The Becket Approval

by Falconer, Duncan

  Gunnymede held out his ID as he approached out of breath. ‘I’m with the security services. I need your boat. This is a national emergency.’

  They practically ignored him. ‘Yeah, right,’ one of them said.

  Gunnymede took out his pistol and fired a round into the planking between the men, both of whom leapt back in complete shock.

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t have time to fuck about. I’m security services. This is a life and death emergency! Get your boat started! Now!’

  One of the men dived into the water and swam away.

  Gunnymede addressed the other. ‘I’m not going to shoot you! I just want your boat. And I need you to drive it. Please.’

  The man nodded quickly.

  ‘Let’s go!’

  The man obeyed and jumped into the boat. Gunnymede untied the lines and climbed in as the engine started.

  ‘Main channel,’ Gunnymede shouted. ‘Quickly!’

  The young man turned the throttle to full power as he deftly spun the nose around towards the centre of the river.

  The MoD car came to a halt outside Blackfriars underground station. Bethan leapt out and ran inside. She paused in the cavernous hall to get her bearings. A member of staff directed her to the station manager’s office. By the time she got there, he was on the phone talking with the security services who had called him. She showed her ID as she explained who she was and he informed her police and anti-terrorist units were on their way. He agreed the first thing they had to do was evacuate the station, get everyone up from the tunnels and shut the watertight doors.

  She followed him as he hurried along a landing to the control room.

  Gunnymede squatted at the front of the inflatable searching in every direction for any boat that might look big enough to ram a hole through a couple of metres of embankment. There weren’t any such vessels motoring along the river within view but after a couple of minutes going east at full speed a large work boat appeared heading towards them. Gunnymede indicated to his driver to head for it.

  His phone chirped and vibrated in his pocket. It was Neve.

  ‘The big red button has been pushed,’ she said, still in the Charing Cross control centre.

  ‘I’m on the water.’

  ‘I can see you.’ She was looking at his marker on a tracking app.

  ‘When can I expect assistance?’ he asked.

  ‘Police boats are on their way. Helicopters have gone up. I have no ETA yet.’

  ‘We need to block the embankment at the marker. A boat. Anything.’

  ‘It’s all in motion.’

  The inflatable closed on the approaching work boat. ‘Go around the front!’ he shouted.

  ‘What?!’ Neve asked.

  ‘I’m talking to my driver.’

  The inflatable cut across the front of the work boat and down its starboard side while Gunnymede inspected it. It didn’t look big enough to be a threat and he signalled the driver to continue east.

  ‘That’s a negative!’ Gunnymede said into the phone.

  ‘There’s a police boat five minutes from you.’

  Gunnymede saw another workboat heading his way. An aggregate carrier. This one was longer, broader and heavier in the water, particularly the bows.

  ‘Did you hear me, Devon?!’

  ‘I’ll get back to you,’ he said and pocketed the phone.

  ‘Excuse me,’ the coxswain called out.

  Gunnymede looked back at him.

  ‘We’ve only got about half an hour of fuel,’ he said.

  ‘Keep going,’ Gunnymede shouted and signalled him to go down the port side of the oncoming boat.

  As the boats closed on each other Gunnymede got to his feet to get a better look, keeping his balance by holding onto a bow line. He couldn’t see any crew. It certainly looked big enough to make a good dent in the embankment.

  As they passed each other a guff of wind whipped up some trash at the back of the boat, some of which blew into the water. Gunnymede signalled the driver to turn about, vectoring him onto the trash. He leaned over the side and grabbed it up. It was an empty cement bag.

  ‘Go!’ Gunnymede shouted. ‘Catch that boat!’

  The driver opened up the throttle and the inflatable shot forward. Gunnymede hit a key on his phone.

  ‘Neve! I’ve got a possible! The Polo Harrow! An aggregate carrier!’

  ‘The police can’t be more than a minute away!’

  ‘So’s the bloody embankment!’

  Gunnymede put his phone away. ‘Get me on that boat!’

