The station loudspeaker system unexpectedly comes to life, an automated male voice audible everywhere all at once.
‘Attention. All passengers, please leave the station immediately. I repeat, all passengers, please leave the station immediately. The station is now closed. No further trains will be operating until further notice. Please use the escalators and leave the station now.’
The decision has finally been taken to close the tube. Lewis checks the phone. The wireless signal has also disappeared. At last, the authorities are trying to re-establish control.
Are they too late?
Lewis thinks they might be.
So: fight or flight?
Lewis hasn’t come this far to run away.
All the ‘down’ escalators have stopped working.
So now he has to walk down – it’s no big deal.
If he’s right – and this is the station: will it be a fair fight? Somehow, Lewis doubts it. How to even up the odds, that is the challenge he faces?
He is unable to see a back staircase. There is probably one, but he doesn’t believe it is worth his time to try and find it.
So, since it’s fight not flight, he has only the one option: he begins walking down.
Several people are using the upward escalator, escaping the lower level platforms. London Underground don’t realise it, but they are most likely playing into Panich’s hands. They pass Lewis walking down and look back at him with frowns and worried looks on their faces. Hasn’t he heard the warning? Lewis ignores them. It is not a long escalator. Ten more steps and he is at the bottom.
Left or right?
Left is the northbound platform: right for the southbound. Toss a coin time.
Lewis turns left.
The platform is deserted. The loudspeaker system continues its recorded message. It is on a continuous loop. The words echo and sound hollow in the empty station. Lewis looks around. It feels like a platform in mid-construction: the walls are stripped bare, the tiles removed; the ceiling void full of girders and brackets, waiting for cladding and finishings to be added; various cables and wires are also exposed. There are no CCTV cameras anywhere.
Lewis walks along the platform, not sure what to expect. Every sinew of his body is on alert. He checks the phone in his pocket: there are no new messages. The track has a slight curve to it, meaning that Lewis is unable to see from one end to the other. He gets to about halfway, and finds a passageway off to his right that connects this platform to the adjacent one. It is about twenty metres in length. He decides to take it. The passageway is narrow, the décor unusual: there is dark blue, painted, brickwork on both sides: a locked door to his left, the door having a tatty sign stuck on it with black electrical tape that is peeling away slightly. Up ahead, just a short distance away, is the other platform.
‘ . . . please leave the station immediately. The station is now closed. No further trains will be operating until further notice. Please use the escalators . . . ,’ the recording continues as Lewis steps onto the platform.
Left or right?
Lewis turns right.
122
Panich had never been so grateful to Vasily and his team of watchers. Lewis was on his way, right this minute, from the Central Line platforms to where he, Panich, was waiting. Estimated time of arrival: ninety seconds. Panich couldn’t wait. The end game was about to begin: suitably close to where the Nemikovs were already in position and waiting. With a special place reserved specifically for Ben Lewis: right in the middle of them. They would be a happy threesome, enjoying the countdown together; all of them watching the clock as it got closer and closer to zero hour – each able to do absolutely nothing to stop the explosion that would soon be killing all three instantly.
Not that Panich wanted Lewis to have a pain-free ride to his death-bed. Nor did he expect him to either. Which explained the baseball bat. He’d acquired this at the sports shop across the road during a cigarette break. He wanted Lewis to die hurting: a broken man. The bat would soften him up; and then Panich would go to work on him with his prosthetic hand. He was looking forward to that especially. He would be starting with Lewis’s hands, exactly like he had with the younger Nemikov. Next he would progress to other, more painful, parts of Lewis’s anatomy. Then he would set the timer on the explosive device and leave.
The public address system announcement was something that he hadn’t expected. It seemed to be on a continuous loop. The absence of passengers was, in hindsight, more a help rather than a hindrance.
‘ . . . further notice. Please use the escalators and leave the station immediately.’
After three or four repetitions, Panich was tuning the words out. Now in position, hiding and waiting, his back was resting flat against the platform wall. He was tucked into a small recess, just to one side of where he predicted Lewis would emerge any time now. Very close to the special room. All he needed was to see Lewis. As he emerged onto the platform. If Lewis turned right, away from him, then Panich was ready to crush the man’s upper forearm from behind. If he turned left, then Lewis would receive a baseball bat directly in the face.
123
‘ . . . notice. Please use the escalators and leave the station now. Attention. All passengers, please leave the station immediately.’
An elderly passenger distracts him up ahead to the right.
She is in the throes of trying to leave the platform. Her movement catches his eye, which cause him to turn her way in the first place. Ordinarily, he might have gone to help her: he advances one step and then stops.
‘ . . . The station is now closed. No further trains will be operating until further notice.’
Conceivably he hears Panich’s muffled footsteps coming his way, positioning himself behind Lewis as he is about to swing the baseball bat. Perhaps he feels, or hears, the rush of air as the bat swings with all of Panich’s force towards Lewis’s right arm? The reasons are not relevant. Instinct has saved his life before; and it saves his life this time.
Reaction is equal and opposite to inaction.
