She blinked. “Peter. I’ve had a busy morning. I’ve a busy afternoon ahead. Followed by a busy evening. I’m glad to hear we’ve had a promise from a psychotic weapons merchant that they’re no longer intent on sending armed talent to murder a British citizen, but that having been settled, was there anything else?”
“I rather wanted to discuss the state of the world.”
“. . . Seriously?”
“And how it affects your current role.”
It occurred to her that the café offered no table service. There were no young things in skirts to flirt with, no opportunity to dispense leering largesse. It was no more PJ’s natural habitat than a Time’s Up march. Perhaps he was serious after all.
He said, “I was listening to the wireless the other evening.”
“It’s just the two of us. You can say podcast.”
“One of those discussion programmes the BBC likes to think of as balanced, in that it had a left-leaning liberal debating current affairs with a right-leaning liberal. Long story short, can you guess what they concluded?”
“That things will turn out all right in the end?”
“A predictably smug affair. People have lost faith in government, we were told. Here, in Europe, in the States. But this is simply a correction, the same way the market regulates itself. Democracy hiccupped, that’s all. Next time round we’ll do better, and our common future will no longer be in the small, incapable hands it currently rests in. I’m quoting, obviously. It was tedious, dinner-party stuff.”
“But thanks for sharing.”
“And yet it touched on the issue I wanted to raise. This being, the current rift between the White House and the federal agencies.”
“Fascinating.” She looked at her watch. “And yet of no remote relevance.”
“Which mirrors the growing divide between our own government and your Service.”
She sighed. “If all you’re doing is polishing your next blog, you’ll be sorry you wasted my time.”
“The PM turned down your request for a root-and-branch overhaul of operational practices.” He raised a hand to forestall her response. “Don’t bother denying it. We both know the PM’s a tormented creature. Like one of those soft toys lorry drivers fix to their radiator grilles. That expression she wears, it’s terror at all the oncoming vehicles.”
“Picturesque, I’m sure.”
“And once she’s gone, who knows, maybe the next PM will be more amenable to your requests. But what about the one after that? And the one after that?”
“Running out of patience.”
“Whoever’s in government, whichever party it happens to be, and however lacking in leadership skills and a basic grasp of reality, they’re the ones pulling your Service’s strings. This despite the fact that no government we’ve seen over the past ten years has been capable of making the decisions necessary to protect our nation. Take Salisbury. A clear-cut case, evidence stacked a mile high, the guilty party visible for all to see. And yet nothing happens.”
“It’s how democracy works.”
“And it’s window dressing. The Cabinet can spend its days talking about high speed trains or garden bridges and that’s fine. But it’s not equipped to determine the best way of safeguarding national security because those particular parameters change at dizzying speed. It’s an area best left to the professionals. To those who’ve been engaged with the task on a daily basis their whole careers.”
She said, “In principle, I wouldn’t disagree. But you mentioned a basic grasp on reality, and you’ve clearly lost your own. Even if the government were to grant the Service autonomy—which it wouldn’t do in a thousand years—that would demand a far greater injection of funds than my own rather more modest proposal required. And that, as you pointed out, was rejected on grounds of cost.”
Peter Judd said, “And yet—leaving that issue aside for the moment—suppose the Service were able to achieve, let’s call it a self-sufficient status. Wouldn’t that be preferable to the present situation?”
“Effectively, you’re talking about a coup.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. A coup would be the seizing of power. What I’m talking about is the preservation of the power structure as it is. Democratically elected governments, the rule of law, all the rest of it. Except . . .”
“Except with an independent secret service.”
“Acting in the interests of the nation. The best interests, because it alone has a full understanding of where the current sources of danger lie, and the best way of dealing with them. And is thus able to make decisions that the government of the day is not equipped to make, and almost certainly doesn’t want to have to. Either because of weak leadership or the keen desire to avoid taking morally questionable positions. Which, as we both know, are frequently the positions one needs to take to prevent harm befalling the innocent.”
“No government would accept that.”
“The government,” said Peter Judd, “wouldn’t have to know.”
“This is insane.”