  The driver was up for it and powered the inflatable closer to the stern. Gunnymede signalled the starboard side and the driver accelerated over the work boat’s bow wave to come alongside.

  Bethan was in the control room of Blackfriars station watching the dozen screens showing various locations from the ticket hall to the escalators, tunnels and platforms. Staff members were busy blocking routes down to the platform and ordering people to leave the station. Down escalators had been switched off. Loudspeakers continually broadcast warnings for everyone to exit the station in an orderly manner. People were streaming for the exits.

  The senior controller looked at a screen showing dozens of people in a hallway at the bottom of a staircase. ‘What are those people doing?’ he asked no one in particular. There were half a dozen operators in the room. ‘They should be heading up.’

  ‘Disorientated,’ a controller suggested.

  ‘Tell them to take the stairs,’ the senior controller said, exasperated.

  ‘I’ve been trying,’ another controller said.

  ‘Maybe they’re foreigners,’ another suggested. ‘Can’t speak English.’

  One of the screens showed a dozen young school children and a couple of supervisors heading along an access tunnel.

  ‘Why are those children not hurrying?’ Bethan asked a controller.

  ‘Not only that, they’re going the wrong way,’ he said. He pushed a series of buttons and pulled a microphone to his mouth. ‘This is an emergency announcement. Will all passengers please make their way up to the station entrance in an orderly manner. I repeat. This is an emergency announcement.’

  Several of the children were holding hands and skipping as the others ambled along as if they hadn’t heard the announcement.

  ‘They can’t hear,’ the controller said.

  ‘The speakers must be down in that tunnel,’ another offered.

  ‘They’ll hear the announcement when they reach the platform,’ another said.

  Gunnymede grabbed the vessel’s side at the rear, pulled himself up and scrambled onto the narrow deck outside the superstructure. He pulled out his pistol and stepped to the door at the back, gripped the handle, pushed it open and charged in, gun levelled. The small crew room was empty except for a man lying on the floor, soaked in blood, his throat cut open. Gunnymede needed no further evidence and moved to the internal door that led to the stairs up to the bridge. He made his way carefully up them, the end of his gun leading the way and stood outside the only door. He checked the hinges to confirm which way it opened, gripped the doorknob and, taking a breath, yanked it open.

  Standing inside, less than two metres away with their backs to him were four men, all looking ahead through the bridge windows. The sound of the engines at full speed directly below filled the room. Saleem was first to look around and see Gunnymede pointing his gun at him.

  ‘I’m making the turn in ten seconds,’ the pilot said. When Saleem didn’t answer he glanced at him and then at Gunnymede. The other two fighters did the same.

  One of them reached for a knife on the bridge dashboard.

  ‘Make the turn,’ Saleem said.

  ‘Turn that wheel and I’ll kill you,’ Gunnymede warned.

  ‘Turn,’ Saleem ordered. ‘Allah will protect you.’

  The pilot looked through the window for the red marker on the embankment. It was then or never. He spun the wheel. As the boat lurched over Gunnymede steadied himself
in the doorway and shot the pilot through the side of his head. The man slumped lifelessly over the wheel and dropped to the deck.

  ‘Go!’ Saleem yelled and the other two charged.

  Gunnymede shot one in the chest but the other reached out and slapped the gun out of his hand before he could get off a second shot. They all fell back through the door to the floor at the tops of the steps.

  Saleem grabbed the wheel and spun it round to complete the turn. The boat lurched heavily to one side.

  Gunnymede battled with the remaining fighter, punching and kicking him while defending against the knife. As the boat lurched over, both men rolled into the bulkhead. Gunnymede punched him several times as hard as he could before he realised the man had gone limp. Gunnymede pushed him back to find the knife deep in the man’s chest.

  The boat continued to lean hard over. It felt like it might capsize. Gunnymede struggled to his feet, fighting against the force of the turn and sloping floor. He pulled himself into the doorway and saw Saleem straightening the wheel. The Arab was lining the boat up with the red target on the embankment that was barely a length away.

