Mr. Prime Minister

by Jessica Ashe

  “They probably do here in the UK,” Terrell mutters.

  “You know what,” Wade says authoritatively, “let’s just be old school about this. We’ll set up a meeting with Gwen and get her to confess while we record it.”

  “She’d never do that in a meeting with you now,” I reply. “It would be too obvious.”

  “I never said the meeting would be with me.”

  “Then who?” Terrell asks.

  “Leave that to me,” Wade says, a smile spreading across his face. “I’m going to call in a favor.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Wade

  When Terrell first told me about the secret network of tunnels under London, I told him to stop pulling my leg. Those tunnels are the stuff of myth; they don’t exist. How can they? Most of London’s underground consists of a network of train tunnels with thousands of people working to maintain them. If there were secret passages someone would have noticed.

  But they do exist. I know, because I’m in one.

  “This is surreal,” Janie remarks, as she looks around in the dingy gloom from old lights hanging on the walls at twenty feet intervals.

  “I feel like I’m in a James Bond movie.”

  “Oh, does that make me a Bond girl?”

  “If you like.”

  “Are they always like this?” Charlene asks.

  “Yes,” Terrell replies. “It’s sickening.”

  Charlene and Terrell have just approached from the other end of the tunnel, so Janie and I stop flirting. The two of them don’t look at all impressed by the surroundings, but perhaps they’re just nervous. That’s fair enough; I should be too.

  “You don’t seem excited,” I say to Charlene.

  She shrugs. “The tunnels are an open secret in the intelligence community. They were used a lot back when SIS was still called MI-6, but I don’t think they bother with them now.”

  “Huh. Shouldn’t I know that, what with the whole ‘me being Prime Minister thing?’”

  Terrell sighs which means a lecture is coming on. “If you read the briefing papers I sent you, you’d know—”

  “Okay, let’s get down to business,” I interrupt. “Did Terrell tell you why I asked you here?”

  Charlene nods. “I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

  “Uh, I’m still a bit confused,” Janie says. “Why are we meeting with the Leader of the Opposition and asking for her help? And why is she agreeing to go along with it?”

  “This goes beyond politics,” I reply. “Charlene doesn’t want to see illegal arms trafficking any more than I do.”

  “Plus I owe him one,” Charlene adds.

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I do. I owe you big time. This is the least I can do.”

  “Why do you owe him one?” Janie asks.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I reply.

  “You two are an item, right?” Charlene asks. We both nod in reply. “Then I guess you can know. During my party’s leadership contest, an ex-boyfriend of mine sent a private video to Wade.”

  “A private video?” Janie asks. Charlene raises her eyebrows and Janie catches the meaning. “Oh.”

  “The video is embarrassing so say the least. Let’s just say, it wasn’t vanilla ‘baby-making’ sex. Anyway, if it got out, the leadership contest would have been over, as would my career. My ex sent a few select clips and images to Wade and demanded £100,000 for the full video.”

  I put those images out of my mind a while ago. Charlene isn’t really my type, but she’s into some of the same activities it seems. Anyway, it’s hard to add someone to the wank bank when you associate them with the stress of work. No one wants to think about running the country while knocking one out.

  “Holy shit,” Janie replies. “That’s horrible. What did you do?”

  “I bought the tape,” I reply.

  “You bought it? And Charlene is still talking to you?”

  “I used campaign funds to acquire all the rights to the footage. If that scumbag ever leaks the video he will be sued out of existence.”

  “Oh. I guess that’s good. Apart from the bit where you misappropriated campaign funds to buy a sex tape.”

  “I prefer the term ‘borrow.’”

  “Will you ever repay it?”

  “No.”

  “Then let’s use ‘misappropriate.’” Janie turns back to Charlene. “I’m surprised you’re okay with this.”

  “Wade contacted me the second he got the photos,” Charlene replies. “He kept me informed every step of the way and said he would never release the footage. He kept his promise.”

  “See, I’m not a complete bastard.”

