The Ghost Shipment, page 5
The last segment before the break was on education and employment. They were arguably Hunter’s best rounds because she was so punch-drunk, she reverted to autopilot. Ped still managed to land telling jabs before the bell.
The second half opened with immigration, and Ped raced through his spiel in half the allocated time. Then he turned to face Hunter.
Cut off the ring so your opponent has nowhere to run. They go right, you go right. They go left, you go left. Make them feel like they’re forever in your headlights.
‘Well Kate, that’s where I stand. From the way you’ve been responding tonight, clearly based on desperation polling and think-tanks and AI rather than having real conversations with everyday folks, I’m pickin’ you’ll flip-flop on sanctuary cities, flip the script on border security funding, and call out local governments for not toeing the line with federal law.’
Ped hoped the cameras were zoomed in to catch the deer-in-the-spotlight eyes, the clenched jaw and bulging cheeks as Hunter fought to keep her cool. She failed, stumbling and mumbling her way to the last segment of the debate: ethics and integrity.
The moderator, probably sensing a need to re-level the playing field, turned to Ped.
‘Mr. Garland, how can you be trusted to hold the highest office in the land, to be the ultimate role model to our nation’s children, given your criminal background?’
Ped smiled, tilting his head subtly to one side, holding his hands palms-up.
‘Well, I can tell you right now there are folks who won’t vote for me because of that, and I respect their choice. I’ve made some lousy decisions in my time. But I faced ‘em head-on, ate crow, and humble pie, learned from my mistakes. I know I’m a better person for it, and I’m darn sure I can use those lessons I’ve learnt to help make America better. My life’s an open book. What you see is what you get.’
‘Straight up?’
‘That’s got a nice ring to it. I reckon I might just use that.’
When the laughter subsided, the moderator turned to Hunter.
‘Congresswoman, in your opening statement you admitted smoking marijuana at university, saying you did so only once as an experiment.’
‘That’s correct.’
‘You sure about that?’
‘Of course, I’m sure.’
It is a common myth that when right-handed people lie, they look to their right, because they’re using their imagination to invent an answer. If they look left, they are said to be accessing their memory, telling the truth.
Ped was not surprised to see an experienced politician like Hunter glance to her left. Nor was he surprised to see her grip the lectern to stop her hands moving – a more scientifically-proven reaction to telling a lie.
The moderator moved in for the kill.
‘So, if a roommate by the name of Belinda Archer was to come forward with an affidavit stating you smoked another joint two weeks later, behind her parent’s garage, she’d be lying?’
Hunter was blindsided. And speechless.
Ped let the boos and shouts and background murmur hang for a few seconds, imagining the social media team already at work editing the moderator’s question and Hunter’s reaction, packaging it in multiple contexts ready to send to targeted recipients identified by the Ciph.
Feint to the body, go to the head.
He leaned toward his microphone.
‘I, for one, am ready to cut Congresswoman Hunter some slack on this issue. She’s admitted to smoking pot years back. I got skeletons in my closet too, believe me. Own up, learn, keep moving forward. Folks I talk to out on the streets, they wanna know what we’re going do to fix this country today and tomorrow. They’re not concerned with what happened behind some garage or in a hotel room decades ago when we were young and foolish.’
*****
Touché, thought Mike. Game, set and match to Garland.
He was watching the debate at a bar in Soho, with some former colleagues from the Wooster blog. He ordered another round. Zoe was sipping Bloody Marys, Rachel hot apple cider, their personalities summed up in their drink choices.
Zoe was adventurous, spunky, wild, and Mike still fantasized about the hotel in Arizona where she introduced him to the Twist and Shout. Rachel was a data analyst and sole mom who clearly still had a crush on him, despite knockback after knockback. Mike felt bad about the way he’d exploited the crush when he’d needed help with childcare while he was running hot on the virus story. With Zoe. He was counting on two women with such contrasting personalities never getting together to compare notes.
