When Ren turned round, his nose was bloody and swollen. “Can’t say it was a pleasure, but you would’ve done the same for me, Lats.” He pressed the hankie to his nose. The white lace blotted scarlet. “Those guys were hyped as hell.”
“Is it broken?” I asked.
“Nah, mashed-up. But you guys owe me big time.”
“Big time,” I repeated in a whisper, my nerves completely shredded.
“Truth, fam,” Latif reached through the partition and squeezed Ren’s shoulder.
Ren slotted back into the grid of cabs. “’Sakes, we’re crawling. Come on, step up the speed. The last thing I need is another rumble with those stormtroopers.”
Travelling so slowly made me feel uneasy.
Minutes later, Ren was shouting, “No way. Game over.”
“What’s up, fam?” Latif’s voice was tight.
My stomach clenched up. I could hardly breathe.
“The wire says Jeannie’s in a scuffle with the feds.” He was leaning towards the radio so he wouldn’t miss a word. “She’s at Speaker’s Corner stirring things up. She’s politicking! We’re in serious trouble, bruv.”
We exchanged looks, not wanting to be the first to say how serious.
“She’s a friend of Mum’s so she’ll be on file.” Latif’s composure slipped momentarily. “MI5 will have her details.”
“Truth! If they cross-reference the grid for friends and family. Boom! Up will come my details. We’re laser-tagged, too. We’re as good as caught. Damn! Damn! Damn!” He blasted his horn in sync with each damn, morse-coding his anger into the night.
“Keep cool, Ren,” Yukiko said. “Latif’s your friend. If the database was any good they would’ve taken you in. Stop being paranoid. Think straight. You were cleared. They know you haven’t got any passengers on board, apart from a Japanese ‘fright-fest’. So what’s the big deal?”
“Ren’s right. They’ll chase down anyone connected to my family.” Latif punched his fist into the palm of his hand.
“Even if they make the connection, they’ve checked the cab.” Yukiko was speaking slowly and calmly to cut through the rising panic. “We’re in the clear.”
A gloomy silence enveloped us.
“How far is the embassy?” I asked.
“At this speed, twenty minutes,” Ren replied, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. “Should we change the plan, bruv?” He turned around. “Whaddya think? Head for a junk space?”
Latif had taken back his tablet from Yukiko. He was hunched over it tapping away. He looked up. “I’m still thinking Crunch Town’s a plan. I know ways in. Trust me!” Seeing Ren’s sceptical look, he added, “I don’t fancy being holed up in the embassy for years until things get sorted. It’d be like prison. I can’t live like that. I’d rather be on the run.”
“You sure?” Ren asked uneasily.
“Yeah. Crunch Town is the only plan. I’m a CCTV specialist so I can work a route that’s more or less unfilmed. Not the quickest but it’s unwatched.” His eyes were glued to the tablet once more. “And it should be easier now the cabbies have knocked out cameras.”
I remembered our topsy-turvy route through the Pimlico grid, and in a panic found myself wondering if we’d actually make it into Crunch Town.
“Okay, guys, I’ve got an idea. Budge up, Dash,” he said, sitting next to me and beckoning Yukiko over. “If there are blind spots, perhaps…” His fingers flew across the keyboards so fast I couldn’t make out the postcode. “Yeah. Now I’m getting somewhere.” A large pair of security gates filled the screen. They looked familiar. Grim, grey buildings rose up behind them. He scrolled through the many CCTV cameras listed, clicking on a few at random. A garden. A gatehouse. A hallway. Latif’s face lit up. “We’ve smashed it!” An eerie, empty hallway. There were photos on the wall, ascending the stairway. I narrowed my eyes. Churchill, Thatcher, Blair. “That’s Downing Street, isn’t it?” I whispered, hardly able to believe my eyes.
“Genius.” Yukiko whooped, punching his arm. “Ren. YOU. WON’T. BELIEVE. IT. Lats has breached Downing Street security.”
“Now that’s what I call a counter-punch, bruv.”
“I’m match tough, fam. Shadow-boxing – courtesy of surveillance sans frontières.” He winked. “They networked the CCTV cameras in a rush. I was thinking there had to be glitches, and this, my friends, is the boss of all glitches.” Latif was texting Tracker as he spoke. “They only went and forgot to take high-security buildings off the police network.”
