The Night Watch

by Julian Dinsell

  “Sounds like an interesting morning,” Thornhill said.

  “You asked about vulnerabilities. There aren’t many that I know of. These are some of the most powerful people in the country. They’re an unstable mix of anger, fear and ambition. With that in mind, why do you think they’ve set aside a day of their lives to listen to you?”

  “Because they’ve been told to,” Thornhill replied.

  “That’s a very scary notion,” Waters said.

  Thornhill drank the last of the coffee. “I know,” he replied.

  “The only advice I can give you is to remember ego, that’s what drives them. The loyalty of guys like that is not to their boss or to any institution but to the power that lies behind them. To some extent, they’re all frightened of each other. That’s because nobody knows at any one time exactly where the balance of power lies. It changes, sometimes hour by hour. That’s what makes them nervous and that’s what makes them dangerous. You should bear that in mind.”

  “Thanks, Hal, you’re a true friend,” Thornhill said gratefully.

  “I wish I could do more. Like I said, I’m out of touch these days.”

  “There is one more thing,” Thornhill said.

  “Shoot.”

  “What can you tell me about Calvin November?” In the silence that followed Thornhill felt half a lifetime of friendship slide into an abyss.

  “I think I hear your cab arriving,” Waters said.

  *

  At eight fifty Thornhill sat in a small deli with a large espresso, oblivious to the noisy crush of office workers ordering take-out breakfasts.

  What did it all mean? He felt like an archaeologist trying to piece together an understanding from incoherent shards of clay. The sharp jolt of caffeine helped focus the questions that crowded in on him. He shuffled the pieces around in his mind, trying to make them fit together. Suddenly, he got a match. A copy of the Washington Post, tucked under the arm of a man collecting a large bag of bagels, crossed Thornhill’s peripheral vision. A headline read: White House Aide Accused of Corruption. Underneath was a picture of Henry Petersen. Thornhill hurried across the street to Union Station and bought a copy of the paper.

  Beneath the picture of Petersen was a damning story:

  White House special advisor Henry Petersen is due to face a press conference later today following last night’s allegations of corruption at Carmichael Energy, one of the key partners in the presidential Homeland Energy Development Programme, designed to reduce dependence on imported oil. Petersen, former Chief Financial Officer of Carmichael, is widely believed to be the controlling mind behind the controversial programme. He became a prominent White House figure when the programme was launched two years ago…

  *

  It was a large room with a long table in highly polished American Walnut. The surface reflected distorted images of the arrivals as they took their places. Unusually for Washington, the meeting gathered in silence. There were none of the ritual enquiries about family and health. Morgan Douglass, a large, sweaty man in a heavy blue suit and yellow tie, sat at the head of the table. It seemed as if he was to be the chairman. Thornhill had no way of knowing if this represented seniority or self- appointment. Instinctively he sat at the opposite end and the others filled the places between.

  Douglass opened the meeting. “We’re all here, I believe. Mr Petersen has asked me to apologise in advance on account of the fact that he has to leave ahead of any conclusions we may reach, so as to attend to more personal matters this afternoon.” He could scarcely conceal a sneer, which, like a suppressed yawn, travelled round the others at the table.

  “So I understand.” Thornhill was astonished that Petersen was there. Why had he chosen to take time out from preparation for facing the world’s press on the most important issue of his political life?

  “I’ll put it to you simply, Sir Thornhill,” Douglass said, making the frequent American error about knighthoods. “What the fuck is going on?”

  Thornhill did not respond and Douglass mistook his silence for weakness. His instinct was to kick a man who is down.

  “Everyone round this table knows you’ve been operating here in the USA in breach of the inter-agency agreement. In Bermuda you had your ass kicked and now you’re coming to Uncle Sam for help. Same old Limey story we’ve heard so often before.” He looked round the table for the silent approbation of others. “Boy, this had better be good.” His sweaty palm slapped the table and left a grease mark as he sat back in his chair, waiting for a reply.

  Thornhill’s first reaction was relief. In Douglass he had thought he might encounter the kind of native shrewdness that had made LBJ’s presidency so effective. Instead, Douglass was no more than a playground bully. He decided to counter-attack.

  “Mr Chairman, thank you for your welcome. However, I suggest, amusing though it may be, we dispense with ritual abuse. It wastes time and clouds the issue.”

  For a moment Thornhill’s icy ferocity put everyone off balance.

  Then John Brightman spoke. “As you say, Sir Jack, let’s cut to the chase.”

  “What I have to say is not ‘good’,” Thornhill said, looking pointedly at Douglass. “On the contrary, I believe it’s bad, very bad.” Thornhill felt he was beginning to divide the opposition.

  “Let’s hear it,” McSweeney said.

  “I’m here not to tax the generosity of Uncle Sam,” Thornhill said, while continuing to look directly at Douglass, who he believed was now holed below the waterline, “but because you have an even bigger problem than we do.”

  “How do you make that calculation?” Sean Harvey asked, as if expecting a mathematical response.

