Big Boy Did It and Ran Away (52 page)

Angelique breathed out a long sigh and gave him an almost apologetic look in acknowledgement of what she had wreaked.

‘Don’t fuck with the Glesga polis,’ she said quietly with a shrug.

‘I think now would be a good time for me to apologise for anything remotely disrespectful I might have uttered over the past twenty‐
four hours,’ Ray told her. ‘And can I just say thank you, too.’

‘Don’t mention it. Grab that pistol, and don’t forget your speargun in case we meet the Little Mermaid. Then let’s get these bastards out of sight. If somebody finds them, I don’t want it to be right underneath this shaft.’

‘Anything you say.’

They dragged the bodies into the passage connecting the transformer room to the surge chamber. Ray helped himself to one of the walkie‐
talkies and lobbed the other into the water.

‘Ditch the weapons too,’ Angelique said. ‘Apart from the pistol he fired. We know that works.’

‘You’re telling me.’

‘The rest we can’t trust.’

They tossed the other three guns into the hexagonal pool, then Angelique led the way up to the vent shaft access.

‘I’ll go first,’ she said, as they reached the ladder. ‘You climb as fast as you can and do not, under any circumstances, look down. If someone does spot us in this shaft, we’re dead anyway, so it’s no’ gaunny matter whether you see it comin’. What’s the time?’

Ray looked at his watch. ‘Ten to two.’

‘Right. Try and think about what you’d normally prefer to be doin’ this time of a Saturday afternoon.’

Ray did. And it involved avoiding ladders when someone was trying to shoot him.

The sound from the transformers covered that of their climb; the vibration having devoured the gunshot, a few metallic footfalls were mere garnish. Ray’s fear of falling off was salved partially by the protective rings encircling the ladder, while the fear of what might be imminently pursuing them below was with every step being superseded by that of what unavoidably awaited at the top. Seeing how many bundles of explosives you could lob before the enemy clocked you and detonated the rest sounded like a shite idea for a teamplay mod, but he was already logging on to the server and it was too late to hit ESC.

‘At long fucking last,’ Simon muttered to himself, walking across the machine hall to where May had just emerged from Aqueduct One, nearly forty‐
five minutes after the rest of the drilling detail. Over the past half‐
hour Simon had been regularly tempted to take a trip topside to see what was keeping him, but was restrained by the experienced knowledge that the bastard took even more time when he knew you were looking over his shoulder.

The look‐
outs had been pulled down, no evidence having emerged of any evacuation at Cromlarig or any attempted incursion by the authorities. All they had to worry about now was what had happened to Jones and the two barn doors he’d been ordered to hit.

Taylor and Matlock had been first on the case, joined later by the rest of the newly relieved drilling crew. There was no word so far, though with so many tunnels and so much electricity running through the place, it was possible they had already found their answers but been unable to relay anything back. If it turned out the teenage saboteurs were somehow still alive (as opposed to Jones merely having freaked out and taken their corpses off to a quiet corner to do something that didn’t bear thinking about), then in truth it wasn’t the biggest worry he might have had to deal with at this stage.

Simon met May with a warm smile. It never helped to give the moody bastard the impression you were anything less than delighted with his efforts.

‘Ready for curtain‐
up?’ he asked.

May gave a satisfied nod. ‘The fat lady’s doing her vocal warm‐
up exercises. She threw us a few artistic tantrums, but she promises she’ll be onstage at three.’

‘Well, she’s got an excellent manager. What about the pattern?’

‘I started off with the alternative, concentrated configuration at the central buttress, but when Deacon got us the second drill, I estimated we had time to revert to the original. I was right.’

‘Whatever I’m paying you, remind me to double it next time.’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘You managed not to cut any corners?’

‘Just one. We didn’t cement the charges.’

‘Will that affect the blast?’

‘No, it was just a security measure, so that they couldn’t be tampered with. As we were running late, the stuff wouldn’t have dried in time anyway.’

‘Oh dear. So we’re wide open if someone manages to suss our plan, break into the mountain and breach all our defences in the next half‐
hour.’

May returned Simon’s grin. ‘Wide open, yeah. How’s things this end? I hear there’s some problem with Jones.’

