Born to Run (12 page)

ED shouldered the burden of Isabel’s story under a canopy of heavy silence. Like many, he’d heard the words “fifteen” and “assault” and
“scar” before, a combination whose hideousness was tempered by its vagueness and so able to be touched on, though in hushed tones, in polite company and prime-time documentaries. He was
one of the very few who’d also heard the word “rape” too, but apart from the original hospital and George’s late wife, Annette, Isabel had never till now divulged to anyone
how degenerate and degrading it had been.

In the deafening quiet, Ed stared at the wall opposite them, at the oil painting of golden haystacks, an original whose fanatical and intense swirls were now almost jumping at him. He touched
his ear. How had she dealt with this… this horror? At fifteen, no less?

He pondered his own experiences; he’d averted his eyes from other fifteen-year-olds… some even younger… a lifetime of combat had taught him that nothing was unthinkable. He
too had suppressed horrors and this was hardly the moment for them to arise again. Unlike Isabel’s, his were in times of war. Raw as it still was, his first wife’s adulterous and fatal
car smash didn’t remotely qualify, though the ache was with him daily. He tried to keep his own nightmarish images at bay, for a moment even closing his eyes as if to shut them out, Isabel
probably thinking it was her story alone he was stressing over.

His arm hooked protectively around his wife. The two sat on the sofa and Ed glanced sideways to see Isabel staring blankly though the French doors, out to the patio where George and Ed’s
little boy were playing catch.

GREGORY was calling from campaign headquarters. “
Close-up
say they’ve got some new angle on your past,” he told Isabel, the inflexion in his voice not
able to hide his concern. “They’re running it whether we cooperate or not.” As Isabel gripped the handset, Gregory didn’t even remotely understand her anxiety, but her tight
mouth revealed to Ed that whatever Gregory was saying, it was not good.

She attempted to compose herself. Twisting back around to Ed, she said, “
Close-up’s
got something.” Her voice, already weakened, broke as she said it. “Gregory
says it’s about my past. Ed, they want me there, in the studio, but they won’t say what it is.”

“It’s an ambush, that’s what.”

“God, if they found the rapist! Ed, I’ve only just told
you
. I couldn’t face…”

Ed grabbed for the phone to speak to Gregory but pressed hands-free. “Samson,” he said, “Isabel’s in Detroit tomorrow with a zillion…”

“They know that,” answered Gregory, “though they don’t know about the debate preparation, which is secret… not listed on the published press calendar. The
prep’s only part way through when
Close-up
goes to air. The itinerary shows her with a night off, flying out to Des Moines, to be fresh for the next morning.”

Gregory had a full production crew already at work dressing up an old church fellowship hall out in Detroit’s suburbs to duplicate the actual set for the first presidential TV debate.
Isabel’s secret debate dress rehearsal was scheduled to be held there tomorrow night.

Ed wasn’t in the mood for Gregory’s blabbering. He stood, “Tell those fucks she’ll do their show… from Detroit.”

A surge of alarm shot up Isabel’s spine, but Ed continued, his head nodding “it’s okay” to her and his hand patting the air in calm. “Samson, but it’s on one
condition: they tell us what this thing is… Right now. Not later today. Not tomorrow. In the next five minutes, or no dice.” He terminated the call before Isabel could intervene.

“It’s not what you think,” he reassured Isabel, praying he was right.

“But what then?”

Ed didn’t answer her.

A contorted image suddenly loomed up in Isabel’s imagination: she was seated on the studio set and from behind the curtains a muffled voice started humming
Bésame Mucho
.

“My mother?” Her heart hammered. “I won’t see that… woman,” she whispered. “Ever.”

“You’re as good as president. What’s it matter?”

“How could you agree to me appearing without asking me?”

“Know your enemy,” he said, only part-quoting the ancient Chinese warrior philosopher, Sun Tzu. He didn’t think she needed to know the whole quote: “To know your enemy,
you must become your enemy.”

But Isabel knew it already.

