August 2027: An Unwelcome Blast from the Past Part II.
Two minutes later Jeff came back into the room with Wes at his side, but Nick had already ended the conversation before he stepped through the door. Thad had agreed that he was best placed to try and get in touch with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Art School at Columbia, and Trent was happy to go in as a back up to him if necessary, using his Oval Office credentials to get things done. Nick had the far more difficult task of trying to get in touch discretely with the Princess of Wales. He knew that it would not be easy, given the busy nature of her schedule, and the fact that he only had a number for her private secretary; his husband alone had her personal mobile number. He knew therefore that he had to manage to obtain Jeff's phone without him realising and then make a call from it to Catherine, as it was most unlikely that she would answer a call from an unknown mobile phone number…
He put it all to the back of his mind now that his family were back in the room, and he smiled as Wes immediately came over to him and began to tell him all of the things that Lady Alice had done whilst they were talking to her. After a few minutes he noticed that his husband was lying flopped down on the bed, and his eyes were closed; his satchel was on the floor, along with his coat…
He turned to his son, and said, "Your papa is obviously very tired, so I think that we should let him doze for a bit before dinner. Maybe you should go and have a nap too?" He crossed his fingers behind his back, hoping that his boy would agree.
"Oh, I'm not tired daddy, but I might go to my room and read for a little while if you don't mind," Wes replied, before getting up from the chair he had been sitting in and heading into the little room that he called his own for now.
Nick waited until he was certain that his son would not return, then got up. He picked up his husband's satchel and coat from the floor to hang them up, and he slipped his cellphone from the pocket of the latter as he did so. He knew the unlock code for it, just in case Jeff forgot it, and if his son walked back in whilst he had it unlocked in his hand, he would merely state that he was turning back on all of the notification and sound functions he had disabled that morning before they went to the Abbey. He decided to do that anyway, and as he walked across the room whilst doing it, he peeked though the door of his son's room. That glance showed him that his son was also sound asleep on his bed, a book lying open on the floor where it had fallen as he nodded off…
Nick smiled happily, and then checked he had his keycard in his pocket before he very stealthily exited the room. Once in the hall, he quickly looked up Jeff's contacts and found the one for the Princess. He typed a quick text message to her as he walked towards the elevators, saying that he needed to speak to her as a matter of great urgency, but asked her to text his own number rather than Jeff's when she was able to talk. He stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby; he was shocked when his phone buzzed, and to find he had a message from her, asking if everything was ok. He decided he should call her there and then…
He left the elevator in the lobby, and headed for one of the small rooms that was set aside for private use, having been writing rooms back in the Edwardian era. Closing the door of the empty room behind him, he dialled the number…
"Hello, your Highness," he responded to her immediate "What's going on Jeff?" response when she answered his call. "It is actually Nick here, and I need to speak to you in total confidence about a very delicate issue that could hurt Jeff badly if it gets out. If it does, then he would be left physically and emotionally devastated…"
"That sounds ominous," Catherine replied.
Nick took a deep breath, then told her the whole story about the film, leaving nothing out. "We still have no idea who has put it back into circulation, or how they have done so," he said in conclusion. "Our worry is that there is a copy of the film in question on its way to yourselves, probably addressed to The King, as they make a vile attempt to destroy Jeff's friendship with you and his professional reputation."
