Stanley Johnson - Kompromat

The images ran on. ‘Who’s that coming after Barnard?’ Wilbur Brown asked. ‘Is that Ron Craig’s daughter, Rosie? Good-looking girl, eh? And who’s that with her? That’s not Jack Varese, for God’s sake, is it? What’s he doing out there?’

As they watched the screen, they saw the tiger coming down the path towards the presidential party. Shouting and confusion ensued. The microphone clearly picked up Popov’s command. ‘Don’t shoot.’

It also picked up Ronald Craig’s anguished yell: ‘What the fu—!’

‘I’m going to play that again in slow motion,’ Hollingsworth said. ‘Keep an eye on Popov. What do you see?’

Hollingsworth ran the tape again. When it had finished, the Director of the FBI gave a long, low whistle.

‘Popov didn’t aim at the tiger at all, did he? He picks up his gun, points it at the tiger, then as the tiger runs off into the forest, he quickly turns, aims and shoots the dart into Ron Craig’s backside. Dead shot! Bullseye! Don’t tell me that was an accident?’

‘It didn’t look much like an accident to me,’ Hollingsworth agreed.

Hollingsworth paused the tape, freezing the frame. A ranger knelt beside the prostrate form of Ronald Craig. Next to him stood President Popov with a yellow vial in his hand.

Hollingsworth picked up the phone. Minutes later, a tall grey-faced man with thinning hair joined them.

‘Thanks for coming in, John. We need some technical advice here.’

John Hulley, one of the CIA’s top boffins, nodded. ‘Happy to oblige.’

The CIA director ran the film again. When it was over, he asked Hulley a simple question. ‘John, you technical people are always talking about the advances in surveillance techniques. Recording devices no thicker than a human hair. That kind of thing.’

‘Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration. But, yes, the new bugging devices are very small indeed. They can be recharged through solar radiation. Look at what they’re doing with wildlife monitoring nowadays. Once you’ve tagged them, you can track high-flying birds, like the Canada geese or Berwick swans, literally for years. The higher they fly, the more solar energy that little transmitter absorbs.’

‘Okay, fine, I’ve got it,’ Hollingsworth said. ‘But what I want to know is whether you could use a tranquillizing dart to insert one of these new, highly miniaturized transmitters into a human target.’

Jim Hulley thought for a long moment. ‘I’d say it would depend what part of the body you were aiming at? The needle needs to go in at least five millimetres. Okay, the buttocks are a promising target. That’s why we inject people in the ass. Plenty of flesh for a needle to sink into. But frankly, I’d say that would have been a lucky shot indeed. Remember, the dart Popov fired would have had to carry the narcoleptic dose, enough to render the target insensible for the desired period of time, as well as the bugging device.’

They mulled it over for a while.

‘What about the hospital in Khabarovsk?’ Wilbur Brown had a sudden thought. ‘As I understand it, they took Craig into the hospital after the incident. If they put him under again there, or even gave him a local anaesthetic when they were tending the wound from the dart, they could have planted the bug, couldn’t they?’

Hulley nodded. ‘Now you’re talking.’

It took a while for the full implications to sink in. At last Hollingsworth spoke. ‘If that device is working, then any time Craig goes anywhere or sees anyone, the Russians could be listening in. Is that right?’

Two days later, President Brandon Matlock sat in the Oval Office waiting for the attorney general to arrive. Normally, the White House legal officers would have drafted some language, having cleared it around town through the normal channels. But these weren’t normal times.

In any case, as far as President Matlock was concerned, it wasn’t just a question of keeping down the number of people who knew what was going on because of security issues. There was an element of retribution involved too. He could never forget that Craig had been the moving spirit behind the ‘birthers’: that group of bitter and twisted individuals who argued that Matlock hadn’t been born in the US and therefore was not eligible, under the Constitution, to be president.

Determined to produce an absolute zinger of an executive order, elegantly drafted as well as legally watertight, the president had called in Joe Silcock. Silcock, an African-American who in his time had graduated top of Harvard Law School and was now the youngest attorney general since Bobby Kennedy, was generally thought to be one of the smartest lawyers in town.

‘Let’s get some good language here, Joe, shall we?’ the president said. ‘What about something along the lines of, “The President of the United States hereby desires and commands Ronald C. Craig to attend forthwith the Walter Reed Army Centre in Bethesda, Maryland, with a view to submitting his…”’ The president paused. ‘What’s the Latin term for “posterior”?’

‘“Posterior” is the Latin term.’

‘Well, try something else. What about “ gluteus maximus ”?’

‘The “ gluteus maximus ” is in the buttocks, I believe. Actually, there are two of them, one on each side. I believe Mr Craig was darted on the left side.’

‘Well, he’ll have to bring them both in, won’t he? Would that be “ glutei maximi ”?’

‘Why not just put “backside” or even “ass”?’

‘You mean as in, “Just get your ass over to Walter Reed”?’

Even though his term still had a few months to run, Silcock could sense that President Matlock was already demob-happy.

‘That will do fine, I’m sure,’ he said.

The president signed the executive order with a flourish. He handed the pen to the Attorney General.

‘Probably the last executive order I’ll sign. Hang on to the pen. It might be worth something one day.’

When Silcock had gone, President Matlock picked up the phone. ‘Could you get hold of Wilbur Brown, please, at the FBI? Ask him to step over here if he has a moment.’

When Brown arrived, the president said, ‘I’ve signed the executive order. Walter Reed is on standby. You’ll do the necessary, won’t you?’

Brown replied simply, ‘The FBI’s mission is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States.’

Years ago, President Matlock recalled, US President Richard Nixon – about to resign his great office in disgrace – had asked the then secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, to pray with him in this very room. What a lot of history the place had seen. He hoped he wouldn’t leave with a cloud over his head. But what would happen to his legacy, he wondered?

He stood up from his desk and walked over to the window to look out at the rose garden. ‘I’m going, Wilbur, but people like you must carry on the good work.’

‘We will, sir.’ Wilbur Brown, seventh director of the FBI, felt strangely moved. ‘We will carry on the good work. Till hell freezes over. Whatever it takes.’

Craig had reached Barnard by phone earlier in the week. ‘Come over for my speech in Fort Lauderdale,’ Craig had urged him. ‘I’m sure you need a break and I could use your help.’

Barnard had checked it out with Harriet Marshall. Nowadays, he didn’t move without Harriet’s say-so. He, Barnard, was officially chairman of the Leave campaign but Barnard was under no illusions as to where the power truly lay. It lay with Harriet. No doubt about that. Sometimes he murmured ‘Take back control’ when Marshall laid down the law – who was to do what and when – but he never kicked up a fuss. When you had a political genius on your side, you didn’t quibble.