The Lords' Day (retail) (17 page)

‘The Pakistani High Commissioner. Perhaps he did all that.’

‘Come on, Mike, you’ve seen him in there, he’s not the leader, he’s not much more than a mule employed to carry the stuff in for them. Anyway, he’s only been in the
country a few weeks.’ Absentmindedly he retrieved the battered bin, then placed it carefully on the table, suddenly regarding it with exceptional curiosity as if it had changed from a bit of
tin to something of wondrous value. ‘You know, it was the loos that did it for me.’

‘Beg pardon?’

‘The loos. The portable lavatories.’

‘You must be very tired.’

‘No, Mike. When I brought them in they told me where to put them, in those closets. I didn’t know about those closets. Been around this place ten years or more, never knew they were
there. I doubt most people have the slightest idea they exist; they’re not part of the usual tourist trail. But these tobacco-spitting men from the mountains, they knew all about them. How do
you suppose that was, then?’

‘I’ve no idea. But I’ve got a horrible suspicion you’re going to relieve me of my ignorance.’

Harry grew still, like a cat preparing to pounce, making sure of his foothold. ‘Someone else organised this, Mike.’

‘You’re losing it, my friend.’

‘No, Mike, it’s the only way. These guys could never have pulled this off without help. Couldn’t have found their way to the airport by themselves, let alone burrowed into the
hidden depths of the English Establishment. They’re just the choirboys. Somewhere out there is – let’s call him a cardinal, someone who knows where all the priest holes are, and
how to really piss off the congregation.’

‘Fascinating. And of course you have a name, perhaps an inside leg measurement.’

‘Not yet.’

‘Thank God. I think we’ve got our hands full enough with the bastards we already know about, let alone those who seem to be swimming around in the bottom of your bin.’

‘Yes, you’re probably right.’ He finished off the last of his coffee in one draught. ‘But there is one thing you might be able to help me with, Mike.’

‘What’s that?’

‘That inside leg measurement. Do cardinals wear trousers underneath the rest of their clobber?’

7.00 p.m.

‘We’ve got him, Home Secretary!’ the man from M15 enthused as they gathered once more at the Cabinet table in Downing Street. ‘Masood. From Waziristan,
as we previously thought – the High Commissioner, too. All of them. From the Mehsud tribe.’

‘So when you say we’ve
got
him, you mean it in the sense that . . . ?’

The question hovered above the table.

‘In the sense that we know who he is,’ M15 responded, deflated, searching surreptitiously through his pockets for his nicotine stick. She was good at that, deflating men.

‘Ah, I see,’ Willcocks said. She had made her point, no need to push the matter any further, least of all to remind him that it was not he but that wretched man Jones who raised
their identities as Mehsuds. She smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from the tablecloth with the flat of her hand. Why did she dislike Harry Jones so? His attitude? His arrogance? His wealth that made
him impervious to the pressures that can be applied to most others? Or was it simply that he was one of the few men who might, just might, be better than she was?

‘What other progress can we report? It’s nearly seven hours since the start of the siege, how much nearer are we to resolving it?’ She glanced along the table at the
representatives of the security services, but they all kept their heads down, except Tibbetts. In spite of his promise to stay out of her hair, he couldn’t ignore her completely. She smiled
gently at him, deceptively, as if old slights were forgotten.

‘It seems to me there are three options,’ he began. ‘First, we try to negotiate, do a deal with them, as distasteful as that may sound. Offer to let them go in return for safe
conduct to another country. Something of that sort. We declare a draw and hope we can find some honour in it. But I have to tell you frankly, Home Secretary, that since the telephone link was
installed we’ve made every effort to engage with them in some sort of dialogue, and got nowhere. They’re not interested in any form of compromise. These men are for real.’

Outside the windows the light had gone, and taken with it the beauty of the day.

‘The second option is that the Metropolitan Police hands over control of the situation to the SAS and we bring an end to the siege by extreme measures. I’d like to introduce
Brigadier Neal Hastie, Director Special Forces.’ A man in his mid-forties with an eruption of red hair nodded from his seat at the far end of the table. His fresh-faced complexion made him
look younger than his years and it would have been easy to mistake him for a country vicar who was up in town on holiday. Indeed, that is what he might have been, following his time as a theology
student at St Andrew’s, but sadly for his career in the cloth he had discovered the attraction of young women all too intense. One of them, heartbroken, had tried to take a melodramatic
overdose in his rooms. It had put an end to theology and St Andrew’s, and had brought him eventually to Hereford. He was still a devout believer in his God, yet, as Hastie had found, there
were many ways to serve.

