‘Whoa,’ said Gavin, abruptly. ‘Dear God.’
‘I know!’ I sobbed. ‘It’s horrible to even think about. I know it’s hard to believe, but you have to.’
‘No, it’s not that.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Check the news.’
‘I can’t from here.’
‘Oh man, this is disastrous.’
‘Middle East?’
‘Yeah, you should see this. I don’t know when we can talk next. Hopefully soon, but not on these numbers,’ said Gavin before hanging up.
I put the phone down, walked out of the office and back into the café, wiping my eyes with a tissue and thanking the woman as I walked quickly back outside where Anushka and the bodyguard were already on their feet.
‘Are you feeling okay?’ Anushka asked.
‘We have to get back,’ said the bodyguard before I could reply. We had to prise Bobby away from the duck pond and hurry back into Downing Street. The vestibule was deserted – everyone down in the main political office, crowding around a TV and silently watching the news. I asked Anushka to take the kids upstairs. ‘And definitely no calls,’ I muttered.
I didn’t need to ask anyone what had happened, the news channel in the corner of the office had it emblazoned at the bottom of the screen. Chemical bomb in Jerusalem follows airstrikes in Beirut and Gaza. I’d seen such brief windows of calm before, Number Ten staff assimilating the facts before the calls would start coming in, the orders shouted outwards. James was standing at the furthest corner of the room from me, leaning against the doorframe to his private office, catching my eye as he barked for Rav. I held his gaze for only a second before turning and walking towards the stairs as Rav came charging down the hallway heading for James’s office. I stopped him, grabbed his arm and drew him close. ‘PT,’ I whispered close to his face. He looked at me, gone out. ‘PT,’ I repeated. ‘I don’t know what it means, but I need you to look into it. Gavin Cross told me.’
Rav nodded and I let go of his arm. We went our separate ways, me climbing the staircase slowly, trying to block out the rising chatter and noise circulating beneath me, which grew louder even as I retreated from it.
I barely saw James for the next three days, although he was spending a couple of hours in the flat each night. He’d come upstairs at about midnight and would work in the living room before eventually turning in at about two. I’d been ambiently aware of him coming to bed, but he always collapsed at the far end of it and went straight to sleep.
I tried to focus on getting through my various appointments and appearances. Rosie’s replacement seemed keen for me to do more, but to his credit made sure I wasn’t asked any awkward questions. Most of the functions scheduled for me were just outside London. I found it hard to get out of the attic every morning, worried I might’ve left something incriminating around. Still it was good to be away from Westminster; people seemed more chipper in the real world. Lots of them wanted to ask me about what’d happened. Conscious of my protection officer constantly hovering, I kept to my story; I don’t remember much, I’m just glad to be back and getting on with things. It was quite a tonic, hearing other stories and concerns, especially so during a visit to a hospice where I found people surprisingly chipper, even active. ‘You’re a long time dead,’ one of the patients told me. I had to suppress a laugh.
The following Wednesday Rav came up to the flat at lunchtime, when James was over in Parliament. ‘I’ve looked everywhere and haven’t turned up a thing,’ he said. ‘Nothing untoward at all. I’ve even been through James’ computer, which drew a blank.’
‘He’s been off with me for days, I don’t know if it’s just the workload,’ I wondered out loud.
‘He’s under extreme stress, for sure,’ said Rav. ‘But distant from me, too. He must’ve seen us talking downstairs last week because he asked me about it. I just said you’d told me to look after him during the shitstorm.’
I smiled to myself. ‘Are you absolutely sure there’s no hidden cameras in here?’
Rav sighed. ‘I’m not aware of any. It’s possible, of course, but we have to talk somewhere, and I can’t think of anywhere else that wouldn’t attract attention. Anyway, if they’d bugged this room I’m sure something would’ve happened by now.’
I told him about Isabel in the White House, the annotation on her file. ‘I can’t make inquiries into that sort of thing,’ said Rav. ‘It’d be picked up immediately.’
‘There must be someone you can ask, someone you trust?’
‘This has to go to James,’ he said firmly. ‘There’s nobody else.’
