by Andy Maslen
“I saw them too when I met Maitland for the first time. I think they’re the lepers.”
“The what?” Britta and Lauren said in unison.
“The League of English Patriots. Another bunch of right-wing nut jobs who don’t realise we’re all immigrants if you go back far enough. Maitland’s brought them in to shoot down the PM, then he’s going to shine the spotlight on them, throw them in the Tower of London for treason and march straight into Downing Street.”
“So you have to train these bozos to shoot an M2?” Lauren said. “Those things aren’t exactly fairground air rifles.”
“Yes. I’d always assumed it would be me and Franz. It’s fine. If anything it makes our job easier. There’s less chance of them hitting anything.”
They batted ideas back and forth for another couple of hours, cramming some sandwiches down while they waited for Maitland’s call. In the event, it was a text. Two words.
We’re ready.
“That’s me,” Gabriel said. “I’ll see you later.”
He headed outside and climbed into his car and was back at Rokeby Manor twenty minutes later. He’d passed Maitland coming out of the front door, who’d offered him a cheery wave, for all the world as if he were a dinner guest, not someone about to help him prepare two heavy machine guns for an assassination attempt on the Prime Minister. He walked round to the front of the house, and despite his anxiety he paused to draw in a lungful of the scent from the huge old honeysuckle pegged and wired to the side of the house.
“Gabriel! Good evening to you. Are you ready?”
“Absolutely.”
“And you’ve changed into working clothes. How sensible.”
It was true. Gabriel had pulled on some old jeans and a knitted cotton gardening jumper for the evening’s work. They walked down to the barn through the meadow, a riot of buttercups, field poppies and daisies.
“Things are going to move fast, now,” Maitland said. “The PM is due in Andover three days from now. That gives us plenty of time, but none to be wasted. There are some people I’d like you to meet. I’ve invited them to watch you prepare the Brownings as they’ll be the ones firing them.”
“The lepers?” Gabriel couldn’t resist it.
“I agree, the choice of name is unfortunate. Even calling themselves the English Patriot League would have solved their little problem, but no matter. No doubt it will add to the press’s pleasure when they report the details of their crime.”
“And you want me to train them? You know, it would be much better to have me and maybe Franz handle the Brownings ourselves.”
“Correction. It would be much more efficient, but not better. I want their fingerprints on those triggers. I want photographic evidence that it was they who committed this egregious crime.”
“Photographic?”
“Video. We will release mobile phone footage of the act itself, filmed on one of their own devices. It’s breathtaking how callous these people can be. A few years ago they would have been content with happy slapping, now they’re filming themselves in an act of terrorism and treason.”
They reached the barn as Gabriel was digesting this last statement of Maitland’s. He’d set up the lepers to do the dirty work and take the fall for it, leaving him to ride into Westminster, if not on a white charger, then at least in a private jet or a helicopter, to save England from chaos. You almost had to admire the man.
Outside, standing in a loose circle were the four black-clad men Gabriel had seen before, plus Franz. They were sharing some joke, their voices loud. The punchline involved a word Gabriel had never been able to utter out loud even when it became popular among rappers and black American comedians. The men turned and straightened as Maitland walked up to them.
“Gentlemen, there’s someone I’d like you to meet. This is my right-hand man, Gabriel Wolfe. It was he who secured the Brownings you’ll be using, and managed their shipping back to the UK.”
The newcomers were slimmer versions of the men Gabriel had seen lounging around in the clubhouse presided over by Davis Meeks. Shaved heads, tight, thin-lipped expressions, the odd tattoo here and there, visible above the necklines of their T-shirts, or on their biceps or forearms: swastikas, a double-S; a flag of St George here, a gothic ‘Death Before Dishonour’ there. Some were done by professionals with artistic talent; others looked more like the work of prisoners, executed with crude needles and homemade inks. But while three of them seemed interested in Gabriel only in that he was going to train them how to fire a .50 calibre heavy machine gun, one had a look of the purest hatred, upper lip tight across his top teeth, eyes screwed up into slits. In many respects, he would be considered handsome. High cheekbones, strong mouth. But his looks were spoiled by a gap where his upper central incisors were missing.
