A Game of Optics

Chapter Six

Elizabeth

Another day, another staff meeting. Elizabeth rocked back in her chair and drummed her fingers against the armrests, the movement lacking any rhythm. The smell of coffee was overpowering, and the cloying sweetness of the doughnuts—with their pastel pink icing and lurid sugar strands—turned her stomach. She glanced up at Jay who sat across the table from her. "Any news on the Russians?"

Jay shook his head, and his mouth drew to one side; the facial equivalent of a shrug. "They've not shut down the embassy yet, but they haven't retracted their statement either. Salnikov is still spewing his anti-American rhetoric on his chat show."

"Though it's not so much anti-American as anti-me, right?" Elizabeth gave a wry smile. Salnikov's list of adjectives for her was growing larger and more imaginative by the day. How long before he added 'cuckquean' to it? In the original sense of the word, of course, though perhaps they would distort it to the modern sense too. No wonder Jason was so worried.

Kat leant forward. She clasped her hands atop her binder. "We're drawing up a list of sanctions in case they do decide to go ahead with the closure. But I'm mindful that we don't want to get into a shootout with them."

"Do you really think that they'll retaliate against our retaliation?" Matt said from his seat near the head of the table, and he gave an uneasy laugh.

"I wouldn't put it past them," Kat said. She shrugged one shoulder. "Salnikov's support is waning, and he wants to look tough. It's all very well him going on television and talking the talk, but at some point he's going to have to walk the walk."

One of the assistants scurried in with a note. She handed it to Blake, who sat at the desk in the corner, the laptop screen open in front of him. He stopped typing and stared down at the slip of paper. His eyes widened slightly, and his lips formed a kind of anxious 'O'. Elizabeth's heart sank.

"Start with moderate sanctions," she said, "but come up with some plans to hit them where it hurts too. Just in case." She looked around the table. "Is that all?" Everyone closed their files. As Blake eased to his feet, one finger in the air, Elizabeth turned to him. "What is it now?"

"It's the War College, ma'am," Blake said. Christ. Henry. What had happened? And her expression must have dropped, for Blake shook his head before she had said a word. "No, ma'am. It's your son."

***

"What on earth do you think you're doing?" Elizabeth stormed into the security office at the War College. Jason startled and shrank back in his chair, and even the guard behind the desk flinched.

"I'll just..." The guard pointed to the door as he eased out of his seat, then he made a hasty retreat from the room, leaving Elizabeth and Jason alone in a tempestuous silence.

Elizabeth's hands found her hips as she frowned down at her son. "So you got fed up of following your father to buy milk—" Guilt flashed across Jason's face and he squirmed in his seat. "—and you decided you'd stalk him at work too?"

Jason stared down at his lap, finding sudden interest in the rip in his jeans.

Elizabeth pulled out the seat next to him. She leant forward and touched his knee. "Jason, your father is not having an affair. Now this needs to stop." She shook her head to herself. "Trespassing at the National War College? Do you know how many strings I had to pull to get you out of here without so much as a caution?"

Jason's jaw jutted to one side. "Not as many as you're pulling to stop those photos from coming out, to keep us all bound in this lie."

Elizabeth's pulse surged. She took a deep breath. She stood up. "Right—" She gestured to the door. "—this way. Now."