Seventy-Two Virgins by Boris Johnson

Author:Boris Johnson [Johnson, Boris]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Great Britain, Political, Fiction
ISBN: 9780753174371
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2004-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

As Roger Barlow ran back across the passerelle, he looked down again at the ambulance. It appeared to be deserted. Then he thought he saw a lupine figure, slinking through towards the Commons kitchens. Within a few seconds he had reached the Pass Office, still invigilated by the man from Stogumber. ‘Those passes,’ said Roger Barlow, ‘can you deactivate them?’

Conscious that the two policemen were only a matter of fifty yards behind, Jones led them fast along the ordained route. First they crossed the threshold into Norman Shaw North, scampering over a yellow sign painted on the tarmac saying ‘No pedestrians beyond this point’.

He then jinked confidently left and led them down past the post office sorting room, then past the kitchens, and then to the first secure door, where a pass was needed. Fixed to the wall, on the right, was the little plastic swipe card socket familiar to anyone who has tried to get into a modern hotel room. The conspirators bunched in the corridor, a little spinney of sound booms and microphones and camcorders.

There was a hush, as Jones inserted the pass.

The door gave a click, and shifted open a fraction. A green light came on. Jones smiled. Dean froze. The lead terrorist pushed open the gleaming brushed steel door and Dean knew in his writhing intestines that whatever happened, he would not go through it. He understood that if he went through that door, and round that corner, he would die. Even if he failed to die by his own hand, Haroun and Habib would do for him, sure as eggs were eggs.

These two now followed Jones through the door; and as Dean was standing there mute, the door shut behind them. At the click of it, Jones turned round and came back to look through the porthole.

‘Sorry,’ said Dean, ‘got held up.’ He held up the sound boom and mimed the act of snagging it on something.

‘Quickly,’ hissed the mission leader, his voice muffled by the door. ‘Stop being an old woman and use your card.’ Dean looked at the oscillating brown irises of the man called Jones.

Trembling, he put the plastic pass into the pocket. He tried it one way. He tried it the other way. As Jones began to curse him, he genuinely tried to get it right, jiggling the card so as to produce a better contact between the magnetic strip and the electronic reader.

At the very moment when it should have done the trick, his card ceased to function at all. Now Dean was on one side of the barrier and his collaborators were on the other. Haroun and Habib joined Jones at the porthole, banging their noses like sharks at an aquarium. They started all three of them to say terrible things.

Bizzaz immak ala amood. Your mother’s tits are on a pole.

Ma fish kahraba, said Habib, slapping the side of his head. There is no electricity.

Dean didn’t speak their language, but he took them to be proposing, roughly speaking, to gouge out his eyes and piss on his brains.

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