by Helen Black
‘You are shitting me,’ said Carole-Ann.
‘I wish I was,’ Clem replied and tapped the smooth cheek of Jo Connolly.
At the stadium, Clem’s heartstrings tightened. Crowds were already forming, with groups of children gathered in packs, chattering like monkeys. He put his radio to his ear. Everyone on the ground was pitched into the same frequency, and Carole-Ann was listening in back at base. ‘Everyone in position?’ he asked.
The resounding response was affirmative.
Clem passed through the security gates and nodded to the operative. ‘Everything under control?’
‘Yes, Clem.’
He patted the X-ray machine installed moments ago. ‘No one gets in without a full body and bag scan,’ he said.
‘Roger that.’
‘It’s going to take time,’ said Clem. ‘You got enough manpower?’
The operative gestured to a band of security guards hovering in the background drinking tea from polystyrene cups.
Each entrance had the same set-up. He checked them all.
‘What happens if we do catch a suspect?’ asked the operative on the south stand.
‘Are your men armed?’ he asked.
‘With batons and mace,’ she replied.
‘And you?’
She pushed her coat aside to show the holster of her handgun.
‘Okay then,’ said Clem. ‘You detain if at all possible.’
‘What if it’s a suicide job?’ she asked.
Good question. Clem paused. It was the worst-case scenario. ‘Begin procedure 42.’
The woman’s face remained straight but Clem spotted the gulp in her throat. Procedure 42 was a system designed to ensure terrorists and other dangerous individuals were stopped before the threat escalated. Shoot to kill was acceptable.
‘No chances,’ said Clem. ‘No mistakes.’
The girl nodded.
Satisfied the entrances were under control, Clem moved into the stadium. In each row of seats an operative was slowly working from left to right, checking each nook and cranny with a detector. High above, the sound of helicopter blades lacerated the air as the police made endless surveillance sweeps.
Clem’s radio crackled into life. ‘How’s it looking down there, Clem?’ asked Carole-Ann.
Clem rubbed his chin. The thudding in his chest was subsiding to an insistent knock. ‘We’re getting there. What’s happening at your end?’
‘I’ve got Malik and his team scouring the wires for any chatter.’
‘And?’
‘And sweet FA so far.’
‘That’s not good,’ said Clem.
‘Of course it could mean that nothing is going to happen today,’ she said.
Clem grunted. It was entirely possible that Ronnie had nothing planned for today. That she knew the risks were too great. ‘What about the screens?’ he asked.
‘I’m patched in to every camera in a three-mile radius.’
‘Three miles isn’t much.’
Carole-Ann sucked her teeth. ‘That’s over a hundred cameras. Do you know how much footage that is?’
‘You sound like Benning.’
‘And you’re gonna get a kick in the tush when next we meet.’
Clem laughed. ‘So what can you see?’
‘There’s a lot of peeps out there,’ she said. ‘We’re sweeping everyone for our girl.’
‘Isn’t that like looking for a needle in a haystack?’ asked Clem.
‘I’m using digital recognition. The programme is checking every face to see if it matches our Ronnie.’
‘She might use someone else,’ said Clem.
‘Sure, so I’ve got a team looking for anything or anyone that looks sus.’
‘Is that a technical term?’
‘Uh huh. We look for shifty eyes and fake beards.’
Clem laughed again. He knew Carole-Ann would have her best profilers on the job. For the first time that day, he felt as if he had a handle on the situation.
Most of the nurses in the hospital are fine. They don’t say much, but if Isaac is in a lot of pain they might put a cool hand on his arm and give some medicine or a jab.
Nurse Mary-Joan is an exception. If there’s a meaner woman on this earth, Isaac ain’t met her. If he needs help to sit up, she’ll jerk him so the hot wound in his chest jars.
If he can’t feed himself, she’ll knock the soup spoon against his teeth.
