A Very Big Bang

by Philip McCutchan

  Shard swallowed, asked, “Where exactly are we? Which section?” He already knew the answer, ninety-nine percent sure and certain: from the Arab confirmation came, the final check that he’d been right from more or less the start. The cut channel led through the floor of the sewer’s power house, through the heavy London clay, into the underground system, with just a matter of less than a foot yet to be excavated before the final cut was made into the Northern Line a little way before it reached out below the London river.

  Eighteen

  Shard sat on the bench, more than a little thankfully. He met the eye of Hedge. “This, you knew?”

  Hedge nodded greenly. “They told me. I’ve been here since I was brought down.”

  Shard opened his mouth to say something irritable in response to a stupid statement, but decided not to: it would have been too cruel. Hedge was right out of his element: you couldn’t compare, unless you wanted to be very rude, the Foreign Office atmosphere with that of a sewer. Hedge may have been the front screen, but basically he was the backroom boy, the lurker in the shadows. There was no room for intrigue down here in the bowels of the earth, an apt phrase considering the aroma; it was a place for facing the facts of life and death. Up here — a comparative phrase — for a while, was life: down in the pit so assidiously dug out lay death for the many within hours. Shard’s job remained the same as ever: to stop it taking place. It sounded easy when said fast. His mind was working in top gear but as yet was finding no clear straight motorway of progression: it was on a racing circuit, round and round and back constantly to the starting grid. On that starting grid were set certain factors and certain virtual impossibilities: neither he nor Hedge could contact the surface, make any report that would tell the waiting world that this threat was utterly for real, that if the gentlemen coming into Heathrow from the Lebanon were not on-sent to Maracaibo, London had more or less had it. On the constructive side, the side of his duty to prevent blast-off, Shard could see no chink of light at all …

  He asked, “That hole. Does it stay open now?”

  “Yes. From some time ago — since you came down, Mr Shard — not one person will come through the street entry and live to go back again.” The spokesman dusted his hands together. “We are ready — ready now, all the angles covered.”

  “The explosive?”

  “Yes, that is ready, and will be lowered into the tunnel shortly now —”

  “And your leading lady?”

  The man smiled, the teeth a white flash across the dark face. “An apt title. She is ready too —”

  “She’s down here, down in the sewers?”

  “No. She remains on the surface.”

  “Until when?”

  Another smile: “Until for ever, Mr Shard. From the surface she is in control. From the surface she will speak to your authorities by radio. She will be in contact with us also, when she wishes. Down here there is a telephone … and we have other persons working for us —”

  “People in the sewage control?”

  “Yes. And elsewhere.”

  There was a brief silence, broken by Hedge. “None of us are going to get out, Shard. I suppose you’ve guessed that, haven’t you?”

  Shard grinned. “Never say die.” Hedge looked terrible: Shard wondered when he would crack, when he would blurt out the truth: that he was not the summit, however close. To do that wouldn’t help him, wouldn’t save his life, but the urge to try his luck might become overwhelming. Shard went on, doing his best to inject a decent confidence into Hedge, “They won’t gain anything by leaving us here, you know — leaving us to die like rats.” He caught the eye of the Arab who had been doing the talking. “Will you?”

  The Arab shrugged. “I cannot say yet. This depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Why, on the reaction of your people when the aircraft from the Lebanon comes in. If there is no co-operation … why, then I think you will die, yes.”

  “And you, and these others?” Shard waved a hand: the faces were watchful, tense — fanatical. Confirmation was totally unnecessary: there was something almost Japanese … Shard remembered the wartime kamikaze pilots, those suicide lovers who had hurled their explosives-packed planes onto the decks of the allied aircraft-carriers, battleships, cruisers … like them, these Arabs would die for the cause if that should become necessary. You couldn’t win against that sort of mental attitude. Shard asked, gesturing towards Hedge, “Why were you so anxious to have my chief here?”

  “You have not guessed?”

  “Well — perhaps. The safe-conduct for your airborne friends?”

