He shivered away the goose bumps.
'Approximately £950million,' said One of Two. (Of course, they were both known as One of Two, as neither wanted to be Two of Two.) 'And most of that would go on command structure and transport required to move the fighting force from one area to the next. The cost of the force itself would be minimal.'
The Defence Secretary yelped, then coughed in a deep voice to cover his embarrassment at squealing like a girl.
'When can I see it?' he asked.
One of Two and One of Two looked at each other with nervous excitement. They had barely been able to believe that they'd managed to get through the door, and now it was all falling incredibly into place.
'We can arrange it for any time you like, Sir,' said One of Two.
The Defence Secretary smiled cruelly. What a magnificent plan this would be. Such serendipity that this should fall into his lap at the same time as those tiresome back benchers were beginning to talk of plots and overthrow, a velvet coup d'état.
'Tomorrow it is, then,' he said.
This time it was One of Two's turn to squeal. The Defence Secretary was not squealing anymore, however. His mind was running away, visions of magnificent grandeur. No one suspected him. Indeed, hardly anyone had even heard of him. As a government minister, his profile was so low he might as well have been Minister for Steak and Chips. In a recently conducted UK poll, when asked if they could name the Defence Minister, only 1% had got the name correct. 17% said it was Michael Heseltine, 2% thought it was Earl Alexander of Tunis, 11% that it was Stephen Fry as General Melchett, 25% were Don't Knows and the rest didn't even realize there was a Defence Minister.
He rubbed his hands together and laughed in a deep, devilish growl that sounded like one of the Muppets doing an impersonation of Sid James doing an impersonation of Boris Karloff.
The Next Day, Somewhere in Oxfordshire, England
Second Lieutenant Lawson, declared missing presumed dead in Afghanistan six months previously, had been strapped to a table for over five months. He was not technically dead, although tests had identified very little brain activity. Indeed, the only part of his brain which seemed to be working was the small area in the right lobe which drove people to eat human flesh.
For much of the time Lawson had been fed live rats and fresh pig meat to keep him satisfied, but every now and again a recently dead poor person that no one would notice was missing was brought in and fed to him. It was at these moments that the brain activity juddered and peaked and that Second Lieutenant Lawson seemed to come alive.
He never slept. At first a twenty-four-hour watch was placed upon him, but over time the need for round-the-clock monitoring was questioned, and with the latest Treasury swipe of the budgetary hatchet, it was decided that it would not be necessary to keep Lawson under surveillance between the hours of 10pm and 10am.
He had one large strap across his chest, another across his forehead, one each on his four limbs. And it was at precisely 0613hrs on that Wednesday morning that the decomposition of his flesh, which had been getting worse and worse as the weeks went by, finally allowed him to drag his left hand out from under its tight bond. Most of the flesh was left behind, so that what emerged was largely skeletal, but he still had the bones and he had the use of an opposable thumb.
Second Lieutenant Lawson was about to be free.
10 Downing Street, London, England
'Let me be absolutely clear,' said the PM. 'In the past two days we have seen inflation fall, we've seen unemployment fall. This is the opposite of the double whammy. It's a kind of double....'
He glanced in the mirror to see if anyone was listening to him.
'Espresso?' said Barney.
The PM looked sharply at him, assuming he was being facetious.
'A double sharp jolt to the economy,' said Barney. 'Like kick-starting your day with a double espresso, this will kick start the economy.'
The PM rubbed a contemplative hand over his chin.
'Hmm,' he said, 'not bad. I might use that. Let me think about it.'
'Can you think about what you want me to do about your hair first?' said Barney. He'd been standing behind the PM for ten minutes awaiting instruction.
The PM looked in the mirror again. He had been expecting Barney just to give him a haircut. His principal aides were in the room along with the Foreign Secretary and the Defence Secretary. There was no particular reason for either of his cabinet colleagues to be with him, but he was concerned by the way they'd been keeping their heads down recently, as if they had jobs to do other than attack the opposition and toe the party line. Curious as to whether either of them might be behind the latest round of internecine plotting and skullduggery, he had decided to keep them close for a while.
