Baptism

by Max Kinnings

  Londoners’ courage on day of terror.

  Stacey’s makeover: pictures.

  11:31 AM

  Network Control center, St. James’s

  As the train driver came through on the radio once more, Ed Mallory thought he could detect a greater degree of fear in his voice.

  “This is George Wakeham, the driver of—well, you know who I am.”

  “George, this is Ed Mallory.”

  “You were late switching on the wireless connection. Any further delays in carrying out demands will result in passengers dying.”

  “George, I need to speak to the person who is telling you what to say.”

  “That’s not possible. You need to write down this web address.”

  “Okay, but can you tell me why we need this address?”

  The frequency of the hiss relayed into Ed’s headphones changed as the radio connection cut out momentarily and then George’s voice came on the line once again. “You need to shut up, write it down and then connect to it.”

  Ed knew that George was merely relaying the words of one of the hostage takers but he noted the element of anger and impatience in his delivery.

  “Okay, let’s have the address, George.”

  “It’s denning23.co.uk. Have you got that?”

  “Denning23.co.uk,” repeated Ed and he heard White tapping on a keyboard nearby.

  Calvert squeezed Ed’s arm. This was the sign they had decided on for when Ed should enable the mute facility on his microphone.

  “We’ve got a visual on a white male in his mid-twenties,” whispered Calvert. “He’s standing in front of a webcam in the middle of a deserted tube-train carriage. He’s got short cropped hair and he’s wearing black. He’s of medium build—”

  Calvert was interrupted by a voice coming out of the computer speakers, clearly the voice of the man on the train speaking into his webcam and microphone: “Check they can see and hear me, George.” It was the voice of a young white male, a Londoner or longtime resident of southeast England. The voice was calm, measured, confident.

  George’s voice came through Ed’s earphones: “Can you see and hear him?”

  Ed clicked the mic back on and replied: “Yes we’ve got visual and audio. Tell the guy you’re with that he’s coming through loud and clear.”

  “That’s a yes,” said George, shouting to the man.

  Calvert squeezed Ed’s arm and Ed clicked off the mic again to hear him say, “The perp’s looking straight into the camera like he’s about to read the news.”

  Ed slipped his earphones forward on his head and listened to the voice as it came through the speakers.

  “This web link has been sent to all major news organizations,” said the man in a tone that made no attempt to hide an underlying sense of excitement. “A group mailing has gone to everyone from Al Jazeera to CNN. It’ll probably take a short while for the e-mails to filter through and for the journalists to realize what’s going on, so in the meantime, I need to lay down some ground rules. High-explosive charges have been rigged throughout all six carriages and any attempt to make physical contact with the train will result in me detonating them. Now I reckon there’s about—what?—three hundred and fifty people on this train and with a series of explosions in such a confined space, everyone will die. That’s a lot of bodies, so let’s not have any heroics.”

  If the guy was lying, he was a good liar. Often Ed could pick up something in a hostage situation even when those around him could see the subject on a visual link and detect nothing in their body language or behavior. But this guy gave off no “tell” in his vocal inflexion.

  “My name is Tommy Denning and I am leading a team of heavily armed hijackers who are positioned throughout the train.”

  As soon as the perp had said his name, Ed could hear the activity in the negotiating cell as it was typed into keyboards and the process to construct a full character profile of him was set in motion.

  “I have a message for the world,” said Tommy Denning.

  It sounded to Ed as though he was enjoying himself. It was as though he had rehearsed this moment in the bathroom mirror a thousand times.

  “At exactly twelve noon, I will broadcast my message. If any attempt is made to prevent me from doing so, I will detonate the explosives on the train. Please do not be under any illusions: we are all fully prepared to die and to take everyone on the train with us.”

  The ensuing silence was unbearable for Ed while the rest of the team watched the video link to the train.

  “What’s he doing?” he whispered.

  Calvert said, “He’s walking away from the camera back toward the driver’s cab.”

  Ed could just make out the sound of distant shouts and screams on the train. He felt his tactile watch. It was 11:35 a.m. Twenty-five minutes until Denning’s message. Plenty of time for the world’s media to focus on this solitary webcam deep beneath the streets of London.

  All of the crisis negotiations that Ed had been involved with over the years had involved one-on-one communications with the subject. Conversations were invariably taped and covert audio and visual connections were always attempted. This situation, however, was totally different on account of the subject’s ability, thus far, to control the flow and direction of the communication. What the hell was it that this Tommy Denning had to say? Did he have some great secret to impart? Or was his message going to be the typical ramblings of some delusional paranoid? The three types of psychological profile assessment—either mad or bad or mad and bad—were difficult to apply in this case. From the way Denning presented himself to the world he didn’t easily fit into any category.

  The more Ed thought about Tommy Denning’s announcement, the more he thought that they hadn’t fully evaluated the implications of allowing him a voice and one that all the news media would be only too happy to trumpet from every rooftop. But that was an intangible and now he had to focus on those aspects of the situation that he could control.