  “All the way to Maracaibo,” the Arab said, nodding. “Extra insurance, a valuable life in jeopardy, in case your authorities should close the underground and reduce the threat by eliminating direct casualties on the big scale. They will not want to lose Mr Hedge. Assuming agreement is reached between Miss Nazarrazeen and your Foreign Office, and your Prime Minister —”

  “And the Americans.”

  “Yes, and the Americans. Assuming this, your chief, and now you also, will be held here in this place until Miss Nazarrazeen has the information she wants: that the two passengers have landed safely at Maracaibo and have been met by certain persons there. When all this has happened, then there will be freedom. If it does not happen …” The man’s expression, his calm matter-of-factness, were meaningful and easily understood. Shard studied Hedge without appearing to do so: he was seeing death staring him in the face, poor Hedge was; a salutary experience. Hedge had never been a field man: he was pure diplomat in basis, having come up via Winchester and Oxford. It was probably Winchester and Oxford that were sustaining him now: Shard hoped devoutly that they would go on doing so. If those admirable institutions should fail Hedge, Shard was never going to be forgiven for being witness to the result.

  *

  Lead weighted, the hands of Shard’s watch approached five p.m. The atmosphere was terrible — both in a mental sense and a physical one: the stench they had almost got used to, but the miasma was still vile enough to worsen Shard’s headache so that he felt almost incapable of constructive thought. Hedge was in a bad way, had kept looking appealingly at Shard as though he urgently wanted conversation, but in fact had not uttered. Shard had an idea that one of the things Hedge would have liked to discuss was the actual likelihood of being released even if the Government gave in to outrageous demands, even if the incoming terrorists should reach Maracaibo in safety. If so, Shard could appreciate his anxiety: Hedge, in the hands of villains, would probably be seen as nice cover for their personal getaway afterwards. If he was, then he would just go on being a hostage right into the foreseeable future, a grim prospect indeed. And always, minute by minute, the fear that in the end they would kill him regardless. Which was not unlikely. During the waiting period the final touches had been put to the preparations: two of the gunmen had gone outside and after a longish absence had come back in carrying a large and obviously very heavy container, suit-case shaped, of black plastic; they had then gone out again and staggered back with another similar container. Both these containers — things from the sewer-water itself, things hidden until now — were covered with slime and wet and brought fresh waves of foetid stink that made Hedge produce his handkerchief speedily. Each container was roped, with a dangling end. One of the gunmen wiped the cases clean.

  Shard asked, “The explosive?”

  “Yes. Plutonium bombs … a total explosive weight of seven kilogrammes of refined plutonium.”

  It was too big, too vast for sane appreciation of the likely effect: the size might sound small enough to the lay person but Shard knew that when the two sections of less-than-critical mass were slammed together by the detonator in each bomb so that the whole became explosive-critical, there would be a holocaust in London. He felt light-headed. He asked, chiefly for the sake of saying something, anything to keep his sanity, “How about the radiation — in the meantime? Aren’t you worried about all the handling?”
r />   “The containers are, of course, properly lined. No, we are not worried.” Silly question! Shard remembered the lead and biological concrete that retained 99.9 percent of the gamma rays. The Arab went on with his work, calm, unhurried: his whole bearing said success. Shard could hear the trains passing down in the tunnel. The normal out-of-rush-hour intervals varied from four to five minutes, depending on the particular line: Shard racked his brains to remember the interval on the Northern Line. His headache was inhibiting him, but probably it made no difference now. As five p.m. approached he made a time check with his watch: the intervals had narrowed for the rush hour and he made it three minutes. Three minutes, maybe a little less, between trains one of which could have Beth aboard any time now. He felt a shake right through his body: there was nothing he could do, just bloody nothing … there was always a gun pointed — one at least at any given moment. Shard was drenched in sweat, the sweat of a physical sickness and of terrible dread. Maybe a simple attack: he could be fairly sure of getting one of the bastards before he was mown down, but what good would that do? It wasn’t on, in a sense it was the coward’s way: he could be — might be — more use yet to Beth alive than dead. And it didn’t look as though he would get much physical backing from Hedge if he started any trouble.

