He sighed. ‘Well, that’s proved more difficult than we expected. Our man didn’t exactly take the bait. And now I’ve just heard he’s buggered off to America. Woolf made a total dog’s breakfast of trying to recruit him. It seems they all underestimated him. On the other hand, his attitude makes him perfect for the job, since there’s no way Rolt would suspect him. I think we just have to play a slightly longer game.’
‘There isn’t time for a longer game. Rolt’s becoming a power to be reckoned with. It’s time you started joining up some dots, Stephen.’
She could hear the strain in his voice. She knew that sceptics in the Service were arguing — with some justification — that they were on a fishing expedition where Rolt was concerned. She had some sympathy for Mandler, being pulled as he was in different directions, but she could see the fight going out of him and it wasn’t an edifying sight.
‘This wretched hysteria about returnees isn’t helping. Pulling people off the streets with virtually nothing to go on, other than that they spent a bit of time in Syria, is just inflaming an already combustible situation. There aren’t the resources for much else.’
‘Well, give it another week,’ she had told him, ‘but don’t let Rolt go off your radar. I don’t have a good feeling about him.’
Watching Clements’s body language, it was clear that, as far as he was concerned, Rolt was the most important person in the room — after himself, of course. The cabinet secretary was positively fawning over him. She looked round at the young Muslim, Derek Farmer’s new find. He had a Bosnian name, but scrubbed up well as a Party man, the acceptable face of young Islam. What was he making of all this? She watched him as Rolt spoke.
‘All I’ve really said is that there are limits to tolerance if we are under siege from people who have different beliefs, many of which are entirely obnoxious to the vast majority of us. And may I add I’ve had numerous messages of support from a wide range of faiths and communities.’
‘Would you like to come in here, Sahim?’ Clements pronounced his name Saaheeem. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, for those who haven’t yet met him, Mr Kovacevic is doing sterling work waving the flag for the moderate Muslim. Our secret weapon, if you like.’
Sam scrabbled to separate the warring thoughts overlapping in his brain. He felt he had lost control of his life, that he was being pushed and pulled in different directions. He had been hired as the voice of moderation, the young Muslim who could speak up for tolerance. Now he was torn. Before, part of him had agreed with Rolt; now what the man was talking about sounded like nothing short of ethnic cleansing, in which he, Sam, would be tarred with the same brush as Karza, and Bala, with his leg injury and electronic tag. To have escaped deportation in Bosnia then find it here, being openly discussed by supposedly civilized people? It was unthinkable. What could he say? His mind had become a complete blur. He opened his mouth, hoping fervently that what came out would not be too incoherent.
‘Thank you. Well, I think it’s a time for care, for restraint, for keeping open lines of communication with all sections of society. We should extend a helping hand to the returnees, rather than punishing them. We need to help them find a way back into society. And those who have been traumatized by their experiences, I think we should be helping them, just as Invicta helps ex-servicemen and — women, who’ve fought for their country.’
That seemed to make sense. So why was there an uncomfortable silence when he finished? He noticed that almost everyone was staring into their own laps. No one was looking at him. Had he crossed some kind of line?
Clements struggled to find the right response. ‘Well, that certainly sounded like it came from the heart. Thank you, Sahim.’
Sam’s heartbeat was hammering in his ears.
Rolt engaged him with a cold stare that sent a shiver through him. ‘It’s a laudable position, and I don’t doubt your good intentions,’ he began, ‘but I’m afraid we’ve passed that point. Where do you think you’re going to find the popular support, now we have seen what they — some extremists — are capable of? The people we are talking about are not the well-meaning Muslim running their halal business or corner shop. We’re talking about another thing altogether: the menace in our midst, who’ve taken all our hard-fought-for values of tolerance and free expression and crushed them underfoot. They want Sharia law. They want a caliphate. They want women segregated, shrouded, deprived of education. And they are prepared to blow up my men to scare us into making concessions. No, we need to be rid of them, whatever it takes.’
Sam’s mouth went dry. Those words would be Karza’s death sentence. Before, he had relished this sort of meeting, enjoyed the cut and thrust of the debate. Now he was lost for words, and terrified of what the future might bring.
54
‘What the fuck have you been saying?’ Derek Farmer grabbed Sam’s arm, swung him round and pulled him into an alcove. Sam tried to edge out of his grasp. He didn’t like being manhandled by anyone, let alone a large, sweaty, shouting man — and, above all, not this one.
‘Sorry? What d’you mean?’
‘“Give returnees support”? What? Welcome them at Gatwick with tea and bloody sympathy, and sorry it didn’t work out? You’ve gone way off piste, matey.’
‘It was a closed meeting. Chatham House rules. They said so.’
‘Chatham House — what century are you in? You’ll be all over the papers tomorrow, I guarantee it. The Mail Online’s already got it: Government’s Muslim Poster Boy Goes Rogue. You are going to be in so much shit you’ll need a fucking snorkel.’
Where was all the ‘Thanks for helping us out here, Sahim’ and ‘Marvellous to have you on board’? What had happened to change their attitude?
‘Then I resign.’
Farmer wagged a chubby finger under his nose. It smelt of old cigarettes. ‘No way, José. Not an option. We’ll end up looking like the total muppets we were for ever taking you on. Here’s what’s going to happen, sunshine. You’re going to do an interview with the Sun, and I’m going to give you the script, which you are going to stick to, word for bloody word.’
Sam attempted to breathe slowly. He thought he had spoken sensibly and moderately, and now he was being vilified by yet another faction. Or, to be more precise, the people he was meant to be working for. It had all started so well. And now everything — everything to do with his life in Britain — was turning to shit.
‘What if I refuse?’
‘We’ll comb through your history, your family, your uncles, your aunties, your girlfriends or boyfriends and pets until we find some dirt. And don’t tell me there isn’t any because there always is. We’ll go to town on you. We’ll make you so unemployable you won’t even be able to get work as a fucking cabbage picker with all the other immigrants.’
He held onto Sam’s arm with one hand while he gesticulated with the other. ‘Think about it. You think about the one thing you wouldn’t want the world to know about — and imagine it as a headline. A nice big one. Then imagine your mother reading it. We’ll ruin you.’
Sam didn’t have to think about it. He was trapped.
‘And not only will you be out of a job, you’ll have nowhere to live. And I don’t fancy you and your bird’s chances of finding any room at the inn with a name like yours right now.’ Farmer sighed and let go of his arm.
‘Look, Sam, we’re on a war footing, and we can’t have any deserters. Rolt knows this is his moment. Right now. And if we don’t bring him into the tent, he’ll go to the opposition’s and piss into ours. As it is they’re already sniffing each other’s arses. We have to nip that romance in the bud before they get into each other’s Y-fronts and right up the fucking aisle. Capisce? We’ll craft you some well-chosen words about the merits of what Mr Rolt’s been saying and we’ll forget all about your little — diversion this morning. All right?’