Send Him Victorious: Book 1 by Bart Cline
“Which basically means your hand? What would you do with it? Reintroduce the Act of Uniformity?”
Youngblood grinned. “An interesting question. The Church of England was the glue that held the nation together during England’s various internal wars. Cromwell’s era and the Restoration had that in common. The Church is the nation’s unifying force. The Act of Uniformity had much to recommend it.”
“Well, forced adherence to the faith is very different from the New Testament model.”
“The Bible can be misinterpreted.”
“I hear that a lot from so-called Christians – usually when they take issue with what the Bible plainly says. Or from leaders, when they want to make the church a tool for their own ends.”
Youngblood raised an eyebrow, and was about to speak, when his office door opened.
The King returned. “Right, it’s time we went. Good-bye Woollie.” He shook the Archbishop’s hand limply. “Blair, I want you to organise me a…”
Youngblood watched them go as the door closed and Alfred’s voice trailed into silence.
***
King Alfred sprawled in his office chair, his arms draped over the armrests, shadows under his eyes, two days growth of whiskers adorning his chin, and his thick silver hair requiring attention. He let his eyes close as he listened to General Montgomery’s words.
The General stood in front of the King’s desk, his hands clasped behind his back. “And with the intelligence we received, I decided this was the best way – perhaps the only way – to lay low the opposition. And that’s really all there is to it.”
“But you destroyed York Minister!” The King opened his eyes, pounding a fist on his desk, leaning forward in his chair. “And that after I told you to do nothing of the sort!”
“We had no problem with destroying German landmarks in World War II, and plenty of ours were destroyed as well. That’s what happens in war.”
“This isn’t a war,” the King said with a forceful yet faltering voice. “It is simply a rabble in York! One which needs routing!”
“There are at least fifty-thousand men and women who are members of AS-ONE in the police forces across the United Kingdom. That is no rabble. That is an army.” The General let his arms hang at his sides as he gripped his military baton in his right hand.
“And were all fifty-thousand billeted in the Minster?” The King stood. “No! There were – what? – perhaps two-thousand? A mere faction. Hardly worth blowing up the cathedral.”
Montgomery tapped his baton into his left hand, gripping it tightly. “No. Most of them have gone to ground. But now they know something of what we are–” He paused. “–what I am willing to sacrifice, and they’ll think twice about coming out of their holes to fire on our men now.”
“But you destroyed York Minster!” Alfred’s voice cracked as his eyes welled up.
“Honestly, I don’t know what you’re so upset about. You haven’t even been to York in twenty years. At least it wasn’t St Pauls, or Westminster Abbey.”
The King exhaled deeply and fell back into his seat with a thud. “Where are your feelings? Are you a man or a machine?”
“Both. The machine calculates the best way to achieve my goals; hitting York Minster was a means to that end. The man wants to achieve those goals without sacrificing any of his troops; that’s why I sent in missiles and air support rather than foot soldiers.”
The King narrowed his eyes as he locked them with the General’s. “There are always alternatives.”
“Yes,” Montgomery said. “Alternatives which cost time and lives. Now understand this, Your Majesty. If you’re not going to show the backbone necessary to get the New Order into… into order, then it falls to me. It’s either that or topple it – hand the country back over to Parliament. How do you feel about that alternative?”
The General turned on his heel and made for the door.
“How dare you turn your back on your King,” Alfred, standing again, thundered at the General’s back. “I am not finished with you!”
The General did not break his stride, putting his hand on and turning the door handle, opening it and walking out.
“Come back this instant!” The King moved to the door and watched the General’s back as he moved down the elegantly painted and papered corridor. “Stewart!” The King’s voice echoed and carried, even down the sound-absorbing wall coverings of the long corridor. Several people within earshot who had been going about their duties jumped with surprise at the King’s bellow.
Alfred felt their eyes upon him as he gazed out, his face reddening.
He receded back into his office. Lindsey was out of his chair and pulled the door shut, the latch shooting home with a snap.
***
“Hello Stanley,” the General said as he held his office door open. He smiled as he beckoned Captain Phillips inside. “Thank you for coming.”
“No problem,” the Captain said as he entered the room and proceeded to stand stiffly in front of the General’s desk. “It’s quite a coincidence in fact, because I needed to speak to you as well.”
“Oh yes? What about?” Montgomery allowed the door to shut on its hydraulic closer.
“You first sir. You outrank me.”
General Montgomery was dressed in his headquarters uniform, while Captain Phillips wore fatigues. Each man had a sidearm at his hip.
“Very well Phillips,” the General said, folding his arms over his chest. “I want your opinion on something. When we were in York, you were sent away from the city to get a message to London.”
“Yes, I remember,” Phillips said, “because of the jamming field.”
“Correct. Now, can you explain why, after you sent that message, the insurgents relaxed? So much so, that when we returned several hours later they had deserted their positions in that part of the city?”
Captain Phillips kept his weight spread evenly between his feet, standing with perfect posture. “They must have intercepted my message.”
“Impossible. The jamming field.”
“But…” Phillips’s posture remained excellent as he searched for his next words. “I was outside the jamming field sir.”
