Eleanor was not one to be bullied by her long time employer.
‘I am sending her in, Ann, like it or not!’
***
Susan Macintyre – or Suzi Mac – as her close friends and colleagues called her, had worked at GCHQ in Cheltenham.
And it was this fact that saved her life when the snow began.
Suzi was a very senior official at GCHQ (Government Communications HQ), and her primary role as an intelligence analyst was to co-ordinate Sigint (Signals Intelligence) and disseminate it to the British government and the Armed Forces.
She spoke six languages fluently, including Mandarin and Russian, and supervised a large team of top-rated cyber technicians and intelligence analysts. She held the ‘rank’ of Deputy Director – roughly equivalent to a Brigadier General in the armed forces. Suzi was extremely highly thought of, and had been recruited directly from Cambridge University, where she had been awarded a double first in Law and Oriental Languages.
She was an extremely physically attractive woman, with long auburn hair, often tied back in a bun. Suzi was tall, had legs up to her armpits, large breasts and deep green eyes set off excellent bone structure. She had never married – always too busy – but had a long line of rejected suitors in her wake. Now in her mid-forties, she allowed only very senior married colleagues to flirt with her – and, once in a while, she would give them an erotic taster, using the power it gave her to further her meteoric career.
Her rise up the Civil Service career ladder was impressive. She spent time in MI6 and as a political secretary, before graduating into the intelligence world that is GCHQ at Cheltenham. She studied languages voraciously having discovered a spectacular natural ability, which increased her value to the intelligence community enormously.
She was appointed Dame Commander of the Royal Victorian Order on the 2012 Birthday Honours List, to go with her CBE from 2006.
Suzi was highly respected, well-liked and admired. She had a natural leadership style that endeared her to her subordinates and superiors alike. She never gave orders, but politely requested that a job was to be done. Invariably her wishes were complied with – but woe betide the analyst who took advantage of her benign manner. She did not tolerate insubordination - or fools - gladly.
As a consequence, her leadership was one of example. She worked long hours and spent little time at the exclusive executive apartment she owned outright in the suburbs of Gloucester. She drove a Lexus and when she holidayed, it was usually to exclusive resorts in the Caribbean or the Far East. She enjoyed spending the money she earned and could be supremely hedonistic when the fancy took her – and sometimes it took her close to the boundaries of extreme sexual fantasy. However, no one in the intelligence services was aware of her occasional expensive indulgences, and she maintained an air of sobriety and reliability at work. In addition, Suzi had a seriously strong portfolio of shares, bonds, savings, pensions and gold stashed away for the future, safely hidden in Liechtenstein. She would never want for money in her old age.
Her superiors in the Civil Service had marked her down as one to watch for future ‘stardom’ and it was probably inevitable that she would climb to the very top, passing through the Director’s office at GCHQ, en-route to the post of Permanent Secretary in Whitehall.
All she had to do was bide her time and the world would become her oyster.
However, the snow brought an abrupt end to all of this.
On Sunday the fourteenth of December, Suzi was sitting in her office in Cheltenham working on an intelligence ‘paper’ which had been demanded by the Director of MI5 and the Cabinet Secretary.
The recent election had seen a new, yet naïve Prime Minister installed in Downing Street, and critical Cabinet posts had yet to be decided upon. Her political masters wanted to influence the selection of Defence Minister and Foreign Secretary, and so Suzi was preparing a brief that was intended to ‘persuade’ the new PM that certain individuals may well be preferable to others.
Suzi knew exactly what they wanted, and was duty-bound to draw up the ‘paper’ personally, as the contents were highly confidential and political dynamite. Security was the key – and she was exactly the right person for the job – discrete and trustworthy.
She didn’t work in the ‘Doughnut’ which the general public were informed was the epicentre of GCHQ. It was advertised on the internet and other media as the main intelligence hub – and indeed the vast majority of analysts, linguists and technicians worked therein. However, there is another complex in the area that houses the more clandestine elements of GCHQ.
