Fifty-First State (29 page)

‘I suppose if they had the brains to get it out of Hamscott, they could get it out of the country,' said Gott. He looked at Barnsbury, and signalled to the waiter. Barnsbury said half-reluctantly, ‘Well, just one more drink. It's a little strange, Gott. Ever since I heard all this it's been difficult to see things in the same light.'

Barnsbury had never been a thoughtful or imaginative man. That had been his usefulness. And Gott did not want to ask him what his thoughts were. He only said, ‘Light of eternity shining over all of us now, I suppose.'

‘The Yanks are furious. They've been wanting to clear a quarter of a mile of trees and scrub away from the back of the base for years but
they've had the lawyers and the environmentalists and all the local groups against them. The thing's dragged on. You can imagine what they're saying now.' He paused, ‘Edward – there's something else.' This use of his first name alerted Gott. ‘They're putting pressure on you not to oppose the Lands Sale Bill any more. I'm supposed to persuade you.'

‘Consider you've delivered the message,' said Gott.

‘The powers that be weren't pleased I came with you to see Haver but they've convinced me to abandon my opposition to the group. I agreed – given my personal circumstances – and they seemed to think I could talk you round. I told them it wouldn't work.'

Gott sagged, momentarily. It was not surprising that in the present climate of fear of terrorism and the news about the missing nuclear weapon, Barnsbury had succumbed to Government pressure. His dying wife was plainly occupying most of his thoughts. He had no strength left for the battle.

Gott asked, ‘Is Petherbridge afraid if we knock out this bill we'll go further and attack the whole basis of the ownership of the bases, perhaps start to kick out the Americans?'

‘It's hard to know, if the news about this stolen missile gets out, what the public response will be. Petherbridge plans to say that this only stresses our need for US military and other assistance. But there'll be loud voices saying we should get them, and the weaponry, off our turf. There'll be panic and no one can guess which way the cat will jump. That's why he wants unity in the party.' He looked hard at Gott, who shook his head.

‘Thought not,' said Barnsbury. He finished his drink and stood up. He nodded at his glass, ‘Thank you, Edward.' He had more to say, Gott saw. He waited. Barnsbury said awkwardly, ‘There's something else I've been requested to tell you. There's talk of a certain situation in your private life. If you don't back off, that situation will be private no longer.'

Gott knew this speech was costing Barnsbury a lot. ‘Don't worry. The threat has already been made. I'll deal with it.' He put out his hand, Barnsbury shook it and walked away. Gott looked after him, thinking that the man had managed, in half an hour, to give him two ugly messages.

Gott stood in the lavatory and straightened his white tie. He looked at himself in the glass, noting the bags under his eyes; he ought to have shaved before he left the office. His beard was coming in grey these days. Now he had to do something he should have done thirty years ago and which had become more and more impossible as the years went by. He'd been a coward, but if Petherbridge was on the verge of smearing him publicly, he must act now. There were things, as the Collect had it, that he had done which he ought not to have done and other things he ought to have done, which he had not done. Perhaps it was the knowledge of
a nuclear weapon in circulation that was making him brood, he thought. Or just the prospect facing him in Scotland.

A political journalist came in and said bonhomously, ‘Hi, Edward. How are you? How's it all going?'

‘Never better,' said Edward Gott. He straightened his shoulders and went off to hail the seventy-plus-year-old achievements in the Balkans of the almost-100-year-old veteran.

106 St George's Square, London SW1. February 3rd, 2016. 12.30 a.m.

Edward Gott, who had a directors' meeting at his bank next morning at nine, had walked home from the celebration of the Second World War warrior at the Garrick. He was trying to clear his head.

Barnsbury's story about the missing warhead had shaken him badly. He wanted to warn two of his sons, one who worked in the City and lived in Bow, the other living and working in the West End of London, to grab their families and leave the city quickly. His youngest son was safe enough in the USA, at MIT, his eldest farmed in Cumbria, Joe was on what seemed to be a permanent holiday in Thailand and Richard was in South Africa. Which left Robin and Jamie in London, possibly in danger. Except – who knew where the bomb was? If it was armed, on a plane, ready for take-off? And, if so, to where? You could run, but who could tell if where you ran to might not be more dangerous than where you'd come from?