‘Definitely not. I don’t trust him.’
Even though Rav tried to talk me round I think he was unconvinced by himself. Maybe because talking to James would’ve required Rav discussing his own nirvana, one in which James had been his underling. But Rav talked through various options; the foreign secretary, the intelligence services, talking to any of them came with peril. I think despite everything Rav was still worried about damaging the government.
‘So we’re back to square one, then,’ I said.
‘Not quite, but the only other option depends on you, Ellie.’ His teeth clenched briefly. ‘James got a new phone after the attack, and I’m fairly sure it wasn’t issued by the government.’
I must have looked surprised. ‘I got a new phone, too.’
Rav nodded. ‘We all did. I checked the procurement logs and the usual paperwork’s there, present and correct. The numbers are logged on the masterlist downstairs. But it’s the masterlist that makes me wonder.’
‘How so?’
‘The file was last modified by Rosie. Now it could be..’ he paused, aware his voice had been rising. ‘It could be she was just changing her own records on the day she quit. But that’s one of the secretaries’ jobs. Procedurally speaking, she had no business changing the file.’
‘Did you ever talk to her about any of this? Before she quit, I mean.’
‘Only once,’ he gave a pained expression. ‘I told her I was having strange dreams and headaches. She just told me to man up.’
‘Have you contacted her about this?’
Rav laughed. ‘No, she said she wanted a clean break, and I’ve no desire to speak to her.’
I dwelled on that for a bit. ‘But where was she, Rav? When we were in that place, where was Rosie?’
Neither of us had an answer to that. ‘You’ll have to see what’s in James’s phone,’ Rav said. ‘Nobody else could ever get close to it.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘He’s never without it, Ellie. I’ve been watching him for a few days, it’s always about him.’ We agreed this was unusual; ever since James had been in Cabinet he’d been prone to misplacing his phone occasionally. ‘But he can’t literally have it on him all the time,’ said Rav. ‘He has to sleep, and he has to use the bathroom. They’re the only times he’s ever really on his own, and you’re the only one who can get close, then.’
For two days I stalked James’s phone. Rav had been right, it almost never left his side. At night it would rest on the bedside table next to him, turned off. I knew it would be password locked, as such not worth the risk of leaning over and trying get into it. As for my own phone, I had to keep it with me but stopped using it unless it rang. I borrowed a phone from Anushka, who’d brought in a spare from home; a decrepit old handset she’d been keeping for emergencies. I kept it on flight mode; it was only the camera I’d really needed it for.
On the Friday morning I was due to hold a reception downstairs for the launch of yet another cancer campaign, meanwhile the German chancellor was due in London for a brief bilateral. James started work even earlier than usual, but unlike most mornings he didn’t shower first thing. Instead he sat listening to the radio in his pyjamas in the living room, all the time reading and messaging. I knew the bilateral was due to start at eight, delayed getting the kids ready for school by ten minutes while I waited for him to go into the shower. Stil
l he waited until the last possible moment, until I walked past him to Sadie’s room and noisily dressed her. Then I heard the bathroom door click and looked into the living room. He’d left his phone on the arm of the sofa, its screen still lit. I heard the hiss as James started up the shower, waited for the noise to change frequency as his body interrupted the jets.
Leaving Bobby and Sadie to their own devices I went into the living room, tried to access the phone. Initially two files appeared in a directory on the screen, a video file and a folder. I tapped on the image and it opened but there wasn’t much to see, initially, just a fuzzy purplish blur. I played the video and the blur receded, revealing itself to be the material of Rosie’s skirt as she took a step back from the camera and turned away from it, walking to the desk James’s old office in Portcullis, the one he’d occupied before the previous election.
Rosie stood there for a few moments, waiting for something, then a much younger and thinner James walked in. I knew where this footage was leading; after all I’d already watched its conclusion from a different angle with my own eyes, years before. Still I watched as they drew closer, conversation turning to touching, then a flurry of unzipping and unhooking before Rosie turned around and leaned over the desk. I stopped the video.
