To Kill the President: The most explosive thriller of the year. Sam Bourne

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       4

       Washington, DC, Monday, 7.02pm

      Maggie was home at seven pm. Unheard of, at least under the previous president. Back then, Maggie regarded eighteen-hour days as the norm. That felt a long time ago.

      Ideally, she wanted to flop into bed, pull the duvet over her head and not come out for a week. Pathetic, she knew, to have her priorities so out of whack. So right, she said to herself, when your main problem was that the free world was led by a bigoted sociopath – let alone one you worked for – that was somehow bearable. But seeing your boyfriend smile at another woman, suddenly that is too much? What kind of person are you, Maggie Costello?

      This was not a new question. She was used to interrogating herself this way and almost always in these circumstances. ‘Boyfriend trouble’, as Eleanor at work put it, making Maggie feel fifteen years old. ‘Heartache’ had been her mother’s preferred term.

      The consensus among her friends – and family – was that Maggie was a bad picker, that she chose men who were either absurdly unsuitable or transparently unavailable. There had certainly been several in that first category. She thought fleetingly of Edward, her first Washington boyfriend and a certifiable control freak. How funny: they had lived together, yet now she hardly thought of him.

      There were a few in the second category too: relationships doomed from the start. She thought back to her much younger self, working for an NGO in the Congo, part of a team charged with brokering a ceasefire. She had become involved with a leader of one of the armed factions, hopelessly compromising her status as a mediator. That mistake had cost her dear. The affair had been charged and intense, of course, but it was obvious now – and surely obvious then – that it could never have worked.

      But then she thought of Uri, the man she had met in Jerusalem, who had followed her here. Nothing unsuitable about him. He was gorgeous, clever, loving. And he had been available too. He had wanted to settle down, to have a family. It had been Maggie who had been unavailable, too restless to fix on one place or one person. It had been Maggie who had said no. Just bad timing with that one, she told herself.

      She had made it to the bed when the phone rang. Shit. She had told Richard to meet her back here for Chinese. What if that was him? She didn’t want to see him, but she was pleased he wanted to come. Or maybe not. She had no idea.

      She looked down at her phone. Not Richard. But her sister.

      ‘Hi, Liz.’

      There was a pause and then, ‘Oh, Maggie.’

      ‘What? What is it? Has something happened to the kids? Are they OK?’

      ‘Yes,’ her sister sniffed. ‘They’re fine. It’s not them.’

      Truth be told, Maggie was not yet used to having her sister phone like this. Not used to her being in the same timezone. But Liz’s husband had been offered a job in Atlanta two years ago and so they’d left Dublin. ‘Now that Ma’s gone,’ Liz had said, ‘it makes sense, don’t you think?’ Maggie had agreed of course, but she wasn’t convinced. Having the Atlantic Ocean between her and her closest relatives had worked pretty well until now: why mess with a winning formula?

      ‘So what is it? Is it you? Are you ill?’

      ‘No. Nothing like that. Do you remember I told you about that girl in my class?’

      ‘Which one?’ Maggie had moved to the kitchen, where she was opening and closing cupboard doors, looking for a serviceable bottle of whisky. She didn’t want any of that hipster shite Richard claimed to like.

      ‘Mia.’

      ‘The one who was raped?’

      ‘Yes. Really lovely girl. Quiet, but smart. Thoughtful.’

      ‘What happened?’

      ‘Well, she got pregnant.’

      ‘Christ.’

      ‘Yes. And she wanted an abortion. She thought about it. She had counselling. And she was, like, “There is no way I can have this baby.”’

      ‘Course.’

      ‘But СКАЧАТЬ