Chapter 38
It was the leader of the men who’d stopped him in the tunnel. Jesus, that feels like a long time ago.
“Gabriel, it appears that you and Gary Granger here know each other. Have you met before?”
“Just once,” Gabriel said, taking the initiative. “It was an after work thing, wasn’t it, Gary?”
“Something like that,” the other man lisped, glaring at Gabriel.
“Well, well, what a coincidence,” Maitland said. “Anyway, Gabriel will assemble the Brownings and I suggest you four watch and see how a real soldier operates. Then you’re dismissed. In the morning I want you on the top field at oh-nine-hundred hours for some firearms instruction. Gabriel, I hope that’s a civilised time for you to begin their training?”
“Sounds good to me, Toby.”
“In that case I shall leave you to it. Good evening, gentlemen. Franz, I need you later. Please come up to the house when you’re done here.”
Maitland strode off back to the house slashing at the long grass and wildflowers with a stick he picked up on the edge of the yard.
Keeping his eye on the man whose teeth he’d altered, Gabriel gestured towards the door of the bar.
“Shall we? Gentlemen?”
Inside, the Brownings lay in their basic, four-part stripped state on a large tarpaulin: barrels, main bodies, rear assemblies and tripods. The paint had disappeared, apart from the tiniest of bright green flecks in some of the crevices of the main bodies. They smelled of grease and gun oil. Gabriel turned to the German, whom he realised was Maitland’s armourer.
“Great job, Franz. You didn’t feel like putting them back together then?”
“That is your job.”
“OK, fair enough. So, watch carefully: the M2 is a big weapon but the principles are the same as for an assault rifle.”
The five other men gathered round, eager students with an experienced teacher. The barn was silent apart from the soft metallic scrapes, clinks and clacks as Gabriel assembled the Brownings. Levers, springs and catches were held open then snapped closed, and Gabriel’s hands developed a degree of autonomy as long years of practice stripping and preparing weapons came flooding back. He barely needed to think about what he was doing and shortly after he’d started, the brutal machines were standing next to each other on their tripods. They looked like huge, wingless dragonflies. There was an ironic handclap from Granger.
“Tomorrow we’re going to be firing these, but for now, I want you to familiarise yourselves with their feel and how to cock and fire them. Let’s have you in two teams.”
He pointed at the weapons, then the four men facing him.
“You and you on the right-hand weapon. You and you on the left.”
Granger elbowed his partner out of the way and squatted behind the handles of the Browning, seizing them in his meaty paws. The other two took up matching positions behind the second gun.
“OK. You have your gunner and your ammunition bearer. Gunner, your job is obvious. Ammunition bearers, tomorrow, we’ll be working with live ammunition. The Browning’s a belt-fed weapon, do you know what that means.”
“Of course we do,” Granger said. “You’re not the only
one here who’s been in the Army. Me and Benno over there, we done our bit in the Territorials. Afghanistan. We know what we’re doing.”
“Did you ever fire a .50 cal?”
“Couple of time we did, yeah. Didn’t we, Benno?”
The other man nodded.
“Well that was a while back. You’re rusty. Unlike these M2s. So let’s refresh our memories. Ammunition bearers: your job is to keep the belt feeding smoothly into the breech, no twists, no stretching or jamming in the box. You fire the M2 by depressing the trigger here,” he said, pointing to the small levers between the rear handles. “Gunners, short bursts are better, ten or twenty rounds at a time, max. I know it’ll be tempting to keep your thumbs down on those triggers but there’s a higher risk of a belt jam and the barrel overheating. We don’t have spares, so no video game heroics OK?”
The men nodded. Gabriel ran through the principles of aiming using the iron sights fore and aft, and explained how the tracer rounds would glow brightly as they traveled towards the target, letting them see where they were firing. At the end of the briefing, he dismissed them as he would have done a squad of soldiers. They went outside to smoke, and Gabriel turned to Franz.
