Mistress

“Ah, Mr. Casper.” Meester Kahsper.

“We have some business to discuss,” I say.

“Do we, now? I must tell you, Mr. Casper, that I am having my doubts about you. When you first contacted me, I assumed that you had come into possession of a very important item. Now I am not so sure.”

“Well, you should be sure, Alex. I have the video. And I have a digital file rigged to be e-mailed to every news outlet in North America if anything happens to me.”

“I see,” he says with amusement coloring his tone. Like he doesn’t believe me.

“I want twenty million dollars wired to a specific account, Alex. And when I receive it, you have my assurance that the video will remain confidential.”

Kutuzov clucks his tongue. “No, no, Mr. Casper. I think not. My friend, I know you are trying to find this video. But I now believe that you have been unable to obtain it. I believe you were-bluffing, as you Americans say? You were bluffing me previously.”

That’s true. I was. And I’m bluffing now, too.

“I’m not bluffing now,” I say.

“Then tell me what is on the video,” he says. “Prove to me that you have a copy.”

That’s basically the same thing Craig Carney said to me yesterday, and I failed the test. I hope I pass this time. Because if I don’t, I have no way out.

“It’s a sex video of Diana Hotchkiss with the First Lady, Libby Rose Francis,” I say.

And I hold my breath. This is the moment. Right or wrong. Live or die. It sure would be nice if I actually had that damn video file.

Kutuzov releases a sigh.

“Give me your account number,” he says, sounding like he’s lost a little bit of the confidence in his voice.

Chapter 100

I pace the room another half hour. My legs are unsteady and my limbs are tingling with dread.

Give me your account number,

Kutuzov said.

So this time, I guessed right about the video. The clues were there for me all along. Operation Delano. I was right that the original Operation Delano was a plan to blackmail President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But I was wrong about the reason.

I forgot about his wife, Eleanor. The rumors, to this day, are unconfirmed, but in many circles it’s accepted as fact that Eleanor Roosevelt was a lesbian. Stalin must have heard those rumors, too. He was trying to dig up proof that FDR’s wife was gay so he could use it as leverage at the Yalta summit-as blackmail.

In the 1940s, that would probably be damaging information.

(For the record, this doesn’t count against my moratorium on presidential trivia.)

Anyway, fast-forward almost seventy years, and it’s Operation Delano 2.0. The Russians get proof that Libby Rose Francis has a girlfriend named Diana Hotchkiss. In this day, would it be a damaging political scandal for the president to admit that his wife is a lesbian? Haven’t we come further than that as a nation?

Apparently, President Francis doesn’t want to be the test case.

And who knows what’s on that video? If it’s graphic sex-I pause here to recall all Diana’s sex toys in her bedroom closet-it would be enough to scare any politician. That, I assume, is the straw that broke the camel’s back from the president’s point of view. He couldn’t survive a video making its way around the Internet of his wife doing kinky things with another woman.

I jump at the sound of a loud rap on my door. My pulse explodes into a pounding throb. Who even knows I’m here? I search for a means of escape-

Suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

There isn’t a window in this place, nowhere to hide-

“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door; only this, and nothing more”-

“It’s Sean!” he calls out. “It’s Sean, Ben.”

I put my hands on my knees and wait for my breathing to resume. Deep breaths, Ben. Deep breaths.

“Hey,” he says when I let him in. He takes a moment to appraise me. “What were you saying just now?”

“I wasn’t saying anything.”

“Something-it sounded like that Edgar Allan Poe poem. ‘The Raven.’”

I take a breath. “I said that out loud?”

“You did.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. “Did you sleep last night?”

“Not a wink.” I close and lock the door behind him. “You’ve got an untraceable phone to make your call?”

“Yes. For God’s sake, how many times are you going to ask me?”

“That’s a big help to me, Sean. Really.”

“Think nothing of it.” Sean takes a look around my fleabag hotel room and probably thinks, well, nothing of it.

“So?” he asks. “Did you guess right about the video?”

“Yep.”

“Jesus. A sex video of Diana Hotchkiss and the First Lady?”

I nod my head.

“And you figured it out just by what you saw last night in that car?”

“I should have figured it out long ago,” I say. “But yeah, last night did it for me. And your photos from your zoom lens are even better than the view I had.”