Free The Lords' Day (retail) by Michael Dobbs

woodwork above the heads of those gathered at the entrance to the Lords. Most of the MPs began to
run for cover, back the way they had come, but this was precisely what the attackers had intended for it eased the pressure of bodies around the doors. Those who tried to stand their ground, like
the principal doorkeeper and the police inspector, found themselves staring directly down the muzzle of a Kalashnikov and you couldn’t argue with those things. As the tide of humanity turned
into a flood, emptying the doorway, two of the cleaners began to haul at Pugin’s great brass doors. Within seconds they were closed and padlocked.
    On the other side of these doors, by the Bar of the House, confusion had turned to consternation amongst those around the Prime Minister, but none of his protection officers were within yards;
this was, after all, deep inside the security cordon. Who was going to threaten the Prime Minister here, apart from his Chancellor? Yet in this part of the Chamber there were two additional exits.
These doors led to corridors that were used as voting lobbies, and MPs began to swarm through them. But those who reached these exits first were only the minnows, the big fish of the Cabinet were
still pressed in by the weight of bodies all around, and long before any of them had the chance to escape they found the cleaners standing outside these side doors, pointing their guns. Even so the
attackers were permitting some to pass, hurrying them on with their barrels. Only when the first member of the Cabinet drew near, with the Prime Minister at his shoulder, that one of the gunmen
stopped the flow and fired once more into the ceiling above his head, forcing them back. Much the same was happening on the other side of the Chamber.
    And above, in the narrow, mean galleries that ran on every side of the Chamber, guests were fleeing – all, that is, except Magnus and William-Henry. As they rushed to the door that led to
the staircase and freedom, they found themselves staring at weapons in the hands of two men who, moments beforehand, had been seated in the press gallery. Stechkin APS machine pistols, and small
enough to have been hidden by the cleaners two days earlier in the cisterns of the washrooms.
    ‘Want to know something, old buddy?’ Magnus said.
    ‘What?’ his friend demanded through clenched teeth.
    ‘We’re deep in shit.’
    ‘Where are those Beefeaters when you need them?’
    Below them, amongst the scarlet cloaks and tiaras, the self-possession of many was beginning to slip. No outright panic, no screaming, not yet, all terribly British, for the moment, but terror
wasn’t far from the surface. Elizabeth sat motionless. She could see that the attackers now controlled every door leading from the floor of the Chamber. Others could see it, too; on all sides
people were swimming in fear, and some were about to drown in it. If that happened, they would drag many, many others with them. Then a woman cracked, howled, began to wail in dread and to fight
her way through the crowd, creating waves of alarm all around her. A gunman raised his weapon. They were a moment away from disaster. The gunman took aim.
    That was when the Queen rose to her feet.
    Might it have been like that on the Titanic ? In the face of tragedy, had someone taken control, brought calm to bind the wounds of chaos? Probably not. After all, they had no queen, had
no Elizabeth, for as she rose, all eyes were drawn to her, even the attackers, and they grew still. Her voice was not loud, yet it carried to all corners.
    ‘Be calm,’ she said. ‘Do as they say.’
    And they obeyed. As Elizabeth took her seat once more, the mini-exodus continued beneath the menacing eyes of the guns. Royal officials, the page-boys, the ladies-in-waiting, all those with long
titles but little power, were allowed to leave. One of her ladies-in-waiting tried to approach the Queen but was warned off with a stare; slowly, in tears, she left her