Yukiko and I were laughing, totally gassed.
The message read: Latif Hajjaj’s ready to surrender. Go to CCTV camera 233798677 to hear conditions for Dasha’s release. Two minutes or deal is off. He pressed send. My stomach flipped.
Latif called up the tab showing the studio.
Seconds later, my parents’ faces lit up. I guessed they must have heard about the text through their earpieces. “We have just received breaking news. Their eyes glinted like glass beads. “Latif Hajjaj has contacted us. The game is up. He’s turning himself in and setting Dasha free. We’re going live to the scene to hear his demands.” The cosmetic surgery gave their smiles a special kind of craziness.
I tensed up. And then, as if by magic, the hallway of Number 10 came into view. A security guard stood at the bottom of the stairs, oblivious to his new-found fame. A second later, the PM and his team rushed into the hallway, shouting at the guard and pointing up at the CCTV camera. The prime minister’s children shot in after them, waving and mugging for the cameras. The PM shouted for them to get back. A security guard picked them up, one under each arm, and whisked them out; the little girl blew a kiss to the camera over his shoulder as they disappeared from view. A minute later, the camera was shut off.
It made the strangest silent movie.
Back in the studio, my parents looked agitated. Sweat beaded Dad’s forehead. My mother held up five fingers, and the producer went to camera five, which showed shots of the VJs working their magic.
Latif texted: Eyes on you PM. Little bro’s spookin’ you! Immediately Tracker went to an advert break.
“That’s blown our cover sky high. ’Sakes, Latif if we’re caught, we’ll probably go down for life,” Ren said.
“At least we hit back.” He made trigger fingers. “It’s a matter of honour.”
“Yeah. But they’ll GPS us real speedy,” Yukiko’s calm had cracked. “You’ve seen the films. You know, men with maggot-white faces in bunkers watching billions of screens.”
“From now on things are gonna get political.” He tipped up the brim of his hat with elegant fingers, his aquamarines were on full-beam. He was thriving on the high-octane buzz.
The cab was pressure-cooker tense.
We were crawling, hardly moving at all, hemmed in by cabs to the left and right.
Latif opened the window and shouted at a cabbie queueing in the bus lane. “Mate, It’s Latif, Harriet Hajjaj’s son. Can you help me out?” He held up the tablet. “Take this for me? It’s hot, bruv. Say a brother with a ten-gallon hat left it in your cab if the feds stop you.”
After the tablet was in the cabbie’s possession, Ren made a circling gesture with his hand and pulled up so the guy could swing a U-turn. I watched his cab head in the opposite direction, my heart dip-dip-dashing.
“Does the wire go out to all the cabbies, Ren?” I asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“I want to get our story out there, you know, just in case we’re caught.” I mumbled the last words, terrified that by expressing this thought out loud, I might actually make it happen. “It’s our only chance. You know, to clear Latif’s name.”
“To a few thousand cabbies? How’s that going to change things?” Yukiko asked.
“Cabbies aren’t known for keeping their mouths shut or their opinions to themselves, are they? Plus their passengers will hear it. You know, people who’ve flagged a ride to show support for the Hajjajs. There may even be journalists in the cabs, who
are covering the cabbie’s revolt. We can give them a new angle on an old story. The truth.”
“What, slam the truth?” Latif rolled his eyes. “Nobody cares.”
“I do. The people hailing cabs do. Even the cabbies do,” Yukiko said.
“For one night only,” Ren said with a grin.
“We need to reframe the story. Then it’s up to the public to decide which version they want to believe.” I looked straight at Latif. “It’s the only way to save your skin.”
“That or pray for a miracle,” Yukiko chipped in.
“It’s risky,” Ren said. “But truth needs to be out there, bruv.”
“They’ll be on us in no time.” Latif frowned, his thick eyebrows forming an arrow. “How about we pull a three-card trick? When Dash is done with her politicking. That’ll keep the feds off our backs for a bit.”
Ren fixed his eyes on Latif in the rear-view mirror. “Yeah. That could work,” he said cautiously. And then more upbeat. “Yeah. That could work. I like your style, bruv.”
“If it flops – it flops, but it’s worth a shot.”