It’d been something I’d replayed over and over again in my mind for years, but it was oddly re-assuring to see it in digital form. Perhaps it should’ve been upsetting, but really I was way beyond the point where it could still hurt me. If anything it was helpful, to see it all confirmed and documented. The only depressing aspect was how James had apparently hoarded the memory for years, a little piece of home-made pornography to savour.
From behind me I heard a crash from Sadie’s room, the sound of toys falling to the floor with a plasticky clatter. I quickly exited the video and tapped on the other folder, refusing to allow myself any time for bitterness or anger. The screen revealed an open file:
Classified: Project Tabernacle
Andromeda Chandra Ganesha
Luna Orithyia Ra
They were more than words, they were subfolders. I tried them in order, each was passworded until the second from last opened, the one labeled Orithyia. What opened on the screen was mostly was waffle, initially outlining the application of phosphates and enzymes; numbers interspersed with various compounds. Folic acid levels, heart rate, EEG readings. Then came a subsection:
Flags
1:04:43 Synapse ping at 15%. Disengagement from simulation for 0:42:56. [Item 25768 in Zone BD-9 probable cause]
1:49:01 Synapse ping at 73%, BP 180-95, Subject untraceable in simulation, synapse match in Ganesha Zone A-4. Reset approved 1:52:19.
1:52:45 Reset error. Synapse ping 83%. BP 130-78. Untraceable in Orithyia Zone A1.
1:54:12 Orithya synapse trace = true in Chandra Zone C12.
1:56:02 Deployment of monitoring agent approved by TS
On and on it went, but I’d already too long minute browsing the phone and could hear Bobbie and Sadie going berserk in their rooms. I pulled out Anushka’s phone from my handbag and took pictures of James’s screen, as many as I could before I heard the shower pulses die down. There was only so much I could fit on the phone’s small screen to photograph. I locked James’s phone and placed it back on the sofa before going back to the kids’ bedrooms.
‘The Chancellor will hear you two yelling next-door,’ James called as he left the bathroom. ‘What’s got into them, L?’
When I walked back into the living room he was already standing by the sofa in his dressing gown, phone in hand. ‘They’re happy their father’s around for breakfast,’ I said, thinly. I couldn’t quite force the breath out.
‘Really,’ he sounded vaguely pleased about it. ‘And how about you?’
‘It’s certainly nice to see you when you’re awake, for once,’ I replied, focusing on pouring cereals with my back to him, my windpipe constricting. ‘I’m going to take them to school this morning.’
‘Oh? I thought you had a full diary this morning.’
‘It’s all been cancelled. Some train problems, apparently.’ A correction: I would still lie to James if the circumstances demanded it.
Bobby and Sadie mercifully gave me no attrition and wolfed down their cereals. They brushed their teeth and then I took them downstairs, leaning into Anushka’s office as we passed it. ‘Cancel the cancer,’ I said.
She poked her head around the door as we continued down the stairs. ‘What should I tell them?’
‘The kids are sick, I’ve got to look after them,’ I said, throwing her a look as she saw Bobby and Sadie, perfectly healthy and in their school uniforms. She nodded.
It took twenty minutes to drive to their school in Southwark, once the two of them had trooped into the building the car turned around, heading back to Westminster. I told my driver to stop at a coffee shop near Waterloo, said I’d be half an hour. It had started to rain heavily, some of the customers in the café did a double take as a damp prime minister’s wife entered and ordered tea.
Sitting down at the very back of the café I began to flick through the photos I’d taken, trying to cross-reference the opaque jargon with my own memories. It took significantly longer than half an hour, but it was clear to me that I was Orithya, Rav was Ganesha and Gavin was Chandra. Who the other three were was impossible to say. I grew angrier each time I turned the page. The final flagged entry said it all:
3:43:33 Synapse ping 67%. BP 172-94. Orithyia resolution attempted in Zone A1. Andromeda agitators deployed via conduit F9. Rejection probability agreed. Disconnection from simulation approved by TS. Orithyia disconnect confirmed at 3:44:56.