‘What brings the great Mike Bullard back to New York? Last I saw on your social feeds you were on a beach somewhere in India.’
‘Place called Varkala. You’d love it Rach. So would your daughter. What’s her name again?’
‘Abby. How’s MJ – her old playmate?’
He deserved the dig. Their daughters were similar ages and Mike had traded on it. Shamelessly.
‘MJ’s cool. Took her to see the Barbie movie this afternoon. Turns out she’d already seen it twice. Didn’t let on till I dropped her back at her mom’s.’
‘Can’t imagine where she gets such a manipulative streak.’
Mike smiled.
Another round of drinks arrived, and Mike steered the conversation through staff changes at Wooster, stories Zoe was working on, to Rachel’s take on new analytics tools being trialed at the blog. All the women really wanted to know was what Mike was up to, whether his bold leap into freelancing was paying off.
‘Too early to tell. Pros and cons, I guess. Yes, I get to work on serious stories, but we’re a small team, pretty much on our own. No data analysts, visuals wizards, leaderboards, and I can’t just raid the gadgets cabinet whenever I need specialized kit like night vision scopes or a drone. That’s one of the reasons I’m back for a few days, other than to catch up with MJ, do a couple of interviews. I’m sourcing kit.’
Mike wasn’t going to tell them most of the gadgets he was buying would not be found in the cabinet at Wooster, whose journalists remained hog-tied by the laws of privacy and rules of transparency.
‘How’s the drug trafficking investigation going Mike? Your feed’s gone strangely silent since you announced the project.’
‘That’s another advantage with freelancing. I haven’t got a section editor screaming every ten minutes for an update to refresh the storyline. Good stories take time, not clicks.’
Zoe was shaking her head.
‘Never thought I’d hear Mike Bullard badmouthing clicks.’
Rachel chimed in. ‘What about the donors, Mike? All the people backing your project are gonna want results. Have put their own money into it. Which I believe gives us more skin in the game than a section editor at Wooster.’
‘You’re one of the donors?’
‘A small one, yes.’
‘So am I Mike, and half the reporters at Wooster.’
‘Seriously? I don’t know what to...’
Zoe cut him off. ‘We’re aware of what you and Bec Corelli are capable of Mike. And I guess for some of us, the way the news media’s headed, we need to know there’s still a future in journalism. We want you... need you to succeed.’
‘And I was only teasing about the clicks, Mike, and us donors demanding instant results. Take as long as you need.’
‘I appreciate that.’
Rachel, ever the data analyst, asked him what he was doing to ‘boost the Aristotle channel’s visibility’. Mike realized that if he, Bec and Jay were going to make a serious impact with their investigation, they’d need a larger audience than subscribers to the YouTube channel. They needed digital allies who would share the results with their legions of followers. He told her about the relationships he’d been cultivating with a bunch of influencers who’d taken stands against drugs, or could be persuaded to.
Over another round, which the women insisted on donating, both declared they’d voted for the drug trafficking project over human trafficking and child labor. Turned out Rachel’s estranged husband was hooked on fentanyl and one of Zoe’s cousins overdosed on heroin at school.
‘Maybe you should take a look at Ped Garland while you’re here,’ Zoe suggested.
‘We’re hunting bigger fish.’
‘Bigger than the next President of the United States?’
‘A different species.’
8. The baby grand
Tickets for the NatZ concert at Madison Square Garden had sold out in 84 seconds.
The singer opened with a medley from her most recent album, then the stage faded to black and the pulsating images on the giant screen were replaced with the still face of a young woman smiling. Twenty-thousand people buttoned up like someone hit mute.
NatZ, illuminated by a single pink beam that made her look delicate, vulnerable, gripped the microphone stand with both hands.
