87
'Hello, Lara, my name is Lincoln Roberts. Well, don't we make a pair?'
Jake Tolland had to smile at that. Roberts was the epitome of an African-American patriarch: physically imposing, exuding a commanding dignity, with a full head of hair lightly dusted with silver threads among the black. Next to him, Lara looked tiny, very young and utterly vulnerable. The White House stylists had deliberately gone for the most innocent, girl-next-door look they could find, rejecting anything that even hinted at sexiness. So she'd been dressed in flat shoes, loose-cut jeans, a plain T-shirt and a knitted cotton cardigan to ward off the cool of a grey day in June. Her hair was tucked behind her ears and the make-up artist had given her face just enough definition to show up under the stage lights, without adding any glamour whatever.
Even so, Tolland thought, Lara looked wonderful and he agonized for the umpteenth time about the fact that his heart did a backflip every time he set eyes on her. It was inappropriate in every way. She was too young for him. She had been appallingly abused by men. They were supposed to have a dispassionate, professional relationship. If she wanted anything from him, it was protection. Yet he could not deny what he felt and the detached, observing side to his nature saw that she was the perfect poster-girl for Roberts's campaign. The world would fall a little in love with her, too. And for a black President to be fighting for the rights of a white slave girl, well, Tolland reckoned that was a stroke of public-relations genius.
'And you must be Jake Tolland…'
Tolland realized with a start that the President was talking to him. He just managed to splutter an answer: 'Er, yes, Mr President.'
Lincoln Roberts looked him in the eye, and as he looked into that strong, warm, wise face Tolland found himself overawed, almost hypnotized by the sheer charisma of the man.
'You wrote a good story, Mr Tolland. I could tell that you were being true to your subject. I admire that. I can see why Lara trusts you. You be sure to keep deserving that trust.'
'Yes, Mr President, I'll do my best.'
'Good for you. So, you guys gonna ride with me to Bristol?'
Jake Tolland gulped and nodded, unable to speak. He was twenty-six years old, at the very start of his career, and the President of the United States had just offered him a lift.
He was vaguely aware of a woman laughing softly just behind his right shoulder.
'Don't worry,' said Chantelle Clemens as she walked by. 'We've all been there. The man has that effect on everyone.' Forty-five minutes later, the presidential motorcade pulled up backstage at Broad Quay. Roberts got out and walked to a special media area where he posed for press photographers and TV crews with the British Prime Minister, who was basking in his reflected glory. A huge roar rose from the crowd as Roberts's face appeared on the massive screens that were arrayed at regular intervals along the full length of the quay, followed by a few desultory boos for the PM.
Two hundred feet up on the office-block roof Damon Tyzack saw the images on the screens and spoke a single word into his phone.
'Go!'
88
Carver's frustration had been growing with every minute and hour that passed. He and Grantham were atop another building, about half as tall as the one on which Tyzack was positioned, and sixty yards further north, roughly a third of the way back along the quay from the stage. Ever since he had taken up his position, he'd been scanning the tens of thousands of faces within range of his binoculars, but had seen no sign of Tyzack. Carver wondered whether he had made a total fool of himself. He told himself to take it easy. His damaged pride was of no consequence if Lincoln Roberts delivered his speech safely.
Another eruption of noise burst from the crowd as the stage was suddenly lit in a blaze of spotlights that glowed bright against the drab grey backdrop of the city and the cloudy sky. A voice that sounded as though it belonged at a heavyweight boxing match rather than a political gathering boomed across the speaker stacks arrayed alongside the video screens. 'Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States!'
The crowd leaped to their feet. The noise of their applause rose even higher and a blast of 'Hail to the Chief' rang from the loudspeakers as Lincoln Roberts strode to the front of the stage and waved to the vast mass of humanity stretching back from the stage as far as the eye could see. One of the screens was positioned directly below Carver's position. The volume it produced combined with that of the crowd was deafening.
And then, as the music died away and tens of thousands of people settled down to listen to what the President had to say, and he stood there calmly, smiling at the TV cameras, letting the mood subside a little before he began his oration, Carver heard a whirring, buzzing noise above his head and something very much like an oversized insect zipped past him, just a few feet overhead.
'What the hell was that?' he shouted.
'What?' asked Grantham.
'That thing that flew by, like a cross between a mosquito and a miniature helicopter.'
'Oh, that,' said Grantham, nonchalantly. 'Probably one of the spotter drones. The cops use them to observe the crowd. They've got video cameras. Clever little buggers. They use electric motors, very quiet, and they're only a couple of feet across, so you can't see them from the ground.'
Realization dawned on Carver, just as Lincoln Roberts began his speech.
'More than two hundred years ago, my ancestors were taken captive on the shores of Lake Chad in central Africa, in a land then known as Bornu. They were marched overland many hundreds of miles to the barracoons of Lagos, then sold to the white slavers who would transport them across the oceans to the colonies of the Americas and the Caribbean. They made the terrible crossing of the Atlantic, the dreaded Middle Passage, and were sold again in the slave market in Charleston, South Carolina. The people who shipped my ancestors across the Atlantic, and brought the profits back to cities just like this one, were white. The people who owned, worked and whipped my ancestors in the plantations were also white…'
Carver could almost feel the shame rising from the audience, the consciousness of a sin that could never be expunged or atoned for. But he was only half listening to Roberts. Instead, his concentration was focused on the sky above the crowd as he swept his binoculars slowly back and forth, looking out for the drones.
'But white people were not the only sinners in the slave trade, nor Africans the only victims,' Roberts continued. 'No white man had ever ventured close to Lake Chad at the time my folks were seized. They were first enslaved by their fellow-Africans, who probably traded them to Arab merchants along the way. And this trade flowed in more than one direction. Over the centuries, hundreds of thousands of white Europeans, many of them from England, were captured by raiders and taken to be sold in the slave markets of North Africa. This is how it has been since the very dawn of mankind. Slavery is the original form of human oppression. And it is still among us, on a greater scale than ever before, right here in the heart of our civilization, right now in the twenty-first century.
'So it is time we made a stand…'
As the crowd started getting to their feet, clapping and cheering as they rose, Carver shouted at Grantham, 'How many of these drones are there?'
'Dunno. Two, I think.'
'It is time we said, "Enough is enough!"' Roberts declared.
The crowd noise rose another level as Carver yelled, 'You sure?'
'No,' Grantham replied, having a hard time making himself heard. 'Why does it matter?'
Roberts's voice grew stronger stilclass="underline" 'It is time we put an end to slavery. And that is what I, and you, are going to start doing today.'
Carver's throat, still suffering the after-effects of Tyzack's torture, felt as though he'd just swallowed a cocktail of acid and barbed wire and his voice was starting to go. 'Don't you get it?' he rasped. ' "Look to the sky." That's what Thor meant. Tyzack is using a drone!'