The Lords' Day (retail) (24 page)

It was these clothes that drew him to the attention of the local constabulary a few streets away and a little while later, and it was the stench of cheap drink that got him arrested. He was
toothless and foul-mouthed, so no one took the slightest notice of his protestations about how he could help them solve a major crime. They just threw him in a cell to wait while he sobered up.

And that was why Bulgakov, the cardinal of the conspiracy, lay in the shadows with his secrets for a little while longer.

1.43 a.m.

‘I can’t let you go back in there again,’ Tibbetts said.

For the past hour Harry had been sitting in the corner of the operations area in New Scotland Yard, sipping coffee, keeping his own counsel. Now he looked up with a cold, concentrated look in
his eye. ‘Mike, you can’t stop me.’

‘But—’

‘He was a whisker away from pulling that trigger, Mike – I could feel it. You know what that’s like?’

‘Glad to say I never got quite that close.’

‘Like falling off a horse. You get right back on and give the bastard a bloody good kicking.’

‘You’ve done enough.’

‘You saved my life in there, Mike.’

‘And you still have sympathy with them?’

‘I
understand
them – and even better now. They will kill again, of that I’m sure. So we know our enemy just a little better.’

‘And fear him even more. All the greater reason for not sending you back in there.’

Harry toyed with his Styrofoam cup, breaking little pieces off the rim and flicking them towards a wastebasket. He missed consistently. ‘There’s something important in all this,
Mike. It’s not simply that you can’t order some other poor sod to take my place and risk getting his balls blown off, not if he’s got wife, family, the works – and Masood
will be supremely suspicious of any new faces. It’s . . .’ He hesitated. ‘It’s about us as a country, a culture. Our self-respect. I’ve got to go back in there to show
that we won’t be cowed, that we’re not running for cover simply because someone waves a gun at us. Hell, if I run, everyone in there will know it. What message will that send to them?
That we’ve abandoned them, put our own safety before theirs, left them – quite literally – for dead?’ He waved his finger at the screen. ‘It could all fall apart in
there, Mike, you know that. Those hostages aren’t battle-trained troops but frightened men and women who came out today to do nothing but celebrate what this country stands for. And right now
we have to remind them what that is, and what they might be dying for.’ He crushed what remained of his plastic cup in a fist and hurled it towards the bin. It hit dead centre. ‘I know
patriotism is an old-fashioned concept, but it’s part of what helps make us who we are. British. Men and women who believe in freedom and fair play – and silly things like crowns and
Christmas and even a little cricket if it’s not raining too hard. We may not do any of it very well any longer but we are still Britons who come from a long line of bloody-minded men who laid
down their lives so that we could close our front door and tell the rest of the world to go fuck themselves when we’ve a mind to. Now, our friend Masood just kicked down that door. I can
understand him as much as I want, but if we let him get away with it we lose not only what made this country great but also what makes it British. We have to get those hostages out, not just for
who they are but for what they represent. They die – and we’ll look back on this as the day our country died with them.’

Tibbetts was looking at Harry with a steady eye, trying to assess this exceptional man who somehow managed to carry a sword and burnished shield even when he was wearing nothing more than
underwear. The policeman’s job had marched him through most of the meaner streets of life where he hadn’t met many men like Harry Jones, and he was sorry for it. ‘So do I take
that as a Doubtful or a Definitely Not?’ Tibbetts said.

‘Always sitting on the fence, that’s me,’ Harry responded, cracking a smile. ‘Only one thing I’m sure of right now,’ he added, rubbing the sore spot on the
back of his neck. ‘I’ve a little unfinished and very personal business with those gentlemen in the Lords.’

1.57 a.m.

The early hours are when minds begin to wander into places they have never been. Magnus sipped slowly from a bottle of water. Nearby, his father feigned sleep, doing battle with
the devils within.

‘Dad?’

With reluctance, John Eaton opened his eyes. ‘Try to get some sleep, son.’

‘No, Dad, I need to ask.’

Deep inside the father gave a cry of anguish. He knew what was coming; it was what he had tried so hard to avoid. He couldn’t look into his son’s eyes.

‘What do I . . . ? How do I . . . ? What should I do? If it comes to it?’

