The Gang of Four
‘There she is!’ exclaimed the Prime Minister.
‘Where?’ enquired Marcus McManus, squinting up at the still-cloudless but now opaquely hazy skies above London as he nervously gripped his carrier bag filled with cans of supermarket cider.
‘Visibility has deteriorated noticeably over the last twenty-four hours, sir,’ remarked an unhappy-looking Mrs. Collier.
‘Over London, yes, but PM-1 will soon take us clear of all this crap,’ remarked the PM with childlike enthusiasm. He pointed towards a section of milky sky above Buckingham Palace: ‘There, Mr. McManus!’ Then turning back to Mrs. Collier: ‘I’m still not happy that Sir Neville has chosen to take a sicky, Mrs. Collier.’
‘He’s not taken “a sicky”, Prime Minister. We just felt that at least one of us should remain here in London.’
‘Right, and you drew the short straw.’
Mrs. Collier did not reply.
The distinctive drone of the British Army Merlin helicopter began to drown out all other sounds as PM-1 manoeuvred over Horse Guards Parade in preparation for landing.
‘I see you’ve already added the livery, sir,’ shouted Mrs. Collier over the increasing din.
‘Indeed!’ replied the PM, nodding with pride.
The helicopter landed, and with the rotor blades still spinning, the Prime Minister, Mrs. Collier, McManus, three special services personnel and three Downing Street aides quickly boarded. Within a minute it took off again and headed west.
Once airborne it quickly became apparent that PM-1, as a concept, still required work. As it stood, this was hardly the British answer to Air Force One: too cramped, too spartan, too smelly, too much vibration – and far too noisy.
An army officer handed out headsets that blocked out most of the external sounds. The Downing Street aides looked uncomfortable but, nevertheless, quickly settled down and focused on their own paperwork; one dour individual began to examine his phone but was ordered to stop and turn it off. The aide complained about this but his words went unheard; the officer then instructed him and the others on the use of the headsets for internal communications.
‘Are we there yet?’ came McManus’s voice through the headphones.
‘We’ve only been in the air five minutes! No, thank you,’ replied the PM, declining McManus’s offer of a super-strength cider.
‘Our current ETA for RAF Bolus is eleven twenty-two, sir,’ stated a voice, presumably that of the pilot, or co-pilot.
The army officer in the main cabin tried to stop McManus from drinking and attempted to confiscate his carrier bag.
‘Unless there is a very good reason, can we just let him drink?’ asked Mrs. Collier.
‘We do not allow alcohol on these flights, ma’am. No exceptions.’ The officer grimaced as he struggled to wrest the bag of booze from McManus’s grasp but the sober drunk was in no mood to let it go. The Downing Street aides looked on with expressions of horror and disgust. The special forces guys were also beginning to look “twitchy”. In fact it all looked as though it were about to kick off. The PM reached across to McManus and placed a paternal hand on his shoulder:
‘Let the officer take your cans, Marcus. Rules are rules. You can start getting well-bladdered as soon as we land.’
After a brief standoff McManus suddenly released his grip and the army officer fell backwards into the lap of a Downing Street aide. He quickly recovered his poise and took McManus’s carrier bag to a storage area at the front of the cabin. The PM shook his head. This was already beginning to resemble a Keystone Cops operation.
‘What am I doing here, anyway!?’ wailed McManus.
‘We’ve briefed you on this already, Mr. McManus,’ replied Mrs. Collier.
‘But why him!?’ asked one of the aides, quite reasonably.
‘I can see spiders!’ replied McManus. His unbalanced manner and the meaninglessness of his reply compensated for what was actually a significant security breech. Only the PM, Mrs. Collier and McManus himself knew any of the details of this “operation”; the aides were along for the ride just to keep the machinery of government close at hand, and the special forces personnel were, in effect, just fancy-ass muscle, to be used mainly for crowd-control, should there be a need. They were not intended for use in any confrontation with The Gang of Four. The PM himself would be handling that confrontation – somehow.
‘Believe it or not he possesses a special skill-set. Now, no further questions – or comments, please,’ replied the PM to the group in general. The flight to RAF Bolus continued on in relative calm.
***