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sceptical. A tower block in Poplar had collapsed some years ago, killing over two hundred people. That had also been constructed in the sixties, Harry had pointed out to the bemused aide. He smiled at the memory, then refocused his mind to the business at hand.
    The Cobra Intelligence Group breakfast meeting had been a long one and, despite copious amounts of coffee and croissants fuelling the heated debate, it was beginning to show on the tired and strained faces around the air-conditioned room. The CIG was made up of representatives from MI5, MI6, GCHQ, the Joint Intelligence Group, Defence Intelligence Staff and Special Branch and each and every agency had taken the opportunity to demonstrate their own specialist insight into what was fast becoming a national crisis.
    Over the last eighteen months, the economic recession gripping Britain had developed into a full-blown depression, plunging Harry’s administration into a state of permanent crisis and the country into despair. Despite the bailouts and intervention from Brussels and the IMF, nothing seemed able to halt the slide of the pound, the rise in interest rates and double figure inflation.
    Harry had ordered a programme of sweeping financial cuts, prompting a campaign of industrial action that plagued the public and private sectors. Schools and hospitals had begun to close, while mountains of rubbish piled up on the streets and power cuts rolled across the country. On strike days, public transport ground to a halt and every week more and more people took to the streets, the seemingly endless demonstrations resulting in ever-rising levels of violence. Britain was being crippled by militant action, stirred up by thousands of hard left agitators, anarchists and general troublemakers. With unemployment pushing the five million mark, people were desperate. Harry understood their frustration – the skyrocketing fuel prices, interest rates heading towards twelve per cent and the cost of food production that triggered long queues at supermarkets. Recently, in his darker moments, Harry had begun to wonder where it would all end. The chants were getting louder, the newspaper headlines more hysterical, his own car pelted with missiles every time he left Whitehall, the twisted faces of hate that screamed for his head – any head – on a pole outside Downing Street. The same despair had also gripped Europe, the scenes of public protest and violent disorder mirrored right across the continent, where many had been killed in clashes with the police and security forces.
    As the meeting wore on it was clear that the CIG attendees were pretty unanimous in their conclusions. Hard times called for hard measures and the use of water cannon and tear gas, emergency arrest and detention powers, even a partial military deployment, had been debated around the room. Harry, feeling increasingly isolated, had refused to invoke such measures. This wasn’t South America, he pointed out. Not yet, as someone from Defence had grimly noted. But if the thin blue line crumbled, if the mobs turned uglier, then all the measures discussed this morning might be unavoidable. And once they went down that road the country would never be the same again, Harry realised. A way forward had to be found, and found quickly. The people needed hope, enough to calm the palpable frustration on the streets. But hope was in short supply.
    The economic depression had been triggered by the Russian energy field failures, the Arabians using the opportunity to ramp up the price of gas and oil to previously unimaginable levels. They had insisted it was due to production problems, but Harry wasn’t buying it. Meanwhile the Chinese, always ready to take advantage of a western crisis, waited in the wings to become Europe’s biggest creditor as they sought to buy up the ever rising mountain of European debt. Quiet diplomacy, once the soothing balm of British foreign relations, wasn’t working either. If Harry didn’t know