If the news got out, there'd be a flight to the country, because people would think it was safer there. If the news got out, if the roads got jammed, even blocked off by the Army to prevent flight, his sons would be angry he hadn't told them sooner, when they and their families could have escaped.

He shivered inside his heavy coat and walked more briskly. He had never known a time when events had moved so fast, shaking, whirring, banging, spitting out unintended consequences, unpredictable as a rocket nailed crookedly to a fence on Guy Fawkes Night.

There was frost on the bushes surrounding the square when he reached home; the bare branches of the trees sparkled with it. He opened the heavy front door and went upstairs to his flat. He needed to think and knew, from experience, that he was on the brink of making the mistakes of a busy and energetic man – mistakes stemming from having too much to do and too little time to think.

He still had a campaign to run, a meeting at the bank tomorrow, his answering service would ring in ten minutes and Jeremy would have left a stack of notes and letters on his desk for him. And – his heart sank at the thought – he had to fly to Scotland and talk to his wife. As he threw his overcoat on the small concert piano only ever played by his daughter, the doorbell rang. He looked out of his window at the
empty streets and the bare trees of the square opposite. Outside his door was a large black car and, under a street light and looking up at his window two faces he knew, one Tobias Kerr, his wife's nephew and second-in-command to the Prime Minister's Private Secretary, the other, Gerry Gordon-Garnett. Serious business then, in the early hours of the morning. They must have been driving around waiting for his lights to go on.

Once in the flat, Gordon-Garnett refused a drink and Kerr accepted one. The Kerrs had a weakness in that direction. Gott invited them to sit down and they took two chairs, one on either side of fireplace. Gott himself remained standing. ‘Any news of the base invaders?' he asked, thinking that if they wanted something, as they surely did, they owed him some information in return. ‘Strange bedfellows,' he said. ‘Ex-servicemen and extremists. I suppose the security firm guys were paid.'

‘Saudi money,' said Gordon-Garnett shortly. ‘But that's not what we're here to talk about.'

Gott looked at the clock on his mantelpiece and said, ‘I didn't think so.'

‘I don't want to keep you up, Lord Gott,' Gordon-Garnett said. ‘But Alan wants you to think about this opposition to the third reading of the MoD Lands Sale Bill. In the light of these disastrous events at Hamscott Common. I don't need to tell you that at a time of national emergency, with the hunt for terrorists going on, we ought to pull together, not divide the party.' He leaned forward earnestly, ‘That's what the PM's thinking and he hopes very much you agree.'

‘I already had that message from Graham Barnsbury,' Gott said. ‘I'm thinking the matter over. I'm asking myself what is in the best interests of the country, as well as the party.'

‘You think you're qualified to make that kind of decision?'

Gott went on the offensive. ‘At least I don't owe my job to a foreign power.'

While Gott's nephew shot him a look of impatient dislike, Gordon-Garnett did not acknowledge the remark. He said, ‘So you don't plan to withdraw your opposition to the bill?'

‘I'm considering my position,' Gott told him.

‘Alan will be very disappointed to hear that. Very disappointed.'

‘I imagine he will be,' said Gott. ‘But there's nothing else I can tell you.'

‘He asked me to remind you that if you show yourself to be so thoroughly anti-American there's a strong possibility Clough Whitney Credit and Commerce may lose a lot of American clients. They constitute about twenty-five per cent of your cash-flow, I'm told.'

Gott nodded, knowing he had not thought far enough ahead.
Petherbridge, who had been able to command dollars for his election, heavily assisted by the State Department, would certainly be able to put pressure on American investors. On the other hand, he thought, as they say, money's serious – that's why they call it money. The US Government, the CIA, the British Government, whoever was in charge of the operation, could put pressure on the investors to move their accounts, but the investors would still act in what they saw as their own best interests. To succeed they might have to bribe them – how far would they be prepared to go to persuade the bank's clients to alter their banking arrangements? How much would they be prepared to give? Would the pay-off be enough? That might depend on what form it took. If he refused to comply, Gott knew he would be putting himself and his bank at risk. He could be losing his bank a quarter of its funds. But he was already facing the loss of the Treasurership of the party and exile from the corridors of power. He said, ‘That would be a misfortune for the bank.'

