Kompromat

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Maryland, colloquially known as Walter Reed, had a proud history of serving US presidents. President Kennedy’s body was brought there in November 1963 for the official autopsy after his assassination in Dallas, Texas. President Eisenhower actually died there in 1969. And in July 1985, President Reagan went in to have some polyps removed from his colon. Craig couldn’t help feeling, as the helicopter whisked him to the medical center on the short hop from Andrews Airforce base that, in some obscure way, he was already treading destiny’s path. One way or another, Walter Reed loomed large in the life (or death) of most US Presidents.

Bud Hollingsworth, CIA director, was waiting for him at the entrance. ‘Thanks for coming in, Ron,’ he said.

Craig pointedly ignored the outstretched hand. ‘I don’t think I had any choice. Do you mind telling me what this is all about?’

‘I can’t say much. Classified. Need to know.’

Craig exploded. ‘If anyone has a need to know, I do.’

Hollingsworth knew he had to give a little. Though – legally speaking – he had been given powers of restraint, even coercion, he preferred not to use them. He had learned long ago that persuasion was often more effective than force.

‘We think your personal security may recently have been compromised. In other words, we think you may be bugged. We don’t know for sure, but the evidence points that way.’

‘You want to examine my backside, do you?’

‘We are certainly grateful for your cooperation,’ Hollingsworth replied diplomatically. Craig, he knew, had a short fuse. Things had gone well so far. He hoped this wasn’t just the calm before a storm.

They gave him the lightest of anaesthetics. Two hours later, Craig was in the recovery room. Hollingsworth hovered by the bedside.

He held out a small metal tray. ‘Take a look at this little blighter,’ he said. ‘It’s plastic. Would never show up with a metal detector, but we picked it up with the MRI.’

Craig studied the small round object on the tray. ‘Is that still transmitting as we speak? Are they listening in to us?’

‘They were, I imagine, but we switched it off as soon as we extracted it,’ Hollingsworth replied.

‘How did you do that?’

‘With tweezers actually. Good, old-fashioned tweezers. Took a bit of probing.’

‘I mean, how did you switch it off?’

‘We found the switch.’

‘Won’t they realize you’re on to them?’

In this verbal ping-pong, Craig had just delivered a forehand smash.

‘Good point,’ Hollingsworth acknowledged. ‘We weighed that one carefully. We could have left the transmitter in place and used you as a conduit for false information to feed to the other side. A stool pigeon, if you like. Like the spy thrillers. On balance we decided that this way was better. We believe they’ll put it down to a technical malfunction. Happens all the time, you know.’

‘What about the executive order the federal marshals laid on me? That’s public knowledge, isn’t it? Executive orders get published in the Federal Register. They’ll find out that way, won’t they?’

‘This one won’t be published in the Federal Register, I can assure you. No more than half a dozen copies of the order existed anyway, and by now they’ve all been destroyed.’

Craig couldn’t help admiring the thoroughness of the operation. ‘You guys put in a lot of effort to reel me in, didn’t you?’

‘You were one big barracuda. We couldn’t afford to have you running around, talking to all and sundry and the Russians listening in to every word.’

Ronald Craig got out of bed and pulled on his trousers. ‘Am I free to go?’

‘Free as air.’

‘Are you going to send me the bill for the hospital?’

‘This one’s on the house. Do you want to stay here for the rest of the night?’

‘Gee, thanks, but no thanks. I own a few hotels in this town. I’m sure one of them will find a bed for me.’

They gave him a police escort into the City. He pulled out his cell phone and started tweeting his twenty million plus followers:

#IN NATION’S CAPITAL BUT ONLY FOR THE DAY. BACK SOON MORE PERMANENTLY. I HOPE TO CONTINUE FIGHTING FOR YOU!!

Ronald Craig felt suddenly cheerful. Okay, his backside was a little sore. They probably had to dig around a bit when they pulled out the bug, but he felt fit as a fiddle otherwise.

He looked at his watch. 5:30a.m. A bit too early to call in the troops for a surprise meeting. Give them a chance to have a pee and brush their teeth. Ronald Craig was nothing if not considerate. So many people weren’t considerate, he thought. Sad.

Two hours later, Ron Craig gathered his team together in his private dining room in the Washington Craig International Hotel. Arguably, the Washington Craig had an even better view of the White House, the other side of Lafayette Square, than the Hay Adams Hotel – its near neighbour – did. Craig wasn’t bothered either way. He was already within spitting distance of the presidential mansion. That was what counted.

‘I’m making no promises, guys,’ he began. ‘We’re not there yet, but I want you to know that I consider you all to be top-quality candidates for my transition team and after that, who knows? If we win in July, which looks pretty darn likely at the moment, and if we win again in November – and we are going to have to work our butts off to make sure that happens – some or all of you are going to be sitting with me over there in the White House.’

