Chapter 41

Downing Street. 6th January.

It took until well after midday on the 6th January for the news of his losses to start to reach Graham Thorn. There had been power cuts across parts of the country, starting from just before eleven pm the previous night, and communications were down in many places, so getting the information to the regional Patrol HQ’s and from there to London, just didn’t happen.

Most towns though, even with the loss of all these Patrollers, were still firmly in the hands of the TaF party, and of The Patrol. What, in other times and other places, might have been called Political Officers, and here called Moral Advisers, were now out and about in larger numbers than normal. Always in pairs, and always in the company of a dozen or so Security Patrollers. People stayed off the streets as much as they could, and when they had to go out, they kept their heads down and went about their business in as open and unthreatening manner as possible. Hundreds of innocent people were arrested just because the Moral Advisers didn’t like something about them. And it was usually something completely innocent and none threatening. People were very scared and it showed.

A few minutes before midday, all the power came back on again. This wasn’t chance, it was a deliberate ploy by the Maquis, and by one o’clock in the afternoon, a few people, a number that grew exponentially during the afternoon, knew that the fight back had begun.

Thorn stared in fury at the television screen. Queen Beatrice was talking to the people. His people. They were not her people! His fists were clenched in rage, but there was absolutely nothing he could do. Still pictures came up on screen, so did video footage. Some of it obviously amateur, some of it very definitely professionally done. All Thorn could do was stare in horror at the evidence of some of his crimes. Evidence, in some cases, that pointed very firmly at him.

“But that’s a lie,” he yelled. “Not true. How could she know that? Where’s she getting this from?” There was no one in the room to answer his question. His whole body now shaking from a mixture of fear, shock and fury, he pressed the intercom button.

“Yes Prime Minister?” came the tinny response.

“Get me Boase. Get me whoever’s in charge of broadcasting. And do it now.”

“Yes sir.”

Thorn continued to watch while he waited, getting angrier by the second.

“Where is that woman?” he yelled at the television screen. “Why hasn’t someone shut her up?”

The phone on his desk rang and he snatched it up.

“Prime Minister,” came a smooth, unrecognised voice. “It’s Richard Cooper. I’m the junior minister in charge of telecommunications at the Home Office. I was asked to call you urgently.”

“What are you doing about this, this, woman?” screamed Thorn. “Why haven’t you cut her off?”

“Sir?” Cooper sounded puzzled.

“Do you even know what’s going on Cooper?”

“Sir? I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Our electricity only came back on ten minutes ago and we’ve been too busy trying to sort out our systems.”

“What’s happening,” shrieked Thorn, uncontrollably, “is that traitorous, treasonous, so called queen is broadcasting. What I want to know is where is she, why is she still broadcasting, and how in hell’s name she got any where near a camera in the first place.”

Thorn slammed the phone down, only to have it ring again almost immediately.

He snatched it up at once. “Boase?”

“Yes sir, we’re on it. I’ve sent fifty Security Patrol men to Sandringham. They should be there in about twenty minutes. I’ve also sent men to the BBC, the Post Office Tower, and to all of the independent stations. They all appear to be broadcasting the same thing, so it’s unclear who the primary broadcaster is.”

“Well shut them all down. Now.”

“Yes sir. Already on it. But it will take a little while. I only found out myself three or four minutes ago.”

“Well when you’ve got that treasonous woman in hand, I want her transferred to a high security gaol. And held in solitary confinement. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly Prime Minister. If you keep watching, you should see the results in about half an hour or so.”

“I’d better,” growled Thorn, feeling only slightly happier than he had moments before. He hung up without waiting for a reply, and continued to watch.

“ ... half years ago,” he heard her say. “Yes it really is that long ago that my children, as well as yours, went away. I miss them terribly as I know you do too, and not a day goes by when I don’t think of them and wonder how they are getting on.”

There was a short pause. “Many of you,” he heard Beatrice say, “will have been told your children were kidnapped, taken to the middle east or far east to work as child sex slaves or as slave labourers in sweatshops. Some of you may even have been told they were murdered, supposedly to get rid of an excess population, or for illegal organ harvesting for the ultra rich. Well you’ve been told lies. Every single one of our children taken from Buckingham Palace grounds are still alive, and after seven and a half years away from here are doing very well indeed. See for yourselves.”

