by Max Kinnings
“Good on you, Conor,” said Ed.
“Don’t get soppy on me, I don’t think I could take it.”
“What you did here today will probably never be known for obvious reasons but you’ve saved a lot of lives.”
Ed felt Conor’s hand slide into his and squeeze it.
“You’ll need to get yourself a new pair of sunglasses. Those ones are fucked.”
“I will,” said Ed. “And thanks.”
As Nick Calvert ushered Conor and Frank away, Ed heard footsteps making straight for him.
“DI Mallory?” It was a young woman’s voice. “I’m PC Holland. I’ve got a call for you.”
3:49 PM
Leicester Square Tube Station, ticket hall
The circular ticket hall was busy. Passengers from the hijacked train were being brought up the escalator from the Northern Line. Hooper watched a group of little girls, their pink dresses wet and muddy. The sight of them was like an emotional punch. Right there in front of him was evidence that what he was doing was right. He was saving children from the clutches of radical lunatics.
Near to where he stood, a group of paramedics administered first aid to those with gunshot wounds and other injuries. One man had lost his left leg at the knee. He was clearly in shock but was being stabilized. The place was hectic with police and special forces. It felt like a war zone. It was a war zone. And sometimes in times of war, it falls to one man to clean up the mess.
The logistics of what he was going to attempt made him feel sick with trepidation. How exactly was he going to clean up after his failed operation? How would he explain to the powers that be that his actions amounted to an operational necessity? It haunted him. He was stepping over the line. But he had no choice.
There were some junior service personnel loitering about outside the control room in the center of the ticket office. They were beneath him in the pecking order; he could pull rank. He sidled up to a guy called Johnstone. He was a low-grade wannabe. A nobody, in the scheme of things. They nodded a mutual greeting.
“Where’s Denning?” asked Hooper.
“They’ve just put him in there.” He gestured toward the control room in the ticket hall.
Hooper knew that if White or Calvert were there, he was in trouble. But if they weren’t, if it was just some grunt who was watching over him then he would be able to do the job. He stepped inside.
He was in luck. There was just the one CO19 officer standing in the room. Hooper flashed his MI5 ID at him. Denning sat on a chair at a table pressing a large piece of bandage against his bloody face.
“I just need to ask him a few questions,” said Hooper.
“You’re going to have to be quick,” said the grunt. “He’s off to St. Mary’s with Special Branch to get his face patched up before he goes to Paddington Green.”
Hooper nodded. He was going to be quick.
“Who are you?” asked Denning looking up.
“MI5,” said Hooper.
“Oh dear,” said Denning. “Not one of your better days.”
“Why’s that?” Hooper tried to keep a flat measured tone to his voice. He pulled out the chair opposite Denning and sat down, listening for footsteps outside the door.
“I should think there’ll be a few job cuts after this little lot leaks out.”
“Why should you care, Tommy? I thought this was all about God and your need to wipe out hundreds of people in his name.”
“This was prophesied in the Bible.”
“Listen, Tommy, you need to tell me how many people know about Simeon Fisher.”
“Who’s he?”
“Don’t play games, Tommy. How many knew?”
“You knew. I knew. My sister knew.”
“Who else?”
“Why are you so interested all of a sudden?”
“Did the driver know?”
Denning turned and looked at the CO19 officer and then looked back at Hooper. “George was such a disappointment to me. I thought he was one of us.”
“Tommy, I haven’t got time for this. Does he know about Simeon Fisher and MI5’s involvement?”
Denning looked Hooper in the eyes and said, “Yeah, he knows. George knows everything.”
“No one else?”
“No one.”
It was old school and he loved it for that. A Walther PPK with a silencer. Bond’s gun. Iconic. He had bought it on the black market. It couldn’t be traced back to him. It could just as well have been Tommy Denning’s as his. And now it would be Tommy Denning’s. For all time.
Beneath the table, he pulled on the surgical glove and drew the gun from the holster on his ankle.
“What are you waiting for?” said Denning.
Hooper raised the gun and shot over Denning’s head. Two bullets, straight into the CO19 officer’s face. He fell heavily but not loudly enough to arouse suspicion outside the door.
“Bless you,” said Denning. He looked up and had just enough time to say, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit,” before Hooper forced the gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger. A bloody spray peppered the wall from the exit wound in the back of his head before he fell forward onto the desk.
He had to move fast. Taking off the holster from his ankle, he strapped it to Denning’s. He wiped the surgical glove on Denning’s right hand to provide the necessary firearm residue before he curled his fingers around the Walther PPK.
And there it was. Denning had managed to keep a concealed weapon about him and when the time had come he had killed his guard and shot himself in the mouth. Regrettable of course.
Hooper walked from the room and pulled the door closed after him. When interviewed, he would say that when he left the room, everything was fine. And it was. Absolutely fine.
But he would worry about that later. Now he would update Berriman, then he would find the train driver.
