Double or Die

by Charlie Higson

  He carried on kicking, shattering Ludwig’s joints so that he couldn’t let go of the knife. His fingers were tangled in the knuckleduster grip. He had to use his other hand to hold on to the net, so he could do nothing to stop James.

  James was plunged into darkness and he looked over at the dockside, which was swinging ever nearer, blocking out the light. He frantically pulled himself up the net, hand over hand, unable to go too quickly or he would risk getting his feet caught and becoming trapped like Ludwig.

  The strip of grey sky above him was narrowing by the second.

  He wasn’t going to make it.

  He could sense the dock swinging towards him. Sense the great, unstoppable weight of the ship.

  He screamed. The scream of someone making a superhuman effort, and threw himself upward, willing his body to fly.

  He had done it.

  He was clear of the dockside. He looked down to check and saw Ludwig’s giant skull head looking back up at him with a look of sheer, hopeless terror in his eyes, his rotten brown teeth bared in an animal howl.

  James looked away at the last moment, as the hull finally pressed in against the dockside. There was the sound of splintering wood from the crates and, with a final crunch, Ludwig was suddenly silenced.

  As the ship slammed against the dock, James was thrown off the side and he landed in a graceless heap on a pile of ropes, tobacco falling all around him through the fog.

  There was another deep boom from the Amoras and she sunk lower in the water.

  All the dockers had cleared the area. They knew only too well the dangers of an exploding boiler. James picked himself up and ran away from the dockside himself, and as he rounded a warehouse building he heard a mighty double bang behind him and felt the air punch at him.

  He carried on running, straight into Red Kelly.

  ‘I thought you was a gonner for sure,’ said Red, ‘but I should have known you’d pull through.’

  ‘Did you all get off safely?’ said James.

  ‘Yep. It was a close thing, though. We got into the rowing boat about half a second before the second explosion.’

  ‘And Charnage?’

  Red shook his head. ‘He’s gone down with his bloody machine.’

  A crowd was forming around them, and James wanted to get away before too many questions were asked. As he was shouldering through the throng of dockers, however, he heard a shrill cry and looked round to see Kelly Kelly running towards them, her heart-shaped face twisted and anxious.

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ said Red.

  ‘What happened?’ asked James as Kelly appeared.

  ‘The woman,’ she said breathlessly. ‘The Grandmother, whatever her name is.’

  ‘Colonel Sedova,’ said James. ‘What about her?’

  ‘She must have followed us somehow. I’ve gone to the control room with a couple of the girls. We’re getting the controls set up, and there she is with one of the men from the Empress. The one whose arm you shut in the door. She’s got a gun, James. She knocked out your mate Perry, grabbed Fairburn and the rest of us have made a run for it.’

  ‘Where’s Babushka now?’ said James.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Kelly. ‘I don’t know. I’ve hid meself and waited, but she never come out. I think she’s still in there with Fairburn and Perry. The girls are keeping an eye on the place. But it don’t look good, James. It don’t look good at all…’

  29

  The Eyes of a Killer

  Two members of Kelly’s gang were waiting outside the transit shed. They hadn’t seen Perry, Fairburn or Babushka come out.

  The grille covering the ventilation shaft hung half-open. James pulled it back and crawled in. He went slowly and carefully, until he could see down into the control room, all the while expecting a shot to tear upward from below.

  But when he got there, the room was empty.

  ‘It’s all clear,’ he shouted and jumped down on to the stone floor.

  Red and his sister were soon beside him.

  ‘They must have got out, after all,’ said Kelly.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said James. ‘Look at this.’

  He pointed to a trail of blood, small scarlet drops leading into the tunnel mouth.

  ‘She hasn’t used the train,’ said Red. ‘She wouldn’t know how, and, besides, there’s no noise. The fans aren’t working.’

  ‘Can you walk in there?’ said James, looking into the dark tunnel.

  Red held him back. ‘No, Jimmy-boy,’ he said. ‘You’re not going in there after her. She’s got a gun, for God’s sake.’

