Barney Thomson & The Westminster Christmas Massacre - Episode 16

by Douglas Lindsay - 10:27 on 23 December 2009

The story so far: Parliament is in recess. The MPs who have survived the killer Trelawny’s bloodthirsty rampage through the Palace of Westminster have returned to their constituencies, feeling lucky to be alive and claiming extra security on their expenses. Meanwhile the PM remains convinced that the whole serial killer plot has been organised by the Americans, and has given the green light for the invasion of Maine, the north-eastern most state in the the United States of America. War is upon the West.

0345hrs London, England

The PM was distractedly looking through that morning’s front pages. Simon Cowell, weather, Katie & Peter, more weather, even Sir Paul. Nothing about him, nothing about his extraordinary hair, nothing about the Westminster Serial Killer. It had been five days since the last of the brutal murders and people were already forgetting. There were too many other exciting things happening in celebrity Britain for the great British people to care about those conniving, duplicitous few hundred who governed them.

The invasion of the eastern seaboard of the United States of America had begun at a little after midnight GMT; 1907hrs EST. In the PMs office CNN was on the TV with the volume turned down, as they waited for the first news of the invasion to be reported. In a corner, Bleacher was sitting with his laptop, flicking endlessly through news sites and gossip sites and rumour sites and conspiracy sites, waiting to see if anyone had yet picked up intel on the invasion; waiting for the first images to be posted on YouTube of hostile British troops on American soil, of the British flag flying over the state government building in Augusta, Maine.

The PM finally gave up, shoved the papers onto the floor, got to his feet and walked to the window. His hands were clasped behind his back, his fingers tapping into the palm of his hand.

‘This is extraordinary, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I mean, really exciting.’

None of the four others in the room - Bleacher, Cabinet Secretary Blaine, Diary Secretary Lucy, and renegade barbershop legend Barney Thomson - said anything. They were all tired and slightly nervous.

The PM turned and looked expectantly at them.

‘I mean, you know, this is like the great days of Empire, when we actually went out and invaded places. This must be what it was like to be Prime Minister in Victoria’s time. Forging an empire, creating something grand and magnificent and long-lasting, something to span the generations, something that creates history, but a living history. These are momentous times. We are at war.’

‘We’ve been at war for eight years,’ said Blaine drily.

The PM waved him away.

‘Counter-insurgency,’ he said. ‘This is what we’re talking about, this here, this magnificent thrust into enemy territory. This is like D-Day. It’s, it’s, I don’t know, like some other great landing.’

‘Gallipoli?’ suggested Barney.

The PM snapped his fingers. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘I don’t know that one.’

The phone rang and the sound skewered through the room, juddering them all wide awake. They all stared at the phone for a second, then Bleacher lifted it quickly, barked at it, listened for a few seconds then hung up.

‘They’ve encountered heavy snow, Prime Minister,’ said Bleacher, and the PM’s heart sank and he immediately thought of Napoleon and Hitler heading east, and wondered if he should have delayed his attack until spring. ‘However, they’ve taken the port of Portland, and are heading slowly inland towards Augusta.’

The PM smacked his hands together excitedly.

’Holy moly,’ he said, ‘this is fantastic. We’ve actually taken a town, a port, on American soil. We’re taking back America, bit by bit. This is incredible. Any casualties?’

‘None reported so far,’ said Bleacher.

‘And what about enemy casualties or collateral damage, any of that kind of thing?’

‘Sir, there are no troops in Maine, that’s why we chose it. In any event, everyone seems to be on holiday at the moment, so no one’s really noticed.’

‘Outstanding. And we should have taken the state capital by daybreak, eh? Then we can make an announcement at one o’clock. On the news. Let the world know that Britain has returned as an imperial power, and an imperial power for good at that, not like those Yanks, with their junk food and cluster weapons and dodgy banking practices.’

Bleacher felt his insides crawl. Blaine checked his watch and wondered if he’d have time to get home to see his kids before Britain was destroyed by a single nuclear weapon. Lucy the Diary Secretary checked her diary and made a mental note to herself to make sure that the PM’s 1215 with Radio 5 Live, when he would be discussing his favourite memories of watching Morcambe and Wise Christmas specials, did not overrun.

Faced with impending war and the bedlam that would ensue, Barney Thomson leant over and picked up the Star: Macca Versus Mucca On Ice...

‘Right.’ said the PM, emptying the last of a late night fortifier down his throat, ‘let’s get the speech finalised. This is so awesome.’

0525hrs London, England

Barney Thomson walked through the corridors of Downing Street in search of coffee. Was still surprised by the Tardis effect of the place; how a small terraced house could suddenly branch out to be this gigantic townhouse behind. (And despite his position of privilege in the administration, he would not be told the fact that primitive time/space/dimension technology had indeed been used to expand the insides of Number 10 Downing Street since the mid-1980’s; and that studies had shown that constant exposure to this untested technology had driven each of the occupants completely insane, sometimes in as little as under two years.)

Barney stopped for a second, thinking that he’d heard a noise further down the corridor. He looked at the watch he’d been given on starting the job for the second time. He wasn’t sure how many of the staff had stayed overnight, but this was late enough on a government working day for someone to have just arrived at the office.

‘Coffee,’ said Barney. ‘I need about a pint of the stu...’

He broke off from chatting amiably to himself at the sound from up ahead. It had been a definite whimper, a loud, pathetic whimper.

‘Uh-oh,’ said Barney.

He stopped and wondered whether he should just turn around and go back to the office. The PM was off catching some sleep, so that he would look gorgeous for his momentous TV event. Bleacher was running wild, high on amphetamines and caffeine, dementedly going in circles, running the country in a whirlwind of deranged dysfunctional insanity. Blaine was gone, Lucy was asleep on the couch.

