“The Russians approached Carney because he was the perfect choice,” I say. “He was CIA and he was one of your best friends. He was the perfect person to covertly deliver the message to you. But Carney didn’t deliver that message. He kept it to himself and some small team of thugs over at the CIA, who probably didn’t even know the details. He didn’t tell you, Mr. President, because he knew that no matter how embarrassing that video would be, no matter how politically damaging, you would never sell out your country.”
The president, customarily a commanding presence in any room, the hunter-gatherer sort, has wilted. He is ashen and uncertain, his hand against a wall. This is a lot for him. He’s considering the damage to his administration and his reelection campaign. He’s thinking of his wife. And he’s thinking that he has been betrayed by one of his closest and most trusted friends. What I don’t know is the order in which he’s prioritizing these things.
“Carney knew the video, if it ever got out, would ruin you politically, sir. Which would ruin
him
politically. He wants to be CIA director. So he made the decision all by himself.”
The president pinches the bridge of his nose, seemingly addressing a massive headache. “The explosion near the White House the other day?” he asks.
“That was the Russians, chasing me,” I say. “They were trying to kill me before I could find a copy of the video.” I watch him for a moment. “Let me guess. Carney took over that investigation, didn’t he? He probably told you it was al-Qaeda or something.”
The president doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to.
“And do you have this…video?” he asks, saying the last word as though he’s just swallowed a bitter pill.
“No, I don’t,” I say. This might not make the top ten list of smartest moves I’ve ever made. Every bit of leverage I’ve been able to maintain in this sordid affair has come about because of that video. And now I’m willingly giving up that chit. But I’m not going to lie to the leader of the free world. I’m done bluffing. I’m going to stick with the truth for a while and see where that gets me.
“Mr. President, I don’t care about your personal life. Or the First Lady’s. If I wanted to expose it, I could have done so today in front of the national press. All I said was ‘blackmail.’ I didn’t say what the blackmail was.”
He turns and looks at me. “You could have come directly to me,” he says. “You didn’t have to confront me publicly.”
“Yes, I did. Until just now, I didn’t know that Carney was running this operation solo. I thought you were part of this. And I had to stop what was happening.”
The president rights himself and brushes his suit jacket. This will not go down as one of his better days.
“You’re a reporter,” he says. “And you’re telling me you won’t say anything about my wife?”
“That’s what I’m telling you. The public doesn’t need to know about her personal life. Not unless it affects your foreign policy strategy.”
The president breaks eye contact with me and nods. “So if that strategy were to change, and we were to oppose a Russian invasion?”
“No, no.” I wave him off. “I’m not making a deal with you, Mr. President. Just tell me you’re going to do what you think is best for our country. That’s all I care about.”
The president takes a deep breath and sizes me up. “You’re not really helping your bargaining position here, son.”
“That’s because I’m not bargaining. I did what I had to do. Now I’ll deal with the fallout.”
The president starts with a comment but thinks better of it. I think, somewhere in that look he gives me, he is thanking me. Then he shakes his head, exasperated, and leaves the room.
Midway through his address to the White House press corps, President Francis takes a moment and appears to review his notes. But I don’t think he’s really reviewing those notes. He is mourning the loss of a friend who betrayed him.
“I should emphasize that the reason I am accepting the resignation of Deputy Director Carney today is that he failed to inform either the CIA director or me of the existence of this entire matter. It was a direct breach of protocol, and it was not in the best interests of this nation. But I must also emphasize that I do not believe that Mr. Carney broke the law. He should have told me what was happening, yes, but otherwise Mr. Carney did his best to thwart the extortion and keep classified national security information from public disclosure. And he appears to have succeeded in that endeavor.”
The president, looking uncharacteristically shaky, clears his throat and continues. “I have spoken with Prime Minister Mereyedev, who has once again assured me that Mr. Kutuzov was acting alone in his attempt to shape US policy regarding the Russia-Georgia dispute in an effort to bolster his oil company’s profits. He has assured me that Russia was not, at any time, aware of what Mr. Kutuzov was doing and that Russia condemns his actions.”
Yeah, right. But that’s the song both countries are singing. I would have liked to have been a part of the conversation between President Francis and the Russian prime minister. Once I made the public allegation of blackmail, it became very difficult for the Russians to use that video. It put a spotlight on everything that was happening over there and on our country’s response to it.
And you can be sure that President Francis let it be known that, after everything that had transpired, the United States government would not look kindly on a Russian invasion of its tiny neighbor Georgia. I imagine sanctions and possible military action made their way into the conversation.
By the way, I have a theory that Alex Kutuzov was getting more than money out of this deal. I’ll bet a bottle of Stolichnaya that he was promised something big, like maybe being named the next prime minister of the Soviet empire he was helping to re-create. But I guess we’ll never know that, either.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this happened on my watch, and I take full responsibility for it,” says the president. “I’m embarrassed. But rest assured that I have corrected the problem and it will not happen again. And finally, I would like to personally thank a reporter in this room today, Benjamin Casper, for his diligent investigation of this matter. Without Ben, the outcome of this affair would have been very different.”
