Flash Flood (20 page)

Ben had never been so grateful to be back out in the rain again.

They were in Lower Regent Street, which sloped down into the grey water. Just below them, on the tarmac, lay a small dinghy. Ben sprinted towards it, pushed it into the water and pulled Eva in.

He had a moment of déjà vu: it was like his cousins’ boat in Macclesfield. The starter cord in the same place, the tiller the same. Ben pulled the starter cord and it started first time. He guided it slowly out into the water.

Then he flopped back and relaxed, exhausted. The chase was over. They’d got away.

For once the rain felt refreshing. Running in the
drysuit, especially with thermals on, was hot work.

‘Handy boat,’ said Ben. ‘I wonder who it belongs to.’

‘Hey, look,’ said Eva. She pointed back at the shoreline, where Lower Regent Street rose up out of the water.

Two figures in black were standing at the shore, watching Ben and Eva in the boat. The looters.

‘Ah,’ said Ben. ‘Let’s hope we don’t meet them again. They probably won’t be very friendly.’

‘I bet they stole it,’ said Eva. ‘Who knows who it really belongs to?’ She shifted a small rucksack out of the way to sit more comfortably.

The three soldiers came out of the fire exit and surrounded the looters, guns held up to their shoulders, ready to fire. Those few moments watching Ben in their stolen boat had cost the looters dearly.

For a horrible moment Ben thought they were going to be shot there and then. But then, reluctantly, they put their hands up.

Eva shook out her hair and settled back. ‘Serves them right,’ she commented. Her restful pose didn’t
last long. Suddenly she wrinkled her nose and sat up. ‘It smells filthy out here.’

Now that she mentioned it, Ben had to agree. It reminded him of a camping trip he’d taken with his cousins last August. The tent with the chemical toilet had got so smelly they decided they’d rather go in the bushes.

‘Where are we going?’ said Eva.

For a moment Ben’s mind was a blank. He knew he’d been going somewhere, but the excitement had driven it out of his mind. Then he saw a road sign. Buckingham Palace to the right, Charing Cross to the left. Of course.

‘Charing Cross,’ he said. ‘Someone should be waiting for me there. I hope …’

Francisco heard movement outside the station. Something stirring the water very slowly, like a boat.

He looked through the arches and saw a figure in a dark jacket moving outside. He seemed to be sitting astride a big motorbike and moving it very slowly through the water, seesawing from side to side as though he was pushing it with his feet.

He squinted at the hat the man was wearing. White and red checks. A City policeman.

Quite an enterprising policeman. He was using the heavy motorbike as an anchor to enable him to make his way across the current.

Francisco thought quickly. Had José remained in captivity? Had he had to confess about their rendezvous location?

Why was a policeman coming in here now?

Francisco checked the clip of the Beretta and clicked the safety catch off with his thumb. He stayed where he was, sitting in the locker. It was good cover. Besides, if he moved, the policeman would hear the splash.

He glanced at the white puff in the water: the body of the tramp lay face down, nosing against a news stand. If the policeman saw that, his suspicions might be aroused. Francisco was ready to drop him.

The policeman reached the arch and dropped the motorcycle. It crashed against the wall and subsided into the water.

Interesting, thought Francisco. He didn’t think policemen were generally that careless with property.

The figure stood at the archway and looked around, then stared over at the left luggage lockers.

Francisco stiffened.

The policeman waded forwards and took his hat off.

Francisco put his gun down and called out in Spanish. ‘José, you idiot. I nearly shot you.’

José grinned. ‘Better late than never.’ He splashed over to Francisco and they embraced.

Francisco examined José’s costume. ‘Good outfit. It fooled me.’ Only now did he notice that José didn’t have the right trousers to go with the police jacket, but they had been almost covered by the water.

José shrugged. ‘It’s been useful.’ He opened their locker and looked in.

Francisco patted his pockets. ‘I’ve got the maps and some basics.’ He handed José a Swiss Army knife.

José put it in his pocket. ‘Have you got your cuffs off?’

