The PM barked; Bleacher gave Barney a quick glance.
*
The Queen was leaning forward, staring intently at the Prime Minister. The three men were waiting for her to pronounce, Barney trying not to look at her in a peculiar way. Finally she snapped her fingers.
'Prime Minister!' she said. 'You've had your hair done. I was wondering. What is that? Is it a Humphrey Bogart?'
The PM looked rather pleased with himself, and couldn't stop that incredibly annoying smirk from spreading over his ugly chops.
'Yes, Your Majesty,' he said. 'It's been a momentous few days for my administration, and I thought my hair should be, shall we say, out of the top drawer.'
The Queen sat back and glanced at Barney. She knew all about him from the MI5 file, and wasn't about to engage the mass murderer in conversation. Bleacher was another man about whom she knew more than anyone might suspect.
'So,' she said, tinkling her spoon in her tea cup, 'my people tell me there's little doubt America are behind the murders of all the MPs.'
'Yes, Your Majesty,' said the PM. 'I realise that there are about sixty million suspects, people who might want MPs dead, but we have definite intel that the Americans are behind this murder spree.'
The Queen shook her head and pursed her lips. Barney recognised the look from those photographs of her watching tribesman dance in a hundred degree heat; or Scotsmen toss the caber in minus five.
'That can't be allowed. It's time we asserted ourselves.'
'Yes, Your Majesty,' said the PM.
'You have an invasion force waiting off the eastern seaboard of that young upstart of a country?'
'Yes, Your Majesty.'
The Queen nodded and looked determined.
'Well then, Prime Minister. It looks to me like it might be time to lock 'n load.'
That smirk spread horribly across the PM's face once again.
'Yes, Your Majesty.'
*
Sitting in the car on the way back to Downing Street, the PM repeatedly checked his watch. Barney wondered if there was something on television he was afraid to miss. Bleacher knew that he was trying to work out the time on the eastern seaboard of the United States. Maths had never been his strong point.
'Do we recall the Commons on this, or do we take the opportunity presented to us by them all having scampered home for the holidays?'
He glanced from Bleacher to Barney, a look of expectation on his face.
'There are so few left,' said Bleacher, 'it hardly seems worth it.'
The PM nodded and looked at Barney.
'Barney?' he said.
'What?' said Barney. He turned from looking out at the wintry cold of mid-morning, and stared harshly at the Prime Minister.
'How d'you think it'll play if we launch the invasion without speaking to Parliament?' said the PM. 'Of course, it's a moot point, because how can you launch a surprise invasion when you discuss it in the Commons, live on television first?'
'It's stupid,' said Barney.
'Exactly,' said the PM.
'No,' said Barney, 'I mean, the whole thing is stupid. Britain, us, this little island; we may have been this thing once, but it's a long time ago, a distant memory, another age. We might as well have been a thing in Middle Earth. It's time to let go. If you take on America, you, we, will be utterly squashed. Hundreds, maybe thousands, maybe, if you annoy them enough, millions of people will get killed. And all because you're an idiot.'
'They started it!' cried the PM, echoing one of the great comic lines of British television history.
'No, they didn't,' said Barney.
'Well, who did?'
'I don't know! For crying out loud, this is insane! Why would the Americans want to undermine your government? You're a useless bunch of wankers, you're going to lose the next election anyway, and they already tell you what to do and you follow like a pathetic flock of lost sheep.'
Bleacher coughed softly, for all the world like he was Jeeves.
'Remember to whom you're speaking, Mr. Thomson,' said Bleacher creepily.
'I do remember,' said Barney. 'I'm speaking to one of the Muppets. And one of the dumbass Muppets at that.'
1312hrs London, England
Barney was cutting the hair of DCI Frankenstein, which was probably a little odd under the circumstances, but Frankenstein and DS Hewitt had come across Barney alone in an office at Number 10; there had been a chair, a pair of scissors and a comb, and Frankenstein had been looking for a cut before the holidays. Not that he was getting so much as a morning off.