‘Emma Larch was my ride-or-die back in Milwaukee. We’d ditch school, spill our secrets, learnt guitar together at Mrs. D’s joint over in Bayside. We’d daydream about rockin’ out together right here at the Garden. We’d chat on the blower every Saturday – no matter where I was globetrotting. Our last convo was just two weeks back. Em was in good spirits, y’know? Dealing with life’s curveballs like the rest of us. But even from my crib in LA, I could sense that smile of hers. Just like in that pic up there.’
Her voice faltered.
‘Told her I’d shoot her some tix to be here tonight. But a few hours later, Em got snatched away from us. Thought she was just poppin’ a couple of chill bars – like I bet a few of you in the crowd have done. But those things were laced with a deadly hit of powdered Fentanyl. My homie got straight-up murdered by some scumbag drug dealer who didn’t know her name, never heard her jam or shred the guitar, never saw that grin.
‘Me and Em, we used to hit up this tiny spot by St. Johns in Milwaukee to busk. We’d set up shop at Cathedral Square...’
The crowd murmured in anticipation.
‘I’ll never forget the first time I dropped this track in front of people, right there in that park. Em was lurking backstage, tears flowin’ because she understood what it meant. To both of us. It was a real moment, and I’m ‘bout to bring out a special guest on stage in a sec. We’re not just performing this jam in memory of my bestie, but also to throw a message out to all those lowlifes who mess with the lives of beautiful, vulnerable souls like Emma Larch.
‘Yo, my peeps, let’s give it up loud and proud for the dude who’s gonna put an end to this madness. He’s ditchin’ the fancy suits and power tables with the big shots to be right here with us tonight. Give it up for the future President of the United States of America... Mr. Ped Garland.’
When a walk-on-water celebrity tells an arena full of fans to give someone a warm welcome, the response is a fait accompli. Ped had no idea how much of the cheering was genuine as the lights came up and he walked across the stage in a black t-shirt and Levi’s. But the surge in volume when he parked himself behind the baby grand said it all. And the standing ovation at the end, when NatZ beckoned him over and wrapped her arms around him for a full thirty seconds, beneath the giant image of Emma Larch, was platinum.
As NatZ withdrew from the embrace and positioned Ped for a joint selfie with the delirious crowd in the background, he reflected on how this moment of marketing magic had come about. How the singer was identified as a key influencer of a prime demographic, how the Ciph found out about her interview in Wisconsin after her friend’s death, how information about Ped was subtly planted with her influencers so the meeting outside the studio seemed coincidental.
The Ciph had already done the numbers. One hundred and fifty million followers, plus the anticipated shares, reshares and repeats on earned media, would give the post a larger audience than the hundreds of millions who watched Frazier beat Ali in the Fight of the Century at this very venue back in seventy-one.
While Ped’s opponent argued policy and administration positions with a dozen Republican dinosaurs who still thought a hit was a positive soundbite on Fox.
*****
Jay felt Bec’s grip tighten round his waist as they turned off the bypass and headed back towards the place where they were almost wiped out by the van three days ago.
Bec had recovered well physically. The graze on her arm was healing nicely, the swelling on her knee almost gone. The unexpected attack had shaken her emotionally, but also stiffened her resolve to get back on the horse.
The horse was a clapped-out Honda Scoopy with a sun-dead beginner surfboard strapped into hooks attached to the frame. Full-face helmets completed their disguises.
Jay scanned the roadsides for trouble as they passed a leather store and nail studio on Jalan Buni Sari. A blue Toyota taxi three spots back was a potential tail, so he shot up a lane beside a Mediterranean restaurant – against the flow of traffic – and doubled back. False alarm.
They sailed past the pile of rocks still blocking part of the road outside the building site. No van today, just barefoot laborers removing wooden reinforcing stakes between concrete floors. Bamboo – the workhorse of Asia.
The entrance to the Kuta branch of the Nyalahutan was tainted with the same giant gold letters, and the pretension didn’t stop there. It was as if the designers had taken the layout and features of intimate Balinese family compounds and supersized them. With fries. Even the staff looked like they’d come off a production line tooled for chiseled features and robotic smiles. Children with remote-controlled plastic cars need not apply.
