Sam Bourne - To Kill the President - The most explosive thriller of the year

‘Under the legal definition of sexual harassment, just putting that on the wall counts as creating a hostile environment.’

He smiled and shook his head. ‘None of you get it, do you? Not even a little bit. Don’t you realize that’s why the folks elected the big guy last November? I mean, sure it helped that his opponent had endangered national security by using an unsecured phone.’

Maggie rolled her eyes.

‘But the main reason was precisely this kind of bullshit. Because folks were sick to their hind legs of prissy little missies spouting horseshit like “hostile environment”.’ He made the quotation marks with his fingers, delivering the two-word phrase in a high-pitched voice now accompanied by an effeminate swing of the hips. ‘People are sick of being told that being a normal, red-blooded white man is a federal crime.’

‘I’m sure you didn’t come here to re-fight the election campaign, Mac.’

‘No, but as it happens, it’s all relevant.’ McNamara helped himself to a chair, sat back in it and put his shoeless, socked feet on her desk. Maggie all but recoiled.

‘Here’s the thing,’ he said. ‘I need you to make something go away.’

Maggie raised her eyebrows.

‘It came up in the campaign and it’s coming up again now.’

Maggie still said nothing. She saw no reason to make this any easier for him.

Eventually, he lowered his voice. ‘I think you Washington insiders call them “bimbo eruptions”.’

Maggie paused. ‘Do you mean the President has been having extra-marital affairs?’

‘No!’ Mac smiled. ‘Not affairs. Nothing that you’d call an affair.’

‘Oh, you mean sexual assault. Grabbing random women.’

‘I mean accusations of that.’

‘More accusers coming forward? People from the past, alleging that—’

‘Partly that.’

‘Oh, so not just the past? The present . Here? In this place? Jesus, Mac, they impeached the last man who did that.’

‘Oh, I’m not worried about that . The House leadership are rimming our asshole. The tongue’s in deep.’

Maggie did her best to show no expression. She knew he wanted a reaction out of her and she was damned if she was going to give it to him. He went on: ‘None of them will dare move on this. Remember, he’s bigger in their districts than they are. But it’s a distraction. I need you to make it go away.’

‘Sounds like a matter for his personal lawyer.’

‘No. He’s the President now. An attack on him is an attack on the Presidency.’

‘That’s not quite—’

‘Besides, you’re the right person for this.’ He began to get up. Before Maggie had a chance to ask what he meant, he leered, ‘You’ve got the right equipment.’

He closed the door after him, allowing Maggie to sink her head into her hands. She needed to see Richard.

They’d only been dating a couple of months, but given how many of her old friends had left the White House, he had become the default confidant. Three years younger than her and absurdly handsome – one of those Washington men who, no matter how early their first meeting, had already managed a run – he was far from her usual type. Appointed during the transition, he had nevertheless shared her doubts about the wisdom of serving the new administration. Along with the former president, Richard Parris had been a big influence on her decision to keep at it. ‘Maggie, we’re powerless on the outside. Imagine how guilty we’d both feel if we saw something horrible happen and we could have done something – anything – to stop it.’

At first Richard didn’t quite understand why that argument resonated with her so deeply. There was a reason, but she tried to hold it back from Richard the way she held it back from everyone else. Eventually, in bed one night, she gave in and told him. Just thinking about that now brought it back: a guilt so present it was almost physical, bobbing to the surface like a cork. She pushed it back down, a psychological manoeuvre she made at least a dozen times a day.

She headed down the stairs now to find him, to suggest they take a walk. She needed to unload. She began rehearsing the speech she’d make. We’re not softening the blow, Richard. We’re legitimizing it. We’re nothing more than a fig leaf for them. I did not come to Washington to help an abuser of women get away with it. That is not the reason—

But her train of thought was interrupted. She had just turned the corner when she saw a group emerging from the Oval Office. Richard was among them – odd, for someone at his level – but he didn’t notice her. Instead he was busy smiling and laughing with the only woman in the group, whose hair alone made her instantly recognizable. Thick and lustrous, it shone with wealth. There was no mistaking her.

Now Richard was showing the woman his phone, bringing a warm smile and a reciprocal gesture, as she showed him hers. Their faces – young and gorgeous, as they appeared to Maggie – seemed to be glowing in the electronic light. It was clear. Her boyfriend was flirting with the President’s daughter.

New York, Monday, 9.20am

Having zero charisma had its advantages, Bob Kassian reflected. Seated in business class on the shuttle to New York, a single Secret Service agent at his side, few people had bothered him. A couple of travellers had flashed him the thumbs-up. A reporter from Fox had tried to engage him in conversation at the gate, but Kassian had given such short, monosyllabic answers – delivered in his barely audible, low hush – that the woman had soon backed off. As for the rest, he reckoned they had simply not recognized him. He didn’t do the Sunday talkshows, he made few speeches. And that was just fine.

Especially this morning. He would have struggled to pose for selfies, grinning broadly with the fanboys in their correctly coloured baseball caps. How they revered his boss. If only they knew what he knew, if only they had seen what he had seen just a few hours ago. (A grim thought surfaced: perhaps it would make no difference. Nothing seemed to shift their devotion to this man.)

For the thousandth time he wondered if he had done the right thing. A backroom operative, he had never been a committed partisan. He had fallen in with this crowd simply because those were his friends and contacts. He had established a reputation as a man who could run things – big things – smoothly. After the army, everyone told him skills like his could make him a fortune. They were right. He went to New York, to one of the big financial houses, and was paid unimaginable sums. But he missed what he had loved most about the army: purpose. Politics seemed like a decent second-best.

As for this job? He knew what prompted the offer: he would be presented as the responsible adult on the team, his calm, technocratic presence a token of reassurance to a nervous party establishment. It sounded old-fashioned but he felt it was his patriotic duty to say yes. If he hadn’t, one of the crazies surely would have. And, from the inside, he could perhaps act as a restraining influence, holding back a President who would otherwise be listening to the swivel-eyed extremists led by Crawford McNamara who clearly had the ear of the Commander in Chief.

Now in the back of the car ferrying him to Manhattan, he closed his eyes, grateful to be cocooned, however briefly.

Somehow, they had survived. The sun had come up, the sky had not fallen in. Civilization had not ended. For that he could not congratulate either himself or his closest ally, Jim Bruton. It wasn’t their intervention that had stopped the President giving the order.

The truth was, he had been about to do it. The President had been put through to the colonel in the Pentagon War Room, who had, following procedure, issued the challenge code: Echo Bravo, or whatever it was. The President had responded, giving the codes that confirmed his identity: say, Delta Zulu. And then he had told the war room his decision, explaining that he had chosen from the menu of strike options and selected Option B.