by E. M. DAVEY
Chloë was searched more closely in the foyer of Number 10, every item in her handbag inspected. The policeman nodded and she stepped through a metal detector. Milne was waiting.
“You must be Chloë,” he said. “Crikey, I wish all my spooks were made like you!”
She ignored the comment.
“Well, don’t just stand there gawping,” he said. “Come on in and have a peek around the old bachelor pad. All a bit formal down here. I don’t mind admitting, upstairs is where the business of keeping Great Britain PLC on track gets done.”
Something made Chloë think he had said this before. At the landing she paused. “Is that the ladies? Do you mind?”
“Of course not,” he roared. “I’d use the disabled though, if I were you. I’ll wait here, we don’t let people just wander around Number 10 willy-nilly, you know. Especially not MI6’s finest … goodness knows what you might find.”
Chloë leaned against the lavatory door to catch her breath. When she was calm she placed her phone on the floor and stamped on it; the two sides fell apart to reveal the recorder and the squiggle of black spaghetti that would connect it to her shirt button, which concealed a lens. Also inside were three cocktail sticks with small strips of masking tape wound around them, which she used to attach the rig to her body. She put on her blouse, dropped the broken phone into the tampon bin and emerged.
The Prime Minister raced up the stairs ahead of her and they went into his flat.
Oh, shit.
A Nace machine stood in the porch – they detected electronic circuits, making it impossible to be wired. Chloë had sat with one a hundred times at Vauxhall Cross. She braced herself for the thin warble of its alarm, for outrage and arrest, for captivity and …
Nothing happened.
“Don’t tell Dennis, but I disabled it,” Milne hissed conspiratorially. “Did it myself with a spanner and brute force. Bloody thing kept interrupting The Archers. Massive pain in the arse.”
C was sitting rather primly with his knees together, as if the mess in the flat was contagious. Amid coffee cups and cake-smeared plates, John Toland’s Adolf Hitler lay open on a page about the Führer’s upbringing. Milne had an abusive father too, it was part of his ‘story’.
“Down to business,” said C. “First off, David Livingstone.”
Chloë held up her hand. “There’s something I need to tell you both.”
“Chloë, that’s against protocol. You know everything comes through me before the Prime Minister …”
“Oh pipe down, will you?” said Milne. “Let her speak.”
“Thank you, Prime Minister.” A serious smile. “Before I tell you this, there’s something I want you to know about me.”
“Go on.”
“My great-great-grandfather on my mother’s side was Sir Charles Napier, the Empire builder. My great-grandfather also served in India. And my grandad died in the siege of Singapore.”
“What’s your point?” asked C.
“I want you to know that the empire is in my blood.”
C wriggled uncomfortably on the sofa.
“The files I sent you from Conteh’s laptop weren’t the only thing I found on there,” she said.
“And you are telling us this now why?” said C dangerously. “You took it upon yourself to selectively edit what we received why?”
“Because what I discovered – I couldn’t trust it to a courier, not even MI6. I couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t share your peccadilloes. Our peccadilloes.”
The sofa was too low and the secret camera fired upwards in a cone, aiming for the face. It was possible she was only filming Milne’s chest, so she angled her body downward.
“What did you find?” Milne’s voice had turned low and deadly.
“They know,” said Chloë. “They know what you’ve done. Spreading Ebola deliberately. Trying to rebuild the empire. They know it all.”
At Thames House on Millbank, a junior MI5 officer unfurled the pellet of paper he’d found inside half an eggshell among empty packets of tofu and vegetable peelings.
He typed ‘Kiwi-tech Vision’ into Google and turned to his superior. “What do you make of this, boss?”
107
Di Angelo did a hundred press-ups, showered and went to the canteen. There he had a large breakfast (bacon, eggs, waffles with maple syrup) and a cup of black coffee, dwelling on every mouthful. Finally he strolled to the concrete apron beneath which the grimmest secrets of America are entombed. His CIA identity card caused consternation in the guardhouse and a list of arrivals was consulted.
“Sir,” said the Ranger. “I can’t let you in here without an appointment, sir.”
“This is the pass you need,” said di Angelo, looking him in the eye and believing that it was.
The soldier glanced at the orange piece of paper.
“I need to see your commanding officer,” said di Angelo.
Special Agents were held in a certain awe. “Sir, yes sir.”
Two minutes later a Master Sergeant Gompert stood before him: ginger-haired and barrel-chested, imposing as a column.
“He’s got the right pass, sir,” said the rifleman. “But we’re not expecting him.”
Blag had been laundered into fact.
“How can I help you, sir?” said Gompert.
“We’ll talk in your guardhouse,” said di Angelo – imposing authority.
The soldier weighed the minor breach of the rules against the figure who confronted him.
“Certainly, sir. It’s cooler in there.”
“Is that a Philly accent?” asked di Angelo.
“Sure is, sir.”
“I’m from Kensington,” said di Angelo in a Philly accent.
Gompert grinned. “No way! I’m from the Upper North.”
Di Angelo’s smile fell away.
“Sir,” added Gompert. “What can I do for you today, sir?”