Frankenstein was reading the Mirror - headline Bring It On, with a fatuous PM, grinning like an idiot, talking about the Westminster serial killer. Every now and again Frankenstein cast a suspicious eye in the mirror, as if he expected Barney to suddenly bury the scissors in his head.
'So what's going on here?' asked Frankenstein, his first words since he'd sat down. 'There seems to be a lot of activity, you know, for three days before Christmas. All the MPs have gone home. They're safely tucked up in their constituencies, guarded by at least ten officers each. Everything's winding down, and yet there's all sorts of stuff going on. Guys in uniform cutting about, men in suits. Diplomats and the like.'
Barney had been standing behind Frankenstein, giving him a beautiful, if predictable, Peter Cushing, his mind completely in neutral.
'Well,' he said, brain finally kicking in, 'as you know I appear to have been taken in to the Prime Minister's inner circle.'
'Yes,' said Frankenstein, 'funny that. Just after we took you into our inner circle.'
'Inner circle's come and go,' said Barney. 'Anyway, as such I'm now privy to the most top secret information that there could possibly be in Britain at this very moment.'
Frankenstein held Barney's gaze in the mirror. DS Hewitt looked up from the Daily Star: Jordan's Alex and Peter In TV Punch Up. Didn't take much to keep the wholesale slaughter of MPs from the front page of the Star.
'But you're not going to tell us?' said Hewitt.
Barney glanced over his shoulder.
'Well, I don't care. I kept their secrets before and they locked me up. And what with him being in such a hurry to bring me into his inner war cabinet, they seem to have forgotten to get me to sign the Official Secrets Act.'
Frankenstein had lowered the paper and straightened his shoulders.
'Does this pertain to the investigation?' he said. 'Because I'm telling you sunshine, I don't care about the Official Secrets Act, and I don't care who told you to say what, or not to say what, or whose dad can beat up someone else's dad. If you've got some knowledge which relates to this investigation and you don't tell us, you're flippin' nicked.'
Barney took a step backwards.
'Oh, like that's going to threaten me,' he said, 'after a few nights with Three Beards.'
All three of the men in the room shuddered at the thought of a few nights with Three Beards.
'Whatever,' said Frankenstein. 'Just tell us.'
'They think it's a coup d'état by serial killer,' said Barney, shrugging, and quite happily betraying his masters, who would so readily betray him. 'Organised by the Americans.'
'We know that,' said Frankenstein. 'It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard from this government, which is in itself some achievement.'
'What you don't know,' said Barney, and he suddenly thought that he sounded like Hughie Green or something, 'is that at this moment there is an invasion force of British troops off the coast of Maine, about to launch an attack on American soil.'
Frankenstein and Hewitt both dropped their newspapers at the same time. (On a scientific note, it can be noted that The Mirror and The Star both fall at the same rate because they contain equal amounts of shit.)
'You're making that up!' cried Frankenstein.
'Like, no way and stuff!' shouted Hewitt.
Barney smiled ruefully. 'I'm afraid not. Go home and kiss your loved ones. We're all going to die.'
2303hrs London, England
>
The Prime Minister stood in his usual position, looking down on Downing Street, cold and damp. The time had come. The decision had been made. The Queen had agreed, the Leader of the Opposition had been informed, an interview with Andrew Marr had been set up for the Sunday after Christmas.
British troops were poised; the invasion force was ready to be launched. The chain of command waited for one word from the Prime Minister.
The snow was falling gently, a damp snow, the snow of sleet and slush and air not quite cold enough. The PM shivered and glanced over his shoulder. He had been waiting for the killer Utterson to turn up at any time, but Utterson did not seem interested in him for some reason.
And so, choosing this moment to make his final date with destiny, fate and doom, he lifted the phone and put the call through to the Ministry of Defence.
War was at hand. The end of days was upon them. Great men would do great deeds.
