Seventy-Two Virgins

‘But we can’t be morally neutral in this.’

‘It’s a story, isn’t it?’

‘You mean you think the Corporation should do the terrorists’ work for them?’

‘I’m not saying that.’

‘So what are you saying?’

‘I’m just saying it’s a matter of legitimate public interest.’

‘What is?’

‘Well, you know.’

‘What?’

‘Well, what percentage of BBC viewers think the Americans should do like he says and release all the remaining Guantanamo prisoners.’

‘For God’s sake, Joshua,’ said the Editorial Director (Politics).

‘I don’t want to be provocative or anything,’ said the Political Director (Editorial), ‘but the last time I looked the BBC was entirely funded by the licence payers of this country and not by the CIA.’

The Editorial Director (Politics) had already gathered her papers. She walked out with as much composure as she could manage, sealed herself in the executive toilet, burst into tears, calmed down and mentally drafted a press release announcing her resignation.

Back in the office of the Director General, it fell to another black polo neck to sum up the meeting. ‘I know you’re all going to hate me for saying this,’ he said, knowing that in fact they would be rather pleased, ‘but I think we should remember that our first mission is the Reithian mission to explain and frankly,’ concluded the Director of Political Editorial (?102,000 pa plus car, perks, bomb-proof state-sector pension), ‘if you go for the see-no-evil option on a thing of this scale, you know what I mean, looking at the medium to long term I genuinely and sincerely believe that we could be totally and utterly stuffed in terms of what we end up.’

‘Yeah,’ said several polo necks approvingly.

‘I mean,’ added one, ‘we’re the people’s broadcaster aren’t we? And it’s up to us to let the people speak.’

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE 1036 HRS

Jones could see that his idea was taking hold in the imaginations of his audience. They were staring at him with silent respect, busily excogitating their options.

With mounting confidence he completed his conditions. ‘If you vote no, people of the world…’ he shook his head, as though to concede that this was of course an option open to the global audience, though one he doubted they would pursue…

‘If you vote no, people of the world, if you vote in favour of the most brutal and powerful country since the Roman Empire, then it goes without saying that we will obey. We will release your Caesar to rule over you in the summary and arbitrary way with which you will all by now be familiar. In fact there is only one circumstance in which we, I, would dream of harming this man and that is if you vote yes, yes to release the Guantanamo prisoners, and they are not sent home.

‘There is a flight tonight from Miami to Lahore, changing at Frankfurt. If I’m right it will become clear in the next few hours what the world thinks of American imperialism and there will be plenty of time for them to be put aboard. If the world votes yes and America says no, then I will have no choice.’

He turned and leered at the President. The President did his best to leer back. But even in long shot, the TV audience could see a hollow look, an involuntary working of the Adam’s apple.

In the ministries, banks and news organizations of the earth, it was a reaction immediately detectable by those with a nose for fear, and it was viewed with every emotion from despair to satirical hilarity.

Slumped in his seat near the front, the French Ambassador saw it. He shook his Beethoven hairdo. Confounded and depressed though he was, the enarque in him admired anything cruel and brilliant, and the terrorist plan was both. ‘C’est geniale, ca,’ he said and decided that his chances of surviving today were about 5 per cent.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Cameron, gripping his arm.

‘Hem?’ said the French Ambassador, as though surprised to find he was in the presence of other human beings.

‘You said something just now. Do you mean that you think this guy’s a genius?’

‘Not a genius, of course not, but the plan is certainly brilliant.’

‘But do you think he is, like, cool?’

‘It is certainly cool,’ wheezed the French diplomat, ‘to carry out an operation such as this.’ Cameron tried to compute it all. She tried to make sense of the Frenchman’s actions, but mainly of her own actions and the actions of the man on her right.

She turned to the love object, who was now sitting in the chair vacated by Benedicte, but facing her. She took him in slowly with the anguish of one beholding a much-loved relative on the mortuary slab. She looked first at his long tapering fingers which now held her own with the gentle and winning insistence she had felt so often. She looked at the leather patches on his tweed jacket that he wore even in the heat of London in July and which heaven knows, he wore in Baghdad during the bombing.

She looked at his strong chin with its hint of bristle and then at the humorous and intelligent crinkles around his eyes and she looked into the eyes themselves. They were still Adam Swallow’s eyes: soulful, thoughtful, humane. Surely this was still a profoundly decent man.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said.

‘But why did you …’

‘I didn’t.’

‘But you made me get those passes.’

‘I know, but I swear …’

‘I signed for them,’ said Cameron. As is the case, alas, with all of us, Cameron’s sense of guilt was greatly exacerbated by the certain knowledge that she would be exposed. Everyone would know that she had been instrumental in importing these maniacs to the Palace of Westminster and, oh lordy, her father would know. As soon as she thought of that man whose hot-dang, straight-up and magnificently unnuanced world view had until recently served as the template for her own, she felt so bad again that she toyed with the notion of weeping. And then Cameron thought, stuff it, I’m not going to cry, I’m going to find out what’s really been going on here.

‘Adam.’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you promise that you will tell me the absolute truth?’ Her voice was high, as though she had some sort of pressure on the base of her windpipe, but it was firm.

‘Yes,’ said Adam, and his brown eyes were unblinking, ‘I swear it.’

‘And that,’ said Jones the Bomb, ‘is more or less all I have to say. It goes without saying that there must be no attempt to tamper with the television coverage of this event. For every channel that shuts off this fascinating broadcast for political reasons I will execute, shall we say, one hostage. Maybe we will start with that one over there. He seems to have survived.’

He waggled his automatic at the Dutchman, ear now swaddled like Van Gogh, and Hermanus Van Cornelijus looked back with loathing. ‘Of course it is always possible that America will behave with unthinking violence, so let me say for, what, the third time, that if they kill me they will also’ — he tapped his padded breast — ‘kill the 43rd President. He will not be the first civilian to die from what Americans and their allies call friendly fire, but he would certainly be the first President. As to my own death and the death of my colleagues, let me quote the Holy Koran: “the nip of an ant hurts a martyr more than the thrust of a weapon, for these are more welcome to him than sweet cold water on a hot summer day”.’

Recessed into the lectern was a glass carafe from which Jones the Bomb refreshed himself greedily, letting the drops trickle down his throat. He wiped his mouth and looked at the erstwhile most powerful man in the world