“Give it ten minutes before you come up to the house. There’s something I need to discuss with Sir Toby.”
The German nodded and Gabriel turned and marched off up the hill towards the house, its elegant frontage bathed in evening sunlight that turned the old bricks a honey colour and cast long shadows of the Wisteria that climbed almost to the first floor windows. He found Maitland in the kitchen, sitting on a bar stool, sipping a glass of red wine – a very good Claret, judging by the bottle – and reading a newspaper.
“Ah, Gabriel. And how did your recruits handle themselves? Better than the last time you met, I hope.”
“You knew about that?”
“Of course I knew. Let me explain something to you, Gabriel. You don’t get to be a man in my position without controlling things around you. And people. Martin might have recommended you to me but I needed to be sure you were made of the right stuff. Combat-ready, you might say. After all, your Army days were behind you. ‘Negotiator’ isn’t exactly a job title that inspires confidence in a man’s physical skills, is it? I needed to know you could handle yourself in – challenging – situations, before whisking you off to meet men like Davis Meeks and Bart Venter.”
“Are you saying you set that up? In the tunnel that time?”
“I had you followed. A friend of mine lent me Mr Granger and his associates for the day. It wasn’t hard for them to intercept you. And, I have to say, we were most impressed by the results.”
“How do you know what the results were? There was nobody else there.” Gabriel could feel his voice rising, and couldn’t stop it.
“Nobody? Are you quite sure?”
“What, the homeless guy? You’re not telling me you have winos on your payroll too?”
“Not at all. Alastair is an actor. Not a very good one, admittedly, which is why he was happy to pick up some money playing the role I devised for him, though I deducted your £300 from his fee. He filmed your little encounter for me. I have to say, I was very tempted to put the whole thing on YouTube. I think it would have gone viral, don’t you?”
Gabriel took a deep breath. Alastair wasn’t the only actor on Maitland’s payroll. Back into character.
“Look, I’m sorry for shouting. You’re right. Testing me was a great idea. It’s just I now have a recruit out there who looks like he’d rather be aiming at me than the Prime Minister.”
“Oh, you needn't worry about Gary. Don’t tell me you haven’t had men under your command in the past who hated your guts. He’ll follow orders. He thinks he’s going to be given an important job in my administration. He won’t risk that. Now, if that’s all?”
Gabriel nodded. “That’s all.”
“Then I’ll say good evening. There is much to be done, Gabriel, much to be done. No rest for the wicked! You can see yourself out.”
Gabriel, Lauren and Britta reconvened at his table a little while later.
“Are you sure we can’t just stop this whole thing now, Britta? There must be people you can trust who could get a message to the Prime Minister?”
“I’ve tried. Hard. What I was told is, ‘Oh, if we stopped the PM travelling every time we heard about a threat she’d have to do all her work from a bunker in the countryside.’ And I told you I recognised those MI5 names on the list.”
“Britta’s right,” Lauren added. “This is on us for now. When we catch them in the act so to speak, we can bring the whole network down, but without the ultimate proof, we’ve got nothing, I’m afraid. We’ve pulled together a small team of people we can absolutely trust – the US Embassy’s helping on the Q-T but you can imagine, they don’t want a word of this breathed outside the team. You know what diplomats are like, right?”
“Oh, better than you could ever imagine.”
“So, we are where we are. But it’s going to be fine. Can’t you just teach them to shoot badly?”
“Not sure that’s going to work. It turns out two of them were in Afghanistan with the TA.”
“The what, now? Tits and ass?” Lauren said, brow creased.
“Territorial Army. Like your reservists. They’ve used M2s before. Plus, to be honest, with enough ammunition and a slow-moving target, it’s not hard to hit a helicopter at that range. The IRA did it once. Set up a Dushka in a farm vehicle under a tarp and just sat there waiting. Those guys brought down a Lynx. And they weren’t even soldiers.”
