Shard looked at his watch: seven ten. The aircraft would be well out over the Atlantic now, flying high, carrying the lives of millions beyond its own confines. At supersonic speeds … there was time yet, but none to lose. In order to give the White House a free hand, the load of plutonium had to be rendered safe: Shard’s heart contracted at the huge implications of an easy statement. Across the compartment, sitting with his back against the wall, Hedge stared vacantly into space.
Twenty
Suddenly, devastatingly, Hedge screamed.
Shard snapped, “Shut up!”
It went on, high, penetrating, horrible. The boss Arab lifted his gun, fired it, sending a bullet into the plastic seat of the bench. Hedge stopped with his mouth wide open, then started choking. Shard reached out and bashed away at his back. The choking eased. Hedge was weeping now, and trembling all over. He waved his arms and gabbled indistinctly, then tried more slowly.
“I’m not the one you want. I’m not the Head of Security. You made a mistake. I’m only a screen, a front man … a hedge, don’t you see? Hedge isn’t my name, it’s a function. I’m not really important.” He was pleading, abject, his background failing to sustain him at last. “Please, won’t you let me go?”
The Arab’s face was murderous. Reaching out, he gave Hedge two stinging back-handers across the cheeks: they left heavy weals. Hedge cringed. The Arab used a descriptive four-letter word, and spat. Thick saliva drooled down the face of Hedge, but he hardly seemed to notice. He pleaded again. “Will you let me go? I’ll do anything … anything you ask.”
The answer was another back-hander and a throaty growl: “I will not let you go. You are of some importance — you will have to pray to your God that you are of enough importance!”
Hedge put his head in his hands and sobbed. Shard felt icy cold, not with contempt for he could understand the effect of terror on any man; but with alarm for the future: Hedge, stupid terrified Hedge, had now effectively blown his cover. If ever they happened to come out of this, four terrorists were going to know the truth, and even from gaol would spread it. Hedge would wither, though at the moment he obviously didn’t care about his job. He got to his feet, swaying and again waving his arms wildly. The Arab shouted at him: “Sit down or I will shoot. You will not die, but you will be in pain.”
Hedge didn’t seem to hear. He had begun screaming again, his face all crumpled like a baby’s. Shard, risking a bullet himself, scrambled to his feet and made towards Hedge, and Hedge, with a terrible result, side-stepped. He side-stepped into the hole in the floor, and went down fast, carried by his own weight. As he went the side of his head struck the lip of the hole, hard. His body vanished into the shaft: the rope securing the cases of plutonium to the ring-bolt in the wall jerked bar-taut and started trembling: up top there was panic. Three of the Arabs rushed headlong for the door, were stopped by the boss man’s gun. Shard shouted at them to help: shaking like leaves, they hauled the rope with him, looking surprised to be still alive. There was weight on the rope, a good sign: slowly Hedge reappeared, inch by inch of him coming up atop the bomb-cases, virtually a human nuclear bomb himself, blood pouring from his head. He had been dead lucky: he was unconscious but had dropped neatly, with his crutch smack onto one of the containers, his legs astride and his body presumably held in place, upright, by the shaft walls themselves. If he had been conscious, the crutch-landing would have hurt like hell. Shard himself got a grip on Hedge, then drew him clear of the shaft. His next action was immediate, giving no time for anticipation: with all his strength he hurled the deadweight of Hedge at the clustered, rope-holding Arabs. They yelled, falling in a heap as Hedge struck home: down the shaft again went the cases, falling fast. Shard waited for the end of the world, but the rope held. By this time he had followed up the advantage gained by the impact of Hedge, had put one of the Arabs flat on his back with his fist, and had grabbed the man’s gun as it fell, flinging himself to the ground as the other opened up. Rolling over and over he fetched up by the door, fired back from the ground, taking one of the terrorists right between the eyes. The head seemed to open up, and the man fell on the spot, pouring blood. As Shard scrambled up a bullet took him in the flesh of his upper arm, and he spun with the impact of a heavy calibre revolver, spun away from the doorway to reel against the wall outside. The Arabs crowded out: in the walkway outside above the main sewer Shard was in darkness, beyond the glow from the power house. He took aim, fired again. There was a brief scream, and a body flopped into the sewer stream. Shard heard running footsteps along the walkway, then rapid splashing — men going the other way. Then an apparition appeared in the doorway, staggering and falling about: Hedge, back to life.
Shard called to him: “Hedge. Hold it! I’m going after the two that are left. Stay where you are.”
Hedge didn’t seem to hear. He lurched forward from the doorway and Shard wasn’t quite fast enough. On the edge of the walkway Hedge’s unsteady feet slipped away and he fell, hit his head, and splashed into the stream. There was a gurgle as London sewage slimed its way into Hedge’s mouth. Desperately in the light from the doorway Shard looked, straining his eyes: no Hedge, who had slid away as it were on the tide, headed for God knew where in the total dark.
Shard felt sick: but he had a job to finish and he went on to do it.
*
The patrol car stank and the cause was fifty percent Shard. Using the police radio he called the Yard: “Mr Hesseltine or the Commissioner, most urgent. This is Shard.”
No delay: “Shard, for Christ’s sake —”
“Hold it and listen. The threat’s over. Tell the Prime Minister immediately, as far as London’s concerned, the aircraft can be deviated. The army’s dealing with the explosive.”