“I
JUST GOT off the phone from those slimeballs at
Close-up
,” Bill Edwards wheezed down the phone. Isabel and Ed were listening on speaker and could almost hear Bill shift his
trademark cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. “They had the hide to demand I get my butt over to their studios tomorrow night. Mine! On a Sunday!”

Bill Edwards and political muscle were Siamese twins; locked together, a freak of nature. Even at seventy-two, he was still a beefy six-foot-six and born to command. He’d been quietly
pulling the Republican strings of power from on high for years, emphasis on quietly. Though a big man, he maintained a small public presence, speaking rarely and when he chose to, so softly that
people had to strain to hear him, adding to the impression that whatever he said was worth listening to. In private, though, he never held back. And when Bill eventually let it be known he would,
if asked, step out of the shadows to chair the peak Republican National Committee, all other contenders stepped back to make way for him.

“What did they tell you?” Isabel asked.

“It’s about your past… big implications… national interest. Isabel, it’s not like one of your long lost relatives died and bequeathed you a fortune; you’re
already richer than Croesus. Whatever this is, it ain’t good.”

She heard Bill take a long deep draw and imagined him tilting his head back, eyes closed, and contemplating the mess they seemed to be in. “Have they called Hank?” she ventured,
knowing Bill would understand the implication.

“Damn, I should’ve thought of that,” he said. “Lisa!” he screamed to his assistant, causing Isabel and Ed to flinch. “Find out if Clemens scored an invite to
Close-up
… Bel, if they did ask him, we’re dead meat—who in their right mind would invite that turkey to his own Thanksgiving Dinner? Unless they had to.”

She didn’t remind Bill that he was the one who had foisted Hank Clemens on her as her running mate to help bolster her stocks with the conservative base. She’d agreed, for sure, but
now realised how big a mistake she’d made. It was almost John McCain and Sarah Palin from 2008 all over again, except Isabel had insisted on Hank keeping his mouth closed, and so far
he’d done that. She wasn’t going to have her running mate shooting from his lip. Unlike Palin, who knew what she wanted to say but found it hard to put two words together, at least
correctly, Hank’s problem was that he wavered on policy, except on guns and moral issues. Unless he was closely scripted, he could take more positions than the Kama Sutra.

“The point is, Bill… if Hank’s invited, it’s me who’s the dinner.”

She heard Bill cover the mouthpiece, and waited.

“He’s at his hoity-toity racquet club,” Bill tittered in a falsetto whine. “One where the members can’t use their cell phones. Bel, when you’re elected,
don’t ever let Hank take you to his damn club if there’s a war looming, okay?”

Isabel’s other line was ringing. It was Gregory. She joined up the two calls.

“I told them,” said Gregory, “you know, no info, no dice. Well, not those exact words, different w…”

Ed was shaking his head in disbelief that Isabel could have retained this verbal stumblebum as her key strategist. For Isabel, Gregory’s rambling usually brightened up her day. He was an
experienced campaign manager with the capacity to crack everyone up while making a deeply insightful point. She’d told him, many times, he was doing himself a disservice by it, since most
people’s first, and wrong impression was that he was a fool.

“Get to the point,” said Bill, cutting Gregory short.

“It’s about one of Isabel’s parents.”

She went as white as one of the Limoges porcelain figurines she’d bought for the Adam mantel. “Not my moth…”

“It’s your father.”

Thank heavens. She exhaled deeply, and her eyes rose to the high ceiling. All she knew about her father was the photograph… and the little her mother had told her. But had her mother lied
about that, too? Had they found him alive somewhere? No… it wasn’t possible, or he’d surely have revealed himself before now. In person. To her. Not on some TV show.

Ed’s mind was also racing, and what started to emerge out of the bushes was the dread that Isabel’s father’s business activities might not have been very suitable for a US
president’s dad. JFK got clean away with a supposed bootlegger and stock market manipulator for a father, but Ed feared coca was in another ballpark altogether, especially these days with the
war after war on drugs, none of which was ever won. Bolivia was infamous for its coca trade, and if her father had been a coca-runner it could be utterly disastrous, especially when added to the
Karim Ahmed debacle that was still beating them up.