‘That’s what I get for sending a man to do a boy’s job.’

‘What?’

‘It’s nothing to worry about. He found our saboteurs: couple of kids. He was supposed to kill them and then head up top, but he’s disappeared. So have they.’

‘Doesn’t sound like nothing to worry about to me.’

‘If they’re alive, their chief concern will be staying that way. They’re not gonna give us any trouble.’

‘We don’t know what – or who – they’ve seen, though. We can’t leave witnesses behind.’

‘We won’t.’

‘But—’

‘We won’t, okay? Once we’ve blown the dam, there’s no need for a quick getaway. The chaos round here is gonna last long enough for us to find them and Jones, dead or alive. You stick to worrying about the main event. Is everything functional? No more nasty surprises?’

‘My equipment never left my sight. I only kept the charges in the truck. It’s all checked and ready. We need a landline, though.’

‘There’s one in the control room. What’s the deal?’

‘The charges in each borehole are all wired to individual relay detonators. I’ve got a remote transmitter up there connected to a cellular. Can’t trust radio signals with all this rock. When the time comes, you just dial the number. It picks up on the third ring, so you can test it as long as you stop before that.’

‘Let’s test it now. What’s the number?’

‘Mother of Christ.’

‘What?’

Simon turned around to face what May was suddenly staring at. It took a lot to provoke an expression like that on someone so tediously poker‐
faced, and even more to distract him when he was talking about his toys. This would do it though, every time. Matlock was staggering towards them from the door leading to the Transformer Chambers. He was soaked in blood from his neck to his thighs, and what looked like an arrow protruded downwards from his neck.

‘Fuck. Somebody help him.’

Matlock collapsed before anyone could reach him, dropping to his knees and then on to his side, an arm supporting his head so that no pressure was brought upon the arrow. May and Simon got there first, Deacon and Cook at their backs.

Simon knelt down next to his kebabed comrade. He was still breathing, but only just.

‘Can you speak? What happened?’

Matlock barely managed a whisper, struggling to channel enough breath even for that. He sounded like a fish gasping its last, the smack of his lips louder than his words. However, audibility and intelligibility were not proportionately linked. They might not be hearing him too well, but they were all soon reading him loud and clear.

‘Ash,’ he breathed. For half a second it might have sounded to the others like merely another choking noise, but Simon immediately felt his blood freeze. ‘A … cop. Girl. Vensha … ven … sha.’

‘Where’s Taylor?’ May asked anxiously.

Matlock shook his head, as perceptibly as he could manage. ‘Girl.’

‘The girl? She killed him?’

Matlock nodded.

‘She’s a cop?’ asked Simon.

More nodding.

‘Where did they go?’

Matlock swallowed, seemingly readying himself for the effort of telling them, but instead, when he opened his mouth, all that issued was a splutter of thickened arterial blood, followed by a pitiful final exhale.

Simon’s head was buzzing, trying to work out the ramifications, but it was like doing a mathematical equation where the numbers and variables kept changing. What didn’t help was that his men were articulating the same questions as were in his mind, adding to the number of voices simultaneously demanding answers.

‘How could Ash be here?’

‘How could he know?’

‘How did he get in?’

‘What happened to the decoy plan?’

‘If the cops didn’t buy it, why is there just one of them, as opposed to one hundred?’

‘Did he say Ash is a cop?’

‘No, the girl’s a cop. What did he say she was called? Vensha?’

‘I thought he said vengeance.’

Throughout this maelstrom, May said nothing. Instead he just fixed Simon with a look that not so much accused as tried, judged, sentenced and executed. Then he finally made his own, single and piercingly salient query.

‘If he knew we were here, what else does he know?’

The question translated Matlock’s whisper.

‘Vent shaft,’ Simon said, the implications sinking deep even as he formed the words. ‘He came from the transformer room. That’s where the cable shaft is.’

‘Where does it go?’

‘The fucking topside,’ spat May. ‘They’re headed for the dam.’

Looks were exchanged: suspicions, insecurities, the first signs of panic.

