Stuart came in behind her. First rule of blackmail. Its not enough to have the goods. Your target has to know youve got the goods.
Baker decided he had heard enough. Thank you, Stuart. Everyone, that is the background to the decision we need to make this evening. Who wants to go first?
Tara MacDonald didnt wait for the customary polite silence. I wanna be clear what exactly it is were talking about here? Are we discussing negotiating with a blackmailer?
Neither Baker nor Goldstein said anything.
Because thats a whole world of pain were entering if we go there. I mean, do we really think something like this could ever stay secret? I dont mean whatever shit this guys holding, I mean the fact that we talked to him. Do we really think thats going to stay underground? Uh-uh.
Sanchez fiddled with his watch. Doesnt it depend a little on what we think the guy might have?
Maggie felt the air suck out of the room. You had to admire the balls of the guy, the fearlessness of youth and all that. But there was only one person who could answer that question and you didnt want to be the one to ask him.
There was, to everyones relief, a knock on the door. A butler, probably seventy years old. Sir, I have an urgent note from the Press Office. For Mrs MacDonald.
Baker beckoned the man forward; he walked in stiffly and presented the piece of paper to her. She pulled on the glasses that hung around her neck on a chain and read rapidly. Then she cleared her throat. Forbes has just released a statement. Most networks are only quoting it in part, but apparently theres a full version on Drudge. It reads as follows. I want to make clear that the further information I hold on Stephen Baker does not relate to the way his campaign was funded nor to the state of his health.
Maggie realized she was holding her breath. So was everyone else. MacDonald kept reading.
Its about his past. An aspect of his past that I think will shock many Americans. An aspect of his past that the President has not shared with the nation. An aspect of his past he may not even have shared with his own family.
Maggie felt a new mood enter the room. It was a sensation she dimly recalled from her teenage years at home in Dublin. She could picture her younger self, sitting on the couch beside her sister Liz, cringing as a vaguely sexual scene appeared on the TV; her father getting up out of his chair, fumbling to change the channel. That was the sensation she could feel spreading over her and, surely, everyone else in this room: embarrassment. Sheer, hot-faced, look-away embarrassment.
What mortifying secret might the President have kept from his own wife? No one could bring themselves to look at him.
Maggie stole a glance at Stuart: he too was avoiding Bakers gaze. But she could see that Stuart Goldsteins embarrassment was already compounded by something that shook him much more: political panic.
How much more of this could this new presidency take? Here was a committed assassin, somehow armed with weapons-grade dirt, determined to destroy Baker. He had already landed two direct hits and now, it seemed, he was preparing for a third. Surely there would be a fourth. And a fifth. The confidence of Vic Forbes swaggering even in this written statement suggested he would not rest until he had finished the job. And Baker was no more.
Her voice dry, Tara spoke again. Theres one last paragraph. I do not plan on providing the full details today. I just wanted the American people to be aware that I have them. I wanted everyone following this story, especially those following it real close, to know I have them.
The gall of it was stunning. Vic Forbes was using a combination of live television and the internet to present a blackmail demand to the President of the United States.
Stuart did not let the silence linger. Like I said, this is an attempt to destroy the President. Ideas for what we should do, people.
Tara MacDonald spoke first. I say we do a Letterman. We go to the police and then we go on TV. We expose Forbes for what he is, a cheap scumbag felon.
Larry Katzman, the pollster, piped up. I worry about that. Initial response can be positive, but theres great volatility. Once you go public with something like this, it kind of gives people free rein-
They can say what the hell they like about you, added Sanchez, clearly making the effort to substitute one four-letter word for the other he had in mind. Makes it legitimate. Remember, David Letterman could only make his move because he fessed up to whatever the blackmailer had. Got in his retaliation first.
The pollster responded, emboldened. In other words, the critical variable is the nature of the, er, allegations, the charges His voice trailed off, as he reached for the glass of water on the coffee table in front of him.
Tara MacDonald stepped in again, perhaps, thought Maggie, as an act of compassion, protecting the dweeby pollster from twisting in the silence for a second longer. Seems were out of good options. If we say nothing, Forbes is gonna keep coming at us, letting off these bombs. If we try to fess up, then the bombs gonna be going off anyway. OK, its gonna be us pressing the detonator and that helps. But we still dont know what damage its gonna do.
Which leaves making contact with this prick and trying to cut some kind of deal. Which I dont even want to think about. I mean, even if we managed to pull it off, which I have to tell you I seriously doubt, do we really think it would stay quiet? Of course, it wouldnt. Because nothing in this town ever does.