  “You’re not.” Janie kisses me on the cheek and then whispers in my ear. “If I ever catch you watching that video, I will chop your balls off.”

  I don’t look round to see how serious she’s being. I don’t want to know.

  “Let’s get a move on,” Terrell says. “Clearly we’re keeping you two from something.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Charlene asks.

  “Meet with Gwen,” I reply. “Try to get a confession out of her. There are no records of donations from DefenceTech. If you can get her to admit she’s backed by DefenceTech then she’s fucked, politically at least. I’ll settle for that.”

  “Do you think it will work?”

  I nod my head. “Just tell her how much you hate me. That will resonate with her.”

  “Okay. Let’s wait until after the next PMQs. I’ll engineer an argument with you about your education policy. Shouldn’t be difficult—it’s bloody awful.”

  “It’s better than yours. At least mine won’t cut poor kids out of access to grammar schools and—”

  “Guys,” Terrell interrupts. “Save it for the cameras.”

  Charlene and I shake hands and go our separate ways.

  “This tunnel is poorly lit,” Janie says, as we head back the way we came.

  “And quiet. You know, I bet we have a lot of privacy down here.”

  Janie and I both stop walking at the same time. Great minds think alike.

  “This isn’t going well,” Terrell says softly.

  The conversation is being recorded on Charlene’s phone and streamed live to mine. Charlene has been talking to Gwen for nearly fifteen minutes, but Gwen has stonewalled her every time she asks a question about DefenceTech. Gwen denies knowing anyone there and says she’s never received a donation from them.

  “Do you think she suspects anything?” Janie asks.

  “No,” I reply. “She’s just being cautious.”

  Gwen can’t know I’m working with Charlene, but she doesn’t have much reason to trust Charlene either. She is the opposition after all. Maybe if they work together on a project Charlene can gain her trust, but how long will that take? I don’t enjoy worrying about poison every time I bite into my food.

  Charlene can’t even keep Gwen’s attention, let alone get any juicy information out of her. Gwen keeps checking her phone like a bored teenager in school, and Janie eventually gives up. They say a formal goodbye, and we all wait patiently for an hour when Charlene comes to Downing Street for a prearranged meeting. The meeting has been on the calendar for weeks, so it shouldn’t look suspicious. She even poses for photos and gives the reporters a few quotes saying how she’s going to rip into me for my reckless spending plan. We don’t agree on a lot of issues, especially around fiscal matters, but Charlene would make a fucking good Prime Minister.

  “Thanks for trying,” I say to Charlene as she steps into the meeting. Terrell and Janie look disheartened. They’re worried about my safety, so I put on a brave face. I’m worried too, but not about my own safety. DefenceTech knows about Janie. She’s at risk as much as I am. I’m Prime Minister—death threats are par for the course. Not for Janie though. No one threatens her and gets away with it.

  “She didn’t say much,” Charlene says as she takes a seat.

  “It’s not your fault,” I repl
y. “We’re going to have to try a change of pace.”

  “Did you notice how she kept fiddling with her phone?” Charlene asks.

  “I’d love to look at her emails. I bet there’s a treasure trove of evidence.”

  “That’s what I thought. Which is why I took her phone at the end of the meeting.”

  “You… you’re kidding.”

  Charlene smiles. “We both have the same one and they were next to each other on the table. At the end of the meeting, I took her phone and she took mine.”

  “It’ll be locked,” Janie says. “We can try hacking it, but—”

  “No need,” Charlene replies. “She unlocked it during the meeting and it’s on a timer. The phone stays unlocked for five minutes after the screensaver comes on.”

  “Please tell me you still have the phone,” I say desperately.

  “No, I gave it back. Didn’t want her getting suspicious. However, I did go into her email and forward a whole bunch of emails mentioning DefenceTech to a random account I own. I have an assistant going through them now. Even from a quick look, I can confidently say there is enough there to get Gwen in a whole heap of trouble.”

  “Holy shit,” Janie exclaims.

