The Horse at the Gates

by D C Alden

  ‘Once we go public they’ll understand. I’ll make it up to them.’

  Ella glanced at the back of the driver’s head, at the bodyguard next to him. Despite the soundproofed partition she lowered her voice. ‘Have you thought about the repercussions, Gabe? I mean really thought about them?’

  Bryce exhaled noisily. ‘Don’t patronise me, Ella. I’ve thought of nothing else this past week.’

  ‘Because DuPont is going to go absolutely ballistic when this breaks. The other leaders will, too. We’re not the only ones who need that gas and oil. Most of Europe’s economies are depending on it.’

  ‘I know that,’ Bryce snapped. He took a breath. ‘Look, all we’re talking about here is delaying the treaty, not scrapping it. We need assurances, that’s all. Guarantees. Same applies to the relocation programme.’ Bryce was silent for a moment, then he turned and said: ‘What about Tariq?’

  His Special Advisor tapped her cell. ‘I’ve scheduled five minutes in your office just before the press conference.’

  ‘It won’t take that long.’

  Ella frowned. ‘Strange, he’s barely been seen since he returned from Istanbul. Even Rana’s being cagey about his movements.’

  ‘She’s covering,’ Bryce said. ‘Anyway, it’s irrelevant. Tariq’s history.’

  Outside, a police motorcycle outrider shot past the car, square jaw jutting beneath his black visor. ‘The next few weeks are going to be hell,’ Ella muttered.

  Bryce reached over and gave her arm a reassuring squeeze. ‘Don’t worry, we’re doing the right thing. Tomorrow is about hard choices, plain and simple, and it’s my job to make those choices. It’s why people voted for us.’

  Ella looked away. ‘I hope to God you’re right Gabe, I really do.’

  Bryce saw her reflection in the glass and knew she was worried. Privately he was too, but what other options did he have?

  The convoy continued northwards, the outriders carving a path through the afternoon traffic. Bryce took advantage of the silence, staring out of the window as he contemplated firing his Communities minister. Tariq had once been a trusted comrade, rallying Britain’s burgeoning Muslim community behind Bryce’s election campaign, earning his place in Cabinet with his intelligence and unswerving loyalty, a dependable mouthpiece both at home and in Brussels. He was passionate, a team player, and yet there had certainly been a cooling of their relationship in recent months, Tariq distancing himself from the intimacy of their ideological bonds, succumbing instead to the growing power of the Islamic Congress of Europe, aligning himself with pro-Cairo factions in the European parliament. It was understandable; Tariq was seen as the major conduit of Islamic influence and opinion in Bryce’s government and Bryce had encouraged it for his own political purposes, yet somehow it had led to the debacle at Heathrow. Despite the betrayal, he would miss Tariq’s counsel and powerful cultural influence. A hard man to replace, indeed. Something else he had to work on.

  Outside, the green fields of Surrey yielded to the urban sprawl of the south London suburbs. Raindrops tapped the window, slithering across the thick glass like tiny tadpoles of mercury. He thought of the woman back at the cemetery, her bitter words, her warning about Cairo. Wherever she’d got her information from, and Bryce guessed it was from an uncensored blog somewhere, her facts were essentially correct; the treaty had to be stopped. The question was, for how long?

  Sirens wailed as the convoy slowed and the traffic became heavier. Bryce looked beyond the warehouses, beyond the industrial units and the suburban rooftops that lined the motorway to where the sky met the earth.

  In the distance, far to the east, storm clouds gathered on the horizon.

  Luton

  Thirty-four miles to the north, Danny Whelan swung the wheel of the truck in a tight arc across the car park then stamped heavily on the brakes. He crunched the gear lever into reverse, the warning signal beeping loudly, and backed the vehicle smartly towards the covered loading bay. He watched his wing mirror carefully, as one of the mosque staff waved him backwards. A loading bay! Jesus, how big was this place? Too bloody big, he decided. Still, he had a job to do.

