Читать книгу The Ice: A gripping thriller for our times from the Bailey’s shortlisted author of The Bees - Laline Paull - Страница 28

As the ministerial car with darkened windows headed south, Sean assumed he was meeting Stowe at Westminster, and all this cloak-and-dagger stuff was Parch’s misplaced sense of drama, intended to impress Sean with his own command of perks. But they skirted Parliament Square and sped east along the Thames, and Parch begged Sean’s forgiveness in not saying more.

By the time they were passing the Tower of London, Sean guessed they were en route to Docklands, and by Canning Town and the highly visible police presence on the streets, he remembered seeing some protest on the news about the bi-annual arms fair, held at ExCel Centre. Parch rolled his eyes.

‘Word to the wise: we say Defence Expo.’ They looked out. A dense crowd of respectable-looking businessmen, and a few women, waited at the main entrance. Many had flight cases. ‘The British Government would not dream of sponsoring something as mercenary as an arms fair. Oops, don’t say that either.’

‘What, mercenary?’ Sean enjoyed his temporary Whitehall gravitas, reflected in the faces of the armed police waving their car through security. ‘Or Arms Fair?’

‘I’m serious. I can’t tell you why you’re here because all I know is that Stowe’s keen to meet you, so I crow-barred some daylight in his diary then chased you down, like the good dog I am. I’m guessing it’s a one-shot opportunity, but who for I don’t know. DQM, or poor Parch will be thrown off the gravy train.’

The car passed through tall steel gates and into the shadow of a line of battleships, moored outside the conference centre. As they got out they paused with a small crowd, watching a black-clad commando team demonstrate how they would take a ship, from a rigid inflatable boat several storeys below on the brown water of the Thames. Six men in balaclavas shot lines that attached to the freeboard of the ship, which they then scaled with extraordinary strength and dexterity. Sean felt soft and inadequate.

‘Here’ – Parch slipped a lanyard over his head – ‘you’re an MoD consultant for the day. Anyone asks if you’re a journalist, leave them in no doubt. One weaselled in yesterday under false pretences, then refused to leave. Started shouting about freedom of information. Like he’d know what to do with it. Come on, I’m starving.’

Parch’s ‘super-cool pop-up’ was in the Officers’ Mess of the Indian naval destroyer Kali. At the top of the gangplank a phalanx of dazzlingly starched officers waited to welcome them and Parch was as airy in his greetings as if he were the British Defence Secretary himself. He led Sean through to the source of the delicious aromas – a buffet hidden behind a wall of tall and broad khaki, navy and black backs, gold braid abundant on their shoulders. There was no getting through for a while, so he and Parch accepted samosas and bottled Cobra beer from passing waiters. Parch looked wistful.

‘We did one on ours, yesterday. A lunch. Friends, allies and countrymen, poached salmon and Coronation effing chicken, who thought of that? I wouldn’t say the tumbleweed blew, but it was nothing like this. Waft a bit of curry around, et voilà! Prey and predator at the watering hole. Spend on the catering, that’s the motto.’ He dropped his voice. ‘Problem with old Team GB is, their tastes were formed at public school. No gristle in the custard, they send it back.’

Sean tried not to stare. The mess looked like a fancy-dress party before people had had enough to drink. The bristling moustaches did not look real, and the braid and ribbons were comically bright. Out of a porthole he could see a golf-buggy full of men in Arab robes stopping at the bottom of the gangplank. One had a large hooded bird on his wrist.

At that moment, a volley of laughter burst from a nearby group and Sean saw the face of the British Defence Secretary, animated at its centre. The Indian commodores and generals around him were vastly amused.

‘Probably just mentioned Coronation Chicken,’ Parch murmured, smiling deferentially at his boss. Stowe nodded to Sean and held up his finger. Like Kingsmith, he thought. Sit, stay, up for a biscuit. But … good biscuits.

‘Before I go,’ Parch said in a low voice, ‘he’s very pro your price. For what you’ve pulled off, everyone thinks you deserve it.’

Sean took a slow pull at his Cobra.

‘My price?’

‘Come on.’ Parch looked at him sideways. ‘A Special K. You said you wanted one.’

‘Wasn’t that some kind of old nightclub drug?’ Sean knew exactly what it was, slang for a knighthood. But how on earth did Parch know he wanted that?