"It most certainly would do that, even if we all knew that he had not done it, because the courtiers are very cynical and protective at all times… Okay, so all of the packages were mailed from the same post office in Arizona, and will have the same identification code on them? That will make things much easier for me to intervene. All of the mail that comes through to the family goes through a couple of mail rooms first, and if I flag the code up as a risk, then they will ensure that it does not get into the hands of His Majesty or indeed any other member of the family…"
She paused, and Nick was about to thank her when she went further. "In fact, I can ask my private secretary to obtain the telephone number of the mail centre at Heathrow Airport; virtually all of the mail from the United States heading to the United Kingdom passes through there thanks to centralisation by the Royal Mail. If I speak to them directly, then I might be able to prevent any package with that code entering the delivery system, regardless of its addressee. I think that is the way to go, because it wouldn't surprise me if the person behind this has sent copies to the gutter press here. They don't tend to do much fact checking if they think they have a juicy story; for them it is a case of publish and be damned…"
As Nick was talking to the Princess of Wales, Thad had set about his tasks. It was not easy to find a supervisor with the relevant access to data at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a Saturday afternoon, but eventually Thad did manage to get his call put through to the mailroom; after some back and forth, the assistant did confirm that there was a package addressed to the head of the museum from the relevant post office, and it had already been placed in the in-tray of the man in question. Fortunately, they were not at work on weekends, so Thad was able to use the same tale as Nick; that a group of anarchists, intent on destroying the reputation of the museum and its senior staff had sent the package, and as well as the DVD inside, there might also be a biological agent. That spurred the assistant out of their disinterested stupor, and before he knew it, the package was in the trash…
Thad's second call, to the Columbia School of Art went a lot easier, as he already had a contact amongst the administrative staff there, thanks to his part in assisting Dalton students that were intending to study there. He had the number of the mailroom, and he was relieved when the call was answered by a lady that he was already on first name terms with. She was able to check the mail for that day quickly, and to Thad's horror, there were actually three packages there from the batch; she had placed them to one side as that quantity had made her suspicious. One was for the Head of the Art School, one for the Head of the Law School, and the third was for the Law Library, where Nick had worked so long ago…
Using the same story as before, he was able to get the three packages destroyed at once. As he ended the call, he wondered suddenly if there might have been a package sent to the Lawyers Association of New York, a group which Nick was a member of. He sent a message about that to Nick, who replied after a few minutes that it was a possibility, and the best way for that to be handled was for him to provide his sister with a version of the truth, as she would be the best placed to intercept such a package, as she had access to the offices… Thad sighed then, and wondered just how many packages had been mailed. They had accounted for ten so far, but that might just be the tip of the iceberg…
That was something that Trent was already onto in Dublin. He had managed to send a message to the secretary of the Head of the USPS, requesting access to information from the post office from which the packages had been despatched, particularly a record concerning a bulk mailing of packages by one customer. That he sent the request from his official Oval Office account meant that he achieved a rapid response, and he soon found himself reading the file of statistics from the small Arizona post office that had been used to mail out the packages for the day in question. He saw to his horror that one customer had mailed out sixteen packages in one transaction and he had to assume that it was the one that he was looking for…
He noted that the transaction had been carried out at a self-service machine, and that made him smile. After a series of postal frauds, all of the machines in question had been fitted with a set of small surveillance cameras. He assumed that the person involved would have covered their face to avoid being filmed, but what most people were unaware of was that there was a camera that took an image of the address on the package as it was weighed to calculate the postage cost; that meant that if he studied the camera records for the time of the big transaction, he would have a complete list of the places the packages were mailed to…
Reading on in the initial record, he saw that four of the packages had been sent to the United Kingdom, and that made him open the camera image files. He quickly found the record he needed, and the first four packages he saw were those for the UK; the addresses he saw made his blood run cold. He was not so worried about the ones that were en-route to Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, as the Princess of Wales was already on the case there and would see to it that they were destroyed. No, it was the ones that were heading to Number 10 Downing Street and worse, the one addressed to the editor of the most notorious publish and be damned tabloid newspaper that made him feel queasy. He sent a second message to Nick to break the bad news to him and hoped that his friend could find a way to stop them being delivered too.
Trent read on through the images and saw that one had been sent to the offices of Vogue, addressed to the editor. That surprised him, as it meant that the person sending the packages did not know that Sebastian was related to Isabelle by marriage, or they would have sent it to another member of staff, or even the Head of the publishers, Conde Naste. It would be easiest for Sebastian to deal with that one, so he started to send him a message. As he was about to send it, his work phone began to ring. Trent suddenly knew where another of the packages had been sent, and the name on his phone seemed to confirm his fears…
At the same time as Trent was speaking to the Vice President herself about the DVD that had just arrived in the mailroom, Sebastian was starting to feel less sick to the pit of his stomach and much angrier instead. It was not the fact that the packages were being sent that angered him most, it was the fact that somebody somewhere had not done their job properly all those years ago when the initial investigation had taken place. As a result, the film was still out there and hung like the Sword of Damocles over him and two of his best friends. True, it was not quite as bad as it could have been in a modern age of social media; the film could have been put out online, allowing millions to see it, but who was to say that wouldn't be the next move of the mastermind behind this…
When his phone began to ring, he did not bother to check who was calling him, assuming that it would be Trent or Thad. That the voice he heard was that of Mitch was not an unpleasant surprise, as he was always happy to hear from his old friend. However, that soon changed when Mitch said something chilling…
"So, Seb, I should tell you the truth behind this call. As you will of course know, Isabelle is in London for the Coronation, and given the volume of mail that comes into her office, she gave Gideon full permission to open all of her mail whilst she was out of town, in case it was urgent. Now, he isn't going to tell her about it, but there was a DVD in the mail this morning…"
Sebastian's heart sank and his world caved in. "Oh My God!" he whispered in reply.
