by Bill Napier
Svetlana switched on the lights.
There was a long silence as the scientists took this on board. Vashislav finally broke it. ‘Why? Why should they do this? Indeed, why would civilisations millions of years old want to contact us at all? We are mice! Insects! Bacteria!’
‘I’ve been wondering too,’ said Svetlana. ‘What’s their motivation? And who are they?’
‘And where are they?’ Gibson chipped in impatiently. ‘What do I tell the media on Monday?’
‘Tom has a theory,’ said Freya.
Attention swivelled to Petrie. Gibson leaned forward, his eyes alert.
Freya added, ‘But he’s not going to tell us.’
There was a chorus of dismay. Hanning snorted. Svetlana raised her hands to her cheeks. Freya grinned impishly. Shtyrkov sat bolt upright and rattled out something in Russian.
‘Spit it out, Petrie!’ Gibson ordered.
Petrie held up his hands in a defensive gesture. ‘I need to think about it.’
Shtyrkov slapped his hand on a table. ‘What? Are you a scientist or not? Open discussion, Tom!’
‘Let me sleep on it. It’s too crazy for words.’
20
Ogorodnikov
In line with long-standing practice, the paper folders were neatly laid out on Mikhail Isayevich Ogorodnikov’s desk, waiting for his arrival. Red to the left, holding the files stamped with Immediate and Urgent: tomorrow’s news headlines. White in the centre, for the internal files of office, the ministries and departments which comprised the sprawling monster of government: often these files were secret, usually they were self-serving. To the right, the green folder, for the enactment or veto of laws supported by the State Duma and the Federation Council.
The green folder also contained requests for clemency from condemned criminals. Men lived or died depending on where he placed his signature.
Ogorodnikov hated the green folder. It gave him insomnia.
He got the clemency requests over with first. A man of good character had stabbed to death his wife and three children for no apparent reason; another had raped and murdered a child and was now expressing remorse; a woman had hired a professional assassin to dispose of a troublesome husband; a gangster had done the same to a public prosecutor; three young men had murdered an American tourist for his wallet. He quickly skimmed through the catalogue of misery, spending no more than five minutes on each file, scribbling his signature after a few moments’ thought.
A small man with a round, bald head topped by thin white hair came in carrying a red folder under his arm. The Russian President looked up with relief. The man wore a grey suit made of cheap material but, Ogorodnikov noted with approval, it was immaculately pressed. ‘You’re looking stressed this morning, Alexy. You should see the view from my side of the desk. What have you got there?’
‘Good morning, Mikhail Isayevich. I thought you should see this right away.’
Alexy stood back nervously from the large desk. The red folder contained a single sheet of paper. Ogorodnikov read carefully through it, and then rubbed a hand over his face. ‘Is this a joke, Alexy?’
The head of the presidential office gulped. ‘No, Mikhail. It is serious.’
‘Who else in Moscow knows about this?’
‘Only the man who sent the message: Professor Georgi Velikhov.’
‘Do I know him?’
‘You appointed him. He’s the President of the Academy of Sciences. The message came to him directly from this castle in Slovakia.’
‘What about our own personnel? Who has seen this?’
‘It came on to Olga’s screen in the outer office. But I’m convinced she didn’t see the significance of it.’
‘Has it gone through our review procedure?’
Alexy shook his head emphatically. ‘No. I brought it straight here.’
‘Put it in the safe.’
Ogorodnikov pressed a button on the panel to the left of his desk. In the days of Yeltsin and Putin, the control panel had been clumsy, enormous. But now it had been replaced with a compact touch-the-screen monitor. It was much more modern and – he had to admit – American in style, but it had the same function: he could reach anyone in Russia within minutes. He picked up a telephone and pressed a button. ‘Vladimir Vladimirovich, cancel my meeting with the Interior Minister. I want to see Academician Georgi Velikhov here at twelve noon precisely. Make sure he keeps his mouth shut – he must understand that the meeting is to be kept strictly secret.’
