CHAPTER TWELVE

KILL

 

 

“RIGHT ON CUE,” I said as a distant siren sounded. “I have to say, Brennan; your guys are punctual, if nothing else.”

“‘If nothing else’?” Fenton said. “I’d like to hear you say that to them up close.”

“Wouldn’t be a fair fight,” I said, reaching out to Garret. “The poor sods wouldn’t know what hit them.”

Garret almost cracked a smile as he handed over his axe. I weighed the weapon in my hands, noticing the notches and stains on the blade. It had seen a lot of action, and hadn’t been cleaned as often as it should. I didn’t want to ask too many questions.

I bent down, running my fingers across the concrete in front of the door, finding a hairline crack. That would have to do. I put my torch down on the floor, so its beam shone across the imperfection, and rose to my feet.

“You’d better stand back.”

Raising the axe above my head, I brought the blade down onto the crack. The impact shot up my arms, the metal clanking dully against the floor. I crouched, running my hand over where I had struck. The concrete had chipped; not excessively, but I knew it would work.

Brennan and the rest watched as I set to work, slamming the axe into the floor, grunting with the exertion.

Once.

Twice.

Each strike like a thunderclap in the tunnel.

Four.

Five.

Chips flew from the widening crack like shrapnel, bouncing against my legs.

Seven.

Eight.

I began to lose count.

Fifteen?

Sixteen?

I had no idea any more. My arms felt like lead, my elbows stiff.

I stopped on what felt like the hundredth blow, breathing hard, sweat running down my nose.

“Do you need any help?” It was Beck, hovering behind me.

“It’s fine,” I huffed, punctuating my words with further blows. On the final strike, the blade slipped and I dropped the axe, dancing out of the way before it could take a chunk out of my leg.

“You sure about about?” Fenton asked.

Trying to control my breathing, I knelt down, exploring the shallow crevice I had opened. It wasn’t great, but would have to do.

I stood, handing the axe back to Garret, who ran a thumb against the blunted blade.

“Don’t worry,” I panted, running the back of my hand across my mouth. “It’ll still cleave heads, or whatever you have planned.”

Rubbing my shoulder, I walked over to the backpack I had leant up against the tunnel wall and carefully lifted out a rectangular block wrapped in tight, green plastic. As the others watched, I peeled the wrapping away to reveal a milky-white block that looked for all the world like modelling clay.

I wouldn’t advise anyone to throw pots with this stuff.

Kneeling, I pushed as much of the explosive as I could into the crack. When I was a kid, the war novels I read always insisted that C-4 smelled of almonds. That was crap. If anything, the stuff reeked of tar or pitch, but I wasn’t about to stick it under my nose.

Without looking up, I raised an expectant hand. Beck stepped forward, handing me the reel of detonator cord and blasting cap I had given to her for safe keeping.

I zipped my backpack shut and passed it to the tall woman. “Take this, will you?”

“Your wish is my command, sir.”

I smiled, pressing the blast cap into the explosive. “Careful. I could grow to like that.”

“In your dreams,” came the gruff reply.

“Just shut up and let him work,” Brennan said, peering over from what she presumably hoped was a safe distance. She was an intelligent and resourceful woman, but obviously didn’t have much experience with half-a-kilo of C-4. By the sound of the muffled thunder high above our heads, the rest of my stash was being put to good use.

I connected the detonator cord to the cap and retreated along the corridor, unreeling the spindle. I went slowly, carefully; the last thing I wanted to do was slip and end up on my backside. We walked all the way back to the shaft and beyond, the cord trailing between us and the blast door, the sounds of gunfire drifted down the shaft as we passed beneath the grille. I wondered who was winning.

I stopped when the cable ran out.

“Is this far enough?” Brennan said, looking over her shoulder; we were rapidly running out of passageway, a set of heavy double doors blocking our way.

“It’ll have to do,” I said, fishing in my jacket pocket for the detonator itself. “That’s got to be around sixty feet. I’d rather have more, but you play with what you’re dealt.”

“Sixty feet?” repeated Fenton. “What’s that in English?” Jesus. He must have been younger than he looked.

“Nearly twenty metres,” Beck translated, holding her torch up for me so I could attach the detonator. It occurred to me that I had left my own flashlight by the doors. I could wave goodbye to that, then, unless Fenton wanted to go back and fetch it. No-one would blame me if I pressed the detonator at just the wrong moment, would they?

Stay focused, soldier. You’ve a job to do.

Sir, yes, sir, etc.

I slipped the empty reel into my pocket. “Okay, is everyone ready?”

“No,” muttered Fenton.

“Do it!” ordered Brennan.

