Kompromat

‘Dear Wilbur, I have heard from a totally reliable source that RC is not, repeat not, in any way connected with Golden Shower scenario. I am writing this by hand to avoid the possibility of adding yet another juicy email to the WikiLeaks treasury. I am sure you will know what action to take.

Very best wishes, Warren Fletcher.’

As Wilbur Brown returned to his desk, a wave of relief came over him. Over the months, that Golden Shower rumour had proved remarkably persistent. He had faced accusations, sometimes not too polite, from Caroline Mann’s people that he was sitting on the file for reasons of his own. Only that morning congressman Terry Harman had called on him to set up an enquiry.

‘If the FBI can reopen the file on Caroline Mann,’ Harman had challenged, ‘why can’t they investigate the possibly illegal behaviour of Ronald Craig? Who knows whether minors were involved in the Golden Shower scene?’

Wilbur Brown passed a hand over his forehead. Slime and innuendo. That’s what politics boiled down to nowadays. Was there any depth they wouldn’t sink to?

What a narrow escape, he thought. If Warren Fletcher’s note had not arrived in the nick of time, he might have succumbed to the mounting pressure and announced the Golden Shower enquiry that people like Terry Harman were calling for. And that might have allowed Caroline Mann to pull ahead again in the tightly fought race.

In the end, Wilbur Brown decided to do nothing. In view of Warren Fletcher’s letter, he felt confident that announcing an enquiry into the Golden Shower episode would be totally unjustified. But he also he saw no need to announce that the Republican presidential candidate was not involved in the shenanigans in the Hotel Kempinski. Caroline Mann was cross enough with him as it was. If he came out now with a statement exonerating Craig, that would only add fuel to the flames.

He folded Warren Fletcher’s letter and put it in his wallet.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Harriet Marshall sat at a corner table in the Metropole Hotel’s Chaliapin Bar waiting for Yuri Yasonov to arrive.

Because this was a very special occasion – a US election night party – the hotel management had erected a huge television screen which contrasted incongruously with the bar’s famous Art Nouveau fittings and decor.

On the TV Simon Henley, leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, was holding forth from New York.

Strange, wasn’t it, Harriet Marshall thought, how Henley had been shunted aside after the Brexit vote in Britain? Whatever you thought about UKIP and Simon Henley, they had certainly played a part in the Leave campaign’s stupendous victory in the June 23rd Referendum. And after the coup – for what was it except a coup? – Henley hadn’t even been offered a knighthood. No wonder he was over there in the US most of the time, cosying up to the Craig campaign team and even to Craig himself, if his frequent tweets were to be believed.

She listened more closely to what Henley was saying.

‘Do you know? It feels just like Brexit day to me.’ Henley beamed at the camera, holding a pint of Budweiser in his hand.

‘All the smart money, all of the commentators, all of the foreign-exchange dealers, the bookmakers, they all think that Caroline Mann is going to do it.

‘Well, I’m not sure they’re right. Yes, Ronald Craig has got to win these swing states – he’s got to win Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida. There’s a mountain to climb. I get that, and yet I have a feeling the world could be in for a very big shock tomorrow morning.’

Harriet Marshall was so absorbed in Simon Henley’s Victory-for-Craig predictions that she didn’t notice Yuri Yasonov’s arrival until he tapped her lightly on the shoulder.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said. ‘The president called me. If things continue to look good for Craig, Popov wants to celebrate at his dacha. Says he’s got some special guests too. We should give it an hour or two while the results come in, then head on over.’

‘Am I invited?’ Harriet Marshall asked.

‘What do you think?’ Yasonov replied. ‘You were one of the lynchpins.’

While Ronald Craig’s tally of votes mounted and state after state declared for him, rather than for Caroline Mann, the two old friends and lovers sat in the Metropole’s Chaliapin Bar enjoying the moment.

‘You know, Harriet, I fancied you even at Oxford, when you were still a man.’

‘And do you continue to fancy me, now I’m a woman?’ Harriet Marshall fluttered her eyelashes.

‘More than ever,’ Yasonov replied.

Yasonov fetched himself a drink at the bar. When he came back, he said, ‘I’m sorry if the police gave you a hard time when they picked you up after that Oxford Union debate.’