“We’ve been cooped up here all day and I still don’t know your names. Can hardly be a state secret.”
The guard said nothing.
Damian turned to his real targets: “At least let me know who my boys are. Their names can’t be a state secret.”
“Okay. But no funny stuff.”
Damian stopped in front of the teenage prisoner, tied to his escort on the sofa: “You are?”
“Tony, sir.”
“Don’t worry, Tony. I’m working with the general to get you released.”
Damian smiled to himself. ‘Working with the general’. A nice touch. The guards would appreciate that.
Next was the older prisoner, also in a Siamese twin situation with his escort. Shorter, tougher, with a receding hairline, this man looked a more promising prospect.
“My name’s Phil,” he announced, unprompted.
The Prime Minister nodded at him, smiled. “Like I said to Tony, we’re doing our best to solve this.”
His words were almost the same, but not quite. Would Phil pick up the vibes? No mention this time of ‘working with the general’. The ‘we’ might be referring to someone else.
As casual as he could, the Prime Minister announced to everyone in the room: “Courtesy of General Salah-ud-Din…” the ludicrous rank stuck in his throat as he said it, but keeping the guards on side was vital. “…I shall soon be leaving. When the polls close I’m told we can expect to hear a few celebrations, so a good opportunity for me to slip out unnoticed.”
“Any chance of taking us with you?” asked Phil.
“Afraid not. You heard the general. I expect it’ll be back to your cells, so…” as a throw-away comment: “Why not do like Tony and use the facilities here before they take you away.”
If Phil took the hint, there might be one prisoner in the loo, unshackled, when Quilter’s blitz started. Could hardly call it even a plan. But it was the best Damian could come up with.
62
As the time crept towards 10 pm Damian became increasingly nervous. Tried not to show it. Quilter’s shock troops would need an acceptable level of noise before launching their attack. Then more time to scale the ramparts and come to grips with the inner fort. That might make zero hour for Damian 10.10? Maybe 10.15? Even as late as 10.20? Impossible to say.
Noises off started, as promised, on the dot of ten. But from their position inside the fort they were very muted. Barely audible.
Although expecting something, the guards shifted uneasily.
Damian forced a grin: “End of polling day. Like November the Fifth. Guy Fawkes.”
The guards started waving their weapons around aimlessly, fingers uncomfortably close to the triggers.
“Jeez! Don’t know what they put in that meal.”
All heads turned towards Phil, who was writhing on the sofa. They had eaten a snack of fish and chips half an hour earlier.
“Sure was something powerful,” he groaned.
The guards’ attention was now on the prisoner, who was managing to look really bad. What an actor! Well, Damian hoped it was acting. No one else appeared to be stricken.
Phil struggled to his feet, pulling the escort with him. “If I don’t get to that bog in thirty seconds….”
Although the guards were suspicious, they were in a quandary. What if the prisoner’s symptoms were genuine?
Phil was now shakily upright, trying to undo his trouser belt, which was not easy with one arm still linked to his escort. Muttered: “Rather crap on the floor than in my pants.”
The Prime Minister, two guards and the other prisoner pair looked on, enthralled.
Then Phil started retching. Paroxysm over, he gasped: “Soon be coming out both ends…”
“For Christ’s sake!” Phil’s manacled companion eyed the chief guard piteously.
By now the unhappy couple were halfway to the toilet, Phil’s trousers down to knee level, an ensemble that made progress painfully slow.
“Cut him loose,” snarled the guard.
To do this the escort had to fumble in his pocket for the handcuff key, a task so physically complex they came to a complete halt.
Damian was dimly aware of an increased noise level outside, but everyone in the room was so focussed on the performance in front of them they barely noticed.
When Phil’s trousers were down to his ankles, it was time to get rid of his underpants. The escort was still desperately fishing around for the handcuff key. It was a macabre version of Strictly Come Dancing, the partners locked in an unwilling embrace that eventually saw them reduced to a writhing heap on the floor.
At last the escort found his handcuff key. Freed himself from the prisoner and thankfully scuttled clear. Phil, bare-bottomed, managed the last couple of yards to the loo on his hands and knees. Once inside, he locked the door with a bang.
With the drama over, everyone became aware of the outside world again. Which had turned very noisy. Surely far too noisy for a post-election celebration.
The number two guard opened the door to investigate. To the tune of a short salvo, he was propelled back into the room, dead before he hit the ground.
The other guard, now the only one with a weapon, had a choice of targets: a burst through the toilet door at Phil; Tony, the remaining prisoner, helpless in front of him; or the Prime Minister.
He was never granted an option, because Damian had spent the last moments of the preceding spectacle edging out of the guard’s way and now hit him with a tackle that would have earned an immediate Red Card at West Ham.
As they crashed to the floor, the guard’s rifle skidded across the room. In any decent movie the two protagonists would have spent the next few minutes grappling for the discarded weapon, but in this case they were denied any such drama.
A voice above them yelled: “Freeze!”
The Prime Minister found himself looking down the barrel of a gun. Holding it, finger poised on the trigger, was the Major.
