“No! I mean, we never discussed it.”
“Were you going to pay for her? If you were, that’s a date. I can’t believe she’d say yes to eating there if she didn’t . . .” Jimmie heard the man whisper to someone else in the room. “On a Friday night, right? Yeah, that’s what I said.” The voice got louder as the man spoke into the phone again. “Well, regardless of which one of you is in denial, we have her. And she’s cute! Have you even asked if she likes you like that?”
The hostess had a couple of menus and was waiting on Jimmie. He held up a finger. Not that one. His index finger. “I need to take this,” he whispered. “I’ll be right back.”
“Who are you talking to?” the man on the phone demanded.
Jimmie made his way through the other customers waiting in the foyer, the poor schmucks who didn’t have reservations. Some of them could be waiting hours on standby, on the off-chance a table opened up. The Ritz Cracker Barrel filled up weeks in advance. There were some perks to orange-level security clearance.
“Sorry about that,” he told the kidnapper. “So Cat is my ex. And I understand you have her?”
“Oh, that makes sense now. Yes, and if you don’t give us what we want, you’ll never see her again.”
Somebody was taping this call right now: the White House, the NSA, Homeland Security. Somebody. The question, however, was whether or not anybody would listen to the recording in time for it to mean a damn thing to Cat. Even if they had a real-time eavesdropper from some shadowy government organization, the chances of them tracing it and sending the Navy SEALs to the kidnapper’s door were miniscule. There was a good chance Jimmie was going to have to handle this situation himself.
“Are you still there, Mr. Bernwood?”
“I don’t know who you are,” he said. “I don’t know what you want. If you’re looking for ransom, I don’t have a lot of money. What I do have, however, is a very particular set of skills . . . skills I have picked up over a very long career. Skills that can make me your worst nightmare. Let my daughter go now, and I won’t come after you. But if you don’t . . . I will find you. I will find you, and I will cause you pain. Unimaginable pain.”
“Did you say she’s your daughter? You’re dating your daughter?”
“No, I didn’t mean ‘daughter.’ I meant my date. No, wait, I didn’t mean that either—”
“You think you’re the first person I’ve tried to extract ransom from who’s used that speech from Taken?” the man said. “I’m more than familiar with the skills you possess, Mr. Bernwood—meager as they are.”
Jimmie sighed. “Tell me what you want. Get it over with.”
“Don’t get discouraged,” the man said. His voice was flat. “We want the tapes.”
“Like, sex tapes? I don’t do that kind of journalism anymore.”
“The Dorset tapes.”
The only ones who knew about the tapes were Trump, Lester . . . and the Socialist Justice Warriors. The caller had just revealed his affiliation. Jimmie had snubbed the SJWs. Now they weren’t asking him to help them—they were telling him he had to. Or else.
“We know you have them in your possession,” the kidnapper continued.
“Let’s say I did have these tapes. Is what’s on them worth going to prison for? Because that’s exactly what’s going to happen to you once the Secret Service tracks you down. They’re tracing this call right now.”
The man laughed heartily.
“Is that funny to you?” Jimmie said.
“If you knew everything that we know, you’d be laughing too.”
“What do you think is on these tapes?”
“Just bring them to us.”
“Where are you?” Jimmie asked. “Clinton Plaza?”
“When you have the tapes in your possession, put a potted fern out on your patio at the Watergate. We will be in touch with further instructions. You have until midnight on Sunday.”
“Can I have until midnight on Monday? It’s a holiday weekend.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. It sounded like the man was whispering to someone in the background.
“Fine, Monday at midnight,” the caller said. “Just put a fern out. Got that? A fern, Mr. Bernwood. And one last thing: Get the FBI or the CIA or even the FDA involved, and we kill your daughter.”
“You mean my date.”
“I thought it wasn’t a date?”
“Okay, sure, maybe deep down I was hoping—”
The line went dead.
Chapter Forty-Five
Table for One
Jimmie reentered the restaurant. The hostess flashed a friendly smile. “Finished with your phone call, Mr. Bernwood?”
“I am,” he said. “But I’ll be dining alone tonight.”
Although it seemed a tad insensitive to Cat to keep his reservation, Jimmie thought it would be what she wanted. Plus, the kidnappers had given him until Monday night to meet their demands. There was plenty of time to stuff his face with some old-fashioned southern-style cooking while he debated the most prudent course of action.
The smell of the made-from-scratch buttermilk biscuits had also been calling his name. He opened the menu. He had to focus. Review his options. Not the options on the menu—he already knew what he was going to order. But his options with regards to the kidnappers. He was out of his league, but that had never stopped him before.
The safest course of action was to cooperate with the kidnappers . . . for now. Getting the recorder out of the White House wasn’t going to be easy, though. If it was, he’d have already done it. The Trump administration was so overrun with paranoia that they didn’t let bags in or out of the building. No backpacks, no laptop cases, no purses, no briefcases. Not even fanny packs were allowed, which had to piss off Chef Fieri.
After he’d stuffed himself on his second order of complimentary buttermilk biscuits and was awaiting his third, the hostess arrived with another menu. “Your date is here, Mr. Bernwood,” she said.
