The Old Enemy by Henry Porter (read with me .TXT) 📕

Lucas turned to him with a withering look. ‘This is not a legal case and there’s nothing to dismiss. We are the legislature, not your courtroom, Congressman and, yes, you are overruled.’

Nolan didn’t take the putdown well and sat with his arms folded, looking furious, thus attracting the attention of the cameras. But it was plain that some members thought he had a point, particularly an old congressman from Pennsylvania who was nodding vigorously, and another from Idaho named Ed Riven, who turned from the row below the dais to shake Nolan’s hand.

Samson received a message from Zillah, who had scrambled back into 2172 just before Harry Lucas’s lockdown. ‘We need to speed up. Those two guys are in Daus’s pocket. She donates to their campaigns in Pennsylvania and Idaho. Mobius is texting the whole time. They are going to play rough. We don’t have much time, especially when they see the papers. BTW the fingerprints on the compact match. She can’t deny who she is.’

The tension in the room was palpable. A member of the clerk’s staff, a heavy white guy with a paunch and an audible wheeze, took his time collecting the papers, and counting them. He indicated that there weren’t enough. Zillah went to Samson and gave him the freshly printed copies, plus a zip-lock clear plastic envelope. Samson nodded to her. She was right. It was time. He took the papers to Anastasia and placed the envelope and the bag he had carried into Congress on the seat beside her. ‘It’s all there when you need it,’ he said. He didn’t care whether Mila Daus saw him because she couldn’t leave, but her attention was focused on the papers being distributed and she seemed to be urging Mobius to get hold of a copy.

‘Who is this?’ Lucas called out to Anastasia.

‘He works for me, Mr Chairman. Just an employee, no one important.’ Even now she had time to have a dig at him. That was a good sign.

Many of the representatives now had the papers and were reading, some flipping through skimming the contents, others reading from page one.

‘Is it still my time, Chair?’ asked Abigail Hunter.

Lucas nodded.

‘Mrs Hisami,’ she began, ‘I have just spent a few minutes with this, but these are astonishing allegations.’ She looked down. ‘You are naming four individuals as running key networks in Washington, London, New York and on the West Coast with a fifth in charge. You accuse two highly placed individuals in the National Security Council and in the Office of the Director of Intelligence and, in the UK, you suggest the Prime Minister’s right-hand man is a Russian spy.’ She looked up. ‘There are very well-known people on these lists. I won’t name them but, honestly, how can you make these allegations that they are part of a vast network servicing a foreign power?’

‘Because it is true.’ She kept her voice low and controlled. ‘These days the public and media focus on cyberattacks and hacking, but Denis and Robert Harland knew that what matters is real people who have access to the highest councils of the land.’

‘You are saying that this is a huge network of spies feeding information to the Kremlin? There are scores of Americans involved!’

‘Yes, and Britons as well,’ said Anastasia. ‘You want to know why a man shoved papers covered in nerve agent into my husband’s hands? This is the reason. They believed he had this evidence with him on that day. He didn’t. You want to know why one of the greatest intelligence officers of the Cold War was shot in cold blood on the same day? This is the reason. People have died to bring this information to your attention. My husband was as good a person as a man with his past can be. He gave his life for it because he believed in this country. You want to know why Homeland Security entered this room, against all constitutional norms, and seized that computer? This is the reason.’

‘Are you suggesting Homeland Security is working for the Russians?’

‘I am suggesting that the administration does not want this information to come out, which is different. I am suggesting . . .’

But she was silenced out by several members waving the papers and shouting. Lucas was looking left to the Republicans and right to his own party, and didn’t see Jonathan Mobius approach the dais and speak with Riven and Nolan. They nodded and consulted with three other colleagues. Mobius returned to his seat, Samson craned to see Mila Daus, who glanced at the door, where three large USCP officers stood barring the way. Then she clasped her hands between her knees and looked down. Mobius whispered to her and she nodded without looking up. They were trapped, but they weren’t beaten. They had a last throw of the dice.

Nolan was shouting the loudest and eventually got Lucas’s attention. ‘Chair, I believe the congresswoman is out of time.’

‘She has a minute to go.’

‘Nevertheless,’ said Nolan, ‘I have to remind the Chair of this committee’s rules.’ He put on his glasses and held up a book handed to him by a staffer. ‘I’ll read two sections from the Committee Rules. “The majority may vote to close the hearing for the sole purpose of discussing whether evidence to be received would endanger national security, would compromise sensitive law enforcement information or violate Paragraph Two.” And, sir, I am going to read you Paragraph Two. “The Committee may vote to close a hearing whenever it is asserted by a Member of the Committee that the evidence or testimony at a hearing may tend to defame, degrade, or incriminate any person.”’ He looked up. ‘What I have in front of me, Chairman, fulfils all those requirements, to say nothing about the risks to national security if you continue on this course. You have to take a vote. The rules require it.’

‘I will take advice,’ said Lucas, closing his hand over his microphone