Seventy-Two Virgins (34 page)

Oh Lord, thought Roger Barlow. The old bat’s going to get herself killed, or at least she’s going to get someone killed.

There were quite a few who seemed to agree. A neighbour tugged at her sleeve. ‘Sit down, Elspeth,’ hissed another.

‘I will not sit down,’ said the battleaxe. ‘It’s perfectly obvious they are relying on us to behave like sheep, and I’m afraid I don’t see why I should oblige.’

On the roof Jason Pickel was being given a swift and sketchy tutorial in the use of a rhino tranquillizer gun.

‘But the President’s left the room, and the freaking mother’s gone with him. What am I supposed to do ‘n’ all?’

‘It’s all right, Pickel: you go back down and wait for them to come out again.’ Ricasoli was hanging on to a rope ladder which was hanging from the Black Hawk, bucking in the air, and the captain was green with fear. Above them the skies were gravid with monsoon, and the whole thing was like a bad scene from America’s Indo-Chinese nightmare.

‘What if they don’t come out again?’

Ricasoli didn’t know the answer to that one. ‘They will, Pickel, they will.’

The burly sniper blinked his gingery lashes. ‘Whyn’t I abseil down into the hall, sneak into the room where he’s being held, and try to save him that way? It might be our only chance.’ He was thinking: it might be my only chance.

‘No, Pickel,’ said Ricasoli. ‘You do as you’re told. You’re the man, Pickel,’ said the quivering captain, knowing it was time to big up his subordinate. ‘You’re the best damn shot in the whole goddamn army.’

‘Watch this,’ said Pickel. And before Ricasoli could object, he picked out a leprous Victorian gryphon, ulcerated by acid rain, crouched on the roof 150 feet away. He pulled the trigger and the gryphon’s head exploded. ‘Clean through the eye,’ said Pickel, disappearing again through the hatch. Freaking Brits could pay for it.

‘And I speak up,’ continued Old Ironpants, the moralizing peeress, ‘because I believe we have sat through one of the most ill-judged speeches ever to have been uttered in this chamber.’

There were several strong expressions of assent. ‘Hear, hear,’ exploded Sir Perry Grainger, and others.

‘I think it pretty disgraceful, when our country is after all playing host to the President of the United States, that anyone should stand up and say anything which could be construed as supportive of those who were preparing to murder him, and indeed us.’

‘Hear, hear.’ Sir Perry was on his feet clapping wildly, as were some others. Roger turned to Chester de Peverill and gave a shrug, as if to say, you can’t win them all.

De Peverill also shrugged. What did he care? He needed controversy, and as his marketing people never ceased to remind him, the old bag’s generation were not commercially important. They weren’t the ones with the disposable income to buy his ‘Ripper Tucker’ © TV cassoulet, yours for £5.99 each.

‘I was only trying to be diplomatic,’ he grumbled. ‘Read the books. You should never confront these guys.’

‘All right, lady, all right, lady,’ said Benedicte. She admired Lady Hovell’s gumption, but it was time to show who was boss. ‘Lady be quiet now or else some bad thing is going to happen, right away.’

‘I will certainly not be quiet,’ said Lady Hovell. At the very top of the hall, behind their railing, the inspissated holders of Britain’s ancient courtly offices were beginning to stir. There was something in the Agincourt spirit of Old Ironpants that sent the sap rising in their limbs, as the xylem and phloem can pump unexpectedly in a half-dead oak.

‘You know what?’ said Silver Stick to the Earl Marshal. ‘She’s bloody right. If we all just charge her now while her back’s turned …’ He glanced across at Black Rod, and he could see the light of battle in his eyes, too.

Behind them the pikes and halberds quivered, as the spirit of these objects collectively remembered their roles in battles gone by. The Earl Marshal groaned. ‘But then they’ll just set off their bombs,’ he pointed at Habib and Haroun. ‘And the other chap is bound to kill the President.’

‘Oh all right,’ said Silver Stick. ‘Have it your way. Let’s all just hang around and wait to die.’ He sounded bitter, but he had to admit that the Earl Marshal had a point.

