‘Yes, it’s a fair point,’ Harry accepted. ‘But not an accurate one.’ He stood up. ‘I hope you’ll forgive this little show of histrionics, but it’s important.’ Rather clumsily with his one good hand he hitched up his shirt and the vest underneath to reveal the lurid red weals of the scars left by his years of military service.
The civil servant winced.
‘Yes, I’ve taken a bit of a battering,’ Harry continued, ‘but the point is I’m used to it. So shall we get rid of the personal motivation stuff and get back to the point at hand?’
‘You’ll allow us all a little personal animus, I hope,’ Five intervened. ‘It would give me no end of pleasure to find some way of making the Americans grovel. It’s their turn, I think. But even if you’re right, Mr Jones, we still face exactly the same problem as before,’ he said, wagging his nicotine stick. ‘How the hell do we go in without losing the most valuable prize of all – the Queen?’
‘If I’m right, we lose her anyway,’ Harry replied softly.
‘But our chances of success have increased,’ Hastie said. ‘They won’t be expecting an attack now, not with Gul in the air. That gives us back the element of surprise.’
‘Even so,’ Five countered, shaking his head, ‘who is there amongst this merry band who would take his courage – and Mr Jones’s analysis – and screw it to the sticking-place?’
‘You, commander?’ It was Tricia, her first contribution. Her voice was weak, as though it came from a distance, but she wasn’t going to miss the opportunity of making someone else squirm under the pressure.
And Tibbetts had feared this point. It was one of the reasons he’d been happy to take the chair, enabling him to move the pieces around the board, putting off the moment when they stopped on his square. ‘I simply don’t know. I wish to God I could be certain that Harry was wrong, but I can’t.’ His shoulders heaved in resignation. ‘I’m afraid I’m no Inspector Morse.’
Harry jerked upright as though something had struck him. ‘What did you say?’
‘That I don’t know . . .’
‘Morse. You said Morse,’ Harry muttered. ‘Of course!’ He slapped his hand down hard on the table; it was his good hand, but even so the effort made him wince. Others looked on in alarm. Tibbetts was staring very pointedly at the face wound and trying to remember what he knew about secondary concussion.
‘That old bugger Archie Wakefield,’ Harry continued, suddenly brimming with enthusiasm. ‘I thought he was cracking up, couldn’t take the strain – he’s been tapping his head like a lunatic. But he hasn’t lost it, he’s been trying to use Morse code. To talk to us from inside the chamber.’
‘And what was he trying to say?’ Five asked.
‘I thought signals interception was your baby.’
‘Morse code, Mr Jones?’ Five wrinkled his nose. ‘Went out with the dinosaurs.’
‘Then give me twenty minutes.’ Already he was heading for the door.
‘Where are you going?’ Tibbetts cried.
‘To dig up a few fossils,’ Harry said, leaving them in a state of bewilderment.
8.22 a.m. (1.22 p.m. BIOT time)
It took only minutes to drive from the gaol to the airfield. It was barely four miles, with little other traffic, apart from Filipino workers on their bicycles. No one spoke to Daud Gul. At times he was forced to squint as the sun scorched off the surface of the road, but he caught glimpses of many low brightly painted buildings. They also passed a huge satellite dish, and what appeared to be a fuel dump. Often the sea was hidden by the thick scrub that bordered the shore, but occasionally he saw raked beaches and, far beyond in the lagoon, the hulking presence of grey transport ships. The hated symbols of the Stars and Stripes and the British flag were everywhere.
As they pulled up alongside the airport terminal building, the American major turned to him and spoke for the first time. ‘We need you to talk to your friends.’
Friends? He had no friends here. But they showed him to an office where a US soldier was talking into a telephone. When he saw Daud Gul, he muttered into the phone: ‘He’s here,’ and rose from his seat, indicating that Daud Gul should sit. A voice was coming from the earpiece.
‘Daud Khan – are you there? Can you hear me, Daud Khan? This is Masood.’
But could this be, that Masood was in the next room, because that was how it sounded?
‘I am here, Masood Jan , my son.’
