Fatal Conceit (38 page)

If it wasn't for the murder charge he faced, Fauhomme would have enjoyed directing the tactics from behind the scenes. Karp was the epitome of everything he despised—an honorable, highly capable, street-savvy, self-made man. One guided by ethics and principle, not self-interest, which Fauhomme saw as a weakness. A throwback who believed in American exceptionalism, the fair and just application of the rule of law, and the sanctity of the U.S. Constitution; all concepts to be ignored except when useful to achieve his ultimate goals of swinging the country as far left as it would go.

He'd been particularly proud of “a cornucopia of fabrications, specious accusations, and events taken out of context.” And of
the talking points he created for Vonu, making sure the talk show hosts got an early copy so they'd know how to steer the conversation.

However, there was an initial setback when Judge Charles Hart, Jr., was appointed to the case rather than a judge they'd been cultivating with the promise of an appointment to the federal bench. The chief administrative judge responsible for case assignments recognized the extreme media focus on the case and desperately wanted to avoid a courtroom circus. Judge Hart was the perfect choice.

Celeste Faust shrugged, but the wily, ringwise co-counsel, Bill Caulkin, winced at the news. “Hart's tough and fair,” he said. “He demands courtroom decorum. He can't be bought. Not for money, not for a federal appointment. We're going to have to win this the hard way at trial, or not at all.”

Then Stupenagel published her second story, this one with the anonymous source who pointed the finger directly at Fauhomme and Lindsey. Suddenly the events on the other side of the world had been linked to them, and if he had any doubts about how that affected his legal case, Faust let him know.

“It goes to motive,” she said. “Karp doesn't have to prove motive; it's not a key element in a murder charge. But he knows that jurors expect to hear it, and he'd ignore that at his own peril. Prior to this, the indictment alleged that you and Lindsey acted in concert with Ray Baum to kill General Allen to prevent him from telling Congress about his objections to the White House version of the Chechnya situation. The motive there was to stop Allen from having a negative impact on the outcome of the presidential election. However, this story links you and Lindsey directly to what occurred in Chechnya, and with the cover-up, so now there's another motive—that you were also looking out for your own hides, as well as the president's re-election. So far he doesn't have anybody on his witness list who can testify about what happened, and we'd object anyway to the relevance of allowing any testimony about
Chechnya. But a witness like that could be dangerous if Judge Hart allowed it.”

Even with the tide turning, Fauhomme didn't panic. This one was going to be won in the trenches, and he was willing to get down and dirty. At a secret meeting with Hilb arranged by the senator, he directed her to start a campaign of pushing controversial social agenda issues to distract the press and the public. It had worked the previous November; he was sure it would work now.

So as the media scrutiny on Chechnya and its relation to Allen's death grew more intense, at Fauhomme's direction the White House reacted by pressing as many hot-button topics as possible. Gun control. Same-sex marriage. Global warming. It didn't matter if any of the rhetoric actually resulted in any meaningful legislation or dialogue; the purpose was to divert attention.

The senator was pleased when the next polls showed that the public was losing interest in Chechnya. He called Fauhomme to congratulate him. Smiling when he hung up the phone, Fauhomme chuckled and went back to bed with the boozy blonde from the victory party.
Why so surprised?
he thought as he gazed at the plump, snoring figure of his new companion. Wasn't he the master of manipulating the masses? The king of sound-bite public persuasion?
I'm the goddamned man of the hour and they better never forget it!

Stymied on the legal front, Fauhomme's strategy to make the issue of Chechnya and Dagestan go away to take the heat off the administration didn't work either. A lot of that had to do with Stupenagel and a few other journalists who were willing to do the hard work and weren't fooled by his smoke and mirrors, nor were they worried about their invitation to the next White House press dinner. They simply wouldn't let the story die.

