The Second Lesson of Media was corollary to the first: Most reporters wanted to be something else. The ones who could write a little wanted to be Real Writers. The ones who couldn’t write very well wanted to be Hollywood screenwriters. And the ones who couldn’t write at all wanted to be movie producers. Every story came with an angle, and that angle had to be Option Money. Every series of stories had to build a Narrative. And that Narrative could only be one thing:
Oppressed Minority Triumphs Over White Men.
Well, she certainly qualified. And now she was wiping the floor with John Edward Bilodeau Tyler.
She had worked hard at establishing the legend, from the time she first burst on the scene as the governor of Rhode Island. Rhode Island! Thank God for federalism, for where else in the world could you and your gang take over a dinkyass state like Rhode Island and be taken seriously? To burnish the legend, she had moved quickly to toss the Italian mobsters who had been running the joint for decades into the federal pen—they had supported her, even helped her buy some choice real estate in Newport, but now that their usefulness was at an end, they had to be made an example of. Hello, Supermax, the ultimate no-tell motel.
And the media had been a part of it, which was why she found herself at this moment in bed with the loathsome Jake Sinclair. This was a consenting adult, two-way-street transaction, a fuck for access and endorsement. In a few weeks it would be all over, and she would never again have to have his hands on her body. She would send him packing back to whatever little chippie named Jenny he was currently married to, and then, when all the reports of campaign irregularities surfaced via leaks from her press office, she’d have him arrested and thrown in jail, preferably for life.
“You’re up across the board,” said Sinclair, consulting his iPhone. His newspaper had broken the recent reports of the special tracking chip implanted in every iPhone, which made him laugh, since anyone with a source in Washington had known for years that the iPhone incorporated the SKIPJACK technology from the Clinton Administration: Big Brother was watching you, for your own safety. Naturally, Tyler got the blame. “Eighteen points, in some states.”
Don’t get cocky—that was a lesson she had learned long ago, when she was a girl. Never trust a fixed fight until the fight is over and the bum you bet on has his hand raised in triumph. Now that bum was her, and the hand being raised was the one that would not be on the Bible as she took the oath of office on January 20.
It was amazing how stupid the media was, how gullible. They were just like Churchill’s description of the Germans: either at your feet or at your throat. And the only thing you needed to do to keep them away from your throat was to feed them—in this case, information. Information on the other guy. Once they had made up their mind that their precious “narrative” dictated that you were the good guy and the other guy was the bad guy, you had it made in the shade.
Just as long as you didn’t do anything stupid. And the later into the election season it got, the smarter you became. At this rate, she wouldn’t even need the collapse of the dollar that a certain quiet campaign backer had told her he could deliver. In fact, she’d have to really fuck up now to lose. Either that, or the other guy would have to get awfully lucky. And Jeb Tyler’s luck had run out.
Her private phone rang. Sinclair tried to snoop over her shoulder as she looked at the display, but she turned away from him. “I have to take this,” she said, rising and heading for the bathroom.
“Another lover, I suppose?” he said and then flopped back on the pillow. He was very proud of himself, Mr. Sinclair was, getting to advance-fuck a president of the United States.
She closed the bathroom door. “Yes?”
“Are you alone?”
“I am now.”
“Don’t tell me it’s that awful Sinclair. Really, my dear, I thought you had better taste than that.”
“Yeah, well, you do what you have to. Everything in place?”
At the other end of the line, Emanuel Skorzeny had an uncharacteristic moment of hesitation. “Yes, of course.”
“Don’t fuck with me, old man,” she said, her voice rising,
“Need some help in there?” came Sinclair’s voice from the bedroom.
“We have a deal and I expect that deal to go off without a hitch. I need to put this bastard Tyler in the ground, six feet under, so that by Election Day he’ll be lucky to carry his home state of Louisiana. The country’s sick of his ineptitude. It’s sick of watching the body count rise on his watch. One more push and he’s done.”
“Do not underestimate him, Angela,” said Skorzeny. “I made that mistake once and it cost me a considerable amount of money, staff, and personal happiness.”
“That’s your problem. You can always find more money, I’m sure you can find staff, and as for your personal happiness, I don’t give a shit. Just tell me our little surprise is going to go off without a hitch.”
“Haven’t you been reading the papers? Watching television? I noticed you haven’t said a word about the trouble in Africa.”
“Why should I? There’s no votes in it, and besides it’s more fun to watch Tyler flounder and stew. As far as I’m concerned, that’s for your amusement. I want the bang for my buck you promised me.”
“Oh, you’ll get it, all right,” said Skorzeny, “and right on schedule. Just one thing, Angela . . .”
“What’s that?”
“Do be prepared for Tyler to have a little October Surprise of his own. The man has the cunning of a snake, and if you’re going to beat him, you’re going to need to be utterly ruthless.”
Angela Hassett smiled. “I think I’ve done pretty well in that department so far,” she said.
A loud knock on the door. “You going to stay in there all day? I gotta go.”
“Keep your pants on, big boy,” she said sweetly, “and let a girl do what a girl’s gotta do.”
“Okay, but hurry up. Jeez . . .”