“I’m a CIA Special Investigator,” said di Angelo. “I’m here to carry out an audit of your security.”
“An audit?” Gompert frowned. “I wasn’t told …”
“It wouldn’t be much of an audit if you knew I was coming, would it?”
Di Angelo watched the good sense of this statement settle in the soldier’s brain. And here was the deviousness of his plan: for an unannounced visit was only logical if he was to judge the security measures in their usual state of operation. He could very reasonably demand to be taken deeper and deeper to inspect the automated gates and checkpoints, insuring everything worked as it should; penetrating the concentric barriers that separated him from the Disciplina like growth rings in a tree trunk.
The top page on di Angelo’s clipboard had boxes to be filled out, rating the perimeter security. Gompert was gladdened to see his men had been judged ten out of ten for awareness.
“Come with me, sir,” he said.
Di Angelo’s left iris and the structure of the blood vessels in his hand were scanned, then he strolled through the steel fence and out across the concrete, already baking in the tropical sun. A small outhouse protruded from the centre with steel blast-doors and a card reader.
“I’m going to see whether I can override this door,” di Angelo explained.
He produced a laptop, connected to a blank white card. Gompert peered with interest at the lines of code swarming across the screen as di Angelo placed the card on the reader. There was a beep and a red light came on. He ran another programme; it had the same result.
“Good,” said di Angelo.
He rated the secondary gates ten out of ten too.
“Ok, let’s go inside,” he added.
Gompert swiped his own card and went to place his thumb on the reader.
He pulled back.
“Sir, out of interest, sir – if the programme had worked, how would you have provided a fingerprint?”
Di Angelo placed a square of jelly on the pad and the door swung open.
“What in the …”
“Jello pick
s up fingerprints. I got yours while we were in the guardhouse. You didn’t notice.”
Gompert’s face reddened as di Angelo marked him down on page three.
Before di Angelo entered, he paused. He stared at the sky. He watched a little bird skitter and dive across the tarmac. He took three deep breaths of air. An onlooker would have said there was a definite reluctance to tear himself away from that very blue sky. They descended.
We are conditioned to obey authority from an early age. First by our parents; then by our teachers; then by our employers and some of us by our spouse. People love thinking of themselves as free-spirited, but in fact the compulsion to obey is encoded into human bone marrow. With soldiers, of course, this trait is even more strongly pronounced. And the predisposition to follow orders is heightened further when we feel ignorant about the situation we are in, when we think we’re in the company of an expert who knows more about the matter in hand than ourselves. Di Angelo exploited these essential truths as he made Gompert lead him deeper into the facility – past voice scanners and devices that checked the bone structure of his throat; through doors opened by encrypted digital keys and floors made of twenty feet of steel. When soldiers were encountered, di Angelo’s authority was magnified through Gompert’s compliance, and his underlings obeyed unquestioningly. Page upon page were filled with di Angelo’s stern evaluation of the most sophisticated physical defences yet devised, all of which opened for him like the Red Sea. He had penetrated half a billion dollars’ worth of security features. Then he hit a wall of steel manned by men in blue overalls wearing the insignia of the Federal Government of the United States of America.
“Sir, I can’t take you any further, sir. Military aren’t permitted any deeper in than here.”
The deputy director of the archive was summoned from the lower reaches, a snivelling, sharp-faced man called Ronaldson.
“What’s going on here?” he said.
Gompert explained the situation.
“Audit?” said Ronaldson. “I wasn’t told about any audit.”
Di Angelo repeated the line about an audit being useless without the element of surprise and let slip that he was reporting directly to the director of the CIA.
“His documentation checks out, sir,” said Gompert.
Ronaldson capitulated. He was a clever man, but intelligence only correlates slightly with lack of susceptibility to social engineering. He hadn’t applied the ‘What do I really know about this person?’ test. His belief in di Angelo’s identity outweighed his own security awareness.
This is going too smoothly, di Angelo reflected as his ears popped in a lift.
They descended to minus 74. The corridor was titanium and down here blue-suited guards were in abundance, glancing interestedly at the visitor.
“I want to inspect vault 4751,” said di Angelo.
47/51 – the Double-Roswell, Deissler used to call it in his soft mocking tone. The year 1947, Area 51.
“You want to inspect vault 4751?” Ronaldson repeated carefully. “Did I hear that right?”
“You got it.”
He pointed a Glock at di Angelo’s head. “You’re under arrest, pal.”
108
“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” said C.
When Chloë produced her dossier and laid photographs on the table, both men flinched.
“That’s Dai Elliot,” she said. “I trained with him. Everywhere he went, he was photographed. And the outbreak was documented.”
“Documented?” said C sceptically. “By whom, might I ask?”
“By the Sierra Leonean Secret Service.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Milne. “That can’t have. They’re … they’re the Sierra Leoneans.”
Even under the strain of the moment, a wrinkle of annoyance traced C’s brow.
“They tracked Dai all the way to Nigeria, where Ebola sprang up too. Within days.”
Blood was draining from the Prime Minister’s face.
