Casey leaned forward earnestly. ‘So will you, can you, help us?’
‘Where are you staying?’
‘The Park Avenue.’
‘And I’ll want your home addresses in England.’
She felt her fear return in a rush. ‘Why?’
‘To check you out.’
Mercs thought, Jolly King Billy wants insurance. Cross him and one day you’ll answer the door to a gunman’s bullet. Reluctantly he put pen to paper and watched as Casey did the same.
‘No promises,’ King Billy said grimly, then his face lightened a little. ‘And No Surrender.’
At that moment there came the sound of footsteps from outside the room and a hurried knocking at the door. One of Spike’s fellow henchmen pushed his way in. ‘Sorry to interrupt, Billy. Thought you’d want to know. I’ve just heard it on the radio. Something big is going down in London!’
Casey froze.
16
The monstrous dumper truck thundered up the A102 motorway towards the Blackwall Tunnel, its huge steel sides rattling with the speed. Its headlamps were like eyes burning fiercely into the wet night and the jetting sprays in its wake became glittering silver wings.
Its target was in sight. And closing.
High in the cab McGirl adjusted the driving mirror. Just treble-checking. The two motorcycles were still keeping position some hundred metres behind. Muldoon and Doran ready, the empty van already placed and waiting in West Ham across the river.
‘Half-a-mile,’ Clodagh Dougan confirmed.
They both wore balaclavas, rolled up to look like woollen hats.
McGirl nodded his acknowledgment, taking one hand from the wheel and fumbling in his shirt pocket for his cigarettes. He tipped the packet, pulling out one of its contents with his teeth, then hunted for his lighter.
Clodagh noticed. Nerves, she thought. This front-line Provie hero is human after all. ‘No, Pat, not now.’
He glanced sideways, saw the dash lights throwing the taut pale skin of her face into highlight and shadow, and grinned. ‘No, of course not.’ And just clamped the cigarette in his mouth, unlit. A comfort to his jangling nerves.
‘Something coming up,’ he said, eyes back on the mirror. There had been little traffic at this late-night hour, but now a car was gaining rapidly in the fast lane. Doing a ton or more, he gauged, already passing the two motorcycles.
Motorway Ends.
The sign flashed by as the road began to narrow, their northbound carriageway separating from the southbound as they hurtled towards the Blackwall Tunnel entrance.
Target close and closing. Huge circular gantries looming.
More height warnings for the old tunnel. Thirteen foot four inches. McGirl content, the tyre pressures reduced to clear them by a whisker.
Defeated by the spray from the dumper, the overtaking car had slowed to fall in behind the lumbering ten-wheeler. McGirl squinted in the mirror; it was white, flashy, judging from the grille, a Mercedes.
‘Oh, Sweet Mother of Jesus,’ he breathed. He could see the pulsing blue light catching up fast. Some zealous cop wanting to catch the Merc. An excuse to go back to the station, out of the rain and a cup of tea. ‘Shit!’
Clodagh turned in her seat. ‘What is it?’
They were plunging down towards the tunnel now, the cutting lit in a blaze of yellow sodium light, height-alarm gongs hanging overhead and the bright mouth opening to swallow them.
KEEP IN LANE — KEEP IN LANE demanded the signs.
‘Police car,’ McGirl snapped. ‘About three vehicles back.’
‘After us?’
And they were in, the pressure blast hitting them, shaking the windows, the stark strip lights enveloping them, the noise of the dumper reverberating around the tunnel as it closed in over their heads.
‘No!’ McGirl had to shout above the deafening din. ‘After a speeding car behind us!’
The illuminated tarmac ribbon opened up ahead of them, the first red tail-lights visible fifty metres ahead.
McGirl grinned harshly, the cigarette shredding between his teeth. He spat it out. ‘Time for an executive decision.’
‘This is my da’s dream, Pat. My dream.’
He spared her a fleeting glance, then averted his eyes back to the mirror. ‘Then we go!’
Balaclavas down.
Shifting his foot, he stabbed the brake pedal. Then again, and again. Then he hit the airhorns. A double blast like a soul from hell, the aching sound of a dying whale, trembled along the tunnel. In his mirror he saw the Mercedes backing off as the dumper’s red lights continued blinking. McGirl stamped on the brakes again, this time long and hard, heard the hiss of compressed air as they began to bind.
Now, now, the silent voice yelled in his head.
He spun the wheel, felt the monster begin to slew, aware of the plaintive shriek of burning rubber. Saw the signal flasher of the Merc. Could imagine the face of the impatient driver as he pulled out to overtake.
‘Stupid bastard!’ McGirl screamed.
The dumper’s wheels locked, seven tons of truck and three thousand pounds of explosive on the slide. Its front nose struck the tinplate crash-rail, friction sparks trailing like a shooting star, the cargo body rocking as it swerved to block both lanes.
As it came to an ear-grirfding halt, the nose embedded in the buckled rail and began to tear at the tunnel lining. Simultaneously they felt the earth-shaking thud of the Mercedes as it crumpled into the dumper’s side.
Christ, McGirl thought.
‘Get going!’ Clodagh shouted. Already she was adjusting the final settings to the complex TPU that would protect and then ultimately fire the mammoth bomb.
McGirl took the automatic from beneath his seat, switched on the vehicle’s hazard flashers and kicked open the door. Looking back along the flank of the dumper, he could see only half of the Mercedes. Its bonnet had disappeared under the truck’s chassis and the roof had caved in beneath the steel-ribbed underbelly. Steam and scalding water billowed and the saloon’s hooter had become jammed on at full pitch, its piercing wail filling his head, blotting out his thinking process.
He jumped the few feet to the oil-sodden tarmac. A black slick like treacle was advancing from the wreckage where he could see the crushed driver, the man’s blood-splattered face mouthing silently for help.
He ignored it, and glanced across the tunnel to check his handiwork. Excellent! The dumper’s rear end was just feet from the far wall. No room for a car to pass, but enough for a motorcycle. The following cars had come to an untidy halt, each driver having to swerve to avoid the vehicle in front. McGirl shielded his eyes against the dazzling array of light, one throbbing blue police car strobe amid the white brilliance of headlamps. The two motorcycles had slowed with the rest of the traffic, waiting for everything to stop. Now Muldoon and Doran revved their machines, bucking as they raced to join the dumper and leaving skid marks scorched into the road surface as they braked.
Muldoon jerked to a standstill beside McGirl and handed over a spare helmet. While he put it on, dazed drivers were emerging from their cars, doors opening. Then the two police officers pushed through, hastily pulling on their peak caps, ready to take charge, beginning to run.
McGirl raised his automatic. ‘GET BACK! THIS IS A BOMB!’