Aw…I’m blushing over here. I’ve come out okay in all this. Craig Carney has given a full statement for the record, implicating Alexander Kutuzov in the attacks on me that resulted in the deaths of the cops and Secret Service agents. He has also fingered Kutuzov in the murder of Jonathan Liu and in the murder of Nina Jacobs—even though the Russian thugs were sent there to kill Diana. I’m not really sure how that all played out, but I figure that Carney somehow got wind that the Russians were about to kill Diana and made Diana arrange for Nina to be an unwitting stand-in.
The president, I’m told, insisted on this full disclosure from Carney. He did it, more than anything, for my benefit, to spare me any hassle from the local police. Maybe he did it for all the right reasons, but my guess is he’s trying to keep me happy. No matter how many times I assure him I will keep the secret about his wife, he must not be totally convinced.
“Now I’d be happy to answer any questions. Yes, Jane?”
“Mr. President, what is the effect of Diana Hotchkiss’s guilty plea? Will the classified information remain confidential?”
“Yes, it will,” the president says. “Ms. Hotchkiss will be spared the death penalty and a trial on charges of treason in exchange for her guilty plea and her agreement not to divulge the information. Yes, Don?”
“Mr. President, we understand that as a CIA liaison, Diana Hotchkiss spent a good deal of time in the White House, particularly with the First Lady. What has been the First Lady’s reaction to these developments?”
The president pauses a beat. I swear that his eyes shoot in my direction for a nanosecond. “My wife is devastated,” he says. “It is true that she had a personal friendship with Ms. Hotchkiss. She was very upset to learn of Ms. Hotchkiss’s conduct. Yes, Dean?”
“Mr. President, there are reports that you will issue a presidential pardon to Craig Carney if the special prosecutor charges him with a crime. Is that a possibility, sir, and have you made such an agreement with Mr. Carney?”
I was wondering that myself. The attorney general appointed a special prosecutor to look into Carney’s behavior. Did Carney make a veiled threat to the president? Did he say that if he were forced to defend himself in a criminal trial, he might reveal what was on the video? Probably. But we may never know for sure. Or we might have to wait until twenty or thirty years from now, when people are at the ends of their careers and looking to write their bestselling memoirs.
Nixon fired the special prosecutor in the Watergate investigation after—
No. Stop. No more presidential trivia!
The president wags a finger. “I’m not going to comment on an ongoing investigation the special prosecutor is conducting. All I can say is that I haven’t made any ‘deal’ with Mr. Carney or anyone else.” The president waves a hand. “Thank you, all.”
The president steps down. For the first time, I see the First Lady, Libby Rose Francis, lurking in the corner. She looks back over the press corps as the president moves away from the podium. We make eye contact. She looks less frosty than usual, probably humbled by recent events. She doesn’t wave to me or mouth any words to me, but her expression eases and she nods her head in acknowledgment.
I don’t know what her life must be like. She is the First Lady, after all, so by most measures she’s doing pretty damn well. But she’s living a lie, and probably has done so her entire life. I can’t imagine what that does to a person.
Maybe these events will provoke something within her, will lead her to publicly out herself. Or maybe that video will surface some way, somehow, in the Wild, Wild West that is the Internet. I don’t know. And I don’t really care.
I just want to go home.
Anne Brennan walks down the steps of her condo and looks up at the sky. It is promising rain. She begins to head north, then she catches my eye across the street. She stops and looks at me, unsure of how to respond. A casual wave wouldn’t fit the occasion.
I cross the street and stop short of her.
“They made me do it,” she says.
“I know.” I sigh. “You were in love with Diana.”
She nods. Her eyes well up with tears. “They said if I helped them keep tabs on you, they’d go easier on Diana. And they’d let me see her.”
That’s about what I figured.
“When I first came to you,” she says, “I wasn’t doing it for them. I didn’t even know Diana was alive. I really wanted your help. But they saw me with you, and then they sunk their claws in me. They told me Diana was in custody and that how well she’d be treated depended on how much I helped them.”
None of this is surprising. I take it in without comment. There’s really nothing for me to say to her, which makes me wonder why I’ve come here at all. I guess I just wanted to see her one more time.
She searches my face for something other than bitterness. I’m not sure what she finds.
“That night we had,” she says. “That wasn’t part of the plan. It just happened. I was…kind of a mess at that point. And you’re such a good guy. Anyway, I don’t regret it. I hope you don’t, either.”
But everything else was a lie. That night she called and said she’d been attacked and threatened. Her fear of being prosecuted. All of it was a lie, orchestrated by the feds to get me to stand down.
“They’re never going to let her out of prison,” she says, speaking the words as though she hopes they aren’t true.
But they
are
true. Diana will spend the rest of her life behind bars.
Anne’s lucky she didn’t get pinched, too. After all, she was Diana’s lover. Didn’t she know Diana was blackmailing the US government? Apparently not—or at least the feds don’t think so.
My guess is she didn’t know. But who am I to judge? This lady fooled me twenty times over.