“Good to see you, sir!” He might have saluted, had his hands been free.
Before Damian could react, his eardrums were numbed by another burst of gunfire.
Felt no pain. Must be still alive.
“Dear, dear, he really shouldn’t have gone for his weapon!” The Major didn’t appear at all sorry as he looked down on the last guard, twitching in his death throes.
The Prime Minister got shakily to his feet. Shook the Major’s hand and said: “My little pill must have worked.”
“Like a dream, sir. Heavy casualties amongst the enemy, but no blue-on-blue.”
At that point Phil emerged from the toilet, hitching up his trousers and grinning broadly.
“That man deserves and Oscar,” said the Prime Minister.
“And a m..m..medal,” stammered Tony, the other prisoner.
“I’m sure that can be fixed,” said the Major. “But first let’s get you out of here. You’ll need a full de-brief.”
63
APRIL 29th.
By the time Fort Brockhurst had been declared free of insurgents, thus allowing evacuation by helicopter, it was approaching midnight. Too late for any de-briefing, which had been scheduled instead for that afternoon in the Cobra room.
The chopper had made a stopover at the Fareham safe house to drop off the two ex prisoners and pick up Chloe, after which it was back to Damian’s flat in Wheatley, which they reached at a quarter to one in the morning.
Damian had crashed out at once, no nightmares, and now they were apparently no different from the millions of other British couples that Monday morning, digesting their breakfast and morning papers
But there was a difference. Damian was a hero.
Chloe told him it had been a yoyo voyage to that pinnacle because for much of the previous day he had been closer to a zero. The news that their Prime Minister was engaged in talks with terrorists had not gone down well with the public. At midday the media had been critical, in the evening even more so. It was only when the Defence Chief, Admir
al Horrocks, had been able to reveal the true course of events that Damian’s reputation had recovered.
The press accounts were so detailed they made the forthcoming Cobra meeting almost superfluous.
Using aerial photo imagery, General Quilter’s team had located what appeared to be two blind spots for Hamid’s lookouts on the ramparts. As these were also places where vegetation grew tight up against the moat, Special Forces had been able to get men across the water and up against the ramparts without being seen. The nearest lookouts had been quietly liquidated, then the central Museum complex stormed.
Surprise had been complete and once Quilter had control of the central buildings his men could winkle out opposition in the rooms under the ramparts at their leisure.
The whole operation had taken less than twenty minutes, the British losing two men killed and half a dozen injured, whereas the Islamic Army of Hattin had been, in the official wording, ‘annihilated’. The communiqué did not specify how many had been killed and how many captured, merely that their leader, Hamid Khan, had been amongst those confirmed dead.
‘An official source’ - in fact the Major - described how Prime Minister Damian White, given the option by Hamid to leave, had instead chosen to stay in order to try and protect the two prisoners. Damian’s tracer pill did not feature in this account: no point in giving away too much.
Another ‘official source’ - this time the Prime Minister himself - mentioned how one of the prisoners, Private Philip Pavitt, had played a crucial part in the successful outcome by diverting the attention of his captors. There were no specifics as to how this was done.
All this left the British public in an excellent mood. They had plenty of heroes: the prime Minister, Special Forces and Private Pavitt.
The fact that the nation’s crematoria were still working flat out was no longer cause for comment. Individuals would still grieve, but the flu epidemic had become so much a part of life it was almost forgotten.
The election, which under normal circumstances would have filled the first few pages, was not mentioned in the Daily Mail until page six. It was not only that Fort Brockhurst had grabbed the headlines, even more that the new Single Transferable Vote would take much longer to count, the result not being known for several days. Instead of a mad rush for constituencies to declare their results, this time the ballot boxes had been tucked away overnight for counting to begin at midday today.
This did not preclude the usual exit-poll guesswork, so when the phone rang shortly after 10.30, Damian had a good idea who it might be. He was correct.
After congratulating him on his Fort Brockhurst exploits, election agent Alec Warbeck continued: “I think you should prepare for the worst, Prime Minister.”
“It’s that bad?”
“Can’t be sure until the fat lady sings, as they say, but your timing yesterday was exquisitely poor.”
“What do you mean?”
“When the polls opened, the mood was good. You’re a popular fellow, don’t need to tell you that. Hardly like a politician at all. Then the news broke that you were colluding with terrorists….”
“Pretending to negotiate, not colluding.”
“The pretending bit was not obvious. People only saw you waving and smiling as you went in to chat with someone they’d watched on TV beheading a fellow.”
“I wanted to appear optimistic.”
“Sometimes gravitas goes down better.”
“I don’t do gravitas.”
“Maybe that’s your problem.”
“I can’t be something I’m not, Alec. And I did deliver.”
“You sure did, Damian. In spades. But I fear it may have been too late. Almost the entire time people were casting their votes they thought you were selling them out.”
“You know what they call me: the Interim Prime Minister. The Night Watchman. Maybe this is how it’s meant to be.”
“Maybe. But if you don’t make it, it’ll be a damned shame.”
“When will we know?”
“We’ll have a good idea by tomorrow. For sure by Wednesday.”