“But they weren’t.”
“A coincidence then.” The Captain was relaxed, almost laconic.
Montgomery gripped his baton in his gloved hand. “I don’t believe in coincidence.”
“How interesting you should say that,” the Captain said, a slight smile playing on his lips. Captain Phillips drew his sidearm, pointing it at the General. “As I said, I needed to speak to you as well. Your weapon please sir.” Montgomery removed his pistol from its holster, gripping it by two fingers only, and offered it to Captain Phillips.
“I’ve known for some time,” Montgomery said.
The Captain cocked an eyebrow. “Oh yes? How?”
“Believe it or not, His Majesty warned me about you. But I should have known even before that. There are too many things, little things, wrong about you. Similar to how you can know that there’s damp in these walls. There’s a small lump in the plaster work over there” – the General pointed with his baton – “a blemish on the wallpaper here, a mark on the carpet there–”
The Captain’s eyes darted to where the General had pointed.
Montgomery whipped his baton across the Captain’s gun hand with a loud crack. The weapon thudded to the floor as the Captain drew his hand back to him.
“Now give me my gun back.”
The Captain had maintained only a loose grip on the General’s pistol. He dropped it behind himself. “Sorry sir. I think you’ve broken my hand.” The Captain held up his injured hand for the General to see, but then took a swing at him with the other hand.
Montgomery parried the punch with a whirl of his stick. With another twirl he cracked it against the Captain’s skull, causing him to stagger back.
Phillips attempted to tackle the General, throwing the full mass of his body against his commanding officer.
But the General was light on his feet, sidestepping and diverting the Captain’s momentum so that he crashed headlong into the desk with another loud noise. The Captain came to rest on the floor, near one of the pistols. He lunged for it, but Montgomery calmly kicked it away with the instep of his shoe. The pistol clattered against the door.
The General stood over Captain Phillips, triumph on his face, pointing his baton at him as if it were a sword. “Got you.”
The door opened, and another soldier in fatigues entered, his automatic weapon held at the ready.
“Ah, the cavalry arrives at last,” Montgomery said. “Corporal, place Captain Phillips under arrest and escort him away from here.”
“Sorry sir,” the new arrival said, “but I can’t do that.” He was pointing his rifle squarely at the General.
“I’m afraid it’s you,” Phillips said, rising to his feet, “who is being placed under arrest, sir. Yours was a timely arrival, Corporal Smithee.”
“What is this nonsense, both of you?” The General’s eyes were wide, and his eyebrows raised. “You’re not policemen!”
“No,” Phillips said, “but they are our Lodge brothers.”
“Corporal, you do not have to do this. I am your commanding officer. King Alfred is your sovereign.”
“Yes sir,” Smithee said, “sorry sir, but the Lodge trumps the chain of command. Sorry sir.”
“Come on,” Phillips said, rubbing his bruised head while he pushed the barrel of his pistol into the General’s back. Corporal Smithee opened the door and the three men went into the corridor.
“There’s nowhere we can go. We’re in Buckingham Palace. You can’t simply walk out of here. You’ll be shot.”
“Nobody is going to fire on us, for fear of hitting you.”
Smithee opened the door and they passed through the Queen Daphne Suite, a bedroom decorated in a combination of peach and salmon colours, unused for twenty years though maintained and cleaned regularly.
“You know better than that Stanley. All it takes is one soldier confident enough in his aim for your head to be split open like a melon. And we’ve no shortage of such soldiers, as you know.”
Corporal Smithee went pale and began to sweat, but kept moving.
“I hadn’t thought of that sir,” Phillips said with a sarcastic tone, as they entered a modestly-sized but opulent dining room through the communicating doors. “Isn’t it strange how there’s nobody around? Shouldn’t there be guards here? Where could they be?”
As if on cue, two men in grey suits moved out of a shadowy corner of the darkened room, the telltale bulge of a gun visible near their left lapels.
“Has everyone gone mad?” The General stared at the new arrivals, almost tripping over a valuable antique chair. “You men are supposed to protect His Majesty’s life.”
“And we will,” one of the grey suits said. “But you’re fair game.”
They passed through two other rooms, the purposes of which could not easily be discerned in the darkness.
One of the grey suits held up a hand and stopped. A pair of French windows faced into the gardens, moonlight streaming into the Garden Room. “We’re here.” In a moment the air was filled with the sounds of growling, barking, and howling. Except for Captain Phillips, who kept his gun trained on General Montgomery, each of the men shone their torches into the darkness, looking for the source of the sound.
Four corgis erupted into a frenzy as the torchlight caught them full in the eyes. A few seconds of indecision gripped the men before they started firing on the animals.
One died instantly as several bullets ripped through it. The three remaining dogs dodged and darted about the room, avoiding the machine gun and pistol fire that was rapidly reducing valuables of crystal, statuary, art, and furniture into slag.
Engaged thus, it took the General’s captors a moment to register the soldiers who were entering by the opposite door. A firefight broke out between the two parties.
The loyal soldiers stayed in the doorway, taking cover behind it as needed.
