by Henry Porter
‘Sometime next week.’
‘That hardly seems likely.’
‘Whatever you say,’ said Samson.
‘We take a rounded picture of the events of the past two weeks. But the Americans are very angry indeed and I cannot guarantee they will be as understanding. Your life is at stake.’
‘Are you threatening me, Peter?’
‘No, you’re putting your own life at risk. You need to come in. Clear the air. If you have your country’s best interests at heart, you’ll do as I ask. We can arrange a place. Number Ten wants certain assurances and those need to be given today.’
‘I’m afraid that’s just not possible.’ Samson hung up and handed the phone back to the bodyguard. ‘They’re worried as hell, but I don’t think they have any idea what’s going to happen.’
‘Nor do I,’ said Anastasia.
Chapter 35
Sunset on Potomac
They sailed south on a warm westerly breeze generated by a massive storm system in the south. Naji was allowed to steer for fifteen minutes and Anastasia captured it on a phone. ‘Not bad,’ she said out of the corner of her mouth to Samson. ‘A few years ago he was an unaccompanied minor, caged in a refugee camp in Lesbos because he kept on breaking out. Now he’s steering a multimillion-dollar yacht down the Potomac. Seems like he was right to escape.’
She hadn’t said much since the meeting with Reid, which she believed had gone badly. ‘Did you notice his hand was shaking?’ she said. ‘His right hand has a tremor and he had to hold on to it with his left. Ulrike saw it too, but do you know what? I think he’s much more frightened of Daus than he is of us or anything we might do.’
‘He may calculate that the only way for him to end that fear is to help us,’ said Samson. ‘But I guess he has to be absolutely certain she’s going to be destroyed. He has to see the stake through her heart, or at least know it’s poised above her.’
‘He has the power to finish us with one call,’ said Anastasia. ‘He’s the only person outside our group who knows that something may happen in Congress on Monday. If he tells her, we’re finished.’
She went below with Denis’s laptop, refusing all offers of help and saying she needed to go through the files and begin to distill Denis’s work into something she could present. She had to be completely on top of the information, know every detail inside out and have the connections imprinted on her brain so that she could answer questions fired at her by hostile members of Congress.
In the early evening, Samson suggested she came on deck for some air.
‘What’s up?’ he said.
‘Can’t say,’ she replied, and took the bottle of beer that he offered. ‘It’s not what you expect,’ she added.
Naji, who had been helping her below, joined them. They looked across the water to an enormous facility on the Virginia side of the Potomac. ‘That’s Quantico,’ Daphne called out from the cockpit. ‘Where I did my time.’ It figured that Zillah had an ex-fed as skipper.
‘The files are devastating.’ Anastasia looked down at her beer. ‘There are just so many people that Daus has suborned and entrapped. And the data! I never got this part of it before, but she’s accumulated tens of millions of people’s personal details, and she uses it to push the line that’s advantageous to her friends in Russia. Honestly, I’m surprised there’s anything resembling democracy in this country or the UK. It’s baffling that those guys’ – she flung her hand at Quantico – ‘are letting it happen.’
‘Maybe they’re not,’ said Samson. ‘They may have been helping all along,’ he continued. ‘The CIA saved my life in Tallinn. No doubt about it.’
Naji got up from the cabin roof and went to talk to the crew.
‘Has he read all the stuff?’
‘No, he didn’t know what was input from the American end. That went straight to Denis.’
‘So you’re the only person who knows what’s in it.’
She nodded.
‘We have to give it to the FBI if we go ahead on Monday. Sorry, I had to do a deal.’
She looked irritated. ‘Was that strictly necessary?’
He waited a moment. ‘How else was I going to get Reiner to make Stepurin put in a call to say he’d killed Denis? Stepurin made that call late last night. So Daus believes her man murdered him. And that’s important for her sense of being in control of things on Monday.’
A cooler breeze from the bay, bringing the smell of the ocean. The sky and water turned a dark mauve. The sails were dropped; Ariel II was now pointing straight into the wind, and the engine was started.
