Whispers of betrayal tg-3

by Michael Dobbs

  To Goodfellowe, Paris continues to mean hope. And love. Which means Elizabeth.

  So now he is perching expectantly on the corner of her tiny desk. 'Hey, I'm excused. No parade tonight.'

  Elizabeth appears determinedly unimpressed.

  Thought I might hang around. Until you're finished. Share a drink, maybe? There's something I want to ask you.'

  A frown flickers across her brow. He needs a different tactic.

  'Second thoughts, maybe I'll see if I can score with the blonde sitting over there by the mirror.'

  A pause. Still no response.

  'Obviously, Elizabeth, I'm doing something wrong. Am I sitting on your winning Lottery ticket or what?'

  'If you were I'd be feeding you through the mincer right now.'

  'That bad?'

  When she looks up, the answer is in her eyes. Not just distracted, despairing. Not wanting to face Goodfellowe, not wanting him to be there. Still a hostage in a cellar by the Black Sea.

  'Anything I can do?'

  The question seems to deflate her even further. No, he can't help and what's worse, she realizes with a flush of guilt that she's never even thought he might. She feels a little ashamed. 'The wine deal's gone wrong. Very wrong. I can't get either the wine or my money back and I desperately need an early night, Tom. Do you mind?'

  'Of course I do,' he responds, then pauses, hoping she might change her mind. 'Nothing I can do?' he asks again.

  'No.'

  'Fine. I'll see you, then.'

  'Thanks.'

  He is almost out of the door when she remembers. 'Oh, I'm sorry, poppet, what was that thing you wanted to ask me?'

  'No matter.' Another pause. 'It can wait.'

  He leaves, to think of Paris and his Paradise postponed, while Elizabeth can think only of Odessa.

  ELEVEN

  Amadeus had taken to running, long jogs through the City at night when the traffic had gone and taken most of its fumes with it. He couldn't think in the rabbit hutch that his wife insisted they call home, even when she wasn't there, which was frequently. He needed space, time to figure it all out, wanting to squeeze away the last effect of those cigarettes and get himself honed for what he knew lay ahead. The Barbican where they lived might have been convenient for his wife's shopping and social life, but to Amadeus it was worse than useless, the farthest point from any green field of almost any spot in London. He wished he were back on the mountainside of Longdon, and yearned for an enemy that could be fought with rifle and bayonet.

  He was clear that matters had escalated beyond his control. What had started as a skirmish had grown into all-out confrontation. It happens, things slip in war. They had begun in search of an apology but apologies only counted in matters of honour and they'd been disastrously naive to believe they might have found any shred of honour in Bendall. So now the stakes had to be raised. There was no middle way, no subtle means of getting this Government to change its policies. The Government itself had to be changed.

  The logic was compelling, inexorable. Bendall had to go.

  The consequence was equally inescapable.

  Treason.

  It was something they couldn't admit to, of course, not out in the open. For a soldier to seek the downfall of an elected Prime Minister was an offence so inexcusable that it would force Bendall's most implacable opponents to rally to his defence. Even the BBC would have to behave itself. It would make the bastard all but impregnable. No, a direct attack was impossible. Instead, Bendall would have to be worn down, undermined, humiliated and hounded until his position had crumbled and he crept out of Downing Street, or was dragged out by envious colleagues.

  Somehow treason had become their duty.

  This evening Amadeus had run as far as Regent's Park trying to clear his mind, struggling to understand the process by which he had started as a loyal officer and ended up a revolutionary. He still wasn't entirely clear by the time he had got back to the Barbican and headed for his apartment on the thirtieth floor. He used the stairs.

  As he opened his door, the first thing he saw was the answering machine blinking at him. He punched the button. A message from a Sergeant Harris at Wood Street police station. Amadeus didn't know a Sergeant Harris, or why he should be calling, but the policeman said it was important. Amadeus was to call back any time up to midnight. Or Sergeant Harris would call again in the morning.

  Oh, bugger.

  – =OO=OOO=OO-= The sun had not yet risen, yet already the Telecoms Chairman was standing at his desk, tieless, unshaven, agitated. A copy of the morning newspaper trembled in his outstretched hand.

  'WHIPPED!' it screamed. 'Bendall Humiliated As Government Loses Vital Budget Vote.'

  The front page recounted the dramatic events of the previous evening when, amidst scenes of great frenzy, the Government had been brought to its knees by the failure of dozens of its own backbenchers to vote for a vital financial measure. Yet this was neither insolence nor insurrection; to put no finer point on it, they had simply been nobbled. Only ten minutes before the vote their pagers had vibrated into action and called them off. Go home, the message had encouraged, go sleep or go play or whatever it is you do when the Whips are no longer watching – but go!

  It had been a hoax, of course. The Whips had realized that immediately and had made desperate efforts to correct it, only to discover that the telephone number assigned to their paging system was inexplicably and constantly engaged, as if someone was deliberately sabotaging it. So they had called the operator, who had explained that she was powerless to interfere, so they had shouted at her, but the more they had shouted the more she had insisted that there was nothing she could do, and would they please stop using such language. It was, she explained with commendable patience, a number that had been issued with a special security coding and under no circumstances could be interfered with. After all, someone might try to use it irresponsibly…

  By the time the Whips had battered their way through female intransigence, it was too late. Many Government supporters had been thrown into chaos, milling about in uncertainty like rustled cattle, while others simply trudged home, blissfully unaware, pagers switched off, as did Goodfellowe. Despite numerous and increasingly desperate points of order the vote had been taken. And the Government had lost.