‘Welcome, brigadier,’ the Home Secretary said. ‘Are you yet in a position to give us any sense of the options?’

‘Home Secretary, my squadron arrived at Wellington Barracks less than two hours ago. It’s taken a little time for the plans of the House of Lords to be located. I can’t yet
give you a recommendation, but if you were to insist that we try to storm the building I believe we could be ready in . . .’ – he glanced at his wristwatch – ‘thirty-seven
minutes.’

His mood was calm, matter-of-fact, the blue eyes alert and his voice soft. Willcocks nodded in approval. ‘Can you release the hostages?’

‘Oh, most of them, certainly, if we have the advantage of surprise. The doors are booby-trapped – not a problem in blasting through them, but we don’t want to give the enemy
any warning. That’s why we needed the plans, to identify any recesses or ducts – ventilation chambers, access tunnels, that sort of thing – that we might be able to use. If you
feel able to give me more time to prepare our positions, we should be able to place snipers in these vantage points, and I would estimate a good ninety-percent survival rate.’

‘Forgive me for interrupting, but couldn’t you use smoke? Blind them?’ a minister asked.

‘No. Smoke on its own isn’t going to stop them firing and hitting a large number of hostages. You see, they’re all bunched together. Easy hits.’ He went over to the
television monitor pumping out its pictures.

‘Then what about gas?’ the minister persisted.

‘Hold on a minute. Sounds like a rerun of the Moscow theatre siege,’ Willcocks interrupted. She’d been doing her homework. ‘Hundreds died, didn’t they?’

The brigadier nodded. ‘That was in 2002. I’m sure you’ll remember the broad details, gentlemen, just as the Home Secretary has. Chechen rebels took an entire theatre audience
hostage. Three days later special forces of the FSB raided the theatre using gas, some weaponised form of fentanyl. In its basic form it’s an anaesthetic for cows and horses. The plan
didn’t work. The terrorists had respirators, and instead the gas killed innocent theatregoers, 129 of them. The FSB ended up having to hunt down and shoot the rebels.’

‘Scarcely encouraging,’ Willcocks muttered.

‘There is nothing about this situation that I find encouraging, Home Secretary. But the SAS is not the FSB, and we have something rather better than fentanyl.
But
. . .’ He
let the word hang for just long enough to make sure they were all listening. ‘The problem, I’m sorry to say, is Her Majesty the Queen. They have an explosive jacket that is positioned
beside her at all times. They change the guard with the jacket every two hours, so they’re alert. The only time she’s allowed to move is when she uses the toilet, and when she does the
jacket goes with her. It’s probably not a huge amount of explosives in there, and we have no way of knowing precisely what they’re using – I understand the wheelchairs they used
to smuggle in the material are being analysed for chemical traces – but my guess is they’ve used something like TATP. Triacetonetriperoxide, to give it the full name. It’s similar
to the sort of stuff that was used in the 7/7 attacks on London, it’s relatively easy to produce from materials you can buy on any high street – acetone, hydrogen peroxide, mineral
acid, the sort of ingredients you find in nail varnish remover and hair bleach. In its pure state it can be about eighty per cent as effective as TNT, but it’s extremely unstable so
they’ve probably calmed it down with some desensitising agent. Fat or oil, that sort of thing.’

‘How likely is it that it will work?’ Willcocks asked. ‘We all know of cases where some of these home-made bombs have failed.’

The brigadier steepled his hands, as though in prayer. ‘That’s a very good question.’ He meant that it was an almost impossible question. ‘So far these terrorists have
proved themselves to be extremely well prepared. I think we have to assume that they know what they’re up to. I’ve no idea what they are using as a triggering device – if it were
detonated by remote control we might have a chance of jamming the signal, but this . . . well, this sort of thing could be detonated by something as simple as a flashbulb – a party popper,
even.’

