of well-publicized protests and asked awkward questions in Parliament. Fraser Davis was in trouble at Prime Minister’s Questions, embarrassed by the Opposition, and also by some on his own side. Mostly he was embarrassed by being dropped in it by the Americans.
‘Can the Prime Minister confirm under what circumstances he believes it is legal for the CIA or the American Army to kidnap and torture British citizens?’ was just one of the unhelpful questions Fraser Davis faced in the Commons and on television.
‘Can the Prime Minister confirm the whereabouts of Mr Khan?’
‘Can the Prime Minister tell us how dispensing with due process of law and alienating the entire British Muslim community will help the Carr administration win their so-called War on Terror?’
And so on.
British newspapers showed pictures of Khan–clean shaven and smiling–helping a group of handicapped children on an Outward Bound course in the Lake District, a model citizen, apparently. The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek magazine showed a different Khan. This one was an Islamist fanatic, a Taleban supporter and wannabe suicide bomber who had been recruiting young British men of Pakistani origin to kill–Americans and Jews preferably–without compunction. Khan, they claimed, was planning some kind of unspecified attack in the United States or against American targets ‘along the lines of Manila.’
Where the truth lay in all this, I did not know. What I did know was that the row between London and Washington had now entered an even more aggressive phase. All the rest had been just foreplay. At least Johnny Lee Ironside and I had established a good relationship, I would almost say a friendship, in the months or so since the initial disagreement at Chequers. We met frequently and talked on the telephone almost every day.
‘Heads up,’ he said. ‘The Vice-President wants to see you about Khan and other matters, and it isn’t going to be pretty. Be prepared for Incoming.’
‘Thanks,’ I replied. I appreciated the warning.
‘He’s in need of a human sacrifice, Alex, and as the top Brit around here, you have been selected.’
I pretended to laugh.
‘Ritual slaughter is one of the perks of the job. I’m looking forward to it. Obviously.’
That day of my White House visit I heard the morning TV weather reports predicting an ice storm all around the Chesapeake Bay. Flat blue clouds rolled in from the northeast, bringing a chill which drilled the bones. After I kissed Fiona goodbye, I came out of the ambassador’s residence, around half past seven in the morning. I was swathed in a long black coat and I jumped into the embassy’s dark green Rolls-Royce with the heating turned up full blast. I felt bad about Fiona; bad about the way it was going. On the journey down Massachusetts Avenue I tried to see things from her point of view. Yes, I had taken her away from her friends and career in London, but she knew all the drawbacks when she married me. Yes, I had a hectic job, but being the wife of the British Ambassador was not such a bad deal, was it?
And yes, yes, I wanted children. I’m young for an ambassador but when you hit late forties you are getting old for fatherhood. I felt time passing and the ticking of the clock that women are supposed to possess but men are not. Because Fiona is twelve years younger than me, perhaps she did not feel it so intensely, but I was slowly waking up to the idea that I might need a bit of diplomacy in my private life.
I got to the White House shortly before eight o’clock. Dr Kristina Taft met me near the media stakeout position at the West Wing door. That day she was still the Deputy National Security Adviser, though not for long. The newspapers called Kristina a ‘Vulcan’, one of the hyper-rational academics full of brainy ideas and yet apparently devoid of human emotion whom Carr and Black had brought in to run American policy. I could not square the newspaper hype with the smiling face that greeted me, though I admit I was slightly intimidated. Kristina was about the same age as Fiona and we stood shaking hands for the photographers. We exchanged a few words as the Marine Guard saluted and the machine-gun fire of lenses and flashguns went off in our faces.
Nothing happens at the White House by accident. Everything in the Carr presidency is scheduled into fifteen-minute slots, and there are therefore ninety-six of these across the President’s twenty-four-hour day. Even ‘downtime’–relaxation–is scheduled in fifteen-minute bites, though a sensible president will make sure he gets at least thirty-two of these a night. I used to wonder if some presidents–especially Kennedy or Clinton–had a fifteen-or thirty-or forty-five-minute schedule for sex. Anyway, Kristina Taft could have chosen for me to arrive discreetly, away from the cameras. Instead she picked the entrance designed to give the American media a full photo-opportunity of the British Ambassador being called in for his bollocking by Bobby Black. It was to be, as Johnny Lee had told me, an act of ritual humiliation. My humiliation. I shook hands and beamed. The ‘special relationship’ between the United States and the United Kingdom deserves no less than the occasional warm smile of hypocrisy.
‘Welcome, Ambassador.’
‘Dr Taft. Nice to see you. A pleasure.’
‘I think the cameras have had enough,’ she said out of the corner of her mouth as she steered me inside. ‘You know, the Vice-President told me he is looking forward to meeting with you. He insisted we clear serious face-time.’
Serious face-time with Bobby Black? Diplomatic Warning Bell Number One went off in my head.
‘Vice-President Black is a very busy man,’ I replied carefully. In that first week he was more often on the newspaper front pages than the President himself, a pattern which was to continue for the next two years. ‘I am grateful for the meeting. He’s never out of the news.’
Kristina Taft smiled again, but her grey eyes didn’t. She was wearing a sober dark suit, no discernible make-up, no jewellery. This was an attractive woman deliberately making herself look as serious as possible. She led me inside.
‘We’re going to have to wait a few minutes,’ she said. ‘He is in for a one-on-one with the President. Coffee?’
I accepted and we sat in a hallway watched over by two Secret Service agents. Kristina poured the coffee. I had of course done my homework, reading the briefing papers about the new Carr people. Kristina’s said that her academic career had been stellar, and also that her supposed boss at the National Security Council was in trouble, accused of employing illegal aliens at his home in Virginia. It was just the first of the scandals that were to hit the Carr administration.
Kristina was from the start acting up, as National Security Adviser, with all the authority that implies, although in that first week the gossip was that she was too young for the job; someone else would be brought in. She was, however, born to high office, part of a political dynasty. Her father had been Governor of California and the Tafts are Republican royalty, with a former President, William Howard Taft, to their credit in the early twentieth century. His main claim to historical fame is that he was so fat–300 pounds–that he once got stuck in the White House bathtub. I looked over at Kristina and thought of a hummingbird: she was petite, hyperactive, with the figure of someone who exercises regularly. My briefing papers said Washingtonian magazine had voted her America’s ‘most eligible bachelorette’, under a glamorous picture of her in a full-length evening gown. The New York Times reported that, during the transition, before Theo Carr was actually sworn in, Kristina Taft had a row with Bobby Black and had stood up to him. She had suggested, the story claimed, a White House reading list, including novels to help National Security staff understand how Arabs, Iranians, Pakistanis, and other Muslims might think.
The New York Times congratulated Kristina on her fortitude in taking on Bobby Black and also on being a ‘civilizing influence’ in the White House. It was a compliment that would not necessarily help her career.
‘So,’ I said, trying to figure Kristina out, ‘what’s this reading list I hear so much about? And can I get a copy? Or are the novels you read Top Secret, US Eyes Only?’
She had the grace to laugh.
‘They are so secret you can