To Kill the President Read online

  But what sat in her gut like a stone was what he had said about her. She winced as she recalled the words on that glowing screen: Actually, she’s very clean in that department. All that talk about the colour of her pubic hair.

  And then, more shaming, more wounding, was that reminder from McNamara of Richard’s purpose, his mission. Listen, you’re not banging her for fun you know. Intel, my boy. Intel. She had been such an idiot, no better than a teenage convent girl duped by a sleazeball smoothie who swears he only wants to put his hand in her knickers because he loves her. Why did she keep making the same mistake?

  She hurried out of the shower, doing her best to cover her nakedness, hating her own body for the fact that he’d touched it.

  She wanted to throw him out, telling him what a lying, cheating, worthless scumbag he was; to scream until she went hoarse, spitting her venom at him until he felt himself shrivel, wounding him so deeply he’d never recover, forcing his toxicity back down his throat until it choked him.

  Of course, he would then tell McNamara that she now knew: the piece of Irish ass had got wise. She would be out, or at least sidelined – assigned to the Inspectorate at the US Department of Agriculture would be her guess. The thought of it was tempting. She could go to the White House right now and quit, jump before she was pushed. She could tell McNamara what she really thought of both him and that puffed-up, corrupt, lying ignoramus he called Mr President.

  And then she could run a thousand miles away from these cruel, bigoted, disgusting men and their project to wreak havoc on America and the world. She could phone Liz and tell her she had had enough, she had done the right thing, she had quit and would fight them from the outside – and Liz would tell her how proud she was, that she always knew Maggie was principled and courageous and a fighter, and maybe she’d get a flight to Atlanta and see those gorgeous nephews of hers and maybe she could leave Washington altogether and start again.

  Tempting though all of that was, she knew she could do none of it. In the dead of night, before she had unlocked that bastard’s phone, she had come close to figuring out what was happening here. In her fevered, sleepless state she had begun to see the outline of an attempt by the White House Chief of Staff and the Secretary of Defense to have the President of the United States removed from office, first by means of the Twenty-fifth Amendment of the Constitution and, when that route was blocked, or so she supposed, by his assassination.

  She was not sure she was right. More disturbing, she was not sure they were wrong. She found herself going back and forth. If you’d asked her at this particular moment, she would have been ready to barge into Kassian’s office, give him a salute and ask where she could sign up.

  That was partly her rage at Richard talking, she knew that. But not only. She deplored this President and everything he stood for. She lamented what he was doing to this country that she had grown to love. She resented the impact he was already having on the lives of people she cared about. She thought of Liz’s student, hanging from that rope. She thought of Mary Rajak, grabbed, abused and in pieces. She thought of all those families who had been broken up, of the deportations and detentions, of the ban on people deemed to have the wrong faith. She thought of all the pain this President was inflicting – and the fact that he’d only just got started.

  But then she remembered Jeffrey Frankel, an innocent man, loved by his family, who had been murdered simply for getting in the way. Whatever sympathy she might have for Kassian and Bruton, it did not extend to shooting a good man in cold blood. What kind of people would do such a thing? And if they were prepared to do that, then what kind of fate awaited an America governed by such men?

  And these, she knew, were minor considerations compared to the big, unavoidable one – too large to ignore, even if she had sought to shove it to the margins of her own mind. Of course, she didn’t like this President. Nor did half the population (actually more than half, if you counted the number of votes he had received). But he had been elected under the rules. To kill the President was not only to kill one bad man. It was to kill the idea that politics is settled by argument and debate and elections. If Kassian and Bruton were to be allowed to succeed, and if she did not do all she could to stop them, then she would be declaring – to use the language she grew up with in Ireland – that the bullet was stronger than the ballot, that the latter had to give way to the former. And she did not want to live in that kind of world.

  Oddly, she suspected the same was true of the Chief of Staff and the Defense Secretary. They didn’t strike her as the fascist coup types; they didn’t want to be part of some ruling junta. But they, along with Mary Rajak, and a handful of others, had seen what this man was capable of. They had seen him give the order that would have killed hundreds of millions of innocent human beings, that might – and this was not hyperbole – have ended civilized life on this planet. Set against that, maybe the life of Dr Frankel did seem worth sacrificing: surrendering one life to save all humanity. Compared to the catastrophe that would otherwise be inflicted on the earth, all the talk of democracy must have sounded so abstract. Just hot, vaporous air.

  Still, there had to be another way. This couldn’t be the choice. Either you let democracy prevail, and left the world vulnerable to a man who could blow it all up the instant he felt his pride had been insulted, or you saved the world but destroyed the world’s most important democracy, possibly triggering a civil war, in the process. There had to be another path. If Maggie had a natural calling, it was as a peace negotiator; that was how she had come to be in Washington in the first place. And if mediators had a professional creed, this was it: whenever you see a fork in the road, look for the third path. The two sides will tell you it’s either/or, our way or their way. Your job is to find a way through that neither side loves, but both can live with.

