Eventually Dr. Armstrong is admitted to the visiting room. Which, Cell Block Q having but a single occupant, doubles as a dayroom. There are two cell doors at the opposite side, one of which gapes open. The dayroom is furnished with an elderly floral three-piece suite, a coffee table, and a smallish TV with built-in DVD player. Prison Officer Hastings positions himself to one side of the entrance and adopts a relaxed, waiting posture. He’s profoundly deaf, but from where he stands he can trigger the wall-mounted alarm button instantly in event of trouble.
As the SA enters, the prisoner is leaning over the coffee table. A gridded board lies open atop it, dotted with rows of black and white stones, and the prisoner is studying them intently from the sofa. It’s a game of Go, and as Dr. Armstrong watches, the prisoner places a black stone on the board, completing the encirclement of a line of white stones; he scoops these up and replaces them, then looks up. “Ah, Michael! To what do I owe the honor?”
“Fabian.” The SA nods affably, then perches on the edge of the armchair. “Are you free to talk?” As he speaks the prisoner’s name he feels a prickling in the fine hairs of his arms, and a stinging from the ward around his neck: the prisoner is probing, of course, restlessly seeking an advantage. It’s in his nature, of course, which is why the SA has taken additional precautions.
“Oh, I have plenty of time these days.” Fabian leans back and stretches, then smiles lazily. “As you should know.”
The weird thing about the prisoner’s smile is that Dr. Armstrong recognizes the expression but can’t be certain what it looks like: whether Fabian is displaying a pearly white row of teeth or keeping his lips sealed, whether his eyes are blue, green, or brown, whether his hair is curly or straight. He can look at the prisoner and try to memorize his appearance and an instant later all the details will have slipped his mind. “Well, yes.” Dr. Armstrong crosses his legs and matches the prisoner’s recumbency. Mirroring posture is a trick human interrogators use to put their subjects at ease in their company, although whether it’ll work on this particular prisoner is anybody’s guess. “How are you keeping?”
“So-so.” The smile slips away like spring rain. “The lack of communication is a little frustrating, if I may say so. But this, too, shall pass.” He gestures towards the board, and a white stone hops neatly out of its wooden tub and lands a couple of grid intersections away from the nearest black eye. “Hmm. White resigns in sixteen points, I think. It’s a long game,” he adds conversationally. “I find those are ever so much more stimulating, don’t you think?”
“That’s not the word I’d use … but I take your point.” The SA nods. “Is there anything I can get you? Anything to make life more comfortable?”
The prisoner chuckles. “A by-election in a three-way marginal would be most amusing, but I don’t suppose that’s on offer yet, is it?”
“Not yet, no.” The SA pauses. “But you never know. Questions are being asked. Do you have access to the news on that thing?” His glance takes in the TV set.
“Oh, I have Freeview, all the public-to-air channels.” The prisoner’s disdain is clear. “Is this something to do with that business up north? I gather the Intelligence and Security Committee is all in a tizzy. What on earth did your people do to get them so worked up?”
He’s playing with Dr. Armstrong, almost taunting him. The SA frowns momentarily, then forces himself to relax. “I think you know perfectly well what just happened.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised how far out of the loop it’s possible to be when you’re banged up in the Tower of London, Doctor. It’s frustrating, I will admit. The first few days were relaxing enough, but … I have so much to contribute.” He sighs unhappily. “An elven invasion indeed! Then a cabinet reshuffle and a panicky order in council! That would never have happened on my watch, you may mark my words.”
“Yes, but you didn’t exactly start off on the best footing, did you?” the SA says with some asperity. “Perhaps a little more respect for institutional procedures and a little less ambition would have stood you in good stead.”
“Mistakes were made,” the prisoner says blandly, letting the admission slide. “Won’t happen again, I can assure you.”
“I’m very glad to hear it. Not that you’re going to get the chance to make any mistakes.”
“Oh, really?” The prisoner smiles blindingly, like the sun rising: an unshielded nuclear holocaust beyond a distant horizon. “Why are you here, then?”
“I’m here to ask what you want, Fabian. It’s as simple as that.” The SA laces his fingers around his knee and rocks forward slightly, his expression intent. “Good governance is in short supply these days, but it has to be trustworthy or it’s valueless. Obedience to the law, respect for the rule of Parliament, loyalty to the Crown, that sort of thing.”
“I note that you are not referring to the Crown-in-Parliament.” The prisoner looks amused. “Leviathan has a lot to answer for.”
The SA sniffs. “The Crown that binds our oath is older and bloodier than that, as you well know.” He pauses for a moment. “But back to the business in hand. What do you want?”
“I want”—the prisoner turns his face towards the ceiling and smiles ever wider, beatific—“everything. You know what I want: a parliamentary mandate and a seat of power. The respect and envy of my peers, the adulation of the masses, and the authority with which to enact my destiny. Which as you well know is to become Prime Minister of these sceptered isles, by hook or by crook, and to shepherd this nation into the future it deserves.
“The fate of this nation does not lie in the choice between a Labour government or the Conservatives, or in the membership of a Labour cabinet or that of the current Coalition. What I am contending against is not the form of politics as such, but its ignominious content. I want to create in this nation the precondition which alone will make it impossible for our enemies—the iron grip of the enemies you and yours stand against—to be removed from us. To this end I wanted to restore order to the state, throw out the drones, take up the fight against the ancient nightmares, against our whole nation being overrun by the Quislings of alien evil, against the destruction of the agencies of our struggle—such as your own—and above all, for the highest honorable duty that we, as free citizens, know we should be held to—the duty of collective self-defense against the monsters from beyond the stars. And now I ask you: Is what I want high treason?”
Fabian pauses in his peroration and fixes the SA with a stare as unblinking as a laser’s beam. “Is it?” he demands, voice booming, an ancient and terrible power stealing into it as he sounds forth. “Because if that be treason, the courts of this land may pronounce me guilty a thousand times, but the Goddess who presides over the Eternal Court of History will with a smile tear in pieces the charge of the prosecution and the verdict of the court! For she acquits me.”