The screen changed, and Thorn watched, despite himself, as a stream of young people, varying from mid teens to late twenties, came onto the screen, sometimes in singles, sometimes in twos and threes, introduced themselves, and took a minute or two to describe their lives. They all looked happy and healthy. He wasn’t paying a great deal of attention to what was being said, but when one young man said, “I’d like to introduce you to my wife,” and a young woman of no more than about twenty and carrying a baby walked on screen, he began to pay more attention.

“This is Wendy and our daughter. We named her Antonia May, we named her after both our mothers.” The young woman smiled beautifully into the camera and said, softly, “Hello Mum. I wish you could see us all here, I wish you could be here. I miss you all, but it’s so beautiful, and we did have a wonderful wedding.”

Thorn jabbed at the intercom button again.

“Yes sir?”

“Get me Boase or Stewart at once.”

“Yes sir.”

It took three minutes before his phone rang again.

“Boase?”

“No sir, it’s Bill Stewart. What do you need?”

“Are you watching this broadcast?”

“I’m keeping an eye on it sir.”

“I want everyone of those people identified, and their families arrested. I want denials, I want repudiations and I want rejections. And I want them broadcast as soon as possible. Understood? I want the truth out there that this is all lies and propaganda.”

“Yes sir, I’ll get on it right away. I’ll have to get help from MOSS to speed things up.”

“Good. Get on it.” Thorn hung up and continued to watch the broadcast. This was going to play right into his hands he decided.

“LIARS! PERVERTS!” he screamed at the television a few minutes later when a young couple of about eighteen or nineteen walked on hand in hand, introduced themselves, and announced that they were married with a two year old child.

During the broadcast so far, most of the people on screen had been in various rooms, speaking to the camera. A few had been outside, but in each case, the background had been fairly anonymous: brick or wooden walls, out of focus trees or plants, but when the next young man came on and starting talking, Thorn once again snatched up his phone, demanding to speak to Stewart or Boase.

“Do you know anything about mountains?” he demanded of Stewart when he came on the line just moments later.

“In what way sir?”

Thorn was staring at the TV screen intently. “Would you recognise mountains? Particular mountains? If you saw them in a picture or on screen?”

There was a short pause. “Ohhhh yeah,” came back Stewart’s wondering voice. “I see what you mean. I wouldn’t, but I’ll see what I can do to find someone who might.”

“Good. Those mountains in the background are not in Britain, but they could be in Pakistan or South America or somewhere like that. The Himalayas, the Andes.”

“Yes sir, I’ll see if anyone knows.”

“Do we know any professional mountaineers?”

“I don’t, but I have an idea one of the junior ministers in transport is a rock climber or mountaineer or something. He might be able to help.”

“Good. Thank you.”

“Yes sir.”

The two men hung up and Thorn continued to watch, getting more and more impatient. His anger had abated slightly now that he knew Stewart and Boase were doing ‘something’.

It was nearly three-quarters of an hour after Gareth Boase had promised him action, that something happened on screen.

A young couple was talking about their life, and their children, when the screen suddenly cut back to the queen.

“Sorry to cut in so abruptly,” Beatrice said softly. “However something is happening that I think you all should see.”

The camera picture changed abruptly. “This is the view,” came Beatrice’s voice over the picture, “from my study at Sandringham House in Norfolk.”

The view was of beautiful landscaped gardens stretching into the distance. On the lawn, and heading purposefully towards the camera, was a row of figures. The camera zoomed in towards one, and it became obvious that it was a uniformed, armed, Security Patroller. The look on his face showed grim determination. Slowly the camera panned along the line, some showed nervousness, some showed fear, others showed signs of hatred, disgust or even anger, but all showed determination.

“Yes!” muttered Thorn. “About time too. Hope Stewart has the sense to leave these pictures going.”

The picture changed. This time it was a different external view. “This is the front of the house.” There were more men, some in vehicles, all approaching slowly. Over the next minute, more views around Sandringham were broadcast, all showed armed Security Patrollers approaching the house. Over them all, Queen Beatrice continued to give a narration of what was happening outside. She sounded completely calm and almost detached, as if it was happening to someone else.