Francisco showed him his wrists, still bloodied under the cuffs. ‘Made a bit of a mess. Wish we’d packed some antibiotics. What did you do with yours?’

José held up his wrists. His cuffs were still there too. ‘Boltcutters.’ He rummaged in the locker. ‘Did you take all the money? You could at least give me some.’

‘I didn’t know if you were going to show.’

José put his hand out. ‘Half each. In case we get separated. That’s what we agreed.’

Francisco reached into his pocket and took out the folded wad of notes. He split it and gave half to José, along with one of the fake passports. José tucked the money into the pocket of his dark jeans.

‘Have you got our route sorted?’

Francisco nodded. ‘Now we just need a boat.’

Ben piloted the dinghy into Trafalgar Square. Ahead was Nelson’s Column, just on the edge of the waterline. Passing in front of it in a small boat was a group of people in scarlet coats and gold buttons. They wore strange hats, rather like the three-cornered hat Nelson was wearing. It looked like a uniform of some kind, but it wasn’t one that Ben had seen before. Their boat, which they were rowing in a slow but dogged fashion, looked as though it had come out of a museum. It was
heavily varnished like a piece of antique furniture. But it was a day for strange sights.

‘You’re kidding,’ Eva was saying. ‘Your mother isn’t really Bel Kelland? She came to give a speech at my college debating society in my final year. My boyfriend had to show her around – he was terrified of her.’

‘Yeah, my dad doesn’t like her much either.’

Eva pointed over to a building like a dirty grey wedding cake. A series of arches ran along the bottom. ‘Charing Cross is just up there. I can’t wait to meet her.’ She actually looked quite excited at the prospect.

Ben felt a bit sick. If Bel wasn’t there, what would he do then? He hadn’t given it any thought. He’d spent all that time just trying to get here. Now that Charing Cross was actually in sight, he had to face up to the possibility.

He took the boat up to one of the arches in front of the entrance. It was too narrow to fit through. He craned his neck round, but couldn’t see inside the station. He turned back to Eva. ‘You stay here. If I wedge the boat in, it shouldn’t go anywhere. I just need to see if she’s there.’

Eva looked at the deserted concourse, eager for a glimpse of the famous Dr Kelland. ‘I don’t see anyone, apart from those two guys over by the left luggage.’

One of the two figures started to wade in their direction and they saw that he was a policeman, the band around his hat red and white instead of the usual black and white.

‘I didn’t think the police had hats like that,’ said Ben.

‘The City of London police do,’ said Eva.

Ben waved to him. The policeman spotted him and began to wade purposefully towards them. The guy with him still had his back to them; he was carrying a rucksack and wore a jacket with a big logo on the back.

The policeman looked very wet, as though he’d had a hell of a day too. There were smears of mud on his black raincoat. The other guy looked dry. Ben assumed the policeman must be one of the evacuation party.

‘Hi,’ said Ben. ‘I know this sounds silly, but I’d arranged to meet my mum here …’

‘Can you pilot this boat?’ said the policeman. He had a strange accent; strongly Spanish.

That was unusual, Ben thought. Then he looked more closely at the other man. Why did he look familiar?

‘Yes,’ he replied.

The policeman grabbed the ropes on the side of the dinghy and climbed in. The other man turned, handed his rucksack to the policeman and began to wade over. Now Ben could see his face.

Suddenly everything seemed to slow down. The guy’s face. The bloodied marks on his wrists. He knew him!

Eva made a strangled noise, like she’d had a shock.

Then Ben saw the gun in the policeman’s hand, pressed against Eva’s temple.

The sub captain looked at the chronometer, its figures starkly green in the red background light of the conn. Still, there had been no contact from Whitehall.

The helmsman watched the depth gauge display, then turned around. ‘Captain, we’re ascending to the surface now.’

Once again, the sub was risking discovery by coming to the surface to send a signal.

‘Communications Officer, prepare to deploy the radio mast.’

‘Radio mast is ready to deploy, sir.’

