As always, Alix did a good job with her interview of the new Vice President, and Felix praised her for it when she got back to the office the next day. She and Ben were sitting in her office going over their expense accounts when Felix walked in. He was down to two antacids at a time these days, instead of the handful he had been gobbling at once in recent weeks. Alix had begun to worry that he would choke on them. They had all come through the Clark affair with flying colors. Their coverage of every aspect of it had received the highest ratings, and the top brass at the network were extremely pleased.
“It must feel good to be back in your own apartment,” Felix said to Alix while he stopped and chatted with them, and she nodded and said something vague and unintelligible, which he didn’t notice, and Ben laughed at her when Felix left and went back to his own office.
“When are we going to tell him?” Ben asked, curious about how she wanted to handle their new situation at work. It wasn’t obvious to anyone yet and there was no reason why it should be. They hadn’t said anything to Faye either, although Alix had admitted it to her mother in a recent phone call, and she was pleased. She wanted them to visit that summer, when Faye was there. Faye was planning to stay with her grandmother during her entire summer holiday from school, until September. Alix had told her mother that she didn’t know what their plans were and they’d probably be working, but maybe they could take a week or two off at some point. Isabelle hoped they would.
“I thought you didn’t like labels,” she reminded Ben when he made the comment about when they were going to tell Felix about them.
“I’m starting to like the idea better than I used to.” He grinned at her and stole a kiss while no one was looking.
“If you do that here in the office, we won’t have to tell them,” she said, smiling at him. She felt young and happy, and was enjoying living with him. They got along well, and they went for long walks by the water on the weekends, and cooked dinner together at night. They had taken a ferry to Fire Island and walked on the beach. They were doing things that neither of them had taken the time to do in years, and suddenly they made the time to do them, and for each other. Life together, with or without labels, was feeling very good to both of them.
Alix had also been part of several debriefing meetings with the Clandestine Service of the CIA, about her meeting with the informant in Tehran and what he had told her. She went over it in detail with them, confirming the names of the four Saudi Arabian oilmen Tony had done business with, according to the same source. She divulged everything she knew from her contacts in the lobbies, and she met with the Director of National Intelligence. She had given them all her information before the grand jury hearing, but went over it with them again to make sure she had left out no details, no matter how minor or seemingly insignificant. She wanted to do all she could to strengthen the case against Tony Clark and confirm every shred of evidence she had, in case they were able to prosecute him, which was unlikely. It didn’t change the fact that he was gone. Pelham had told her that a local informant in the Middle East had confirmed that Tony had recently been seen in Bahrain, but he had nothing to trade with now. He had no power base, only past information, most of which his Saudi contacts already knew from earlier meetings with him. He had become obsolete overnight when he was no longer Vice President. And CIA sources on the ground said he was based in Jedda in a small house he had been given. He was irrelevant to the Saudis now, and the CIA senior staff wondered if at some point the Saudis would kill him. It was a distinct possibility, although from a large amount withdrawn from one of his offshore accounts before his escape, they suspected he had paid them protection money. But whether they would respect that or not, no one knew or could predict. They were as ruthless as he was, and just as smart.
Alix was heavily praised for her cooperation, and John Pelham thanked her again after their meeting with the director.
“How is Olympia Foster doing?” she asked him, anxious to know about her, but not wanting to bother her.
“I spoke to her a few days ago. We’ve had debriefing sessions with her too. I think she’s doing better than she was when all this started. I think Clark had a choke hold on her. I’m not sure how he did it, but she seems more relaxed now than when we first met with her. People like him do strange things to people. He’s a bad guy, but being trapped in Jedda with limited resources is not going to be a pleasant life for him. And I’m sure his gas and oil pals aren’t happy with him either. They probably didn’t know he was taking payoffs from the lobbyists too, and they thought they had an exclusive with him. And the assassination of Bill Foster put them in a bad light. That’s what happens when you play dangerous games,” John Pelham said cynically, with no sympathy for Tony. “Sooner or later you get burned. It all comes back to haunt you eventually.” It already had for Tony, and he was by no means entirely safe where he was, and had nothing left to bargain with. He was at their mercy.
After Pelham thanked her again for her help, he said he hoped they would work together again sometime, and she thanked him for the bodyguards for her and Faye. They told her that the FBI agent who’d been shot at Duke was doing well and back at work.
“And you look well taken care of to me,” Pelham said, smiling at Ben. He knew all about Ben’s Navy SEAL history, they had checked him out very closely in the beginning, and he was impressed by some of Ben’s missions. He had had a distinguished career with the SEALs and been decorated several times, before switching to network TV.