  ‘She’s also got Fairburn,’ said James. ‘And maybe Perry, too. I have to go after them.’

  Red thought for a moment. ‘Here…’ he said and opened a box on the wall. ‘These should help.’

  He took out two candle stubs, lit them and passed one to James.

  James smiled at Kelly Kelly. ‘My bright idea to keep you out of trouble didn’t work too well, did it? We might as well stick together this time.’

  ‘Less of the sweet talk,’ said Red. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

  James squeezed past the rubber flaps into the tunnel.

  Red and his sister followed.

  It was hard going, trying to step on the sleepers and not stumble over the gaps. They had to walk bent double, almost crawling, their heads and shoulders bumping against the low ceiling. It would be harder going for the Russian woman, particularly if she was dragging prisoners along with her, but could they catch her up? James listened for any noises in the tunnel ahead, and so far there was nothing but the sounds of their own harsh breathing.

  He kept his eyes on the spots and splashes of blood that left a trail along the ground and after a little while he found a spent match. A little further along he found another one.

  The Russians must be using them to see where they were going.

  For twenty minutes they trudged on, the tunnel never changing as they passed a dreary procession of grey bricks. They might as well have been walking around in circles for all that the scenery changed. Then at last the tunnel curved slightly and, as they rounded the corner, James saw something and stopped.

  There was a dark shape up ahead. He pointed it out to the others and they stayed still, watching and waiting. Every muscle in James’s body felt stiff and tense. For the first time he became aware of his damp clothes and the pain in his ankle where Ludwig had stabbed him. In fact there wasn’t a part of him that didn’t hurt in some way. His vision swam and blurred and he blinked to clear his mind.

  The shape lay still. It hadn’t moved at all since James had first spotted it. Eventually he risked approaching it. As he got nearer he saw that it was Perry, sitting slumped against the wall, his eyes closed, a hand clamped to a bloody handkerchief at his head.

  James shook him.

  ‘Perry?’

  Perry opened his eyes.

  ‘James!’ he said and tried to smile. ‘Good to see you, old thing.’

  ‘Thank God,’ said James. ‘I thought for a moment you were dead.’

  ‘M-me?’ said Perry. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you? Never better. She m-made the m-mistake of hitting m-me in the head, anywhere else and I’d have felt something.’ He laughed and winced, screwing his eyes shut.

  ‘What happened?’ said James. ‘Where’s Fairburn?’

  ‘I came round in the control room,’ said Perry. ‘The old woman was still there, with some other chap, looking a little the worse for wear. I thought it best to lay doggo and pretend to be out cold, watched them bring Fairburn in here, tried to follow, but I’m still feeling a bit faint, to tell you the truth, lost a fair few pints of blood, I reckon, did m-my best, though, eh?’

  ‘You did well, Perry,’ said James. ‘You did very well.’

  ‘Trouble is,’ said Perry, ‘I got this far and then didn’t know which way to go.’ He nodded to where a small access tunnel branched off to the right. ‘They were too far ahead of m-me, I m-must have dozed off… S
orry.’

  ‘We’ll have to take a guess,’ said James. ‘It’s pot luck, I’m afraid.’

  ‘We’d better split up,’ said Red. ‘You take Perry and I’ll take me sis’.’

  ‘OK,’ said James.

  ‘We’ll carry on down the main track,’ said Red.

  ‘Any idea where this leads?’ said James, shining his candle into the access tunnel.

  ‘Nope,’ said Red. ‘There might be a way up to the street from down there, but it’s more likely all blocked off.’

  ‘Listen,’ said James, ‘when you get to the end, if you’ve seen no sight of them, try and get the fans started, at least that’ll block the main tunnel and cut her off if she tries to double back here.’

  ‘If you say so, skipper.’

  ‘Why won’t you ever let me come with you?’ Kelly asked James, her heart-shaped face turned golden by the candlelight.

  ‘This isn’t a tea dance,’ said James.

  ‘But still –’

  ‘We have to split up,’ said James. ‘And I’m responsible for Perry now. He’s my friend.’