  That was what she would have to do now. She couldn’t knowingly allow an assassination to go ahead, not if she didn’t want to see America plunge into a second civil war, not if she truly believed in democracy rather than violence. Others might be able to do that, but not her. With the familiar stab of guilt, she remembered that she had done enough damage already. That secret she carried on her back, a sack packed with lead weight, never felt heavier than it did just now. All this mess, all of it: it was her fault.

  So she would have to dig deep, to mine her innermost resources, and stick this out. She would have to conceal what she knew from Richard – and, harder, conceal that she knew at all.

  She changed hurriedly, and in the bedroom, to avoid seeing him. She threw on whatever clothes she could find, rescuing a skirt from the laundry basket. It had just the one stain: she dabbed at it with a licked finger and tried to persuade herself the mark was less visible. Armoured by her clothing, she rush-dried her hair and rubbed make-up on haphazardly, trying and failing to mask the shadows under her eyes with concealer. She looked awful, but it would have to do. The important thing was to be ready to go, pre-empting the prospect of the ‘slow breakfast’ Richard had had in mind. She would claim pressure of work.

  She was rounding up things in the living room, shoving them into her bag, when Richard emerged, his hair still wet, a couple of small damp spots on his shirt. He had dressed quickly. He had his phone in his right hand.

  ‘You hurrying off, darling?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid I am. Horrendous day today.’

  ‘Oh really? Have you got an early meeting?’

  Maggie was searching for her keys, glad of the excuse to avoid eye contact. ‘Just a lot on.’

  ‘Yeah, you look kinda rough. You sure I’m not wearing you out, honey?’ He smiled. And when she said nothing, he added, ‘Or is it this whole investigation thing?’

  She looked up from turning cushions over on the couch. All she could see was the phone in his hand. Had she done something stupid in the night, something that had given her away? She had been careful not to open any unread emails: that was always a giveaway that somebody had been poking around. But someth
ing else? Could the Notes app have left some trace, telling Richard when it had last been opened?

  ‘Yes,’ she said. The keys were in the fruit bowl (which hadn’t contained any fruit since Christmas). She had everything she needed. She was desperate to get out. Then, as if apologetic that she couldn’t say more, and with a comic shrug, she added, ‘That damned Chinese wall. Sorry.’

  ‘No worries,’ Richard said, the phone still large and glaring in his hand. ‘I just thought we might chat, you know, over breakfast.’

  ‘That would have been lovely,’ she gave him her sweet smile, but she suspected it looked wonky. She turned towards the front door. ‘Anyway—’

  ‘Maggie.’

  She turned around. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Look, it’s probably nothing. But I was thinking about, you know, what happened.’

  Maggie crinkled her forehead.

  ‘With you, I mean.’ He could see the penny had not dropped. ‘Under the last President.’

  ‘Oh.’ The bile of guilt began to rise inside her. He was almost the only person she had ever discussed that with. The thought that he held that over her made her want to close her eyes, in exhaustion and despair. But she knew she had to show him nothing. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Nothing specific. Just that these are pretty intense times. Lots happening.’

  ‘That’s certainly true.’

  ‘And so you might need to be careful. That’s all I wanted to say.’

  ‘Okayyyy,’ Maggie said, as if indulging an eccentric aunt whose heart was in the right place.

  ‘Tread carefully, Maggie. Tread carefully.’

  Only now did she meet his gaze. For a fleeting moment, much less than a second, he held his expression: it was unsmiling, cold. But then, perhaps aware that his face was under scrutiny, he let his features take the shape of those of a kind, tender lover. ‘Have a great day, my darling!’

  26

  New York, Thursday, 7.53am

  ‘We’re back with more Morning Joe here on MSNBC. I gotta tell you, I thought we’d seen it all from this President—’

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  ‘But last night, actually in the wee small hours of the morning—’

  ‘Three eleven am, Eastern.’

  ‘Thank you, three eleven am Eastern time, here’s what the President of the United States said on Twitter. Let’s get that up on the screen there. OK. Mika, you going to read that for us?’

  ‘I won’t do the voice!’

  ‘No, just the words are gonna do it. You go ahead.’

  ‘OK, here goes. “Black caucus attacking me over Forty Acres. Too much white guilt over ‘slavery’! Nobody really knows what happened.”’

  ‘Let’s just keep that up there on the screen. OK, take a good look. You wanna read that again?’

  ‘No, thank you kindly!’

  [Laughter]

  ‘Eugene, why don’t you kick us off with your reaction to this?’

  [Silence, then more laughter]

  ‘I gotta tell you, Joe … I mean, where do you even begin with this? Let me back up a little bit, OK? Can I do that?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘This is not wholly new, OK? I mean this is new, this subject. But the President questioning basic facts? That is not new. He’s done it on climate change. He’s done—’

  ‘He’s done it on the size of his vote, he’s done it on the crime figures.’