  At a minute past five one of the men entered the exposed hole, carrying with him a metal cutter on the end of an electric lead and going in along the downward slope on a tended rope. The sounds of his progress faded: a train rattled through below, and the moment it had passed the sounds of cutting came up to the waiting men. These sounds ceased as another train was heard, were resumed when it had passed, an operation repeated time and again until the man came back up, covered in clay. With the tube tunnel itself now finally exposed, the plastic-covered containers of nuclear explosive were pushed to the edge of the hole and lowered a little way into the shaft, with the ends of the ropes secured to a ring-bolt set in the concrete wall of the compartment.

  *

  Hesseltine had rung the Head of Security, that shadowy, anonymous man now deprived of his Hedge-screen. “Shard, sir. Results, nil.”

  “Could have slipped past, going underground. I’m not too worried, Hesseltine.” There was a pause. “I fancy you are?”

  “I am. I can’t see Shard just … slipping past unnoticed. My men are pretty good.”

  “So are mine, and we do have our methods. I have to go now, Hesseltine. If you want me, and I don’t want to be wanted unless it’s vital, I’ll be at Heathrow.”

  “Right. And — good luck!”

  There was a laugh. “Thank you. As a matter of fact, I’ll quite likely be safer out there … just by obeying the call of duty. What about you?”

  Hesseltine said, “Oh, I’m staying. That’s my duty.” He cut the call, glancing at a clock on the wall in front of him: four forty-five. In fifty minutes the British Airways VC 10 from Beirut would touch down: no delays, the incoming checks said, she would arrive spot on. At Heathrow now a big cover operation was under way — ostensibly, since the thing couldn’t be entirely hidden, a drugs check was in progress. The whole complex swarmed with police, uniform branch and CID plus Special Branch and a number of men from Hedge’s outfit, men who worked for Shard and were feeling angry enough to be super-efficient today after hearing that all contact had been lost. Outside the airport, around the perimeter, the army was in strength: Guardsmen, Military Police, explosives experts from the Royal Engineers, communications teams from the Royal Signals, armoured vehicles of the Royal Tank Regiment. Some extremely mobile weapons, field guns and rocket launchers, from the Royal Artillery: it was Catterick and Salisbury Plain and Aldershot moved to London Airport, but Hesseltine, sitting in his office at New Scotland Yard, wondered what the heck they expected the army to do. They could scarcely save the underground system: only word from Downing Street could do that now, and it all came down to a simple yes or no to terrorism, field-guns and infantry notwithstanding.

  Again Hesseltine looked at his clock: the Prime Minister hadn’t much longer in which to pronounce. Hesseltine’s thoughts were interrupted by the buzz of his internal line: word via the Commissioner from Downing Street? No: it was the Yard’s control-room. “All ready, sir.”

  “Thanks. I’m coming down now.”

  *

  “Time we were moving, dear,” Mrs Micklam said. “It’s gone five.”

  Beth began to gather her shopping. “All right, Mummy.” She gave a sigh as she groped on the floor of Swan and Edgar’s restaurant for her handbag. “I do hate the rush hour …”

