by Steve Cole
‘Ha,’ said Anya mirthlessly. ‘For we are close to our maker.’
‘I just want to find out what verses fourteen to fifteen of Joshua chapter six actually say. Blessed are they who remove their handcuffs, for they shall inherit the earth?’
‘It would make a change from having their faces rubbed in it,’ Anya declared. ‘Are you ready now? Shall I get the gun?’
James nodded.
Anya lay on her back, lifted her legs in the air, and contorted until she was able to bring her bound arms up over her feet and hold them in front of her (James noticed she took perhaps a tenth of the time he’d taken to do this). Then she reached carefully for the Beretta and pulled it out.
What shape was the gun in? Rather better than his own, James hoped; he could barely feel his fingers, which had swollen up like German sausages, and wasn’t sure he could even fit his index finger around the trigger. So Anya was to take the gun in both hands and fire at the chain, point blank.
She looked grave. ‘What if the bullet . . . bounces?’
‘Ricochets, you mean? Or blasts shrapnel from the floor straight into us?’
‘Yes, this.’
‘We’ll put the pillows underneath the chain. It might help.’ He turned to look at her. ‘It’s a risk, I know. But we have nothing left to lose.’
Once Anya had retrieved two pillows from the bunks, James placed his hands flat over them and pulled his wrists apart to create tension in the chain. He gasped as the raw, sticky wounds burned. ‘Ready?’
She paused. ‘If I blow off your hand, do not blame me.’
James couldn’t manage a smile. ‘Just take your time,’ he said. ‘Try to squeeze the trigger rather than jerk your finger on it—’
The gunshot was like thunder clapping in his ear. James gasped.
‘I jerked my finger. Did it work?’
James tried to pull his hands apart but he couldn’t, and swore. ‘No. Did you miss?’
She leaned forward. ‘The links are made flatter, but did not break.’
‘Then try again.’ James’s hands were shaking and he willed himself to calm down. ‘That gunshot could bring someone running; if we’re not ready . . .’
He looked back at her, ready to attempt an encouraging smile, but Anya, holding the gun barrel a half-inch from the chain, put her head back and closed her eyes. Before James could protest she had fired again.
With a violent convulsion, his wrists jumped apart. Yes!
‘You did it!’ James turned and threw his arms around her, then winced as the metal bracelets scraped his raw flesh. ‘But will anyone come to check on us?’
They held their breaths, listening. Five minutes later, James decided that no one had heard. ‘All right, your turn.’
Once Anya was positioned just as James had been, he fired the Beretta. The links in the chain were only warped by the impact, but after some determined chipping with the gun barrel they came apart.
‘We did it!’ She squeezed James’s hands. ‘Getting hold of that gun was worth the consequences.’
James winced in memory. ‘I forgot to ask. How is your leg?’
‘It did not hurt as bad as being pushed under the floor.’
‘You stayed strong.’
‘It is suffering that makes us stronger.’ Anya chewed dead skin from her lip. ‘I fear I will be strong as an ox before this night ends.’
‘To live through it, we need a plan,’ James said.
They got busy, talking and arguing over the best course of action. But as the long dark hours stretched on, James began to fear that no one would come at all. Perhaps Elmhirst has gone home to get a good night’s sleep, he pondered, ready to take up his place as the King’s bodyguard – and murderer.
Finally the sound of footsteps carried down the corridor outside. Heart flying, James got up and looked through the grille. ‘It’s Karachan, with a tray of food.’
‘He is alone?’
‘Well, you know how boring his conversation is.’ James checked the gun for the hundredth time, making sure to squeeze down the safety catch, backing away to the far wall. ‘Get into position.’
Anya nodded and slumped back on the bunk, arms behind her back.
The key turned in the lock. Karachan stepped inside, a tray with slices of bread in one hand, the Browning in the other.
‘Bond,’ he said. ‘Elmhirst and I wish to see you.’
‘Must be hard for someone as powerful as yourself,’ James said, ‘reduced to running his errands.’
