Godfrey thanked the press with a nod and walked away without saying anything else to formally end his speech.
Cole and Godfrey stepped back inside Number Ten. “What now?” Cole asked. “Are we going to watch the march to see if anything big happens?”
Godfrey shook his head. “We’re going to watch the news,” he said. “Because the big thing just happened.”
D minus 79
Air Force One
300 miles west of Lisbon, Portugal
Jack Neal, already trying to process the news that the Australian letter was real, crouched down in the aisle beside President Slater’s seat and handed her a tablet with a video paused on the screen.
“Five minutes ago,” he said.
President Slater pressed play and watched in silence for three minutes. When William Godfrey walked away from the media’s microphones and the video ended, Slater stared at the blank screen and voiced the only thought in her mind:
“What the hell is he doing?”
D minus 78
Sizzle and Spark Hair Salon
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Dan kept his head perfectly still and his eyes tightly closed as the hairdresser applied a pungent chemical hair-straightener.
The “restyling”, which Dan knew was code for makeover, had been Emma’s idea. Dan didn’t really care how straight or how short his hair was but he trusted that Emma knew what she was doing so agreed without argument to drive to the salon after a few quiet hours at home.
Emma had spent those hours on the phone, in animated discussions over the potential implications of William Godfrey’s recent speech. Even if Godfrey’s efforts to distract attention from the day’s protest march were transparent to Emma and everyone else with a basic understanding of either politics or PR, his decision to speak in defence of Dan was a real game-changer. Emma’s colleagues and bosses eventually decided that Dan shouldn’t comment on Godfrey’s speech until President Slater arrived home and gave her own response. There would be little sense in Dan saying something that could be immediately overshadowed, they wisely decided.
Dan accepted this reasoning. He made a point of avoiding Blitz News and instead watched ACN, where he was pleased to see Billy Kendrick being interviewed again. Billy agreed that Godfrey was playing politics with the timing of his comments but also made the important point that Godfrey wouldn’t be making the comments at all if he didn’t think there could be some truth in Dan’s leak.
“I think Godfrey knows,” Billy said. “Godfrey was born into power. Real power, not just political power. His family have had massive wealth and influence for generations, and he reached the top without breaking a sweat. If anyone is privy to the truth, he is. And he wouldn’t be going out on such a limb by talking about aliens unless he knew the tide was turning and that persisting with the cover-up will soon be impossible. It will be interesting to see how Slater reacts, because Godfrey just positioned himself to take the lead post-disclosure.”
Emma had then walked in from the kitchen, finished with her latest phone call. She saw Billy Kendrick on the TV. “How would you feel about meeting Kendrick at his show on Tuesday?” she asked.
Dan’s head shot round, reacting to the question like a deer to a gunshot. “Seriously?”
“It’s one of the ideas we have for getting your truth out there,” Emma explained. “Kendrick’s in Cheyenne on Tuesday, so it’s only a three-hour drive. There’s no pressure, though.”
“Definitely,” Dan said. Clark’s “guard up, mouth shut” advice had been well intentioned and useful to a point, but Dan had seen how Emma operated — he had seen how reporters did whatever she said — and he felt safe in her hands. When it came down to it, Clark was in Basra and Emma was in Birchwood. That had to count for something.
Emma then told Dan that he had an afternoon interview and photoshoot for a major national magazine at Sizzle and Spark Hair Salon, gently hinting that it wasn’t optional. Excited by the Kendrick news and grateful that Emma had set it up, Dan didn’t object.
And so he now found himself in the hairdresser’s chair, wondering how much longer it could possibly take as two interested passersby crouched to the ground outside to take pictures of him under the low blinds.
“All done,” the hairdresser said after what felt like forever.
Dan looked indifferently at his reflection, saying that it was fine. He saw Emma nodding more emphatically behind him. “How set are you on those glasses?” she asked.
“I’m not wearing contacts,” Dan said.
“I mean those glasses.”
“Oh. I don’t really care.”
“Good,” Emma said. “We’ll get some other options sent over.”
At that point, Emma noticed the two people taking pictures.
“Wait here,” she said to Dan.
Dan watched as Emma walked to the door and called the two people, both girls younger than Dan, into the salon. She asked Dan to get up and stand next to them, then took some pictures on the girls’ phones. The girls thanked Emma profusely and left with a spring in their step.
With no need for words, Dan’s expression asked Emma what had just happened.
“I told them they could get good photos if they let me delete the ones they’d already taken,” she explained.
Dan didn’t get it. Again, he didn’t have to say so.
“I’m not supposed to be seen in any photos with you.”
This made some sense to Dan, who remembered Emma talking about her No Public Association clause, but he saw a big hole in her logic. “You just spoke to them, though, so they know you’re associated with me. In public.”
Emma flicked her hand in an exaggerated motion to dismiss Dan’s concerns. “They don’t know who I am. What are they going to say, they saw you with a blonde girl in a black dress?”
Dan didn’t have a comeback to that. “Why did your firm set the NPA clause, anyway? Are they worried about looking ridiculous by being associated with me?”
