“Not a complete waste, then.” said Klein, a wry smile etched upon his face. The Council Minister for Foreign Affairs laughed at the comment as they ascended the brief flight of steps which carried them smoothly into the Government's diplomatic aeroplane, Diplojet. Standing temporarily as a mark of respect when the two men entered, the staff appeared as relaxed as ever. They were well-trained and used to these missions, and although they might have been star-struck on their first flights with the President, it had now settled into nothing more than an exciting normality.
“I thought we did quite well actually.” said Kinzel, ignoring the prolonged silence which filled the air after his initial burst of laughter. “I mean, we got just as much as we thought we'd get.”
“True.”
Klein and Kinzel took their seats, allowing the comfortable material to provide their exhausted bodies with temporary liberation. Neither of the men had slept enough over the past few days; their lives had been dictated by an endless stream of meetings, reports and briefings. Although such things existed in great quantities at home, things seemed so much more draining when carried out thousands of miles away from the more familiar surroundings of the Presidential Office.
“President Klein, Minister.”
The Captain, who appeared to have manifested, rather than arrived, nearby, offered out a friendly hand to the two officials. They shook it; both men had good relations with the staff and the captains was a particularly good-natured individual. He exuded an aura of traditional honesty and common sense, the sort of warm and humorous person who it was impossible to upset. His good reputation preceded him, and although he was a rather fat fellow he strode through the plane with the air of a man with authority and influence. Even Klein regarded the man with a degree of awe.
“We'll be off in about quarter of an hour, straight across Tarquinia, headed west, of course. We should have reached Aerova by some time in the evening, and we intend to stop by in Talbin to refuel. Hopefully we'll be touching down in Prezdorf some time early tomorrow morning.”
“Wonderful.” replied the President. “A couple of hours in Talbin will be lovely. Might give us a chance to catch up on some sleep.”
The High Chancellery, Prezdorf, Parilisa
“Good morning Chancellor.”
“Morning.”
Chancellor Ezekiel passed through the security with very little disturbance. Feeling no need to raise the Government ID card which was pinned to the front of his sweeping greatcoat, he strode with powerful, deliberate strides up the steps of the short, squat palace and entered the thronging foyer. This was his place of work; an abandoned palace, once operated by some wealthy bishop, it now served as a sprawling network of offices, meeting rooms and conference halls for his command as he attempted in earnest to steer the machinations of democratic Government. Parilisa's constitution shared power between both a directly elected President and a parliamentarian representative, so that the people of the state were able to speak not just through one mouth but through two. Over the past few days, however, the President's absence meant that Ezekiel and only Ezekiel had served as the figurehead for Government, and although meetings with the cabinet had been regular, they were largely uneventful.
Today was his last day in charge and as he headed to his morning briefing he could not help but feel a sense of satisfaction. Although the days had not been difficult, the scrutiny which the press had put him under was almost unbearable. He speculated that somebody in the Communications Department was failing to control the amount of information about his reign which was being leaked by various sections of the office. Such things were part of the normal world of politics, but it was presumed that the public-relations-media-genius Joe Heind would make some effort to sort things out. That, however, was simply not happening.
Kissing his fingers and placing them on the Mezuzah affixed to the entrance to his office, Ezekiel murmured a brief morning prayer. One of many Jews in Parilisan Government, he had suffered extraordinary terrors under the fascist regime and was constantly thankful to those who had liberated him. He worked with pride in the heart of the nation's democracy, rectifying the wrongs perpetrated by the anti-Semitic King who had stood before the collapse of the Empire and the Faustist Revolution.
“OK then people, let's get down to business.” Ezekiel glided into the room, placed his suitcase on the table and turned to face the several people who had gathered for the briefing.
“So, as you know this is my last day on my own. Big Klein is coming home tomorrow to hold my hand and wipe up any mess that I've made. The line we're going for in the press is pretty damn simple; the old “nothing-much-has-happened-and-that's-bloody-brilliant strategy. I want that ringing from every newspaper headline, TV bulletin and radio broadcast in the nation. Have you got that, Mr Dexter?”
Dexter, a member of the Communications Department nodded and made a note in the little book he had held in the palm of his hand.
“Now, a little bird tells me that there's plenty of shit flying around about a certain Council Minister's daughter. I do not want the defining image of my few days in charge to be of young Julia Sauter injecting heroin into her eyeballs in order to escape from reality. It's not a pleasant metaphor. I'll be having a word with Adelonda later, but in the meantime I don't want any CM's saying anything which strays from the party line.”
“What is the party line?” asked Kluger, a young civil servant. He looked like a 12 year old, although it was possible that he was reaching his middle age.
“The party line is everyone shuts their mouths and pretends there's no problem. It's gonna be dealt with in private and it's gonna be dealt with quickly. Other than that there's no need for any of you guys to worry about it.”
“Now, I think that covers everything. Let's all look forward to Klein coming back, eh?”
Parilisan Special Intelligence Service Headquarters, Prezdorf, Parilisa
“So what you're telling me is, you can't find where this money is coming from? You've got one of the most complicated intelligence systems you could ever hope for and you can't track some shitty little transaction?”
“Mr Kahr, it is possible that the transaction didn't even occur within our jurisdiction. The funding could be coming from elsewhere.”
Jacob Kahr, head of the PSIS, was not a man renowned for his patience with staff. It remained beyond him why the Political Funding Authority had felt the need, had felt the issue to be of such great importance, to direct the issue through to the Intelligence Service. Apparently, there were several unsual amounts of cash landing in the bank accounts of senior figures in the Catholic Conservative Party, which were significant enough to be considered a matter of national interest.
Normally a few strongly-worded letters would be sent and nothing more would be done about the issue. But this was part of a wider culture of poor accounting from the CCP and the head of the Funding Authority seemed desperate to put a stop to it.
“Then go and fucking find it!”
Communications Department, Presidential Offices, Prezdorf, Parilisa
Amidst the winding corridors of power there was an office, staffed to the brim and bursting with angry young men, which was called, quite simply, the Communications Department. Here in this smoke-filled, dark and sleazy section of the establishment, the formidable Joe Heind led his little army of bullies, who spat, shouted and stabbed their way around Prezdorf with the authority of the world behind them. Their role was simple; they were to control the media. They had no legal power, they could not censor or restrict, they could not produce propaganda, they could not force anyone to apologise for things that were said. But they could spin, they could stir and they could abuse those with authority, turning the news against itself, sending out contradictory messages and making sure that the President's message was the one which got heard.
The President despised him and despised his attitude, but Heind knew more than anyone alive about the media, and more importantly, about people. He knew how to turn headlines in Klein's favour, he knew how to have floundering, flailing minister appear as a political colossus on some televised debate and he knew how to transform the President from a radical political entity to a living, breathing god.
The department was always chaotic.
“Right, find where this heroin bollocks is coming from and kill it. Nip it in the bud. No, don't just nip it, burn the fucking bud and then rip the whole fucking bush up by the roots.”
“Has the Minister made a comment yet? She better not have made a comment, 'cause if she makes one fucking mistake she'll get the fucking sack.”
“What's Ezekiel's stance on it?”
“Who gives a fuck what that wrinkly ball-bag thinks. Just spin the shit out of this story. Make her the victim. Make the Minister a loving mother. Whatever happens, no-one is to know about her own little fucking problems, alright?”
“When the hell is Klein getting back? We need some moral fucking high-ground round here again. The moral fucking high ground was good, wasn't it?”
The wheels of Government turned and turned; amidst the swearing, the shouting, the plotting, the leaking and the sighing, democracy strived ever onwards.