“Perhaps, but certainly it’s classified information, even if it’s not really ours.”
“Who is we anyway?”
Howard frowned. “The Cabinet, Georgie. The Cabinet.”
George-Phillip sat forward in his seat. “Duncan, I’m a member of the Cabinet. We’ve had no such meetings or discussions.”
Howard waved a hand dismissively. “Informal.”
“It’s hardly a secret anymore, then. If you’ve discussed this … informally … with the Cabinet, then you might as well take out your own advertisement in the Guardian.”
“George, really, that’s not—”
“Would you like me to make an official statement?”
“Not yet. Actually I want you to stay quiet until we know which way the wind is going to blow.”
George-Phillip sighed and closed his eyes. There were times he wished he’d never heard of Wakhan, Adelina and Richard Thompson, or their daughters. There were times, more and more lately, when he wondered why he hadn’t followed in his father’s footsteps. The lack of moral courage displayed in Duncan Howard’s statement was appalling.
“Duncan, we can’t avoid this or base our response on politics—”
Howard cut him off. “Everything is politics.”
“Politics got us into this mess in the first place.” George-Phillip stood up. Not just politics, he thought. Politics and greed and lust for power. “I really must go, Prime Minister.”
George-Phillip. February 15, 1984.
“George-Phillip, can you come to my office for a moment?”
“Of course, sir.”
George-Phillip laid the heavy black receiver in its cradle atop the rotary phone and stood up, stretching his back. He’d been at his desk for several hours, skipping lunch, as he studied the mind-numbing protocol standards required of Embassy personnel. While his goal was to serve in the military and possibly intelligence services, he knew that a brief stint in the diplomatic corps would help. Not to mention the fact that Mrs. Thatcher herself suggested it.
All the same, the minuscule details and gradations of the diplomatic world did not appeal to George-Phillip. Everything from the precise titles to be used when addressing the assistant chiefs of sub-Saharan villagers to the order of seating when meeting with deposed nobles was included. It was all precise, detailed, and utterly bloodless.
The phone call had come from the Ambassador, Sir Francis Galvin. Galvin, who reminded George-Phillip three times per week, without fail, that he was a self-made man. A boy who had grown up with a coarse East End accent, Galvin had distinguished himself in the Second World War and was awarded the Victoria Cross by King George VI. Subsequently, he’d traded on that for a career under the Foreign Office and the Diplomatic Service.
Despite his evident valor and the Victoria Cross he still wore daily, he was a monumental todger.
George-Phillip had to respond to his summons. He squeezed out from behind his desk in the tiny office in the basement of the Embassy and ducked his head to miss the large pipe that ran near the door. He stepped out of the door, rearranged his suit coat so that it was a little neater, and made his way down the hallway to the elevator.
George-Phillip was well aware that he was the only person on the Embassy staff who had an office in the basement. Somehow, the Ambassador managed to find homes for 200 diplomats and another 200 support staff, but the Embassy had been too full for George-Phillip.
Not for the first time, as George-Phillip rode up the elevator, he pondered the fact that being 46th from the throne was exalted enough to piss off egalitarians but not exalted enough to actually give him any privileges.
Nevertheless, he made it to Galvin’s office in a hurry. George-Phillip was twenty-one years old, and he knew he had to earn his place here.
The Ambassador’s secretary waved him in. She had crimped and poufed her newly blonde hair in a way that had become very stylish in the United States but was still a little too aggressive for the British Diplomatic Service. She opened the door for George-Phillip.
Inside the room the Ambassador sat, relaxed in his chair. A glass of bourbon sat untouched on his desk before him.
“George-Phillip. Come in. Have you met Oswald O’Leary?”
O’Leary was an aggressive looking man with the bunched shoulders and flattened nose of a prizefighter. A bulldog of a man.
“Nice to meet you,” George-Phillip said.