"I am taking it from your reaction that you know exactly what DVD I am talking about, which suggests as I thought that there might have been others? Gideon was slightly hysterical when he called me, but I have convinced him that it is a bad and particularly cruel practical joke, so the offending item will be coming home from the office with him tonight and into my custody. His initial reaction was just to dispose of it in the trash, but I thought it best that it stayed in trusted hands."
"Yeah, it might well be needed as evidence," a grateful Sebastian replied.
"Exactly what I was thinking. I will hang onto it for you and get it to you somehow, unless there is an alternative place you want it to go. Don't worry, I will not tell a soul, nor will I watch it."
Sebastian couldn't help but chuckle at those last words, but only for a moment before he said, "Thanks for that and tell Gideon that I am grateful to him for handling this situation with such professionalism."
"What I don't get is how it even exists; I thought that it had been destroyed. I also was told that a certain former Dalton Principal that shall remain nameless was behind it, and that he was in jail," Mitch continued, not really wanting to dwell on his husband's reaction for too long. The truth was that when he first saw the DVD cover, he had believed that it really was a film starring Sebastian, Nick and Jeff, all using stage names; even now, having been told most of the story, he suspected that Gideon thought he was covering for his old schoolfriends…
"He was in jail, but he was released a few weeks ago. The truth is that we don't actually think that he is the one that has placed the packages in the mail, as they are originating from a small post office near the Mexican border in Arizona, and he is several hundred miles away from there. No, this is being done by someone that knew about the original DVD, has managed to obtain a copy of the film, and is probably doing this so they can extract money from us to make them stop. The crucial error that they have made is in timing, as it is targeting Niff after the Coronation has taken place. Of course, sending all of the packages from a small post office was another error, as it is not busy; there are also good surveillance cameras in place in every single USPS office in the country…"
Mitch had not spoken, but now Sebastian stopped, he said, "You said packages – I know I hinted there might be others when you reacted the way you did, but I wasn't being serious; just how many are there? Also, you have been saying we a lot; do you just mean the three of you in the film, or do other people know?" Sebastian stayed silent, and so he went on, "I am going to assume that Trent is involved, because he has access to a lot of government records…"
"He is, and Thad knows as well, because when I found the first two, one of them was at Dalton and I panicked. They had addressed it to the Head of the Warbler Council you see; had I not already discovered the one that had been sent to the director of the play I am currently appearing in here in Ohio, then I would not have been on my guard when I saw the package, and potentially we would have had a Dalton senior opening it up in a Warbler meeting…"
"Oh Lord, that is too awful to even contemplate! Look, I need to get on, but if there is anything at all that I can do to help, call me. Would you like me to get the package from Vogue safely into Thad's hands? He can bring it back to Ohio with him when Niff get back."
"That would be appreciated," replied Sebastian.
"I will get onto that as soon as I can. Whoever is behind this needs to be caught and brought to justice, because you three do not deserve this."
Sebastian was relieved that Gideon had intercepted the package and that as a result there was no need for Isabelle and hence his big brother to know what exactly was going on. He might not have felt quite so calm had he been aware that a copy of the DVD had managed to make its way almost to the Oval Office, and that Trent had been forced to do some extremely quick talking to the Vice President. If she was unhappy that he had been talking to some quite senior figures in government circles without first consulting herself or indeed the President, as he should have done, then she did not say anything there and then. She knew that his actions had been carried out with the intention of preventing a crisis emerging that could impact on both the Oval Office and the Royal Family by association; the latter had already nearly been tainted by the actions of a certain Jonathan Anderson…
"What I fail to understand is why the person behind all of this would see fit to send a copy of the film here, as you are not directly implicated from what you tell me about the scene in question," she said, and Trent could only sigh.