  “Try and raise the driver on the radio,” said Ed. “Denning might be so pumped up by the fact this whole thing is going better than in his wildest dreams that he might let us through.”

  A moment later, White said, “Ed, you’re on.”

  Ed slipped on his headset. “George? Are you there? This is Ed Mallory from the Network Control center. Can you hear me?” There was nothing for a few moments, just radio static before George’s voice came through the speaker.

  “Hi, it’s George.”

  “Can I speak to Tommy Denning?”

  There was a muffled conversation in the background before George came back on the line.

  “No, he will only communicate via the webcam. You must wait until twelve noon.”

  “Please tell him that it’s essential that I speak to him because we’ve got a problem fulfilling his request.”

  Another pause. There was a crackle on the radio connection before another voice—Tommy Denning’s this time—came on the line.

  “Listen, Mr. Mallory, I know you’d like to get into a conversation with me and try to talk me down but you’ve got to realize that I’m not up for a chat, okay?”

  Hearing his voice again, Ed guessed that he was definitely a Londoner but the accent wasn’t strong enough to allow him to hazard a more specific origin.

  “Mr. Denning—can I call you Tommy?”

  “You can call me what the hell you like, it’s not going to do you any good. Although I have to say that I rather like the fact that we’re calling each other ‘Mr. Denning’ and ‘Mr. Mallory,’ it sounds very refined. Now don’t take offense from this—it’s nothing personal—but I’m not going to be talking to you, okay? All you need to know is that if anybody tries to stop me making my announcement at twelve o’clock then I’ll kill all the passengers on the train.”

  “The problem I have is that the wireless access is very unstable. Our technical people are struggling to keep it going. It may pack up before twelve noon.”

  “You’re lying
, Mr. Mallory. You know it and I know it. If the connection is so unstable then you’ll get some backup. What’s that compared to the deaths of hundreds of people?”

  Ed could hear something in the background. He had heard it on the computer, on the link to the webcam, but on the radio it was louder. It was a rushing sound, like wind blowing through trees.

  “Tommy, if we’re going to resolve this situation, we’re going to have to create some trust here. We’re giving you the Internet connection so we’re going to need something in return.”

  “You are getting something in return—you’re getting the lives of the passengers on the train.”

  “We’re going to need something more tangible than that, Tommy. I’m thinking that it would reflect really well on you if you were to release the children.”

  Denning chuckled. It was unforced. It sounded like a genuine expression of goodwill, as though he was enjoying their conversation and felt confident he was in complete control of it. He sounded like no other hostage taker Ed had ever come across. He was calm, collected, and thinking clearly, behaving as though this was something he was born to do.

  Denning clearly wasn’t going to respond to his line about the children so Ed thought he would try another tack. “What exactly is it that you want, Tommy?”

  “You’ll find out,” said Tommy and the line went dead.

  “He’s enjoying this,” said Ed to the occupants of the negotiating cell. “He’s having a ball.”

  11:36 AM

  Northern Line Train 037, driver’s cab

  Through the cracked window, George could see that the puddles in the tunnel were merging, lapping at the rails. Soon there would be a continuous expanse of water in front of the train. How long the power supply through the rails would continue was difficult to say but, once it had gone, the battery on the train would continue to provide electricity for a while until it ran down and the entire train would be thrown into darkness.

  The negotiator, Ed Mallory, was trying to keep Denning talking. But it was never going to happen. There was no way that Denning was going to respond to any sort of conversational psychology. It sounded like Mallory was probably aware of that. George chewed his gum as he listened to the attempted negotiations. It was Juicy Fruit. Denning hadn’t wanted any when George had offered him a piece.

  “All you need to know,” said Denning into the radio handset, “is that if anybody tries to stop me making my announcement at twelve o’clock then I’ll kill all the passengers on the train.”

  Why the water? Why flood the tunnel? By asking the questions, George hoped he might be able to find an answer other than the one that kept offering itself to him and made his claustrophobia flare up and steal the breath from his lungs. There was no avoiding it; there was only one answer—the water was a threat. And as the driver of the train, George knew that he should try to do something about it. The passengers were technically still his responsibility. There had to be something that he could do. Something that would not jeopardize his family.

  He had been trying to avoid looking down at the floor of the cab—he was never very good with blood—but as he glanced down, he saw that stuck to the drying blood was a plastic bottle of Diet Coke about half full. It had fallen out of the trainee driver’s jacket pocket when he slumped to the floor. The fact that it was Diet Coke made its owner’s death even worse somehow. It personalized it. The poor bugger had been a little overweight—like George—and maybe he had wanted to slim down, through health reasons or possibly vanity. Whichever it was, it didn’t matter now.

  Then it came to him. If he drank the Coke, in addition to quenching his thirst—it was so damned hot, the chewing gum felt like rubber in his mouth—he would have an empty plastic bottle in which he could place a letter, a message in a bottle.

