But yes, the noise of this activity should cover the sharp crack of a smashed door.
As marked on my diagram, the entrances to the pair of tunnels, which ran side by side towards the seaboard flank of the station, took the form of small huts sprouting from the open ground. My plan was to force only one of these, and both the doors the other end. Upon my retreat from the place I then proposed to leave the wrong door ajar at the point of re-entry, in the hope of encouraging any possible pursuers to use the wrong tunnel back. They probably wouldn’t wait to get the key. With any luck they would accordingly find themselves in a cul-de-sac.
I’d been doubtful about using this jacking-up gadget for forcing the doors; but Duncan had said that an unskilled man wrestling with a mortice can waste an awful long time without shifting it. A gun is even worse — though you wouldn’t think so from the movies.
I glanced at the loading point. By now the flask had just about two feet further to drop. Then there would be the clank of disconnected chains.
I took a final glance around, my heart thumping. Not a soul within a hundred yards. I could see the guardroom lights but all seemed normal there and they couldn’t conceivably see me.
I got out of the ditch, picked up my gear and started across the grass towards the huts.
Wait! This didn’t feel right! What the hell’s the matter with me?
I started back, not knowing why.
He who hesitates is supposed to be lost. Had I not had second thoughts, however, I would have been arrested then and there.
A police car had suddenly shot round the bend in the approach road, headlights blazing, blue beacon flashing from the roof.
I hurled myself back in the ditch just before the powerful beams swept the spot where I’d been standing.
The car went flat out for the guard room, some two hundred yards to my right. And my stomach twisted out of true. Someone, somewhere, had got a pretty smart idea. I’d better get cracking before they had an even better one.
I chose the left-hand door. This one faced away from the guard room. I clamped the jack into place and started pumping. Across by the truck the hoist had just reached bottom.
I pumped some more.
The chaps across the way clattered the chains beautifully. But there was something like an explosion from the door-lock as it gave.
I froze there.
Nothing happened. The boys were disconnecting the yoke. Matches flared as cigarettes changed hands. I was in the clear.
So down the ladder and in.
The far end I was already sweating from the weight of the gear. Another vertical ladder and another door to force. I fumbled the job and the jack clattered down the steps. Thank God it wasn’t the mini-TV.
I started again. This time the door burst open successfully. I emerged into the night breeze and closed the door behind me, making sure it couldn’t lock.
I was on grass near the sea — well to the north of the main station.
Now for door number three — the decoy. This would be the tunnel with a disappointing exit. But I’d better remember which one to use myself, when the time came.
Aware of my mad heartbeat I applied the jack for the last time.
What a trick this was ... every criminal should have one. I stood the door shut for the time being. I wasn’t keen to advertise my presence just yet.
I dumped the jack in the long grass. That made one less gadget to carry. Consequently I covered the distance to the turbine hall at a commendable speed. I was just in time. A few’ seconds later a group of men came round the outer corner of the building, flashing their torches absentmindedly around the area. One of these was a policeman.
I heard:
‘He couldn’t have got round here without being seen.’
‘Check. What about the other side?’
‘There are five men at the discharging point. He couldn’t have got past. What makes you think he’s making for here?’
The policeman spoke. ‘He’s got to be somewhere.’
‘We could ask the control room.’
‘No. Skip it. I think we’re on the wrong track.’
‘Where was he last seen?’
‘He was heading west on foot, towards Tyrant’s Bay. We laced the phoneboxes with aniseed and had some hounds on him. But they lost the scent.’
‘Well, that’s the wrong way for here.’
‘We were just checking.’
The policeman grinned. ‘Don’t have a power failure tonight,’ he said. ‘I’m told there’s some nudes on the telly.’ A watch was consulted. ‘Starts in a few minutes.’
‘Well ... don’t go mad!’
They’d gone. I exhaled in a long, low whistle. If they’d told the control room! ...
I gave myself a minute to get my breath back, then sauntered through the swing door which gave access to the equipment room.
There was a technician using some gear, over by the long racks which lined one side of the section. He did not seem surprised to see a strange face. An awful lot of people worked here. What was one more?
‘Spud around?’ I asked casually. (Duncan had got hold of this name during his literary visit.)
He signalled with his head. ‘Up on the boiler gallery. Number Six boiler is kaput.’
‘So we’re running on five?’ — This was a real break. It made my task one stage easier.
He replied cynically: ‘That’s what I make it. Six minus one still equals five ... though with this crazy arithmetic they’re teaching my boy nowadays it could be different.’ He bent down to his work again. ‘Tell Spud to stop singing “Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner”. You can hear it all over the bleeding building.’
‘I’ll remind him,’ I said, ‘that this is where the Zider Apples Grow.’
— I didn’t think I would, somehow. To run into this Spud would be disastrous and he was now reportedly in the spot where I had to be — the boiler gallery. Up where that all-important feed-water valve stuck out from the pipe like a steering wheel.