  As the boat levelled out, Gunnymede threw himself at Saleem. Saleem grabbed a hold of the wheel and held it firm as Gunnymede reached around his neck from behind and tried to pull him off. Saleem was choking, his face turning red, but he held on with grim determination. Gunnymede was facing the window. He could see the red painted parapet closing in fast. He pulled at Saleem with all his might even though he knew it was too late. He watched the bank get closer as if in slow motion.

  The bows struck the parapet with tremendous force. Saleem and Gunnymede were pressed into the wheel which snapped off and they hit the consul. The bows blew through the parapet like it was made of cake and ploughed deep into the pavement, cutting the bench in two. The momentum pushed the bows up and as it reached the road it came to a screeching halt at a steep angle. The bow was smashed open with pieces of concrete crumbling out of it. More significantly, the river poured around the boat and into the exposed bore hole.

  The flow was tremendous and only increased as the rushing water quickly eroded the soil. The surface of the river was a good metre above the bore hole and it poured in with ever increasing volume like a burst dam.

  Gunnymede and Saleem had fallen back as the boat had risen up but as it tilted over to one side, Saleem fell out of the shattered side door.

  Gunnymede had rolled to a stop at the same opening door and saw the Arab flip over the side. He pulled himself up onto his knees and edged outside to see Saleem holding onto the twisted rail, most of his body in the water that was pouring into the bore hole. If he were to let go, he would not be able to stop himself from following it. The embankment continued to erode, increasing the flow which would only get worse as the river level rose. The sound of the water rushing into the hole was almost too loud to speak over.

  Gunnymede dropped out of the bridge to the rail where he only just managed to stop himself from following Saleem over the side.

  Saleem mustered all his strength to try and heave himself out of the water but it pulled at his body and it was all he could do to hang on. Gunnymede reached out and grabbed his hands in an effort to help keep his fingers wrapped around the rail.

  They looked into each other’s eyes through clenched jaws.

  ‘Who did you speak to in Syria?!’ Gunnymede shouted. ‘In the desert! Who did you speak to?!’

  ‘Save me and I’ll tell you!’ Saleem shouted back.

  Gunnymede looked into his eyes. ‘You don’t know, do you?’

  ‘I know who gave him the plan!’ Saleem shouted.

  ‘Who?!’

  ‘Save me!’

  ‘Tell me and I’ll save you!’ Gunnymede shouted. He could feel Saleem’s fingers loosening their grip. ‘Tell me!’

  ‘He’s British!’ Saleem shouted.

  ‘You’re lying!’

  ‘No! A politician!’

  ‘Who?!

  ‘Save me!!!’

  The boat suddenly jolted heavily as a piece of it broke off. Gunnymede lost his footing. One of Saleem’s hands gave way and he hung on desperately with the other. Gunnymede fought to help him.

  Saleem tried to reach the rail again with the free hand but the angle would not allow it. ‘Save me!!!’ he shouted.

  It was a final desperate cry for help as he felt his grip fail. The hand left the rail but Saleem was still there. Gunnymede had a hold of his wrist. But he was never going to keep it for long. Seconds later, Saleem’s hand popped from Gunnymede’s grip and he shot away with the flow and into the yawning gap in the embankment where he disappeared inside a vast suction of water.

  Gunnymede watched the point where Saleem had disappeared, his only regret he didn’t get the name.

  ‘Dear God!’ one of the station controllers called out and everyone looked at the monitor he was watching. Water burst into one of the platform access tunnels through a disintegrating wall that quickly eroded the ceiling along its length. Another screen showed a different section of tunnel with dozens of people hurrying along it as a side of it burst open with tremendous force slamming them back the way they were going. Within seconds the tunnel was filled with water and the CCTV camera submerged for a few seconds before it failed.

  ‘It’s happened,’ Bethan muttered.

  ‘How long before the rail tunnel doors are closed?’ the senior controller shouted.

  ‘Three minutes,’ came the reply.

