by Glen Carter
Suddenly, there was the sound of a new voice.
Sarah Rutter walked into the room. She smiled warmly. Bristling with confidence. She hugged Liz. One woman offering friendship and affection to another. At a distance she looked the same as she did in Abe’s campfire photographs, astoundingly so.
Bolt couldn’t take his eyes off her. He consumed every detail, every plane where light caressed her form. Every kiss of sunlight against her body.
Liz introduced members of her crew.
Bolt stepped forward.
“Samuel Bolt,” Liz said. “Our audio technician.”
Bolt took her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
She’d consorted with the high and mighty. Even a deity on earth. But at that moment, Sarah Rutter was apparently unable to speak.
* * * * *
Sarah sat.
The wireless microphone needed to be clipped on. Bolt leaned in to her. “I’m sorry, but I have to put this on the front of your blouse.”
Sarah nodded. Eyes locked on his.
Bolt positioned the mic. For a microsecond, he flashed to her cleavage. A black camisole beneath red silk. Bolt felt her warm breath. He ran the mic wire inside her jacket, careful not to brush against her breasts.
“Would you mind buttoning up to hide the cable?”
Without a word, Sarah did so.
Bolt checked the pack to make sure it was powered up. “I have to put this behind you.”
“What would you like me to do?”
“Just scooch forward. Toward me.”
Sarah pushed to the edge of the chair, nearly colliding with him.
He caught her scent.
“Sorry.”
“No worries.”
She flared her eyes, opened her mouth to say something, but held it back.
Bolt placed the pack on the cushion at her rear. “You can sit back now, but try not to rub up against the electronics.”
“I’ll try.”
Job done, he moved away.
Jeff tapped his ear.
Bolt asked Sarah to count to ten, which she did, slowly. He repeated the process for Liz. She grabbed her pack and stuffed it behind her. “Thanks for your help,” she said.
Bolt got out of the shot. So far, so good.
“Rolling,” said Jeff.
“Mrs. Rutter,” Liz began.
“Call me Sarah, please.”
“Thank you. Sarah.” Liz opened the notebook on her lap and tossed her softball opener.
Silence.
They waited.
Rebecca adjusted her glasses.
Sarah brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. The moment was askew. Something unexpected had already thrown her off. “I’m sorry. Can you repeat the question?”
Nigel reset his stopwatch.
Jeff zoomed in for another focus.
“Political spouses. How would you define that role?”
Sarah gathered herself. “First of all. I’m glad you said spouses, because it goes both ways, doesn’t it?”
“Are you trying to tell us something?”
Sarah laughed. “There’ll only be one presidential candidate in this family, I promise. I was only trying to make a point.”
“Point taken,” Liz said, continuing. “How do you see yourself in the role of a political spouse?”
Sarah appeared to be thinking about it. A glance around the room. For a microsecond, she settled on him. No one else would have caught it.
“With schedules. Campaign events and appearances. Sometimes it can be a little overwhelming.”
“And?”
“A wife can be a calming influence.”
“Soothe the savage beast.”
Sarah shook her head. “That may be a little theatrical.”
“Politics is a blood sport,” Liz said.
Sarah smiled. “Let’s just say the senator takes a more gentlemanly approach to the game.”
“The senator has been described as somewhat ‘chilly,’” Liz pushed on. “Do you think that’s accurate? Is it the man you see behind closed doors?”
“No, not at all, but let’s just say it’s also important for the public to see the senator’s softer, less intense side. The man behind the positions and policy.”
“So, you help put a human face on the campaign,” Liz said.
“If you like. Yes. I wouldn’t be the first.”
There it was again. Too quick to communicate anything, but Bolt got the impression she wanted to.
Liz was oblivious. “Still, you’ve been noticeably absent from Senator Rutter’s campaign. Some might think that unusual. How would you explain it?”
Sarah smiled thinly. “First of all, I wouldn’t say I have been absent from my husband’s campaign, and unusual would not be the way I would characterize the amount of time I have spent at my husband’s side.”
“Tonight’s fundraiser in New York City. You won’t be there.”
“Unfortunately, I can’t attend. You also know that the party leadership will be here on the weekend, and there are a million things to do. Bill and I decided it would be better if I was here to deal with them.”
“So, you consider yourself the traditional wife?”
“Define traditional.”
“Traditional in the sense of a woman who tends the home fires while her husband takes care of business.”
Something bothered her about the question. She pressed on. “I think in every relationship each partner has an important role to play. It could be ‘taking care of business,’ as you say, or tending the home fires, such as when a husband goes to war.”
She was staring at him now. So was Liz. Bolt looked away.
“Neither is more important than the other. So, in that respect, both Bill and I are ‘traditional.’ Yes. And believe me, there is plenty to keep both of us busy.”
Liz nodded a woman’s understanding. “Still,” she said. “You have a pretty impressive list of accomplishments away from the home front.”
Bolt read relief in Sarah’s face.
“I muddle through,” she said with a smile.
Both women laughed.
Liz checked her notebook. “AIDS orphans in Zaire and Sudan. You’ve been building schools in Central America. You’re up for a United Nations Humanitarian Award.”