‘I believe it might have been. Didn’t you mention it at that brilliant party after Wimbledon last year? Or was it Royal Ascot? Land of Hope and Glory ring any bells?’

‘Not really.’ Sean looked at his new watch. He remembered all too well. It was at a post-racing party in Berkshire held on the Last Night of the Proms. Things had been very bad with Gail – or rather, he had behaved extremely badly yet again and only a massive bender could anaesthetise his shame.

It had all culminated at this party. At first all was well – the beautiful horses in their stables and the Union Jack bunting, the strangers who shared their coke, the cocktails – and then out of nowhere he was talking about his marriage, any marriage, surely everyone knew marriage was hard, surely everyone needed help?

The coke grabbed him by the lapels and announced through his drunken mouth that he didn’t mean to be such a shit, he was going to fix that just like he’d fixed himself his whole life, he wasn’t finished yet, and one day it was his ambition – he was up on a table by this stage – his ambition to serve his country and do something that mattered. He would show the world that he was a man of honour and the proof would be that he, Sean Cawson from nowhere, would win a fucking knighthood. For his country. He loved his country even if it didn’t love him. People had clapped, someone had helped him down. No. He had fallen. He shuddered at the memory.

‘I was totally fucked up too,’ Parch confided, ‘much worse than you, don’t even worry. I only remember it because it was such a rousing speech. You were like Russell Crowe in Gladiator when he’s going to kill the one with the twisty face. I thought, aha now, there’s a man to watch. And wasn’t I right? By the way, I even heard you mentioned at Chatham House the other day, in the same breath as the words: paradigm shift. Before you won the bid. Certain people have been watching you very closely. Obviously I can’t reveal who.’

‘Obviously.’ Sean went to drink his beer and found it empty. While Parch wittered on, name-dropping the latest world leaders and giving the impression he was almost on sleepover terms, Sean kept an eye on Philip Stowe. The new Defence Secretary paid smiling and intent attention to each of the Indians in the circle. Sean could not decide which way the interview was going – or if it were a circle of wolves deciding whether they would eat the creature in the middle. As he looked at his watch, Stowe disengaged from the group and came over.

‘Go away, Parch.’ Philip Stowe had a pleasant voice and twinkly eyes, which he kept on Sean. He offered his hand. ‘Good of you to come.’

‘And you to ask.’ Sean shook with equal brevity and firmness. Stowe had asked for the date, let him lead.

‘How’d you do it?’ Stowe didn’t mess around. ‘Midgardfjorden. Not the biggest, not the prettiest, ruled out weeks ago – but suddenly you’ve got the ring on your finger.’

‘Charm?’ Sean picked up his beer again. Parch was already on the far side of the mess, hooting with laughter at someone’s joke. Stowe didn’t smile.

‘Well done. However you did it. Wanted to congratulate you in person, not bloody email.’ His smile flashed. ‘So, the Midgard Consortium—’

‘Trust. It’s a trust.’

Stowe’s eyes flickered at his misinformation.

‘A trust. Registered in Tortola, administrated through Jersey?’

Stowe was guessing. He had no legal power to compel Sean to shed more light, and was himself known for many obscure directorships. He knew all the routes. Sean smiled. Stowe looked irritated for a second.

‘So that’s your management company for the consortium. Private British equity with some foreign partners, correct?’

‘Correct, sir.’ Sean intuitively added the sir, not from respect but because he’d sized up Stowe as not nearly as rich as he was grand – and therefore likely to resent the far greater wealth of the self-made man. Whatever deal was on the table, Sean wanted him to feel superior. That was when people revealed themselves.

Stowe’s eyes were also recording Sean. ‘You got, what? Forty, forty-five per cent majority?’

‘Fifty-one.’ That much Stowe could discover; he would save him the trouble. ‘The balance shared between my foreign partners, one of whom has dual Swiss-American citizenship. But in both law and cultural perception, Midgard Lodge will be a British enterprise.’

‘You’re the CEO. Buck stops with you.’

‘One hundred per cent. The work has begun and should be completed next year. The season is very short.’

‘So soon?’

‘I commissioned the plans when I made the proposal to the vendors. I’ve had the architect and contractors on retainer.’

