'How much longer?' he asked the band's manager and lead singer, Sunni, pronounced 'Sonny.' His full name was Sunni Khan. At one time, that would have been an unusual name for a Pudge client, Terry mused silently. But, now, almost eighty thousand Britons had the surname Khan. True, he had read it in the Mirror. That made Khan the eightieth-most-common surname in the United Kingdom. He'd looked up his own name, Spencer, just for fun. Number 147. Fancy that.
Sunni was a nice enough looking young kid, clean shaven, expensive leather jacket, even had a tie on. He was a student at LSE, he told Terry, and then said, London School of Economics, obviously for the brawny, brainless barge captain's edification. 'Oh, is that what LSE stands for?' he asked the kid. 'Always wondered about that. My daughter goes there.'
'Sorry. No offense meant, sir.'
'If you want to be on schedule, we need to get moving right away.'
'Truck's almost empty, sir. I think you can plan to shove off in about twenty minutes or so. Sorry we're late. Few last-minute snags with the lorry rental.'
The lorry had backed right up to the edge of the dock. Young toughs with beards and long stringy hair were still rolling large black boxes down the truck's ramp. Had the name of the band stenciled on each box in big white block letters: sunni and the scimitars. Terry'd never heard of them, but then he'd stopped listening to music when Sinatra died.
Some of the lads were belowdecks in the midships hold, uncrating who knows what electronic gear, amplifiers, musical instruments, and such for the afternoon cruise upriver. There was to be a concert in the meadow across from Hampton Court. The band, Sunni had told him, intended to set up their instruments atop the large midships hatch cover. A floating concert was the idea he said, a new angle. Every ticket sold out.
Floating concert, my arse, Terry thought.
These clever blokes who'd booked Pudge for a full-day stint had no idea of his boat's historic significance. Nor, if they knew, he thought, would they bloody care. Foreigners, of course. No knowledge of British history. Didn't care. Hated the country, the people, the government, from what he'd read in the Daily Mirror.
Terry had an idea: if they didn't bloody like it here, didn't like our flag, our religion, our way of life, pack up and go home! He'd never express those feelings out loud of course, very un-PC as his wife would say. He was beginning to wonder about this whole PC movement. He thought it was ruining everything, especially the truth.
Pudge had played a historic, one might even say heroic, role in the evacuation of British troops at Dunkirk in World War II. Towed across the Channel by tugs for speed, the rescue barges were all rigged with sails to get them ashore upon release from the tugs. The crew of Pudge raised her sail just offshore and made a hard landing on the beach. She took on nearly three hundred soldiers. A bunch of the lads, under heavy fire, managed to shove her back into the sea, and get her under way toward home under sail.
Despite continuous strafing attacks by German dive-bombers, mine-infested waters, British destroyers being sunk to her right and left by countless batteries of heavy German guns on the cliffs, somehow, old Pudge had survived. She managed to make it all the way to Ramsgate and there delivered her precious cargo of human passengers safely ashore. Terry's grampa had been her captain then, not that anyone remembered such feats of heroism anymore.
And this lot of foreigners, his 'clients,' you think they knew beans about his dad? Fat bleeding chance. Born in Bedford during a 1918 Zeppelin airship raid, drama would follow him to the end of his days. In the Battle of Britain, he became a right legend, he did, posted to an American squadron flying P-51 Mustangs. He was known for flying just ten feet off the ground to avoid German radar, strafing enemy trains, boats, and military convoys, whatever he set his sights on.
But the truly amazing thing about his old man? He figured out how to take out the Nazi doodlebug flying bombs! He'd destroy them in flight by poking them with his wingtips! Now that was something. Earned him the nickname 'Tip it in Terry' and national acclaim as one of Britain's most striking daredevils.
Maybe Sunni and the Scimitars could sing a song about that.
AN HOUR LATER, AFTER AN UNEVENTFUL CRUISE, Pudge was nearing the Lambeth Bridge. Sunni had stayed in the wheelhouse with Terry for the entire voyage, over in the corner whispering on his mobile most of the time, while the band members had come topside and stretched out atop the main hatch cover, getting some sun and talking quietly among themselves.