“What an idiot,” said Skorzeny.
“Yes, but he’s our idiot for now,” she replied. “And when he’s no longer useful . . . ‘ruthless,’ you were saying?”
“Listen to me, Angela. It’s not just Tyler. He has people—one man in particular. This man might well be the most dangerous man on the planet, next to me. Pray you never meet him.”
A voice from outside the door. “Aw, Angela, come on. . . .”
“I think I can handle men,” she said to Skorzeny. “Just do your job.”
She rang off, splashed some water on her face, and looked at herself. In less than a month she would be looking at the president-elect and, a couple of months later, the POTUS herself. That’s when the real fun would begin, when fortunes would be made and unmade, and when social transformation would begin in earnest.
She stepped back and examined her body in the mirror: not bad for an old broad.
“Angela . . .” He was starting to whine now.
She threw open the door to catch him hopping around like a two-year-old; some men just couldn’t hold their water. She caught him as he rushed past her and kissed him. That would get his attention, and pretty soon his mind would be right back where she wanted it to be, which was between her breasts and other parts of her anatomy.
Men were such fools.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Lemoore Naval Air Station
The kids were already in bed. Hope felt bad about waking them up, but she had no choice.
Mrs. Atchison helped her get their things together. “It’s all right, honey,” she said to Jade as Hope tended to Rory and Emma. “You’re all going to New York City. Won’t that be fun?”
Jade didn’t care much one way or the other about New York City, but she doubted that either Rory or Emma would be looking forward to the trip, not after what happened to them there the last time.
“Thank you, Mrs. Atchison. Will I get to see my dad?”
Mrs. Atchison had obviously been fully briefed, because she drew Jade close and whispered in her ear
: “Take care of them now. You all have to be strong for one another.”
Jade nodded. Tragedy was something she and the Gardner kids had in common. The loss of a parent. Of course, she hadn’t had to endure what Emma had; she wondered if she would have been able to hold up as well, or emerge so relatively normal.
The admiral appeared in the doorway. “It’s time.”
A driver took them to the airfield, where a transport plane was fueled and ready; both the admiral and his wife came along.
“Cool!” shouted Rory as he saw the interior of the plane.
“Just like being a real soldier or sailor, Rory,” said the admiral. “Do you think you’d like to the try that someday?”
“Would I ever!” exclaimed Rory.
“Then, when you’re old enough, you be sure to write to me and I’ll see what I can do.”
“Wow! Thank you, Admiral Atchison.”
As Mrs. Atchison helped get the kids strapped in, the admiral took Hope aside. “Listen,” he began, “I’m not privy to any of the details, but I do know that this operation involves you. Don’t worry, it’s not going to be dangerous. But your husband needs someone he can trust to act as a go-between in a very sensitive situation, and he asked for you.”
“He’s not my husband,” said Hope softly.
“My error.”
Hope blushed a little. “I think he was going to propose to me in San Francisco. That’s why we were heading up there, when . . . The last time we were in New York . . . well, you probably know.”
“I heard. You and your kids have been through a lot.”
“Is Danny going to meet us there?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, I can’t tell you that. I don’t know—but even if I did, I couldn’t.”
“I understand. Thank you for everything, Admiral.”
“Anything we can do . . .”
They left. The crew shut the doors. The plane rumbled down the taxiway and soared into the sky.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Baku
“I am beginning to be concerned, Mlle. Derrida.”
She looked up from her reading. There was nothing to do in this godforsaken town. It still had the old Soviet smell about it, the same hopelessness, the same rundown atmosphere, as if tomorrow was inevitably going to be worse than today and there was not a damn thing anybody could about it.
She’d admired Baku Bay, seen the Azerbaijan State Philharmonic Hall, traipsed up and down the Maiden Tower, from which some princess or other was said to have thrown herself in an attempt to escape the place. She could certainly understand that.
“It’s Iran,” she said. “Not France. Things happen.”
Skorzeny shot her a look. How unlike his late adjutant and majordomo, M. Paul Pilier, she was. He had been a man of impeccable taste and breeding, and quite handy in a tight spot. She, on the other hand, was a French lesbian intellectual.
The thought of the late M. Pilier got him to thinking about Maryam again—she had shot his man back at Clairvaux—and his impatience only grew. “Try her again.”
“I don’t think that’s a wise idea, M. Skorzeny,” she said. “You’re wanted by the American government. You may assume that the Black Widow is tracking any unsecured communication, and no matter how good you think your technology is, theirs is better. So I advise you to maintain operational security and try to enjoy the wonders of Baku.”
“I trusted her,” he muttered, growing agitated.
“That’s your problem,” said Mlle. Derrida, and returned to her reading.
He needed to get out of there. He was a man of property as well as principle. A man at home everywhere. “I am going out for a constitutional,” he informed her.
“Do you want me to shadow you in case someone tries to grab you?”
“Don’t be absurd,” he said, and left.
Out on the street he took a deep breath of the sea air. There was, in fact, a man he wanted to meet. A man with whom he had business, and a man whom he counted on for the utmost discretion. He began to reach for his phone, then thought better of it; perhaps Mlle. Derrida was right. There was no point in coming all this way, and getting this far, only to blow it at the end over something as silly as a woman. He trusted her, and that was that.
