Revenger

19

Alix suddenly felt a hand grip hers and squeeze it tight. It was Nicki Adams.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said with a nervous smile. ‘Mark’s on any second now. I’m just a bit tense.’

Then the screen went blank. The stage was shrouded in darkness and the crowd roared as if they were about to see a rock star, not an MP.

‘The time has come,’ boomed a voice familiar from countless Saturday-night TV shows. ‘So please put your hands together for a man who has served his country and its people… A man who dreams of a better future for all of us… A man who knows that the only way is UPP… Ladies and gentleman, this… is… Mark… ADAMS!!’

Suddenly the lights came back up again, blindingly bright, and there in the middle of the stage stood Adams himself. He had no podium in front of him. He was pacing up and down, from one side of the stage to the other, soaking up the adulation and stoking it even higher as he returned the crowd’s applause.

‘Isn’t he wonderful?’ cried Nicki Adams, ecstatically.

Alix was taking in the frenzy of noise and excitement all around them. She had to admit that this man was blessed with genuine charisma, the kind of star quality that can be neither taught nor faked. She wasn’t sure how well he’d go down with the sophisticated opinion-formers of Washington DC, but the Fox News demographic — white, ageing, conservative and fearful — would lap him up. It helped that he had the same quality as Lincoln Roberts: he absolutely looked like a leader and exuded an alpha-male aura of power that she was certain was making every female heart in the arena beat a little faster. No wonder Nicki Adams was excited if she was the one he was coming home to.

‘Good evening. My name is Mark Adams.’ He could not have said the words in a more casual, understated way, but they were enough to start the cheering all over again. He waited for the noise to die down and went on, ‘I just want to say thank you… Thanks to all of you for coming here tonight… Thank you for giving me the chance to share my vision of a better, happier, fairer Britain with you tonight… And…’ He gave a wry, self-deprecating smile. ‘Thanks for the money. It means a lot. You see, in this party we don’t have a bunch of multi-millionaire bankers and property developers keeping the coffers filled. We don’t have trade unions using their members’ money to pay our bills. All we have is what you, the people, are willing to give us. And that’s a good thing. In fact, it’s a great thing.’

Adams paused. He looked out at the hall, scanning the stands so that thousands of people out there would be convinced that he had made eye contact with them personally, and then continued with a steadily rising intensity as he declared, ‘We are the United People’s Party. We don’t answer to anyone but the people. And if we do any favours, we do them for the people!’

Once again, Adams had to wait to let the cheers and clapping die down.

‘Now, some of my opponents don’t like the way I’m taking power back to the people. They moan that I’m some kind of fascist… a neo-Nazi… a right little Hitler. Mostly it just makes me laugh. I know the only reason that the major parties and their toadies in the media keep slandering me and this party is because they’re scared. They know they’ve been found out. They’ve got us all into this mess. They haven’t got the first idea how to get us out of it. And they’re terrified that someone else has.’

Now Adams started pacing again, as though there was something eating away at him, making it impossible to stay still. ‘But sometimes… sometimes… I can’t help but get angry at the lies they tell. I’ve gone to war for this country. I’ve risked my life to defend freedom… to stand up for the values of tolerance, decency and fairness that make Britain great. So when I am accused of betraying those very same values by the cowardly… corrupt… incompetent… dishonest… money-grubbing pack of stinking sewer-rats currently occupying the Palace of Westminster, well, that just makes me want to take their lies and their slanders and their accusations and stuff them straight… back… down… their throats!’

Listening to the roar that greeted those words, looking at the rapt, ecstatic expressions on the faces all around her, Alix began to worry. Adams might deny that he was a little Hitler, but the fever he was stirring up reminded her of the images she’d seen in countless documentaries of the Führer working his followers into a frenzy at his night-rallies in the Berlin Sportpalast; the Soviet officials greeting Stalin with rapture at this or that party congress; the massed ranks of uniformed followers roaring their allegiance to China’s Chairman Mao, or any one of North Korea’s endless succession of Kims. Adams had an astonishing ability to arouse and manipulate emotion, and if he could somehow use that ability for good he might actually be the saviour his followers were praying for. But if that power was used for ends that were evil, well, then he might just be the demon that his enemies insisted he was.