“There is no end to the need.”
“And you’re on the boards of half a dozen NGOs.”
“I’m happy to help where I can.”
Liz smiled, admiringly. “If your husband is elected president, will you use your position as First Lady to further those causes?”
“Absolutely,” Sarah replied. “Where possible and where appropriate. Senator Rutter shares the same commitment to easing poverty and suffering as I do. Whether it’s here at home or beyond our shores. What man wouldn’t be affected by the sight of a child dying of cholera or AIDS?”
“His initiative to help the homeless?”
“That speaks for itself.”
It was all well played. Sarah was genuine, allowing the soft notes of her personality to resonate. She was resolute without seeming stubborn. There was compassion and intelligence without seeming to condescend. Bolt was impressed.
The interview lasted the full hour, and when it was over, Sarah sat quietly while the television camera and lights were taken down. Rebecca showed her approval from the sidelines and then turned her attention to Liz.
Bolt was instructed to remove the microphone.
Sarah waited.
“How did I do,” she asked, unbuttoning her jacket.
Bolt removed the mic. “Famously. You were always quick on your feet.”
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
<
br /> His face blanked. “Weren’t you captain of your high school debating club?”
“How do you know that?”
“Your bio.” Damn.
“Are audio technicians always so well-informed?”
“We hear a lot.” Bolt chuckled.
Sarah looked into his eyes. “I don’t mean to stare. It’s just that . . .”
“It’s behind you,” Bolt interrupted.
“Excuse me?”
“The pack. It’s behind you. Can you slide forward a little?”
Sarah moved forward. Brushing against him.
She was shaking like a leaf.
29
Shorjah, Baghdad
Mahmoud Al-Saadi stared at the face, certain he had seen it before. By the will of Allah, it would come to him. He snapped open the newspaper and brought it closer, adjusted his glasses. It picked at him, not knowing how he knew this face.
He sipped his coffee. Thick, milky, the way he liked it. Al-Saadi wiped his moustache. The smell of fresh bread came to him. Just out of Mustafa’s oven. In a moment, he’d wander over and collect the scraps. Mustafa would want to keep him all morning; the baker was always wanting to vent about something. Al-Saadi would suffer him while he stuffed his cheeks with wonderful bread.
The TV caught his attention in the cool shade of the café. Some depraved western shlokeh was jiggling her big breasts and buttocks. Al-Saadi turned to the teenager at the espresso machine. Handfuls of black hair that ran all the way to her tight jeans. Shaking her behind, too. The infidels and their decadent ways, turning Iraq’s girls into whores.
Al-Saadi swept his eyes up and down the narrow street. The market was already bustling. It was going to be a good day, during which he would sell many bushels, Allah willing. He watched Amsah scooping figs for another customer. Talking too much, as usual, while others waited. Before long, they’d give up and take their business to the Syrian. His figs were not nearly as plump and tasty, but they’d not have to suffer Amsah’s irritating mouth. Scoop, bag, and take their dinars. That was the way it was done. The woman would never learn. She cast him a look, with a face like one of the Syrian’s figs.
Al-Saadi ducked behind the newspaper. She would wait while he finished his coffee. Some of Mustafa’s warm bread. Praise be to Allah.
The man in the picture. An American senator. Al-Saadi knew little of American politicians. Mostly they were pigs and warmongers. Always ready to visit death upon whatever country was in their way. How many Iraqis had they killed? Al-Saadi turned his head toward a pile of rags a few feet away. Filthy stumps clung to a tin can, a face pitted by a hundred sandstorms. A toothless grin met his stare. They were legion. Saddam took their limbs and lives in a maniacal march to Kuwait. The American bomb that nearly killed Al-Saadi had taken many fathers’ sons. They were children. The one in the trench next to him had cried for his mother, with his angel face ripped apart by shrapnel.
Al-Saadi threw the wretch a dinar, which he quickly pinched and dropped into his can. A stump came up in a pathetic salute. “Saddam, the son of a whore, can suck my cock,” he growled. “I still have that.”
Al-Saadi grinned. “I’m certain he’d trade every ounce of gold in his palace for the pleasure.”
The old soldier grunted, slipping once again into his remembrances.
Al-Saadi returned to his newspaper and the senator’s picture.
Maybe another coffee would help him remember. He raised his hand to catch the teenager’s attention. She went to work, and a minute later a fresh cup was placed on the table.
The girl was a waste. When he was young, women were patriots. They kept the country on its feet when their men went to war. His mother had been one of them. It was a long time ago. Women were modern, now. They would never repeat the sacrifices of the mujahideen.
It came to him then. The man in the newspaper. Al-Saadi’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment the embers of a cold memory flickered. He reached for his cup. The more he thought about it, the more it tickled.
Amsah hissed at him from across the alleyway, cheeks like sunbaked dung.
Al-Saadi gulped his coffee, took his crutches, and stood. The one-legged fig vendor of Shorjah Market would need to travel back decades to scratch that itch.