He gestured towards the gleaming white-portico structure just a few hundred feet away. God what a beautiful building it was, he thought. From the outside at least; internally, apparently, the accommodation left much to be desired. Still, that could be fixed. Most things could be fixed if you put your mind to it.

‘So let me tell you what’s up for grabs,’ he continued. ‘Of course, it’ll be a bit of a merry-go-round. Not all of you will find a seat when the music stops. That’s just the way it is. But I can tell you now, if things go to plan, I shall be looking for a Chief of Staff, a Chief Strategist, a Press Secretary, a National Security Adviser, as well as a Counsellor and a Special Adviser. That’s just for starters.’

He looked around the room. ‘Some of the people who are going to fill key positions in my administration are already in this room. And it goes without saying that my running mate, the vice-presidential candidate, Senator Elmore Singer, is one of those.’

Craig waved across the table to the white-haired gentleman with the black-and-red striped tie who sat exactly opposite him. ‘Welcome aboard, Elmore.’

Craig led the round of applause. ‘And let me tell you the good news, from Elmore’s point of view at least. As vice-president, he’s the person I can’t fire!’

He paused. Ron Craig had learned early in life that if you wanted to grab your audience’s attention, you had to let the tension build. The deliberate pause, mid-sentence or even mid-word, was a basic rhetorical device. Craig knew that from his school days. A guy called Cicero wrote scads about it, he remembered. Not that he had spent too much time on Cicero. He preferred to be out there earning money.

‘There’s one other person I’m not going to fire, I can tell you. That’s my daughter.’ Craig leaned forward to talk into the speaker-phone in front of him.

‘Are you there, honey? Say hi to Rosie, guys.’

‘Hi Rosie!’

‘Say it louder, so she can hear you. Rosie’s in Florida. Couldn’t make it today.’

‘Hi, Rosie!’ they shouted again.

‘Are you there, Rosie?’ Craig repeated.

Rosie’s voice came through clear, bright and bubbly, like the cherry-blossoms in the Mall.

‘I’ve just appointed you my “Special Adviser”, honey. Say “hello” to the guys.’

‘Hello, guys. Great to meet you. Just want to say how proud I am to be part of the team.’

The meeting ran on for an hour. Barring last minute upsets (and they couldn’t imagine what those might be), Ronald Craig would be elected as the presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention to be held in Cleveland, Ohio, that coming July. So now was a time to look ahead, to the election campaign itself and even beyond.

Legally, of course, President Brandon Matlock would discharge the duties of his great office right up to the moment, on Friday, January 20th, 2017, when his successor would be officially inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States. But in practice, as everyone in Washington knew, as soon as the result of the November election was known, power and influence would begin to ooze away from the president in the direction of the president-elect, whoever he or she might be. That was just the way things were.

As the meeting broke up, Craig beckoned to his acting national security adviser:

‘Can you stay behind for a moment, General?’

As the room emptied, the two men huddled in a corner. They spoke for twenty minutes. Craig did most of the talking. Ian Wright, a four-star general, did most of the nodding.

But at one point, the general intervened. ‘What about the Logan Act, sir? The one which makes it a crime for an unauthorized person to negotiate with a foreign power?’

Craig looked puzzled. ‘Isn’t the Logan Act over 200 years old? And surely no one’s ever been prosecuted.’

‘Just thought I’d raise the issue.’

‘Well, thank you, General. My view is don’t bother about the Logan Act. Just go right ahead. Every transition team that I’m aware of makes contact with foreign governments. Let’s just anticipate the reality.’

General Ian Wright still felt uneasy. He sensed he was being pushed further than he wanted to go. On the other hand he liked the idea of occupying that corner office on the first floor of the White House, diagonally opposite the Oval Office itself, with a discreet bronze plaque reading: ‘Gen. Ian Wright, National Security Adviser’.

What the hell! The General made up his mind. As Harry S. Truman put it, ‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.’

‘I’ll have a word with Ambassador Reznikov,’ Wright said.

‘Get him to sign up to my four-point plan. At least get him to check it out with Moscow. That way we can hit the ground running. We might have a deal.’

A deal! That was the magic word. Could the whole of life be boiled down to simple deal-making? Ron Craig obviously thought it could.

‘I’ll give it a go, sir,’ General Wright said. ‘Count on me.’

Ronald Craig gave the general a friendly punch in the chest,

‘That’s the spirit,’ he said. ‘Get up and go. That’s what we need. That’s what this country needs. Get to work, General. There’s a lot hanging on this.’