Kompromat

Hollingsworth knew he had to give a little. Though – legally speaking – he had been given powers of restraint, even coercion, he preferred not to use them. He had learned long ago that persuasion was often more effective than force.

‘We think your personal security may recently have been compromised. In other words, we think you may be bugged. We don’t know for sure, but the evidence points that way.’

‘You want to examine my backside, do you?’

‘We are certainly grateful for your cooperation,’ Hollingsworth replied diplomatically. Craig, he knew, had a short fuse. Things had gone well so far. He hoped this wasn’t just the calm before a storm.

They gave him the lightest of anaesthetics. Two hours later, Craig was in the recovery room. Hollingsworth hovered by the bedside.

He held out a small metal tray. ‘Take a look at this little blighter,’ he said. ‘It’s plastic. Would never show up with a metal detector, but we picked it up with the MRI.’

Craig studied the small round object on the tray. ‘Is that still transmitting as we speak? Are they listening in to us?’

‘They were, I imagine, but we switched it off as soon as we extracted it,’ Hollingsworth replied.

‘How did you do that?’

‘With tweezers actually. Good, old-fashioned tweezers. Took a bit of probing.’

‘I mean, how did you switch it off?’

‘We found the switch.’

‘Won’t they realize you’re on to them?’

In this verbal ping-pong, Craig had just delivered a forehand smash.

‘Good point,’ Hollingsworth acknowledged. ‘We weighed that one carefully. We could have left the transmitter in place and used you as a conduit for false information to feed to the other side. A stool pigeon, if you like. Like the spy thrillers. On balance we decided that this way was better. We believe they’ll put it down to a technical malfunction. Happens all the time, you know.’

‘What about the executive order the federal marshals laid on me? That’s public knowledge, isn’t it? Executive orders get published in the Federal Register. They’ll find out that way, won’t they?’

‘This one won’t be published in the Federal Register, I can assure you. No more than half a dozen copies of the order existed anyway, and by now they’ve all been destroyed.’

Craig couldn’t help admiring the thoroughness of the operation. ‘You guys put in a lot of effort to reel me in, didn’t you?’

‘You were one big barracuda. We couldn’t afford to have you running around, talking to all and sundry and the Russians listening in to every word.’

Ronald Craig got out of bed and pulled on his trousers. ‘Am I free to go?’

‘Free as air.’

‘Are you going to send me the bill for the hospital?’

‘This one’s on the house. Do you want to stay here for the rest of the night?’

‘Gee, thanks, but no thanks. I own a few hotels in this town. I’m sure one of them will find a bed for me.’

They gave him a police escort into the City. He pulled out his cell phone and started tweeting his twenty million plus followers:

#IN NATION’S CAPITAL BUT ONLY FOR THE DAY. BACK SOON MORE PERMANENTLY. I HOPE TO CONTINUE FIGHTING FOR YOU!!

Ronald Craig felt suddenly cheerful. Okay, his backside was a little sore. They probably had to dig around a bit when they pulled out the bug, but he felt fit as a fiddle otherwise.

He looked at his watch. 5:30a.m. A bit too early to call in the troops for a surprise meeting. Give them a chance to have a pee and brush their teeth. Ronald Craig was nothing if not considerate. So many people weren’t considerate, he thought. Sad.

Two hours later, Ron Craig gathered his team together in his private dining room in the Washington Craig International Hotel. Arguably, the Washington Craig had an even better view of the White House, the other side of Lafayette Square, than the Hay Adams Hotel – its near neighbour – did. Craig wasn’t bothered either way. He was already within spitting distance of the presidential mansion. That was what counted.

‘I’m making no promises, guys,’ he began. ‘We’re not there yet, but I want you to know that I consider you all to be top-quality candidates for my transition team and after that, who knows? If we win in July, which looks pretty darn likely at the moment, and if we win again in November – and we are going to have to work our butts off to make sure that happens – some or all of you are going to be sitting with me over there in the White House.’

He gestured towards the gleaming white-portico structure just a few hundred feet away. God what a beautiful building it was, he thought. From the outside at least; internally, apparently, the accommodation left much to be desired. Still, that could be fixed. Most things could be fixed if you put your mind to it.