It was in this building that Suzi worked on the Sunday evening when the snow began to flutter down. She had another office in the ‘Doughnut’ but used this less conspicuous space when dealing with the more sensitive issues. Many of her more senior colleagues, and some of the ‘spooks’, did very much the same.
There was a strict deadline to meet and Suzi had an appointment at 6pm on the next day, Monday the fifteenth, with the Cabinet Secretary in London. Consequently, she was concentrating hard on collating the relevant information and the daylight hours slipped by unnoticed. There were very few other people at work in the building on that Sunday – just a few security staff and cleaners – so she hadn’t been disturbed. Naturally, the ‘Doughnut’ functioned on a twenty-four hour basis, but that was over a mile away as the crow flew.
It was 10pm when she finished her umpteenth cup of coffee, prepared on her own machine, when her tummy rumbled, and Suzi realised suddenly that she was famished.
The senior staff dining room would be closed, and apart from some biscuits she kept for the occasional visitor, there was nothing to eat in the office. She knew of a vending machine on the next floor down, so she stood up and ventured out into the corridor, careful to lock her office – even though the building was deserted.
She encountered nobody and found the vending machine where she expected. It contained crisps, sweets, snacks, cold drinks and unsavoury looking sandwiches in airtight containers. Nothing inspired her appetite, so she returned empty handed to her office, deciding to phone out for a takeaway pizza and have it delivered to the main gate. The security guard could then bring it up to her office.
She dialled ‘118-118’, Directory Enquiries, to find the number of the closest pizza house and rang the number supplied. There was no answer.
She tried another. Again, no answer.
At this point, Suzi walked over to the window of her office and raised the Venetian blinds. What greeted her brought an involuntary gasp of shock and horror.
A full-scale blizzard was raging outside. Her office overlooked the executive car park and she tried to pick out her Lexus.
It was all but buried.
‘Shit!’ she exclaimed.
Suzi turned back to her desk and called main reception.
Nobody responded.
‘Strange,’ she thought, ‘somebody is always on reception.’
She decided to go to check out the situation in person. After locking her office, she took the lift down five floors and walked into the Atrium, which housed reception.
There was nobody behind the desk and all of the computers were shut down.
‘What the fuck is happening?’ she spoke aloud, momentarily losing her composure.
She tried the front entrance doors.
Locked!
Now she was becoming alarmed.
The snow was beating against the glass entrance and drifts were building up rapidly. She doubted whether she could open the door if it was unlocked anyway.
Suzi decided to return to her office and try a few telephone numbers.
First, she called the main security gate and at last got a response.
‘Main Gate.’
‘Thank God,’ she exclaimed, ‘this is Dame Susan Macintyre, where the hell is everybody. Is that Bob?’
‘Yes ma'am, it's me. Hasn’t anybody told you? We thought the building was empty. The weathermen are forecasting extreme weathe
r conditions and all non-essential personnel have been sent home – hours ago. Even the ‘Doughnut’ is working on a skeleton staffing routine.’
‘Oh dear! I’ve been working alone in my office and just didn’t notice the time or the weather. What are the roads like Bob?’
‘Not good, Ma'am. You only just caught me. My 4x4 is sitting outside the gate and I'm away in five minutes. You can see for yourself that the car parks are swamped and even if you could get the Lexus out, the roads are pretty grim. Can I give you a lift, ma'am?’
Suzi considered his offer, but decided to decline, as the brief was incomplete and she must finish it by tomorrow. In any case, she imagined that the snow would have dissipated by the morning when she could make her escape in daylight.
‘Thanks, Bob, but no thanks. I’ll sit it out here. It's warm enough and I've got a camp bed in my office. I’ll be OK until the morning. The snow will have stopped by then for sure.’
Bob was not so confident.
