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44

Coquelle, in Pas-de-Calais, on the very northern tip of France is sometimes called ‘Channel Tunnel Town'. As the Silverbacks came in low, Mai and Pete could see it spread out beneath them, a dreary collection of supermarkets and budget hotels rising up through the grey morning haze. A few hundred metres away stood the terminal for the Channel Tunnel – a mess of rails, wires and sidings. They glimpsed, a little further north, the tunnel entrances – a pair of black holes punched into a chalk hill topped with stubby grass and mud.

A heavily accented voice boomed through their comms. ‘Good morning, E-Force. This is Sangatte Control. You have clearance to land. The terminal and its surrounding areas have been evacuated.'

‘Good morning, Sangatte Control,' Mai responded. ‘Thanks, we're about to touch down.'

Pete was in the lead plane,
John
, Mai in
Paul
close behind. They settled on a flat area of tarmac a few metres beyond the tunnel entrance. They could both see a cargo chopper with the E-Force insignia on the fuselage had landed 30 metres away.

Pete and Mai were still in their cybersuits. They climbed out of the Silverbacks. Pete had a Sonic Drill over his shoulder and Mai carried a med-kit. They also had stun pistols in holsters on their belts. Halfway across the strip of tarmac, they met the two men who had flown the chopper.

‘Fast work, guys,' Mai said, striding up ahead of Pete. They all shook hands.

‘So we have the Pram and the Cage here,' the pilot of the chopper said.

‘Okay, let's get the Pram out. We'll stow the Cage in the back, just in case.'

Three minutes later, the Pram was sitting on the tarmac between the chopper and the Silverbacks. Known officially as a High Speed Ground Transporter (HSGT), the Pram itself was one of the more understated of E-Force's repertoire of equipment. It looked like a large hovercraft and skimmed the ground a couple of centimetres above the surface. It was sleek and good-looking and capable of carrying two tonnes of equipment and personnel at speeds nudging 300 kilo- metres per hour.

‘Good luck!' the chopper pilot said as Pete clambered into the passenger seat and Mai adjusted the driver's controls. The Pram pulled away and dived into the London–Paris tunnel entrance, quickly accelerating to 120 kilometres per hour. They had no need for the vehicle's 5000-watt headlights because, by the time they were 50 metres into the tunnel, Sangatte Control had switched on the overhead fluorescent strips used by maintenance crews.

The best estimate they had for the ‘connect point' – the correct location to start drilling across into the London-bound tunnel – was 16.3 kilometres beyond the tunnel entrance. This had been based upon data from Sangatte combined with some faint scan images that had come through from using the BigEye satellite over France set to maximum resolution. It was the best they could do and they had no idea what would be possible until they reached this spot.

Mai kept the Pram to the centre of the tunnel, hovering a few inches above the tracks. Pete watched the control panel displaying the schematic of the tunnel. In a little over 4 minutes, the Pram was 15 kilometres inside. Mai cut their speed. The powerful engine ticked over as they crawled forwards. On the display, a red circle indicated the connect point.

Mai brought the Pram to a smooth halt and it lowered onto the rail tracks with a hiss. Pete was first out, as Mai reset the controls on the vehicle. Walking over to the wall, he raised his wrist and studied the screen on his cybersuit sleeve. ‘Mai, I'm going to do a general sweep first and then try to zero in on the precise spot to start drilling.'

‘Okay.'

Pete touched the screen and manipulated a few para- meters to scan the wall 30 metres in each direction. An image of the internal structure of the wall appeared and in the bottom right of the screen data rolled down defining the composition, density and structural integrity of the wall. Pete then shifted the sensor so it could collect data on the structures behind the wall – the composition and depth of the earth between the tunnels. What they were really hoping for was a chamber or a set of corridors immediately behind the tunnel which would make breaking through that much easier.

‘Damn!' Pete said. ‘I don't like the look of this.'

‘What is it?' Mai asked.

‘If this is the best location for getting to the survivors, there's not much hope. There's over 20 metres of rock between the tunnels.'

‘The Sonic Drill can do it.'

‘Sure it can, but I'm worried about the integrity of the site. The explosion in the London-bound tunnel wasn't far from where we would come out. There's also the danger of dislodging air vents and letting the nerve agent into the Maintenance Hub.'

‘You're right.' Mai touched her wrist monitor. ‘Tom?'

‘Mai.'

‘I'm using the signal booster on the Pram.'

‘Neat.'

‘If we send you the data we collect here can you get Sybil to do a quick integrity study?'

‘Sure.'

‘Here it is,' Pete said, tapping his wrist. ‘I can't say I'm hopeful, man.'

A few seconds passed. Mai looked down the tunnel to a smooth curve where the rails took a graceful westerly turn. The overhead lights cast a brash, clinical, white light about the confined space.

‘Here it is,' Tom said. ‘Looks like you're right, Pete.'

They studied the information cascading down their wrist screens.

‘Yep, way too risky.'

‘So what now?' Mai looked up from her monitor.

‘Plan B,' Pete replied. ‘Something I really didn't want to have to do. Get into the London-bound tunnel through the next intersection and try to reach the survivors that way. We don't have a choice.'