The Russian President put the phone down and turned to the head of the presidential office. ‘Think about it, Alexy. This must be a clever hoax. But suppose – just for a moment – that it is not. That our people really have detected signals from some advanced civilisation. Do we reply to these signallers? What do we say to them? What rules do we apply? Are there international protocols to cover this event?’
Alexy said, ‘On the last item, that is a question for lawyers. You should discuss it with Lebedev.’
Lebedev was the President’s chief legal adviser and a former member of the Fatherland-All Russia faction. He was young, ambitious and good-looking in a TV presenter kind of way. Ogorodnikov didn’t trust him an inch. The President had in fact been carefully preparing to dismiss the man, but he wasn’t ready to reveal his intentions, not even to Alexy. He simply shook his head. ‘We’ll keep Lebedev out of it. Make quiet enquiries, Alexy. Find a top-class lawyer outside the political system. Someone with specialised knowledge in this area. Give me a name before the morning is out.’
* * *
Before the morning was out, Alexy caught up with Ogorodnikov in the long Kremlin corridor. The President was a small, heavily built man, but he was walking quickly and Alexy had to run to catch up. ‘On that matter, Mikhail, I have two names. Professor Orlov of the Moscow State University is our most distinguished constitutional lawyer. And Professor Dobryshev is an expert on space law.’
‘But this is not about our constitution, Alexy. And it is not about who pays for the damage when Mir falls. Are these the best names you have?’ Ogorodnikov sensed Alexy’s slight hesitation. ‘Well?’
‘Tanya Pleskov.’
‘The woman who…?’
Alexy gulped. ‘Yes, formerly of the prosecutor’s office. A brilliant woman. It happens she wrote a paper on’ – he consulted a spiral notebook – ‘The Legal and Ethical Implications of Contact with Aliens. The story is she wrote it for fun one weekend but it’s become the definitive treatise.’
‘And where is this Tanya Pleskov now?’
Alexy shrugged. ‘After the scandal, she just dropped out of sight.’
‘Find her, and bring her here.’
Alexy’s features were showing dismay. ‘But the scandal … What about Katya?’
As soon as he had said the words, Alexy regretted them. Ogorodnikov’s lips tightened. ‘I think my forty-year marriage may just survive a professional contact with the notorious Tanya.’
Alexy’s face paled. ‘I’m an idiot. You should send me to a gulag.’
‘I would agree, if we still had them. However, you may have a point. She should not be seen entering the office of the Russian President. And, on reflection, neither do I want curious eyes to see Academician Velikhov in the corridors of the Kremlin.’ He tapped his fingers together. ‘The meeting will take place in my Gorki-9 dacha. I want my limousine at the Borovitsky Gate in ten minutes.’
Apart from the two men, the long corridor was empty, but still Ogorodnikov lowered his voice. ‘Alexy, either this is a bad joke or we are on the threshold of something. What that something is, and where it will take us, I don’t know. But I have a bad feeling about it.’
21
Night Flight to Karkkila
6.00 a.m. Get up (wakened, usually, by the sounds of cleaning staff downstairs, sometimes by band practice in Horseguards). Finish off overnight boxes, make calls on a cordless phone (while still in pyjamas).
7.00 a.m. Pull on a tracksuit, put in five minutes o
f basic crunch, ten of skipping, five weightlifting (in a bedroom converted to a small gymnasium).
7.20 a.m. Shower.
7.40 a.m. Breakfast, thrown together in the cramped little attic kitchen.
8.00 a.m. Showered and breakfasted, plan the day ahead with three secretaries: Private Secretary, Diary Secretary and Personal Secretary.
Mondays Also plan the week ahead, with Chief of Staff, Personal Secretary, Press Secretary, Political Secretary and the Head of the Policy Unit.
For those wise to the routine, the Achilles’ heel in the Prime Minister’s iron routine was 7.20 a.m.: there is no lock on the door to the private apartments, and no place to hide in a shower.
So it was that on this particular morning Sally Morgan, the Head of MI6, was sitting on a lavatory lid with Edgeworth’s naked, soapy form just visible a few feet away through the frosted glass. It was her second meeting with the PM within nine hours.
She read out the coded message from Ogorodnikov which had arrived at her desk in the early hours of the morning, via her Russian counterpart. Her voice was raised, to be heard over the splashing water.
