I was struck by the open hostility between two of the most powerful people in the country, but I kept silent, waiting for the civil servant to regain his composure.
‘At three thirty this afternoon,’ he continued, when he was ready, ‘the Prime Minister was scheduled to make an announcement that will have the most profound effect on this nation. She was intending to announce the cancellation of the renewal of the Trident missile system.’ He paused, looking at me. ‘You know what Trident is, I take it.’
Those sensitive hackles of mine couldn’t have risen any higher. ‘The Faslane base lay within my operating territory as Chief Constable of Strathclyde,’ I growled at him. ‘My force had contingency plans for every sort of disaster, including the disappearance of the city of Glasgow. So yes, I rather do know what it is. Are you telling me that the government is cancelling the upgrade of the system? If so, what’s the point of keeping it? It’ll soon be obsolete, if it isn’t already.’
‘We’re not keeping it,’ Hamblin replied.
That did surprise me.
‘We’re abandoning the deterrent? You’ll make the people of Scotland very happy.’ I glanced at Kramer. ‘What happened? Was the independence referendum result too close for your liking?’
‘We’re not abandoning the deterrent either,’ the Cabinet Secretary said. ‘It will be maintained, but the “continuous at sea” principle will be superseded by a new delivery system, one which will be much more effective and also much cheaper. Instead of large solid-fuelled rockets launched from nuclear submarines on continuous patrols, it will be based on a projectile with a laser propulsion system. These will carry miniaturised warheads to multiple targets. The package will be much lighter, and will be capable of launch from aircraft, vessels, and from the ground in tactical situations. Once the payload has been delivered, the projectile will return to base, or proceed to any designated point. And,’ he added, ‘it will be unique to the United Kingdom. The system will be called Spitfire, in tribute to a familiar British icon.’
‘That sounds like nothing else on earth,’ I observed.
‘You are absolutely right,’ Hamblin declared, with a sudden burst of enthusiasm. ‘It will transform our global position. From being at best the third-ranking member of the nuclear club, we will be out there on our own in terms of strike power and effectiveness. Because it isn’t a ballistic missile, the rocket-based defence systems that the Americans have developed will be useless against Spitfire . . . not that it would ever be directed at them, of course. Its range will be unlimited, Mr Skinner.’
‘That’s not to say the missile submarine fleet will be redundant,’ the Home Secretary added. ‘As the Cabinet Secretary said, Spitfire can be launched at sea and so the Trident boats will be adapted to carry them instead of rockets. The only difference will be that they’ll have to surface, although the Aldermaston people are working on a version that can be launched from a submerged vessel.’
‘How the hell have we managed to keep the development of such a system secret?’ I asked.
‘By keeping the circle of knowledge as small as possible,’ Hamblin replied, ‘and also by keeping it compartmentalised. Those working on the project only knew their own part; the totality is known to very few people, even within the core group . . .’
I held up a hand. ‘Stop; what’s this core group?’
‘The core Cabinet,’ Kramer volunteered. ‘The Prime Minister, me, the Chancellor, Defence Secretary and Foreign Secretary, plus the Cabinet Secretary. We took the decision to commit to Spitfire. What Mr Hamblin was about to say was that even within the core group, there is restricted knowledge. The whole package only exists in Mr Hamblin’s safe keeping in the Cabinet Office, and not on paper either. Treasury has the financial models and Defence has the operational models; Foreign Office is briefed on international fall-out . . . unfortunate term but you know what I mean.’
‘I do,’ I said, ‘and I guess that will be considerable.’
‘Absolutely,’ the Home Secretary agreed. ‘All sorts of people will be very pissed off with us. The Americans will be very piqued at having lost effective control of the British deterrent as the providers of Trident, and at no longer being the nuclear superpower; our NATO allies will take some talking round, and as for our relations with the EU, they’ll go from worse to worst. As for the other side, our trading relationships with China will be vulnerable, and as for the man in the Kremlin, I can see the veins on his neck standing out already . . . especially when his generals realise the benefit of Spitfire that we’ll keep out of the announcement.’