Now new camera views were shown. This time the cameras were away from the house, filming towards it. There would be no doubt in anyone’s mind that Sandringham House was being assaulted by between seventy-five and one hundred men, all armed to the teeth. The cameras had also captured almost every single face, though there were also some who were deliberately hiding their faces. And still the queen narrated. To Thorn’s fury she began to talk about a particular tree, flower bed, or architectural feature in a particular view.

Now the screen split into four, each showing a different view. Between them they showed most of the men approaching the house. They were all about twenty meters from the house when they stopped. A figure got out of one of the vehicles at the front of the house, took two paces towards it and stopped. He raised a bullhorn to his mouth.

“Now,” came the soft voice of the queen.

About 80% of the Security Patrollers collapsed. There was no drama about it, they just went down like sacks of potatoes. The few who stayed upright looked around them in shock, but a few seconds later they too just collapsed to the ground. All obviously unconscious, though a few were already showing signs of recovery, even after just a short while. A few seconds later, those few gave a little jerk, and then stopped moving. Whatever had hit them before, had hit them again.

Thorn just gaped. “What the hell?” he gasped.

“None of them are hurt,” the Queens’s voice intruded on his viewing. “Well, not seriously. They’ve all been put to sleep. When they wake up it will probably feel like one heck of a hangover.”

Two elderly men appeared on the screen pushing a cart. They ambled slowly over to the first man, lifted him onto the cart, and carried on to the second. When there was about eight on the cart, the two turned and moved, equally slowly, towards the house. The camera zoomed in on the two, who now looked to be well into their seventies. If Thorn hadn’t been so angry, he might have found it comical to watch.

“If you’re wondering how we knocked them out, well that’s a trade secret. For the moment anyway,” the queen said serenely, as the two men vanished from view. “We will interrogate these men, then imprison them for the time being.”

The picture returned to the queen, who had a small, almost sad, smile on her face.

“Wasn’t that fun,” she said simply. Though there was no real sign of ‘fun’ in her face or voice.

“Now, I think we shall we go back to the videos of your children, and I’ll talk to you again in a little while.”

“NO!” Screamed Thorn. He grabbed the phone. “GET ME BOASE!” he screamed at the person who answered, slamming the phone down again in fury.

An hour later, and still videos of young men and women were parading across the screen. All showing good health, happiness and contentment. All talking happily about their new lives on some mythical planet called Albion. Thorn didn’t believe a word of it.

The sound on the television was off, but the silent pictures showed that Stewart hadn’t managed to turn off the transmission, nor had Boase managed to arrest the queen. There was a knock on the door and it opened to reveal Stewart with a younger man that Thorn didn’t recognise.

“Sir, this is Dennis Lowper. He’s the nearest we could find in this short time to an expert mountaineer.”

Thorn shook hands with the nervous young man. “Has Bill told you what I’m after?”

“Yes sir.”

“Can you do it?”

“I don’t know sir, I’ve not seen any of the pictures. But I’ll do my best sir.”

“Good. Can you wait outside just for a moment.”

“Er, yes sir.”

When they were alone, Thorn turned on Bill Stewart. Pointing at the screen he said furiously, “What the hell’s going on? Why hasn’t that damn woman been silenced?”

“I don’t know sir. I’ve been speaking to the top man at the DTI, and he’s been talking to his technical people. We’ve shut down all the transmitters, both those owned by the individual broadcasters, as well as those owned by BT, the post office and other intermediaries. We’ve ordered all the satellite transmitters in the UK to shut down, and we’re now in the control rooms of all the UK based broadcasters. We just cannot find where the signal is being broadcast from.

“Either there are transmitters we don’t know about, or there’s some new technology we don’t know about. I’m of the opinion it’s the latter. If it were simply new transmitters, we ought to be able to triangulate on them and shut them down.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry sir, I just don’t know how they’re doing it.”

“Is it coming from a satellite? A satellite we can’t touch?”

“Possibly, but they are broadcasting on all channels, and I don’t know if that’s possible from a satellite. I’m trying to find out.”

“Hmm. What happens if we try broadcasting?”