“Mission accomplished,” she said, words that would be as premature as they’d been for a former president. The line went dead. Even with scrambling, Isis didn’t prolong calls longer than necessary.
The duo strode along Thames Path, heading east on the riverbank, steering clear of the battery of security cameras at the Canary Wharf River Dock. Though the sun was doing its best to rise, the waterway was still dull and leaden apart from the glow of the single white anchor light coming from the boat mid-river.
Diana keyed another number into her phone. “Now,” was all she said before flipping it closed.
7
ELIA CACOZ CHECKED her watch and adjusted her hair elastic. The TV current affairs researcher pulled back her hair so tight that the smooth, shiny blackness emphasised the Asian hints she’d inherited from her grandmother as well as the smudges under her eyes.
“You’re working late, Mr Mandrake,” she said, seated at her desk as Mike Mandrake walked up behind her. She still couldn’t believe he wore a suit when he wasn’t on-air. No one in LA did that. She was in a simple black T and black skirt. But Mandrake was from Washington, the new front-of-camera talking head who’d just joined the line-up on Close-up, the network’s national Sunday-night political program.
It was 9 PM, and Elia had only half-eaten the tuna sandwich that dribbled mayonnaise on her desk. With hours of work still on her plate for this fly-in show-pony, she took civility off her menu. She knew she should have bitten her lip but she steamrolled on. “No Hollywood starlets for dinner tonight?”
In her two years in this business, Elia had observed many strange things, the latest being this guy, Mandrake. Those who said they knew better, i.e. her bosses, claimed Mandrake’s glittering newspaper credentials were perfect for Close-up. The network president’s all-staff email had almost shimmered out of her screen: how Mike Mandrake was a Pulitzer Prize-winner; how Mike had covered Washington in-depth for fifteen years; how Mike’s both-sides-of-the-street stints at The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, as well as Newsweek and The Washington Post gave him an unparalleled breadth of experience; and how, while this was his first TV gig, he was a natural for the medium.
“A natural?” she’d squealed at the water cooler. “With his pseudo beard and chintzy smile? With a head like his,” she told anyone who’d listen, “the only electronic media he’s a natural for is radio.”
She seethed about Mandrake, and as soon as she could phone her boyfriend Simon without anyone eavesdropping in the open-plan, she gave him the picture. “When the arrogant shit got here,” she whined, “he tilted his chair back, slapped his faux mountain boots onto the desk and lectured how his trip here to LA was real hush-hush. That he’s doing some,” she made air quotes with the fingers of her free hand, “deep, deep background on Isabel Diaz.” Elia knew this would grab Simon’s interest since like many former runaway kids he owed a great personal debt to the candidate.
Mandrake’s segment would be on air in a couple of weeks, she told him, but it wasn’t going to be the usual gloss, or dross. “He’s chasing some new angle.”
“Is it that Karim Ahmed terrorist thing?” Simon asked.
“Can’t say,” said Elia, pissed off that Mandrake hadn’t admitted her inside the tiny circle of those in the know.
In the team meeting earlier, Mandrake had held up a printout of the latest nationwide voter approval chart, clocking Isabel Diaz at an extraordinary 70 percent. “At that level, a Diaz White House looks a certainty, but you can never tell what might jump out of the woodwork,” he winked.
Yet he wouldn’t disclose even a glimmer of his focus to her, instead selecting individual team members, Elia being one, for seemingly unconnected tasks.
But now, with only the two of them left, and with him leering over her shoulder as though he was checking whether she was wasting time on net porn, Elia’s fuse finally blew. “What’s your damn angle?” she demanded, swivelling her chair around, her penetrating eyes only inches from his.
Mike’s face flushed almost as red as his tie. She suspected it was because the loner was finding this teamwork thing tough going. But the truth was he had been running on bluster. He hadn’t found his angle, not yet. All he had was an idea, and a lead. It was a great lead, but only that, so far. He stiffened his back and swung his head around, double-checking that they were alone. “It’s the truth about Diaz… about her parents.”