I paused by a lamp to study the plan once more. Duncan had ringed the entrance I now needed, using a blue-coloured crayon. This was the door to the gas-pumping control point. There was a figure marked 369 — the extension number of the duty man’s telephone. I could just see him, too ... sitting in a glass-fronted booth some thirty yards away on ground level. He was reading a sexy magazine. That should hold his interest for long enough.
I found I could reach the steel steps leading upward without coming into his eyeline. But I had to watch out for Spud. Was he somewhere up there?
I picked my way up the stairs, passing a yellow sign with the international radiation symbol on it — a picture that looked a bit like a ship’s propeller. ‘Radiation Zone Class R III’, it menaced. I was unmoved. The super-safety precautions around here were sumptuous. There was loads of margin, so don’t panic.
I heard metallic footsteps clanging my way. I darted in behind a great intestinal wad of piping. This would be Spud on his way down. He passed me, carrying an enormous wrench. A useful weapon indeed with which to deal with intruders. But he saw me not, just taking the steps coolly, whistling to himself. Same tune. Who was I to tell him?
I let him get well clear, and glanced through the glass wall down towards the car park area whence I had originally forced an entrance. I could see the two huts under those huge, fizzing insulators — sparklers in the night. No one near them. But the low-loader, carrying the shielded flask, was just pulling out of the exit. Then silence.
I continued on up, weaved my way between the massive pipes until I found the cock controlling the water to Boiler No. 5. As promised, there was a telephone right by it. From here I could call the man down there in the glass booth. I could see him. He flipped over the page of the sexy magazine. Read on, pal!
Glass walls do not impede radio waves. Here was a good place to set up the flashlight TV. I did so, and got a commercial for cornflakes. A horrible child, cloyed by a simpering mum, told her he loved h
er very much because the cornflakes were so crispy. Mum embraced him at dictation speed. It was obscene. For a second I wondered whether all my efforts were worth it. Sometimes God in his wisdom does not cue us with the best of propaganda.
So Michael Nobody’s show was almost due to start. That didn’t mean I could just slash the power station indiscriminately. Unless Louise’s brother felt dedicated enough and confident enough when it came to the point, any power-loss resulting from a failure here could easily be made up elsewhere on the Grid if those who controlled the reserve stations had time for the run-up.
This was where the mouth organ came in. I played it now — a long A flat. If it still matched the note of the synchronous machinery around me, it meant that the overall strain on the power system was not yet enough to make any action of mine significant.
Spot on. Jack hadn’t acted. Not yet, anyway — if my ear was any judge ... God! I’m not going to make it!
It was a terrible moment. Suddenly everything I had tried to do throughout seemed utterly useless — a farcical charade without meaning. In the eyes of fate I was a figure of fun ... a crank trying to make up for six years’ negligence with one night’s lunacy.
My head spinning, I stumbled across the gallery to the far side, staring through the glass wall out to sea. With an uncertain grip I trained the binoculars on the sea area where I’d seen the anchored ship turning with the tide, radar probing clear water in readiness for surfacing submarines.
At first there was nothing ... not a light to be seen.
Then a brilliant parachute flare spurted into being, then another and then another.
Beneath them, a black-shadow flotilla was revealed. And there was the mother ship, stationed as before. Now, a helicopter rose from her decks and headed towards the nearest of the subs ...
And just supposing I had tried to call the Coastguard now? How would my story sound? Could anything be crazier? As more evidence appeared — a flight of VTOL reconnaissance aircraft lifting in a block from the American airfield, a terse series of commands and acknowledgements on their internal TV — my chances of persuasion lessened each time. ‘A minor naval exercise, old chap ...’ The madman gapes at the hallucinary screen and sees what he fears. Alone he wrestles with imagined horrors while the sane world smiles at the way-out TV show on the network channel ... as now — switching over — I saw Michael Nobody introducing the squirming, semi-copulative groups of half-stripped creatures who surely would have been blacked out had things been normal on the master control panel at ITV?
And Jack Tresbaine, up in London? What of him? Had he by now reconsidered the whole thing, listened to the voice of reason, shrugged off a lone dissenter’s forebodings and laughed it out with his colleagues?
My head pounding with doubts and defeat, I somehow wended my way back to my former position on the gallery, looked down on the quietly collected character with the girly magazine. He turned over the page, crossed his legs over the other way. Number Six Boiler was out. So what? They were running on five, that meant eighty-five per cent power ... more than enough to hold the position.
Then suddenly there came an abrupt drop in the note of the machines. I whipped out the harmonica, pressed the chromatic button, sucked the thing, and prayed.
The machines had dropped down to G!
My head cleared in a microsecond and I picked the phone up in a flash-pulse that was barely behind my racing mind.
Three ... Six ... Nine ...
I heard the bell faintly below, waited for the man to react.
The man in the booth looked up languidly from his magazine, let the instrument ring three times, picked it up, said: ‘Jason here.’
‘This is the control room,’ I said, in my most engineering voice. ‘Can you go across to Spud?’
I saw him reflexively check the instruments on the big board opposite his window. When he spoke he seemed doubtful. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘We’ve got one boiler valved-off. Didn’t you say Grid Control wanted a constant watch? ... We’re down to eighty-five per cent output and —’
‘— That’s the point.’ I said quickly. ‘Spud says we can clear that fault in time for the heavy load. But he wants you on the job.’
