Some people stay, and the TV cameras get to watch their arrests in the middle of the night. Some people run. Cora ran, after the Bournemouth attack, and we’ve never tracked her down.
It doesn’t matter. Whatever happens after this will happen in the shadow of the most important bombing since Crossrail. No one will notice what happens to the bombers – we’ll be too busy stoking outrage and fear, and trading power for promises of protection.
I wanted to deliver the Canterbury bombers to the committee. I wanted to give the orders and take all the credit, but thanks to Ketty that’s not my job any more. Not my concern.
I realise I’m relieved. Emma’s fate is out of my hands. Lee can have the others, but I don’t want to be the one who puts Emma in a terrorist’s jumpsuit. I don’t want to watch her trial, or her execution. I want to think of her as the girl in the black dress, forever. Her arms around me, that last night in Canterbury. Blonde, blue eyes, freckles, and curves, doing everything I convinced her to do.
*****
I spend the day preparing for the Terrorism Committee meeting. All the details I have on the bombers, and everything relevant I learnt from them, written down and filed away for the committee to use. As my team prepares for the attack, I’m preparing the aftermath.
The rush of power is back. I’m in control. What happens tomorrow will be down to me – my work, my efforts, the relationships I built.
I head home alone, and when I sleep, I dream of the Lindisfarne Lady, tilting and rolling through the waves with a cargo of destruction in her hold.
Early
The air is chilly as I step out of the building. It’s six in the morning, and I’m headed to work. I’ve been awake since four, and we’ll have confirmation of the bombing in an hour.
There’s no point waiting in the flat. I might as well be in the office, reminding Lee and Franks whose operation this is. I trained the bombers, I built the relationship, and I made sure they had everything they’d need for today. I can’t take credit if I’m not in the room.
I walk along Whitehall, thinking about my team. They’ll be in the van, heading for the target, suitcases ready. Niall and Simon will be tidying their empty boat, ready to be fishermen again.
This is the most dangerous part – moving the bombs. I know how many things could go wrong, and I force myself to take a breath and walk faster. My hands are shaking.
It’s still dark when I reach the Home Forces building. The security guard raises an eyebrow as he checks my pass, glancing at the clock on the wall. I ignore him, and he waves me through. The lights are on in the lobby and the corridors, but the coffee rooms and offices are dark.
I’m not surprised to find the lights on in my office, and the door to Lee’s office standing open. I can hear the PIN feed as I take off my coat – a reporter filing a segment from a children’s hospital. Human interest to start the day.
“Corporal?”
“Yes, Sir.” I hurry to his door, and find him sitting in one of the chairs in front of his desk, facing the TV screen. He doesn’t look surprised to see me.
“Here to watch the news?” He flashes me a smile, and I can’t help smiling back.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Time for a coffee, I think,” he says, checking his watch.
“No problem, Sir.” He turns back to the screen.
I have to turn on the lights in our coffee room, and flick the switch on the coffee machine. I fill two mugs, looking out of the dark window at the lights across the river. My stomach is knotted, and I feel as if there’s a band around my chest. I can’t take a full breath, and I can’t stand still. My bones are buzzing with excitement and nerves.
I check my watch. Fifteen minutes.
They’ll be placing the last of the suitcases. Right now, while I’m making coffee, they’ll be walking through the centre of Canterbury leaving smart black cases behind columns and in doorways. In shadows and corners, where they won’t be seen. Where they’ll do the most damage.
I’m proud of them. Emma, Jen, Kieran, and the others. I’m proud of what they’re doing, even if they don’t know whose side they’re on. And I’m proud of myself. They’re doing something dangerous – something bold – for me. They’re doing this because I persuaded them to.
I pick up the coffee mugs and head back upstairs, trying to keep my hands steady.
*****
“Take a seat.” Lee takes a coffee and waves at the chair next to him.
I sit down, and make myself sit still. I want to move. I want to pace the room. I want to feel the power, humming through me.
I am making this happen, and I feel ten feet tall.
I am in control.
I glance at the screen. Five minutes. I can’t breathe. I’m drumming my heel against the floor, my fingers tight around the mug in my hands.
Lee laughs. “Nervous, Corporal?”
I nod. I know he’s smiling.
There won’t be anything in the seven o’clock headlines. The bombs will explode just before seven, and there’ll be a delay between the attack, and the reports reaching the newsroom. We’ll be depending on Lee’s local contacts to call him with the code word – confirmation that everything has gone as planned.
But I can’t take my eyes from the clock in the corner of the screen.
One minute.
Thirty seconds.
Five.
My coffee is forgotten in my hands.
My heart thunders in my chest as the planned moment passes. I’m on the edge of my seat, waiting for the phone to ring.
This is it. This is everything we worked for – training the team, renting the boat, building the bombs. My pulse is a drum in my ears.
But the phone doesn’t ring.
Lee turns to look at his desk. He stands up, and walks to his chair. He leans over, fists on the desktop, watching the phone.