They looked across the river in silence. Presently, he turned to watch Anastasia. Her jaw jutted out slightly and her mouth was set firm. She dragged her eyes from the water and returned his gaze with a brief, grim smile. ‘You’re wondering if I’m going to be okay,’ she said.
‘Are you?’
She shrugged. ‘Whatever it is between us, I loved Denis. You understand?’
‘I do.’
‘It was shocking to see him like that. I was mortified for him, a man of such dignity and power lying there like a fucking dried-up, dead old mummy. I owe him everything – he saved me, and his money has saved thousands of people.’ She looked down.
‘He was an extraordinary man. Few of us are ever going to make his impact.’
‘I betrayed him with you, and now I’m going to betray him again. I have read things that I never wanted to know about.’
‘What things?’
‘I can’t talk about them.’
Her phone pinged with a message. ‘I need to make a call,’ she said, then jumped up and went forward, steadying herself against the motion of the boat with one hand on the forestay. He watched her. She seemed to be agreeing to something. She hung up, looked down at her phone and began to read. Then she made two more calls and returned to his side.
‘They’ve moved it up. I’m on at 10 a.m. It’s not advertised. They’re going to make a last-minute change to the schedule. I’ve told Ulrike, and she’ll work on persuading Reid to bring Daus. But that’s not going to happen, is it? I’ll prepare a simple presentation, but I have to understand the whole thing.’
She went below again and Samson wandered back to the cockpit as Daphne pulled back on the throttle to slow the yacht. They dropped anchor a little further on, in the lee of Liverpool Point, within sight of the Mallows Bay Ghost Fleet, the resting place of scores of ships from the First World War. The lights of a small craft sped from the shore across the water, which was unruffled by wind or current. ‘That’s Zillah,’ said Daphne, and told the crew to lower the landing platform at the stern. Sails were stowed, ropes coiled, the anchor was checked and the deck washed down.
Zillah hopped on to the stern boards and gave a thumbs-up to the man on the rigid inflatable. She handed her backpack to one of the crew and stepped up, smiling. In the years dealing with this strangely concealed, neutral person, he had never seen such unguarded joy. She evidently did love her boat.
It was still warm in the shelter of the bay so a table was set up in the cockpit and the crew went to prepare dinner. Anastasia emerged looking red-eyed and they sat down with another beer. Naji was apparently taking a nap in the forward cabin, where she had been working.
‘Okay, so I’ve got a lot to tell you,’ said Zillah. ‘Jim Tulliver is out of his coma. He is recovering faster than they anticipated. He has some memory loss, specifically about what happened to him on the night, but more generally about how he came to be in Manhattan and what he did for Denis. His sister informed him about Denis. She had to – it’s all over the news and he’d see it on the hospital TV. He’s devastated.
‘The media is looking for you, Anastasia. And so is Homeland Security. But before I get into that, you’d better tell me what you’re planning because I can’t do my job if I don’t know the full facts.’
&nb
sp; They went through it all, picking up each other’s thread. The names of Reid and Speight gave Zillah no confidence whatsoever. If it were up to her, she wouldn’t have told Reid, and Speight was so damned sinuous even he didn’t know his next move.
‘So we need to get you into the decontaminated Rayburn by early morning. That’s going to be hard, but not impossible. We can start by doing a number of things. You should organise a media conference for yourself for 9 a.m. Pacific Standard Time on Monday at Denis’s office. When you’ve done that, I want you to switch off all your devices and give them to me, with your passcodes. But you’ll need to make one more call. You’re going to dispatch Denis’s jet to the West Coast with one of my people, who will start sending emails and texts from you the moment they land. I suggest you compose those tonight. They need to be in your voice. Maybe thank them for their support at this time. If you’re able to talk about funeral arrangements, that would be great. Put in as much personal stuff as possible. The plane should leave at around midday tomorrow and I will have the devices picked up before we weigh anchor.’ She turned to Samson. ‘And you need to turn off your devices now. Naji also.’