‘Are you all right? What have they done to you?’
‘They tell me they are about to put me on a plane. To release me. I’m not sure I understand—’
‘I have some people with me here who have been very persuasive on your behalf.’
‘Then may God bless them.’
‘In His own way. Daud Khan, it is so good to hear your voice. Soon you will be back home. Azadi! You will soon be free!’
‘Then may God be doubly blessed. And I owe you much, Masood Jan. I wait to embrace you.’
‘Inshallah.’
‘May He give us both strength.’
8.32 a.m.
Harry arrived more than a little breathless at the OB van in Black Rod’s Garden. He was bordering on exhaustion and only stubbornness forced him on. Two armed policemen stood guard at the door, their mood relaxed, like actors at that point in the play when the lines are done, the curtain is about to descend and there is nothing else to do but pray for applause. They stood catching the light of a bright morning sun that was bouncing off the burnished aluminium walls of Daniel’s den.
Yet inside the van Harry encountered a picture of darkness and squalor. People had been sleeping in a pile of blankets that had been thrown into one corner of the floor – in fact, it was moving even as Harry watched – and littered on every surface apart from the control desk were the remains and packaging of every type of takeaway food that could be obtained within half a mile of the place. It was crowded, more than a dozen men and women, all still at their stations, unambiguously unwashed and over-ripe; they’d been here more than twenty-four hours and although Daniel had tried to cut down on the numbers, they had refused. This was history, they were making it, and no one was going to be told to miss out. Anyway, most of them were on extended overtime. It wasn’t the moment to cut and run. Sleep-fogged eyes turned to greet Harry as he stood in the doorway.
‘Can I help you, Mr Jones?’ Daniel asked from his desk.
‘We know each other?’
‘I’m Daniel. I’ve been watching you.’ He indicated the wall of screens in front of him. Harry’s heart leapt. While several carried the wide-angle view that had been spread across the airwaves ever since the siege began, others came from the remote cameras around the chamber that were used for the everyday broadcasting of the Lords. Daniel had adjusted them so that every aspect of the siege was covered. Much to Harry’s joy, in the middle of one of the screens sat the portly form of Archie Wakefield.
‘That man,’ Harry cried, jabbing his finger at the peer, ‘can you get closer?’
‘But of course,’ Daniel said. ‘Suzie, would you oblige?’
And further down the van, one of his colleagues made adjustments and an image of Archie came zooming into view that showed every individual eyelash.
‘And do you – please tell me you can do this – do you have recordings from that camera of what’s been happening since the siege began?’
‘We’ve been recording everything.’
‘I need to see what that man was doing at the times when I was in the chamber. Can you do that?’
Daniel sucked the end of his pen thoughtfully. ‘It might take a couple of minutes,’ he warned.
‘Daniel, whatever it takes. Show me those pictures and you can name your price. They’ll put up statues to you at Television Centre for this.’
‘A parking space would be sufficient.’
‘Done!’
‘Ah, a politician’s promise,’ Daniel muttered. ‘The day is clearly returning to normal.’
And as Harry watc
hed, screens started flickering as the images of the previous day flew past at eye-baffling speed. While this was going on, another shadow loomed in the doorway.
‘Tinker at your service, Mr Jones.’ A man with a thick Brummy accent, around sixty years of age and not far off the same number of inches in girth, stepped inside, sniffing the air and wrinkling his nose. Paddy Bell – ‘Tinker’ to all who knew him from his early days – was a doorkeeper in the Palace of Westminster. Like most of the doorkeepers he was ex-military, a former ‘scaly back’ or radio telegraphist in the Royal Signals with a twenty-two-year army career that had taken him through the Falklands and up to the first Gulf War. He was a slow, solid man who now ran an informal investment club that operated amongst some of the palace staff. It was through the club that Harry had got to know him well. It wasn’t that Harry had ever been asked for insider information, particularly not as a Minister, but Tinker kept his ear to the ground and was masterful at interpreting the significance of a raised eyebrow or chewed ministerial cheek. Since he’d been helping run it, the club had been returning close on twenty per cent a year. It was one of Westminster’s most closely guarded secrets.
