“He only died yesterday morning,” Victor continued, pausing to polish off the tea and biscuit. “How big a team do we have down there?”
“We have three from Paris who arrived yesterday afternoon and someone called Walter from the embassy who was escorting Johnny and found him dead.”
“Are we sending our own police down? I mean, to find out who killed him and why?” The PM was beginning to think through the implications of all this.
“Yes, they’re on their way,” a voice at the back chipped in.
A brief silence descended on the room before the PM switched his train of thought back to his later conversation with the President of the United States (POTUS), with whom he had a great relationship. “Stephen, what’s Conrad wanting to discuss?” he asked the ambassador, who had been waiting patiently.
“The G20 in Marrakech will be top of the President’s agenda,” came the reply from across the Atlantic.
CHAPTER FIVE
“I have fifteen minutes.” The PM was speaking to a room of half a dozen individuals, all milling around. He was sitting at his desk with a screen and keyboard in front of him. Heavy, dark-green curtains in his office at Number Ten Downing Street provided the backdrop for the scheduled call to Conrad, the US President.
Dennis walked over to the PM and bent over from the waist to speak into his ear.
“What?” Victor was nonplussed.
“An explosion,” Dennis replied as quietly as possible.
“Where?”
“On one of the main gas pipelines in Algeria yesterday … Wednesday.”
“And?” The PM was only open to important interruptions at this key moment.
“It’s just over the Atlas Mountains from Marrakech,” came the reply.
“Shit! Conrad doesn’t like this sort of thing. If he hears about it, he may not come to the G20. Who did it?”
“No one is claiming responsibility at the moment, but it’s early days. The President may not know about it yet. It came to us from private sources.”
“You mean that I can’t mention it?”
“Well … no. Not unless he mentions it.”
“Don’t we share this sort of thing?”
“Eventually.”
“What are the implications?”
“Reduced gas to Europe.”
Victor looked at Dennis resignedly. “Oh shit,” he said using his word of the week.
Since President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, most international political conversations between leaders began with the supply of armaments to President Zelensky and ended with the supply of natural gas to Europe. The continental winter was approaching fast, and Germany, in particular, was about to be exposed as not having anywhere near enough gas. This whole issue would be the dominant one at the G20 in Marrakech and, even more pressingly, in the conversation in less than ten minutes. Victor grabbed a glass of water and took a sip.
Dennis came over to him again with the look of an embalmed corpse. He said quietly, “We hear that Putin isn’t going to reopen the Nord Stream 1 pipeline after its so-called ‘maintenance shutdown’.”
“Is this general knowledge?”
“No.”
“Will Conrad know?”
“Probably, through Five Eyes.”
“I’m guessing the explosion in Algeria on the gas pipeline is connected. Are the Russians involved in that? Sounds likely.”
“We have people checking.”
“Thanks … I need to talk to Conrad.”
Most people cleared out of the room, and the conversation began.
POTUS was wearing a dark-red, knitted cardigan that appeared to be his favourite when there were no cameras (or at least, no press photographers). “Victor, good morning.”
“Conrad.”
“What is it about you and me that we seem to begin every conversation with a geography lesson? I remember us doing a crash course on Antarctica last year. I understand that, today, we need to know all about Algeria?”
“I believe so.” The British PM was trying to keep it a little vague.
“Secretary of State Blinken was there at the end of March, and within a week, Russia and Algeria had planned joint military manoeuvres.”
“Why? What did he do to upset them?”