The two men behind the desk in the lobby had the strong clear bone structure of royalty and their flawless English left no room for misinterpretation.
‘We have no-one by the name of Lompok or Gusti Suardika staying or living here. Sir.’
Jay and Bec were walking back to the scooter, contemplating their next move, when an Australian man with a brown towel over his shoulder caught up with them.
‘Excuse me mate. Overheard you asking about a bloke called Lompok. There was a bit of a palaver outside my room in the early hours of the morning. Went out to tell them to shut the hell up and walked into a posse of cops in the hall. They had an Indonesian bloke in handcuffs, and I heard them mention Lompok. More than once.’
‘You’re sure that’s what they called him?’
‘Definitely. Funny thing though, they were all smiles and laughs. Especially your Lompok bloke. It was like he was being picked up for a night on the town, rather than inside a police cell.’
*****
Montoya was enjoying his second cup of tinto coffee on the private beach below the house when he heard the winch mechanism engage, the gondola car begin its descent.
He looked at his watch. Right on time. He liked that.
He’d asked for a report on the American journalist and her New Zealand friend. Montoya drained the coffee as Arief, his head of security, stepped from the car and walked across the sand carrying an iPad.
The meddlers had been identified as Jay Duggan and Rebecca Corelli. As well as persisting in their questions about Lompok and NuNu, they were also showing an annoying interest in the death of Charlie Scott.
‘Who are they?’
‘Haven’t been able to find much on Duggan. He has no social media presence, so flies under most radars. The few hits we got online suggest he’s some sort of green activist.’
‘And his girlfriend, the American?’
‘Corelli’s far more interesting. Until recently she was a high-flying reporter for the New York Times. Bagged a few awards. But she’s a retard. There’s clips of her on YouTube throwing her toys at her father’s memorial service in North Carolina. And this,’ he said, handing over the iPad.
Montoya touched the play arrow. The video showed a woman screaming and lashing out at an airport security guard, kicking him in the balls, then being pulled away and carried off by a man in a Kingfisher singlet.
‘Some nutjob, eh? We’re pretty sure the guy with her is Duggan. The airport is Udaipur in India.’
Montoya replayed the clip, sucking in a breath of sympathy as Corelli’s foot connected with the guard’s groin.
He’d been wondering whether to let Carlos know about the mysterious pair. On this evidence the answer was no. They could do without the distraction.
9. The bagel man
‘This is taking insane to a whole new level, Ped. You can’t be serious.’
‘Deadly.’
‘This is ... not just unorthodox. It’s ... well ... plain rude. And the media will roast you for it.’
Garland smiled at his press secretary.
‘Let them. It’s a free country.’
It was the day before the New York primary, and Ped and Hunter had long-standing invitations to a black-tie lunch organized by Don Francis, a reclusive property developer and the Big Apple’s most deep-pocketed Republican benefactor.
‘Jesus F. Christ. What do I tell Fox and CNN? This is the first time the Don has let media anywhere near an event like this.’
‘Tell them the truth.’
‘Which is?’
‘I had better things to do.’
‘What could possibly be better than a check for half a million?’
‘I’m gonna head down to East Village, have a good ol’ chat with a store owner about the real deal when it comes to the economy.’
Exasperation summed up the look on Amanda’s face, and Ped couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. The right hand must find it frustrating not knowing what the left was up to. The Ciph and Jin were pigeon-holed away from the public face of the campaign.
‘You realize how many cameras will cover your authentic little chat at such short notice? A big fat...’ She completed the sentence with her thumb and index finger forming a circle.
We’ll see.
The only cameraman present during the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it with the owner and seven customers at a bagel joint near Tompkins Square Park had been hired by Jin to capture seven specific sentences.
From there, Ped and the cameraman were driven across town to a warehouse in Chelsea, where Jin and the rest of the crew had constructed prefabricated settings around a central lighting rig.
