The South Lawn Plot (31 page)

B
AILEY HAD NOT SLEPT VERY WELL
despite the comfort of the room in the hotel with the oh-so-English name. He was standing in the lobby, contemplating breakfast, a light one, or maybe the whole hog, the full English with trimmings.

It would be the main decision of a day that appeared to be set in stone. From the hotel he would go to the White House and there cover the conference which really wasn't much of a conference at all now, only a series of private meetings involving the Taiwanese billionaire and various officials followed by a South Lawn reception. The conference had been pegged back at the last minute because of the looming threat of war. The party, however, was a go, assuming the world didn't end in the meantime.

Global Armageddon apart, Bailey also had to consider the statements by the political leaders, most especially the prime minister and the president. And they looked as if they were going to be a little too close to deadline for absolute comfort given the five-hour time difference. He would have to work fast

Bailey's lack of sleep had mostly to do with the constant stream of text messages from Henderson, the latest being an instruction to call. Henderson clearly had been in the office from an early hour and was agitated by something more than just the narrow window of time for the story from Washington.

No, Bailey thought, Henderson didn't give a fiddler's about the conference, not when he had the possible war to end all wars waiting in the wings for the front page, perhaps the last ever front page, the final edition of all final editions.

The conference made it into the frame because of its cast of characters, not its content or purpose.

Bailey had this just about worked out when his phone went off. He had set it on vibrate so as not to alarm the locals with his ringer, a little ditty from that long ago punk band, the Sex Pistols.

He was about to parry Henderson's latest onslaught when the voice at the other end cut him dead.

“Hey,” he said. It was Samantha.

“And good morning to you. Yes, I understand, but let's try to have a quick get together at the White House. I'm not sure how much rope they are giving us, but you could probably scout us out before you bring Spencer over for a chat. Okay, all right, bye.”

Bailey had stopped short of pledging his undying love, or had rather been stopped short by Samantha who just had to dash, or words to that effect.

Perhaps it was the lingering echo of her voice but when his phone went off again he had hit the on button before the second vibration. It wasn't Samantha, and it wasn't even Henderson. It was George Dawes giving him a head's up. Henderson wanted Dawes to pad out the story from New York, especially if the conference ran behind schedule. Bailey indicated his agreement.

“No problem, mate,” he said. “And make sure you get your byline.”

There was one more thing. Henderson, apparently tied up at a meeting, had passed on a phone number belonging to a man named Sydney Small. Henderson, said Dawes, had given clear instruction that Bailey should call the number as soon as he got it. And that was now.

“Loud and clear, George,” said Bailey. “I'll call you from the White House and let you know how we are getting along.”

Bailey stared at his phone. Sydney Small, the man of many mysteries, the man who had told him in the pub that he would lay every last quid he had on the fact that the prime minister was up to his eyeballs in something that was no good, indeed downright nasty, and that the man was a danger to the lives and limbs of a lot of people, some of them rather prominent.

How, Bailey had asked Small, did he come across all this and what reason did he have to believe that the prime minister was dodgy, even dangerous?

Small had clammed up under this questioning. It was clear he wanted to send Bailey out on some line of investigation but equally evident that he did not fully trust the reporter. His parting line, after he had stood Bailey another drink, was to deliver some odd line about the royal family, or at least the prince, being in the line of Spencer's fire.

And now he wanted Bailey to call him.

“Christ,” said Bailey, loudly enough to turn a couple of heads in the foyer. And then rather more quietly though he felt compelled to speak the words, “The world's about to nuke itself, and I'm in the middle of some plot out of bloody Shakespeare.”

And that about said it. It was all a bit much, but it had helped him make
one decision. If the world was going to end he wasn't going to meet his maker while hungry. Bailey walked across the lobby and into the restaurant. It would be a full on breakfast, a heart attack on a plate.

Manning had gulped a cup of coffee and considered himself lucky. He had slept poorly, almost not at all. Then he had nodded off within minutes of the alarm going off. It had been a rude awakening.

It was Rebecca's turn to get Jessica to school so Manning had been able to make his progress undisturbed through his necessary ablutions. The breakfast part of his normal ritual had to be sacrificed to the god of nattiness. Evans would be on her toes today, her eyes searching for any stain on her country's reputation.

Manning had allowed Rebecca to choose his tie. She had also picked out a blue shirt that made for a contrast with his usual white. The suit was a sober dark blue. He would be the sharpest looking man at the White House, Rebecca had assured him.