“A couple more days in Number Ten, then. See you when they finish the count.”
64
MAY 1st.
The job of an election agent does not end when the polls close. There’s then the count to monitor. Cheating by returning officers’ staff is virtually unknown, maybe because it’s difficult to get away with, but there’s always human error: a pile of votes for candidate A somehow finding its way into the pile for candidate B. So agents and candidates like to keep a careful watch.
Under the old system counts rarely took more than a few hours, but with the Single Transferable Vote it was a painfully slow progression towards that magic ‘quota’. Damian’s agent, Alec Warbeck, was super conscientious and had spent every waking hour watching votes moving from pile to pile as no-hope candidates were eliminated and their later preferences duly transferred. Early on it became clear that it was a four horse race: Conservative Rupert Delahaye, Labour Janet Smith, Lib Dem Elwyn Evans and Conservative Damian White. A four horse race for three places.
Late the previous day Alec had phoned Damian to tell him that the County of Oxfordshire would declare its result the next morning. When they met up in Oxford Town hall shortly after nine, Alec’s face said it all. And it wasn’t just that he was exhausted after a punishing campaign.
So they stood there: at the back of the stage a small army of candidates: in front a plump and jolly looking returning officer about to enjoy his moment in the limelight.
“…..I declare that the first three candidates to attain the quota and thereby be elected to represent the County of Oxfordshire are: Rupert Quintin Louis Delahaye….”
Roars from the Tories.
“Janet Valerie Smith”….”
Roars from Labour.
“And Elwyn Arthur Evans.”
Even bigger roars from the Lib Dems, who had not really expected their man to make it.
There followed the usual speeches of congratulations and thanks.
As they left, Alec said: “It’s so unfair!” He was almost in tears. “You can’t believe how close it was. If the poll had come a day earlier, you’d have walked it. A day later, when everyone knew what you’d really done for them, I reckon you’d even have beaten Rupert into the number one spot.”
Damian couldn’t decide how he felt. Disappointed, obviously. Also a touch of relief. He was a maverick, who only obeyed the party whip when he felt it was right. Not suited to the usual run of politics. He’d been lucky enough to hit Number Ten when normal rules had briefly ceased to apply. Nothing similar was ever likely to happen again.
“You could call my reign short but sweet,” said Damian. “New voting system. House of Lords gone. NHS and Benefits reformed. Flu bug put in its place. Terrorist gang beaten. Not bad for a spell of just a few weeks.”
“A taste of what you might have done given more time.”
“I don’t think so, Alec. This country hates change. It takes something out of the ordinary, like a plane crash onto parliament, to make any real difference. Now it’s business as usual. Changes will again be measured in centuries rather than days.”
“What will you do?”
“We’d half anticipated this result, so Chloe suggests a few weeks in Greece to work on her best seller. I shall hold her hand, chew the cud, do some sailing, visit the tavernas….”
Alec Warbeck managed a smile. “Lucky sod!”
65
MAY 19th.
SKIATHOS, GREECE
The apartment faced east, giving them the morning sun with breakfast. It lay three hundred and twenty four steps up from harbour level, excellent for their cardiovascular systems, but not so good after an evening in a taverna. Occasionally a plane would pass by below them on its approach to the airport over to the left.
It was early in the season, the island still fresh and green, accommodation easy to come by. A priority had been reliable wifi, because th
is would be a working holiday, communication with the outside world vital. Chloe had set aside four hours a day for her book, which she was calling ‘The Night Watchman’. It was not so much ‘her’ book as a joint venture, but Damian was happy to let her have the by-line.
Having lost his last job rather abruptly, Damian’s main task was to map out a future. A CV which included British Prime Minister did confer some advantages, but decisions still had to be taken. The Tony Blair route of becoming filthy rich did not appeal; neither did spending his life in boardrooms. What then? He assessed possibilities by surfing the net and sending out emails. They’d rented a small Fiat to get around the island, kept fit by walking and idled the time away in tavernas. A life they felt they could put up with for a few weeks.
“Prime Minister Adam Tichbold has managed to cobble together a minority government,” announced Chloe, scrolling down on her laptop. Their routine was to take in the news online over breakfast. Although the Conservatives had emerged as the largest party at the last election, they had failed to get an overall majority.
“Good for him. So he’s landed the top job again without having to unseat me. That might have been messy. What about Bessie?”
“Tory Chief Whip again.”
“Excellent. Unlike me, she’s an institutional sort of person. Would make a good nun.”
“It says they’re still meeting in Central Hall Westminster,” continued Chloe. “Although plans for a new parliament are ‘well advanced’. Doesn’t say where.”
“Wonder how Hermione is enjoying Number Ten,” mused Damian. “Could ride Fidget in Hyde Park I suppose.”
“Email Adam and find out,” suggested Chloe. “And ask him if he really would have challenged you for the leadership had you got in.”
Damian smiled. “Might do that. But after we’ve put in our regulation four hours with the Night Watchman. The book. Time is of the essence. People soon forget.”
NIGHT WATCHMAN Page 23