  “Holy shit indeed,” I add. This seems too good to be true. The emails will take Gwen out of the picture, but I still need DefenceTech to get discovered. Otherwise the weapons trafficking continues and my becoming Prime Minister was all for nothing.

  “Any chance the emails implicate DefenceTech in wrongdoing?” Terrell asks. He’s thinking along the same lines as me. He always has. I should have trusted him. And Janie. I was crazy to let them both out of my sight.

  “Definitely,” Charlene replies. “Frankly I’m amazed at how obvious they are in the emails.”

  “Arrogance,” I say. “They don’t ever expect to get caught.”

  The room falls silent as we take a few moments to bathe in an unexpected victory. Once the truth comes out, there won’t be any point to killing me. More importantly, there’ll be no reason to threaten Janie to get to me. She’s safe. Thank fuck for that.

  Janie’s the first to break the silence as always. “What do we do next?”

  “We could go to the police,” Charlene suggests. “But they will take their sweet time. They won’t want to make an arrest until they fully understand what’s going on and that could take a while.”

  “We go to the press,” I say firmly. “Janie, do you want to do the honors?”

  “I’d love to.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Janie

  Sneaking around was fun at first, but the appeal is already wearing off. Naughty quickies with Wade are cool, but constantly having to look over my shoulder is not.

  The effort I go to in arranging a meeting with Stephanie and Meghan is ridiculous. I go to internet cafés to use random computers, set up new email accounts, and send codes from my Twitter account to prove it’s really me. Then I book a meeting room in a small public library and take a circuitous route to get there.

  I’m sure it’s excessive, but until we ruin Gwen’s career, she’s still a threat. Terrell pointed out that Gwen might notice her emails have been forwarded, although Charlene reckons there are so many she’ll never notice. We can’t take the risk; we need to get the information out as soon as possible, but with maximum impact. That means reporters. Ones with a good reputation in investigative journalism. Unfortunately, that means Stephanie.

  She shows up at the library with Meghan in tow. Meghan looks nervous—presumably due to the circumstances of the meeting—but Stephanie is cool and collected, looking like she’s done this a hundred times before.

  “What have you got for me?” Stephanie asks.

  There’s only one glass wall in the meeting room, and it’s nearly soundproof. We have as much privacy as we’re ever going to get. I spin my laptop around so that we can all see it.

  “These are emails between Gwen Yates and the CEO and President of DefenceTech.”

  “How did you get these?” Stephanie asks, peering at the screen and clicking through the emails slowly.

  “Best you don’t know. Speaking of which, I need complete anonymity on this. I will forward you the emails, on the condition that you only ever publish screen grabs and do everything in your power to keep my metadata private.”

  “Of course. We always protect our sources, you know that.”

  It’s true. Stephanie has never let a source down; that’s one of the reasons I risked getting involved with her plan in the first place.

  “What are the emails about?” Meghan asks.

  “Two things that will be of interest. First, there are payments from DefenceTech to Gwen.”

  “Donations?” Stephanie asks.

  “No. Not official ones anyway. Gwen hasn’t reported any of these, and she has the money go into an offshore account.”

  Stephanie stares intently at an email she finds particularly interesting and keeps reading. “What’s this about DK-7823?”

  “That’s the product name for a new type of assault rifle. It’s a bit like an AK-47 apparently, and it’s top of the range.”

  Stephanie keeps reading. “Holy crap, is this what I think it is?”

  I nod. “That’s the second thing. Gwen helped DefenceTech get guns out of the country without the inconvenience of export licenses. I even have an email where she converses directly with an individual in Iraq who appears on the US terrorist watch list.”

  “No,” Stephanie says, shaking her head. “This is insane. You’re talking about a conspiracy to sell arms to terrorists that goes all the way up to the second-highest office in the UK.”

  “Not just the UK. Ever heard of Senator Owen Robertson?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t remember where from.”

