Big Boy Did It and Ran Away (48 page)

‘For what?’

‘Worst‐
case scenario is we miss MacDonald because we’re late, but we’d get the dam rigged eventually. Whether it’s three in the afternoon with nobody knowin’ we’re here, or three in the mornin’ with a column of tanks outside, sooner or later that dam is gonna blow. And when it does, anybody standin’ in front of this place will be hangin’ ten all the way to Cromlarig.’

‘If Deacon gets the gear fixed,’ May reminded.

Simon wanted to kill him, but knew he’d just be shooting the messenger. That was why he was on tenterhooks and calling for bloody progress reports every ten minutes. At the planning stage, he always tried to isolate the individual elements that the operation was reliant upon, because a failure in any single one could be calamitous. They therefore brought extra explosives, extra ammo, extra guns, extra Dubh Ardrain uniforms. They even brought two drills, for fuck’s sake, and factored in enough time in case they were for any reason reduced to one. Simon had planned for the authorities being alerted and he had planned for a siege. He had even planned for the scheme being rumbled and Cromlarig being evacuated. His response to that was contingent upon early (both appliances) – or at least punctual (single appliance) – completion of the drilling; while his response to everything else was contingent on the drilling taking place at all.

No mouse and no man planned for sabotage. Maybe that was what the lecherous, drunken Ayrshire bastard meant. After all, he wrote it out of remorse after demolishing a nest with his plough. Whoever had done this to Simon wouldn’t be writing any poems about it, but they would certainly be fucking sorry.

He lifted his radio.

‘Everybody listen up. We’re going to Def‐
Con Two. I’m closing the shield door. Simonon, grab your goggles and get topside. Look‐
out duty’s starting early. You keep one eye on the road and one eye on Cromlarig. May and Steve Jones, you go topside with Simonon. May, you booby‐
trap the reservoir approach road; remote‐
detonator. Jones, you’ll stay up there with your finger on the button. Use your discretion. The cops are unlikely to be driving a tractor and the farmer doesn’t represent a threat. Everybody else, unless Deacon tells you otherwise, you’re joining the search. I’m shutting down both turbines so we can use our ears as well as our eyes. That means radio silence too. Unless it’s an emergency, the first message I want to hear is that you’ve got these fuckers. Mercury out.’

‘I’m brickin’ it, man,’ Murph whispered.

‘Shhh,’ Lexy replied, the quivering in his breathing surely enough to confirm that he felt the same. Though he was cold, his fingers were sweaty where he gripped the machine gun, the metal warmed by his constant touch. Wee Murph had started off holding his weapon like a guitar; now they were both holding them like they were teddy bears, cuddled for comfort in the darkness of a long night where the only adults around were not going to tuck them in and tell them it would all be okay. Lexy was beginning to wish they hadn’t brought them at all. Neither of them knew what they were doing with the things, and he was terrified one of them would go off by accident, which would at best give away their position and at worst save the bad guys the bother.

He was starting to shiver, though it was hard to tell how much was through cold and how much through fear. They had been stuck in the damp, dark drainage tunnel for ages, terrified they could be discovered any second, but too scared to move because they could be walking straight into capture.

It had felt okay at first, sitting there in the light of Murph’s torch, a rush of blood in his ears, thumping in his chest and nervous giggling from the pair of them out of relief that they had made it this far and found a half‐
decent hiding place. Though it had seemed a lot more, it had probably only been a matter of minutes between getting out of the crates and reaching this spot, and Lexy felt like he’d been holding his breath the whole time.

It had seemed a miracle they didn’t feel the crate throb to the rhythm of his pounding heart as they lifted it out of the truck, though there was a loud, low sound filling the place and covering up any noise he might have made. Once on the floor, he had waited nervously for the chance to get out, hearing voices or the sound of boots on concrete every time he was planning to edge it. After a while, he became convinced he was imagining the noises simply out of his own understandable anxiety, and was about to just get it over with when he definitely felt something brush against the crate. He had tensed up into a ball before it even occurred to him to ready the gun, by which time the lid had been pulled off and Murph was standing over him.

‘Fuck’s sake, were you sleepin’? Hurry up.’

