3rd June
‘It’s good to see you again, Vladimir,’ said Joan.
‘It’s been a long time,’ Vladimir replied.
‘I’ve learned of a number of covert operations since you left,’ Joan continued. ‘Some of them undermined less ethical plans of the British government. I often wondered whether Python was involved in some of them.’
‘There are a lot of Python agents now,’ said Vladimir. ‘They come from all the major national security services. Ultimately, any government will do things in its own short term interests that are not helpful in the longer term for the rest of the world.’
‘I understand now why Python is based in the US and able to do what it does without interference,’ said Joan.
‘There isn’t anywhere else I know where so many secret, underground organisations are operating – many that have a direct effect on government actions,’ concluded Vladimir, ‘and yet it all appears like a stable democracy on the surface.’
‘Is Tom still alive?’ Joan asked, changing the subject.
‘Yes,’ said Vladimir. ‘I saw him in England at the beginning of May. I don’t know where he is at the moment or what he’s doing. He doesn’t have a current role in Betelgeuse, and we only share information on a need-to-know basis.’
The mention of Betelgeuse brought Joan’s mind back to current objectives. ‘Do you foresee any problem in controlling the missiles from this ship?’ she asked.
‘That will be very easy,’ said Vladimir. ‘Most of the work I did in Dorset and Northchester was about setting up the infrastructure. This ship has that already in place.’ He paused. ‘The critical and more difficult thing is to ensure that the launch data is correct.’
‘The PAL and password provided by A51H, you mean.’
‘Yes. It only needs WAR to somehow feed false data to A51H or for there to be a WAR infiltrator within A51H or ARK, and we couldn’t do anything.’
‘ARK is fine,’ said Joan. ‘Angela Rikard is now ARK. She’s the one that A51H communicates with.’
‘Do we know who she talks to in A51H?’ Vladimir asked.
‘Dwight White and John Hawker from Groom Lake,’ Joan replied. ‘Unfortunately, they don’t know the identity of the person who feeds the information to them or the exact routes by which that information is obtained.’
‘Are they confident that their sources are good?’ asked Vladimir.
‘They were in the past,’ Joan replied, ‘but that incident at Gobekli Tepe has make Hawker think twice about trusting anyone. He believed that the order to attack came directly from the president, and he had no idea that he was targeting Arkangel. If WAR can mislead him on that, he’s concerned about what other capabilities they might have.’
‘He’s probably not as worried as President Redman,’ Vladimir ventured.
‘Certainly the president wants to maintain maximum security. He has even agreed for us to secretly keep the starcruisers in case we can use them – and also so they can’t be used against us.’
Vladimir silently stared out of a porthole for many seconds. Then he turned towards Joan. ‘Look Joan,’ he said, ‘I didn’t want to bring this up so soon, but as things are so unpredictable at the moment, I think I ought to tell you as soon as possible. I know the identity of Swordfish, and he’s still alive.’