*
It’s Monday morning and I have no inkling that things are about to completely go to shit as I walk towards the New Annex entrance on the high street. I’m only partially recovered from Friday’s grilling, and I’m not looking forward to the week ahead. I’m wearing my suit—there’s a strong likelihood of my being called back in front of the Commons committee—and my mind is on the quickest route to the coffee station, and then the mid-morning departmental meeting, when the robocop gate guardians suddenly turn towards me. “Identify yourself, please,” says the one on the left (mirror-polished visor on helmet, fashionable MP5 carbine with about six dozen cameras and laser-thingies clamped to its business end) while the one on the right watches his back.
This is a first, so I slowly pull my warrant card out of my pocket. “Bob Howard. I work here,” I say, semiredundantly as the cop examines my pass, paying special attention to the mug shot. Oh good, they’re actually doing something for once, I think, just as he reaches out and takes the card. “Hey!”
“Mr. Howard, please step this way,” says cop number two, who has taken a step sideways and is now facing me alertly. This way is indicated with the muzzle of a gun, and it’s not in the direction of the front door.
“I’ve got a meeting—”
“And we have a warrant with your name on it.” Before I can quite register what’s happening, cop number one is behind me and has clamped my left wrist in a handcuff. “Come along quietly now.”
The crystal clarity of the moment congeals around me: the body-armored cop in front of me with the gun, his buddy behind me reaching to grab my right wrist and yank it behind me, the muffled silence of their warded minds. And I am on edge, jittery and tense and spiky. It’s another snatch—no, I realize, they really are cops. Cold sweat and the tension between my shoulder blades as I register the presence of a police van parked across the street, a real one with a mobile cage in the back. Come along quietly. What are my options? Instinct screams: this is some mistake! Training nudges me to break the wrist lock before cop number one can get me properly cuffed, to break the lock and then break their minds—I don’t think they have a clue how much danger they’re in—but then I get past the immediate reaction, second thoughts kick in, and I force myself to relax my right elbow and allow the guy to pinion my wrists behind my back. These aren’t cultists—I can feel that much for sure—and it follows that they’re following procedure and there is no reason to escalate: this isn’t a life-and-death situation.
“What’s the warrant for?” I ask.
“It’s for you,” says cop number two. “Here’s what’s going to happen: We’re going to run you down the station and the desk sergeant will book you in and read you the charges. Then you get to phone a friend who can organize a lawyer for you.” Cop number one gives me a push in the direction of the back of the van, then takes hold of my right arm.
“Yes, but what am I being charged with?” I repeat, puzzled, as cop number one slides my warrant card into a ziplock evidence baggie.
“Fuck knows, your name just came up on Charge and Book. Come on, the sooner we get you to the nick the sooner you can talk to a lawyer.”
There is a monkey cage in the back of the police van, with a not-terribly-well-padded chair. I let them lead me into it and they strap me in—there’s a seat belt—then the regular uniforms up front drive off at a snail’s pace while the robocops go back on door duty. Nobody’s feeling terribly talkative, the driver up front presumably because this is a routine job and life’s too short to get the cargo riled up, and me because I don’t trust myself not to get mouthy and make matters worse. As the initial shock of being arrested wears off I find I am increasingly annoyed—this was not how I planned to spend my Monday morning—but I’m acutely aware that my problem doesn’t lie with the boots on the ground but with whatever jobsworth issued the arrest warrant, or more likely mistyped a name in the Met’s database. Very Brazil, much Terry Gilliam.
A couple of ice ages later my taxi wheezes and grinds into the walled car park at the back of Belgravia nick. The door rattles open. “You going to come quietly, mate?” the driver asks hopefully.
“Yeah,” I grunt. I am getting old and stiff enough that having my wrists cuffed behind my back is distinctly uncomfortable.
“This way, mate.” He steers me along a short corridor, through a door, into a reception suite with a couple of bored cops waiting behind a counter. “Going to search you now. Is there anything in your pockets or bag you want to tell me about first?”
“No, but your mate took my warrant card,” I say. At the words warrant card the desk sergeant suddenly takes an interest.
“Come on, let’s see this,” he tells the driver. I wait patiently as pockets are checked and a baggie is produced. “Hey, what’s this…”
“Ministry of Defense, Q-Division,” I say as he squints through the plastic. “So are we going to get to the bottom of this or am I going to have to get our Chief Counsel to come in? Because I’m pretty sure I haven’t committed any arrestable offenses…”
Things get extremely interesting for a couple of minutes as the handcuffs come off in a display of something not entirely like professional ass-covering and I am politely invited to come and wait in an interview room and asked how I take my coffee. I’m under no illusions: I’m still under arrest, the door locks on the outside and they took my phone, bag, and anything that might conceivably be a weapon. But it’s obvious even to the jobsworths on the front desk that this isn’t a routine booking and somewhere else in the building phones are doubtless ringing off the hook. (Or would be, if phone handsets still had hooks.)
After about ten minutes a constable ducks his head in and hands me a mug of something so lip-curlingly awful that when I finally dare to take a sip it’s all I can do not to spit it out. Then more time passes, and I’m beginning to think they’ve forgotten me when the door opens and a very familiar face walks in. Jo Sullivan is one of our security-cleared Metropolitan Police contacts, hence fully briefed on the Laundry—I’ve even worked with her on a case or two. “Fuck me, it is you,” she says. “Shit. And my day just keeps on getting better.”
“Yeah, that’s a pretty good summary of my day so far. Want to tell me why I’m here?”
“In a minute.” She looks almost amused for a moment. “Humor me?” I nod, and she ducks out of the door and calls the desk sergeant in.
“This person,” she says crisply, pointing at me, “has a warrant card. Did he show it to you when you booked him?”
Sergeant Slow looks at her, then back at me. “The arresting officer had it, ma’am. Mr. Howard here drew my attention to it, which is why we called your office—”
“Jolly good.” Chief Inspector Sullivan grins humorlessly. “Did you recognize the organization he belongs to?”