The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2830 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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I expected the motorbike to be stolen or fitted with false plates but the face of the sniper was uncovered. That they might identify or at least confirm it with what the Americans had. I felt indignant that these days people who can’t get their own way turn to violence at the slightest provocation or opportunity. That seems to apply to governments as well as individuals or groups and I wondered if we were all so impulsive these days that we crave instant gratification for everything, including changing the status quo. On the other hand, half the regimes in the world seem run by criminals who use whatever methods they deem legal to keep down dissent. I’m sure China would be horrified to be compared to Saudi Arabia, but their human rights record is not much better.

I found it ironic that despite the advances in education and science, that we know so much more about the world and how it and we work, that we still have significant numbers of people who are driven by religious restraint—usually of other people. I don’t mean Tibetan monks who sit meditating on prayer wheels but idiots like the ones who had attacked us, because we got involved in trying to stop them murdering someone who disagreed with them. The lunatics in Syria who use religious dogma to justify anything they do from torture to rape and murder. It isn’t religion, it’s simply a political dogma pretending to be from their god via some bloke who sat in a cave six hundred years ago and had visions—probably caused by temporal lobe epilepsy.

The truth is, monsters will use anything they wish to justify their activities until others stop them. Sadly that means usually by being just as ruthless and killing them. Christmas was a couple of days away and there were sure to be rumours of all sorts of terrorism, true or specious, just to keep the security services twitchy.

I asked our friendly Special Branch officer if the target had been Brown all along and not me. Unless the sniper was cross-eyed or otherwise optically challenged, or simply inept, why had they shot Brown when they could have hit me just as easily? He knew what they looked like, I didn’t. I’d helped stop the attack on the negotiator but that was all. The police had someone in custody, he knew who his friends were and what their plans were, but presumably weren’t allowed to extract information except by methods allowed by various human rights agreements. I didn’t have a problem with that, but I did have something up my sleeve that the government didn’t, I could get into people’s heads and make them see things that weren’t actually there. I was about to say something when in response to a phone call, the circus of police, Special and ordinary, suddenly upped and left us.

“What do we do to prevent another attack?” I asked as they packed up and decamped.

“Keep your heads down.”

Bugger that, I had Christmas shopping to finish and no lunatic with a gun was going to stop me. He had loads of stuff to do at the bank before the holiday and we agreed he should go and stay in London until the holiday. He’d be back at some point during Christmas eve. He packed and left, which disgusted Stella, who thought he was doing a runner.

“We don’t know if we’re at risk or if it was Brown who was the target?” I said over a cuppa, to the assembled group which now included David and Amanda.

“Well you can be the one to find out, seeing as you’re the one who got involved with them. I don’t see why I should make my children orphans because of your sense of justice.” I accepted what Stella said and asked if she wanted to go and stay somewhere else until it was over.

“Oh so now I’m being thrown out for dissent am I?”

“No, I’m simply saying if you want to go somewhere else until this is all over, feel free to do so. If I’m the target, I don’t have that option.”

“Yes you do, you could move out and the rest of us would be safe.”

“Would you? If they wanted to punish me, they could hurt you or the others, especially if they couldn’t find me.”

“When are you going to call in your boyfriend?” asked Julie trying and succeeding in embarrassing me.

“Oh, who’s that?” asked Amanda who’d sat quietly listening to the discussion.

“You mean James?”

“Oh, who’s he?” she said.

“Oh this ex-soldier guy that we use from time to time, he’s like a sort of private investigator cum bodyguard.” Julie was now having a separate conversation with Amanda, though the rest of us were listening as they discovered when they looked round. They both went quiet and very red.

“He is good looking,” admitted Danielle but it’s Mum he fancies.

I blushed again and denied it.

“You only have to see the way he looks at her.”

“I thought he was gay?” suggested Sammi.

“Nah, opportunist, like most men.”

“I’ve already spoken to him and he’ll be here tomorrow with a couple of friends. He’s busy trying to find out what he can about this business and who are the targets and who aren’t.”

“That wid be guid,” said Daddy who’d joined the group without me noticing.

“Anyway, those who want to disappear for a few days until we know it’s safe, can go without us thinking anything less of you.”

“I’m staying,” said Danielle, “someone needs to look after you when James is busy.”

I thanked her.

“This is more exciting than where I was before,” offered Amanda, “and you said I’d be on a bonus for Christmas.”

“If you work over Christmas you will get a bonus.”

“Count me in then.”

“And me, no nutter with a gun is going to stop me making you a super Christmas dinner,” said David. Within a few seconds they all said they would stay, except Sammi felt vulnerable commuting to London.

“You could always go and stay at Simon’s flat and come back on Christmas eve.”

“I’d rather be here, besides you’ll need my help running the surveillance system.”

“That’s very brave of you, darling, but what about the bank?”

“I can run that from here unless we get another attack, on the bank, that is, in which case they’ll have to come and get me.”

“Better tell your dad and Henry.”

“Okay, well if no one needs me, I’ll go and check the systems.” She went off back to her room, which as I’ve said before is half boudoir, half electronics workshop.

Amanda and David went back to their cottages and I told Danielle it was time for her to go to bed. “Muuuum, I’m not some little kid.”

“I’m well aware of that,” I was also aware that the other girls were still awake judging by the noise from upstairs. “C’mon up you go and I’ll sort out the rabble. QUIET YOU LOT,” I said loudly walking up the stairs which was met by hoots of laughter. Why ever did I think I was in charge of this place?