So far, Tuesday had been excellent, Charlotte spending virtually the whole day at the Smithsonian while Anderson had come away from The Washington Post with a broad smile and a healthier bank balance. Whatever happened next, the trip was already proving to be one of Charlotte’s better ideas.
The planning for tomorrow was well in hand, Charlotte invariably creating a list. And Virginia had so much to see: the Pentagon and Department of Defence, the CIA, the National Cybersecurity Centre, plus the biggest naval base in the world. Birthplace of eight Presidents, over sixty percent of America’s internet traffic passed through Virginia’s modern data centres, the network concentrated in Loudoun County; Leesburg happened to be the county’s administrative centre and it was sheer chance that Charlotte had picked the town as their holiday base – or at least that’s what she had implied to Anderson.
Whether such facts had attracted Pat McDowell to Virginia was purely guesswork, but top spot on Charlotte’s list went to Highland County, specifically the community of McDowell. Anderson’s preference for the more usual attractions, such as Arlington National Cemetery and Williamsburg, were also on the agenda, just placed a little lower down.
Charlotte knew she was being stubborn, but since they’d got a holiday together out of it, what the hell. Her own theory as to what McDowell was up to had transformed into a full-blown coup, the target initially assumed to be Manila, before wavering as to its next destination. Washington D.C. didn’t seem such an impossible leap: every new political indiscretion and scandal was eating away at voter numbers, and the President’s approval rating had tumbled to just 31%, rapidly heading into Nixon territory.
External problems were also deepening: starting in Japan, the world’s stock markets had continued to plummet, the Dow for some unknown reason suffering the most, down by almost five percent since opening on Monday. The increasing tensions between China, the Philippines, and Vietnam were seen as the major cause, and the sudden departure of America’s Vice-President from Hanoi had only served to reinforce market fears.
Diplomatic moves had accelerated to compensate. Countries within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations were being pressurised into either allying themselves with the Philippines or publicly declaring their neutrality; so far none of the ten nations had sided with China. The Secretary of State had finally arrived back in Washington, having clearly failed to put together some new compromise that would have actually satisfied no-one. Other nations not directly involved were also starting to get twitchy, notably Australia and India. In total, close to twenty nations were busy looking over their shoulders, while wondering how China would react and who else might seek to gain some advantage.
So far Anderson had not indicated a desire to expand his interest in McDowell in the direction of Manila, but Charlotte knew it would happen sometime, quite possibly as soon as their U.S. trip was over. But then, like it or not, that was the nature of Anderson’s job, the horrible statistic that around 65 journalists were killed every year something she struggled hard to ignore.