The Secrets We Live In: A Novel

by Fazle Chowdhury

  "We waste our time concerned with the affairs of other nations and don't see the issues within our own," countered the Ambassador sitting opposite.

  He continued.

  "Two months ago, police discovered microchips among the ringleaders of drug trafficking organizations around an outer suburb of this city. But as the investigation was finally gaining ground, all traces disappeared. Our security agencies are well equipped, but they need more resources from the federal government to properly deal with the challenges that lie ahead. I believe we can do much better than it was if we do so. We can make this country a safe and secure haven for all nations of the world, so let's make them see it that way." That was Ambassador Dennis Aubrey’s 2009 speech at the capital four years ago.

  Jessica Donamessi replayed the 2009 speech video for the third time. She viewed and reviewed the YouTube video, searching for evidential content. She frequently moved back and forth between the blue chaise in her office, where piles of documents lay and her desk. The 47-year-old liberal politician was looking to increase the budget of the security agencies. The former district attorney turned politician had recently been re-elected by her constituency for the second time. After her predecessor was elected to the Senate, Donamessi gained his seat on the Select Intelligence Oversight Panel.

  “Simon, would you come in here for a second?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said her legislative staff assistant.

  “I need to complete the draft policy but keep out some of the language-related to…”

  “…all provisions related to security agencies, and here it is,” he said.

  Donamessi was delighted.

  “What would I do without you?” she said.

  “I don’t know, hire more interns?” he joked in his monotone, chin-down voice as he looked over Donamessi’s to-do list. The 35-year-old Simon Eldan, a Brown University graduate, was invariably described as “the Wall.” He was slim, wore reading glasses, and always had a black pen hanging from his white shirt pocket. Based on his appearance, it surprised people to know he was a former Air Force pilot and had only taken the job with Donamessi after being rejected by the top firms on Wall Street. His skills delicately maneuvering in and around the government’s perpetual power struggle was not only appreciated but endorsed by Donamessi. Rumors around were that Eldan managed everything. He looked after so many appointments and meetings that he must have saved more than four of the Donamessi’s ten working hours each day. No one really knew Eldan’s way of doing things. To the interns in the office who worked around him, he was an enigma who neither socialized nor took time off. He was the first in the office and the last one out. He worked more than fourteen-hour days, and despite his impeccable work speed, his perfectly parted hair never strayed from place. No one ever saw him smile, and no one could tell what was going through his mind. But the real curiosity about him was that, when problems arose, he was quick to act and solve the crisis.

  When Donamessi was concerned about the credentials of the last intelligence chief who was to be approved by the House before his candidacy went to the Senate for approval, out of nowhere came his abrupt resignation. When Edward Hennig—a former security agency official of the previous two administrations and a man who made his name in waterboarding techniques—was in the running for the position, Donamessi made known of her disapproval of him. Hennig had been Donamessi’s former classmate at Yale and her contemporary while clerking for a judge at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District. The two frequently clashed during their days as attorneys when Hennig’s former Wall Street firm came under investigation for securities fraud. Donamessi, as District Attorney, gave unwaveringly subpoenaed witnesses and company documents, even going so far as to find evidence of illegal activity outside her jurisdiction. With Donamessi’s help, the Attorney General prosecuted several Hennig’s Wall Street firm members. But when inquiries into these allegations by the Securities and Exchange Commission failed, the firm's top brass were exonerated. To settle old scores for Donamessi, Eldan—through his back door channel of networks—forced the reluctant withdrawal of Edward Hennig’s candidacy before it went to the Senate for approval. He even went so far as to ensure that Henning had no place in the successive administration selection committee. Denying him the role of Chief of Staff and also removing his name off the shortlist of National Security Advisors.

  “Ma’am, I need you to sign these documents from our contact at the “Nut-House,”” said Eldan.

  Donamessi giggled and began to sign.

  “Ma’am, I don’t mean to be rude, but perhaps, you should read what you’re signing once in a while.”

  “I trust you, Simon…I’m sure you have everything under control.”

  Eldan let out a deep sigh, and Donamessi knew something was not right.

  “What is it, Simon?”

  “Representative Scheinermann’s office called. He’ll be dropping by shortly.”

  Donamessi couldn’t hide her irritation. Scheinermann was the last person she wanted to see before the end of her day.

  “Something tells me that you feel I should speak to him about something other than his numerous attempts to have me convinced on a difficult matter…or do you not approve of that, too?” joked Donamessi.

  Eldan crossed his hands and looked down, the sign that he was about to say something insightful.

  “I think it’s important to speak to Representative Scheinermann because I suspect that when the midterm elections come up, he’ll become the Majority Leader unless the president makes him an ambassador before that. Perhaps keeping a direct line with him will help you to be even more valuable to your party than before.”

