As busy as it had been that Saturday, traffic in the surrounding streets still flowed freely. This time Louisa couldn’t get anywhere near the station. She abandoned her car half a mile away to self-park and set off on foot. When she turned off Victoria Street she realised why the traffic had been so bad. The roads surrounding the station’s triangular plaza, normally filled with buses and taxis dropping travellers off at the station, were now a sea of people. Victoria was second only to Waterloo for the amount of passengers passing under its oversized archway. But it had been sealed off by police for two hours now and every peaking feed was covering the hostage crisis. Travellers should have made other arrangements. Especially after the Portal bombing.
Louisa was about to turn back and try to work her way around to the other side of the station when she noticed the spinners fluttering over the crowd. She brought up her Portal interface and searched for public feeds in the vicinity. Hundreds of semi-transparent icons popped into view, representing shared feeds from people in the crowd and nearby businesses. The sheer volume made individual feeds hard to differentiate. Louisa ignored them all and focussed on an icon hovering above one of the circling spinners. A window opened, and enlarged, offering Louisa an eagle-eyed view.
A ring of crowd control barriers fenced off the entrance and the nearby Hudson’s place, where a MIR had been parked. Uniformed MET officers manned the barriers, keeping a wary eye on the crowd. Facing the officers, jammed tight against the metal rails, gathered guerrilla casters and newscast crews.
Not everyone in the crowd was sharing out their implants. Curiously a knot in the center remained devoid of feeds. Louisa zoomed in the sense footage. Every one of them wore a Multiverse clan hoodie, with the hood raised and falseface deployed. And their numbers were growing, fed by a steady stream working their way through the tightly packed mass. With relief she noted their hoodies sported a myriad of clan badges, none of which were the Sons of Babel’s interweaving symbol.
Officers from the MET’s specialist firearms unit, SCO19, trooped out from Hudson’s Place and took position behind the barriers, facing what they believed to be a materialising threat. An eerie stillness settled over the plaza. The crowd had become aware of the clan members now too. A gap cleared around the hoodie wearers who stood in silence, arms folded, facing the station’s arched entrance.
It was a ghost mob, Louisa realised an instant before the air above the crowd lit up with a huge banner. And on it, animated in flames, the Sons of Babel clan badge. It appeared the Sons had found support for their cause amongst the Multiverse community.
The guerrilla casters and news anchors at the barrier now turned to face the banner. They shouted a barrage of questions at the clan members, but were met with resolute silence. Some in the crowd decided it was time to leave, pushing their way through to the edges, but most stayed. They were no doubt were curious to see what might happen, but others were angered by the clan members’ presence. Jeers and catcalls echoed around the plaza, telling the clan members to leave, that they weren’t welcome here, or in England for that matter. A half-full bottle of water arched high over her head and fell amongst them.
Louisa decided it was time to move too. She set off toward the barrier, making use of the aerial view to stick to the less dense parts of the crowd. It proved slow going. She prayed whoever was in charge of crowd control wouldn’t attempt to disperse the clan members. For the moment they seemed content to make their point peacefully. She stopped before the barriers at Hudson’s Place, approached the nearest officer and broadcast her profile ID.
‘I’m DI Louisa Bennett,’ she said, ‘Officer Carter is expecting me.’
The constable looked through her for a second while he checked her credentials, then nodded. ‘This way, Inspector.’ He unhooked a link between two of the barriers and lifted one back a step, leaving a space wide enough for her to squeeze past. She hurried across to the MIR.
The Mobile Incident Room was a duplicate of SCD7’s vehicle. Inside, plain-clothes officers manned its consoles. The wall screen held dozens of feeds, including spinner footage and shared implant feeds originating from officers on the ground. Drew stood behind the operators with another man wearing dark blue jeans and a red and white checked shirt.
‘Louisa.’ Drew moved to greet her, his smile strained. ‘How’s Ben doing?’
‘The same,’ she replied, with a flash of guilt. Drew believed she’d come straight from the hospital. In fact she’d only received his message once she crossed back over the M25. ‘And the Lord Mayor?’
