We reach the top of the stairs and finally admit that we need help, so we link arms and begin going down the stairs sideways, like some ridiculous quadrupedal crab.
“I swear, I thought I was dead. But dumb fucking luck, I land flat on my back in the dinghy. The bag knocks all the air out of me and I’m laying there, pinned down and legless, gasping like a guppy. And I can hear shooting from above me, right, so I reckon Lee’s gone in the window. I roll the bag off, get my breath back, and try to climb up and help. But it was hard enough when I had the prosthesis; it’s fucking hopeless with one leg.
“Eventually the firing stops and I wait for Lee or Ferguson to call down for the bag, but they don’t. So I reckon they’re dead or captured, yeah?”
“Captured,” I say as we pause to catch our breath on a landing. The corpse of my guard lies on the floor beside us, staring at the ceiling in surprise. My torch picks out the dark stain that marks where Jack’s knife punctured his heart. “They’re not dead yet.”
Jack smiles. “Thank fuck for that.”
I kneel down and rummage through the dead man’s clothes until I find the keys to the jeep. I also take his machine gun, sidearm and a nasty looking knife. Jack and I link arms again and resume our ungainly descent.
“So I figure our mission’s a bust,” he says. “But I reckon I can still be useful, right, so I untether the dinghy and manage to row to a mooring and haul the bag up onto the embankment up these old stone steps. I figure I can flag down the others and give them the bag.”
“Others?”
“Yeah, Tariq, Green and this crazy girl who says she knows you.”
“Caroline?”
“Yeah, that’s her. They’ve got this army of kids and they’re gonna turn up at dawn, get inside the gates and then storm the place.”
I stop dead in amazement and he topples forward, unbalanced, and slips down a few steps before he grabs the railing and manages to stop himself.
“But that’s suicide!” I say.
“It wouldn’t be if Lee and I had managed to pull off our little plan,” he replies, righting himself and flashing me a sour glance.
“Which was?” I ask. “What was in the bag?”
So he tells me what their plan was. I stare at him for upwards of a minute, running it over in my head.
“That,” I say eventually, “is fucking genius.”
Ten minutes later we hobble out into the snow. My feet sink in it halfway up my shins, and it’s still coming down.
“So where did you stash the bag?” I ask as we crunch across to the jeep.
“I was waiting halfway down Whitehall when I saw you being driven past,” says Jack. “I just buried the bag in the snow and took off after you. I followed the tyre tracks. Sorry it took me so long. I’m not as light on my feet as I used to be.”
“You and me both.”
I pull open the driver’s side door and clamber in. I tentatively depress the accelerator with my knackered foot. It hurts, but the cast makes it doable. Jack climbs in the other side. I turn the ignition and gun the engine. The wheels spin uselessly in the snow for a few moments and I fear we’re going nowhere, but eventually they find purchase and we slip-slide away.
Without the orange streetlights making everything look slightly disco, London seems pristine and beautiful in the moonlit snow as I fight the wheel back to Westminster.
“The snow is our best friend,” I say as we come down the Strand past Charing Cross station. “The guard has a little booth by the gate. He’s expecting me back, and in this weather he won’t be able to make us out properly from where he’s sitting. There’s a good chance he’ll just pop the gates and wave us through.”
“You don’t want to wait and hook up with Tariq?”
I turn left onto Whitehall.
“Why should we? If we can get inside before they arrive, you can still fulfil your part of the plan. I’ll stall Cooper and keep Lee alive until things kick off, then it’s every man for himself.”
“Here,” shouts Jack. I slam on the brakes and we spin through 360 degrees before we stop. Jack lurches out into the snow and walks to the side of the road where he digs out the kit bag and limps back.
He tosses it in the back seat and gets back in. Another wheel spin, another moment of fear, but the four wheel drive doesn’t let us down. I turn the jeep back the right way and we head off again. As we approach Big Ben I note the time: ten past seven. There’s a faint hint of dawn across the river as we pass the road that runs to the ruins of Westminster Bridge.
A minute later we pull up to the gate. I flash my headlights and honk the horn once.
“Be lazy,” I mutter. “Just this once, be lazy.” I have the sidearm ready in my hand, just in case.
The gate swings open, pushing a tide of snow away into a thick drift. I send up a prayer to numerous gods, drive through the gate and down the ramp into the underground car park.
I pull into an empty space and switch off the engine.
“You know where you’re going?” I ask.
Jack nods, resolute but nervous. “I think so.”
“You can do this, Jack,” I say. “Everything depends on you now. Go slow, go quiet, but get there. When was the attack scheduled to start?”
“The first strike of eight o’clock.”
“Then get moving, and remember: every year the monarch should come to the Lords to make their speech saying how things are going to be different from now on. This is your chance. Make it good.”
He nods, grabs the bag, and climbs out. In moments he is lost to the subterranean darkness.
I wait for a moment, gathering my thoughts, preparing. Then I too get out of the vehicle and walk into the Palace of Westminster, knowing there’s a good chance I will never walk out again.
I LIMP AS fast as I can to the Speaker’s Cottage. There is no guard at the door, and all is silent when I enter. A sudden thought grabs me, so I hobble as softly as I can — not too difficult on this deep carpet — across to Cooper’s bedroom door. I take the cold brass doorknob in my hand and turn it ever so slowly. It rotates without a squeak, the door is unlocked. Careless, Cooper. Thought that since I was out of the way and guarded, that he could relax a little.
I push the door open. The well-oiled hinges do not betray me. In the half light I can make out his bed. There, fully clothed above the covers, Cooper snores gently.
I can’t believe it can be this easy. I glance over my shoulder, wary of sudden discovery, of a soldier who will leap out of the shadows and shout “fooled you!” But there’s nobody. I step forward, drawing the knife from my belt as I do so. Normally I would have gone for my gun, but something in my subconscious diverts my hand to the hard metal blade.
I advance towards the bed. One strike, swift and sudden, and it will all be over. He lies on his side, his right temple presented as if offered to the knife.
I stand above him and raise the blade but before I can strike the door to the cottage clatters open and a soldier bursts into the hallway. Cooper starts up in sudden surprise, woken from deep sleep. He registers me in the darkness. I plunge the knife down with a scream, but the moment had passed. He’s too fast for me. He spins sideways and the blade hits the eiderdown, sinking deep into feathers and mattress.
“Freeze!” comes a voice from the doorway. I let go of the knife and slowly raise my arms.