  Could he scribble a note on a piece of paper to the effect that Tommy Denning was flooding the tunnel? It was clear that Denning had no intention of telling the authorities the full details of the hostage scenario that he was engineering, otherwise he would have done so already. It obviously served his purposes not to. So if George could let it be known some other way, provide some forewarning of what was going on down there then the authorities might be able to put in place some evasive procedures. There was clearly a small amount of current in the water caused by the deluge cascading down from the bolt hole in the tunnel roof where Denning had set off the explosion. It might be just enough to carry the bottle past the train to where it might be found by someone. But no sooner had the idea come to him and he had embraced what scant hope it offered than he rejected it out of hand. It was a stupid idea. Quite apart from the fact that Tommy Denning would have been alerted to what he was up to when he started writing a letter, even if he could manage to put his message in the bottle and cast it into the water, the chances of it actually reaching anybody in time for them to do anything were infinitesimal; the risk far outweighed any possible benefits.

  Despite the plan’s failings, the idea of alerting the outside world to the exact nature of what Denning was up to was still sound.

  The radio handset, there it was. There was his mouthpiece to the world. But it would take more than just speaking into it. This would take ingenuity.

  “What exactly is it that you want, Tommy?” asked Ed Mallory through the speaker console.

  “You’ll find out,” said Denning, taking his finger off the push-to-talk button on the side of the handset and passing it back to George. The chewing gum was already out of George’s mouth and in his hand. He kept the talk button pressed down and packed the chewing gum around it tightly to hold it in position. The channel was still open.

  But as soon as George had done this, all he could see was the piece of chewing gum. There it was on the mouthpiece hanging in its cradle on the radio console. It looked enormous. It might as well have been red and throbbing. What was he thinking? He wasn’t a hero. His recent attempt to snatch the gun from Denning had very nearly got him killed. This was far more reckless. An open channel would sometimes—often—hiss and crackle. Denning would only need to hear this, look across at the handset and see the chewing gum on the talk button. He wouldn’t think twice. It would be George’s turn to be thrashing around the cab, blood pissing from a hole in his head. This time he really was going to die.

  Talk, George. That’s all he could do. He would have to try and mask any sounds from the handset. And for Christ’s sake, George, stop looking at it.

  Denning stared through the cracked window at the water in the tunnel. He looked confident, like whatever his sick plan was, it was all going smoothly.

  Say something, George.

  “So, what’s with the water?”

  Denning glanced at him—disaster—before returning his gaze to the tunnel.

  “Think of it as an egg timer,” he said, smiling, pleased with his explanation.

  George glanced at the radio console. The gum around the button was beginning to stretch as the spring behind it forced it away from the main body of the handset. The channel would not stay open for long. He had to describe the situation more clearly, at any moment the radio might crackle and he would be found out.

  “So you’re trying to drown us by flooding the tunnel, is that it?”

  Had he overdone it? Had he killed himself? Had he killed Maggie? Had he killed his children?

  Denning looked at him. He would only have to glance a little to one side and he would see the handset and the gum on it. In his peripheral vision, George could see the talk button straining against the sticky tendrils.

  “It’s not a matter of drowning. This is much more important than drowning. This is a blessing.”

  The last of the gummy tethers was about to give way, allowing the press-to-talk button to snap back into place, closing down the channel and emitting as it nearly always did a crackle of static.

  Say something. Anything.

  “It’s so damned hot.”

  When it came, it was more of a hiss than a crackle and it coincid
ed with the “want” as George said, “Do you want a drink?”

  George stooped down and picked up the bottle of Diet Coke, prying it away from the congealing blood. If he looked up and saw Denning pointing the pistol at him then he knew it would be the last thing he would ever see. He couldn’t bear to look so he focused on the top of the bottle as he unscrewed it. There was no avoiding it now, he had to look at Denning. What would his expression be? Had he heard? The hiss from the radio might as well have been church bells to George. It was loud and unmistakable. But when he managed to look at Denning again, he was met with an expression of disgust. Was it disgust at his woeful attempt to communicate with the outside world? Was it disgust that could only be banished by pumping a bullet into his head? It was impossible to say. George’s thirst felt terminal. If he was going to die, he wanted to have a drink first. He raised the bottle to his lips and took a sip. The fizzy liquid was warm and not as fizzy as it should have been. It probably contained a few milliliters of its former owner’s saliva.

  “How could you?”

  George felt like sobbing with relief. He took another gulp and held out the bottle to Denning.

  “Want some?”

  “No.”

  Denning watched him as he took another gulp.

  “Drinking a dead man’s drink,” said Denning with disgust.

  “Well, you killed him.”

  George didn’t know where it came from. Suddenly he was a comedian, joking about the darkest and sickest subject matter imaginable. And Denning was smiling at him, amused. But this wasn’t the time for complacency. There was still a big sticky bolus of chewing gum on the radio handset and the implications of Denning’s reply to his question regarding the running water had now filtered through his mind and made him feel sick.

  “So what are you after, what are your demands?”

  “Look, I don’t want to spoil it for you. If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise now would it?” The smile was gone as he took out the walkie-talkie and spoke into it: “Belle?”