‘Edward,' said his nephew. ‘The PM's asked me to appeal to you on grounds of loyalty. You cannot split the party now.'

‘This wouldn't be happening if Petherbridge hadn't introduced the bill in the first place,' Gott said bluntly. ‘I believe that it, and the threatened reinvasion of Iraq involving British forces, triggered this whole Hamscott Common affair. Now you ask for loyalty. And I can't answer you. I need to think.'

‘If you did, and agreed to drop your opposition, Alan would be very grateful,' said Gordon-Garnett.

Gott knew Petherbridge would be grateful and show his gratitude in many ways. Whatever it was, it would be a lot – all the kingdoms of the earth, he thought, having had a churchgoing childhood. Then he pulled himself up short. He had had a long day. He said, ‘I will think it over. Thank you for coming to see me. But I have an early meeting tomorrow, so I hope …' The two men got to their feet, apologized again for calling so late and bade him goodnight. But in the doorway, when Tobias Kerr was already halfway down the stairs, Gerry Gordon-Garnett turned to him and said, ‘If you don't toe the line, Gott, you'll regret it. You'll be made very sorry indeed.' His expression was nakedly malevolent as he turned away and went downstairs after Tobias.

After they had gone, Gott sat down heavily asking himself what he was doing. What was he walking into? Why didn't he just cave in, acquiesce? He'd done it before, a hundred times. What public man, what man of business, hadn't?

What was he worrying about – his immortal soul? He didn't believe he had one. His integrity – what the hell was that? An answer came back to him, as clear as a bell, as obvious as looking through a pane of glass,
‘I'm not standing out against Petherbridge because Petherbridge's plan is morally, strategically, politically wrong. I'm standing out against it because it won't work.'

He stood up and said aloud, ‘Won't work.'

106 St George's Square, London SW1. February 3rd, 2016. 6.30 p.m.

The TV was on in Lord Gott's car as he was driven home.

‘Fourteen terrorists out of a group of approximately thirty men who illegally invaded the Hamscott Common airbase were captured immediately. Seven of the men who illegally entered the base were killed.

‘Five US soldiers were also killed and one was severely wounded. General John Stafford, who serves with the Army Chief of Staff and who entered the base, it is believed, as a negotiator, was also caught up in the action and is seriously wounded. He is undergoing medical treatment.

‘There is still no answer to many questions. What was the motive of the men involved? What was the nature of the alliance between, as it seems, British and foreign Muslims and former members of the British Army? What was the intended role of General John Stafford? A number of terrorists, possibly as many as ten, escaped and are still at large. I have with me in the studio …'

‘A lot of people talking balls,' Lord Gott said over the voice. ‘Nothing new then, or nothing anyone's telling.'

‘John Stafford's being operated on again tomorrow. They've found more bullet fragments close to his spine,' said Graham Barnsbury. ‘They've already taken out his spleen.'

‘Poor bugger,' said Gott. ‘Anything about the CIA trying to kill him before he even got in?'

‘No. But if it leaks they'll say he was mistaken for another terrorist, trying to get on to the base.'

‘That's a career ended.'

‘It probably has anyway. They say he may not walk again.'

The car drew up at Victoria Station. Barnsbury got out, saying, ‘Thanks for the lift.' He walked away, a hunched figure in the rain soon lost in the crowd of hurrying commuters.

Barnsbury was taking his wife's terminal illness hard, thought Gott. He'd already told him he was thinking of resigning the chairmanship. Gott hadn't mentioned that Alan Petherbridge had already offered him the job, although he'd suggested to Petherbridge he would accept it. Not that he would. Not that Petherbridge would now give it to him, since he was still mustering opposition to the Ministry of Defence Lands Sale Bill.

They were outside Gott's house now. There was a figure in the gloom on the steps of the building.