Elephants and Castles

Elephants and Castles

  John Patrick

  Copyright 2013

  This book remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed for any commercial or non-commercial use without permission from the author. No alteration of content is permitted.

  Any resemblance of characters in the book to persons, living or dead is coincidental.

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Late July, this year

  The helicopter thundered over the moon-lit rooftops, dodging chimneys, rattling windows and sending children scurrying to their parents' beds. Inside the chopper, Commander Stafford of MI 5 straightened his ginger moustache before dropping a helmet like a gold-fish bowl onto his head, and sealing it against the neck of his crumply, white, bio-protective suit. A mile ahead, helicopter searchlights clashed across the night sky and one old London street outshone the huge silver moon above.

  Stafford checked his pistol and zipped it back into his pocket. Moments later they were hovering over Monnington Street. Below them, gas-masked soldiers poured from trucks onto flood-lit tarmac, armed policemen in bio-suits barricaded the road and flashing blue lights winked back from every window. The pilot nervously lowered his craft into the car park between the take-away shop and the newsagents. Before it could touch the ground, Commander Stafford leapt out.

  'Where's the boy?' His words were swept away by the storm from the helicopter.

  A man in a gas-mask pulled him to the doorway of Cooley-Tabooley's Kebab House and they waited for the chopper to lift back into the night.

  'I said where's the boy?' Stafford shouted again impatiently.

  'This way Sir.' They rustled onto the street and the man pointed to a crumbly old red brick house fifty yards away.

  Stafford hurried towards the rusty gate and wild privet hedge of Number 28. Around him was frenzy. Men and women in green and white suits and Perspex helmets dashed between gardens and garages, emptying bins, probing under bushes, reaching beneath parked cars and dropping samples into plastic bags. Diesel generators hummed and throbbed as more floodlights were hurriedly hauled up into the sky. Above them, helicopters swarmed like wasps at a picnic, their searchlights blazing down to expose every last hidden corner of Monnington Street.

  Stafford hurried to the front steps of the house.

  'Good Evening Sir.' A guard pointed his gun to the floor and stepped to one side. 'The mother's in the first door on the right Sir, kid's down below.'

  Downstairs, in the basement kitchen, thirteen-year-old Elvis wasn't wearing a protective suit or a helmet. He was in his usual tired tee-shirt and a torn pair of old school trousers. He was watching his distorted reflection in the visor of the man across the table. They'd both been sitting there for hours; the initial shock and tears at being arrested had long since melted away into boredom, then frustration. Elvis's battered old crutch leant against the table next to him. He checked the clock on the mantelpiece again. 11.35pm; time was running out.

  'How much longer you gonna keep me here?'

  The eyes behind the visor flashed anxiously back at him but the man said nothing.

  'What am I supposed to have done? You can't just keep me sitting here all night.' Elvis stood up.

  'Sit down! Now!' The man seized his arm and pointed a gloved finger at the chair. 'You know what you done. Commander Stafford will be 'ere in a minute. He'll sort you out.'

  'Sort me out? Sort me out about what?'

  He didn't receive a reply. Elvis shuffled nervously in his seat and glanced at the clock again.

  Moments later, the door flew open. Commander Stafford charged into the kitchen. ‘Where is he? Is that him? Is that... it?'

  'Yes Sir. That's Elvis Klatzmann Sir.' He barked, jumping to his feet.

  'Blow me down. He doesn't look much, does he?'

  'No Sir. He doesn't Sir.'

  'Still, never judge a book by its cover. They're cunning these terrorists, you know. '

  'Yes Sir, they are Sir.'

  'Just think... what was your name?'

  'Tompkins Sir, Kevin Tompkins.'

  'Just think Tompkins, one day when you're old and grey, you'll be able to tell your grandchildren how you took part in Britain's biggest anti-terrorist operation since Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament. When they're burning effigies of Elvis Klatzmann, you'll be able to tell them how you sat guard over him the night that Commander George Stafford saved London! Think about that!'

  'Wow, Sir!' The young man's eyes grew as wide as saucers.

  'Well done young man, I won't forget this. Now I must question him alone. You're dismissed!'

  The man didn't need telling twice; he almost ran from the kitchen.

  'Who are you?' asked Elvis uneasily, 'What are you doing here?'

  'Who am I? I'll tell you who I am! I am you're worst nightmare, boy, that's who I am.' Stafford strutted around Elvis inspecting his every angle. 'The name is Stafford, MI5.' He bent over and pushed his mask directly in front of Elvis's face, his ginger moustache bristling against the inside of the glass. 'Anti-terrorist division.' he added with a whisper.

  'But... why? What's going on?'

  'Don't play dumb boy. You've been caught red-handed! We know your game!'

  'Game? I haven't got a game! What am I supposed to have done?'

  'What have you done? Stafford laughed then fired his cold, green-eyed gaze back at Elvis. 'I'll tell you what you've done boy. You've terrorised the whole country, that's what you've done. You've closed down every airport in Europe, you've sent half of London fleeing for cover, you've filled every hospital emergency department in this city and you've brought down the wrath of the entire British Government on your head. That's what you've done!'

  'That's crazy! I haven't done anything!'

  'Is that a fact?'

  Stafford picked up the remote control and aimed it at the television.

  'BREAKING NEWS' flashed across the screen in red. An excited newscaster was clutching a sheet of paper. He read the words at a gallop. 'Now we're getting more information about the astonishing news from North London. Police have confirmed they have uncovered a major terrorist plot involving the large scale release of a biological agent. The pictures you're seeing now are live from our helicopter at the scene where a mass evacuation is under way.'