“Well, we just have to go with what we’ve got. The PM is coming down in two days’ time. Seeing as Maitland has friends in MI5, I don’t want to take any chances with cell communications. For all we know he’s having the place monitored. He’s got a half-dozen cell towers on his estate and we can’t risk even a text being picked up.”
“Here’s what Lauren and I have agreed, Gabriel,” Britta said. “Tomorrow, you go up to Rokeby Manor. Begin the training. If Maitland doesn’t suggest it himself, suggest you stay up there. Things are going to heat up quickly so it’s best if you’re available, 24/7. Give him some Army jargon about combat readiness. He seems to love all that.”
Lauren took up the story.
“On Wednesday, just go with his plan. We’ll have our people in place on his estate. As soon as the first shots are fired from the M2s, we move in. I’ll have my superiors contact the PM direct through backchannels and you can do whatever you have to do on the ground. My orders are shoot to kill. Nobody wants prisoners.”
The three of them finished their wine, thrashed out a few remaining details of the plan, then went to bed. The next couple of days would either see the first Western country to be ruled by a dictatorship since the 1970s or a narrowly averted coup that would make the history books.
After a hasty breakfast and hugs all round, Britta, Lauren and Gabriel drove away from the little house and its picture-perfect cottage garden. Gabriel wondered if he’d see it again. Half an hour later, he was bolting the tripod for a Browning M2 .50 calibre heavy machine gun onto the roof of a Land Rover pickup, watched by four neo-Nazis dressed like commandos and twitching with adrenaline. None of them could stand still. They fidgeted, swayed from foot to foot, ran hands over shaved skulls but mostly just watched as Franz and Gabriel worked with big spanners to secure the tripods.
When they’d finished, Gabriel nodded at Granger. He and his ammunition bearer, a man in his thirties with a dotted line tattoo round his neck, hefted a Browning between them and lowered it onto the bed of Gabriel’s Land Rover. They climbed up and all three of them settled the gun onto the tripod, Gabriel securing it with a clip and locking nut. Next to them, Franz and the two others performed mirror actions with the second Browning.
“Look at that, boys!” Granger crowed. “That’s the dog’s bollocks, that is. We do our thing with the .50 cals and it’s game over for immigrants. Then those Muslims can get the next plane bac
k to Paki-land.”
“Yeah, well, let’s not run before we can walk,” Gabriel said.
Granger pushed his face up close to Gabriel’s. His breath smelt of peppermint. He spoke quietly.
“Oh, we’ll be running mate. Just watch us. We’ll be running this whole country. And if I was you, I’d run too. In the other direction. You and me ain’t done yet.”
With the Brownings secured, they turned to the ammunition boxes. Granger reared back when he saw the pink ribbons.
“Who done this?” he said, yanking the free ends of the ribbons. “Some gayboy in the Army? That’s another thing we’re going to sort out afterwards.”
They piled into the Land Rovers and drove out of the barn, along a winding track through some ash trees and into a field about a half-mile on a side. About three hundred yards away stood a large, red, wheeled cylinder about five feet in diameter and eight feet long – a tow bar at one end. Grey primer showed through where the topcoat had flaked away. Deep, rutted tractor tracks led to and from it.
“That the target is it?” one of the men asked.
“It’s a bowser,” Gabriel said. “A water container,” he added before anyone could ask. “You reckon you could hit that?”
“That? Course we could. Do it all the time on Call of Duty. With a .50 cal, I could do it with me eyes shut.”
“Well, this isn’t a game. These are real. So let’s stow the attitude and see if you can still fire a real weapon.”
They climbed up onto the truck beds and took up their positions: Granger and the other gunner behind the Brownings; ammunitions bearers, who’d now become assistant gunners, to one side. Gabriel showed them how to feed the end of the ammunition belt into the receiver and latch the cover closed to clamp the first rounds in place in the breech.
“OK, gunners, on my command, ‘take aim’, I want you to sight on the bowser. Aim for the centre. Do not fire. Then I will say, ‘put down fire’ and I want a couple of short bursts from each of you. Remember what to do? Squeeze the trigger down, don’t jerk it. Ready?”
