Full Speed

by Jacqueline Harvey

  ‘He does indeed,’ the man replied. ‘I’ll be off campus for the rest of the afternoon, Daphne. Business.’

  That was their code for something other than school matters. She assumed it was Pharos, but it was not her place to ask.

  Meanwhile outside, the children tripped along the street, basking in the winter sunshine, chatting and swapping stories of their recent Christmas break. As tradition dictated, everyone inside of Pharos spent the holiday at Alexandria as guests of Dame Spencer and unlike last year, when the vacation was cut short due to an emergency mission, this year had been a huge celebration. Curtis Pepper and his parents had loved every minute of it – especially when it snowed on Christmas Eve, though no one told him that it magically happened every year, no matter the weather.

  It didn’t take more than twenty minutes to reach the entrance of the Parliamentary Education Centre accessed via the Victoria Tower Gardens on the southern tip of the enormous building. Monty was greeted by a bald chap called Harold who wore thick-rimmed glasses and an immaculate uniform. The two were well acquainted given Harold had worked at the centre for over forty years. He was a big fan of Monty’s and always enjoyed the man’s character dressing.

  The group was ushered through an airport-style security screening, before a briefing from Harold about the rules and regulations they were to follow. The children were then shown to a theatrette to watch a short film before being taken into the Palace of Westminster proper. First stop was Westminster Hall where Monty Reffell regaled them with a history of the vast room with its giant oak beams and flagstone floor.

  Next stop was St Stephen’s Hall, then the Members’ Lobby on the way to the House of Commons where they ascended to the public viewing gallery above. Parliament had only resumed the day before and the green leather benches in the chamber below were packed with politicians.

  The Prime Minister, Gabriel Lord, was in full flight, giving the opposition a roasting over a new tax law the government was trying to pass. Kensy and Max recognised him immediately. The man was a good friend of their grandmother’s and they’d met him and his wife Catherine at Granny’s Belgravia townhouse when they’d all had dinner together several months ago.

  The children shuffled into their seats and Mr Reffell quietly pointed out the Speaker of the House ruling over the proceedings from a throne-like chair at the end of the room. The teacher was about to say something else when he noticed a bald man look up towards them. The fellow nudged a wasp-thin woman in a smart red suit sitting beside him and the pair began to chuckle and point at Monty.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Gabriel Lord paused for a moment. ‘Since when have death duties been such an amusing subject?’ He searched for the culprits on the other side of the room, but by now they’d been joined by several other members of the opposition who had realised what the pair was fussing about. Gabriel turned and glanced up at the gallery behind him.

  ‘Oh my heavens,’ the man bit back a smile. ‘I hadn’t realised we were in the presence of greatness this morning.’

  Monty Reffell gave a nod. ‘It is my pleasure and honour, Prime Minister.’ A master mimicker, Monty was revelling in his role.

  ‘Perhaps you can tell us what you think of our honourable opposition colleagues decrying this proposal to reduce the current death taxes,’ Gabriel said.

  Without missing a beat Mr Reffell gave a stinging reply. ‘Direct taxation was a great corrector of extravagance – perhaps they’re onto something.’

  The Prime Minister blanched. ‘You do know your Winston quotes, don’t you, sir? Although I can’t imagine you would actually agree with that rabble over there.’

  Max was grinning at the men when something caught his eye. It looked like a wave of gas billowing into the chamber from a gap under the balcony and blanketing the members of the house directly below.

  A woman began to cough loudly, a chorus that soon echoed around the room. Someone exclaimed that their eyes were stinging and suddenly there was a cacophony of shouts and general dismay.

  ‘What the heck is that?’ Carlos sputtered then buried his face in the crook of his left arm, trying not to inhale.

  ‘Sound the alarm!’ the Prime Minister yelled. ‘Everyone out!’

  The Speaker of the House pressed the emergency button concealed in the arm of his chair and a siren blared.

