Send Him Victorious: Book 1 by Bart Cline
“Oh really? And what makes you think that?”
“The General said it himself.”
“I doubt that very much,” the King said, though his countenance sank as he considered the possibility. “In any case, you’ve been misinformed. What is going to transpire is this: my forces are going to destroy you. Unless you surrender, the most you can hope for is martyrdom.”
“And I doubt that very much,” Phillips said, pausing before adding, “Your Majesty.”
“I see we stand in doubt of one another. Well, I shall make it official: I, King Alfred the Second, decree that as of this moment my army are under orders to terminate you with extreme prejudice. And my next decree is that you be stripped of your rank. Goodbye, ‘Mister’ Phillips. We’ll not meet again in this life.” He pressed a button on his phone to disconnect the call. “Now, Roger,” he said, looking at the grey-suited man, “what is the situation?”
Roger shook his head in appreciation. “Well done Your Majesty. I wouldn’t have imagined you could keep him on the phone for so long,” he said, touching his earpiece. “His signal was coming from the M25. That’s the London ring-road Your Majesty.”
“I know what the M25 is, Roger.”
“Of course you do. Sorry. Basically, he’s circling London in an anticlockwise direction. He was moving about seventy miles per hour, which is surprising for this time of day. We know he went over the Dartford Bridge a few minutes ago, and we’ve now got hundreds of mobile units – police, military, and MI8 – looking for him, though it’s not easy. We don’t know what he’s driving, and he could be in any of thousands of cars.”
“Does everyone know what Phillips looks like?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. We sent pictures of him to each and every one.”
The King stopped, raising his eyebrows and holding a finger up. “Roger, did you hear any traffic sounds on that phone call?”
“No, Your Majesty, I didn’t. But we know the signal came from the motorway, based on the locations of the phone masts that carried his call as it progressed. Maybe he was driving a Rolls. They’re good at masking road noises.”
“Hah! Somehow I doubt that.”
***
A poor night’s sleep later, King Alfred entered Buckingham Palace’s magnificent Blue Drawing Room, now functioning as a situation room, hastily repurposed by MI8 and the army. It was the latest in a series of repurposings, since an ever-increasing number of governmental functions were now being handled at least in part at the Palace.
“Are there any developments, Roger?” The King’s voice betrayed his fatigue.
The sumptuous decor – gold columns, heavy blue curtains, copious gilt filigrees, blue-gray flock wallpaper, oversized full-length paintings, and expansive mirrors framed with elaborate baroque gold-leafed plasterwork – competed with utilitarian furniture, computer and communications equipment, and military-uniformed or grey-suited personnel engaged in constant purposeful activity.
An antique timepiece on the mantel displayed six o’clock in the morning. The King was dressed, his suit immaculate as always though the shadows under his eyes were more pronounced than usual.
Roger was seated at a computer workstation, a phone held to his ear by his left hand while his right manipulated a mouse.
There were a few others doing similar things, but half of the seats were empty, and the room was quiet.
Cutting the call short, Roger hung up his phone and stood, turning to face Alfred. “Nothing yet, Your Majesty.” He looked down at his dishevelled clothing, and did up his top buttons and tightened his tie. He continued speaking even as he unrolled his sleeves and buttoned his cuffs. “But we’re following a number of leads.”
“Such as?”
“Er, well, we’ve got men – and women; we’re very inclusive around here – men and women, in cars, circling the M25, keeping an eye out for him, for Captain Phillips– Mr Phillips. But we’re not too hopeful.”
“Then why are you doing it, man?”
“Well, it may not be the likeliest of leads, but we mustn’t leave any stone unturned,” Roger said, breaking and re-establishing eye contact with the King. “Your Majesty.”
Alfred’s gaze bored into Roger’s eyes. “Is that all?”
Roger took a breath, frowned, shifted his weight from one leg to the other and rubbed his hands together slowly as if trying to warm them. “Oh, no, definitely not. I mean–”
“I want you to arrange surveillance on all known senior personnel within AS-ONE,” the King said.
