

“You’d be very welcome.”

The two of them sat down. Nathalie poured the wine and for a few minutes they talked about the campaign, the speech in Los Angeles, the latest negative advertisements that had been playing on TV. But after a while, Trelawny fell silent.

“There was something you wanted to ask me about,” Nathalie said.

“Yes.” He rubbed a hand over his mouth, trying to work out where to begin. “Something happened when I was in Los Angeles,” he explained. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced and I can’t get it out of my mind. I have to talk about it with someone and you’re the only person I could think of who wouldn’t think I was going mad.”