They sat in the back of the Range Rover as they were whisked off to the rear entrance to Downing Street. Dave and Sally were led in through a guarded doorway. The passes were now round their necks, the bags were sent through a scanner, there was an arch for they had to walk through. A door was released and they were through into the carpeted area. Along a corridor and down a flight of stairs brought them to one of the briefing rooms. The door was unlocked and they entered. Dave saw the table sat ten, there were name cards in front of most chairs. The grey-haired man who had shown the way asked if they required anything, “Coffee and someone from your IT department to help us set everything up.” They were left alone, “Dave, I’m scared.” He gave her a hug and tried to re-assure her.
It was a woman from IT who knocked on the door and entered. Dave explained what he wanted to do, she had everything sorted and working in fifteen minutes. “Do you have anything I could use, to point at the screen?” “I’ll find something and bring it to you before the meeting begins.
Next to arrive were the drinks, there was a small pot for Dave and Sally to use while a side table was set up.
Dave now took the opportunity to walk round the table picking up the name cards.
Richard Charlton – Prime Minister
Henry Wiggins – Home Secretary
Samuel Henderson – Foreign Secretary
Sir George Makin – Defence Secretary
Jane Goodley – Head of MI5
Graeme Rogers – Head of MI6
Admiral Gordon Sheldon – Chief of Defence Staff
Sally watched as he re-arranged them, He put the Prime Minister at the opposite end of the table facing Dave, He put the three other politicians on his left and the other three on his right. He pulled away the chairs that were no longer required and spaced out the remaining ones to give everyone more room. Two chairs were put at the top of the table for Sally and himself. “Are you allowed to do that?” “It’s my meeting, I can do what I like.”
Sally put the folders in front of each person, checked round the room to make sure everything was as they had planned then sat down to drink her coffee. “I think we should both have a pee before we start, it could be a long meeting.” At 10.30 the grey-haired man returned, he wanted to know if anything else was needed before the meeting started. The girl from IT had returned with a pool cue, it was all she could find.
From 10.40, the attendees began to arrive, they chatted and drunk coffee as they waited for 11.00, only the Chief spoke to them. He wished them good luck and asked Dave, more in hope than anything else, to tone down his disrespect for authority.
Just before 11.00 the Prime Minister arrived. “Thank you all for coming, I am sorry some of you have had to return from holiday to attend, but certain facts have been uncovered that need to be discussed. We have two people from Military Investigations who will conduct the briefing. Following the presentation, they will leave and we will discuss the implications and actions required. Would you all now take your places.”
Once everyone was seated, Dave stood up. “Good morning, Before I start, I would ask that you do not open any of the documents until I say.” Dave paused for a moment. “This presentation was originally to be held with other representatives from your departments, however new information came to light yesterday afternoon which is why we are all here today. I will start at the beginning with a shortened version of events that led to this meeting.” He nodded to Sally who pressed a button on the laptop, an image of Skifford Hall appeared on the large screen behind Dave. “This is Skifford Hall in Buckinghamshire, if any of you have been here in the last four years, I would ask you to leave the room now.” Dave waited, but no-one moved. “Please, if you have any questions, I will answer them as I go along. My name is David Stretton, alongside me is my researcher and assistant Sally Fellowes, until last December, I was a sergeant with S417, my military record is on the top of the files, please go through it for background on me. I left having become worn down by the ever-increasing number of cases passed to me. I ended up with the shit that couldn’t be solved. Usually, I was able to progress the cases to resolution. In August, I was recalled to duty by my former boss, Major Joseph Cullen, I met with him and the Home Secretary and listened to a cock and bull story about a former employee holding the Government to ransom. Alone I said to the Major that we were being set up. My investigations obviously hit a nerve as after the first week, I was pulled off the job. The major asked me to carry on investigating the possibility of there being a mole or someone selling information within S417. The details of this are within Presentation 1, you can now open it, read through it and ask any questions” Dave sat down and drunk his now cold coffee. It was the lady from MI5 who asked the first question, she wanted to know how he had obtained all this information including bank statements from a cabinet minister. Dave said how he worked, and the methods he used would not be discussed during the meeting. “That’s not good enough, you need authorisation from a Minister before this type of surveillance can be done.” “What was I to do, ask the Home Secretary for permission to investigate his own bank account.” There was another question, “was it you who caused the sacking of the former Home Secretary?” This time it was the Foreign Secretary, “No, he brought it on himself, if he was sticking his dick in another man, then he should have made sure it was in private and not at a sex