‘Still alive, as far as we know.’
‘What happened down there?’
‘See for yourself. We have footage taken from inside the Crossrail concourse.’
He sent her an NCA Subnet link. It expanded into a sense window. She enlarged the frame and anchored it to the MIR’s rear wall.
‘A reporter accompanying the mayor was sharing out a live feed,’ Drew said.
The feed lurched into motion. It was most likely sourced from his optical implants the way it bobbed around. The reporter followed behind the mayor, his entourage, and rail officials, down an escalator and into the new Crossrail concourse. The mayor acknowledged applause from a scattering of rail employees with a wave and a smile. Security appeared to be tight. Louisa spotted four armed police officers in the background.
The mayor stopped before a sliding barrier. It appeared to be stuck. A frantic rail official rushed forward and knelt before the barrier, examining the attached pedestal.
‘Still a few gremlins in the works, I see.’ The mayor turned to the trailing reporters and grinned. His entourage laughed along with only a slight delay.
The network official, red-faced, had managed to open the adjacent barrier. The mayor stepped through to half-hearted cheers.
A burst of automatic gunfire echoed around the concourse. The reporter spun around. Four men in combat fatigues, falsefaces unfurled, and armed with AK-47 rifles, rushed forward. In a matter of seconds they had surrounded the mayor’s party. One took out a handgun and placed it to the side of the mayor’s head. The footage cut out.
‘They let everyone go except the mayor and four others,’ Drew said. ‘No-one was hurt apart from a few cuts and bruises in the ensuing stampede back up the escalators.’
‘How did the clan get past the mayor’s security detail?’ Louisa asked.
‘We don’t know. The station had been swept by the officers in question. They covered every inch before the mayor’s arrival. The clan appeared out of nowhere. Before the officers knew what was happening the clan had disarmed them and taken the mayor down to the platforms. When we arrived to seal off the station the clan released a hostage along with a radio mic. It was then Harrow made contact. We’ve just over an hour left before his deadline.’
And then he executes a hostage.
Once Louisa left the VMC she’d decided to call Drew. Waiting in the hospital wouldn’t do Ben any good. She needed to find out what Harrow did to him, and if that meant telling Drew about Adam, then so be it. Time was running out. If MI6 got their way, Harrow wouldn’t be around for much longer. And if they killed Harrow any chance of finding out what he did to Ben would die with him. But as it turned out, Drew called her the moment she crossed the M25. He’d been trying to get hold of her the entire time she was in the VMC.
Harrow told the NCA negotiator he’d execute a hostage in two hours, then another hostage every hour on the hour. He ignored any attempts by the NCA negotiator to further draw him out. Instead he instructed the negotiator that he’d only talk face to face from now on, and he’d only relay his demands to a MET officer of his choosing. That was the reason Drew had been frantically trying to reach her. The officer he’d chosen was Louisa.
‘This doesn’t smell right,’ Drew said. ‘I don’t trust Harrow to play ball.’
Neither do I, but what choice do I have? ‘We have to set up a line of communication. If Harrow wants to deal with me I’m willing to take the risk.’ Fo
r Ben’s sake.
‘That’s not what I mean,’ Drew said. ‘It’s—’
‘Detective Inspector Bennett I presume?’ The officer in the checked shirt walked over to them.
‘This is Inspector Everett from SCO19,’ Drew said. ‘He’s providing security for the operation.’
Inspector Everett shook her hand and with a firm grip. Flecks of grey speckled his close-cropped black hair. Like Drew’s, Everett’s chiselled jaw was unshaven, but where fatigue dragged at Drew’s eyes, Everett’s fixed her with a predatory gaze. Louisa got the distinct feeling Everett wasn’t happy to have her in his incident room. But then who could blame him? Her own Commissioner didn’t trust her any more. He’d probably ordered Everett to watch her closely. ‘We’re running short on time,’ he said.
‘What do you want me to do?’ she asked.
