very sad weakness for postpunk allusions, and it comes out when he’s under pressure.”
The wheels spun on grass, and they leapt away. Harry settled back and hauled out his flexipad, pulling down the latest sit rep from the
As soon as the unit linked to Fleetnet, a Priority 1 e-mail unfolded itself on screen.
“Trouble, guv?” St. Clair asked.
“Not really,” Harry replied. “Good news, actually. The Aldringham job’s a blow out. Seems they love their new gunships so much, we’re all being pensioned off, and the rest of the war is going to be won by dicing up the krauts with miniguns.”
“Fucking corker!” St. Clair grinned. “We still going to London, though?”
“Yep. I’ve still got to meet the PM for tea and biscuits.”
“You’ll want to make yourself beautiful, then, guv. You’re a right fuckin’ sight, you are.”
He was, but there was nothing for it but a cat’s lick and promise, as grandma used to say. He wondered where she was right now. The firm had decided to stay in London, come what may. He couldn’t imagine that some precautions hadn’t been taken, however. Then again, last he’d heard, they pitched poor old granddad right into the thick of it in the Channel. Harry had no idea what ship he was on, or whether he’d even made it.
He was going to drink an unhealthy number of lagers when this was all over.
The prince settled back into the seat and caught up with the latest burst.
Halabi had made it through without significant damage, although she was now bereft of any force-projection capability, having fired the last shots in her locker.
The German invasion fleet was piled up on the French side of the Channel, unable to make any headway against the Allied air forces or Royal Navy. The
Flight ops hadn’t resumed from Biggin Hill, and probably wouldn’t for a few weeks, given the extent of the damage. But the sky was still crowded with aircraft from other airfields. As they drove away from the ruined sector station, Harry stretched his cramped neck muscles by craning his head right back and scanning the dull gray skies. The traffic was all one way, heading out. Whereas a few hours earlier, it had been an unholy mess up there, with incredible numbers of aircraft twisting and turning in massive dogfights, now the skies looked more like a superhighway delivering massed columns of fighters and bombers over the Channel.
“What were they fuckin’ thinkin’, d’you reckon, guv?” asked St. Clair as Harry read a couple more E-mails, which came in as flash traffic.
“The Nazis? They weren’t thinking at all, Viv. That’s the problem with leadership cults. They’re red hot on getting shit done, once the big man has spoken, but not so good at weighing up whether that shit should have been done in the first place.”
He had an e-mail from the War Ministry with details of the briefing he was to attend at Whitehall, before continuing on to Ipswich. And a quick personal note from Churchill, personally thanking him and his men for their efforts at Alresford.
Harry checked his watch. They’d be another hour or two getting there, and probably an hour delayed while he was at the briefing. “Viv,” he said, leaning forward, “you and the lads should chase up some hot nosh when we’re in the city. It’s going to be a while before they get another sit-down feed.”
Their driver piped up. “Begging your pardon, sir, but I know a good chippy near Whitehall, if your lads wouldn’t mind.”
Harry smiled. “How do you think the lads would feel about some fish and chips, Sergeant Major?”
“I suspect they could murder a feed, guv.”
“What’s your name, son?” asked Harry, shouting over the engine noise and the rush of air.
“Corporal Draper, sir. Peter Draper.”
“Well, young Pete. I like the cut of your jib. That’s the sort of initiative which built the British Empire. Drop me at the Ministry, and get my boys some hot tucker—my shout.”
Harry passed over a ten-pound note.
“And keep the change.”
They almost ran off the road. He’d forgotten that Corporal Draper had probably never seen so much money in one place.
Philby maintained a safe house in London that hadn’t been discovered following the Transition. A professor of economics at Trinity College, Cambridge, owned it—a man he had recruited as a talent-spotter for the Russians just before the war began.
He was now in the Pacific, working as a Naval attache in Melbourne, and Philby presumed upon their relationship to borrow the house as a hideout. Built in the 1700s, it had a coach house around the rear, large enough to conceal the truck they had stolen; London was in such a state of upheaval, with the streets full of military vehicles, the emergency services, and commandeered civilian transport, that one wayward truck was unlikely to arouse much suspicion, if they moved quickly.
Only Philby and the two fluent speakers raised their voices as the squad disembarked from the truck, still pretending to be wounded soldiers. Philby ordered them into the house and loudly announced that they’d be staying there until beds could be found for them at a military hospital.
Once inside, the men stripped off their bandages and bloodied rags, resuming their counterfeit roles as soldiers from Holland and Denmark. They unpacked their kit, checked weapons, and waited for the call.
It came within two hours.
Draper’s chippy was a short walk from old Scotland Yard, off the northeastern end of Whitehall, and it proved more convenient to drop Viv and the others there before he and Harry continued on to the Ministry alone.
Hundreds of barrage balloons floated on tethers above the city, over which lay a dense blanket of smoke from the fires started by German bombing raids. Sirens still blared constantly, although the conflict’s center of gravity was well away from the city, south in the Channel and northeast in Suffolk. Harry was just indulging in a moment of self-pity that he wouldn’t get to sit down with a nice chip butty and a cup of tea when a sixth sense began to scream at him.
He snapped out of his reverie and took a sight picture of the scene in front of them. Draper was motoring down Whitehall at about thirty miles an hour. They’d just passed the Admiralty and the headquarters of the Horse Guards, and were coming up on the War Ministry. A black Bentley was parked in front of the Ministry, its driver moving around to open the back door.
A truck marked as a medical transport was pulling up on the other side of the street, and British soldiers were jumping down from the rear.
They were all bandaged as though badly wounded, but they were still armed, and judging from the way they moved, they weren’t injured at all.
“Speed up, speed up
Corporal Draper stepped on the gas, but not without asking what was up.
The rattle of small-arms fire reached them.
The Bentley’s driver fell to the cobblestones, and Harry could hear the telltale impact of bullets on metal and armored glass. He flicked the power switch on the rifle’s underslung grenade launcher and dialed up a firing sequence. Three fragmentation rounds and two incendiary. Bracing the gun on his knee he sent the five fat 20 mm programmable grenades on their way.
“Hey! That’s Mr. Churchill’s car, that is,” protested Draper.
“I know,” said Harry as the tiny bomblets dropped in pattern, the frags bursting on the blind side of the truck, to protect the Bentley from their blast effect. The incendiaries dropped onto the lorry and in amongst the knot of men. They were grouped at the rear of the vehicle to fire on Churchill’s car and the guards rushing out of the Ministry.
The deuce-and-a-half rocked on its axle as the HE rounds went off, scattering most of the assassins like bowling pins. Two bright, white flashes followed immediately, setting alight the truck’s canvas tarpaulin and the uniforms of the men Harry had targeted.
