Year One Pt. 06

May 2022

Monday May 2^rd

A busy week. I was doing the usual house cleaning this morning over at Sally's when she came in to the living room. She was obviously just about to go out -- she was pulling on a pair of leather gloves. "My husband is in the main bedroom. He shouldn't need anything but if you could just check in on him a couple of times, that would be good. And, week of the thirteenth, I'm going to need you for a couple of days. I'm running a thing at the Golf Club. The Prime Minister wants to do a brain storming session on new policy directions. I'm not going to let any of the club staff near it but you can help out with making sure that everyone is comfortable and looked after. Jill tells me you're planning to leave us in the lurch. I'm sure you'll still be here to help with this though. All right? Good!"

And with that she was off. I wasn't sure if that mean she and Jill were going to agree to what Angie wanted but I guessed I would find out soon enough.

I spent the morning clearing up in the living room and the conservatory. I found a pair of trousers and underpants draped over the back of one of the chairs. I assumed they belonged to Sally's husband, James, and remembered that she had asked me to check if he needed anything. I went up to the master bedroom (I suppose they ought to rename that really!). James was there all right but I didn't think I could do much for him.

Sally had left him tied across a wooden frame in one corner of the room. He was bent forward, his naked backside (I was indeed holding his trousers and pants) up in the air and criss-crossed by bright red weals, presumably from a beating administered just before my arrival. Hearing me come in he tried to turn his head towards me. I could see he'd been gagged and left with a pair of his wife's panties secured over his head. I showed him the trousers I was carrying, hung them up in the wardrobe and put the underpants in the laundry basket. James just gave an exasperated groan. He obviously wasn't expecting me to let him loose.

I don't know what he had done to earn his punishment and I was pretty sure that Sally had only asked me to look in on him as a warning that I'd end up with similar treatment if I didn't keep up the standard of work she wanted.

Sally had left a whip, some rope and a ball gag laying on the floor of the bedroom. I thought she would want me to tidy it up so I put the whip and the gag neatly on her dressing table and coiled the rope up tidily too. I though that was what she would want me to do.

When I'd finished cleaning up, Sally still wasn't back so I went home. Thinking about what Sally had talked about, I thought Cara would be interested in the meeting that Sally has organised. If I can keep Cara happy then maybe that will provide me with a way out -- especially now my housekeeping fund has been abolished.

I scribbled a note to Cara explaining what was going on and indicating I'd be in the library next week. I left it in the drop-off point. Luckily Jess wasn't in the library. It was the grey haired, dumpy woman I had seen there first of all. At least that meant that I got in and out without having to say anything to Jess about speaking to my sponsor.

Monday May 9^th

Wow this is real cloak and dagger stuff. Cara was in the library when I went in to check if there were any messages. She was very excited by business about Sally's meeting and she's asked me to do something that sounds like it's out of a James Bond movie.

Cara explained that Safewords has got hold of some clever bugging electronics and they have come up with this really great idea to spy on the conference at the Golf Club. They've got a microphone and wireless transmitter hidden in a book and they want me to plant it in the conference room somewhere close to where the delegates are. The idea Is for me to slip it in after the Prime Minister's team have done their sweep for any illicit devices and then Cara's team can simply listen in to the conference as it progresses.

That sounds a lot safer to me than me trying to smuggle out papers or copying things. I reckon I can do this quite easily. I did say to Cara though that I wasn't sure how much more of this I could do. I'm getting very nervous about being discovered and someone is going to put me in the same place as all these leaks at some time soon. She said she understood and that I shouldn't worry. She thinks she might have come up with a way to get me out of the country but she's still talking to some people that have set up a sort of pipeline for absconders and she wants to be able to use it for people that help the Safewords project.

Maybe that's a route out. Anyway, hopefully this will be the last thing she'll ask me to do, at least for a while. I just hop I don't fuck it up.

Jess came in just as Cara and I finished talking. After she'd gone, Jess said, "Is that your sponsor?"