  Monty Reffell turned to the children. ‘Get up, move, move!’ he yelled.

  Harold, their tour guide, was already at the door, though the old man’s eyes were streaming and he was gasping for breath.

  Harper and Inez were first out onto the stairwell with their classmates close behind.

  Down below the members of the house were coughing and spluttering as they stood up and rushed towards the exit. The woman in the red suit pushed hard against the huge oak doors, but they refused to budge.

  ‘They’re locked!’ she declared. ‘We’re all going to die!’

  ‘Not on my watch!’ Gabriel Lord covered his face with his jacket and, with some of his colleagues, made a run to check the other doorways that led to the gallery and various secret rooms, but every one of them was secured too.

  Meanwhile the children had fled down a narrow stairway that opened into the vestibule between the chamber and the Members’ Lobby. Fortunately the air was clearer, but the exits were all locked there too.

  They could see the politicians pounding on the chamber doors through the glass panels.

  ‘Break the glass!’ someone shouted. One man removed his rubber-soled shoe and started pounding away but it wasn’t going to work, given the panes were blast and shatter proof.

  Monty Reffell gathered the students around him. ‘I need you to stay calm,’ he said, as the siren continued shrieking.

  Unfortunately a girl called Blair was already bawling and in danger of setting off a chain reaction. ‘It’s a terrorist attack, isn’t it?’ she cried out, verbalising what everyone else had been thinking.

  ‘Of course not,’ Harold replied. ‘It’s a gas leak, that’s all. The fire brigade will be here any moment.’

  Harold had already realised that there was no signal on his phone and the two-way radio he used to communicate with his colleagues in and around the building was dead too. None of that made any sense whatsoever.

  Kensy grabbed her brother’s arm. ‘We’ve got to do something. You need to distract everyone and I’ll have a crack at the lock.’

  Max nodded. ‘Go for it.’ He raced over to Mr Reffell and whispered to the man what Kensy was up to. The teacher ushered the children to the other side of the room, telling them to keep watch for anyone in the long hallway in the hope they could call for help. Surreptitiously, the trainee Pharos agents formed a shield, hiding Kensy and Autumn from their non-Pharos peers.

  Kensy pulled the hairclip from the side of her head and the pair crouched down to begin their work.

  ‘Hurry up!’ Autumn whispered as there was a dreadful thudding sound on the other side of the door followed by a shriek. She stood up to take a look, horrified to see the men and women of the British Parliament dropping to the floor like flies. ‘We have to get them out of there before it’s too late.’

  Kensy inserted the pin into the slot and pulled a second one from her hairclip to act as a tension wrench.

  ‘Hurry,’ Autumn urged. Kensy’s fingers felt like sausages as one of the pins clattered onto the marble floor. She scooped it up and tried to calm her racing heart.

  ‘You can do this,’ she muttered under her breath. Autumn gave her a tight smile.

  The rest of the children were being soothed by Mr Reffell who had abandoned his Winston Churchill persona and was doing his best to stem the rising hysteria. Unfortunately the thuds on the other side of the chamber door weren’t helping.

  ‘We can’t just stand here,’ Carlos whispered to Max. ‘We could go back up to the gallery and see if there’s another way out.’

  Max nodded. The boys watched as Monty Reffell checked his phone again. The man had never had a probl
em with the Pharos line before but it was dead now. The boys scurried across the floor and hid behind a conveniently placed pillar before fashioning themselves some face masks from their school jumpers by tying them around their mouths and noses.

  ‘There must be a way to get from the chamber floor to the gallery without leaving the room – though I don’t understand why they haven’t done that already,’ Max said in a muffled voice.

  The pair quickly scurried through the door and up the stairs where they re-entered the gallery. They were stunned to see the gas floating like a thick fog just above the floor of the chamber. Strangely there was no smell, but alarmingly, through the haze, they could see that most of the members of Parliament were now lying on the carpet or on the padded benches. It was impossible to tell whether they were conscious or not.