I can’t take a breath. My throat is a fist, closing.
We should have a call. We should have confirmation.
I fix my eyes on the newsreader, but I can’t hear anything she’s saying.
When the call comes, Lee and I both jump. He snatches up the phone and listens to the message.
I’m watching him, trying to read his expression.
His face is red. He’s taking deep breaths.
“Nothing?” He roars into the phone. “Check again!” And he waits, his knuckles white around the receiver.
Nothing, the contact said. Nothing has happened in Canterbury.
No bombs, no explosions.
I can’t breathe. The floor is tilting, like the deck of the Lindisfarne Lady. My stomach heaves. I lean forward, elbows on knees, fighting for breath.
Something has gone wrong. Something has happened to my team.
“Ask about the boat,” I say, swallowing bile. “Explosion. On the boat.”
If the bombs exploded at sea, it’s possible no one knows. That’s why we chose the trawler – an accidental explosion on a fishing boat would be easy to explain, and it’s possible there would be no witnesses.
I’m blinking away a vision of wreckage, sinking under the black water. If the bombs hit the boat, there’d be nothing left. Matchsticks.
And the people? I close my eyes tight, and make myself think of Emma in my bed. Emma in the black dress.
My mug hits the floor, broken pieces exploding across the office, coffee staining the carpet in front of me. I’m frozen, watching the stain spread. Seeing the boat, torn apart.
Lee is shouting, but I can’t make out his words.
I look up at the screen, but PIN is all laughter as the newsreader and the weather girl share a joke across the studio.
It hasn’t happened. The most important bombing since Crossrail, and it hasn’t happened.
We failed. On my watch. My team.
My thoughts are racing. All the things that could have gone wrong.
The suitcases are in place, but the explosions failed.
The van. Something happened to the va
n.
Something happened to Jen, or Kieran, or Emma, and the others backed out.
Something happened to the boat.
I’m running to my desk, pulling the notepad from my pocket. I know Lee is talking to me, but I grab my phone and dial Jen’s number. My fist is tight, fingernails pressing against the skin of my palm. The phone rings, and rings.
And I realise I’m powerless. I’m in London, hiding behind a fake identity and a mountain of lies. Everything I need to control is in Canterbury, and I have no idea what’s happened to my team. What’s happened to my bombs.
What’s happened to Emma.
The phone stops ringing. The line clicks and dies. I put the receiver down and sit on the edge of my desk.
I can’t do anything to make this right.
*****
“Corporal!”
I look up to see Lee at his desk, holding his phone out.
“In here,” he shouts, and I try to stand up. “Now!”
I make it to his desk, and he hands me the phone.
“They need everything. Names, addresses – everything you’ve got.”
I nod, and clear my throat, forcing my voice to something above a whisper.
Lee’s contact asks for the details of my team, and I give him everything I can think of. Kieran’s address, car registrations, a description of Pete’s bike. I ask about the Lindisfarne Lady, and the contact tells me they’re sending someone to Whitstable. When I have nothing else to suggest he thanks me, and hangs up. I pass the phone back to Lee, and he watches me, his eyes narrowed. I realise I’m standing in front of him as if I’ve been carved from stone.
I have absolutely no idea what to do next.
Disappeared
The next two hours leave me dizzy. Lee shouts, I try to explain what might have happened, the phone rings, Lee shouts again. PIN is our background music and wallpaper, every news update swinging past with no reports of bombings or explosions or missing boats or wreckage at sea. The local contacts have been to Kieran’s house, but there’s no one there. Lee sends the Coastguard and the Navy to search the fishing grounds off the Kent coast, but there’s no trace of the trawler.
My team has vanished.
I’ve picked up the broken mug from Lee’s floor, and done my best with the coffee stain. We can’t call a cleaner while we’re taking calls on a Top Secret operation, and I don’t have anything better to do. I’ve fetched two more mugs of coffee, and Lee is finally sitting at his desk, furious, but quiet.
“Sit down, Corporal,” he says, his voice calm. He looks exhausted, and I’m sure I look worse. He takes a sip of his coffee.
“So,” he says, looking at the mug in front of him on the table. “Your team.” He looks up at me, and I feel like a mouse in front of a lion.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Any more insights? Any more thoughts on where they might be? What they might have done with your bombs?”
I shrug. “No, Sir.”
“The most important bombing since Crossrail, and you’ve delivered …” he starts counting on his fingers. “A vanishing team. A vanishing boat. A vanishing crew for your boat. And a very conspicuous lack of suitcases where your state-of-the-art suitcase bombs should be.” I start to agree with him, but he cuts me off. “Not only that, but the centre of Canterbury looks remarkably similar to the way it looked yesterday. And the day before. In fact, I imagine it looks exactly the same as when you were compromising some dazzling blonde with a very expensive meal on my tab.”
The knot in my stomach tightens.
“Sir, I …”
Lee smacks his hand onto the desk.
