Mrs Keener: Your country, of course. The motherland, the guys we kicked into touch back in 1776, the good old UK. I'm visiting next month, ain't I? And your Prime Minister Clasen has been pretty blunt about his dislike for me and what I get up to. He's forever running to the UN and griping about me like the preppy little schoolkid that he is. Maybe I'll use my state visit to Britain next month as an opportunity to launch regime change there. Clasen ain't so popular, is he? He's been trying to handle y'all's discontent over food shortages and the high mortality rate among the elderly and the hospitals not coping and the trains not running and all of that, and he ain't been making that great a job of it. I've heard his approval ratings are abysmal, like, the worst ever. Maybe I should come along and bump his sorry backside out of Downing Street. What do you think to that?
Makepeace: [voiceover] She's joking. At least, I like to think she is. It's apparent that my line of questioning has irritated her. She told my producer originally that no questions would be off-limits, but I seem to have overstepped an unspoken boundary. Some sort of mollifying gesture is in order.
Makepeace: I spoke to Ted earlier today. He told me he's looking forward to "date night" tonight.
Mrs Keener: Oh, that Ted! I tell you, we're like two teenagers sometimes, courting all over again.
Makepeace: I get the impression he thinks you've changed.
Mrs Keener: For the better, I trust.
Makepeace: He used the word "rediscover." In this context, what does that…? I'm not sure if I…
Mrs Keener: That's what I meant — two teenagers courting. Perhaps what he was saying is he feels he doesn't know me quite so well any more, on account of I'm so goshdarn busy all of the time. Just makes it all the more fun getting reacquainted, though, doesn't it?
Makepeace: [voiceover] We're in Marine One, flying over the Potomac river to the Pentagon. The president is off to one of her regular meetings with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I don't know if we're going to be allowed much further than the Pentagon heliport, but I'm going to try my best.
Audio Description Commentary: Marine One sets down in front of the Pentagon.
Makepeace: [voiceover] These weekly get-togethers are one of Mrs Keener's own innovations. Such is the intensity and frequency of American military operations overseas that they've become almost a necessity.
Audio Description Commentary: President Keener exits the helicopter with her aides, heading towards a waiting limousine. Peter gets out too. Security men block the way, preventing him and the film crew from following the president into the limo.
Makepeace: [shouting above the helicopter engine noise] That's as far as we get, apparently. It seems there are, after all, certain areas of the president's political life we're not going to be privy to. So… off she goes in that big black armour-plated car, to a room where the fate of American troops, and possibly of civilians of a foreign nation, is about to be decided. Like anyone else, all we can do is stand on the sidelines and wait.
Makepeace: Bryan, Carol Ann, what would you say your mother's strongest attributes were?
Bryan Keener: She's a great mom and everything. I really, like, admire her. She's a role model. She doesn't take no BS from anybody.
Carol Ann Keener: Bryan, you can't say BS on television.
Bryan Keener: Yeah, you can. British television is like, they don't care. You can say BS, you just can't say bullshit.
Audio Description Commentary: Bryan claps a hand over his mouth.
Carol Ann Keener: [giggling] Oh my Lord, Mom's gonna kill you. You said a cuss word.
Bryan Keener: It wasn't that bad of a cuss word. She won't get mad, will she? Will she? Not too mad. You won't show that bit, huh, Mr Makepeace?
Makepeace: Does your mother get cross easily?
Carol Ann Keener: She's got kinda a temper, sometimes. Shouts a bit. 'Specially after she took this job. It's 'cause she's so stressed out and everything. She didn't use to be like that, before. Used to be much gentler with us.
Bryan Keener: But she never shouts 'less we deserve it. And she's got high standards, you know what I'm saying? For herself as much as for us. You promise you won't show that bit?
Makepeace: I can't not ask. The big red button. How does it feel to have your finger on that? How does it feel to know that the power to destroy the world is in your hands? It must be — I don't know if exciting is the best way to describe it — exhilarating? Or terrifying?