  'How could this happen? How could it happen?' the Telecoms Chairman asked yet again. Since his arrival at the office it had seemed his only form of expression. He was in a state of considerable turmoil, having been woken at two by the Prime Minister. A personal call. Usually a pleasure, for they had been room-mates at university and remained close. It was one of the reasons he'd been given the job as chairman, to use his connections to smooth the path of controversial licence applications and to blunt the edge of government competition policy. He wasn't supposed to get hysterical phone calls in the middle of the night from a Prime Minister threatening to reintroduce transportation to the colonies especially for him.

  Over the following three hours, the problem had grown worse. He couldn't raise his personal assistant, and so had incredible trouble raising anyone else. He'd even had trouble getting into the building when he arrived unshaven with eyes like blood drops in the snow – and without his security pass. He was chairman of the company, for pity's sake, he didn't need a pass! But the night security staff, at least those who spoke English, were having none of it. No pass, no come in. It was the only part of Telecoms security that seemed to be working that night.

  'The sodding Government loses some sodding vote, all because some sod sods up our sodding pager system. And what I want to know is – which sod's responsible?'

  In fact, Bendall had made it crystal clear, in one of the more coherent portions of his telephone conversation, who he deemed to be responsible. The Chairman was responsible. Unless, that is, he could find some other copulative colon to take the blame, and quickly.

  The Chairman faced one of his staff. Just one. Sod it, even after all the redundancies he still had more than a
hundred thousand on his payroll, and yet all he could find at this hour of the morning was one miserable wretch. An audience of one was not much to share his humiliation, but at least it was an audience. He needed someone to shout at. He stood behind his desk, shaking the newspaper as if to emphasize his point, although in truth it was simply his hand that was shaking.

  For a while, the young man standing before him listened in silence to the outpourings of anger until he decided that he was on the brink of one of those moments in which careers suddenly changed paths, where they might be destroyed. Or perhaps made. He was a gambler. So he jumped.

  'It was the Opposition.'

  'What? What sodding opposition?' the Chairman demanded. 'Anyway, who the sodding hell are you?'

  'Hadcock. Tim Hadcock, sir,' the young man introduced himself once more. He was a junior member of the Policy and Presentation staff, not yet into his thirty-somethings, corporate lowlife, yet because of the bizarre accidents that litter a man's life he was confronted at this moment by opportunity. It was a pity, of course, that his director had been forced to commute by rail from Surrey ever since he'd lost his licence and wouldn't be arriving for at least another hour, but Hadcock was nothing if not resourceful and had no intention of hanging around waiting for one of life's accidents. Neither had his Chairman.

  'Explain yourself!'

  'Well, sir, I've talked to the Director of Engineering – he's hoping to be here shortly – and he is adamant it couldn't have been an accident. And the Director of Security – I got hold of him at a conference in Rio de Janeiro – insists that our internal systems are practically impregnable, both physically and technically.'

  'So?'

  'So it means that the breach in security didn't come from us. More than likely it came from the other end. From Westminster.'

  'What? What are you suggesting, Badcock? That I tell the Prime Minister it's his fault?'

  'Well, I don't suppose for a moment that the Government Whips sent out the message. So it must have been someone else at Westminster. Someone with an interest in making a laughing stock of the Government. Someone who's familiar with Whips and pagers, who might have had the opportunity of activating the system. Someone whose presence around the House late at night would be entirely acceptable.'

  'You mean…?'

  'Someone with both the motive and the means, sir.'

  'Such as…?'

  'Someone in the Opposition!'

  The Chairman's lips began moving as though silently rehearsing a plea. He experimented for a few moments, tried again, then shook his head in defeat. 'What evidence do you have for this allegation?'

  'Not a shred.'

  'So how do you know it's the sodding Opposition?'

  'I don't, sir. But if you'll forgive me…' The young man hesitated. He was about to make that career choice. He was not a Director. Not an Assistant Director. Not even an Assistant to the Assistant. He had so little to lose. 'I thought the purpose of the exercise wasn't so much a matter of proof as one of… well, of presentation. We know it wasn't us. So we need to put someone else in the frame. To take the pressure off us – off you, sir. And since we're unlikely ever to find out who was responsible, someone else will do. Anyone else, actually.'

  The Chairman's lips were moving once more, practising, following as Spatchcock – wasn't that his name? – set out his case that it could have been the Opposition. It was the sort of explanation the Government would willingly embrace. No direct accusation, of course, just a whisper or two in a friendly journalist's ear. Unattributable sources, that sort of thing. Or perhaps an allegation from the back benches under the cloak of parliamentary privilege, get everyone running around trying to identify some sort of dirty tricks squad. Press'd love that.