‘A party popper? We’re being held to ransom by a party popper?’ Willcocks exclaimed in horror.

‘I’m afraid the device is simple, but its potential consequences are exceptionally complex. One terrorist is always attached to the device, and it will be extraordinarily difficult
to take him out without running a very high risk of setting off the bomb and taking out Her Majesty, too. Even if we were able to push in enough gas to knock everyone out – which frankly I
doubt in a room the size of the House of Lords – the terrorist’s falling body could trigger the explosion and it would be likely to account for not only the Queen but also the Prince of
Wales.’ He looked around the room at the ashen faces of his audience. ‘Of course, there would be an excellent chance of stopping the other terrorists before they do too much harm. We
should be able to save the Prime Minister, if that’s any consolation . . .’

The ensuing silence declared that it was not.

‘One thing in particular we can’t calculate or measure. That’s the degree to which the terrorists want to survive. One of the reasons we were so successful with the Iranian
embassy siege was that, fundamentally, the terrorists wanted to stay alive. Only one of them did, of course, and that was only because he managed to disguise himself as a hostage. By the time we
rumbled him he was facedown on the pavement outside in front of a thousand television cameras; too late to deal with him then. If these terrorists are hoping to get out in one piece, then it gives
us a chance to use that weakness against them. If we confront them with overwhelming force and present them with the choice of surrendering or dying, they might just throw in the towel. But
that’s a judgement call – and someone else’s judgement other than mine. I’m behind on developments. If we are managing to identify the individuals, is there anything in
their backgrounds that gives us cause for hope? A glimmer of flexibility? Family members or loved ones who might be brought in to make an appeal?’ He looked around the table.

‘I think it’s the loss of their family members that has brought them here in the first place,’ MI5 muttered gloomily.

‘Ah, I see. Well, unless we can find some form of leverage with them, I’ve got to advise you that this operation is unlikely to be clean. There will be casualties.’

‘That is unacceptable, of course. Not the Queen,’ the Home Secretary replied. There was general nodding from around the table. She turned once more to Tibbetts. ‘You said there
was a third option.’

‘The simplest one of all. We let them have what they want. Give them Daud Gul.’

‘Give in? Is that what you are suggesting?’

‘It’s an option, Home Secretary.’

‘Not on my watch it isn’t.’

‘Then, I think we must decide what we
are
going to do, and when.’

Instinctively, as she did when she was faced with a dilemma, she began ironing the brown baize tablecloth with her hands once more, this time using both palms. She was interrupted by the
entrance of an official. He looked harassed, and announced that the White House was on the phone asking for an update.

‘Tell them I’ll call the President as soon as I’ve finished this briefing,’ Willcocks instructed.

‘It’s the President herself on the phone,’ the official said, clearly agitated. ‘I gather she’s not in a mood to wait.’

Her own briefing wasn’t finished yet and Tricia Willcocks’s instincts screamed that she should refuse to take the call. She wasn’t ready, hadn’t thought this one through,
and it wouldn’t do to end up in a catfight with the most powerful woman in the world. Yet to refuse her call would be to turn possibility into certainty and ensure the claws came out, and
there were just so many battles she could fight at one time. ‘Put her through. On the speakerphone. I might need your help with this one, gentlemen.’

The voice with the stretched vowels soon filled the room. ‘Tricia, this is Blythe. How are you doing? I feel so very much for you right now.’ Ah, the personal, woman-to-woman
approach, so much warmer than the last time they had spoken. A gesture of goodwill.

‘As I do for you, Blythe.’

‘I hope you’ll forgive me, but it’s now six hours and more into this awful situation and I really need to share with you.’ What she meant, of course, was that the other
woman should share with her. ‘How are things progressing? What’s going on behind the scenes? My poor husband’s at his wits end.’ So, she was playing the family card.

‘I am sitting here with my advisers, Blythe, what is effectively my War Cabinet.’ It was meant to sound impressive, but to those around the table it seemed a touch pompous. ‘We
are reviewing all the options; I assure you that we’re doing everything possible. We’ve secured the area, we’ve already opened channels of communication with the terrorists’
– well, a telephone link, at least – ‘and we’ll do everything humanly possible to resolve the situation peacefully.’