Mr. Prime Minister

by Jessica Ashe

  “At least she’s being honest on the last one.”

  I didn’t need a great deal of financial support from businesses in the last election. The party raised a fortune from small donations thanks to the huge groundswell of support from individuals. It’s amazing how much difference £10 can make when ten million people donate.

  The next election won’t be so easy. Public support always fades over time, so if I want a second term or—God forbid—a third, I’m going to need financial backing. Terrell’s concerned, but I can’t be. What’s the point in becoming Prime Minister if you can’t do the things that will make the country a safer place? This is a no-brainer.

  “Can we sell this to the public?” I ask.

  “Sure. The second DefenceTech gets linked to selling weapons to terrorists, the public will back you.”

  “How long will that take?” The investigation is technically into government procurement of weapons, but I’m hoping the committee will find incriminating evidence against DefenceTech in the process.

  “A month, I reckon,” Terrell replies. “If they don’t find anything, I’ll whisper in a few ears and see that they start asking the right questions.”

  “Thanks.”

  Terrell heads to the door, but instead of leaving, he closes it and stays in my office.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “How are things with you and Janie?”

  “Excellent.” I immediately get flashbacks to the blowjob she gave me on the way to Parliament and quickly force those thoughts from my mind. There’s a time and a place, and being alone with Terrell is neither.

  “Talking of which,” I continue, “I’m planning to take Janie out one evening. In public.”

  I expect Terrell to be pleased for me, but he looks concerned. No, not concerned. Terrified. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, sir?”

  “I can’t keep her secret forever. It’s not fair on her, and I can’t keep this charade going with Emilia. I’m fine with misleading the public a bit when it comes to my private life, but I try to avoid outright lies. I’m ethical like that.”

  Terrell still doesn’t look convinced. He sits down in one of the seats opposite my desk. He never does that. Something’s wrong.

  “I need to talk to you about Janie,” Terrell says slowly.

  “What about her?”

  “She’s talking to the press.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. She’s more keen to keep this secret than I am.”

  “I saw her with two reporters. One of them is Stephanie Harper.”

  Stephanie Harper? I don’t know many journalists by name, but she’s famous, and rightfully so. She’s probably the best investigative reporter in the country and is feared by politicians everywhere.

  “When you say you ‘saw her,’ do you mean you followed her? Because if so—”

  “I just happened to be in the same café as her last weekend,” Terrell explains. “She was sat in the corner with Harper.”

  “Maybe they’re friends. It’s not a criminal offense to be friends with reporters, although depending on the reporters, maybe it should be.”

  “This wasn’t a friendly conversation.”

  “Fine, I’ll ask her about it.”

  “That’s not all,” Terrell continues. “After seeing her with the reporters, I went back to look at her CV.”

  “We’ve already dealt with this.”

  “I’ve looked into Bio Pharmaceuticals, and I can’t find anyone who can verify her working there. She’s lying to you.”

  “Someone’s lying to me, and it’s not her.”

  “You’re kidding,” Terrell says, disbelief etched across his face. “You think I’m lying?”

  He doesn’t look like he’s lying, but he must be. That’s the only possible explanation.

  “You hate that I don’t rely on you anymore. Is that it? Are you jealous that I trust someone else other than you?”

  “Jesus fucking Christ. You’ve lost it. I’ve known you for five years. You haven’t even spent five nights with Janie.”

  “That’s not how trust works,” I reply. Length of time has nothing to do with it. I trusted Terrell within three days of knowing him and have done ever since. Until now. “Get out.”

  “This is absurd. Just listen to me, Janie is—”

  “I’m done listening to you. Leave.”

  Terrell shakes his head in disappointment. “With pleasure.”

  I don’t know what’s come over me, but I know he needs to leave. No one gets to mistreat Janie and stick around. Carl found that out, and now so has Terrell.

  “Don’t bother coming back.”

  Terrell storms out of the office and slams the heavy door behind him.

  I know I’m going to regret what I said to him, but right now all I can feel is anger. Terrell’s been by my side for years. Literally. He was standing next to me when we overheard the conversation that tipped us off to the US SEAL being held captive in Iraq. He helped with the rescue and drove the getaway vehicle. When we got back to the UK, he was the one who convinced me to get into politics. When the party tapped me up for leader, he encouraged me to do it.

  I still remember the speech he used to persuade me to run. I was angry about DefenceTech and what I’d seen in Iraq; if I’d had my way, I would have paid the individuals in question a personal visit. He told me to tackle the problem from the top and bring the whole thing down.

  We were just about to do it. The investigation will almost certainly work and the house of cards will come toppling down.

  He’s probably been spying on Janie from the beginning, just waiting to catch her in a slightly suspicious position. He’s betrayed me, but I’m not going to betray her. Never.

  “Sir? Sir?”

  I look up from my desk and open my eyes. Janie’s standing over me with a concerned look on her face.

  I fell asleep. How long for? I feel groggy as hell, so clearly not long enough. Janie is back from the Ministry of Defense, so it must have been at least an hour.

