Харлан Кобен - The Boy from the Woods

“We say that as a mentor figure to many young people who appeared on my show, I was trying to be supportive in reading these lines with her, but I was clearly uncomfortable in what she wanted me to do. Jan, get a few body language experts to insist that I’m clearly acting and I look hesitant during the pretend kiss.”

“Right.”

“Next, we go right and left. Jan, get some right-wing bots to say stuff like ‘How come the left is always into sexual freedom and women making their own choices and now they are saying that Kandi Pate is too weak to decide who to date?’ — that kind of thing. Then Lia, get the left-wing bots to say, ‘We don’t belong in people’s bedrooms and this mature woman should be able to make her own choices.’ You know the drill. Do you guys know the age of consent in New York?”

Lia tapped something into her iPad. “Seventeen.”

“California?”

“Eighteen.”

He thought about it. “We also have an office in Toronto. How about there?”

Lia typed some more. “It was fourteen. Now it’s sixteen.”

“Okay, cool. Let’s spread another rumor that this happened in our Toronto office. We also get another group of fake profiles to raise the ‘macho man’ excuse.”

Jan frowned. “Macho man?”

“You know, like ‘What red-blooded all-American male wouldn’t make a move on a hot piece of ass like Kandi Pate?’ and ‘All the whiny babies online are just jealous of a real man,’ that kind of thing. They should all keep repeating that Kandi was of legal age.”

Lia and Jan both nodded, warming slightly to the task. Gavin just watched in silence.

“Finally, let’s get the ‘fake news’ groups to say the tape had obviously been doctored. Again we have those social media accounts with various levels of” — Rusty made quote marks with his fingers — “‘expertise,’ right? Let’s get them to work up the conspiracy nuts. Have them notice, I don’t know, some kind of irregular shadows in the film and claim that it’s a clear Photoshop job or that the sound is off. Have them make up those YouTube videos where they circle stuff and say, ‘Whoa, this shadow or whatever can’t be, someone had to have tampered with it, yada yada.’ Oh, then get a few voice ‘experts’ to say that it’s not my voice, that it is someone doing a bad impression. Have some of the bots say it sounds like it was spliced from old footage or something. With me?”

“With you,” Lia said.

Jan added, “That’s perfect.”

Neither woman was blanching anymore. They were both, in fact, smiling.

“Then I want our own bots fighting with each other. ‘Who cares if it’s a Photoshop? It’s totally legal anyway!’ Or ‘Stop worrying about the ethics — the tape is fake news, it never happened.’”

Lia asked, “You want to go with all these?”

“All these and let’s come up with a few more. Like, why don’t the networks show what happened before this — like when Kandi Pate was hitting on Rusty? Oh, that’s good. Let’s get a group posting ‘Here’s a link to the WHOLE tape where you can see Kandi is aggressively making moves on Rusty and he’s trying to back off, why don’t they show that?’ But then — oh, I’m loving this — the link will lead to an error message and then the bots will claim the mainstream media or the government took it down. It’s a cover-up, they’ll scream. Full bot attack — get the right- and left-wing ones on that. I want people fighting over how we can’t blame me for any of this.”

“Love that,” Lia said.

“And then let’s do the standard attack-the-process. You know. The real crime isn’t on the tape — the real crime is, who illegally taped us? What awful partisan with a clear axe to grind broke into my office and unlawfully spied on me? Those are the real criminals. Why are powerful people willing to break laws to stop my message from reaching the people?”

“Oh, that’s good,” Jan said.

“Right? Also, Lia, have one of our lawyers reach out to Kandi. Remind her of the nondisclosure agreement she signed. She’s not allowed to say anything. If she does, we will destroy her a hundred different ways. If she backs us, let her know that we are financing a new film which we think will be a great comeback role for her.”

“Got it,” Lia said.

“One question,” Jan said.

“Shoot.”

“The media is going nuts right now looking for a comment. What do we put in our official press statement?”

“Nothing yet. Let’s wait and see what social media looks like in a few hours. We should know better then. My guess is, our statement will be pretty vague. Something like ‘We will not comment because we do not want to harm the reputation of Ms. Pate, who is a fine person and vulnerable mentee, and we find it disgusting that the media would drag her through the mud like this just to get some additional clicks and we won’t participate in that kind of gossipy trash over what is clearly not what it is being made out to be.’ That sort of thing. But not yet. I want to see which story takes root. Let’s get the talking points to our people, so they can get on the air asap. We need to keep seeding confusion here, people.”

“On it,” Lia said.

The two women took to their phones and tablets.

Rusty pulled Gavin to the side. “You know where the tape came from, right?”

“I assume the Maynards.”

“You were supposed to stop this.”

“I told you. They fired me.” Then, lowering his voice, Gavin added, “You also told me the tapes had nothing harmful.”

“If this is the worst of it, we will be fine.”

“If?”

“What?”

“You said ‘if.’ What else is there?”

“Get the car,” Rusty Eggers said. “I want to go to the Maynards’.”

Wilde was in the library with Delia and Dash Maynard when the newscasts began. They watched the “breaking news” in silence.

During the first commercial break, Wilde said, “I assume that was the ‘very damaging’ upload.”

“We didn’t want to release it,” Delia said.

She stood and headed for the door. Dash looked surprised. “Don’t you want to watch—?”

“I’ve seen enough. I need some air.”

Delia left. Wilde looked up at the stained glass in the library’s turret. It was dark outside, yet the windows somehow still glowed as though the sun were shining through them. The room, as before, felt off to Wilde. A grand library like this should smell of age — leather from the books, pine from the wood, must from usage.

“That should do it, don’t you think?”

No one else was in the room, so Dash was talking to either Wilde or himself.

“Do what?” Wilde asked.

“Satisfy the kidnappers. End Rusty’s campaign.”

Wilde didn’t know. He also didn’t know whether Dash said this with regret or glee. There was fear in the man’s voice. That much was obvious.

“So what do you think is going on here?” Wilde asked.

“Pardon?”

“With your son. Do you think he was kidnapped?”

Dash folded his hands and leaned back. “In the end, Delia and I figured that it was better to be safe than sorry.”

“That doesn’t really answer my question.”

“It’s the best I can do.”

“There was more to your decision to release this video though, wasn’t there?”

“I’m not following.”

“The pressure is off now,” Wilde said.

Dash sounded annoyed now. “What are you talking about?”

“The media demanding you release the Rusty Eggers tapes, everyone constantly screaming at you to do the right thing, to be a patriot — you would have been hounded forever. No privacy. No real freedom. Relentless pressure on you, your businesses, your family. But now that this tape is finally out, that’s all over. There has to be some relief in that.”