“O’Leary, this is George-Phillip. Excuse me, Prince George-Phillip. Mrs. Thatcher has seen fit to foist him upon us.”
O’Leary nodded at George-Phillip then gave him a sideways grin. “Pleased to meet you, sir. Oswald O’Leary. I work here and there.”
“He’s not allowed to tell you this, Georgie, but O’Leary works for MI6.”
George-Phillip coughed politely. “What can I do for you, sir?”
Galvin said, “I presume you’ve read the gossip column in the Post this morning?”
George-Phillip answered very quickly. “Sir, I generally don’t bother myself with gossip columnists.”
O’Leary leaned forward and said, “How well are you acquainted with Mrs. Thompson?”
“We aren’t close,” George-Phillip said. “I was invited to a dinner at Richard Thompson’s home last Saturday evening—I’ve written up my report.”
Galvin leaned forward and said, “You didn’t submit a report about your lunch with his wife on Monday.”
“Well, sir, I…” George-Phillip sighed. He had no excuse. The rules were clear—contacts with foreign diplomatic personnel had to be reported. Including spouses. But he knew why he hadn’t posted a report. He hadn’t planned on telling anyone about lunch with Adelina, but that witch Maria Clawson had made it necessary. “Sir, you are correct. I did not.”
“Tell us about your lunch,” O’Leary said.
George-Phillip said, “I was quite taken with the young lady. She is … not happy in her marriage.”
“Maybe that’s because he’s old enough to be her father,” O’Leary said.
“He is indeed. She’s quite terrified of him—she seems to believe he’s capable of harming her.”
Galvin blanched. “Surely you can’t be serious.”
“I’m serious, sir. I felt bad for her. But she was clear we would not see each other again.”
“And why was that?” Galvin responded.
George-Phillip sighed. “I believe the attraction was mutual, sir. She—she seemed quite torn and upset by the end of our meal.”
O’Leary grunted. “So she doesn’t want to see you?”
“I’m afraid not,” George-Phillip said.
“We want you to see her.”
“Whatever for?”
O’Leary said, “Have you ever heard of the Wakhan Corridor?”
“No—” George-Phillip said. Then he paused and held up a finger. “Wait … I did hear the term mentioned Saturday night. In passing, and I didn’t know what it was in reference to.”
“You included that mention in your report,” Galvin said.
“Yes, sir. But I think it was probably meaningless.”
“It’s not meaningless,” O’Leary said.
“Well, what is it, then?”
Galvin leaned forward and said, “George-Phillip, first I must advise you, this discussion is classified under the Official Secrets Acts. Revealing anything we discuss here would be considered an act of treason to the Crown. You understand?”
George-Phillip stared at Galvin in shock, offended that Galvin felt the need to remind him. He stifled his anger and simply acknowledged the statement.
“I understand, sir.”
“All right. Go ahead, O’Leary.”
O’Leary leaned forward. “It’s like this, sir. On December 12, Ahmad Massoud’s militia swung through the Wakhan Corridor. It seemed that one of the local villages had been cooperating too closely with the Soviets. But instead of the typical retribution, they dropped two canisters of sarin into the village by helicopter.”
&n
bsp; “Good lord,” George-Phillip said. “What … what happened?”
“Everyone died. Women, men, children, it didn’t matter. Even the sheep and donkeys died.”
“So … why are you telling me?”
“Unfortunately, we have reason to believe that the militia obtained the chemical weapons via the Central Intelligence Agency. We don’t know if it was a rogue operation or not, but Richard Thompson was involved, along with Leslie Collins and Prince Roshan. I presume you know all three men?”
George-Phillip felt a chill. “Yes. Collins and Roshan were both at the dinner Saturday.”
The Ambassador leaned forward and looked at George-Phillip closely. “Georgie, I realize you’re still basically nothing more than a kid. But sometimes a nation asks something of its children as well. I trust we have your loyalty and discretion in this matter?”