‘Why can’t I read my lovely book? ... Okay. Where is he?’
‘In the permit room.’
We then had to hear precisely what Jason felt about Spud, power houses and permit rooms in general.
Only, off he went.
I could now operate without the true position showing up anywhere. Of the three valves controlling water flow at this point, the manual one would not indicate the shut-off on those telltale instruments in the control room. All they’d see down there would be a rapid decrease in boiler output and a sharp rise in reactor inlet temperature. On this they would have to act rapidly. But they wouldn’t know what caused it.
So I got to work on the big wheel. It was bloody stiff and had a long travel. Moreover, the heat up here was overpowering. You could feel the increase already.
But the effect was poetically logical. For at once I could hear Jason’s phone ringing down below. He wasn’t there. By now, things should be quite interesting through in the control room. It was time to go and make them more so.
I hoiked up my gear and clattered back down the steel steps. No one around. But a fresh red light had come up on Jason s indicator panel. This would be duplicated in the control room. Bad luck, chum. Bishops Bight is going to go off the line ...
I dashed to the Equipment Room. The technician of before was still stooping over the unit he’d slid out of the racks. ‘Did you find Spud?’ he asked.
‘Yes, but we have troubles. Number Five boiler, now.’
‘Oh. We’ll be popular.’
‘Can we still run?’
‘Yes ... on low power.’
Lower than you think, chum! ...
He said: ‘I thought I heard a drop in the frequency. What a time to have two boilers out!’
‘These things,’ I said reverently, ‘are sent to try us.’
Now for the control room. Let’s increase the safety margin lavishly.
Like shutting the power station right down ...
All my training in security was now switched on full power, even if the station wasn’t. I had to breeze into that nerve-centre and really look the part.
I told myself, as I took the corridor at my most authoritative gait, that there was no reason why this particular shift should expect to recognize me. And they should be busy ...
They were. The place had more flashing lights than the Christmas decorations in Regent Street. Under a dome-skylight that made the place look like a sort of cathedral for supermen two groups of worried citizens lifted telephones from their hooks like hungry men hoping for a quick meal. They didn’t get one.
Behind the supervising desk at the back, the Duty Engineer fiddled with his glasses, rattled out instructions on the phone while anxiously watching the indicator board across the room. This swept in a panoramic semicircle all the way across. The information it contained was glum. I was about to make it positively tragic.
He was saying: ‘... Yes, two stations in the London area. Out like a bloody light. Some clot ordered an early shut-down! Frequency’s down to forty-eight now and they’re bringing in Ffestiniog ... No, that’s right. It won’t take the load during the commercial but they’re bringing in the stand-bys at Fulham and Battersea ... I don’t know, cock! For some reason Grid Control say no load-shedding whatever happens. All I can say is, they should be here!’
Someone called across from the other side. The voice was far from happy. But at least it kept the limelight off me. ‘Hey! We’re taking up a big new load!’
Everyone paused, stared, grimaced as with broken hearts.
The needle of the frequency meter, the equivalent of my mouth organ, was flickering down towards forty-seven — a minor key indeed.
And I knew what this meant. It meant hope. Duncan had evidently succeeded in sabotaging Group
Three’s internal supply, for they’d switched over to the public mains. Hence the extra load showing here.
The Duty Engineer’s spectacles fogged as he phoned through: ‘Grid Control?.,. What’s this about not load-shedding? We can’t avoid — What? Repeat that!’
A pause.
‘Defence? What rubbish! ... Well, somebody’s got their lines crossed.’ Then, heavy sarcasm: ‘Yes that’s fine; only there doesn’t happen to be any war ...’
At the mention of war there was what you could justly term riveted attention. If there was ever a moment for action, this was it.
The console controlling Reactor Number Two — the one now running on the lowest power — was nearest to the door I’d come through. While faces were turned back towards the main desk I took three strides and jammed the lever hard over towards the down position, holding it there.
I’d let go before the operator had time to look back. But all the wrath of hell broke out when the ding-dong alarm system added an unwelcome musical background to what was there already. As I still had to deal with Reactor Number One — the console for this was over the other side — I needed a diversion. Since Number One was running normally I’d have to hang on to the lever much longer. But how?
I waited too long. For someone hit the cancel button and the alarm stopped ringing. Fun and games indeed when soon it would shrill into action a second time for an even better reason.
I decided to apply the age-old device of double-bluff — drawing attention to the very crisis that I myself had caused in the first place.
‘Christ!’ I yelled. ‘This one’s a bit low, isn’t it?’
Lugubrious heads turned towards the inker on the recording chart.
They looked again, in one of the most unanimous double-takes I’ve ever seen.
The graph was plunging straight downhill on a gradient better than Pollock Hill.
With a blank expression of sheer deadpan numbness, the operator snatched the control rod lever and turned it to UP, with such violence that a lesser handle would have snapped off. ‘Come up, you bastard!’ he raged. The venom in his voice alone might have done the job, only this reactor wasn’t listening.
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