Emma didn’t know what to say.
“Everyone is being questioned,” Jack went on. “Not all as extensively as each other, obviously, but still. The atmosphere here is toxic. Everyone knows that they didn’t know, and I think deep down everyone realises that no one else did, either… but there’s this primal distrust in the air. My eyes and ears at NASA say it’s the same over there. Hopefully it all clears after the summit when we know what’s happening.”
“You already know,” Emma said. “Slater wouldn’t be on TV talking about funding and timescales if you didn’t already know.”
“Emma, things have changed. We’re not exactly in a position of strength here; we pretty much have to go along with what Britain and Russia are saying to make sure China doesn’t back out and do their own thing. I’m not telling Valerie what to say anymore so we have to just trust that the diplomats and strategists know what they’re doing. But none of that’s in my sphere of influence. I was calling to tell you something else.”
“What?” Emma asked, dreading a grim follow up.
“Okay… you know how they took my phone? There was nothing on it that I wouldn’t want anyone to see — I’m not stupid — but now that they have it they can track everywhere I’ve been over the last few weeks. They know I spoke to Ben Gold at the IDA and they know I was at that stupid drive-in when you released the letter.”
“So?”
“Exactly. There’s nothing to worry about, I just wanted you to know that they know we’ve been in touch since all of this started. I didn’t tell them that you held me against my will or anything like that,” Jack said, forcing a laugh.
“I don’t think you should do the show on Sunday,” Emma said. “If Godfrey turns on you, he’ll eat you alive. And Jan Gellar? You’re seriously going to sit on a panel with Jan Gellar?”
“I know it sounds risky, but the three of us are on the same side. It’s all about The Shield, so Kendrick and Crabbe are the people I’ll be up against. It’s pretty much going to be Godfrey versus those two for forty minutes. Tell that to Dan. He’s friends with Billy, anyway, and we all saw how well he handled Crabbe last time.”
“He doesn’t want to do it,” Emma said. “They asked me, but I said—”
“You have to do it!” Jack said, evidently learning of Emma’s invitation for the first time. “Please. It will be so much better if you’re there.”
“I wouldn’t have been doing it from the New York studio even if I’d said yes, but I said no. They’d already invited everyone else, anyway. It was almost like Dan was an afterthought.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jack said. “They just wanted to confirm who else was doing it so they could tell you. Face it, Dan is box office. The only bigger name they could have had was Walker, but no one knows where he is.”
“The woman who called made it sound like they wanted Dan mainly because Godfrey wanted to speak to him.”
“That does kind of make sense,” Jack said. “It explains why Godfrey’s flying out to Colorado.”
“He’s doing what?”
“Oh, shit. Have they not announced it yet? Godfrey’s going to Birchwood for a photo op at the drive-in.”
“When?”
“Sunday morning, before he goes to New York for the show and the summit. Do you think Dan will at least walk to the drive-in to meet him?”
Emma covered the phone with her hand and walked inside. Dan and Clark were both at the TV. “Do you want to meet Godfrey at the drive-in on Sunday?” she asked.
“Definitely!” Clark said, immediately sitting up straight.
Emma ignored him and kept looking at Dan.
“Is that him?” Dan asked, motioning towards the phone.
Emma shook her head. “It’s just going to be a photo op. I think it could be a good way for you to show your face when someone else is there to take the bulk of the media’s attention.”
“If you think it’s a good idea,” Dan said. He nodded carefully.
“We’ll be there,” Emma spoke into her phone.
“Good,” Jack said. “I’ll pass it on.”
SATURDAY
D plus 15
Drive-in
Birchwood, Colorado
The drive-in buzzed with excitement ahead of Prime Minister Godfrey’s imminent visit.
Phil Norris, the lot’s owner, redoubled his efforts to maximise his returns by allowing a second food truck to serve the hundreds of camped-out media personnel in return for a share of its takings.
The big screen still showed various news networks on rotation throughout the day, and both Maria from ACN and Trey from Blue Dish Network still occupied their prime parking spots right beside it.
On Saturday afternoon, and for the first time since the morning after the initial leak, a Blitz News van pulled into the lot. Phil had called Clark an hour before the van’s arrival to say that Blitz had offered him a “decent wad of cash” to lift the ban and allow the van inside, but that he would only do so if it was okay with Clark and Dan.
Clark said yes without checking with Dan; as far as he was concerned, the hostility with Blitz was water under the bridge. Phil had always been good to them, anyway.
A cold, clear night brought with it an increase in the anticipation levels. Kyle Young, Maria’s junior at ACN and Trey’s partner in exposing the previous week’s federal raid on Dan’s house as it happened, arrived shortly before midnight. He fetched some coffees for Trey and Maria and spent the rest of the night with them inside Trey’s van, huddling around a fan heater and planning their first questions for Godfrey. Like children before Christmas, all three found themselves too excited to sleep.
Because just as they had for so long in the immediate aftermath of the leak, the eyes of the world were about to fall on Birchwood once more.