* * * * *
Al-Saadi lay there, staring at the ceiling, until Amsah was asleep. In a moment, she was snoring. Camels fucked with less of a din. He pulled back the covers and slid to the edge of the bed. A single foot on the floor, he pulled the crutches to him, and without a sound he was out the door. At one end of a short hallway there was a sitting room. Moonlight spilled onto a rug and a few pieces of furniture. A flat-screen TV filled one corner. Outside, the street was quiet except for barking and the occasional vehicle. For a moment, Al-Saadi thought about a snack. Tea and whatever leftovers Amsah had stuffed into the refrigerator. He decided against it. If the woman came awake, she’d be full of irritating questions. He took a few steps to the other end of the hallway. Al-Saadi opened a door and stepped inside. He closed the door and listened. Reassured by the racket coming from Amsah’s sinuses, he flicked on a lamp. There was a desk piled high with papers, a telephone, and a small copying machine. A computer monitor blinked. Next to the desk was a safe. Al-Saadi bent down and spun the dial this way and that. The door swung open. After a moment, he reached inside and pulled out several large envelopes. Across the front were faded red letters. jihaz al-mukhabarat al-amma. The regime sponsored his father’s top-secret butchery, and often provided his “patients,” and at his far-flung outpost he spent his time in the company of the state’s madmen and murderers. After the war, his father had shown up on his doorstep, full of panic, with a box full of his M14 files. “The Americans will be crawling over us,” he had said. “If they discover this, I’m a dead man.”
“You did your duty, like all of us.”
“I was the instrument of Saddam’s will. I will not escape that judgment.”
Al-Saadi pulled out a sheaf of papers and began to read. He skipped the psychiatric jargon, stopping now and then at the notes he understood. He recognized his father’s style. Short and to the point. Like he had been in life. Al-Saadi was sickened by what he read. The mind of one man had been wiped clean. There was a concoction of drugs, and he had savagely disembowelled another patient and eaten his heart. There was a notation, in red pen, at the end of the file. The opposite of pure good can be proven to be pure evil.
Al-Saadi considered the implications of what he was reading. History was rife with cases of mass suicide. He remembered some of the madmen. An American zealot named Jim Jones. Hundreds had poisoned themselves in a place called Guyana. Al-Saadi thought about the foolish bluster of the regime after Saddam had invaded Kuwait. The Information Minister declaring that, if they attacked, the Americans would commit suicide by the hundreds “on the gates of Baghdad.” Clearly, no such thing had happened.
“Why did you bring this to me?”
His father had looked at him, sadly. “I will be hanged.”
His father was a patriot, not a war criminal. “Then destroy it all.”
“This is my life’s work,” the colonel replied, simply. “And you are my son.”
Colonel Jahmir Al-Saadi was long dead. Al-Saadi had mourned him like any son. His portrait hung in Al-Saadi’s home. Not in the uniform of the Republican Guard, but in the cap and gown of Oxford. The fruit of his labour had remained hidden in Al-Saadi’s safe and was viewed by him only once before. He opened the envelope and extracted a storage device. Plugged it in. The computer hummed while a video file loaded. Al-Saadi clicked on it and waited, and a moment later a man’s face filled the screen. The camera pulled out. Seated in a chair with his hands behind his back. Al-Saadi knew an American uniform when he saw one. The man struggled against his restraints. A large soldier held him down. A voice spoke off-camera. Al-Saadi re
cognized it immediately as his father’s.
“What is your name?”
The soldier answered the question. But only the one. His reward was being knocked over in his chair and kicked several times.
“Stop!” his father ordered. “Pick him up.”
The big lug set the chair right, with the soldier still in it, spitting and swearing, blood dripping from his nose. “Fuck you,” he spat defiantly.
Al-Saadi spun the video forward. An instant later, the soldier spoke again. This time, his name, rank, and service number.
Al-Saadi rolled further on. The images flashed across the monitor. More of the same. Another soldier was brought in, and then two more. The big one delivering more punishment, bloodied faces blurred past. Down the prisoners went, boots swung, and up they came again. Hoisted by the large one while they were tied to that chair.
Another soldier was marched in. Al-Saadi slowed the playback.
“Your name,” demanded Colonel Jahmir Al-Saadi.
The soldier replied.
Fast-forward. To four soldiers in a cinder-block enclosure. Al-Saadi tensed, knowing what was about to happen. When it was done, he leaned closer to the screen.
“Hello, Senator,” Al-Saadi whispered, smiling at a much younger face than the one in his morning newspaper.
30
The studio director called for a tight shot on the Republican candidate for president.
“Camera two,” he barked.
The camera zoomed slowly into the face of Senator William Rutter. Confidently, he stared straight into the lens. The audience in the great hall went quiet, and in homes across America the candidate commanded a saintly trust.
“Excellent question,” Rutter said smoothly to the reporter from the Washington Post. “Let me say first that as a veteran I know what it is like to put everything on the line in times of war. I had no hesitation answering my nation’s call. I was honoured to do it.” Rutter looked to the man at the next podium. “Unlike my opponent, who was articling at a big New York law firm during the Gulf War.”