The Newsmakers Page 8

  “You should taste my Cheerios.”

  Kay pours them both mugs of coffee. “So, Mom was very impressed with you.”

  “We had a nice time. She’s really mastered aging, hasn’t she?”

  “I’m awfully proud of her.” Kay leans forward, forearms on the counter, and lowers her voice, pulling Erica in. “It was so tough on her when Dad died. They just adored each other. If she hadn’t had to take care of me, I think she would have drowned in her grief. But she got up every morning and did what she had to do. There wasn’t any money. She went back to college and got her teaching degree. She cooked dinner every night and helped me with my homework. And, as you saw, she found a passion, a way to bring beauty into the world. When I look at her garden, I see grief transformed.”

  Listening to her, Erica completely forgets she’s talking to one of the most famous and formidable women in the country, someone with a good chance of becoming president.

  “How did it affect you?” she asks.

  “It was a terrible shock, of course. I was Daddy’s girl and then suddenly Daddy was gone. I’m not sure you ever fully recover from a shock that great.” She takes a sip of coffee. “I think it gave me my drive. I was so little, but kids feel things that they may not understand intellectually. I could feel Mom’s sadness, and to be honest, I wanted to get away from it. It was more than I could handle. And I wanted to live, fully and completely, to make my life matter. In honor of Dad, but also because I instinctively understood how fragile life is. We don’t have forever.” Kay looks out the window at the beautiful day.

  Erica is moved by her words. Was there an element of performance? Of course there was. But all great performances contain truth—that’s what makes them great.

  Kay stands up tall, and when she speaks, her voice is full. “Well, we certainly got to the nitty-gritty in record time.”

  “I know your father would be very proud of you.”

  “I sure hope so.” She makes an encompassing gesture. “None of this happened by accident. Come on, let me show you around.”

  For the next hour Erica gets a tour of Barrishland. She sees the pool, the children’s playground, and the gardens with their crazy-quilt California colors and view of the Pacific, blue and crashing and infinite.

  “Not a single hosta,” Kay cracks.

  The sprawling guesthouse has been turned into her office, nerve center, and de facto campaign headquarters. One room is home to half a dozen nicely dressed operatives and aides, several of them on their smartphones, the others hunched over computer screens, monitoring social media sites and keeping Kay’s posts up to the minute. A second room is filled with younger, casually dressed interns who are working the phones, reaching out to voters across the country. There are a couple of private offices. In one Erica is introduced to Audra Ruiz, Kay’s chief of staff, a woman whose fiercely intelligent eyes quickly size up Erica. The second is lined wall to wall with books and is home to a researcher and a speech writer. As Kay walks through the rooms, she answers questions, makes requests, asks about family members, and banters with an easy jocularity—she is clearly a much-loved boss. Doing her research, Erica discovered that many of Barrish’s staff have been with her since she first entered politics. The whole place hums with a sense of unity, purpose, and momentum. People are working hard, very hard, but they are happy to be doing so.

  Finally there’s Kay’s private office, the door guarded by a no-nonsense middle-aged male secretary.

  “Bob Franklin, Erica Sparks,” Kay says.

  Franklin smiles but—like Audra Ruiz—there’s a protective scrutiny in his eyes. Erica gets the sense these people would lay down their lives for Kay Barrish.

  “Bob is an organizational genius. Without him I’d be nothing but Post-it notes and missed appointments.”

  “And gray roots,” he adds.

  “I’ve asked you not to reveal any state secrets.”

  Kay leads Erica into her office. One wall is book lined; there’s an enormous desk, a comfortable seating area, and a view of the ocean out a picture window.

  “Well, there you have it,” Kay says. “Our foundation is headquartered downtown and is much more formal.”

  Unlike most successful people’s offices, this one has no wall filled with plaques, awards, and certificates. “Where’s the trophy wall?” Erica asks.

  “I’m much more interested in where I’m going than where I’ve been.”

  “It’s all very impressive. May I ask one question?”

  “Shoot.”

  “When are you going to announce your decision on running for president?”

  “Mom was right about you, Erica. You’re direct and honest. I like that. Mom also told me about your struggles. I admire that.”

  Kay sits on one of two facing sofas and gestures to the other one. Erica sits.

  “As to your question: Both my kids are off in college and doing well. My husband is supportive. People across the country and across the political spectrum are urging me to get into the race. I have concrete, well-thought-out ideas that I believe can unite the country and move us all forward.” Barrish grows pensive; she looks around the room, gathers herself. “All that said, it’s a big step and I have to be absolutely sure that I’m up for it and that it’s the right move for my family. And I’m not quite there yet.” There’s a pause; she locks eyes with Erica. “Off the record, if you buy that denial, I have a nice bridge you might be interested in.”

  Erica sits there, stunned into momentary silence. Then Barrish lets out one of her warm, loud, down-to-earth laughs, calls Bob into the office, and sets up Erica’s interview for the next day.

  CHAPTER 18

  ERICA TRIES TO CONTAIN HER excitement as Kay walks her to the car and waves her off. As soon as she’s past the gate, she takes out her phone and calls Greg.

