Kompromat

When Ronald Craig said that Florida was his second home, he hadn’t been exaggerating. He truly loved the enormous jazz-age mansion, set in its own fifteen acres of land on the narrow strip of land between the Atlantic Ocean and Worth Lake. He had owned it for the last thirty years as part of the Craig empire. Most of the property was now part of the Hasta La Vista private club, with 128 luxurious bedrooms, though Ronald Craig and his family still had their exclusive family quarters.

They had a late candlelit supper after the rally, looking out over the ocean. Malvina Craig, Ronald’s wife, sat – suavely beautiful – at one end of the table. Craig himself sat at the other end, with daughter Rosie on his right, and Barnard on his left.

‘So good to see you again, Ed!’ Craig gushed. ‘That expedition to Russia’s Far East was some trip, wasn’t it? We got to see a tiger too. You know my backside’s still sore. Godammit, I thought Popov was meant to be a crack shot and he ends up by shooting me in the ass! How’s the Brexit campaign going, Ed? Are you on course for victory?’

Barnard saw no point in pretending things were better than they were. ‘We’re not there yet,’ he confessed. ‘The government’s committed itself to Project Fear. The prime minister and the chancellor of the exchequer are stressing the downside if we leave. And we’re not getting the groundswell of support we need. Not yet anyway. I think we’ve got to raise our game, otherwise we’re going to be crushed on June 23rd – that’s our Referendum day.’

‘Don’t for a moment think we’ve got it in the bag either on this side of the ocean,’ Craig countered ‘We’ve got a long way to go too. I may win the nomination, but I still need to win the election. Never underestimate Caroline Mann. She’s tricky as hell. Did you know the FBI has 30,000 of her unauthorized emails? God knows what she was up to. But are they releasing them? Are they hell? They’re terrified that releasing the emails will damage her chances. And the press! Vipers, turncoats, hypocrites. Fake news, that’s all they’re good for. Lock them up, I say. Lock them all up!’

As Ronald Craig worked himself up into a lather of righteous indignation, a uniformed butler entered the room. ‘Please forgive me interrupting, Mr Craig. There’s a posse of federal marshals here.’

‘What the devil’s going on?’ Ronald Craig tossed his napkin onto the table and strode to the door.

The two federal marshals waiting outside the door greeted him politely.

Craig recognized both of them at once. If you were a politician, you made a point of getting to know the local gendarmerie. ‘Pedro, Jimmy,’ he said. ‘For God’s sake, what’s all this about?’

Pedro Gonzales was more than a little anxious. He’d had a run-in or two with Ronald Craig in the past and had not come off best. He certainly didn’t want to piss the man off. He might be president one day. He turned to the man at his side, Jimmy Redmond.

‘Jimmy, you read it out,’ he said. ‘You read better than me. Unless it’s in Spanish. I’m probably better than Jimmy is at reading Spanish.’

‘Just get on with it,’ Craig snarled.

‘Here we go.’ Jimmy put on his spectacles.

In the brief time at their disposal, President Brandon Matlock and Attorney General Joe Silcock had done a tremendous job. The Executive Order signed by the president looked good and sounded good. It smelt good too, being printed on heavy, crisp parchment. The marshal began to read: