Stanley Johnson - Kompromat

‘How did the FBI get the emails?’ Barnard asked.

‘Well, they haven’t told us so directly, but the most likely source seems to be WikiLeaks.’

‘And how did WikiLeaks get them? From the Russians?’

‘Almost certainly.’

‘So how did the Russians get them?’

‘This is where it gets a bit murky,’ the ambassador replied. ‘It looks as though some FSB-related units hacked into the Democratic National Committee and then into Caroline Mann’s own emails. But all this is still pretty speculative. The odd thing is that apparently the FBI has also got a whole lot of compromising material on the Craig campaign, too. But so far it hasn’t announced any plan to release it.’

‘No favouritism there then?’ Barnard chuckled.

They spent a few moments checking Barnard’s schedule for the next day. ‘You’ve got meetings at the Treasury in the morning, then lunch at the IMF,’ Boles told him. ‘Then drinks here tomorrow evening. Lots of people keen to meet the new chancellor of the exchequer. We’ll get you to Dulles in time for the last flight back to Heathrow.’

‘Sounds fun,’ Barnard said.

‘Oh, by the way,’ Boles added. ‘We left a gap in your schedule after lunch. If you’re up for it, you could call in at the FBI. Wilbur Brown is very keen to see you. Nothing to do with finance. That’s why we haven’t put it on your formal schedule. As far as I understand, it’s something to do with that trip you made to the Russian Far East. Something they need to check. He didn’t say much on the phone. Just said he would greatly appreciate it if you could spare a moment.’

‘Pretty much like a Royal Command, isn’t it?’ Barnard commented.

‘That’s what I thought too,’ said Boles. ‘You can use my car tomorrow. I won’t need it. If you’re summoned to the FBI, you may as well arrive in an armour-plated Rolls Royce, don’t you think?’

‘Sounds good to me,’ Barnard agreed. ‘I don’t want anyone else taking a pot-shot at me.’

Rosie Craig arrived moments later. She gave Barnard a big hug.

‘It’s so good to see you again,’ she said. ‘Last time we met you had just been bitten by a deadly poisonous spider and now you’re the new secretary of the Treasury.’

Barnard returned the greeting. ‘In the UK, I’m called chancellor of the exchequer. Pretty much the same job as your Treasury secretary’s, except you guys have a lot more money.’

Rosie turned to her hosts. ‘Jack’s on his way. He’s on the phone to Dad. Dad wants Jack to endorse his candidacy, but Jack’s playing hard to get. Says Dad has to change his tune on global warming and promise to stand by the Paris agreement. Just for starters.’

Sir Andrew Boles laughed. ‘Good luck with that. There’s going to be a sigh of relief all round, if your father changes tack on that one.’

When Jack Varese finally arrived, they went straight on into dinner in the small, private dining room.

‘Rosie was telling us before you arrived that you’ve been talking to her father about global warming,’ Andrew Boles said, once they were settled. ‘Can you tell us what he said, or it a secret?’

Jack Varese laughed. ‘Nothing’s a secret in this town. People know what you’ve said, before you’ve said it.’

He was suddenly serious. ‘Rosie and Edward will remember the time I flew them from St Petersburg to Khabarovsk earlier this year to look for Siberian tigers in the Russian Far East. I was piloting my Gulfstream 550. Rosie’s father, Ronald, was with us on that amazing trip and he came up front to sit in the co-pilot’s seat. We were flying a great circle route over the Arctic. That’s one of the most magnificent spectacles you will ever see. The Inuits live up there, the polar bears, the seals, the walruses. Makes you want to cry, it’s so beautiful.

‘There was I, flying the plane, and thinking how global warming was already working a massive change in the Arctic environment. The ice cap is shrinking, year by year. The polar bears are starving because they can’t get out on the ice to hunt seals. The oil rigs will soon be sprouting in the ocean where the ice used to be.

‘Then I saw Ron looking out the window and I realized that he wasn’t seeing what I was seeing. He wasn’t looking at a magnificent, pristine environment, now seriously threatened. No, what he saw was a massive opportunity for Craig Shipping. He was thinking that he could cut thousands, literally thousands of miles off a journey from Europe to Asia if he could get rid of the ice in the Arctic Ocean. And he was thinking about the possibilities for Craig Oil if he could do a deal with Russia over exploitation rights. There are billions of barrels of oil up there. Never mind the risk of blow outs or maritime disasters.

‘Do you know what Ron Craig’s precise words to me were?’ he concluded. ‘They were “Roll on global warming”!’

‘I’m totally with Jack on this one,’ Rosie said. ‘I’m giving him all the help I can. My father listens to me sometimes.’

‘That’s the understatement of the year. He listens to you all of the time,’ Jack Varese countered. ‘If he’s elected, they’ll be giving you your own office in the West Wing, right from the get-go.’

After dinner, Julia Boles showed Rosie Craig around the house. The three men went out on to the terrace.

‘I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re raising some of these key environmental issues with Ronald Craig,’ Barnard told Varese.

‘Actually, I’m raising them with both candidates,’ Varese replied. ‘Caroline Mann has got a better track record, that’s all. Also,’ Varese lowered his voice, ‘there are people around Craig who believe any future deal between the US and Russia can’t just be limited to sanctions, human rights, weapons or whatever. They want an agreed regime for the Arctic too, a regime which gives pride of place to Craig Oil and Craig Shipping, not to speak of Craig Hotels.

‘Well, I’m all for an agreed Arctic regime,’ Varese continued. ‘I just want to make sure it has the strictest standards of safety for shipping and a ban on oil wells in the Arctic Ocean and full protection for wildlife and native peoples.’

‘Are you sure you ought to be saying all this?’ Boles asked.

‘Hell,’ Jack Varese replied. ‘I’m in love with Rosie. I’m not in love with her dad.’

Edward Barnard went to bed that night in a sombre mood. The stakes were suddenly so much higher than he had realized. You could at a stretch sympathize with Russia over the Crimea and even Ukraine. You could argue that Russian intervention on Syria had not been wholly negative. But that didn’t mean you had to buy in to the whole Popov agenda, including accelerating, not reversing, global warming!

Was it too late to get Ronald C. Craig to change his mind?

Wilbur Brown, director of the FBI, strode across the room to greet his visitor.

‘Mr Barnard, I really do appreciate your making the time to stop by. When I heard you were coming to Washington, I said to myself, “Here’s a golden opportunity to throw some light on something that’s been troubling us”.’

‘Happy to help in any way I can,’ Edward Barnard said.

Wilbur Brown explained the problem. ‘Some time back we had word that the Chinese Ministry of State Security believed President Popov deliberately fired a tranquillizing dart into Ronald C. Craig’s backside during Craig’s visit to the Russian Far East earlier this year. I should add that the Chinese came to that conclusion because the tiger which Popov was theoretically aiming at was already darted and in the system so it wouldn’t have made much sense to dart it again. Do you follow me?’