Alix hoped she’d have the opportunity to see Olympia again sometime, but it didn’t feel right to intrude on her at the moment. It was all too recent, and the media had hounded her for a while, knowing how close she had been to Tony, and particularly when the news came out about her husband’s murder. She had declined to comment, which everyone agreed was dignified and typical of her. Alix thought of her often, and wondered what she was doing. She hoped that Tony’s disappearance had freed her and that she wasn’t sad about it. His fleeing to another country in order to avoid prosecution was the best thing that could have happened to her. There would be no public reliving of the past in a trial.
The only time Olympia had been seen since Tony fled was at a campaign dinner for her brother. She had made a rare appearance to show family solidarity, although it had been obvious for years that they weren’t close. But she had posed for photographs with him.
She had had dinner with her father-in-law at her home, and visited Josh again in Iowa. And after looking thoroughly at the catalogs of several law schools, and visiting both Columbia and NYU, Olympia made a careful decision, and enrolled in a master’s program at Columbia that would bring her up to speed on recent legal developments, and would allow her to concentrate on the legal structure of nonprofit foundations, which was what she thought she wanted to do, and where she wanted to focus her interest. She was starting school in September. Josh was proud of her when she told him. And Charles Foster was delighted that she’d taken his advice. But when she told Darcy on Skype in Africa, she was stunned.
“You’re going back to school, Mom?” She was beaming on the screen after her mother told her the news. “What made you decide to do that?” She had been reclusive for so long since their father had died, that it was hard to imagine her leading a real life again. It was all that they had wanted for her. And now she had gotten there on her own.
“Your grandfather suggested it.” She gave him the credit for it. “But I decided it was time for me to stop hiding in the shadows forever.”
“What about the second book about Dad?” Darcy asked, worried for a moment.
“I’ve put it aside for now. I’m not sure I have enough material for a second one, and maybe the world doesn’t need another book about his principles and ideals. There are others on the political scene who are more current now, it’s their turn. I think Dad would understand.” Darcy had tears in her eyes as she listened to her mother. It was music to her ears, and would have been to her father’s too. She felt sure o
f that.
“I think Dad would want you to be happy, Mom. You’ve been sad for a long time.” Olympia nodded in agreement with her, and she realized now that Tony had worked hard to keep her down. He had wanted her silent, out of touch, and out of sight, so she didn’t divulge anything Bill might have told her about him, and to make her seem unbalanced and irrelevant if she did speak up. He had convinced her that she would never recover from the trauma and shouldn’t even try to. She had believed him for a long time, and he was possessive of her. Tony had damaged her almost as much as her husband’s death, he had brainwashed her and no one had suspected it, not even she herself. He had been masterful at what he did, on every front, and incredibly toxic for her. She felt like she had been freed from a cult now, and returned to herself. And her kids could see it too. She was back.
“I’m thinking of going back to school too, Mom,” Darcy confided to her mother after Olympia’s big announcement. “I want to get a master’s, at either NYU or Columbia too. I’ve already applied and I’m waiting to hear. I’m coming home in August.” Olympia was startled to hear it. She’d been planning to stay in Africa for another year. “Maybe we can go to school together. If you don’t mind, I was hoping to live at home for a year.” Olympia was thrilled to hear it, it was the best news she’d had in months, but was definitely a change of plans for her daughter. There had been no hint till now of this change of plans.
“What about your French doctor over there?” Olympia asked her, and Darcy looked wistful for a minute. She had just turned twenty-three, and with her mother turning over a new leaf, she liked the idea of living at home for a while. “Did something happen with him?” Olympia inquired gently, and Darcy shrugged and was slow to answer.
“He’s a wonderful person, Mom, but he’s ten years older than I am, and we want different things. I don’t think he wants to settle down for a long time, and he grew up in Africa. This is home to him. I think I’m just ready to come back, and he thought it was a good idea.” Her lip trembled as she said it, and her eyes filled with tears, and Olympia wished she could take her in her arms, but at least she could do that in August, which would be soon.
“What about taking a trip with me later this summer? Josh and Joanna are going to visit your grandfather in France. Maybe we could meet up with them.” Darcy’s face lit up at the suggestion, and Olympia promised to call Josh about it too. Even a week or ten days together would do them all good. They hadn’t done that since their father’s death, and they used to take a trip together every year. It was time to pick up old traditions and revive them, and start new ones. Olympia mentioned that she had already rented a small house in the Hamptons in July and had been spending time there on her own.
“I’d love that, Mom,” Darcy said, her eyes shining.
They talked for a while longer, and Olympia promised to talk to Josh about a trip, or maybe extend the rental in the Hamptons, or both. There was lots to look forward to now. And then before they hung up, Darcy asked her mother about Tony, and if anyone knew where he was. Olympia hesitated for a moment and then answered her, although she really didn’t want to give her news of him, or even think about it herself.
