He dialled the number Cindy had put in front of him, the first move in a sequence that he had never had to follow before; heard the operator answer and realized, with a rush of adrenalin, the import of what he was about to do.
This is Senator Rick Franklin. I need to speak to the President of the United States.
19
New Orleans, Wednesday March 22, 23.45 CST
The device she had found had been burning a hole in Maggies pocket for the best part of an hour. Lewis Rigby had insisted they bury the hatchet with a drink. No hard feelings and all that.
Throughout their conversation, though her eyes didnt waver, Maggie did not listen to a word the grubby little hack was saying. Instead all her brainpower was channelled into her fingertips, as she turned the object she had snatched from Forbess suit pocket over and over in her own.
It was round and flat, a disc; and yet it had buzzed. It was too thin to be a cellphone, even a novelty one. There were no buttons, nor one of those clam-shell flaps that might conceal them. A moment of panic seized her, one she hoped Rigby did not glimpse as she pretended to be fascinated by the story of how exactly he had come to tap the cellphone of the former mayor of Atlanta just in time to hear him call the Hot Guys chat line.
What if she had been half-right? What if the buzzing sound had indeed come from the wardrobe, and from the suits, but she had reached into the wrong pocket? What if she had had the chance to grab Vic Forbess cellphone, only to come away with a flipping bar coaster or whatever this piece of crap was?
They finally got back to the Monteleone where she made her excuses, though not before running into a crestfallen Tim, who gently asked whether her headache had cleared.
My what?
Your headache.
Christ, shed completely forgotten. That had been her explanation for leaving the bar, hoping Tim wouldnt notice that Rigby was waiting for her just outside. Oh, yes. Right as rain. Thanks for asking.
So perhaps youll join me for that nightcap we missed out on?
She checked her watch: gone midnight. You know Ive had a long day, Tim. Flight down and all that. Would you hate me if I had an early night?
Of course he wouldnt, he insisted, his words brimming with the caring solicitude of an English gentleman, even as his eyes wondered if, since she was taking to her bed, she might want some company.
Once upstairs, having shaken him off and closed the door behind her, she plunged into her pocket and pulled the thing out. Fucking hell, if it wasnt actually a poxy coaster after all. From the bloody Midnight Lounge, S Claiborne Street.
She threw it on the bed, convinced that she had screwed up royally. What the hell was she doing here? She was an analyst of international relations, a diplomat for Christs sake, and here she was, fannying around pretending to be a journalist, playing at being Sherlock bleeding Holmes. And she was crap at it. Somewhere in that house in that cupboard was Forbess BlackBerry, bursting with the information that would answer every one of the questions that would save Baker, and she had missed it, passing over the magic lamp and reaching for the wooden spoon instead. She could curse-
There it was again. The buzz. The coaster was buzzing.
She picked it up and stared at it. At last she smiled. So that was what this was. She hadnt seen one of these things in years. Not really the style of the kind of places she dined in these days. Not very Washington.
But maybe joints like the Midnight Lounge in New Orleans still went in for handing customers a pager while they waited for a table. Get a drink at the bar; when the pager buzzes, you can be seated. She wondered how the police could have missed it: but perhaps it would only have started going off again late in the evening, as the Midnight Lounge reopened for business.
And if it was still buzzing now, its batteries still alive, did that not suggest Forbes had picked it up recently, maybe even very recently?
She glanced at the bed, with its enticing offer of rest after an exhausting day that was already eighteen long hours old, and then back to the coaster.
She was damned if she knew how she would explain her miraculous resurgence of energy if she ran into Telegraph Tim, but shed just hope to bloody well avoid him. Mind made up, she went downstairs, stepped outside and hailed a cab. Midnight Lounge on South Claiborne Street please. As quick as you can.
In her haste, she didnt notice the man watching from the other side of the street. The same man who had seen her arrive from the airport, step out with that British journalist and then return with another person entirely male, Caucasian, one hundred eighty pounds, five feet eleven to the Forbes residence. Nor did she notice this man flag down a second cab, so that he could follow her into the New Orleans night.
