The Lords' Day (retail)

by Michael Dobbs

  ‘Everybody inside that place had been vetted. They’d have had to show a pass.’

  ‘Look, let’s pull the pieces together. We know how the High Commissioner got in, but what about the others?’ Harry’s pace seemed to stretch out with his thoughts and the commander was forced to skip to keep up with him. ‘We know some of them were masquerading as cleaners – or, more accurately, probably were cleaners. Employed by the private firm that’s responsible for sweeping up round much of the Houses of Parliament. We Brits are too posh to do our own dirty work nowadays, so these cleaners can come from all over the world; some are political refugees, most of them on minimum wage, the meanest jobs in London. Be easy enough to slip three more into the system, wouldn’t it, given time and a little planning? They wouldn’t even need to speak decent English.’

  ‘Mother of God.’ The policeman groaned as the weight of understanding began to pile up on his shoulders. They were passing beneath the shadow of Westminster Abbey, now silent, its queues of tourists scattered, the blood-red remembrance poppies abandoned on the field.

  ‘And the others –’ Harry continued, pounding his forehead as he continued pouring out his thoughts, ‘well, they probably stole someone else’s pass. You know what a ludicrous system it is. They’re only paper passes for the State Opening, cards with someone’s name written on them. Lovely calligraphy, bloody useless security. You wave it around, show it to security, dig into your pocket or purse for a forged photo ID or passport with the same name on it – and how much would a false set of documents set you back, fifty quid from the local dealer? Hell, underage teenagers order them from the bloody Internet so they can go drinking or get into clubs. Don’t you see, Mike? A bit of paper with a name on it and one forged ID. That’s all it would take. Then you’re guided by some trusting soul in a uniform all the way up to your reserved seat. And there’s a whole commonwealth of colours in there, so a few extra dark faces would never stand out.’

  Tibbetts was growing breathless; perhaps the walk hadn’t been such a good idea. ‘Slow down a bit, for Christ’s sake. That’s all very well, in theory. But what would happen when the real pass holder turns up?’

  ‘They won’t.’

  The policeman came to an abrupt halt and closed his eyes in pain. ‘Oh, God. More bodies.’

  Five

  3.23 p.m.

  THERE WAS STILL MORE THAN half an hour to go before the London Stock Exchange was due to close, but this was like nothing they had ever experienced, worse than 9/11, far worse than Black Wednesday.

  They had struggled hard to reach the end of play, to pretend that it was just another day, but it wasn’t. The collapse was unstoppable, and those that tried to resist were simply crushed beneath it. Traders were slipping in the blood that was swilling about the floor. It was an abattoir.

  So the Exchange was shut early. That had never happened before. Impossible, so it seemed, but no more incredible than what was going on in that other city down the road, in Westminster.

  It was like the foundering of a great merchant ship off the shores of ancient Devon. Those who could, jumped for safety. Those who tried to swim against the tide disappeared and drowned. And as the ship sank, surrounded by the sounds of the storm and the cries of its victims, its precious cargo was washed overboard, to float on the stormy sea until it found its way to a safer shore, and into other hands. The hands of the wreckers.

  3.39 p.m.

  Tibbetts had been right; they made Harry strip to his underwear, singlet and shorts. He was floating on adrenalin, senses alert, just like the old times. The touch of the old tiled floor on his feet was exceptionally cold but that was nothing to a man who had been trained at immense public expense to withstand sub-Arctic conditions – although, as he admitted quietly to himself, that had been years ago. Yet the sight of a loaded muzzle held by an enemy and pointed directly at his heart still set him ablaze with expectation. Yes, just like old times. He pushed his way into the chamber through a door that had been disarmed, its can of Coca-Cola hanging seemingly innocently by a wire, to find himself confronted by two of the gunmen, their weapons raised. Their eyes didn’t leave him, testing, molesting him. He didn’t return the stare but kept his head lowered in submission, hoping he had enough flecks of grey in his hair to convince them that he didn’t look like a soldier. His hairstyle was no longer short and militaristic but fashionably irreverent – he had Mel to thank for that. He prayed they wouldn’t instruct him to strip off his singlet, since beneath it they would discover not hidden weapons but a lurid scar along his back and side where the Iraqi bullet had passed. That would give the game away. Normal people don’t walk around with bullet holes in them, not north of the river.

