by KJ Griffin
***
Al-Ajnabi entered the Commons Chamber from the Lobby and found Neil Smedley engrossed in the TV coverage. At right angles to the set another television had been rigged up for the benefit of the hostages.
Following the direction of the second screen, Al-Ajnabi glanced towards the five figures on the government benches. Instinctively, he searched for McPherson, and watched his former colonel sitting alone on the back government bench, his bony neck jutting considerably higher than most. McPherson looked away from the TV and met his gaze, but their feud was silent now, simmering voicelessly below the buzz of the televisions.
Al-Ajnabi began to scour the row in front of McPherson where the two bankers, Ed Topacio and Herve de Cazes were encamped, wrapped in blankets. The American, Topacio, was snoring softly while Herve de Cazes stared mournfully at the television, scratching the stubble on his chin and coughing now and then into the chill air.
Sitting in the row in front of the bankers, Claire Ferris had lost her make up, and her shoulder-length black hair accentuated the haggard pallor twenty-four hours of captivity had brought to her complexion. Driscoll sat some distance away from Ferris on the same bench, still wearing a tie, albeit at half-mast. The MP for Barnet saw Al-Ajnabi and rose to his feet as if he were about to remonstrate with a fellow MP. From the Press Gallery above the Speaker's Chair, Al-Ajnabi watched the assault rifle spring up into Hasan's arms and level menacingly on Driscoll's animated features, just as his camera lens must have had done not so long ago.
‘Prince Omar, or Mr Bailey,’ Driscoll shouted out, ‘since that seems to be a more accurate title, judging from all the things we have been watching on television. I hope you remember that we have been sitting here for nearly twenty-four hours, during which time we have made all sorts of interesting discoveries about your personal background, and about the way you see the world. In fact, about the only thing we still haven't yet heard is probably what is interesting each of us here most: namely, what are the conditions you have set for our release?’
‘Yes, why the hell have you brought us here?’ Ferris exploded, shouting her pent-up anger across the House as if she were about to be 'here, here'd'.
At the commotion from the benches, Smedley span round, pointing his MP5K at the MPs, ready to quell their mutiny with a burst of his semi-automatic.
Only Al-Ajnabi looked relaxed.
‘What are the conditions for your release, Mr Driscoll?’ he mimicked. ‘There are none. Why are you here? To sit and wait.’
‘Wait for what?’ Ferris shouted back. ‘Armageddon?’
‘No good asking him!’ McPherson screamed, taking up the cry so vehemently from his backbench that he woke Ed Topacio with a jolt. ‘Our great hero here hasn't a clue! He's nothing but a dreamer! And like all dreamers our terrorist hero has no proper plans, no viable alternative. It's just moan and destroy until he's destroyed in turn. You can kill us all, Bailey, blow the whole place up, for all I care, wipe out billions from the stock markets and ground every airliner. In the end you'll change nothing, because you've nothing better to offer anyone other than your tired rants, your whining and your bitterness. So piss off and go to hell!’
‘Where the fuck have you been for the last twenty-four hours?’ Smedley balled back at the Foreign Secretary, his own anger hot enough to make the veins in his neck bulge. ‘Haven't you listened to a single word we've been saying? Haven't you seen the thousands upon thousands of our supporters marching just half a mile from here? We've been telling you time and time again for years: it's your system that's fucked! It's your side that has no agenda, save that of destroying the whole world for the sake of a little short-term profit!’
The two men stood facing each other locked eyeball to eyeball till McPherson broke off.
‘Oh, what's the point?’ he scoffed. ‘You can’t argue with someone who's poking a gun in your face!’
‘Or with someone who twists round the evidence and abuses rank and position to suit his own purposes,’ Al-Ajnabi shouted back, beckoning Neil to join him at the Table before the big Yorkshireman's grip became too twitchy on the trigger. As he did so he looked back up at Hasan in the gallery and took a step further towards Ferris and Driscoll.
‘Now sit down all of you before tiredness tells and someone gets needlessly hurt,’ he ordered, pointing at Hasan with his own gun.
The MPs didn't need further encouragement. Driscoll's flabby petulance had withered at the sight of Hasan's automatic rifle, while Ferris just burst into gentle, high-pitched sobs. Al-Ajnabi waited, not without a tinge of sympathy till the MP's were settled again. They were both fools and certainly unfit to govern, but had either of them really done anything bad enough to deserve the danger he had thrust upon them?
