‘No, Tom,’ she said adamantly. ‘It’s just like Seven Dials. The street Candy and I took was the only one left to take and that’s where the car bomb was that killed Jock.’ She was close to tears. ‘I just can’t go.’
Pritchard watched her outburst with a curious expression on his face, as though he’d just swallowed something unpleasant. He said: ‘We’re off to have a look at those other devices. When you’re ready, Tom, phone the office to find out where we are.’
Harrison steered the reluctant Casey back through the cordon as the engines of the Range-Rovers were gunned into life. He began to realise the hidden emotional scars that Seven Dials had left in her mind and his heart went out to her.
‘I’m sorry, I was being silly,’ Casey said as they began to be jostled along by the fast-moving welter of evacuees. ‘Guess we can’t spend the whole night sitting on the pavement…’
But conversation had become impossible. A party of Japanese tourists had engulfed them, jabbering excitedly as they attempted to keep up with their guide. The group collided with a collection of French students carrying rucksacks, emerging from Panton Street. Refugees from a Leicester Square cinema premiere were caught up in the swelling crowd, men looking incongruously exotic in tuxedos and black ties, glamorous escorts clinging to their arms. Momentarily Harrison thought he recognised a film star, but then the famous face disappeared amid a bobbing sea of heads which had now filled the entire width of Haymarket.
Up ahead, the crush of humanity was parting like a river around a lone and stationary police car which pointed into the crowd, its blue lights pulsing energetically. The driver and his colleague were struggling to open the doors against the flow. A helmeted constable was shouting at them from the pavement beside a parked car.
The momentum of the tide was becoming stronger, the pressure pushing in from all sides, threatening to sweep Harrison and Casey from their feet. They moved all the faster to avoid being overtaken by the weight of people behind them. Harrison saw one of the Japanese women crushed against a traffic bollard in the middle of the street. There was nothing he could do for her as she disappeared beneath thousands of running feet.
Casey clutched his arm tighter, terrified that she’d be torn from him. She gasped for breath, aware that the oxygen was being squeezed from the night air, becoming hotter by the second. Claustrophobic and starting to panic. Feeling faint and certain she would have fallen had it not been for Harrison at her side.
She suddenly became aware of stifled screams as people sank and drowned in the relentless ebb, and twice she stumbled on something soft under foot. A child, a woman? It was impossible to tell as they were carried inexorably on.
‘BOMB!’ yelled the constable on the pavement.
The two policemen, who had now managed to extricate themselves from their patrol car, looked at each other and then at the surrounding crowd. The ashen faces of the officers said it all. There was no way they could halt the overwhelming scrum of people bearing down on them.
Harrison managed to fight his way sideways, dragging Casey with him, until he was able to reach the wing of the patrol car. He clung to it like a man escaping the force of wild rapids.
‘Get away, sir!’ shouted the nearest policeman.
‘I’m with the Explosives Section,’ Harrison yelled back. ‘What’s the problem?’
The policeman’s jaw dropped with incredulity. ‘You are, sir?’
‘Yes, dammit, what’s the problem?’
As relief replaced his astonishment, the officer said: ‘My mate reckons he’s found a bomb in this parked car. Looks to me like he could be right.’
Harrison worked his way between the two vehicles and peered into the window of the parked Renault. In the footwell, half hidden by the seat was a small plywood box. Thin twin-core cable could be glimpsed at the edge of the rear carpet, disappearing towards the boot.
He turned to the police driver. ‘Have you got a toolbox in the car?’
‘Er-yes, of course.’
‘Let me have it. I suggest you call up reinforcements to get this area cleared and get a Section team down here pronto.’ The driver nodded, reaching for the boot and the toolbox.
While waiting for backup manpower, the three policemen faced an impossible task, but they wasted no time in doing their best. With the radio messages sent, the driver proceeded to inch the car forward into the crowd, the doors wide open with an officer on each side to form a slow-moving wedge. If they could reach the first intersection with Charles II Street, they would stand a chance of diverting the endless procession of evacuees to safety.
‘PLEASE STAND STILL!’ the driver begged over the loudspeaker. ‘PLEASE STAND STILL AND LET US PASS!’
If they could halt the flow, then they stood a chance of reversing it. But, of course, it was hopeless because of the pressure of new arrivals pushing in from the very streets up which the police now wanted them to return. Still people were streaming past the car bomb. ‘
Harrison turned to Casey. ‘Get away from here as quickly as you can. Go home and I’ll be in touch later.’
She shook her head. ‘I want to help.’
His anger suddenly flared. ‘For God’s sake, Casey, this thing could blow up at any moment. There’s nothing you can do. I’m sorry, I don’t have time to argue!’
Then he forced himself to turn away, stooping to open the toolbox and examine its contents for anything of use. Mostly spanners of different sizes. Hopeless! He continued rummaging. A torch — handy. What else? Thank God for that, a pair of wire-snippers. And a roll of insulating tape. What he really needed was a specialist spring-loaded centrepunch for such a delicate operation. And what did he have available? A sodding great wheel brace!
He straightened his back and looked along Haymarket towards Piccadilly. The patrol car had reached the intersection and was having some success in diverting the tide of evacuees. Now he focused his attention on the Renault, blotting out his awareness of the steady trickle of pedestrians still passing just a few feet away.
Cars and derelicts, he thought suddenly. It was years now since he’d personally had to deal with either. And he had believed he would never have to again. Inside this vehicle, anything could be waiting for him. This was AIDAN. Nothing might be what it seemed. Or it could all be an elaborate hoax.
Casey’s words seemed to be echoing around his skull. Just like Seven Dials. A car, just like this, had faced Jock Murray less than two weeks ago. Now it was his turn.
He shone the torch into the dim interior, playing the beam across the roof until he found the courtesy light. Yes, there it was. The opaque plastic cover and the bulb removed, a thin wire trailing down towards the TPU. Any attempt to open the doors and, instead of lighting the interior, the current would pass through to fire the main charge prematurely.
Silently he cursed Al Pritchard for not keeping a Wheelbarrow always to hand. How he wished to God he had his Belfast wizards Heathcote and Corporal Clarke with him now. They’d be in and out in two minutes flat, crack open the boot and in with the Candle cluster charge. All over and let’s go home.
Sweat gathered around his collar. He moved the torch beam towards the dashboard, looking for what had killed Jock Murray. And there it was. An innocuous black plastic module, a flex trailing to the cigar lighter. The same setup that had killed Jock the moment his hand went in through the broken window.
Some thoughtful bastard had taped over the telltale red glow of the tiny LED bulb. Was that how Jock had come to miss it? The tape also obscured the maker’s name which may have offered a clue as to what activated it.
If it was passive infrared, detecting body heat, he might get away with it. But if it was ultrasonic then he wasn’t at all sure. The mere change of air pressure when opening the door would be sufficient to trigger it.