by David Laws
Harry stared at her. “You’re well up on the politics of all this,” he said, glimpsing for the first time that there was a whole lot more to Patronella than he had realised.
“We’re monitoring the situation closely, it’s true,” she said.
“Monitoring or controlling?”
She gave him an enigmatic smile.
“They’ll never stand for it, you know,” he said. “The public. They voted for exit, they won’t be cheated of their Brexit.”
She shook her head. “A lost cause. No coming back after the shock of the missile strike on Number 10.” She turned to look at him, explaining patiently as if to someone who had trouble keeping up with the fast pace of events. “Face it, Harry, the tide has turned against Brexit – it now represents violence, chaos, disorder. People are fed up with it. Want to return to a more orderly and peaceful normality. What went before now looks like tranquillity.”
He began to shake his head, but she persisted: “Brexiteers have been outmanoeuvred, discredited by the shadow of violence. The mood’s swinging back to Remain – haven’t you got your finger on the pulse, Harry? You’re a newspaperman, you’re supposed to be able to sense these things, gauge shifts in opinion. Can’t you feel it, or have you had your head so far down the well in Leipzig you’ve completely lost touch?”
Harry drew in a breath to argue but she insisted: “No party will back Brexit after this. UKIP is virtually dead and buried, never to rise again. Exit Day is history, my friend, long live the EU.”
Then, in answer to his startled expression, she added, “It’s the Establishment, you see, Harry – do you really think we’d allow this country to leap off the cliff?”
He went silent again, looking out of the window at the passing streets without ever seeing them. And she became conversational, evidently feeling the need to explain.
“I must admit you gave us some scary moments back there,” she said. “And I admit we didn’t know everything.”
“So you’re behind all this, orchestrating the defeat of Brexit?”
“Not orchestrating, but we like to know what’s going on, we like to be in control.”
“The Kameraden… they were doing your dirty work?”
“In a sense, yes, but now that they’ve shot their bolt they are of no consequence. We are in complete control.”
“So why did you get me to infiltrate the Fortress, if they were on your side?”
“Knowledge, Harry. Knowledge is the key to understanding and keeping control. Information is priceless, our bread and butter. Knowing how to play the game depends on knowing what all the players are doing.”
“But there were holes in your information blanket.”
“True about your girlfriend. We had no more idea than you that she was more than just a shade loopy.”
“And sending me abroad?”
“You were getting a bit too close. We never thought that when you got there you’d find the school or the Crabs. You proved what an enterprising chap you are. Shame all that work was for nothing, but we had eyes on you every step of the way, even inside The Globe’s office.”
Harry said nothing.
“Don’t feel too bad about it,” she said. “It’s all for the big prize.”
“The big prize!” He snorted in derision. “And what might that be?”
“Ultimate control.”
He looked at her closely then. This wasn’t the old Patronella, the scruffy fast-food eater. Her eyes were alive. This was someone else.
She said, “You see, if I succeed in keeping Tresham’s past a secret and he becomes EU President, we will be able to exercise complete control over him. He’ll be under constant threat of exposure by us. Constantly afraid we’ll blow his cover and smash his reputation. We’ll be able to put the squeeze on him whenever we like. And with Winterman in Number 10 and Tresham in Brussels, we will have the perfect tandem arrangement. The ultimate control situation.”
Harry looked at her, feeling battered by the deviousness of her revelations, but still sceptical. “I think you’ve overlooked something. The Kameraden will also have a hold over him. And they’ll be pulling in a different direction.”
Patronella wasn’t fazed. “Think about it! If they expose him they’ll also expose their own activities, reveal their very existence and their methods. It’ll be a massive own goal.”
“Same goes for your people.”
“Tresham will always fear there may come a time when we’re ready to sacrifice him for some greater political advantage.”
“So he’ll have two threats hanging over him, two sets of secret manipulators pulling him in different directions?”
“Depends on who he views as the most credible.”
For the very first time, Harry almost felt sorry for Tresham. Perhaps this was the inevitable fate of someone leading a double life; rough justice for the years of duplicity. What a future!
Patronella raised two thumbs in a gesture of victory. “Don’t you see? The power of the EU won’t be in Brussels any longer. It’ll be in London. Right with us inside Vauxhall Cross.”
Chapter 59
Exit Day plus 1
What remained of the Troika – just the two of them – met at noon in Kroon’s flat, a fourth-floor apartment in a peeling block in the Pankow district of Berlin.
No point in activating the meeting room at Hohenschönhausen, they decided. Best not advertise the new situation to the full politburo. No doubt they’d learn of it soon enough.
Wolf had arrived, limping, with the aid of a stick, from a creaking elevator, wearing a mop of ginger hair, summoned urgently now that word had been received of operational failure, arrests, Fischer in prison and a stark message from Mandelbaum that was shocking in its brevity: Sirius insists she doesn’t need us any more.
