The Candidate (22 page)

ERICA PEERS OUT THE WINDOW as the plane begins its descent to Lake Placid Airport. She's never been to the Adirondacks before, and she's amazed at how vast the region is—it seems to go on forever, dense forest punctuated by seemingly endless lakes, a tapestry of deep greens and shimmering blues.

The plane lands and Erica disembarks into the dry, pine-scented air. The car she ordered is waiting to take her to Woodlands Camp, a forty-minute drive.

When they arrive at the camp Erica gets out and surveys the scene. Woodlands sits on the shore of St. Regis Lake, and its buildings and cabins are constructed in classic Adirondack style—unfinished logs atop stone foundations highlighted with whimsical porch railings, benches, and columns made of roots and twigs and branches. She can see down to the beach where campers are getting swimming lessons and playing volleyball. The girls all seem so athletic, with thick shiny hair and lithe bodies, crying out with delight, charging for the ball or slicing through the water.

She can't help but compare the scene to her own summer childhoods when she would get on her bike and ride and ride and ride, alone
and lonely, anything to get away from that stifling, soggy doublewide filled with pot smoke, six packs, black-market pills, rage, and despair. Watching the campers' carefree cavorting, she feels a tinge of envy toward these girls—and toward Jenny.

She finds the administrative building, and Meg Winston bounds out to greet her. She's early middle-aged and radiates common sense. She extends a hand to Erica. “Welcome to Woodlands.”

“It's lovely.”

“Isn't it? Jenny's in ukulele class. We're two minutes to the lunch bell.”

Erica feels a sudden wave of anxiety. “She's going to meet us here?”

“Yes.”

“How's she been the last couple of days?”

“She's a resourceful girl. But she's got a full plate. A lot of our campers are second- and third-generation, or have been coming for years, so it can be a little tough on the newcomers. But all in all, I think she's doing well.”

And there she is, coming around the side of a building, looking tawny and healthy. She sees Erica and breaks into a run. Then she catches herself and slows to a walk. Erica wants to run to her, but knows that would embarrass her.

Erica hugs Jenny, and she smells like the pines and the lake and like . . . privilege.
Erica, this is what you wanted for her. You can't have it both ways. Stop torturing yourself.

“Oh, honey, it's so good to see you. You look wonderful. How's your uke playing?”

“I killed ‘Blue Skies.' ”

Erica puts her arm around Jenny and leads her to the car.

The town of Tupper Lake is a strange mix of busted lumber town and tourist haven. There are funky bars and pizza parlors and hairdressers
and then shops selling Adirondack furniture, fancy balsam soap, and antler coat racks. Erica and Jenny land somewhere in the middle, at a clean and homey coffee shop. As they scoot into a booth, Erica feels a zap of happiness—she and Jenny are together in a fun new place.

“How's the food at camp?” Erica asks as they look at their menus.

“It's good. They try not to use any processed food.”

“That must be hard.”

“It's not hard, Mom. Do
you
want to eat poison?”

Ouch
. “We eat well at home, don't we?”

“We did when Becky was alive. You can't cook.”

“You're right. I can't. And I have no desire to learn. Does every mother have to be a great cook?”

“I hope I will be.”

Okay
. “How you feeling about Becky?”

“Oh, just wonderful.”

“Jenny, if you're going to be nothing but sarcastic—”

“Why did you come up here?”

“Because I wanted to see you.” Erica wants to reach across the table and kiss Jenny, hold her, hold her tight. She's not going to tell Jenny about her trip—it would only add fuel to the flames. But the truth is fear is gnawing at her gut, she hasn't been sleeping, and she's haunted by the image of her own beheading.

The waitress comes over, and Jenny orders a bacon cheeseburger with fries. Erica bites her tongue—and orders the same thing. “Split an order of onion rings?”

Jenny nods.

“I was hurt that you asked your father and Linda up for parents' weekend without telling me.”

“We have to talk, Mom.”

“I'm listening.”

“I want to move back to Massachusetts.”

Erica nods, trying to control her response—but she suddenly feels like she's on a roller coaster perched on the edge of a precipitous drop.
She failed. She failed as a mother. The legacy continues. Her throat tightens.

“Okay,” she manages.

Jenny winces. “Don't look so sad, Mom. It's not about you.”

Of course it's about me. She's just being kind.
Jenny
is
kind—and knowing
that
brings a measure of solace.

“Who is about then?”

“It's about
me
, Mom. This camp is nice, Brearley is nice. But I don't fit in. I don't belong. My dad's a teacher, not a plastic surgeon or a banker or a tech billionaire. I like public school.”