That might not matter much, of course. Today would be judged at a variety of levels with personal appearance somewhere between dollars and cents bagged for the old country, or at least its northern part, and suitable dinner invitations collected by Evans. Manning comforted himself with the thought that the gig was mainly an Anglo-American affair with the Irish tagging along for the party.

Beyond these considerations, there was just darkness. His main task was to keep Evans and the visiting ministers well away from the American president, British prime minister and the mega rich Chinese guy, Lau, and most especially from the location on the South Lawn where the three were to be photographed.

That was all there was to it, he had been assured. Nothing more than a little diplomatic choreography at the crucial moment and his past life would be his, and his alone, for the rest of his days. Manning had wondered long and hard of course. Could these people be trusted? Would his so-called terrorist past be finally buried?

At the end of all the thinking he had concluded that he had really no choice. He had to trust the bastards, those inside the British security services, and those who lurked in other shadowy corners.

As he sat at the kitchen table staring into his black coffee, Manning tried to imagine a freedom he had never really known in his adult life. He wanted to feel optimism, something beyond just hope. But he had also made a decision.
If he was betrayed, he would have to take action, act like the fighter he had once been. How he would pull that off in his present circumstances was far from clear. And the coffee gave him no answers. As he promised he would do, Manning loaded the dishwasher. Funny, he thought, how the mundane tasks in life could tie in so closely to those that decided the course of a life.

His course today was set, that of all future days still uncertain. He would go to the office for a while, check his emails and snail mail. And he would tease Nesbitt because he was he was bogged down in the office with work and would be missing the big shindig at the White House. Evans was not expected at the embassy. She was having lunch with the visiting ministers before heading to the White House. That would make the early part of the day a little easier. The end, he assumed, would not be easy because clearly something big was going down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It would make headlines and history. And he would be there for it. Knowing this he had a plan for the preceding hours. To his colleagues at the embassy he would appear in a good form. He would make light of all things, seemingly not having a care in the world because as sure as the day was getting warmer by the minute, he would be one of many people answering the questions of federal investigators by sundown.

“Here we go,” he said as he left by the back door.

Packer had asked to be left alone for a few minutes. He liked doing this, sorting out his thoughts on a day that would be dominated by pleasantries and ritual. He wasn't much for this kind of stuff. He enjoyed policy meetings and big speeches. And he had always been lucky enough to have the common touch. He genuinely liked campaigning, meeting folks. He knew that he gave the Secret Service nightmares by the way that he would constantly push against the security boundaries around him, but what the hell. He was the president, not some untouchable holy man.

Packer's unease with pomp had always been at a higher pitch when dealing with the British. Yes, the special relationship, what was left of it, demanded a little extra, and it had been a thrill meeting royalty. But there always had been that strain of having to be on his extra best behavior for the Brits. It was, perhaps, the First Lady's fault. She was infatuated with all things British to the point that had he been George Washington he would have had her arrested as a loyalist. Packer laughed out loud at the memory of one royal encounter when he had suddenly been overtaken by a near overwhelming desire to fart. Only the fact that his wife was within range of the fallout prevented the kind
of fusillade that had last been directed at the British at the Battle of New Orleans.

Today would be another temptation. He had never particularly liked Spencer, had much preferred his predecessor. There was something about the guy, though he could never quite work out what. One thing he did know for certain, and that was the visitors, the Brits and the Irish, would go on and on about the Washington weather to the point that he would almost feel the need to apologize. And it was beginning to cook a bit outside. Good enough for them, Packer thought. He would nod in agreement and offer sympathy of course, but he knew that once again that inner voice would be telling them to go take a swim in the Potomac.

Packer's thoughts of swimming and a renewed war, this time against suffocating etiquette, were interrupted by his secretary's voice.

“Oh yes, the Secret Service detail,” he responded. “A couple of new ones, too. Send them in.”

A
S IT TRANSPIRED
, it was Special Agent Rafter who was assigned the president's belt. And he, Rafter that is, was none too pleased. The duty was simple enough. The agent stood directly behind the president as he worked the rope line, a hand firmly around the president's belt, not the top of his pants. The belt would be worn slightly loose to facilitate the grip.

In the event of any threatening incident, if anyone lunged or struck out at the president, the agent would tug sharply on the belt. The president would then be bundled to safety by other agents as the agent who did the tugging, and others, blocked the assailant, or assailants. The move had been practiced over and over, though had never been carried out during the Packer presidency.

Packer, however, had posed another problem for the Secret Service. He had a habit of breaking out of his protective corral and plunging into a crowd. Bad enough this would happen with the already security checked attendees during a White House event, but the president had broken loose on the road as well. It was a nightmare as far as the Service was concerned, but no effort to dissuade the president had been successful, thus far.