“That’s . . . not possible,” he stammered.
Emma Blythe stepped out from behind the hostess and took the seat across from Jimmie. She was wearing a tight, red cocktail dress that accentuated her curves. She looked like she’d just stepped out of a noir novel and into his life.
“Hello, darling,” Emma said. “I hope you’ve saved room for dessert.”
Chapter Forty-Six
The Seventh-Leading Cause of Death in the US
Emma took one sip of the iced tea she’d ordered and made a horrible retching sound. “Dear God, that’s awful. I always forget you Americans put sugar in your tea.”
“Don’t look at me—I’m from the Midwest,” Jimmie said. “Sweet tea is a southern thing.”
“Is diabetes also a southern thing?”
“One would assume so, what with obesity rates being so high in southern states.” Jimmie picked up his phone and Googled states with highest rates of diabetes. “Damn, would you look at that. Says here that nine of the top ten states with the highest rates of type 2 diabetes are in the—”
Emma snatched the phone out of his hand and dropped it into the last of his bowl of creamy tomato soup. He’d dunked enough phones underwater over the years to know that it wasn’t worth diving in after. It also wasn’t the first time he’d had his phone taken away by a woman at dinner.
“I would have put it away, had you asked,” he said.
“I could care less about your lack of table etiquette. I had to make sure the NSA wasn’t listening to every word of our conversation.”
“They might be interested in the seventh-leading cause of death in this country,” Jimmie said. “You never know.”
“While public health statistics are endlessly fascinating to someone, somewhere, that’s not what I came to talk to you about. You’re going to tell me what sort of mess you’ve gotten yourself into.” She paused. “A word of warning, however: Leave anything out, and I’ll know you’re lying. You’ll be arrested for attempted espionage.
”
“How will you know if I leave anything out, though?”
“Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. Are you willing to risk it?”
He leaned across the table. “A woman’s life is at stake here.”
“Millions of lives are at stake here,” Emma shot back. “Billions of lives, possibly. We’re talking about the office of the president of the United States of America. Do you not understand that? This is far bigger than one person’s life. No matter how much you want to shag her.”
Jimmie saw that his tie had taken a dip in his soup, and he wiped it on the tablecloth. “It’s such bullshit for you to bring that up. Why couldn’t I just care about another human being for altruistic reasons?”
“It would certainly be a first,” she said. “I’m surprised you even know what the word ‘altruism’ means.”
“I’m full of surprises,” he said, even though she was seeing right through him at practically every turn.
Their waiter brought their entrées out and went to pick up the empty bowl in front of Jimmie. Or nearly empty, except for the dead phone coated in tomato soup.
“Sir . . . there’s a phone in your soup,” the waiter said. “Would you like me to fish it out?”
“It’s not mine,” Jimmie said coolly.
“I am so sorry. Let me apologize on behalf of the Ritz Cracker Barrel.”
Jimmie stared him in the eyes. “Take it off my bill, or I’m going to Yelp.”
The waiter hurried off. Emma stared at Jimmie as if he’d just shit on the rug.
“What?”
“You’re quite something,” she said.
“Quite charming?”
“Quite something,” she repeated.
While Jimmie picked over his chicken-fried chicken, he told Emma everything. To get information, you had to give up information. He wasn’t sure why he trusted her, but he did. It might have also had something to do with the fact that Jimmie was strangely deferential to women in positions of authority over him. It was a weakness. But he would be strong. Even though he’d been daydreaming about making love to Emma on the beanbag chair Biden had left behind in the VP’s West Wing office, he would be strong. He wasn’t about to get into another mess like he’d gotten into with Cat.
The fact that Emma had arrived just twenty minutes after the kidnappers had hung up on him had to mean someone had alerted her to the call—the NSA or Homeland Security. She’d been watching him closely.
Jimmie didn’t think she’d come here to put the screws on him, though. It wasn’t like she was going to just pull out a gun and murder him right there in the middle of the Ritz Cracker Barrel. Though that would have been a pretty baller move.
“So that’s where we’re at,” Jimmie said after finishing his tale. “I’ve turned over all the cards I have. Now it’s your turn.”
“Is that how you think this works?” Emma said. “Tell me something, James: Were you planning to leak all this to Cat Diaz? Is that why you were meeting her tonight?”
“I signed a nondisclosure.”
“That you planned to break for the right price.”
“Are you going to fire me?”
Emma sipped her sweet tea. Slowly. Deliberately.
“No,” she said.
“No?”
“I’m going to help you get your girlfriend back. In exchange, you are going to drop this amateur little ‘investigation’ of yours. If the press secretary did throw Lester off the roof, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. You’d still have to pin it on him. Surveillance tapes from that far back have already been wiped. All you’ve got is a hunch.”
“Sometimes, that’s all you need.”
“Sometimes,” Emma said. “But not this time. Remember that Lewandowski manhandled that reporter on the campaign trail on video and walked away without any charges.”