‘All right, listen up,’ Simon said firmly, keeping his voice barely below a shout. He had to show he was in control, otherwise he wouldn’t be much longer. ‘Deacon and Cook, you take the lift and check it out. Headon, you stay at the bottom of the aqueduct so we get a relay on these fucking radios. May, control room, right now.’

‘Yes sir,’ May acknowledged, with a sneering sarcasm that was only just the right side of mutiny.

Angelique was wiping the sweat from her eyes as they came through the door at the centre. The skies had cleared overhead and it was turning into a beautiful late‐
summer’s day; beautiful, that was, other than the terrorists, the corpses, the explosives, the intended mass murder and the imminent threat of being vaporised. She’d caught glimpses of the view as she hurled the charges from the platform: Loch Fada shimmering silver‐
blue beneath the mountains, windsurfers dancing on the surface. It was the kind of spot you’d happily lug a picnic basket up a three‐
hour climb to reach, just for the pleasure of sipping a beer and dodging the wasps as you sat on the grass, sun kissing your shoulders and maybe some obliging chap doing the same to your neck.

This had some of those elements, she’d have to concede, but not really enough to be truly relaxing. She ought to be thankful for small mercies, though: she did have the obliging chap, rendering services far more welcome than a snog even if he had been her type. Angelique had a lot to be grateful to him for, in fact, but prized above the information and initiative he’d supplied was simply that he’d kept the heid. He was probably just giving a passable impression of calm to mask an unprecedented level of personal terror, but if so that made two of them, and she knew all it would take was for him to lose the place and her ‘experienced professional’ front would collapse too.

They had started from the centre and were working their way to the sides, reckoning that if they suddenly ran out of time, the dam might better survive two diffuse blasts than a big one in its middle. The charges in each borehole were threaded together like a string of pearls, with a trigger mechanism at the end nearest the opening. It crossed her mind that under these circumstances, the bomb designer might not have implemented the standard safeguards against interference, but she wasn’t about to play the odds by disconnecting the detonator. Besides, if the bad guys pressed their button and nothing happened, they’d have the option to repair the damage and have another go.

They had cleared just over half the boreholes when she heard the door open. Angelique had a loop of charges in her hand, and was wiping her eyes in readiness for another two‐
handed fling. She turned around and drew her pistol, dropping the explosives, but the first guy through the door had a start on her and opened fire with his machine gun before she could even aim. Instead of a rapid stutter of bangs, however, there was only one as the gun exploded in his hands, the left of which was blown off by the blast. He dropped to his knees, doubling over his truncated limb as a second gunman emerged behind. This time Angelique had time to aim, but her target ducked behind his injured comrade just before she fired. She got off two shots, both of them ripping into the torso of the impromptu human shield as his less than selfless companion retreated inside the wall of the dam.

‘Ray, we’ve got to get the fuck off this thing,’ she called out. ‘Get into the aqueduct. It’s the only chance.’

Ash took the time to hurl one more chain of explosives from the platform, then ran for the entrance door at the opposite end. Angelique picked up the string of charges at her feet and was about to do likewise when another idea occurred to her. She ran for the door the gunmen had come through, her pistol drawn, the explosives slung round her shoulder. It opened to a short stairwell inside the wall, leading to the aqueduct’s airtight access port.

Angelique bounded down the flight and hauled open the door. Below her, the escaping gunman was descending on an automated platform, speaking frantically into his radio. She took hold of the explosives in both hands and lobbed them down into the tunnel, where they whizzed past the gunman’s head, causing him to look up. Angelique ducked out of sight, anticipating a volley of shots that never came, then charged back out on to the platform, heart and lungs totting up a double‐
time invoice as she made for the next aqueduct.

‘This is Deacon. They’re ditching the charges, chucking them over the edge. Cook’s down. His fucking gun blew up. Those fucking kids, it must have been.’

Those fucking kids, yes. Those pesky fucking kids.

‘Everybody get that?’ Simon relayed. ‘Ditch any weapons you took from the truck. Right away.’

He turned to May. ‘Blow it. Now.’

‘Deacon’s not clear yet.’

‘Fuck Deacon. Blow the dam.’

‘Why don’t we just kill these fuckers and put back the charges?’