Free The Lords' Day (retail) by Michael Dobbs Page B

All around Westminster, other links in the security chain were snapping taut.
    And in the Chamber itself, curious things were happening. The mini-exodus that had been permitted had been entirely purposeful on the part of the attackers. About a hundred of the three hundred
and sixty or so who had crammed into the chamber had already gone, considerably relieving the pressure and enabling the attackers to claim good positions and clear lines of fire. One of them stood
in the gallery above, guarding Magnus and William-Henry while watching everything that moved below. Another stood on the steps of the throne, and in excellent if slightly accented English began
demanding that they pay him attention. At first he had a little difficulty making himself heard since his voice was soft and there was still much commotion on all sides, but he backed up his
instruction by firing several rounds into the embossed oak ceiling. The silence that followed was profound. Masood had their full attention.
    He was a young man, not yet thirty, with a fresh olive skin and dark, lustrous eyes – handsome in anybody’s book. He also had a gentle smile that, combined with his soft and
courteous voice (he even thanked them for their attention) – rekindled hope in many who sat there. This impression was reinforced by his next instruction.
    ‘Listen carefully. Very carefully. Your lives will depend upon it. We will let most of you leave,’ he declared.
    The announcement was met with a universal rustle of relief.
    ‘But not all of you,’ Masood added. ‘Some of you, I regret, will be staying behind.’
    11.47 a.m.
    It was barely five minutes into the siege and already its consequences were beginning to flood across the landscape. Crisis has its own mechanics. Newsrooms across London were
thrown into bedlam. It had often been claimed that the people who sat in such places had difficulty telling the difference between a bicycle accident and the end of civilisation; now, for once,
they might be forgiven their eruptions.
    It took no longer for a similar wind of hysteria to blow around those who sat in front of screens in the financial markets. The traders had no idea what was going on but, in the world of money,
uncertainty is seen as the greatest threat of all. They began to squirm in their seats and to mark things down. Trading screens dripped red.
    Calls began to flood out from the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police at Scotland Yard to all those who had a role in dealing with emergencies. The fire brigade and ambulance services were
put on alert, along with the utility companies in case gas, electricity, water or telephones needed to be cut off. London Underground was ordered to close Westminister and St James’s
stations. Buses were diverted. Various arms of the health authorities were alerted to deal with the possibility of wholesale casualties. The accident and emergency department at St Thomas’s,
directly across the river, was closed to the public, while scientists at Porton Down, the government’s chemical and biological research centre out in Wiltshire, began their own disaster
preparations. They couldn’t take chances; there might be a dirty bomb in there.
    A few hundred yards further along the Thames from where the siege was taking place, MI5’s Deputy Director of Counter-Terrorism rushed into his superior’s sanctuary. He found him
staring at a blank television screen. It took some time for the director to respond to the intrusion; his face came round slowly, like a rusted crane, in tiny jerks.
    ‘Are they Bin-Men?’ he whispered. It was a reflex reaction. Anything that moved these past few years with a complexion darker than a suntan was assumed to be a follower of bin
Laden.
    ‘We’re trying to match the faces with what we’ve got on the computers. It’ll take a while.’
    ‘But one of them is the sodding High Commissioner! What do we know about him?’
    ‘Pakistani. A tribesman from the mountains. Name of