Stowe raised an eyebrow and Sean knew what he was thinking. How expensive. But instead the Defence Secretary looked thoughtful.

‘Midgard. Norse mythology. The world of men.’

‘That’s the name of the fjord, since whaling days. Maybe because the mountains are in the shape of—’

‘Fascinating political environment, Svalbard.’ Stowe looked up as the Middle Eastern golf-buggy passengers with the hawk entered. He paused to catch their eye and raise his hand, before turning back to Sean.

‘Our Norwegian friends are relieved it was bought by a British citizen.’

‘Rather than …?’

Stowe twitched a smile. ‘The Russians still believe Svalbard is theirs. Svalbard and a large part of the Arctic up to and including the North Pole.’

‘Because of the Lomonosov Ridge.’

‘Exactly. We’d do exactly the same if we could. Shetland doesn’t quite cut it.’

‘But don’t Norway and Russia have an amicable relationship on Svalbard?’

‘Amicable is a word that only ever implies tension.’

Sean thought of the email from Gail’s lawyer, waiting in his inbox first thing that morning. The word ‘amicable’ had been used. The Arab group were moving closer, the bird now unhooded and staring around with fierce golden eyes. A nervous waiter came up with a saucer of raw meat. The bird turned away.

‘Don’t worry about them,’ Stowe didn’t look. ‘They’re early. Bringing the falcon’s a good sign. We’ve got too many pigeons. Tell me the real reason they chose you.’

‘Tell me why I’m here.’

‘You’re attracted to power. You’re curious.’

Sean decided he liked Stowe after all.

‘OK: the money was right, but we’re small, British, environmentally committed – we’re not a threat.’

Stowe leaned forward.

‘Bullseye. No flags on the seabed, no subs turning up unannounced with two hundred men for an unscheduled sleepover, no new settlements under construction. You’re a legitimate British business with an environmental champion at your helm, a clean tech hedge fund filling in, and a Chinese partner bringing stability and responsible investment to Guinea Bissau and the DRC.’ The eyes twinkled again. ‘Or do I mean the Central African Republic?’

‘Both.’ Sean didn’t smile. ‘It’s like you’ve read the confidential bid proposal. It’s like you can see my emails.’

Stowe waved that away. ‘You’ll offer different security details for each retreat?’

‘I’m anticipating we’ll have VIPs, I hope political as well as corporate.’

‘Bit of a faff, isn’t it? All that bureaucracy with the Sysselmann’s office each time, all those different permits?’

‘We’ll manage.’

‘And you trust all your partners.’

‘Of course.’

‘Even though you know Greenpeace does more to ruin brand GB than—’

‘That’s contentious. Anyway, Tom left Greenpeace over five years ago. I trust him with my life and his participation is the reason we closed the deal.’

‘And in so doing, created a unique opportunity to serve your country.’

Time slowed for Sean. The great door was opening at last – to what, he didn’t know. But the Defence Secretary of Great Britain was definitely offering him something.

‘To serve would be the highest honour, sir.’ This time the sir was unforced.

Stowe held his eyes.

‘And an honour, your fitting reward.’ Stowe’s tone became casual again. ‘Lot of interesting stuff at the fair, especially the Scandinavian pavilion. Care to take a look?’

Sean felt the impatience of the Arab contingent, waiting close behind. ‘Don’t you—’

‘Oh no, not with me. Completely under your own steam.’ And with a nod, Stowe pivoted into his next meeting.

As Sean came down the bright gangplank, his sense of surreality was heightened by the sight of fighter jets and Chinooks parked as close as space permitted outside the vast hangar of the ExCel. The little boy and kit fetishist in him very much wanted to go and have a look, but he understood Stowe had given a cryptic instruction, and he went directly in search of the Scandinavian pavilion.

At least, he intended to – but there was simply too much to look at. Each of the four sections of the conference centre was designated a compass direction, and each was the size of a sports stadium. Presentation arenas were cordoned off for military speakers of distinction, and military men and associated suits were crammed in, standing-room only.

The sound in the halls had a curious booming underwater quality, and the ambience evoked something of a cross between Selfridges and a souk of death, with all the bright display cases holding bullets, pistols, rifles, RPG launchers and missiles. If Sean looked too long at the carpeted seating areas, the huddles of men would pause in their discussion and look up with undisguised hostility. But the vendors avoided his eye. He was not their customer, they would not waste time.

