The panoply of power fitted Peter Reynell as perfectly as his Savile Row suits, which he was profoundly glad to be wearing again instead of the sometimes odorous but supremely effective fancy dress of the past week. It was a waistcoated dark-blue pinstripe when he emerged on to a journalist-crushed Lord North Street refusing any questions (‘What I have to say today has to be said to Parliament’) but allowing ample time for the photographers for whom he staged a doorstep kiss on the cheek of the immaculately coiffeured, Dior-dressed Henrietta. Science was not a portfolio which warranted armed protection, but as much as in anticipation of impending change as against demented attention, the personal detective whom he so far only knew as John and who had been at Heathrow airport after the overnight flight was ready beside the waiting ministry Rover, keeping the jostling throng at bay. The chauffeur who had replaced his regular driver also belonged to the police protection unit, trained in high-speed pursuit evasion and avoidance. As they drove out in front of the parliament building Reynell thought, gratefully, that the days of his walking or running in the hope of being recognized and snapped were gone forever. But with man-of-the-street modesty prominent on his already planned public persona, he filled the short journey discovering the new driver’s name to be Charles and that both he and John were married and made a mental note to get their children’s birthdays, for cards and small presents to be sent.
He used the congestion of ministerial cars to disembark from his own at the gated Whitehall entrance to walk the final short length of Downing Street, intentionally hesitating on the doorstep of the prime minister’s official – and soon to be his – residence for more photographers and film crews, smilingly shaking his head to all but one of the shouted queries, fortunately recognizing the TV questioner and able to flatter the man by addressing him by name to thank him for the enquiry and assure him that he felt absolutely fine.
There was a surge of welcome-back handshakes in the antechamber to the Cabinet Room and those who missed him there surrounded him inside before the entrance of Simon Buxton, whose first act was also to offer his hand. There was no other item on the Cabinet agenda. With so much rehearsal Reynell was able to make his word perfect presentation at the same time as examining and reflecting upon the men around the huge, appropriately coffin-shaped table, aware how frightened of surviving so many would be once his leadership was confirmed. A wholesale, even bloody purge would be necessary, both to rid himself of Buxton’s ineffective sycophants and show from the very beginning how unyieldingly ruthless he was going to be.
Buxton’s suggestion for them to drive together to the House of Commons was an obvious and desperate effort by the man to gain fading recognition by association, but Reynell agreed. One of the major decisions reached during an hourlong telephone strategy conversation that morning with Lord Ranleigh was the initial benefit of continued magnanimity.
During the short drive, using the Foreign Office exit, Buxton said: ‘I’ve talked with Dempsey.’
‘Yes,’ said Reynell, non-committally.
‘I’m grateful.’
‘It’s very satisfactory, all round.’
‘How long, do you imagine?’
‘I don’t know. It should be very smooth, now that everyone understands.’
‘I’m glad,’ said Buxton. ‘That everyone understands, I mean.’
Having made what he considered one concession, Reynell delayed his entry into the actual chamber until after the other man, refusing to share a moment rare in parliamentary history of unanimous, all-party admiration and respect. There was a confetti of waved Order Papers from every side of the House and a rumble of ‘Hear, Hear’s’ and ‘Aye’s’ that reminded Reynell of the muttering of Ol’khon’s volcano and even, against tradition, a scattering of open applause which the Speaker did nothing to curb. Reynell glanced up to see Henrietta had changed into more colourful Versace and accepted that when he became premier his wife would elect herself to be even more of a fashion icon than she already was.
His statement to the House was longer than that he’d earlier given to Cabinet and, anticipating the question, Reynell made the point that he did not, at that moment, know precisely what the Russian scientific advisor had been referring to by her Irkutsk remark. ‘Conditions, as you will have appreciated by what you have already seen and heard, were extremely difficult: it will take a little time for all the findings and research to be brought together.’ He was flying back to Washington the following day to rejoin the returning Russian minister and the rest of the crisis committee and would inform the House – here he turned, indicating James Buxton – as soon as there was an explanation. What he could assure the House was that under the supervision of the country’s chief scientific officer, Professor Geraldine Rothman, an enormous amount of material and information had been collected from the prehistoric complex and was at that moment under examination. He refused to offer any false promises, but personally believed progress would be made from what had been found in Siberia.