A withheld number called my government phone. I rejected it, turned off my phone and stared at the rainy windows. I had half a mind to return to Number 10 and march into James’s meeting with the Germans, yell to anyone who’d listen about what they’d done to me. Done to us. But there was still the possibility in my mind that James himself was a victim, perhaps Rosie, too, somehow. I desperately wanted to call Rav but knew he’d be with the Germans.
My driver came into the cafe, scanning the customers quickly before walking over to me. ‘Mrs Weeks, I’ve been told to bring you back to Number 10 immediately.’ His face was as non-negotiable as his tone. I asked what was happening and he wouldn’t say. ‘We have to go, straight away.’ He paid little attention to traffic lights on the way back, practically driving like a police car in pursuit. Gripping the little handle on the inside of the car door as we took corners at speed, I speculated that James had rumbled me on some level, maybe for lying about my schedule, perhaps for accessing his phone. But he wouldn’t cancel the Germans just for that, surely?
I returned to Number 10 by the back door. ‘Mrs. Weeks secured,’ my driver said into his earpiece as the gate closed behind us. Inside a young female staffer rushed past me in tears. Slowly I walked into James’s offices. Once again it was standing room only, everyone silently watching Morgan Cross’s face on the large TV screen, her giant smile fixed. It was a still image, a photograph. The sound was turned down. I asked a secretary standing next to me what was happening.
‘She’s in hospital,’ she replied, her voice flat like she didn’t believe what she was saying. ‘Word is, she’s dead.’
Rendering
Rav was right, the bathroom is the only place a nation’s leader is ever truly alone. All the bodyguards and secret agents in the world can’t protect you in there. If Morgan had been assassinated or lost a brave battle with some terminal disease, maybe she would’ve had a decent epitaph. Instead she’d slipped getting out of the bath, had fallen backwards and sustained a fatal head injury.
It undermined her; whatever people thought about her policy before the attack, she’d battled to get into the White House against all the odds. It was grossly wrong for her to leave it feet first. Of course there were conspiracy theories but the Surgeon General’s report was unequivocal, pictures of Morgan’s head injury leaked. The vice president took the
oath at noon the same day, immediately saying Gavin was welcome to remain in the White House as long as he needed to. I laughed to myself.
Two days later Gavin surprised the world by giving an interview corroborating the official story. I watched him answer the gentle questions, his sullen eyes looking away. ‘I heard her fall from the bedroom, I went to see if she was okay and found her on the floor, bleeding. Everyone did everything they could.’
It was patently obvious that despite everything he said to the contrary, James was looking forward to Morgan’s funeral. He was smiling to himself on the plane to Washington. We were at the very front, in our own luxurious private pod. Rav was with us, but spent most of the flight co-ordinating little divulgences. Nuggets of nonsense to feed the press, cooped up in the cheap seats behind us. James was far more pre-occupied with the details of his first bilateral with the new president than Morgan’s funeral. I had mixed views; upset at once again being parted from the kids, apprehensive about the future but looking forward to speaking with Gavin.
Four hours into the flight James put down his phone, resting it on the little shelf next to his seat which he reclined until it was flat before dimming the lights. I watched him doze off, calculating whether I could reach across him to pick up the phone. I knew the phone would lock itself shortly. It was a precision call, allowing him to drift off deeply enough but not waiting too long until I couldn’t make use of my quarry. But I knew that James suspected many things about me already, because he’d read my file. But as I looked at him I wondered if he was aware that he himself had also been in the simulation. Was the James I saw there really him, or a construction?
Morgan was lying in state in the Rotunda on Capitol Hill. People queued up to file past her coffin, flanked by Marines, but the crowds weren’t as large as people had predicted. Perhaps it was because of the way she’d died, people weren’t quite sure what to make of it. Not an assassination, and she’d not been in the White House long enough to be fully embraced by the nation. Still it was a major national occasion, and she was due to be given the most opulent send-off, rivalling Kennedy’s funeral in grandeur. Thirty world leaders had been invited, and the new president had made it clear that the Israeli prime minister would be the first to have a bilateral.
Weeks in Naviras Page 31