  Max felt a sickening twist in his stomach. Why hadn’t the fire brigade arrived? Surely it had been more than five minutes since the alarms had gone off. It dawned on him that they were now silent.

  Carlos went one way and Max the other, trying all of the upstairs doors that looked as if they would lead to the chamber below, but they were shut tight.

  The boys could feel the gas stinging their eyes. They couldn’t stay in the room for much longer lest they too be overwhelmed.

  Meanwhile outside, Kensy listened closely. She held the pins as tightly as she dared and gave one last push. There was a loud click and the lock gave way.

  ‘You did it!’ Autumn hugged her friend as the pair leapt up and wrenched open the door, stunned by the sea of bodies.

  ‘Mr Reffell!’ Kensy shouted as the extent of the carnage became apparent.

  The children rushed to look and Blair immediately fainted into Dante’s arms. The poor lad didn’t know what to do with her.

  ‘Come on,’ Monty ordered, covering his face with a large handkerchief. ‘Those of you who are first aid trained and can fashion a mask from something you’re wearing, follow me.’ He reasoned that the gas would begin to disperse at least a little and they couldn’t just wait about and do nothing.

  But Kensy was already inside, tending to the Prime Minister. Gabriel Lord’s eyes were open, but he couldn’t move. She checked his pulse, which was strong and regular. At least that was positive.

  ‘Mr Lord, help is coming,’ she tried to reassure the man though she wasn’t sure that was true.

  Carlos raced out of the gallery to join the others in the chamber, but Max was still making his way back to the staircase when he heard a door open below. He felt a wave of relief as he realised it was a firefighter in a full face mask with breathing apparatus. The man glanced around then did something very odd. Instead of rushing to help, he stood beside a pillar, out of sight.

  ‘The fire brigade is here!’ Harper shouted, alerted by the sound of heavy footsteps approaching on the marble floor.

  ‘About time,’ Monty hissed as the uniformed officers smashed open the doors from the Members’ Lobby and raced through the foyer, almost barrelling some of the children over in their haste to reach the chamber. He couldn’t believe how long it had taken for them to arrive – and unless half of London was on fire it was absolutely unforgivable.

  They seemed light in numbers too with only about twenty or so officers followed closely by medics wearing full face masks. Given this was the seat of government Monty would have expected a much bigger contingent.

  But Max hadn’t taken his eyes off the solitary firefighter. The man remained exactly where he was even when the chamber was full of his colleagues. Seconds later it was pandemonium and that’s when he slunk into the centre of the room unnoticed, except by the boy. Max pulled out his phone and snapped a photograph at the exact same time the fellow looked directly at him. For a second their eyes met and a shiver ran straight down Max’s spine – in that moment it felt as if the man had seen into the deepest recesses of his soul. The boy shoved his phone into his pocket and raced downstairs, wondering what on earth had just happened.

  Within five minutes the children had been ushered from the building to an evacuation area. A fleet of ambulances lined the street and there were more police cars than you could count. Fire engines were thin on the ground though and the reason for their delay was immediately apparent. A huge plume of black smoke filled the sky to the north not very far away.

  ‘What’s that?’ Kensy asked.

  Monty Reffell had just sought the answer to the same question only to be told by one of the police officers that it was a fire at Charing Cross tube station, which had started in the abandoned section of the Jubilee line. These days that area was mostly used as a film set and a rail siding when necessary, but the fire had already spread to the main part of the station and was potentially disastrous. In a small way that made him feel a little better about the length of time it had taken for the brigade to reach them – though it was also an indication of how under resourced the organisation was in times of major crisis.

  The area outside Parliament had been cordoned off and the media was hovering at the end of the street behind blue-checked tape, eager to get the scoop. Overhead, helicopters buzzed and reports of the two major incidents were being broadcast live around the world.

  ‘We’ll need to give each of the children a check-up before they’re allowed to leave,’ a paramedic informed Monty Reffell who nodded.