party.” The Chief had closed his eyes and was shaking his head. “This leads us on to the file marked ‘Images’, you may open it and examine the pictures, when they were first printed out, we had blanked out the faces of those not involved. There were gasps around the room, Dave refilled his cup while they examined the images. “Before the sacking, I was asked to find the former employee now using the name Stuart Ogilvy. I found his flat, waited until he had gone out then I made my own way in. I sat and waited for his return, you will now hear the conversation that took place.” Sally tapped the laptop and the audio played through the speakers in the room. She winced at the description of the killing of Freddie. “Where is he now,” it was the lady from MI5 again. “He tried to attack me and was shot. If there are no more questions then we can move on. Before leaving the flat, I found a box of photographs and several USB sticks along with a laptop, three guns, a quantity of money and his iPhone. We set about finding out where the parties were taking place and painstakingly went through the images looking for clues. Miss Fellowes was the one who spotted an image of the house in one of the shots. We searched until there was a clearer image. Doing a reverse image check on Google brought up the sales details for Skifford Hall, we searched for confirmation in other shots and found it in the snooker room where the table, flooring and décor were the same. The house had been bought by a shell company in Singapore, the directors of the company are Chinese secret service. You can now open ‘Presentation 2’ for my report.” This one didn’t take too long to go through, Dave waited for questions before carrying on. This brings us up to yesterday, we were down here ready for the original meeting when I received the files obtained from the iPhone.” Both the security service people interrupted. “You can’t do that, you can’t break into a locked iPhone, only the Americans can do that.” “You have to ask the right people, nothing is impossible. One of the files was a list of the people being blackmailed financially, with an explanation of the codes used by the payees. The next one opened was a list the people being blackmailed for information. Each one of you has a copy, I ask you not to look yet.” A list of the names was now on the screen, again there were gasps. There wasn’t a department in the room that was unaffected. If we click on one of the names, it then brings up images of that person taken at one of the parties. Every single person on the list is compromised. Please now check out the list. Each person was now frantically scanning through the pages looking for people within their organisations. The prime minister now spoke, “how many copies of the software are there.” “There is this one, one held securely in the MOD and another in the cloud. The original copy sent to me has now been destroyed.” How do we know whoever unlocked the phone, didn’t keep a copy?” “It’s more than their life is worth to try to gain from this. They have been rewarded well. Anyway, it won’t be an issue once you have done your housekeeping.” “What about the one in the cloud?” “That is my insurance policy and it can be used as a master copy in case anyone tries to remove names from the two physical copies. We will leave the stick when we go, nothing has been stored on this computer and it will be returned to the MOD to be wiped.” The Prime Minister was speaking. “Thank you for the presentation, if you wouldn’t mind waiting outside, we will call you back in if we require any further information. The Chief left with them, “You did well in there, thank you for that, I’m not sure how long it will take now to plan the next move.” Sally and Dave sat on a large leather sofa in a seating area. The grey-haired man from earlier was sitting at a desk at the end of the corridor. Dave walked over to ask if the man could arrange cold drinks and some sandwiches while they waited. He made a phone call, “it will be brought down shortly and laid out in one of the breakout rooms.” Sally was putting her phone back in her bag as he returned. “I’ve just taken a picture of my pass, no one will believe me without proof. I don’t think the woman liked you.” “I’ve just done her job for her, she’s annoyed and embarrassed that we have done what her whole department couldn’t do.” A trolley of food passed them by and disappeared into a side room. “Your buffet is ready now.” There were various cold soft drinks, sandwiches, sausage rolls, salad and fruit. It was now after 13.00, as they ate, Dave heard another trolley, he saw a larger but similar buffet being taken into the meeting room. “How long do you think we will have to wait?” “Maybe a couple of hours, hopefully less.” Having eaten, they returned to the sofa. There were now new people entering the meeting room. Before she could ask, Dave said that they were people who were being briefed on what had happened and the action to be taken. “There will be no big exposure, many of those at the parties will have probably held their positions for years, they will be sidelined, offered early retirement or quietly sacked. If this all came out in the papers it would show to the public and to our enemies, that our internal security and vetting is rubbish. Any Chinese involved will be expelled, a similar number of our people in China, will have the same done to them. I wouldn’t be surprised if in six months time, the same wasn’t happening again. It’s all about damage limitation and finding out how much information has been passed over. That’s for others to do, not us.
