The Touch of Innocents. Michael Dobbs

his president stated. ‘And in all that time no one has ever had cause to question your loyalty. Done a damn fine job for Fox Avionics. That’s why I made you planning director. Gave you a great salary and an expense account twice as big as my own. Surprised you haven’t put on even more weight than you have.’

      ‘I work it off. On your business,’ Michelini responded defensively.

      ‘Never any doubt. You kiss ass over on the Hill like those Senators have got mistletoe dangling from their belts, and get laid so frequently I sometimes think you must be running for President yourself. Eh, Joe?’ He started a laugh which echoed around the large office, but in return Michelini could offer only a taut smile.

      ‘Never any doubt, Joe.’ Vandel was leaning forward across his desk, the humour gradually subsiding. ‘Until now. Trouble is, there’ll be split loyalties. You here at Fox, and your wife the flavour of the month at WCN. Likely to get her own show soon, I understand.’

      ‘Crap!’ Michelini responded. ‘Erskine, there’s no way I would …’

      But already the president was waving down his protest.

      ‘Exactly what I said when some of the boys raised the matter with me. Capital K-R-A-P. Not old Joe, I said. But …’ He flapped his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘This is too big to take any chances. They said. WCN’s the opposition and we can’t afford the risk of having one of our top executives hanging out with them. Sleeping with the enemy. It’s not as if this is the sort of job you can leave behind in the office every night, it’s a twenty-five-hour-a-day commitment.’

      Michelini bit into his lip, angered. ‘If you know what’s going on at the station you’ll also know that my wife is currently based on the other side of the world. This is ludicrous.’

      ‘And every three weeks she flies back here for … well, I guess, a marital update?’ Vandel countered, trying for once not to take the coarse line before quickly abandoning the unfamiliar approach. ‘Shit, Joe, it’s not as if she’s just another one of your casual pick-ups you can fuck and forget. Chrissakes, she’s your wife.’

      Michelini began to laugh through his nose. A hollow, scornful sound. Pillow talk! They were worried about pillow talk! Hell, what was he going to tell them? That he and his wife hadn’t made love – had scarcely even slept together – since the moment she knew the second kid had been conceived. That the baby had been a last and desperate attempt by her to glue back the pieces of a marriage which had been falling apart. That it turned out to be a lovely baby, and a pathetic mistake. The marriage would never be put back together, and now there was an extra child to complicate matters.

      ‘You don’t need to worry, not about my wife,’ he said.

      ‘But I do, Joe, I do.’

      ‘I don’t even know where the hell she is. You do not need to worry. The chance of me and my wife having a meaningful conversation about anything other than the kids is absolute zero. Believe me.’

      And then he knew it for certain.

      ‘There’s something you should know, Erskine. Tomorrow I file for divorce.’ There. It was out. Already he felt better, in control. ‘From now on, the only talking me and my wife are going to do is through lawyers.’

      

      London was in for a meteorological mugging. Bursts of cold November rain from off the North Sea squabbled their way up the Thames estuary, annoying the seagulls and blowing them inland where they cartwheeled and complained before settling on the turbulent water, only to be disturbed once more by the river taxis forcing passage upstream against the ebb tide. The persistent rain had made the river angry; it scowled at the great city along its banks as it passed. A day for cancelling appointments, for crosswords, for drying out socks. A day when even Detroit seemed to have its attractions.

      In his new office overlooking the Thames, Paul Devereux sat content. While others had been battered by the changing winds, he had flourished. He had the gift which all politicians crave yet which is accorded only to the few, that of luck. Others might have his natural abilities, some of them might even work as assiduously, but none in the last few years had enjoyed the favours of the press and the preferment of the Prime Minister as had he. From insignificance to Secretary of State for Defence in less time than it had taken even his own father.

      He spun the ornate antique globe at his side, another Whitehall reminder of a bygone era with its profusion of exotic and extinct countries ablaze with the distinctive imperial red which coloured the old empire, the world of his stamp-collecting school-days. Gossip had it that this was the globe the private secretary had used to explain to Devereux’s predecessor precisely where was to be found the tiny colonial outpost of Belize with its small but expensive British military garrison and fetid tropical climate that rotted the turbine fans on the Harrier jump jets almost as quickly as it sapped the men’s morale. Faced with the need for yet another round of economies, the Minister had sacrificed the lot, releasing the tiny Latin American country to the predatory clutches of its neighbours. As the story went, although the Minister couldn’t find Belize on the map, neither could he find it on the list of critical Government-held constituencies …

      With a sigh, Devereux turned once more to the unmarked leather-bound folder lying open on his lap which, in the most concise of forms, contained briefing on all issues of substance and urgency that his civil servants thought appropriate for the new Secretary of State.

       ‘… the SoS can expect renewed pressures from HM Treasury in the forthcoming expenditure round, in spite of recent assurances … These Treasury demands must be resisted at all costs … unforeseen scope of our commitment to the UN peacekeeping operations in South Africa … expected increase in threat from the dispersal of former Soviet nuclear scientists and weapons technologies … rising nationalist extremism in Germany … unpublicized visit last month of Joint Chiefs to Downing Street to discuss their growing concerns … hostile questioning can be expected from the Government’s own backbenches …’

      Devereux smiled. It was a catalogue of horrors worthy of any group of civil servants about to go into budgetary battle with their sceptical and unimaginative Treasury colleagues, who were capable of sinking more aircraft carriers in an afternoon than an entire Nazi wolf pack.

      One item was more specific than most, the language less florid.

      ‘23. In particular, HMG has undertaken to resolve its position on the MPAA, the proposed joint-venture fighter aircraft, by the end of this year. The project, much desired by the US Administration, faces considerable opposition within the Congress. It is unlikely to win Congressional approval without the full-hearted backing of the European allies. Most of our European partners are diffident, recognizing the military value of the MPAA in the increasingly unstable security environment but balking at the expected costs. Germany and Spain have let it be known that they will participate only if Britain does. On that decision will rest US approval itself.

      ‘24. Therefore the role of HMG and the SoS personally is likely to be decisive.

      ‘25. The funding requirements for developing MPAA are significant, but spread over ten years. Moreover, we are in a strong position to negotiate a substantial part of the design and manufacturing work and consequent employment benefits for this country, which will give the SoS a powerful hand in bilaterals with the Treasury on development funding and other aspects of the MoD budget …

       ‘27. Considerable public and international attention will inevitably be given to whatever decision the SoS makes.’

      Devereux snorted.

      ‘Considerable public and international attention will inevitably be given …’

      Encouragement? Or threat? While there was no recommendation contained within the briefing, its positive tone left no doubt as to the desires of the MoD bureaucracy. The Duster was their virility symbol, the project which would redeem them in the eyes of their Whitehall colleagues after years of being squeezed dry by Governments in search of another billion or so with which to build a reelection platform.