  Harry was pushing a large supermarket trolley loaded with assorted sandwiches, bottles of water and juice, and supplies of fruit. There was also a box of confectionery. The haul had been provided, in something of a hurry, by the nearby supermarket in Victoria Street, but not in so much of a hurry that the manager hadn’t found time to secure his shop’s logo prominently on the trolley’s side. However, not being entirely tactless, he had refrained from throwing in any cans of Coca-Cola.

  ‘Where do you want me to leave it?’ Harry asked the men behind the guns. ‘I’ve got to go back for another load.’

  ‘Middle of the chamber,’ one of them said, gesticulating. ‘And no tricks.’

  And the game was on. In a matter of seconds Harry had established that more than one of them spoke English, which might prove useful intelligence. As Harry and his trolley ventured further into the chamber, he discovered more. Two of the attackers were already resting, stretched out on the leather benches. So, six on, two off. They were rotating duties, ensuring they remained alert. Clever. They clearly expected this siege to last. And those on guard had taken up excellent firing positions. These men knew their business.

  And they didn’t touch the food or water, not for the moment, at least. They inspected the packages, making sure they contained only food, then threw them to their hostages. It would be a couple of hours before they would take any food themselves. They were being cautious, letting others try it out first, making sure it wasn’t drugged.

  Many of the hostages knew Harry, of course, and that recognition lit a little beam of hope in many faces, yet their dreams soon faded. They’d been expecting a regiment of heavily armed rescuers to come storming in, not one man in his underwear pushing a supermarket trolley.

  As the food distribution continued, a voice raised itself in complaint.

  ‘The loos. We need the loos,’ Baroness Blessing demanded.

  ‘Shut up!’ barked a guard.

  ‘Look, shoot me if you must, but if we don’t get toilet facilities soon there’ll be more mess around here than if you hit me with every bullet in your barrel.’

  ‘They’ll be here soon. Next trip,’ Harry said, anxious to defuse the tension. ‘Along with the communication gear,’ he added, for the benefit of the guard. Even as he spoke, the finishing touches were being put to the installation of a mobile telephone exchange that had been wheeled into the tiny post office that stood to the side of the Central Lobby, little more than fifty yards away. It was manned by a telephonist and four heavily armed policemen. Elsewhere in the Palace of Westminster, armed policemen were taking up positions at all the major points, but none close enough to be seen or heard from within the Lords.

  It was during the inevitable diversion of Harry’s arrival that the Prime Minister used the opportunity to whisper urgently to his son, who was seated in the row of benches behind.

  ‘Magnus, listen to me. When he comes back with the toilet gear, take your chance. Slip out, duck down behind the benches. I’ll try to distract them.’

  ‘But they’ll shoot me, Dad.’

  The father choked. What could he say? They both knew the situation. The gunmen were probably going to shoot the boy anyway.

  ‘You have to try, Magnus! Make a run for it, while the door’s disarmed and they’re distract
ed.’

  Magnus turned towards William-Henry but the father grabbed at him. ‘On your own, son. It’s the only way. You can’t take anyone else, just can’t. That’ll only double the chance of you getting spotted.’

  Magnus looked intently at his father. The older man appeared to have changed, in small but significant ways. The tie was crooked, the hair was uncharacteristically unkempt, and the eyes had the edge of an alarmed horse. As he took this all in, the son’s own features seemed to harden. He shook his head in refusal.

  ‘Magnus, you must!’ the father pleaded.

  ‘Dad – I can’t.’

