The Bell Ringers (40 page)

Over the next ten minutes about thirty people had assembled in the pews at the front of the church. Tony Swift came in followed by Eyam, who nodded to the group but said nothing. Most of them seemed unsurprised by his presence. Swift moved to the centre.

‘OK – thank you all of you for coming. As you know, we haven't got much time so I'll just get on with things. I've talked to each of you individually and you all know what you are going to be doing over the next two days. The sections of David's large dossier – all the original documents – are hidden and only you know where they are. It is now your job to retrieve the packages and bring them to London as soon as you can. This should not be difficult, but if any of you have doubts we would very much like to hear them now.'

Chris Mooney raised his arm. ‘It would help to know where we are aiming for in London.'

‘I know. It will be on the website as soon as we've made arrangements. Each of you has a clean phone: the website address will be emailed to you.'

‘What happens if some of us don't make the delivery?'

‘We have a complete record of the dossier in electronic form but obviously we prefer – in fact
need
– the original document. You just have to do your best.'

‘Where's Michelle Grey?' asked Danny Church.

Swift cleared his throat apologetically. ‘We have taken her out of circulation for the next few days. She was approached by individuals from White's OIS or MI5 – we're not sure which – and I believe she was about to agree to work for them. I talked to her and asked if she would voluntarily go into hiding. She agreed. We have retrieved the package and it is safe. She had no idea of its contents.'

‘She must have told them what is planned.'

‘She didn't know,' said Swift.

‘What about our names?'

‘I am afraid most of our names are already familiar to them, which is why we must all welcome the chance to act now. But I stress they have no idea what we plan – you are doing nothing wrong.'

Chris Mooney made a grunt. ‘None of us knows what is in the packages,' he said, looking up to the beams above them. If these documents are secret, can we be charged with breaking the Official Secrets Act?'

‘The packages are sealed, and in each case you can prove that you don't know what you're carrying.'

‘That's not really good enough, is it? I mean, I have a family and a business to look after.'

‘Chris,' said Swift patiently. ‘We have been through this before. It isn't a problem if you withdraw at this stage, as long as we have access to the package David gave you and you agree to put yourself into quarantine for the next few days. Let me know at the end of the meeting. Is there anything else?' He looked around. ‘No? Right, so I'll hand over to David now.'

Eyam rose and moved up the aisle to stand between the two groups of people. He smiled at Kate then looked round, seeming to engage each face in turn. ‘Thank you,' he said quietly. ‘I never dared to hope that I would see any of you again. I am more pleased than I can say to be here and receiving your help.' He paused and folded his arms. ‘I have an apology to make to you all. I know some of you are angry about the deception that Tony and I were responsible for, but I want you to understand two things. When I left Britain I knew I was going to be arrested. I didn't have the strength to fight criminal charges, my illness and the government all at once. I needed a way of buying time so that I could regroup and get treatment while I waited for the moment to hit back. If I was declared dead I expected they would let up, which is exactly what happened. However, there was always the slight possibility that I would be able to make it back. I didn't want to close the door on my old life, which is why I wanted to let a few people know that I was still alive and actively concerned in fighting this regime. In retrospect I think it was rather foolish and confusing. I regret the lack of clarity in my purpose, and I hope you will forgive me.' He stopped. ‘But I have a far greater regret and that is the death of Hugh Russell. It was avoidable
and I take full responsibility for it. I cannot forgive myself for allowing that to happen.'

He walked a few paces up the aisle and inhaled so that his shoulders rose. He held up his right hand with the thumb and forefinger a centimetre apart. ‘We now have the slenderest of opportunities to prevent this country's slide into an utterly new species of vindictive technological totalitarianism. The case against John Temple and Eden White is as powerful as we can make it. With the original documents, letters and accounts it will be impossible to ignore. We can prove beyond doubt the existence of a super system known as DEEP TRUTH, which has been covertly installed in all government computers. I won't go into it all now but the public will be left in no doubt about the power at the disposal of a very few people. The country will learn how the system has moved against thousands of people and ruined their lives. From your own experiences, many of you understand precisely how that works. Tony and I have put measures in place to make this graphically clear to the entire population, but only after every last page has acquired the protection of parliamentary privilege. Some of you have expressed doubts about this strategy. Why not publish it all on the web, you say? The answer is that in this de-physicalised world, the real documents are infinitely more convincing than anything we can do on the web. They contain handwriting, DNA, fingerprints and some will bear the printer codes that will allow the actual machines on which these documents were printed to be traced. If we take the trouble to present it all to Parliament and run all the risks entailed, none of this can be dismissed by government rebuttal. This way they have to refute the allegations. And the moment they start doing that, they will be in trouble.'

Evan Thomas put up a hand. ‘I'm not sure I undersand what you hope to achieve. Relying on Parliament seems a pretty risky strategy. Is that all you've got up your sleeve?'

‘That's a good question. What we hope to achieve is a step change in the public's understanding of DEEP TRUTH, how we are governed and the nature of the people who rule us. Everything will be published on the web, even if we don't get Parliamentary privilege. If any of us is
charged the material will back up a public interest defence and we have the money for serious legal help. There's a big fund.'

‘But such a case might be held in camera.'

‘True, but by that time it will be picked up by the foreign press: even Temple is sensitive to criticism from abroad. But the important point is that there are some good people in Parliament. They've been waiting for something like this for years.' He stopped. ‘Before we go our separate ways this evening I want to thank you all. I believe we are embarking on a historic mission.'

‘What if no one notices?' Kate asked. The words were out before she knew it. ‘By any analysis, the public must have some responsibility. When all this started in the Blair years no one paid it any mind. No one cared about the database state. When they were told that all their communications and movements and their private lives were open to inspection by the government, they didn't give a damn. They carried on thinking that the government was making them safer. Have you thought that people just don't care, or don't want to be disturbed, or believe they've got more important things to think about?'