‘It won’t, Magnus, I promise.’

At last he looked into the face of his son and saw that he was not believed.

‘Dad, it’s important. These men mean what they say. So if I have to die, I want to know how to do it properly.’

‘There is no proper way for a man of twenty to die, for God’s sake!’

‘We don’t choose our way, Dad. We just have to deal with it, as best we can. I . . . I want you and Mum to be proud of me.’

Tears were falling into the father’s lap, splashing over his clenched hands. ‘Magnus, there is nothing you could do that would ever stop your mother and I being proud of
you.’

‘But . . . I’m afraid.’

‘We all are.’

‘No, not that. I’m afraid I won’t be able to do the right thing – you know? I don’t want to piss in my pants or anything childish. Haven’t done that since I
was five. You remember? At Auntie Lucy’s when she tickled me that Christmas?’ He was trying to make light of it, his fears tumbling out in silliness, while the father writhed in misery.
He brushed the tears from his face but he was sweating now, too, prickles of fear erupting on his brow. He tried to bury his wretchedness in a handkerchief.

‘Make sure you tell Mum how much I love her.’

‘Tell her yourself!’ The words were spat out between clenched teeth. Eaton refused to accept any of this, wouldn’t discuss it, was angered that his son insisted on continuing
down this road.

‘I love you too, Dad. Very much. I know as a family we don’t do the emotion thing very well, but I think it’s important to say. Now, most of all.’

The father grabbed his son’s hand and held it very firmly. ‘Magnus, it will not come to that. They’ll storm the place before they allow anything like that to happen. They do
drills in this sort of thing all the time. Remember the Iranian embassy – no, of course you won’t, you weren’t even born then, but the SAS are the best in the business. Just
remain alert, be ready to take cover, when the time comes.’

‘Dad, I need your help, this is important. It may be the last thing—’

‘Don’t you dare talk like that! It won’t happen. I’ve given you my word.’

‘That the SAS will come.’

‘Yes!’

‘Just like you said they’d release Daud Gul.’

‘Don’t taunt me!’

‘I’m not taunting you, I’m playing for my life and asking for your help in what to do if it all goes wrong, Dad.’

‘You cannot ask a father such things,’ he moaned, writhing in his seat.

‘OK. Fine. I’ll go and ask Genghis Khan or whatever his bloody name is.’ There was a framework of steel within the young man that had totally eluded his father. They were so
very different; there was no way his father could help, except to resort to words and, if necessary, lies, as was his custom.

‘I promise you, Magnus. I give you my word, as your father. I will do anything.’

‘But you can do nothing.’

‘Trust me!’

And with that, the politician sat back on the bench, using that as an excuse to turn a fraction from his son, hiding his shaking hands beneath his armpits while he prayed for the drink that
would stop him trembling and drive him into the depths of absolute oblivion.

2.10 a.m.

Sopwith-Dane phoned while Harry was toying with a plate of full English that had been brought up from the Scotland Yard canteen. He didn’t know when he would next get to
eat and he needed to restore his energy levels, but it had been a mistake; the plate was cold and greasy by the time it reached him, and to make matters worse he’d just smeared ketchup on the
sleeve of his shirt. Hand-tailored, Turnbull & Asser, Jermyn Street, bloody expensive, but now it looked like a rag. It had been taken off and slung over so many chairs while he stripped to his
underwear that it had lost any remnant of its dignity, and it had also lost one of its cufflinks, a chip of turquoise set in silver that had been a birthday present from Mel. She said they matched
the colour of his eyes. Not any more they didn’t. His eyes were raw and bloodshot. The colour of ketchup. He replaced the cufflink with a bent paper clip.

‘Three hundred years ago they’d have burned you as a witch, Harry, my boy. And bloody good riddance, too, I say. You know, I was on to a very hot date when you turned my world upside
down.’

‘You’re always on to a hot date, Sloppy, which is why you’re already three wives and several small fortunes behind the pace. Still, who am I to shout.’

‘Ah, I sense trouble at the homestead.’

‘Yes. I lost a cufflink.’

The revelation stunned the voluble PR man into momentary silence.

‘You were telling me I should’ve been burned,’ Harry encouraged.

