The Lords' Day (retail) (11 page)

‘Now we see if your theories stand up,’ the policeman muttered.

‘You have any doubts – after that?’ Harry pointed to one of the screens where the body of Marjie Antrobus lay draped across the steps in front of the throne.

Slowly, sorrowfully, the policeman shook his head.

There is a special quality to the silence that follows an outrage, when no breath is drawn and the world misses a beat. It’s like a tear in the curtain of time, where incredulity smothers
the first sparks of understanding. But it doesn’t last long, particularly in the City of London. The market traders who sat at their desks couldn’t hear the echo of the gunshot that
killed the Education Secretary, but no sooner had it died away than a strange fever began to spread across the trading floors. These floors were often the size of football pitches on to which were
packed hundreds of young, edgy men and women. A sound began somewhere – no one could tell from precisely what point – and suddenly heads were up, like meerkats sniffing for danger. The
noise level began to grow and spread, suddenly the screens that dominated every desk began to flash with red alarms, the open lines that linked them directly to brokers began to scream in unison,
and in a single breath it seemed as if everyone was on their feet shouting into several telephones at once, selling equities, derivatives, money market instruments, and sterling, trying to find
shelter from the storm. This wasn’t yet 9/11, but it might develop into that; indeed, there was already the suspicion that it might be something worse. Soon the markets were tumbling downhill
like an avalanche, sweeping everyone before it.

In newsrooms, too, they weren’t waiting. The press began a rush to speculation that would grow increasingly lurid with the hours. After all, what was the point in a newspaper reporting
news when the BBC had already carried it live and in devastating colour? Almost immediately the speculation was mixed with condemnation, not just of the attackers but also of those who had made
their assault possible. The police, the security services and, of course, the politicians. Particularly the politicians, except for Marjie Antrobus, of course, who was already well on her way to
sainthood in the view of her obituarists.

Across the country, word spread like leaves scattered by an autumn wind. Housewives watching television called husbands, who spoke to secretaries, who telephoned boyfriends and mothers. Workers
returned from the john or sandwich shop to spread the news around the shop floor. Television screens in supermarkets, high streets, pubs, front parlours, main railway stations, even betting shops,
were tuned to one programme. Across the country, lunch engagements and business appointments were cancelled, hair dressers were kept waiting, taxis failed to arrive, congestion in city centres
began to grow as drivers missed lights or stopped to listen. It was like an eclipse of the sun. An entire nation stood still, in darkness, waiting.

12.28 p.m.

Masood, still standing over the body of his victim, waved his weapon above his head. ‘I hope I have your attention. You will listen, very carefully.’

He looked directly at Eaton, who tried his best to return the stare but it wasn’t easy. Inside him a million conflicting emotions were tumbling over each other; fear, shock, astonishment,
cruel incomprehension, the overwhelming desire to crawl away and hide. Yet he, of all people, was supposed to rise above adversity and somehow find a resolution. The attention of those around him
was fixed on the young gunmen yet, at the same time, the Prime Minister knew they were also looking at him, expectantly, demanding that he do something. Without even realising what he was doing, he
rose in his seat.

‘Why? Why?’ he demanded, breathless with emotion, pointing at the body. ‘She was nothing but an innocent woman.’

‘This is a world of many martyrs, Prime Minister. The graveyards of my homeland are full of them. Put there by your bombers and your guns, at your instruction.’

‘Which is your homeland? What are we talking about? Iraq? Afghanistan? Pakistan?’

‘Yes, all those. And many others. Wherever the British government and their American allies have meddled and murdered, all such places we regard as our homeland.’

‘But what had she got to do with any of this?’

‘She was part of it. Part of your rotten system, your democracy’ – he made it sound like a curse – ‘that has spread terror throughout my people.’

‘She was innocent,’ the Prime Minister insisted, his voice bubbling with grief.

‘Oh, come, Mr Eaton, let’s not debate your warped sense of innocence, nor your ideas of freedom and liberation that have piled the bodies of my people higher than the surrounding
hills. Why waste time? You have only twenty-four hours left.’

‘I . . . don’t understand.’

In the Ops Room at New Scotland Yard, Harry stiffened. He knew what was coming.

