The Napoleon Complex

by E. M. DAVEY

  “People,” hissed di Angelo. “Over there.”

  The woman striding towards them looked Middle Eastern; beside her Jake recognised the man from the internet café, who was pointing at them.

  What the heck’s going on?

  Kanisha was out of breath when she reached them. “You must be David. Bloody hell, are you guys ok?”

  103

  Victor Milne bounced into the press conference at Number 10 with his usual ebullience. But he had aged. It happens to all Prime Ministers after they’ve penned their first letter to a widow, that morning’s Mail had opined. Yet with Milne, the process seemed accelerated.

  The papers were dominated by sensational news from Freetown. Sierra Leone had announced a referendum on handing government to Westminster in perpetuity. Foreign Office lawyers had coined a new status – the Enhanced Commonwealth – if it was a yes vote, the country would be something called a Democratic Dominion. Cue hysterical coverage around the world, but the protests had gained little traction with everything conditional on the ballot box. The vote was to be held in three weeks, a ‘shotgun wedding’, the Times leader had called it.

  The political editor of the Guardian opened proceedings with a stinging salvo. “According to your white paper, Sierra Leoneans won’t get the right to settle here in the UK. Are some citizens of your ‘Enhanced Commonwealth’ more equal than others, Prime Minister?”

  The politician regarded him with pity. “The whole reason we’re considering Sierra Leone’s suggestion is because we can improve that place to the point where its citizens won’t want to come here. I’m sure that’s something the excellent journalists at King’s Place would get behind?”

  “What about British taxpayers?” the Express rejoined. “How can we invest billions building hospitals in Africa while many go without cancer drugs at home?”

  Things continued in this vein, Milne fending off assaults from right and left and enjoying himself thoroughly. It was precisely this blitheness in the face of adversity that had carried public opinion with him this far.

  The Independent went off-piste. “Can you confirm categorically that British Forces in Nigeria have not used weapons banned under the Dublin Convention on Cluster Munitions?”

  Mobile phone footage had surfaced showing the outskirts of Kano cracking with thousands of explosions that danced like firecrackers across the rooftops, until all that could be seen were points of light twinkling in the smoke haze. It was a neighbourhood where British soldiers had been unable to dislodge Boko Haram.

  Milne looked very serious. “For obvious reasons, I’m not in a position to disclose operational details. But we will always use technology that prevents British soldiers from losing their lives.”

  A YouGov poll that morning suggested the Prime Minister had public backing for this stance.

  *

  One hour later, three floors up, C and the Prime Minister were taking tea.

  “… Serval was attacked by a farmer,” C was saying. “So he was weakened when it all went down. That must have been a factor.”

  “‘A scrimmage in a border station, a canter down some dark defile. Two thousand pounds of education drops to a ten rupee jezail.’ Kipling.”

  “Inappropriate,” said C. “If you’ll forgive my saying so. Three of my best people have laid down their lives.”

  “Oh, tish and pish. Now, who’s next up? The hunt must go on, Dennis.”

  He sighed. “Alec McCabe’s fully recovered from the Jerusalem incident. And I suggest we bring the lovely Chloë Smith back into the fold. She did marvellously in Freetown – that laptop was a goldmine. I’ve never known anyone keel over to blackmail so fast. And lord knows, we’ve done a few.”

  No mention of the other files on Conteh’s hard drive.

  They did not know.

  104

  “Jake Wolsey, as I live and breathe.” The tall Aberdeen man with the aquiline noise glided across the room and shook his hand. “We thought you were dead!”

  “Hello, Niall. Strange to be back.”

  Jake was somewhere he never thought he’d set foot again: the offices of his old newspaper in central London. Two weeks had passed; by his side was Chloë.

  “Who’s she?” said Niall Heston.

  Jake did the introductions. “She’s our source. Chloë, this is Niall Heston, the news editor. And this is Niall’s boss, David Waring – the editor-in-chief.”

  Waring was a squat man with a paunch and a shock of rusty hair, resembling some sort of greedy bullfrog. But his smile was kindly.