Now Sanchez added his voice. I have to say, this is bad enough. When he saw a quizzical eyebrow from Goldstein, he gestured around the room. This. This meeting. Just imagine this on Glenn Beck: White House operatives sat around in the Residence discussing possible negotiations with a-
All right, all right, Stuart interrupted. We get the idea. A series of dead ends. But right now there are also rather too many known unknowns. We dont know what Forbes knows and we need to. Somehow, between now and tomorrow, we need to be inside Vic Forbess head. Whatever he has-
But he didnt get to finish his sentence. Stephen Baker, the cool, steady, unflappable Stephen Baker, the man who had barely put a foot wrong in a two-year, outsiders presidential campaign, the man who had debated much more experienced rivals without ever slipping up, the man who had never broken a sweat even when his poll numbers were in the tank and his bank accounts dry Stephen Baker finally snapped.
He slammed his fist onto the table and raised his voice, something his team had never seen or heard before. Vic Forbes! VIC FORBES! I dont want to hear that mans name again? Do you understand me? He shook his head then, his voice much quieter, he murmured, almost to himself: I want him gone.
12
Washington, DC, Wednesday March 22, 06.35
12
Washington, DC, Wednesday March 22, 06.35
She was with Liz, in the shady area at the back of their garden. They were holding hands, Liz tugging her, a five-year-old girl impatient to show her big sister what she had found. They were wading through grass that had grown taller than they were, brushing their bare arms. Any second now, they would find it. It would be here, at the bottom of the garden.
A loud siren yanked her from sleep and bolted her upright. Her heart was thumping. The siren sounded again, though now Maggie realized it was the ringer on her cellphone, left on her bedside table. She squinted at her watch: 6.35am.
Hello.
Maggie. Its Stuart. Did I wake you?
No. Not at all. It was a reflexive lie. No one in Washington ever admitted to being asleep, not even at 6.35am. In DC setting the alarm for 7am counted as a lie-in.
Sorry about that. Anyway, put the TV on.
Is this like some kind of daily service? Because I dont remember signing up.
Now. There was something different in Goldsteins voice. Not so much panic as a kind of manic energy.
Maggies eyes were still closed, as if she were half-expecting to glimpse whatever it was Liz had promised to show her. She fumbled for the remote, knocking over both a glass of water and her watch in the process.
Jesus.
My first reaction too.
Hold on, I havent got it on yet. She leaned over the bed, to grope on the floor there. Her hand was met with a discarded T-shirt and a pair of sneakers, as well as an eye-mask shed once picked up on a business class flight.
At last, the remote. She aimed it at the small box in the corner and waited for it to glow into life. It was tuned to MSNBC: unable to sleep, shed been watching a re-run of Olbermann in the middle of the night.
Still squinting, she gasped at what she saw. Fucking hell.
My sentiments exactly.
She couldnt say anything else, even though she knew Stuart was waiting for an instant reaction. But she simply couldnt speak. All she could do was stare at the words streaming across the bottom of the screen.
Breaking News: Vic Forbes found dead in New Orleans.
13
The Corner, National Review Online, posted March 22, 07.39:
Its too early to speculate, details are sketchy, yadda, yadda, yadda. (The fullest account so far seems to come from AP.) Suffice it to say, we know what Democrats would be howling right now if there were a Republican in the White House. Dont we? Well, conservatives should not sink to their level. Instead, we should do no more than point out that some deaths are more convenient than others. And for Stephen Baker the death of Vic Forbes is very convenient indeed.
From the comments thread, Talking Points Memo, March 22, 08.01:
We shouldnt speak ill of the dead and I dont want to speak ill of Vic Forbes. Like everyone else in Washington, apparently, I never knew the guy, never even heard of him until this week. But I would be lying if I said that a deep wave of relief did not come over me when I heard the news just now. Im not proud of that, but there we are. I want to be honest. Bottom Line: Forbes was trying to destroy the elected president of this countr and that was a threat not only to Baker and the Democrats though it most certainly was that but to the United States constitution. With his death, that clear and present danger to the republic has passed
14
Washington, DC, Wednesday March 22, 06.37
Maggie kept staring at the screen, which showed a residential street in New Orleans, a row of timber-clad houses in light blues and greens, with the one clearest in vision now behind yellow and black tape. Even from here, the words were in focus: Police Line Do Not Cross.