Kompromat

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Rosie Craig didn’t accompany Edward Barnard to the Florida Everglades National Park after all. They had just finished breakfast on the veranda, looking out at the Atlantic, when the ‘Craig for President’ Campaign HQ sent a text message: ‘Your father’s about to appear on CBS’.

So they poured themselves another cup of coffee, turned on the television and settled down to watch. Sure enough Ronald Craig soon appeared.

‘Looks fresh as a daisy, doesn’t he?’ Rosie commented. She admired her father’s stamina. He must have been up most of the night, and they’d already had the team meeting that morning. But it wasn’t just Craig’s stamina she admired. Her father’s ability to surprise, to shake things up, to think the unthinkable, intrigued and fascinated her. But she wasn’t starry-eyed. She was ready to take him to task when she felt she had to. And, to be fair, he was usually ready to listen – to her, at least.

Ron Craig seldom missed a trick. CBS had given him a platform, and by God he was going to use it! After a few minutes’ warm-up, he upped the volume to rant about the media. That was his special bugbear, now as always.

Looking straight at the camera, he stormed, ‘The dishonest media: they are part of the corrupt system. Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Abraham Lincoln and many of our greatest presidents fought with the media and called them out on their lies. When the media lies to people, I will never, ever let them get away with it.’

Seconds later, Rosie’s phone rang.

‘Did you watch CBS, Rosie?’ Ronald Craig asked. ‘Did you hear what I said about the media, the lying bastards?’

Rosie held the phone away from her ear, until her father’s excitement had subsided.

‘You were great, Dad. Just great.’

Craig came to the point.

‘I’ve just had a message from Mickey Selkirk. He’s invited you to visit him on his ranch in Australia. He’s there at the moment. I want you to go. As you know, Selkirk owns newspapers and TV stations all over the world, scores of them in America by the way. He may say he doesn’t interfere with editorial policy. Bullshit! He’s interfering by not interfering. Go and see him. Up close and personal. Bring him round to our point of view. This is a golden opportunity.’

‘You think he’s ready?’

‘He’s gagging for it. Why else is he inviting you at this point? Mickey’s like me. He’s a deal-maker. Now is the best moment. He may never get a better offer. I’m still a dark horse, as far as the election this November is concerned. Caroline Mann is still way ahead in the polls.’

‘So you think he’s ready to come off the fence and support us? What do we have to offer?’

Craig ran through a list of the key points. Then he asked, ‘Is Ed Barnard still there?’

‘Yes, he is. I was about to take him to the Everglades. He wants to see the alligators.’

‘Give the Everglades a miss. Take Ed to Australia with you. If Ed wants to see alligators, he can meet Mickey Selkirk. He’s the biggest alligator of them all.’

Since returning from Russia, Jack Varese’s affair with Rosie Craig, which had begun in Russia’s Far East, had blossomed. Varese had a penthouse apartment at the corner of East 70th Street and Fifth Avenue. As it happened, Rosie Craig’s own apartment was only a block away but, while Varese was in town, she didn’t spend much time there. She spent most of the time in bed with Jack.

‘You certainly live up to your reputation,’ she said one morning after a strenuous session.

‘Glad you think so. I always aim to be of service. Yes, ma’am!’

She found him funny, and intelligent too.

‘I’m not going to stay in films for ever,’ he told her. ‘There are always younger kids on the block, waiting to pounce. I’ve got my eye on a political career. Remember Ronald Reagan? Arnold Schwarzenegger? Think I might run for Senate in California next time round.’

‘So that’s why you’re interested in me?’ Rosie pretended to be upset. ‘Because of the politics? Because my dad’s riding the crest of the wave?’

‘Hell no, I just like being with you.’

The previous weekend, they had popped over to the Bahamas in Varese’s Gulfstream 550. Rosie had gone back to Hasta La Vista – there was a campaign to run after all – but Varese had stayed on.

When he’d got Rosie’s call that morning, he was tickled pink. ‘Great! Fantastic. I’ll be there in an hour.’ You could almost see Florida from the Bahamas. It was that close.

Was he falling for Rosie? Jack Varese wondered, as he put the phone away. He had been to plenty of parties over the years and had dated myriad lovely ladies – hell, what would he do without them? – but he hadn’t fallen for someone in a long time. Not properly.

He met Rosie Craig and Ed Barnard that afternoon at Palm Beach International Airport. Rosie gave him a long, passionate kiss.

‘So good to see you, darling.’

‘You too,’ Varese said.

After they had disentangled themselves, Varese turned to greet Edward Barnard. ‘Hi, Ed, great to see you again.’

They completed the formalities, and then walked out onto the tarmac to board the plane. Terry Caruthers came out of the cockpit to greet them.

‘Welcome on board, folks.’

‘I’ve brought Terry along to do a bit of the flying,’ Varese said. ‘Australia’s a helluva long way away, even with my Gulfstream.’ He pointed to the sleek machine sitting on the tarmac at Palm Beach International’s Private Aviation Facility with its engines running. ‘Besides, it will be fun to chill out with you guys en route.’

They only broke the journey once, and that was in Easter Island, 2,300 miles west of Santiago, Chile. They disembarked while the plane was being refuelled to make a whirlwind visit to the site of the famous moai, gigantic stone statues, carved out of tuff, the light, porous rock formed by consolidated volcanic ash.