'Captain,' Sunni said. 'Unexpected stop. Seems my drummer slept in this morning and missed the lorry. He's waiting for us now on the Lambeth Pier just beyond the bridge.'
Terry looked ahead, gauging his distance and the time it would take to slow the big barge. For some reason, he noticed, the band members had slid the big hatch open and disappeared down into the cavernous hold.
'Wish you'd told me sooner,' Terry said, throwing the engines hard astern, slowing the big barge just as her bow passed under the busy Lambeth bridge. Water was boiling at her stern as he put the helm over to starboard and lined up on the pier. Sure enough, there was another scruffy musician waiting there.
Pudge's sole crewman had two lines ready and looped one neatly over the top of a bollard and cleated another as Terry eased her alongside the pier. It was a right nice piece of seamanship considering. The drummer leaped aboard and helped the mate free the lines. Terry gave her big diesels a bit of throttle and pulled away from the pier. No maritime traffic in either direction right now, so he headed right to the center of the river to begin the final leg of his journey up to Hampton Court. Be glad when it was over. Something about the whole charter had seemed wrong from the beginning. It was just too-
The captain felt cold steel pressure at the back of his skull and knew immediately that he had made a very terrible mistake. He heard the pistol, a round going into the chamber of the automatic.
'Full stop, Captain,' Sunni Khan said. 'Or I'll happily blow your brains out.'
'Who the bloody hell are you people?' Terry roared, all of the pent-up anger at what was happening to his country bursting forth at once.
'Sword of Allah, Captain, that's what's happening.'
'Sword of Allah. Right. Same blokes who killed all those hundreds of people at Heathrow last year.'
'They died for a great cause.'
'They died for shit, you filthy little bugger.'
Sunni jammed the pistol painfully into his temple and said, 'Stop this boat, Captain, now!'
Terry hauled back on the throttles and the boat slowed quickly to a stop.
'Now give her just enough forward throttle to hold her steady in place against the current. Do exactly as I say and you might live through this, Captain.'
Terry did as he said. He wanted supper at home with the missus tonight and after that to hoist a few pints on the corner with his mates at the Bag of Nails. 'If I go, I'm taking you with me, Sunni-Boy,' he said.
He looked forward, scanning the bow, looking for Tim, his mate. That's when he saw the motionless body lying on the deck just aft of the midships hatch cover. Blood was pooling around his head. His mate was dead. The main hatch cover was now open and equipment was rapidly being handed up from below and mounted on the hatch cover. Looked like bloody pipes resting on a tripod, most of the stuff.
'Don't look like bloody musical instruments to me,' he muttered.
'Mortars,' Sunni said. 'Russian Podnos 82mm mortars,' he informed the captain in a very casual way. 'Not cheap, either, but perfect for this kind of short-range attack. Each mortar throws a three-kilogram fragmentation bomb a thousand yards at twenty rounds a minute. Keep your eyes open and you'll see the effect.'
When Terry cast his eyes to the right to see what the mortars were aimed at, he thought, Bloody hell. They were going to blow up Thames House. It was the headquarters of MI5. The very people who were charged with protecting us from these kinds of animals.
All six mortars started firing rapidly and simultaneously. Each was targeted at different areas of the building, and the immediate effect was catastrophic. Giant hunks of concrete and glass were blasted away, whole sections of wall and roof started collapsing, and fire broke out everywhere, flames licking out of windows. The death and injuries inside must be horrific, Terry thought.
But the tide turned quickly against the Sword of Allah. Thames House was not quite as helpless as it looked. Return fire suddenly erupted from the roof of the giant building. Even though his precious barge was being riddled with lead, Terry cheered loudly for the men behind the guns up there.
The weapons atop Thames House were M61 Vulcan 20mm Gatling guns. And they trained their deadly fire on the stationary barge. These modern versions of the old Gatling guns were in fact six-barreled rotary cannons, each