‘Prime Minister,
‘You and I are aware of a certain breakthrough which has been made by our scientists working in a spirit of co-operation in an underground research facility in Slovakia. In mankind’s long and troubled history there can be few more exciting discoveries than to find that we are not alone. Unfortunately, this discovery may also prove to be very dangerous. Information of a highly advanced scientific and technical nature has been received, which could benefit our species beyond measure but which may also carry enormous risks.
‘I am advised that there are international protocols to cover this situation. This is surely a matter for all mankind, to be dealt with through the United Nations. However, I have also been told that if this information becomes public, we could do nothing to prevent a private individual or group from replying to the message, revealing to the signallers that we have reached a certain stage of advancement. Conceivably, the message could be a lure intended to sniff out civilisations which have reached this stage. The motivation lying behind the message could be far from friendly. We could find ourselves inside their test tubes.
‘Prime Minister, you and I have been plunged into a strange and difficult situation. Do we use the new knowledge for all mankind, or for both our peoples, to create a pan-Europe far ahead of our American and Chinese friends? Or do we smother this dangerous discovery? And if so, what do we do about the scientists who have made it?
‘This is not a matter for large teams of advisers and TV cameras. We must meet, you and I, and decide the matter face-to-face, in secret and alone. You will guess that time is very short. The scientists are to disperse in three days. If they do, so does the new knowledge. We must decide before then.’
The shower was switched off.
‘Shall I leave?’
‘No, just pass me that towel. That one. What’s he getting at, Sally? Decide what?’
Sally Morgan handed over a large white towel, keeping her eyes averted. The Prime Minister appeared, wrapped in it, and started to blow-dry his hair, peering into a half-steamed mirror. She pretended to have misheard.
‘A secret meeting with Ogorodnikov?’ She made a clicking noise with her tongue. ‘Not a trivial exercise, Prime Minister.’
‘But there are precedents,’ Edgeworth said. ‘Kissinger told me he went in and out of China incognito in the seventies. He was supposed to be resting in a Himalayan retreat, and just slipped over the border.’
‘And it’s been done by a British Prime Minister,’ Sally informed Edgeworth. The drier went off and she wondered how he intended to get his underpants on. ‘Anthony Eden left England during the Suez crisis, spoke to the French Prime Minister and came back without anyone knowing he’d been away. But that was just a cross-Channel hop. To meet Ogorodnikov halfway in total secrecy would require clandestine flights over neutral territory and that’s a different ballgame. Altogether different.’
Edgeworth was skilfully wriggling into blue boxer shorts, still wearing the towel. ‘What’s the halfway point between here and Moscow?’
She had anticipated the question. ‘The Baltic Sea, give or take. Lots of islands, one of them owned jointly by Finland and Sweden.’
Now he was pulling on trousers. ‘The Russian President and I have to meet, whatever the difficulties. I’ll speak to Pembroke.’
At eight o’clock, showered and breakfasted, Edgeworth took the narrow stairs down to the large wood-panelled ante-room and turned right again through open double doors to the first-floor drawing rooms and the study. The latter, with its floral-patterned settees and soft cushions, its cabinet with the Bohemian glass collection and its deep carpet, had the air of a middle-class living room. Anne Broughton, the Diary Secretary, was sitting at an armchair with a pile of papers on the oval coffee-table in front of her. Joe Pembroke, the PPS, was leafing through a large black diary. Jean, the Personal Secretary, was pouring tea.
Edgeworth sat down next to Pembroke and loosened his tie. There was an exchange of greetings.
The PPS ran briefly through the day’s events, Anne pencilling comments from time to time on her notes, Edgeworth interjecting here and there. He seemed distracted, impatient almost. Finally, with the day’s schedule barely settled, he said, ‘Ladies, I wonder if you would leave us for a few minutes?’
The Diary Secretary tapped her papers together neatly and left the study, leaving a slight trail of perfume. Jean gave her boss a puzzled glance and followed.
Pembroke waited.
Edgeworth said, ‘Ogorodnikov and I need to meet face-to-face.’