Wolf twisted the mask’s plastic lips, unwilling to state the obvious. Sirius, his brightest star in the constellation, the Dog Star of the espionage world, had turned round and bitten him. He’d been bested by a rival, the woman whose code name was so secret it did not appear on any spy list. That had been her ultimate status.
Kroon could not hide his nervousness, his confidence ebbing fast, and he looked anxiously at his leader, unable to read in that mask any hint of a reaction. The message from London spelled disaster in anyone’s language. Wolf’s plant, the trusty and stout-hearted Eiche, the man who had been set up to make it all happen for the Kameraden inside the labyrinthine corridors of Brussels, was now under the control of the other side. Brexit might be stalled but there was scant consolation in that. Was there any coming back from this reversal? Sirius was now in complete control.
After a long pause the Wolf spoke. “We will have to reprogram our people inside the complex.”
The complex, that bubbling pot of political intrigue within the Brussels colossus. The K knew all about that. Their people were the secret strivers worming their way through the subterranean passages of this bureaucratic monolith in a desperate quest for future power and influence. Who could foretell how this would all play out? Short-term prospects, it had to be admitted, looked poor.
“Keep the faith, we will prevail,” Wolf said, with as much emphasis as his plastic face would allow. “Stick to the plan. We’re still playing the long game.”
Chapter 60
Exit Day plus 3
Harry felt awkward to the point of embarrassment, queuing as a lone visitor on a crowded and jostled staircase surrounded by families – mothers, fathers, children, aunts, uncles. Some were subdued, but for others the place appeared to provide almost a day-trip atmosphere, minus the bucket and spade. Talk of last night’s TV or reminiscences of past visits; talk of plentiful meals and warm billets. “No wonder our Jane likes it in ’ere.”
Eventually the queue shuffled up the hard stone steps and into an echoing lobby where coats, hats and bags were deposi
ted in exchange for a numbered ticket.
On every tile-lined wall, large notices with stark black lettering announced the rules of the house: no touching, no passing of objects, remain seated at all times. More ominously still, warnings that attempts to facilitate escape would incur penalties of up to ten years’ imprisonment.
Harry’s mood was a mix of anger, resentment, puzzlement and duty. At the desk he had to fill in a form giving his name and address. Under Relationship to the prisoner his pen hovered in an uncertain dilemma. How to describe his relationship with Erika? Boyfriend? Partner? The thought made him want to choke. What should he write? Just Ex, or Dupe?
Another queue, more waiting. Enough time for his rage to simmer over the double betrayal. The latest, of course, was Patronella’s. He’d regarded her almost as a colleague, and to have been played and deceived a second time made him feel doubly deflated. However, he still managed a small glimmer of defiance. He vowed never to lie down under the suffocating information blanket of a D-notice. Somehow he’d find a way to expose Tresham. He’d recruit his friend Lufkin and together they would bust this scandal wide open. To hell with political manipulation. A secret could never be kept forever.
And then, of course, there was the other betrayal. Just then the queue moved forward, a jangle of keys, a door opening. Finally, the free flow of people as the visiting legion moved forward in renewed anticipation.
Harry sighed and walked with them into a large, open room. It was well lit and airy. At first he could see only a series of tables with single females already seated. Their expressions described the full spectrum of emotion, from eagerness and welcome to resignation and dejection.
Then he spotted her.
Erika was already in prison uniform. Her head was held high, her expression blank. As he approached, his apprehension increased. What could he say? He decided on reticence, merely nodding and pulling back the chair preparatory to sitting.
They stared wordlessly at each other across the table.
Was this the woman he had once so desired? Wanted to share the rest of his life with? She looked old and worn, but was holding the beaten look at bay.
She broke the silence. “Thanks for coming.”
Harry nodded.
His silence forced her to make the first move. “Look,” she said, “I know you’ve got every reason to hate me.”
Harry made a non-committal shrug. He had made up his mind to keep his sense of outrage under control.
“But I’m going to ask you to do something very important for me…”
“What?” His first word. He couldn’t help it. “After treating me like an idiot? Betraying me, making me a fool, turning my life upside down.”
She nodded and looked down.
“Have you any idea what this feels like?” He couldn’t hold it in. “Like you just picked my pocket and now you’re grinning at me and asking for another favour.”
“I’m not grinning.”
“Perhaps not.” He shrugged. “I don’t even know why I’m here. Why I came. Just for one more slap in the face? And you’re so used to dumping on people you have no shame.”
She began to look scared, her voice breaking. Almost in a whisper, she said, “You know what I want, Harry.”
He breathed out and gave the slightest of nods. He did. Her awkward son. That damned difficult boy, now languishing in some anonymous children’s home, doubtless driving some poor Estonian care worker crazy with his passion for numbers. Should he care?
“Well…?”
“He’s all alone. With strangers. Scared and no one to turn to,” she said. “No mum, no dad.”
“I’m not father material.”
“I know you’re not.”
“So…?”
