Читать книгу Seventy-Two Virgins - Boris Johnson - Страница 15
ОглавлениеDragan the Serb had been weaned on tales of heroic assassination and glorious betrayal. From the Battle of Kosovo Pole onwards, Serbs have learned to glory in a sense of victimhood. But today he decided to give the national myth a miss.
He pushed away Haroun and his spike, and thudded off, weaving and shoulders hunched, as though with every yard he expected a bullet in his back from the Kosovo Liberation Army.
He sprinted from the Muslim extremists, down Tufton Street, past the (former) Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, founded in 1701, and turned on to Great Peter Street. He weaved one way, he ducked the other.
Haroun watched him go.
‘Leave him,’ called Jones. ‘We have no time.’
Dean already felt he had good reason to be admiring of Jones, but he was amazed at the self-possession with which his boss now began to unload the ambulance from the tow-truck.
‘Whoa,’ he called, as the telescopic arm of the crane jerked into life, and the vehicle was thrust out into the street.
The arm was powered by three separate hydraulic lifts, the first capable of carrying 2,500 kilos, the second 1,700 kilos and the third 1,300 kilos; and in theory they were well capable of lifting a three-and-a-half-tonne ambulance.
But Jones was in such a hurry that he neglected the basic laws of physics.
‘Hey!’ said Dean, as the white machine was swung out over the street, like some mad mediaeval siege engine.
Haroun gave a curse – something nasty about a dog. Dean guessed – and even Habib broke off from flossing with his juniper twig.
‘Yow need to come back a bit,’ shouted Dean over the roar of the Renault engine.
The front wheels of the tow-truck were now on the verge of leaving the ground; black smoke was coming from the exhaust; the whole thing was about to keel over, and Dean instinctively ran to drag the body of Eric the warden out of the way.
‘It is fine, it is fine,’ shouted Jones, and flipped the next toggle, so that their stolen machine crashed back towards them and bust a taillight on the bed of the tow-truck.
‘Do it like this,’ called Habib quietly in Arabic. Habib was also called Freddie, and came from a good Lebanese family. He was a Takfiri, a man who masked the ferocity of his faith with a sympathetic worldliness; and he had spent enough time in gambling houses to understand the principles of the grabby machines you use to pick up a watch or a fluffy toy.
Together, and with what Dean thought was remarkable coolness, he and Jones worked out how to ease in the last extender arm and, in hydraulic pants, the van was lowered to the ground.
With the speed of Formula One pitstopmen they now undid the metal crabs and hessian straps, bunged them on the back of the tow-truck, and loaded poor Eric in the back of the ambulance.
Haroun paused only to read the sign on the side of the Renault.
‘How ees my driving?’ he said, and laughed, a horrible carking yelp.
It says something for the tranquillity that has descended on the Church of England that no one else observed these events outside Church House.
No one took any notice of them as they drove in full conformity with the laws of the road – apart from the taillight – in the direction of the Palace of Westminster.
They began thereby to catch up with Roger Barlow, who was waiting with his bike at a red traffic light, as all good lawmakers must.
