Baptism

by Max Kinnings

  Perhaps that might mean something to Denning. Here was a man who had contrived to get his face on every television screen in the world—he had come close—but now he was about to go off air for good. Forever.

  “Tommy, you owe it to all the people all over the world who are watching what is happening here now. You need to show them the sort of person you really are.”

  It was a sound that Ed did not expect to hear during a hostage negotiation. Laughter was a commodity in short supply in situations like this, especially emanating from someone who has been shot in the face. But it was coming through his headphones. It was pained and awkward but there it was, Tommy was laughing at him.

  “Come on, Ed, let’s not go through this charade,” he said. “You know as well as I do that I’m not going to walk away from this. This is more than just a piece of terrorism. It’s more than just an attack. This was prophesied: ‘For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.’ Revelation, chapter seven, verse seventeen.”

  “But they’re only words, Tommy. They could mean anything to anyone. That’s just your interpretation.”

  “This will probably be our last chance to talk.”

  It was almost the exact same line that Ed was planning on saying to Denning. He hadn’t expected to hear it said to him.

  “You’ve done your best, Ed, but you never really stood a chance.”

  “Why didn’t I?”

  “Because I’m an honest man. I tell the truth. People like you can have no effect on me. You deal with fuckups, weirdos, losers, desperate men who are backed into a corner. I’m not like that. I know what I’m doing and I know that what I’m doing is right.”

  Tommy Denning was a religious psychopath and, as such, he represented the most difficult psychological character type with which to negotiate. Ed decided that there was only one thing to do now and that was to revert back to what had made Tommy speak to him in the first place.

  “I want to talk to you about your mum and dad, Tommy. I suspect they have quite a lot to do with this.”

  Ed frowned at the slurping, gurgling sound that came through his headphones before he realized that Tommy was laughing again. “Listen to you, Ed, you sound like a shrink. Give it up, okay? This has nothing to do with my father and what he did. I was chosen to do this. The fact that this is happening, the fact that you and me are here talking like this says it all. It was meant to be.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t meant to be, Tommy, maybe you’re just making it happen.”

  “It’s happening because I’m being allowed to make it happen.”

  “Come on, you know as well as I do that the authorities can’t let you drown everyone on the train. They’ll send in special forces before they’ll let that happen.”

  “In which case, I’ll set off the explosives. It can be baptism by water or baptism by fire, it’s all the same to me. We are all of us God’s children and for me and my flock down here beneath the streets of London, this is our end of days.”

  “This is wrong, Tommy. You say that you’re a Christian but this goes against all of Christ’s teachings. Do the right thing, Tommy.”

  “I am doing the right thing.”

  “At least let the children go.” Damage limitation. Standard negotiating procedure. If you can’t get them all out then at least get some of them out.

  “The children are coming with me, Ed. They’ve been chosen too.”

  “They haven’t been chosen. They’re innocent. Let them go.”

  “I’m in a lot of pain, Ed, so I’m going to say good-bye now.”

  He had to keep him on the line. Without that, they had nothing.

  “I know all about pain, Tommy.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I was blinded in a hostage negotiation a few years ago.”

  “You’re blind?”

  “Yes, there was an explosion and breaking glass cut my face and took my sight.”

  “Bless you, Bartimaeus, I shall pray for you.”

  “If you want to do something for me, Tommy, then let the passengers go.”

  “I can’t do that, Ed. This is God’s will.”

  “It isn’t God’s will.” He said it with much more force than he had intended but his frustration could only be suppressed for so long.

  Calvert was squeezing his leg. It was a prearranged signal that he was—in the terminology of hostage negotiation—“falling in,” becoming too absorbed in the negotiation and beginning to lose perspective. Tommy picked up on it as well.

  “Don’t be bitter, Ed. I know the authorities have been made to look very silly by all this.”

  “Why, Tommy?”

  “Two words: Simeon Fisher.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “He’s one of yours, or he was. He’s dead now. You’re lucky that my webcam and laptop were broken otherwise I would have announced it to the world, told everyone how dumb you all are.”

  “Tommy, I don’t know who Simeon Fisher is.”

  “Then perhaps you’re not far enough up the food chain but I’m sure you can find out.”

  There was a crackling on the radio. The sound faded in and out.

  “Tommy, the radio link’s not going to hold out much longer. You’ve got to release the people on the train.”

  But instead of a reply, there was further crackling followed by the sound of a woman’s voice in the background. She sounded desperate. She was shouting about “the boot of a car.” There was more shouting followed by the sound of a gunshot.

  Silence. The woman started up again but it was impossible to make out anything over the white noise that whined and spluttered as the radio lost power. Another shot was fired then nothing, just crackle and hiss.

  There was a break in the squall from the speakers and there was a sound like movement in the train cab.

  “Tommy? Tommy, can you hear me?” Ed’s questions were greeted by a crescendo of radio static and then silence once more.

  Ed could hear White turning switches and clicking away on a computer keyboard before he said, “He’s gone.”

