“This is worse than I thought,” said the Minister. “I know all about career civil servants and their own private fiefdoms. . Well, if this is a fiefdom, it’s going to be my fiefdom! Following my orders! This kind of sloppy thinking and wilful independence has no place in modern Government! Now you do as you’re told, young lady, if you like having a job! I demand to speak to Catherine Latimer, immediately!”
“I’m afraid that these waiting field agents have the only appointment today,” said Heather.
The Minister looked at JC, Happy, and Melody properly for the first time, and gave no indication of being in any way impressed. He sniffed loudly and turned his scowl back to Heather.
“They can wait. They’re nothing more than little people.”
JC smiled at Happy. “There you are. It’s official. We are little people. Doesn’t that make you feel all safe and protected, knowing we’re too small to be any real danger to anyone?”
“I’ve always wanted to be little people,” said Happy. “Too small to be noticed by the powers that be.”
“Size isn’t everything,” said Melody. “Except for when it is.”
The Minister glared at them. “I have never found humour funny. You can be sure I’ll be looking into your files very thoroughly.”
“Good look finding them,” said JC.
“Right,” said Happy. “I’ve been trying to hack into them for years; and I know my name. Which you haven’t asked.”
“Tell me your names!” snapped the Minister.
“Jeremy Diego,” said JC.
“Monica Odini,” said Melody.
“Ivar ap Owen III,” said Happy.
The Minister looked at them suspiciously. He could sense they’d slipped something past him, but he couldn’t tell what. So he went back to frowning at Heather, regarding her as an easier target for bullying and intimidation. “You tell Latimer I’m coming in. And open up that damned door right now, or I’ll send for some security men to come in here and break it down!”
Heather sighed and pushed her chair back from her desk. JC felt an immediate need to hide behind or possibly under something. Heather came out from behind her desk, and the Minister smiled, thinking he’d won the argument-the fool. Heather strode right up to the Minister, grabbed his nose between the middle fingers of her closed left hand, and twisted the Minister’s nose savagely. He let out a howl of such pain and misery it must have been heard three corridors away. Heather twisted the Minister’s nose back and forth unmercifully while he cried like a baby; and then she let go and stepped back. The Minister raised both hands to his bleeding nose and looked at Heather with wide-eyed horror. And then he turned and ran from the Waiting Room. Heather closed the door behind him, went back to her desk, and resumed typing. Not appearing in the least disturbed or even out of breath.
JC looked at Happy and Melody. “You have to know how to talk to these people.”
There was a long pause. Melody went back to her game of Angry Chavs, Happy went back to scribbling exaggerations in his note-book, and JC went back to staring thoughtfully at the portraits on the walls, trying to catch one of them not looking at him. Time passed.
“Come on, Heather,” JC said finally. “Help us out. What sort of mood is the Boss in? Should we have brought flowers or updated our wills?”
“You’d know better than me,” said Heather. “She summoned the three of you here directly instead of going through me and this office.” She didn’t actually stop typing, but JC couldn’t help noticing that she did look a bit put-out. “And that’s not like her! The Boss is normally a stickler for following protocol. I think something’s worrying her. She’s hiding things from me. She’s hiding things from everyone.”
“Situation entirely normal, then,” said JC.
And that was when the door slammed open, again, and the newly appointed Minister for Supernatural Affairs stormed back in. There was dried blood all down the front of his nice suit, and two thick tufts of cotton wool protruded from his nostrils. He was accompanied this time by half a dozen large and heavily armed security types. The Minister struck an aggrieved pose before Heather’s desk and pointed a quivering finger at her.
“That’s her! That’s the bitch! I want her arrested, and dragged out of here, and thrown in a cell! In handcuffs!”
Heather was already up on her feet, behind her desk. Two really big guns had appeared in her hands, out of nowhere. The Minister’s jaw dropped, and he stood very still. The six security guards lowered their weapons immediately. The man in charge nodded respectfully to Heather, then looked witheringly at the Minister.
“You idiot. This is who you wanted us to arrest? Catherine Latimer’s personal secretary? Are you insane? Sorry, Heather. We didn’t know. Please don’t kill us all and dump our bodies in a mass grave.”
“It’s all right, Dave,” said Heather. “He didn’t know. He’s new.”
“Well, he’s not going to get old, acting like that,” said the security guard. “Come on, lads, let’s get going while the going’s still good.”
They left in a rush, pushing and shoving each other in their hurry to get through the open door. The Minister stood alone, staring in an almost hypnotised way at the really big guns Heather was now pointing exclusively at him.
“So,” he said finally. “If I’m not in charge. . what, exactly, is my job here? What do I do?”
“You get to talk to the media and convince them that we don’t exist,” said Heather. “And that’s it.”
“Ah,” said the Minister. “Yes. I think I’ll go now if that’s all right.”
“I would,” said Heather.
The Minister left, closing the door quietly and very politely behind him. The really big guns disappeared from Heather’s hands, and she sat down again and resumed her typing.
“Potentially bright sort, I thought,” said JC. “He learned quickly.”
Catherine Latimer’s voice sounded suddenly in the office, from no obvious source. “Chance, get in here with your team. Heather; we are not to be interrupted. Unless it’s that thing we talked about.”
“What?” Happy said immediately. “What thing?”
“That thing the Boss and I talked about that the likes of you don’t need to know about,” said Heather.
“Unless it’s that thing we already know about,” said JC.
“The thing with the thing?” said Melody.
“No; the thing with the other thing,” said Happy.
“You all think you’re so funny,” said Heather, crushingly.
“Get in here, Chance!” said Catherine Latimer’s voice.
The extremely solid steel door at the back of the Waiting Room swung slowly open, as though daring the three field agents to enter. JC made a point of swaggering in, while Melody stuck her nose in the air, and Happy slouched along in the rear. The door closed very firmly behind them.
* * *
The Boss’s private office hadn’t changed much since the last time JC and his team had been called before her. Large and comfortable, but in no way cosy or inviting, with only the most luxurious and expensive fittings and furnishings. Catherine Latimer sat upright behind her Hepplewhite desk and gestured for the three of them to arrange themselves on the even more uncomfortable visitors’ chairs set out before her. She then looked them over with her usual cold gaze. JC made a point of not looking at her, pretending an interest in the contents of her office. Which was actually quite interesting in its own right. The Boss’s antique desk might be covered with all the most up-to-date electronic equipment, but there was no doubt Catherine Latimer had placed her own personal mark on her surroundings. Strange objects leapt to the eye everywhere, demanding the visitor’s attention.