It is his colour sergeant once again: one of the basic laws of fighting physics. The mottos keep coming back, time and again.
Unknown danger behind. Clear field of play immediately in front. Urgent reaction required, Soldier!
Lewis rolls forward on to the platform in front of him. He almost times it perfectly – but not quite. The speed of Panich’s downward swing, its trajectory aimed directly at the place where Lewis’s right arm had moments earlier been, allows it to connect with Lewis nonetheless: later in its trajectory than had been planned – with some of its energy dissipated as a result – but still contact is made. The points of impact for both sender and receiver are, however, different. Lewis, on the receiving end of a slightly more glancing blow than intended, gets hit on his inner left thigh: the leg directly in the baseball bat’s swing trajectory as Lewis is rolling his torso forwards through three hundred and sixty degrees. For Panich, the blow connects with its target not in the centre of the baseball bat – but at its tip, creating a stronger counter-leverage effect than expected. Panich struggles to control the bat, the resultant torque along its length is strong; the weakness in Panich’s left wrist caused by his shard of glass wound causing him to drop the bat.
Lewis rolls on to his feet but his left leg is severely weakened. His femur is not broken, but the area around it is screaming painful warnings: the muscle tissues are damaged and he will be bleeding internally. He sees Panich, stooping down to pick up the baseball bat. With the moment upon him, Lewis charges, using power from his good right leg to get him moving. It is a one-step, two-step, three-step manoeuvre.
Step one is the initial power lunge; the power being delivered by muscles in both his right calf and thigh. It is well executed, allowing well over a third of the distance between the two men to be co
vered in that first initial stride.
Step two is the problem, the weak link in the chain. In step two he wants to land, full force, on his left leg, needing power and strength within the leg muscles, to provide stability and strength at the landing point. Step two, however, is problematic. As he lands on what is now his bad leg, he feels the muscle weakness severely: involuntarily, his knee starts to buckle. Despite every conscious instruction from his brain to the contrary, the leg is unable to hold his body weight.
The result is that step three, the intended power-spring off his left leg that should have allowed his right knee to connect with Panich’s stooped face, lowered as he bends to pick up the baseball bat, never gets delivered. Instead Lewis falls clumsily to the ground, his forward momentum causing his body to roll on to its left side, his head swivelling back to the ground and with his feet in front of him.
Not what Lewis had intended.
Although, it doesn’t prevent him from executing an inelegant improvised version of step three.
No longer able to deliver a knee directly into Panich’s face, he does the next best thing: he swings his right foot at the same target.
Lewis’s heavy soled boot connects directly with Panich’s nose, the strength of the kick sufficient to cause the sound of the nose cartilage breaking to make a sickening crunch. Blood starts to gush as the Russian, knocked off balance, now falls to the ground.
Panich reacts with surprising speed. Ignoring the pain and bleeding, he raises himself up, sending his prosthetic right arm in a downward chopping motion aimed directly at Lewis’s left thigh. It is a clumsy move, and there is limited strength in the blow itself, but the motorised fingers succeed in clamping around the damaged tissue in the area around Lewis’s thigh muscle. Panich then begins to squeeze. At the same time, he deploys his left hand to pin Lewis’s right foot to the ground, using his body weight bearing down on top to help keep Lewis immobilised.
Lewis tries sitting up, the screaming pain in his upper left leg making this difficult. Panich’s face is out of reach of both of Lewis’s hands: his only available weapon is his right leg, currently pinned down by Panich’s left hand and the Russian’s body weight as the two men wrestle against each other. The pain in Lewis’s leg starts to get a lot worse. Lewis needs to think, but his mind is fogging. His hands might be free, but Panich’s face and body are out of reach; the only part that isn’t is the Russian’s prosthetic hand, currently squeezing the life out of his left thigh muscle and bone. Lewis is running out of options, close to blacking out.
He tries wriggling free, snaking about on his back to move his good leg. The pain in his other leg stops him progressing too far. It is becoming unbearable, Panich’s mechanised thumb now mining deep into his muscle tissue towards bone.
Then he feels something. With a rush of gratitude, he remembers.
Behind his back; tucked into the small recess there.
His knife.
The same one that had evaded Fedorov on that fateful first visit to Arkady Nemikov.
Lewis fumbles behind his back with his left hand, keeping his right free in case Panich, in a moment of stupidity, brings his face within striking distance. Lewis grabs the shaft of the knife, wrestling the blade free from its harness, bringing it within an inch of being exposed underneath his left side. All the while he watches Panich’s face: sees the winning glint in his eyes: and senses the pleasure the man is getting from the pain and suffering he is causing.
124
Panich never sees it coming. He has been focusing on the wrong things for just a few nanoseconds too long: in particular, getting his brain to send the right myoelectric signals from his upper forearm muscles to the electric motors in his prosthetic digits.
It is the difference between win and lose. Once the small but deadly blade has embedded itself deep in Panich’s upper left arm muscle, Lewis knows that he is in with a fighting chance of winning back the advantage.