  Reclining her chaise, Donamessi mulled over Eldan’s words. Scheinermann had been leading the committee on Nuclear proliferation. Her party was divided over foreign policy, and even something as bipartisan as security and proliferation of nuclear weapons had revealed the divisions in the factions within her own group of House members. But as Eldan explained, Donamessi needed to have a foot in all the doors, as all these factions vied for the president’s attention; the reality was that these blocs were becoming more influential to the president’s policies than the president himself. Should the President step out of line with his campaign promises, these political factions were well equipped to pounce and dethrone him from a second term.

  But these new political factions were a result of the same ’08-‘09 financial crisis that brought hard-hitting, economic repair-type politicians like and unlike Donamessi. With newer and younger politicians ousting senior members of the party and leadership positions, these new members increasingly provided some serious consequences for the president’s domestic and international agenda. But such was the political landscape now where political parties and their voters were looking like the new wave of the present political realities, and Eldan comprehended it better than most.

  “Simon, there are other avenues other than Scheinermann. He’s not the only option.”

  “But he is the closest option to the ‘reactionary’ wing of the party. You know as well as I do that you’re not siding with them, but trying to stay one step ahead of them,” said Eldan.

  “So what? Neither he nor his group can give me the votes I need to pass the legislation to increase the budget for our security agencies.”

  “That’s ok, you leave that up to me,” said Eldan confidently.

  For Eldan maintaining a channel with Scheinermann was key, as he represented a very concerning reactionary movement. Scheinermann had campaigned for radical personalities in his party, and they, as elected politicians, owed a considerable debt to him. Scheinermann —a third-term politician who also graduated from Yale a year before Donamessi. An accomplished Oxford Rhodes scholar, he was generally considered “a conservative internationalist”.” Still, after the financial crisis, he expressed more support for isolationist causes, a view that set him apart from other big wigs in his party. During his time in the House, he reigned over all o
verseas engagements. He became so powerful that he could slash the foreign policy efforts of two previous administrations. For Eldan, Scheinermann’s policies left the country out of key world bodies and a large space for other actors to move in the space of international diplomacy, and that was unacceptable.

  “What’s your plan to handle Scheinermann’s allies, Simon?”

  “I don’t have a plan, Ma’am…. Like everything else, we have to work with what we have.”

  Eldan wasn’t exactly being truthful. The danger he saw in Scheinermann was not so much his standing in the party or his potential rise to Majority Leader but his endorsement to the next candidate for president. Eldan feared that Scheinermann’s control of his party would lead to a functional re-engineering of a political system, using isolationism to bring in a new non-conformist, non-politically aligned president that would potentially break democracy and bring dictatorship to the same institutions his late father, a former UC-Berkeley economics professor, had raised him to believe.

  The German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, had split the Eldan family. One branch fled to Paris, the other to Los Angeles. The Eldans of Paris perished during the Holocaust —a fact that remained a key source of distrust of European institutions for Eldan and as he grew up a devout faith for his home institutions.

  Eldan saw Scheinermann as politically strong but morally weak. After failing twice to overthrow the current Majority Leader, Scheinermann was becoming erratic even in his moderate policies of progressive immigration. As he became politically inconsistent, he also opened the door, negotiating with reckless elected officials with all promises and no policy-driven agendas. All the while shunning his previous open access to progressive platforms, including expanded healthcare, free college education, a higher minimum wage, and green energy reform.

  As Eldan sensed, Scheinermann’s ploy for the far more immediate concern was not to mitigate an increasingly volatile political landscape but to polarize it even more. To keep that from happening, Eldan needed to keep a working channel between Donamessi and Scheinermann. He knew all too well that as time passed, Scheinermann would forge closer ties with right-wing nationalist groups overseas, making it increasingly difficult to work with him on liberal and progressive agendas. But it was crucial that Donamessi—and the president—work with Scheinermann, because they needed his allies to back their legislative agendas.

  It was already difficult for Eldan to know where Scheinermann stood on issues as he could easily turn his back on Donamessi or permit a small number of his coalition to support her. Enough to keep his word but not enough to get the result Eldan would like.

  “I’ll give him fifteen minutes, Simon.”

  “Ma’am, you need to hear him out,” said Eldan.

  “You just gave me the poll numbers —I have 65% approval, and as long as we have a majority of the House after the forthcoming election, all legislation what we have worked for will be put to vote.”

  “Ma’am, I’m telling you… we just might need him,” said Eldan.

  For Donamessi, it was a hard stone to swallow. She detested being out of her comfort zone, let alone reaching across the aisle to rub elbows with this man whom she considered not just a rival but an irritant.

  “Only for you, Simon,” she said grudgingly.

  There was a knock on the door. It was Scheinermann.

  "Jessica…" said the voice on the other side of the door.

  Eldan shot Donamessi a nervous look.

  “I’ll keep the door open,” Eldan reassured her.

  Eldan opened the door to Scheinermann, standing confidently in his usual blue suit, white shirt, and plain pink tie, although his dark brown on-sale shoes.

  “Sir,” said Eldan, nodding curtly.

  “Ah the Wall…right,” Scheinermann responded.

  Eldan was not amused. His right hand still rested on the handle of the door, and he clicked out the lock so that the door couldn’t be closed. Looking at Donamessi, Eldan adjusted his glasses.

