The Horse at the Gates (11 page)

‘I’ll go.’

‘It’s in my private safe. I’ll be a couple of minutes, tops.’

Ella nodded and summoned Bryce’s press officer to the lectern with a curt hand gesture. ‘Go. Quickly.’

Bryce leaned into the microphone. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, my apologies. Slight hiccup with my documentation. I’ll just be a moment, then we’ll continue.’ He scooped up the intelligence brief and left the room quickly, Ella marching behind him, a buzz of mild confusion trailing in their wake. In the lobby, he paused at the foot of the staircase and turned to Ella. ‘Wait here.’ He took the stairs two at a time, heading towards his private study.

The silver Ford idled in traffic beneath Big Ben, the Victorian tower reaching towards the deepening blue of the evening sky. Ahead, Parliament Square was thronged with hundreds of protestors. A huge inflatable pyramid dominated the square, lit from inside, its steep nylon flanks decorated with pro-Cairo messages, most in English, others in Arabic swirls. Hundreds of flags and banners fluttered in the evening breeze, declaring their support for the treaty, the refugees, the Islamist fighters in Pakistan, the Palestinians in Gaza. Braziers flickered in the half light, illuminating the faces of the people gathered around them. Most were women, heads covered with veils or shrouded in burqas, seeking warmth as the men chanted nearby, their fists raised in unison, their angry voices competing with the hum of the traffic.

The Ford entered the square, the rush hour traffic circling the protestors like Apache Indians surrounding a wagon train. The Ford inched its way across the busy lanes, indicating its intention to turn into Whitehall. The driver slowed just before Downing Street, where a large crowd had gathered outside the black steel gates. They were mostly tourists, attracted by the history, by the steady procession of ministerial cars and the rows of high-tech satellite broadcast vans lining the pavement outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Armed police officers in black body armour and Kevlar helmets eyed the van as the driver stopped for the obligatory security checks. He powered down the window and held up his ID card for inspection, the policeman giving a thumbs-up to an operator behind the bomb-proof glass of the control booth. The anti-vehicle trap was lowered, the black gates swinging open. The driver smiled and drove into Downing Street. He had no reason to fear the security checks or any other inspection, his familiar face and the van with the imposing black crest of the Government Mail Service emblazoned on its sides ensuring a trouble-free passage into the most famous cul-de-sac in the world.

Bryce closed the study door behind him and marched across the floor to the wall safe. Stupid of him, really. He should’ve checked, made sure. Still, he’d only be a moment and the press corps were clearly intrigued by his forthcoming announcement. The safe beeped its approval of the correct code and the door swung open. He extracted the Heathrow dossier, thumbing through the pages to check its contents. Satisfied, he placed the intelligence brief back inside the grey metal womb of the safe and sealed the door.

He swung the Aivazovsky back in place, once again admiring its composition, its vivid colouring. He made a sudden promise to himself: when all this was over, when the country was back on an even keel, he would make time to once again hear the snap of a wind-filled sail, to feel the shifting deck beneath his feet, to taste the salty air on his tongue. No excuses, no postponements. A day out, someday soon, to ride the swell of the sea.

He pushed the painting home, feeling the click of the magnetic catch, then turned to leave the room, the Heathrow dossier clutched in his hand.

Along Downing Street’s narrow confines, shadows deepened and lights began to glow as the warble of evening birdsong competed with the steady throb of the city. Government workers hurried purposefully up and down the cul-desac, the door to Number Ten opening and closing with industrious regularity. A police officer stood guard outside, pistol on his belt, hands behind his back, his boots treading a tiresome path up and down the pavement. The press corps gathered behind steel barriers across the street, camera lenses trained on the Prime Minister’s residence. They chatted quietly, the banter often punctuated by a peal of laughter or the chirp of a cell phone. The silver Ford glided by them all, camouflaged by its banality, a regular fixture in Downing Street’s landscape. It reached the end of the culde-sac, swinging around to face the Chief Whip’s office in Number Twelve before reversing, then heading back up the street. It purred to a halt outside Number Ten, the driver obscured by tinted glass, his lips moving in quiet prayer.

