He would take no questions at that first announcement, that was for certain. He needed time to think, time to confer with his media advisers (spin doctors), time to arrange his party line, time to deflect the blame onto either Whitehall or the military. But time. He must buy himself some time.
Meanwhile, he must not display panic. He must return to his guests. And he thanked God he had not invited anyone for this Sunday night dinner who was connected in any way with the military.
Seated around the table were the kind of people a modern progressive Britain admired. There was one hugely successful homosexual pop singer, Honeyford Jones, who was reputed to be a billionaire. There was the international football striker Freddie Leeson and his gorgeous wife, Madelle, who once worked in a nightclub. There was the aging film star Darien Farr and his wife, Loretta, a former television weather forecaster. Plus the celebrity London restaurateur Freddie Ivanov Windsor, who sported a somewhat unusual name for an English lout.
These were the kinds of high achievers a contemporary Prime Minister needed around him, real people, successful in the modern world. Not those dreadful old establishment politicians, businessmen, diplomats, and military commanders so favored by Margaret Thatcher.
These were people who were proud to be his acquaintances. They were people who hung on his every word, and did not ask a lot of unnecessary questions. And when he sat down he decided to tell them what had happened.
'I'm afraid our armed forces have had a bit of a setback in the South Atlantic,' he said gravely. 'The Argentinians have just attacked the Falkland Islands.'
'Where's that?' said Loretta.
'Oh, it's in the South Atlantic — just a tiny British protectorate going way back to the nineteenth century,' he replied. 'Of course we knew there was a lot of unrest in the area, but I don't think my Foreign Office realized quite how volatile the situation was.'
'Jesus. I remember the last time that happened,' said Darien. 'I was in my, like, dressing room on the set… and they announced on the television we'd been attacked…I was…you know…like, wow!'
'Oh, that must have been, like, awful for you…in the middle of a movie and everything,' said Madelle.
'Well, we all knew it was very uncool,' he replied. 'You know, like really, really bad, getting attacked by a South American country…but I mean everyone was totally, like, wow!'
'So what's it with these fuckin' Argeneeros then?' asked Freddie. 'I mean, what are they on about? First up, they got a bloody big country, ain't they? Second, do I look as if I care there's a war or whatever in the Falktons, I mean, like who gives?'
The Prime Minister, for the first time in his premiership, suddenly wished he had chosen different friends for tonight's dinner. He stood up and said, 'I'm sorry. But I'm sure you all understand I have to return to London.'
Everyone nodded, and Loretta called out, 'Get on your mobile, babe. The Army will get down there. Best in the world, right? Sort them Argeneeros out, no pressure.'
The PM shuddered as he made his way back across the central hall to the government limousine waiting outside. He had staff to sort out the details of his return to Downing Street. He just climbed in the rear seat of the Jaguar and sighed the sigh of the deeply troubled.
Like all Prime Ministers, he loved the grandeur of this seven-hundred-acre country retreat. And he was aware of the immense decisions that had been reached down the years within its walls. He also knew, and the knowledge caused his soul a slight quiver, that Margaret Thatcher had sat in her study at Chequers to compose her perfectly brilliant personal account of the mighty British victory in the Falklands nearly thirty years ago.
He was assailed by doubts, the kind of doubts that cascade in upon a self-seeking career politician who does not possess the guiding light of goodness and purpose that always gripped Margaret Thatcher. Gloomily, he doubted his manhood, and he gazed out at the Chequers estate, which was frosty in the pale moonlit night.
He truly did not know if he would pass this way again, given the Brits' unnerving habit of unloading a Prime Minister before you can say knife. Out of Downing Street in under twenty-four hours; glorious weekends at Chequers…well…those became instant history. Pack your stuff and make a fast exit.
Traffic returning to London was light, and the PM had only an hour or so to ruminate on his recent exchange with Sir Jock Ferguson, the Chairman of the hugely influential Joint Intelligence Committee. In two very private phone calls, Sir Jock had tipped him off there was trouble brewing in Buenos Aires over the Falkland Islands.
This had been precisely the news no government wanted to hear with a general election coming up in less than seven months. No PM wants to be seen to take his nation to war, and then ask for everyone's vote. Even Winston Churchill was unable to pull that one off after World War II in 1945.
And if they could throw the Great One out, they could sure as hell throw him out. 'Jock,' the Prime Minister had said, 'let me have a nice little memorandum, would you? One that mentions there are popular rumblings in Argentina about renewed military action over Las Malvinas. But in your opinion there is not one shred of hard evidence on any of the diplomatic grapevines to suggest any such thing has a basis in reality.'
'Well,' replied Sir Jock, 'that is more or less true.'
'Absolutely,' replied the PM. 'But it gives me a bit of cover if everything blows up and we're caught unaware. You will not regret this, I assure you.'
From this Prime Minister, that last statement meant one thing:
Driving swiftly through the suburbs of West London, the chauffeur had the head of the British government home in his official residence before 11:30 p.m. And when he arrived, there were three further shocks awaiting him.
First, the Argentine Marines had pressed on to both of the major oil-drilling rigs on East Falkland, to the north of Darwin Harbor, and to the south of Fitzroy. According to the message from ExxonMobil in Rio, they had arrested every last one of the British and American oil personnel and flown them out in an Air Force C-130 to Rio Gallegos. No one thought they would be returning any time soon.
Just as malevolent was news of a further Argentinian Marine landing on the island of South Georgia, another purely British protectorate 1,100 miles southeast of the Falklands. South Georgia was the Alps of the South Atlantic, a far-flung remnant of the British Empire, a forbidding land of glaciers and towering mountains, the last resting place of the legendary British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton.
None of the above, however, prevented the Argentinians from raising their national flag above the islands, when they landed there in 1982, and it took a very determined group of Great Britain's finest to recapture it.
The British Prime Minister was right now staring at a message from government house in Buenos Aires informing him the Argentinians had not only done it again, they had arrested all U.S. and UK oil personnel working on the gigantic new South Georgia natural gas strike zone, which ExxonMobil and BP had been organizing for the past eight months.
To make matters infinitely worse, there was a disgruntled message from the President of the United States, requesting a call-back to discuss what Great Britain planned to do in order to rectify this disgraceful military aggression against the citizens of both countries.
The Prime Minister retreated immediately to his private office and put in a call to the President of the United States. And, as communications between the two allies went, this one was not encouraging.
The President recommended immediate negotiations with Argentina. He did not recommend a war, but he wanted a deal done over the oil. In the event the Westminster Parliament felt they needed to declare some kind of war against the military occupiers of this British colony, the U.S. President stated his country would help and assist all they could, but they would not send in troops.
'The Falklands are British islands. And if you guys really want them back, that's up to you. As friends we're here to help. But I will not take my country into someone else's war in someone else's country unless the reasons are overriding, as they were in Iraq.
'If you want 'em back you'll have to go get 'em on your own,' said Paul Bedford. 'We'll do what we can. But we do want a deal over that oil, hear me? You better speak to Pedro whatsisname in Buenos Aires and see what you can agree.'
The British Prime Minister was highly skeptical about Pedro whatsisname. Like most of his Cabinet, the PM had never had a proper job in the private sector, where money and results count. He was essentially a politician, a