‘Daud Gul,’ he heard the gunman say. ‘Release him. Within twenty-four hours. By noon tomorrow.’

‘So, you were right, Harry,’ Tibbetts said softly. ‘Hit it right on the bloody nail.’

‘I so wish I wasn’t,’ Harry replied.

‘You see, I am a reasonable man,’ Masood was continuing. ‘I make no impossible demand. I even give you time to make your arrangements. More time than your
bombers gave my parents and brothers and sisters, Mr Eaton. I want to do a deal. You have my leader. And I have you. We can arrange a swap, a fair exchange. You release him within twenty-four
hours.’

‘Or?’

‘
Or?
Isn’t it clear? Release him, or the hostages here will start to die. Perhaps you, Mr Eaton. Or perhaps your Queen. Perhaps everyone here. We shall see.
Inshallah
.’

‘We don’t deal with terrorists!’

‘But in my country,
you
are the terrorists.’

‘Ridiculous!’

‘Have you forgotten your own history? You sent in your troops to teach us to fight the Russians, then the Taliban, and after that you came looking for bin Laden. And after you arrived,
your enemies sent in their killers, too. We asked for none of this, yet because of you, and all the others, we became targets. And when your plans to wipe out all your enemies didn’t work,
when you found it too hot on the ground, you sent us your bombers, you and your American friends. And in the sights of the bombers, every village became an al-Qaeda stronghold, every roof a Taliban
hideout. And you devastated my land, Mr Eaton.’

‘We have never deliberately attacked civilians, but in war, mistakes are sometimes made. It’s a messy business.’

‘And you are soon to find out just how messy it can be.’

‘We only ever wanted to get rid of the Islamics and the fanatics; they are your real enemy.’

‘We would have been content to deal with them by ourselves, in our own way, as we have always done. We know how to deal with invaders and intruders. But you sent in the bombers.’

They were American bombers, but Eaton didn’t think he was in much of a position to draw semantic distinctions.

‘Your bombers brought us death, Mr Eaton. They broke our women, our children, our villages. And when we crawled out from under the rubble to bury our dead, you sent the bombers back to
strip the meagre plots of land that the mountains give us to grow crops. You tried to starve us into submission.’

‘Not you – the Islamics!’ Eaton protested.

‘You see Mukhtar there?’ Masood said, pointing to a colleague. ‘Your bombers murdered his crippled mother in her bed. He had nursed her for three years, but did you stop for
one moment to ask if she was a zealot?’

The Prime Minister blinked, unable to hold Masood’s eye. ‘Why are you here?’ he muttered.

‘Ghulam’ – Masood indicated one of the others – ‘he is here because in one of your raids you hit a home in which his father was having dinner with three of his
brothers. After the smoke had cleared, they found only small bits of those who had been inside. The next day, his mother threw herself to her death in a ravine. And Jehanzeb over there, he is here
because three of his brothers fell into the hands of the Taliban. They were tortured because it was thought they had co-operated with you, and the Taliban do not shrink from their task, Mr Eaton, I
assure you. When at last two of them had their throats slit and their heads cut from their bodies, it was said they cried out with relief. That is what the third brother told us, when at last they
let him go.’

‘And you?’ Eaton whispered.

Masood raised his palms; they were pale, much softer than the rest of him. His voice grew very quiet. ‘I pulled my wife’s body from beneath the rubble with my own hands. The bombs
had hit her so cruelly that at first I couldn’t recognise her. I only knew it was she when I found the body of my baby son beneath her. She had been trying to protect him.’

‘I am sorry,’ Eaton said in despair.

‘I think you will be.’

‘I wish—’

‘Yes, I’m sure you do. So you will give us Daud Gul.’

‘How can I do that? What do you expect while I am held prisoner? I can do nothing while I’m here.’

‘Of course you can. Look!’ Masood exclaimed, pointing at the screens. ‘The entire country is watching, perhaps the whole world. All you have to do is to give the order and the
matter is done.’

Eaton looked up and found himself staring at a picture of the scene given by a camera in the distant public gallery. He felt like a puppet on a stage, looking so small and insignificant.
‘No one will listen to the word of a prisoner given under duress,’ he insisted.