“I don’t care, Corporal.” He’s shouting again. “I don’t want your excuses. I don’t want your justifications.” He glances over my shoulder at the TV screen, and shakes his head. “This is a serious screw-up, and you …”
“I know, Sir,” I say, and he stares at me.
“Your trawler theory,” he says, eventually. “Is that …?”
But I don’t hear the rest of the question.
There’s a sound, like thunder. The floor jolts under my chair, and the phone rattles on the desk. Somewhere, there’s the sound of breaking glass.
I stare at Lee, and he stares back, eyes widening.
Another roll of thunder. Another jolt.
And another.
The evacuation alarm kicks in, drowning out PIN and whatever Lee says next. I should be moving. I should be standing up and leaving the building, but I’m frozen in my chair.
Three suitcase bombs. Three explosions.
I’m in so much trouble.
Lee
I close my eyes, blocking out the sound of the alarm.
Three explosions.
This is where my team planted the bombs. This is where they’ve been.
They weren’t in Canterbury at all.
*****
Lee is shouting, but the alarm is too loud.
I can’t move.
A fist closes over my sleeve and he’s pulling me out of the chair. Dragging me across the office, past my desk, and out into the crowded corridor.
He tightens his grip on my shirt and hisses into my ear.
“Pull yourself together, Corporal. Walk.” And he pushes me in front of him, into the river of people.
*****
Down the stairs, through the lobby, following the flow. Faces and uniforms pulsing red and white under the evacuation lights. Security guards shouting at us to keep moving, keep walking. The alarm, screaming.
Lee, behind me, pushing me forward.
*****
Through the doors and onto the street and the cold air is like a punch to my throat. I try to catch my breath, but my chest is tight. Solid. Lee grabs my shoulder and swings me towards the river, and I can feel heat on my face.
Someone is shouting. Telling us to go back. Turn round. Lee shouts back, and we push our way out of the crowd.
I can see smoke, and flames. There’s a sound like a jet engine, roaring. The alarm fades behind us.
*****
I stumble to the end of the street, my shirt bunched in Lee’s fist, and I think we’ve made a wrong turn.
There’s nothing here I recognise. Just flame and smoke and the screams of people in the water.
The opposite bank is falling into the river, and the London Eye appears from the smoke.
My knees buckle, and it’s only Lee’s hand on my shirt that stops me from falling.
He drags me back onto my feet.
*****
I can smell the burning. I can hear the screams. Sirens, everywhere, heading for the South Bank.
And then Lee is running, pulling me with him.
I don’t see the Eye, falling. I hear the sound, like a musical note, as the cables tense and fail. I hear the slow-motion splash as the structure hits the river. And I’m running through the flood as a wave of dirty water rises over the embankment wall and crashes onto the road.
My feet are wet. Lee’s hand still grips my shoulder. The air is hot.
This is real. This is happening.
And it’s all my fault.
Disgrace
I’m sitting in a tiny room, alone. A table, a chair, a waste-paper bin. A window, overlooking Horse Guards Parade.
And an armed guard outside the door.
“Don’t move,” Lee said when he dumped me in the chair, and told the guard to keep me here.
So here I am.
Horse Guards Parade is the emergency assembly point for the Home Forces building, and the noise from outside is constant. Shouting, marching, sirens screaming past on Whitehall.
I should be out there. I should be helping. We should have reported in with the fire marshals when we left the office, but Lee wanted me to see what had happened.
Maybe he didn’t believe it himself.
They’ve blown a hole in the heart of London – Emma, Jen, and the others – with only the river between the bombs and my office.
Did they kn
ow? Did they figure out who I was?
I remember Jen, searching the cottage in the middle of the night. Emma, laughing at how much I’d had to drink, mixing cocktails and drinking nothing but juice.
They didn’t find anything. I know they didn’t – there was nothing there to find.
I drag my chair to the table and rest my head in my hands.
What happened? What made them change the target?
What made them target me?
*****
I’m thinking everything through. First contact with Jen. Meeting up, on the seafront. Kieran following us to make sure she was safe.
Training the team. Giving them the skills and the tools to do … this.
Renting the boat. Recruiting Niall and Simon.
Emma, using my own tricks against me. Cocktails and cards. Inviting herself into my bed.
Emma in the black dress. Her kiss, when I gave her the target.
I gave her the target, ahead of time.
Stupid, stupid decision – but nothing she could use to find me. Nothing that would lead to today.
I shake my head. I can’t find my mistake.
*****
Start again.
Jen. Kieran. Tankerton Beach.
Meeting the team. Pitching the job.
Training. The boat. Niall and Simon.
I remember the makeshift bar in the warehouse. The resistance poster on the wall.
Were they playing me from the start? It was Kieran who asked for the boat. Emma who backed him up.
And I didn’t question it. Niall and Simon checked out – there was nothing in their background checks.
But theirs was the oldest boat, and the poorest catch. The crew that needed money.
It was easy to recruit them.
Is that what they planned?
Balancing Act Page 21