The House of Cards Complete Trilogy (111 page)

“Even so, there are so many political complications. I must ask for a little more time for preparation.” He looked around the other members of the War Cabinet seeking support. The Defense Secretary was shuffling his briefing papers, about to join in.

“No!” Urquhart’s hand banged down on the Cabinet table. “You’re asking to give the bloody Bishop more time. Time in which he will strengthen his position and raise the costs for us all…”

Let alone increase the chances of Mortima’s letter falling into the wrong hands.

“But there are logistical problems, too. We can’t afford to rush in blind,” Youngblood protested.

Urquhart looked around the table at COBRA, the Cabinet subcommittee gathered together to handle “Operation Defrock,” as Urquhart had called it. Apart from Youngblood there sat Bollingbroke as Foreign Secretary, the Defense Secretary, the Attorney General (to pronounce on legal requirements), and the Party Chairman to help with presentation and the selling of a great victory. The defense chiefs had muttered objections to the inclusion of the Party Chairman, afraid that it would make the matter seem all too party political a fortnight before polling day. How right they were.

Booza-Pitt had asked to be included, practically begged. For however long it lasted this exercise was going to be at the top of the news and he wanted to be there with it. He’d left a pleading message with Urquhart’s private office, insisting that as head of one of the three great departments of state his input and inclusion were vital. But it was a busy day; Urquhart hadn’t even bothered to reply. “Life is destined to be so full of disappointments for the boy,” he’d ventured to his private secretary. But at least Booza-Pitt wasn’t a man of faint heart, unlike some. Urquhart stared directly at the General.

“These logistical problems. What form do they take?”

Youngblood drew breath. “Since the rather lurid reports were published of the Foreign Secretary’s discussions in Europe”—Youngblood cast a reproachful look across the table, determined that blame should be shifted onto political shoulders—“elements of the Cypriot community have treated our preparations as tantamount to a declaration of war. My local commander in Cyprus tells me of a considerable increase in public hostility. It has made any initiative we might take considerably more complicated.”

“And will grow more complicated the longer we leave it.”

“But at this stage there are too many imponderables. I cannot guarantee success.”

“You cannot guarantee that the British Army can whip a bloody bishop?” Urquhart could scarcely contain his derision.

“Success in my opinion is achieving our objectives without unnecessary loss of life.”

“And it is delay that threatens disaster. Timing, timing, timing, General. For God’s sake, the Presidential Lodge is barely twenty miles along good roads from our base at Akrotiri. We could be there before your tea’s had time to grow cold.”

“But…”

“Are there armed men waiting at the gates of Akrotiri to intercept our convoy? Is that what you are afraid of?”

“There is a blockade…”

“No, General. No more excuses. The time has come.” Without taking his eyes off the military man, Urquhart had reached for the red phone that sat in front of him on the Cabinet table and raised it to his ear.

“Give me Air Marshal Rae.”

“Prime Minister!” Youngblood protested in puce. “The chain of military command and communication goes through me. We cannot have politicians interfering in a military operation and…”

“General, you’ve already insisted that this is a political operation as well as a military one. Are you trying to deny the Prime Minister the right to discuss matters with the local commander?”

Youngblood stared back defiantly but held silence, uncertain of his ground. Air Vice-Marshal Rae was not only the Commander, British Forces Cyprus, but had a further role as the Administrator of the Sovereign Base Areas, effectively the political governor of the British territories. Two hats. But which was he wearing at this moment…? While Youngblood pondered several centuries of constitutional etiquette and precedent, the communications chain of command that ran through operational headquarters at Northwood and onward via satellite above the Sahara had worked without flaw; within seconds Urquhart was linked with the Commander/Administrator in Episkopi at the heart of the Akrotiri base.

“Air Marshal Rae, this is the Prime Minister. I’m talking from the Cabinet Room. I understand your base is under some form of blockade.”

He paused while he listened.

“I see. There are two hundred women at the gates blockading it with prams and babies’ strollers.” The glance he shot at Youngblood was like a viper’s tongue. “In your opinion, would breaking through that blockade of prams constitute a threat to the lives of British servicemen?”

