No deal! He’d have to try another way.
Climbing back down the ladder, he moved to the gap between the tractor unit and the trailer. He scrambled up quickly, knowing exactly what he was looking for. Amid the connecting cables for brakes and the vehicles’ electrical system, ran a length of black garden hosepipe. It was the link between the TPU in the cab with the perforated firing tube in the rear body which would detonate the inevitable sacks of fertiliser mix.
Fishing in his pocket again, he drew out his favourite craft knife and extended the blade. This was no time for hesitation. Like a surgeon in a life-threatening emergency, this was the time to kill or cure. In went the razor point, carving into the plastic, moving around the tube until he was able to tear off a ring of the stuff and reveal…
Two lengths of smooth white cable. Det cord? Please, God, let it be! If it was Cordtex he could just cut straight through it. Separate the brain from the monstrous body at a single stroke.
But the light was poor and he couldn’t be certain. The trouble was the stuff looked almost identical to coaxial cable. And if he cut through that with a steel blade, he was dead meat. Involuntarily he glanced up at the tunnel roof, just feet above his head, and wondered what would happen if the dumper blew.
Feverishly he went to work, scraping with the blade at the first length of cable. Chips of plastic sleeve flaked away and then careful now — the white fibre inner. A further, really cautious cut… and the compressed white PETN powder of the explosive inner core spilled out.
He grinned smugly. Det cord. Carrying the detonating wave at a rate of six thousand metres a second. With a confident flourish he produced his cutters and snapped it through.
His hand moved to the second cable. Backup, he decided, a failsafe in case the first malfunctioned. Typical AID AN thoroughness. He opened the jaws.
No shortcuts! A voice rang in his ears. His old instructor, long ago retired. His own voice, too, when he’d given lectures.
He dropped the cutters and picked up his craft knife. More steady whittling, flecks of white plastic scattering onto his knees until…
Oh, shit! Light gleamed on the inner wire core. It was coax. And he was a millimetre from death.
Instinctively his sphincter tightened as his bowels turned instantly to liquid jelly. In time, but only just.
The second cable was backup all right, but electrical not explosive det cord. A deliberate ploy to defeat the bomb-disposal officer in just this situation?
No matter. There was nothing for it. Like it or not, he would have to tackle the TPU in the cab.
Five minutes to run.
At that point he heard Midgely’s Rover arrive, parking next to his and linking up the extended firing cable he’d been unreeling behind his vehicle.
Harrison turned back to the cab. The temptation to risk opening the door was colossal, but he forced himself to resist. AID AN was hardly likely to miss a simple trick like that.
He went back up the ladder, feeling the cab suspension start to give. Hardly anything, but it was just enough to set the TPU dancing gently on its spring. Another hurried rummage in his pocket, greasy fingers finding the spring-loaded centrepunch.
He pushed the instrument against the toughened side window, heard the crack and saw the glass frost over instantly. Without % hesitation, he began tearing aside the coagulated crystals from the frame with his bare hands. Then he was in, struggling to lift one leg through the jagged aperture, then the next until he was kneeling on the driver’s seat, facing the back with the steering wheel digging uncomfortably into his backside. He cursed himself now for not using the passenger window, which would have allowed him more space. But time, running out by the second, was now the sole dictator of unfolding events.
Midgely appeared on the ladder now and, without wasting words, handed in the disrupter and its awkward anglepoise stand. ‘Three minutes,’ he warned gruffly.
Harrison nodded. ‘Get back to the firing point, Midge. I want to Pigstick this the moment I’m clear.’
To wish good luck was to invite disaster. ‘Go for it, my son.’
‘Bugger off.’
The florid face disappeared from the window and Harrison concentrated on opening up the concertina joints. But it was difficult in the confined space, the helmet restricting his vision. And while searching for a clear gap behind the seat for the stand legs, the metal slipped through his greasy fingers. The stand banged against the cab side and, as he jerked the end clear, the clamp holding the Pigstick hit the TPU. He could not believe it! It swung gently left and right, a deadly pendulum, just ten inches from his face. He stared at it, his eyes glued to the little bead of glistening mercury. God, he could swear it was deliberately taunting him.
Ignore it, you fool! Get on.
Slowly the TPU lost its momentum, finally coming to a precarious standstill. As he heard the sound of Midge heading back out of the tunnel at top speed, he positioned the stand so that die Pigstick was just inches from its target.
That’ll have to do. No more time to wait.
The disrupter would smash the unit, hopefully just microseconds before the detonator in the explosive could heat up. It was that close.
He twisted around on the seat and edged his backside out through the window, feeling the material of his overalls tear on the jagged edge. One leg extracted beneath him, knee jammed, then pulled painfully free. Then the second. Feeling like a contortionist as he half climbed, half fell down the ladder, landing on his back, but managing to break his ungainly fall with his forearm.
The watch face glared back at him. One minute fifty-five seconds.
He scrambled to his feet, the stinking coils of exhaust from Midge’s Rover rasping in his throat. Starting to run now, he passed the end of the Mercedes. Then stopped. The sound was small, like no more than a whimper.
One minute forty-five.
Was there time? He looked up at the massive dumper. Christ! What would Archie think if he didn’t at least try?
The rear window was shattered, the roof crushed down until there was an impossibly narrow gap between it and the top of the door. Twelve inches, ten? He launched himself at the aperture, scrabbling in until he found the metal closing like a vice around his hipbone, holding him fast. He stretched out his free hand, a mere inch from the baby’s tiny hand. Their flesh touched for an instant, the skin cold. He grunted, pushed a little harder, his hand still slippery with oil and his own blood.
He had the little forearm, felt it wriggle, his grip better now on the woollen sleeve. His fingers tightened around the arm where it joined the shoulder. The baby emptied its lungs, screamed like a demented soul.
Pushing his knees against the buckled outer door, he levered out the rest of his body, feeling the teeth of glass raking along his back, then scraping over the top of his helmet.
He managed to get his second hand to the child, supporting its urine-stained rump, and crushed it protectively to his chest as he found his feet.
Then he was running. Running as he had never run in his life before. Through the gap between the dumper and the tunnel wall. Eternity stretching ahead of him, the endless ribbon of tarmac and the trail of firing cables.
Pounding, pounding, pounding. Blood pumping at his temples, his lungs stretched to bursting with the effort. On, on, on. Would there be enough time to reach his Range-Rover, still fifty metres off?
He tilted his wrist on the hand that cradled the baby’s head. Oh, shit! The watch alarm began its rapid bleeping.
His feet skidded as he changed direction, stumbling, nearly falling, limping to the edge of the tunnel. He looked around. No hiding place.
He laid the infant on the tarmac and stretched himself out over the helpless bundle. Then fumbled for the send button of the transceiver on his lapel. ‘Midge — FIRE!’