Wednesday 23rd December 2009
0345hrs London, England
The PM was distractedly looking through that morning's front pages. Simon Cowell, weather, Katie & Peter, more weather, even Sir Paul. Nothing about him, nothing about his extraordinary hair, nothing about the Westminster Serial Killer. It had been four days since the last of the brutal murders and people were already forgetting. There were too many other exciting things happening in celebrity Britain for the great British people to care about those conniving, duplicitous few hundred who governed them.
The invasion of the eastern seaboard of the United States of America had begun at a little after midnight GMT; 1907hrs EST. In the PM's office, CNN was on the TV with the volume turned down as they waited for the first news of the invasion to be reported. In a corner, Bleacher was sitting with his laptop, flicking endlessly through news sites and gossip sites and rumour sites and conspiracy sites, waiting to see if anyone had yet picked up intel on the invasion; waiting for the first images to be posted on YouTube of hostile British troops on American soil, of the British flag flying over the state government building in Augusta, Maine.
The PM finally gave up, shoved the papers onto the floor, got to his feet and walked to the window. His hands were clasped behind his back, his fingers tapping into the palm of his hand.
'This is extraordinary, isn't it?' he said. 'I mean, really exciting.'
None of the four others in the room - Bleacher, Blaine, Lucy or Barney Thomson - said anything. They were all tired and slightly nervous.
The PM turned and looked expectantly at them.
'I mean, you know, this is like the great days of Empire, when we actually went out and invaded places. This must be what it was like to be Prime Minister in Victoria's time. Forging an empire, creating something grand and magnificent and long-lasting, something to span the generations, something that creates history, but a living history. These are momentous times. We are at war.'
'We've been at war for the last eight years,' said Blaine dryly.
The PM waved him away.
'Counter-insurgency,' he said. 'This is what we're talking about, this here, this magnificent thrust into enemy territory. This is like D-Day. It's, it's, I don't know, like some other great landing.'
'Gallipoli?' suggested Barney.
The PM snapped his fingers. 'Maybe,' he said. 'I don't know that one.'
The phone rang and the sound skewered through the room, juddering them all wide awake. They all stared at the phone for a second, then Bleacher lifted it quickly, barked at it, listened for a few seconds then hung up.
'They've encountered heavy snow, Prime Minister,' said Bleacher, and the PM's heart sank and he immediately thought of Napoleon and Hitler heading east, and wondered if he should have delayed his attack until the spring. 'However, they've taken the port of Portland and are heading slowly inland towards Augusta.'
The PM smacked his hands together excitedly.
'Holy moly,' he said. 'This is fantastic. We've actually taken a town, a port, on American soil. We're taking back America, bit by bit. This is incredible. Any casualties?'
'None reported so far,' said Bleacher.
'And what about enemy casualties or collateral damage, any of that kind of thing?'
'Sir, there are no troops in Maine, that's why we chose it. In any event, everyone seems to be on holiday at the moment, so no one's really noticed.'
'Outstanding. And we should have taken the state capital by daybreak, eh? Then we can make an announcement at one o'clock. On the news. Let the world know that Britain has returned as an imperial power, and an imperial power for good at that, not like those Yanks, with their junk food and lawyers and cluster weapons and dodgy banking practices.'
Bleacher felt his insides crawl. Blaine checked his watch and wondered if he'd have time to get home to see his kids before Britain was destroyed by a single nuclear weapon. Lucy the Diary Secretary checked her diary and made a mental note to herself to make sure that the PM's 1215 with Radio 5 Live, when he would be discussing his favourite memories of watching Morecambe and Wise Christmas specials, did not overrun.
Faced with impending war and the bedlam that would ensue, Barney Thomson leant over and picked up the Star: Macca Versus Mucca On Ice...
'Right.' said the PM, emptying the last of a late night fortifier down his throat, 'let's get the speech finalised. This is so awesome.'