A pause.

“I thought not. That being the case, Air Marshal, my orders to you are to cordon off the Presidential Lodge. Make sure that the Bishop and the hostages cannot get out, and no one else can get in. I want it sealed tight. That is to be done immediately. You are then to wait for further instructions. Is that clear?”

Urquhart turned his attention to those in the Cabinet Room. “Gentlemen, are we in agreement?”

All eyes were turned to Youngblood. Now that the orders had been issued, to dispute them would be professional suicide. He would have no choice but to resign. And, as Urquhart knew, he was not a rash man, likely to jump to precipitate action. The General found something of consuming interest to study among the papers in front of him.

***

The news cameraman knew the moment was at hand from the increased level of noise, of shouted commands, of stamping feet and revving engines that had been coming from behind the wire and outbuildings at Episkopi all through the night. He could sense rather than see a change in the activity around the gates, a quickening of pace behind the rolls of razor wire, a sharpness in the reflex, like a lumbering sumo wrestler about to hurl himself at his opponent. The women sensed the change, too, calling to their children, hugging them more closely than ever, reassuring each other even while their eyes spoke of anxiety and danger. Keep together, they whispered. Success through solidarity. And they had chained and tied the collection of prams and strollers together such that it would take an hour to untangle them all.

But “Stinger” Rae did not have an hour.

The first sign of movement came soon after dawn from two olive-painted vehicles that drove up rapidly until a squeal of brakes brought them to a halt only inches from the gates. Several of the women at the front of the demonstration stood in order to gain a clearer view; they were the first to be hit and sent sprawling by the powerful water jets of the fire tenders. The vehicles were not specifically built for riot control, the nozzles of their hoses not set for maximum force, but nevertheless the impact of these “gentle persuaders,” as Rae’s press officer would later term them, was devastating. Within less than a minute the demonstration in front of the gates had been washed away in a flood of children’s screams. Even as they sobbed in the rushing gutters and on the grass verges around the gateway, teams of servicemen ran into action. The first removed the razor wire, dragging it roughly to one side, another team of medics fanned out among the women and their infants to minister to the minor injuries, abrasions, and bruises that had been inflicted and the vapors thereby caused. Hot coffee and milk were already at hand. A third team of military policewomen scoured through the overturned and waterlogged baby vehicles to ensure that they were all empty. One sleeping infant was lifted from a stroller and handed to his dazed mother sitting on the grass verge. Then the all clear was pronounced.

With a grumble of diesel engines, a long snake of vehicles came into view, headed by a phalanx of four-ton trucks. They hit the jumble of baby carriages at a good thirty, and left them crushed flat beneath the tires. They were followed by ambulances, Land Rovers, a signals truck, and more four-tonners, carving through the barricade like a sleigh through fresh snow. They left behind them the tears of children and the sight of sobbing women picking over the wreckage, just in case. They also left behind them a delighted news cameraman.

They took the main road into the hills, past the dam, until their progress was slowed by the serpentlike curving of the black tar as it wound its way through the pine forests. The air was noticeably cooler; the drivers could smell the pine resin even inside their cabs as they crashed their way down through the gears. They encountered no opposition. Fifty-three men in all, led by a Lieutenant Colonel Rufus St. Aubyn, which included the assault force, four specialist signals operators, a squad of diversionary troops, and medics. Just in case.

In two hours they were there. Turning off the main road beneath the gaze of the huge golf ball radar domes that dominated the highest points, dropping down a gorge strewn with the tall, mastlike trunks of pines. At the top of the gorge they left two men and a roll of razor wire, more than enough to secure the narrow entryway. At the lowest point, where the road rejoins the main highway, they did the same. And in between on a carpet of pine kernels but out of sight of the green metal roof of the Lodge, the remainder of the troops scurried around to spy out the land and secure their communications.

Within four hours it was done.