  The truck was where the bloke on the phone had said it would be an unmarked white Ford Cargo parked on the edge of an industrial estate near Kings Cross station. Danny had arrived by pushbike, unwilling to use the CCTV-saturated London transport network. The estate was deserted, the surrounding business units barred and shuttered, the morning sun still loitering beyond the horizon. He waited in the shadows for a minute or two, half expecting to see an enraged Sully pacing around the truck, waiting for Danny to show up and give him a beating. But there was no Sully, no one around at all, and Danny was relieved, if not a little surprised. After all, he’d stolen the job from under Sully’s nose and yet no one seemed to be bothered, not Sully, his mate at the agency nor the bloke on the phone. Strange. Danny dismissed the thought; who cared, as long as he got paid, right?

  He locked his bike against a railing, found the keys behind the fuel tank and climbed into the cab, still thinking the whole deal was a bit suspect. His doubts were soon laid to rest when he saw the money, a fat wedge of fifty pound notes tucked inside an envelope in the glove box. Danny’s heart sank when he inspected the paperwork – a mosque? He was half tempted to take the money and piss off, but common sense got the better of him. If he played his cards right this could be the start of a regular gig and, besides, all he had to do was deliver a fridge to a mosque. As long as no-one found out, so what?

  Danny didn’t really think about it on the journey north, humming away to the radio as the truck rumbled along the M1. It was only when he turned off the motorway and saw the distant gold dome dominating the skyline that his mood changed. The Luton Central Mosque was huge, almost as big as the one being built in the east end of London. Danny remembered complaining about that one, an afternoon of drunk-dialling Stratford council to voice his protest. Every leftie do-gooder he spoke to was full of praise for it, talking about serving the needs of a diverse community, the celebration of different faiths and all their other bullshit. What about my community? Danny had raged from inside the public phone booth, what about our needs? As usual he was threatened with prosecution, heard the tell tale clicks on the line as the conversation was recorded and the trace begun. Opinions weren’t allowed anymore; the Thought Police were always watching, always listening. Bastards.

  He engaged the handbrake with another sharp hiss of compressed air and jumped down from the cab, slamming the door behind him. The loading bay was situated at the rear of the building, set deep in the shadow of the mosque walls. Danny’s eyes were drawn upwards to the roof. There, gleaming in the afternoon sun, the golden dome thrust upwards into the sky, visible for miles around as it rose above the surrounding suburbs. For a moment Danny just stood there, quietly impressed by the sheer scale of the construction. He vaguely remembered hearing something about it on the news, Bryce and his entourage of flunkeys padding around in their socks, waffling on about its importance in the community, blah-blah, bullshit, bullshit. He also remembered the Prime Minister’s female staff, forced to wait outside in the rain, polite smiles fixed on their faces while inside they seethed at the insult to their feminist sensibilities. Fucking hypocrites. But there was no doubt about it, the Luton mosque was big, could probably hold thousands of worshippers. And as buildings went, Danny grudgingly admitted that it was an impressive sight. Not beautiful or anything, not like St. Pauls or Westminster Abbey, but it had lots of marble columns and arches and skinny little windows. And CCTV cameras, he noticed.

  He clambered up onto the concrete loading bay, dusting off his jeans as the mosque worker in a white robe stepped forward, hand outstretched.

  ‘My name is Imran. You have paperwork?’

  Danny pulled an untidy collection of printouts from his back pocket and handed them over.

  ‘It’s all there, bruv. Delivery note, itemised bill, the lot.’ He scraped his long hair back and removed a self-rolled ciga
rette from behind his ear. It had just a little touch in it, enough to give him a buzz, but not enough to get him nicked. He fumbled for a lighter until he realised Imran, or whatever his name was, was staring at him.

  ‘Smoking is forbidden.’

  Danny removed the cigarette from his lips and replaced it behind his ear. Taking the piss, he sulked. Normally he wouldn’t swallow shit from someone like him, but he needed this job to go smooth and, besides, the bloke was a big lump. Head like a coconut, shovels for hands and a wide set of shoulders straining at the stupid dress he was wearing. Best not to wind him up.

  Imran pointed at the truck. ‘Open, please.’

  Danny poked a fat green button and a battered metal tailgate lowered itself onto the loading bay with a loud hydraulic whine. He squatted down and unhooked the latch. With a grunt of effort, he heaved the shutter door upwards and stepped back.

  ‘There you go, Abdul,’ Danny smiled, pointing at the chest freezer strapped to the side of the truck’s interior. ‘One refrigeration unit. It’s all yours.’