“Safe, fam. I’m on it,” Ren said, leaning down towards the radio. As Ren spoke to someone in the cabbie’s radio studio, Latif handed me his pay-as-you-go mobile. “You’ll have to phone in. It’s a bit Talk Radio – but low-fi always makes things sound more authentic.” That crooked smile again. “Trust me! Remember my rep depends on you, bubblehead.”
“No pressure, then,” I joked.
When I took the phone I noticed my hands were shaking. I shut my eyes, took deep, measured breaths. My mind cleared. I heard Ren say: “Dasha Gold is ready to come down the line.”
“In three.” Ren held up three fingers and counted me in. I began speaking, hesitantly at first, until I found my groove.
“This is Dasha Gold. I want to put the record straight. Latif Hajjaj is innocent. He is neither a kidnapper nor a terrorist. He is my friend. He saved me…” I spoke in simple sentences, outlining the crazy chain of events starting with the train crash, right up until Tracker and the taxi revolt. The lies. The set-ups. The twists. How we’d been stitched up.
When I signed off I knew the cabbies and their fares would find a way to get our story out there, so by morning the facts would be in the few papers, TV channels and radio stations that my parents didn’t own, as well as on the Internet. My heart fluttered. I had finally changed the script.
“You dusted, Dash?” Latif asked.
I nodded. He squeezed my hand. “You killed it.”
“Professional job,” Yukiko said. “Ever thought of working in the media?”
Yukiko and I started giggling.
Ren was talking to radio control intently. “Okay, guys. Less gas. Next lights we pull the three-card trick.”
“Musical cabs,” was all Latif said in explanation, gripping the door handle ready for action. “Mirror me.”
When Ren pulled up at the lights, we all jumped out and ran down the queues of stationary cabs, their engines growling throatily. Cabbies wished us well as we darted through the grid, bent over double. A few bumped knuckles with Ren. We slipped into a cab a little way down the road – the only one with its for hire sign on. As Ren slid into the driver’s seat, the cab’s owner, a black guy with dreads, slapped him on the back, and said, “Stay blessed!” Then he jogged over to Ren’s cab.
Even as we slammed the doors, I heard the drone of helicopters heading our way. Sirens wailed in surround sound. Blue neon pulsed the night sky.
Ren swung a U-turn. The traffic was less heavy in this direction and we picked up speed. Latif had taken up position on the bucket seat and was directing Ren. The unfilmed route, I guessed. There were fewer get-rich-quick gits patrolling the roads as we drove out of the city.
“We’re heading for the front line. Turbulence ahead. Be ready to assume the crash position,” Ren shouted.
“Doors to manual, innit?” Yukiko said, pointing at the doors. She looked like an air hostess from hell. “Your lifejackets are in the smugglehole.”
We were laughing again, high on the madness of the moment.
As we hurtled east, I noticed the streets were becoming more rundown. Functioning streetlights were few and far between. Rubbish was piled high on the pavements. Crunch Town must be close now. Boards nailed to a tree said in many languages, We want to live not exist.
Up ahead, police were flagging cabs down. Ren picked up speed, ignoring the policeman’s frantic gestures. As we shot past, I saw the policeman reach for his gun. My heart rate maxed out. We were on the radar again. Ren made an SOS call to the wire for backup. In next to no time, cabs materialised from nowhere, forming a motorcade around us, steering us through the streets in a high-speed convoy, as if we were heads of state being whisked off to an important summit meeting.
With the law, I thought gloomily.
Overhead the unmistakable rattle of a police helicopter. I heard it dip down low. Gunfire rang out. A terrifying ripping sound filled the cab as a bullet shot through the roof and sank deep into the passenger seat. Both Yukiko and I screamed. Ren cursed. The cab in front of us veered off the road and crashed into a lamppost, a jet of steam escaped from its crumpled bonnet. Another smashed into a parked car, the relentless honk of its horn blasted into the night. Ren swerved to miss the pile-up. A bullet took out our wing mirror, sending a spume of glass cartwheeling into the night.
A robotic voice was instructing the taxi drivers to stop and step out of their cabs for their own safety. A moment later, a fleet of police vans hoved into view at the far end of the street. The white vans and the black cabs edged towards each other from opposite ends of the road, like pieces on a chessboard. A few moments later, more bullets hailed down, peppering the cabs up ahead. A bullet shattered our windscreen. Ren frantically punched out the shards with his bare hands.