‘Seems your powers of astrological insight were spot on. Someone’s been a clever little shit.’

Harry pushed the grease-covered plate away from him. ‘Tell.’

‘It’s like those bastards in wine bars who always serve you short measures. No one will notice if they’re not too greedy, if they do it little by little, but over time it makes
one hell of a difference. So it seems that someone set up a very substantial number of companies in every imaginable tax haven across the Caribbean and even a couple of companies set up in Shanghai
– ever been there? Wonderful place. You go to sleep, and next morning you find a skyscraper’s been built overnight right outside your window, complete with bicycle racks and thousands
of tiny yellow people running mail order businesses.

‘Sloppy!’ Harry growled in warning.

‘Ah, yes. Well, seems these companies have been set up for no other purposes than to lay a few bets on just such a day as this. Selling everything short. Betting that the Stock Exchange
would take a dive but never placing such sizeable bets as would normally raise the interest of the regulators. Half a mill here, three-quarters there; relatively small change to some of the big
boys. But you place enough small bets and by the time you’ve finished you can stare George Soros in the eye without having to count your buttons. We’re talking tens, perhaps even a
hundred million here, Harry, that’s how much some lucky tart’s made from this little caper. The boys at the FSA are still checking, got a few more brokers’ legs to break, but the
fog is lifting and the battlefield grows clearer.’

‘Well done, Sloppy.’

‘Thank you, dear boy. I feel it’s my lucky night. Why, my hot date might still be waiting for me.’

‘And the name?’

‘Christ, Harry, you’ll be wanting her telephone number next!’

‘Not the girl, you fool, the bloody punter. Mr Little and Large. What’s his name?’

‘Haven’t the slightest. Far too soon to tell.’

‘Then I fear, my dear Sloppy, that the young lady will have to wait. You’ve got a long night ahead.’

‘We’ve already got rather a long night behind us.’

‘I’m sorry, but—’

‘It must be the witch in me, too. I’d rather guessed that’s what you’d say.’

‘Predictable, am I?’

‘Predictable enough for me to have already sent out for doughnuts.’

2.33 a.m.

COBRA. The name conjured up many mysteries for those who had heard it whispered around the corridors of Westminster, like the inner sanctum of the temple whose secrets are known
only to a select few. In fact, the name was a rather dull acronym for the Cabinet Office Briefing Room, a facility located near Henry VIII’s tennis courts at the back of the Privy Council
Office in Whitehall. It had the most modern communications facilities and was supposed to be secure from all types of eavesdropping. If anyone wanted to find out what had gone on, they would have
to wait for the Sunday newspapers like everyone else. If it might loosely be called a war room, it was unlike anything seen in most Hollywood films – no vast screen of the world indicating
where missiles were flying, no rows of military personnel seated behind computer consoles waiting to push buttons. COBRA seemed almost dull by comparison, not much more than a central table around
which ministers and others sat, with advisers and support staff seated behind or in one of the subsidiary rooms. It wasn’t so much a facility for waging war as dealing with national
emergencies like bird flu and fuel strikes. It was more convenient than the Cabinet Room at Number Ten, which had little more than a telephone and an imported television, and it was to COBRA that
Tricia Willcocks had moved her centre of operations. Sitting in the Cabinet Room and waiting on her own had grown oppressive. Anyway, she wanted another whisky and needed a fresh glass.

COBRA wasn’t typically the place where foreign ambassadors were greeted; it was entirely against convention to allow outsiders access, but convention had been buried at around noon the
previous day. When Robert Paine arrived he looked drawn, as though he had aged considerably in the last few hours. He elected not to sit. The informality they had shared in the garden of Downing
Street was gone, and he sensed the meeting would be short. In any event, he found it easier to recite scripted lines while he was on his feet. ‘Home Secretary, I asked for this meeting
because matters are coming to a head. I have just spoken with the White House. It seems that Delta Force is now in a position to provide you with active assistance in this emergency. Conscious of
the need to do everything we can to support such a valuable ally, our troops are ready to proceed directly to Westminster in order to support your own forces. The President is sure this offer of
international assistance will be accepted in the spirit in which it is offered, between two of the oldest allies in the world.’