He hardly had time to look around, enough only to observe that they were in some kind of cave, before they ran for the first doorway they could see, light shining out from it on to the dim, smaller passageway that intersected the main tunnel. The doorway led, via a short corridor and a left turn, to another runnel, walled on one side by concrete and the other by bare rock, the passage running parallel to the one the truck was parked in. Striplights overhead lit the way, Lexy wondering what kind of cave could have such an extensive electrical supply. Forward of the crossroads, the passage continued out of sight as it bent gently to the left; but behind, instead of leading to the entrance, it sloped downwards towards another parallel doorway, this one closed.

‘Bad guys went that way, intae the big cave,’ Murph said, pointing.

‘Okay,’ Lexy acknowledged, then followed him in the opposite direction. The door opened with a creak of metal, leading them on to a steel platform inside another tunnel, this time even bigger than the main one, but with water running through it beneath their feet. It was dark, only the light spilling in from the passageway illuminating the circular chamber. The sound was louder here too, as though it led directly to whatever was making it.

‘It’s an underground stream,’ Murph announced, but Lexy doubted it. The tunnel was straight as an arrow and the water, barely a foot deep, was running down the centre of a semi‐
circular concrete channel. It looked like some kind of sewer or drain, clearly designed to accommodate a lot more fluid than was currently trickling through.

Lexy read the sign on the front of the door they had come through. It said ‘Tailrace access 4’, and above it were the words Highland Hydro and a logo built around two Hs, rendering one a simplified mountain with blue water on top, and the other a pylon.

‘It’s a hydro‐
electric plant. Mind we did it in Geography.’

‘Maybe you did. We’ve got Miss Galloway for Geography, so the only thing we pay attention to is her tits. Can we get oot this way?’

‘Naw. If this is a hydro station, it’ll lead tae a loch or a river or somethin’. It’s shallow here, but it’ll lead under water for a good bit at the end. Plus I think they put mesh up tae stop fish an’ that comin’ in.’

‘Whit’s at the top end, then?’

‘Turbines. That’s whit the noise is.’

‘So where we gaunny go?’

Lexy looked along the platform. It didn’t lead anywhere, so it had to just be for keeping an eye. However, the sign did say ‘access’. More than that, it said ‘access 4’, meaning there were at least three others. He leaned over the edge and saw that there was a built‐
on ladder hanging from the far end of the steel grid, allowing the workies down into the water.

‘Doon here, an’ alang. ’Mon.’

‘Where tae?’

‘The next wan o’ these.’

‘Where’s that gaunny take us?’

‘I don’t fuckin’ know. Have you got a better idea?’

Murph’s silence answered the question. Lexy climbed down and dreeped the last few feet, shuddering as he hit the ground in concern that the jolt would set the machine gun off. He looked up and watched Murph practically slide down the thing like it was a chute in a playpark.

‘Careful. Watch the gun doesnae go off.’

‘If you’re that feart, take the bullets oot it.’

‘Aye, an’ if we run intae the bad guys I’ll just ask them tae gie us a minute while I put them back in.’

Lexy pulled his torch from his pocket and switched it on, Murph following suit a couple of seconds later.

‘No’ baith at wance,’ Lexy said. ‘The batteries.’

‘Fuck’s sake, you’re worse than ma maw for naggin’.’

‘Shhh.’

‘That as well.’

They made their way up the incline, the water noticeably widening to fill more of the channel as they progressed. For a while they walked closer to the sides, trying to stay above it, but before long they were ankle‐
deep.

‘Fuckin’ freezin’ man.’

‘I know.’ Lexy pointed upwards with his torch. ‘We’re nearly at the next ladder.’

‘Hing on, I’m confused.’

‘Whit?’

‘How come the watter’s gettin’ deeper, but we’re walkin’ uphill? Is this like the Electric Brae or somethin’?’

‘It’s gettin’ deeper ’cause there’s a flow noo. Did you no’ hear it? They must be drainin’ somethin’. Maybe one o’ the big pipes fae the dam. They’re no’ generatin’ though. That’s for sure.’

‘How, whit would be happenin’ if they were generatin’?’

‘We’d be gettin’ flushed doon this pipe by a thoosand gallons o’ watter.’

‘Shite, man. Don’t say that.’

‘Better hurry an’ get up that ladder then.’