Mrs Keener: It's a solemn responsibility that I take seriously, very seriously indeed. There ain't a day goes by that I don't wonder, am I going to have to make that decision today? Am I going to have to make that judgement call?
Makepeace: That Judgement Day call, ha ha.
Mrs Keener: Ha ha, trying to trip me up there, ain't you, Pete? In that sneaky, snide English way of yours.
Makepeace: No. No, I -
Mrs Keener: Maybe get me to admit I'm one of them religious fundamentalists, one of them, whatchemacall, End Timers, believing we're in the Last Days and Armageddon's waiting just around the corner.
Makepeace: No, it was just a pun, a turn of -
Mrs Keener: It'd make for a good headline, huh? "Holy Wackjob Has Finger On Nukular Trigger." But you've got me wrong. I don't want to see the world end, Pete. Not that way. In a big ball of fire? That'd be just plain wrong.
Makepeace: Do you think the world is ending? I mean, as we're on the subject. These snowfalls, the low temperatures, three years of almost constant winter… There are some who would say civilisation is teetering on the brink. We can't withstand many more years of this. We won't be able to maintain a stable society if the situation continues.
Mrs Keener: Pish and poppycock! Things'll pick up. They surely have to.
Makepeace: And if they don't? Your critics have said you're being remarkably casual about what has the potential to be total environmental cataclysm. You haven't instituted a single policy to tackle it or even investigate the cause.
Mrs Keener: We know the cause. Volcanoes. What're we gonna do? Stop 'em all up with giant corks? Heck, maybe I should explode a few atomic bombs. Maybe that'd help melt all the snow away. Joshing, Pete, just joshing. The look on your face!
Makepeace: But have you -
Mrs Keener: Let me say something, Mr Documentary Maker Man, just so's the viewers back home in the UK don't get the wrong idea. I've made plans to deal with what's going on. Contingency measures are in place. Things have been trialled which need to be trialled, and no, I'm not gonna tell you what I mean by that, 'cause it's top secret. If there's anyone out there doubts I have the grit or gumption to go through with my intentions — when appropriate — let them be under no illusion. I do. I very much do. Where's that camera? See my face. Look into my eyes. I am not to be rejected or ignored or trifled with. I am not the type to take any kinda challenge or insult lying down. I am here to respond to things as best I see fit, and you would do well not to underestimate my depth of feeling or my determination to act in the name of what I consider is right. Is that clear?
Makepeace: [voiceover] As firm a reiteration of Lois Keener's presidential credo as there's ever been. And perhaps a hint as to her attraction to ordinary middle-class American voters. That forthrightness. That plain speaking. Although I can't help feeling she's strayed somewhat off-topic. When did the bad weather become an adversary needing to be faced down? I can't follow the logic.
Makepeace: [in studio, to camera] So, what have I learned during my time with the president? She is not someone to be crossed lightly, yet she retains an essential charisma. She has a rigorous command of the facts of any given situation, yet she also relies heavily on her instincts, and her faith. She is fearsome and fearless. She is a woman who has undergone a profound spiritual metamorphosis, one that has taken her from smalltown Georgia anonymity and propelled her into the driving seat of earth's last true superpower. There is steel beneath that courteous feminine exterior, yet warmth as well. She is a president of contrasts. Her true nature is elusive, slipp
ery, tricky. Perhaps only she knows her own mind fully, she and one other, the God to whom she has dedicated herself wholeheartedly, believing implicitly in His plan, His mission for her, relying on His guidance. I've come away from making this documentary with a profound respect for Mrs Keener, coupled with a nagging unease. It's as if, for all that she's beguiled me, there's a part of me that recoils from that. The only way I can describe it is like being hypnotised by a cobra — the allure of something beautiful but dangerous. I'm hoping that her imminent visit to Britain will be as anodyne and uneventful as such state occasions normally are. And the very fact that I'm hoping that at all unnerves me. I'm Peter Makepeace. This has been Makepeace Meets… Thank you for watching, and goodnight.
Twenty-Eight
The tape ended. Skuld snapped the television off.