Chloë slapped a photo of Serval on the coffee table. “I don’t know who this guy is, but the Sierra Leoneans reckon he’s MI6 too. And I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“But why are they keeping mum?” blurted Milne.
“Prime Minister, remember yourself,” pleaded C.
“Because after the referendum the Contehs mean to blackmail you,” said Chloë. “For tens of billions of pounds.”
Milne’s eyes flashed with malevolence. “Kill them,” he hissed. “We have to kill them! In a road crash or something. Fix their cars or put a bomb in their helicopter.”
“Prime Minister, please,” C begged him. “I urge you to remember that she …”
Milne sent the coffee table flying, the contents of Chloë’s dossier fluttering across the room.
“Can’t you see she’s on our side, Dennis?” he cried. “She’s the one that brought this to us. If it wasn’t for her, we’d be sunk.”
C glanced at the Nace machine. Placated, he gave a little nod. Then he collapsed back into his chair like a wilting sunflower with one hand over his eyes.
At that moment the chief of MI5 was telephoning Number 10, asking to be put through to the Prime Minister urgently. He was refused: Milne had ordered that his conclave not be interrupted for anyone or anything.
Get the admission, Heston had told Chloë. With allegations like these, nothing else will do. You need the actual words coming out of his actual mouth. Yes, I fucking well did it, I’m guilty as sin. I am a fucking war criminal.
Chloë tracked Milne with her bosom as he sat down again.
“It was your plan, wasn’t it?” she asked. “Using the Ebola virus to foment unrest. Stepping in as the hero, as a ploy to carve out a new Empire. You’re a genius.”
Milne dithered.
“Sir Charles Napier would have been impressed,” she added.
Sir Charles Napier would have hated every sordid detail, she thought.
Milne plumped up his collar. “Yes, yes it was me, seeing as you ask. The whole thing. Though Sir Dennis here’s had my back, haven’t you, Dennis?”
“I, er, I saw commendable ambition in your proposals,” C mumbled.
Gotcha.
The chief of MI5 had got through to Downing Street’s police bureau; but convincing the junior officers of his identity was taking a few moments.
Once you’ve got the admission, get the hell out. Heston again. Don’t get cocky. Don’t start enjoying it too much. Just vamoose, sod off out of there as soon as you decently can.
Milne and his spy chief had launched into a dialogue about the best way to assassinate a head of state. Should they wait until the referendum, or act without delay? Bumping him off now would look fishy at best.
“Here’s the pen drive,” interrupted Chloë. “It’s the only copy, obviously. So if it’s ok with you, I’m going to get on with my job. We’ve got a Disciplina to find.”
“Go, go, in the name of god, go,” said Milne.
She left the two men in full crisis mode.
That crisis was about to get a damned sight worse.
A junior civil servant met Chloë outside the flat to escort her from Number 10, and she took the staircase as swiftly as she dared. She emerged onto Downing Street. Reporters pontificated away, moulding news into theatre with flourishes and sweeping arms. Soon they’d have something to really get excited about. With jerky strides, Chloë headed for the St James’s Park exit. Five MI5 officers burst onto the street from Whitehall and sprinted for Number 10. They didn’t see her vanishing through the security gates at the other end of Downing Street.
Out onto Horse Guard’s Parade. Tearing through St James’s Park. Kicking off her high heels, a flock of pigeons sent skittering away skyward. Jake was waiting for her in the car.
“Got him,” she screamed. “Got him, got him, got him!”
“Oh you little bloody beauty!” Jake stamped on the accelerator and the Volvo fairly raced down Birdcage Walk.
In Downing Street a bit
of a scene was taking place.
109
“I’m going to have to ask you to come with me,” said Ronaldson. “We’re going to the surface.”
The guards levelled machine pistols at di Angelo.
“What are you playing at?” shouted di Angelo. “Point those guns at someone else, man.”
“There’s one vault here with special orders attached,” said Ronaldson. “One room we’re not permitted to open without the direct, verbal orders of the President of the United States. If asked to do so, we are to apprehend the individual. That’s you. So like I said, you’re under arrest, pal. Put your hands up or I’ll shoot you now.”
But di Angelo still had his Get out of Jail Free card to play.
“I’m going to ask you to do something,” he said.
Ronaldson regarded him with infinite suspicion.
“In my jacket pocket is a letter,” di Angelo continued. “Ask one of your men to pass it to you. Without reading it, that’s very important.”
One of Ronaldson’s eyebrows twitched.
“Go on,” he told the nearest guard.
He opened the letter.
Dear Patriot,
THIS IS A TEST.
If you are being shown this letter, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency congratulates you on your watchfulness. The United States of America needs more citizens of your calibre. The Special Investigator showing you this letter has made a note of your name and your vigilance will be included in his final report. You are now required to enable the Special Investigator to audit the performance of your colleagues.
Thank you for your devotion to duty and the American people.
Robert Ardrey.
A single eye swivelled from the letter to di Angelo and back to the letter. A breath escaped Ronaldson’s mouth; his eyebrow stopped twitching and the ghost of a smile traced his countenance.