“Apparently he’s been seen in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia,” she said simply. “They believe he’s living in Jedda.”
“Do you think he’ll ever come back?”
“No, I don’t. He’d be crazy to. He’ll go to prison if he does.”
“What about his wife?”
“I’m sure she’ll divorce him, or maybe she’ll try to go over to be with him, but I doubt it, given everything we know now about what he did, and not just to us.” There was so much more.
“It’s so weird. It’s like he died. Everyone is saying terrible things about him. It’s like we didn’t even know him,” Darcy said, still shaken by it. But her mother sounded firm and clear.
“No, we didn’t know him,” Olympia confirmed. “I think Dad’s the only one who figured him out at the end.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever understand what happened,” Darcy said sadly. It was the biggest disillusionment of her life so far, and maybe would be even in the future.
“I don’t think any of us ever will. People like him just aren’t human. They have no conscience or empathy for others. That’s what being a sociopath is all about. It’s all smoke and mirrors, fakery and lies.”
“How sad,” Darcy commented, and her mother changed the subject to something more pleasant. But at least she could talk about him now without feeling sick. At first, she nearly fainted every time she thought of him and what he’d done to Bill. But she was stronger now.
They ended their call on Skype a few minutes later, and Olympia called Josh that night about meeting in France with Darcy, and he loved the idea. He and Joanna were excited about their trip. And he was surprised too to hear that his sister was coming home.
“What happened to her big romance with the French doctor?” he asked his mother.
“I’m not sure, it sounds like it might have played itself out. He’s a lot older, and he probably realizes she’s young for him. She wants to live at home for a year and go to school. It sounds heavenly to me.” And his mother sounded wonderful to him, which was the best part. He felt like she had disappeared for six years. And now she’d come back to them. He had almost given up hope.
—
Things fell into place easily after that. Olympia extended the house in Bridgehampton and told both children they were welcome there whenever they wanted. Olympia was excited about school in September. It made her feel young again, thinking about it. Darcy was accepted at NYU for the program she was interested in, and being Bill Foster’s daughter probably helped her get an exception for late admission, along with the work she’d done in Africa.
And they picked a date for all of them to meet in Paris for a week, on Darcy’s way back from Africa, after Josh and Joanna stayed with Charles in France. Olympia suspected Darcy would miss her French doctor, but she’d be busy with school in the fall. They would have lots to do. New chapters had begun for them all.
Chapter 17
Alix had just come off the air after reporting a new sex scandal in Washington, and hurried back to her office to change her dark blue Chanel jacket for something softer and more feminine. Ben was taking her out to dinner at a new restaurant they’d heard about. Their life together was turning out to be fun. She took her jacket off, and as soon as she did, Ben took her in his arms and kissed her and started to unhook her bra, when they heard the door open and jumped apart like guilty children, as Felix stood staring at them both. He hadn’t had the vaguest clue about what was going on with them.
“Don’t let me stop you, children. I love porn in the office. How did I manage to miss this? Is this something new, inspired by what goes on in Washington?” He looked amused more than annoyed, and felt stupid that he hadn’t guessed before. They were adults and could do what they wanted, and it had been a long time since they’d been on the road. He wondered if they were just bored or were having a serious affair.
“Sorry, Felix,” Alix said, blushing, as she slipped back into her jacket.
“No worries. You’re adults, and it’s none of my business.” And he liked them both. He had always wondered why nothing had ever sparked between them. He thought they were well suited to each other, which was why they worked well together. “Far be it for me to interrupt your lovemaking, but do you have time for an earthquake in Beijing? They had a 7.2 half an hour ago, and there’s a hell of a mess there. I figured I’d get you both on the midnight flight. You can always join the mile-high club, just don’t get arrested in Beijing.” He was teasing them mercilessly and Alix looked embarrassed. Ben had thicker skin.
“How bad is it?” he asked the producer, focusing on the earthquake in China.
“It’s too soon to tell, it sounds like a lot of casualties so far. It could get better or worse. International rescue teams are heading there now, and all the media who can get there. We just booked
you on the flight.” Alix glanced at the monitor on her desk, which was on mute, which was why they hadn’t heard it, and saw the first shots come up from handheld videos that had been taken with cellphones, as was often the case now. Someone always got on-the-scene shots before the press got there. She turned on the sound and you could hear screaming and buildings crashing, and the terrible rumbling in the ground. The quake had been a short one, but had done a lot of damage, and you could see people running through the streets and children crying.
“We’ll go home and pack,” Alix said primly, and Felix grinned at them.
“Don’t get me wrong. I love you both, and I’m all in favor of whatever it is you’re doing, as long as you’re both happy about it. We don’t want any casualties here,” he warned them, and Ben nodded.
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