‘Get in, listen to what they have to say, and get out. If you can ascertain the location of the hostages, all the better, but do nothing to put yourself at risk.’ Everett looked down at her sidearm. ‘We can’t send you in with a weapon, I’m afraid.’
Louisa unbuckled her holster and handed it over.
‘Let’s get you kitted out,’ Drew said.
He led her to the equipment lockup at the back of the MIR, took a Kevlar vest off a shelf and opened it up. She slipped off her light raincoat and Drew placed the vest over her head. He gave her a hand threading the straps.
‘My boss wants the situation resolved.’ His voice lowered, Drew eyed the SCO19 inspector who was busy with one of the console operators. ‘He’s not waiting until the deadline.’
‘SCO19 are being deployed?’
Drew nodded. ‘If you’re still in there, keep your head down.’
Louisa suspected the MI6 director’s involvement in the decision. If SCO19 stormed the station they wouldn’t be interested in taking prisoners. Their only concern would be the safe extraction of the hostages.
‘Are you sure you still want to do this?’
Louisa was startled by the concern in Drew’s voice. ‘Of course.’
Drew pursed his lips. ‘Turn around.’ The vest slackened as he loosened the straps. A cold weight slid into her waistband. A handgun, pressed into the small of her back. Drew pulled the vest over the weapon and tightened the straps once more. She put her jacket back on. When she turned around Drew met her eyes and gave her a nod.
Louisa wondered what she’d done to earn his loyalty. His boss must have raised doubts over her motivations. So why tell her about the raid? And why give her the weapon?
When they returned to the consoles, Inspector Everett handed her a small earpiece, fractionally larger than a Portal earbud.
‘This is a full-duplex transmitter,’ Everett said. ‘They’ve been communicating with us via radio. The frequencies should still be open.’
She wedged it into her ear.
‘Confirm you can hear me?’ said a male officer at a console.
Louisa gave him a thumbs-up.
‘Okay,’ Everett said. ‘You’re good to go.’
*
After a nod from Everett, the two SCO19 officers guarding the station’s Hudson Place entrance stood aside. She strode past, feeling the heat of the inspector’s eyes on her back. Louisa couldn’t help wondering what the man’s orders were, and more importantly, who’d given those orders. With the Portal network disabled his squad wouldn’t be uploading their implant feeds. There’d be no witnesses if she were caught in the crossfire, accidentally or not.
Stop it! Now you’re just being paranoid.
The short corridor emerged onto a platform where a train sat idle. The Lord Mayor had been attending the opening of a new Crossrail concourse, which was due to open in the next week, extending the network to Gatwick airport. It took Louisa a few seconds to locate a Crossrail sign in the ticket hall. She hurried toward it.
Less than fifty minutes left. Fifty minutes until Harrow killed a hostage. She didn’t doubt he was capable of carrying out his threat. Not after the Portal bombing.
The station felt unnaturally quiet in its abandonment. Information screens still displayed passenger announcements. Meals lay half-eaten on tables outside fast food restaurants and coffee shops. Louisa shifted her shoulders. The handgun remained snugly lodged. ‘Heading down the escalator now,’ she said.
‘Affirmative,’ the radio operator replied.
Her footing felt unsure on the grooved metal steps. She half expected the escalator to shudder into motion. Halfway down, Portal cut out. This time she knew straight away because a red fluorescent warning blazed across her vision. Half blinded, she shot out a hand and thankfully made contact with the rubberised handrail before she lost her balance.
She blinked away the warnings. The familiar heat behind her eyes remained. Her implants were still active, connected to another network. The warnings had come from a patch Adam applied to her implant nanoware. A parting gift. Protection against anyone interfering with her implants without her permission. As angry as she’d been with Adam for refusing to help Ben, she wasn’t about to turn down his offer. He’d disguised the patch as a security update from Nanometrix and sent it straight to her implants’ terminals. He hadn’t mentioned the warnings, but then he hadn’t told her much. Simply that she’d know when someone was attempting to send a modified feed to her implants. So far, apart from the warnings, she couldn’t see or hear anything different.
