Born to Run (41 page)

He paused to pour himself a glass of water from the crystal pitcher, and took a sip, taking particular care to wet his lips. Eyes, still puzzled, met all around the Chamber.

“The Secretary of State,” he said, pointing to the front row, “announced to the public that I was mentally alert, but because my physical state was weak, that my physician had
temporarily confined me to bed. The truth is that I am not—nor was I—feeble nor so confined. You can see before you that I am fit, and you will be your own judges that I suffer no
mental impairment. But there are people who were hoping otherwise… who had planned otherwise. And it was vital in the nation’s interests that these people, these traitors, felt the
possibility that they had… ah… that I had died.”

As he twisted around for a long glare at Isabel, the House rumbled. He turned back to the microphone, “Why did Secretary Robinson lie to you? Because I asked him to. A President does not
deceive his people lightly, so why did I ask my friend and Cabinet colleague to do so for me? Several times in our more than two centuries of unbroken democracy, traitors or madmen have attempted
to, and on four occasions have in fact assassinated our presidents. And this time… this week… such people—not madmen, but traitors surely—got close… perilously
close… with a treasonous plan to assassinate both your President and your Vice-President. It was a plan to completely overthrow our elected administration, and our Constitution, and it
nearly worked.” As the murmuring rose, Foster said, “One of those traitors… is here among us… in this Chamber.”

The House exploded in uproar and people leapt to their feet. The President looked back at Isabel, but signalled to her not to gavel. Instead, he raised his hand and waited until silence fell.
The Chamber seemed to press in on itself.

As if to answer the obvious question—who?—the three security men who’d earlier marched onto the rostrum clamped themselves into a tight U-shape behind Isabel. The four who were
on the side near Davey pressed forward, ready.

Until this minute, Isabel Diaz was a national treasure, yet now eyes all over the country were clouding with disbelief, many with tears. Isabel had been a shining light, an icon of hope. One
Senator had even started humming to himself the Paul Simons’ lyric, “Who’ll be my role model now that my role model is gone?”

Isabel stared back at the Hall showing nothing but stony calm. She reached her good arm out toward Davey and Ed, and two of the police officers ushered them forward and escorted them up to stand
beside her in support.

Spencer’s blood seemed to drain from his head, a cold sweat had burst through his skin and his hands were gripping the back of the seat in front of him as though he was dangling from a
crumbling ledge thirty floors above the ground. He bit his lip until he tasted blood. How could he have so badly misread her?

“Please sit,” said Foster, but few obeyed him. “Initially,” he continued regardless, “medical opinion was that Vice-President Taylor died of natural causes. That
was wrong: his death was a cold-blooded, carefully plotted assassination. A plot to eliminate Vice-President Taylor first so that when my own death followed—yes, consecutive
assassinations—America would have no vice-president to replace me and the presidential succession would automatically fall to the House Speaker, Ms Diaz here.”

One congressman at the back shouted “Treason!” setting off a chain reaction. The President immediately raised his hand again, and when the clamour stopped, he went on, “To
Julia, Mitchell Taylor’s widow, and Oliver, James and Tyrone, his three children who, by regretful necessity, are hearing this for the first time… let me say this to you: be strong in
your knowledge that Mitch, my great friend and a fine man… your dad and your husband… died serving his country… All of us owe Mitchell Taylor, and the four of you he has left
behind, a debt this country will never forget.” He bowed his head.

The Chamber flurried with whispers. Fingers accused Isabel from all directions.

The memory of a conversation flooded back to Spencer: when he’d pointed the finger at Ed, for manipulating her. “
What makes you think I’m not using him?
”
she’d said. The comment had unsettled him at the time, but now… Spencer’s legs turned to jelly and couldn’t support him. He slumped back onto his chair and tears spilled
down his cheeks, hidden from the cameras by the forest of legislators towering around him.

Isabel had been his trusted friend. No, it was more… the truth he could never admit before was that he had loved her. How could he have been so misguided… not to see the
charade?

And suddenly what he had done hit him… his own unwitting role in this treachery with his fool idea to persuade Foster to get her appointed as Speaker… He, Spencer Prentice, had
caused, or at least created the circumstances that killed Taylor and… worse.

Spencer wasn’t the only one searching for answers. To the cameras doing likewise, George was an early target, but all he offered them was a grey head burying itself into an old man’s
trembling hands. Isabel had told him about Ed’s affair, but this…? He couldn’t believe it. But the evidence unfolding seemed to give him no choice.

Davey, too, was baffled. He was trying to follow the interpreter, but simply wasn’t getting it. At the hospital, his dad had been yelling how the President was dead, but here was Mr Foster
in front of them. And all this stuff about traitors? It was weird, like an episode of
X-Men
.

Isabel saw the confusion on the boy’s face and spoke to him from behind her hand so only he could read her lips. He nodded, but it was slowly enough to make his continued bewilderment
obvious.

President Foster raised his head, saying, “Our enemies plotted a double assassination,” and he pasted a thin grin onto his ashen face. “Well,” he said, turning back
toward Isabel and lifting his voice, “I’m… still… here.”

D
AISY’S BAR & GRILL was packed tonight. It was the natural venue for folks in Manifold to congregate and party over the town’s
newfound—and to be short-lived—celebrity status. Andy Goodman was on his fifth beer and was more relieved than most to see President Foster alive on the TV monitor, and he took Bobby
Foster’s triumphant glare at Isabel Diaz as a mark that more was coming.

Suddenly, he jumped up, knocking the bar stool out from behind him. “She
was
the scheming bitch I said she was all along,” he shouted. Paul Dawkins was standing nearby and
picked up the stool for him. “Hey, Dawkins, we shoulda let her freeze to death. That woulda been patriotism.”

