Mistress (19 page)

“There were always rumors about Roosevelt,” says Andrei. “Some of them have since been printed as fact, but in my mind, they remain rumors. Roosevelt was a man of privilege, of course. Some such men…did not regard marital vows as solemnly as they might.”

I’d read about that. My father had written about Roosevelt, who was believed to have had an affair with his wife’s social secretary for years. Eleanor reportedly discovered the affair and offered FDR a divorce. The affair broke off but then rekindled in Roosevelt’s last term in office. And there was another woman, too, so the story goes—FDR’s own secretary. Andrei’s right—true or false, most of this information has been reported by now.

But it wasn’t back then, after World War II ended.

“Stalin wanted to blackmail FDR about his extramarital affairs?” I ask.

We’re walking again, past the Battelle-Tompkins Building, where I took many of my undergrad classes. We are moving slowly. It is clearly difficult for Andrei to walk.

Andrei waves a hand. “This Operation Delano may all be fiction, an old wives’ tale. All I can say with certainty is, if Stalin got so much out of the negotiations at Yalta because he blackmailed FDR, nobody has ever said so. And much has been said, and written, about Yalta.”

Spoken like a true professor, one who demands careful support for every statement before he makes it. He’s been full of disclaimers thus far—none of this has been established as fact—but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t believe it.

“I must sit,” says Andrei, and he finds a bench at the Kay center’s plaza. “You must forgive a tired old man.”

I sit next to him. “I forgive you, old friend. But does this mean the Russians are trying to blackmail President Francis?”

Andrei takes a minute to catch his breath. He lets out a painful cough and apologizes. He’s not doing well, that’s clear.

“I cannot possibly know such a thing,” he says. “Certainly, I know nothing of this president.”

I don’t, either, but I probably follow the president a lot more closely than Andrei does. Blake Francis and Libby Rose Francis seem about as compatible as Jerry Falwell and Paris Hilton. It’s always looked to me more like a marriage of convenience. The president stepping out on Libby? Not a hard swallow at all.

“But you
do
know the Russians,” I say. “Why would they want to blackmail Blake Francis?”

Andrei lets out a chuckle, which I mistakenly take as a cough at first.

“Why
wouldn’t
they?” he muses. “Having control of the leader of the free world?”

Fair enough. That’s probably true.

“But you are correct, Benjamin, that such a thing could not have permanence. Certainly not even a compromised president could allow another powerful country free rein to do whatever it wished. There would have to be limits, surely.”

“You mean, like maybe there could be one thing.”

He cocks his head to the side. Like I’m getting warm.

“What would be the one thing?” I ask. “What are the Russians trying to do?”

My former professor looks at me as if we have reverted to old roles, like I’m back in undergrad and he’s giving me a lesson.

“I have no idea whether the Russians are blackmailing our president, or even attempting to do so,” says Andrei. “But I do believe I have a good assessment of Russian leadership these days. So let us assume that there
is
blackmail taking place.” He opens his hands. “What is the one thing Russia wants?”

I shrug my shoulders. “Oil? Power?”

Andrei stares at me, blank-faced. I feel like I’m in an episode of that old
Kung Fu
show, where Andrei is blind Master Po and I’m David Carradine.
You disappoint me, Grasshopper. Yet it is not I whom you have failed. It is you. Look within, Grasshopper.

“Land,” I say.

“Land,” he says in agreement.

You have done well, Grasshopper.

“And if the Russians wanted land, Benjamin, where would they go?” Andrei wags his finger at me. “History, Benjamin, is the best teacher.”

“Afghanistan,” I say, but immediately I know I’m wrong. What was true in the 1970s and ’80s is no longer true today. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, a number of independent countries now stand between Russia and Afghanistan—Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, I think, and probably some other hard-to-pronounce names.

“More recent history, Benjamin.”

Oh, right. Of course. “Georgia,” I say. For years, Russia has been backing independence movements in various republics in Georgia. In 2008, there was an armed conflict between Georgia and two of its would-be breakaway republics in South Ossetia, which most observers saw in reality as a war between Georgia and Russia.

And how quickly I forget what I saw just last night on CNN, before I went over to Anne’s place and had mind-altering sex. “The Russians just arrested a Georgian spy in Moscow.”

Andrei nods his head. “Supposedly,” he says. “Conveniently. Next, expect a terrorist act in a major Russian city that is blamed on the Georgians.”

Ah. So the Russians are setting the table for a war with Georgia.

“If Russia really wanted to take Georgia, Benjamin, would it be hard?”

“Militarily? No.”

“But diplomatically, Benjamin.”

“Diplomatically, yes. Georgia has a relationship with NATO now.”

“A problem,” he acknowledges. “Tell me this, Benjamin. How much would the American public care if Russia invaded Georgia and overtook it?”