"No," I said, "I don't really know her." (Which was partly true.) "I've seen her in here a few times." (Which was completely true), "She was asking me about history." (Which was the best lie I could think of at the time.) Then, by way of changing the subject; "Did you manage to find yourself any fun in the village?"

"No, not really," she said. She sat down on the desk alongside me. She had the same brown check pinafore dress on with a black roll neck sweater and opaque black tights. Her skirt was so short that I was getting a very good look at her thighs. I noticed she had a gold and black enamel badge pinned to her dress, The letters N & O were intertwined with the O surmounted by an inverted female sign. Jess caught me staring at it. "You must know that it's not nice to stare at a girl's tits," she laughed.

"I wasn't -- it was the badge. I haven't seen that before."

"I'll believe you," she giggled again, making it clear that she didn't at all. "It's for 'New Opportunity', a sort of junior wing of the New Order party, we get to join in with some stuff to help the Government and they run education programmes that help us cope with things like lecherous men."

"But I wasn't..."

"It's all right. I'm teasing you. Anyway, did you talk to your sponsor?"

I'd been hoping she had forgotten or that it had been a throw away remark. "Ah, no, not yet."

"Well, I'd like you to. In fact," she paused as though she was remembering some role-playing exercise with her New Opportunity colleagues, "In fact, I'm telling you to. Next time you come in I'm expecting an answer. And here's a hint - 'not yet' will not be acceptable."

With that she climbed down from the desk and straightened her skirt, wriggling her hips as she did so. I couldn't help following the line of her legs down to the pair of square-heeled, granny shoes she was wearing. Of course she didn't confuse my downward glance with any form of respectful response.

She shook her head, disapproving of my gaze, and then took up her theme again. "So, you'll talk to her?" There was a pause. "The correct answer is 'Yes, Miss Jessica.' All right?"

"Yes, Miss Jessica," I said, hoping that it would be a while before I needed to meet up with her again. Life is complicated enough but I suppose I am going to have to talk to Jill about Jess now because otherwise visits to the library will be impossible. I guess the only way outr of that will be if Jill agrees I can go and work with Sally in London. It would be nice if I felt I had a say in any of this though.

Tuesday May 10^th

A busy day working for Sally cleaning house. Luckily there was no sign of her husband or any need to clear up after Sally had been amusing herself with him. At least all the work kept my mind off of the meeting on Friday. By the time I got back to my place I was exhausted.

"Looks like my mother has been really putting you through the wringer," Jill said, although she didn't sound very sympathetic.

It's stuff like that that really pisses me off with the whole New Order thing. I'd be the first to admit that the balance of power between the sexes probably needed resetting but does that mean she has to be such a miserable bitch about it?

I felt that I had to raise the thing about Jess with her. Jill laughed out loud and said as long as I kept the place clean and paid the rent she didn't care. She told me to let her know how I got on.

I'm going to try to avoid things going any further with Jess but I'm not sure how, I don't fancy being made use of by some girl who's keen to get her Junior Dominatrix badge or whatever awards the New Opportunity lot go in for. And, I certainly don't want then to have to spend time giving Jill a blow-by-blow account of how good a job Jess is doing...

Jill still hasn't said anything about whether she's spoken to Angie. I didn't know whether or not to ask her on top of everything else..

Thursday May 12^th

I met Cara in the library and she gave me the book. It just looks like any old dusty leather bound volume from a well to do library, gold script on the spine, the covers bound in blue leather. "Don't you be fooled by how it looks," Cara said. "It doesn't open. In there is some clever electronics, so don't be too rough with it. It would be sad if we don't get to hear what we want when we turn it on."

I'm a bit nervous about taking the book in tomorrow. I took a couple of other books like it from the library so it looks like its just one of some I've borrowed. Mainly I'm worried about messing things up so that Cara doesn't get the stuff she wants from the meeting. If this all goes well then maybe she'll be in a position to get me out of all this.