  “I got it.”

  “You got it?”

  “Yup.”

  Greg lets out a holler, sounding like a Little Leaguer who just hit a game-winning home run. She smiles at his exuberance. “I am so proud of you, Erica.”

  “We’re not home yet, Greg, I still have the interview to get through.”

  “Did she give you any hint of what her decision will be?”

  “No comment.”

  “That speaks volumes. Nylan is going to be over the moon. Where and when?”

  “Tomorrow at her house.”

  “That’s fast. I’ve got to get to work putting together a promo. We’ll broadcast it wall to wall on the network and all over social media. We’ll drive the ratings through the roof: Will she or won’t she? There’s a lot to do on this end. I’ll arrange for on-site hair and makeup, and I’ll book the best lighting guy in LA. This interview is going to take you to the next level, and I want you to look sensational.”

  “We’ll start with me outside the house. I’ll establish the location, and the why and wherefore of the interview. Then Kay will show me around the grounds. We’ll keep that segment light and family-centric. We can tape it in the afternoon. Then we’ll shoot the actual interview live in her living room at eight eastern time,” Erica says.

  “Peak viewership,” Greg says. “We’re going to blow the other networks off the map.”

  “Let’s not count any chickens. I’m nervous enough as is.”

  “You’re going to be fantastic. I’ll fly out tomorrow morning. Don’t talk to anyone in the business until we’ve announced it. We don’t want this leaked.”

  “Tight lips on your end too, please. Especially with Claire.”

  “No way she’s stealing this story. Kay Barrish picked you
.”

  “She’s a pretty terrific woman.”

  Greg lowers his voice. “Look who’s talking.”

  “I couldn’t have done it without your support.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Erica.”

  There’s a moment of silence between them. Erica feels something electric and anticipatory—a tingling in her short hairs—that has nothing to do with landing the Kay Barrish interview.

  CHAPTER 19

  WHEN SHE GETS BACK TO her hotel, Erica calls Moira, tells her the news, and cancels their lunch. Of course Moira understands. Then Erica sits down at the desk and spends the afternoon writing and rewriting her introduction to the interview, her questions for the lightweight part of the segment as Kay shows her around the grounds, and then for the mother lode—the living-room exchange in which, Erica is fairly positive, Barrish will announce that she is running for president of the United States.

  Erica is so absorbed in her work that she loses track of time. When she looks up, it’s six o’clock and she realizes that she hasn’t eaten since breakfast. Not that she’s hungry, but she knows she needs to eat. She orders a tuna fish sandwich and a fruit salad from room service. While she’s waiting for it to arrive, she does a half hour of Tae Kwon Do. The food is delivered, and she turns on GNN. Almost immediately a promo for her interview comes on. It features footage of Kay Barrish accepting her Oscar, addressing the California legislature as governor, and then visiting a clinic in rural Mexico funded by her foundation. The voice-over describes her many accomplishments and ends with a visual of the White House and: WILL SHE OR WON’T SHE? FIND OUT TOMORROW AT EIGHT P.M. IN ERICA SPARKS’S EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH KAY BARRISH.

  Erica clicks off the set, feeling a combination of excitement and almost overwhelming pressure. She retrieves her deck of cards, sits on the edge of the bed, and plays three hands of solitaire. Then she calls the front desk and asks for a printer to be sent up. When it arrives, she prints out the introduction and the questions she has written up. Then she starts to rehearse, walking around the room as if she were at Barrish’s house. She goes over it again and again until she has it just about memorized. She wants to be prepared for any eventuality.

  Before she knows it, it’s almost ten o’clock. She takes a shower, slips into an oversize T-shirt, gets into bed, and turns out the lights. She lies there as her exhaustion battles her adrenaline. She needs to sleep. She closes her eyes and tries to clear her mind. Just as she’s dozing off, her hotel phone rings.

  “This is Erica.”

  “Erica, it’s Mark Benton.” His voice is charged and urgent. She sits up, throws off the covers, and swings her legs to the floor. “I’ve been working nonstop on our project. I was up all last night and called in sick to work today. I borrowed a page from the North Koreans and hacked into the computer of a midlevel manager at the NYC Department of Transportation. I took on his identity and then used it to maneuver through a maze of DOT systems. But I finally got into the ferry’s system. Erica, the ferry’s controls were hacked.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. The log files on the DOT router I used to get into the ferry system show invasive activity minutes before the crash.”

  “Do you know by who?”

  “No. Finding their identity is going to be a lot harder. I need an IP address or something else to go on, and these people are very good at covering their tracks. They use proxy servers to block or mask their IPs, and Tor, a freeware program that hides your identity online no matter what you’re doing. It basically makes them invisible, or at least indistinguishable from millions of other people online. It could be anyone anywhere. The ferry could have been hacked from Beijing, or it could have been done from Fourteenth Street.”

  “But still, the crash was an act of cyberterrorism.”

  “It certainly looks that way to me.”

  Erica stands up and starts pacing. “Where do we go from here?”

  “I’m just going to keep digging, looking for anything that might tell us where the hacking originated. They may have been sloppy somewhere along the line. But listen, forget about this until after the Barrish interview.”

