The Chosen One

65

Washington, DC, Tuesday March 28, 11.07

Maggie sat, her palms flat against both sides of her face, shaking her head over and over. She wanted the correspondent gabbing on the TV to shut up, but she couldn’t move. She was frozen, not so much by shock as disappointment. In truth, it was more than that: it was a feeling she had had at the hands of two other men over the course of her life. It was heartbreak.

So that explained the assignment Baker had given her. He had asked her to draft a short summary of Bradford Williams’s career, as personal as she could make it: ‘triumphs and tragedies’, he had said. Exhausted, she had asked Uri to do it for her, to apply to Williams’s life the same laser focus he had brought to bear on Baker during the research for his film. Knowing how close to collapse Maggie was, he had worked on it all night.

She had feared this was the reason Baker had asked for such a paper; of course she had. But that made it no less awful to hear out loud. He had resigned. He had sacrificed everything he had worked for his entire life.

And then, a guiltier thought. Baker had defied AitkenBruce – and that meant she would pay. She and those she loved.

Twenty minutes later the phone rang. A female voice, level and calm: ‘Please hold for the President.’

There was a click, then another and then: ‘Maggie, I’m sorry.’

‘So am I, Mr President. And there are lots of people who feel the way I do right now, all over the world. Was there no other way?’

‘I thought about it, Maggie, I really did. I talked about it with Kim. But I couldn’t see it. Remember, no one is indispensable, Maggie. Not even me.’

‘But what about everything we believed in? Everything we worked for?’

‘Williams believes in all that, too. Truly he does. He’s a good man, Maggie. The work will go on.’ There was a pause. ‘He and I are already collaborating on the first order of business.’

‘What’s that, sir?’

‘A file detailing the evidence that links AitkenBruce and the other banks to the deaths of Forbes, Stuart and Nick du Caines – and maybe many other deaths too. Lawyers at the Department of Justice and the FBI are already on the case. They’re talking to Interpol.’

‘I’m glad to hear that, sir.’ Panic was flooding through her: she fought it down. Mastering herself, she let the silence linger and then asked, ‘What will you do now?’

‘I don’t know, Maggie. I need to think a while. But I do have one immediate plan.’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m going to fly straight from here tomorrow to Idaho and see Anne Everett. Apologize to her in person. The first of many conversations, I suspect.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I’ve also been thinking about you, Maggie. How to protect you. We need to give you what Forbes gave himself.’

‘A blanket, sir.’

‘That’s right. A blanket.’

‘You should have one yourself.’

‘I’ll have the Secret Service looking after me and my family for the rest of our lives, Maggie. But I think I may have found a way for you to have some peace of mind.’

‘How?’

‘One of the advantages of being President is that I have access to the database of the National Security Agency. Ever since 9/11 they’ve had satellites watching all our airports in real time. “Eyes in the sky” they call them. Record everything. You just have to know where to look and you can magnify the image, hundreds of times over. They can zoom in on a baggage-handler having a smoke and tell you what paper he was reading.’

‘I don’t see how-’

‘It means, Maggie, we have footage from both Teterboro and Reagan National airports which clearly shows you being assaulted and then bundled into an aircraft registered with AitkenBruce on which Roger Waugh was the listed passenger. That footage will now be lodged with Agent Zoe Galfano and her colleagues in the Secret Service. If anything happens to you, Waugh personally – not just his bank – will be the prime suspect.’

‘Thank you, Mr President.’ She didn’t feel that she could voice her worry that that might not be enough. Hadn’t Waugh told her that he had only recently become the leader of his fellow bankers? Even if he was incapacitated surely there were others who would come after her. And Uri. And Liz – and Calum. She shuddered.

‘It’s me who needs to thank you, Maggie. For everything. I know you risked your life for me these last few days. You put yourself in harm’s way, facing men prepared to kill – and you did that for me. I will never forget that, Maggie. Just like I will never forget your passion, your devotion to those who have no other voice but yours. You are truly a remarkable woman, Maggie Costello. And I hope one day to find a way to repay you.’

‘I don’t know what to say, Mr President.’

‘I also need to thank you for something more immediate – that paper you sent over this morning. On Vice President Williams. Very helpful.’

‘Was it, sir?’

‘Oh, yes. It confirmed what I had suspected, which made me feel all the more comfortable handing over to him.’

‘And what had you suspected, Mr President?’

‘Well, you saw what kind of career he’s had, Maggie. Tried and failed to get into Congress three times. Was forty-two years old before he got elected to anything.’

‘I see.’

‘No one smoothed Bradford Williams’s path, did they? He got there all by himself. It means nobody will have a hold over him. Except the voters, of course.’

Maggie smiled. ‘I think you’re right, sir.’

‘And do you know why that is, Maggie? Because I have a theory.’

‘What’s that, sir?’

‘Our friends the bankers didn’t bet on Bradford Williams, did they? They didn’t spot his talent. And I suspect that was for one very simple reason. They never believed a black man could become President.’