Phillips’s men flipped over a highly prized sofa and table to afford themselves some cover.
“We have the General here,” Phillips called out during a lull in the shooting. “Stand down, unless you want to kill him.”
“Captain? Is that you?” The soldier spoke from the relative safety of his doorway, his voice incredulous. “You know we can’t let you leave Sir.”
“You’re going to have to. You will stand down and let us leave, or the General dies.”
“Sure captain, I can promise that. But you know as well as I do that the moment any of us gets a shot, we’ll take it. The only way this ends is with you going down. Think about where you are, and what you’re surrounded by.”
“All right, you win,” Phillips said. “I’m willing to negotiate. Step in here where I can see you. Leave your gun in the corridor.” There was a short delay before the soldier complied, stepping into the room with his hands raised and visible. Phillips pointed. “Stand over there.”
The soldier moved in the direction that Phillips had indicated, to the opposite end of the room from the General and his captors.
A palpable rumble faded in quickly. The lone unarmed soldier looked around, eyes darting all around the room as the rumble became louder.
The room’s external wall imploded, along with the French windows, as an armoured personnel carrier drove through it at speed, scattering glass, bricks, and plaster in all directions as it crushed the unarmed young man. The APC kept moving until it blocked the door, barring entry to the soldiers in the corridor. They fired on the vehicle, but their light armaments did no damage. Phillips escorted the General into the armoured vehicle, followed by the rest of his team. The APC backed out, its headlights illuminating the huge amount of damage it had inflicted.
The vehicle turned around and raced away across the Buckingham Palace gardens, its spinning tires tearing up the grass as it crossed the grounds at top speed. A hail of bullets impacted on the skin of the vehicle, doing no more harm than the thousands more which hit the grass all around it. The explosions of the grenades thrown by such soldiers as were near enough to the path of the speeding vehicle did nothing more than cover the sides of it in mud and divots of grass, scoring no direct hits.
Soon the escaping armoured vehicle was at the back edge of the Palace gardens, smashing through tall hedges, tearing up flower beds, and dodging a large number of mature trees before it came to a sliding gate, which was open and waiting. Exiting the gate, the vehicle rolled onto the public road of Grosvenor Court, to the surprise of the many pedestrians and civilian drivers watching the proceedings.
They stopped, allowing two policemen who had been guarding the open gate against unauthorised entry, to climb into the vehicle before they drove away, quickly swallowed up by the streets of London. It was only thirty seconds, but by the time their pursuers began pouring out of the gate, both on foot and in vehicles, the trail had gone cold. They drove aimlessly for a while, but never found any further trace of the escaped APC.
7 - Setback
The telephone in the King’s office rang with a quiet, unintrusive twitter. Lindsey answered it on the first ring.
“Hello?” he asked. “Good afternoon Captain. Yes, he’s here.”
Lindsey handed the phone to King Alfred, who sat down and exhaled a deeply held breath before accepting.
“Phillips? I demand that you cease and desist immediately, and return our General to us.”
The moment the King had begun speaking, a grey-suited man who had been sitting unobtrusively in a corner of the office rose from his chair and went to the door. Opening it, he found two other similarly-suited men and two uniformed soldiers waiting just outside. He made some hand signals to them, and they stood up and dashed away at speed. The grey man closed the door and began pacing rapidly around the office.
“If you free the General now, and lay down your arms, I’ll see that it goes better for you.??
Alfred kept his eyes on Grey Suit, who was now fidgeting in his seat, before looking at Lindsey, and then at the top of his desk. “Yes, I thought you would say that. On your own head be it. Very well, what are your ‘demands’? Not that it’s your place to demand anything of your sovereign.” The King looked again at Lindsey, miming as if scribbling something with a non-existent pencil, despite that Lindsey already held his notebook and pen at the ready. “You want me to stand down. What, as King? Oh, you’ll make it easy on me, will you? You won’t have me shot.
“I’ll live out my life under house arrest? Well that doesn’t sound too terribly bad. Why am I repeating everything you say? Only so that Blair can take it all down. Ah yes, an excellent idea.” The King pressed a button on his desk phone before placing the receiver back in its cradle. “You always were full of good ideas. But that’s not how we’re going to remember you when your body is returned to us – if there’s anything left to return. Of course, I would have put you on speakerphone at the start of our conversation, but I assumed you would want only me to hear your voice. Isn’t that how it usually is with kidnappers? Now, continue.”
“Kidnappers?” Phillips’s voice crackled with indignation. “It’s a means to an end.”
“Isn’t that what all kidnappers say?”
“I repeat, our demands are simple. We want you to stand down, Your Majesty. We don’t recognise you as our ruler. We want you to call off your forces in York. We want you to restore our parliamentary democracy.”
The King raised his eyebrows and frowned exaggeratedly. “Is that all?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Phillips’s voice carried hollowly across the room.
“Oh yes, absolutely. Indeed, it’s far too much. What causes you to think that I would give up so much for the sake of one man?”
The disembodied voice waited a moment before replying. “Because General Montgomery is the real power behind you, Your Majesty.”