Roger’s head bobbed vigourously. “We’ve done that,” he said, raising his eyebrows and pointing his finger at the King. He looked at his finger, and withdrew his hand.
“Good. Follow them. Connect the dots. Investigate all the places they go and people they meet.”
“We’re doing that too,” Roger said, again nodding like an enthusiastic child, wide-eyed. “We’re doing that too. We’re doing all that. All those things.” Roger stood for a moment, looking satisfied – but only for a moment – before he abruptly added, “Your Majesty.”
“And what have you learned?” The King clasped his hands behind his back and angled his head – despite already towering over the young intelligence officer – to look down on him.
“Well, Lord Greenpeace – and that’s his real name, it’s been in his family since the Wars of the Roses – makes frequent trips to a warehouse on the Isle of Dogs. Which seems a bit strange… Your Majesty.”
“Old ‘Mushy’ Greenpeace? He was in my year at Eton. Not much of a ladies’ man, if you take my meaning. Investigate that warehouse. Find out what he’s doing there.”
Roger’s face brightened. “We’re doing that. We’ve done that. It’s an old, simple building. No hidden rooms, no basement. Three floors of storage space. The ground floor’s empty, even though it’s protected with a class-A security system. And why is that? Because the second and third floors are chock full of antiques. Old ‘Mushy’ sits in the House of Lords by day, and he’s a high-volume antiques dealer by night. And what’s the reason for his double life? We think it’s a tax dodge, which is why the warehouse has no markings, nor any hint that there’s a business inside.” Roger folded his arms in front of him with a hint of smugness. Before his face dropped again. “Your Majesty.”
Blair Lindsey entered the room and stood immediately behind and to the right of the King.
“Good morning Blair,” Alfred said. “Have you slept well?”
“Very well, Your Majesty,” Blair said, carrying his notebook in one hand while he rubbed his eye with the palm of the other.
“Carry on, Roger.”
Roger took a deep breath and began to speak. “Well–”
The King held up a hand to stop him. “No Roger, I meant carry on with the excellent work you and your team are doing.”
Deflating a little, Roger said, “Yes sir. Your Majesty, sir.”
Alfred turned and headed for the door.
As Lindsey turned to follow the King, Roger reached forward and tugged on Lindsey’s jacket. “Excuse me sir, but…” Roger bit his lip and looked at the floor.
Turning back to face Roger fully, Lindsey spoke. “Roger, there’s no need to call me ‘sir’. I have no authority here or anywhere. Now what’s on your mind?”
“Does the King,” Roger said with renewed confidence, “think we don’t know our jobs around here? We’re already doing all the things he’s demanding, and more.”
Lindsey put a hand on Roger’s shoulder, looking him in the eye, his voice steady and clear. “This situation is putting His Majesty under terrible stress. He’s trying to help. You need to think of him as one of the team. And as such, he considers it his task to suggest alternatives. But I promise you, His Majesty has confidence in you and your work.” Lindsey squeezed Roger’s shoulder and locked on to his darting eyes. “Okay?”
“Yes. Sure. Thanks Mr Lindsey.” Roger half-smiled.
“Blair,” Lindsey said, letting his hand drop to hi
Lindsey caught up with the King, walking the long corridor that led to his office.
“I suppose they’re doing the best they can,” Alfred said.
“So are you encouraged or discouraged, Your Majesty?” Blair said.
“Both. Neither. They cancel each other. Get Lieutenant McGougan on the phone. Immediately.”
Lindsey drew his cell phone and arranged the call. He handed the phone to the King.
“Hello Ryan. How is the campaign preceding? Have you ousted those treacherous dogs yet, without destroying any more treasured landmarks?”
McGougan’s voice came so loudly from the handset that Lindsey could hear it clearly. Alfred held it several inches from his ear as he listened. “Not yet. After the strike on the Cathedral – it was damaged, not destroyed, Your Majesty – some reinforcements arrived.”