  ‘Absolutely. He has, that’s right. And let’s not forget when he said millions of people are getting six-figure salaries from the federal government for jobs they don’t do and that don’t exist. Remember that one?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘And we kind of got used to it. You know, “it’s the post-truth presidency” and all that. But this is something else now. This is a historic event he’s talking about. Perhaps the most important historic event in terms of the destiny of this country.’

  ‘We fought a civil war over it.’

  ‘Right. And now you have the President in the middle of the night, denying that event? Saying it never happened? I mean, I am sitting here, as the descendent of slaves who were brought to this country—’

  ‘But is he saying it didn’t happen? He said, “Nobody really knows what—”

  [Crosstalk]

  ‘Come on, one at a time. Come on, you guys. Eugene, I’m sticking with you: now make your point.’

  ‘That’s what he always says! “Nobody really knows.” That’s denial, right there. He did the same with climate change. “Nobody really knows.” Well, I’ve got news for you, Mr President. We do really know. We do. The record is there. The documents are there. The ships’ manifests are there, with the list of their “cargo”. And you know what that cargo was? That cargo was the great-grandparents of my great-grandparents, who were brought here – I’m sorry, this makes me very emotional.’

  ‘That’s OK, this—’

  ‘Nothing to apologize for.’

  ‘—is emotional. The President has hit a very raw nerve here.’

  ‘You see, though – and you I know I love you, Joe. But even that, what you said, “He’s hit a raw nerve”, that makes it sound like he’s just said something controversial, like he’s offered a controversial opinion on something. But this isn’t an opinion. He’s not said, “Hey, I think slavery was a good thing.” He’s said “Slavery. Did. Not. Happen.” That is very different.’

  ‘Mark, why don’t you come in here?’

  ‘Well, look, I was just going to say that the response to the tweet shows—’

  ‘Retweeted twenty-two thousand times already.’

  ‘—that this – really, twenty-two thousand? Wow. What I was going to say, and I hate to say it, but that response shows that there’s a lot of people who are going to rally to this kind of message. The liberal elites will hate it, of course. But the base will love it. And what they will love is the very fact that the liberal elite hate it, you know, including people on this show and on this network especially.’

  ‘Gene?’

  ‘All I’m trying to say to you – and I’m not singling you out here, Mark, I really am not – but these are my ancestors. Actually, that makes it sound like it was ancient history. It really is not that long ago. When I was a child, there were people around whose grandparents had been slaves. All right? So this is like … Imagine he said, “Nobody really knows about the Holocaust. You know, all this stuff about Auschwitz: nobody really knows.” Imagine what we’d be saying. We—’

  ‘We need to take a short break soon—’

  ‘We’d be calling him a Holocaust denier, Mika. We wouldn’t say, “He’s standing up to political correctness” or “He’s ruffling the feathers of the mainstream media.” We’d say he’s a Holocaust denier.’

  ‘Slavery denier.’

  ‘So why should this be any different?’

  ‘All right, but I just want to get the reaction of all of you to this tweet from the President which he sent a little after the first one. OK, let’s get that up on the screen. There we go. You gonna read that one for us, Mika?’

  ‘So this is like a subtweet. He does this a lot actually. He’s kind of quoting a tweet that’s been sent to him, applauding what he said about slavery. So the reply to him had said, “Kudos to you for saying it, Mr President.” And his response to that was, “Americans want to have this debate. The lying press want to shut it down. Too late!”

  ‘But here’s the thing. That tweet, the one saying “Kudos”, that came from an account that is, in fact, a leading white supremacist organization. And the President got in trouble before for retweeting some of their tweets—’

  ‘That meme with the Jewish star, the Star of David—’

  ‘That’s right. So that’s gonna be a point of controversy as well, giving a kind of shout-out to this group—’

  ‘Even when he knows who they are.’

  ‘But look, there’s one more. This was kind of a Twitterstorm by the President during the night when, you know, you might have th
ought he would be focusing on the situation with North Korea—’

  ‘I mean, that’s what makes this even more incredible—’

  ‘Mark, we’re going to come back to that – I promise! – but let Mika just get to this last tweet from the President. It came at—’

  ‘Three eighteen am.’

  ‘That’s right. Three eighteen. So, you gonna read this last one for us?’

  ‘All right. Last one. No more!’

  [Laughter]

  ‘Again, he’s quoting a reply he’s had. And this one is from someone whose handle is @ProudAmerican1776 and what they said was, “They always whine about ‘slavery’” – you see the little quotes he’s put around that – “but where’s the evidence?”’

  ‘Eugene, I can see your face.’

  ‘I’m just stunned, you know. Stunned and so disappointed. That this is the leader of … I’m … I’m …’

  ‘Lost for words.’

  ‘We understand that. I understand that. I was born in Georgia. I represented Florida in the United States Congress. I’m a son of the South. But help out our viewers here, help out our young viewers especially. If someone’s watching this, maybe they don’t know all the history. The President has kind of thrown down the gauntlet, the question is out there now. So when we come back, Gene, after we take some ads here, I want you to answer this as if we were in a court of law, because you know people can make things up, documents can get forged, so what is the actual evidence that there was slavery in America? Gene?’