Kathryn spotted light ahead of her in the tunnel and her fingers tightened around the steering wheel. She reached over to the black canvas bag on the passenger seat, slipped her hand inside and pulled out her gun.
She thought about the pause, out in the alley, after she’d swiped the card, before the steel shutter had started to rise. Maybe they were expecting her. Perhaps she was now heading straight into an ambush. If so, there was no point in stopping. The tunnel was too narrow to turn round and reversing would be too difficult. Besides, running wasn’t going to help Gabriel. So she kept her foot on the accelerator and her eyes on the patch of light, growing brighter beyond the wash of her own headlights. She brought the gun up over the dashboard just as the van cleared the top of the rise. The headlights cut down through the dark revealing a cavern and a car. Lights on. No one inside. Driver’s and passenger doors open.
She jerked down hard on the wheel, bringing the front of the van round just in time to clear the rear bumper of the parked police car. She slammed on the brakes, bringing the van to a crunching halt, brought her gun round, and scanned the cavern for movement. She noticed the closed steel door in the wall in front of her, but apart from that there was nothing.
She reached over and killed the van’s engine but left the headlamps burning. The sudden silence was oppressive. She grabbed the black bag from the passenger seat, opened the door and slipped out, taking the long way round the car, gun first, checking there was no one hidden behind it. Still nothing. She moved to the back of the van and wrenched open the rear doors.
The contents had shifted around a little on the journey but the pile of fertilizer, sugar and smoky combustibles was still pretty much intact.
One giant smoke bomb, Gabriel had said. With enough explosive power to blow out every door in the lower part of the mountain.
She carefully placed the black canvas bag down on the metal floor next to a large cardboard box wedged against the rear wheel arch. Inside the box was a hurricane lamp and two of the sheet sleeping bags they used in hotter countries. She lifted out the lamp, set it on the floor and knotted the sheets together to make a long white cotton rope. She dropped one end in the box and fed the other under the door towards the petrol cap.
She noticed the camera as she rounded the end of the van, set high in the back wall, red light burning steady by the lens. She fumbled the key into the petrol cap, twisted it off, and turned her back to the camera while she carefully fed the other end of the rope down into the fuel tank, leaving the middle part looped under the door and trailing on the floor. She ducked round to the back of the van, grabbed the hurricane lamp and unscrewed the reservoir cap at the base. She doused the length of the cotton rope with kerosene splashing a generous puddle where the middle section draped on to the cavern floor.
This is your fuse, Gabriel had explained.
She emptied the last of the kerosene into the box in the back of the van then reached into the bag and took out two grenades, their dark green surfaces now buried beneath multicoloured layers of rubber. It was the sum total of every single elastic band she had managed to find in the warehouse office. She placed them carefully in the centre of the kerosene soaked box.
These are your detonators, Gabriel had said.
Do not arm them until the very last minute.
She took the first grenade, slipped her finger through the ring, then stopped. She was getting ahead of herself. She put it down again and reached over for the last thing Gabriel had hauled into the van before sending her on her way.
The lightweight trail bike slid out of the back of the van and bounced on to the stone floor. The helmet was threaded through the handlebars, but she left it there, mindful of the security camera and the ticking of the clock.
She leaned it against the tailgate and picked up the grenade again. There was a small snicking sound as she pulled the pin then she carefully laid it down at the bottom of the kerosene-soaked box.
If the spoon springs open after you pull the pin you have six seconds to get away.
Gabriel had told her.
Her eyes bored into the metal arming spoon as she slowly forced her fingers to let go of it.
The lever didn’t move. The rubber bands had held it in place.
She blew out a long stream of air, picked up the second grenade and pulled its pin before her nerve failed her. She placed it in the box next to the first then pushed the whole lot further into the van until it rested against the fuel cans and the sacks of fertilizer. She pulled a large box of matches from the black canvas bag – the last piece of the bomb.
Kathryn slung her leg over the bike, reached into her pocket for the swipe card and jammed it between her teeth. She struck a match, fed it into the open box and dropped the whole lot on to the puddle of kerosene just as the matches flared inside the box. The kerosene whumped alight and bright yellow flames scuttled up the soaked cotton rope, one way towards the fuel tank, the other towards the grenades.
From lighting the fuse you’ll have about a minute to get out, Gabriel had said.
Maybe less.
Kathryn turned the front wheel of the bike towards the dark mouth of the tunnel, twisted the throttle and kicked down hard on the starter.
But nothing happened.
Yellow light from the spreading flames brightened around her as she pumped the throttle some more to feed in fuel. She stamped down hard a second time.
Still nothing.
She released the throttle, terrified of flooding the engine, heard the soft roar of fire behind her, pushed hard with her legs, away from the flames and toward the dark of the tunnel. The trapped air whispered past her ears as the bike rolled forward into the dip. She flicked on the headlight and saw the bottom ten feet in front of her. She knew she’d get just one chance at this.
She pulled on the clutch and stamped on the foot pedal twice to put the bike in second gear as the bottom rolled closer. The bike jerked beneath her as she released the clutch. The engine coughed as it dropped into gear and the momentum of the bike turned the engine. It spluttered once then roared into life. She twisted the throttle and grabbed the clutch with her other hand to stop it stalling. The chainsaw buzz rattled down the tunnel as she gunned the engine to clear the fuel lines, then she eased off the clutch and felt the bike jerk forward as the gear engaged and the wheels pulled her across the uneven stone floor and mercifully away from the burning van.