Michael Dobbs - Whispers of betrayal

No, he could tell no one. He'd have to sort it out by himself.

Onward, driven by lurid imagination and more than a little fear. He was beginning to sweat freely as he passed Red Lion Square. He was making good time, there was little other traffic, and none of it heading towards the City. All the lights seemed to be standing at red, demanding that he stop, but he ignored them, pushing on, pushing on. Up ahead he could see the Tube station at Chancery Lane. He found it shuttered, its mouth gaping empty and black, and this was as far as he could go, for the Tube station stood at the City limits. Beyond it he could see a blockade of barriers, guarded by an elderly constable, and behind him a patrol of camouflaged soldiers, standard-issue SA80s at the ready, thirty high-velocity rounds in the mag. Goodfellowe knew a little about the weapon, a fragment of absurd and amusing clutter he'd picked up at a Select Committee hearing. Apparently the SA80 wasn't all that it might be, since the mosquito repellent issued to the British Army had the effect of melting the weapon's plastic sheathing and turning it into something resembling superglue. The knowledge gave him precious little comfort, however, since this wasn't the jungle. It was Chancery Lane, and the weapons were pointing directly at him.

He came to a stop with his front wheel resting against the first line of defences. The constable, his uniform adorned with the gold insignia of the City of London police force, took one look at the perspiring and crumpled figure in front of him and reached for the obvious conclusion.

'Not today, sunshine.'

'Oh, hell, here we go again.'

'What was that?'

'It's not what it looks like. Constable,' Goodfellowe puffed.

'Why's that, then?'

'I'm a Member of Parliament.'

'Sure. Makes no difference. You could be Claudia Schiffer but you'll not get through here today.'

Goodfellowe reached into his pocket and waved a plastic photographic pass, a pink and grey ID with an encoded metal strip on the reverse that he was forced to carry in order to be allowed into the Cabinet Office and COBRA. He'd always found its colour scheme ridiculous and rather resented having to carry it, until now.

'I'm part of this operation, constable, part of COBRA. You know what COBRA is? And you must let me through.' Part of COBRA, indeed. Well, true up to a few days ago. It seemed a small exaggeration in the circumstances.

The constable took the pass for inspection, then examined Goodfellowe still more carefully before retiring a few paces to seek guidance from his radio. The instrument at his shoulder spat and sighed as he consulted higher authority, while Goodfellowe was left to wonder at the strangeness of this place, normally a maelstrom of traffic and congestion yet now as quiet as any backstreet of Chernobyl. Even the pigeons were scratching around in puzzlement.

As was the constable. He had crossed to two of the soldiers on duty and muttered something while nodding in Goodfellowe's direction. All three then advanced upon Goodfellowe in a manner that was undeniably smothered in menace.

'We've got that sorted, sir. So I tell you what we're going to do. If you're who you say you are, you'll know the password and I'm instructed to let you proceed.'

He leaned closer to Goodfellowe, his breath heated. 'And if you don't know the password, it means you're guilty of deception, personation, theft of Government passes and obstruction of the police in the pursuance of their duty. Might also mean that you're part of this nonsense, trying to bluff your way through. Either way these gentlemen here, under the provisions of the Public Order Act that have placed this area under military jurisdiction, are going to drag you away, throw you in the back of their wagon and take you for a long and very bumpy ride.'

Even as Goodfellowe watched, the soldiers stiffened and seemed to grow in bulk beneath their uniforms. The muzzles of their short-barrelled rifles kept staring at him.

'Which specific provision of the Public Order Act?' Goodfellowe demanded, bluffing for time.

'Let's not worry ourselves about which provision, shall we, sir? Just the password.'

'The password?'

'That's what I said.'

There was a moment's silence. One of the soldiers, young and very spotty, had a bright glazed look in his eye that Goodfellowe found disturbing, as though the lightbulb inside his brain was about to burn out. The muzzle of his rifle was pushed several inches closer. Goodfellowe swore; he was genuinely scared. No one had told him the password. The muzzle of the rifle seemed to be staring angrily at him. There were precious few mosquitoes around at this time of year, so no chance of the bloody thing melting.

Which is what did it. Melting. Glue. Suddenly he was back in the garden of Downing Street, listening to the Prime Minister ranting about incompetence and death and scorched wings, like an ancient king trying to defy fate. It was a guess, but it was all he had.

'Operation Icarus?' Goodfellowe mumbled.

'What was that?'

'Icarus. The password's Icarus.'

The word was still hanging in the air when the two soldiers stepped smartly behind him, blocking his retreat. There was nowhere for him to go. The constable approached still closer, his face serious, his breathing laboured as his lips wrestled with the words.

'I wish you'd said that from the start, sir. Saved us all a lot of trouble…'

– =OO=OOO=OO-= Two thirty-five.

Head down, pain in his lungs. Goodfellowe pushes forward through Smithfield Market, its silent streets strewn with the unswept plastic and polystyrene of the previous day's trading. In normal times this is a place filled with the cries of porters and the aromas of uncooked meat and roasting coffee, but today – nothing. Only more scavenging pigeons, which scatter in a panic of feathers as he clatters round the corner.

And there it is. He looks up, wipes sweat from his eyes, to see glowering dark towers. He is almost there. At the Barbican. A complex of more than two thousand apartments arranged in blocks and towers around remorseless windswept plazas. A Brave New World of angles and of ugly aerials, built from concrete that weeps soot and grime.

And the tallest and most unforgiving of all the structures that make up the Barbican complex is Shakespeare Tower. Forty-one floors high. Its dark windows looking out sightlessly over the City.

Goodfellowe is forced to abandon his faithful bicycle. He begins running up stairs of cement and across anonymous brick-paved courtyards that seem to suck in winds and turn them round and round in some eternal spin cycle of litter and dead leaves. As he runs, the echoes of his footsteps leap back at him from the empty doorways and stairwells. It's a ghost town.

Two forty-two.

He is by the entrance to Shakespeare Tower. Abandoned, no commissionaire, yet entrance thankfully unlocked. And somewhere, inside, up there, is Amadeus. All doubt is gone now, he knows it's Amadeus. Should've known earlier. They'd thought the original letter of warning was written in gibberish to disguise the identity of the author. If only they'd had the wit to realize that it pointed insistently like a finger of accusation, marking the author as someone who was dyslexic, who had once offered Goodfellowe a shilling for a rude picture of the headmaster's wife and who still seems to have one hell of a problem with authority.

The address Mickey has given him says that Amadeus lives on the thirtieth floor. He thumps the buttons of the lift, then thumps the wall in impatience, yet even as he bursts panting from the lift he can see Amadeus's front door is ajar. He knows he won't find him there. He doesn't find any trace of Amadeus, for the apartment is overarranged and crammed with pinks and pastels and little sign that a man of military background lives here, until Goodfellowe opens the door to the smallest bedroom. There he discovers a shrine. The memorabilia of a career spanning many years and several wars. A room crammed like a catacomb. No time to take it all in, just fleeting images of citations and photographs, with something called a Prop Blast certificate swinging disrespectfully from the hook on the back of the door. Weapons, too. A semicircle of combat knives arranged on the wall, and several guns. Probably Soviet, hopefully decommissioned. An Argentinian flag, faded, ripped, covered in ominous stains.