Tom Cain - Carver

‘Forget it,’ said Grantham. ‘You’re the one who’s going to need all the luck. You’re taking a hell of a risk with this. If it turns out you were wrong, don’t expect me or anyone else to protect you.’

‘I never expect anyone to protect me,’ said Carver. ‘Except me.’

Whitehall

Two hours later, just as Carver was coming in to land at Northolt, Jack Grantham was making his presentation to an emergency meeting of the Joint Intelligence Committee. Cameron Young, the prime ministerial representative who had proposed the conference plan barely twenty-four hours earlier with such determined self-confidence, now had an air of desperation as he struggled to find some way of pulling his master from the deep lake of excrement into which he had just been tipped. His present problem was trying to decide whether the Head of the Secret Intelligence Service was a man who could enable some sort of miraculous recovery, or whether the outrageous plan that he had just outlined would only serve to make the Prime Minister’s plunge even deeper.

Dame Judith Spofforth, Head of MI5, was in no mood to accept the kind of risk that was being proposed. ‘I suppose I don’t have to point out that Mr Grantham’s plan…’ She placed particular emphasis on the ‘mister’ as if to emphasize Grantham’s lack of a knighthood. ‘… is not only entirely inappropriate, coming from a department whose responsibility is intelligence-gathering outside the borders of the United Kingdom, but also illegal in more ways than I even care to consider.’

‘We don’t want to tread on our friends’ toes,’ said Grantham. ‘We’re just trying to propose a solution to a problem that affects us all. And, incidentally, we first gathered the intelligence that led us to suspect Mr Zorn’s motives in a number of locations including the United States, Italy and Greece, none of which are exactly domestic. And every single one of the leading suspects in the conspiracy that we believe we have uncovered is a foreign national. So I would argue that we do have reasonable grounds for involvement. As for the legality of the whole thing, this country didn’t have any trouble finding a legal justification for an Iraqi war based on intelligence that many of us knew was, to put it bluntly, absolute bollocks. So how difficult can it be to find a good excuse to do this? Malachi Zorn has waltzed into this country and made complete fools of us all. And he’s done it by killing a great many people, including ones we all knew. I think we have a right to let him know that we won’t stand for that kind of thing.’

‘In the end it all comes down to this man Carver,’ Young interrupted, putting an end to the turf war. ‘You’re asking me to place an enormous amount of faith in the quality of his information, the accuracy of his interpretation of that information, and, above all, his ability to pull off what appears to be little short of a public execution. That’s a very great deal to ask.’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had to trust in him,’ Grantham replied. ‘A few years ago he asked me — and Dame Judith’s predecessor, Dame Agatha Bewley, come to that — to believe that there was a threat to the life of President Lincoln Roberts from an assassin called Damon Tyzack. The President, you will recall, was making his first visit to this country, giving an open-air speech in Bristol. Both the US Secret Service and the Metropolitan Police dismissed Carver’s concerns out of hand. Luckily, Dame Agatha and I did not. That is why Damon Tyzack’s remains are currently rotting away at the bottom of the Bristol Channel, whereas President Roberts is still alive and well and sitting in the White House. I’m sure he’ll be happy to give Carver a character reference.’

‘And you believe Carver’s on the right track now?’ Young asked.

Grantham did not answer immediately. His reputation was on the line here, just as much as Carver’s. If the plan worked out, they might, if they were very lucky, get some grudging thanks. If it failed, they would certainly be vilified.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think he is.’

‘In that case,’ said Cameron Young, ‘I can’t see that we have any other option. The Prime Minister needs to turn this situation around fast. Let’s see if Mr Carver can help him do it. You may go ahead with your operation, using whatever resources are required.’

Young looked at Grantham with a sad half-smile, as though he regretted having to utter the next few words. ‘Although you must understand that, in the event of failure, this conversation never happened. Her Majesty’s government cannot possibly be seen to be associated with any activities that do not meet the strictest standards of legality.’

‘Of course,’ said Jack Grantham. ‘I quite understand.’

Chinatown

In his private office above the dim sum restaurant, Derek Choi was holding a video-conference with a senior State Security Ministry official in Beijing. Another intelligence officer, a political analyst based at the Chinese embassy in London, was also party to the conversation.

‘Today’s events are highly significant,’ said the ministry man. ‘It is clear that we had greatly underestimated the effect of Mr Zorn’s self-fulfilling prophecy. Based on what your source within the Forces of Gaia told us, Comrade Choi, we predicted that the refinery would suffer severe damage, which would swiftly be made public.’

Choi maintained an impassive expression, though his guts seemed to twist like noodles round chopsticks as he heard the implied criticism of his information.

‘It was, of course, impossible to predict that the actions of these amateur saboteurs would have such a remarkable effect,’ the official continued, easing Choi’s tension with every word he spoke. ‘What is the current position of the British government, in your opinion, Comrade Jian?’

‘Squatting with their pants down, fertilizing the paddy fields with their shit,’ the analyst sneered, provoking laughter in the other two men. ‘As the British themselves say, they are running around like chickens without heads. The Prime Minister is in a state of shock. He has suffered a catastrophic loss of face, and neither he, nor his ministers, nor their officials, have any idea what to do to regain it.’

‘This makes the position of Grantham all the more interesting,’ the official in Beijing observed. ‘We regard him as a worthy opponent, one who does not lose his nerve. And he seems to have foreseen the danger posed by Zorn in a manner that other, more gullible fools did not.’

‘In that case,’ Derek Choi observed, ‘will he not be even more keen to use Carver to remove Zorn?’

‘That is a reasonable assumption, yes.’

‘Should we not therefore do our best to prevent that happening, since the effect of Zorn’s actions will now be even more to our financial profit and political gain than we could ever have imagined?’

‘Again, there is merit to that argument. What is your opinion, Jian?’

‘I agree with your assessment of Grantham. He is clear-sighted. He sees things as they really are, not how he would like them to be. And he has the courage to act while others are still weeping and wringing their hands. If he believes it would be advantageous to eliminate Zorn he will not hesitate to do so.’

‘And you still believe that this will happen tomorrow at Wimbledon?’ the official asked Choi.

‘My considered view is that Carver is more likely to attack Zorn close to the tournament site, rather than within the All England Club itself,’ Choi replied. ‘If he were killing by means of stealth, it would be relatively simple to poison Zorn’s food or drink and then be gone before the poison started to take effect. But he has been told that the killing has to be highly visible. This suggests a bomb, perhaps, or a shooting. Of course, Wimbledon is broadcast to more than one hundred and eighty nations, so if Zorn were to die in front of the TV cameras that would certainly provide visibility. But there would also be a high risk of collateral damage from crowds of people being caught by the bomb-blast or an innocent spectator walking into the line of fire. Then he must consider the issues of access and escape. In the panic that would follow such an assassination, the crowd would act unpredictably, posing a danger in itself, and certainly making it difficult to make a swift, un impeded getaway. For all these reasons, I anticipate an attack carried out on the roads leading to or from the tournament. I have already ordered both Carver and Zorn to be placed under observation, and have contingency plans in place should we need to act swiftly. If we do not, then I plan to eliminate Carver while he is watching the tennis.’