  Kelly suddenly darted forward and kissed James. Red whistled.

  ‘And here I was thinking you didn’t like boys, sis!’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’ve never met a real one before,’ said Kelly. ‘Come on, let’s get those fans going.’

  James watched the two of them scurry away up the tunnel.

  ‘She’d be quite pretty if you scrubbed her up a bit,’ said Perry.

  ‘She’s fine as she is,’ said James. ‘Just fine.’

  ‘I think she m-might be sweet on you,’ said Perry.

  ‘Right now, that’s the last thing on my mind,’ said James. ‘So, what do you say? Are you ready for this? Can you go on?’

  ‘You bet I can,’ said Perry. ‘Lead on, M-MacDuff! I’ll be right behind you.’

  ‘Just be careful,’ said James, putting a hand on Perry’s arm. ‘You’re already pretty bashed about. You’re lucky she only hit you with her gun and didn’t shoot you. You saw at the museum what a mess a bullet can make of someone. Just bear that in mind and don’t do anything reckless.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Perry with a shudder. ‘I shall never forget those pictures.’

  The access tunnel was even lower and narrower than the main tunnel, and this time James did have to get down on to his hands and knees, holding the candle awkwardly out in front of him.

  ‘By the way,’ said Perry as they shuffled along, ‘I almost forgot: that parcel that arrived for you yesterday at the m-mission, the one you told Pritpal to open.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘When I got back to London I telephoned the pub, you weren’t there so I went on to Hackney Wick with Pritpal, just in case the parcel held any surprises.’

  ‘And did it?’

  ‘Not half.’

  ‘So, who was it from, then?’

  ‘A M-Mister Flegenheimer.’

  ‘Mister Flegenheimer?’ For a moment James’s mind was blank, and then he remembered the Paradice Club, the American gangster, the roulette. He stopped.

  ‘What was in it?’ he said.

  ‘It was brown paper,’ said Perry, ‘all tied up with string, and inside was three hundred pounds in five-pound notes, we’d none of us ever seen that m-much m-money before.’

  James awkwardly turned round to face Perry. ‘This has been the strangest weekend of my life,’ he said.

  ‘M-me too,’ said Perry.

  They had reached the end of the access tunnel where a series of rungs led up the side of a vertical shaft. James silenced Perry and listened. Still nothing. Babushka and the others must have gone the other way.

  He hoped Red and his sister would be all right.

  ‘What do you think?’ said Perry.

  ‘We’d best check,’ said James.

  Slowly he climbed the ladder. At the top the shaft came out into the corner of a large chamber filled with various pieces of ancient machinery. The room was partially lit by pale, wintry light spilling down from a circular vent in the ceiling. Beneath it was a large, wooden framework that had been built over an opening in the floor that presumably led back down to the tunnels.

  There was a great black boiler against one wall, its chimney disappearing into the roof. It was rusted and evidently hadn’t been used in years.

  This was obviously once the engine room for the fans that ran the railway before it had been converted to electric power.

  ‘You m-must tell me,’ whispered Perry, sticking his head up into the chamber, ‘what you’re going to do with all that m-money? It’ll certainly buy you a lot of sock!’

  ‘I’m not spending it on grub,’ whispered James. ‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do with it –’

  But he never finished the sentence. A muzzle flash flared briefly and a single shot split the air, terrifyingly loud. A spray of chippings and dust scoured James’s face and he dropped the candle, which went out.

  The only light in the chamber now was from the ceiling vent.

  James crawled behind the boiler. Another shot sounded and he felt a bullet smack into the floor nearby. If he hadn’t moved he would have been hit for sure. His ears were ringing, and each shot made him jump out of his skin.

  ‘Boy?’ It was a woman’s voice. A Russian voice. Calm and even.

  James didn’t make the mistake of replying and offering up a target.

  ‘Boy? I know you can hear me,’ Babushka went on. ‘We have Fairburn. We will shoot him if we have to. There is no way out from here. We are going back into the main tunnel. If you are clever, and I know that you are, you will not try to stop us.’