Panich does what Lewis hopes he would do. He releases the pressure that his motorised fingers are exerting on his left thigh and tries to grab the knife blade with his prosthesis. He shifts his body weight in the process, allowing Lewis to move his right leg so that it wriggles free. Instantly, he aims a punching kick right with this same right leg directly into the zone where Lewis is certain that Panich’s prosthesis is connected to his upper arm. The artificial arm immediately detaches itself from the stump on Panich’s forearm. Sensing a winning opportunity, Lewis pulls the arm away from Panich’s body and hurls it, clumsily, towards the platform edge where it clatters over the side and on to the tracks below.
Panich, his face still bleeding badly and with Lewis’s knife embedded in his upper arm, tries using his teeth to pull the knife blade clear. Lewis anticipates this. Sitting up, he aims a sharp right hook directly into the Russian’s jaw. Panich flies backwards with the force of Lewis’s blow, allowing Lewis to finally wriggle free and attempt to stand on one leg. The process of standing is difficult: putting weight on his left leg is another thing entirely. Taking his eye off Panich for a second, he tests his left leg and winces. It isn’t broken and the bone doesn’t feel fractured. On the other hand, the thigh muscles are badly traumatised, weak and unresponsive.
When he looks back at Panich, Lewis sees that the Russian is also back on his feet. This time he has something in his left hand. Surprisingly, it is neither a knife nor a gun. It is a small, plastic, black-coloured, box. On one surface, there is a tiny, hinged, lid. Panich has flipped the lid to the ‘open’ position, his thumb resting on the red button underneath.
“This is the end of the line, Lewis. For both of us, I am afraid.”
“Not necessarily,” Lewis replies.
“Don’t fool yourself. You, me, the Nemikovs: we’re all about to die. Just you watch.” He presses the red button. Nothing appears to happen. Except that Panich’s face, although covered in blood and despite the knife sticking out of his arm, is grinning.
‘ . . . All passengers, please leave the station immediately. I repeat, all passengers . . .’
“And so the countdown begins,” Panich says in a loud voice to be heard above the tannoy. “In exactly five minutes, we will all be dead – and there’s absolutely nothing you are going to be able to do to stop it.”
Lewis takes a step towards Panich, gritting his teeth against the pain in his leg. Panich moves as well, this time towards the platform edge.
‘ . . . The station is now closed. No further trains will be operating until further . . .’
“Where have you hidden the bomb, Panich?” Lewis calls out, he too raising his voice. “Where are Olena and Borys?”
“Getting anxious, all of a sudden? It’s too late for that. Everything that is about to happen: it’s as much for you, and all the pain you’ve caused. I’m not bothered about myself: I’ve got cancer. By all accounts, I should have been dead a long time ago. Just think of it as all being for you: for all that you stand for.”
“Where is it, Panich?” Lewis shouts over the tannoy announcements.
But Panich is no longer listening. Unable to intervene, Lewis watches aghast as the Russian gives a wolfish grin before, in one final dramatic move, jumping off the platform edge. Spreading his left arm and legs into a star-shape, he flings himself deliberately on to the live electrified rails below. The sound is sickening. The high voltage in the live electric rails creates a massive electric current that racks Panich’s body. It twitches uncontrollably for several seconds, then stops. For some reason, the tannoy also stops at the same moment.
By the clock in Lewis’s head, he has less than four minutes until the bomb will explode.
125
Saul Zeltinger emerged from Oxford Street station and was busy contemplating where to go next, when his phone rang. It was a young constable, Adam Cartwright, from his own police station at nearby Savile Row.
“Sorry to trouble you, Sir. You know you asked for off-the-wall ideas about where the bomb could be?”
“Go on.”
“Well, I’ve just had a thought. How about Crossrail, Sir?”
“What about it?” Saul said a little impatiently.
“What if a bomb were placed in one of the tube locations close to the Crossrail tunnels?”
“Is this all idle speculation or do you have some reason for this hypothesis, Cartwright?”
“Well, Sir, at Tottenham Court Road in particular, the Northern Line and Crossrail tunnels pass incredibly close by each other. There was a programme about it on the telly just the other night, that’s why I remembered it. Less than a metre apart, perhaps closer. Think of the disruption and havoc a bomb could wreak there. ”
“Well, it’s a nice idea, Cartwright, but Lewis is sadly heading in the opposite direction on the Central Line. Sorry.”
“Oh, okay. Well, it was only an idea. It just struck me as an ideal location, what with the station being redeveloped and everything.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, that I suspect all sorts of old rooms and cupboards that people never knew existed get uncovered during station upgrades. You asked for ideas about where the room might be. I hope you don’t mind my suggesting it. I’ll have another think.”
“You do that, Cartwright. Just a suggestion: next time, try and back up your hypotheses with a few facts to support them, can you?”
He rang off and shook his head. Crossrail was, he had had to admit, an interesting idea. However, it was only one more to add to several that were already high on his worry list. Such as Oxford Circus itself. The truth was, that no one had a clue.
The Gambit (Ben Lewis Thriller Book 2) Page 30