Gavin Esler - Power Play

Everyone in the room was looking at me now, including Kristina. Bobby Black stretched his neck like a turtle emerging from its shell.

‘Well, thank you kindly for the historical lecture, Ambassador,’ he said slowly. ‘But I think you will find that in Lincoln’s day nobody was blowing up airliners with C4 plastic explosives or crashing them into skyscrapers filled with civilians. The Confederates were not suicide bombers. The people we now have to face down–well, they inhabit a different moral universe from the rest of us normal folks, and your Prime Minister needs to get out front and centre of this and get your own citizens into line. The human-rights question people oughtta focus on is the right of normal folks to go about their business without getting blown up by some British fanatic like Rashid Ali Fuad in Manila or your friend, Mr Khan. If you don’t see your problem, well, we do. And if you don’t act, we will.’

Bobby Black gently slapped both wet palms down on the desk. He was white with anger and it was clear that the meeting was over. I said something about democratically elected governments not being able to pick and choose which aspects of human rights to support, which to abandon, depending upon apparent necessity. I said this not because it would change anything, but for the weakest of diplomatic reasons–so that I could report back to Downing Street that I had made a protest on behalf of the UK government. They could spin it to the press and in the Commons. Bobby Black looked at me with pity on his face, as if I had farted, and out of a generous spirit he’d decided to ignore the smell. His eyes were glazing over with indifference.

‘Thank you for your time, Ambassador,’ he said, reaching forward to shake my hand. Wet dough again. ‘Enjoy your bedtime reading.’

Johnny Lee Ironside nodded at me. ‘Good to see you, Alex. Let’s get caught up soon.’

Kristina Taft showed me out.

‘You’re brave,’ she whispered. ‘Not many do that.’

‘Is it always like this?’ I replied, putting the copy of ‘The Spartacus Solution’ in my attaché case and presuming on a connection with her that I sensed I had now made. Kristina did not reply until we were almost at my car, which–I noticed–was now parked at the more private south entrance, away from the cameras.

‘Pretty much,’ she said. Then she tugged gently at my sleeve. ‘Maybe we should talk,’ she whispered. ‘We seem to be on the same page on all of this.’

I nodded.

‘You were brave too. Over the books.’

She shrugged. ‘It’s not brave to do what you think is right.’

I looked straight into her grey eyes and a moment of recognition passed between us. One of the peculiarities about being British Ambassador in Washington is that there are always factions within US administrations, and sometimes they see you as a potential ally, a useful tool or even as an intelligence asset for use against the other factions. It is a difficult and dangerous game to play. It’s also thrilling. Being allowed to play it at all makes the British a little bit special in the diplomatic corps in Washington.

‘Of course, let’s talk,’ I responded. ‘Any time. You say when.’

‘Not in the White House,’ she said. ‘I’ll figure out someplace. I might need more help than you think. Later today they’re announcing that I’m being promoted to National Security Adviser.’

‘Congratulations!’ I was genuinely pleased for her, though I was not sure she would survive. She was too young, too inexperienced, and Bobby Black already had his tanks on her lawn. He was already doing her job.

‘I’ll call you,’ Kristina said.

I understood. Or at least I thought I understood. If the meeting I had just endured was a sign of things to come, then relations between Britain and the United States were about to take a serious turn for the worse, mostly as a result of one man. Kristina would need friends and so would I. I was also flattered and intrigued to be asked to spend time with one of the rising stars of the Carr administration.

I climbed back into my car and told the driver to take me to the rest of that day’s meetings on Capitol Hill–but he informed me of a surprise hitch. While I had been meeting Vice-President Black, Speaker Furedi’s office had called the embassy to cancel. She had to be in the House chamber for an emergency session to discuss the Carr administration’s demands for a huge increase in defence funding. The Carr team wanted to rewrite the entire budget as an emergency antiterrorism measure. Carr and Black were talking about Spartacus and vengeance for Manila, while Betty Furedi and the Democrats in Congress were reluctant to pay for whatever it was they had in mind.

‘We’re sorry, Ambassador,’ Furedi’s Chief of Staff, a soft-voiced Californian called John Crockett said to me when I rang him for details. ‘I hope you understand. We’ll reschedule.’ I always thought Crockett was a decent man.

‘Of course, John. Not a problem. I know how busy Speaker Furedi must be. Call me.’

Suddenly I had a two-hour hole in my day. I felt like a schoolboy who is told that lessons are cancelled. I had nothing planned, nothing to fit in, and I realized that I also had a longing to see Fiona. I would apologize and tell her that I would no longer try to hurry her into motherhood, and that perhaps she should spend more time in England. I sensed that she felt trapped. I would make the peace and buy flowers on the way back to the embassy. I replanned my day very quickly. First, I would call Downing Street and tell them about Bobby Black and the Khan case. Then I would mention–just in passing–that I had obtained from the Vice-President himself a copy of the document that we all were so desperate to see, General Shultz’s report on fighting terrorism, ‘The Spartacus Solution’. Then–after receiving the well-deserved congratulations of a grateful British people from Downing Street–I would give Fiona a big surprise.

By the time I stepped out of the Rolls-Royce at the embassy with the copy of ‘The Spartacus Solution’ in my attaché case in one hand and a bunch of flowers for Fiona in the other, the ice storm had rolled in over the Potomac and all down the Chesapeake Bay. The roads were slick, the air bitterly chilled, the sidewalks mostly empty. Dampness seeped through my coat like cold fingers. I stopped off at a florist’s near Dupont Circle to buy Fiona as large a bunch of flowers as I could find. I forget what, exactly. Roses. Maybe tulips. They were just closing because of the ice storm, and grateful for the business.

When I reached the Great House, as the Ambassador’s residence is sometimes called, I walked into the living quarters. I put the attaché case down. I had the flowers in my hand and I bounded up the red-carpeted stairs two at a time, like an eager suitor, anxious to make amends. Fiona sometimes worked at her interior designs in the library, and so I tried it first, but there was no sign of her. I checked my watch and decided that she might be exercising on the treadmill in the small gym next to the main guest bedroom, but there was no sign of her there either. I turned the flowers in my hand. I was about to head towards the final possibility, that she was still in our own bedroom, when I heard a noise from the guest quarters. I turned. You never know what twist of fate, what nerve or synapse drives you to take a decision, but I suddenly threw open the door of the guest quarters.

Fiona and her lover were in front of the three large mirrors above the dresser. They had angled the mirrors so they could watch themselves. He was naked. Fiona wore a black bra, nothing else. Their clothes had been discarded carelessly and were strewn on the floor. He was behind her, holding her hips with his big hands. She was grasping the table top of the dresser in front of the mirror and gasping. I could not see Fiona’s face. Her hair was stuck to her skin with sweat. The man turned and I recognized James Byrne, the Washington Post columnist, immediately. He had been over for dinner at the embassy a number of times, to parties and diplomatic receptions. I had known him since before I was Ambassador, and before he had been given his syndicated column. Byrne was standing upright, his hips moving. He is a big man, bigger than me, over six feet, slim and muscled, a Bostonian who had played American football for one of the Ivy League college teams. He had hair on his back and shoulders, like a monkey. The hair was slick with sweat and it disgusted me.