For a time no one said anything, so I felt pressure to break the silence.
"She's a foxy lady and no mistake," I said. "Not sure she's completely all there, up top." I tapped my temple. "But that's not necessarily a drawback. The more screws a girl has loose, the looser a screw she is."
Odin and the Norns just looked at me.
"What? I grant you, not the most PC remark ever made, but…"
Still looking at me.
"What? Am I missing something here? I am, aren't I? I thought I was going to find out who your Big Bad is, and then all you do is show me a programme about…"
Gid Coxall, king of the slowly dropping pennies.
"Oh no. You are kidding."
Their faces.
"You're not kidding."
I recalled the book Odin had lent me while I was recuperating from the accident.
"When you gave me her autobiography," I said to him, "I thought it was just… Well, at first I thought you must be a fan of hers. Admired her politics. I was halfway to thinking the Valhalla Mission was some kind of neo-Nazi outfit, and you approved of her views on gays and abortion rights and the rest. And then I thought, maybe not. Maybe you oppose her because she's big government. She's The Man. That was before I got the whole Norse gods thing clear, of course. But if you're against her, if she's the enemy… It is her, isn't it? You haven't got anything against Peter Makepeace? Because he's smarmy, yes, a bit of a prick and a know-all, but that's not a reason to set up an army. I mean, there are plenty of other TV personalities I can think of that deserve merciless hounding and execution. Simon Cowell and Piers Morgan spring to mind. Nothing wrong with those two that couldn't be solved with a Claymore mine down the underpants. But not Makepeace."
"It isn't him," Odin said.
"So — Keener. Christ. Shit. You really… Mrs Keener. You want to eliminate the President of the United States. The most powerful human being on the planet. Well, good luck with that."
"Don't you want to know why she's our foe?"
"No, Odin, I do not. What I want is not to know anything about any of this, not any more. Fuck, you nearly had me. I was thinking, 'Join the Norse gods on some military campaign? That could be cool.' But all you're after is assassinating President Keener. Bit tawdry, isn't it? And when's this going to happen? Her state visit, I suppose. You're going to bundle in with all your troops while she's on a tour of the Houses of Parliament or Buckingham Palace or wherever, take out her secret service detail, then take her out — and all because she's a warmonger, right? Forgive me, but that's not exactly very godly of you, is it? Or is it? Is that what gods do when they're at a loose end? Get in there amongst the mortals and create havoc? Throw their divine weight around, because they can?"
"Gid, you're coming at this from entirely the wrong angle," Odin said.
"Mortal," said Urd dismissively. Like someone else might have said simpleton or moron.
"Only seeing the superficial details," Verdande agreed.
"The broader picture eludes him," said Skuld.
I blanked them. Smug fucking bitches. "If you hate her so much," I said to Odin, "by all means feel free to. She's hardly my favourite politician, although her being a hot babe does take the edge off her for me. But what we Midgarders do in these situations is we try to vote the person out of office if we don't like them, or we go out on the streets and protest against them, or else we ignore them because if you do that long enough, eventually they go away. We don't just kill them. All right, sometimes we do. But not often, and only the real scumbags, the Ceausescus, the Saddams, the tyrants, the ones who wouldn't know a free and fair election if it came up and bit them on the ballot box. And also — America. Come on. You don't launch an attack on the leader of fucking America. That's inviting a complete deluge of shit to come down on your heads. Gods or not, the USA is one nation whose bad books you truly do not want to get into."
I paused for breath.
"Finished?" Odin said.
"Only getting started, mate."
"I ask because you haven't let me put forward my side of things."
"You haven't got a side to put forward. At least, not one I'm willing to hear."
"Please just give me a minute to explain."
"Explain what? That you're trying to get Britain into deep shit with the States? Because, mark my words, you manage to bump off Mrs Keener and this country's going to take the blame. Clasen'll tell the Yanks we had nothing to do with it, but with his track record of complaining about her they won't believe a word, and the fucking cruise missiles will be raining down before you can even sneeze. And that's if we're lucky. I wouldn't put it past them to drop daisy cutters or even go nuclear. They'd be that narked."