“There are public schools in New York.”

“This is hard. Please don't make it harder.”

“And what about your mom? She's a television journalist who worked really hard to get where she is.”

“Which is never home.”

Erica fiddles with the salt and pepper shakers. “Is your decision final?”

Jenny nods.

All Erica wants to do is cry. But that's the one thing she can't do. It wouldn't be fair to Jenny. “We'll make it work, honey.” It brings some comfort to know that if something happens in Iraq, Jenny will be in a safe place, with a father who loves her and a caring stepmom.

Jenny takes a napkin and dabs at the corner of Erica's left eye.

“It's not like I'll be in Sydney,” Jenny says.

Greg. If only Greg were here with her. Instead, there's just loneliness.

“That's right, honey, you'll just be a few hours away. And you'll still have your room, so you can come down and stay anytime you want, for special occasions and Broadway shows and—”

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“How come you never talk about
your
mother?”

Just when Erica thought this lunch couldn't get any more painful. She looks out the window, then fiddles with the salt and pepper, then takes a deep breath. “Well, honey, my mother and I have always had a . . . difficult relationship. I've told you how poor I was growing up. There's more. My mother was, well, she was an addict and sometimes she was . . . she was abusive.”

“Did she hit you?”

“Jenny, do you think we could have this conversation when you're a little bit older? I think you have every right to ask, and every right to know, but it's just . . . it's just . . . I don't know, too much for me. Right now. Today. With everything else.”

Jenny nods gravely, and suddenly she's the parent and Erica is the child. “I understand.”

Their food arrives. It looks disgusting. But Erica smiles at Jenny and forces herself to take a big bite.

IT'S WEDNESDAY NIGHT AND ERICA has just finished
The Erica Sparks Effect
. She could have taken the night off, but she knew the demands of the show would keep her dread at bay. She's washed off her makeup and is sitting at her desk. She leaves for Iraq tomorrow, and it seems like most of her loose ends are tied up—at least the practical ones.

“Hi there!” Josh says, appearing at her office door.

Oh no, they had an after-work date tonight!

“Josh!” Erica says, standing up.

“Did you forget?”

“Oh no, of course not, don't be silly . . .
Yes
, I forgot.”

“This is where you see my bruised-male-ego pout.”

“I've been waiting for that to appear. You've taken longer than most men I've dated. Listen, I have been crazy, crazy busy—convention, Jenny, and I'm going out of town on assignment tomorrow.”

“I forget my own birthday. Are you still up for it?”

Erica looks down at her desk. No, she's not up for it. She's come to realize that no matter what happens with Greg, she's emotionally bruised and needs time without any entanglements. You couldn't ask for a nicer guy than Josh, but that may be part of the problem too. Erica
is an adrenaline junkie. She needs to feel challenged, to push herself to the edge. Josh lives by a whole other credo. A lovely one, in some ways an inspiring one, but Erica is growing to believe that it would leave her unfulfilled. She's just not sure that Josh understands her in the same way Greg does.

He holds up a small shopping bag. “I picked us up a little picnic. Whaddaya say?” He looks so touching and tentative.

“I think we should talk,” Erica says.

“Okay. Do you want to eat while we talk?” he asks hopefully.

Food is the last thing on her mind. “Sit down,” Erica says, managing a wan smile. Josh does. They look at each other. Erica has a hard time holding his gaze and shuffles some papers on her desk. “So . . . after our day on the trapeze, I came home and found Greg Underwood waiting outside my building.”

“Oh, okay. Now things are starting to make sense.”

“As you know, we were engaged.”

“Were or are?”

“That hasn't been formally settled. But the point is, well, there're still a lot of feelings between us. Plus, he's been helping me with a work project.”

“Unless I'm wrong, he's also been sleeping with another woman.”

“How did you know that?”

“Never underestimate the power of a Google search.”

That ticks her off a little.

“Don't get bent out of shape, Erica. When you're infatuated with someone, you take what you can get.”

“I don't think it's anyone else's business.”

There's a silence and Josh looks down, as if he's surprised and disheartened by their pointed tone. Erica feels a wave of sadness sweep over her.

“I'm going to make this easy for you,” Josh says. “And for me.” He stands up and gives her a rueful smile. “I've enjoyed every minute—except the last ten—of our time together.”

“So have I.”

“I think we should just leave it at that then.”

Erica nods and stands up. There's an awkward moment—should they hug? They both take tentative steps toward each other and stop. The distance is too great.

Josh leaves. Erica paces, feeling hollow and lonely. She's lost Jenny. She's lost Josh. Has she lost herself?

