Girl of Lies (14 page)

“You’re not here to sneak information about the court-martial last summer?”

“I’m not. And that story has pretty much played itself out, I think. I won’t lie. I find your sister Carrie infinitely more interesting than… Crank. No offense, that’s just what I do.”

“Carrie is off limits.”

He shrugged. “Like I said, there’s no story there, now. And my assignment is
Morbid Obesity’s
new album. Though I would love to write about you and your growing little empire.”

Julia grinned. “I’m just a believer in putting my assets to work. And… I might be willing to work with you on that. But if you touch Carrie, I’ll put everything to work against you.”

“Mrs. Wilson, you may be rich and run a big company, but even you can’t take on the
Washington Post
.”

She gave him a wicked grin then said, “Apparently, neither can you.”

Anthony chuckled. “All right. Fine. Just let me get one question out of my system.”

“I won’t answer.”

“Fine. Tell me about your sister’s kidnapping.”

“My official answer is
no comment.”

“And your unofficial one?” he asked.

“
No comment.
In fact, I don’t really know anything yet. I’m flying to Washington tomorrow afternoon. But she’s in good hands with Carrie and our other sisters, for now. So, why don’t we get started?”

Anthony nodded. “All right. So let me make sure I understand. Rules are, I can’t ask about the kidnapping, or the court-martial. Are those the only restrictions?”

Julia raised an eyebrow. “That’s it, but I may refuse to answer other questions as we hit them. And I want to know more about what angle you’re pursuing with this piece.”

“I don’t know yet. But I don’t want to just cover the album. Everything I’ve heard, you’ve been essential to the success of the band.”

She shook her head. “Not exactly. Crank and Serena write the music, and they’re magic on stage. That’s where the success of the band comes from. What I do is logistics and run the business side of things. I make sure they’re where they need to be when they need to be there. I make sure their investments keep growing, that the taxes are paid, and that the business keeps growing no matter what happens in the music industry.”

“I’d like to start there. I want to know how you built this into such a big business. I want to know what makes
you
tick.”

Julia sighed. “All right, then.”

J
ULIA WILSON couldn’t decide what she thought of Anthony Walker.

Even though she was most often described in the media as either an “entertainment mogul” or occasionally simply as a “business savvy band manager,” Julia’s background was in international relations. She grew up around the Foreign Service, lived in half a dozen countries by the time she was eighteen, and had majored in international business at Harvard University. Her father—former Ambassador, now Secretary of Defense-designee—had been appalled when she chose to forego graduate school and the Foreign Service and instead take up managing her boyfriend’s alternative rock band as a career. But Richard Thompson’s objections had waned over the years as Crank’s musical talent and Julia’s business acumen built a multi-million dollar business.

In short, Julia followed international news, both foreign policy and business. She read the
Washington Post
and
New York Times
nearly every day, and consequently, Anthony Walker’s name was very familiar to her. Both of his books—one covering the buildup to the Iraq War, and the other covering the savage Iraqi civil war of 2004-2006—sat on the shelves in her South Boston townhouse. She’d read with interest his editorials bashing the decision to sell the
Washington Post
in the summer of 2013. So it was with some trepidation that she’d agreed to this interview in the first place.

The phone call had come via the band’s publicist, Mike DeMint.

“This guy’s the real deal,” Mike said.

“I know who he is,” Julia replied.

“I think you should talk to him.”

“But what does he
want?”
Julia had asked. “He’s not a celebrity reporter. The only thing I know that might interest him is my brother-in-law’s murder. And there’s no way in hell I’m talking about that.”

“I’ll set ground rules with him before the meeting.”

“All right,” she had agreed.

Now she sat across the desk from a reporter who she’d admired. And her main priority was to protect her sister Carrie, which meant keeping him interested in other things. She knew most people would react by simply ignoring him. Refusing to do the interview. Refusing to have any interaction with him at all. But Julia knew better. Anthony Walker might be in the doghouse with the
Washington Post
, but he remained one of the most celebrated reporters of their generation. If she refused to talk to him, he’d dig in their trash, spy on Ray’s court-martial board, hire phone hackers, or God only knew what else.

Far better to keep him close.

“Okay, then,” Anthony said. “Let’s start with your background. I understand you’re the oldest of six daughters?”

“That’s right.”

“Carrie—Ray Sherman’s widow—is the next youngest?”

Julia’s eyebrows narrowed in warning.

Anthony’s next statement was defensive. “I’m not planning on doing a story about them, all right? But it’s important context.”

“She’s a few years younger than me,” she responded.

“Right. And she’s a NIH researcher.”

“I don’t know all the details. She’s doing work on infectious diseases and animal vectors.”

“Okay. And the next youngest is…” Anthony’s voice trailed off.

“Alexandra. She’s graduating from Columbia next month.”

“Okay. And then… the next two were twins?”

“Sarah and Jessica.”

“Sarah was injured when Ray Sherman was murdered.”

“Right.”

Anthony continued. “And the youngest is Andrea, who is all over the news right now.”

“Right,” Julia said. “But, as we discussed, Andrea and what happened yesterday are off limits. And I don’t know anything anyway.”

He held up a hand. “It’s fine. Tell me a little about your background.”

“Well… I went to Harvard. Majored in international relations and business. My dad kind of wanted me to go into the Foreign Service.”

“But you had other plans.”

Julia nodded. “I met Crank. We got involved. The band needed a manager, and I needed a new direction. It was a good fit.”

“So you took on managing the band.”

As he asked questions, he scribbled notes in his pocket notebook. She didn’t know exactly what he was writing, but it was
loud,
the point of the pen digging into the paper.