Smedley was with him now and only the sound of Ferris' steady sobs disturbed the eerie silence.
‘When did you last see McLaughlin and Abu Fawaz?’ Al-Ajnabi whispered to Smedley, taking the Yorkshireman towards the hush of the Commons Lobby.
‘About an hour ago. They both passed through to the Tea Room for food and drink. Didn't stay long there, mind. Ten minutes max.’
‘They're back up there now? Above the Press Gallery?’
‘Aye, but I think McLaughlin's been making himself a second firing position out on the rooftop.’
‘And Abu Fawaz is still with him?’
‘Off and on. He's been on the phone quite a lot. What I caught was all in Arabic, so I can't help you there.’
Al-Ajnabi felt the tiredness stiffening his shoulders and he shook his head from side to side to loosen the tension at the base of his neck. Shit! He had guessed right. Abu Fawaz was playing to his own agenda. He clenched then relaxed his fists three times, staring up into the face of Winston Churchill that glared down upon him, standing arms akimbo.
‘Neil, I want you to disarm all the bombs,’ he said almost inaudibly.
‘What?’ Smedley hissed back. ‘What fucking protection will we have then if the SAS attack?’
‘None, save for the tripwires and our own small arms.’
‘So why immobilize the bombs? You've got the bloody detonators after all.’
‘Oh yes,’ Al-Ajnabi smiled bitterly. ‘I've got detonators. But have I got the detonators?’
Smedley spun round and punched out in frustration at the bronze bust of Lloyd George.
‘Fuck!’
‘If the SAS attack, we'll take them on man to man, Neil. There's no point bringing down the whole Palace and everyone inside just so that McLaughlin and Abu Fawaz can make a grand statement of their own to the world.’
Al-Ajnabi felt Smedley's two bear-sized palms crash onto either shoulder, pushing him back up against Churchill's feet.
‘I've put it all on the line for this, Omar. And a lot of other good folk have, too. I'm not just going to sit back and let myself be shot like some fucking rabbit when the SAS decide it's time to flush us out.’
‘And neither am I, Neil,’ Al-Ajnabi nodded confidently. ‘The SAS are good. Very good. But I'm not bad in a fight either, Neil. Believe me. As long as we hear them early enough, we'll keep them away from the Chamber. And the sound of the RPG7's going off will make it sound so bad, there'll be no second assault for a while. Long enough for us to see whether the people will march.’
‘There weren't be any bloody marching, Omar. No street protests. Look at the TV. Not a fucker's stirred on the streets. Seoul? Manila? Mexico City? Forget it! There's nowt happening. No one gives a shit anymore. We're a gimmick-value TV show, that's all.’
The outburst seemed to have cost the big Yorkshireman all his reserves of strength. He relaxed his grip on Al-Ajnabi's shoulders and trudged back towards the Commons. Twenty-four hours had taken its toll. Even Neil Smedley had begun to despair. Al-Ajnabi dashed after him and caught his shoulder before he regained the Chamber.
‘Maybe you're right, Neil! Maybe nobody does care any more. But is that a good enough reason for blowing innocent lives sky high? We've got less that sevent
y-two hours now to learn our fate. If the streets of the world's poorest capitals stay ghostly silent then maybe we have been fighting the wrong bloody war. But I came in here to achieve something positive, something that would give the world a chance to hope. I'm not going to fuck all that up by playing the vindictive bastard with a bomb when we can't get our way. We're trying to teach the world about life – another way of life – not death.’
‘So you want me to immobilize Abu Fawaz's bombs?’ Smedley sighed.
‘Trust me, Neil. If we're to have any hope of getting out of here, it's the only way.’
Smedley paused for a second to think, then turned around and started to head back out towards the Central Lobby.
‘I'm still with you, Omar. But if you don't trust Abu Fawaz on the detonators, how do you know he hasn’t planted a bomb which we don't know about somewhere else in here?’
‘I don't. There's every reason to suspect that he still has enough up his sleeve to send the whole bloody lot of us to hell the second the SAS come in. But if we start dismantling what we do know about, at least there's a chance that someone will make it out alive.’