The rush to go publicly on record congratulating and praising Reynell (‘great bravery … statesman … selfless commitment … gratitude not just of this country but of the world’) was practically as fervent as it had been in the Cabinet Room antechamber, and knowing she would want it, Reynell waited for Henrietta to come down from the public gallery for them to leave the House together in shared glory.
William Dempsey and Ralph Prendergast were among the guests at that night’s celebration dinner at Lord North Street, their arrival noted by political rune readers as evidence of their survival. Henrietta was brilliantly in charge and during the meal Reynell guessed that being London’s leading society hostess was another role Henrietta saw for herself.
It was Henrietta who asked if she could come to his bedroom that night, as she had when he’d arrived in the early hours of that same morning, and after orchestrating their sexual performance she said: ‘How would you feel about my coming back to Washington with you?’
Reynell looked sideways at her, genuinely surprised. ‘I don’t think so. I’m working.’
‘You fucking that woman, Amanda whatever-her-name-is?’
‘Henrietta! What is this!’ If it hadn’t been so unthinkable he would have imagined there was some jealousy.
She shrugged. ‘We’re going to have to be even more discreet, aren’t we? Respectable, even. Now that we’ve made it we don’t want to spoil it by becoming careless and being caught out.’
Whose view was that, her’s or her father’s, wondered Reynell. He hoped neither of them were going to become tiresome.
An entire first floor wing of Blair House had been given over to a secretariat for the much proclaimed environmental conference, although Darryl Matthews and Harold Norris had so far remained the only operational officers of the president’s special task force that Stoddart officially headed. Which was the major – virtually the only – problem that confronted Stoddart when he arrived.
‘We’ve got the best bureaucratic swamp you’ve ever seen,’ complained Matthews. ‘We’ve got no chiefs but twice as many Indians as beat Custer, firing off faxes and memos and emails that we’ve initiated, in every which way around the world and an answering blizzard blowing back at us. We’re buried, Jack. We don’t get some more people, the world’s going to be burned to a cinder by global warming before we can start talking about it.’
‘What happened to the promised middle level staff?’ asked Stoddart, with enforced quietness.
‘We were hoping you could tell us,’ said Norris.
‘What’s Spencer say?’
‘That it’s in hand but that there’s got to be budgetary agreement. That it can’t be put against any presidential contingency funding.’
Stoddart was more outraged at the blatant obviousness of the sideways shunting arrogance than at the obstruction itself, which he’d anyway expected in some form or another. A secretary answered Spencer’s direct line but Spencer took the telephone the moment he knew who was calling.
; ‘The President must be pleased with the coverage?’ opened Stoddart, conversationally.
‘There’s never been anything like it,’ enthused Spencer. ‘Phenomenal. We need to keep it going. You got something new?’
‘That’s why I’m calling,’ said Stoddart. ‘I’m across at Blair. You think you and Carson can run over?’
‘Give us ten,’ said Spencer, the lift audible in his voice.
Stoddart later decided they must literally have run at least part of the way because the two men arrived in under Spencer’s estimate, despite the delay in locating Stoddart on the upper floor, not downstairs where they’d expected him to be.
‘What have we got?’ demanded Carson Boddington, eagerly.
‘We’re up and running globally now, right?’ said Stoddart.
‘Cosmically,’ smiled Spencer.