He frowned, paused, reflecting; then he made a decision and continued.
‘As far as hostiles are concerned, wherever they are, we will have virtually undetectable first-strike capability. The system can literally fly under the radar, faster than you can imagine.’
‘So a nuclear war could be over before the losers even knew it had begun?’
‘Precisely; their command centres would be destroyed before they had a chance to retaliate. That’s how fast the projectiles travel.’
‘That is fucking scary,’ I conceded. ‘Morally scary too,’ I suggested.
‘Yes, but so what? If the North Koreans had this technology, would their signature on a treaty make you sleep easier at night?’
‘Not a lot,’ I admitted. ‘How did we develop this thing anyway?’ I asked. ‘What defence establishments do we have that are capable of that?’
‘We didn’t develop it,’ Kramer replied. ‘We bought it.’
I stared at him. ‘Amazon has gone that far?’
‘Very funny, but your humour is actually pretty close to the mark. The Spitfire projectile and its propulsion system was developed by a private individual, an American citizen named John Balliol, a billionaire who describes himself as a high-tech entrepreneur.’
‘Balliol?’ I repeated, as the name jumped up and bit me. I knew it well, for it had figured a couple of times in my past.
‘Any relation to a man named Everard Balliol, a crazy American who owned a large chunk of the Scottish Highlands?’
Kramer nodded. ‘His son. Everard Balliol died five years ago when one of his household, a Korean bodyguard, robbed and killed him. John inherited; he’d been playing around with private projects for years with the limited cash that his father let him have, but once he inherited he committed to his dreams. One of them was laser propulsion. There’s nothing new about the concept, it’s been explored for years as a way forward in powering spacecraft.’
‘As in ion rockets?’
‘Yes, but they only work in space; laser propulsion, or some forms of it, have capability within the atmosphere. That’s what Balliol’s team focused on, in a secret establishment in Brazil . . . hence the Amazon link. They succeeded, not in producing an engine that would take us from Miami to Mars, as he had imagined, but in miniaturising the system. When he saw what he had, he brought it to us.’
I asked the obvious. ‘Why us? Balliol’s American.’
‘Yes,’ Hamblin said, forcing his way back into the discussion, ‘but he is an Anglophile, as was his father, with a dislike of his own nation that borders on hatred. I don’t know why, but it’s not relevant.’
More of a Scotophile, I thought as I recalled crazy old Everard, but I let it pass.
‘Balliol didn’t realise his system’s full potential,’ the Cabinet Secretary continued, ‘but he knew enough to believe that it should not be given to a nation with the potential to elect a war-mongering demagogue as its commander-in-chief, so he brought it to us. His price was one billion sterling, and his team’s participation in future development, that to be funded by the British government.
‘Oh yes,’ Hamblin murmured, ‘and one other thing; a British passport. John Balliol is now a citizen of the United Kingdom.’
‘When did this happen?’ I asked.
/>
‘Two years ago; during the Locheil administration. That’s when the agreement with Balliol was struck. Since then his development team has been working at Aldermaston, the Atomic Weapons Establishment, which was rebranded at the beginning of the century as AWE, in a burst of “Cool Britannia” enthusiasm.
‘Its staff have been working on warhead miniaturisation for years; when the Balliol people came on board, it was just a natural fit. And yet,’ he added, ‘none of the research staff know the totality of the project, only Balliol himself.’
‘Outside the core group you spoke of, who else knows about this?’
‘Mrs Dennis, the Chief of the Defence Staff, and the heads of the three services, Army, Navy and RAF. They know the outline, but not the detail. Also the head of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service; his department has an operational brief to look for any sign of development of a similar system in other parts of the world.’
I frowned. ‘Might that be because you don’t trust Balliol not to have sold the technology to a second buyer?’