  “Just buzz me if you need me, Ma’am,” he said as he exited.

  “He doesn’t really like me, does he?” asked Scheinermann.

  “What can I do for you, David?” said Donamessi.

  Scheinermann adjusted the button of his suit and tried to close the door. After three tries, he stopped bothering. Then, he walked over to a chair piled with documents.

  “I see that you’re either short-staffed or the Wall isn’t doing his job. Something tells me it’s not the latter.”

  Donamessi was not too pleased with Scheinermann’s remarks, but she smiled, nonetheless.

  “Surely you didn’t come all the way from Chevy Chase to lecture me on tidying my office,” she said.

  Scheinermann gave a wry smile, then consolidated all the papers and folders in front of him and placed them on Donamessi’s desk. Sitting on the chair, he relaxed, put one leg over the other, and then began,

  “No, Jessica, I don’t lecture; I only provide options.”

  “Yes, but your options often mean less room for the likes of me, don’t they?” said Donamessi.

  Her comments did not bother him. He knew of Donamessi from her days in Yale and as a District Attorney. His former law firm had appointed him to defend Edward Hennig. When he exonerated his client from the charges brought against him by the Attorney General, Scheinermann lobbied to get Hennig a position in the previous administration. When Hennig withdrew from the running, Scheinermann was increasingly criticized for alleged conflicts of interest, stemming from his continuing association with his previous law firm and later as a member of the House.

  “I want clarification,” said Scheinermann.

  “What’s this I hear about you wanting to increase the budget of the security agencies?”

  “Why, I thought your group of friends were all for it?” said Donamessi.

  “Well, we were, but …situations…change.”

  This was not what Donamessi wanted to hear. For months, she had been working on this bill, stretching her staff to full capacity to build a coalition to make it happen. But now, it seemed Scheinermann was pulling the plug.

  “I see the look on your face, Jessica. Don’t be demoralized. We just have to work some other things out.”

  “What did you have in mind?” she asked.

  “I hear your cousin Laura is angling for a House seat in the 18th-district.”

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “So what? I mean, really? You tried a hippy before, and now you’re trying a software magnate. What are you thinking? You know she won’t win,”

  “I think she is more than equipped to take on your poodle.” She joked.

  “I’m going to need you to rescind her candidacy if you’re serious about getting your bill passed,” demanded Scheinermann.

  “David, as much as you think I’m just going to take this, I’m not. Here’s another thing, I’m going to keep on voting NO to keep your bills from going to the Senate. They’ll keep stalling like all your bills so far, and you’ll have to wait until after the next midterm elections —at a minimum two years for sure —to push them again. By then, no one will remember whether they were a priority or not,” responded Donamessi.

  Scheinermann drummed his fingers slowly.

  "Jessica, what do you think about this new ambassador in Paris that’s getting so much press attention?" he asked.

  "Zain Auzaar…yeah, I read that somewhere…good for him,” Donamessi perked up as she spoke now.

  “Don’t you remember him from your time at Oxford?"

  "Zain?” Scheinermann asked.

  “Yeah, he was huge in the debate society, the 1993 Iraq bombing protests, the medieval festivals…He was big, surprised you don’t remember him. If I remember correctly, you were fond of him.”

  “Well, Oxford’s a blur, but how do you know him, Jessica?”

  “He’s more Laura’s friend than mine. I met him a few times when I visited her in London, and oh yeah, some of the Americans on campus
were fascinated by his efforts in mobilizing large groups of students to protest the situation of Asian countries affected by drought. From what I remember, he was simply fantastic at galvanizing crowds. What he could do at a moment’s notice…and with university administrators’ approval…something that’s not so easy to do at Oxford, I’m sure you remember.”

  Scheinermann thought hard for a bit.

  “Zain —wait, he had a sister, right?” Scheinermann asked.

  “Might have. He does come from a very prominent family,” she said.

  “He wasn’t like the other guys!” she said.

  “But David, why are you so interested?” Donamessi asked.

  “It’s not like he’s a voter for your election.”

  Scheinermann adjusted his collar and loosened his tie.

  “I got a report that he is very unconventional…a bit too unconventional for my taste.”

  Donamessi rolled her eyes.

  “All new ambassadors are unconventional, David.”

  He shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. This one is different, and he’s going to change a few positions which might affect some of our own foreign policies.”

  Donamessi was curious.

  “Tell me more.”

  Scheinermann, sensing there was no one in the office at 5:45 pm, grew more relaxed and spoke in a comfortable, non-confrontational tone.

  “He’s representing a government that we’ve begun to have problems with since last year, and from what I hear, is going to seal the nuclear deal with the Republique government, something they came begging to us first, for which we decided against.”

  Donamessi was perplexed.

  “I thought Zain was English?”

  “He might be by birth, all these royal, hedge fund brownbags are, but he has been tasked to get this nuclear deal through, and that worries me.”

  Donamessi thought to herself.