SUNDAY
D plus 16
McCarthy Residence
Birchwood, Colorado
“Where the hell is Emma?” Dan asked, searching the house in a panic. It was almost 8am and he couldn’t find her anywhere. He momentarily cursed his alarm for not going at 7:15, then remembered waking up in the middle of the night and switching it off.
“Drive-in,” Clark said. He stood in front of the mirror opposite the TV, paying more attention to his hair than Dan had ever seen.
“Without me?”
“Relax. Godfrey isn’t due there until ten. She’s just making sure everything is set up.”
“Of course everything is set up. There’s been a broadcast from the drive-in to somewhere in the world every few minutes for weeks.”
“This is different,” Clark said. “She took the car, but she’s coming back for us. It won’t be long. You should probably get dressed.”
Dan walked through to the kitchen in search of his shoes. When he found them near the door, he heard a loud noise coming from outside. He opened the door. Flying disconcertingly low, three black helicopters immediately caught his eye. “Clark!” he yelled. “Quick, come and see if these are military.”
Clark ran through without knowing what Dan was talking about. He made it in time to see all three of the helicopters clearly enough to know the answer. “No,” he said.
“So what are they?”
“You mean apart from way too low?” Clark said. “Maybe Godfrey’s security.”
“But why would they be in a line like that?”
“They could be just arriving. If they are, they’ll split up and circle.”
The helicopters faded behind trees and houses. The too-close whirring filled the air until Dan closed the door.
“You really better hurry up,” Clark said.
Dan picked up the pace and ran towards his bedroom. “I know. Heat up one of those meals for me while I get dressed.”
Clark looked in the refrigerator and called after him: “Lasagne or lasagne?”
“Chef’s choice,” Dan called back.
D plus 17
Drive-in
Birchwood, Colorado
Clark drove excitedly to the drive-in, passing the only two remaining roadblocks. Emma, having just returned from her organisational trip, explained as they went that there was heavy security and a large police presence around the drive-in. She confirmed Clark’s suspicion about the three helicopters, telling him that they had been circling overhead for around fifteen minutes.
Even though Dan hadn’t left his house since returning from Italy nine days earlier, the drive-in had remained a hive of activity with media outlets from around the world as keen as ever to attach “live from Birchwood” to their ongoing reports.
William Godfrey’s visit was set to ramp things up another notch, though, and Dan McCarthy for once found himself on the undercard rather than in the main event. Not that Dan minded one bit; as Emma had suggested, this opportunity enabled him to give the media something without being swept up in the kind of manic hero-worship he wanted to leave in the past.
Emma pointed Clark to the spot where he was supposed to park the car, just outside the drive-in’s perimeter. As soon as Dan opened his door to get out, he heard a level of commotion even louder than the rabble on the night when he and Emma first revealed the smoking-gun Kloster letter to the public. Even over the whir of the slowly circling helicopters, the din was cacophonous.
Dan walked into the lot with a spring in his step, enlivened by the atmosphere. He immediately noticed the huge letters on the wall, just far enough to the left of the big screen to have never been picked up in any of the countless recent news broadcasts. The sign read: “BIRCHWOOD PLAZA”. The lot wasn’t really a plaza, but Dan could tell that Phil had some major development plans to cash in on its renown.
Dan also spotted the two food trucks doing a roaring trade in opposite corners of the lot. Within seconds, though, every head turned towards him and everyone abandoned their positions in line to grab their cameras and get a closer look.
Phil Norris himself, carefully monitoring camera feeds from his small office, rushed out when he spotted Dan and Clark. Dan saw Trey standing on top of his own van and waving with both hands before crouching down to give Kyle Young from ACN a hand up. The familiar faces helped settle Dan’s nerves.
Because other than those faces, very little was the same. Dan hadn’t set foot at the drive-in since before he left for Italy, when the world had been a very different place. Dan thought back to the sequence of events. There had been no concerns about hostile returns or asteroid impacts during his last appearance because the sphere hadn’t been found, let alone opened. The mass suicide at Hemshaw hadn’t even happened, and Blitz hadn’t even released the tide-turning footage of Dan finding the folder and Richard Walker ordering the bugging at Dan’s house.
Dan headed straight towards Trey and Kyle and thanked them for trying to stop the raid. There was a wide aisle-like gap between Trey’s side of the lot and the central area; this was a security measure designed to allow Godfrey to stand in front of the screen for his photo op without battling through a crowd of excited reporters. Emma hung back near the entrance while Dan caught up with his media friends. Clark, never keen to leave either Dan or Emma alone in a public setting, opted to go with Dan; if push came to shove, he reckoned Emma could look after herself more capably than Dan.
Clark was soon glad of his decision as he had to warn off a photographer from coming too close to Dan. All it took was a stern look; Clark’s sheer mass in real life surprised and often intimidated people who had only seen him on TV. He looked like a wrestler, as Trey put it on their first meeting. Or, in Kyle’s words, “an absolute beast.”
“So are you literally just going to shake his hand and that’s it?” Trey asked Dan, curious as to exactly how the photo op would go down. “Emma said he’s going to be in and out, but are you sticking around for a while?”