"What if I told you Mrs Keener is the one who wants to destroy us, not the other way round?"
"That's pretty far-fetched. How's she even know you exist? There's only one god as far as she's concerned, the big daddy of them all, Jehovah. You lot are a pagan aberration. You're not real to her. That'd be like saying she wants to get rid of unicorns. Or dinosaurs, which she doesn't believe in either." It said so in her book. Dinosaurs were a lie invented by evolutionary scientists to prove that life on earth had developed over millions of years when, as any sensible Creationist knew, the universe had been put together by God in just under a week. Must have come in kit form. Probably from Ikea.
"Unless," I went on slowly, "she does know you exist and wants to wipe you out precisely because you're non-Christian. Fuck. Is that it? Her game's heathen god genocide? The Man Upstairs has told her to do that for Him?"
Odin shook his grey head. "Would that it were that simple."
"But it doesn't bother her too much, attacking other countries. So why not pantheons as well? Your lot, the Greek ones, the Egyptian ones — I'm assuming they're all still around too."
"Not to my knowledge. As I told you before, I don't consort with deities from other faiths. I have no evidence to believe they were ever out there. Perhaps we are all isolated from one another in such a way that we can never meet. Perhaps, by cosmic design, every pantheon is an island, known only to itself and its worshippers. Every monotheist god too. This is not germane, anyway. Mrs Keener is not aggrieved with us on religious grounds, you have my assurance on that. Her hatred stems from a much closer, more personal source."
"He still hasn't fathomed it," Urd hissed to her sisters, with a nod at me.
"But he knows enough to make the connection," said Verdande.
"He is just about to," said Skuld. "It is due."
"Mrs Keener is holding a grudge against the Norse gods," I said. I was beginning to grasp the shape of something — a realisation that was immense and profound. The clues were all there. Principally I was remembering the tale Paddy had told while we were waiting for Sleipnir to arrive, and what Thor had said afterwards. Somehow I knew that was where the answer lay.
President Keener. Mrs Keener. Lois Keener.
Ping. Lightbulb popping on.
Oh no. No fucking way.
It couldn't be that straightforward, could it? That completely stupidly glaringly obvious?
I was about to speak again. Then there came an urgent rapping at the fro
nt door.
Twenty-Nine
Urd went to answer it. I heard a woman's voice asking for Odin. We all went out into the hallway to see who it was. Skadi, the little skier goddess. She was on the porch, with her skis still on and her face flushed. She'd just hurried here from somewhere, langlaufing straight up the Norns' garden path, ploughing ski tracks over Odin's and my footprints.
"Odin," she blurted out. "All-Father. I bear news from Heimdall. He has heard the distant advance of enemy troops. Artillery, he thinks, though he cannot identify of what kind. They approach from due west. Come quickly. We must gather our forces. Asgard is under threat."
Instead of answering, Odin merely closed his eye. I thought he was trying to pretend he hadn't heard what Skadi had said, or else was giving in to a moment of despair. Then he murmured, "Huginn, Muninn," and I realised he was communing with his ravens.
"Fly high, my faraway eyes," he said. "Higher, higher still. Soar to the apex of the heavens, where all stands revealed. Show me what you see."
He stood there for several minutes, turning his head this way and that as if scanning horizons, although his eye remained shut fast. His body swayed slightly, buffeted by winds none of the rest of us could feel. Then, at last, the eye snapped open.
"Nothing," he said.
"You mean Heimdall's wrong?" I said.
"No, no. If Heimdall has heard something, then Heimdall has heard something. And on Asgard's western boundary lies dim grey Niflheim, the world of mists. Of all the Nine Worlds, the only one I cannot see into, the only one opaque to my gaze. Which, naturally, makes it an ideal location from which to mount an incursion."
"Who's attacking? Who lives in Niflheim?"
"It is the realm of Hel, loathesome goddess of the dead. But, though she and I are hardly allies, to launch an assault like this is not her way."
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