Everything changed in a second. An ear-splitting cracking sound made the crowd of people duck and scream. Two of the vast windows of the Hall of Mirrors shattered into a thousand pieces onto the floor as Helen watched and screamed into her earpiece.
She could hear Roy White shouting, and it rang in her head. She saw him run into the Hall of Mirrors, pointing his weapon skywards and waving his free hand, dashing for the American president. But he couldn’t get through. The president’s bodyguards were manhandling him away from the room. But he didn’t want to be bundled like a child and began to object. Women screamed, caterers dropped their trays and people charged for the doors.
Behind her, a second crash of glass made everyone turn towards the windows, except the close-protection teams, who were trained to do the opposite. Air rushed in with the flying glass and Helen watched as shards stuck into bodies and people fell down.
‘Cover your faces!’ she screamed. She found a table and stood on it, flailing her arms about and taking the safety off her weapon, bellowing her words out. A queer hush fell upon the chaos and people began to realise that, one by one, a stream of mini helicopters had entered through the windows. Five, six and then seven flew in through the gaping frames.
For a second it was like a scene out of the War of the Worlds, where no one quite believed what they were seeing. Helen jumped onto a table and bawled. ‘Cover your faces!’ She drew her other pistol and aimed both at one of the drones as two lights turned red in the front. She’d said herself that to bring a drone down with gunfire was impossible, but she had to try. She fired both weapons, emptying the barrels, and hit it, and watched as it dropped like a stone on to the floor. More people surged forward and toppled her table but she managed to remain on it as it steadied.
Another drone stopped in front of a man frozen in fear. Helen recognised him as the Canadian prime minister, who was being dragged by his security detail, but they were struggling to move him as they were pressed up against the crowd. She reloaded, took aim and got four shots off, bringing it down.
Suddenly, she was thrown from the table by an explosion behind her. Her ears rang, and she saw people on the floor and a space where the epicentre had been. She spotted a severed foot with nails in it, bastards. People were now running in all directions.
Panic had gripped them. Scores of bodies were on the ground, cowering behind suit jackets, tablecloths and napkins: anything to cover their faces. But others were stunned into inaction and another explosion caused more windows to shatter as well as centuries-old mirrors that fell apart with the blast. The noise of broken crystal, accompanied by the spectrum of reflective colours on the glass all around them, was mesmerising, but Helen didn’t stop moving. She spotted the British prime minister and saw him bundled out of the room, on his hands and knees. Then she saw Sir Conrad frozen to the spot. She ran to him and grabbed his arm, throwing her jacket over his head.
‘It’s programmed to read your face,’ she hissed breathlessly. He was easy to drag away in his state of fear, and she managed to get him out of the room before they heard a third explosion.
Then silence and three thuds, which she later found out were the unexploded drones dropping to the floor, as they failed to identify their targets. Two had been successful, and she’d taken the other two out.
The British prime minister’s face was ashen.
‘Car!’ screamed Helen, cocking her weapons upwards, looking for more drones. Where the fuck had they come from? Her mind raced.
‘How did they get past the snipers?’ she hissed at Roy in her ear. ‘Haven’t they got sights on their weapons?’
He confirmed his position and informed her that he was taking the US president to Marine One, which was waiting on the lawn. She replied that she was accompanying the British prime minister and the ambassador back to the British embassy. The prime minister’s primary armoured vehicle pulled up – a four-tonner – but she refused and instead directed them to the ambassador’s driver who she’d spoken to earlier. His saloon was less-heavily armoured, but still effective under fire. She ordered them in while she jumped in the front.
The PM’s personal bodyguard climbed in beside him and they set off, followed by four cars carrying the other members of the prime minister’s security team. Helen leant over into the back seat, surveying the sky, expecting another attack. Sir Conrad huddled with the prime minister and his bodyguard, being knocked from side to side, having not bothered with seat belts.
‘Put on your belts and get down!’ she ordered them.
‘What happened?’ The prime minister was shaking.
‘Sir, just sit tight and we’ll get you to the embassy. It was a facial-recognition-drone strike, sir. You’re okay now.’
‘But the explosions?’
‘There were casualties,’ she said. Helen looked at her shirt where it felt wet and realised that she had human matter on her clothes. She ignored it. Sir Conrad handed her a napkin with shaky hands and she wiped at her shirt, scrunching the napkin up and placing