I let out a sigh. “I mean, for some of us who’ve been around awhile, it would conjure up images of the old Soviet Union. But these days, our military is stretched thin—”

“Just so.”

“—and we probably have bigger things to worry about.”

“Probably.” Andrei nods slowly. “But certainly? Could the Russians be
certain
how we would respond? Remember, Benjamin, NATO is a presence in this conversation. There could be pressure on an American president to resist this aggression. If not by force, then by sanctions, at a minimum.”

“So the Russians would want some tools of persuasion at their disposal.”

“Just so,” says Andrei. “If the United States acquiesces to this aggression, who will challenge Russia?”

“Nobody,” I say.

“Certainly nobody of importance,” he says. “If the Russians can compromise the president of the United States, they could succeed in their plan.”

So the Russians discover that President Francis is having an extramarital affair. They somehow document this. And they have a private chat with the president. They make him a deal. Keep quiet while we invade Georgia, and we keep quiet about these photographs. Or resist us, and you’ll be embroiled in a scandal that could cost you a second term in office.

Wow. It’s audacious. But so are the Russians.

I take a moment with this. “You think Russia would do all this just so they could take over a tiny neighbor?”

Andrei stares at me, again with a blank face, before a chuckle bursts from his mouth. “Certainly not,” he says. “History, Benjamin, history.”

I throw up my hands. “Help me out here, Andrei. It’s been a long week.”

“You are excused, my friend.” Andrei pats my knee. “Certainly Georgia would simply be a testing ground for the world’s reaction. And a precedent-setting reaction by the United States. This would almost certainly be the beginning, not the end.”

My head falls back on my shoulders. The sky is darkening, promising rain. “Tell me you aren’t saying what I think you’re saying, Andrei.”

“Most regrettably, I am,” he says. “Oh, Benjamin, I have little doubt that the Russians plan to rebuild the old Soviet bloc, country by country.”

I race my bike off American University’s campus with adrenaline surging through me. I have to find a cash machine, but I’m not even looking, I’m just riding as my thoughts are running rampant in so many directions, so many questions, so many twists and turns—

But at least I have the main picture. I’m finally there. The Russians dusted off the playbook from the Stalin era, even giving their operation the same name, sentimental softies that they are. Operation Delano is the Russians’ plan to blackmail President Blake Francis so he will stand down when Russia starts invading her neighbors. And they’ve already begun the initial stages of moving toward an invasion of the Republic of Georgia. So—are they blackmailing the president right now? Did their plan work? Or are they still in the process of executing it? Clearly, our government knows about it. So what’s going on right now? Is the president going to let all this happen?

And where does Diana fit in? I had her pegged for a CIA spy. So—what? She was trying to stop them, and—but why would someone fake her death, and—

Oh. Oh, shit—

I skid my bike to a halt, almost toppling forward in the process.

No. No, it can’t be.

All those evenings Diana spent at the White House, as an aide to the president’s close ally Craig Carney. A blackmail scheme. And now the US government desperately wants everyone to believe that Diana’s dead. Which means she must be a liability.

Could it be true?

Is Diana the president’s mistress?

Lots to think about, but necessities first. I need money.

After getting a considerable distance away from the university campus, I spot an ATM at the intersection of Columbia Road and Euclid Street. But now I have to go through my routine. I head into a Burger King bathroom and change into normal clothes—a button-down shirt and jeans—and then walk over to the ATM. I leave the Rockhopper a good distance from the walk-up ATM, so the camera won’t pick it up. The Russians, or the CIA, are looking for me in civilian clothes, riding a kick-ass motorcycle. No reason to let them know I’m in biking gear on a Rockhopper.

If Diana is the president’s mistress, then what happened on her balcony that night? Did the US government fake her death in an attempt to thwart the blackmail? Does that mean that our government killed Nina Jacobs? There are so many possible permutations. But at least I’m getting closer. Watch out, Mr. Carney, here I come.

At the ATM, I avoid eye contact with the little camera watching me and quickly swipe my card and run through the transaction. Password, withdrawal, checking account, one thousand dollars. I look over both shoulders and don’t see anything that raises the hair on my neck.

But when I look back at the ATM screen, the hair rises all the same.

Insufficient funds,
the screen tells me.

“Bullshit,” I say. I transferred more than ten thousand dollars into checking earlier this week so I could remain liquid.

I run through the whole thing again, password-withdrawal-checking, but this time I go with five hundred dollars. All along, I am cognizant of the ticking clock. Anyone monitoring my account already knows my precise location.

Insufficient funds,
it tells me again.

“No. No, no, no.” I opt for a new transaction, transferring from savings into checking. This doesn’t make sense, but so what, I have plenty in savings—

This transaction is unauthorized.