The Crossrail station’s architect had taken inspiration from Portal’s organic-styled interiors. The floor and walls were constructed from the same synthetic translucent material Portal so often used in its own buildings. Sprayscreen coated walls displayed a barrage of travel information and advertising. Louisa walked to the middle of the concourse and passed through the turnstiles where the mayor had been taken prisoner. The escalator leading to the platforms descended from a semicircular gap in the wall.
‘The concourse is empty,’ Louisa said. ‘I’m heading down to the platforms.’
‘Inspector,’ the radio operator’s voice crackled, ‘you’re—’
‘Hello?’
The earpiece hissed static. Louisa hesitated, wondering if the loss of communications would spark SCO19 into action. After a minute, when no heavily armed men burst onto the concourse, she continued on.
At the bottom of the next escalator the architects had gone for a retro look, the corridor’s curved ceiling and walls tiled in polished white ceramic. There wasn’t a sprayscreen-coated surface in sight. Passageways forking off left and right led to platforms according to signs dangling from the ceiling. Fluorescent strips lit the way.
Something felt out of place. Breathing took more effort here, the air thick and humid. She realised the breeze normally present in the city’s underground tunnels was absent. None of the trains are running.
Another warning flashed up. New optical and cochlear feeds had been detected. A menu appeared, presenting her with options to ignore the new feeds, accept them fully, or overlay them on top of her natural vision and hearing. But before she had a chance to consider, a man wearing combat fatigues stepped out from a side passage.
Spencer Harrow made no move to approach. He stood with his feet planted slightly apart and hands clasped behind his back. The fluorescent strip-lights added little warmth to his pallor. Louisa was struck once more by his air of indifference. This time it angered her. He’d put Ben into a coma, and four innocents had died in the Portal bombing. It seemed impossible their deaths could have no effect on the person responsible. But his face showed no emotion. A void. Complete apathy. She wished she’d asked Adam more about his patch. If she was witnessing a projection, Harrow could really be on the other side of London. She chose the latter menu option, merging in the new feed.
A second Harrow appeared, a few feet to the original’s right. She accepted the new feeds in their entirety. The original Harrow vanished. A seamless effect. She reverted to the merge option and concentrated on the Harrow she now knew to be artificial.
�
��I’m here to negotiate,’ Louisa said.
‘No, you’re not. You’re here because of Ben Kingston. And Adam Walsh.’
Louisa moistened her lips. Even though she knew Harrow had found out about Adam, it still came as a shock to hear him say it. She kept looking at the projection even though her eyes were drawn to the other figure. His voice had also split into two, resulting in a confusing stereo effect.
‘Unless, of course, I’ve misjudged you.’ He switched his hands from back to front. In his right hand he gripped a pistol. This time his duplicate didn’t mirror the action.
Louisa did her best not to focus on the weapon. ‘You haven’t. I know what you want.’
‘Good.’ Both Harrows jerked their heads toward the connecting tunnel. ‘This way, Inspector.’
‘No. First you tell me what you did to Ben.’
Both Harrows tightened thin lips. ‘Sometimes the Paradigm weaves a tangled web. It can be difficult to extract meaning from its intricacies, even for me. Ben proved useful to my endeavours, but it wasn’t until we met at Tilbury that I recognised him as a thread, linking us. Then the Paradigm revealed its true nature.’
Louisa shook her head. ‘We are not connected, you and I. There is no us.’
‘You are incorrect. Adam Walsh, Simon Carlyle, Arthur Fletcher, Stephen Worrrell and even Ben Kingston. They’re all part of the Paradigm, as are you. When Worrell and Carlyle’s threads were severed, yours gained prominence. You were hidden in plain sight, all this time.’
A heat formed in Louisa’s core. It spread outward until her extremities tingled. ‘What did you just say?’
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific.’
‘About Simon. What did you mean?’
‘Carlyle? I’ll admit, his death served no grand purpose, but it was necessary all the same. Even the minor players contribute in their own way.’ The Harrows cocked their heads to one side. ‘You can see me.’
One Life Remaining (Portal Book 2) Page 21