  “Your antics caused me some awful headaches two years ago, Jake. But you also brought in a couple of phenomenal scoops, if memory serves. Before your years in the wilderness.”

  “Nothing like this. It’s the big one.”

  “Let’s hear it then,” said Waring. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve got a rather important story about Sierra Leone breaking.”

  “Actually …” Chloë placed a neat folder on the table. “That’s why we’re here.”

  Jake had awoken after eight days with all manner of liquids sliding into him intravenously. On the other side of the oxygen tent sat the woman, fuzzy through the layers of diaphanous plastic.

  “You’re awake,” said Kanisha.

  “So I am.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Never better. Where am I?”

  She laughed. “You’re in a private hospital in Bujumbura. I brought you here – it was lucky we turned up when we did. Damien’s paid the medical bills. The doctors say you’re going to make it.”

  “Who’s Damien?”

  “The American guy.”

  It all came back. Henry Stanley, the Third Coming, di Angelo. Jenny. Jake’s hand went to his forehead, only to be caught by the drips in his arm.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Kanisha. I work for the British Museum.”

  “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t even know you. Could I have a few moments?”

  “Of course. Damien left you a letter. It’s under your pillow.”

  She made no signs of leaving.

  Jake

  I’ve gone to Diego Garcia. The window of opportunity is now, while they’re choosing his replacement. I couldn’t wait. You’ll know when it’s done. Go to London. Sort out number Three. I used my contacts in the US Embassy here to sort you a new identity and documentation. Kanisha’s got all that stuff. (She’s who taught Jenny Etruscan. An academic, bit curious. Clever girl. Don’t let on.) Hospital is paid for with hush money so don’t let them screw you.

  Your friend,

  Damien

  “I read the letter,” said Kanisha.

  “You what?”

  “Hey, I was curious! I knew Jenny as David.”

  “What the hell makes you think it’s ok to read private correspondence?”

  “It might have been important,” said Kanisha, as if that ought to have been obvious.

  “How did you teach her? Did you meet in Vienna?”

  “Vienna? Random. No, never, I taught her online. Her voice was disguised. I’d always just assumed she was a guy. But there was the odd feminine touch, now I think about it.”

  I am the unguent-bottle of the beautiful Sela.

  Ha. Pretty.

  “Jenny was a spy,” said Kanisha triumphantly. “So is Damien, he must be. So are you. That’s the only explanation.”

  “Jesus Christ,” said Jake.

  “What’s number three?” she asked.

  “It’s rather a long story.”

  When the veil of the tent was raised a few days later, Jake saw her properly for the first time.

  *

  “Utterly sensational.” Heston pored over Chloë’s dossier – the photographs, the travel tickets, the associated press clippings. “It’s Watergate on crystal meth. Jesus, Jake, it’s historic, it’s moon landings territory.”

  “It also has the ring of truth,” said Waring carefully. “Don’t you think
, Niall?”

  “Agreed,” said Heston.

  “But this isn’t proof,” added Waring.

  Jake felt a little of the exhilaration go out of him.

  “Nowhere near,” said Heston. “Good god, we can’t accuse a serving Prime Minister of murdering tens of thousands of people on the back of photos of people you say are MI6 officers and the unfortunate timing of an Ebola outbreak in Nigeria.”

  “Why don’t you put a photographer outside Vauxhall Cross?” said Jake. “If he could get into one of those yuppie apartments overlooking Vauxhall Bridge he could shoot down with a telephoto lens. Hopefully snap the Welsh guy going in.”

  “Good idea,” said Heston. “We’ll do that today.”

  “And talking of today things, we need to make some fairly drastic changes to the paper,” said Waring. “I’ve just signed off a leader praising the PM’s shining humanitarian vision …”

  “Will you go on the record?” Heston asked Chloë.

  She steeled herself. “If you look after me. These people will kill.”

  “We’ve got safe houses,” said Heston. “Ex-Special Forces provide our security. You’d be looked after, I promise you that.”