‘Tinker, thank God you could get here,’ Harry replied in relief. He didn’t bother with introductions.
‘Sorry it took so long, boss. I was expecting the day off.’
‘You may just be about to perform the most valuable day’s service of your life – look!’ Harry waved his finger as the pictures of Wakefield pounding at his head flashed into life.
‘That’s Lord Wakefield, ain’t it?’ Tinker observed. ‘Decent sort of fella, he is. For a hairy-arsed matelot.’
‘A sailor, was he?’
‘A merchant marine sparks. A wireless wally.’
‘Which would explain it!’ Harry declared in triumph.
‘What’s that, boss?’
‘That,’ Harry said, pointing, ‘unless I’m a pig’s arse, is Morse code.’
Tinker leaned over the control desk, breathing heavily and squinting hard. ‘You know, I think you’re bloomin’ right.’
‘So what is it? What’s he saying?’
For a few minutes that seemed to stretch to half of Harry’s lifetime, there was silence, punctuated only by Tinker’s heavy breathing. Then he straightened his back. ‘Well, blow me down,’ he muttered, shaking his head.
‘Report, Yeoman Bell!’
‘Sorry, boss. He’s sending the same thing. Over and over again: “Attention. Believe can deal with bomb. God save the Queen.” ’
Eleven
8.34 a.m.
THE PRINCE OPENED HIS EYES. Much to his dismay, nothing had changed. The wretched world was still out there, waiting to humiliate him. He felt pitiful, almost shamed. He had believed he could have made a proper end of it, like the other Charles, but it had proved to be nothing more than yet another wasted gesture in a worn-out life. He had been humiliated, and not even a stinking terrorist would take him seriously.
He had struggled so hard, yet ‘they’ – those whose respect he so longed for – seemed determined never to accept him. There was never a moment when they didn’t accuse him of arrogance or indulging in double standards. He had devoted himself to the environment, yet they mocked every time he flew. When he wrote to Ministers, entirely privately, to encourage or gently to cajole, they ran to the media to accuse him of meddling. He had spent years building up the estates of the Duchy of Cornwall, transforming them, modernising them, providing jobs, improving the countryside, yet all they could do was sneer that he charged a pound for every slice of ham.
And then there had been the marriage. They’d always sided with her, killed any chance of it ever working, and as good as killed her, too, in the end. Shouldn’t have been like that, any of it. He’d done some bloody stupid things, to be sure, but hadn’t any couple whose marriage was falling apart? Only difference was that other people didn’t get their phones tapped and their servants bribed or have microphones thrust between the sheets. God, it had hurt. And the boys – all that got him through the mess of those years had been his sons, he owed them everything, and perhaps that was why he’d become so emotional about saving the two out there. Pity’s sake, he didn’t want to die, but finding something to die for seemed to be such a whole lot better than having nothing to live for and yet he couldn’t even do that properly. Buggered that up, too. Everything he did ended up being thrown back in his face, just like the guardsman and that snowball. So he closed his eyes and pretended to sleep, crying in his bones and hiding his humiliation.
He was still struggling inside when he felt something touch his wrist. He opened his eyes on to the same wretched, deceitful world and wondered for a moment what had distracted him, until he looked down and saw his mother’s hand resting on his. She was gazing at him in an odd, unfamiliar manner. He didn’t understand it at first but it reminded him of – what? Something, some occasion, a time long ago in their lives that he could no longer fully recall. He closed his eyes, trying to capture the brief-lived images, using the techniques of dream therapy he had mastered to snatch at these fleeting glimpses from the corners of his mind. And slowly they came back to him. Of course! It was perhaps his first memory. Of the coronation. That day when she stopped being his mother and started being his Queen – at least, that’s how he remembered it. She had been so serious, that day, so stern even, until the time when they had gone out on to the palace balcony for the last fly-past and taken the final, impassioned roar from the crowd. He had stood on tiptoe to wave and watch it all. He had been four.