The House camera zoomed in on Isabel and it seemed clear to Andy, his bar-room friends and millions of other viewers that guilt was oozing from her pores.

Unseen, a single bead of sweat slithered down the crevices in Ed’s face. As he turned to face Isabel with disgust clouding his face, the drop fell from his chin, slipping down
Davey’s neck and prompting the boy to look up at his father, standing just behind him. The House TV producer had noticed the boy’s move and directed one of his cameras to pull back from
Isabel to capture the fractured family group in a single frame.

“Some of what I’m about to tell you,” said President Foster, “is not what you would expect to hear from your President. For that, I apologise. All of what I tell you will
distress you. But my solemn duty is to suppress none of it.” He paused to look around the Chamber. His eyes were glassy. Those watching on television saw tears welling. He slid a handkerchief
from his inside jacket pocket. It came out with an envelope but he slipped that back inside. He wiped his eyes and continued, “When the people of this Union voted me in, you expected a strong
leader… yet I am ashamed to tell you my own weakness put this country in harm’s way.” His head dropped for a moment.

Already starting to ripple through the minds of his political detractors was a cynical question,
Is this emotion genuine or is he just working the jury like usual?
Foster’s own
supporters didn’t know what to think either.

“Order. Order.” It was Senator Mallord using the gavel.

Foster continued, “After we recently suffered the terrible threat of homegrown terrorism on our shores, and then a divisive and close-fought election, I asked the congressional leadership
in a spirit of national unity to elect Ms Diaz to the post of House Speaker. Little did I suspect that this act of bipartisanship would place a death sentence on both my head and the
Vice-President’s.”

The Hall exploded with more outbursts of “Shame!” and “Treason!” but again the President held up his hand for silence. He paused for more water, again glancing back at
Isabel who was sitting yet still poker-faced, with Ed standing close by, his hands on Davey’s shoulders.

“How did this happen? The conspirators—yes, there were a number of them—hatched their plot months before November’s election, perhaps as early as July. Their scheming was
intricate, exceptional. It also took considerable funds and was executed with a chilling precision and determination. Sadly, with Mitchell Taylor’s death, they partly succeeded.”

The Chamber erupted again.

“Order… Order!” Senator Mallord had to smash down the gavel five times before the legislators hushed. “Please continue, Mr President.”

“Just a few months ago, Ms Diaz here,” Foster’s arm moved back to point to her, “was hot favourite to be elected president—a certainty, it seemed—until an
unexpected and destabilising series of events unfolded…”

Foster then connected the dots in ways the public had previously had no inkling of. He explained that when Isabel was forced to withdraw, mistakenly as they now knew, a band of patriotic
extremists decided they needed a way to stampede voters into the right arms—Republican arms—and that it was this group, not Karim Ahmed and his four friends, who were the ingenious
perpetrators of the thwarted terrorist attack on New York City.

“These zealots framed and, in cold blood, murdered those five young men, innocents who were moulded so easily to fit into the radical Islamist stereotype.

“But it was homegrown
non
-Muslim pariahs who did this. Not only did they organise the subway attack, they orchestrated for it to be foiled, though only at the last possible
moment… to maximise panic with minimum collateral damage. Their goal was not mass destruction, rather the upswell of relief that comes after a cataclysmic near-miss, expecting it to flood
voters back into a safe, right-wing harbour. But their plan failed… despite their despicable deceit, the people still elected Mitch Taylor and me, though not by much, that is true. So,
silently waiting until after my Inauguration, this despicable group triggered the final climax of their murderous plan.”

He stooped to lift the pitcher to splash more water into his glass. “At this point, I have no choice but to reveal my own shameful part in this.”

Silence temporarily descended on the Chamber but the speculation among the TV commentators was approaching fever pitch.

Foster continued, “During the campaign, a… er, photographer was travelling with our team, making a record for the archives. Her name was Niki Abbott and her award-winning work
includes a photo-series for
Newsweek
on… on Ms Diaz’s own campaign during the primaries.”

Mallord shouted now, “If I have to call for order again…”

“Ms Abbott had become an associate of Ms Diaz, and we also now know that she was a, er, confidante of Ms Diaz’s husband here.” Foster gestured toward the pair on the rostrum as
they exchanged a quick glance between themselves which, especially in close-up on TV, now seemed to be screaming with mutual guilt.

DAISY’S Bar was in uproar when Andy shouted, “Foster’s not gonna admit he had sexual relations with that Niki woman, is he?” He slapped Paul Dawkins on the back.
Paul’s wife had sent him to sit with Andy at the bar to hose him down, to keep him quiet, but it clearly wasn’t working.

TWO hours earlier on Butaka, under a canopy of stars and the glow of candlelight on her beach hut’s veranda, Niki’s soft pallor lingered alongside Mario’s
all-over bronze. Apart from his wavy black mane and the fine stroke of hair that tapered down from his navel, he was shaved smooth all over. She selected a few lonely strands to twirl and tweak
just above his penis, enough to spring it back to life. She lay back on the day bed and looked up at the night sky, using her old Air Force survival skill training to estimate the time. Suddenly,
she whispered in his ear, but it was hardly what he expected: “Get me new batteries for the radio.”

She was an unusual customer, he reflected with just a little arrogance; their activities throughout the time she’d been here had so far proved that to his, and thus her, satisfaction.
“You want music?” he asked. “Mario will sing for you?” He leant back on his elbows and broke into a lightly accented “Moon River” scraping even more rasp over it
than Ol’ Blue Eyes ever did.

“I want the news,” she said, and the back of her hand flicked at his prick, setting it bobbing like a metronome.

“S-sure,” he squealed, and jumped to his feet partly to mask the sting, and ran outside to his buggy.