I've just got to try and focus on being calm. I'm sure it will be straightforward. Sally is so well known at the Club we'll be able to come and go pretty much as we like and, as Cara said, no one takes any notice of the help at these sort of things anyway.

Even so, I can't pretend that I'm not way out of my comfort zone. The only good point about the day was that Jess wasn't around so I didn't have to have that conversation.

Jill noticed I was agitated but luckily she just thought it was because I was worried about being around Government minister's and the like. She said something about at least this time I'd have my trousers on, which I didn't think was very helpful.

As far as Jill was concerned I was just being neurotic about helping out. She was typically unhelpful. "Try not to fuck things up tomorrow," she said. "The last thing I need right now is mummy whinging to me because you've dropped a crème caramel in the Prime Minister's lap or something."

I said I didn't think we be actually serving any of the food.

She just said, "Oh for fuck's sake, not literally," and left me to get myself sorted out for tomorrow.

I was looking at this journal during the evening. A year ago I was watching the election results come in and listening to the leaders of the main political parties saying that they though the exit poll had got things completely wrong and there was no way that a party like New Order could expect to win more than a handful of seats. I'm not sure I could tell you where any of them were now. I know most of the coalition cabinet members lost their seats and the only Labour and Conservative members that did get back were women who managed to make out that they were as much in favour of a female led society as the New Order candidates. I don't think anyone could have seen how things have changed in just a year.

I Was just about to go to bed when Jill put her head around the door (I'd prefer it if she knocked, really). "If you see Angie tomorrow, can you get her to give me a call. I really do need to speak to her, I suppose, and we keep missing each other. I wouldn't want you to get the idea that we weren't taking care of you."

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

Friday May 13^th 2022.

The conference was taking place in one of the golf club's big meeting rooms. There are high windows looking out over the eighteenth green and the gentle slopes of the course beyond. French windows open out on to a patio with tables and multi-coloured umbrellas. It was sunny.

On the far side of the patio, half a dozen golf carts were lined up, waiting to be taken out.

Everybody at the club was on edge -- it was obviously a big thing for them hosting this and I guess that nobody wanted to be responsible for cocking things up. It wasn't made any easier by the fact that there were thickset women in dark suits, white shirts, black ties and dark glasses busying themselves about the place and spending a lot of time talking into their sleeves.

Sally had brought in four of us to wait in attendance during the meeting. The idea was so we could fetch tea or coffee or anything else the participants needed. At least, I thought, Sally hadn't put us in stupid maid's outfits or anything like that, we were just wearing black shirts and trousers. We spent about an hour getting the room set up. Most people at the Club knew we were on Sally's call so they let us get on with it. Then a group of the security team came in and went through the room, checking everything. They all seemed happy. Most of them went outside to sit on the patio.

I'd brought the book in with the others from the library in a bag that and left them in the cloakroom near the bar. Once it looked like things were pretty well complete, I went back to the cloakroom, got the book that Cara had given me and put it on a pile on a shelf near the head of the table. At one end of the table places were laid with name cards for the Prime Minister, Claire Dobell-Bull her "fixer" (I think the proper term is "Principal Political Advisor"), Sally Guest as party representative, Florence Daniels the Home Secretary, Nina Henning and Angie and a couple of other junior home office ministers and their aides. I was pretty sure the book was in a good position. Cara would be getting as good a feed as possible. I just hoped that the microphone in the book was going to be good enough, that the transmitter would work and that nobody would notice it.

Mostly they turned up in various cars. The PM and Dobell-Bull flew in by helicopter. It made a hell of a row. Some of the golf club's member waiting to begin their rounds on the first tee didn't look too pleased until they realised who it was. One group of them even applauded as she walked across from the 'copter to the club house.

The meeting started on time, as planned.