  It was big, woven in clear plastic shrink-wrapping like a giant insect cocooned in a spider’s web. Danny was glad he didn’t have to shift the thing himself. It had already been loaded when he picked up the truck in Kings Cross, but he’d definitely enjoy watching this miserable twat struggle with it.

  Imran glanced at the unit and sighed heavily. He turned to Danny. ‘Very big, yes? Please, you help? No-one here.’ He waved an arm around the deserted loading bay.

  Danny glanced at the cars parked in the reserved spaces nearby. A Mercedes MPV, an Audi, couple of big four-byfours; someone was here all right, they just didn’t want to get their paws dirty. Well, screw it, he needed the money more than the grief. Danny forced another smile. ‘No sweat, Abdul.’

  Inside the truck he released the restraining straps and manoeuvred the unit towards the tailgate, relieved the thing was on wheels. Even so it was heavy, and Danny thought that a little strange. After all, fridges were normally pretty light, only the compressor units giving your average fridge a bit of weight. But this unit felt different. The Muslim watched him as Danny struggled to manoeuvre the wheels over the lip of the tailgate. Lazy bastard. He braced his arms and pushed with all of his strength.

  ‘Whoa! Watch your toes!’ warned Danny belatedly as he shoved the unit hard over the tailgate and onto the loading bay. Imran saw it coming and stepped deftly out of the way. ‘Really takes off when you get your weight behind it, eh?’

  The man said nothing, steering the front end towards a set of large double doors. Despite himself, Danny was intrigued. He’d never been inside a mosque and he wasn’t sure what to expect. He knew there was a main hall where everyone knelt down and prayed, that much he’d seen on the TV. ‘Watch out, someone’s dropped a contact lens!’ was his favourite joke, though no-one seemed to laugh at that one anymore. Still, it’d be something to tell the others down the King’s Head. On second thoughts, maybe he wouldn’t. You never knew if –

  ‘Stop!’ barked Imran as they crossed the threshold. He pointed at Danny’s white Adidas trainers. ‘Please remove. Forbidden.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ moaned Danny, hopping around on each leg as he slipped off his trainers, his socks making damp footprints on the concrete. He placed his shoes on the tailgate then glanced up, straight into the lens of a CCTV camera. I get it, he realised, the rest of ’em are up in the office, laughing their beards off at the stupid Infidel. And I bet old Abdul speaks fluent English too. Mugging me right off.

  ‘Keep me socks on, can I?’ he moaned sarcastically. He’d been stitched up, sure, but he kept his mind focussed on the money and together they steered the unit inside. Danny’s head swivelled left and right as they rumbled along the corridor, stealing a glance inside the rooms along the way. They passed a large kitchen, deserted, only the cold light of a fly-catcher filling the room with its electric blue glow. Further along, they passed a bare storeroom, empty shelving fixed to its walls. In fact, the place had an air of desertion about it, Danny realised. The corridor was devoid of life; instead it was quiet, almost silent, like a proper church. Just ahead, Imran held up his arm and called a halt. Danny straightened up.

  ‘I think I’ve slipped a bloody disc,’ he complained, rubbing the small of his back.

  The big Muslim ignored his banter. ‘In here,’ he commanded.

  Danny sighed and swung his end around, wheeling the unit carefully around the doorframe into another storeroom. This one was also empty.

  Imran held a finger to his lips. ‘Quiet. Prayers,’ he whispered, pointing at the wall. Danny listened carefully. He could hear it now, the low drone of voices coming from the other side of the grey cinderblock partition. Must be the main prayer hall. He could imagine them all in there now, arses in the air, bobbing up and down like a load of brainwashed robots. He lined the unit up along the wall, then dusted off his hands.

  ‘There you go, Abdul. All sorted.’ He made a move for the door then looked down, puzzled. ‘Hang on, you’ve got a problem here. There’s no power along that wall.’ He pulled the unit away from the cinderblock and crouched down. Nothing. Then he studied the unit itself, running his hands over the thick plastic. ‘That’s weird. Doesn’t seem to be a power cable.’

  Imran waved Danny towards the door. ‘No problem. Come.’

  Intrigued, Danny continued his search, dropping to his knees and peering beneath the unit. ‘No compressors, either. Why’s it so heavy then?’ He straightened up and studied the other walls. ‘You got no sockets in here at all. How you going to juice the thing up?’