The building he sought was near Boyukshor Lake, near the steel company. Not very fashionable. But that is exactly what he would have expected.
Slobodan Petrovich had come out of the old Soviet Union—where, exactly, was not clear—and after the collapse of the U.S.S.R. had made a fortune operating in the interstices of communism and capitalism. There were vast sums of money to be made in such tight spots, and Petrovich made them. And yet he lived here, anonymously. He was a man after Skorzeny’s own heart.
The taxi stopped in front of a typical Soviet piece of industrial architecture. Skorzeny entered an office and spoke Russian to the functionary; he had not spent all that time as a guest of the Red Army at the end of the war without learning their language. He thought it might be difficult to see Petrovich, or that perhaps he was living there under a pseudonym, but no: he was told exactly where to find the man, and find him soon enough he did.
The door was made of steel. There were no peepholes or any visible security devices, but before he could rap on it, it slid to one side and there stood the financier, a cigar in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. “I’ve been expecting you,” he said, stepping aside to admit Skorzeny.
Skorzeny entered gingerly. He was not used to being a guest in someone else’s house; in fact, lately he was not used to being in a home at all. With Tyler’s fatwa against him, he had spent most of his recent life on board his specially outfitted Boeing 707, condemned like some latter-day Flying Dutchman to only the most unpleasant ports of call. Ah, but look how well that was going to work out, despite what happened to the late Arash Kohanloo and his merry band of terrorists in New York City.
Petrovich had helped with that operation. It was difficult—although not impossible—to launder money from the air, but to have an ally on the ground, living in a Muslim country but completely at home with the old Soviet ways of evading taxes and getting a maximum return on one’s investment . . . well, that was invaluable. He needed a paymaster, fixer, and investor, and in Slobodan Petrovich, he got all three.
“Has the package been delivered?” said Petrovich. The man’s tastes ran to the sybaritic, it was true, but then Skorzeny’s own handsomely appointed apartments in Vaduz and Paris, with their priceless art and furnishings, bespoke his sophistication as well.
“Things are under way in Iran, yes,” said Skorzeny, not quite sure what to do with himself. Petrovich noticed his social discomfort, and yet did not move to offer him a seat, a cigar, or a drink.
“What about New York?”
“Countdown has begun. Timing is everything, and I believe I can predict with a degree of high confidence that simultaneity will be very nearly achieved. First the one, then the other.”
“And our Iranian friends get the blame?”
“Of course. After all, they are the ones who are guilty. You and I are . . . just bystanders.”
“And about to make a great deal of money shorting the market. I congratulate you. Now, tell me the real reason you honor my house with your presence. You’ve lost your girl, haven’t you? Or, judging from your demeanor, both of them. There’s a line from Oscar Wilde that might be appropriate right about now.”
Skorzeny finally chose an uncomfortable-looking chair and sat. He didn’t plan to stay long. Just long enough to make sure their business arrangement was solid; later, if he had to, he could have Petrovich killed. In the aftermath of what was about to happen, no one would notice.
“I must say, Emanuel,” said Petrovich, relighting his cigar, “so far your plan is going splendidly. Have you seen the news from Africa today? The entire continent is in flames. Blend excitable people with machetes with competing superstitions and you have a prescription for a bloodbath that is making Rwanda look like a w
arm-up act at a bad Moscow nightclub. You’ve been to bad Moscow nightclubs, I assume?”
Skorzeny let the question float. “Tomorrow, the Philippines. Muslims and Christians have been fighting there since the Moros. It won’t take much for the beheadings to start. Then, Paris—think of the reaction of the Muslims, and how much damage they will be able to do to Notre Dame and San Sulpice before the flics get out of bed. Paris will be lost to tourists forever.”
“The girls,” prompted Petrovich. “The girls.”
Skorzeny thought, then decided to tell the truth. “Radio silence.”
“You old fool. She’s left you, and taken God only knows what with her.”
“Impossible. I am everything to her. And, in any case, it doesn’t matter. Should the mullahs get their hands on both of them, well . . . that is one fewer problem for me in the days and weeks ahead.” He decided to change the subject. “Where will you go when it happens? Baku seems uncomfortably close to . . . ground zero.”
“I have my bolt-holes,” replied Petrovich, “as I’m sure do you.” He had remained standing throughout the interview, but now moved toward the door. “This conversation is very pleasant, more pleasant than I would have imagined, but as I never mix business with pleasure, it must come to an end, for we are not friends, merely business partners.... What do you suppose the damage will be? An idle question, but please indulge me.”
“I estimate that up to a million people will be killed in the blast, or will subsequently die from radiation poisoning, and much of the island will be rendered uninhabitable for a very long time. Manhattan will finished as a center for world finance.”
“That’s it, then.” Petrovich helped Skorzeny to his feet and began to propel him to the door. Skorzeny could feel himself getting hot under the collar—nobody was supposed to touch him, and the fact that this parvenu thought he needed assistance was an outrage. He would most definitely deal with Tovarish Petrovich when the time came.
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