As it was, he was right. They were both plotting. One of them in a regular old-fashioned Machiavellian kind of a way, conniving behind the PM's back, taking soundings on the back benches, briefing against the PM to the press; the other by working with mad scientists to take over the world using an army of the living dead.
Just another day in Westminster.
'So what kind of thing did you do for the other two?' said the PM to Barney. 'Blair looked like a TV evangelist all the time. Did you change that in any way?'
Barney shrugged. 'That was the kind of look he wanted to go for, although some days I also made him look like a porn star.'
The PM nodded. 'Yes, I remember. That was a good look. Not right for me, though. And then Brown.... what can you say?'
'He looked like the guy who sells you a fish supper,' said Barney. 'There was nothing to be done. He had hair that said, take your fish and chips, it's all you're getting... they're shite, but it's not my fault...'
'All right,' said the PM, 'give me a Hugh Grant. It makes sense. The man's been all over the media for two years now. Most of the voters probably already think he's the Prime Minister. They seem to like him, so it doesn't really matter if they confuse the two of us.'
'The man's the biggest grossing British movie actor of all time,' said Barney, 'yet he's most famous for taking a blow job in a car. You sure you want that look?'
'The point I would make is this,' said the PM. 'The British People like to give everyone a second chance. I think that's rather splendid. Some might think it ironic that the man has become the nation's moral compass, but frankly I believe it to be entirely representative of the country at this time.'
He looked in the mirror. Barney had still not started work.
'Get to it, Mr. Thomson,' said the PM. 'A Hugh Grant, and then when we go to PMQs we'll give the PALP the roasting he deserves.'
He turned quickly and looked at his ministers, who were both sitting by the window waiting to be included.
'Gentlemen,' he said, 'what are you two up to today?'
The haste with which they both said nothing much betrayed them.
*
Later on that morning, when the PM had gone off for the day resplendent with hair that only Andie MacDowell (or Julia Roberts or that annoying woman who does those fucking awful TLC adverts) could love, Barney stayed in the office with the PM's aides, Pryce and Logan, looking through the morning's papers. Barney was casually reading. The aides were making notes on who to go after and who to mark down for future arrest.
As with every other day in Westminster, the battle lines were being drawn. The media refused to sit back and let politicians walk all over them. Every morning was like a bar room brawl, everyone fighting everyone else. With the election more than two years in the future, alliances had still to be made, sides yet to be taken.
'Think I'll have a coffee,' said Barney. 'But not a double espresso, just in case anyone thinks I'm making a political statement. Get anyone anything?'
He stood up. It was his first day on the job. He knew there would be a lot of sitting around involved.
'I'm all right,' said Logan.
'Double espresso,' said Pryce.
Barney smiled and walked to the door. He
stopped, turned.
'Why does he call the leader of the opposition the PALP?'
Pryce sniggered.
'Pointless Adenoidal Little Prick,' said Logan without a trace of humour.
Barney thought about it for a second and nodded.
'Right,' he said, then he left in search of the Starbucks franchise which had been installed inside Number 10 at the PM's behest.
Somewhere in Oxfordshire, England
1001hrs. Lucy Pelmille opened the door to the room which held Second Lieutenant Lawson. If she'd checked the monitor first she would have noticed that he was no longer strapped to the table, but it had been a while since she'd taken that precaution. It had become such a routine.
At first she'd hated going anywhere near him, but in recent weeks she'd begun to get used to it, had begun to have one-sided conversations with the strange creature strapped to the table.
As she walked in she was singing Mama Mia. The words fire within my soul stalled on her lips when she saw the empty table. She did not for a moment wonder if he had been moved within the facility. The flesh and blood and slime that had been left attached to the table spoke of an altogether more rustic escape.
