Free The Chosen One by Sam Bourne Page A

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 allthat 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?’
    Stuart answered. ‘We see what he wants. We ask what—’
    The President wheeled round to address his closest advisor directly. ‘I hope you’re not suggesting I engage in dialogue with a blackmailer —’
    ‘Not you. Nowhere near you. A million miles from you.’
    ‘You mean you?’
    ‘Not even me. Or at least not a me that anyone could identify as me.’
    ‘No way.’
    ‘He said he has one more story that will—’
    ‘Well, I’m not going to authorize any such thing. And you know better than to ask.’
    Stuart gestured an apology, heaved himself up out of his chair, muttering a ‘one, two, three’ under his breath as he undertook the necessary exertion. Maggie followed his lead and headed for the door.
    I’m not going to authorize any such thing. Both Maggie and Stuart knew what that meant. They had been given their orders. Deniability, the lubricant of high-level politics. The message had been clear. Do whatever you have to do. Just make sure it has nothing to do with me.
    As they walked back to the West Wing, Maggie turned to Stuart. ‘We better start drawing up a list.’
    ‘A list of what?’
    ‘Of everybody who wants to drive Stephen Baker from office.’

8
    Washington, DC, Tuesday March 21, 09.16
    In the office of the junior senator from the great state of South Carolina, they liked to pride themselves on the knowledge that a visitor had only to cross the threshold to feel as if he had stepped inside the Old South. The receptionist on duty was usually blonde, under thirty, wearing a floral print and always ready with a welcoming smile, a ‘Yes sir’ or a ‘Yes ma’am’. Nearly always a ‘Yes sir’. Outside that door, they could offer no guarantees. You entered the swamp that was Washington, DC at your own risk. But here, once you were a guest of Senator Rick Franklin, you were south of the Mason-Dixon line.
    The visitor, once he’d helped himself to the pitcher of iced water in the waiting area, would notice more than the Southern smiles. His eye would be caught first, perhaps, by the bronze plaque above the reception desk depicting the Ten Commandments, as if etched on two tablets of stone. Not for Senator Franklin the niceties of separating Church and State in a public building.
    Then, if he were especially vigilant,