‘So here’s how I think we beef up the President’s environmental commitment,’ said Stoddart. ‘I want you, Carson, to call a press conference, right now! They’ll come running, just like you guys, when they know it’s me. We’ll make the main evening news, every channel. I’ll point out the budgetary problems Darryl’s told me about and invite other countries to contribute, not just money, but people in the numbers we need to get the conference off the ground, because at the moment we don’t stand a chance of getting anything set up this side of nowhere, nowhen. And the delay will get even longer, waiting for congressional allocation. This way it’ll be truly international! How’s that sound?’ Stoddart saw both Matthews and Norris were remaining impassive.
‘Whoa!’ said Spencer, urgently. ‘We gotta lot to talk about here.’
‘What?’ demanded Stoddart, ingenuously. ‘There’s no contingency funding and without contingency funding we can’t put into place a publicly proclaimed presidential commitment. I’ve just suggested a way around it, although it’ll dilute America’s leadership but like you said, Paul, everything’s being shared cosmically now so that scarcely matters.’
‘You only just got back,’ reminded Spencer. ‘I haven’t had time to tell you. Or Darryl. The President knows what you’re saying, about congressional delays; doesn’t like it any more than you …’
‘… So what’s he going to do about it?’ persisted Stoddart.
‘Re-allocate,’ improvised the presidential advisor. ‘That’s the route he’s going, re-allocation.’
‘So there is going to be funding available!’
‘That’s the last I heard. The President’s been flat out on this, coming to Alaska like he did …’
‘When do you think you can concentrate his mind on this?’ pressed Stoddart.
‘When I know the needs—’ started Spencer.
‘Nothing’s changed since the memorandum we sent you specifically setting out our staffing needs,’ cut off Matthews.
‘I’ll get back to you,’ promised Spencer.
‘Tomorrow,’ suggested Stoddart. ‘We could really get things underway as early as tomorrow if we knew the money was available, couldn’t we, Darryl? You know the people you want to bring aboard, don’t you?’
‘I’ve got the list ready and waiting,’ agreed Matthews. ‘Tomorrow would be real good.’
‘Tomorrow,’ agreed a tight-faced Spencer, blinking against the brief fog of anger at being so totally backed into a cul de sac.
In Moscow Raisa Orlov’s eyes also blurred, although in far greater anger in her natural predisposition to find conspiracy in every opposition. Her immediate reaction was to rip the president’s refusal into as many pieces as she could, but reason – and calculation – prevailed. Gregori Lyalin was on his way back to Washington and over such a distance communication and misunderstandings were inevitable.
Thirty-One
Henry Partington didn’t like his carefully polished plans backfiring and from the sound of it this one was mistiming far too loudly. ‘He’d do it, of course.’ Anyone any ideas how to stop the son of a bitch?
‘Stoddart knows his publicity value; has done for years,’ said Richard Morgan, before Spencer could answer. ‘He’ll do it just like that –’ he snapped his fingers – ‘unless Paul’s got some idea he hasn’t shared with us beyond apparently offering the funding already.’
‘I said what I did to stall him,’ insisted Spencer. ‘And there might be one way.’
‘What?’ demanded the president. It better be good: you shouldn’t have committed me.
‘You do it first: pre-empt him,’ suggested Spencer, cautiously. ‘We put the request to Congress the day after you announced the conference. Now accuse them of prevaricating up on the Hill: playing financial politics instead of reacting with the speed you’re showing, giving industrialized countries the lead.’
‘What’s the general feeling?’ asked Partington. I’m not convinced: persuade me.
‘That would bring you down to their level,’ said Morgan. ‘Your stance has got to be way above political squabbling. You’re the world’s leader, leading. Everyone else has to follow.’
Partington nodded, enjoying the phrasing. ‘Carson?’
‘It’s negative. Messy,’ judged Boddington. ‘The only thing Mr and Mrs Six Pack in Des Moines are thinking about is how you’re going to stop them waking up tomorrow morning one hundred and ten years old and dying by the end of the week.’
‘I think you’re right.’ Not a good one, Paul.