***

That evening Makepeace, with Maria at his side, held a rally to the south of the pottery town of Stoke-on-Trent. Five days had passed since the start of the Long March and it had come to a crucial phase. The novelty was gone, and so had many of the hangers-on, particularly those who were there to gawp or to disrupt, perhaps, the type that gathers to stare as a man stands on a ledge and threatens to jump. In Makepeace’s case he had jumped and they’d been interested solely in the gruesome result. Yet he had disappointed them. He’d bounced.

Most who still walked with Makepeace were now intent on the same purpose of protest. None but a handful had followed him all the way, but many came to walk for a day, more for an hour or a mile, pushing children, carrying banners, cheerfully accepting the hospitality provided along the way by mobile kebab shops and local Greek businesses. Yet day by day the numbers had visibly diminished. The efforts of those distributing the leaflets ahead of their progress were tireless, their determination unbowed, yet there was a limit to the amount of coverage the media would give to an endless, uneventful march, and the promotional push of television news had begun to wane. Until today.

In modern warfare the greatest obstacle to military success is often not the muzzle of an adversary’s gun but the lens of a camera. The scenes of women cradling babies in arms being set upon by jets of British Army water that spouted like flamethrowers dominated the lunchtime news. They were excellent action pictures that puzzled and upset many viewers; great adventures in distant lands were made of victories over panzer divisions or darkened fuzzy-wuzzies, not defenseless children. The military vehicles scythed through baby carriages like wolves through a Siberian village, leaving devastation, tears, and much anger in their wake.

And so by that Friday evening Makepeace had found new recruits to his cause. Greek Cypriots, who gathered in larger number and with still greater determination than before. Those whose politics were inspired by a European ideal came too, offended by Bollingbroke. There were pacifists aplenty, waving “Make Peace” slogans, along with those who did not regard themselves as being political but whose sense of the balance of decency had been upset by the news pictures. There were banners, speeches, babies in arms, an impromptu concert of folk songs, and a display of Cypriot dancing that carried with it a sense of renewed commitment for the cause of the Long March.

At dusk in a park they sang, joined hands, shared; they held up a thousand flickering candles whose light turned the park into a field of diamonds, jewels of hope that adorned their faces and their spirits. Before them, on a makeshift stage beneath the limbs of a great English oak, Makepeace addressed his followers and, beyond them, a nation.

“We have set out, as has a convoy in a place faraway yet a place close to all our hearts today, called Cyprus. But our intent could not be more different. Where they threaten war, we talk of peace. Where they brush aside babes in arms, we open our arms to all. Where they believe the answer lies in the strength of military force, we believe the answer lies in our conjoined and peaceful sense of purpose. And where they do the bidding of Francis Urquhart, we say, ‘No! Not now, not tomorrow, not ever again!’”

And many who were watching on television or listening to his words on radio resolved to join him.

***

Passolides watched the events unfolding on his television screen, feeling more deserted than ever. His soul boiled at the sight of women and children under fire from British Tommies, being cut down, cast aside, just in the manner he thought he remembered through the mists of time, mists that had been thickened with romantic tales of suffering until they obscured the truth. Memory and emotion play tricks on old men.

He sat alone in his deserted and ruined restaurant, the Webley in front of him in case the wreckers returned, watching Makepeace. For many Cypriots the Englishman was growing as a hero, a latter-day Byron, but this was not a view shared by Passolides. The man had taken his only daughter, had taken her in flesh and away from him. Not asked, not in the Greek way, simply taken. As the English had always taken. And who the hell was this Englishman to claim the mantle of honor borne so bravely by George and Eurypides and hundreds of others—a mantle that, but for cruel fate, should also have been Evanghelos’s own?

So he drank, and spat at the name of Makepeace, even as he grew to hate Francis Urquhart the more.

Then he heard them outside, scratching at the temporary plywood sheeting that covered the damage, kicking at the remaining traces of glass, snickering. They were back! With a roar the old man made for the door, flung it open and threw himself into the street. He found not men with sledgehammers but three youths, obviously the worse for drink, spraying graffiti.