“It’s like this, Edward. Think of the Internet as a battlefield.”
Telford nodded cautiously.
“Like any soldier who’s switched on, it’s a good idea to wear body armor when you’re outside the wire. Right?”
“That makes sense,” he agreed.
“As Tommy said, you get what you pay for,” Andy concluded as a ghost of a smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “And even then, you still have to know when to duck,” he quickly added before taking a sip of his drink.
For a long moment, Telford considered this bit of military wisdom before returning once more to his goal. “I trust you have evidence to support all this.”
“We do.”
“Will it stand up in court if necessary?”
“We worked to legal forensic standards. It’s bombproof, unlike the minister’s laptop.”
4
Early the next day, having pieced together the plan he would use to dispose of the problem that Sue Oliver’s story had created by relying on the same care and meticulous approach he had always employed in such instances, Telford settled into addressing the next challenge he needed to deal with — the early morning traffic on the M4.
Ignoring the antics of the frustrated drivers around him, he once more went over just how things would play out. Avoiding a scandal that would bring a promising political career to a screeching halt would all come down to a simple matter of timing and wording. With the information Andy had provided him, Telford planned on crafting a statement exposing the fraud being used to sully the minister’s reputation that he would have one of his associates, someone who was not on the minister’s staff, release. By using another agency to put the word out, one the public expected to deal with such crimes, the minister’s name would simply be one of many mentioned in the statement rather than being the banner headline. Though he expected the press would ask the minister to comment on the sordid affair, Telford was confident that even an idiot like Morton would be able to handle that. The man, after all, was supposed to be the director of communications, a charter he had thus far demonstrated little of the sort of adroitness Telford expected from members of the staff he oversaw.
Satisfied all was in order, Telford checked the time, rebuking himself when he saw he had missed the top-of-the-hour news. Reaching out, he switched on the radio with the volume down and listened for a moment, just to be sure his teenaged daughter and her friends hadn’t fiddled with the stations the night before. Upon hearing the voice of the BBC newsreader, Telford turned the volume back up and settled back to listen while he slogged his way into the heart of London along with the countless others inching their way along the motorway sporting expressions better suited to the cast of a zombie flick than the entrepreneurs, investment bankers, solicitors, office staff, and government bureaucrats who ran the nation.
It took him several seconds before he realized what Jenny Jones, a political commentator and presenter for the BBC, was talking about.
“I imagine when you are covering a story like this, you must be careful, lest you do damage to the reputations of the people mentioned in a story, as well as your own,” Jones intoned in that voice people at the Beeb thought made them sound as if they were intelligent.
“That’s right, Jenny,” the woman interviewee replied. “I am a firm believer in the need to get a story absolutely right rather than being first out of the blocks with it.”
Unable to help himself, Telford scoffed. “Bollocks!”
“It was for that reason and the damage the minister’s reputation would suffer that I held back running with the story concerning the sexting messages he sent out to a number of young girls,” the interviewee continued.
The words minister and sexting caused Telford to involuntarily lurch forward.
“I wasn’t going to run with the story until I had an opportunity to chat with the two girls, a college student and a former campaign volunteer, who claim they had received sextings from the minister. Your interview with the minister in the last hour in which he denied he knew anything about the ‘Minister-O-Luv’ account, however, left me little choice but to come forward with what I already know.”
“Did these messages include photos?”
“Yes, a number of them, none of which show the minister’s face.”
“Then how do you know it was the minister?”
“The background. One clearly shows the entrance to the ministry along with its address, and the other was actually taken inside his office. Unfortunately, they are of such a nature that I cannot use them in my story.”
With nothing better to do as he waited for the traffic to move, Keith Richards took to looking around. To his surprise, the red-faced middle-aged man in the Volvo Estate next to him was furiously pounding on the steering wheel with both fists as he screamed at the radio. “While I don’t know what your destination is, mate,” Richards chuckled to himself, “I’m just glad I’ll not be there when you reach it.”
5
Before closing the door to the vacant cubbyhole that had been Bryan Morton’s office, Terri Campbell took one last look around. There was no trace left of the eager young man that she could see, just as there would be no memory of him once a new minister had been appointed and he got around to hiring a new director of communications. With a sigh, Terri closed the door and headed back to her office.
Her quest to extract vengeance on the minister for taking what he considered to be a principled stand against nepotism had not factored in the sort of collateral damage that transpired in the wake of the scandal she had set in motion when she had hired the anonymous Sealion. After years of government service, Terri Campbell should have known a self-assured young lad like Bryan would have jumped at the first opportunity that came his way to demonstrate to the minister he was a key part of the team by doing something like he did. “Oh well,” Terri muttered to herself as she entered the outer office leading to the minister’s and took a seat at her desk. “Maybe next time he’ll listen to his betters.”
“What’s that you’re going on about?” Telford asked as he was leaving the minister’s office with a crate in his hands.
After giving her head a shake, she looked over to where Telford was setting a box containing the last of the former minister’s personal items down.
“That’s the last of it. Finished with young Morton’s office already?” Telford asked.
Terri looked up at him through her lashes while sporting a sly little smile. “The wee lamb wasn’t here long enough to accumulate the odds and sods the likes of you and I surround ourselves with. I dread the day I’ll have to clean out your desk.”
“Never fear, dear girl.” Telford chuckled as he made his way over to the electric kettle Terri always kept warm and filled. He took to pouring himself a fresh cuppa. “I expect you and I will see many a sunset from the windows of our humble cells and a few more ministers passing through before that day comes.”
“I expect that’s what poor Bryan thought until the PM decided he had no wish to spend any political capital on our dear, late minister,” Terri ventured unrepentantly.
“The fool thought so too,” Telford replied distractedly as he flopped down in a seat across the room from Terri’s desk. “You would think a man who was supposed to be as switched on as the minister would have known that when it comes to a scandal like this, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can never put poor Humpty back together again, no matter how hard they try.”