‘Sir.’ The navigation officer turned round. ‘We’ve got something in the water above us.’

The captain was at his side immediately, looking at the sonar screen. The sweeping orange arm was highlighting a spot just north-west of them. It was travelling slowly – in their direction.

The navigation officer checked his other instruments. ‘By the way it’s moving it’s been dropped into the water from a plane, sir.’

The captain straightened up. This could be enemy action. Or it could be something else … ‘Helmsman, abandon current manoeuvre. Hold your position. Weapons officer, check out the object.’

His next order was pre-empted. The communications officer spoke. ‘Sir, it’s attempting to make contact. It’s a sonar signal.’

The entire conn held its breath. The captain spoke. ‘What nationality is it?’

The communications officer double-checked his instruments before answering. ‘British, sir. Whitehall’s back on line. They must have sent a Nimrod to drop a radio buoy.’

They couldn’t relax yet. What was the message?
Would they get the all-clear? Or were they going to continue to follow sealed orders and possibly fire on an enemy country?

On the communications officer’s console, a red light came on. Beside it, a tongue of white paper like a till roll slowly curled out of a printer.

‘Captain,’ said the communications officer. He tore the sheet of paper free.

The captain went and took the sheet of paper, scan-reading it.

When he looked up, it was as though a black shadow had lifted from his face. ‘Gentlemen, we are to stand down. I’m going to talk to the crew.’

In the skies above the Atlantic, a Nimrod jet flew in a wide circle, leaving a vapour trail over the water like a halo. It was a state-of-the-art aircraft, carrying the latest communications equipment. It had just dropped a sonar signal into the water near the submarine. And now it was waiting for a very important message.

The communications officer looked up from his console and gave a thumbs up.

That was it. The sub had acknowledged the
message. The signal had been dropped in the right spot. Down in the deep steel-grey water, the sub was returning to normal duties.

The Nimrod’s job was done. It completed its last circle and headed straight for home.

Francisco crouched down low in the boat next to Eva. He had a knife, which he kept pressed against her leg, his fist curled round the knuckleduster handle, its brass curls showing between his fingers. That alone looked brutal enough. With his other hand he kept his jacket hood up over his head. José got down next to Ben. He kept the gun against Ben’s knee; with his other hand he pointed up the river. ‘Drive.’

Ben did exactly as he was asked. The gun and the knife were like some kind of over-ride switch in his head. The black muzzle and that vicious blade were all he could see.

He took the boat across the bottom end of Trafalgar Square, then down towards the Embankment. Once he reached the course of the river proper, he opened the throttle.

He misjudged. This wasn’t anything like zipping
across the empty reservoirs in the Peak District and Macclesfield Forest. The river was full of obstacles: bridges, vehicles, other boats. Not only that, the current was at its most fierce here. In moments it whipped him around through 180 degrees, and the solid bulk of Hungerford railway bridge was racing towards him, like a giant iron girder with a train parked on top. He pulled the tiller hard left and an enormous wash of stinking water rained down into the boat. With one eye open he narrowly avoided a drifting bus and looped a circle around the London Eye and the ArBonCo Centre.

José dug the pistol into his leg. ‘West,’ he said roughly.

On the third circle Ben had managed to slow down the boat a little. The soft hull scraped against the top of a lamppost. He looked down, trying to thread between them, but he was still going too fast and he scraped the entire row of them.

It didn’t help his concentration having the gun pointed at him: he kept finding his gaze wandering back to it.

An army dinghy chugged by, full of rescued people
huddling under tarpaulins to keep dry. It was going at half the speed Ben was. The soldier at the tiller shouted at him, the words lost in the whine of the engine. He obviously wasn’t impressed by Ben’s driving. Ben looked back at him helplessly. Maybe he would see they were at gunpoint. But José and Francisco kept down low. They must be worried they might be recognized. Ben tried sending desperate thoughts towards the soldiers.
Look at us
, he telepathed.
Can’t you see they’ve got a gun?