‘It might,’ the Home Secretary conceded with a faint smile. ‘There is no sign of it, I must say. It looks as if the man is on the level, but it’s a sensible precaution to have taken.’
I nodded. ‘How advanced are we? How close to deployment?’
‘We have battlefield systems available now,’ Hamblin replied, ‘and the manufacture of longer-range projectiles is under way; we have a viable prototype already. Within two years, continuous-at-sea deterrence will be no more, in its current form.’
‘How have you been able to achieve this without it being detected? The missile tests must have left some sort of a trail, surely.’
‘Or again, these aren’t missiles as such, Mr Skinner. We refer to them as projectiles, but they are remotely pilotable aircraft. Any nation, hostile or otherwise, that’s had us under surveillance will have assumed that we were testing drones. Effectively that’s what they are.
‘Flying bombs, with a delivery speed at least five times that of the fastest conventional aircraft, global range and a propulsion system without a heat signature. The fact is, we could launch one from Aldermaston now, and obliterate Pyongyang by teatime.’
I whistled. ‘From what you’re telling me, I reckon there should be an international treaty to ban these things.’
‘You may be right,’ Kramer acknowledged, ‘but the genie’s left the bottle and the cork’s been lost. Be grateful that we have the system and our enemies don’t.’
‘We have the system,’ I countered, ‘but do we have to deploy it?’
‘That’s the decision that the core group took.’
‘The core group,’ I repeated. ‘Not the Cabinet, not parliament.’
‘Sometimes leaders have to lead.’
‘And now one’s had a blade stuck in her head.’
‘Precisely, and you can see what Mrs Dennis and I are wondering. Has there been a security leak? Is there a connection between the attack on Emily and the announcement? Is this an attempt to sabotage Spitfire? That’s why you’re here, Mr Skinner, you and Commander McIlhenney. We are hoping that you can find out. What will you need?’
My head was swimming through the flood of information that had been dumped on me. ‘I don’t know yet,’ I replied, ‘but a full forensic examination of the crime scene would have been a good place to start.’
‘Noted,’ the Home Secretary said, testily, ‘but in its absence?’
‘We need a plan of this building showing all means of access to this corridor. We need to have access to CCTV as close as it gets to here, even if the scene itself isn’t covered. We need to interview every person with knowledge of the announcement, and of Spitfire,’ I looked at him then at Hamblin, ‘including you two.’
‘Us? We’ve just told you all we know,’ Kramer exclaimed.
‘No, sir, you’ve told me all you think you know. We will require to interview you both again, individually, and we’ll need to interview the other three members of the core group.’
‘As suspects?’ Hamblin snapped. ‘Surely, Mr Skinner . . .’
‘As witnesses,’ I countered, as patiently as I could.
‘Okay,’ his political master said. ‘You will have all the cooperation you ask for. You can interview all of us, with the exception of the military, at this stage at least. If it becomes necessary, we’ll see. Where do you want to base yourself? Thames House?’
I was on the point of agreeing with him; the Security Service headquarters building is a stone’s throw from the Palace of Westminster and its security was guaranteed. But a potential problem stopped me short. All the people I had named were high profile; they rarely travelled alone and wherever they went they tended to draw attention.
‘No,’ I replied. ‘It’ll be more discreet if we’re somewhere that the people we’re interviewing would normally go.’
Kramer nodded. ‘Yes, that makes sense. If the Chancellor was seen walking into the MI5 building, God knows what sort of rumours would start. Mr Hamblin, please arrange for Mr Skinner and Commander McIlhenney to be accommodated within the Cabinet Office. That’s adjacent to Downing Street. Will that be okay?’
‘Yes, that’ll do,’ I told him. ‘Now, in addition to the core group, there are others we’ll need to interview. We’ll begin with Dr Satchell, and then we’ll want to speak to Ms Repton’s protection officers. As soon as they’ve delivered her to hospital, have them all come to see us.’
‘Mickey I can understand, but why do you need the protection people?’ he challenged. ‘They weren’t here when Emily was attacked.’