We swung a right. A fleet of cabs followed.
A few streets later, the street lighting disappeared. Driving through the pitch-black gave the impression we’d entered a war zone. Crunch Town proper couldn’t be far now. Two outriders flanked us, tearing down the pavement. Paparazzi. They reminded me of wolves running at full stretch.
We turned hard left. Halfway down the street a police checkpoint stood between our cab and Crunch Town. I recognised the shopping mall, moored in darkness, like a half-built, abandoned luxury cruiser.
“The front line,” Ren shouted. “Crash positions.”
“Go hard, Ren,” Latif shouted.
The cab surged forwards. “Don’t worry, guys, these cabs are built,” Ren yelled, as the makeshift barrier rushed towards us. He accelerated even more, crouching low over the wheel. Latif assumed the crash position, his hat tipped forward. Yukiko and I clung to each other. On impact, we shot forwards, landing on the floor in a jumble of limbs. I heard gunshots.
“Are we through?” Latif shouted. “In Crunch Town?”
“Yeah. But the feds are on us!” Ren ducked down. He tried to start the engine; the sound of a heavy smoker coughing.
Peeping out, I saw our cab had taken out the barrier, and we’d skidded to a halt in a kind of no man’s land between the police barricade and the roundabout where the Crunch Town ‘soldiers’ camped out. Since our last trip, the gang had fortified the sentrypoint with metal shutters scavenged from the mall’s retail units. A red flag with a clenched fist at its centre fluttered in the breeze. Both sides were aiming guns in our direction.
The engine spluttered uselessly. It was beat.
“We’ve got to head out. Stay close.” Latif took control.
“I’m going out alone,” I said, scrambling onto the seat. “This is my mess. The police won’t shoot me, and if they do – too bad.” I wanted to sound brave, but my voice cracked.
“Chill, Dash. No heroics. We’re going out together.” Latif grabbed my arm.
Yukiko took the other. “Ready, Ren?”
“We good?” Latif offered his fist, we all touched knuckles.
Throwing open the d
oor, Latif shouted, “We’re unarmed. Don’t shoot.”
His words were swallowed up by the helicopter’s deadly chop.
Gunfire rattled.
The helicopter’s searchlight lit up no man’s land.
“Wait up!” I tried to hold him back. “No…!”
He slipped my grip and jumped out into the firestorm of light with his hands up.
For a second, he stood alone, silhouetted against a blowtorch sky, a cowboy at a midnight gunfight. Then Ren was by his side, his quiff flattened by the helicopter’s whirlwind. I stepped out with Yukiko, holding hands.
Braced myself for bullets.
Nothing.
The Crunch Town soldiers were charging forwards, using dustbin lids and road signs as shields. They were wearing hard hats and balaclavas. The tinies were sprinting down the pavements, banging saucepan lids together. For a moment we were caught up in the melee, and then Ren and Latif were hustling us out of the road. Next minute we were running down a muddy path and scrabbling through a crawl-hole into the mall. Gunfire rang out from no man’s land. The helicopter buzzed above the battle.
“Head for the rookeries, Ren,” Latif shouted.
Inside the mall, Latif took my arm as we sprinted towards the scaffolding. From the ease with which he navigated the wilderness, I knew he’d taken the route many times before in the dark. Whistles rang out from the scaffolding. Crunch Towners were commanding the ramparts. I twisted my ankle, but ran on. When we reached the scaffolding, we climbed the ladder at speed. My hands slipped on the rungs. Ren pulled the ladder up behind us while Latif spoke to a group of Crunch Towners, who told him to head to the top. Seconds later, we were running along the gangway to the next set of ladders, Yukiko bringing up the rear, her widow’s weeds flapping out behind her like monstrous bat wings. Four levels later, we stopped, puffing for breath.
The mall clanked and jangled as the gangs bashed metal poles against the scaffolding. The beat was hypnotic. There must have been hundreds of Crunch Towners in the derelict mall. As my eyes became more accustomed to the gloom, I saw hooded shapes silhouetted against the sky. Every now and again torches flashed in empty retail units or spaces occupied by families.
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