3:54 PM
Leicester Square Tube Station, station manager’s office
PC Holland was struggling to keep a lid on her nerves during a scenario for which she was mentally ill-prepared. As Ed took her arm, he could feel a slight tremble through the starched cotton of her blouse. Once they were inside the station manager’s office, she pressed a telephone receiver into Ed’s hand and he raised it to his ear.
“DI Mallory.”
“Ed, there you are. I’m so glad to have located you.” Howard Berriman’s tone was radically altered from their previous conversations. He sounded solemn, contrite and more than a little panicked.
“What can I do for you?” asked Ed. He was expecting some sort of congratulation or at least acknowledgment of what he had succeeded in doing to drain the water from around the train. He received neither.
“I need to talk to you about Mark Hooper. Have you spoken to him?”
“Not since we were at the Network Control center in St. James’s.”
“Do you know where he might be?”
“No idea.”
“The thing is, Ed, I think today’s events have conspired to make him suffer some sort of breakdown.”
“He seemed okay earlier. He was very guarded about things but I figured that it had something to do with professional friction between our two departments.”
“Well, since then, things haven’t panned out as he’d envisaged and I think it’s pushed him over the edge.”
“What things, Howard?”
There was silence on the line and Ed had a curious feeling. His subconscious was stirring. Thoughts were forming, thoughts that he didn’t even realize he had been having. And once they had started to form, his enlightenment was rapid. Everything tumbled into place and when he said the two words, he said them as a statement, not a question.
“You knew.”
There was relief in Berriman’s voice when he said, “Yes.” Guilt was Howard Berriman’s burden and he was only too pleased to offload it. But there were caveats—of course there were.
“We only knew the vaguest of details. All we knew was t
here was going to be a hijacking on the Underground. We thought it was going to be next week.”
“And you only tell me now when they’re evacuating the train?”
“It wouldn’t have helped you to do your job.”
“Shouldn’t I have been the judge of that?”
“Look, I’m sorry, Ed. All we knew was that Tommy Denning was going to try and hijack a tube train. Hooper was handling someone on the inside who told him it was going to be this time next week.”
“So why weren’t we doing all we could to bring them in?”
“Look, Ed, I can’t deny that it wasn’t a politically motivated decision. I thought if I delivered a result on the day with maximum news and media coverage then everyone would come up smelling of roses—the government, the service, me . . .”
“And Hooper was your boy.”
“He was the one who brought it to me but they moved early. Denning must have found out about our man on the inside—”
“He wasn’t called Simeon Fisher was he, by any chance?”
“Yeah, how did you—”
“Denning.”
“Right, well, it allowed him to catch us off guard. There was no point you knowing. It wouldn’t have helped.”
“And now you think that Hooper has lost his grip.”
“Ed, I think he might try and kill Tommy Denning.”
“What?”
“When we last spoke, he said he was going to try and take out anyone who knew about the operation.”
“Jesus, Howard.”
“He thinks he can clean up the mess and we can all walk away.”
“I take it you’ve put a call out for him to be stopped on sight?”
“We’re speaking to Commander Boise.”
“Let’s hope they can bring him in straight away.”
“I’m sure they will.”
“And what about me, Howard? How do you think what I did will go down with the grown-ups?”
“You got the passengers out, Ed. You’ll be fine.”
“That’s easy for you to say. There are still going to be a lot of questions to answer about the methods I employed.”
“I’ll be in your corner, Ed, you know that.”
Berriman’s words offered little reassurance. Ed knew that Berriman would have too many problems of his own regarding his prior knowledge of the attack to spend time trying to save some cop’s skin. Ed’s feelings toward the director general of MI5 had gone through various twists and turns during the day but now they felt as though they had resolved themselves in his mind. It was straightforward enough, he just didn’t like the guy.
“And Ed? What I’ve just told you about this operation remains between the two of us for the time being, is that clear?”
“Sure, Howard.”
“We’ll talk about this later.”
“If that’s what you want.”
“I do, Ed. I really do.”
The line went dead.
3:58 PM
MI5 Headquarters, Thames House
Howard had lied to Ed Mallory; he hadn’t put the call in to Serina Boise. He wanted to find out whether Mallory knew where Hooper was first. As he put the phone down, he snatched it up again, his finger poised over the keypad. He would make the call now.
But what if Hooper did manage to make it all go away? If the train driver did know about the service’s complicity and he didn’t make it out alive then perhaps they would be in the clear. He could blame Hooper for what had gone on. He could blame it on his mental state. Tragic that a young man like that should crack under pressure but it happens. That’s life. Who else was there? Only Ed. And what possible advantage or benefit could he have in raining on his own parade? What he had done was unconventional, foolhardy maybe, but because of the outcome for many he would be perceived as a hero. Maybe Hooper was right. Maybe the shitstorm could be averted. There was no harm in just leaving it a few minutes. Wait and see. If he got a call from Hooper to say that it had all been taken care of then what was the point in rocking the boat? He could still have him taken out of the game. And as for Ed’s safety down there, well, if he didn’t make it out alive either then that would be tragic too. He’d say nice things about him, make sure he got some sort of posthumous award.