In the event of the president passing beyond the end of the line on the South Lawn, Rafter would stay with him and instead of clinging to the belt would hang on grimly to the tail end of the president's suit jacket. The president had acquiesced in this tactic, though only after joking that he would, as a consequence, confine himself to cheap suits so as to avoid expensive repair bills being foisted on the American taxpayer.

There was one, quite specific, reason for assigning Rafter to the belt. The president was a big man. So, too, was Rafter, a onetime football player with prospects who had famously charged in for a touchdown in a high school game with at least four opponents hanging off him. There had been a photo in the window of the town newspaper office for months afterward. Rafter had earned the nickname “Hulk” for his moment of glory. The old timers in the town had agreed that the young man would make something of himself. And
their prediction had borne out. Hulk's hand was on the President of the United States and the president's safety hinged on its firmness.

There was more to Rafter's life story, of course, and part of it was the hand of an elderly English priest which, as it transpired, was now directing its course on the day that the onetime football star had been assigned the nation's first belt.

Rafter's life had veered back and forth after high school. He had attended college in the state system and had graduated with a most unlikely degree in Greek and Roman Civilization. It had been suggested that his interest had been spurred less by the civilization part of his studies than by a reverence for the Spartans at Thermopylae and the exploits of gladiators in the Coliseum, this apparently sparked by a senior year trip to Italy during high school.

Either way, several of Rafter's classmates had proceeded into military careers armed with the tactical theories of Alexander the Great, Caesar and Scipio. Rafter's long march had brought him to the ranks to the United States Secret Service.

What had marched with him was a taste for gambling that he had managed to unload for a while in his early days in the Service, but which had lately made a comeback.

It was tripwire with the potential to end his career, and it would definitely be uncovered in one of, if not precisely the next, security review that all agents had to undergo.

So, it was not all that difficult to accept the money along with the bundle of assurances that his role in the coming drama would be a minor one, that the president absolutely would not be harmed, and that in fact his part in the outcome would earn him a commendation, if not more.

Despite all his exterior toughness, Rafter was vulnerable to the approach from the man with the clipped Brit accent. He had wavered, naturally, but the huge advance, deposited in an offshore account in the name of a fictional company that the bank recognized as being owned by an American businessman named Smith, had brought Rafter onside.

As a member of the Secret Service, he could only admire his suitor's attention to detail, right down the excellent fake passport that was the key to the money that would resolve all his financial issues while leaving plenty more for a comfortable retirement.

And all he had to do was plant a piece of paper in a book, between page l00 and 101.

Rafter was contemplating his new riches when the voice of Cleo Conway rushed through the wire into his receiving ear. Conway said but two words. And in response to her “Let's go,” Rafter finished his task in the bathroom and hurried outside into the heat of the day and into the eyes of a gathering crowd on the lawn, one which invariably was as curious, though idly so, about the agents in their trim suits and shades as the agents, in an active, professional sense, were about the faces that made up the throng.

Rafter took one look and decided that what lay ahead would have been a breeze if not for the event that had been described to him by the old padre.

Jesus Christ, he thought, some of them are going to fucking faint.

Pender, through his camera lens, had spotted Manning in the crowd that was now beginning to fill the area of the South Lawn assigned to the reception. The diplomat looked tense. He had not noticed Pender but then again, people at these things rarely noticed the faces behind the cameras.

There was about thirty minutes to go before the formalities began, though, as yet, no sign of the guest of honor, the Taiwanese guy. Pender was curious as to what the old priest had in mind, but all he knew, all he wanted to know, was that he was to capture what would be the climactic moment, the biggest story for years barring the outbreak of global war, which, of course, was also possible.

But not, Pender hoped, in the next hour. All he wanted was his shot, his money and his escape into anonymity. As he was mulling over the security of the Swiss banking system in the event of thermonuclear warfare (he reckoned Swiss bankers would come through the thing along with rats and cockroaches,) he noticed in the corner of his non-lens eye a kerfuffle about twenty yards to his left. Some of the reporters who had been mingling with guests were gathered around someone, recorders and notebooks now in action. Pender noted the gathering but stayed put. He stared though his lens again looking for Manning, but now there was no sign of the Irishman.

“Where are you, Mr. First Secretary?” he whispered. And in a sweep of the crowd he found him again, in a knot of suits. The Taiwanese savior of the Irish peace had arrived. Now, Pender, thought, if only Belfast isn't on some target list for a Beijing rocket, all would be fine.