Standing there, on a wild, windswept headland, with her arm around the man she was pretty sure she loved, and with the moai towering hugely above her, Rosie felt suddenly moved. Nobody yet had fathomed the mystery of Easter Island – or Rapa Nui as it was known to its earliest inhabitants. A civilization had flourished and then it had collapsed, within a space of years. Did they cut down all the trees in order to make rollers to shift the giant stones around? Did they die out because of some sudden, mysterious illness? Nobody knew for sure.

‘We could make a film,’ Rosie said. Of course Jack Varese would have the lead role. He looked a bit Polynesian, to be honest. But there might be a part for her too. Something wild and sexy? She hoped Varese wouldn’t give up his movie career too soon. He was so darn good. And besides, the ‘Craig for President’ campaign needed all the allies in Hollywood they could find. Hollywood hadn’t been much help to Ron Craig so far, and that was the understatement of the year.

‘So glad you’ve got Jack Varese on board,’ her father had joked. ‘In every sense!’

‘That’s gross, Dad,’ she’d responded. She could talk to her father like that. No one else could.

Terry Caruthers flew the next leg, from Easter Island to Kununurra, while Jack and Rosie snatched a few hours’ sleep in the plane’s master bedroom with its king-size bed. Barnard had some marginally less grand sleeping quarters in the rear of the plane. Way to go, he thought. Funny, wasn’t it? Spend some time in the States and you start talking like a Yank.

A party of American tourists had just landed as they were about to leave Easter Island. One or two of them recognized Jack Varese. Not surprising, of course, since Jack Varese at this point in his stellar career possessed one of Planet Earth’s more famous faces. As the Gulfstream 550 flew on through the Southern night, the tweets from Rapa Nui came thick and fast:

# Guess what! Saw Jack Varese with a new blonde on Easter Island? Who is she?

#Is Jack Varese making a film about the giant statues? And who’s the mystery blonde?

Varese had fans all over the world, which meant he had fans in the northernmost reaches of Western Australia. Yes, there too. By the time they landed at Kununurra, right on Western Australia’s boundary with the Northern Territory, quite a reception party had gathered. A young Aboriginal female reporter from Kimberley TV thrust a microphone in front of Varese as he strode into the airport building from the plane.

‘You heading for El Questro, Mr Varese? Are you going to be meeting Nicole Kidman there? She likes to go to El Questro.’

Varese put his arm round Rosie Craig. ‘I’m just fine as I am. Can a man hire a helicopter round here?’

He turned to Caruthers. ‘Take a couple of days off, Terry. We’ll pick you up on the way back. Why don’t you head down to the coast? Catch some barramundi for your dinner!’

One hundred miles west of Kununurra, sitting in the living room of the farmhouse in the Kimberley that his family had owned for the best part of a century, Mickey Selkirk watched the TV coverage of Jack Varese’s arrival with interest. He could remember a time when there was no TV at all up in the outback. Jamie Selkirk, Mickey’s father, one of the most brilliant newsmen of his generation, had built up the Selkirk TV network station by station. Kimberley TV was one of the first to go on air, way back in the 1950s, in the vast empty spaces of Western Australia’s Kimberley region.

‘Don’t just concentrate on the cities: Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and so on,’ Jamie had told his son. ‘You’ve got to get out in the outback too. That’s where they really need TV. You can’t just go down to the shop and buy a paper. There won’t be a bloody shop. Not for miles. Probably not at all.’

By the time Mickey took over, Selkirk Media Pty Ltd covered most of Australia. Mickey’s mission had been to build on his father’s legacy. And he succeeded. Under his leadership, Selkirk Media had changed its name to Selkirk Global. Mickey had opened offices in New York. London, Hong Kong, Jakarta and a score of other cities around the world.

By then, the great Jamie Selkirk had been dead a long time. And now Mickey himself was no longer a young man. In fact, he was over eighty – would you believe it? But his lust for power was as strong as ever.

As he saw it, there were still huge gaps in Selkirk Global’s empire. Okay, he had more or less wrapped Australia up, but he couldn’t truthfully say the same of the US or the UK. Selkirk Global was just one of the players there. An important player, yes, but not necessarily dominant.

And that went for other parts of the world too. He hadn’t cracked Russia, for a start. And they still had a long way to go in China.

He heard the thud-thud of the helicopter coming in to land on the pad. You didn’t own and run a million-acre cattle station in the Kimberley without your own helipad and airstrip.

Mickey left his drink on the bar. He called out to his wife, ‘Melanie, they’re here!’

Melanie Selkirk, a tall blonde, who had once been married to a famous pop-star, and who herself had appeared on the cover of several bestselling albums, hastened to join her husband on the helipad.

Jack Varese, toting his flight bag over his shoulder, climbed out of the cockpit via the pilot’s door, then walked round to open the side door for the others.

‘Glad to see you found some transport at Kununurra, Jack. Welcome to Lazy-T station.’ Selkirk gave the Hollywood movie-star an all-embracing hug. That’s what they all did nowadays, he thought. Hug each other. In the old days, you just shook hands. Most often not even that. Just tipped your hat, if you were wearing one, and said ‘Gday’mate.’ Never mind. Go with the flow. No harm in that.

Mickey Selkirk turned to greet Rosie Craig. Christ, he had known her since she was a baby. And look at her now! What a gorgeous creature.

‘Rosie, you look wonderful. Melanie, doesn’t Rosie look wonderful? Come on in, everyone. Let’s have a drink.’

Mickey Selkirk gave them all a great beaming smile. This was the moment he had been waiting for. How did that rhyme go? Will you come into my parlour said the spider to the fly?