“I did. And never looked back.”

Anthony looked up at the last words. His expression, eyes widened slightly, seemed to register surprise. “Tell me why?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Not many people get to build a huge enterprise from the ground up. Every dollar we made in the first three years got reinvested into the band. Into promotion. Better instruments. Honing their skills. We got out there on MySpace when it was brand new and built a major following. The band worked hard, I worked hard. I love this work.”

“You started buying unrelated businesses in 2007.”

She snorted. “If Crank had his way, I’d have just bought more and more expensive guitars. But this is a big business. We started going into commercial real estate, medical devices, software. My goal was to diversify the business so it could survive anything.”

The truth was, there was a lot more to it than that. Her goal wasn’t to build stability, or to prove her hand at business, or to diversify the band, or anything so pedestrian. Her goal was to erase the stain of shame her mother stamped on her heart at fourteen years old. Her goal was to use the band, the business, to create wings of success that would carry her out of the abyss of her mother’s abhorrence.

In the end, she’d been successful beyond her wildest dreams. Successful enough to eclipse her father’s impressive (but inherited) fortune. Richard Thompson knew how to spend money. Julia knew how to
make
it.

But sometime around the time she turned thirty, she realized it was all emptiness. She’d looked around in the fall of 2012, ten years after she and Crank fell in love. In those ten years she’d made millionaires of the band several times over. She’d built a large international business. She’d far surpassed the ambitions of her parents. But it hadn’t made any difference. She still felt empty inside sometimes at night when she thought of the things her mother had once said to her. She still felt like she wasn’t good enough. Sometimes she still felt like that eighteen-year-old girl sneaking through the halls of Bethesda Chevy-Chase High School as the word
slut
hung in the air, pregnant with contempt.

As Anthony finished taking his notes, she tried to steer the conversation away. But he promptly said, “I’d like to go back a bit. And you can tell me to buzz off if you want. This is old news, and it’s not necessarily germane to the story, and if you don’t want it mentioned, then I won’t mention it. Okay?”

She felt a chill as he spoke. Because she knew what he was about to say.

“When I was doing background research on the story, I came across the series of blog posts by Maria Clawson.”

“In my office. Now.”

That was unambiguous
. Bear hadn’t made it back to his desk yet after returning to Main State from the five-sided puzzle palace across the river. As he walked through the double doors into the Diplomatic Security suite, signed in with the guard, and swiped his access card at the inner doors, Tom Cantwell appeared on the other side of the door.

Bear followed Cantwell into the large corner office. Facing 23
rd
and C Street, Cantwell’s fourth floor office was prime real estate in the State Department headquarters. From the window, the United States Institute of Peace—underfunded, largely useless in terms of real policy—occupied its brand new building overlooking the Lincoln Memorial on one side and the Kennedy Center on the other. Bear would have loved an office like this, but he knew he’d never occupy it.

Cantwell’s face was red, and his eye had a slight twitch. He didn’t sit down, instead walking around to the far side of his excessively large desk and turning to face Bear. He took a breath and stared, opened his mouth, then closed it.

Finally, he said, “Have you lost your mind?”

Bear blinked. “I don’t believe so, sir.”

The response, apparently, wasn’t what Cantwell wanted to hear. He slammed a bony little fist on his desk and said, “Mr. Wyden, please explain why you had to be escorted out of the Secretary of Defense’s office by armed guards!”

“He didn’t want to answer questions about—” Bear didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence. The door opened, and Mary Bradley, Cantwell’s administrative assistant stuck her head inside.

“Sir? The Secretary wants to see… both of you.”

Bear grimaced. He met Mary’s eyes. They were baleful, wide, sympathetic. That lasted less than a second, and then she looked back to her boss, expressionless.

For the hundredth time, Bear thought Mary just might accept a dinner invitation. She was unattached, always polite, and she’d given him her phone number a year before.

A year ago he was still wound up tight in his divorce, and not ready to even talk with another woman.

Now was not the time for this internal discussion. Cantwell’s mouth puckered up as if he’d just drunk spoiled milk. “Well, then, Mr. Wyden. It’s on your head. We’re going to see Mr. Perry, and there’s nothing I can do to help you now.”

Well, then, Bear thought. He’d known intuitively that Cantwell was a spineless weasel, but having it proved under this circumstance was unfortunate.

Silently, Bear followed Cantwell down the wide hallways to the bank of elevators.

At the elevator, Bear reached for the button at the same moment Cantwell did. Cantwell jerked his hand back, an annoyed expression on his face. Bear pushed the up button.

“I would appreciate it if you would remain quiet unless asked a direct question.”

Bear raised an eyebrow. Then he said, “I presume we’re being asked to see the Secretary to deal with my questioning of the Secretary of Defense?”

Cantwell was, for the first time in Bear’s experience, speechless. The elevator doors opened, eliminating the need for Bear to talk with his boss for a few seconds, at least.

As he turned around, facing the elevator door, two other people walked into the elevator behind them. Good thing because it delayed, for a little while, open warfare with his boss.

Five minutes later, Bear walked behind Cantwell into the expansive office of the Secretary of State.

Bear had never been in the office. Wide paneled hardwood floors stained a deep reddish brown, stretched across the spacious office. Most of the office was white, with elegant wainscoting, detailed molding and lavish Persian carpets. The room smelled of expensive cigars, gin and privilege. Forty feet away, Secretary of State James Perry sat behind his desk, talking on the phone. He looked up at their entry and waved them toward an ornate couch, covered in sky-blue fabric and gold brocade. Bear followed Cantwell toward the couch. As they reached it, Secretary Perry hung up the phone and stood.