“Pryce.”
“I’m calling about Secretary Wolfe, who as you may know has been nominated to fill the office of vice president, an appointment that’s subject to confirmation by Congress, and my boss, Senator Brown, has a senior role in the confirmation process.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So, Ms. Pryce, I’m calling to ask: Do you know Charlie Wolfe?”
Ariel doesn’t respond.
“How long have you known him?”
Ariel still doesn’t answer.
“Ms. Pryce? What’s your relationship with Secretary Wolfe?”
Relationship. What a word for it.
“When was the last time you saw him? Spoke to him?”
Ariel stares out her window, listening to this woman’s conjecture.
“Do you understand that you can be subpoenaed? Compelled to testify before Congress?”
Yes, Ariel thinks, I do understand that. She hangs up.
*
Ariel sends John an email, just checking. And—why not?—she also calls his cell number. He no longer has the device he brought to Europe. But Ariel bought a new phone that uses the same number; maybe he did too. And even if not, John should still be able to access the voicemailbox.
“Hi,” she says. “It’s me. I’m getting pretty worried here. Could you please give me a call?”
*
“Can this be silenced?”
Jim Farragut takes a beat before answering; he doesn’t want to seem dismissive. He knows that he himself is in a precarious position. He’s not worried for his actual physical safety, but his career can certainly end now.
Since the rumors exploded across the internet, Charlie Wolfe has not been doing himself any favors. “No comment” has been his only comment about his possible mistress. Farragut knows that Wolfe can’t comment because, like Ariel Pryce, he too is bound by the nondisclosure agreement. But to anyone who doesn’t know that—which is to say, to everyone—he looks like a liar. A bad one.
Wolfe’s very own NDA has come back to haunt him. Not merely because he needs to remain silent, but because a congressional lawyer has also identified the LLC in the Caymans that made the hush payment to Pryce, turning the very existence of these secret payments into damning evidence. And it has become clear that Pryce was not the only woman to be paid large sums through that same LLC. Which makes it pretty hard for Charlie Wolfe to pretend that there’s nothing to see here.
It looks bad for the nominee, and that’s not even the worst of it. Ten minutes ago, Farragut got off the phone with his Lisbon chief of station, who’d called with news of the smoking gun. A sixteen-year-old girl, for Christ’s sake. No way Wolfe can survive this.
That was when Farragut asked for this meeting.
“I’m sorry,” Farragut eventually says to his boss. “I’m afraid it’s too late for that.”
“You’re sorry? I doubt that.”
Farragut doesn’t rise to the director’s provocation.
“You never liked this president. That’s obvious.”
Is it? Farragut doesn’t think so. This is just more paranoia, which infects everyone who comes into contact with it. And naturally the director of central intelligence would come down with the most serious case.
“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t believe that’s true. I’m looking at this professionally and dispassionately, and what I’m seeing is that the secretary’s position is untenable. He’s simply not going to be the next vice president, and the sooner the president cuts Wolfe loose, the better for the president himself, the whole administration, and the nation. There’s really no choice.”
“Bullshit, no choice. There’s always a choice.”
“The facts have migrated into the general atmosphere. The Portuguese police and Portuguese intelligence have it, and they’re under no obligation to keep a secret. With the way we’ve treated the world recently, I wouldn’t expect them to go out of their way to do us any favors.”
The director glares at him. “Can’t this woman be taken into custody?”
Farragut reminds himself to keep his cool, but this is exactly the type of shit he was worried about when he walked into this office: being asked to engage in irrational, unproductive, emotional, and illegal activities.
“Are you saying that you want to arrest the woman Wolfe raped?”
“Allegedly raped.”
Farragut nods, trying to appear reasonable in the face of unreasonableness. “I think that having the FBI arrest this woman would be a public-relations debacle of the highest order.”
“Yeah, maybe. But I didn’t say anything about the FBI.”
Farragut raises his eyebrows, wondering what in God’s name the DCI thinks he’s suggesting.
“I also,” the director continues, “didn’t say anything about arrest. Nor public.”
*
Ariel picks up George from the final midsummer day of camp. Some of the campers are moving on to other activities for the second half of the season, so today there have been color games, trophies, tearful goodbyes. She looks at George’s cohort, the thirteen-year-old girls with their pimples and braces and training bras, a half-foot taller than the boys. And the sixteen-year-old counselors-in-training, their deep summer tans and freckles and saltwater-bleached ponytails. They all seem so young, so na?ve, so innocent, so safe. If only.
*
News of Ariel’s existence is spreading like an epidemic—fast-moving, uncontrollable, lethal. She has received an overwhelming number of voicemails and emails and texts, from friends and colleagues and a half-dozen reporters plus two congressional aides and someone who claims to be FBI. Everyone has a few questions, please call back as soon as possible, it’s important, it’s urgent, it’s everything.
Now Ariel understands that this is what happens behind the scenes, all this background before the news is the news, before the vast public knows about it, but plenty of other people do.
Ariel is not going to return any of these calls; people are going to have to try harder than simply leaving messages. She needs this particular bit of security, this shield: to be able to say, truthfully, all I did was answer my phone.
While she’s still checking old messages, new ones are arriving; both her phones are under siege. On the landline is another reporter, from another paper, following up on fresh information.
“I’ve been speaking with a bartender named Dan Shannon who saw you and Mr. Wolfe having a conversation fourteen years ago, at his then-workplace on New York’s Upper East Side.”
It’s impressive how much journalists can unearth, and how quickly, when they care.
“According to Mr. Shannon, you and Mr. Wolfe had tense words with some odd choreography, which made the occasion memorable. What was the topic of that conversation?”
Ariel doesn’t answer.