‘Maybe not, but I think you’ll find they want to help trace her attacker. I know, I know, you’ve given us a specific remit, to seek out any link between the attack and the Spitfire announcement, but I don’t propose to stick to it. We will find out who did this thing, whatever the motive. I need to talk to these two officers to determine whether anything has happened recently that might give us a line of inquiry.
‘One other thing,’ I added. ‘It is not possible for Neil McIlhenney to operate alongside me without knowing at least some of the story. You will leave me to include him as far as I need to, and that will be at my discretion. I’m talking here about a man whose job is to run deep-cover police officers infiltrating organised crime. For you or anyone else to suggest that he can’t be trusted with information, well, frankly, that offends me.’
‘Have it your way,’ Kramer sighed, with a shrug. ‘What about Balliol?’ he asked, suddenly. ‘Do you want to see him?’
‘He’s here?’
‘No, but I can bring him up from Aldermaston at a couple of hours’ notice.’
‘Then I may need to interview him also. I’ll tell you if I do.’
As I spoke I heard movement in the corridor outside. ‘Now,’ I said, brimming over with pleasure at the experience of laying down the law to the two guys who, on that day, in that place, were running the country, ‘I need to get to work, so that means I need to get back to Mrs Dennis. Mr Hamblin, the plan was that you go with the PM to hospital, but as this is now a genuine emergency admission you’d probably just be in the way, so you’d be better employed back at the Cabinet Office arranging our accommodation and arranging for the people we need to interview to come to see us, pronto.’
He stared at me with something that I couldn’t define; it could have been fascination or it could have been hatred; either way I wasn’t bothered, not at that time.
‘You, Home Secretary,’ I continued, ‘have an announcement to make about the Prime Minister’s sudden indisposition, and you’ve had a stroke of luck. The fact that she’s unexpectedly still alive . . . if she still is . . . means that if your press office people are any good, they’ll be able to draft something for you that doesn’t require you to tell a flat-out lie.’ I winked at him, with the memory of his stunt
with his bodyguard fresh in my mind. ‘That’ll probably be a new experience for you.’
Six
I went back to the Prime Minister’s office, with a brief nod to Daffyd as I passed him, to find Neil and Amanda waiting there, but nobody else.
‘She’s gone?’ I asked, as I eased myself into a chair beside them.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘two minutes ago.’
‘They couldn’t wait for Hamblin,’ she added.
‘There was no need anyway,’ I said. ‘He has other things to do than wringing his hands by the bedside. From the haste, I take it the Prime Minister is still alive.’
Amanda nodded. ‘Yes. They’re not sure of her level of awareness, for she’s unable to move, and completely unresponsive. The paramedics were not hopeful, to say the least.’
‘The real ones or yours?’
She returned my smile. ‘Mine were stood down, given the change in circumstances. She’s been taken to the high-level isolation unit in the Royal Free Hospital, in line with the original cover story that we agreed when we thought she was dead.’
‘Which makes me ask . . .’ I said, ‘how’s Dr Satchell? I think I owe her an apology. I went a wee bit over the top at her along in Kramer’s office. None of the three of us had any doubt that Ms Repton was dead when we saw her lying there, and we’ve seen a fair few who were. Even the sound she made could have been a reflex, gases escaping from somewhere, and the reaction of her pupil was minimal.’
‘Don’t waste your sympathy on the woman Satchell,’ Amanda snorted. ‘She’s an unctuous little twat, without a friend in the House of Commons. I don’t know why Emily Repton ever chose her as her aide.’
‘What do you know about the Prime Minister?’ I asked her.
‘In what respect?’ she countered, cautiously.
‘In every respect. Don’t tell me you don’t have a file on her.’
‘We did, as we do on most leading politicians, but when she was Home Secretary she had Hubert Lowery, my predecessor, destroy it. When I took over I’d have rebuilt it, but by that time she’d moved to the DWP and the Civil Service there built a wall around her.’
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