CHAPTER FIFTY

1058 HRS

As a TV spectacle, the events in Westminster Hall had lost some of their appalling fascination, after the departure of the President and Jones the Bomb. No one was really sure who the lady peeress was, though quite a few watchers agreed vehemently with what she said. The TV networks responded magnificently, however, to the shortage of more decent pictures of the President being humiliated.

At quite senior level in the BBC, it was decided they could cut away from the live coverage of Chester de Peverill and Old Ironpants. To the joy and distress of billions — still replicating at a Maithusian rate — they showed, again and again, the money shot of Jones clobbering the leader of the free world over the back of his head. They showed Jones firing at the Dutchman; they showed him holding up the enigmatic turd object that had dropped from the roof, while the President looked dumbly on.

The media hysteria had now reached levels not seen since the death of the Princess of Wales in 1997. And in fact the response was more hysterical because it was a running story, a breaking story, of unguessable consequences whose end could not be foretold.

Radio programmes of all kinds were being interrupted with the news that, ‘the President of the United States, senior members of the Government, and hundreds of others, are being held hostage at Westminster. A group calling itself the Brotherhood of the Two Mosques is demanding the release of all the remaining prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay. At least one person is believed to have been killed by the terrorists who are threatening to detonate suicide bombs. The Prime Minister has called for calm. We go live now to Westminster.’

And the news from the voting was still bad for America, though not as bad as it had seemed at first. Some countries, such as Saudi Arabia were reporting almost 100 per cent insistence that the prisoners be sent home. But there were odd pockets of support for the President. He might have thought that Russia, after her humiliation in the Cold War, would take the chance to put her boot on the neck of the old adversary. But no, the Russians had their problems in Chechnya. They took a dim view of Islamic terror. Maybe there was some kind of fiddling of the figures by the oligarchs who ran the TV stations (and who were mainly, as some lost no time in pointing out, of Jewish origin), but it seemed that Russia, one of the most populous countries in the world, was voting heavily for America.

‘We can put it out,’ said the Director of Political Editorial, coming down to the BBC newsroom like Moses from Sinai.

‘They just green-lighted it. We can report the aggregate polling figures.’

The BBC had decided that since the information was out on the net, and since all other channels were already crunching the numbers, they might as well go ahead. With elaborate editorial throat clearing and issuing of health warnings, they did the work of Jones the Bomb.

They broadcast the news that of people calling TV channels to express a preference, 58 per cent now believed that the American President should release the Guantanamo prisoners.

Jones was almost incontinent with pleasure. He cachinnated like a gibbon, as the figure was flashed on the screen. ‘You see, you see,’ he cried, doing a little dance, which the poor President was obliged to echo. They were standing in room W6 watching the television. It was a small, poky windowless room, with a nondescript conference table and the chairs and carpets in parliamentary green. Cameron and Adam were standing behind them, he looking calm, she preparing herself to interrogate him further.

‘So go on then,’ gibbered Jones, thrusting his face close to the President. ‘You have seen the verdict of the world. The majority is clear. This time there are no hanging chads and stuffed ballot boxes, like you have in Florida. What do you say?’

‘Well,’ said the President, ‘well.’

It was dawning on him that he might have to take a decision. Alone, shackled to a lunatic, with three other weirdos, besieged in some dungeon-like meeting room of the British Parliament, with no one to advise him but the blurting television, he was being called upon to make a choice of enormous moral and political implications. For the first time in his career, he was deprived of the jowly counsel of the businessmen who formed the upper reaches of his administration. ‘Well, buddy,’ he said, ‘I think we should wait and see.

You say the verdict is clear, but I notice that the numbers have been changing a little. According to this fellow here,’ he gestured at the BBC with his free hand, ‘it’s come down from 61 per cent to 58 per cent.’

‘Coward!’ yapped Jones. ‘You do not even have the courage to do what the world wants you to do. We are the voice of the people of the earth. The poor people. The people that America abuses and insults and tortures. We are asking for one small thing. You do not have to give our comrades a Presidential pardon. We do not even say that they are all entirely innocent of crime. We only say they must be brought to trial in a country where they can receive a fair trial. Give the order, Mr President.’

Silence for a second. The noise of the helicopter, more muffled than in the main hall. Another crash, as though another tile had come off the roof. Then a mysterious vibration, as though the whole building were starting to shiver and purr like an ancient cat in its sleep. It was rain, falling on the roof, as a sudden drop in temperature released the thousands of gallons the heat had been holding in the sky.

