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RUBY PARKER FOLLOWED Bronstein and Fleming into the conference room and they sat down. Gavin took a chair at one of the tables with the pile of faxes he had just gathered. It was seven o’clock. Outside, the rush-hour traffic on the embankment was starting to thin. In bars, restaurants and takeaways, men and women in company uniforms exchanged shifts. Random street lights came on early.
The door opened and Miss Demure entered, followed by Marcie. The two women drew level and Miss Demure put her hand lightly on the younger’s back. The men stood up.
“Marcie,” Miss Demure said, “you already know Mr Bronstein and Mr Fleming. This is Gavin Potter, and this is Ruby Parker, your new employer. For reasons she’ll explain later, we sometimes refer to her as the Red Maiden. Ruby, gentlemen: Marciella Hartley-Brown, or as she prefers, Marcie Brown.”
They exchanged handshakes.
“Nice tan,” Bronstein said. “Been away?”
“I’ve been going to the solarium,” Marcie replied.
Everyone sat down again.
“I believe Mr Bronstein and Mr Fleming are just about to tell us what those men in the Range Rover wanted,” Miss Demure said.
The two men looked at each other to decide precedence.
“Some of this is speculative,” Bronstein said. “But not much. Would you like to kick off, Nicky?”
Fleming folded his hands. “Securitavan declared itself Bona Vacantia last year. Its assets then passed to the Crown under section 1012 of the Companies Act 2006. No debts, no liabilities, no one sought redress. It’s fully functioning – just ownerless. Investigations are ongoing. Word is that the workers want to buy it out –that’s probably just a smokescreen - but it’s presently owned by the Crown.”
Bronstein picked up a sheet of paper. “Parts of the company were secured by loans from the Royal Bank of Edinburgh, But in 2009, RBE was bailed out by the government. Thus Securitavan is, by extension, a nationalised concern, owned by the state.
“The three MPs we saw at Tebloev’s party - Lionel Edgeware, Herbert McLellan and Charles Inwood - are directors of and lobbyists for Securitavan. We’ve just spoken to the Chair of the Electoral Commission and it turns out that the company’s going to be bringing Presiding Officers and their ballot boxes to the count centres in three hundred and forty-five constituencies tonight, with Presiding Officers from single wards sharing a ride. There’s no cost to the taxpayer – it’s supposedly for the publicity.”
“Their plan tonight is simply to provide the transport,” Fleming said. “They have thirty-five branches spread out around the country from which vans are set to leave in just under forty minutes, so you can appreciate the near impossibility of stopping them now. Tomorrow they’ll anonymously tip off the police and the press that the ballot boxes have been compromised and counterfeit votes swapped for real ones. Raids on Securitavan compounds will reveal hundreds of thousands of marked, crossed ballot papers, concealed behind ceiling panels. Some ballot papers will probably turn up in rubbish tips, rivers, and so on.
“The obvious question will then be, who’s rigged the ballot? Well, Securitavan is run by the state and it’s fronted by three long-standing MPs. So the state itself is your answer. The ‘why’ doesn’t matter. The important thing is that the British public come to despair of democracy as it’s hitherto been understood. I don’t know whether anyone’s ever read Ben Goldacre’s, ‘The Power of Election Smears’? All the evidence suggests that smears work and corrections only reinforce them. Given that people in this country are already very disillusioned with politics and politicians generally, what do you think they’re likely to conclude?”
“The beauty of it is that they’re not going to rig the General Election at all,” Bronstein said, “because doing so’s not within the realms of practicality. But the truth is irrelevant. What matters is what people can be brought to believe.”
“They’ve chosen a very good time to pull something like this off,” Gavin said. “After all those leaders’ debates on television, lots of people are expecting an unprecedented swing to the Liberal Democrats. But of course we all know the British people aren’t like that. The strong likelihood is that the current government and the opposition will come first and second, in whatever order, with Mr Tilden trailing a weak third. Which could set alarm bells ringing in some minds from the outset.”
“And the celebrities are merely there to tie up the police force while this is going on?” Ruby Parker said.
“And the media,” Fleming said. “But it’s longer-term than that. Tomorrow, we’re likely to end up with a hung parliament. The next government will probably be a coalition, with an inherently weakened authority. Add to that the notion that this government – however it pans out – will be thought to have triumphed by subterfuge and you’ll imagine it may be disposed to curry popular approval in any way it can. Of course it’ll be the kind of government that listens carefully to celebrities. And if the celebrities are merely the puppets of - ”
“But it won’t get that far, surely?” Marcie said. “The Prime Minister will simply call another election, won’t he?”