‘Ok, ma'am, but I’d look at the TV news channels if I were you. This snow is looking very bad.’
‘Thank you, Bob, I’ll do that, but you’d better get off home now. I’ll stick it out her and raid the vending machine. It's a Kit Kat for my supper!’ she quipped.
Bob thanked her, wished her a good night, and hung up. Five minutes later, his Landrover was skidding and sliding down the access road towards the main entrance.
Suzi put the phone down and picked up the TV remote control. She switched to the BBC just in time for the weather forecast at 1030pm.
It wasn’t good.
The main weather centre at Bracknell was forecasting complete doom and gloom. Apparently, a freak set of weather conditions had caused the UK to be engulfed in the mother of all snowstorms, and they were predicting up to a week of snowfall.
‘Damn! A week!’ she muttered in annoyance. ‘How will I get this report to Downing Street if I can't drive? It's far too politically dangerous to go via e-mail or FAX. It's a bloody nightmare!’
She decided to telephone Downing Street.
The Cabinet Secretary was at home in Amersham and Suzi was invited to call him there, which she did.
‘Good evening, Suzi, to what do I owe the pleasure?’ he asked jovially.
‘Hello Arnold, I'm in Cheltenham, trapped by snow and it looks like I will have a great deal of difficulty getting this report to you by close of play tomorrow. Sorry.’
The Cabinet Secretary was untroubled.
‘Oh, don’t worry yourself about that, Suzi. It looks like we’ll all be stuck in the white stuff for a few days, and the PM certainly won't be making any vital decisions without my approval, so the report can wait. In any case, Sir Martin is stuck in Edinburgh at the airport. So his input will be missing anyway.’
Suzi instantly relaxed, but her hackles rose a tad. He could have told her this much earlier, and she might have made it safely home. However, she said nothing and quietly bid him goodnight.
She was to thank his omission in future days – as it probably saved her life.
***
Suzi resigned herself to an uncomfortable night in the office. Her first job, however, was to concede defeat and return to the vending machine and stock up with some food – however bland or plasticized. She gathered some change from her purse, and made the short trip downstairs via the lift. She scanned the machine more closely this time, discovered happily that it was refrigerated and made several selections, including chocolate, some individual pies, a sandwich, some fizzy water and two cans of lemonade.
She had a small microwave oven in her office, so she heated one of the pies, made some tea, and enjoyed a light supper. A bar of chocolate substituted as a pudding.
Suzi then went to the large wardrobe that stood against the far wall, next to the door to her private washroom. She extricated the camp bed, which was remarkably luxurious, assembled it and made it up with a sheet, pillow and a duvet, all of which were neatly stacked in the cupboard. In fact, this was only the second time she’d even looked in the wardrobe; the first time being when she moved into the office and had stashed an overnight bag. It contained toiletries and spare clothing for an emergency, but had never been used in the two years she had occupied this space.
She wasn’t yet ready for bed, even though it was approaching 1130pm by now. So she returned to her desk and continued with the report. Even though it wasn’t urgent anymore, Suzi wanted to have it finished – just in case. If the snow suddenly cleared – and it probably would – the Cabinet Secretary may well demand her immediate presence, and no excuse would suffice!
She worked through until 2am, when at last she was satisfied with her work. She saved it, transferred the file to a CD-ROM and put it in her safe. Suzi then closed down her computer, took a drink of water, undressed and slipped under the duvet on the camp bed.
Uncomfortable or not, she was sleeping soundly within two minutes.
When she awoke the next morning – Monday the 15th of January – her heart sank.
It was 9.30am and as Suzi opened her eyes from an undisturbed and dreamless slumber, she wasn’t quite sure of exactly where she was for a few seconds – but then suddenly came round with a start and sat up. It was cold in the office, so she re-dressed quickly and put on her smart Burberry overcoat, fur hat and scarf. She crossed to the window, raised the blinds again and peered out. The windows were steamed up as a result of her exhalations through the night, so she cleared a circle through which she could see more clearly.