George-Phillip looked Galvin in the eye. “Ambassador, my great-grandfather was George the Fifth. I know something of loyalty to the crown.”
Galvin stared back at him, anger in his eyes. “Aye, well, I’m not interested in your grandfather, I’m interested in you. You’re to make friends with Adelina Thompson and find out what you can of what happened in Wakhan. O’Leary will work with you. Am I clear?”
George-Phillip sighed. “Yes, sir. I’ll do my best.”
George-Phillip. May 2.
“Let me out,” George-Phillip said.
“Sir?” said the driver and O’Leary simultaneously. The car was on Millbank, near the Riverside Walk Gardens. The Vauxhall Bridge crossing the Thames was still between them and the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service.
“You heard me,” George-Phillip said. “Stop the car and let me out. I’ll walk from here.”
O’Leary leaned close. His voice was low and calm, as if he were speaking to a child. “Sir, someone tried to kill you two days ago.”
“So they did. Now stop the car, and I’ll walk. Keep nearby and watch over me if you’re worried I’ll be shot. But I need to be left alone for a few minutes.”
“Stop the car,” O’Leary called.
The driver brought the car to a stop. George-Phillip was irrationally irritated. The driver didn’t stop when he gave the order, only when O’Leary did. But that’s how it worked. The higher you went up the chain of command, the less direct influence you had over events. George had felt that frustration often enough before. But now it ached, because Adelina Ramos Thompson was out there somewhere, lost and alone and frightened, with people possibly trying to harm her and her daughters. It ached because his daughters were out there, unprotected and unknowing.
She’d never admitted it to him.
She’d never said a word. But he’d known ever since he first saw then twelve-year-old Carrie at a diplomatic function in Beijing, and later, when he saw both of his daughters together on the beach in Calella. It was obvious, because both of them looked so very much like him, and even more so like his cousin Eloise.
George-Phillip had respected Adelina’s wishes for thirty years and not revealed himself to his daughters. But she was missing now, and they were all in danger, and now he had to keep his own counsel. No matter what it did to his career or his own personal aspirations.
He got out of the car and began to walk along the narrow plaza fronting the river, then along the Vauxhall Bridge. He was well aware this was the sort of behavior that would see him lambasted in the tabloids. Giant Eyebrow covers the Thames, or something equally offensive. But sometimes you simply had to get away. As he walked across the bridge, he studied the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service, towering over the bridge and the river. The green glass and stone building was oppressive, a pile of stone and glass straight out of Orwell’s 1984. What was truly astonishing was that the plaza between the SIS and the river was open to the public, access to the building and its grounds blocked by a high steel fence.
Inside, it was another story. Inside that building, George-Phillip barely kept control of the pulse of a hundred nations. Some people questioned the need for such an apparatus. Those people wondered why the SIS spied, why they had intelligence operatives operating in every nation on earth, why they worried about nuclear proliferation and terrorists and jihadists. But those people had never looked at the bodies of women and children scattered across a street, destroyed by the bombs of terrorists. People who questioned the need for SIS didn’t understand that the purpose of an intelligence agency was nothing more than to protect.
All the same, sometimes the weight of this calling wore down on George-Phillip. The weight of constantly having guards. The weight of his daughter Jane being whisked from primary school to home to other locations with a full complement of guards, because his family was not safe.
The weight of his decisions was what wore him down. His decision to leave behind Adelina, even when he knew that she suffered at the hands of that son of a bitch Richard Thompson.
Adelina, he mused.
Sometimes he liked to play what if games. What if he’d gone to Spain instead of the Army the year after his father died? What if he’d been in Madrid the day of the coup? It wasn’t that unlikely.
It was ridiculously unlikely. He’d been in school, determined to finish his final year before going into the Army. Struggling with his own identify after his father died in a drunken car accident. Adelina had been helpless that day, and ever since. Here it was thirty years later, and he’d never been able to help her.