One day he woke up from a dream with a jump. This happens a lot. Isaac drifts away, the noises around him bending and stretching like a string of gum, until he can see and hear Mama and Pa and Noah and Rebecca and Veronica-Mae as clearly as if they were standing at his bedside. Sometimes they’re all sitting round having supper, Noah braggin’ and Pa telling him to hush up while they help themselves to some of Ma’s stew with big yellow bricks of warm corn bread on the side. Then, as if someone has reached inside the dream and caught him by the collar, he’s dragged back.
‘Nightmare?’ she asked him.
Isaac was surprised, ’cos Nurse Mary-Joan ain’t never seen fit to speak to him before, so he just nodded yes.
‘I heard that nightmares come from inside our hearts,’ she said.
Isaac thought she was probably right. He always seemed to be dreaming about the family.
‘Thing is, I heard something else too.’ She looked over her shoulder as if she had a secret to keep, then bent over so Isaac could see the whiskers on her top lip. ‘I heard you ain’t got no heart.’
He watched her now, outside the ward, laughing with the policemen that are always stationed there. Sometimes she brings them coffee and maybe a piece of pie. She never brings Isaac a piece of pie.
When she enters his room, her smile drops away like a pebble in water. She smoothes the blanket over him, tugging just a little too hard so he rocks from side to side. He doesn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing how much it hurts.
‘A little bird told me something today,’ she says.
Isaac refuses to react, stares straight ahead.
‘About your sister,’ she says.
He can’t stop himself from flinching.
‘Veronica-Mae, is it?’ she asks.
When Isaac doesn’t answer she turns away, humming to herself. He has no choice but to speak to the poisonous old hag.
‘Is she all right?’
Nurse Mary-Joan glances back at him, her lips one white line of tight-ness. ‘Well now, she’s fine, considering.’
Isaac lets out a sigh of relief.
‘Been discharged, actually,’ Nurse Mary-Joan continues.
Isaac’s mouth drops open. ‘Did she go home? To Mama?’
‘Oh no, child.’ Nurse Mary-Joan gives a tinkle of laughter, showing every last one of her yellow teeth. ‘Your mama is dead.’
Chapter Twelve
I’m still on the floor of the caravan, the radio playing in the background. I keep hoping the police are going to arrive any second and save me, but I’m not some character on the telly. Even if anyone has noticed my disappearance, they will have no idea where I am. Christ, I don’t know where I am.
A sudden scraping at the door makes my heart leap. Ronnie? The noise comes again and I grit my teeth.
Then comes a caw. Not Ronnie. A seagull. I have a fleeting memory of a holiday in Brighton. Me and Davey, both less than ten years old, sitting on the white pebble beach, throwing chips from a polystyrene tray for the birds. Some of the gulls swooped down and managed to catch the chips in their beaks mid-flight. Davey applauded them like a demented cheerleader.
I’ve got to get out of here. I can’t just give up.
I glance at the door. It’s rusted and flimsy, the lock from a bygone age. Would a kick force it open? I wriggle along the floor on my belly and lie in front of it, then I tense my stomach muscles and flip myself onto my back. If I scoot towards it, I can bend my knees and get some force into my legs.
Taking a deep breath, I hear the crowds on the radio and bring my knees
into my chest, then kick out with all my strength. I thank God for all the time I’ve spent at the gym as my feet thud against the door, rattling it in its frame. I pull my knees in again and brace myself for another go.
Crack. The blow strains the lock. One more and it will break, I know it will.
I steady myself. I need to concentrate as much energy as I have into my next attack.
Bang. The lock splinters just liked I banked on and my chest sings. But my elation is short-lived – I had been expecting the door to fly open, letting in a rush of salty wind and sunlight. Instead it remains shut.
I nudge it with the sole of my foot but it doesn’t budge. The lock is in two pieces, but something else is holding the door shut. I press harder, not feeling any give. Something behind the door is jamming it closed.
I drop my legs to the floor. Ronnie has barred my escape route from outside.
Rory lets Ronnie into the flat. Ronnie is empty-handed. She told Rory she would bring another towel. Rory can’t see a towel.
‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I haven’t been able to go to the shops yet.’