‘They’re secure,’ said Samson. ‘I’ll make sure Naji does, though he isn’t going to enjoy life without the Web for twenty-four hours.’
‘So, this is where we are right now. Reiner and his team have all been furloughed or transferred. Agent Paula Berg has been moved to San Antonio. Frank Toombs is indisposed. He may have been re-tasked, or suspended. I don’t know which at this time. Homeland Security under Michael Selikoff is running everything. Selikoff is a very smart lawyer out of the Southern District in New York. If you put the entire staff of Homeland Security in a stadium, Selikoff would have ninety-nine per cent of the brains. He is close to the White House – very close – and he is working with the US Marshals. I don’t know how they justify this, but that’s the way things are these days. State and Justice are out of the loop and the only thing that matters to the people at the top is making sure you don’t use anything that may have been left to you by Denis.’
‘You think they’re working in collaboration with Mila Daus,’ said Samson.
‘Absolutely not! I don’t think anyone really appreciates who she is. And if they knew what Toombs and Reiner undoubtedly suspect, they wouldn’t touch her. This is a defensive action to protect themselves. They don’t understand much, but they grasp enough not to want exposure and scandal.’
‘Like the British, although they understand it much more.’
‘Which makes it even more of a betrayal,’ said Zillah. ‘But this here, in the United States, is an outright disgrace. I have never seen anything like it.’
‘Is Daus aware of all the activity?’ asked Samson.
‘She’d have left the country by now if she were.’
‘And Stepurin?’
‘We don’t know who has jurisdiction on that. Word is that he might just be given bail and quietly allowed to leave the United States. But the people at the top don’t know he’s the one who shipped in the nerve agent and hired Vladan Drasko. Toombs and Reiner do, however. So, the administration would be making a huge, dumb-assed mistake if they freed him.’
Paella, salad and more beer arrived. The crew sat with them to eat. It was only then that Samson noticed that all four carried weapons beneath their Ariel II jackets.
Next day, at 7 a.m., as the tide rushed into the bay, Anastasia’s devices were exchanged for a printer and leads. She wouldn’t use the ship’s WiFi to connect the printer to the computer because of the risk of a hack, which Naji assured her was entirely possible. She had worked for several hours overnight and produced a document distilling the main discoveries in the order she wanted to introduce them. Sitting next to Samson, she read it over and over and kept on going back to reduce and re-order. She gave part of it to Samson. He was impressed and said so. The plan was to circulate the statement shortly after she had answered questions, which would mean a large number would have to be printed for members of Congress before she reached the building, because she sure as hell wasn’t letting the master copy or the computer out of her hands. They argued over what to give Reiner, Anastasia maintaining that his suspension made the deal void. A deal was a deal, Samson said. He hadn’t risked his life several times over the last couple of weeks to start reneging on an agreement with an ally, which, in any case, might benefit them. If he had the material before the hearing, he could argue with his bosses that he had been right all along and that everything was about to be made public.
She again found herself apologising. ‘It’s all on me.’
‘Yes, it is. And I wish it weren’t, but you’re the only one who can do it. I’ll be right behind you.’
‘However much I prepare, it can all go wrong with one question.’
‘Have you talked to the Congresswoman you mentioned – Ricard? Can she help?’
Anastasia snorted a laugh. ‘Turns out Shera took two hundred grand from Abelman via GreenState. I guess Denis knew that when he was talking to her. And Reid! Jesus, the film is utterly disgusting. That ugly old man fucking that poor young girl, and from behind! I mean, you know what he was doing!’
‘Please!’ Samson looked away. ‘You’ve done all you can. Let’s go sailing. Forget it all for a few hours.’