  The father gripped his son’s wrist in torment, desperate to persuade him. His words came haltingly. ‘Magnus, I haven’t been the best father, I know that. I’ve not always been there when you needed me. Too many distractions, too much pride – too many other people’s troubles to take care of. Neglected you, my only son. My fault.’ The grip on Magnus’s arm grew tighter. ‘But I’m here now and I have never meant anything more in my life when I say that I would willingly trade my life for yours. A happy exchange. I would die with a smile on my lips. You are twenty, for pity’s sake, you’ve got your whole life waiting out there for you. You’ve got to fight for it. Run for it, if necessary.’

  ‘Dad, if I go, they will shoot someone else.’

  ‘But you are the only one who matters!’

  ‘I couldn’t live with that on my conscience. The rat that ran.’

  ‘You’d be a live rat.’

  ‘Dad, you send soldiers my age to risk their lives all the time.’

  ‘They are not my sons.’

  ‘I’m as good as they are.’

  ‘So very much better.’ He twisted in his seat, trying to draw closer. ‘Oh, this is hell!’

  ‘I’ll take my chances here, Dad.’

  ‘Run now, I beg you,’ the father groaned.

  ‘If I did, I couldn’t respect myself. And you would grow not to respect me, either.’

  ‘Magnus, don’t torture me! I can’t sit here and watch—’ The thought choked itself off. The next words came in a gasp. ‘I love you.’

  Magnus sat still.

  ‘I love you,’ the father repeated, almost in a whisper.

  The son appeared strangely unmoved by the outburst. ‘I think that may be the first time you have ever said that,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve always known it.’

  ‘A life spent talking to the whole world, but not to me.’

  The father hung his head, his silence dressed in guilt.

  ‘If you love me,’ Magnus continued, ‘for once in your life listen to me.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Listen! Stop worrying about saving me. Do your job, save us all.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Give them Daud Gul.’

  3.56 p.m.

  Harry returned. He had with him the field telephone and two pallets on which were carried loos that had been hurriedly wrenched out of a construction site’s transportable toilet system. It was as he was installing them, with some difficulty, that matters began to stumble out of control. Perhaps it was the food that had given the hostages back a little confidence, or the sight of Harry letting them know they hadn’t been forgotten, or simply the fact that so many of them were elderly, or brave, or slightly daft and didn’t give much of a damn. Maybe it was force of habit, or simple terror that bent their judgement. Whatever its cause, the hostages began to argue absurdly amongst themselves. About, of all things, the toilets.

  Set into the structure of the great gilded canopy that stands immediately behind the throne there are two compartments that are largely hidden. Those who are keen-eyed enough to notice the two doors assume they must be of considerable significance – a private exit from the chamber, perhaps, or a security tunnel that might whisk the Queen to safety, or carry in her rescuers. But that is not the case. The secret of the doors is known to a relative few, because it is so totally banal. Behind the doors that stand next to the throne lie neither tunnels nor stairs nor rescue apparatus, but two large closets, stout and deep, within which are hidden not state secrets but a cleaner’s paradise of buckets, mops, brushes and brooms. It might have been a private joke played by Sir Charles Barry, the embittered architect who had designed the chamber. Ministers had left so many of his unpaid invoices drifting around the place that perhaps he viewed the servants cupboards so close to the Queen as suitable punishment for their miserliness. But whatever their origins, it was here inside these two cupboards, that the attackers instructed Harry to place the chemical toilets. It afforded a small measure of privacy. Even those who might be about to die had their modesty.

  And yet as soon as they were installed, a furious quarrel broke out. From somewhere amongst those huddled on the red benches a voice was heard suggesting that one of these compartments should be reserved for the Royal family. The monarchy needed to maintain its mystique, so it was argued, and the House of Windsor needed its own closet, too.

  ‘What? We’re going to have discrimination in the toilets – in here?’ another voice broke out.

  ‘If we ignore what makes us British, we may just as well be like them.’

  ‘God’s teeth, we’re fighting for our lives, not some ridiculous form of droit de seigneur.’

  ‘Look, if it weren’t for droit de seigneur you wouldn’t be in the House of Lords in the first place.’