They had to haul themselves up slowly by their hands for the first few bars, then made the rest of the ascent far more rapidly. Lexy’s gun clanged against the metal of the ladder as he climbed on to the platform, giving him another minor heart attack. He stretched down a hand to help Murph up the last wee bit, then went to the door at the end, which turned out to be locked.

‘Aw, away tae fuck,’ Lexy moaned, shining his torch up and down the blocked exit.

‘Whit aboot thon wee tunnel?’ Murph asked.

‘Whit wee tunnel?’

‘Back doon there.’ Murph pointed his torch down at the side of the channel, from where they’d just come. There was a small opening at about waist height, which Lexy hadn’t seen, having been focusing his torch and his eyes squarely on the platform ahead. There were times when he had to be grateful that Murph had the attention span of a two‐
year‐
old, always on the look‐
out for new distraction. Of course, that was what had got them into this shite in the first place, but it was a bit late to be worrying about that.

They climbed back down and pointed their torches into the smaller tunnel. It was big enough to crawl into on all fours, though this was at the cost of damp trouser‐
legs, as the concrete‐
lined floor had water running along it too.

‘I think it’s a drain,’ Lexy said.

‘Lmmm‐
mmmm,’ Murph replied, putting his tongue under his bottom lip in the now standard insult that followed a totally obvious remark.

‘I’m just sayin’. If it’s a drain, this is the outlet, so there must be an inlet.’

‘It doesnae look big enough for an adult tae crawl through,’ Murph observed.

‘They could, but they’d be slower. I ’hink this could be our best shout.’

They crawled along, Lexy first, splashing through the cold water, the sound of the turbines still drowning all other noise. Murph’s torch confirmed that the entrance was out of sight behind them due to the curvature of the tunnel, but they kept going until Lexy could see light up ahead, shining in from above. He shut off his torch and told Murph to do the same, before crawling close enough to get a look up. He could see a mesh panel, presumably in the floor of a brightly lit room, from where the turbine noise was louder than ever. Just past that, the tunnel bent sharply to the left, leading to other drains, other rooms.

‘Go back,’ Lexy whispered.

‘How?’

‘If we sit aboot haufway, we’ve got two escape routes. If somebody starts crawlin’ in fae either end, we bomb it for the other. Meantime, we sit tight.’

And they did, in the dark with their torches mostly off, getting colder and more nervous as the time steadily passed. The running, climbing and crawling had been a lot easier than the waiting, but they both knew this was the least risky option, particularly after Murph turned his stolen walkie‐
talkie back on and they heard the baddies’ reaction to their handiwork.

‘You’d be better shooting whoever fucked our equipment.’

‘I will, I promise, if we ever find the bastards.’

That wasn’t the worst moment, though. The worst moment was when the turbines shut down, joint equal with every moment since. A hush fell over the place, so still that they could even hear the flow of the water back in the tailrace tunnel. Their breathing seemed now to be amplified by the walls, and it was easy to imagine the drainage tunnel carrying the sound directly to the men searching for them. Murph’s ‘bricking it’ remark was therefore as dangerous as it was unnecessary. Lexy would have been justified in returning the ‘Lmmm‐
mmm’ insult, though perhaps not at such potential cost.

The tension built with every silent second, until Lexy was almost hoping for discovery to at least end the uncertainty. Until, that was, the uncertainty ended, with a faint glow of light in the darkness behind Murph.

‘Oh fuck,’ he couldn’t stop himself from saying.

Murph turned his head to look too. By this time there was a play of light and shadow where the tunnel curved out of sight, accompanied by a sound of shuffling. Both of them froze, until spurred back into motion by a loud burst of static from Murph’s walkie‐
talkie, which Lexy had fruitlessly asked him to turn off. If their pursuer hadn’t heard them already, then he’d definitely have heard that; maybe it had even been his intention.

‘All units, this is Strummer. They’re ahead of me in a drainage tunnel, headed into turbine area, lowest level.’

Lexy slung the machine gun around his back by the strap and began scrambling along the tunnel, panic causing him to lose his footing and sprawl face‐
first on to the wet ground.

‘Fuck’s sake, hurry,’ Murph said, almost falling on top of him at the rear.

Less hurry, more haste, sounded in Lexy’s mind in the voice of his old Primary Six teacher. He picked himself up and proceeded more steadily, reminding himself that they could move faster in this confined space than an adult, at the same time as trying not to think how long it would be before the adult had a clear line of fire.