‘When, Prime Minister?’
‘Immediately. We should meet halfway.’
Pembroke said flatly, ‘That’s not possible.’
‘No wagon train, no security and above all no publicity. Just you, me and a translator we can trust.’
‘I’m sorry, Prime Minister, but it can’t be done. And even if it could, I wouldn’t allow it. You can’t possibly dispense with security in this day and age, not even for five minutes.’
Edgeworth smiled grimly. ‘I want to meet Ogorodnikov in the Baltic Sea area and return without anyone knowing I’ve been away. And I want to do it this week.’
‘That’s crazy. It can’t be done.’
Edgeworth patted Pembroke’s knee. ‘Of course it can, Joe. If not by you, then by a PPS who believes it can.’
Pembroke frowned. ‘You have this persuasive way, Prime Minister. Let me see.’ He started to flick through the diary pages. ‘This is Thursday. You’ve done the Queen, the Blair visit and the Young Inventor awards. This morning is Cabinet and Question Time, and tomorrow is the Kohl funeral. And then you have weekend guests at Chequers.’
‘Cancel my weekend guests, Joe, and send Wentworth in my place to the Kohl funeral.’
‘You can’t. Chancellor Kohl was a good friend to us. You’ll cause great offence.’
‘I’ll be indisposed. I’ll head for Chequers tonight to recuperate. See if the medics can come up with something to make me look groggy this morning.’
‘Prime Minister, I don’t know what’s going on here…’
‘And join me at Chequers this evening. Arrive as quietly as you can and bring very warm clothes. By the way, Joe, you don’t happen to fly a Tornado?’
Pembroke exposed teeth and grunted; after all, he thought, when the PM cracks a joke you’re expected to laugh. The bit about the Tornado was, he assumed, a joke.
* * *
At weekends, with a hundred office staff gone, Number Ten was like a morgue, and Edgeworth liked to escape. The twenty minutes of grim body-building was replaced by a leisurely half hour in the covered swimming pool at Chequers. The daily planning session was replaced by a skim through the weekend newspapers over a breakfast of orange juice, yoghurt and banana, thrown together in a blender with a sprinkling of nutmeg. He made his own breakfast, lifelong bachelor’s habits not b
eing easily broken. Then he would set the log fire in the enormous great hall which occupied the centre of the Elizabethan house, and either read a novel or stroll round the gardens before dipping into Budget statements, communiqués or speeches. Weekend lunches were gregarious affairs, which he used to keep in touch with life outside politics.
At Question Time anyone could see that the PM was coming down with something, and it was no surprise to learn that this Chequers weekend was to be a long one. Pembroke cancelled the PM’s Saturday guests, arranged for the Deputy PM to attend the Kohl funeral, and told his wife that he would be babysitting the Great Leader over the weekend. He then drove towards Chequers in his own Jaguar, an ancient red XJ which he liked to think made him in the image of Inspector Morse.
At 9 p.m. exactly, the PM’s Daimler was driven round to the front of the big country house. Edgeworth and Pembroke, both dressed for the cold, sat in the back. Pembroke wore a black Cossack hat with ear-flaps; the Prime Minister thought he had last seen its like in a Christmas pantomime.
The Prime Minister pressed a button, and a sheet of thick glass rose to separate the driver from his passengers. ‘Lighten up, Joe. I feel as if I’m riding with my undertaker. What’s your beef?’
‘You know perfectly well, Prime Minister. I’ve been saying it all day. This whole adventure is misconceived.’ Pembroke had adopted an aggrieved tone to emphasise his displeasure.
‘It had better not be. You planned it.’ The Prime Minister patted Pembroke’s knee. It was a habit which made the PPS cringe, but what could he do? Edgeworth said, ‘Joe, I have full confidence in your logistic abilities.’
‘What if we had to ditch in the Baltic? I’d like to see Carnforth spin that one away.’ Edgeworth laughed. Pembroke scowled and continued, ‘And what do we really know of Ogorodnikov’s intentions?’
The driver was pulling out to pass cyclists, two abreast, no lights. Edgeworth said, ‘Don’t let your imagination run away with you.’