"My guess would be that they were trying to taint me through the old angle of 'guilt by association'. They probably thought that it would make you wonder if I was trustworthy, given that I had schoolfriends that had appeared in such a movie in the past; no matter what they said now, there would be a good cross-section of society that would believe that they were lying and that the images did not lie. This would be compounded by the fact that the actual performers were never traced; all that happened was the abrupt closure of the studio, with all the records placed into storage without being checked."
"That seems like a bad decision, but unfortunately there are some of our investigators that do not want to go into details, they just want the case file closed."
"Exactly, and as for the people that were involved at the time, there is a good chance that they are no longer with us; they were largely based in L.A. and would still have been there when the quake wiped it from the face of the earth. The same might well apply to the three performers."
The Vice President was silent for a moment, then said, "I will authorise a request from yourself to be given unlimited access to the surveillance footage from the USPS from any location, just in case this wasn't an isolated mailing. The footage from Arivaca is your priority now I guess, as it might show you the culprit's face. If he, or indeed she, did cross over from Mexico to post the packages, then we can match that facial image to the records at the border crossings, and again I will give you temporary authority to access those records."
Trent smiled, then said, "Thank you ma'am, both for that and for your understanding of the entire situation; I felt that I had to act as quickly and discretely as possible. However, this will be a one off, as I am fully aware of the correct processes and channels that I should have gone through."
"If it wasn't for the fact that I know that you have sound judgement then this would certainly be a matter for disciplinary action. As it is, this will be the only chat that we have on the issue, and although i will have to inform the President about this, he will not know that action was taken prior to this conversation. I know that this will not happen again…"
"No, it will definitely be a one off. There is one final thing that I do have to admit to you, and that is that I know that a copy of the DVD is en-route to Downing Street, and worse still, to the editor of one of the most notorious tabloid newspapers in the United Kingdom. I have enlisted assistance from someone with a close tie to the Royal Family on this one, and indeed it is a member of that family that is intervening on our behalf to try and ensure that the packages in question do not even leave the mail arrival centre at Heathrow airport. Hopefully we have caught the overseas packages before they can even be delivered."
"If that fails, then let me know at once, anytime," came his reply, and then the call was over.
Trent sighed and let his body relax again, now that the prospect of his dismissal from his job was over; he knew that he had been doing wrong, but it hadn't seemed important at the time. He was glad that his immediate superiors were understanding of the importance of his friends too him. Still, the crisis was averted, and all of the packages had been accounted for…
He was about to dial Thad when his brain suddenly started to sound an alarm bell; there was a flaw in his last statement, and he gasped as he suddenly realised exactly what it was. All of the packages that he had traced, and had assumed made up the total, had been delivered in the US that day, or had been sent on the freight flight over the Atlantic that morning – but Sebastian had been handed the first one by the stage door keeper the previous day. It could not possibly be one of the same batch. He had not bothered to check the two final addresses as he had assumed he knew which they were. He did so now, hoping that one of them was not a media outlet in his home nation…
Trent logged back into his laptop and re-entered the USPS site with his access code; he checked the post office records for Arivaca for the previous day and sure enough, there was a similar package being posted. A quick look at the image taken as it was posted was enough to show him that it was the one that had been sent to the theater in Columbus. He returned to the list for the next day and checked the two images that he had not looked at previously. Naturally it was the second one that he wanted, and on seeing the address label upon it, he cursed very loudly. This came as quite a surprise to Rory, who had just walked into the room to see how he was doing.
"I am so sorry, my love, but I have just discovered that I had been stupid, and things are worse than I imagined. I need to make an immediate phone call to Nick. It is literally a matter of life and death, because if I don't act right now, Jeff is going to end up being hurt very badly."
Rory nodded and placed the cup of tea that he had been bringing his husband on the table beside him, before kissing him gently on the forehead. He headed back out then, and Trent knew that he would eventually have to tell him everything that was going on, but that conversation was for later; right now, he had other priorities. He dialled Nick's personal work number at the UN, knowing that it would forward automatically to his mobile, and would show up as coming from his work phone on the screen of Nick's cellphone.
When his friend answered, "Nick Sterling-Duval, Human Rights Office; how may I assist you?" he sighed, but with happiness.
"Nick, it's Trent, but don't let on that it is. I take it that Jeff is with you in the room?"
"Yes, that is correct."
"Okay, the bad news is that we have another issue. It occurred to me that we might have miscounted the packages; I realised that the one to the theater had to have been posted the day before…"
"Okay, I understand."
"I have checked the scans that they take on the automated machine that they used to mail the packages, and the last one of the batch was sent to Vermont. The recipient is Elspeth."
There was a pause, then Nick replied, "I don't quite know how to respond to that without checking all the data first."
"I think that there is only one course of action; you need to call her and hope that either it hasn't arrived, or if it has, that she hasn't opened it yet. If you can't get hold of her, I'd suggest contacting Duncan; as Luke is blood family, he is best avoided in the circumstances."
"I can agree with that, and I will get onto that line of attack immediately."
"Good Luck!" said Trent, and then Nick hung up without reply. He sighed again, then realised that he needed to call Thad and pass on details of the latest twist to him…
Nick thought on his feet in the hotel room in London and told Jeff that he needed to speak to Burt quickly on an issue that was strictly confidential; furthermore, he wasn't to mention that the conversation was taking place to anyone, not even Burt himself. The blond smiled, then as his husband hurried out of the room, he turned to their son and said, "Your dad is a workaholic; he is supposed to be on vacation, but he never stops! I wouldn't have him any other way however."
Wes smiled, thinking that his papa was exactly the same when it came to his art. He also thought however that there had been something in his dad's expression when he was talking on the phone, and in the way he had spoken, that was a little suspicious…
Meanwhile, Nick had once again headed down to reception and entered one of the little writing rooms to get the privacy that he needed. He took a deep breath, steeling himself for the chat he was about to have with his mother-in-law. It was not the kind of call that he had ever wanted to make to her, and he felt slightly terrified at the prospect of her reaction if she had already opened the package. It was as bad as when he had been waiting in the Senior Commons with Jeff on that last encounter with Hunter, when he knew that he was about to be branded with that white hot poker; in fact, that experience had been preferable to the one in prospect now…
He dialled her cellphone number and let the phone ring. He was just about to hang up and try the house phone when Elspeth answered, a little out of breath. He made small talk with her; her calm reaction to hearing his voice and her questions about how the Coronation had been leading him to one of two conclusions - she was either a very good actress, or she had not yet received the package. Then she said something else that lifted a whole lot of weight off his shoulders…
When he ended the call, he quickly made the second one, but it was not to Duncan. There was no point in calling him, as he was with Luke and their family in the company of Elspeth, and she was at a beach house in Rhode Island, taking a well earned and in Nick's opinion fortuitous break. No, his second call was to Cameron, the Warbler that had eschewed the professions and high-powered world of business for a simpler life as a carpenter; the man that was married to Jeff's cousin Flora, and lived in Vermont, just a few miles from Elspeth.
He was a little surprised to hear from Nick, but the moment that he informed Cameron that he had an urgent mission for him that could help prevent a disaster, he was all ears. He did not ask why he needed to obtain the package that was addressed to Elspeth, that he needed to ensure that it did not reach her hands, but he agreed to try, as he could hear anxiety in Nick's tone. As soon as his fellow Warbler rung off, he headed to his wife, and told her that he needed to pop out for a while to fetch something from his woodshop on her parents' farm; she smiled and let him go without any further questions.
He drove as quickly as the rural roads allowed, trying to think of the best excuse he could give to his two mothers-in-law if they caught him taking the package and all he could think of was that Jeff had ordered her a gift, but he had discovered that the wrong item had been mailed, and he was there to take it and return it on the blond's behalf. It was a weak excuse, but the best he could think of on the spot…
Fortunately, he did not need to use it, as fate intervened. As he approached the turning that lead up to the farm, he saw the mailman approaching the same point from the other direction. He speeded up just enough to ensure he reached the turn off first, then stopped his truck. The mailman did the same, and they had a quick conversation; the latter had no problem handing that day's mail over to Cameron to take up to the farm. As the mailman drove off, it was no issue to remove the one package in the pile, which matched the description Nick had given. He placed it in the little compartment in his dashboard, then drove up to the farm with the rest of the mail…