Ted Bell - Warlord

"Are you quite sure you haven't heard this?" HRH asked them both, lowering his voice and leaning toward them conspiratorially.

"Quite sure, sir," Diana said, cool as the proverbial cucumber. "Please. Do go on."

"Well," Prince Philip said, lowering his voice, "as I was saying, this chap from Chilton had won the Lotto, a billion pounds for life or something, and this other chap, his mate, says to him, 'Wotsit, Harry? You have a fairy godmother in your family?' And Harry looks at him and says, 'No. But we do have an uncle we keep a pretty close eye on!'"

Congreve, who had not expected to laugh, chuckled so forcefully he spilled a drop or two of champagne on the tartan carpeting. Diana, bless her soul, tittered marvelously and smiled at the Duke with something akin to, if not precisely flirtation, then something close to it.

"Lovely to have you both here at Balmoral, Chief Inspector, Lady Mars," he said, before moving on to other, perhaps more fertile valleys. There were some lovely swans about this evening and he quite enjoyed their company.

"Got off quite a good one, HRH did, didn't you think?" Diana asked Ambrose.

"Yes, yes, dear, very good indeed," he replied, looking around the room. All the bejeweled ladies were in splendid evening gowns, and all the gents were decked out in kilts and sporrans, the full regalia. It was called "Scottish Black Tie" and worn in honor of the Glorious Twelfth.

Congreve surveyed the company, secretly pleased to find himself in such esteemed society. An abundance of famous faces, anyway, some more esteemed than others. He was delighted to see the Queen over in the corner beside a grand piano covered with silver-framed photographs. She was wearing a deep blue silk suit with an astounding diamond brooch at her shoulder. And she was sipping her drink, which gossip had it, was always gin and Dubonnet. She was lovely in person, Ambrose thought, her eyes alight, smiling as she conversed with those around her, always paying strict attention to whatever was being said to her. That alone put her on a pinnacle in Congreve's estimation.

When Diana had told him about the invitation to Scotland, he was taken aback. Not that he and Prince Charles hadn't gotten on awfully well at Highgrove, garden chat, dahlias, and all that, but still. A weekend at Balmoral? Heady stuff. "Seems that Charles and I hit it off quite well at Highgrove, Diana," Ambrose had said, a bit puffed up.

"It's not Charles who invited us, silly," she said. "Camilla and I are first cousins. Didn't I ever mention that to you at all?"

"Not really, dear, no."

"Oh, look, darling! There's Charles over there by the fire. So sweet, laughing with his two boys. I must say he looks very happy. And Wills and Harry. Aren't they handsome, darling? Not hard to see why all the girls are gaga over them, is it?"

At any rate, here they were. Alex Hawke was supposed to be here as well, but he'd been tied up in northern Pakistan a few extra days. He had been interrogating prisoners captured when he'd managed to find and disarm the missing nuclear device stolen from the Islamabad arsenal. He was currently on an RAF command bomber, headed home, but probably would not make the weekend.

As it was, Ambrose hardly knew a soul. He estimated about thirty guests for dinner. Mostly Royals, whom Diana knew, shooting friends of Charles's like Montague Thorne, a charming fellow whom he'd met and thoroughly enjoyed at Highgrove, plus lots of ministers of this and that up from London, including his good friend, C, Sir David Trulove, and Lord Malmsey of MI5. Earlier, Ambrose and Trulove had cornered Lord Malmsey and given him a detailed but enhanced account of their daring raid on the Rastafarian stronghold on Nonsuch Island in Bermuda. Suitably impressed, Ambrose thought he was, too.

At precisely eight, a Scottish piper in full fig appeared in the reception room, his plaintive tune announcing that dinner was served. Ambrose took Diana's hand, noticing with some pride his mother's diamond sparkling on her finger, and they made their way to the dining room.

The Queen's love of all things Scottish was evident everywhere. The table was splendidly set, of course, a very long stretch of mahogany, beneath high ceilings with classic molding, vivid tartan draperies on the tall bay windows, red leather dining chairs, and massive gilt-framed Highland landscapes by Landseer on the walls and above the hearth where a fire was roaring against the evening chill.

The Queen herself was seated at the far end of the table to Congreve's right. To his left, Prince Philip was holding court at the other end, with his grandsons nearby on either side. Diana had been seated next to Prince Charles near the middle of the table. It was odd, but Congreve found he simply could not take his eyes off the Queen. He'd found Her Majesty very dear, in fact, as kind a person as one could imagine. He'd even managed to have a bit of surprising conversation with her when he'd been presented in the receiving line earlier.

"You're retired, I understand, Chief Inspector," Queen Elizabeth had said after he'd shaken her hand and bowed politely.

"I am, ma'am," he'd replied, stunned that she knew anything at all about him.

"How are you finding it?"

"Well, ma'am, people are still shooting at me."

"Are they really? One must always remember to duck, mustn't one?"

AMBROSE CONGREVE WAS ABOUT TO TUCK into his first taste of the celebrated haggis (a near-mythical Scottish dish that was definitely an acquired taste) when the bustling and festive dining room was suddenly plunged into utter and complete darkness.

All the lights went out at once, and not just those in the dining room, it appeared, but the pantry, the adjacent drawing room, everywhere. It was as if someone had just pulled the plug on the entirety of Balmoral Castle.

"Stay calm, everyone," a heavily accented but authoritative male voice announced, and indeed everyone was. There was the usual twittering and titter of nervous laughter that accompanies such incidents. Ambrose heard and felt the presence of men moving quickly toward the right end of the table and assumed they were house detectives moving to protect Her Royal Majesty.

The lights flickered once or twice and then came back on. It was as if they'd all gone to sleep to awaken in another world.

In that moment or two it took for the guests' eyes to reacquaint themselves with light, someone, a woman, screamed in horror at the top of her lungs.

There was a large, bearded man standing beside the Queen, and he had a pistol to her head.

The Queen had gone rigid, clearly in a state of shock, staring straight ahead, her hands clasped resolutely in her lap. Congreve worried that this desperate situation could easily trigger a heart attack in an eighty-five-year-old woman, especially one who had suffered much heartache here at the end of her long life.

Up and down the table, heads swiveled in shock and there were more shouts of alarm as the reality of what was happening hit the guests full-on, like some nightmarish force of nature.

Armed men now stood in every doorway of the room. And more were entering every second. They arrayed themselves around the table, waving the muzzles of their heavy black machine guns at the seated guests, shouting at everyone to stay seated and be quiet.

The heavily bearded man threatening the Queen slammed his huge fist down on the table, causing all the china and crystal to jump and shatter, glasses breaking, red wine spreading like so much spilt blood across the pure white field of linen stretching out before Her Majesty.

"Quiet!" the large man roared at them. "You will be quiet! Now!"

The screaming subsided to be replaced by quiet sobbing as the guests stared at each other and their beloved sovereign in abject horror. Many of the women held their napkins to their eyes, unable to look at the terrifying scene that confronted them. Many husbands put their arms around their wives, whispering reassuring words in their ears.