Like all trade shows, the best pitches were bought by the big companies, and the independents who could afford it, lined the edges. Sean avoided the village-hall-style cheap tables featuring ‘non-lethal crowd control’ utilities and rubber bullets, and gravitated towards the massive gleaming rocket launchers at the centre. Here was space to breathe, amidst pleasingly designed and spotless military hardware. Some looked familiar from news broadcasts in war zones, others were of exotically futurist design.

Sean picked up a programme and located the Scandinavian pavilions – on the far side. He paused to take a complimentary orange juice from the stand of an upright British company whose earth-moving equipment was unremarkable on any building site – except here, where large mounted photographs featured it demolishing settlements on what looked like the West Bank. Sean pocketed an exact miniature of a digger from the give-away bowl and moved on into the crush.

The crowd looked either military or business, and seemed to consist of small groups that flowed around a dominant individual who carried nothing. Sean continued through the tanks of the Land Arena, where he was barged aside by meaty men in tight-fitting uniforms and contemptuously sidestepped by brisk-paced officers of the upper echelons. Only the unhealthy middle-management types lugging flight-cases scanned him with cold eyes and he instinctively disliked them. He should have been at the Scandinavian pavilion by now, but he must have taken a wrong turn, because he found himself in the Medical Arena. He stopped short.

Under a big sign that read ‘Follow the Care Path!’ a young soldier lay on the ground, his bleeding shattered legs stretched out in front of him. Sean could not look away from the obscene sight of the bloody white cartilage and spikes of bone, and the dark clotted gore between them. Then a nurse with a tool box sat down on a stool by his side, and began reapplying the gore. She pulled at a bone shard to make it more prominent. Sean felt faint.

‘Lovely,’ the soldier said admiringly. He looked up at Sean. ‘Just like it was, you can see it over there.’ Sean looked where he directed, and saw a body on an operating table. A theatre nurse in a Union Jack mouth-and-nose mask went through the motions of the field-hospital operation, footage of what he assumed to be the real event, playing on a large HD screen to one side.

‘There I am,’ the soldier on the ground called out. ‘Lucky or what? That’s me on the table too, up close and personal, and this is me here on the ground – still waiting for my Equity card. Job for life – travel the world, legless!’ He looked very pleased with himself. ‘What’s it with you then, PTSD? No shame, mate – all in it together, aren’t we? Sometimes you find yourself right where you need to be. Just admit it. You’ll feel better.’

‘I don’t,’ Sean said. ‘I don’t have PTSD.’

A large man in a white coat loomed up beside him, his smile deep and cold.

‘Can we offer you support? It can be hard to accept. Denial is the first stage.’

‘Nah, you muppet,’ called the legless soldier. ‘It’s the bloody injury!’

‘I’m looking for the Scandinavian pavilion.’ His mouth was dry.

‘I can show you.’

Sean turned at the friendly female voice, with its faint Norwegian accent. A tall blonde woman, her beauty plain as new bread, smiled at him with white teeth and pink gums.

He followed her past the disappointed pastor of the Medical Arena, and into the frenzy of the Scandinavian pavilion, where thrash metal deafened from the Finnish stand. This was inadequate to contain the colossal green-and-black tank jutting out into the walkway, which also starred in its own wall-mounted music video.

Sean and his new friend paused to watch for a moment, as, to the apocalyptic soundtrack, the tank crashed through a pine forest, breaking trees like matchsticks, before the film cut to an urban setting where it rumbled down a deserted city street, raising clouds of white dust. It pivoted with amazing dexterity before ploughing into, then over, a row of shops. The crowd roared approval.

The woman smiled wryly. ‘Finland is not in fact in Scandinavia, but is a Nordic country. I am surprised the Expo did not differentiate.’

‘Me too.’ Sean said it knowledgeably, though this was also news to him. He walked on with her and they entered a serene and spacious area marked Dronningsberg, the centrepiece of which was a snowy missile launcher whose base was the size of a large tractor, and whose barrel protruded so high over the surrounding stands, that Sean had seen it from halfway down the huge hall, but assumed it was part of the building. The name Dronningsberg rang a bell – yes, it was in his architect’s plans – they were the provider of broadband on Svalbard. They also did missiles.