‘We share the work as we share the goal. How else can we find fulfilment?’ Karachan put down the tray, but the Browning stayed levelled at James’s chest. ‘Besides killing non-productive capitalist garbage, that is.’
‘You’re wasting your time. I told you, I don’t know what Father’s notes mean.’
Karachan nodded. ‘Then you will know what pain means.’
‘What about Anya?’ James demanded.
Suddenly Anya opened her eyes and screamed. Karachan turned to look at her.
Even as he moved, James whipped his right hand from behind his back, aimed quickly and fired the Beretta. He felt the recoil curve up his arm to his shoulder, but held the gun steady. Blood stained Karachan’s shirt cuff as his arm jerked, and with a bloodcurdling cry he dropped the gun.
‘Now, down on your knees!’ James shouted, gripping the little Beretta with both hands. ‘Do it!’
Cradling his wounded forearm, Karachan slowly knelt. Anya rose from the bunk and performed a stiff but satisfactory rond de jambe, her right leg straight while her left foot extended to the gun and moved it out of Karachan’s reach. But as she stooped to pick it up, she blocked James’s line of fire just for a moment.
It was all Karachan needed. He lashed out with his good hand and shoved Anya into James. James was knocked backwards, and before he could bring the gun to bear, Karachan had jumped up and cuffed the Beretta out of his grasp. James brought his hand down on Karachan’s bloodied wrist – too late to stop his opponent’s knee slamming into his solar plexus. Gasping, he fell backwards against the wall.
Karachan was on top of James in an instant, grabbing for his throat.
26
Into the Tunnels
THE SUDDEN BANG of a more powerful firearm reverberated through the holding room, and one of the high windows exploded in a hail of glittering shards. James found himself released, gasping, as Karachan turned to face Anya, back on her feet with the Browning clutched in both hands; she’d let off a warning shot.
‘I’ve not waited this long to lose now,’ Karachan warned her. He lunged with horrible speed but, in a blur, Anya turned round on one leg and kicked out with the other to catch him in the chest. Karachan staggered back, slammed against the wall. A jagged length of glass teetering in the window frame above was dislodged and fell.
With the noise of a kitchen knife meeting a cabbage, the sharp point of the broken glass embedded itself in the back of Karachan’s neck. He groaned, eyes widening. ‘You’ll die for that.’ Slowly, as if disorientated, he reached behind to pull out the glass. As he did so, a jet of blood spurted up the whitewashed wall.
‘You before me,’ hissed Anya.
Repulsed, James turned and snatched up the Beretta from the floor, waved it in warning. But there was no fight left in Karachan now – it had gone with the blood spilling from his body. He fell heavily to the floor: a truly dead weight.
James wiped his hands through his hair and put a hand on Anya’s shoulder as she lowered the gun. ‘You’re all right?’
Anya looked paler still, but she nodded and took a shaky breath. ‘We should check him for things that may be useful.’
‘I’ll do it.’ Taking a deep breath, James approached the body, his shoes splashing in the dark-red puddle still spreading from the severed artery. He searched all Karachan’s pockets and had soon made an inventory: one pack of Russian cigarettes, a pack of dog-eared playing cards, a silver lighter, a dirty silk handkerchief and a brass fob-wa
tch that looked as if it belonged to one of the ruling classes the man professed to despise. James pocketed the lot, but his most interesting find was in the outside lock of the door: a brass ring onto which over a dozen keys had been loaded. His battered heart thumped harder at the thought of finding freedom. If they could only get out and warn somebody . . .
Anya pocketed the Browning and gnawed at the bread, passing a slice to James. He stuffed it into his mouth hungrily, pulled the bunch of keys from the cell door and, chewing together, they ventured out into the corridor. James closed his eyes, swallowed down his dry mouthful and tried to remember which way he’d been dragged out after being blinded.
The sound of a slamming door echoed from somewhere close by. Elmhirst was coming.