Hooper had sounded disturbed when he’d phoned just before he spoke to Ed but that was only to be expected. Perhaps he sounded unbalanced because what he was proposing was, by anyone’s estimation, insane. But that didn’t mean that he might not be able to see it through. Howard needed to look at the big picture. As the director general of MI5, he needed to make the big decisions.
Howard Berriman took his finger away from the telephone keypad and drummed it against the top of the desk as he thought.
Wait and see. It was definitely the best course of action.
3:58 PM
Leicester Square Tube Station, ticket hall
Ed took PC Holland’s arm as she walked him across the concourse in the ticket hall toward the offices where Denning was being held.
“What’s your first name?” asked Ed.
“Jessica. Jess.”
“Well, listen, Jess, you may not like what you’re about to see.”
“What am I about to see?”
“Two dead men.”
The angle of her delivery changed as she spoke to someone up ahead. “This is DI Ed Mallory.”
Ed held out his ID and said, “I’m here to see Tommy Denning.”
The officer opened up the door and Ed and PC Holland went inside the room. The air smelled of blood and aftershave. Mark Hooper’s recent presence there was confirmed when PC Holland lost her composure and muttered, “Oh my God.”
Ed let go of her arm and putting his hands on the table top, made his way around it to Tommy Denning’s corpse slumped in the chair. Ed ran his fingers over Denning’s face, feeling the massive wound in his cheek and the shattered teeth and lacerated gum tissue within it. He touched the stubble on Denning’s head that would grow for a few more hours at least. He felt the ridge of ruptured skull at the back of his head—the exit wound—then he reached down and felt for Denning’s right hand. He lifted it up and held it between his own. It was still warm. Holding it to his nose, he took a deep breath. There was blood of course, oily water from the flooded tunnel, the smell of gunpowder residue from all the shooting he had done but beneath all of that was the smell of human skin, the smell of Tommy Denning.
Within seconds, PC Holland had raised the alarm and the room was full of police officers. But Ed didn’t intend to hang around to explain the intricacies of the situation. Ed said to Holland, “You need to take me to the train driver and his family.”
4:04 PM
Leicester Square Tube Station, admin office
“Everything’s going to be all right now,” said George, and Maggie smiled at him. It was a corny line but he didn’t care. They had survived the storm. They were alive. Everything came into focus now. Every moment was precious.
There were footsteps in the corridor outside followed by a muttered conversation on the other side of the door. The door opened and a policewoman entered the room followed by a slim man dressed all in black. His face was scarred and he wore cracked sunglasses, clearly the prop of a blind man. The state of his filthy soaking clothes made it appear as though he had been on the train with them.
“George Wakeham?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“I’m Ed Mallory. We spoke earlier.”
George recognized the voice. Mallory held out his hand and George shook it. But the mood was anything but convivial.
“Thanks for all your help,” said George.
“Don’t worry about that now. What happened to your security detail?”
“Well, there was someone with us earlier who brought us up from the train but—”
“George, I need you and your family to follow us.”
“Is something the matter?” asked George. Ed Mallory’s tone and demeanor had taken the shine off hi
s celebratory mood.
“You need to come with us. Now.”
George felt his fear return but he needed answers, he needed to know the nature of this new threat.
“What’s going on?”
“You and your family are in danger.”
George felt the moment wrap itself around him like plastic wrap. He sucked at the air but it was hot and devoid of oxygen.
“Please, we need to move fast.” George and Maggie gathered the children together and they followed Ed Mallory and the policewoman out of the room toward the top of the escalators.
“What the hell is going on?” asked Maggie in a frantic whisper.
“I don’t know,” said George. “But we should trust this guy.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
Ed held onto the arm of the policewoman, who looked around nervously as though searching for someone in among the crowds of paramedics, police, special forces, and evacuated train passengers. She gestured for George to follow them down an escalator. While Maggie held the children’s hands, George caught up with Ed and said, “Do you want to tell me what this is all about?”
“Soon. Let’s keep moving,” said Ed.
They came to a red steel door that stood ajar set into the side of a pedestrian tunnel. Ed said to PC Holland, “Make contact with DI Calvert and tell him where we are.” She hurried off, leaving him standing in the doorway.
“Inside quickly and close the door,” said Ed, and George ushered Maggie and the children into the dark interior and pushed the steel door shut on its screeching oil-free hinges. “I’m sorry about this,” whispered Ed in the pitch darkness behind the door. “The problem is we have a rogue MI5 agent who’s had some sort of breakdown. He may be dangerous. Armed police officers are on their way but we’re going to have to wait for them. Here’s as safe a place as any for the time being.”