The Beijing conspiracy

CHAPTER 84

S imone pressed the intercom reply button. She was in a foul mood. ‘I’ll be with you in a moment, Richard.’ She knew that would irritate him immensely; it was meant to, although this morning she would make one last attempt.

‘Yes, Richard,’ Simone said, as she stepped into his office.

‘Is everything in order for New Hampshire,’ he asked, without looking up from the papers he was working on.

‘I’ve checked the accommodation. You and Constance are booked in at the Metropole. Esposito still refuses to take my calls so I’m not sure what his arrangements are,’ she added pointedly.

Halliwell looked up from his desk, a cold anger in his eyes. ‘Enough! Esposito is booked in at the same hotel I gave you to organise.’

Simone turned and walked out of the office, the fire in her eyes the same colour as her hair.

Dan Esposito, while ostensibly on President Bolton’s team, had been a very busy man. No one knew better than Esposito that the New Hampshire primary would be crucial. Even though other states had now moved their primary dates forward, there had always been a debate as to whether New Hampshire was more important than Iowa, the next primary on the election calendar, but as a previous New Hampshire Governor had once put it, ‘the people of Iowa pick corn, the people of New Hampshire pick Presidents’.

‘My values in life are those my parents taught me, values that have made America the great nation we are today,’ Halliwell began. The crowd, many of them handpicked broke into wild, flag-waving applause. Esposito’s contacts had organised the layout of the podium, covered in red ‘Halliwell’ posters, down to the last camera angle. Constance Halliwell was on the Presidential candidate’s right. Halliwell’s son and daughter, together with their young families stood further to the right. On Halliwell’s left, but still well in shot, stood America’s most famous evangelist, the Reverend Jerry Buffett. Sally McLeod, Richard Halliwell’s new but yet to be announced executive assistant, was well out of shot to the side. McLeod, a leggy, tanned, blue-eyed blonde had just graduated in political science from Georgia University and Dan Esposito had been none too impressed with Halliwell’s insistence that she accompany them on the campaign trail. Esposito had acquiesced with a warning. ‘Keep her out of camera shot and stay out of her pants, Halliwell, or you’re fucking dead in the water.’ Halliwell vowed that once he made the White House, it would be Esposito who would be dead in the water.

‘We need a new face in Washington,’ Halliwell continued, pausing to smile broadly the way Esposito’s PR team had coaxed him. ‘A face that is not tainted by the corruption we’ve seen in Congress. Someone who understands what it’s like to live and work outside the beltway, someone who started at the bottom.’ It was a carefully crafted strategy, designed to turn charges of Halliwell’s lack of experience in Washington to an advantage, and if the early polls were anything to go by, it was working. Halliwell was leading President Bolton by fifteen percentage points.

‘I stand before you today as a champion of family values, fidelity and freedom, and as the next President of the United States of America, I look forward to taking those values into the White House and the wider world,’ he concluded, and the crowd went wild. New Hampshire was in the bag but, as Esposito had warned him, the race for the White House was a marathon, not a sprint.

‘I’m very glad you could join us at such short notice, Sally. It’s a real bonus to have someone with your qualifications on the team and if there’s anything I can do, just ask,’ Halliwell said smoothly, raising his champagne flute and clinking it with his new assistant. It was past midnight and Constance had long since retired to the suite Simone had booked in the fashionable old New England hotel. Halliwell and Sally were standing close together at the window of Sally’s suite.

‘It’s a wonderful opportunity, Richard. I’m enjoying every moment,’ Sally replied, smiling seductively and making no move to put any distance between her and her new boss. ‘The crowd seemed very enthusiastic today, don’t you think?’

‘Couldn’t be better. We’re leading Bolton by a clear fifteen points,’ Halliwell replied, re-filling Sally’s glass with Krug.

‘That champagne is just wonderful,’ she enthused. ‘Do you think the other challengers are any threat?’

‘Not if what Esposito tells me is right, and he ought to know,’ he replied, confidently. Esposito did indeed know, and in six months time, with the Beijing Olympics a bare 30 days away, the only two to be left on the Republican side would be Halliwell and Bolton. Halliwell put his arm around Sally’s waist and pointed towards the lights of Concord, New Hampshire’s small but elegant capital. ‘What we got from the people here today is just a taste of what’s to come over the next six months, Sally. We’re on our way to the White House,’ Richard whispered, his hand beginning to wander.