  ‘Right now I rather wish I wasn’t.’

  ‘It’s a matter of respect. It’s what made this country great.’

  ‘And got us into this mess. Frankly, I’d swap all your wretched social baloney for a sunny day in Sunderland.’

  ‘Sod Sunderland!’

  At least, that is what legend would later record as the final contribution to this debate, but this might have been apocryphal since, in truth, no one could have heard what the last words were, not above the sound of gunfire. While disagreement had been breaking out on all sides, the hostage takers scarcely knew what to do or in which direction to turn. Theirs was not a parliamentary way, they didn’t understand its occasional silliness and eccentricities, and what was not understood was feared. They raised their weapons in alarm but the flow of argument didn’t ebb, not for a second, not until their young leader Masood fired his weapon into the gallery above their heads.

  It was at this juncture, as the smell of hot gun oil hung across the chamber, that an act of immense symbolism took place. As hostages ducked and cowered from the bark of flying bullets, Elizabeth, the woman at the centre of this unexpected storm, turned to whisper to her son. Then she rose to her feet. She was a small figure, almost overwhelmed by the Gothic indulgence that surrounded her, but the silence that followed her gesture was as complete as it was sudden. She stood for a while, staring at them all, her captors included, the gaze that could freeze from fifty paces. She unclipped her train, while her son gathered the yards of ermine-trimmed silk and began to fold them into a large cushion, which he placed on the carpeted floor between the two thrones. Then she reached up and took the crown from her head. She handed it to her son, who, with great reverence, lowered himself to his knees and placed the rough emblem on the cushion of silk. The meaning was clear. The crown hadn’t been abandoned but it had, for the moment, been put aside. Death, the ultimate leveller, was casting its shadow across them all.

  Elizabeth took her seat once more, and when she was settled, nodded in the direction of Celia Blessing. Without a word the blush-faced baroness hauled herself to her feet, curtsied before her queen and, as gracefully as she could in the circumstances, disappeared inside the closet.

  4.10 p.m.

  So the rules of the game were set. Masood announced that all mobiles, pagers and ceremonial swords were to be handed over. There was to be no communication with those outside the chamber except by himself, while those inside the chamber were to engage in no sudden movements, no surprises, no changing of places or even trips to the toilet without permission. Transgressions would result in retribution, and
it had already been made clear what form that would take.

  There were conditions for the authorities, too, once the field telephone had been connected to the exchange. Power cuts and disruptions of any sort or for any reason would be treated as the prelude to an attack. Any hint of gas being introduced to the chamber or drugs hidden in the food, anything that might be designed to knock the hostage takers out, would be handled in the same way.

  And Masood insisted that the live broadcasting of events within the chamber must continue and be played out in real time. No delays, no breaks, nothing but constant coverage. This was not just a siege, it was a cultural humiliation and he intended that it should be seen by billions around the globe. There would be no hiding place for the authorities, no sudden tricks that could be played out in darkness or behind the scenes. The glare of publicity had always been the rebels’ friend, and this the biggest show the world had ever seen.

  4.43 p.m.

  Tricia Willcocks had at times been likened to a spring tide. Her water levels were always high, forming an irresistible wall of emotion that was bound to create extreme turbulence whenever it encountered something, or someone, standing in her way.

  When she reached Tibbetts, he was in the small post office. He had temporarily deserted the Ops Room in order to supervise the installation of the portable telephone exchange and give Harry his final briefing. He wanted to be on hand if anything went wrong, and not be left looking helplessly at a television screen. No sooner had the telephone system been installed and initial contact made with Masood than one of the receivers began to ring. It was the Home Secretary, determined to make her presence felt.

  ‘Commander Tibbetts,’ she began, in a breathless manner that shrieked of irritation, ‘I thought we had agreed you would get rid of Harry Jones.’

  ‘I apologise, Home Secretary, I thought you instructed me to ensure he stops bothering you.’

  ‘He’s bothering me now. I’m told he’s right in there with the hostages.’