by KJ Griffin
Chapter 39: Magdalen College, Oxford, 9:05 p.m.
‘Come on, give up, Soph. You can't do any more now.’
‘That's the whole point. I haven't done any! I can't even think at the moment,’ Sophie almost shouted. Not that the noise mattered; there was no one else left in the library.
‘Then let's go and have a drink and a chat in the bar,’ Joanna suggested. ‘And we can check on what’s happening in London. Sounds pretty major.’
Sophie shook her head, slamming the books shut to end their silent reproaches. Joanna carried on,
‘It's incredible! Apparently, a group of terrorists has broken into the Commons and is holding all the MPs hostage. They've been firing mortar bombs all over the place too. All hell's broken loose.’
In an instant Sophie had forgotten her nervousness and frustration. Something far worse had just hit.
‘They've got a television in the bar haven't they?’ she asked Joanna in a sudden flurry of activity, abandoning the books and rushing at her jacket.
‘Yes.’
‘Then let's go.’
Sophie's conviction was all the more certain for being intuitive. She knew that Omar would be there in the Commons and she knew he would have a two-fold agenda: part personal, part political. But if Omar was in the Commons, that meant he could not be again with her, not now, probably not ever again. There would be no way back from this. The shock of realization made her face flush and her hands went cold and clammy.
The bar was busy as usual; unusually, everyone was standing around the television screen in the corner. Sophie looked up puzzled. They seemed to watching some sort of documentary.
She wriggled through a group of first-years and managed to find a place in the corner on the right.
‘What is this?’ she whispered to a young lad with spots and stiffly gelled hair.
‘It's some sort of propaganda programme made by the terrorist group that has taken over Parliament,’ he answered, looking her up and down.
But Sophie had already recognized the narrator's voice and she stared at the screen as if it exuded a magical potency.
The camera was running swiftly in bird's-eye vision over teeming developing world shanties, full of open sewers from which children drank. It cruised on autopilot over garbage mounds, polluted coastlines, foul-breathed factory chimney stacks, overcrowded streets crammed with seething masses of scurrying humanity, and hospitals full of African children innocently brandishing the stumps of amputated limbs at the camera. Across the top of the screen the BBC kept flashing up the disclaimer, ‘This is a special broadcast issued by the armed group which overran the Houses of Parliament at 5:30 p.m. today.’
Omar's voice cut in softly over a background audio of sad, soulful trance music:
‘Citizens of the world! When the early Roman republic faced its greatest crisis, the people of Rome realized that their perils were too great for ordinary politics and protocol. Emergency times called for emergency action. So, throwing out the political procedures that had served them well for centuries, the Romans realized that their cherished democratic system, crippled by its capacity for endless debate and inaction, could not save them from the destruction that confronted them. Instead, they decided to do away with their precious democracy, at least until the crisis was averted, and they entrusted all the reins of power into the hands of one man and one man alone, an ex-general turned farmer called Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus. To Cincinnatus fell the burden of acting as dictator with total power at his disposal till the state of emergency was over.’
‘Today, we stand on the brink of a disaster far greater than that which threatened the ancient Republic of Rome five centuries before the supposed birth of Christ. The crisis we face today is global and cataclysmic. The entire planet is on the verge of meltdown, overwhelmed by threats of our own making, all spawned by years of exponential and unstoppable population growth. In turn, this crisis of overpopulation has seeded the perfect conditions for catastrophic climate change, environmental destruction and a chasmic gap between the destitution of billions and the obscene wealth of a miniscule elite.’
‘Worse still, in the face these unprecedented and all-consuming dangers, both your elected leaders and the global institutions that really run your lives behind the scenes are either blind or powerless to act. Even if they had the stomach and resolution for the fight, no politician of any persuasion would have the bravery to put in place the stringent measures necessary to avert catastrophe. For if they did, they would be unelectable, the remedies needed considered too harsh and contrary to the prevailing economic interest. So, despite the constant warnings of Armageddon given with increasing intensity by our most eminent scientists, your leaders ignore the fate of the planet and concentrate on piffle, occupying their energy and your time with political sideshows while the planet is stripped bare and a choking blanket of pollutant gases fuels savage climate change and rising sea levels. Worse still, many are corrupt or simply following their own agenda, a point I will return to later. For this is the fallacy of democracy: you want a choice in how you are governed, every uninformed, uneducated and bigoted man and woman gets an equal say. This egalitarian model sounds so fair and noble on the surface, but in reality it means that you will only listen to what suits you today, not what is needed for tomorrow. That is why no leader on the planet is capable or willing even to try to avert the impending disaster. Time for Cincinnatus to return.’
Sophie looked on as the scenes on the television changed to collections of sinister-suited bankers, politicians caught on camera snoozing in the European Parliament, a standing ovation of thousands of identical delegates at a Chinese Communist Party rally, jihadists in one Middle Eastern country after another fighting a succession of senseless and brutal religious wars, a scene from McDonalds restaurant, where one triple x stomach after another tucked into triple-storey burgers that oozed and dripped fat onto a shoal of litter lying on the floor.