0525hrs London, England
Barney Thomson walked through the corridors of Downing Street in search of coffee. Was still surprised by the Tardis effect of the place; how a small terraced house could suddenly branch out to be this gigantic townhouse behind. (And despite his position of privilege in the administration, he would not be told the fact that primitive time/space/dimension technology had indeed been used to expand the insides of Number 10 Downing Street since the mid-1980's; and that studies had shown that constant exposure to this untested technology had driven each of the occupants completely insane, sometimes in as little as under two years.)
Barney stopped for a second, thinking that he'd heard a noise further down the corridor. He looked at the watch he'd been given on starting the job for the second time. He wasn't sure how many of the staff had stayed overnight, but this was already far enough into a government morning for someone to have just arrived at the office.
'Coffee,' said Barney. 'I need about a pint of the stu...'
He broke off from chatting amiably to himself at the sound from up ahead. It had been a definite whimper, a loud, pathetic whimper.
'Uh-oh,' said Barney.
He stopped and wondered whether he should just turn around and go back to the office. The PM was off catching some sleep, so that he would look gorgeous for his momentous TV event. Bleacher was running wild, high on amphetamines and caffeine, dementedly going in circles, running the country in a whirlwind of deranged dysfunctional insanity. Blaine was gone; Lucy was asleep on the couch.
He heard the noise again, and this time he recognised the sound of fear and distress. This was not a hungover office worker cringing at the thought of what they'd done at the Christmas party the night before.
'Pants,' he muttered, then started walking quickly along the corridor. Around a short corner, and there, in the backwoods of Number 10 Downing Street, he saw his first corpse of the season, a security guard with slashed face and slit throat, dead in a pool of blood. He had collapsed in a doorway, from which the sounds of distress now came.
Barney did not bend to look at the man, did not need to make sure he was dead. He hesitated, deep breath, steeled himself, and walked quickly forward and into the room of impending death.
0025hrs EST Washington DC, USA
The steward gently tapped the shoulder of the President of the United States. He had been in bed for a little more than twenty minutes, but deep sleep had come to him quickly, sucking him into a dark world of health care budgets and pardoned turkeys.
'Mr. President,' repeated the Steward. 'You're needed in the situation room.'
'What?' said the President sleepily, groggil
y emerging from the depths.
*
There was a group of fifteen men in suits and uniforms looking at a large satellite image of the coast of Maine. The President was sitting with his back straight, sharp and awake, already downing his third coffee.
'At the moment we estimate an invasion force of around eight hundred, Mr. President, although we think they may be holding a couple of hundred in reserve.'
The President looked to the head of the CIA.
'That's not much. Is that what we were expecting?'
'To be honest, Mr. President, we didn't think they'd be able to cobble together that many. We egged them in to sending more troops to Afghanistan a coupla weeks ago, so they'd be even shorter on numbers than they'd normally be. To be honest, we thought they'd be lucky to muster five hundred.'
The President nodded, too cool to be surprised or distracted by anything.
'And the local police know to keep their heads down and surrender if approached?'
'Yes, Mr. President, it's all going to plan.'
The President sat back and clasped his hands on the table, nodding slowly at something. The others in the room had come to realise that he constantly held conversations in his head and no one was ever entirely sure with whom he was talking.
'Think I'll stick around here for a while, see how it plays out. Has it made CNN or Fox yet?'
'We scheduled that for thirty minutes prior to the British Prime Minister going on TV, Mr. President. Knock him off his game.'
'Cool,' said the President, then he put his fingers to his forehead in the shape of an L, and said, 'Loo-zer...'
0529hrs GMT London, England
The Foreign Secretary had been bound to a chair, a rudimentary gag placed around his mouth. It prevented him shouting loudly, but would not stop him moaning and whimpering and pleading desperately for his life. The killer Utterson, taking pleasure in murdering his first cabinet minister, was not in a rush.
The End Of Days Page 10