“And Hedge?”
“Pongs a bit, but safe. I found him on the way back … climbing out of a sewer. He wasn’t really in much danger — it’s not all that deep. I’ll explain later. In the meantime I think I’m going to be sick. Over and out.” Shard flopped in the car seat, virtually collapsing. Through half-closed eyes he gazed at Hedge, who was looking agonised and was still holding his crutch — and who was covered in slimy un-nameables, the other fifty percent of the stench. He said in a hard voice, “It’s all right, Hedge. Those Arabs won’t talk now. You blew and I covered. You’re okay. And I’ll keep mum — being loyalty personified! Think yourself bloody lucky!”
“You mean —?”
“I mean,” Shard said, “I caught them and I killed them. In your interest, Hedge. And in something else you hold dear when you’re safe in the Foreign Office: the national interest.”
*
Cleaned up, filled with hot soup and some neat Scotch, Shard lost no time in reporting personally to the Head of Security. “When I’d finished in the sewer … I went down the shaft they’d dug. I dropped — I knew the current was off —”
“You knew?”
“Guessed,” Shard said briefly, still feeling the horror of not being sure. “There seemed a certain degree of urgency. Along the tunnel, I met a stopped train and the army advancing through it. I sent them to bring Hedge down, with a rope ladder.”
“A long drop,” the chief murmured. “For you, I mean.”
“I’m a fit man, basically. I’ll be fitter when I’ve been home for some sleep. I —” He broke off as one of the chief’s telephones burred softly. The chief answered, nodded, rang off, a mixture of emotions flickering across his face.
“The Prime Minister, Shard. The TWA flight crashed into the sea off Nassau, trying to make Windsor Field.” He sent a long breath whistling through his teeth. “Death, I suppose, was better than a life sentence in America. Well, we’re well rid of them.”
“But they took the flight crew with them?”
The chief nodded. “I’m afraid so. Heroes … or does that sound —”
“It sounds right, sir. I’m bloody sorry. There are others too.”
“Police — I know.” The chief’s tone was sombre. He fli
cked ash from a cigarette and went on more brisky. “Bad as it is, Shard, there’s a bright side: terrorism has been taught a lesson. It doesn’t help them, when their own top men end up dead. Next time, they’ll think twice. The P.M.’s grateful to you and Hedge. So is the President. And so am I.”
“Thank you, sir,” Shard said, conscious of feeling bloody-minded about Hedge. “It’s not quite over yet, though, is it?”
“As near as makes no difference —”
“But the woman?”
“I was coming to that. She’s in custody —”
“Great! How, sir?”
“Hesseltine’s been on the line. They picked her up in a car beating it out of London on the A23 … a patrolling mobile, wonderfully wide awake. Plus two men answering the description of your friends from Stalling Busk —”
“Terry and Nigel?”
“Could be. As yet, no names. That’ll come! They won’t be kid-gloved, Shard.”
“I’m glad to hear it!” Shard rubbed at his eyes. “There’s still a bunch of sewermen.”
“Not your worry for now. You won’t be fit for anything till you’ve had some sleep.”
It was Shard’s worry all right, but he wasn’t going to argue the point for the moment. There were enough coppers to cope. He was driven home to Ealing, thinking thoughts of Tom Casey and the DC from York, and sundry London policemen, not to mention the skewered body that had gone into the Buttertubs up in the Pennine fells. When he got home, Mrs Micklam was still in residence and had a good deal to say. They’d had a wretched day because of his rudeness and Beth had been worried — as she’d confessed when a power cut on the underground had sent them home on a bus — by something he’d said. Power cuts or not, he had no right to upset people, Mrs Micklam maintained. Shard let the voice rattle on till it was brought up short by a news flash. He poured himself a whisky and, with his back to Mrs Micklam, caught Beth’s eye.
*
Next morning Hedge was back to form, hedging fast but moving stiffly. He sent for Shard and, as fully expected, put across a line with a world of meaning behind it. He said in a withdrawn voice, “I’ve received congratulations from a number of quite prominent people. There’s talk of honours.” He coughed, glancing sideways at Shard. “I don’t know that I deserve it, of course —”
“No.”
Hedge bridled at that. “I don’t much like your tone. Was that an … interrogative no?”
“No.”
“Please don’t be impertinent, Shard. I was going on to say … what I did was not much … but I thought a diversion would be of help to you. I fancy it was. If it hadn’t been for me, you wouldn’t have had your chance. I know you’ll see that — h’m?”
Shard laughed in his face. “Don’t bother to press, I won’t say a thing. Except that you’re as big a bastard as ever, Hedge. And that’s safe with me, too.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Shard,” Hedge said, stiffer than ever. “I simply did what I could. If you remember — I didn’t want to go in the first place.” He dismissed Shard after that, and Shard went back to Seddon’s Way simmering. Honours! Sir Hedge, Lord Hedge, or just Hedge CBE? Five days later a little temporary poetic justice came along: Hedge was sick. There was a high fever, with rigours, headache, vomiting, severe muscular pain, plus facial congestion, infected conjunctivae and a labial herpes. Hedge had gone from pink to orange and had a stiff neck: it all sounded very nasty and it added up to Weil’s Disease: Hedge wouldn’t be back inside a month.
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A Very Big Bang Page 20