“You got caught in a tough situation,” I say. “No hard feelings. Move on with your life, Anne.” I consider a hug, or extending my hand, but nothing makes sense. It will probably be a long time, in fact, before any of this fully makes sense to me.
So I just walk away as warm rain drops on my shoulders.
I thought I was prepared for what I would see when I turned the corner, when the guard pointed to the chair and told me I had thirty minutes and that my conversation would be monitored. But I’m not.
Diana Hotchkiss is dressed in a shapeless orange jumpsuit, as I knew she’d be. Her once silky hair is now a flat mop on her head. Her face is pale, void of any color from makeup or the sun. All this I expected.
What I didn’t expect was her eyes, looking at me through steel bars, hooded and dark and glassy, revealing nothing. She is neither happy nor sad to see me. There is no hope in her expression, no life whatsoever. All emotion has been washed away. Diana is utterly and irrevocably broken.
I shrug my shoulders, unsure of where to possibly begin.
“Were we even friends?” I ask. “Was anything real?”
I hate myself for asking. I don’t want to care about the answer. But I do.
Diana is standing, leaning her back against the wall in her solitary cell, so that I see her in profile. She chews a fingernail that, from the looks of it, has been reduced to a nub already.
“Everybody plays everybody,” she says. “Everybody lies to themselves and others. Everybody uses everybody else.”
That’s what she needs to tell herself. What she did was wrong, but it was just a variation on what everybody else does. A pretty big variation, though. She was helping another country blackmail the United States of America.
“So why am I here, Diana? Why did you ask me to come?”
She takes a moment before answering. “I wanted to apologize,” she says. “I’m sorry I ever got you mixed up with this. I didn’t mean for you, or Nina, or Randy—”
With that, her expression breaks, her composure crumbles, and she is sobbing into her hand. Her cheeks have probably absorbed countless tears over the last weeks, as her life disintegrated before her eyes. I don’t know what she expected to happen. Did she really think this was going to have a happy ending?
Probably not. They’ll probably teach a course on her at Quantico, a case study in self-destructive behavior.
I feel myself pitying her, but then a sudden anger emerges. “What you did to Nina Jacobs was unconscionable,” I say. “Unforgivable.”
Diana’s sobbing escalates to uncontrollable spasms, overcome by the magnitude of her disgrace, her shame, her lack of a future—take your pick. She slides to the floor and cries for the better part of ten minutes.
When it finally abates, she says through her hand, “The week that Nina stayed at my apartment…was the week that…everything happened.”
“The week you gave the video of you and the First Lady to the Russians,” I say. “And the week they showed it to Craig Carney.”
“Yes.” She takes a deep breath. “I wanted a head start. I knew Kutuzov’s people were keeping tabs on me. I wanted them to think I was staying at my apartment.”
“So as they watched your apartment from a distance, they’d see someone who looked like you and wore your clothes going in and out of your apartment, sleeping there, feeding the cat—and they’d think you were still around town. When in fact you had left the country. Someplace warm, I assume. Someplace without an extradition treaty with the United States.”
She nods again. The CIA probably used its considerable resources to relocate her and decided that they didn’t care one bit about an extradition treaty. I picture an acquisition team dropping out of a black helicopter, arresting her on a beach or something, and then whisking her back to Quantico.
“And why call me to install the surveillance?” I ask. “You just felt like embroiling me in an international conspiracy? Misery loves company?”
“Because you were the only person I could trust,” she says.
I don’t respond. Inside, I am fighting the temptation to believe what she’s saying. She’s fooled me enough for one lifetime.
“I realized the Russians might try to kill me once they had the video and I was no longer any use to them,” she explains. “And if they tried to kill me, I wanted them on video inside my apartment.” Diana looks up at me. “Ben, I swear to you, I didn’t know they’d move so quickly. Nina was going to leave the next day. I didn’t think they’d come after me that night. I…I didn’t want her to die. I didn’t. I swear.”
I don’t know if I believe her or not. But either way, she was being awfully reckless with someone else’s life.
“And who covered up Nina’s death?” I ask. “The CIA?”
She looks at me like the answer’s obvious. “Of course. By then they knew everything. They might have even known that the Russians were coming for me. They made a decision that they wanted everyone to believe I was dead.”
And it worked. For a while, at least. Until I got curious.
But now it’s over. Diana checked her morals at the door, made an admittedly bold and daring attempt at scoring a huge payday, and lost as badly as someone can lose. Now she will spend the rest of her life in a cell.
I loved this woman. You can’t just turn off that kind of feeling. But I loved a person who didn’t exist. I loved someone Diana was pretending to be. Maybe the signs were there, but I refused to see them. Maybe I didn’t
want
to see them.
The guard approaches and tells me that my time’s up. I take a deep breath and look at Diana.
I place my hand gently on the bars of the cell and look at Diana one last time. “There’s still good in your life,” I say. “It’s going to be harder to find it. But it’s there, Diana. Don’t stop looking for it.”
Then I walk away, wondering if I should start taking some of my own advice.