“Schiller?”
“Maybe.” The SA glances at the TV screen, which is showing the Russian army conducting a large-scale exercise near the border with Latvia: something about prepping for Chernobog, Orthodox bishops blessing tank crews and helicopter gunships. “We live in dangerous times. Nobody saw the All-Highest coming; everybody is wondering what happens next. Superheroes, supervillains, elves and dragons and the wheels coming off. Did you know the FTSE 250 is down nearly ten percent in the past week? The only corporations bucking the trend are the defense sector. The PM just strong-armed the Treasury into approving a one-time eight percent rise in funding for the police, citing public order concerns. Those aren’t the first New Age shops to be firebombed, Bob. The churches are actually full for the first time in half a century. Nobody knows what’s going on, and the public want answers, they’re looking for someone to blame.” He pauses. “Jo has promised to find out who pulled the trigger on that warrant with your name on it.”
Churches. “You think Schiller’s people could have…”
He frowns pensively. “The Metropolitan Police are an equal opportunities employer. As such they’re not allowed to discriminate on the basis of religious faith. So it’s not impossible.”
Oh, this keeps on getting better and better. “I don’t like the sound of this.”
“Chin up, dear boy. We’ll get to the bottom of it.” The SA stands. “I’m going to go and find out if I can sign you out, or if I need one of Chris Womack’s people. Don’t give them a statement without a security-cleared solicitor present. And don’t assume that just because they’re in uniform they’re loyal to the same crown.”
*
While I’m talking to the SA about my spurious arrest, another meeting is happening—this one in Audit House, a Georgian town house in central London. Part of the Crown Estates, Audit House is used by the Laundry for high-level briefings and off-site administrative meetings that involve personnel from other agencies. Today’s session has been called by Morgan Hastings, Emma MacDougal’s grand-boss in charge of Human Resources. It’s ostensibly set up to be a brainstorming session about efficiency improvements and fixed-cost savings, but the subtext behind the invitation fills Mo with deep foreboding, which only continues to mount as she drinks coffee with the other participants.
The group assembling in the morning room come from various departments within the agency, but they have in common long faces and overstressed dispositions. Everyone in Operations (and not a few in Oversight) are scrabbling to cover for colleagues queuing up before various boards of enquiry to testify as to their deeds a month ago. HR and Facilities are desperately trying to find a way to recover from the organization’s second headquarters move in a row being disrupted, and today’s meeting was called to discuss the agency’s response to a forthcoming funding review and other changes that fall somewhere on the continuum between unwelcome and critically damaging.
Mo is finishing her coffee while keeping tabs on faces she knows when she senses a familiar presence behind her left shoulder. “I hate it when you do that,” she says, maintaining a thin layer of control—her cup only rattles on her saucer for a moment—as she turns. “So they roped you in, too?”
“Sorry.” Her former operations officer shrugs nonchalantly, but Mo knows her well enough to spot her unease. “I’m here because somebody has to look out for my people, and I drew the short straw. Not to mention the, uh…” Mhari trails off, uncertain. Which in and of itself rattles Mo more than her silent arrival, because normally Mhari is admirably decisive.
“The prisoners?” Mo waits.
Mhari nods minutely. To someone who doesn’t know her well, she might merely look worried, but Mo recognizes something else in her expression: carefully controlled fear.
“You’re afraid the rations won’t stretch.”
Mhari nods again. “That too.” She takes Mo by the elbow, very lightly: “Do you know for sure what this is about?”
It’s Mo’s turn to tense up. “It’s the inevitable. You know very well we’ve been overstaffed for decades.” She takes a deep breath, but Mhari gets her punch in first.
“Yeah, but for my people it’s not about a final salary pension scheme,” she whispers vehemently, “it’s life or death! Mo, what are they going to do to us?”
“I don’t know,” she replies, her voice hollow, “I really don’t know. They haven’t told the Auditors anything you haven’t already heard.”
“Well…” Mo hears the implied expletive as clearly as if Mhari shouts it in her ear. Nobody’s happy to be here today, but the PHANGs have more grounds for anxiety than most. And that’s without considering the knock-on implications for the situation behind the fence on Dartmoor. Fear and loathing will be the order of the day when the bad news from this meeting trickles out to the organization at large. No stones will be left unturned, and in addition to the inevitable, it’s likely that some nasty wriggling things will be brought to light as a side effect.
The doors to the former drawing room open and people file in, coffee cups still in hand. Rows of seats fill the room and there’s a desk at the front, with a projection screen and laptop. Mhari sits down beside Mo, on the other side from Vikram Choudhury. He turns and whispers in her direction: “Good luck.”
“Thanks, I think.”
Mo settles back in her chair as Mr. Hastings walks to the front. “Can I have your attention please…?” The quiet conversational buzz gives way to unhappy anticipatory silence.