‘This way,’ James muttered, and went in the other direction, clutching his painful ribs, Anya hobbling along behind. They came to a plain white reception room, the walls dotted with small, heavy lead-glass windows that let in the light but would never let anyone out. James tried the heavy oak door but the handle wouldn’t turn; it was locked.
James sorted through the keys and shoved a likely-looking contender into the keyhole. It didn’t budge. ‘Damn it.’
‘Try again,’ Anya urged him.
He did, pausing as he caught a distant sound from somewhere inside the building. The second key did not fit either.
‘Karachan?’ came Elmhirst’s bellow.
Rattled, James passed the keys to Anya and raised the Beretta as the booted feet came closer. ‘I’ll get him,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll damn well get him.’
‘And if he gets us first? You have seen how I shoot. We could die before we can warn anyone.’ Anya tried another key in the door, with no success, then turned to a plain door on the internal wall to their right. She pulled down on the metal handle and the door opened onto a concrete corridor.
‘Elmhirst said the labourers were put up in this part of the building,’ James remembered. ‘There can’t be a way out here, or they would have just run.’
‘But the foremen had to inspect what the workers did, no?’ Anya argued. ‘Perhaps they had a private exit, and one of these keys will fit.’
It had better, James thought, hurrying Anya along the passage, which soon resembled a graveyard for tools: dirty picks and shovels and drills left lying around, caked in clay. They passed several doors, but they were locked . . . all but one, which gave onto an old, disused shower block. The air smelled stale and rank, and James glimpsed a pile of perhaps ten mouldering bodies abandoned on the tiled floor.
Beside him Anya retched, and they retreated, slammed the door shut.
‘How many have died for this “Project”?’ Anya whispered.
James looked at her. ‘How many are going to?’
There were old clothes discarded on the floor, and Anya quickly pulled on a pair of canvas trousers with braces and a thick woollen jumper against the cold. They moved on, down a flight of stairs to another grey, unfinished corridor. Anya’s limp had grown more pronounced and was slowing them down, but James didn’t say anything for fear of shaking her confidence. She had to believe that they could do this.
And I have to believe it, he thought.
Behind them he heard the distant slam of a door. ‘Bond?’ came Elmhirst’s angry shout. ‘There’s no way out!’
Anya hissed, ‘He tries to scare us.’
‘He succeeds.’ James grabbed her hand and pulled her onwards, his heart quickening at the sight of a lift door standing open up ahead. It was like the one they’d taken to the school from the submarine pen. James ran into the metal cage and studied the controls. There was just one brass button inside. Might it lead up to another part of the school?
Anya was already closing the doors, so James hit the button with his palm. He swore as the mechanics juddered into life, shaking their little cell, and they began to descend with what felt like horrible slowness.
‘How far down are we going?’ Anya wondered.
James knew she was thinking the same thing he was. ‘If Elmhirst reaches the lift and hits the button to call it back again . . .’
The lift lurched, and James’s heart almost stopped. But an additional thud followed, signalling that they had arrived. James slid open the concertinaed doors and dragged Anya out into another bare concrete area. The corridor to their left had been walled up with breeze blocks and timber planks while, to their right, the dripping black maw of a tunnel entrance offered the only way forward.
Anya opened a door beside the lift. ‘Stairwell,’ she said uneasily. ‘So Elmhirst can take the stairs down after us.’
James was already studying the planks, trying to find one that could be wedged between the wall and the door handle, something to slow their pursuer down. But how long would that take? Elmhirst could crash in on them at any moment – most likely with back-up.
‘We’ll have to take our chances in the tunnel,’ James said, pulling Karachan’s lighter out of his trouser pocket. ‘Perhaps we’ll find a way up to the surface . . .’
‘We know there is one,’ Anya reminded him, ‘leading up to the Royal Opera House. Perhaps we can get out and warn people of what’s coming. There’s still time . . .’
‘The Opera House is only a mile and a half north of Millbank as the crow flies.’ James flicked on the lighter, and its flame danced as he headed for the mouth of the tunnel. ‘It’s just a shame that down here, without a compass, there’s no way of knowing which direction north is.’