“Unauthorized?” I yell at the machine.
“
Unauthorized
?”

I have to get out of here. I memorize the number it tells me to call and run back to my bike and start pedaling down Columbia to get distance from that ATM. I hook up the earpiece on my prepaid cell phone and dial the number. I get an automated recording.

I terminate the call and focus on getting distance. I take a left on Quarry Road, then a right on Lanier Place. I stop in the middle of a quiet residential area and get off my bike. Standing on the sidewalk, I make the call.

I navigate through the automated commands, my chest heaving, struggling for breath, and finally get a human voice. He thanks me for calling, tells me his name with incomprehensible speed, and asks for my name and account number. I only know the former, so then I have to give him my mother’s maiden name (Mapes) before we can finally talk. But the talk is brief. I ask, “Why the hell does my account say insufficient funds? And why can’t I transfer from savings to checking?”

The man goes quiet, then he tells me he has to transfer me to “special services,” whatever the hell that means, and then there’s music, “Train in Vain” by the Clash, which is adding insult to injury because the Clash is one of the best bands of all time and “London Calling” is my all-time favorite song, but all the radio stations play is this cheesy “Train in Vain” and “Rock the Casbah” and WHAT THE FUCK IS TAKING SO LONG—

“Mr. Casper, this is Jay Rowe with special services. How are you doing today?”

“I’m doing pretty fucking poorly, Jay, if you want to know the truth.”

“Sir, your account is disabled.”

“Disabled? Then undisable it. Able it. Whatever the fuck the word is, do it!”

“We can’t, sir.”

“It’s my money! You can’t hold on to it!”

“We can and we must, sir,” he says, but by now I get the picture. He’s following orders. This isn’t a decision my bank made on its own.

“Sir,” he says, “your account has been frozen on orders of the United States Department of Homeland Security.”

I hang up the prepaid phone and break it into about twenty-five pieces. I kick the pieces all around the sidewalk and unleash a torrent of obscenities that would make a trucker blush before I get a grip on myself. I feel like Keanu Reeves in
Speed
after he learned that his partner, Harry, had been blown up by Dennis Hopper. I feel like Dennis Hopper in—shit, I don’t know, he gets pissed off in a lot of his movies, so pick one.

Craig Carney has been reluctant to play his trump card—having me indicted and arrested for murder—but he’s upping the pressure in other ways. He’s eliminated the one advantage I’ve had, free access to money. I have sixty-two dollars and change in my pocket.

With one of my other prepaid phones, I call Ashley Brook Clark at the
Beat
. I’m trying to keep a cool head, but the waters of panic are rising, and come on, Ashley Brook, answer, answer, ANSWER YOUR—

“Hello?” Ashley Brook says in a rushed voice.

“Ashley Brook, I need your—”

“Ben, thank God it’s—”

“—help, I’m in a real jam—”

“—you, everything is going haywire—”

Fuck! I stop talking, so she will, too, and we can have a conversation. It sounds like it’s going to be a fun one.

“Ben, everything is going crazy at the office. Payroll is telling me that our bank account has been frozen. The CIA was just here asking me all kinds of questions. They say you’re the subject of an espionage investigation and if anyone around here helps you, they will be considered coconspirators. Everyone around here is freaking out—”

“Slow down, Ashley Brook. We can—”

“They took our computers, Ben. They’ve taken everything. And they’re—they’re—”

“Ashley Brook—”

“Ben, they’ve shut down our website!” With these words, Ashley Brook loses her composure, bursting into tears and sobbing over the phone.

No.
No
.

“Have you called Eddie Volker?” I ask.

Through breathless gasps, I think I hear the word
yes
.

Maybe Eddie can think of something. But if the feds are talking about espionage, they’re talking about national security. They’re talking about the Patriot Act.

They can do pretty much whatever they want to me.

It is over ninety degrees outside today, but I have never felt a greater chill running through my body. They are doing everything in their power to destroy me, and now they’re doing something even worse. They are destroying my newspaper, and hurting my employees with it. People who depend on me to put food on the table.

I have to do something. I have to save my paper and the people who’ve made it so great. But what can I do? Where can I confirm anything I suspect? I can’t even separate the good guys from the bad guys, much less turn to any of them for help. And my friends will now be risking a prison sentence for so much as loaning me five bucks or answering a question. I can’t jeopardize any of them. But take them out of the equation, and who do I have left? I don’t even have a newspaper anymore.

I’m out of money, resources, and friends.

And probably time.

I can only think of one other thing. I take a breath and hope against hope.

“What about Jonathan Liu’s computer?” I ask. If there is any place where I can find proof of what’s going on—not supposition, but proof—it will be on that computer.

Ashley Brook is quiet for a long time.

“They took it,” she says.