Rory likes having four towels. One on the towel rail in the bathroom. One in the top drawer in his bedroom. One in the wash. And one spare. With three towels the schedule doesn’t work.
‘I’ll get you one as soon as I can,’ says Ronnie. ‘Okay?’
‘When?’
Ronnie sighs. This means she is frustrated with Rory. Imelda always told Rory that his ‘inflexibility annoys people’.
‘You know things are tricky right now, don’t you, Rory?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he replies. He is not sorry for wanting the towel, but he is sorry for his inflexibility.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ she says and glances at the screens. ‘Any mention of me?’
Rory grabs the log, relieved that Ronnie is no longer annoyed. He hands the list to her. There are hundreds of entries. Rory hasn’t been able to keep up. He clicks into the secure website he has hacked and points.
‘Who?’ asks Ronnie
‘MI5.’
‘Where?’
Rory clicks to a Sky television station. He hates television. Even on mute the pictures make his eyes hurt. He squeezes them shut while Ronnie checks the scene of the crowds gathering outside the Olympic stadium.
‘You can open your eyes now, Rory.’
He does so and immediately clicks away to Platformnow.
‘Are you sure they can’t trace anything on your PC?’ asks Ronnie.
Rory is very careful. He has built a clean machine, taken a ghost of it and stored it on a partition in his hard drive. He cleans it, checks it and double checks it every day.
‘Yes,’ he says.
‘What about anything coming back to you?’ she asks.
Rory has set up his own access points piggybacking off other wireless networks in his area. He shakes his head.
‘I worry about you,’ she says. ‘If they catch you they’ll put you away, you know?’
‘Away?’
‘Prison or hospital,’ she says. ‘You’d hate that, wouldn’t you?’
‘I’m not ill,’ says Rory.
‘Not that sort of hospital,’ she says. ‘Look, I just want to know that all this is secure.’
Rory runs through his security in his head. He has done this a thousand times. Mistakes can be made.
‘Is it?’ she asks.
‘It is secure,’ he says.
Ronnie smiles at him. ‘So,’ she says, pointing at Platformnow. ‘You’re still in touch with Hawk.’
Rory blinks at the screen.
‘What do you talk about?’ she asks.
Rory shrugs. They talk about all sorts of things. Time, space, computers, guns.
‘Please be careful, Rory,’ she says. ‘He’s an extreme person.’
Rory doesn’t know what this means.
‘He can be dangerous. You know that, don’t you?’ she says.
Rory points to the log. ‘They say that about you.’
The crowds streamed into the stadium and took their seats. First tens, then hundreds, then thousands.
Clem watched the flow of people. Any one of them might be carrying a weapon or a bomb. They were easy to make, even more easy to conceal. The London nail bomber had cobbled together homemade devices with nails, screws and pieces of old scissors before letting them do their damage in a pub and on the streets.
‘Hey.’ Carole-Ann’s voice fizzed across the airwaves.
‘Talk to me,’ said Clem. ‘What do you see?’
‘Nada.’
‘Keep looking,’ he said.
Clem thought he heard the trace of a sigh from the other end. He was being hard work and he knew it.
‘Shit,’ Carole-Ann shouted.
‘What?’ Clem tensed. ‘What’s happening?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she said.
‘Be sure. Be very, very sure.’
‘Security have a guy,’ she said. ‘The X-ray’s gone off.’
‘Where?’
‘Entrance to south stand.’
Clem ran, pushing through the advancing crowd. ‘Oi! Watch it,’ a man holding a Union Jack shouted. Clem ignored him and made for the south stand entrance. The sound of screaming told him he was in the right place.
A young male, around eighteen years old, was standing by the X-ray machine clutching a rucksack to his chest.
The female operative Clem had spoken to earlier had her gun drawn and pointed at him. Clem felt for his own weapon. There were people all around trying to retreat but for many there was nowhere to go. A bottleneck was forming behind and Clem could hear the panic rising.
‘Put the bag down,’ the woman said, her voice loud but clear.
The young man shook his head.