She could barely see five feet.
The blizzard continued to rage and Suzi couldn’t even pick out the cars in the car park below. The wind was clearly howling, and snow clattered against her window, sticking to glass as it froze.
She stepped back in shock and turned on the TV.
All channels were reporting on the weather conditions.
Snow was falling from John O’Groats to Land’s End and from Dublin to the Wash. Reporters were filmed across the country in deep drifts of snow and Force Ten gales.
Roads were gridlocked and transport links closed.
‘Well, Sir Martin certainly won't be returning from Edinburgh any time soon,’ she predicted accurately.
As she flicked from channel to channel, each one was telling the same story. An unfamiliar reporter, Quincey Roberts, was anchoring the news from London, as it appeared that the snow was already causing technical disruption in the provinces. His firm advice was not to venture out unless absolutely necessary.
Suzi was mortified when the weather expert forecasted at least seven to ten days of violent snowfall which, in short, meant she was trapped – alone and without anyone to help her.
She decided to make some more phone calls.
This achieved little, except to confirm her plight.
Her family, small that it was, was in similar difficulties and could not assist.
The ‘Doughnut’ was struggling to function, and the duty officer was predicting a complete shutdown within twenty-four hours as equipment failed and personnel evacuated. They certainly couldn’t help her.
It was just impossible to reach Suzi – or anyone to that matter - in the horrendous conditions.
By midday, Suzi was becoming quite frightened.
The TV was reporting nothing but news regarding the snow, and in the end, she became thoroughly fed up and switched the damned thing off.
She made another visit to the vending machine and virtually emptied it of sandwiches, chocolates and drinks. No doubt she would be back to take the remainder in due course. Luckily, the machine took notes as well as coinage.
Back in her office, she sat shivering in the easy chair used for visitors, and contemplated the coming week with trepidation.
It was clear that she was definitely stranded and that food and water were limited, which reminded her that on each floor there were at least two of the large fresh water dispensers, which would serve her needs for at least a week.
Food was another issue. There mu
st be another vending machine in the building and, suddenly having a brainwave – Suzi realised that there must be huge supplies of food in the executive and staff dining kitchens which she could cook up!
Bingo!
Why didn’t she just go down to the kitchens and fry up a breakfast? It was a brilliant idea and one she should have had hours before. She put it down to mild panic and fatigue, quickly made her way to the lift and prepared to raid the kitchen fridge.
It was a paradise.
Eggs, bacon, sausage, beans, mushrooms and black sausage were all fried to perfection, whilst coffee and toast added to the feast. Suzi didn’t realise just how ravenous she was as every last scrap of her fry-up disappeared.
Ten minutes later, after the food had settled, she reasoned that a thorough search of the building was required. Firstly, to discover whether she had any companions, and secondly, to source any other clothing. She couldn’t possibly survive wearing her twin-set for more than a day or two, so spare clothing was essential.
Unfortunately, her search proved fruitless. No other people were in the complex, and she turned up no clothing of any real use. Some chef’s trousers and jackets, the odd raincoat and some lab technicians coats were all she found, so ultimately decided to return to her office empty handed barring the coats for extra bedding.
It was noon by now, so she decided to make some further telephone calls.
Suzi was out of luck, as the BT line was already down.
She considered using her i-phone but foolishly decided against it, as the battery charger was in Gloucester on her domestic office desk. It would soon cease to function in any case – battery or no battery.
However, who was she going to phone anyway, so she switched the TV on again and spent the afternoon watching a nineteen-fifties black and white film-noir on BBC4. It passed the time until 6pm, when she returned to the news and weather.
The situation had worsened dramatically.
The country had ground to a complete standstill.
It was now that Suzi began to fear for her life, and decided to return to the kitchens to cook up some hot food before the electricity and gas failed.
Snow! The Series [Books 1-4] Page 92