‘There may be markers in the tunnels,’ Anya said, limping into the gloom beside him. ‘The men who worked here would need to navigate too.’
James held up the lighter, hoping she was right. He was horribly aware that whoever came after them would have a lot more knowledge of the tunnel layout than they did.
After only a few yards the electric lights dwindled to a pale haze, and James and Anya were crunching concrete dust underfoot as they ran into the darkness. James tried looking at the walls, but the wavering flame was too bright, searing his sight so he couldn’t see beyond it.
Anya stopped suddenly. ‘Is that something on the wall?’
James peered and found a hurricane lamp hanging from a nail. He pulled it free and lit the wick inside with the lighter. A comforting, smoky orange glow rose from the lamp and they proceeded with more confidence.
‘Elmhirst hasn’t come after us,’ James said. ‘What does that suggest to you?’
‘That he is fetching help,’ Anya said. ‘He means to organize this properly. We shall have a small head start.’
‘Let’s try to make it larger.’
James was glad he’d taken Karachan’s fob-watch; time passed oddly in the thick underground darkness, and each time he took a guess as to how long they’d been in the tunnels, he found he was wildly out. At last they came up against a thick, solid steel door in the rock. James had hopes it might lead to a lift shaft to the surface – but, no, there was only another tunnel on the other side. James supposed the door was to isolate the Mechta Academy section from the rest of the tunnel network, so the explosion of fire wouldn’t channel into the school. And small wonder the flood-protection buttressing was so pronounced on the outside of the building; it had been designed by Kalashnikov to withstand the coming destruction, as well as to help disguise the submarine pens.
‘This feels so strange,’ Anya said quietly. ‘To know that Papa designed all this. I feel like I am walking around inside his head.’
‘None of it would exist,’ James replied, ‘if my parents had only got away from Elmhirst.’ The harder he tried not to imagine the two of them running through the snow, hunted and afraid, the clearer the image became. But had a part of his father relished the danger, felt himself to be indestructible; a man destined to go on for ever?
Nobody can, James supposed. But, please, let me go on long enough to make a difference now.
In time, a thicker darkness loomed to their left. James held up the lamp. ‘A junction,’ he observed. ‘Looks like a
passage leading off from this one. D’you want to stay here while I explore it?’
Anya shook her head. Cautiously they went down it together, the crunch of their feet on the concrete the only sound. It led to another tunnel, running more or less parallel to the first.
James lifted the light to reveal a sinister obstruction in the tunnel ahead – a huge stack of crates and boxes dominating the space like some primitive, unsettling sculpture. The whole affair was held in place by thick steel netting, pinned to roof and floor with monstrous, immovable bolts. James knew what he would see stencilled on the side of the crates. He’d seen it already, in the under-basement at the Mechta Academy.
‘Hexogen,’ he breathed. ‘A miniature mountain of high explosives.’
‘How many of these piles have been assembled down here beneath London?’ whispered Anya. ‘Twenty? Thirty?’
‘Chained and netted like that, they’ll be impossible to dismantle without heavy-duty machinery.’ James chewed his lip. ‘We’ve got to get help. We’ve got to stop that first fuse being lit, whatever it takes. If we can’t, the chain reaction begins tonight. The design of the tunnels directs the force of each explosion so that when one blows, it sets off the next in sequence.’
‘Until they have all gone,’ Anya agreed. ‘And so has London.’
James nodded. ‘Leaving Britain to become one more republic of the Soviet Union.’
27
Expected to Die
ON AND ON James and Anya wandered along tunnels carved through clays and sands, the ancient elements upon which London lay. They rested only briefly, straining to catch the faintest sounds of pursuit. James began to realize just how vast the scale of the Soviet plan really was.
‘Something’s bothering me, Anya.’ He stood up with the lamp. ‘The Project was built around four buildings and a tower – but you said the designs for the tower weren’t there in Father’s buried papers.’
‘Perhaps I missed them,’ said Anya. ‘Or perhaps it had not been designed at that time?’