CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
The Palace of Westminster—Parliament—was built on the site of William the Conqueror’s first palace. Rebuilt in Victorian times as a Gothic fantasy palace, it is an eight-acre jumble of buildings, courtyards, passageways, and corridors. There are 100 staircases, more than 1,000 rooms, and three miles of passages.
—
Parliament
London
Roman knew all doors to the building would be heavily guarded, knew the biometrics would shut them all, making those inside feel they were safe. He also knew his Night Hawks would be the hardest weapons to defend against once they were inside, and he had a computer program installed that would open all the locks and let him move anywhere in Westminster Palace he wanted. He’d shut down their cameras, shut down their fire suppression systems.
He owned Parliament now.
The drones had worked perfectly, taking out all the exterior river guards. He thumbed a microdose onto his tongue, waited a moment, felt the punch of it, thumbed another. Barstow was dead and that gave him a shot of pleasure. But Barstow was only one of the dissolute powermongering monsters who believed they could do anything, betray anyone, and get away with it. They believed themselves immune from justice, above any laws they themselves had made. They—his own government—had killed Radu, and now they wanted to destroy him, and after all the technological advantages he’d provided them, the drone army he’d gladly built to help shut down terrorism. All a lie, a joke. Betrayal rang in his head, gnawed in his belly, and he fought back a scream of rage. No, no, another microdose to steady him.
His heart was pumping hard, his brain sparking with power, tunneling the world, making it narrow to a pulsing red point. It was time, time to prove who and what he was. It was time for payback.
He held out a fist, and Arlington came to land. He nuzzled her head, and she cheeped at him.
“Tired, my love?”
She cheeped again, agreeing with him, he knew. “I am, as well. We’re almost there.” He gave her a grouse neck from his jacket, and went inside Westminster Hall, the drones and birds buzzing all around him.
It was almost quiet, if you could call the panic of hundreds of people silence. He knew everyone was looking out at his birds doing their mad dance before they dive-bombed the windows, scaring the people inside to death. It was a deception he’d learned from them. They loved to distract, to get their prey ready to move in the wrong direction. A game his falcons played when they were hunting on the estate.
Enough fuss outside, and he would be able to slip in the back.
He could smell smoke, feel the concussions of the missiles outside. He couldn’t keep up the onslaught forever; he would eventually run out of ammunition. Once it was all gone, the drones were programmed to divert back to base—if they survived the attack, of course. And these degenerates, these self-serving criminals, he would punish them, kill them all. What made him so confident was the fact they didn’t know his limitations.
He knew in the event of an emergency, Parliament had procedures in place for everything—fire, bomb threats, biological attack, suspicious packages—you name it, they had procedures, procedures, procedures, endless lists of procedures.
He knew exactly what security was doing inside Parliament. They needed to get the PM out of the building, but since there was a war raging outside, the normal procedures couldn’t be followed. They’d try to get him out another way or secure him inside a designated room. Roman knew they’d conclude the PM—and hoorah!—the bloody president of the United States, and the Queen—well, he did feel a bit of remorse about killing her—would all be safer inside. And he knew exactly where they’d be taken. He also realized getting through security would be hard, even with his drones and Arlington.
So, he’d make them come to him.
He pressed his comms and said to Cyrus, “Now!”
One of the drones flew into the hallway and disappeared. Moments later, a huge explosion rang out, so close and loud the birds shrieked. Roman laughed.
He didn’t want to kill them with the bomb, no, but he knew they’d make a break for it the moment the room filled with smoke and they’d have to leave, and they’d come right to him. He wanted to look at the prime minister, the head of the monster, the one ultimately responsible for the mission to kill his brother. He wanted to kill him, face to face, like a man. He stood in Westminster Hall, a vast empty space, once the center of British justice. It made him laugh at the irony. This time he would mete out justice. He was prepared, the drones hovering and ready.
He waited, listened, stroking Arlington’s head. Normally he would hood her, but he wanted her ready, needed her keen senses to alert him.
It didn’t take long. He heard them coming, heard the voices, the calls, and readied himself. He’d blocked all other egress points from outside with drones. They had no choice but to come to him, from the Commons Chamber where they huddled to the small waiting room for guests that connected to the library and into the great hall.
He slowed his breathing, calmed his pounding heart. Once he killed the PM, his prime target, he wanted to kill Nicholas Drummond. He’d led the team that killed Radu.
They were coming closer, the voices louder now. He pulled two Night Hawks from his vest, set them on the floor, set the needles in place, and started their engines. They whirred into life, rose into the air. He used his wrist to position them, one above him, one on the opposite side of the entrance.
This was almost too easy.