But the target didn’t look back. The target kept moving, as if his intention was to climb into the furthest carriage: white tee, blue shirt, rucksack and all.
River spoke into his button again. Said the words—Take him—and began to run.
‘Everybody down!’
The man on the bench rose to his feet, and was knocked off them by a figure in black.
‘Down!’
Up ahead, two more men dropped from the train’s roof into the target’s path. Who turned to see River, arm outstretched, waving him to the floor with the flat of his hand.
The achievers were shouting commands:
The bag!
Drop the bag!
‘Put the bag on the ground,’ River said. ‘And get to your knees.’
‘But I don’t—’
‘Drop the bag!’
The target dropped the bag. A hand scooped it up. Other hands grabbed at limbs: the target was flattened, spreadeagled, wiped on the tiles, while the rucksack was passed to River. Who set it carefully on the now vacant bench, and unzipped it.
Overhead, an automated message unspooled around the rafters. Would Inspector Samms please report to the operations room.
Books, an A4 notepad, a pencil tin.
Would Inspector Samms
A Tupperware box holding a cheese sandwich and an apple.
please report to
River looked up. His lip twitched. He said, quite calmly—
the operations room
‘Search him.’
‘Don’t hurt me!’ The boy’s voice was muffled: he had a faceful of floor, and guns pointing at his head.
Target, River reminded himself. Not boy. Target.
Would Inspector Samms
‘Search him!’ He turned back to the rucksack. The pencil tin held three biros and a paperclip.
please report to
‘He’s clean.’
River dropped the tin to the bench and upended the sack. Books, notepad, a stray pencil, a pocket-sized pack of tissues.
the operations room
They scattered on the floor. He shook the rucksack. Nothing in its pockets.
‘Check him again.’
‘He’s clean.’
Would Inspector Samms
‘Will somebody turn that bloody thing off?’
Catching his own note of panic, he clamped his mouth shut.
‘He’s clean. Sir.’
please report to
River again shook the rucksack like a rat, then let it drop.
the operations room
One of the achievers began speaking, quietly but urgently, into a collar-mic.
River became aware of someone staring at him through the window of the waiting train. Ignoring her, he began to trot down the platform.
‘Sir?’
There was a certain sarcasm to that.
Would Inspector Samms please report to the operations room.
Blue shirt, white tee, River thought.
White shirt, blue tee?
He picked up speed. A transport policeman stepped forward as he reached the ticket bay but River looped round him, shouted an incoherent instruction, then ran full pelt back to the main concourse.
Would Inspector Samms—and the recorded announcement, a coded message to staff that a security alert was taking place, switched off. A human voice took its place:
‘Due to a security incident, this station is being evacuated. Please make your way to the nearest exit.’
He had three minutes tops before the Dogs arrived.
River’s feet had a direction of their own, propelling him towards the concourse while he still had room to move. But all around, people were getting off trains, onboard announcements having brought sudden halts to journeys that hadn’t yet begun, and panic was only a heartbeat away—mass panic was never deep beneath the surface, not in railways stations and airports. The phlegmatic cool of the British crowd was oft-remarked, and frequently absent.
Static burst in his ear.
The tannoy said: ‘Please make your way calmly to the nearest exit. This station is now closed.’
‘River?’
He shouted into his button. ‘Spider? You idiot, you called the wrong colours!’
‘What the hell’s happening? There are crowds coming out of every—’
‘White tee under a blue shirt. That’s what you said.’
‘No, I said blue tee under—’
‘Fuck you, Spider.’ River yanked his earpiece out.
He’d reached the stairs, where the crowd sucks into the underground. Now, it was streaming out. Irritation was its main emotion, but it carried other whispers: fear, suppressed panic. Most of us hold that some things only happen to other people. Many of us hold that one such thing is death. The tannoy’s words chipped away at this belief.
‘The station is now closed. Please make your way to the nearest exit.’
The tube was the city’s heartbeat, thought River. Not an east-bound platform. The tube.
He pushed into the evacuating crowd, ignoring its hostility. Let me through. This had minimal impact. Security. Let me through. That was better. No path opened, but people stopped pushing him back.
Two minutes before the Dogs. Less.
The corridor widened at the foot of the stairs. River raced round the corner, where a broader space waited—ticket machines against walls; ticket windows with blinds drawn down; their recent queues absorbed into the mass of people heading elsewhere. Already, the crowd had thinned. Escalators had been halted; tape strung across to keep fools off. The platforms below were emptying of passengers.
River was stopped by a transport cop.
‘Station’s being cleared. Can’t you hear the bloody tannoy?’
‘I’m with intelligence. Are the platforms clear?’
‘Intelli—?’
‘Are the platforms clear?’
‘They’re being evacuated.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘It’s what I’ve been—’
‘You have CC?’
‘Well of course we—’
‘Show me.’
The surrounding noises grew rounder; echoes of departing travellers swam across the ceilings. But other sounds were approaching: quick footsteps, heavy on the tiled floor. The Dogs. River had little time to put this right.
‘Now.’
The cop blinked, but caught River’s urgency—could hardly miss it—and pointed over his own shoulder at a door marked No Access. River was through it before the footsteps’ owner appeared.
The small windowless room smelled of bacon, and looked like a voyeur’s den. A swivel chair faced a bank of TV monitors. Each blinked regularly, shifting focus on the same repeated scene: a deserted underground platform. It was like a dull science fiction film.
A draught told him the cop had come in.
‘Which platforms are which?’
The cop pointed: groups of four. ‘Northern. Piccadilly. Victoria.’
River scanned them. Every two seconds, another blink.
From underfoot came a distant rumble.
‘What’s that?’
The cop stared.
‘What?’
‘That would be a tube train.’
‘They’re running?’
‘Station’s closed,’ the cop said, as if to an idiot. ‘But the lines are open.’
‘All of them?’
‘Yes. But the trains won’t stop.’
They wouldn’t need to.
‘What’s next?’
‘What’s—?’
‘Next train, damn it. Which platform?’
‘Victoria. Northbound.’
River was out of the door.
At the top of the shallow flight of stairs, barring the way back to the mainline station, a short dark man stood, talking into a headset. His tone changed abruptly when he saw River.