The Chosen One

‘Yes! Some fundraiser. During the transition.’

‘So there’ll be a photograph.’

Stuart’s reply came in a quieter voice. ‘Yes.’

‘And people will ask why we didn’t have the basic intel to know we were letting an Iranian spy get close to the President-Elect.’

‘Yes.’ Stuart spread his hands across the table and let his head fall onto them. ‘And why—’

‘—on earth the Iranians would want to give money to Stephen Baker.’

‘You could make the ad now.’ He picked his head up and did a mock voiceover. ‘“The Ayatollahs like Stephen Baker so much they gave him cash. In secret. Is Baker working for you – or them?”’

‘It’s a nightmare,’ Maggie agreed.

‘But that’s not why he wants to see you. Us. Not completely, anyway.’

‘Why, then?’

Stuart hauled himself upright and told Maggie about the message sent to Katie Baker via Facebook. He reached for a piece of paper to read the final paragraph: And if that doesn’t smash his pretty little head into a thousand pieces, I promise you this – the one after that will. Make no mistake: I mean to destroy him.

‘Jesus.’

‘Oh yes.’ Stuart checked his watch. ‘He wants us over there right now.’

Inside the Residence, the difference in mood from the previous morning was palpable. Kimberley Baker had taken the children to school early – the White House breakfast event she was chairing on cervical cancer awareness would just have to start without her – so that they could be out of that atmosphere. She spent the journey repeating what she had said last night, over and over: reassuring Katie that Daddy was going to be fine, that the police would find and punish whoever sent that horrible message and she would make sure there would be no more of them.

The President was in the kitchen again, but this time he was pacing. Maggie had seen Stephen Baker receive all kinds of bad news during the campaign and, on all but a handful of occasions, he had remained calm, almost preternaturally so. He would keep his voice down, when others would raise theirs; he would be forgiving when any other candidate would be demanding instant revenge; he would stay seated when the rest would be leaping to their feet. But now he was pacing.

‘Thank you both for coming.’ He nodded towards two chairs but remained standing. ‘Maggie, I take it you now have the full picture?’

‘Yes, Mr President.’

‘And you know why you’re here?’

‘Not entirely, sir.’

‘The crank who wrote that message to my daughter. He warned there would be another big story “tomorrow morning”. And there was. Which means he’s no crank.’

Goldstein now spoke. ‘Or at the very least he’s a crank who knows how to hack computers. He must have identified the White House IP address, and worked backwards from there, searching teenage websites for a match. Then hacked into this girl’s—’

‘Alexis,’ the President added.

‘Right. Into her account. Smart.’

To her surprise, the President suddenly turned and fixed Maggie with his deep green gaze. Though this time, the steadiness was gone. He looked hunted. ‘You should have seen my daughter, Maggie. She looked terrified.’

‘It’s horrible.’

‘I always promised Kim that whatever happened we’d keep the kids out of it.’

Stuart replied. ‘And you have, sir.’

‘Until now, Stu. Until now.’

Both Maggie and Goldstein remained silent, while Baker resumed his pacing. Finally, she felt she had to speak.

‘Sorry, Mr President. I’m not sure I’m completely clear on what needs to be done here. On what you want us to do.’

Baker looked to Stuart and nodded, giving Goldstein the cue to answer on his behalf.

‘This has to be handled extremely carefully, Maggie. We need to know who this man who contacted Katie is. If he really is the source of these stories and is determined to reveal more, we need to identify him. Fast.’

‘Can’t the Secret Service help? He made a direct threat against you.’

Once again Baker said nothing, looking to Stuart.

‘The agent assigned to Katie is running a trace.’

‘Good,’ said Maggie. ‘So we’ll see what she finds out.’

Now the President spoke. ‘I need someone I trust involved, Maggie.’

‘You can trust the Secret Service.’

‘They will investigate the threat to my life.’ Stuart leaned forward. ‘But this is not just a physical threat, is it? This is political. Someone is out to destroy this presidency. Two leaks, carefully timed for maximum impact. And threatening another.’

Maggie nodded. ‘I know.’

‘Which is why we need our own person on it. Someone who cares. Someone who has the resources to do, you know, unusual work.’

‘What do you mean, unusual?’

‘Come on, Maggie. We know what you did in Jerusalem. Put it this way, you weren’t just drafting position papers, were you?’

‘But I don’t even work for you any more!’ It had come out louder and angrier than she had planned. The intensity of her outburst surprised even her.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ the President said quietly.

‘Longley runs his own show, you know that, Maggie.’ Stuart paused, then brightened. ‘But it doesn’t mean you can’t help. If anything, it’s better. You have distance. Arm’s-length.’

‘Deniability, you mean. You can disown me.’ She was staring hard at him.

The President drew himself up to full height and let his eyes bore into her. ‘I need you, Maggie. There is so much we hoped to achieve. Together. To do that, I need to stay in this office. And that means finding this man, whoever he is.’

She held his gaze for a long second or two in which she thought of the conversation they had had in this same place twenty-four hours earlier. She thought of the barely started options paper for Darfur on her computer, of the helicopters that this president was ready to send and the lives they would save. She pictured a Darfuri village about to be torched to the ground and the militiamen on horseback poised to set it ablaze; she saw them reining in their animals and turning around, because they had heard the sound of choppers in the sky that told them they would be seen and caught. She thought of all that and the certainty that nobody other than Stephen Baker would lift a finger to help those villagers.

‘All right,’ she said, still looking directly into the deep green of his eyes. ‘We find him. Then what?’