“Not necessarily,” said Miss Demure. “The difficulty of forming a workable coalition at all may persuade him he’s unlikely to get a second bite of the cherry.”
“But surely the Queen will tell him he has to?”
“The damage will have been done,” Fleming said. “Firstly, no one will know quite how the election was rigged. A proportion of the energies of the police will be devoted to solving the riddle for years to come. Secondly, however, if you can do it once, you can probably do it again, this time covering your mistakes. It’s all about undermining faith in an institution.”
“And of course, the longer it all goes on, the more juddery the City’s likely to get,” Bronstein said. “The pound could crash within a fortnight if all the signals are bad. We all know what wusses stockbrokers are.”
“Any idea yet who it is we’re dealing with?” Miss Demure said.
“We hope to discover that very soon,” Bronstein replied.
“What about Edgeware? Will he know?”
“We doubt he and his parliamentary colleagues have the faintest conception of what they’re involved in,” Fleming said. “Edgeware’s a decent enough fellow, though he can be a bit bullish. In any case, everything’s set down ship-shape in the Register of Members’ Interests.”
Ruby Parker cupped her face in both hands and squeezed. “I hope to God you have a plan. Because I haven’t.”
“Surely, it’s obvious,” Miss Demure said. “We need the help of the army.”
“Except that the DSF isn’t interested.”
“Go over his head, then.”
“Oh, would that it were that simple!”
“Ladies, please,” Bronstein said.
They looked at him.
“You asked if I had a plan,” he said. “I’ve already put it into operation. It’s been unfolding since the moment you walked in here.”
“It had better be good, then,” Ruby Parker said.
“When I first joined this outfit, you told me there was a CIA substation on Canary Wharf. So I gave them a buzz. Turns out that under the 1951 NATO Status of Forces Agreement there are nearly fifteen thousand US troops at RAF bases round the country. They can be deployed to stop vans leaving compounds at the drop of a hat.”
“What’s the catch?”
“What do you mean, ‘catch’? What happened to the Special Relationship?”
“‘The reason for having diplomatic relations is not to confer a compliment, but to secure a convenience’. Winston Churchill.”
“Yeah, well Winston Churchill’s not here. All you’ve got to do is go to Canary Wharf and authorise it in person. Gavin’s agreed to drive you – and you too, Miss Demure – and once they’ve confirmed that you are who you say you are and you want what I’ve told them you do, they’ll move heaven and earth to make tonight’s election as dull and uneventful as any other. Here.” He held out an envelope.
Ruby Parker took it. “What is it?”
“It’s a sealed set of authorisation codes. Only to be opened by the Section CIA Chief in your presence. It proves I sent you.”
“And what about you?” Miss Demure said. “What are you going to be doing while we’re on our way over there?”
“We’re going up to Bedford by helicopter. It’s a long time since we heard from Orlov and I’m getting jumpy. I’m assuming it’s okay for us to take Marcie? We’ll look after her.”
Miss Demure smiled. “I think you’ll find she’s perfectly capable of looking after herself nowadays. Shall we go, Ruby?”
Gavin went to the yard to pick up one of the fleet cars and drove round to the front of the building, where the women waited for him under two black umbrellas. The sun was setting now and more street lights were coming on. It rained a thin drizzle carried by wafts of cold air from the river.
The women got onto the back seat.
“This is probably the most humiliating thing I’ve ever had to do,” Ruby Parker said. “I’m not even sure how it’s going to look in the morning.”
“I expect the PM will be very grateful,” Miss Demure replied. “You’ll have saved the country.”
“Correction, the Americans will have saved the country. And don’t think Mr President won’t milk it for all it’s worth. It’s not just third world democracies he’s propping up now, it’s us. We’ll be an international laughing stock.”
“Tush, we don’t call it ‘the third world’ any more.”
“He’ll simply ooze schadenfreude.”
“Why not just let events take their course if you feel so strongly?”
“Because whatever else the Americans may be, they’re still our friends. Nobody likes it when their friends laugh at them, but sometimes it’s a price worth paying. We don’t know what these Russians are like.”
Miss Demure smiled. “And yet there’s that remark of Bismarck’s: ‘The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia’.”
“Times have moved on. Neither of us is that old.”
“I still don’t understand why you can’t go over the DSF’s head.”