“Excellent. So you were able to move in and mop up the rest of them.”
“No sir.” Even though McGougan was not present, his frown was perceptible in his voice. “The reinforcements were theirs, not ours. They attacked us from behind, before getting around us and joining their friends.”
The King stopped walking, within sight of his office door. “How is that possible?”
“No surprise really. We should have expected it. After all, there are a hundred-thousand of them.”
“No Lieutenant. AS-ONE has only fifty-thousand members.”
“Yes, but there are a hundred-thousand people in the police forces of Great Britain. We have to assume they all stand together.”
“You can’t assume any such thing.” Alfred resumed walking. Lindsey opened and held the door for him. “We are thoroughly vetting them, and while there are some traitors among them, most are horrified at what their former colleagues are doing, and will not even own them as colleagues any more.”
“As you say, sir. But fifty-thousand is still a pretty big number.”
“Be that as it may, I need you to attend me here immediately.”
Lindsey closed the door behind the King.
“Your Majesty, I’m up to my neck in this assault on York. I can’t just leave it.”
“Do not presume to defy me, Ryan. I want you here. You need to take charge of the manhunt. Someone needs to crack the whip if General Montgomery is to be found and recovered.”
McGougan sighed. “Your Majesty, I know those army intelligence bods very well, and they’re absolutely the best at their jobs. Why do you want me?”
“I want you because of your regard for the General. None of these men know him personally. But you and he are friends. That means that you will have the greater motivation to track him and his captors down. Now, find a capable person to take your place in York, and join me here no later than this evening.”
“As you command, Your Majesty.”
***
Lieutenant McGougan and two of his immediate staff left York, driving south in an Army Land Rover.
Some distance from the city, they encountered a substantial convoy of police vehicles coming the opposite direction.
“Do you think they can be bothered with us?” McGougan asked as they passed by the convoy.
“I think they can,” the officer in the back seat said. As he watched, several cars broke off from the rest, skidding a hundred and eighty degrees before speeding in pursuit.
“Lose them.”
“Already on it sir,” the driver said as he put his foot down. The car accelerated, pressing them against their seat-backs.
The three police vehicles’ sirens began blaring, and lights flashing.
“Maybe they’re just going to cite us for a broken headlight or expired road tax,” the driver said with a lopsided smile.
“Add speeding to that list,” the Lieutenant said. “And dangerous driving if need be.”
“Yes sir! On a positive note, I don’t think they’ve got an eye-in-the-sky on us.”
The faster police cars caught up with the Land Rover, attempting to nudge its rear side and destabilise it, but its greater mass worked in its favour.
“Get off the highway,” the Lieutenant shouted as the police cars nudged them again. One of them was manoeuvring in front.
“But there’s no junction for at least another mile!” The driver’s nerves were beginning to fray.
“This is a Land Rover! Get off the motorway, now!”
The vehicle veered off to the left, bouncing along down the embankment’s grass- and weed-covered slope, snapping the stalks of several saplings as it went.
Of the three pursuing police vehicles, one of the cruisers attempted to follow, but – finding little traction among the vegetation – went into a brief spin until its leading tyres caught on something, flipping the vehicle over until it came to rest with its wheels spinning uselessly in the air. The second police vehicle, a Land Rover, made it down the slope with little difficulty. The third vehicle, another standard police cruiser, did not even make the attempt.
The surrounding area was countryside, made up of farms and grazing lands, each separated from the other by traditional stone walls in varying states of repair and disrepair.
The barrier that separated the motorway and its embankment from the farmers’ fields was made of wood and wire, and the Army Land Rover smashed through it with little resistance. The dry stone walls separating one field from another, however, could stop a Land Rover in its tracks.
