Christopher Nuttall - The Long Hard Road

Approved for further development , he noted on the email, and returned it, before looking through some of the other emails. One in particular caught his attention; a request for an interview from Bruce Coville, the Director of Overseas Reporters. Puzzled – Coville wasn’t fond of accounting for his department to anyone, the Board least of all – Edmund sent an offer of an immediate meeting. Coville accepted at once, alarming Edmund more than he had expected.

“We have something of a… situation,” Coville said, without preamble. “We may be about to be at ground zero of a major scandal.”

Edmund blinked. “As bad as the David Kelly affair?”

“Worse,” Coville said bluntly. He picked out a CD and inserted it into Edmund’s displayer without bothering to ask permission. “Observe.”

Edmund swore. The images were indistinct; most homemade pornographic movies were. A woman and a man were having sex; the woman straddling the man and moving with considerable enthusiasm. Her face was slack with pleasure and with a shock he recognised her.

“That’s Kristy Stewart,” he said, remembering. “Oddly enough, Bruce; I already know all of this.”

“No, you don’t,” Coville said grimly, as the happy couple made love with a depressing vigour, concluding together. Edmund refrained from looking at the man’s unmentionables; it would only depress him. “Sir, that video was on the web.”

Edmund flicked off the display and stared at him. “Say again,” he said. “This was on the World Wide Web?”

“Yes,” Coville said. “As you know, everything that… Miss Stewart does while on assignment is recorded.”

Edmund nodded. The MOD and several unnamed agencies had provided the equipment; cameras and data transmitters that were supposed to hide information from anyone that didn’t have the correct access codes. He hadn’t pointed it out to Stewart, but he’d thought that she knew; everything she did was recorded. Everything.

“And this is on the web,” he said. “I suppose it could be a mistake?”

“Almost every one of her… little affairs is on the web,” Coville said. “Sir, someone has done this to us.”

Edmund blinked at being called ‘sir,’ before realising that Coville wanted to pass the buck. “She’s clearly not being raped,” he said grimly. “Shit.”

Coville pressed his point. “Sir, this will destroy any suggestion that we are impartial,” he said. “You know how strong anti-German feeling is right now.”

“I know,” Edmund said. He made a grim face; Germans who had been living in Britain for years were facing discrimination on a grand scale. It was amazing how much damage an ongoing war did to tolerance and many Germans had fled to America. “Who did this to us?”

“I don’t know,” Coville admitted. “Someone could have picked the main signal off the satellite transmission, seeing that the signalling doesn’t involve pinpoint lasers any more. Alternatively, someone could have given them the recordings from within the building, one of her enemies perhaps.”

“I’m going to have to think about this,” Edmund said. “Has anyone else picked up on it?”

“Other news companies?” Coville asked. “Not so far, but it won’t be long. Some porn lover will notice that this set is real, rather than the actors who fuck for money, claiming to be someone famous.” Edmund, who remembered the Princess Diana scandal, nodded. “And, of course, Nazi chic is quite popular in some circles.”

“As are rape movies,” Edmund muttered, with genuine disgust. The imported Japanese and Chinese porn movies had even provoked questions in Parliament. Personally, he thought that the male – and female – actors who acted in them should have been shot or flogged, even if they’d claimed that everyone in the movies was paid for their… services.

“This could rebound badly on the Corporation,” Coville said. “However, I leave it all in your hands.”

“Thanks a fucking lot,” Edmund said, as Coville got up to leave. He thought rapidly; could someone in MI6 or PJHQ have released the records? Coming to think of it, might they have appeared on the intranet in those organisations and migrated onto the greater web?

He made his decision. “Sandra,” he said, calling his secretary. “Sandra, could you arrange me a meeting with the Press Secretary?”

Sandra, a short and stocky oriental woman, entered his office and bowed. “Yes, sir,” she said. Her bow exposed a great deal of cleavage and leg. “Might I ask what the meeting will be about?”

“Unfortunate affairs,” Edmund said, and smiled at his pun. Sandra, puzzled, bowed and left, leaving Edmund alone with his thoughts.

Charlene Molesworth was a bright and bubbly teenager, at least in appearance. Her long blonde hair fell over an ample bust, which she dressed to enhance, and a very tight short dress. Her contrast to Anna Hathaway, the current Home Secretary, could hardly be greater; Hathaway was a stern prim woman with grey hair pulled tightly into a bun. Everyone was expecting fireworks; the audience had been laying bets all morning.

“Good afternoon and welcome to Spotlight, ” Charlene said. She’d been hosting the show for six months, mainly because of her open sex appeal. “We have here today the Home Secretary, Mrs Anna Hathaway, for a one-to-one interview.” Her tone was designed to excite men; her nude photographs sold for a fortune. “Thank you for joining us, Anna – I may call you Anna, mightn’t I?”

Hathaway gave her a sharp look. Charlene was reminded of the picture of Granny Weatherwax from the Discworld movies. “Naturally, we were more than happy to grant you an interview,” Hathaway said, without answering the question.

Someone less enthusiastic might have been daunted. “Thank you for coming again,” Charlene said. “The first question is simple; seeing we’re waging war against the Germans, what the next step going to be?”

Hathaway gave her a long calculating look. “You must be aware that we do not discuss matters of operational security on open channels,” she said. “All I can tell you is that the Government remains committed to defeating Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia as quickly as possible.”

“But not including the use of nuclear weapons?” Charlene asked quickly. “Open reports from the first time this war was fought suggest that the Germans actually managed to detonate a nuclear weapon, just before the war ended.”

“Such reports were never proven and indeed relied upon very insubstantial evidence indeed,” Hathaway said.

Charlene gave her a dazzling smile. “But would you agree that a German nuclear threat exists?”

“I would not,” Hathaway said primly. “The Germans would have to build the bomb and then transport it here. They don’t have stealth technology and they can’t build a bomb small enough to be transported on a rocket. Ergo, we are in no danger from a German atomic attack.”

Charlene nodded. “Ah, but what about biological weapons?” She asked. “Reports suggest that the Axis are in fact using such weapons in Central Asia.”

“We are confident that any German biological agent would not be ultra-nasty, like some of the creations from our own time,” Hathaway informed her. “We are also confident that we could handle anything that got loose over here – and we have warned the Germans that any use of biological weapons will result in a nuclear response.”

Charlene seized on the last point. “So there are circumstances under which a nuclear weapon would be used?”

“In retaliation for the use of weapons of mass destruction,” Hathaway said. “We will not slaughter thousands of German citizens for no cause.”