Doctor Who_ Trading Futures - Lance Parkin [58]
They apologised profusely – the Turkish President would need to fly back from the Far East, where he was heading a trade delegation, and the earliest they could arrange a secure venue would be that evening.
And the White House told them not to worry about it, and asked them to clear a floor of the Green Hotel for them to wait at.
Just as they’d planned.
Air Force One landed just before midday. The limousine and motorcycle outriders were waiting. President Mather made a short speech, expressed his desire to see the ‘international situation’ resolved, pledged support to the victims of the Athens disaster, and then stepped from the podium to the limousine.
There was a small anti‐American demonstration, but nothing that would make the news back home that evening. Just the usual sort of people blaming him personally for all the troubles of the world.
It was about fifteen miles from the airport to the hotel, but the roads were cleared for the Presidential party.
At the hotel, the President was ushered upstairs, then into the suite that had been cleared for him. An aide told him that an American teletroop had hacked the system, managed to disable the safety overrides and had attacked a school bus in Tripoli. It required an urgent response, so before that he needed briefing.
A matter of greater urgency was that he needed to use the men’s room.
Mather was surprised just how opulent the bathroom was – there was an ornate carving on the ceiling, the floor was marble, inlaid with gold.
And Jonah Cosgrove was standing there.
‘Felix,’ he beamed, his Scots burr unchanged from the last time they’d met. ‘How very good to see you.’
The President knew better than to call for his security. ‘I know back in your day America and Britain had a special relationship, but I can unzip my own fly.’
Cosgrove grinned. ‘Just get some intern to do it. You’ve got traditions to uphold, old chap.’
Mather sighed. ‘How can I help an old friend?’
‘Baskerville,’ Cosgrove said simply.
‘Uh‐huh?’
‘He’s playing us off each other.’
‘Is that right?’
‘He’ll raise his price.’
‘As I understand it, it’s a price worth paying.’
‘As I understand it, the whole of eternity is big enough to share between us.’
‘You think the Eurozone and the United States should both get time travel?’
‘That wasn’t the “us” I had in mind. Look, Mr President, we both know that whoever doesn’t get time travel will just steal it from the other side. They’d get the blueprints the same day. You’ve got access to ULTRA, we’ve got access to every computer at the Octagon. So let’s just split the costs down the middle, eh?’
Mather considered the offer for a moment. Cosgrove glanced up at the ceiling, tapped his foot against the marble floor.
‘We don’t tell Baskerville,’ Mather said finally.
‘Why not?’
‘Because there are things he doesn’t need to know. We go in separately, we play along with whatever he’s got in mind. Make him waste a lot of effort trying to play us off against each other.’
Cosgrove nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Now, can I please go to the bathroom?’
‘I was just leaving. Be seeing you.’
‘Wait. Do you know what the Fourth Prophecy is?’
Cosgrove hesitated.
Mather smiled. ‘Let me rephrase that. You know what the Fourth Prophecy is. Please tell me.’
Cosgrove thought about it for a moment. ‘OK, you have done me a good turn today so I shall do you one back. Do not go into Toronto town centre today.’
‘You have to give me more than that.’
‘An atomic device is going to detonate in –’ he checked his watch – ‘four hours. Not a bomb. Apparently it’s a civil nuclear device, one that was going to be used for some engineering project.’
‘If a nuclear bomb went off… in this political climate, we'd assume it was the Eurozone, and launch a counterattack.’
‘In the circumstances, best if you don’t,’ Cosgrove said. ‘You tell your people to expect it.’
Mather looked aghast. ‘Tell people I knew it was going to happen, but did nothing about it?