years she had come to believe that the last truly worthwhile work she had done was back when she started out, as an aid worker in Sudan. Handing out sacks of grain from the back of the truck: that had value. The minute she had stepped back from the frontline, lured by the promise of helping more than one person at a time, she had been less use. The titles were grander – first she had been involved in policy, then strategy, finally, at the UN and the State Department, she had been at the highest levels of diplomacy – but she remained stubbornly unimpressed. Help was what she was interested in, and she’d begun to lose faith that she, or anyone in these grand jobs, could ever deliver it.
Then Stephen Baker had appeared. Reluctantly and despite herself, she had allowed the hide she had grown over her once-tender idealism to be pierced. He had done it to her, breaking through layer after layer of scepticism, until he had found the person underneath – the person she had not been since she was twenty-five.
Now, though, the ship was listing. She had got it wrong. Again. Politics would always rise up and strangle hope, like a weed choking a flower. She had been stupid to think it would be any different this time.
But another, sharper pain gnawed at her stomach. Maybe she had not only been wrong to forget that politics always intruded, always stood between good people and doing good. Maybe she had been wrong to assume that she was working for good people. For a good man.
After all, Goldstein had not denied the accusation. If this does not turn out to be bullshit was the best he could offer. Did that mean Baker had taken money from the Iranians? If he had, that made him an idiot – and worse.
By now, she was out of the shower and standing in a towel, staring at her wardrobe, wondering what you were meant to wear for a full-blown political crisis. A special prosecutor, Jesus.
The cellphone rang again, displaying ‘restricted’. Maggie grabbed it. ‘Stu, you didn’t need to call back.’
‘Excuse me?’ A woman’s voice. ‘Is this Maggie Costello?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you hold for Magnus Longley?’
Maggie felt her guts clench.
‘Miss Costello?’ The voice was dry enough to sand a table. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you so early but I thought it best to let you know of my decision immediately. I’m afraid Dr Adams is . . . adamant.’ Longley sounded pleased with his pun. ‘He insists that you be removed from your post. And I see no alternative but to bow to his wishes.’
Maggie felt as if someone had plunged a needle into her neck, mainlining fury directly into her bloodstream.
‘Does the President know about this?’
‘Perhaps you haven’t seen the news, but the President has rather a lot on his plate at the moment.’
‘I know that, but just yesterday he asked me—’
‘You should come in early this morning and clear your desk. Your White House computer log-in will expire at twelve noon. And you will need to surrender your pass.’
‘Don’t I get at least to—’
‘I fear my 6.45 meeting is due to start. Goodbye, Miss Costello. And thank you for your service.’
She stood there a full five seconds, the rage inchoate and rising. How could they do this to her? After all she had sacrificed? And just when she had so much to give? Not twenty-four hours ago, she had been asked by the President of the United States himself to draw up a plan to save lives – perhaps thousands or tens of thousands of lives – in Darfur. Besides, she was needed on this latest Iran problem. Stuart had said so.
And now that was all going to come to nothing because of, what? Calling a bloody pompous old git an asshole – when that was exactly what he was.
She turned around, raised her arm and was about to hurl the phone at the bedroom wall – bracing herself for the satisfaction of seeing it shatter – when it began to ring. That stopped her. Her arm raised aloft, she suddenly felt ridiculous. She looked at the display: Restricted.
She hit the green button. A woman’s voice again, different this time. ‘Please hold for the President.’
A second later, it was him. A voice known to millions, though in a tone heard only rarely and by those closest to him: ‘Maggie, I need to see you. Right away.’
Washington, DC, Tuesday March 21, 07.33
Baker had insisted they meet in the Residence: him, her and Stuart. Maggie called Goldstein immediately and explained that she’d just been fired. ‘I’ve got to surrender my pass by twelve noon, for Christ’s sake!’
‘OK,’ he said. ‘That means we’ve got a few hours.’
‘Is that meant to be funny?’
‘No. And Maggie? Come to my office first. I need to give you a heads-up before we go in.’
She was there twenty minutes later. Stuart was tearing his way through a memo, his eyes red and agitated. He looked awful.
She spoke from the doorway. ‘Is that the file on the Iranian?’
He didn’t look up but kept his eyes fixed on the document on his desk. ‘Known in this country as Jim Hodges, resident in the state of Texas.’
‘He’s a US citizen! So then we’re off the hook. The whole point is—’
‘But he’s also Hossein Najafi, citizen of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Who just happens to be a veteran of the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, better known as the Revolutionary Guard.’
‘But he gave the donation as Jim Hodges. How was anyone to know that he was really—’
‘Because we’re meant to check these things!’ Now Goldstein was looking up, his voice raised, his eyes bugging out with rage. ‘We’re the fucking White House. He’s the fucking President of the United States. He sends people into wars. To die. He’s meant to know who he meets, for Christ’s—’
‘He met him?’
‘Yes! Some fundraiser. During the transition.’
‘So there’ll be a photograph.’
Stuart’s reply came in a quieter voice. ‘Yes.’
‘And people will ask why we didn’t have the basic intel to know we were letting an Iranian spy get close to the President-Elect.’
‘Yes.’ Stuart spread his hands across the table and let his head fall onto them. ‘And why—’
‘—on earth the Iranians would want to give money to Stephen Baker.’
‘You could make the ad now.’ He picked his head up and did a mock voiceover. ‘“The Ayatollahs like Stephen Baker so much they gave him cash.