ERICA IS SITTING IN DUBAI Airport waiting for her connecting flight to Baghdad. Outside the massive wall of plate glass, the temperature is hovering at 125, and heat mirages dance over the runways. She's never been to Dubai before, and even though all she's seeing up close is the airport, she's in no hurry to come back. It just feels like the most artificial place on earth—a gleaming, glossy monument to extravagance sitting in the baking blistering sun, its very existence made possible by the all-seeing, all-knowing God of Air Conditioning.

And now she's onboard the jet for the two-and-a-half hour flight to Baghdad. Her fellow passengers are a mix of businessmen—both Western and Arab—and women in burkas lugging shopping bags from posh boutiques. Where do they wear their Chanel suits and Lauren belts and Hermes perfume? At clandestine dress-up parties? Or do they simply hang them in their closets and hope the day arrives when they can proudly flaunt their wealth on the streets?

They land, and Bob Ruggio is waiting to meet her. He's in his forties with a slight paunch, bald on top, half glasses hanging on a cord around his neck.

“Welcome to Baghdad.”

“I'm psyched to be here.”

“You must be exhausted.”

“I could use a shower and a nap.”

After getting Erica's suitcase, they step out into the furnace-like air and get in the waiting car. Erica is fascinated by what she sees. Her first impression is that everything is so . . . sandy. The streets, the buildings, the land, even the air. The architecture is a mix of ancient turreted mosques rising gracefully to honor Allah, and more recent and far less graceful office and apartment buildings. The scars of war are everywhere—empty lots, pockmarked houses, broken windows, rusting hulks of burned-out cars, concrete barriers. This is a nation that has been at war for decades now, and it shows. The streets have little foot traffic, and the few people who are out hurry along. She sees children playing, though, running down streets, throwing balls, laughing. They've lived with war their entire lives and they won't let it stop them from being kids, although when they glance at her car their eyes look wary.

“Here's a phone for you, and here's a backup,” Ruggio says. “We're due to drive up and look at the old jail tomorrow. Then we'll head to the village where the one surviving guard lives.”

“He's key here. I just hope he has the information I need and is willing to part with it.”

“We'll bring cash. It has a way of loosening lips.”

“And the area is currently under government control?”

“Yes, but ask me again in ten minutes.”

“It's that bad?”

“It's worse.”

They're silent for the rest of the drive. They enter the gated and heavily fortified Green Zone. Rows of steel-reinforced concrete barriers guard the front of the Al Rasheed hotel. It's a long hulking building, and the lobby is decorated in shades of dated and tacky. Erica checks in, thanks Bob, tells him she'll be waiting in the lobby at eight in the morning, and heads up to her suite.

Before she opens her suitcase she calls Anwar Hamade, the journalist Greg put her in touch with.

“It's Erica Sparks.”

“Welcome to my beautiful country,” he says with an ironic edge.

“Everyone I've met at the hotel has been very nice.”

“That's a good random cross section.”

“So any chance I could lure you over here for dinner?”

“Of course. I've been looking forward to meeting you.”

Erica takes a long shower and tries to grab a short nap. No chance. So she does twenty minutes of Tae Kwon Do. She dresses down—though not in the I'm-a-man camo Nancy brought her—and heads down to the restaurant. Hamade is at a table, and he stands and waves her over.

“Greg speaks very highly of you,” he says as they shake hands.

“And of you.”

Hamade is around fifty, with thick black hair going gray at the temples, knowing restless eyes, and a half smile that reads as bemusement-as-a-defense. Erica likes him immediately.

“Greg tells me you're an expert on covert action.”

“As an Iraqi journalist, I hardly have a choice.”

“This may be a stupid question, but has the CIA been very active in Iraq?”

“The CIA has been very active in the entire Middle East for many decades. The region is still crawling with CIA agents, operatives, and informers. In fact . . .” His eyes scan the room.

“Seriously?”

“Count on it. And they know you're here.”

Erica looks around. Several diners quickly avert their eyes. Suddenly the restaurant, the hotel, doesn't feel like a safe place.

“Do you think it's possible the CIA had something to do with Mike Ortiz's capture, imprisonment, and escape?”

“It's very possible. You know, there are still a lot of unanswered questions about Ortiz's case.”

Erica leans forward. “Say more.”

“First, why was
he
taken, and not one of the other three congressmen? From what I have been told, he was not the easiest target. The congresswoman who was shot was the logical choice—closest to the gunman and least able to resist. But they went straight for Ortiz. So clearly they had orders to take him and him alone. This is an issue the American authorities have never raised. Why not?”