The anchor was snagged on an old cable that led from the wrecks. Zillah took half an hour to free it, moving the boat backwards and forward on the engine and eventually raising the sails and turning the boat away from the wind to free it, a high-risk manoeuvre. She steered Ariel II downstream into the tide and wind and they tacked across the broader reaches of the Potomac, heading towards Nanjemoy Creek and the Maryland–Virginia state line, where Samson took over and sailed close-haul with his eyes never leaving the luff of the main, as Fleur had taught him. Anastasia and Naji sat nearby, looking up at the sails. She had her arm round his shoulder, which, unusually for Naji, didn’t seem to bother him. They had been much closer since the flight from the Balkans to the Baltic.
At midday, they turned for home and ran before the wind with the sails stretched out like wings. They reached Washington just after nightfall and moored a hundred metres offshore. It was then that the detailed planning began.
Chapter 36
2172 Revisited
She wore the dark dress she’d used for Harland’s funeral, and a lightweight jacket and a silver necklace that Denis had given her. It was his first gift to her – not at all valuable; she always kept it in her washbag. Zillah had equipped her with a pair of lightly tinted glasses and a baseball hat, also black. Over her shoulder she carried the bag that contained Denis’s computer and twenty copies of her statement – a further forty would be printed when Anastasia was sure they would be needed. At Security, she was required to take out the computer and turn it on, which wasn’t a problem. No one among the Capitol Police, the journalists on their phones, the aides and congressional staff scurrying hither and thither recognised her. It was Monday and things were a little slow, the more so because storms in the South, stretching up to the Carolinas, had delayed flights into the capital.
They went to the back of Room 2172 and sat down. Anastasia noticed that a few things had changed. The carpeting around the witness desk had been replaced with a slightly darker shade of blue and the desk itself was new, longer and narrower. She assumed that the contamination had been limited to the desk and where Denis and Steen had fallen and, of course, Steen’s briefcase, which had been destroyed. There had been no trace found on either her or Tulliver’s clothing.
The schedule announced two witnesses for the session ‘Assessing American Policy in Northern Iraq’ – the Honourable Alison Carney, Acting Assistant Secretary, the Bureau of Middle Eastern Affairs, US Department of State, and Dr Sheila McNeill, Professor of Middle East Studies at the University of Texas at Austen. Harry Lucas would be in the chair. A note at the bottom of the page stated that witnesse
s might be added.
They waited for twenty minutes before a young man appeared from the curtain behind the chair’s position and placed papers on Lucas’s desk. Other staffers materialised with papers and one or two representatives took their seats. Harry Lucas came out and sat down, consulted two staff members with his hand over the microphone. There was no sign of Warren Speight. Anastasia knew he would take the seat immediately to the chair’s left. Lucas spoke.
‘We have some problems with the weather this morning, ladies and gentlemen. We are waiting to hear from Ranking Member Speight, who is on his way from the airport, and from the witness Dr McNeill, who is delayed for the same reason as he. I am sorry to have to tell you that the other witness, Alison Carney, appears to have had an accident. I’ll get back to you in fifteen.’ He rose and left.
‘McNeill never got on the plane, and I believe that Carney is Frank Toombs’s partner,’ whispered Zillah to her.
The public seating areas were still almost empty, as were the three rows reserved for members of Congress. Samson, Naji and the German nationals being brought by Ulrike would not enter room 2172 until Anastasia had been called as a witness. They waited, Anastasia’s trepidation rising by the minute. She hadn’t struggled like this since receiving therapy for the PTSD that followed her kidnap and the loss of her baby, both of which she had blamed on herself in the mangled thought processes of that time. As she had spiralled deeper into depression, so deep that a smell, a noise or a word would set off panic and result in aggression aimed at Denis, he’d found a clinical trial for the use of MDMA – ecstasy – for trauma sufferers, and he had moved heaven and earth to have her enrolled. Just three treatments of eight hours, in which she lay wrapped in a light blanket between a male and female psychologist, had brought about a miraculous change. Apart from the insight into her own mind, she realised its great potential for all those refugees suffering from PTSD that the Aysel Hisami Foundation sought to treat. She and Denis had been trying to find a way of legally using the Schedule 1 Controlled Substance.