Seventy-Two Virgins - Boris Johnson

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hands of an average marksman of bunching bullets within a couple of inches at more than 600 yards. In the hands of Indira, the gun could shoot the horns off a snail.

      ‘You OK?’ she repeated.

      ‘It’s just that something gave me goosebumps here. I guess you could call it Dad flashbacks.’

      Dad flashbacks? wondered Indira. It sounded like something worrying from Sheila Kitzinger’s Baby and Child Care. She looked at her neighbour on the roof. He was big and blond, with a proud nose and heavy brow, and hands that made his rifle-barrel look like a pencil. He was dressed in olive drab fatigues, and had the name Pickel sewn in black capitals on his chest, as well as the American flag. She hoped he wasn’t going to blab about some deathbed reconciliation with the father who never loved him.

      ‘Yeah, honey, it’s like a Nam flashback, ’cept it’s about Baghdad.’

      ‘Tell me about it, Jason,’ said Indira as they settled down together. ‘Were you scared?’

      ‘Scared? Did you say scared? Jeez, I was—What the hell was that?’

      The American went rigid as percussive waves filled the air. He instinctively eased off the safety catch and now BONG the second explosion assailed his eardrums.

      The whole roof vibrated as Big Ben sounded the opening carillon of a quarter to nine.

       0845 HRS

      The great clock struck, and Jones cursed (something about a dog, again). The longer they stayed in this traffic jam, the higher their chances of being spotted. Surely the tow-truck man would by now have raised the alarm?

      ‘But why did he clamp us, sir?’ asked Dean.

      ‘I don’t know.’

      ‘Isn’t that why we got an ambulance, so this couldn’t happen?’

      ‘Have faith, Dean. Has not Allah looked after us? Think of the prophet in his youth, how he became a warrior for God.’

      An electronic voice interrupted them. It was female, and spoke in an American accent.

      ‘Turn left now,’ she said. Haroun cursed. It was the satnav, determined to take the vehicle back to Wolverhampton. Much to the irritation of Jones and his team, they could find no way of silencing her.

      ‘Soon we will be in the belly of the beast,’ said Jones.

      ‘Make a U-turn,’ said the satnav, ‘and then turn right in 100 yards.’

      The voice of the bossy little robot carried through the driver’s window, and might have reached the ears of Roger Barlow, who was now only a matter of a few feet away; except that he was turned away and bent over.

      He was trying to lock up his bike against the railings of St Margaret’s, just until they sorted out this business with the pass.

      ‘Not there, sir,’ said an American.

      ‘Where?’

      ‘Not there, either, sir. I am afraid you will have to take it with you.’

      ‘But I can’t get into the Commons without a pass, can I?’ The USSS man shrugged.

      Barlow stood on the pavement with his bike, like some washed-up crab, as the tide of traffic lapped through the gap and continued around Parliament Square. As he approached his fifty-second year, Roger was conscious that his temper was decreasingly frenetic. He had long since ceased to rave at airport check-ins. If his train was delayed for two hours, it no longer occurred to him to sob and squeal into his mobile. But there was something about being told what to do by this gigantic gone-to-seed quarterback that got, frankly, on his tits.

      The Yank was wearing those clodhopping American lace-ups with Cornish pasty welts, a Brooks Brothers button-down shirt, and a large blue blazer. He had the Kevin Costner-ish Germanic looks that you see in so many members of the American military.

      ‘Well, can I borrow your mobile? I need to get this blasted pass from my assistant.’

      ‘That’s not allowed, sir.’

      Barlow was fed up with the moronic anti-American protesters who were fringing the square and bawling their questions about oil and how many kids Nestlé had killed that day. But he was also fed up with being treated like a terrorist, when he was a bleeding Parliamentarian, and the people of Cirencester had sent him to this place, and it was frankly frigging outrageous that he should be denied access by this Yank. Not that he wanted to be anti-American, of course.

      ‘They’ll vouch for me,’ he said, pointing to a trio of shirt-sleeved, flak-jacketed Heckler and Koch MP5-toting members of the Met.

      No they wouldn’t.

      ‘Sorry, Mr Barlow, sir,’ said one of them, ‘I am afraid you’ve got to have a pink form today. It’s all been agreed with the White House.’

      ‘Well, can I use your phone, then?’

      ‘They’ll have my guts for garters, sir, but there you go.’

      Cameron had just reached the office, and was tackling the mail. ‘I’ll come now,’ she said, when he explained the problem.

      Roger handed back the phone to the Metropolitan Policeman, and stared again at the American.

      ‘Is it true that there are a thousand American Secret Service men here?’

      ‘That’s what I read, sir.’

      Barlow couldn’t help himself. He went back to Joe of the USSS.

      ‘Excuse me. I think you really ought to let me through, because I was elected to serve in this building, and you have absolutely no jurisdiction here.’

      ‘I know, sir,’ said the human refrigerator, and he touched the Curly-Wurly tube in his ear and mumbled into the Smartie on his lapel. ‘I’m not disagreeing with you, sir, not at all. I have no doubt that you are who you say you are, and I really apologize for this procedure. But my orders say clearly that I don’t let anyone through today without a pink P form, and if anyone gets through today who shouldn’t get through today, then my ass is grass. I’m not history, I’m not biology, I’m physics. Wait, Joe, who are those guys?’

      Everything without a pass was being sent up Victoria Street, but now an ambulance had drawn up at the checkpoint. The linebacker was staring at it, but Roger wanted his attention.

      ‘May I see your ID?’ he said. He knew he was being a pompous twit, but honestly, this was London …

      With great courtesy, considering what a nuisance the Brit MP was being, the American Secret Service man opened his wallet and produced a badge. It had a blue and red shield within a five-pointed gold star, and on the roundel was inscribed ‘United States Secret Service’.

      ‘There you go, sir. Is that OK?’

      Roger couldn’t help it. These credentials should mean nothing to him, not on the streets of London. But he felt a childish sense of reverence.

      ‘Er, yes, that is … OK.’

      ‘Just wait here, sir,’ said the American, and he strolled towards the ambulance driven by the man whose passport said he was called Jones.

      ‘How are you guys today?’ he enquired, removing his shades, the ones with the little nick in the corner, and holding out his hand for their papers.

      ‘At the next junction, turn left,’ said the female Dalek of the ambulance satnav.

      ‘What’s that?’ said Matt the USSS man.

      ‘She is a machine,’ said Jones. ‘She is stupid. She is nothing.’

      As Roger Barlow saw the Levantine-featured

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