‘We don't have time for this now,' said Swift, who had moved to Eyam's side. Suddenly the memory of an actor in the Oxford Union Dramatic Society during the vintage years came to her: a postgraduate student who was about fifty pounds lighter than Tony Swift. He was five or six years older than the rest of them, a tall man with a shaven head and rower's physique who displayed an unexpected delicacy and range on stage. They had met once in the JCR and he'd called her Katy. What the hell was his name?

She tore her eyes from Swift to listen to Eyam who said, ‘Some of what Kate says is right, but I believe the detail, the names, places, money, meetings and secret agreements – laid out clearly will prompt people to take notice. You talk about the apathy of the ordinary people. But look around you, Kate. I don't think that we should make assumptions about the public.'

At that moment she heard the iron latch of the main door being worked and then Freddie's voice.

‘What is it?' asked Tony Swift.

‘Just got word that a chopper's sitting on the farm. There's a fair bit of activity on the roads in that area too. They're not far behind.'

‘OK,' said Swift quietly. ‘Everyone knows what to do. We'll see you all in London. There shouldn't be any problem if you leave and go your separate ways without haste.'

The church emptied in under a minute. Anyone observing Richard's Cross parish church would have seen a congregation leaving in an orderly fashion having received the blessing for the week ahead. Cars, vans and a truck moved off into the village to take different directions at an intersection a little distance from the church. Kate followed Eyam to Freddie's car.

‘Best if we don't travel together, Sis. We'll all take different rides and meet up tomorrow. Freddie knows where to take you.'

‘Ed Fellowes,' she exclaimed. ‘That was Swift's name when we were at Oxford, wasn't it? He was an actor.'

‘So you remembered,' said Eyam. ‘He was a great Pantagruel. He should've gone on the stage, but thank God he didn't.' He glanced at Swift trundling down the other path. ‘Instead he went into the Defence Intelligence Service and was seconded to the FCO, which is where we hooked up again. He's a profoundly good man.'

They stopped short of Freddie's car. ‘Look, I couldn't go into too much in there but I'll tell you everything in London.'

Cannon was in his office by six on Monday morning with the two deputy heads of communications at Ten Downing Street, and a young woman from the party campaign manager's office. Each held a copy of a draft of a speech to be given by the prime minister that morning at the Ortelius Institute for Public Policy Research. It was headed ‘Water Security and Britain's Resilience'. In bold type below was an instruction to the media. ‘Check Against Delivery.'

One of Cannon's deputies, George Lyme, read the speech aloud as Cannon made notes and coffee. Then they went through it line by line excising the passages that painted a picture of total catastrophe in the water supply. Cannon's instinct was to concentrate the science in one part of the speech, having checked every statement with the known established facts. A briefing paper from the Special Committee for Water of the Security Council had arrived by email half an hour earlier. The facts on TRA were these: over thirty reservoirs were showing signs of contamination. Filtration systems were being rushed from a warehouse in Hounslow to every part of the country, but while they were being installed some areas were experiencing water shortages. Six towns in the north-west had no water and would be supplied by army tankers from noon that day. In Yorkshire the supply to Leeds and York was threatened. London was so far unaffected but special security measures had been taken to protect the main reservoirs and pipelines that fed the capital.

‘So', he said, ‘the PM should not speculate on the means of transmission, but merely state that this crisis needs to be met with the full panoply of scientific and technical responses. All this stuff about
terrorism is conjecture and it will land him in trouble if TRA is found to have occurred naturally.'

George Lyme removed the pen from his mouth. ‘Or worse still, it escaped from the government research station at Ashmere Holt.'

‘Where did you get that from?' snapped Cannon, aware that until that moment such a suspicion had been restricted to the un-minuted proceedings of the Security Council.

‘It's at the end of the briefing document from the Security Council.' He then read from a print-out of the email. ‘The DNA profile of toxic red algae is sufficiently close to a species used in experiments at Ashmere Holt to warrant further investigations into the bio-security at the laboratory. While the first reported outbreaks of red algae occurred at fifty miles distance from the facility at Ashmere Holt it should not be concluded that these were chronologically the first to occur. The Swinton and Kirby reservoirs, which are nearest to the government research station, have both been found to have well-developed blooms of toxic algae. Given the documented growth rate of these algae, it may be concluded that the Swinton and Kirby outbreaks were established before the first identification fifty miles away at Crannock.' Lyme let the email fall from his hands onto the desk. ‘They're doing some more work on this angle and are going to report more fully. You know why this is at the bottom of the paper? Someone's covering their arse. Probably the government's chief scientific adviser: he fucking hates the prime minister.'

‘Possibly,' said Cannon, picking up the paper. ‘This is a classified document and I don't want the contents discussed with the press or with anyone else in the Communications Department.'

‘But there can only be three possible causes of the outbreak,' Lyme said reasonably. ‘One: it has been spread by terrorists.
Unlikely.
Two: it has occurred naturally.
Maybe.
And three: it has been imported or spread accidentally by an unknown agent – probably a bloke in waders from the research station.
Almost Certainly.
With the record of lapses someone is bound to ask about Ashmere Holt.'

Cannon dictated a formula that embraced all three of Lyme's possible causes and sent the amended speech back to the prime minister's
private office. When the woman from the campaign headquarters disappeared, he leaned forward in his chair.

‘So we have a busy day ahead of us, lads. The home secretary is going to invoke the Civil Contingencies Act. The PM and Glenny are doing a joint press conference at midday followed by a statement to the house at two thirty.'