“I don’t make the rules,” Emma said.
“But those guys from Blitz knew who you were, right? If they’re pissed off with us for freezing them out, why don’t they name you out of spite?”
Emma hesitated. “Let’s just say that would be a bold thing for them to do. Have you ever noticed how Blitz never goes after anything personal about President Slater?”
“Not really,” Dan shrugged.
“Well they don’t. Even when every other news outlet was piling on during her campaign, none of Blitz Media’s properties joined in. And you know as well as I do that The Daily Chat is pretty much the most low brow “newspaper” out there. It’s nothing to do with political bias, it’s just that there are people on Slater’s side who the top brass at Blitz really can’t afford to piss off.”
Dan was shaking his head. “That’s not how it works. Blitz is huge. Think how many different media properties they own… there’s no way so many staff could all be on the same page, all the time.”
Emma couldn’t help but smile at Dan telling her how the politics of the media did and didn’t work. “It’s pretty simple: when an editorial dictat comes from the top, it goes all the way down.”
“So what power do Slater’s people have over Blitz? What’s the dirt?”
“Do you remember all the drama in London when media people went to court and a major newspaper had to close? Well, Blitz has done things way worse than phone hacking. It’s the kind of thing it’s better for you not to know, but Blitz Media as a corporation wouldn’t survive if it came out.”
“So how come you know?”
“My old boss dug most of it up,” Emma said. “He had a client who Blitz were harassing like you wouldn’t believe, and he found hard evidence of some of their tactics.”
“What happened then?”
Emma gave a knowing grin. “Blitz stopped harassing the client.”
“But surely your boss had to tell someone if he caught them doing something illegal?”
“This is why it’s better for you not to know,” Emma said.
“But if someone did something wrong…”
“Dan, this is the real world. And success in this business, more than any other, always boils down to who knows what about who. If you know something about someone that they don’t want anyone else to know, then that knowledge is currency. Right and wrong, truth and lies… things like that come and go, but secrets make the world go round.”
“But still, if Blitz know that you know whatever it is that you know, why is the hit piece they wrote about me still online?”
“You’re fair game,” Emma said. “I can’t promise that they won’t keep attacking you, I’m just saying that they know better than to drag me into it. And they know I know better than to dig up old secrets. No one is going to fire the first nuke, because by the time it lands… well, you know how it goes. No one comes out smiling.”
Dan didn’t know how it went, and he was glad of that, realising now that Emma had a much more stressful job than he’d been giving her credit for. She excused herself to answer a call, which sounded like the interviewers promising that they would be there soon.
Having already been in the salon for the longest hour of his life, Dan couldn’t wait to get it over with. Emma had taken his measurements before they left the house and passed them on to the magazine, which she told him fell into the “lifestyle and fashion” genre. Dan rolled his eyes at this.
Emma explained that his physical appearance mattered “because the world sees you before it hears you.” As Dan quietly accepted that, it raised a question in Emma’s mind: “You know these aliens you believe in? If they are actually real, do you think we’ll see them before we hear them?”
“I hope not,” Dan said.
“Why?”
“Because contact is better than invasion.”
D minus 77
Drive-In
Birchwood, Colorado
“Looks like our monopoly just ran out,” Maria Janzyck said, calling over to Trey as he worked on footage in the back of his van.
Trey climbed out to hear what she was saying, but the only sound he heard came from the convoy of five vehicles entering the drive-in lot. He then watched quietly as a small army of camera crews and snazzily dressed reporters positioned themselves to shoot their reports. They didn’t stick around.
“I thought they’d stay,” Trey said.
Maria walked over to him. “Others will. Have you ever covered a big school shooting?”
“No.”
“But you know what the coverage is like, right? They come in like flies. We come in like flies. The whole town turns into a media city for days, and that’s for something that happens every six months. If this story doesn’t fall apart soon, it’s going to be the biggest thing anyone’s ever seen.”
Trey didn’t say anything.
“We lucked out getting here first,” Maria continued, “but the bigger fish are coming.”
D minus 76
Sizzle and Spark Hair Salon
Colorado Springs, Colorado
A staff of four arrived through the salon’s front door with two cameras and a trolley full of outfits. They all shook Dan’s hand. He smiled politely until he noticed the logo on their cameras.
“Blitz?” he said, turning to Emma. “Is this a joke?”
“They’re independent,” Emma said.
“Yeah,” one of the magazine’s staff chimed in. “It was just a corporate restructuring. We’re run as a separate company exactly like we were before the buyout.”
Emma was nodding. “See? And even if they weren’t, it’s not like they’re Blitz News.”
“The money all ends up in the same place,” Dan said.
“Excuse us for one moment,” Emma said to the magazine’s staff with a forced smile. She pulled Dan into the corner. “I know you don’t like Blitz, okay? We’ve established that. But we have to pick our battles.”
“Fine,” Dan shrugged. “I’m picking this one.”
“Over the other one? Over the one that’s the whole reason we’re doing any of this? You’re picking a grudge over the cover-up? I know this is the worst thing to say to someone who’s being stubborn, but Dan… seriously… you need to stop being so stubborn.”