It was an assertive rejection, an attempt to ring-fence his comfort zone. He’d always shied away from parenthood. From the enormous self-sacrifice. He’d studied his brother’s lifestyle and the demands made on him by little people, and shrunk from them. He’d always seen himself as too self-obsessed to deal with family life. He was just too busy, for goodness’ sake – too much to do, no time! And he had no desire to replicate himself.
Erika spoke again. “You’re the only person I can ask to do this,” she said. “To look after him. Look out for him. No one else will help. I’m asking the only really decent person I know in this world to do something he has every right to refuse to do. But still asking – because I know what he’s made of.”
Harry was silent. Caught in a vice, a trap of circumstance he knew was coming but hoped to avoid. Perhaps, he told himself, he’d always known this was how it would end. On the journey to the prison he’d thought about it; listened to the remote voice of exhortation channelled through his mother’s mystique of sainthood. His own but remote father figure. Rolling stones gather no moss, the voice said. When are you going to settle down? Come off the fence? Act like a normal human being? Act like a parent to this abandoned child?
Harry swallowed and glimpsed a more settled future, one more ordered and bound by routine than he cared for. It probably also meant living without eccentric or exotic lovers, but he was still sufficiently enraged by Erika’s actions not to address the question of whether he would stay loyal.
He looked up.
She said, “I’ll be in here for years, we both know that.” Her voice was both pleading and desperate. “Please, Harry – we had something once, do this for me. You’re Stefan’s only hope. My only hope.”
He scratched the back of his neck, pursed his lips and stared hard at her. There was a long pause. He still balked at the responsibility and the demands – but the boy wasn’t demanding, he admitted to himself. If anything, he was remote. The challenge would be to connect.
After a stunning silence, Harry lurched somewhat recklessly in the only direction he could.
“It’ll be a new experience for both of us,” he said.
THE END
NOVELS BY DAVID LAWS
MUNICH The Man Who Said No!
What kind of madness is it that causes the world to go to war?
Munich 1938: An American war correspondent gatecrashes the pre-war Munich Conference to protest against British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s surrender to Hitler – more than 70 years later it’s like the incident never happened – hushed up with the man disappeared, never to be seen again. Now his granddaughter demands to know the truth of what really happened.
Britain 2015: Emma Drake, a history researcher at Cambridge, has always puzzled over her grandfather’s disappearance. Feisty, thirsting for thrills and ambitious for success, she reopens the mystery, battling a series of enemies before the trail takes her in a wholly unexpected direction.
Munich is also available as an ebook from all major ebook retailers
***
Keep a lookout for the next thriller:
THE MAZE KIDS
Suspense, mystery, peril: Young teacher Claudia Kellner has a desperate plan to rescue 27 Jewish orphans from the Nazis in the midst of war... just as a British saboteur arrives to destroy a target next to their hiding place.
She needs help. She’s highly persuasive.
And very soon Peter Chesham faces a dilemma: obey orders or save the children?
UPCOMING NEW NOVEL
Author web site: davidlaws.co.uk
Reviews for Exit Day
A gripping read. Laws creates a scenario that seems eerily plausible in the chaotic run-up to Brexit. He takes us on a wild ride from Stasi-era Leipzig to the dark hearts of Brussels and Westminster in the company of spies, secret police files, dodgy politicians (yes, some of them are recognisable), and Harry, an irrepressible journalist bent on preventing disaster and unable to avoid it. Brexit is the centre of this tangled web. Laws is a great storyteller who leaves us guessing right up to the last page.
Gillian M.
/> A well-written and fast-paced thriller with many ingenious twists and turns. Laws is very well-informed and leaves us with the unsettling feeling that there could well be a sinister subtext to Brexit.
Karl G.
With British politics in meltdown as Brexit Day looms, ruthless fanatics with forgotten ambitions emerge from the European shadows.
David Laws’ cliffhanging denouement throws up shock after shock as MI6 gets in on the final act. Hugely enjoyable.
Tony Boullemier (Author of The Little Book of Monarchs)
A ring of spies has been infiltrated into Britain whose aim is to stop Brexit happening now – or ever. This is the theme of David Laws’ new novel Exit Day which treats the reader to a feast of conspiracy, chaos and treachery.
The unlikely hero of the story is journalist Harry Topp who, with luck and skill, uncovers a murky world where the “will of the people” to exit the European Union is dramatically foiled. To this end, thanks to a romantic encounter in his past, Harry is given a list of foreign agents.
On the list is a high-ranking British government minister as well as one of Harry’s closest friends.
Can he believe the list is genuine? As he wrestles with the web of lies he finds himself at the centre of a battle between rival undercover manipulators intent on corrupting the EU from within.
Just as Harry gets close to the truth he finds his own life threatened from someone he least suspects.
Ray King
Hold on to your flying helmets, we have a new hero. Ace journalist Harry Topp will stop at nothing in his quest for the truth — and that includes crashing his Tiger Moth aeroplane in very sensitive areas.