At the top of Downing Street the tourists still gathered behind the security gates, posing for photographs as commuters hurried past them, dodging, weaving, eager to return home after another busy day. Across Parliament Square, the quarter bells of Big Ben heralded the approaching hour as the giant minute hand crept towards its summit. Many people heard the first chime of the great bell, its familiar peal ringing out over London, announcing the hour of six o’clock.

No-one heard the second.

The sudden pulse of white light was brighter than a thousand suns. Microseconds later, a tremendous detonation ripped through the air, the pressure wave punching its way through the walls of Downing Street, through the Cabinet and Foreign Ministry buildings, hurling concrete, metal and flesh before it. Debris was thrown hundreds of feet into the sky, chased by a roiling ball of flame that reached high above the rooftops. Buildings shook and windows and ear drums were blown out for hundreds of yards around. As the earth trembled, a choking cloud of smoke and dust rolled across Whitehall, enveloping everything in a yellow fog, blinding and suffocating as it spilled across the roads and pavements. In the dreaded lull that followed, a rainstorm of twisted steel and stone crashed to earth, showering the streets with deadly wreckage.

Alarm klaxons wailed into life across central London, filling the air with their chilling moan. In Downing Street, an enormous crater, several yards deep and filling rapidly with water from a cracked main, marked the spot where the silver Ford had parked only a moment before. Building facades on both sides of the street had been ripped away, exposing shattered interiors where small fires glowed, and a snowstorm of paper drifted on the dust-filled air.

High above the rooftops, thousands of startled birds wheeled above the carnage in a black, screeching cloud.

Bryce regained consciousness slowly, his vision wavering between darkness and a strange, blurred world he didn’t recognise. He preferred the darkness. It was somehow warmer, more comforting, but a pounding ache in his lower jaw denied him the beckoning shadows. He opened his eyes, slowly, painfully, cuffing away the dust that clogged them. The first things he saw were his hands, black with soot and cut in numerous places. He felt dizzy and nauseous, and everything sounded muffled, as if his ears were blocked. After several confused moments he realised he was lying on his back on the floor of his study. But that was wrong, surely? The ceiling above was scarred and pitted, the crystal chandelier that usually hung from the centre of the room missing, his books scattered around him, covered in dust and filth, competing for space with jagged floorboards and splintered furniture.

He forced himself to inspect the damage more carefully. Plaster had been stripped away from the shattered ceiling, exposing wires and cables that swung lazily like jungle vines. He turned his head. The windows overlooking the garden had been punched out and a gentle breeze swirled dust and soot around the remains of Bryce’s study. Through the blanket of partial deafness he heard the sound of roof tiles slithering and scraping above, then watched them sail past the windows before crashing onto the patio below. And he could smell gas. That wasn’t good. As his ears began to clear his first lucid thought was a gas blast. He tried to move, then realised he couldn’t. He was trapped.

He struggled against a rising tide of fear and forced himself to study his immediate environs. He was surrounded by debris, enclosed by it, his suit covered in dust and blood. He took a deep breath that caught in his lungs and he coughed violently for several moments. He tried another, the ache in his chest signifying some sort of internal injury. He moved his arms slowly, shrugging off the plaster and pieces of timber until he could move his upper body freely. He ran his hands over his torso, probing carefully until he winced. A broken rib, perhaps two, on his right side. He moved his right leg, drawing his knee up. No pain, good, thanks no doubt to the heavy desk that partly shielded his body. His other leg wouldn’t move, trapped beneath a jumble of debris. He pulled weakly at his trouser leg but the limb was well and truly wedged. He noticed a large beam close by, lying parallel to his body, a heavy steel one, covered in thick black soot. Another few feet and he wouldn’t be breathing at all, that was for sure. The ache in his face persisted and he found his jaw, feeling carefully for damage. His fingers came away slick with blood. He turned and spat several times, trying to clear the dust and blood from his mouth. He probed his gums, his tongue slipping between the gaps where his teeth had been a short time ago. No wonder his whole head was splitting in pain. Bryce’s mind reeled as he tried to piece together the last few moments. He remembered hurrying back to the study, to retrieve the Heathrow dossier. Then he’d turned to leave when–