The door slammed shut behind her. She turned. She screamed. Lawson lurched forward, grabbed her shoulders and bit massively into her head. As he pulled away, he tore chunks of flesh from her face.
Her white lab coat quickly stained red.
The House of Commons, London, England
'Anybody might think that orchestrated noise was taking place!' barked the Speaker. The House of Commons was in uproar, as the Prime Minister had completed his previous answer with the time-honoured PMQ's response, 'In your face!'
Not that it made much difference. The monkeys were baying, the Leader of the Opposition in full flow.
'Will the Prime Minister now acknowledge what everyone else seems to already know? The Deputy Prime Minister warned him not to take a blow job in a car from Andy Coulson, Lord Ashdown warned him not to take a blow job in a car from Andy...'
He hesitated and looked around the House at the cacophony of noise that had broken out around the zoo. He bent down so that the Deputy Leader could shout in his ear. He looked shocked.
'Did I?' he said. 'Did I really say that? Shit. It's just, you know, there's something of the Hugh you know... Hugh Grant about him.'
He straightened up. The previous Prime Minister would have said that his gas was at a peep. The noise around the farmyard was still cacophonous. The Speaker was losing his voice. Laughter filled the air.
Somewhere in Oxfordshire, England
The Defence Secretary finally arrived at the top secret scientific defence establishment in the heart of rural Oxfordshire. He had intended arriving much earlier, but the Prime Minister had kept him busy all day.
Although he had contacted the Mad Scientists to let them know that he would be arriving late at night, they had not informed him of the rather unsavoury developments that had occurred earlier in the day.
The Defence Secretary was shown into a small office with white walls, and took a seat at a long desk with the two scientists MacKenzie and Spragwick. Coffees were placed in front of the three men. The door was closed. The conspirators were alone.
The Defence Secretary rubbed his hands together.
'All righty,' he said. 'When can I see the... you know... it?'
Spragwick nodded, but didn't say anything.
'There's been a thing...' said MacKenzie.
'What kind of thing?' asked the Defence Secretary.
The two scientists looked at each other.
'Come on!' he demanded. 'Don't tell me something's happened to the zombie?'
Mackenzie waved his hands.
'Don't use that word,' he said. 'It's... pejorative.'
The Defence Secretary grumbled. 'For God's sake, tell me. Just tell me.'
The scientists shared another glance, and then Spragwick rose from the desk, walked over to a plain white curtain and pulled it back. Behind was a window which looked down onto a large hall.
The Defence Secretary joined the two men at the window, and together they stared down onto what some might have called the Coming Apocalypse, but what the Defence Secretary, open mouthed and wide-eyed, referred to as, 'Fucking awesome, man.'
The Next Morning, The Premier Inn, County Hall, London, England
The Defence Procurement Minister, one of three junior ministers at the Ministry, lived on the outskirts of London, so generally travelled home for the night, no matter how late he worked. Although he'd been in the Commons since 2001 he hadn't become particularly embroiled in the MPs' expenses scandal, never having claimed for a second home. Occasionally, however, he chose to nip across the river and spend the night in the Premier Inn. This was usually more related to illicit sex than heavy workload.
The previous evening he had taken a premier room at the Premier Inn and spent an enjoyable few hours with three eastern European prostitutes, all of whom appeared to be called Nathalie. He had taken them each in turn. He had watched them take each other. He had popped some pills and had once more jumped into the fray. A splendid time had been had by all... except the three Eastern European prostitutes, who'd had to have sex with a corpulent, crapulent Tory MP troughing at the decadent dinner table of power.
Several hours after the ladies of the night had drifted back from whence they'd come, another woman entered the room of the Junior Defence Minister. Unlike the previous visitors, however, her attendance was not expected. She silently opened the door and slipped into the room while the Minister slept.