  “Is everything okay?” Janie asks.

  “Yeah. Fine. Just took a quick nap.”

  “Have you seen Terrell? His secretary said he stormed out of here a few hours ago and hasn’t been seen since.”

  “Good riddance,” I mutter.

  “What’s going on? Why would Terrell leave?”

  “He can no longer be trusted.”

  Janie frowns and shakes her head. “You can trust Terrell. There must have been a misunderstanding.”

  “No,” I reply firmly. “There was no misunderstanding. He tried to frame you.”

  “Frame me?”

  “Tried to make out you were working with journalists or some nonsense. I sent him packing.”

  The color drains from Janie’s face and she stumbles back, her legs suddenly looking too weak to support her. She collapses down into a chair just in time.

  “Don’t worry,” I say softly, “you’re not in any trouble. I know he’s lying.”

  “What did he say?” she asks, in a shaky voice.

  She’s terrified. I shouldn’t have told her, but I don’t want to tell anymore lies. It’s bad enough that I’m keeping things from her. I’d like to avoid outright dishonesty if I can.

  “He said he saw you in a café talking to two journalists. And something about your résumé.” Janie looks like she’s about to throw up. “Let me go get you a drink of water.” Me getting a drink for her will make a nice change.

  I go up to the kitchen and come back with a glass of water which she takes a small sip from and then holds it in two hands like it’s a hot drink on a cold day.

  “I need to tell you something,” Janie says. “And I don’t want you to interrupt until I’m finished. Can you—”

  “I never interrupt you.”

  “You just did.”

  “It was a joke.”

  “Oh.”

  Janie takes another sip of the water. She’s still pale and could do with drinking the entire
glass, but I’m not about to force it down her.

  “My résumé is a lie,” Janie blurts out.

  “Everyone exaggerates a bit on their CV.”

  “I didn’t exaggerate. I did the opposite.”

  I sit forward in my chair and rest my arms on the desk. Now I’m confused. “You undersold yourself?”

  “Most of my career history is accurate. I did lots of secretarial work after college because I couldn’t motivate myself to look for a graduate position.”

  “Because of the break up with your boyfriend?” I ask. Janie nods. “Wait, your CV doesn’t mention going to college.”

  “That’s what I left off.”

  I laugh loudly and then breathe a huge sigh of relief. “Is that it? Thank God. You almost had me worried. Why the hell would you leave off your college degree?”

  “It might have looked weird that I was applying for secretarial work with a degree from Brown University.”

  “Lots of graduates struggle to find jobs after college. Anyway, being a secretary is nothing to be embarrassed about. There isn’t a single big company or branch of government that can function without secretaries, and I’m including myself in that.”

  “That’s not the only reason.” Janie takes another sip of water, before slowly raising her head to make eye contact with me. “I majored in journalism.”

  My heart skips a beat and my stomach contracts. That’s not good. I remind myself that there’s nothing wrong with journalists or studying journalism. I treat them like the enemy occasionally, but that’s not the case. Our democracy couldn’t function without them.

  So why am I so worried about what Janie’s going to say next?

  “I couldn’t get a job as a journalist in the UK,” Janie continues. “I don’t have any contacts, and even though I went to a good school, no one here has really heard of it. Then I met Stephanie Harper.”

  “Stephanie Harper?”

  Janie nods. “She read a report I wrote while in college and said I might have a talent for investigative journalism. She promised me a job if I proved I had the nose to unravel a mystery.”

  “What mystery?” I ask sternly. I don’t mean to sound so heartless, but I have this awful feeling that the next words from Janie’s lips are going to change my life.

  I hate being right sometimes.

  “What mystery?” I ask again when Janie doesn’t answer.

  She takes a long, drawn out breath and looks deep into my eyes.

  “You.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Janie - Three Weeks Later

  Wade didn’t have me arrested, so instead I created my own prison and tortured myself there.

  I’ve barely left my apartment since Wade ordered me to pack my bags and leave 10 Downing Street. I spent a week on edge waiting for the police to show up and arrest me, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

  I’m beyond caring about my own well-being. It’s Wade I’m worried about. The bags under his eyes and the constant weary look on his face suggest he’s getting four hours of sleep a night at most. That was enough for Margaret Thatcher, but not for Wade. He’s lost his spark. Press conferences and Prime Minister’s Questions are devoid of the humor and wit that helped him get elected. He makes mistakes and trips over his words. The Leader of the Opposition is surprisingly gentle on him, and I have no idea why. She could have torn him to shreds at the last PMQs, but she let his errors slide, much to the disgust of her party.

  Wade’s probably more concerned with his own party than the opposition. His Cabinet is doing a decent job, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer seems determined to undermine him at every possible moment. She contradicts Wade in ‘private’ conversations that get caught on camera and leaked. She acts annoyed, but it happens far too often to be a coincidence. She senses blood in the water and is determined to take advantage.