  He’d already done a quick assessment and was fairly confident that no one was seriously unwell, bar a few exhibiting signs of shock. Blair had fainted a second time when they got outside and was now lying on a gurney with a blood pressure monitor around her upper arm.

  ‘Do they know where the gas came from?’ Dante asked loudly to no one in particular. ‘I mean it was just a gas leak, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I think we should leave that for the authorities to decide,’ Monty said, giving the boy a glare that told him he should keep his theories to himself for the moment.

  Kensy pulled Max aside and whispered, ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I’m not really sure, but there was something weird going on in there.’ He went on to explain about the firefighter and then he pulled out his phone to show Kensy the photograph he’d taken.

  ‘We should give that to Dad and Fitz and see if we can find out who he is,’ Kensy replied. ‘At the very least it sounds like he could do with some intensive training.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Max said and hastily put the phone back into his pocket as a paramedic approached the pair and asked if she could examine them.

  The twins nodded and a few minutes later they were given the all clear.

  In the distance they could see their headmaster approaching. Magoo MacGregor’s pelt of white hair was even more dishevelled than usual and despite the chilly weather, beads of perspiration streamed down his cheeks. He flashed his ID then had a quick conversation with a policeman guarding the cordon before being ushered through to the children.

  ‘Good heavens, is everyone all right?’ he asked the group, wiping his brow with the back of his sleeve.

  Most of the students murmured a yes, but from the confused looks on some faces, it was clear not everyone was coping equally well. He had arranged a bus to transport the children back to school where they would have a group debriefing and counsellors on standby. Parents were currently being contacted too.

  ‘Are we almost ready to go?’ Magoo asked Monty.

  ‘I think so,’ the man replied. At least the paramedics had given Blair a clean bill of health and the girl was now nibbling on a honey sandwich that had been procured from somewhere. ‘There was talk about the children being interviewed by the police and having to give statements, but I think we should get them out of here. We don’t know if whoever is behind this has other plans.’

  Magoo MacGregor frowned. He then pulled out his phone and hurried away to call Cordelia. Minutes after he returned, the police inspector in charge of the operation walked over and told him they could leave. They would arrange to speak to the children tomorrow if deemed necessary. />
  The short bus ride back to the school was as swift as it was uneventful. The police had created a one mile cordon around the Houses of Parliament, which took in the school as well as the Beacon office and Buckingham Palace so they were able to travel without scrutiny from the press. Once they arrived, the children were taken to the dining room first for lunch and then a chat.

  The rest of the student population had been corralled into the assembly hall to be informed of both the Charing Cross fire and the incident at Westminster – though details were scant and Mrs Vanden Boom had made a special request for the children not to speculate about what had happened until the police were able to conduct their investigations. They were then dismissed early to travel home before the cordon was lifted. With a number of underground rail lines out of action, alternative arrangements were being made for those who usually travelled on the tube.

  In the dining room the students from the excursion were now seated at a couple of tables.

  ‘I don’t know how you can eat, Sachin.’ Autumn looked at the lad who was hoovering the shepherd’s pie from his plate at pace.

  ‘I’m starving,’ the boy said and wiped his lips with the back of his hand, leaving a smear of tomato sauce, which he licked off. ‘And we didn’t die or anything.’

  ‘Der.’ Harper rolled her eyes at him.

  ‘It was a terrorist attack, for sure,’ Carlos said. ‘Someone just tried to kill the entire British government – I mean, it’s pretty obvious given all of those exits were locked.’

  ‘Maybe there was a malfunction and the doors automatically closed off, like when there’s a fire,’ Yasmina said.

  But the others were sceptical and she didn’t really believe it either.

  ‘At least whoever was responsible didn’t succeed,’ Dante said.

  The children continued to speculate when Curtis chimed in. He’d been oddly silent since they returned. ‘I’ve got a theory,’ the boy said.

  The children stopped eating and looked over at him.