  After Ed had dropped his headphones onto the desk in front of him, he took off his sunglasses and squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He’d read somewhere that it eased tension. It didn’t seem to help much now. Tommy Denning was so whacked out on God and religion that he had actually come full circle and sounded more sane and reasoned than Ed did. He was never going to release the passengers. No one was coming to save them.

  “Shall I try and get through again?” asked White.

  Ed said yes but he knew that it wouldn’t be possible and the continued silence from White was confirmation. The thought of what was going on all those hundreds of feet beneath the London streets tortured him. If the lights in the carriages were still working, they wouldn’t be for very much longer. And then the people on the train would experience the same darkness that he had for all these years.

  “Why did he call you that name?” asked Calvert.

  “Bartimaeus?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s the name of the blind man that Jesus cures on the road to Jericho.”

  There was no point in asking Laura if she had heard anything back from Serina Boise about clearance for the use of explosives to drain the tunnel. That was never going to get the green light. Yet the plan possessed an appealing logic and his mind kept returning to it. There was a man who might be able to help. He was a man who Ed thought about every day—couldn’t help it—and as the idea started to take shape, he worried for his sanity that he should even consider it. The fact was he had run out of alternatives. This had to be considered. Nothing was off the table. Not in his mind at least. The plan that he was about to put in motion would almost certainly mean the end of his career. But this was bigger than one man’s job and it was probably the only conceivable hope he had to resolve the situation. But when he start
ed to say the words, they sounded all wrong. He said them anyway, turning in the direction of Calvert and White as he did so.

  “I need you to find someone. He was the IRA’s leading explosives man back in the day. He subsequently did some work for the secret service.”

  “Okay, Ed,” said Calvert. “Who is it?”

  “His name’s Conor Joyce.”

  12:53 PM

  Network Control center, St. James’s

  “Tommy, I don’t know who Simeon Fisher is,” said Ed Mallory on the radio.

  “Then perhaps you’re not far enough up the food chain but I’m sure you can find out,” replied Tommy Denning.

  As Mark Hooper watched Detective Sergeant White tapping away on his keyboard, running the name through the database, he had that feeling again around the back of his ears. It had a certain heat to it. He had felt it when he was a boy and he had got in trouble at school—and now he had felt it twice in one day, once when he spoke to Berriman earlier and now here with Ed Mallory. Was this the moment when he was meant to throw his hands up and admit that Simeon Fisher was his man on the inside and he had known about Denning all along? No, that moment would never come. He would never allow anyone the pleasure of knowing that he had fucked up and there was no way that Ed Mallory, the blind bastard, would be able to tell that his attitude was anything other than that of a man under pressure.

  Was this the end of the line? His whole life had been leading up to his career in the service. He had made sure he did everything right. That he was unpopular with colleagues on account of his naked ambition didn’t bother him. He wasn’t in the job to be popular. If people didn’t like him then that was their problem. What he wanted was to prove that he had what it took. During his time at a minor public school in Cheshire, he had always been made to feel second best. Never good enough at sports to make varsity and not quite bright enough to shine academically, he had been told by some crusty old career adviser that he should aim for business management. But what did he know? By the time Mark was the rising star in G Unit, he knew that he had found his vocation. Not for him the boring middle-of-the-road life mapped out for him by his upbringing. In the service, he was pulling down jihadis, disrupting the rise of Islamic terrorism in the wake of 9/11, honorable work, and work that suited him. There was no way that he was going to throw all that away.

  If only things hadn’t played out like this. A month from today he was due in Whistler in Canada with his girlfriend, Anna. It was all planned. If Denning had moved a week later when he was supposed to then it would have given him three weeks to soak up all the plaudits within the service for preventing a major terrorist atrocity and then two weeks of skiing and quiet nights in with Anna, maybe even popping the question. There would have been no better time to do so than when he was at the top of his game and flushed with the confidence that would give him. But Denning had spoiled all that.

  If he could just make it through these next few hours, however, then everything might still be all right. This was a test, a big one. The people who made the difference were the ones who could not only adapt and strategize but also keep their heads when the unexpected happened and turn a situation to their advantage. This whole operation looked bad, very bad; it would be difficult to make it right but he knew that, so long as he dug deep enough and drew on all his reserves of courage and determination, he would be fine; he would prevail. It was all about self-belief.

  1:01 PM

  Northern Line Train 037, first carriage

  A few minutes earlier his priorities had been so different. He had wanted to stay alive, he had wanted to protect his family; he had hoped that Tommy wouldn’t notice the sticky pieces of gum on the handset that he had attempted to pick away as he had answered the radio to Ed Mallory. Now that he had heard Maggie calling to him from the next carriage, everything had changed. As the water lapped at his ankles, George looked at Denning, who met his stare, blinking nervously.

  “Is it true?”

  “Is what true?”

  “You know exactly what I fucking mean. You heard her. What have you done with my kids?”

  “Is that the wife?”

  “Tell me!”