She stood over his inert body for a few moments. She contemplated waking him up before killing him, as she generally enjoyed the look on the face of the soon-to-be deceased. However, that was not part of her orders on this occasion, and so she did the job quickly and expertly. Hand over the mouth, a knife quickly slit across his throat. His eyes did not even have time to open.
Then, in order that the political assassination look somewhat more psychotic, she proceeded to disembowel him, cut off his penis and testicles, sever his head and rearrange his limbs. By the end the corpulent, crapulent Tory MP looked even more grotesque than he had before he was murdered.
His killer slipped out of the room with not a trace of blood splashed onto her white negligee.
10 Downing Street, London, England
Renegade barbershop legend, Barney Thomson, was once more in position, standing behind the Prime Minister, ready to give him his haircut for the day. The Prime Minister was reading through the morning papers, ignoring the tabloids, which were thankfully all ignoring the economy, and flicking quickly through the broadsheets. Such as they were.
'You know why none of the tabloids talked too much about the phone hacking thing?' said the PM absent-mindedly. He didn't seem to be talking to Barney, and yet there was no one else in the room. Barney answered with his eyebrow.
'Because they'd all been at it,' he said. 'All of them. Still are, I'd wager. One day they're all going to get caught with their pants down... The worrying thing is that some of the broadsheets seem to think that I got caught with my pants down too, and that's why I agreed to all that Levenson nonsense. I mean, did you see that shit? Still, I needed to change the agenda before any damage got done.'
'To News Corp?' said Barney curiously. He was poised with a pair of scissors above the PM's head.
The PM glanced at him in the mirror.
'No, to me, you idiot,' he said. 'I thought you were sage.'
Barney had never said he was sage. Indeed the only sagacity he really liked was the wisdom of silence.
'Let me make one thing clear,' said the PM, and Barney switched off. 'The people, the British People, couldn't care less about this. About Levenson. The people who buy the Sun and the Mirror and the Express, they don't care. Do you see them caring? Those papers are full of the most outrageous nonsense, but people still buy them and they don't care where the paper got its facts or whether indeed they just ma
de it all up. One day Murdoch will fall, and he will be replaced by some Russian billionaire or by some porn broker or by God knows who.'
'Maybe he'll be replaced by a collective of the people,' said Barney.
'And what would that be like?' said the PM. 'A newspaper that claims benefits, gets drunk every night and spends all its time worrying about reality TV shows? Oh, I forgot, that's what we have at the moment. Nothing will change.'
An awkward silence fell upon them. For once Barney found himself agreeing with the PM. Nothing would change. Despite the News of the World, despite Levenson, despite High Grant and Charlotte Church. He started snipping at the PM's hair just to fill the silence with the click of scissors.
'We just need to create a diversion,' said the PM. 'Something to distract the public from the continuing economic uncertainty. Usually we'd start a war, but we're already in one and everyone's just ignoring it at the moment. To be honest, I've been wanting to invade Syria for the last eighteen months, but the Foreign Secretary won't let me. I mean look at the bloody French. They're bossing it in Africa and people are queuing up to squeeze Hollande's butt cheeks.'
He glanced angrily at Barney in the mirror, as if it was all his fault.
'Go on then, genius. You're sage. What shall we do?'
Barney stared back at the PM, while continuing to clip steadily around his right ear.
'Bring in an act of parliament requiring JK Rowling to write another seven Harry Potter books.'
The PM looked curious but interested.
'Maybe she'll do it anyway,' Barney continued, 'but this way you could take some of the credit, everyone would get excited, it would be great for the economy and it would be much more popular than a war. War has been good for generations in the past, but Blair's ruined it now with Iraq. Everyone was pissed off about that, so from now on, if you go to war you're going to have to have a really, really good reason if you're looking for it to be a vote winner. Harry Potter, that's who you need. He can wave his wand. Wingardium Economosa.'
Barney Thomson, Zombie Killer: A Barney Thomson Novella Page 3