The future of the entire country hinged upon the decision made an hour from now. He had to push his case as strongly as possible. Ensuring there was no way anyone could prove a connection between the Shamir and SIS would help enormously.
To do that, he had to find — and eliminate — Nina Wilde and Eddie Chase. ‘I just spoke to C,’ he told his operatives both in the room and in the field with resurgent anger. ‘He wants results. These targets are a threat to the security of the United Kingdom. Find them!’
Peter Alderley leaned back in a chair, shaking his head wearily. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said, interrupting Nina and Eddie’s explanation of recent events. ‘Let me try to get my head around this. You found the lost palace of King Solomon in the jungle, and inside was the actual Horn of Jericho from the Bible — a stone that when it’s brought into the light causes some kind of sonic vibration that can literally level cities. Correct?’
‘More or less,’ said Nina. Alderley’s wife Poppy had indeed been surprised that he had brought home guests, but was more annoyed that he had asked her to leave the room so they could hold a private discussion. A compromise had been reached, in that he had left the room to talk with his visitors in his small home office-cum-den while she watched television in the lounge. ‘I don’t think it’s so much light as some kind of radiation that activates it, though. Cosmic rays, or neutrinos.’
‘Neutrinos,’ Alderley echoed dubiously. ‘At the same time, John Brice, who had faked his resignation from SIS to work undercover, was secretly supplying secessionist rebels in eastern DRC with arms and funding so British companies like Monardril could get first dibs on mining concessions in the newly independent state. Yes?’
Eddie nodded. ‘You were listening, then.’
‘I was, yes. It’s the believing I’m struggling with.’
‘It’s all true,’ Nina insisted. She held up the broken laptop. ‘The proof is on this — if we can retrieve it.’
‘That’s quite a big if. Bullets and computers generally don’t mix. But what you said about Brice freeing Philippe Mukobo from US custody while in-flight over the Atlantic, in the process destroying an American airliner? That’s the most unbelievable part, never mind magic stones.’ Alderley leaned forward, speaking more insistently. ‘If he really was acting in the capacity of an SIS officer, it wouldn’t just cause a diplomatic incident. It would quite literally be an act of war — against our closest ally!’
‘That’s what he told us,’ said Eddie. ‘If we can get the video off that laptop, then you can hear him say it for yourself.’
‘It’s why he resigned, at least officially,’ Nina went on. ‘To give the British government total deniability. Hell, maybe nobody in the government even knew about it,’ she said as a new possibility came to her. ‘It might just have been Brice and somebody higher in MI6 acting on their own.’
Alderley shook his head. ‘Contrary to popular belief, SIS doesn’t start major operations off its own bat. Our job is to implement policy, not create it.’ He sensed a certain scepticism. ‘What? It’s true! I’m in charge of British intelligence activities over an entire continent, and I certainly couldn’t unilaterally say “the President of Togo’s been a bit rude about us lately, I think we should overthrow him. Get to it, chaps!” Something like that would have to be approved at a higher level — a political level.’
‘Somebody did approve it,’ Eddie told him. ‘Brice said he had total immunity under the James Bond clause. Someone had to sign off on that.’
‘The person who authorises Section 7 immunity for SIS officers is the Foreign Secretary,’ Alderley replied — then he froze, eyes widening.
‘What is it?’ Nina asked.
‘The Foreign Secretary… Brice resigned, or supposedly resigned, two years ago.’ There was a rising undercurrent of alarm to his words. ‘Which means his operation in DR Congo was approved at least that long ago, right?’
‘Yes?’ she said uncertainly. ‘And that’s sounding seriously bad because…?’
‘Because the man who was Foreign Secretary two years ago has got a new job since then.’
‘Going to guess it’s not selling fish and chips at a Harry Ramsden’s,’ said Eddie.
‘Oh, I wish,’ Alderley continued. ‘The Foreign Secretary two years ago was Quentin Hove.’ He saw that they both recognised the name, but pressed on regardless. ‘Who is now the bloody Prime Minister!’
Brice regarded the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland with an expression of neutral deference. Behind it, though, he held the politician in a certain amount of contempt. Quentin Hove had usurped his predecessor in a leadership challenge eighteen months earlier; even though she had put the process of Brexit into motion, it had not been fast or hard enough to satisfy the Europhobic wing of her own party. The smooth-skinned, chinless Hove had been the surprise last man standing after his rivals knifed each other in the back, by all accounts a mediocre intellect despite an expensive education and whose chief achievement as he rose through the ministerial ranks was being less fractionally loathed by the public than his colleagues, using them as lightning rods.
But he was now in charge; other than the monarch, whose role was now almost entirely ceremonial, the highest power in the land. The man Brice had to convince of the importance — and necessity — of his plan.
He had begun with the stick rather than the carrot.
‘You’re telling me that… that the mission failed?’ Hove had slightly bulging, watery eyes, and his dismay as he realised the implications made him appear on the verge of tears. ‘And not only that, but our involvement might come out?’
‘We’re doing everything we can to minimise that possibility, sir,’ Brice continued. ‘We’ve already secured what physical evidence there is, and are working right now to make sure that any hearsay is silenced.’
‘Should I ask how?’
‘SIS is, as always, doing everything in its power to maintain full deniability, Prime Minister.’ Sir Kirkland Armitage, the head of the Secret Intelligence Service — ‘C’ — was seated behind his desk, having watched impassively as Brice explained the situation to their political superior. ‘We’ll tell you anything you ask to know, of course, but I sincerely believe it’s in your own best interest to leave operational details to us.’
‘Of course. Of course,’ echoed Hove, taking a couple of paces across the office before turning back to Brice. ‘But — you crashed a plane! An American airliner, with over three hundred people aboard!’ Despite his efforts to maintain a commanding air, panic was not far beneath the surface. ‘That wasn’t what we intended!’
‘I was authorised to take any and all actions necessary to secure British interests in the Congo,’ said Brice. ‘Philippe Mukobo was a vital part of that plan, and it was the only way to free him from American custody.’
‘But if the Americans even suspect British involvement, it’ll be an absolute disaster. Anglo-American relations will be ruined — no, they’ll be destroyed! At the exact moment we’ve pulled away from Europe, we’ll have turned our closest friend against us. We’ll be left completely isolated, a pariah.’ Helpless anger entered the politician’s voice. ‘And the plan for the Congo, the whole bloody point of the exercise, has been wrecked now Mukobo’s dead. All those people on the plane, including British nationals — they died for nothing!’