“So,” snapped Ed, “what about him?”

“Ah… it’s who he is,” said Gregory.

Ed leant forward, close to the phone speaker on the white marble tabletop in front of them. “Who he
is
, or who he
was
?” He glanced at Isabel to see her fingers digging
into her palms.

“Was. Sorry,” said Gregory. “Yes, it’s about who he
was
. My mistake. He’s been dead for years… as we all thought… I mean,
knew…”

“But,” interrupted Isabel, “we know who he was. My mother told…”

“Apparently, we don’t,” said Gregory. “Your mother’s story stacks up, according to… well, a source… except for two things, though I can’t see
why they’re such a big deal…”

“What things?” asked Isabel, her stomach tightening even more, if that were possible.

“She told you he died before you were born. But it was after.”

“No! How long…?” she jumped up, hating her mother even more, and starting to imagine all those years she might have known him and what they might have done together.

“It was only a month.”

“But my birth certificate says…”

“If she could lie to you, why couldn’t she lie to the hospital? Maybe it was to get higher welfare benefits as a widow? I don’t know.” Before Isabel could readjust,
Gregory continued, “And she also told you he was a Bolivian businessman, right? Murdered for ransom?”

“Ri-ight,” said Isabel, her hesitance apparent to all on the call. She’d been thinking the same things as Ed.

“Wrong,” said Gregory. “He
lived
in Bolivia, sure, but he was Chilean. And not just any old Chilean. He was way up in Chile’s elite... a diplomat,
high-ranking.”

Isabel started to speak, “A diplo…?”

Ed, a little relieved, interrupted and spoke from experience, “Chile and Bolivia haven’t actually been the friendliest of neighbours…”

“Exactly,” said Gregory. “Dr Diaz was an official envoy who Chile dispatched to Bolivia for secret negotiations aimed at resuming diplomatic relations. Isabel, he met your
mother… a local… and one thing led to another, and they married.”

“That’s it?” said Bill.

“All I can get so far,” Gregory responded, “but there’s obviously an angle to this that we’re missing. I’ve already put a team onto researching this
guy… to see if there were any scandals.”

“Greg, so what are your thoughts?” asked Ed, nervously scratching his pinkie stump against a knuckle on his other hand.

Gregory was taken aback yet felt foiled at the same time. When it seemed he’d finally earned Ed’s respect, damn it, he didn’t have the answers to keep it. “I mean, sure,
call in Isabel and tell her on camera. Human interest… ra-ra… but why ask Bill? Unless it has… you know, implications.” He said “implications” as if
he’d put heavy quotation marks around it.

SATURDAY night marched up on them, yet nobody was any wiser. Isabel had packed for her flight to Detroit. Gregory was holed up in the campaign War Room to command the team
effort. This would be his fifteenth call to her that day, according to the log he kept—for the eventual book—but this time it was to tell her to flick on her TV. Gregory already had
Bill Edwards and Hank Clemens on the same line.

“Where were
you
when JFK was shot?” the crass voiceover teased with its text in white on a simple black screen. “Where were
you
on 9/11? And where will you be
tomorrow night when
Close-up
reveals a story that will also shake the nation?”

The screen then cut to a clip of Isabel at one of her conquering rallies, and the announcer went on:

“Tomorrow night,
Close-up
’s new Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent Mike Mandrake… in a searing, groundbreaking report… will reveal presidential candidate
Isabel Diaz’s
real
story. His report will fracture this election… it will change American history. Whatever you do, don’t miss it. Tomorrow night…”

Unilaterally, Ed punched the remote and switched off the TV. “Why would your mother lie to you? Makes no sense. But who really cares if he was a Chilean diplomat? At least he wasn’t
a drug dealer!” Ed wasn’t particularly directing his questions and comments to Isabel or Gregory or Bill Edwards or, for that matter, Hank Clemens, but all of them were mentally saying
the same things.