Saints and Sinners

Chapter Eleven

Buckingham Palace

London

President Nicholas Symonds looked at the seven men sitting around the Cabinet room table and immediately felt rather outnumbered, with only Marcus Forbes on his side. But he was still keeping too many things close to his chest and only sharing bad news on a need to know basis. Not for much longer, to be fair, because even Marcus was having trouble keeping their dirty linen out of the media, but that was tomorrows problem.

"It is one thing fighting our corner, Mr President...it is quite another threatening the world with a new pandemic?" Charles Montague sighed, firing the opening salvo. He got immediate nods of approval from David Harrington and Sebastian Osborne. "I agree that we must not be pushed too far...and our own economy must be protected from lasting damage...but that is a threat too far...it was most unwise?"

"But it worked...until Fletcher went rogue?" Marcus Forbes said, managing to sound bored with the meeting already, his disrespect for Montague shining through, because of the way the former Prime Minister dealt with his father five long years before, and the way the smug bastard reacted when Marcus decided to donate his mother.

"But it didn't make us any more popular did it?" Bellamy Osborne snapped, his own dislike for Forbes just as apparent. "Right now, we could do with some friends?"

"So...you have come here to ask me to surrender and throw ourselves on the mercy of the United Nations?" Symonds sighed, twirling a pen between his fingers, looking them all in the eye.

"Nicholas...you have isolated yourself from people who could help you," Harrington said with a sigh, his godfather with fingers on the knife. "Your last Cabinet reshuffle pleased the right...it probably pleased Drew and Michael too...but it left you with less experience to call on at times like these?"

"And now you have also isolated the whole country from the rest of the world?" Montague added, which was rich, coming from him, Symonds thought. "I know that finding out what your father had done must have been a shock...and you are now grieving...but you need help to plot a way through this mess?"

"Presumably you are offering your services?" Symonds asked with a shake of his head and an ironic smile. "The Montagues and the Osbornes...riding to the rescue?"

"There is a fairly recent precedent for a national government of all the talents?" Richard Montague reminded him, sitting back in his chair and folding his arms.

"You are going to have to give ground on a number of big issues?" Joshua Trevor-Osborne spoke up, fiddling nervously with his tie.

"So...you need good men around you...men the people already know and trust...and yes Mr President, our surnames do help?" Steven Trevor-Osborne continued, as if they were playing tag with him, coming at him from all sides, one after the other. "Yours not so much just now...neither of you are responsible for the sins of your fathers, but when this gets out here..."

"And it will get out here, sooner rather than later?" Sebastian Osborne pointed out, cutting in on his stepson for a moment to twist the knife a little more.

"When this gets out, we are going to have to circle the wagons and defend the renaissance from allcomers...you are going to need all the help you can get?"

"And whilst you boys run the show, David, Sebastian and I will offer our advice and come out publicly in support of your plans?" Charles Montague said, making it sound as if it was all agreed, as if Symonds did not have a choice.

"But you must agree to some real positive actions...and you must rebuild our international relationships, which means serious reparations...and probably a lot of grovelling?" Bellamy Osborne said decisively, playing leader, even if he was the youngest player in the game, apart from Forbes.