‘No, sir, I can’t do that just yet.’

‘Give the order and you will go free. But if you fail to accept the verdict of the people, then it will be my pleasure and honour to kill you, even if I lose my own life.’

The President narrowed his eyes and looked again at the screen. The fellow seemed serious. Must be to do what he’d already done. The President didn’t want to die, not at all, not for the sake of the Guantanamo prisoners. His brain revolved, not normally the fastest process known to nature, but now accelerated by adrenalin.

He could pretend to capitulate and give the order, and then double-cross Jones the Bomb. But no, then people would think he was weak, and in any event, the terrorists might kill him anyway. But if he did nothing, people would also think he was passive and powerless.

‘Mr Jones, sir.’ It was Dean, putting his hand up to speak. Cameron watched him closely. ‘Mr Jones, I think we’ve done enough now: can we stop?’

Again and again Dean saw the mysterious round weapon drop from the roof. In his imagination it portended the inevitable retaliation of the superpower and its lieutenants. He saw men with guns dropping from the ceiling on ropes. Violent men, who shot without questions, and then kicked their corpses.

‘What do you mean, stop?’ said Jones impatiently.

‘Well, I think we’ve made our point.’

Jones glanced at the President and the others, as though to confirm that they had heard this impertinence. ‘Dean,’ he said in his softest and most murderous tones. ‘Shut up.’

‘They’re going to kill us, Mr Jones, and they’ll never let us out of here alive.’ Dean was aware that this was a paradoxical complaint, given what he had nominally undertaken to do.

‘But we’ve discussed this.’

‘I’ve been thinking, and I agree with yow, Mr Jones, sir. I agree with yow about everything, but I’m not sure .

‘You’re not sure what?’

‘I’m not sure that I, like, really want to die.’

‘Assuredly, Dean, if we die, angels will accompany us to our rest, and we will lay our heads on pillowy bowers, and we will live in the tabernacle of the blessed, where no rain falls, neither is there any snow, and the warm breezes play…’

Dean shouted: ‘I don’t care. Anyway, I like snow.’ For the first time that day Jones the Bomb looked taken aback. It was if a snake had been hypnotizing a rabbit and the rabbit had suddenly stuck its tongue out.

He glared. Dean bit his lower lip. He had been on the wrong side of the law before. Ever since the cremation of the neighbouring cheese laboratory, he had felt a fugitive, an alien, but never had he felt so lost in a jungle of fear, and now the great white hunters were coming for him, and he was among the rabid beasts that must be put down. Cameron stood up and moved towards him.

Dean resumed. ‘I’m just saying that I wanna …’

‘You want to surrender? Will you do nothing to help our brothers who are fighting and dying in Palestine?’

‘Well, I think I have helped you know, so I honestly think we’ve done our bit.’

‘Do you want to give into this world of pornography and decadence, and the abuse of womankind…?’

‘And freedom and democracy and the rule of law,’ said the President.

‘Quiet,’ said Jones the Bomb, yanking his chain. ‘Dean,’ said Jones, ‘you took a holy oath that you would join the ranks of the Shahid, that you would be a martyr.’ On the way down the corridor to room W6, Dean had looked quickly out of one of the leaded windows. He saw that the crowd was being dispersed from Parliament Square, and that the men in blue were being joined by men in green.

‘Listen, mister,’ said Cameron. ‘I think he made it pretty clear that he doesn’t want to be a suicide bomber.’

‘What is it to you, woman?’

‘Don’t you woman me.’

‘Adam,’ snapped Jones at Dr Swallow, who stared levelly back. ‘She is your responsibility; kindly take charge of her.’

‘No one takes responsibility for me,’ said Cameron.

‘Yeah, Mr Jones, sir,’ said the President. ‘Welcome to Western civilization, buddy. Get with the programme.’

‘Hold your tongues the lot of you.’ He shoved his automatic into the President’s temple so hard that he winced. Then Jones pulled the gun away and pointed it at Cameron and then at Dean. There was a silence.

‘Well,’ said Cameron to Adam. ‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’

‘There’s nothing I can say,’ he told the girl he loved.

‘I’ve been a fool, and I’ve been cheated. Cameron, I’m sorry.’