He heard the noise again, and this time he recognised the sound of fear and distress. Previously it could have been a hungover office worker cringing at the thought of what they’d done at the Christmas party the night before.

‘Pants,’ he muttered, then started walking quickly along the corridor. Around a short corner, and there, in the backwoods of Number 10 Downing Street, he saw his first corpse of the season, a security guard with slashed face and slit throat, dead in a pool of blood. He had collapsed in a doorway, from which the sounds of distress now came.

Barney did not bend to look at the man, did not need to make sure he was dead. He hesitated, deep breath, steeled himself, and walked quickly forward and into the room of impending death.

0025hrs EST   Washington DC, USA

The steward gently tapped the shoulder of the President of the United States. He had been in bed for a little more than twenty minutes, but deep sleep had come to him quickly, sucking him into a dark world of health care budgets and pardoned turkeys.

‘Mr President,’ repeated the Steward. ‘You’re needed in the situation room.’

‘What?’ said the President sleepily, groggily emerging from the depths.



There was a group of fifteen men in suits and uniforms looking at a large satellite image of the coast of Maine. The President was sitting with his back straight, sharp and awake, already downing his third coffee.

‘At the moment we estimate an invasion force of around eight hundred, Mr President, although we think they may be holding a couple of hundred in reserve.’

The President looked to the head of the CIA.

‘That’s not much. Is that what we were expecting?’

‘To be honest, Mr President, we didn’t think they’d be able to cobble together than many. We egged them in to sending more troops to Afghanistan a coupla weeks ago, so they’d be even shorter on numbers than they’d normally be. To be honest, we thought they’d be lucky to muster five hundred.’

The President nodded, too cool to be surprised or distracted by anything.

‘And the local police know to keep their heads down, and surrender if approached?’

‘Yes, Mr President, it’s all going to plan.’

The President sat back and clasped his hands on the table, nodding slowly at something. The others in the room had come to realise that he constantly held conversations in his head and no one was ever entirely sure with whom he was talking.

‘Think I’ll stick around here for a while, see how it plays out. Has it made CNN or Fox yet?’

‘We scheduled that for thirty minutes prior to the British Prime Minister going on TV, Mr President. Knock him off his game.’

‘Cool,’ said the President, then he put his fingers to his forehead in the shape of an L, and said, ‘Loo-ser...’

0529hrs   GMT   London, England

The Foreign Secretary had been bound to a chair, a rudimentary gag placed around his mouth. It prevented him shouting loudly, but would not stop him moaning and whimpering and pleading desperately for his life. The killer Trelawny, taking pleasure in murdering his first cabinet minister, was not in a rush.

The Foreign Secretary’s eyes widened as he saw Barney Thomson, and he recognised that perhaps, at last, one of Trelawny’s victim’s, he himself, might survive.

Trelawny saw the look in the man’s eyes, then turned quickly, a knife clutched in his hands.

‘Aha!’ he shouted. ‘The man who would be my accomplice!’

Barney looked at Trelawny, did not immediately recognise him. He stood before them, not entirely sure how to handle the situation. He was not going to win the fight should he choose to enter into it.

‘Get him!’ screamed the man from the FCO, although sadly the words emerged as a rather strained and pathetic whine.

Trelawny looked annoyed, turned, threw the knife at the Foreign Secretary and buried it in his forehead. A quick check to make sure that the man was no Rasputin and was actually dead, then he turned back to Barney.

‘So, Mr Thomson,’ said Trelawny. ‘We meet at least. Or, I should say, we meet again.’

Barney finally allowed himself to breathe, the air coming out of his lungs in a heavy sigh.

‘I’m too tired for this,’ was all he said. ‘If you’re going to kill me, just get on with it.’

Trelawny smiled. ‘Kill you? My good man, why would I kill you? Have you been fiddling your expenses at the taxpayer’s cost?’

Barney shook his head, then indicated the security guard behind them.

‘Was he?’ he asked.

The smile left Trelawny’s face and he nodded.

‘Good point. Still,’ he added, immediately brightening up again, ‘why murder the main suspect? You must have seen Miss Marple and Jessica Whatshername? As soon as the main suspect turns up dead, they have to go after someone else.’

He walked forward and Barney did not flinch, then he tapped Barney on the shoulder, winked at him, and walked quickly from the office.

‘Morning, Barney Thomson,’ he said as he went, and Barney turned and saw his feet disappear from view.

1300hrs   London, England

The news had broken on Fox and CNN not long before, and was already all over the world, all over every news channel on Planet Earth. The UK had launched a hostile attack on the United States. Quickly other countries were falling in behind them, taking sides, creating divisions where none had previously existed. The world was at war. Some were already calling it World War III.

The PM was standing outside Number 10 in the cold, cold wind, reading his prepared statement to the world’s media.

‘... and so it is with great regret that today we launch this unprecedented attack on US soil. The American people will understand that we have no fight with them. However, their government has tried to topple the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and we cannot stand by and allow this to happen. And so, this morning at seven minutes past midnight, our brave and courageous troops landed on the coast of Maine with the intention of recapturing America and bringing her once more under the banner of the Commonwealth and of Her Majesty the Queen. Naturally we hope that Washington will quickly surrender and accept our terms, but if not, we are prepared for a long fight, and at the outside, fully expect to be in Washington by the end of January...’

The battle lines had been drawn, the trap had been set. The world of men stood on the precipice of all out global calamity.

Again.

Don’t miss the penultimate episode:   Thursday 24th December 2009

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