“If I take it,” she continued, “there will probably be talk about us.”
Roarke smiled. She was absolutely right. It could get in the way, but of all people, Katie could handle it. “Maybe.”
“Definitely. But the thing that I’m most worried about…” she started to say.
“Yes?”
“…is how you feel about it. Whether you think I’m encroaching on your turf.”
Roarke recognized that this was a serious question that deserved a serious and honest answer. “I think it’ll be a real challenge. I think you should take it. I’m proud of you, sweetheart. And I understand you’re not ready to completely change your life.” He was referring to her reluctance to relocate.
“How’d you get so smart for a man?” she asked quietly. “Thank you.”
“I love you.”
“I love you more,” Katie rejoined. After a beat, she picked up the pace, her nervousness gone. “Again, I don’t know if I’ll take it.”
“You’ll take the job.”
“But if I do, I’ll need clearance to talk with anybody and everybody. I’ll need autonomy. I’ll need to know the White House’s expectations, and I’ll need to be above the politics.”
“Right,” Roarke offered, again in that same tone as before. If one thing was true about Washington, it’s that nothing is accomplished without politics.
Chapter 51
Michael O’Connell settled into his room at The National, Moscow’s most centrally located four-star hotel. It’s conveniently situated opposite the Kremlin on Tverskaya, the city’s most chic street, and close to all of the principal locales.
“Public places. Public places only. You have to stay on the tourist routes,” Andrea Weaver had explained before he left. “Otherwise you’ll draw attention to yourself. In the mid-nineties it was wide open. Not so now. Restaurants, museums, or the shopping destinations only.
“There’s GUM Department Store. It’s right next to your hotel in Red Square. Americans are expected to go there and drop lots and lots of rubles on designer labels. It’ll be very busy and the perfect place to strike up a casual conversation with a Russian. But you’re not a woman and your friend knows that. So I’m not sure I’d make a shopping mall the first spot.”
“But wouldn’t that make it a reason to consider it? Because it isn’t the natural place for me to be?” O’Connell asked.
“Possibly,” she’d said, though not convinced. “I’d try the museums. The Pushkin. It has the best collection of European and Impressionist art in Russia, second only to the Saint Petersburg Hermitage. Or the Tretyakov Gallery. Absolutely beautiful masterpieces, more Russian.”
“I wouldn’t do a surreptitious meeting in a museum. Too damned quiet. Where else?”
“Well, outside in Red Square. It’s where everyone starts sightseeing.”
“Yes. Good idea. That’s where I’ll start. He’ll find me there. Then where?”
“You’ll have to play that by ear. “Lenin’s Tomb?”
“I wouldn’t be caught dead there.”
“Restaurant Silla?”
“What kind of food?” O’Connell asked.
“Korean, Japanese, Chinese.”
“No. Too exotic.”
“Guantanamera?” she offered.
“Sounds Cuban.”
“It is. Too un-American. Even for a New York Times reporter.”
“Besides, I need someplace I can speak English.”
“Okay then, the American Bar & Grill. There are two of them. You’ve got your basic burgers and sandwiches.” She’d pulled out a map from her shelf, which O’Connell now had with him. “They’re close to the Metros Mayakovskaya and Yaganskaya. A bit odd, though. They’ve got a Wild West motif: buffalo heads on the wall, saddles, even American road signs.”
O’Connell went back to his original thought: the tourist destination GUM. That’s what he told Andrea. That’s where he decided to go.
Now, with the tourist pamphlets spread out on the bed, he read the history of Gosudarstvenny Universalny Magazin, which in English translates as State Department Store. The building was erected in the 19th century as an exhibition hall and was eventually converted for shopping. At one point in its more than 100-year history, GUM, pronounced GOOM, was the largest department store in Europe. However, calling GUM a department store is actually a misnomer. It’s comprised of hundreds of stores. Many closed in the Communist era, due to the fact that there were so few Soviet-made goods people wanted. Today, it’s an impressive, three-level privatized shopping mall with brilliant glass ceilings, housing many of the world’s most famous chains.
O’Connell didn’t assume that the man who contacted him knew where he would be staying, but he’d certainly count on me hitting the tourist spots.
Still, O’Connell figured that this man, a former something in the Soviet era, had to be old. At least in his late 70s. Maybe even older. So O’Connell would be on the lookout, too, but it probably wouldn’t make a difference. The Russian would find him.
General Bridgeman followed his Meet the Press interview with a stop across town at CNN, where he was only politely received, and then to Fox News, where the anchors enthusiastically embraced him. He talked about the upcoming march on Washington, and gave them usable sound bites that would last the news day.
“I’m considering my options. If you would have asked me the same question six months ago, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. But now, America is in peril. We are faced with the prospect of nearly four more years of an unelected administration. Never has this happened. Just take the temperature of the country and you’ll see how people feel. But the White House wants you to put the thermometers away. They’re afraid to read the results. Well, I can tell you, here and now, people are beginning to say that four years is four years too long.”
“You have to admit that the Constitution does not allow for a new election,” the anchor stated.
The general continued so smoothly as to make everything seem entirely plausible. “Have you counted the mail, the e-mail, and the phone calls Congress has been getting on this? Every single one is from a voter. Voters in states across the nation. Red states. Blue states. That’s where the Constitution is changed, state by state.”
“Are you suggesting an Amendment that allows for a recall, General Bridgeman?”
“I would support such a proposal.”
“And for an accelerated presidential election?”
“I would support such a proposal.”
“And would your name be at the top of the ballot?”
“Well, not to beat around the bush, but as I’ve said before, let’s just say we’ll see what the people want.”
The Fox News anchor broke for the commercial and extended his hand to the guest opposite him. “You know, General,” he whispered, “I think it goes without saying that you can count on us for fair and balanced coverage.”
“I was counting on it.”
D’Angelo’s last visit to Damascus was with a Congressional delegation. He’d bleached his hair blonde and passed himself off as a quiet and bored aide to the Senate Commerce Committee. He’d failed to distinguish himself on the trip, and his firing was easily explained to the rest of the group upon their return to the States. During that visit, however, he learned the location of a key al-Qaeda training camp from an Iranian rug dealer whose brother drank too much. The compound was obliterated by missiles two days later. The businessman found 500,000 tax-free dollars in his hotel room the next day.