Sally welcomed everyone. Johannsen spelled out what she hoped to achieve with the meeting and explained how important she felt the work of the Home Office had been, how successful DOSA and the MCF were and her hopes for the future. "Now," she said. "We need to turn our thoughts to how we will more forward in our second year.. I'm sure you will agree that we've achieved a lot but there are still areas of difficulty and new legislation is bound to be needed. Let's get to work."

"Do we need these boys here?" Nina Henning asked nodding across to where the four of us were standing. Dobell-Bull shrugged and then shook her head.

Sally Guest looked across at the four of us and said, "Not unless there's anything you need for the moment." Johannsen shook her head and the rest of the women around the table followed suit. Sally waved us out. As she did so, I looked across to where I had put the book. I could imagine that Cara, listening in, was going to find what ever came up next fascinating.

To my horror, I realised that the book I'd put down had a green binding. The one Cara had given me had been blue. I must have got them mixed up when I was in the cloakroom. The most Cara would be hearing would be people asking for their coats. I was feeling really sick. I couldn't imagine how I'd made such a stupid mistake. I started trying to think how I could retrieve the right book from the cloakroom and what sort of excuse I could use to bring it back into the meeting.

Then there was the explosion.

All hell broke loose in the meeting room. The Prime Minister's close protection officers cleared her out of the place through the French windows that opened out onto the golf course. I reckon there couldn't have been more than five minutes between the explosion and the Prime Minister's helicopter with all the politico's aboard lifting off from the pad outside. The rest of us were still standing there, the noise of the detonation ringing in our ears, wondering what on earth had just happened.

Those of us that weren't being helped by the PM's team finally ran out of the room in the opposite direction. As we did, we went past where the cloakroom had been. Nothing remained of it. There was just a jagged hole blown out through the wall to the car park and up through the roof as well. The acrid smell of explosive and burnt wood and plastic filled the air. There was dust everywhere. I didn't see any bodies. If anyone had been in the room they'd have been blown to bits but I think most people had been well away from the explosion. I know most people will think I've been unbelievably stupid but it was only then that I realised that what Cara had given me hadn't been a radio transmitter.

Then the wails of sirens started up as police cars and ambulances began to arrive. Medical staff were helping those shocked or injured by the explosion. The police herded the rest of us off into another part of the club house to take details of who we were, whether we had seen anything suspicious and where they could find us. They all seemed pretty jumpy. It was surprising nobody got shot, the number of weapons that were being brandished around.

It must have three or four hours before we were allowed to go home. The police didn't seem to know what to do. There wasn't anything like an interrogation. They just checked our ident cards and asked for stuff like our addresses and our sponsor's contact details and kept us moving around from one room to another. They all seemed pretty nervous, as though they were expecting something else to happen.

I still feel shocked. I'm trying to process what had happened.

I didn't say anything about the book or anything. I mean, I can't imagine that anyone is going to believe I didn't know what was going to happen - assuming that it was something hidden in the book that caused the explosion. I don't think putting myself in the frame for being involved in some sort of plot to assassinate the Prime Minister is a smart move.

On the other hand, whoever planned this must have expected that I would have been killed as well as those in the meeting. Does that mean that Cara and Harry knew about it too? Or had someone else switched it? Nothing in the things that have gone on with Safewords made me think they were involved in anything violent.

On the news they just said that there had been a "security incident" near the village of Fordswell in Surrey and units of the police and emergency services had been in attendance. The next item referred to the Prime Minister and Home Office Ministers being present at a meeting of the Government's anti-terrorism "COBRA" committee in Whitehall.

I'm just hoping no-one connects me with any of this. I really don't know what I'm going to do next. Right now though I'm thinking it will be a good idea to stay out to the way of Cara and Harry.

...........................................

Postscript

That was the final entry in David Anders' journal.

He was arrested the following day on suspicion of involvement in what has become known as the Fordswell Bomb Plot In September 2022, he was convicted along with the three others -- his co-workers at the Golf Club meeting -- of 12 counts of conspiracy to murder, terrorism, and causing an explosion. He was sentenced to twenty five years detention. He still has 12 years of that sentence to serve