  “I’m sorry, we didn’t know what to do with them.” He said it as though he was a child himself, one who had been caught out, discovered committing the very deed he had denied for so long. He was cowed. He might be the one with the gun and the mission from God but he was also a guilty little boy. And now he wanted to explain: “They may have aroused suspicion. They’ll be all right. Someone will find them. We thought: what the hell?”

  “What the hell? What the hell! I thought you were supposed to be a Christian. What about suffer the little children, eh, Tommy? You’re not the new Messiah, you’re the fucking devil.”

  “Don’t worry about your kids, worry about yourself. We come into this world alone and we leave alone. You’re going to be part of something the likes of which humanity hasn’t seen for two thousand years.”

  George’s rage was all the more acute for having been kept in check for so long. It felt like every feeling of anger and frustration that he had repressed since his first sentient moment was summoned up and brought alive.

  “Think of them as a sacrifice,” Tommy went on. “Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son; you should be prepared to do the same. You are a prophet too. I’ve seen you in my dreams, George. You’re one of mine and you’re coming with me.”

  If what he was about to do would cost him his life, then so be it. George Wakeham had spent a lifetime swallowing his pride, suppressing his true self. No more. He threw himself at Denning. Clutching his mangled cheek with one hand, Tommy was caught off guard. He tried to bat George away with the pistol, striking him across the temple but George was bigger and heavier than him and his coiled energy was not going to disperse at the first sign of a counterattack.

  Perception is everything, and in that explosive moment George’s perception of his tormentor had changed. No longer was he the hard young soldier whose brain was scrambled by war, a killing machine whose wiring had gone. Now he was a potential conquest. George’s sudden impulse to fight came from somewhere primeval. He was doing what he should have done all along—all creatures are at their most dangerous when their children are put in peril—he was saving his children.

  By the time Denning was pulling the gun back for a second swipe at him, one with some more spirit-crushing brutality to it, George had his hands around his throat. His momentum and weight pushed Denning backward and he slammed him down into the water on the carriage floor. He forced his thumbs into Denning’s throat, grinding them together. But he knew what was coming. All he had was impulse. There was no strategy. He wanted to kill; left to his own devices, he would crush the life out of Denning. But he was never going to get a free run at this. The first of Denning’s strikes with the gun felt as though someone had taken a hammer to his head. But he felt it; he felt the skin open up and the blood spray. The pain was real. It was excruciating, but he was still conscious, still strangling the man who thought it acceptable to lock children in the boot of a car on the hottest day of the year. He was still killing him. He didn’t feel the second blow.

  All the lights went out.

  1:02 PM

  Northern Line Train 037, fifth carriage

  When the water came through the doors, they lifted Adam onto one of the seats. Someone had said something about trying to prop up what remained of his leg; the blood flow was still heavy despite the belt Hugh had managed to tie above the wound.

  Hugh’s panic had gone. For how long he didn’t know. But while his thoughts remained lucid, he channeled them into exploring a possible escape plan. He couldn’t remember which of those torturous offsite management seminars it was that his magazine publisher bosses had seen fit to send him on but one of the numerous pointless aphorisms he’d been subjected to had stuck in his head. The exact wording of it he had forgotten but the meaning remained. In order to solve a problem, you’ve got to ke
ep making choices and decisions. The moment you stop, you’re sunk. It was clear to Hugh what had to be done. No one was coming for them. If they did nothing, they would die. The driver had relayed the information from the terrorists that if there were a mass escape attempt then explosives would be detonated. So they could either be blown up trying to escape or do nothing and drown. It wasn’t a difficult decision to make.

  The lights were dim. They had cut out altogether a couple of times. As terrifying a prospect as it was that in a few moments they would be cast into pitch darkness, it was also a situation that presented them with opportunities. Just as they would be rendered blind so would their hijackers, making an attack more difficult to repel.

  That these thoughts came to Hugh so soon after his earlier panic attack gave him pause to think. Was this sudden clear thinking just another manifestation of his panic and, as with all the other stages that it had gone through, it would pass and something else would take its place? It was a distinct possibility. But he knew with a clarity of which he would not have thought himself capable that there was only one solution to their situation. He felt the need to voice it, to articulate it and thereby make it real. Even if it was real for no one but him.

  “We need to try and retake the train.” The words were whispered; he didn’t want the female hijacker in the next carriage to hear but, as he said them, it was clear that he was clothing in words ideas that others had been mulling over for some time. Daniella, the attractive woman from New York who had helped him tend to their wounded co-hostage, looked at him and nodded. The faces of others who peered at him from the yellowy sodium glow of the fading lights were in agreement.

  “It’s going to be dangerous,” he went on. “But it’s the only chance we’ve got. If they set off the explosives then so be it.” It came out like a line from a film and for a moment the absurdity that he, Hugh Taylor, should be articulating it was not wasted on him. Here he was planning and coordinating an attempt to retake the train. It was insane. He had to keep on speaking, if for no other reason than to repel the doubt that was firing missiles at his resolve.