  Why does she hate him so much? At first I assumed she just wanted Wade to step down so she could become Prime Minister, but there’s more to it than that. Gwen Yates isn’t coming off well in all this, so even if Wade resigned, she might face a leadership contest before taking over. Even after working for Wade, I still know more about US politics than UK politics. In the US, politicians only do things for three reasons: for money, for power, or because it’s the right thing to do. I’m willing to bet UK politicians are similar. If Gwen isn’t acting in her own best interests, it’s likely because she’s bought and paid for.

  Wade’s own Chancellor is working against him. He needs someone he can trust more than ever, but he has no one. He forced Terrell out because he believed in me, and then I betrayed him. I deserve what happened, but Terrell doesn’t. Wade needs someone to rely on, and if that can’t be me then it has to be Terrell.

  I send Terrell a message through Twitter asking to meet. He replies immediately with the address of a public park that he believes is discrete. If the press catches the Prime Minister’s former Chief of Staff meeting in secret with his former secretary then we are screwed. It’s a risk we have to take.

  We both arrive promptly and sit down on a bench that faces towards some trees. We should be safe from prying lenses, unless a photographer gets lucky while taking his dog for a walk.

  “Thanks for coming,” I say to Terrell. He looks almost as rough as Wade.

  “I’m intrigued to know what you have to say for yourself. I assume you confessed, given how quickly you disappeared from Downing Street?”

  I nod and then tell him everything I told Wade and more. I tell him how I backed out of the story and didn’t give any information to the press. I tell him how much I care for Wade and wouldn’t do anything to hurt him.

  “Have you been in touch with him?” I ask. “He knows you weren’t lying now.”

  “I tried, but he won’t take my calls. He doesn’t trust me anymore.”

  “That’s my fault.”

  “Not entirely. He’s under a lot of pressure, but that doesn’t excuse his behavior. It’s this weapons investigation that’s driven him over the edge.”

  “What’s the big deal with that?” I ask. “It seems innocent enough to me.”

  “It’s not.” Terrell takes a moment to look around, but we have the entire park to ourselves. “Do you want to know the full story about Wade’s time in the Army?”

  “What’s there to tell?”

  “A lot. For one thing, he was in the SAS. So was I.”

  “The SAS. Holy crap.”

  The SAS is basically the British equivalent of US Navy SEALs as far as I can tell. They’re super soldiers, who operate without the public knowing who they are or what they do.

  “Wade can’t talk about it,” Terrell says, “and I shouldn’t either really.”

  “I won’t tell anyone.”

  “That’s not the big secret. While in Iraq, we overheard a conversation between one of our commanders and a representative of DefenceTech.”

  “The company under investigation?”

  “The very same. DefenceTech has been supplying weapons to terrorists. I’ve no idea how big the conspiracy gets, but a US politician was involved as well. He was part of a scheme that meant US soldiers got poor quality weapons while DefenceTech sold high-quality guns to terrorists. It’s a deadly combination.”

  “You got all that from one conversation?”

  “No,” Terrell says, shaking his head. “The conversation we overheard tipped us off to a US SEAL being held captive. Wade and I went off-the-books and rescued him. Did you read about an Illinois senator being arrested on corruption charges?”

  Mom mentioned something in one of her emails, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. When you work in politics all day, it’s the last thing you want to read about when you get home.

  “I heard about it,” I reply.

  “The US SEAL we rescued helped bring him down, although that’s not public knowledge. We have contacts in the US.”

  “I imagine you have contacts everywhere.”

  “Not as
many as I’d like.”

  “So this whole arms trafficking investigation is what has Wade so on edge? It sounds like he’s doing the best he can to deal with it.”

  “He is. But Gwen Yates is in the pocket of DefenceTech. She’s fighting Wade every step of the way. Unlike Wade, she has an army of advisors she trusts to do her bidding.”

  “Shit.”

  “Shit indeed.”

  Terrell and I sit in silence for at least ten minutes, both desperately trying to come up with a way to help Wade. I want to beg for forgiveness, but I can’t even get onto Downing Street, let alone into his office. Terrell might be able to get back in, but there’s no guarantee Wade will forgive him. Even if he does, it will be a long time before he trusts him again.

  “We need to leave,” Terrell says suddenly, snapping me out of my trance.

  “Why?”

  Terrell nods towards two men talking at the far end of the park. They’re a long way away and not in earshot so we won’t be overheard. The chances of them recognizing us seem slim. However….

  “I recognize one of them,” I say uncertainly.

  “What? How do you know him?”

  “Don’t panic. He’s just a guy from the kitchen. Bradley. He’s harmless enough.”

  I stand up to leave, but Terrell stays seated. His head is twisted so that the men don’t get a good look at us while he eyes them with his peripheral vision.

  “You’re talking about the guy on the left?” Terrell asks.

  “Yeah. The small guy. We should probably get out of here.”

  “I recognize the guy on the right.”

  I look at the other guy for a few seconds, but I don’t recognize him. “Does he work in the kitchen too?”

  “No. He doesn’t work at Downing Street. He works for DefenceTech. That’s the DefenceTech man Wade and I saw in Iraq.”