“It’s not about being stubborn,” Dan said. “It’s about integrity.”
Emma closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, as if she was trying to stop herself from saying something. Eventually she looked back up at Dan. “I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself,” she said calmly. “So I need you to make a decision right now. Do you want to be a diva or do you want to be a man?”
“There are other magazines,” Dan said flatly.
Emma looked at him for an uncomfortably long time then turned away. “It’s off,” she told the magazine’s staff. “Leave the clothes. The firm will take care of the expenses.”
Once the staff had left without saying a word, Emma sat down and got to work on trying to find another magazine at such short notice. She said nothing to Dan. Within a few minutes, her phone rang.
“My boss,” she said, smiling sarcastically. “This should be fun.”
Dan then listened to Emma apologise for what had happened and insist that she couldn’t force Dan to talk to anyone he didn’t want to. He took no pleasure in seeing and hearing her like this, a scolded child compared to the powerful woman he had seen dealing with everyone else.
“You don’t need to send another rep,” she said, almost pleadingly, before her manner shifted quickly towards defensive aggression. “Nikki? Where was Nikki when I was flying out here at five minutes notice? No, no, you listen to me. Dan McCarthy is my client. Why don’t you ask him if he wants someone else instead of the rep who was there for him when Blitz wouldn’t leave his house in the middle of the night? I think I know what he’ll say.” Emma hung up and looked at the floor.
Her phone chimed and buzzed almost immediately. She read the text and relayed the gist of it to Dan: “A fashion blogger is coming in five minutes. Hardly a national magazine, but it’ll do. She has a few million followers, so at least it’s something.”
Dan didn’t say anything.
* * *
A very young woman arrived within minutes, as expected. Her appearance was more understated than Dan would have pictured for a fashion blogger, and she had only her phone as both a camera and a note-taking device.
Emma explained that the feature was going to include questions about Dan as well as comments on the clothes that the magazine staff had procured. “It’s $2,000, non-negotiable,” she said. “And I have final edit.”
The blogger, awed by the range and quality of the outfits and positive that this feature would attract her biggest ever audience by far, agreed immediately.
Dan dissociated from the whole thing as he posed in outfit after outfit. He refused point-blank to wear a few of the most gaudy but was generally agreeable. Emma played the role of interviewer while Dan changed between outfits, which kept him from dying of boredom. The blogger typed his answers into her phone.
Annoyingly for Dan, none of Emma’s questions were about the leak. At first the personal questions were tame, but she caught Dan by surprise as he changed into the fourth outfit. “What can you tell us about your diagnosis?” she asked.
“I told you last night,” Dan said.
“I just think you should say something publicly. You saw what Blitz said online this morning. If you don’t fill in the gaps, they will.”
The blogger sat poised to record Dan’s response.
“Okay,” Dan said. “It wasn’t a real diagnosis. My dad took me to see a doctor in Birchwood and they made a misdiagnosis. I guess that’s what happens when a small-town doctor thinks he can play psychiatrist on the weekends. The real psychiatrist I saw said it was definitely a misdiagnosis, and that’s the whole story. Richard Walker either lied about it or was badly misinformed. The real psychiatrist said I had a mild anxiety thing which might not ev
en be permanent. She prescribed some pills, which I still take, and that was it. Is that enough for you?”
“So you don’t hear voices?” Emma asked.
“This is why I wish someone else had found the folder,” Dan said. “I’m never going to shake this off.” He sighed and shook his head at the ground. “Why couldn’t it have been someone who wasn’t so easy to discredit?”
Emma looked at the blogger and gave a thumbs up; this was too good not to use. “But hardly anyone else would have done what you did,” she said. “I wouldn’t. If it had been me who the thief ran into, I would have run the other way. But anyway, about the voices…”
Dan couldn’t be sure how much of Emma’s questioning was for the feature and how much was to satisfy her own curiosity. He knew she had final edit on the feature, though, so nothing her professional opinion deemed damaging would make it in.
“No voices,” he said. “I told the first doctor that I sometimes hear thoughts as if they’re spoken, but that I know they’re not an actual voice. He took that as a symptom of STPD because that’s what he’d already decided I had. Then he said I had “vague and over-elaborate speech”, which was straight from the flow chart he was using. I’m not exaggerating: he was literally looking at a flow chart on his computer and asking me a bunch of loaded questions. He based his diagnosis on crap like that.”
“What else did he base it on?” Emma prodded.
Dan answered without pause, now openly venting. “I said I sometimes have dreams where I’m looking down at myself, or looking at myself from the side, like I’m outside of my body. But how is that any weirder than having dreams where your teeth fall out, like other people have? The other things were “an over-focus on solitary activities” and “living internally”, which aren’t symptoms of anything. When we were growing up I thought my brother was weird because it was like he didn’t think about anything and just lived in an external world, always lifting weights and going out talking to people. And he thought I was weird for making websites and staying in my room.”
Not Alone Page 10