  “We need more evidence,” said Waring. “This wouldn’t be enough to nail a two-bit drug dealer, let alone a war criminal.”

  A memory of Jenny went through Jake like a stiletto.

  The High Court test. You’re being grilled by a QC. Can you defend this theory?

  But Jenny wasn’t Jenny – not as he’d known her.

  “There’s only one way we’re going to get this past our lawyers,” Heston said. “And that’s an admission.”

  “I wouldn’t hold my breath on that,” said Waring.

  “We could secretly record him?” suggested Jake.

  “Secretly record a Prime Minister?” Waring chuckled. “Very droll. We’d be lucky to even sit down with him, let alone get him to spill the beans on the greatest scandal in British history.”

  “Actually, I’m not quite sure about that,” said Chloë.

  Everybody looked at her.

  “You see, I’ve just been seconded back to MI6’s Etruscan team. As its commanding officer.”

  “Don’t tell me MI6 is still obsessed with all that nonsense?” Heston was aghast. “Don’t these bastards have any better way to burn our taxes?”

  “It’s something Milne takes a close interest in,” Chloë continued. “To the point of grilling MI6 field officers in person, which is pretty unheard of.”

  “Are you saying you could get a meeting with him?” said Heston.

  “I think I could. In fact, I’m sure I could. My predecessor was in and out of Number 10 the whole time.”

  Waring was rubbing his cheeks with both hands. This was his call. He said nothing for three minutes. Jake and Chloë looked at each other silently.

  “On one side of the scales, we put at risk all of our careers and the reputation of a two-hundred-year-old newspaper,” said Waring. “On the other, we expose war crimes. It’s not even a question, is it?”

  “Not if we have any decency at all,” said Heston.

  “So let’s get the bastard,” Waring finished.

  Jake had gone red; he couldn’t help grinning.

  “We’ll need you back on the staff,” said Waring. “If you can stand the story up, all of Fleet Street will want a piece of you. So I insist you sign a contract today. Let’s say £105K a year, conditional on this story being true, of course. Choose whatever job title you like – Special Correspondent, Editor-at-Large, I really couldn’t care less. But make it something grand, eh?”

  A vision had appeared in front of Jake’s eyes: something he never thought he’d have again.

  A life.

  “You’ll need media training too,” said Waring. “And a few new suits. You’d better brace yourself, Jake Wolsey. This time next week you might be the most famous journalist on the planet.”

  105

  Di Angelo peered from the Path Corporation registered Learjet 35 to see Diego Garcia bumping and sliding towards him. The atoll is often described as a horseshoe, but it better resembles the coastline of Africa. The beaches were very white, most of the island given over to wild palm forest – though you would not last long uninvited. Twin runways covered one third of the island, and as di Angelo watched a B-1 bomber took off on a run to the Middle East. The Learjet passed oil silos, lines of barracks; sinister cubed and windowless buildings fringed with radar dishes and aerials. In the centre of the island was a flat concrete disc the size of a baseball pitch, surrounded with razor wire and lookout posts. Beneath that were the archives: an inverted cone of reinforced concrete that bored down through the coral and into the earth’s crust. This facility was virtually unstaffed: if defences are entirely automated they cannot be socially engineered into opening. You can spend all you like on physical security, but it’s only as impenetrable as the weakest human. This is what he had to penetrate. As the plane lost height di Angelo saw off-duty sailors frolicking in the sea and jeeps buzzing about, the Stars and Stripes everywhere. They were coming in to land.

  He’d flown from Bujumbura to Bahrain to await the next Diego Garcia flight – the CIA wanted him there for psychometric and cerebral tests, to judge his suitability as Deissler’s successor. Commercial airlines did not fly to the island (obviously) and it was two days before the next plane from Virginia landed in the Middle East to refuel and take on passengers. That had given di Angelo time to formulate his plan.

  A sign in the base’s airport read Diego Garcia, Footprint of the Free, and on spotting it di Angelo smiled grimly. A bevvy of NBA cheerleaders were visiting to boost morale and the base was in high spirits. He went to the canteen, making sure he was seen talking to the base’s commanding officer – they’d served together in Afghanistan. Then he made his excuses and went to bed.