The question hangs there as they order. The waiter is inscrutable, unsmiling. When he has left, Erica asks, “Do you have any theories?”

“They are only theories. But Ortiz, after his own tour in Iraq as a marine and his subsequent election to Congress, became a fierce opponent of the war and its architects in the Bush administration. Perhaps the CIA was engaged in a little payback. After all, his capture neutralized his criticisms of the war.”

“Are you saying his own government had him kidnapped?”

“As I said, it is only a theory. But stranger things have happened in this region. And many can be traced back to the CIA.”

“And his escape?”

“A little too neat. A little too easy.”

“So you think he had help?”

Hamade shrugs.

“But who?” Erica asks.

“Look at how it has benefited his campaign for president.”

“Yes, but surely the CIA doesn't want him in the White House. He's a critic of American involvement in foreign wars. He advocates for diplomacy.”

“Yes, that is my thinking. And that is what makes this case so fascinating. There are many questions. Perhaps tomorrow we can find some answers.”

“If you're right about his capture and escape, Ortiz isn't a hero at all. He's a pawn.”

“As I said, nothing has been proven. But there have been rumors all along. You know, Iraq is a nation in crisis. We take one step forward
and two back. It's heartbreaking on many levels. The Iraqi people have suffered so much; the country has so many problems . . . We don't devote too much time and energy to Mike Ortiz.”

“But he may become president on the basis of lies.”

“Well, he would hardly be the first leader to accomplish that.”

Hamade's cynicism is showing. It's understandable. But if this was all a setup, Erica is not going to let the American people be fooled. Ortiz will be the most powerful man on the planet, capable of molding the course of history. And if he's under the control of the CIA or some other unknown entity, the American people have to know it.
Before
election day.

“I'm going to head up to Baiji tomorrow. I need to see the jail where he was kept. And my producer has tracked down the village where the one guard who survived Ortiz's escape lives. I'm going to try and find him and get his version of events.”

Now Hamade leans forward. “Are you taking an Arabic speaker?”

“My producer knows some Arabic.”

“Would you like me to come? I can translate. I would like to see the jail myself and hear what the guard has to say.”

“Of course. You know it's a very dangerous area.”

“This hotel is a very dangerous area.”

After dinner Erica goes up to her room. She tries to piece together what Hamade has just told her, but she is so tired that her synapses aren't firing. Her exhaustion is physical, emotional, and psychic; she can barely keep her eyes open. She undresses and slips between the sheets. But sleep won't come. Her mind is racing from thought to thought, from fear to terror. According to Hamade, the CIA knows she's in Iraq. And he implied it wasn't just the CIA; it was any number of clandestine agencies or even terrorist groups. Erica feels sweat break out over her body—she's being watched; the room is probably bugged; she's in danger.

She throws off the covers, leaps out of bed, and starts to pace. The implications of what Hamade has told her about Ortiz are staggering.
She goes to the window. Baghdad looks ominous. Patches are lit by streetlamps, but great swathes of the city are dark—dark streets and dark houses. How can she
prove
Ortiz's capture and escape were premeditated, a setup, a fraud, designed to propel him to the White House? How can she
prove
that he was subjected to mind control, to brainwashing? And what if she's wrong about all of it?

The darkened room feels like a prison cell. Erica can't go outside, doesn't even feel safe going down to the lobby. She races into the bathroom and splashes cold water on her face again and again. She goes back out to the room, leans against the wall, and then slowly slides down it. That's when she notices something moving on the rumpled bedsheets. At first she thinks her eyes are playing tricks on her. Then slowly it comes into focus—first two claws, then the head and body and the creeping movement as the huge scorpion makes its way to her pillow.

Erica jumps up and freezes, watching the scorpion with wide, petrified eyes. Then, not taking her eyes off it, she slowly makes her way across the room to where she's put the work boots Nancy gave her. Grabbing one by the toe, she moves toward the bed. When she's close enough she brings the heel down on the scorpion again and again and again, until it's nothing but a twisted mass of glistening guts and smashed shell.

Erica pulls a wad of tissues out of the box, picks up the mess, walks into the bathroom, and flushes it down the toilet. Then she goes back out into the room and turns on every light and conducts a thorough search, including pulling off the mattress and all the bedding. The room is clean. Of scorpions at least.

Erica
has
to sleep. If she doesn't, she'll be incoherent in the morning. She takes out her cards and plays a half dozen games of solitaire. Then she pushes through the wall of her fatigue and forces herself to do an hour of vigorous, even punishing Tae Kwon Do until she's sweating and aching and literally unable to remain standing. And finally it comes, a restless sleep that brings no answers and no solace.