  “That won’t be easy. Five people died in that crash. A dozen more are still in the hospital.”

  “The closer we get to the hackers, the greater the danger that they’ll find out about us. They’re very sophisticated and are no doubt monitoring for intrusions, just like Dave Mullen is up on the sixth floor at GNN.”

  “Great work, Mark.”

  “It’s exciting. And scary.”

  Erica suddenly feels cold. “We may have opened Pandora’s box.”

  “Yeah, the demons are out.”

  They hang up. Erica grabs a throw and wraps it around her shoulders. She walks over to the window and looks out at the California night—the Pacific is glistening under a three-quarter moon, and the pier’s amusement park is lit up like a pinwheel. But all she sees is darkness.

  CHAPTER 20

  ERICA’S INTRODUCTION AND THE TOUR of the grounds with Kay Barrish have gone well. The crew is busy setting up for the live interview in the living room. Erica, Greg, and Kay are in the kitchen, alongside Kay’s chief of staff, Audra Ruiz, and several other aides. Kay’s husband, Bert Winters, is also there—he’s older than she is, with a casual confidence, soft-spoken and self-effacing, known for standing by his woman and raising prodigious amounts of money for her campaigns.

  Erica has been fighting all day to stay focused. She curses this break—the pause in the intensity of the work allows her mind to return to the news she got from Mark. She wants to tell Greg but she has to handle it very carefully, since Mark’s actions were both illegal and unsanctioned by GNN. And who are the perpetrators? Why haven’t they claimed credit? Terrorists are usually quick to trumpet their carnage. Her wheels start turning, carrying her away from the moment. She wills herself back to here and now.

  Lesli, Erica’s associate producer, has hired Lisa Golden, LA’s organic caterer to the stars—a woman of about forty, scrubbed and earnest—who has worked for Nylan several times when he was hosting parties in town. The kitchen island is filled with an array of salads and dishes so glistening and artfully presented they almost look fake. Golden describes every dish down to its last non-GMO grain of rice. When she’s done, she introduces her assistant, a Hispanic teenager. “This is Arturo Yanez, who comes to me via Recipe for Success, a program that trains at-risk youth for jobs in the beautiful world of food. I’m a proud supporter.”

  “How wonderful!” Kay exclaims.

  Arturo smiles with a modest pride that can’t disguise his anxiety.

  “Arturo has made you individual tamale pies for today’s supper. Does he have any takers?”

  “Me-me-me,” Kay says.

  Arturo opens the oven and carefully removes one of a dozen small baking dishes. He puts it on a plate with a fork and hands it to Kay, who takes a bite. “De-lish,” she pronounces. Not for the first time, Erica marvels at her warmth and charm, which flow as naturally as water.

  There are other takers on the tamale pie, but not Erica. Food is the furthest thing from her mind. The most important fifteen minutes of her career are coming up. She steps into a quiet corner of the kitchen and reviews her notes. Since the earlier segments covered Kay’s life and career up to this point, she’s going to get right to the billion-dollar question. A little shiver runs up her spine—she’s not sure where her excitement ends and her anxiety begins. Hair and makeup are set up at the kitchen table and she sits down for a quick touch-up. And then her mind—which seems to have a mind of its own—goes back to the unknown hackers, the terrorists, and then to the crash itself, and then she hears the man’s scream as his bo
dy is crushed between the ferry and the seawall.

  Lesli comes into the kitchen. “We’re all set. It’s five minutes till we go live.”

  Erica stands up. Kay comes over, locks arms, and leads her into the living room. “I’m so glad I’m doing this with you,” she says. Then she burps, a discreet burp but still. She smiles sheepishly. “Why aren’t the cameras rolling when you need them?”

  Erica and Barrish sit facing each other in straight-back chairs in front of the fireplace. A fire is roaring and the air-conditioning is on—only in LA. Final adjustments are made in the sound and lighting. Greg, who has put on his headset and is communicating with the network back in New York, stands beside the cameraman and looks through the lens. “You both look terrific.”

  “Oh, we’re women of substance, we don’t care about that,” Kay says. Laughter ripples through the room, the tension is lightened, and Erica feels a sudden wave of confidence—and affection for this woman. Imagine her in the White House!

  “Thirty seconds,” Greg says. The room grows still. Kay sits up a little higher, puts on her game face. Erica takes a deep breath. “Ten seconds and . . . Go!”

  “So, Kay,” Erica begins, “we’ve seen your lovely house and grounds, and visited your office and met some of your staff. I know how busy you are with your foundation work and your books and speeches, but I sense that you’re gearing up for something more.”

  “You know, Erica, I’ve been very fortunate, very blessed. My work so far has been deeply fulfilling on many levels.”

  Erica notices sweat break out on Barrish’s hairline and upper lip.

  “But when I look around me at the division and gridlock in this country, and the dangers we face in the world, I’m compelled to get involved.” All the color suddenly drains from Barrish’s face and an odd look comes into her eyes. “As governor, I was all about common sense leadership. I think the country could use some of that right—”