Two months after her first stories, Stupenagel returned from her own clandestine trip to Chechnya to write a feature article on Lom Daudov. The story allowed the separatist leader to make his case for an independent “secular” Chechnya, as well as castigating
the Russians for their transgressions. But what really hurt was his account of what happened in Chechnya from his vantage point watching the attack. “I kept waiting for the drone to fire its rockets,” he was quoted as saying. “The men on the roofs were pinpointing the attackers' machine guns and mortars with laser targeting. But all the drone did was circle and watch for more than two hours. No rockets. No fighter jets. No help.”

Backing up Lucy's story, his account of what transpired in Dagestan was also damning to the White House's claims to have been solely responsible for killing Al-Sistani and rescuing the hostages. And Stupenagel backed him up with more quotes from the anonymous female hostage, as well as an unidentified “member of the rescue party.”

Daudov also asserted that he'd been contacted by the U.S. Department of State and the National Security Administration about meeting with Huff, not the other way around. “They were the ones who proposed the arms deal with Syrian rebels, using me as a conduit, in exchange for weapons to carry on our battle for independence. I have no particular interest in Syria, so it would make no sense for me to get involved in the internal affairs of another country's civil war; we have enough to deal with at home. I was prepared to listen and that is all.”

The White House wasn't the only government surprised and angered by the story. Ever since the attack on the compound, the Russians had gone along with the administration's account. However, the Daudov story made them change their tune. They vehemently denied the separatist's allegations that the Russian secret police were behind faux terrorist attacks and had a spy working for them with Al Qaeda in Chechnya, But they also had to react to the “news” that the United States government was negotiating with one of the “enemy” leaders of an insurrection in order to arm those fighting against Russian ally President Assad in Syria. It occasioned a strongly worded statement at the United Nations from the Russian delegation regarding “blatant, criminal interference
in the internal affairs of other nations” and a threat to discontinue talks on “issues of mutual concern.”

Meanwhile in the White House press office, Rosemary Hilb scrambled to do damage control, with Fauhomme yanking her strings. At a hastily called press conference, she denied that the president had tried to take credit for killing Al-Sistani and freeing the hostages. “Although I will say that as commander-in-chief he is ultimately responsible for the actions of the heroic Americans who were on the ground. Of course, we can't talk about the details regarding the part that the unmanned aerial vehicle played, but any accusations that American lives were purposely targeted are patently false.” She also said that Daudov was lying and that he'd initiated contact with “U.S. operatives” about the arms deal. “It would not have gone any further than listening to what he had to say,” said Hilb, who described Daudov as “more pirate than patriot.”

However, Stupenagel's report from Chechnya was not so easy to dismiss with clever wordplay. The Sunday
New York Times
published an in-depth piece looking at the chronology of events from the attack on the compound to the hostage rescue mission. That had led to a harsh opinion piece on the editorial page taking the president to task. “At one point, he even lied to the parents of David Huff and the Americans killed in the compound when he told them that they would get to the bottom of who committed this act of terrorism while tears streamed down his face and he hugged them. He already knew who was behind the murders and that Al Qaeda was involved. The act put on by the commander-in-chief was as morally repugnant as it was false.”

The administration hadn't just taken hits from the press either. The congressional hearings had resumed with a whole new attitude. Not only was the opposition party no longer demoralized, they were energized and on the attack. Even some of the president's former allies on the subcommittee had distanced themselves by trying to appear as if they, too, were disturbed by
the administration's official take on the events. They'd all been particularly hard on Helene Vonu when she appeared before the committee, hammering away at discrepancies in the White House version while she defended herself by saying she'd been given a set of talking points to read and that she wasn't responsible for the content. Concerned that she might be wavering, Fauhomme sent word through the senator that if she wanted the plum position as the U.S. representative at the United Nations, she needed to continue to stand her ground.