  “He’s the guy who got indicted last year in the US,” Meghan chips in. “He’s on trial for campaign funding violations, but there are also rumors that he gave weapons contracts to his friends.”

  “How is Gwen linked to all that?” Stephanie asks.

  I search the senator’s name in my email account and find Gwen’s emails that mention the senator. “The conversations dance around the topic a bit, but there’s enough there to put together the pieces. The US company—with the help of the senator—sold shitty weapons to the US military, while DefenceTech sold high-quality weapons to terrorists.”

  “Why?” Stephanie asks. “Are you saying these companies are run by terrorists?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t think that’s it. Without wanting to stereotype, these companies are both run by white men who don’t have any direct links to the Middle East. Tell you the truth, I don’t know the reason why they’re doing it.”

  “Same reason bad guys always do this kind of stuff,” Meghan says. “Money. The longer the war in the Middle East drags on, the more money governments will spend to finance the damn thing. The only people who profit are the ones who make weapons.”

  “Makes sense to me,” I say. “That’s the angle I’d run with.”

  “You can’t be attached to this,” Stephanie says firmly. “I’m sorry. I know this is the story of a lifetime, but—”

  “Don’t worry, Stephanie. I don’t want my name anywhere near this. It’s all yours.”

  Stephanie sighs loudly and shakes her head in disbelief. She keeps flicking through emails, but there are far too many to read in one sitting.

  “When do you want this to drop?” Stephanie asks. “Are you targeting maximum political damage? I don’t mind working with you a bit on the timing.”

  “Thanks, but this isn’t a political issue. Soldiers’ lives are at risk. Wade… I mean, the Prime Minister, doesn’t care about the political fallout.”

  “Okay. Well, we’re going to need some time to verify all this and piece together the story, but I want this out there as much as you. Give me a week.”

  “Sounds great.”

  Stephanie and Meghan leave in silence, and I quickly get to work f
orwarding the emails. The second Stephanie confirms receipt, I delete the emails from the laptop, unscrew the case, and move a large magnet around the hard drive, and then use the heel of my shoe to destroy it.

  That’s it. I’m done. Now, we wait.

  “Straighten your back a bit,” I command. Wade groans, but does what I say. “You’ve bent your legs again. The knees should be locked.”

  “My body doesn’t move this way,” Wade complains. “I’m sure we’ve been going for over an hour.”

  An hour and twenty minutes to be precise. “You’re not supposed to be thinking about the time.”

  “You know, if you tire me out like this, I won’t have any energy later tonight.”

  “I don’t believe that for a second. Anyway, if you were that tired, you wouldn’t talk so much. Now, hush and do what I say.”

  I’m not joining in with Wade on this yoga session. We’ve been doing regular sessions these past few weeks, and Wade’s been handling it surprisingly well. Then I noticed that his form is awful, and decided to do a bit of course correction. Turns out the reason he can hold the poses for so long is because he’s cheating.

  Wade holds the pose, until he’s distracted by Terrell walking into his office.

  “Mr. Prime Minister, we have that meeting with…” Terrell trails off as he sees Wade in downward dog on the yoga mat with me pulling his hips up into the air. “What on earth are you doing?”

  Wade collapses down in a heap on the mat. “It’s called yoga, Terrell; it’s good for you.”

  “And yet you always complain,” I add.

  “Last time I was in a position like that, my doctor was slipping on a rubber glove.”

  “You should try it some time,” Wade says.

  “I’ll stick to weights, thanks. I’m not into all that hippie nonsense.”

  I sigh loudly. “It’s not… you know what, never mind. You can’t teach a caveman new tricks.”

  “I’ll leave you to it,” Terrell says. “Meeting starts in five.”

  Wade doesn’t have time to shower, so settles for drying himself off with a towel. No one expects the full suit and tie from this Prime Minister, but shorts and a naked chest might be a bit extreme. He throws on jeans and a t-shirt while I roll up the mats. Yoga isn’t the only secretive thing we do in this office, so I need to remember to lock the door in future.