She had a sheaf of printouts: a rough tally suggested Blaine had helped put away a dozen bad actors, none of them marquee names, and through it all had been allowed to continue his dreary little enterprise hard by St Paul’s. A little fish, Whelan had thought, leafing through the pages. One we throw back. Surely there’s an argument for feeding him into a waste disposal unit instead? Because let’s face it, the big fish are still out there. Sparing the little ones never changes that.
But it was late and things were sour, and you couldn’t change the rules once the game was under way. He was pretty sure that was one of Lady Di’s diktats.
‘Sir?’
He must have been staring at the pages too long.
‘Was there anything else you want?’
God, no, she hadn’t said that. Hadn’t said anything like it.
She returned to the hub. Everyone was working late; the perspective had altered now they knew they were no longer looking at Islamist extremism. The net they’d thrown had too wide a mesh. ISIS had claimed responsibility, true, but stop all the clocks: a death-worshipping bunch of medieval fascists had taken time off from beheading hostages to tell porkies. And if he said that out loud, he’d be the one in trouble: ‘porkies’ was a no-no … No wonder he was exhausted. Watching the world go mad was a tiring business.
Di Taverner had come into his office, and was staring. ‘Are you feeling all right?’
‘Sorry.’ He had run a hand through his hair, thinking, even as he did so, that it was a dramatic gesture more than a grooming need. ‘Things have happened.’
‘They never stop.’
This was true. Was it yesterday he’d been charged with ensuring Zafar Jaffrey was squeaky clean? And he’d fulfilled that mission by determining the exact opposite, which meant the PM wouldn’t be happy. On the other hand, the PM’s days were numbered, Jaffrey’s lack of squeaky-cleanliness being one more nail in what was starting to appear an over-engineered coffin.
‘Your presence at the Gimballs’ yesterday officially didn’t occur,’ Lady Di told him. She’d removed her raincoat and hung it over the back of his visitor’s chair. She didn’t sit, but didn’t pace either, preferring to remain upright with one hand lightly on the chairback, as if posing for a magazine shoot.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘We stand together,’ she said, which he took to mean, for as long as it suited her. Now was not the time to see her boss sink beneath the waves, not with them both on the same liner. She wanted him around until a lifeboat hoved into view. ‘Now. What things?’
He rose, went and closed the door and returned to his seat. Then frosted the office wall, blurring Josie and all the other girls and boys to dim shapes huddled over monitors. ‘These attacks. It’s not ISIS. It’s North Korea.’
Taverner nodded. Her refusal to be surprised was one of her more irritating traits. ‘Okay. I think we’ve all been expecting that shoe to drop. Does Number 10 know?’
‘Not yet. There’s more.’
Of course there is, her silence said.
He told her about the document Ho had passed on.
Outside, the dim shapes kept up their blurry movements. Inside, the only movement was that of time passing, while Taverner caught up with the implications.
‘They’re using our playbook,’ she said at last.
‘Well, it’s not exactly a—’
‘They’re using our playbook.’
He nodded.
‘That,’ she said, ‘is not going to go down well.’
‘Your input’s always welcome. But I’d got that far myself.’
‘A North Korean black op. Here. Jesus.’ At least she had the grace to swear, even if her expression remained unperturbed. He wondered if she Botoxed; thought about finding out. Shelved the thought as not important right now. She said, ‘So what’s the order of play?’
‘The what?’
‘They’re following a list. What’s next?’
‘I haven’t checked.’
‘You don’t think that would be useful?’ she said, after a pause.
‘I don’t think it would help to have a paper trail,’ he said. ‘Not if we’re going to achieve deniability.’
Taverner nodded. ‘Like I said the other day, you’re learning. What are the boys and girls doing?’
‘Whereabouts of Korean nationals, and ethnically similar. Not exactly the time for PC niceties.’
‘Of course not. But this is good. We’re nearer catching them. Now we know what they aren’t, I mean.’
‘And we also know they’re not simply trying to slaughter their way through the countryside. They’re using our own imperial past as kerosene. It’s the propaganda coup to end them all.’
‘Only if they complete their mission,’ Lady Di said. ‘The penguin thing, that was them too?’
‘And the bomb on the train, I think. And the Gimball death’s a mess, but it could easily be part of the pattern.’