What if, he sometimes thought. What if they’d said, the hell with it, and made a run for Brazil or Thailand or Burma or anywhere else far from the reach of CIA or SIS? What if he hadn’t been such a coward?
He paused halfway across the bridge and looked out at the river. It was a grey, cold day.
What would Carrie or Andrea say? If they knew he was their father? If they knew he’d not been courageous enough to fight for them?
Well. It might be too late. It might wreck everything he thought of as a life now. But he was going to fight for his daughters. And … if she’d let him … for his love.
Adelina. February 16, 1984.
“No. I can’t see you again.”
“Adelina, I must see you.”
At his words, she felt the blackness reaching out and grabbing her heart again. Because she wanted to see him. She wanted to so badly she could taste it.
She knew that could be nothing but disaster.
“I can’t see you,” she whispered.
Very slowly, she hung up the phone and closed her eyes, shutting out the darkness.
Jessica. May 2.
Jessica felt her stomach rumble. She hadn’t eaten in almost an hour, and for days she’d been constantly ravenous. She hugged her legs tighter to herself and looked out at the water. The talk with her mother had been full of unwelcome revelations, not the least of which was that her father was a rapist.
Or Adelina claimed he was. After all, her mother was a lunatic. All of Adelina’s daughters knew that. She took enough drugs to tranquilize an elephant. She had fits and breakdowns. She cried randomly and had panic attacks that terrified all of them. She’d more than once freaked out and injured her daughters with both her words and her slaps.
“Jessica?” her mother said.
“Leave me alone,” Jessica whispered.
Adelina sighed and stood. Jessica didn’t watch her walk away. Instead, she stared out at the ocean and fought to preserve her anger at her mother.
It wasn’t that hard. All she had to do was remember too many incidents to count. Especially the worst one, the broken cello, the memory that had preserved for all time her memory of her sister Carrie as a saint and her mother as the devil.
Jessica had been six years old, and it had to have been late October, because she remembered she and Sarah had gone to the Halloween party at the Brewer’s old Victorian up the street. Jessica had dressed as an angel, and Sarah as a witch. Black and white. They’d run around holding hands through most of the party and gorged on candy until Sar
ah threw up on Randy Brewer’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets LEGO set. Randy, five years older than they were, punched Sarah. Sarah threw up again, while Jessica screamed, and their mother took the two of them and Alexandra home in a huff, complaining loudly the whole way that none of her daughters knew how to behave.
The next morning, everything in the house seemed ominous. Their father stayed locked in his office, not an unusual state of affairs, but Mother had been in the dining room the entire morning, sobbing. Jessica didn’t remember where Alexandra had been that morning. Maybe she’d had a sleepover.
“Stay out of her way,” Carrie whispered that morning. “Don’t go downstairs, I’ll bring you some breakfast.”
“What’s wrong?” Sarah asked. As always, Sarah had no sense of self-preservation. She’d constantly antagonized their mother.
“You wouldn’t understand, it’s something with Julia,” Carrie had said.
“Who’s Julia?” Jessica had asked.
“Sister, stupid,” Sarah said.
“Don’t call me stupid!” Jessica shouted. “She’s hardly ever here. How would I know?”
“Are stupid,” Sarah said. Then she reached out and pinched Jessica’s arm.
“Stop it, both of you!” Carrie whispered urgently. “Mother’s crazy today. Don’t bother her!”
Sarah looked at the floor and said, “Sorry, Carrie.” Her voice was low.
Jessica pinched her back. Sarah swiveled her wide open blue eyes to Jessica and stared. She didn’t cry or say anything, but her lips curled up in a caricature of a smile.
“Stop it!” Carrie said again. “I’m going to call Julia, and then get you guys some breakfast. Stay up here and out of trouble, okay?”
So the twins stayed in Carrie’s room playing with Andrea, who complained because she was hungry. But all three of them knew better than to go downstairs. It had been weeks, maybe even months, since their mother had a breakdown. But they knew.