Hugh Laurie - The Gun Seller

He thinks carefully before he answers. He knows I’m mad, and that he must go gently with me.

‘I don’t know what you’re saying,’ he says.

‘Yes you do,’ I say. ‘You just don’t know whether I know what I’m saying.’ The sun inches a little higher, straining on its tip-toes to get a better view of us. ‘I’m talking about the twenty-six other people who stand to gain directly from the success of The Graduate, and the hundreds, maybe thousands, of people who will gain indirectly. People who have worked, and lobbied, and bribed, and threatened, and even killed, just to get this close. They all have votes too. Barnes will be talking to them at this moment, asking for a yes or no answer, and who’s to say how the numbers will come out?’

Murdahis very still now. His eyes are wide and his mouth is open, as if he’s not enjoying the taste of something. ‘Twenty-six,’ he says, very quietly. ‘How do you know twenty-six? How do you know this?’

I make a modest face.

‘I used to be a financial journalist,’ I say. ‘For about an hour. A man at Smeets Velde Kerplein followed your money for me. Told me a lot of things.’

He drops his gaze, concentrating hard. His brain has got him here, so his brain must get him out.

‘Of course,’ I say, forcing him back on to the track, ‘you may be right. Maybe the twenty-six will all rally round, call it off, write it off, whatever. I just wouldn’t stake my life on it.’

I leave a pause, because I feel that, one way and another, I’ve earned the right to it.

‘But I’m very happy to stake yours,’ I say.

This shakes him. Knocks him out of his stupor.

‘You are insane,’ he shouts. ‘Do you know that? Do you know that you are insane?’

‘Right,’ I say. ‘So call them. Call Barnes, tell him to stop it. You’re on the roof with a madman, and the party is off. Use your one vote.’

He shakes his head.

‘They will not come,’ he says. And then, in a much quieter voice, ‘They will not come, because I am here.’

I shrug, because it’s all I can think of. I’m feeling very shruggy at this moment. The way I used to feel before parachute jumps.

‘Tell me what you want,’ screams Murdah, suddenly, and he starts to rattle the iron of the fire-escape with his handcuffs. When I look across again, I can see bright, wet blood on his wrists.

Diddums.

‘I want to watch the sun rise,’ I say.

Francisco, Cyrus, Latifa, Bernhard, and a bloody Benjamin have joined us up here on the roof, because this seems to be where the interesting people are at the moment. They are variously scared and confused, unable to get a grip on what is happening; they have lost their place in the script, and are hoping that somebody will call out a page number very soon.

Benjamin, needless to say, has done his best to poison the others against me. But his best stopped being good enough the moment they saw me coming back into the consulate, holding a gun to Murdah’s neck. They found that strange. Peculiar. Not consistent with Benjamin’s wild theories of Betrayal.

So they stand before me now, eyes flitting between me and Murdah; they are sniffing the wind, while Benjamin trembles with the strain of not shooting me.

‘Ricky, what the fuck is happening here?’ says Francisco.

I stand up slowly, feeling things crack in my knees, and step back to admire the result of my labours.

Then I turn away, and wave a hand towards Murdah. I have rehearsed this speech a few times, and I think I’ve got most of it down.

‘This man,’ I tell them, used to be an arms dealer.’ I move a little closer to the fire-escape, because I want everyone to be able to hear me clearly. ‘His name is Naimh Murdah, he is the chief executive officer of seven separate companies, and the majority shareholder in a further forty-one. He has homes in London, New York, California, the south of France, the west of Scotland, the north of anywhere with a swimming pool. He has a total net worth of just over a billion dollars,’ which makes me turn to look at Murdah, ‘and that must have been an exciting moment, Naimh. Big cake on that day, I would imagine.’ I look back at my audience. ‘More importantly, from our point of view, he is the sole signatory to over ninety separate bank accounts, one of which has been paying our wages for the last six months.’

Nobody seems ready to jump in here, so I press on for the coup.

‘This is the man who conceived, organised, supplied and financed The Sword Of Justice.’

There is a pause.

Only Latifa makes a sound; a little snort of disbelief, or fear, or anger. Otherwise, they are silent.

They stare at Murdah for a long time, and so do I. I notice now that he also has some blood on his neck - perhaps I was a little rough getting him up the stairs - but apart from that, he looks well. And why wouldn’t he?

‘Bullshit,’ says Latifa eventually.

‘Right,’ I say. ‘Bullshit. Mr Murdah, it’s bullshit. Would you go along with that?’

Murdahstares back, trying desperately to judge which of us is the least mad.

‘Would you go along with that?’ I say again.

‘We are a revolutionary movement,’ says Cyrus suddenly, which makes me look at Francisco - because really it was his job to say that. But Francisco is frowning, and looking around, and I know he’s thinking about the difference between planned action and real action. It was nothing like this in the brochure, is Francisco’s complaint.

‘Of course we are,’ I say. ‘We are a revolutionary movement, with a commercial sponsor. That’s all. This man,’ and I point at Murdah as dramatically as I can, ‘has set you up, has set all of us up, has set the world up, to buy his guns.’ They shift about a little. ‘It’s called marketing. Aggressive marketing. Creating a demand for a product, in a place where once only daffodils grew. That’s what this man does.’

I turn and look at this man, hoping that he’s going to chip in and say yes, it’s all true, every word of it. But Murdah doesn’t seem to want to talk, and instead we have a long pause. A lot of Brownian thoughts rushing about, colliding with each other.

‘Guns,’ says Francisco eventually. His voice is low and soft, and he might be calling from miles away. ‘What guns?’

This is it. The moment when I have to make them understand. And believe.

‘A helicopter,’ I say, and they all look at me now. Murdah too. ‘They are sending a helicopter here to kill us.’

Murdahclears his throat.

‘It will not come,’ he says, and I can’t really tell whether he’s trying to persuade me or himself. ‘I am here, and it will not come.’

I turn back to the others.

‘Any time now,’ I say, ‘a helicopter is going to appear, from that direction.’ I point into the sun, and notice that Bernhard is the only one who turns. The rest of them keep on watching me. ‘A helicopter that is smaller, faster, and better-armed than anything you have ever seen in your lives. It is going to come here, very soon, and take us all off the roof of this building. It is probably going to take the roof as well, and the next two floors, because this is a machine of unbelievable power.’

There is a pause, and some of them look down at their feet. Benjamin opens his mouth to say something, or, more probably, shout something, but Francisco stretches out a hand and rests it on Benjamin’s shoulder. Then looks at me. ‘We know they are sending a helicopter, Rick,’ he says. Whoa.

That doesn’t sound right. That doesn’t sound remotely right. I look around the other faces, and when I make contact with Benjamin, he can’t control himself any longer.

‘Can’t you see, you fucking shit?’ he screams, and he’s almost laughing, he hates me so much. ‘We’ve done it.’ He starts to jump up and down on the spot, and I can see that his nose has started to bleed again. ‘We’ve done it, and your treachery has been for nothing.’