God's Crusade

Part Forty

"Good grief, he is just like his fucking father...he cannot even resign without insulting someone," Kieran Radcliffe laughed, taking a coffee from his assistant with a smile. He was watching the news, watching King Charles III finally fall on his ceremonial sword, at long last, although the delays had allowed him to get all his plans in place. He would let the dust settle. For a month or two, whilst setting out a timetable for a presidential election, just before Christmas, maybe. By the time he arrived at Broomwaters for Christmas he fully expected to be president of the new republic, and by then he would have his own team around him, free from the interference of parliamentary protocol. He missed Peter Munroe more than he cared to admit, and badly wanted Alistair Forbes back to fill his shoes. The media was in a frenzy of course, but the monarchy was an anachronism, and so was parliament, and there was nothing to stop him winning absolute power. By then, he also hoped to have a strong ally in the White House. Shap Nixon was technically standing as vice-president, but Forbes was confident that could still change. He had suggested that Nixon might have more influence in that role than was normally possible.

But he would have to watch Forbes. Peter Munroe was a loyal acolyte, but Forbes was potentially a rival, and certainly a man with ambition, unlike Peter. He opened a secret file on his private computer, which Christopher Slade assured him was almost totally secure. It had an ever-changing password, and was encrypted so that if anyone ever opened it they would never be able to decipher the contents. He added the name. He wanted to know all young Alistair's dirty little secrets, just in case he ever needed to cage the tiger. He had never seen the darker side of Forbes, but he had heard the rumours. He was considered dangerous by some, usually those who had fallen foul of the erstwhile Director of Communications, often on the Prime Minister's business.

Radcliffe had grown up in office. He had been considered something of a nerd in his early days, bright and creative but not anyone to be reckoned with. It was something he used to use to his own advantage, but he had certainly been naive. He remembered asking Bishop Osborne for advice about getting married, and then Michael Winstanley, and feeling unsure about finally committing himself to the cause. He had obviously done so, and he spent his early years working for Harry Trevor, technically at least although it was never a subservient relationship. Trevor had been a natural politician, charismatic and photogenic, but he had not been such a big thinker. Radcliffe was. Thinking was his thing. He thought of life as a game of chess and tried to always think one step ahead, to keep himself in the ascendancy. So he had decided that he needed Forbes, but he also had to find a way to control him if needs be. It would be interesting to discover his secrets.

۩

Christopher Slade got the message in his office. It did not add anything to his workload, as he had been monitoring Forbes ever since they first started working together. His researchers were all his picks, trained by him and loyal to him, and they realised that their careers, plus their large salaries and bonuses, depended on total discretion at all times. They looked at a lot of very important and powerful people, and discovered a lot of things. But the royal family ought to be off their list at any rate. Not that there were many of them left in the country of course. Slade opened his VIP whereabouts spreadsheet, just for his own amusement, where he had a royal workbook, to keep a track of things. In all, eight women were in Meadvale convent, where they cost his former majesty a lot less than elsewhere. He had donated them for life, in God's love. Most of the rest were abroad earning a crust by various means, or sponging off friends.

He amused himself with the rest of the large private spreadsheet for a few moments, and carefully cross-referenced the lists with the White nuns in Meadvale convent; well aware that it was considered the height of Reformist piety. It was becoming quite fashionable for a rich family to gift a daughter to the Order and the rich important ones wanted to be able to say that their pious relatives were in the best place. Beside the duchess and three princesses, plus the two girls he himself had famously helped find a home there, Natalie Hughes and Skylar Hamilton, there was a niece of Sir Charles Buckingham, Archbishop Winstanley's youngest daughter and a small clutch of celebrities whose ludicrously hedonistic lifestyles, and particular proclivities, had suggested them for a lifetime in God's loving embrace. Most did not know that they were sharing a life in God's service with convicted criminals.