  ‘You are fridge expert?’ Imran hissed. He held out a thick arm and ushered Danny out of the room. ‘Leave it, we fix later.’

  Danny shrugged. ‘Whatever, bruv. Just trying to help, yeah?’ He wasn’t about to break into a sweat over this idiot. Besides, the job had been done and now he just wanted out of the place. Back in the corridor, his finger scribbled on the air. ‘Just need your autograph, Abdul. You’ve got the paperwork, remember?’

  ‘Wait here.’

  Imran veered away and entered a room on the other side of the corridor. Danny took a step towards the door and looked through the small glass window. The Muslim was hunched over a desk, scribbling on his paperwork, while another couple of beardies were packing several large crates with files and computer stuff. Across the room, someone else was clearing out a book shelf. Imran’s face filled the window and the door swung open. Danny stepped back, a wry grin on his face.

  ‘Moving out already?’ he teased. ‘What’s up, Abdul? Not paid the rent?’

  For a big bloke he moved bloody fast, Danny later recalled. A large hand shot out and grabbed his shirt, pulling him tight to the big man’s barrel chest. The other shoved the signed invoice roughly into his shirt pocket. Danny recoiled as Imran’s hot breath wafted in his face, the stench of garlic and onion filling his nostrils.

  ‘My name is Imran. Im-ran,’ he growled. He shoved Danny away, then waved his hand dismissively. ‘Take truck and go.’

  Crimson-faced, Danny swivelled on his stockinged feet and marched out to the loading bay. He fumbled with his trainers, cursing under his breath as he squeezed them on. He tried to fasten his crumpled shirt until he realised two of the buttons were missing. Taking a deep breath and summoning up as much dignity as his boiling emotions would allow, Danny hopped down from the loading bay and climbed behind the wheel of the truck. Thirty seconds later he was steering the vehicle beyond the gates of the mosque and out onto the main road, deliberately forcing a minibus full of worshippers to swerve out of his way.

  Fat bastard, he raged silently, laying his filthy paws on me. He breathed heavily, his thin face still flushed with anger as he gunned the truck through busy traffic. He gripped the steering wheel hard as he imagined his bloodied fists pummelling Abdul’s face, raining blow after blow as the bastard pleaded for mercy through split lips and broken teeth. No-one messes with Danny Whelan.

  But deep down, Danny knew tha
t was all it’d ever be, a violent fantasy. He wasn’t like the other blokes, the hard core ones who went looking for trouble, orchestrating violence against ethnic gangs and left wing rent-a-mobs. Even in his youth he wasn’t much of a fighter, more of a periphery sort of geezer, someone who got in a few boots after the others had taken the victim down. Like a jackal, in one of them wildlife programmes he liked so much.

  Coward, his inner voice mocked. And it was true. Danny knew blokes who would’ve cracked Abdul the minute he got stroppy, the sort of people who would never back down, even if it meant ending up in intensive care. There were some like that in the army, a couple in the King’s Head, rough fuckers with short fuses, always ready to take offence, even quicker to unleash a whirlwind of fists and kicks. Or a knife. Danny kept well clear, circling them like they had leprosy, unwilling to mix in their company. Nutters. But at least they could hold their heads up high. Not like him. Fucking church mouse.

  He fired up his cigarette, the tobacco and narcotic mix assuaging his anger and numbing the shame of his rough treatment at the hands of an immigrant. Concentrate on the money, he advised himself. A thousand quid was a lot of dough. He had to use it wisely, not waste it on gear or gambling. Well, maybe he’d burn a couple of hundred of it, as a little reward to himself.

  As he idled at a red traffic light, he was gripped by a sudden flash of panic. What if Abdul made a complaint, grassed him up to the fridge bloke? No, he decided, they’d got their delivery and besides, Danny could always chalk it up as a misunderstanding. You know, a cultural thing. Twat didn’t speak English proper anyway.

  As the traffic thinned and the miles rolled beneath the nose of the truck, Danny saw the blue sign for the M1 motorway and veered aggressively across the carriageway, heading south. He’d be back in London in an hour, home in two. I’ll give Carlos a bell, he decided, score a quarter of the grade A gear, the real mellow stuff that filtered out all the bullshit. He’d wash it down with a few pints at the Kings, maybe shoot the shit with the boys, spend a little of that hard-earned dough.