Clem watched him carefully. The lad was breathing heavily, obviously scared. And yet there was something odd about him. Something not quite right.
‘Put it down now.’ The woman raised her voice a notch.
The lad took a step back.
‘One more move and I will have to shoot you,’ she told him.
Clem’s hand snaked around the handle of his Sig and gently he removed it. The area was too constricted. Too many civilians. If there was a bomb in the bag, everyone in the vicinity would be killed. Mentally he calculated the risk.
‘Bag. Down. Now.’ The operative was shouting, one eye closed, her stance making it clear she was ready to offload at any second.
Clem readied his own weapon. Someone behind him gasped. The sound attracted the attention of the terrorist and he looked at Clem quizzically, his head cocked to one side.
‘Neither my colleague nor I will miss from this range,’ Clem said. ‘Do you understand?’
Something in the boy’s eyes told Clem that he didn’t. Not really. ‘We don’t want to shoot you,’ said Clem. ‘We just want you to put down the bag.’
The boy’s lips moved as if he were repeating Clem’s words.
‘That’s right,’ said Clem. ‘Just put the bag down and everything will be fine.’
‘Fine,’ the boy echoed. ‘Everything will be fine.’
Clem nodded and pointed to a spot on the floor where the boy could place his rucksack.
The boy looked at the ground and smiled. Then he bolted. Like a wild animal out of a trap, he leapt backwards, turning in midair. With the rucksack still in his fists he dashed through the entry tunnel towards the stadium.
Panic broke out around Clem as the crowd scrabbled to get out of his way.
The operative turned to Clem. He nodded. Procedure 42. Both agents released their loads into the boy’s back.
There’s another noise at the caravan door. I pray it’s another seagull, but there’s a cough and I know it’s Ronnie. There’s a pause, and then the scrape of metal as she moves whatever was barricading the door. As soon as she opens it, she’ll see the lock is broken. And then she’ll kill me.
I’m still on my back in front of it and I’ll be the first thi
ng she sees. There’s a chance she might be shocked. That element of surprise is all I have. I must use it to my advantage. If I kick out quickly and hard enough, I might be able to knock her off balance. She’ll be at the top of the steps and perhaps she’ll fall backwards. What I’ll do then, I have no idea, but my options are limited. I pull my knees into my chest and wait.
When the door opens I catch sight of her white face, those eyes taking in my position, working out what’s happened. I take my chance and kick her as hard as I can, connecting with her thighs.
She grunts and, as I’d hoped, loses her footing. She grasps for the doorframe but her fingers slip as she crashes backwards out of sight. I hear the clang as she thuds down the steps.
‘Motherfucker!’ she shouts.
I ready myself to go again, legs bent, feet upward. When she reappears in the doorway, I kick out again. The impact is strong. The sound of my feet against her legs is sickening, enough to break a bone. This time, though, she’s ready. She absorbs the shock, her knuckles white as she refuses to release the doorframe.
I jam my legs towards her again, determined to send her flying. This time I don’t connect. Instead she dives up and over the attack, crashing on top of me. With my hands pinned underneath me I can only try to shake her off, but she’s like a terrier, her grip secure.
She’s straddling me now, her hands pushing into my shoulders. Her eyes bore into mine and her fingers move around my throat. I gag and gasp for air, arching my back to buck her off me.
Then I hear gunshots. They’re coming from the radio. There’s screaming and shouting. Instinctively, we both turn towards the sound.
‘I’m here at the south gate,’ the presenter’s voice is staccato with panic. ‘There’s a problem here. A young man has been shot by the police.’ More screams fill the air.
‘He’s on the floor and there is blood everywhere,’ the presenter is panting. ‘The police are standing over him. They’re searching his coat and bag. Oh my God, oh my God.’
Sirens screech and something incomprehensible is called over the public address system.
‘I think they’re looking for a bomb,’ says the presenter. ‘I think they’ve caught a terrorist.’
Something in me snaps. Another attack. How many innocent people was Ronnie hoping to hurt this time? Hundreds? Thousands?