Chapter Three
Pamala Tweedy had been busy before she set off on the half-hour journey to the Lydon residence.
Up at five o’clock, she’d been for a five-mile run, followed by twenty minutes of vigorous cardio, another twenty minutes with weights and finished off her regular daily exercise with a couple of dozen lengths in her home pool.
After breakfast and showering, it was time for her first three-way call of the day to Sunit Patel and Neville Lucas on her secure phone.
Sunit began the briefing by saying, “Paul Strukmer is having plenty of success getting Acer’s suits thrown out of court. A couple of the judges were awkward initially, but Paul says he’s persuaded them to fall into line. It’s a big job coordinating the legal response to the claims of fraudulent voting. Luckily, Paul is very motivated and he knows exactly where we are vulnerable.
“There’s very little chance this will go to the Final Court. Even if it does, the judges will rule in our favour. They know the country will be torched if they flip the election result. We’re confident any FC ruling will be for stability in Avalon.”
Neville interrupted to say, “Paul did a fantastic job setting everything up in the first place. We will always be in his debt. Maybe we should think hard about the implications and the leverage Paul will have with us in the future. If you know what I mean.”
Pamala said, “There will be a great deal of tidying up after the inauguration and we will have to do it quickly and thoroughly.”
Neville said, “Agreed, we are going to have to clean up all the problematic issues and with such a big operation there are sure to be plenty of them, so we need to get on the job straight away.”
Sunit said, “Paul is a true believer. I can’t see him being a problem, but it makes sense to have a contingency plan. As Paul says, “You sleep better when you’ve got an insurance policy .”
Pamala said, “What about Mr Horus? Is he happy?”
Sunit replied, “Mr Horus is very happy. Don’t worry about him, Pamala. Remember, Horus is in his nineties.”
“What about his son?” said Pamala.
Sunit answered, “Don’t worry about Andreas either, he’s even more committed to the cause than his father.”
Changing the subject, Neville said, “Leave the fine details to us, Pamala. Just concentrate on babysitting Bill, limiting his gaffes and getting him to pick the right people to staff the administration.”
Pamala said, “Bill’s happy for me to set the pace. It just takes ages to explain things to him. His memory is getting worse but there are times when he looks at me as if he is suspicious of what I’m proposing. I’ve learnt to be patient when that happens. He always agrees with me in the end.”
Bill Lydon stood up and smiled broadly when Pamala was shown into his home office. “Hi, kid. You ready to go to work?”
“Always ready to work with you, Bill,” said Pamala as she walked over to the desk Lydon was standing beside and placed her laptop back to back with the laptop he had been looking at before she arrived.
After walking around the desk, Lydon took the opportunity to sniff Palama’s lush black hair as he adjusted the chair behind her.
When the pair were seated face to face, and her laptop had connected to the info-net, Pamala looked up and smiled without showing her teeth. Lydon blinked a couple of times and the vacant expression that was becoming an ever more frequent occurrence appeared on his face.
Pamala continued smiling for another twenty seconds before saying, “Have you read the email I sent you this morning with the list of people and their CVs the transition team have identified as the main candidates for Internal Security?”
Bill replied, “I haven’t had the time to get around to checking my email yet this morning.”
Pamala took a deep breath before saying, “When you do, I’m sure you’ll agree Tina Chavez is the obvious choice to lead the department and Carl Brown would be an admirable deputy.”
“Lydon nodded and said, “Yes, I’ve worked with Tina before, she’s a capable gal. I don’t believe I’m familiar with the Brown fella, but I’m sure he’ll do just fine if the team’s putting him up for the job.”
Pamala smiled again.