“Because if I ring a bloody Field Marshal, the first thing he’ll want to know is why I haven’t rung the Home Office, then when I explain that the DSF isn’t interested, he’ll put the phone down. It’s not about the country’s interests, it never is. It’s about the chain of responsibility. So long as everyone knows the buck stops with the DSF, they’ll cry off. It might be different if he was popular, but he isn’t.”
“Ruby, if the buck stops with the DSF, I honestly think you should just file your report and go to bed.”
“Don’t think I haven’t considered it.”
“And?”
“Both my parents came to this country from Montserrat in 1956. I’ve never felt the slightest affection for Montserrat or the slightest inclination to visit it, although of course I’ve nothing against the place. All my affection is invested in this country. Every last bit. Don’t you see? I can’t bear to see it sink.”
“Even at the expense of the profession whose exercise is your sole means of expressing that sentiment? That’s absurd, Ruby. This is absurd.” She took her mobile out. “I’m going to ring Field Marshal Willoughby.”
“You’ve got Field Marshal Willoughby in your address book?”
“It was after tea at the Dorchester. He insisted. I’d rather not talk about it right now but he owes me a favour.”
She pressed ‘call’ and waited and frowned.
She pressed ‘end’. “Damn and blast it, what’s the point of giving a girl your number if you’re going to turn the thing off just when she needs you most? Don’t despair, all is not lost yet. Here ... yes, General Sir Steven Polkinghorne. Before you ask, I met him at Farnborough air show.”
“He’s retired, isn’t he?”
“He still wields considerable influence. And beggars can’t be choosers.”
“We’re clutching at straws.”
Miss Demure listened, then removed the phone from her ear and glared at it as if it had spat at her. “Hell’s teeth, no such number.” She put it back in her bag. “To be fair, he did strike me as rather a technophobe. ‘May I have your cellular mobile telephone number, my dear’ probably speaks for itself.”
“It looks like we’re still going cap in hand to the CIA then. Thank you for trying, though.”
“I don’t know Lieutenant Bronstein very well. Is it possible he manipulated this case to put us in the power of the United States?”
“I’m a pretty good judge of character, Celia. I’m sure he wouldn’t do anything like that.”
“Er, have you noticed anything unusual?”
“We’re certainly taking the long way round. Gavin, what’s going on?”
“Diversion, ma’am,” Gavin said. “Don’t worry, we’re there now.”
“‘There’? Where?”
But they knew where they were, and it wasn’t where they were supposed to be. This was a side road near Covent Garden. Gavin got out and opened the door for Ruby Parker then Miss Demure.
“I hope you’re not thinking of killing us, Gavin,” Miss Demure said, “because this is a public place and I have a very loud scream.”
“Don’t be silly, Celia,” Ruby Parker said. “If Gavin was going to kill us he wouldn’t have brought us to Covent Garden. I’ll only ask you one more time, Gavin: what is going on?”
Gavin walked up some steps and opened a glass door. A stocky, tanned man in a sports jacket skipped down into the street and walked uncertainly up to the two women. “I, er ...”
“Mr Henshall,” Gavin said, “may I present Jill Abramson and Susan Edgerley, the Managing News Editor and the Assistant Managing Editor, respectively, of The New York Times. Jill, Susan: this is Ross Henshall, General Secretary of Britain’s largest union, Unite.”
Henshall broke into a smile. “Welcome to our headquarters. We’ve got another property in Holborn, but I understand this one’s more convenient. I got Mr Bronstein’s fax showing the location of Securitavan’s depots. We’ve parked an articulated lorry across the entrance of every one, as per your request. Or a container where we feel they might be awkward. No one’ll be leaving or entering any of them any time soon, believe me.”
It took Ruby Parker an entire breath and an inhalation to digest this. She beamed. “Mr Henshall, I really don’t know how to ... ”
Henshall lowered his voice. “I don’t know why you want this, but as Mr Bronstein said, mine not to reason why. And it certainly suits our purposes. It’s just ... about those photos ...”
Ruby Parker nodded. “Rest assured, that is one story we will never run. And nor will anyone else, you have my word.”
“Come this way,” Mr Henshall said. “I’ll show you our command centre. We can follow the chaos we’re causing on Twitter. Do either of you drink beer, by the way?”
“We both love beer,” Miss Demure said.
Gavin was holding out an envelope to Ruby Parker. “You forgot Lieutenant Bronstein’s letter, ma’am.”
She tore it open and smiled.
“What does it say?” Miss Demure asked.
“It says, ‘I don’t know anything about the CIA’.”