“There’s a corpse buried somewhere on the White House grounds, and you’re telling me to forget about it?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
Jimmie sighed. It was an overly dramatic, sort of bitchy sigh. Totally warranted, however. She was asking him to give up on a story? Once he got his claws into something, it was difficult for him to let go. He was like a tick, digging in for the long haul while he drew blood. Could he let go . . . for Cat’s sake? He’d have to think about that.
Jimmie said, “So you, what, trace the call and have Trump send in the Navy SEALs to rescue her? How does this work?”
“The president would never authorize the use of the military to rescue a kidnapped reporter, and you know it,” Emma said. “Even against the SJWs. And it wouldn’t make a bit of difference to appeal to President Trump’s romantic side. He’d just tell you to get another girlfriend—one who doesn’t go around getting herself kidnapped. Officially, the US government won’t be intervening. We don’t negotiate with terrorists. Unofficially . . . I would like to see this situation resolved as quickly as possible. There’s been enough bloodshed at the White House in recent weeks, wouldn’t you agree?”
Jimmie nodded but didn’t say anything. He had a mouthful of fried apples.
“Just because the US government isn’t going to do a bloody thing about your friend doesn’t mean you’re out of luck,” Emma said. “They’re not the only government in the world, you know.”
“The Russians,” he said.
“The Brits,” she said.
“But we’re on the verge of war with the UK. Why would they lift a finger?”
“Because I’m not just the apprentice,” Emma said. “I’m with MI6—the Secret Intelligence Service.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Ninety Percent of the Time
So Trump had been right about there being a leak in the White House after all. He probably had never imagined how high ranking the leak was, however. The apprentice was as close to the Oval Office as you could get—both figuratively and literally. And Trump never would know, because Jimmie wasn’t anybody’s informant. Not even the president’s.
He had to tip his cap to the United Kingdom. The British intelligence community must have predicted Trump’s rise to power and placed an operative close to him in the eventuality he ascended to the US presidency.
The British had always been much smarter than the United States. Part of that was the accent, of course. Part of it, however, was that they’d just been playing this game much longer than their American counterparts had. They literally had hundreds of years more institutional knowledge baked into their psyche than the relatively young upstarts on this side of the Atlantic did. Funny, then, that they’d already dropped two wars to the United States, but hey—any given Sunday.
“Call in your British SEALs or whatever,” Jimmie said begrudgingly, tossing his napkin on the table. “Forget the story—we need to save her. I’m ready when you are.”
“Hold on,” Emma said. “We don’t have ‘British SEALs.’ MI6’s elite special-ops force is the Royal OTTERs. Unfortunately, they’re all busy preparing to guard the home front in case this war between our countries actually breaks out. Our best option here is to cooperate with the kidnappers.”
A waiter arrived with a fresh glass of sweet tea for Emma. Despite her avowed distaste for the beverage, she was now on her fourth refill.
When the waiter was gone, Jimmie said, “You trust these Socialist Justice Warriors?”
“Real-life kidnappers aren’t like the ones in Hollywood movies. If they say they’re going to trade you for someone, they’re probably going to keep their word—as long as you follow through with your end of the bargain. Ninety percent of the time, nobody gets hurt. Except for maybe a cut-off finger or toe, which they mail to you to show you they’re serious. In this case, there’s not enough time for them to mail you any appendages. Even if they overnighted her ring finger, say, there’s no guarantee you’d get it. Holiday weekends cause massive postal delays.”
Ninety percent of the time, nobody gets hurt. What about the other ten percent?
&nbs
p; He said, “I’m surprised you want to hand the recorder over.”
“I’ve worked with Trump long enough to know he doesn’t say anything in private that he wouldn’t say in public,” she said. “You were right: Lester Dorset was a bloody fool.”
“Finally, somebody agrees with me.”
“You’re also a bloody fool, but for different reasons,” Emma said.
Was she teasing him? He’d have time to tease her back later.
“You’re sure I need to drop this whole Lester story, though?” he asked.
“If there really was a story here capable of bringing the administration to its knees, I would have exposed it long ago,” Emma said. “I’m doing everything I can to keep Trump in check and avoid this idiotic ‘three-peat’ he keeps going on about. You’ve been to the Security Council meetings. If it was up to Trump and the rest of those wankers, the UK would be a pile of rubble right now. I might just be the only person standing in his way. If you try to pin the murder on Lewandowski, and he doesn’t confess, who do you think people are going to point fingers at next? The Brit in the White House.”
“I guess you’re right,” Jimmie said.
“Are you pouting?”
“No,” he lied. “So we need to figure out how to get the recorder out of the White House, then.”
“You’d never get it past security on your own,” she said. “With my help, however, it will be a breeze. Only a handful of people in the administration can walk in and out of the building without being frisked . . . including the apprentice.”
Jimmie shoveled another biscuit into his mouth, even though he’d felt full fifteen minutes ago. He was simply stress-eating at this point. Jimmie could see his story about Lester’s body—and whatever scandal was beneath it—blowing Emma’s cover in some way. She was just trying to throw water on the flames. From Jimmie’s perspective, though, the fire was out of control.
Emma said, “I’ll pick up the tab, and we can head back to the White House. Where’s the recorder?”
The Day of the Donald Page 13
