Madeleine looked at Sidney frostily. ‘Don’t patronize me, Sidney,’ she told him, but she took the clipboard, then passed it to Bel.
She signed in, then waited for the others. Next to her she saw a room marked as the library. It was a small block of a room with a low ceiling, as if someone had buried a concrete shoebox. The lighting was cold and clinical. It made her think of being in an underground car park.
She spotted a map on the wall and went over to study it. The structure seemed to be a series of boxes connected by tunnels. There was a dining hall, common room one, common room two, two cinemas. Loads of storerooms, two generator rooms, air-conditioning plant, fuel store. One section was sleeping accommodation: small, cramped cabins like a row of lockers. The place looked like it was equipped to outlast a nuclear winter.
There was another map too, which showed how that section fitted into a much bigger tunnel system. There was the entrance they had used, by the crossroads leading to Horse Guards Parade and Downing Street. Further away there were more exits all over central London. One came out at Charing Cross.
Bel grabbed one of the plainclothes policemen. ‘Can I get out that way?’ she asked him, pointing at the map.
‘There’s no way out now, ma’am. All the exits are sealed until the all-clear.’
Bel saw Sidney Cadogan pulling Madeleine Harwood to one side. ‘Madeleine, you’d better come this way,’ he said to her. ‘It looks like you’re the most senior minister here.’
She quickly started to follow as he ushered Madeleine and Clive through a door marked ‘BRIEFING ROOM’.
‘Sidney, does that mean you’re in contact with the outside world?’ she asked him.
Sidney gave her his most saccharine smile. ‘Authorized personnel only, I’m afraid. Unless we call you in.’ And he pulled the door shut.
Bel stuck her foot in the way. ‘I need to know how bad the flooding is on the south bank. My son is in the ArBonCo Centre. Is there a phone anywhere?’
The plainclothes policeman gently pulled her back. ‘There are no phones, ma’am. We’ll give you any news as soon as we get it.’
Chapter Sixteen
The beat of helicopters taking off drowned out everything in the controller’s headphones for a moment. He was in the emergency special operations room in the basement of the police training college in Hendon, north London, well away from the flood. The emergency — a Code Red — was too big for the normal emergency services to handle and the armed forces had been drafted in to support them.
The controller, who was co-ordinating the emergency response, was a senior police officer. Right now he was on satellite link to Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton in Somerset.
The noise of the helicopter faded. ‘Sorry, Yeovilton, can you repeat?’
‘Thirty Sea Kings are on their way to you. We’re keeping five to cover the coast — the sea defences are looking ropey down here.’
‘Thank you, Yeovilton.’ The controller switched to the next channel. ‘Hampshire, this is Hendon. What have you got for us?’
‘Thirty Chinooks on their way to you, Hendon.’
He switched again, to Royal Navy Force Deployment in Northwood, just up the road in Middlesex.
‘Twenty Sea Kings on their way to you now, sir.’
‘Roger.’
He cut the connection and sat back, slipping his headphones off. Behind him, two men in formal, high-ranking uniforms had been observing: the Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and General Thomas Chambers, the Head of the Armed Forces.
The controller’s assistant also took off his headset and spoke to the Chief and the General. ‘Sir, we’ve got twenty-five more Pumas and Merlins from Northern Ireland — they’ll be with us in four hours’ time.’
‘Very good,’ said General Chambers.
‘The flood area is now clear of all non-essential air traffic,’ said another assistant. ‘All commercial flights passing over London are being diverted.’
‘Sir,’ called a female engineer in an army uniform. ‘We’ve got the satellite pictures.’
The Chief Commissioner and General Chambers went across and looked over her shoulder. The devastation was even worse than they had feared.
From Brixton to Westminster, from Greenwich to Shepherd’s Bush, London was underwater.
Another soldier came up and spoke to them. ‘Satellite link to Q-Whitehall is up and running, sir.’
‘About time,’ said General Chambers. ‘Has the Prime Minister been informed yet?’
‘Not yet, sir. We’re trying to get onto him. He had a confidential meeting this morning at Chequers.’
General Chambers and the Chief Commissioner followed the soldier to a workstation. On the screen, they could see a room in the bunker — and a row of faces sitting at the table facing the camera. General Chambers spoke into the microphone. ‘I need a minister with authority over Rebro. Where’s the Home Secretary?’
On the screen Madeleine Harwood spoke up. ‘I’m the Foreign Secretary. I’m the only minister in the offices today. Is everything under control?’
The Chief Commissioner took the microphone. ‘We’re going to switch off Rebro and we need you to authorize it.’
Madeleine Harwood looked baffled. ‘Rebro?’
Clive Brooks explained. ‘The emergency services’ communications network. It’s been running on backup. We’ve got rescue helicopters coming in and we need the power supply for our satellite communications so that we can co-ordinate the rescue operation. We can’t run Rebro as well. You have to give us permission to switch it off.’
General Chambers took the microphone. ‘It’s not a big problem, ma’am. The ambulances, fire engines and police cars won’t be able to communicate with each other. But half the roads are underwater and the ones that aren’t are gridlocked. They can’t do their job anyway so we’re sending the army in. That’s why I’m here with the Chief Commissioner.’
Madeleine Harwood folded her arms. ‘Why do you need me to give the order? You’re the experts.’
‘Because in theory there are consequences for the civilian population and that’s not a decision we can make. The decision has to be made by the government. Are you giving the order?’
Madeleine clearly wasn’t happy but she knew she had no choice but to act decisively and trust the experts. ‘All right. I’m authorizing you to switch it off.’
‘Thank you, madam.’ The General cut the audio connection to the bunker and spoke to the rest of the room. ‘Close down Rebro. Divert power to satellite communications.’
Fingers flew over keyboards, orders were spoken into headsets as the emergency room staff made the necessary adjustments.
The Chief Commissioner looked thoughtful. ‘General Chambers, once we’ve rescued the immediate casualties we’re going to need to think about evacuating the civilian population.’
The General considered this for a moment, then turned to speak to a woman manning a workstation behind him. ‘Lieutenant,’ he ordered, bending down to speak to her. ‘I want you to concentrate on getting hold of the Prime Minister.’
‘Very good, sir.’
Chapter Seventeen
Ben was warmer now, and at least the Burberry stopped him getting any wetter. To his right he saw the water covering the road like a black slick; beyond the buildings the swollen river spread out like a loch.
Above him he could hear a new sound through the beat of the rain. A thrumming, like a helicopter but at the same time not quite like one.
A dark shape was moving across above the river. Red lights winked on its underside and Ben saw short helicopter rotors whirling round at each end. A Chinook. The rescue effort must be starting.
It paused over the water, framed for a moment by the gap between the buildings, then began to descend. Ben dashed across the road and waved, but the Chinook was aiming for the roof of a low building surrounded by water, where a group of people were stranded like penguins on an iceberg. It stopped and hovered about ten metres above the roof, its side door open. Ben could see people moving inside; then a winchman on a harness dropped out of the doorway and swung down to the figures on the roof.