Lieutenant McGougan pointed to a breach in the wall across the field, where a century of neglect had allowed a portion of the wall to collapse, creating a breach wide enough and low enough to accommodate them. The driver pointed the vehicle in the direction of the breach, though at the speed they were travelling even the Land Rover found it difficult to keep traction, and mud and grass flew in all directions wherever the vehicle slewed and the tires spun.
The jagged breach in the wall was roughly U-shaped, with a mound of large stones at the bottom, and more spread around nearby. The Army Land Rover bounced over these stones madly, bottoming out with a crunch as it crossed, its momentum getting it through despite the resistance. The police Land Rover followed close behind.
They emerged into another field, rife with obstacles in the form of cows. The Lieutenant’s skilled driver avoided the beasts without sacrificing any speed. The same could not be said of the pursuing vehicle, which collided with and injured at least one cow, while denting itself but continuing the chase.
The army driver pointed the car across the field toward a gate, which was only fastened to the wall by a mess of nylon ropes and bits of metal wedged between the stones.
“Hang on,” the driver said, a moment before they smashed through the gate and skidded onto a narrow road. He wrenched the wheel, turning the Land Rover sideways, slamming the gear stick into second, and stamping on the accelerator to reclaim as much lost momentum as possible in a new direction. He raced away down the road. “See? Years of playing racing games on my PlayStation hasn’t gone to waste!”
The Lieutenant turned and looked behind them, as the battering and buffeting ceased on the relatively smooth road, and saw the police vehicle emerge and perform the same manoeuvre, though not as successfully, smacking its bulk sideways against the wall on the opposite side of the road. Delayed only for a moment, the police Land Rover sped in pursuit.
McGougan turned back to his driver. “Lose that car,” he said, cocking a thumb over his shoulder, “and get me to London.”
The driver did as he was told, and Lieutenant McGougan arrived safely at the Palace late that evening. Despite complaining of the necessity to travel much of the way off-road, he immediately made himself useful to the King.
***
Over the next two days, the King took a close interest in all the activities of his intelligence units. He cancelled all his nonessential appointments, dealing only with affairs of state which could not be postponed, and instead spent every waking moment familiarising himse
As Alfred had predicted, the Lieutenant successfully spurred the intelligence staff, forcing them to explore avenues they would not otherwise have considered, and breathing down their necks in ways that inspired as well as annoyed. He also acted as the King’s point of information sharing, helping his sovereign filter out the dross and understand the jewels.
On the second day since McGougan’s arrival, the King took less sleep than anyone else in the Palace. He spent hours hunched over a large map of Great Britain which had been installed on a large table in the situation room. It was marked with a multitude of colour-coded pins, many of which were connected by coloured strings. A large number of small sticky note papers, inscribed with scribbled scrawls, were scattered across the map. This was all represented in real-time on a mural sized video screen, each sticky note legibly rendered into friendly typefaces, and every pin location replicated faithfully by a high-technology the King made no effort to understand. The tactile map and pins were used for the sake of the old guard such as himself and the officers. The MOD’s Information Technology staff had wanted to do it all digitally, but did not get their wish. In any case, whenever a pin was moved or a sticky note added, a computer somewhere took it into consideration and crunched the numbers to offer insights into other avenues of inquiry, some of which had already proved helpful. The King also spent a great deal of time consulting with Roger and his ilk, as well as their Army counterparts, though Lieutenant McGougan advised him to rely upon him alone as a mediator.
On occasion the King lost his temper with them on account of what he perceived as their incompetence, unwillingness, or inability. However, except in the case of one intelligence officer he dismissed without regret, the King always made it up to them by being extra friendly the next time he saw them.
As the second day drew to a close, the King’s aspect became hard and humourless, while his energy flagged.
“Have you eaten anything today?” The Lieutenant had surprised the King, approaching him unawares, jolted as if waking from a light sleep.
“Not necessary,” Alfred said, removing his reading glasses and rubbing his eyes. “I had something yesterday.”
“I see. And surely you need some sleep as well.”