‘Make the same journey by a different route,’ said Spencer. ‘Declare the funding from contingency because Congress haven’t responded. Say the need to get things moving is too great to wait. Congress gets the flak and sure as hell will rush through whatever budget is asked, and the President’s the man who whipped them into line. All that and a platform for our people in the gubernatorials to argue that Congress needs to be put under the control of the party of responsibility.’
‘I like that! That’s very good. What do you think, Carson?’ This is the way I want to go.
‘Very positive. Precisely the right message,’ said the press spokesman.
‘Dick?’
‘It’ll work, I guess,’ begrudged the Chief of Staff, acknowledging defeat.
‘That’s how we’ll do it,’ decided Partington. ‘Anything else?’
‘Lyalin’s getting in later, with copies of the official film.’
‘We going to get a steer on what that woman meant?’
‘That’s the way we’re supposed to be working,’ said Spencer.
‘Don’t like the fact that the Fort Detrick group have split up,’ complained the president. ‘Get Lyalin’s thinking on that.’ Bringing the meeting to a close, the man added: ‘Stay for a moment, will you Paul?’
As the door closed behind everyone else, Partington said: ‘Relatives’ lawyers don’t seem to think our compensation package is good enough.’
‘Usual arm wrestling?’ suggested Spencer.
‘Unless they come up with something to make a case.’
James Olsen sounded loud and clear in Spencer’s mind. ‘I’m sure that’s not going to happen.’
‘How sure are you sure?’
‘Very sure indeed, Mr President.’
Partington smiled the smile of a contented man.
* * *
Gregori Lyalin gave specific instructions throughout the embassy, including the switchboard, that he didn’t want to be disturbed and even locked the door of the allocated office in which, carefully annotated, he’d retained copies of everything that had come originally from Russia, as well as all the records of the Fort Detrick scientists and the Blair House sessions, up to the moment of their leaving Washington for Siberia.
He first found what he wanted in the transcript of the last combined meeting before their departure, when the scientific group had come down from Maryland. There were three further references – or rather a lack of references – in the transcript of Fort Detrick sessions and he got his final confirmation from going back to what he and Raisa Orlov had originally brought with them from Moscow.
In every exc
hange, Raisa Orlov had only ever talked about the tissue finding on Oleg Vasilevich Nedorub, too indistinct to be identifiable. Nowhere had she spoken – or offered specimen for Fort Detrick analysis – of the much more positive trace from the aged body of the other Iultin victim, project leader Gennardi Varlomovich Markelov.
Lyalin eased the cramp from his back, gazing down at the incontrovertible evidence of the woman’s blatant, deceptive obstruction. It had to be the basis for her publicly promised breakthrough, progress she had lyingly denied from him. To say nothing would condone what she had done, as if he were a party to it. Worse if she and her team didn’t develop whatever she believed her discovery to be or to delay other scientists with better facilities or different approaches in finding the key to what had become a global pandemic. Lyalin had never before felt such a confusion of emotions, swinging the pendulum from guilt, embarrassment, remorse, anger and responsibility.
He was careful to use the Russian embassy’s secure communication link to reach Raisa Orlov’s institute in Moscow and because it was a minister personally calling, the permanently apprehensive switchboard put the call through to Raisa’s working level.
Raisa was engrossed and physically enclosed in the protection necessary for the autopsy upon the fifth of the Baikal recovered bodies and initially refused even to listen to the words coming into her headset from the observation gallery. When the imploring demand finally penetrated, she snapped back: ‘Tell him I’ll call him back, like I’m going to call everybody back when I’m ready.’ She hadn’t planned it to be, but such dismissal of an actual minister contributed another anecdote to the Raisa Orlov legend.
A disbelieving Darryl Matthews and Harold Norris were still going through the names of their intended and now financially approved organizational level when Paul Spencer thrust bleak-faced into their Blair House environmental enclave for the second time in less than an hour.
‘More good news?’ greeted Stoddart, lightly.
‘No,’ said Spencer. ‘There’s just been a message from Detrick, for the French minister. Guy Dupuy’s collapsed …’
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