They watched as everyone left the meeting, as Jane Goodley from MI5 left, Dave stood up and went over to her, “I have something for you, if I am allowed back into the room I have a small package for you.” She was surprised and hesitated before thanking him. “Yes, it’s finished now, we can go back in.” He opened his briefcase and taking out two padded envelopes, he handed one over. “This will keep you busy. Don’t open it until you are in your office.” She took the envelope, turned and walked out. There was only Dave, the Prime Minister and one of his aides left in the room. “Mr. Stretton, the meeting is over, thank you for staying behind, is your assistant still here?” “Yes, do you want to see us?” “Both of you please, come in and sit down.” Dave called Sally in, The Prime Minister was sitting in the same seat. “Thank you for the hard work and effort you have put into this investigation. I find it hard to believe that you have done this in just a few weeks.” “We worked long and hard, I realised that time was of the essence. This is for you sir.” He passed over the other envelope still in his hand. “It is a copy of all the images taken at sixteen parties. I don’t expect you to sit and look at them, but they may be used as a backup or reference copy, I gave Ms. Goodley a similar package. You never know what might happen to one of the memory sticks or to some of the images.” “You don’t trust anyone, do you?” “Only myself, Miss Fellowes and God, and sometimes I wonder about the other two.” There was a laugh from the other three in the room. The Prime Minister stood up to leave, he shook hands with Dave and Sally, the aide said any paperwork left would be shredded. They packed away the laptop, Sally put the USB sticks in her bag. They were escorted to the door they had come in this morning, a car to take them to the hotel was offered, Dave turned down the offer, “we are going to the MOD so will walk.” Outside, the breeze on their faces felt lovely, although it was only a short distance it took them ages to walk there. People hurrying, were having to walk round them as they dawdled on the way. Inside, it was back to business, he asked the Brigadier to ring the Chief and ask for an appointment in thirty minutes, arrange for someone from IT to be there as well. He gave him a thin envelope containing all the memory cards he had picked up yesterday morning from the gatehouse. He had to explain where they came from. “Not sure if they will be of any use, but I don’t need them.” Having retrieved the USB stick from security, the three of them made for the lift, “You’re on your own up there, I am going back to my office. You’ve done a good job for the service, well done.” Outside the Chief of the Defence Staff office Dave steadied himself for a moment. “Here we go, do this and we are finished,” he knocked on the door, there was a buzz, he pushed the door open, let Sally go in front and entered. “It’s a bit posh in here, I can see the higher up the building, the plusher it becomes. They only have bare floorboards on the ground floor.” The secretary said nothing, there was a very worried IT person sitting on the edge of the sofa. A voice from inside an office called him to come in. “What do you want from me,” “sir, now other people are aware of everything, I need to give you the USB stick that has been in the safe, I suspect others will want a copy. The IT guy will have to configure a computer in your office to accept external sticks. Your secretary can then make two copies, one for you to keep and use when additional copies are required. The original can then be kept secure. The other one is for me. There are other files on there that haven’t been examined completely. I want to keep a copy, it may aid me on a future case.” “Go ahead, get it done.” As Dave was speaking to the IT guy, the Chief asked Sally if he was always like this, disrespectful of rank, almost demanding what he needs and wants, but charming with it.” “Yes, it’s what makes working with him so enjoyable and unpredictable.” When it was all done, Dave put out his hand towards the Chief. “Thank you sir, for the support and help you have given us.” He shook Sally’s hand said goodbye and that was it, at least Sally thought that, Dave new there was still a little more to do.
© 10210ken 2024
