Mistress(96)

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.





Chapter 111



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.