Yet for all of Fauhomme's machinations, within a few months of having won the election, the president's ratings in the polls had plummeted to an all-time low. There was even grumbling in some congressional offices about impeachment. Fauhomme knew that such an event was unlikely while the outcome of the trial was still in doubt; the president still had his powerful supporters in Congress, assets in the media, and the wealthy elite in the entertainment industry. However, even the suggestion that the president was in trouble staggered the administration's cachet.

Many foreign governments—former friend and foe alike—no longer took the president seriously and were obviously looking ahead at whoever would take his place. Various Al Qaeda factions in the Middle East and North Africa struck targets, particularly American, as if openly mocking the president's declaration of their demise. Eventually, Hilb had to concede that “despite the president's effort to eliminate the top echelon of Al Qaeda, small splinter groups operating autonomously but still calling themselves Al Qaeda are, perhaps, more prevalent than previously thought.”

At the same time the weak economic recovery the president had touted during the election as “a sign that our policies are working” completely stalled as consumer confidence plunged with his poll ratings. In fact, his entire second-term domestic agenda went nowhere; no one was going to champion bills or speak out on behalf of causes connected to a lame-duck president.

Fauhomme felt the repercussions of the pressure on the president.
The conversations with the senator were no longer cordial and were barely civil. Rosemary Hilb quit taking his advice and stopped taking his calls. Even his supposed friends in the media and on Capitol Hill weren't returning messages. There were moments of self-doubt that made his chest tighten before he could fix a drink and remind himself that he was smarter than all the rest.
This is just a temporary setback
, he'd tell himself as he took deep breaths between gulps of scotch.

Then more bad news was shoveled onto the mountain of crap he was already climbing when his attorney, Faust, called him one afternoon to let him know that Connie Rae Lee had stabbed him in the back. “Ms. Lee is now a prosecution witness,” the attorney said in a clipped monotone. “We're waiting on the district attorney to provide us with a transcript of her interview, but I assume this is not going to be good news.”

Fauhomme cursed and threw his cell phone across the room. He hadn't expected this. In fact, ever since his arrest he'd thought she'd come crawling back begging him for another chance. He'd even put off buying new furniture, believing that she would return with all of her belongings. When she didn't throw herself on his mercy, he'd tried calling her. She answered but said she didn't want to talk to him. “This is your last chance, bitch. Come back now or else. . . . And you better keep your mouth shut if you know what's good for you.” The line went dead, and the next time he called, the number was disconnected. He asked a friend in the FBI to see if he could locate her, but the “friend” had been noncommittal, and later said he couldn't get involved.

The telephone call from Faust regarding Lee's betrayal filled him with fear and rage.
After all I did for her,
he thought that night as he drank himself into a stupor.
She was a nobody before I met her. Little whore.
He imagined strangling her or, perhaps, throwing her off the balcony. But while entertaining those fantasies, he also brooded over the person he blamed for the nightmare his life had become. He hated Butch Karp and imagined how he'd
get even someday when he was back in the driver's seat with the president.

Especially after Faust reported to him what Lee was saying. It was more incriminatory than he'd feared; apparently the bitch had been eavesdropping, as well as putting two and two together. He ordered Faust to try to interview her so that she could pass a message from him: All would be forgiven if she retracted her statement and then kept her mouth shut. If she didn't, there'd be hell to pay.

However, Connie had refused to be interviewed by the defense attorneys; they couldn't even locate her. So he ordered Bobby Raitz to find her. But as with his attempts to discover where the prosecution had squirreled away Jenna Blair, his man came up empty. Even the senator said that none of the president's moles inside the federal law enforcement agencies had been able to learn the woman's whereabouts.

Fauhomme realized that he was going to need to come up with a plausible story to deal with the evidence arrayed against him. He needed something that would explain it all away by putting the blame on others, as he'd done throughout his career. He'd thought of a plan, but was concerned to note that the administration was making more of an attempt to distance itself from him and Lindsey. He wondered if Faust had reported Lee's betrayal, as well as the other evidence stacking up against him, to the president.