“I don’t know,” Dan said, quite honestly. Emma had told him during the short drive that Godfrey was indeed going to be gone almost as soon as he arrived, but Dan didn’t actually know whether he was expected to say something afterwards. “Maybe, I guess.”
Emma caught Dan’s attention and held up two fingers.
Two minutes.
More so than before any of his countless public interviews and appearances — all of which would have seemed impossible just a month earlier — Dan felt genuinely nervous. This was partly down to the fact that he hadn’t met Godfrey before; aside from the natural intimidation factor that went with someone in such a powerful position, Dan had bad memories of the only previous occasion that his first face-to-face meeting with someone had come in front of a live TV audience. He knew that William Godfrey wasn’t Marco Magnifico, but no one ever said anxiety was rational.
The real source of Dan’s unease was the lack of control he felt over the situation. More accurately, he didn’t like the fact that Emma, for once, was not in control, either.
“Everyone back!” boomed a security guard with a North London accent. He stood near the entrance and issued the pre-emptive order to everyone in his vicinity. The suddenness of his shout told Dan that Godfrey’s car was approaching. To confirm this, Emma called him over with her hand.
Dan and Clark walked towards her, knowing that the order didn’t apply to them. The security guard acknowledged Clark with a fraternal half-nod as he passed.
A large number of regular citizens were gathered across the street from the drive-in behind a heavily guarded barrier. Many of them cheered when the long black car pulled up and its back door opened. As the Prime Minister stepped out, the volume skyrocketed. William Godfrey, who only a few weeks earlier had been unable to show his face at home without having red paint dropped on his head, was the toast of Birchwood.
Emma nudged Dan in the back, encouraging him to step forward and shake Godfrey’s hand as had been agreed.
Dan rubbed his sweaty palm on his leg then shook the Prime Minister’s hand as firmly as he thought reasonable.
“Mr McCarthy,” Godfrey said, holding Dan’s eyes.
And then he walked away.
“Is that it?” Clark whispered in Dan’s ear. “Are you not going to the screen?”
“In a few minutes,” Dan said. “I think he’s doing some quick interviews first.
Dan watched as Godfrey walked towards the Blitz News van, flanked by two new guards. He didn’t know since when Blitz had been allowed in the drive-in, but it didn’t really matter now.
A few seconds later, Emma stepped towards Dan. “They want you to crouch down a few inches when you’re at the screen,” she said, fresh from a hurried conversation with someone from Godfrey’s PR team.
“Why?”
“Because he’s five foot eight and they don’t want him to look five foot two. If we were in a studio or on a closed set, he’d be standing on a box. Do this,” she said, trying to demonstrate. “Bend one knee and put all your weight on the other leg. Don’t bend your neck.”
“What if Dan stands really far back?” Clark suggested, trying not to laugh.
The drive-in’s other news outlets were slightly irked that Godfrey gave a brief exclusive message to Blitz News before heading towards the screen. Dan hadn’t heard a word of it over the general noise.
Emma turned round to confirm with someone that it was time, then nudged Dan again. “You good?” she said.
“I don’t want to do the leg thing,” he said.
Emma grinned; if that was Dan’s biggest concern, he would be fine. “Just try your best.”
“Are you not coming?”
“Just you.”
“And me,” Clark butted in. He was on his way before Emma could stop him.
In front of the big screen, on which Trey had put a still image of the Kerguelen sphere being lifted from the sea off Miramar, Godfrey shook Dan’s hand again. He looked momentarily surprised by Clark’s presence but took it in his stride.
“Thanks to the McCarthys and all of you,” Godfrey told the assembled reporters, “the town of Birchwood will be forever synonymous with two truly American qualities: honesty
and courage.”
The crowd of citizens across the street cheered on cue, hearing Godfrey’s voice through the impressive speaker setup.
“My schedule is extremely tight ahead of tonight’s show and the important discussions at the UN, but I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to visit the place where it all began. And I certainly couldn’t miss my chance to meet the man who set the truth in motion.”
“Most people would have done the same thing,” Dan said.
“Richard Walker didn’t,” Godfrey replied, drawing pantomime-like boos from the crowd as intended. The boos were no surprise to anyone; Walker had the lowest Overall Approval Rating of any public figure tracked by Emma’s SMAA app. Dan had the highest of all with Godfrey not far behind. Godfrey’s remarkably high figure meant more though, given that his name had been mentioned sixteen times more often than Dan’s since Disclosure.
What was surprising to Clark, Dan and Emma was Godfrey’s deviation from the agreed upon script. Fortunately, he got back on track right after mentioning Walker and touched on the upcoming Security Council discussions with word-for-word accuracy. The core of his statement was that life had to go on. When he was through, he handed over to Dan with a question about how Dan planned to spend the upcoming weeks and months.
Dan knew the first part of what he was supposed to say but couldn’t remember what came next. “I’m going to trust the international process,” he began, trying to look to Emma for clues. But she was too far away, standing next to Godfrey’s people near the entrance.
“As we all must,” Godfrey jumped in to save him.
“And I’m going to go back to work,” Dan said.
“Exactly,” Godfrey said, pretending Dan hadn’t gone off-track. “We will all trust the international process and take things as they come.”
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