  'And there's that new licence application for digital TV around the corner on which we'll need the Government's help, sir,' the Chairman heard the young man remind him. 'We really need to get this one off our plate.'

  The Chairman was now sitting. He had had his head in his hands, contemplating.

  'Security's certain it couldn't have been our fault?'

  'Almost certain.'

  'Almost…?' Outside his window the sun was creeping above the horizon. Dawn. The time of scaffolds and executions.

  'There is always a theoretical possibility it was down to us, sir.'

  The Chairman moaned softly.

  'You really want to be hanged for a theory, sir?' A pause. 'Go for the Opposition. It's what the Government wants to hear, isn't it? Bury your doubts, go for what's certain.'

  The Chairman raised his eyes. 'What did you say your name was?'

  'Hadcock, sir. Tim Hadcock.'

  The Chairman's shoulders seemed slowly to discard the steel pins that had been keeping them taut and painfully hunched. Tell me, young Haddock. Are you by any chance free for lunch?'

  – =OO=OOO=OO-= The five of them are crowded into an anonymous hotel room. It's an unlikely location for war. Wilting roses on the wallpaper, cigarette burns on the bedside table, cheap foam sofas, that sort of thing. A place that caters for package tourists, where no one will remember their faces. But they'll remember what the five have come here to do.

  Amadeus's stomach is a whirlpool of adrenaline and unease, the same feeling he used to get standing in the door of a Hercules with the PJI screaming instructions at him. The man is screaming because the wind is whipping past at a hundred and twenty knots, turning their lungs to ice and beating like a hammer upon their ears. Amadeus has an SA80 rifle hooked to his chest, along with his container and a bergen that is stuffed with ammunition and food and clothing. The red is on and he's about to jump into total darkness.

  He knows that's the point where it can all begin to go wrong. You can prepare only so far. There's always the unexpected, things that get out of control. Little things. Like Mary, who decided to try out her new toy on the Whips' paging system without consulting him first. And Skulls's leg, which, now he is sober and sentient, is hurting like hell. Then there is Freddie Payne and his mood swings. Nervous one day, morose the next, followed by outbursts of arrogance and sometimes all three in quick succession.

  There's also the interview Amadeus has agreed to have in the morning with Sergeant Harris, and he still doesn't know what the fuck that's all about, although if the good sergeant only wants to talk to him rather than drag him off by the balls then Amadeus knows he's still ahead of the game. Just.

  Yes, there's always the unexpected, the sudden shift of the slipstream that can spin you round until you've no bloody idea which way you're facing, only that you're heading down. Knowing that in thirty seconds you might be dead. Or worse, broken.

  Thirty seconds is about as long as Mary says it will take.

  For this is Mary's piece tonight, inspired with almost comic irony by that halfwit Earwick. Bloody fool didn't know when to stop posing. He'd been showing the news cameras around his new empire of the Home Office, that curious mixture of reprieves and repression that glowers like a decaying white elephant beside St James's Park. It'd only been an establishing shot for the evening news, the sort of thing where politicians are shown walking stiffly up the stairs or browsing self-consciously through a briefing paper trying to pretend they are speed readers. Those who have no clue whatsoever might be seen plucking some book from the library shelf, presumably as evidence of their intellectual curiosity, then destroying the effect by flicking through the pages backwards. Earwick was wise to all this; he wanted to display himself as a Thoroughly Modern Minister, every part a man of the new Millennium, revved up and switched on. So he had seated himself at his computer terminal and logged on. Not that you could see the screen or the password he had entered to access his e-mail, but his two fingers had wandered across his keyboard 'like slugs across a leaf of lettuce,' as Mary had described it later.

  There are few surprises in the passwords used by laymen. Many consist of the word itself, PASSWORD. People can be so gloriously unimaginative. But Earwig could never be commonplace, h
e was a man of theatrical flourishes, his password had to be both personal and significant. He had chosen HOMO.MAN. An obvious signature for a Home Secretary, although perhaps open to misinterpretation if it fell into the wrong hands. Which it wasn't supposed to.

  But it had.

  Mary had spotted Earwick on the early evening news, taped the replay an hour later and enlarged the image of the keyboard section on her own laptop so that by nine she had everything she needed to know. The following day she had e-mailed his office at the House of Commons, purporting to be a journalist for a provincial newspaper and asking for full biographical details, which she received by return from his parliamentary researcher. The enthusiastic researcher had included everything from his master's love of dogs – 'a King Charles spaniel named Jessie…' – to his abiding commitment to the elderly, the High Church and the family, although from the details provided it appeared that Earwig didn't have a family. What the researcher failed to realize is that in replying by e-mail to Mary he was also supplying her with the encrypted techy scribble that accompanied all e-mails and that included clusters of information such as Earwig's Server Name, his Return Path, and even his User Name.

  So now Mary is sitting in the hotel room with the drooping flowers, in front of her laptop, which is plugged into the telephone line. She also has in front of her a copy of the Sun, open at the letters page. She is about to go to war, on Earwick and on Bendall, and to achieve that she intends to go to war on the whole of London. What follows may be incomprehensible to anyone over fifty, just as it is clearer than Shakespeare's English to most teenagers.