Conspiracy by Allan Topol

What's up?"
    "You'd better be sitting down for this."
    "C'mon, Taylor. Stop stalling. What happened?"
    She had decided that there was no good way to ease into it. She had to simply throw it out, and they could go from there. "Yesterday Saul Cooper from the LA. Times came to see me. He said that rumors have surfaced that you have skeletons in the closet in Napa, and—"
    "What kind of shit is this?" Boyd cried out. "What's Cooper's source?"
    "A Bay Area reporter for his paper who's done some digging after an anonymous tip."
    "Oh, for chrissake. The Republicans are losing. They're planting garbage like this and using those clowns in the press to spread it. It happens all the time."
    She gripped the phone tightly. "It's not that simple. Before you interrupted me, I was about to tell you that Cooper also said there's a U.S. attorney in D.C. who's investigating the charges. I confirmed that myself an hour ago."
    Boyd's voice began to tremble. "What di-did you say?"
    "A U.S. attorney in Washington by the name of C. J. Cady is investigating the charges. I just came back from a meeting with him."
    "What charges?" Boyd said, sounding mystified. "I never did anything wrong."
    "The most he would tell me is that it concerns your first election to Congress, and—"
    "That's ridiculous. Total horseshit. I beat Broder fair and square. I played it all according to the book. Even sold Mill Valley so I could use my own money to campaign and not be indebted to private interests. This stinks to high heaven. It has McDermott and Pug Thompson written all over it."
    Taylor decided to follow Harrison's advice. "Think carefully, Charles. If there are any bad or even questionable facts in Napa, let me know about them. That way I can be ready with our own spin and do some damage control."
    "Why don't you believe me?" Boyd said, expressing outrage. "There are no skeletons in Napa."
    "Please try it my way. What's the single worst thing you ever did in the valley that you would find most embarrassing if it appeared on the front page of the L.A. Times?"
    "Nothing!" he shouted. "Whose side are you on?"
    She persisted, trying to calm him down. "Please think, Charles. Everybody has something."
    "What is this, the third degree?"
    "No. I'm trying to help you."
    "You sure don't sound like it."
    "Well, I am."
    He snarled at her. "All right, I'll tell you. I tried to seduce a young female lawyer working in the governor's office about twelve years ago, but she was super virtuous and she wouldn't go to bed with me. How would you like to see that on the front page of the L.A. Times!"
    Taylor turned bright red. You bastard, she thought. You had no right saying that. Yet she was determined to keep her anger under control. "That's not fair."
    When Taylor put down the phone, she was convinced that Boyd was telling the truth, that he hadn't violated the law in his first race for Congress. She was also convinced that Cady's integrity was beyond question. That meant someone or some group was out to wreck the senator's campaign. McDermott, aided by Pug Thompson, was the logical choice, but she couldn't jump to that conclusion from the little she now knew. There were lots of people who wouldn't want to see Boyd in the White House, including the foes of nuclear power and undoubtedly some foreign interests.
    She racked her brain, trying to imagine which ones might care enough to try to influence the campaign. In recent speeches the senator was accommodating to China, sympathetic to Israel, supportive of free trade with Europe, and opposed to renewed Japanese militarism under Sato. Were those groups sufficiently offended to try to influence the election? She didn't know, but she was certain of one thing: Regardless of who it was, she couldn't underestimate them.

 
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    Chapter 6

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    Sato was aware that his decision to visit the Yasukuni Shrine in central Tokyo would set off a maelstrom in Japan, Korea, and China, but that didn't deter him. As he got out of