Masood’s eyes grew darker. ‘And all of a sudden you sound like a campaigner for human rights,’ he mocked.

‘But what you ask is impossible.’

‘Then, because of you, in a little
less
than twenty-four hours now, someone will die.’ He turned towards Magnus and William-Henry. ‘No, not just someone. Allow me to
bring the reality of occupation and terror home to you, Mr Eaton. If Daud Gul is not released, we will start with your son. This time tomorrow he will die. And alongside him, the son of the
American President.’ He laughed, a cold, dry sound as he stared into the eyes of Eaton and saw the volcanic rush of fear. ‘Welcome to the occupation, Prime Minister.’

12.35 p.m.

Tibbetts stood frozen as he stared at the screen. ‘You dream about things,’ he whispered. ‘Nightmares. When it’s just you against the Devil and you have
nowhere to hide. But I never thought it would come to this.’

‘You’re not alone, Mike,’ Harry responded.

‘It’s my decision, and mine alone, whether we send armed units in there right now and get the siege over and done with.’

‘I don’t envy you, my friend.’

‘What to do, Harry?’ the policeman asked, tearing himself away from the screen.

‘Me – I’d get some help. It’s too big for you to go in there unprepared.’

‘But if I delay, hesitate even for a few minutes, it might only get worse.’

Tibbetts was a man who typically didn’t rush things; in his spare time he bred budgerigars, and like every part of nature the birds did things in their own time, nesting, mating, breeding,
and dying, too. The police commander was used to being patient, but this situation screamed for Executive Action, sending in his armed officers to storm the place before anything worse happened.
Yet if they did that, they would never know if there might have been a better, less bloody way.

‘You think we should negotiate, Harry?’

‘Sure. Talk as much as you want. But when the talking’s all done with, get ready to blow Masood and his chums apart. And to do that, you’ll need help.’

Tibbetts knew what Harry was suggesting: sending for the SAS. The stuff of heroics and blood, everything that went against his instincts. That wasn’t why he had joined the force. ‘Is
there no peaceful way out?’ he asked.

Harry shook his head.

‘You seem quite certain about these men.’

‘I am.’

‘How so?’

‘You ever seen what a two-thousand-pound thermobaric bomb can do?’

It was Tibbetts’s turn to shake his head.

‘It explodes, it burns, it sucks the oxygen out of the air. It leaves nothing behind, not even a sense of justice. That’s what the Americans use on caves, Mike, and that’s why
I know these men. I know what they’ve been through. If I were them, I’d probably be doing the same thing myself.’

‘What? The same as terrorists?’ the policeman demanded, looking up sharply.

‘Men we once called terrorists are now running the Northern Ireland parliament and sitting in almost every presidential palace in Africa growing fat on huge amounts of Western aid. So when
does a terrorist stop being a terrorist?’

‘When politicians forget.’

‘You know, Mike, I suspect at the root of it all, these people simply wanted to be left alone in their caves to slit each other’s throats and screw each other’s sheep, but then
the whole world and its wicked mothers spilled in looking for hiding places from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, only for the wars to follow them there. Their homeland became a battleground
between different groups of foreign bloodletters that didn’t leave many sharp distinctions between terrorists and the rest.’

‘They’re still terrorists in my book.’

‘Of course, but what’s in a name? Better to deal with the facts.’

‘You’ll at least grant that they are murderers,’ Tibbetts said through gritted teeth.

‘So, they believe, are we.’

‘You sound as if you sympathise with them!’

‘I understand them, that’s different. They’re highly motivated and exceedingly well armed. That’s why I don’t think there’ll be a thing you can do to stop
them, except to blow them away.’

‘We could give them Daud Gul.’

‘Not your choice. That’s high politics. An even messier game.’

‘So . . . ?’

‘So, as you said, it’s down to you.’

Tibbetts stiffened, delayed for a few seconds more, hoping they might last for ever, praying that some miracle would happen or that he might yet wake up from this hideous dream. His fingers went
to the knot of his black tie, then strayed to the place above his heart, agitated, unsure. He was blinking rapidly, as though blinded by the sun.