He took a tentative step forward. His heart was going like a hammer drill. Another step, then one more.
Keep going, you fucking coward. There’s a baby in a Merc on the other side. The father with a steering wheel in his chest and the mother with her legs crushed… How would you feel if that was your child trapped in there? And what would Archie himself think if he saw you hesitating now? Wouldn’t be so proud of his father then, would he?
He forced himself on, each foot seemingly weighted with lead. Refusing to obey the commands of his brain, his body reluctant to be dragged, inwardly screaming, towards its inevitable fate. His eyes transfixed on the small plastic lens, waiting for the little red pilot light to blink on. Aha! Caught you!
Shit! Stop thinking, just keep going. Not too fast, don’t create an airflow to lift the protective flap of the blanket. Not too slow or the clock will beat you.
Christ, Casey, I love you. Where the fuck are you now, and what the hell are you doing in Ulster? I should be in bed with you now, not walking under the Thames like a grand master of the Ku Klux Klan in silver paper!
He heard it then. Above the drumbeat thud of his own heart, above his rasping lungs and the sound of the blood rushing in his ears. The high-pitched cry of a baby. High-pitched, then subsiding into the painful gurgle of distress, regaining its strength in order to scream again.
He shuffled on, looked up.
God, the dumper was big. It towered above him, a rusting flank of steel with ribs and rivets. Filling his vision until that was all there was in the world.
Would this be the last thing he ever saw?
He stopped, bending tentatively at the knees, lowering the Pigstick to the tarmac, careful for his hand not to show. It dropped the last inch, toppled over, the metallic clang echoing along the lonely tunnel. His eyes shut, then opened. No time to pray.
Inch by inch he swung his left hand up, shifting the six-foot ladder from the horizontal to the vertical. Gently he allowed the ends to touch the dumper’s side. Daren’t look at his watch, daren’t reveal his wrists.
Up, up, you bastard, don’t tell me you’ve suddenly developed vertigo?
One foot, first rung. Next foot, up, up. Nearly there.
Above his head the Cyclops eye watched. Impassive. Now he could even see the indented lines on the plastic lens, the attaching bracket and the screw heads, the thin twist of flex disappearing over the rim.
Perhaps the bloody dumper was empty? Nothing in it. Just another of AIDAN’s practical jokes. That’s what his instructor had told him once. That was the real essence of the booby trap. Forget your technical theories, when it came down to it a booby trap was just a practical joke by someone with a truly black sense of humour. You had to laugh really…
Last rung. Precarious and vulnerable, having to risk showing his hands now, hopefully under the sensor’s line-of-sight, palms on the rough cold steel for support. His wristwatch showing.
Twelve minutes to go. God, where had the time gone?
He reached beneath the poncho, pulled out the wire-cutters from his trouser pocket then, stretched up. Too short, damn it! The tip of the jaws just an inch below the flex. He bunched the muscles in his calves and pushed his soles against the ladder rung.
It moved, jerked suddenly, the legs sliding on the oil-smeared tarmac. His hand shot out, palm jammed against the steel rib to halt the movement.
Calm, calm, he told himself. A long, slow deep breath. Another stretch. More careful this time, measured, reaching out with gentle pressure. Watching the jaws edge towards the exposed flex. Sweat running into his eyes. Through a painful and salty blur he saw the tip touch the flex.
He opened his palm, allowing the spring-loaded action to separate the jaws, felt them grip the flex. Then he shut his eyes and he closed his fist around the handles. A tiny harsh snap, feeling it through his fingers rather than hearing it.
Again he breathed, squeezed the sweat from his eyes, blinked, and looked.
The cut flex hung free. Sweet Jesus Christ, he’d done it!
‘Tom, how’s it going?’
The sudden sound of the metallic voice coming from his transceiver took him by surprise, almost toppling him from the ladder.
‘Midge? Where are you?’
‘At the tunnel entrance. What’s happening?’
‘I’ve just reached the truck and taken out the first infrared sensor.’
‘ Thank God for that. What do you want me to do?’
‘The Pigstick’s firing cables go back to my Rover two hundred metres back. I need a long extension to clear the tunnel.’
‘Wilco, Tom, we’re on our way.’
Ten minutes to run and no time to lose. Harrison jumped back down to the tarmac, scooped up his ladder and the Pigstick and rounded the small gap between the dumper’s end and the tunnel wall.
Now he saw the Mercedes for the first time. It was hideously crushed, half buried beneath the dumper’s chassis. The roof came down to meet the dash and in the apex of crushed metal he could just see the drained face of the woman. Young, maybe pretty, but splashed with blood. The skin around her closed eyes was grey from the mascara that had run with her tears of pain.
Unconscious, he thought, and thank God for that at least. Oblivious to the pain now.
He moved cautiously around the rear of the car, until he was in view of the second sensor on the dumper’s other side. Peering into the distorted car window as he passed, he saw the baby’s carrycot. It was upturned in the rear seat well. A tiny white hand protruded, pink fingers wriggling from a white woollen sleeve. Alive.
He moved on, repeating the procedure against the second sensor, easier and quicker this time as his confidence increased.
Climbing back down, he stripped off his blanket poncho and apron, and removed the helmet. Cool air, tainted with the distinct smell of oil, rushed at him, drying the sweat from his skin. Roughly he ran his hands through his sodden hair, scratching his scalp in an effort to clear his mind.
First things first. Could he locate the timer and power unit? Was it accessible for a quick knockout with the Pigstick?
Quickly he moved the ladder along to the tractor unit. His mind was already filled with the next prospect: entering the cab. Sod, the door firmly shut. AIDAN would surely have thought of something here. What was it this time? The courtesy light or another car alarm like the one that had caught Jock? A trembler or a tilt as well? Almost certainly.
To climb up the foot and handholds to the cab would rock the springs and that was something he couldn’t risk. So he replaced his helmet and used the ladder again, inching his way up until he could peer in through the driver’s door.
The dash, the seats — Nothing obvious. His eyes drifted to the squab seat at the back, trying to penetrate the shadows. Somewhere, he knew, must be the TPU. But where?
He almost missed it. Naturally he’d been looking at the cab floor, expecting to find the unit beneath the seats or in the footwells. On the point of giving up in exasperation, his eyes lifted. And there it was.
His stomach turned to liquid. The neat little plywood box was swinging gently like a flypaper, suspended by a length of tightly coiled spring from the cab roof. All that kept it from rotating were the wires feeding from the back, disappearing down behind the squab seats.
The TPU resembled a PIRA Mk 16, as the ATOs had dubbed it. Two empty dowel holes to release two mechanical timers hidden inside: one to the main charge in the dumper’s cargo body, the second a time-delay to activate the antihandling devices.
And there was one of them staring him in the face. He blanched. The tiny globule of mercury was sealed in its transparent plastic capsule, its pivot mounting adjusted so that the slightest motion of the cab would tip the mercurial blob to the other end where it would link the two terminal ends and complete the circuit.