  Big day tomorrow.

  He double checked his props. There was a coloured badge (orange, for a Thursday) that in combination with his CIA identity card and biometric testing should see him through the perimeter fence. He did not have permission to enter, so he intended to use an old pass that he should have returned on a previous visit. His forgery of the dates was imperfect, but humans doing a repetitive job work mainly in the subconscious. It was likely the guard would check the colour, not the words. Coloured passes are a terrible security idea. Next to it was a wad of documentation he had prepared to back up his cover story, and a classic of the blagger’s kitbag: the humble clip-board.

  Di Angelo rolled up his trouser legs to inspect his wounds. A crooked incision ran the length of each shin, only just beginning to scab. His calves looked distended, like over-inflated water balloons; the skin glowed angrily as his body tried to reject the objects sown inside. He had performed the operation in Bahrain with only codeine to dull the agony. Not pleasant. If they strip-searched him it was game over.

  *

  Six time zones away, preparations for another raid continued. Kiwi-tech Vision of Farringdon was New Zealand owned, its warehouse attic workshop an Aladdin’s cave of outlandish surveillance equipment. One technician widened a hole in the top button of Chloë’s blouse with a dentist’s drill; a second took her through the mechanics of undercover filming. For she had been invited for tea at Number 10.

  “This is cool,” she said, pointing at a miniature chest of drawers.

  They were labelled by objects in which a lens could be hidden: spectacles, bow ties, flowers, watches.

  “Like Q’s laboratory, huh?” said Jake.

  Chloë nodded at the chipped tea mugs of assorted provenance, stained brown inside. “That’s not very Bond.”

  “Welcome to real life.”

  Jake had a fleeting memory of that glade in Burundi; but something had changed. No longer did he implant Jenny in it. That yearning had gone along with her betrayal.

  The technicians taught Chloë how to attach the recorder to her body with surgical tape, running the tiny wires to her top
button, how to change the batteries on the recorder, how to insert the tiny SD cards. A blinking red light meant it was recording.

  “Are you worried?” asked Jake, out of earshot of the staff.

  “A little bit. I don’t think anyone’s done this before. Secretly filming a sitting Prime Minister, it’s nuts.”

  “Don’t be,” he said. “I’ve run a few undercover investigations – the operative never, ever gets found out.”

  Once she’d disassembled and reassembled the rig three times over the engineers were satisfied.

  They were ready to roll.

  Did Chloë not know her new role came with extra surveillance? Did she not guess they would go through her rubbish? And it was bin collection day in Ealing. In one of her black bags: a single crumpled receipt for services rendered from a little-known company in Farringdon.

  106

  Jake dropped Chloë off on Birdcage Walk in one of the newspaper’s pool cars.

  “How do I look?” she asked.

  He thought she looked pale, but he said, “Fine. Cool as a cucumber.”

  They watched a mother and toddler feed geese in St James’s Park.

  “Well – good luck,” he said.

  “Thanks. See you in a bit.”

  After an awkward moment they shook hands.

  “Jake … if I get through this, I wouldn’t mind getting to know you properly.”

  As he watched Chloë Smith walk away from him, tall and upright, her chin held high, Jake reflected that he knew her less now than ever.

  Chloë accessed Downing Street via the Horse Guards Parade entrance, where armed police X-rayed her handbag and waved her through. She skipped up a flight of stairs and onto the famous road itself, a hubbub of activity as reporters performed pieces to camera. The faint bong of Big Ben wafted over from Parliament Square.

  “The Prime Minister’s been closeted up behind me for most of the morning with the Cabinet Secretary and his top civil servants,” said Sky’s political editor. “I’m told they’ve been putting the finishing touches to the resolution that will bring Sierra Leone back to British rule permanently – with the blessing of Sierra Leonean voters, of course. Sources in Buckingham Palace suggest the monarch harbours strong reservations about these sensational developments, and I understand Victor Milne will be visiting Buckingham Palace to explain his plans in person later today …”