  For the first time, Thornhill was unsure what to say next. He put both hands flat on the table and then spoke with slow deliberation. “I believe that a prominent American citizen, together with others in the Russian Republic, is conspiring to destroy a number of major democratic institutions, among them the Presidency and the elected government of the United States.”

  There it was, laid out on the table and with it a lifetime’s reputation. Put coldly, it sounded barking mad. But there was no going back. Everybody seemed unsure of how to respond.

  It was Harvey who spoke first. “Is that what you Brits call understatement?”

  “You’re talking like we’re facing the end of the civilised world as we know it,” McSweeney interrupted sarcastically.

  “Yes,” Thornhill said.

  “Do you have any idea how many crank calls and conspiracy theories we have to deal with?” Harvey asked.

  “Yes, I do,” Thornhill replied crisply.

  “And you expect us to believe this?” Harvey asked.

  “So who is this ‘prominent citizen’?” Douglass had regained his confidence and was back in the game.

  “Mr Calvin November,” Thornhill replied.

  There was a stunned silence. They were playing for time, each considering the implications for their own personal and political agendas.

  “And how did you come to that conclusion, Sir Jack?” Harvey eventually asked, as if humouring a lunatic.

  “I’m not ready to disclose that,” Thornhill said flatly.

  “Don’t act like a virgin in a whorehouse, what have you got?” Douglass said aggressively.

  “I’ve made my position clear. On the one occasion when you got close, one of my people was killed, others were injured and our prime source was put at serious risk,” Thornhill said coldly.

  “Fuck your source, you say our President is at risk and you won’t tell us what you got!” Douglass exploded.

  “Not yet,” Thornhill said flatly.

  “What this suggests to me is that you’re out of your depth, Sir Jack,” McSweeney said. “If you’d come to us earlier, all that stuff in Bermuda could have been avoided. The responsibility is entirely yours. We’d have provided a safe environment.”

  Safe for whom? Thornhill wondered.

  “Where is your source now?” Harvey aske
d.

  “Safe,” said Thornhill, thinking of the tall building that looked like an apartment block, above Hampstead Heath on the ridge north of London. “How we derived this information is much less important than the information itself.”

  “Let’s hear it,” McSweeney said.

  “It is our belief that the threat is centred on the forthcoming summit in Geneva.”

  “Go on,” Harvey said.

  “Let’s hear it,” McSweeney said. It seemed to be a favourite phrase.

  “I believe that the lives or possibly the sanity of the principle participants are in danger.”

  The questions came rapidly.

  “How?” Harvey asked.

  “A chemical attack,” Thornhill said.

  “Chemical attack? What kind of chemical attack?” Brightman joined the questioning.

  “A bio-chemical attack. Something entirely new, devised specifically for this purpose,” Thornhill replied.

  “Why? To what end? We have a study that lists more than three hundred chemical agents capable of killing any number of people in an environment like the Geneva summit,” Brightman said. “Many of them could be made in any high school lab. Terrorism manual page one.”

  “Why go to the trouble of creating something new?” Harvey added.

  “This is not about killing,” Thornhill said.

  “Then what the fuck is it about?” Douglass shouted down the length of the table.

  “It’s about control,” Thornhill said coldly.

  “Let’s hear it,” McSweeney said again.

  Thornhill found the repetition of the phrase strangely irritating.

  “I suspect it’s intended to be a demonstration of power. The power to set world leaders at each other’s throats; I mean that in the most literal sense, gentlemen.”

  “What could anybody possibly gain from attempting a stunt like that?” McSweeney said.

  “Everything,” Thornhill replied.

  “That’s preposterous,” McSweeney said dismissively.

  “Yes, it is preposterous,” Thornhill said, and paused for a moment. Then he took a gamble, appealing to both reality and paranoia. “But you all know there’s something going on. Invitations to important meetings are being cancelled or postponed. Key people are not returning calls. There are unexpected absences. I’ll put it to you plainly – you’re all big beasts in this jungle. None of you would have survived so long if you couldn’t read the signs.”

  It worked. Round the table there was a silent interchange of glances.

  “Hitler was elected to power.” Petersen had not previously spoken; now he said something that seemed both bizarre and irrelevant.

  “What!” Douglass shouted in annoyance.

  Petersen continued without acknowledging the interruption. “The Nazis were elected because everything else was seen to have failed. The military had failed to win a world war. Money had failed; a week’s wages wouldn’t put one meal on the table. Democracy had failed and there were private armies on the streets. Moreover, they had an enemy within, a revolutionary movement, much like the one that had taken over Russia just a few years before. Worst of all, they lost confidence in the system, in their history, in themselves as a nation. They wanted their pride back, they wanted simple solutions. Then along comes Adolph who offers them everything they want, and more. He tells them they can stand tall and kick ass without impediment. A restoration of the natural order of things.”

  Thornhill checked his natural instinct to correct such a crude analysis.

  “People will have anything but chaos,” Petersen said. “Anybody hear echoes?”

  “We don’t need no history lessons, the future’s got enough problems without importing them from the past. Let’s move on,” Douglass said irritably.

  John Brightman’s civil tone was overlaid with sarcasm. “May we hear your analysis, or should I perhaps say screenplay?”