‘Whatever country you live in," Omar's voice continued, ‘your life, your future, the planet's future is in the hands of a small number of individuals whose only world vision is that of a world that will continue to eat itself at an ever-increasing rate, plundering the planet’s resources till nothing but filth and waste are left, all frying in a climate of extreme weather. Your leaders, as I have told your, are powerless to stop this process. They switch on the engine, start the car up and press hard on the accelerator. At the ballot box you get to choose who sits where in the plush interior while the car hurtles at one hundred miles and hour towards a cliff edge.’
‘My friends, it is time for this madness to stop. The millions upon millions of insane among you, will, of course, never want the madness to end, even as you fly off the cliff and are just about to hit the rocks below. But the wise among you exist. This is your time not mine. This is your call. Join us and reclaim your future!’
Sophie swallowed hard as Omar’s voice tailed off and the screen turned to apocalyptic shots of hurricanes, tsunamis, swirling dustbowl deserts that were obviously once fields, industrial wastelands full of junk and desolation, smog-bound Asian cities where millions of commuters in pollution masks choked on an orange haze, dried up lakebeds and snotty-nosed child in an African slum sucking from an empty water pipe. Across the fadeout picture, a message simply read: Don’t let this be your future. Join us tonight.’
When the broadcast ended the bar erupted into competing factions. Some jeered and catcalled, others vociferously clapped their agreement. Joanna thrust a bottle of Becks into Sophie’s hand and joined in with the jeerers.
The television switched briefly back to the newsroom with a red flash running across the top of the screen reading, ‘breaking news from Westminster'. The presenter spoke briefly, but Sophie could not catch what she was saying above the uproar in the bar. Then the picture changed again and she was no longer looking at the serious young newsreader but straight into Darren's unusually sombre-looking face, coming to her from what looked like somewhere i
nside the Houses of Parliament.
Joanna clutched Sophie's arm and there were shouts from another corner of the bar when other students also recognized the former Magdalen College reporter. All around Sophie there were loud calls for silence; others shouted, ‘Turn the volume up!’
Sophie took a large sip of her lager, feeling her heartbeat pumping just as fast as Darren's lips were moving. Omar would be lurking somewhere just next to Darren and she felt nauseous with the tension of anticipation. But until the camera shifted, it was Darren who held centre stage.
‘The interview which I am about to conduct with the leader of the armed group that sensationally took over the Houses of Parliament just after 5:30 p.m. tonight is being granted as a condition for the release of some or most of the hostages which we understand are being held…’
Sophie took another long pull on her beer bottle, watching as the microphone was pulled out of Darren's hand and the camera wheeled round to catch the intruder.
He was dressed smartly but casually, light-brown chinos, a cream polo-necked sweater and a padded waist-jacket of a darker-brown. His hair looked more carefully groomed than normal and the smile was different, a world away from the half-mocking grin she had learned to put up with so often before. This was a different Omar; it was his moment and he was basking in it, relaxed and in control.
‘To everyone watching, whether in the UK or the wider world, I bid you a very good evening, speaking to you from St Stephen's Hall, one of the oldest sections of the Houses of Parliament. The walls behind me are steeped in history, decorated with scenes showing the great events of English parliamentary history. The paintings tell of a gradual transition from absolute monarchy to the constitutional government which has earned this place the title ‘Mother of Parliaments.’ It is a system of government that has served this country well over the centuries and has been emulated in modified form in many countries around the world. But it is urgent, very urgent, that, for a short while at least, we show you the flaws and rot at the heart of the system that are hurling the whole world on a collision course with catastrophe.’
‘As I speak to you right now the a group of sixty-four people, among them members of parliament, representatives of the World Bank and IMF, a collection of tourists, security guards and Westminster employees is being held by my team of armed activists inside the chamber of the House of Commons. At the end of this broadcast, all but twelve of these hostages will be released. And if our demands are met and we are not attacked, the remaining twelve will walk free by or before midnight on November 5th. Meanwhile, until that date, a new set of emergency laws will be issued from this historic building. And in case you assume that my laws have no bite, you should assume that my emergency government has the power and means to enforce those laws outside this building. Please do make that assumption, for those who choose to break or ignore them, either in this country or elsewhere around the world, will do so at their own risk.’
Sophie looked at the screen in front of her in a mesmerized fixation while the bar had fallen into total silence all around. And having just issued his most alarming threat, Omar broke into his most casual and winning smile.
‘Of course I really do understand that almost everyone watching me now will be outraged, mouthing words such as ‘psychopath’, ‘terrorist’ or ‘megalomaniac’ at the camera, and really, from the bottom of my heart, I wish it did not require such action to give civilization on our planet one last chance. Both I myself and every member of my team realize that our lives hang by a thread, and believe you me, I would have chosen my own life every time if the stakes were not so high. But the situation is too urgent and the democratic system too unfair and too loaded to allow solutions and salvation not to work through in their own time via the normal channels. So it must be done. And we must sacrifice our own personal futures for the sake of yours and the planet’s. While we stand with our lives in the balance, you will be treated to the TV reality show to end all television reality shows. All I ask is that you think carefully about everything you hear. Be prepared to challenge your in-built prejudices. And by the end of this week, you must all decide who and what is right and who and what is wrong.’