Bailey was juggling. He wanted to get everything on tape but was equally determined to get key lines down on paper so he could fire them across without having to keep pressing rewind and play. Colleagues laughed at him about his tapes, called him a dinosaur. But he didn't trust digital recorders.

His phone had nearly blown out of his pocket. He could tell at this stage of his career when a call was coming from the office, and he reckoned he could also sense the size of the story. And this one, on any day, was a whopper.

Henderson had given him the main lines. The heir to the throne had just staged a press conference in which he had declared himself a Roman Catholic, had denounced the Act of Settlement which barred members of the Roman church from ascending to the throne. Crucially, however, he had not renounced his claim to the throne. By not doing so he had added exponentially to a constitutional crisis just as the prime minister was about to have his big White House moment.

Bailey had felt almost giddy. It was for moments like this that he had become a reporter. What was now happening had reminded him of a mantra which went along the lines that you had to be good to be lucky in the news business. This was proof enough. He was good, damn bloody good.

The scrum around the young man with the nametag that identified him as Roger Jones from the embassy was made up almost entirely of British reporters and one or two photographers who had drifted over from their corral. There were a couple of Yanks and Bailey had heard an Irish accent. The Irish, he knew, were nuts about the royals, and what had now transpired was certain to elbow the ceremonial check presentation down even Irish news lists.

Jones, who looked like he still should be in university, had clearly been pushed out as a stopgap, a sacrificial lamb for the braying hounds of the press. Spencer, thought Bailey, was a smart bastard. A diplomat could only say so much under the circumstances and would buy time while the Downing Street crowd inside the presidential mansion cobbled together a response to the obvious uproar that was enveloping the United Kingdom, 3,000 miles to the east.

“The bloody Chinese must be thrilled with this,” said one reporter. It was a statement, not a question, but it was directed at Jones who had by now broken out into quite a sweat.

“I cannot comment on Chinese reaction,” said Jones gamely. But he was sweating blood right now, and the reporters could smell it.

“Is the prime minister going to pull out of the ceremony now? And if not, can we speak with him before it actually starts?”

The question, both barrels, seemed to knock Jones backwards.

“I cannot comment, I mean, I cannot say. Ladies and gentlemen, if you will excuse me, I have to go back inside the White House. I'm sure there will be more from, ah, the prime minister's own spokesman soon, very soon.”

Jones turned and made a move to leave but could make very little progress. The pack moved with him as he struggled to make his way back to the nearest door. Bailey, however, did not move. Something had hit him with all the subtlety of a cruise missile.

That face, he thought, the one in the photograph in the old house in Essex, Ayvebury. It had indeed been the prime minister's, years ago, when Spencer was about the same age as the harried Jones. The old priest, the dead priests. There was a connection to the prince, there had to be. He dropped his recorder in his pocket and started thumping numbers on his phone. Henderson would know. The man had an unerring instinct for stitching together seemingly random occurrences. He would lay it out for Henderson and Henderson would know that there had been murders, that the reason for them was connected somehow to the next king and that the prime minister could very well be up to his tonsils in the entire affair.

“Sweet Jesus,” said Bailey, just as Henderson's voice barked at the other end of the signal.

Henderson told him to hold on and as he did so Bailey could hear him shouting at someone, something about being short-staffed and if he wanted to pull guys off soccer and cricket for the biggest story in years he was bloody well going to do so.

Bailey smiled. He could imagine the scene in the newsroom as Henderson went into full battle mode. He was glad to be removed from it, if not exactly away.

Henderson, turning his mind to Washington now, was a little calmer.

“Just throw me everything you can get,” he said.

“Don't let Spencer off the hook. This is a full-blown crisis no matter what he says, and if he calls the prince a nutter I want the word nutter in the story. Don't hold back, don't sit on anything, call me in an hour.”

And he was gone.

Roger Jones had made it back into the White House, and Bailey's colleagues were dispersing to the shade of various trees to call through to their offices.

Bailey, too, was on his phone again, this time to Samantha who was inside with Spencer. He wasn't surprised when he only got her message. She would be hooked up by now to her copper colleagues as they prepared to escort Spencer to the microphones.

“Sod it,” he said. He would have to get word to her by some means.
Samantha Walsh didn't know it, but she was protecting a man who might well have had a hand in four murders.

He glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes to kickoff.

As if on cue, some juiced up Irish traditional band had just launched itself into a frenzy on the stage set up just to one side of the speaking podium.

Bailey shook his head. He started to laugh. He needed a drink.