“Cover your ears,” I said. Not waiting to see if anyone followed my advice, I pressed down on the detonator.

The explosion was amplified in the confined space, painfully so. Light flared white in the darkness as a wall of sound and air rushed towards us, bringing with it dust and the acrid tang of atomised concrete. I held my breath, listening for the near-inevitable roar of the tunnel collapsing in on itself, but there was nothing, save for the patter of loose debris dropping to the floor.

“Can I have your torch?” I asked Fenton, holding out my hand.

“Fuck you.”

“Here, have mine,” Brennan said, handing over her flashlight.

Tentatively at first, we walked back towards the door, speeding up as it became clear that the ceiling wasn’t about to drop on our head yet. I covered my mouth, trying not to choke on the dust that hung heavily in the air.

The torchlight cut through the smoke, revealing the blackened, but resolutely solid blast door.

“Nothing,” Fenton groaned. “Not even a scratch.”

“I told you—I wasn’t trying to blow up the door.” I lowered the torch, revealed the hole that had appeared beneath the barrier.

It wasn’t as deep as I’d hoped, but it would do for now.

Fenton stared at the newly-excavated but worryingly shallow pit, the penny finally dropping. “You expect us to crawl through there?”

“Under the door, yeah. I’m not saying it won’t be tight, especially for the bulkier members of the group.” I shot an apologetic look to Curtis, to find him already swinging the battering ram from off his back.

“Don’t worry, Fenton,” said Beck, also removing her pack. “A scrawny streak of piss like you will have no trouble.”

I smiled, turning to Brennan. “Ladies first?”

“Age before beauty, I think,” the Irish woman responded.

 

 

I’VE MADE MORE dignified entrances. The explosion had cleared just enough space beneath the door, although it was tighter than Garret and Curtis would have wanted. I lay on my back and wriggled beneath the thick metal. My jacket repeatedly caught on jagged shards of broken concrete, and for a horrible moment I imagined the door dropping inexplicably halfway through, slicing me clean in two.

Keep your head, soldier. You’ve been in tighter spots than this.

Sir, yes, sir. Very funny, sir.

Less concrete had been disintegrated on the other side, but there was enough room to manoeuvre, pulling myself up into pitch darkness.

I reached inside my now-torn jacket to recover Brennan’s torch.

“What do you see?” she called through the gap as I tentatively crossed over to the wall and flicked the lightswitch I’d discovered. The fluorescent strips above my head blazed into humming life, chasing the shadows away with a sterile white glow. The walls on this side of the blast door were covered in smooth plaster, dusty cobwebs draping the white paint. The tunnel hadn’t been used for years.

I wondered if the same could be said about the CCTV high on the wall, pointing in the other direction.

The fact that it hadn’t swivelled around to face me was encouraging. Hopefully whoever was sitting in the control booth was too busy with the mayhem on the surface to care about what was happening down here, but there was no point taking chance. I pulled my P99 from its holster and dispatched the camera with two shots that somehow seemed as loud as the explosion.

“What the hell was that?” Brennan yelled.

“Don’t worry,” I called back. “It’s all clear. Garret, can I have the axe?”

I used the handle to knock lumps of loose concrete clear on my side of the hole to make it easier for the others.

“Okay,” I said, leaning the axe against the door. “Start passing things through.”

Bags and weapons were slipped beneath the door, which I piled to the side, before the rest of the party began to push themselves through. Brennan was first, as lithe as she was steely. Then came Fenton, and I had to resist the urge to accidentally kick his perpetually whining head as it appeared beneath the door.

As predicted, crawling through the hole proved more difficult for Beck, and almost impossible for Garret and Curtis. The latter looked as though he was stuck as he attempted to squirm through, and I finally heard our resident goliath stringing more than two words together, although most only had four letters. All looked lost, until he twisted abruptly, dislocating his shoulder with a crack.

“Oh, Christ. That’s disgusting,” gagged Fenton, but Curtis didn’t even grunt, pulling his now-displaced arm through the gap. Garret reached down to help his partner up and Curtis nodded, giving permission for what was about to happen. With a sickening crunch, Garret pushed Curtis’s shoulder back into place. Everyone winced, but it was clear this was a trick they had performed before. All the time, Curtis barely uttered a sound, although the colour drained from his face, only returning as he rolled his aching shoulder in its socket.

“What now?” asked Brennan, as we recovered our various loads.

“Now you follow me,” I said jogging ahead to a T-junction. I paused, mentally placing the buildings I’d seen earlier.

Left. It had to be.

“This way.”

“Are you sure?” Fenton asked, sounding even less confident in my abilities than usual.

I didn’t answer. Now we were inside, I wasn’t sure about any of this anymore.