Stuart Woods - Mounting Fears

“Hi,” Kate said.

Will was encouraged. He walked over and kissed her on the neck. “Hi.”

“How was the campaign trail?” she asked.

“Spooky,” he said. “I’m slipping in the polls for no apparent reason.” He tossed his jacket onto a chair, loosened his tie, walked over to the bar, and made them each a drink. “Moss says there’s nothing to worry about, but I don’t believe him. I think Spanner is turning out to be a better candidate than we had given him credit for.”

“I think Moss is right,” she said, accepting her martini, muting CNN, and patting a spot next to her on the couch all in one motion.

“You don’t think the electorate doesn’t love me anymore?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “How could anybody not love you? I do.”

He kissed her and tasted martini. “You certainly know how to welcome a weary candidate home,” he said.

“And I’m not finished,” she said, “but first I have to drink this martini and have some dinner, which I ordered as soon as I heard the chopper.”

“All that beauty and efficient, too.”

“I had a weird phone call today,” Kate said.

“That can’t be a new thing, in your job.”

“No, this was way out there.”

“Weird odd or weird funny?”

“Weird odd. You know that awful fucking scandal sheet, the Inquisitor, Charlene Joiner’s best friend?”

Will rolled his eyes.

“Well, a woman visited their offices yesterday, claiming to be an assistant director of the FBI, showing ID, too. Turns out the Bureau never heard of this person. I got a call from Kerry Smith, telling me about it.”

“Why would Kerry call you about this?”

“Because he thinks the woman was Agency, that’s why, though he was too polite to say so.”

“Are your people poking around in freedom of the press and all that?”

“Not on my orders, and Lance denied all knowledge, too, though I have to say he didn’t seem terribly surprised when I asked him about it.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time a fellow hid something from his boss.”

“Well, yeah, that crossed my mind.”

“Why are you so concerned about this?”

“Well, suppose Lance is lying about having sent somebody over there. What the hell for? It would have to be connected to some sort of possible scandal, because that’s what the rag does, right?”

“What sort of scandal?”

“I was hoping you didn’t have any ideas,” she said, looking carefully at him.

“You mean, do they have photographs of me being whipped by Charlene?”

She laughed. “Something like that.”

He shook his head. “She hasn’t whipped me in, I don’t know, days,” he replied. “And we were very careful to pull the blinds.”

She elbowed him in the ribs. “Stop it! You know the mention of her name sets off a cherry bomb in my brain.”

“You brought her up.”

“Well, she’s the only scandal I can think of.”

“She’s not a scandal,” Will said.

“A scandal waiting to happen, then. How’s the Charlene Watch doing?”

“I haven’t heard anything, so she hasn’t set off any alarms.”

“I’ve got a funny feeling about this fake FBI lady,” Kate said.

“All right. Tomorrow morning, call Lance in and read him the riot act. Demand to know what’s going on.”

“I’m not sure I want to know,” Kate said. “He’s a very smart guy, and if he’s keeping something from me, he has good reasons. I think he might be trying to protect me and feels it might be better if I don’t know.”

“Well, that’s a nice character trait. I’ve always had a hard time reading Lance, he’s so smooth.”

“I know what you mean,” she said, “but I’m learning to figure him out, and mostly I like what I find.”

“Do you think he might be protecting me as well as you?”

“We’re the same person,” she said, “to Lance, anyway. Anything that hurts you, hurts me, and anything that hurts me, hurts Lance.”

“A daisy chain of hurt?”

“Well, yes.”

“I don’t…” Something on the TV screen caught Will’s eye. He picked up the remote and unmuted it. A banner reached across the screen: BREAKING NEWS!!!

“What?” Kate asked.

“Shhh.”

“Let’s go to Jim Barnes in Atlanta,” the anchor was saying.

The reporter stood in front of an Atlanta church that Will recognized instantly. “Less than five minutes ago, the Reverend Henry King Johnson made this announcement,” he said.

The tall, handsome image of the Reverend Johnson appeared on screen, surrounded by a passel of admirers. “Today,” he said, “I have resigned from the Democratic Party and am declaring my candidacy as an independent for president of the United States.”

“Oh, shit,” Will said, taking a gulp of his bourbon. The phone on the coffee table started to ring. He picked it up and said, “Hang on,” then went back to watching CNN.

“For too long the current president has ignored the needs of black Americans,” Johnson was saying. “For too long he has let us languish while other minorities crowd his thoughts.”

“What the hell is he talking about?” Kate asked.

“Hispanics,” Will replied. He put his ear to the phone. “Yes?”

“It’s Kitty. You’re watching?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“This is not good.”

“I can only agree,” Will said.

Lance Cabot had just finished a meeting with his newly appointed London head of station, who was in town for a few days, when his phone rang.

His secretary picked up the line, then buzzed him. “The director would like to see you now,” she said.

Lance got up from his desk, slipped into his suit jacket, adjusted his tie, and began the walk to the director’s office, along the way composing himself into the attitude of glacial calm that he had learned over many years of practice. The secretary on guard told him to go in.

Lance knocked.

“Come in.”

He took a deep breath, let it out, and opened the door. Katharine Rule Lee was at her computer, typing. “Have a seat, Lance,” she said, without looking up from her computer.

Lance sat down and crossed his legs, waiting for her to finish typing.

The director finished, saved the document, and turned to face her visitor. “Lance, I had a very peculiar phone call yesterday from Kerry Smith at the Bureau.”

Lance gazed at her and blinked very slowly but said nothing.

“The day before yesterday the editor of an execrable publication called the National Inquisitor was visited by a woman who showed him Bureau ID, a court order and a search warrant, all apparently bogus, all items we are capable of generating in-house. Do you know anything about that?”

“The national what?” Lance asked, to give himself time to think.

“Lance, you look well fed,” the director said. “I’m sure that sometime in the past twenty years you must have visited a supermarket.”

“Oh, that thing.”

“Yes, that thing. Now what do you know about this incident?”

Lance gazed at her lazily but said nothing.

“Well?”

“Director, I recall that once you said to me something on the order of ‘There will be times-rarely-when things will occur that I should not know about.’ ”

The director flushed slightly. “The description of the fake FBI agent closely resembles that of your assistant, Holly Barker,” she said.

“Do you remember saying those words to me, Director?” Lance asked. “And if so, do they still apply?”

The director looked at him for a slow count of about five. “That will be all, Mr. Cabot.”

“Good day, Director,” Lance said, rising and walking to the door. He had the knob in his hand when she stopped him.