She had put him to bed that evening, had come to tuck him in and say goodnight. Not something she often did. And she had looked down upon him – in just the same way she was looking at him now. She had seemed so serious, hadn’t smiled, but had held his hand and brushed his forehead until his eyes had begun to droop.
‘Remember, Charles, that you and I are like no other mother and son in the whole country.’
‘Because I’m going to be King one day?’
‘Yes, because of that. I fear it will come between us.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it always does. There will always be people getting between us, telling us what to do, even though they have no idea in the world what it is like to be you and me. You and I will always look at the world differently from other people, and only you and I will know it. So remember, my little one, that we may not always be together, but we will always be as one.’ She bent to kiss him. ‘And I will always love you in a very special way.’
He hadn’t remembered her ever coming to tuck him in bed that way again. Yet now her eyes were those of that young woman once more, unguarded, unquestioning, loving without reservation.
She smiled. ‘What you did was the noblest act I have ever seen. But it’s over now, Charles.’
He looked out once more over their troubled world and frowned that most famous frown. ‘For us, it’s never over, Mama.’
8.35 a.m.
‘But how? How the hell’s he going to knock out the bomb?’ Harry exclaimed in exasperation.
‘He doesn’t say,’ Tinker replied.
‘If only we could ask him.’
The silence that consumed them was broken only by the sound of Daniel gulping messily at a slice of cold pizza, muttering an apology as he did so. He picked up a paper napkin to wipe the grease from his chin.
‘You know, we might be able to,’ he said, still sucking at something stuck between his teeth.
‘Might what?’
‘We might be able to ask him. Perhaps we can transmit a bit of Morse back to him, over the screens.’
‘How?’ Harry demanded.
‘Well, sort of . . . digitally block off a small section of the screen. Nothing too big or conspicuous, the sort of thing that a viewer sees when reception gets screwed up. Nothing that the attackers would think was unusual, even if they saw it. Look . . .’ He moved to a seat in front of one of the sets of controls. ‘Give me a moment, it’s been a while
since I’ve touched these things, but . . . something like this?’ He punched a button and a black square suddenly appeared over a small section of the scene from the House of Lords. ‘We just take out the digital signal so the picture in that part of the screen goes to nothing – black. Don’t worry, they can’t see anything in the chamber, this is only for our pleasure at the moment but . . .’ He manipulated a small joystick and the square began to move around the screen. ‘And we can even change the size.’ He grabbed a control like a gear stick and the digital square first waxed, then waned, until it had all but disappeared.
‘But how does that help us?’ Harry enquired cautiously.
‘Oh, sorry. Yes. You see, you can cut it in and out. Like this.’ And the producer began tapping a button that made the square disappear, then reappear. ‘Could even change the shape, if you wanted, make it into a star or snowflake. Whatever you want, actually. But I suspect straight old boring squares is what you need.’
‘You mean, by tapping that button there, it’s like a Morse key. We could make that square talk? And just on those screens in the chamber, not to the outside world?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Danny Boy.’
‘Yes, Mr Jones?’
‘How many parking spaces do you want?’
8.52 a.m. (1.52 p.m. BIOT time).
The ground crew at the airstrip on Diego Garcia had been told to expect a package for onward handling, but the rest of their instructions had convinced them that those issuing the orders couldn’t as usual tell the difference between their elbows and an afterburner. Strip the plane down, they’d been told, junk all the stores and ordinance except for three bags – additional fuel pods – under the wings. What the hell for, they had wondered? Even with the extra fuel it couldn’t go anywhere. The F-18F Super Hornet was a twin-engine fighter-attack aircraft, a forty-million-dollar bundle of the most sophisticated fly-by-wire avionics that the US Navy possessed. It had a normal combat radius of 150 nautical miles; no way was it a delivery wagon.
They’d been given less than an hour to work on the plane. All they knew was that a package was to be strapped into the rear cockpit seat. Perhaps the base commander’s Martinis needed a good shaking. They were astonished when they realised that the package was a passenger, and doubly so when that passenger turned out to be Daud Gul. ‘Gonna shove him out at thirty thousand feet,’ the armourer suggested. ‘Turn her over and just flip the lid.’
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