  The image was of a city by night. Every street was a river of car headlights, stretching far into the distance.

  'What... does that prove?' asked Elvis meekly.

  The camera zoomed into a brightly lit street in the centre of the picture. One building stood out, lit up by brilliant white light, surrounded by dozens of flashing police cars and military vehicles. There could be no doubt; the weather-beaten brick house with bulging walls and sagging roof, the old stone church across the road, the two old buildings, islands amongst the new glass-fronted shops and boxy concrete flats. The street was Monnington Street, the house was his house.

  'All buildings inside the exclusion zone are being evacuated. I repeat a compulsory evacuation is under way for everybody inside the red line on this map. You must leave immediately! Now police say the mastermind of the plot...'

  'Here we go!' said Stafford, turning up the volume.

  '... is believed to be this person, Elvis Klatzmann.' Elvis’s picture appeared on the TV, smiling in school uniform, hair neatly brushed. Elvis's jaw fell open. 'Police are working quickly to identify his accomplices.' The TV picture returned to Monnington Street. On the front garden of Number 28, an enormous sheet of white plastic was being pulled towards the house. It was hooked onto the arm of a crane then dragged onto the roof. Gas-masked men hauled on ropes until the cover was draped down the all sides of the old building and fastened t
o the ground. The light faded from the kitchen window. The house was completely enclosed, wrapped-up like a chocolate bar.

  Stafford's mobile rang. 'Yes Sir, of course Sir. Well you can reassure the President that we have this whole thing under control. I have the mastermind right here in my hand Sir. I'm questioning him as we speak. Of course Sir. I'd be happy to talk to the President if you... No, sorry Sir... Yes Prime Minister, I'll keep you informed.' Stafford pushed his 'phone back into his pocket. He looked at Elvis and shook his head. 'You ever heard of a place called Guantanamo Bay, Elvis?'

  Elvis shrugged.

  'No? No? Well you damn-well should boy, because you're going to be spending a hell of a lot of time there! And you know what?' The glass inside his helmet fogged as he roared at Elvis. 'It's the worst place on earth Elvis! The very worst - a place made especially for the likes of you! A place where anything goes, so long as it gets the job done. And I mean anything! Now either you can tell me the truth boy, or you'll be on the next plane to Cuba and they can damn-well torture it out of you. The choice is yours.'

  'But this is crazy! You've got...You've got...' Elvis scrambled to remember what the crooks said on TV when they'd been arrested.. 'You got nothing on me!'

  'Is that right? Well why don't we look at the facts, then, eh? Over the last month you ask your doctor about plague, you ask your history teacher about plague, you ask Google 600 times about plague. You have a notebook full of information about it, you have a box full of drugs to treat it and then, lo and behold, what happens next? Any guesses? Want to win a prize? No, you don't need to guess, do you? Because you know what happened next! Yes, you only go and catch the bloody disease and kick off the first outbreak of plague in England in a hundred years! Coincidence? Course it is! And what else? Oh yes, you hang around with terrorist suspects. Strange? And what's this?' Stafford reached to the kitchen cabinet and grabbed a handful of white envelopes and a pack of postage stamps and threw them across the table. 'Is this what you used to send plague around London? Is it?Is this how you spread your foul poison? Posted it out to all those poor bastards who got sick? Was it? You’d better start talking damned quick boy! Guantanamo Bay has room for one more!'

  Elvis’s heart was pounding, his hands were trembling. How could this man be serious? How could anyone think he, Elvis, the scrawny kid who gets pushed around at school, the boy who needs a crutch to walk more than a few yards, how could he be any sort of terrorist?

  'Terrorist suspects?'

  'What?' snapped Stafford.

  'Before, you said I’d been hanging around with terrorist suspects. Who were you talking about?'

  'Like you don't know!'

  'I don't!'

  'You know a Master Alan Singh...'

  'Well, yeh, he’s a mate of mine...'

  'And Henry...I can't say his other name, that medical student.'

  'Well, yeh, but he's no...'

  'And Amelia Evans'

  'Amelia? I don’t ...know any Amelia.' Elvis replied unconvincingly.

  Stafford pulled a mobile 'phone from his pocket. He pressed a button, lit up the screen and tossed it on to the table in front of Elvis. A girls face smiled back through the screen. 'Who's that then?'

  Elvis blushed.

  'There's at least half a dozen more pictures of her on that thing.'

  'That doesn’t mean…'

  'You’ve got a lot to tell young man.'

  The kitchen door rattled. 'I don’t care!' The voice was shrill and piercing. 'I’m going to see my baby!'

  Elvis’s mother, Monica, burst into the kitchen, her hair wild, clothes ruffled, she was gasping for breath.

  'Elvis! Sweetheart! What have they done to you?'

  'I'm sorry Sir. She pushed past me. 'The guard explained sheepishly. 'I didn't... want to hurt her.'

  Stafford stepped in front of Monica. 'What do you think you're doing, woman? I am in the middle of an interrogation! '

  Monica shoved him out of the way. 'You’re not interrogating my son! I'm his mother... that’s my job.' She grabbed Elvis and squeezed him tightly. 'You’ll tell me everything. Won’t you sweetie?'

  'Yes mum.' Elvis gasped. But where to begin? And the time was slipping away. 11.48pm.

  Chapter 2

  1660's London

  These Blazing Stars!

  Threaten the World with Famine, Plague and Wars:

  To Princes Death: to Kingdoms many Crosses:

  To all Estates, inevitable Losses:

  To Herds-men, Rot; to Ploughmen, hapless Seasons:

  To Sailors, Storms; to Cities Civil Treasons.

  John Gadbuy, De Cometis, 1665