20
Washington, DC, Wednesday March 22, 22.55
As Stuart Goldstein made his way to the Residence a hop, skip and a jump for most White House employees, but not Stuart, whose last memory of hopping, skipping and jumping coincided with the Ford administration he concluded that Stephen Baker was not like other men.
Of course, he knew that already. He had always known that, since they met in New Orleans nearly twenty years ago at a conference for rising stars in the Democratic firmament. Back then Baker had been the man to watch in the Pacific North-west, building up a defence practice in Seattle that had the towns granola-eaters wetting their knickers in excitement at its fearlessness in acting for even the most under of underdogs.
Goldstein had taken instantly to Baker. Handsome, fluent, smart, he also had that rarest quality in a politician: courage. He had picked fights with powerful forces in the state, those whose asses most ambitious twenty-somethings would be bending double to kiss. And somehow he had done it without making them hate him. The guy had been just a few years out of law school and already they regarded him as a worthy adversary. The big corporate boards, the lobby firms and logging interests all loved his profile: the son of a lumberman who had worked his way through college, pulling himself up by his all-American bootstraps. When it came to young Stephen Baker, they had only one question: how do we get him to come work for us?
But back then, in their first lunch a few months later at the Metropolitan Grill in Seattle, when the two had clicked intellectually, politically and tactically, Stu Goldstein had come away with a vague sense of dissatisfaction. It was a feeling that, in the early years, used to nag away at him: there was something missing, some layer he was not breaking through.
Even after they had endured their first failed campaign together, and then their first success with all those endless hours on the road, just the two of them, in Bakers beat-up old stationwagon, Baker driving because Goldstein had never learned how it was no different. Stus wife might joke that Baker spent more time with her husband than she did. And it was true. Probably also true that no one knew Stephen Baker better than he did. But still, he would say. There was some part of him he didnt really know.
Until recently, it had stopped bothering him. He gave up thinking about it around the time they took the Governors Mansion. Baker was, he decided, simply not like other men. You could get to know most guys over a beer; two for the complicated ones. But Baker was carved from different timber. That was why you could spend eighteen hours a day with him on the road, sharing motel rooms during that attorney-generals race, and still not truly know him. And that was why he would one day be President of the United States.
So it was hardly a surprise that he had no idea what to expect from the late-night conversation they were about to have. He had had the call summoning him to the Residence, but that had come from the operator: no clue to gauge the mood.
Would Baker be as anxious as he had been and as he had been unable to conceal last night, when he had wished Vic Forbes gone? Would he be pacing, would he demand to know what the hell Goldstein was going to do to save his skin, would he want detailed updates on what Maggie Costello had found in New Orleans? Would he be fretting about the rising level of noise from the wilder shores of talk radio and cable TV, hinting there was something fishy about the strangely convenient demise of Vic Forbes?
Or would he have found some relief in the simple fact that Forbes had indeed now gone? Would he feel, as Stu himself had felt at various points during the day, that if Forbes truly had taken his plutonium-coated secret to the grave with him, then there was no political challenge, no amount of political heat, they could not withstand and eventually repel?
As it turned out, the Presidents reaction seemed to fall into the latter category. He spoke about the First Ladys spirits rather than his own. He said Kimberley was, frankly, grateful that the lowlife who had dared prey on Katie would never bother them again.
And you? What do you think about it?
I think, Stuart, that a problem which was already consuming far too much White House time for which, I hasten to add, I blame myself not you need distract us no more.
Its a relief, right?
Yeah, its a relief. He allowed himself a smile. Not the full wattage beam that was known around the world, but a more intimate version, one that lit up only the room rather than the greater metropolitan area. Those stories were giving me a headache. And there didnt seem to be any easy solution.
Except the one that landed in our lap.
Not sure I would put it like that, Stuart.
No. Of course not.
There was a pause. In the silence, Goldstein reminded himself that whatever history they shared, Baker was now in another realm, one that prevented him talking like a buddy, even if he wanted to. But he couldnt leave without asking the question.
Mr President, is there anything at all that I should know about Vic Forbes and his death?
What do you mean, Stuart?
I mean, is there anything at all I ought to be aware of about these events. Something that would, um, enable me to manage this process? He was flannelling, because he didnt want to say it outright.