  “Mr Petersen spoke about echoes. A people no longer certain of who they are, with a longing for the security of simple answers. Our system hasn’t been able to deliver answers; it doesn’t even want to listen to the questions. That’s why the largest party in any election is the non-voting party. Now, offer that same constituency a vast amount of money – a hundred billion dollars. Then give everyone with access to an Internet connection a direct say in exactly how it’s spent and you’ve got the makings of electronic mob rule.”

  “Sir Jack, I believe the argument is in good hands and I regret I must leave,” Petersen said as he rose and gathered up his papers.

  Thornhill noticed that there were no good wishes. It was as if the scandal Petersen had to answer for was a terminal disease and nobody wanted to risk infection.

  Thornhill continued. “I believe that whatever is planned for the Geneva Summit is intended to be the first act in an unfolding strategy.”

  Douglass did not seem to understand the magnitude of the argument. “Just exactly what are you proposing, Sir Thornhill?”

  “That you believe me.”

  “And what should we believe?”

  “That you have an urgent duty to restrain November and the power he represents,” Thornhill said.

  “You talk like he’s some kind of home-grown Bin Laden,” Douglas said contemptuously.

  “The words are yours, not mine, Senator.”

  A secretary cautiously entered the room and put a note in front of Sean Harvey. He read it and slid it across the table to Douglass. The act had an air of theatre about it.

  “I regret it is necessary for us to adjourn,” Douglass said.

  Though Thornhill had half anticipated some manoeuvre of this kind, the accuracy of his expectation did not reduce his sense of helplessness. Events seemed to be moving beyond any influence he had hoped to have upon them.

  “We’ll reconvene at nine a.m. tomorrow. That okay with you, Sir Thornhill?”

  For the first time Thornhill realised that Douglass’s misuse of his title was not an ill-informed error but a deliberate sleight. The realities of power were being spelt out to him.

  “Nine a.m. it is then.”

  Douglass nodded as if not wanting to engage in further discussion.

  Thornhill remained at the table and waited until the group got to the large conference room door; then he fired a parting shot.

  “A final factor to consider, gentlemen,” he said.

  They turned to look at him.

  He knew it was his last chance. “Remember the principles of judo. The aim is to turn the adversary’s force against himself. In these new circumstances, the great power of the United States is its greatest vulnerability.”

  The group murmured an impatient acknowledgement and moved into the corridor.

  *

  Thornhill declined the offer of a car, and strode down the long flight of steps and immersed himself in the crowds of tourists and bureaucrats taking a lunch break. It was something that he would have severely disciplined a junior for doing in the same circumstances. Anything could happen. A man with a shared secret of this magnitude was a man with enemies. The advice of Hal Waters kept playing in his mind like a tape loop: ‘They’re all frightened of each other. Nobody knows exactly where the balance of power lies at any one time. It changes, sometimes hour by hour; that’s what makes them nervous and it’s what makes them dangerous.’

  The satellite office was little more than ten minutes away. It had little to do with satellites in space. The name went back to the Cold War when there had been the need for a discreet venue for sensitive meetings.

  Its location was known to a few in the trade but not to outsiders, especially the media. The entrance was via a corridor in an apartment block to the rear of the main building. What amused Thornhill was that the front of the building, with its view of the Capitol beyond, was used daily by broadcast correspondents as a backdrop for on-camera reports of the major stories of the day. Over the years, Thornhill had several times conducted discussions of some of the world’s most critically important
issues while the international press were plying their trade on the other side of the venetian blinds, two floors below.

  Thornhill commandeered the main conference room and made it plain to the staff that he did not want to be interrupted. He worked far into the night. For several hours, he repeatedly drew up courses of action and abandoned each of them as improbable or impracticable. Sometime in the early hours of the morning, the phone rang.

  “Code Delta.” The Communications Officer entered the office without knocking. Before Thornhill could complain about the intrusion, he added, “It’s Mr Lloyd-Emlyn from London, sir.”

  Lloyd-Emlyn sounded grim. “They seem to be working late in Senator Douglass’s office. They phoned a few minutes ago. The Duty Officer put the call through to me at home.”

  Thornhill hated long introductions.

  “And?”

  “Your meeting has been moved back forty-eight hours and the participants have changed.”

  “Who are they?”

  Lloyd-Emlyn read the list. It was longer than before.

  “Do you know any of them?” Lloyd-Emlyn asked.

  “Enough of them to know that the whole thing has been downgraded, as well as delayed.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “They’re stalling for time,” Thornhill said.

  Lloyd-Emlyn was indignant. “It’s insulting to you personally, asking you to wait and then attend a meeting of assistants rather than principals.”

  “I have no intention of complying. I want you to call them back on a secure line. Tell them that I shall not be attending and that you will represent me. Get on the first plane in the morning. If you can’t do that, call the diplomatic flight at Lyneham. Use my personal authority if you have to.”

  Thornhill returned to his papers and tried to clear his mind. After a few minutes, the phone rang again. The Communications Officer sounded hesitant.

  “I’m sorry for a second interruption, sir, but it’s Mr Morgenstern. He says it’s a matter of the greatest urgency.”