Through all this long diatribe, Sophie wasn't paying too much attention to what Omar was saying—she had heard most of that before — but she was increasingly fascinated by the delivery. He walked here and there along the brightly lit hallway with a natural grace, looked frank and relaxed straight at the camera, moved his hands energetically but not aggressively to emphasize a point. He was challenging not just the audience's opinions but their very conception of how a self-confessed terrorist and hostage-taker should talk and act. He was giving them a media star maverick with TV slickness and the looks of one of those faded Hollywood film stars. Oh yes, the world's TV networks would lap this up, and she knew that he was aiming for this very weak spot.
‘And what proof do I have that your current leaders are all too often corrupt, self-serving and motivated by greed or personal ambition?’ he continued after a long and meaningful pause. ‘Normally you would expect me to engage in one of those great television debates, where I would produce a set of statistics, twist them round and convince you one way, before the other side twists them back again, adding in a few figures of its own, and as usual, nothing is proved, nothing changes.’
‘But I am able to bring you far more powerful proof, a personal story to illustrate my point. You see, although I am now of Ramli nationality, I myself was born here in this country. If you still cling to the belief that the world can be saved by today’s political class and the business class that supports them, then look at my own story. The men in it became rich and powerful at my expense, but now they will stand accused of their crimes and you will see them for what they really are. And after you have heard about what the chairman of British Defence Systems and the Foreign Secretary did to me, once the television and media have investigated the truth of my claims, all I ask for is what I have just asked of you: that you judge for yourselves who is right and who is wrong, and if you stand in my camp, then take to the streets in your millions in every city of the world and force your incompetent or corrupt leaders to act now for the sake of our planet before all is too late!’
The personal nature of Omar's appeal had reduced the whole bar to a stunned silence that mirrored the silence on screen as Omar handed the microphone back to Darren. The camera swung round amateurishly, catching Darren fiddling with the frame of his tortoiseshell glasses.
‘Did he say the foreign secretary?’ the young man standing next to Sophie asked.
‘That's right,’ said Sophie. ‘Hang on, there's more.’
‘Prince Al-Ajnabi, Darren continued, ‘for I must make it clear to the viewers that I have met you before under that name, is it true that the allegations you have just made against Sir Douglas Easterby, the chairman of British Defence Systems, and against Foreign Secretary James McPherson relate to the enquiry into the Falls Road Massacre, as a result of which, under your then identity of Second Lieutenant Robert Bailey, you were court martialled and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment?’
‘That is correct.’
‘And would you care to comment further on these events?’
Sophie watched Omar break into that uncharacteristically frank smile again.
‘I'm afraid not at this time,’ he replied. ‘I will leave all that to you journalists and media folk to investigate, confident that the truth will finally emerge this time in your hands. Instead, I would like to tell you the first of my new emergency laws.’
‘Laws?’
Sophie watched as Omar broke into a frank but cheeky smile.
‘That’s right.’
Darren pushed the bridge of his glasses back up to his forehead.
‘And what is this law?’
‘The first part of this law will, I’m afraid, also appeal to the narrow-minded, racist bigots who would like to see this country’s borders permanently closed to foreigners. But
please remember that the true cause of the global catastrophe awaiting us all is overpopulation, and the UK is already heavily overpopulated. From midnight tonight until midnight on the 5th of November, I declare this country’s borders closed with the right of exit or entry prohibited for all. All ports and airports will be closed and the ban on air travel will not be limited to the airspace of the United Kingdom: it is worldwide. International shipping may continue as normal for the time being, despite the appalling condition of our seas and oceans, but will need to berth outside UK territorial waters.’
Sophie watched Darren fiddling furiously with his curly locks before snorting contemptuously.
"Prince Al-Ajnabi, do you really expect people to obey such a crippling law? And do you really think you can enforce it?’
Again, Omar smiled openly, leaning closer to the camera than ever before.
‘Look, I know just how much we all enjoy the convenience of international air travel, and yes, I too have flown many times, more often than most, perhaps. But people really need to start getting the point. Air travel is fine if just a few of us are doing it. But when millions of us take to the skies on a daily basis, the result is further catastrophic levels of carbon dioxide emissions to speed up the destruction of our planet. We have to learn to put our futures ahead of today’s convenience, while we wait for our scientists and engineers to provide long-term solutions for cleaner travel. It’s a regrettable but simple choice. The pathetic levies that are currently added to the cost of your flights are as useful as a Band Aid on an amputated limb.’
‘But you haven’t said how you will enforce these laws.’
‘No, I haven’t. If you doubt me, you will have to wait and see.’
Sophie watched Omar smile almost apologetically at the camera, removing the microphone from his jacket and getting abruptly to his feet. ‘Just remember, midnight tonight. Goodnight everybody.’