  James felt a vibration in the floor and heard the hum of an engine starting up. Red must have reached the controls. At the same time an amber warning light started slowly flashing on the wall at the far end, lighting the chamber for a second then plunging it back into semi-darkness.

  James saw the silhouette of Babushka near the wooden structure, and she obviously saw him, for she raised her gun.

  James dived out the way and rolled behind a thick oak beam. There was a bang and the beam splintered. The bullet had missed him by inches, but the force of it had dislodged a huge, jagged splinter of wood, as large as a kitchen knife, which smashed into James’s shoulder. A searing jolt of pain passed through him, and when he put his hand up to his collarbone he felt the wood sticking out. He pulled it free and his shirt was instantly drenched with blood. But, worse, he was sure the bone was broken.

  This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all.

  He felt a breeze tug at his clothing and the next moment a howling gale was blowing through the chamber. Bits of leaves and debris were being sucked down the ventilation shaft in the ceiling and there was a deep whirring, throbbing, churning noise.

  The wooden framework was evidently the housing for one of the fans that drove the railway.

  Hoping that Babushka would be as distracted as he was, James jumped up and ran across the room to a new hiding place.

  The noise of the fan and the buffeting wind were deafening, and with the flashing amber light and the pain in his shoulder James was becoming dazed and confused.

  He sat down behind a brick support, closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, trying to slow his heart rate and clear his mind. Then he leant out to see where Babushka was.

  He could see nothing of her, but in an amber flash of warning light he saw the stone-faced OGPU man hiding in a corner, with one arm holding Fairburn, the hand over his mouth. His other hand hung uselessly at his side and was swollen and purple-looking.

  The amber light flicked off and James rolled across the floor to a better vantage point. When the light came back on he was shocked to see Perry crawling across the floor, blood trickling down his face.

  Where the hell was he going? What was he trying to do?

  James wanted to call out to him to be careful, but he couldn’t risk it, not without knowing where Babushka was.

 
There was a moment of darkness and then James saw her move quickly from behind a wall and grab Perry.

  ‘I’ve got your friend, boy,’ she roared above the noise of the fan. ‘Now show yourself.’

  The light went out. James didn’t think. He acted.

  He ran straight out from his hiding place and barged into Babushka before she knew what was happening. The three of them staggered back across the floor and collided with the wooden framework of the fan housing.

  James got a glimpse of Perry, lying still on the ground before the light went out again.

  He tried to stand up but Babushka grabbed him. She may have looked like a grandmother, but she was surprisingly strong. She lifted James up as easily as a doll, raised him above her shoulders and hurled him over the top of the wooden structure towards the fan. He landed heavily on a steel platform. He could feel the broken bones in his shoulder scraping against each other and he screamed.

  As the pain surged through his body his brain shut down for a moment.

  He fought his way back to consciousness through a fizzing, swirling cloud of sparkling bubbles, and struggled to his feet. The noise of the fan was worse than ever here and the wind rushed past in a spinning fury like a tornado.

  He looked round. He was on the edge of a circular hole about fifteen feet wide and six feet deep. Halfway down a narrow wooden walkway spanned the gap and below it was the giant fan. He could see it spinning in the darkness, its vicious metal blades sucking the air down into its maw.

  He turned back to see Babushka standing below, pointing a gun up at him. Her expression was relaxed, almost kindly, but her eyes told the truth. They were dead. And in her hand was the gun.

  ‘You are very lucky,’ she said.

  James didn’t feel lucky.

  ‘I meant to throw you into the fan,’ Babushka explained.

  James realised that he should be back at school today.

  He supposed he wouldn’t ever be going back now.

  That was a pleasant thought, at least.

  No more school.

  He felt sorry that he would miss Christmas, though. Sorry that he wouldn’t be sitting by the fire with his Aunt Charmian in the little cottage in Kent. He’d miss all of it, the carol singing, the goose, the chocolates and nuts…