  “You know what your aunt’s like,” Mrs Micklam said vaguely, and Beth nodded. Mrs Micklam’s sister Olive had set ideas and liked people to dance to her tune. Her views were simple: people who didn’t actually come to tea should arrive between five-thirty and six and there was an end to it. Mrs Micklam — surprisingly, Simon Shard had always thought — obeyed her sister; not knowing the present lethal capabilities of a tense situation, she went down with her daughter in Swan and Edgar’s lift, right down to the underground level and out into the booking hall at Piccadilly Circus to buy tickets for Clapham Common. There were men hanging about, unobtrusive-looking men who meant nothing to Mrs Micklam but spoke with a fair degree of eloquence to the wife of a Detective Chief Superintendent: wives, if they were intelligent, and Beth was that, found things tended to rub off and develop in them a kind of sixth sense: she knew, that early evening as she and her mother went down the escalator into the bowels of the London clay, that plain-clothes men were watching out for something unknown: it was a feeling given immediacy by Simon’s morning call, which had been on her mind all day. He had been so insistent: passing time had told her there had to be a reason. She’d been too angry to give heed, and pride had intervened. Beth gave a sudden shiver of cold and looked sideways at her mother. Mrs Micklam was short and brisk, disliked interference with her laid plans — she was not unlike her sister in Clapham — and would fuss. Beth, who in any case had nothing definite to offer as a reason why they shouldn’t go on with their journey, kept her mouth shut and, looking uneasy, got into the first train for Charing Cross at five thirty-one, after letting the crowds at the edge of the southbound platform clear away firsts A few minutes after this they got out at Charing Cross to trudge the stairs and subways towards the Northern Line.

  *

  “It’s the Americans,” the Prime Minister said in a shaking voice. “I’ve had the White House on the line. The President is — insistent. Apart from the fact he wants the men for trial, he’s convinced the conference will never get off the ground without them, but if they’re allowed to attend …” His voice trailed away, his eyes stared in beseechment at his ministers: men looked away, doodling on blotting-pads and note-taking stationery. “My hands are tied. No one’s more sorry than I. But of course the President’s right. These are wicked men, and we can’t give in.”

  “The President,” someone said sardonically, “doesn’t live in London, Prime Minister.”

  “I’m sorry.” The Prime Minister sat down suddenly, put his head in his hands, all bounce gone, leaving flab naked. There was a silence, a silence broken horribly by the tick of a clock, and then by the sound of Big Ben chiming the half-hour from Westminster. The Home Secretary got to his feet, pushing his chair back with a violent movement. He went to a window and stood looking down into the street: the law on guard at the front door; the usual sightseers in Downing Street, none of them knowing, none of them remotely suspecting drama, none of them realising the close proximity of sudden and appalling destruction, the terror that would come when the very streets erupted into a burst of nuclear energy. His face set, the Home Secretary turned from the window and went across the thick carpet, silently, to the Prime Minister’s side. He said, “You face rebellion, Prime Minister.”

  The ashen face looked up. “The people?”

  “The Cabinet. I speak for a majority. This, we shall not have. You must think again.”

  “But it may no
t happen. It’s too big. In the end, they won’t face it.”

  “Bluff?” Harshly, the Home Secretary laughed. “I don’t think so! We’ve plenty of reason to know what these people are capable of, what they’ve got away with in the past. It’s precisely the same principle —”

  “Which is why we must not give in, don’t you see?” The Prime Minister looked around at the faces of the men of power: his voice still shook, but there was a firmer note. “I shall not give in, and I know I shall carry some of you with me. I shall not give in, but I will agree, if you wish, to talk. That, at least, will give us more time — that is, if these people are willing to accept delay. May I remind you, no further word has been received.”

  *

  In the control-room at New Scotland Yard, Assistant Commissioner Hesseltine, joined now by the Commissioner, watched the closed-circuit television screen giving its colour picture of Heathrow. The cameras moved slowly around the buildings, inside and out, telling their tales on unsuspecting inward and outward passengers as they filled the main hall and the bars and lounges, or went through customs and immigration checks. With many others Hesseltine watched closely, eyes narrowed in concentration, seeking out known faces, faces that might give something away, recognising senior CID officers discreetly but minutely watching. Outside, the cameras showed the airport apron, the waiting tenders and fire appliances and baggage-handlers … beyond the perimeter it showed the military concentrations, standing-to now, waiting for action orders. So far as possible the troops and armour had been camouflaged from the air with netting, but Hesseltine knew the villains would be expecting such obvious precautions: the unknown factor lay only in their possible reaction. A little before five thirty-five the noise came up, the whine of jets — a sound that had been heard every few minutes but, this time, checking with his watch, Hesseltine knew without the confirmation that the British Airways VC 10 from Beirut was coming in to touchdown.