  ‘We need to close the internal doors to level three,’ the senior controller urged. ‘Get those people out of the tunnels!’

  ‘Where are those children?’ Bethan asked, pointing to the monitor that showed them still walking along in ignorance of any danger.

  ‘That’s here,’ a controller said, pointing to a tunnel on a station map.

  Bethan took a second to memorise it, ran out of the room, along a walkway and down a set of stairs. At the bottom she sprinted towards the barriers and scrambled over them.

  ‘Stop!’ one of staff cried out but Bethan barged past him, ran to the escalator that wasn’t moving and bounded down it, several steps at a time. When she reached the bottom she paused long enough to work out where she was and set off at a sprint along a tunnel.

  Back in the control room, they watched various CCTV cameras showing people frantically wading through water. Some views showed people finding flights of stairs to escape. One group reached a stairwell only to be thrown down them by the arrival of a wall of water.

  The river gushed into the tunnel the children were in and the adults quickly grabbed the smallest ones and hurried back the way they came. Everyone in the operations room anxiously watched the monitor.

  ‘How far are they from the internal doors?!’ a controller asked.

  One of them indicated the map. ‘They’re here. The doors are here,’ he said concerned. It was not a short distance for children in those conditions.

  ‘Close the doors to half way,’ the senior controller ordered. ‘Start with doors A1 and A2. C3 and 4 standby!’

  Bethan hurried along a corridor knee deep in murky water that was flowing towards her. She paused in shock as a section of the wall started to move before realising it was one of the watertight doors shifting out of its recess. She stood in the opening and shouted for anyone to head towards her.

  The door was halfway across the tunnel when it came to a stop. She heard echoing screams along the tunnel. The water was rising to her waist. She pushed on beyond the watertight door and down the tunnel.

  She came to a short staircase going down with water flowing over the steps like a waterfall. The screams of children came from further below. She held onto the rail as she made her way down the steps. She could see several children hanging onto the rails at the bottom. Adults appeared carrying as many children as they could and Bethan let herself ride the fall to the bottom as she held onto a rail.

  ‘This way! Hurry!’ Bethan shouted as she grabbed a couple of children and began
to pull herself back up the stairs using the rail. The adults followed. A child lost her grip and screamed as she was swept away and out of sight. There was nothing the adults could do but press on.

  Bethan made it to the top of the stairs and around the corner. The water was still rising but the force of the flow had reduced.

  Back in the control room they could see Bethan carrying children with others behind her.

  ‘They’ll make it to the doors,’ someone muttered.

  ‘No they won’t,’ another controller shouted. ‘The doors are closing!’

  They could all see the monitor showing the massive doors moving to the closed position.

  ‘Keep them open!’ the senior controller shouted.

  A controller kept punching a button but to no effect. ‘It’s not working!’ she shouted! ‘I can’t stop them.’

  ‘For God’s sake open them,’ the senior controller pleaded.

  ‘They’re being overridden at the TFL HQ,’ an operator shouted.

  The senior controller picked up the phone and desperately punched in a number.

  Bethan reached the door as it sealed shut. She banged on it, shouting for it to be opened. She looked around for a CCTV camera and waved frantically at it while holding the children.

  A controller buried her face in her hands, unable to look as the water quickly rose to Bethan’s shoulders. Seconds later it was lapping against her face as she trod water. Bethan had to release one of the children in order to keep afloat. Everyone in the control room who dared to watch could not believe what they were seeing.

  Minutes later the tunnel was full and Bethan held tightly to the child as they struggled to suck air from the gap at the ceiling. The gap quickly disappeared and she was completely immersed. Seconds later Bethan succumbed and released the dead child in her final throes.

  It was over. Bethan floated lifelessly. The senior controller was the only one who could stomach watching the monitor. Not that he was really focused on anything. He was in total shock.

  Epilogue

  Gunnymede stood on a bridge over the Thames up the road from the Legoland building holding what was left of the bottle of Scotch while staring down onto the water.