Conversations on Flight – Chapter V
"Fuck, you know sometimes I fucking wonder if you're not just a fucking sentient can of hairspray in a fucking Tom Ford suit, cause you may as well have fucking dead air for brains!"
Will couldn't help but watch on in quiet amusement as his lanky friend Malcolm paced around the back of his office with a skittish stride.
"Of course the photos leaked!" The Director of Communications continued as he threw up his hands. "It's the fucking Yanks! Give them a ball of plumbing putty and they'll fucking stick it in their mouth and start chewing away like coked up cows then pull out a fucking glock and use the pipe as fucking target practice!"
Will spied the Secretary of State for Defence stewing in his seat as Malcolm continued his rant, when he felt a faint vibration in his side pocket.
"They were highly classified intelligence images." Adam broke out in a growl. "We couldn't just show them round willy-nilly."
Will surreptitiously slid his phone out of his pocket, hidden under the lip of his wooden desk, to see a notification grace his screen from an unknown number.
doesn't the body start smelling after a bit?
"I'm not willy-nilly, I'm the big fucking cock! I'm here to protect all you thankless shrivelled fucking willies from the penectomizing hordes out there. And I could've fucking done my job if I found all this out from you, before I saw it plastered over my fucking feed that the fucking two-bit basement dweller production of fucking Newsies they like to call Wikileaks have posted happy snaps of a fucking anti-aircraft missile system doing fucking burnouts in Qatar just twenty minutes after the King was blown out of the fucking sky!"
Will's brow creased as he tried to decipher the message on his phone, when a thought rose in him with a short smile.
It must be the Queen. She used his number. He hadn't seen her for a couple of days, not since the remains landed back in London, and even then their interaction was brief. He pressed down on the notification.
They preserve the remains by embalming them a little.
She must have been watching the lying-in-state for her uncle then. He'd passed the quiet lines of people snacking through streets outside Westminster that morning. Waiting to pay their respects to a box.
"You're saying you could have fixed all this?" Adam shot back at the spin-doctor belligerently.
"I'm saying I'd have had a fucking head start! Have time to find some separate excuse to withdraw our invitation to the Emir – political comments, sexual perversions, fucking questionable fashions tastes – anything!"
As quickly as Will sent his message, another returned with a hum in his hand.
like the mummies?
"These photos are all the excuse we need. The Emir cannot come to the funeral." Adam stated firmly.
Similar.
"We rescind his invitation now it will look as if we're about to declare war on Qatar." Emma's steady voice cut through the two men.
"Aren't we?" Adam countered plainly. "If the Saudi intelligence is true then how can we not respond with military action?"
ok. Good. Was feeling sorry for those soldiers on guard
Will looked down at the young monarch's message with a hidden smile.
"Great, now I have to deal with fucking Pound-store Patton here too!" Malcolm groaned.
"They killed our sovereign! You can't just get away with that!"
"If you two are quite done!" Emma silenced the room, then took a moment to let the stillness set in. "Military action is not on the table just yet. So if you can reign in your egos a hot second, can we get back to figuring out how on earth we traverse these next two days? What happens to the Emir's invitation?"
Without any thought to it, Will found himself saving the number from the messages under the name 'queenie' as a strange sense of contentment radiated through him.
"Will?"
He looked up to find the three of them staring straight at him in expectation, when under his desk he slipped the smooth phone back into the silk of his pant pocket.
Right then.
PM time.
"Never say we Brits don't take our manners seriously." Will sighed, then sealed their fate. "The invitation stays. The Emir comes."