45

The next intersection was just over 100 metres ahead. Pete and Mai hopped back into the Pram and drove slowly along the centre of the tunnel, the sound from the engine almost inaudible.

They drew to a halt at a pair of large metal double doors that stood flush with the wall. Mai killed the engine. They jumped out and walked towards the rear of the Pram. Pete touched a sensor pad close to the doors and a tailgate opened slowly downwards. Another touch of the button and the upper section of the rear door swung up. Lying inside the compartment were a set of metal boxes. Each had a strip of writing and code numbers running across the top. Beneath these was the E-Force insignia. Pete dragged the nearest box to the back and with Mai's help he hauled it to the ground.

Inside lay a collection of steel cases containing various pieces of equipment, each with a label attached. They found a pair of small identical packets, each about the size of an iPhone. Alongside these lay a backpack containing a dozen lightweight biohazard suits. Pete lifted the pack and pulled it over his shoulders. Mai handed Pete one of the two small packets. On their sides was the word ‘Bioweb'. This was a material used to isolate areas from the effects of any known form of biological or chemical agent. As with every piece of E-Force equipment, Bioweb had been developed by the eggheads at CAPRA. Lightweight and able to be concentrated into a small container, Bioweb was made from a material similar to the fabric of the cybersuits. It provided far greater protection than the most modern synthetic materials produced by any civilian or military research group anywhere in the world. Pete and Mai clipped the Bioweb containers onto their utility belts, then Mai checked in with Tom at Base One.

‘We've reached the intersection, Tom.'

‘Excellent. I've got Sangatte to open the doors automatically. I'll send over a schematic of the connection tunnel. I would like to give you images of what to expect on the other side but I can't get anything of use from BigEye. It's just too far down.'

‘Understood,' Pete said quietly. ‘We'll soon see for ourselves.'

‘Check in every 10 minutes.'

The schematic arrived a few seconds after Mai had signed off. It showed that the connecting passage between the tunnels was about 80 metres long and 5 wide.

The doors opened on cue and after they were inside, Pete punched the manual control to close them. Ahead lay a featureless corridor, the walls and floor painted stark white. From far off they could hear a faint whirr.

‘Must be the air turbines,' Mai commented. ‘I should think they're pretty heavy-duty to keep this place aerated.'

They could see the doors at the far end that led onto the London-bound tunnel. They made a final check on their suits and called in to Base One.

‘Tom, we're about to go in. We've done a systems check on our suits here. Could you do a remote check for us? Particularly suit integrity.'

‘Sure.' They could hear Tom talking to Sybil. He came back on the line. ‘I have your suit schematics on screen. Sybil's done a thorough check. Everything looks A1. Air and water supplies and suit integrity all check out. Comms are a bit iffy – only 83 per cent efficient, even with the Pram's booster. But considering how far down you are, that's pretty damn good. I suspect that as you move further from the Pram, signal level will drop significantly. We may even lose comms altogether before you reach the survivors.'

Pete opened the door into the tunnel. It swung back silently on well-oiled hinges. The first thing that struck them was the light. It was dim, about a quarter of the power of the Paris-bound tunnel.

‘Emergency lighting,' Pete commented. ‘The explosion must've knocked out the primary system, or else a recent fire has burned through the circuitry.' They put on their helmet lights.

Turning to their left, southeast towards Paris, they could see along a straight stretch of tunnel to where the incident had occurred almost an hour earlier. Just short of a bend, about 80 metres away, the huge tunnel was lit up with a sinister red glow. In the hazy light they could make out the confused shape of twisted metal. Closer to stood a carriage that looked untouched by the blast. Another, further on, had tipped onto its side. Beyond that, in among the red light, flames still played over a mess of tangled wreckage. Pete checked his monitor. The air contained an acrid blend of rubber, burning fuel and charred organic material. The filters on their cybersuits cut everything out.

Pete surveyed the scene and picked out details that anyone other than a member of E-Force could not have seen. When the team had been recruited about a year earlier they had each undergone intense training but had also subjected themselves to some seriously invasive surgery. These included brain implants to help them interact with the machines they used, cochlear enhancements to greatly improve their hearing and retinal vision boosters to dramatically increase their visual range both in distance and spectrum. Thanks to this last modification, Pete could see bodies, charred luggage, pieces of seating and dozens of small fires dotted randomly around the shattered Eurostar.

They picked their way slowly along the tunnel towards the wreckage. Mai stopped and stared at her wrist screen. ‘Detecting bio-agent,' she said urgently.

Pete raised his own arm and studied the data. It came up in the form of a bar chart, a row of coloured columns of differing size. ‘Yeah, as we suspected, a type of Sarin – definite signature.'

‘But slightly modified,' Mai observed. ‘Quicker acting, I reckon. There's an enhanced bio-feedback catalyst in there. See the red bar on the component's graph?'

‘Nasty.'

‘It's still at extremely toxic levels.'

As they walked towards the wreckage, Pete kept one eye on his wrist monitor, studying a spectroscopic profile. He was an explosives expert by training and, before joining E-Force, had run his own demolition business called Globex. Before that, he had spent eight years as an NCO in the British Army, specialising in bomb disposal with experience in Northern Ireland and Afghanistan. He knew his explosives and the effects they produced. He could tell simply by looking at a flame what type of material had been used and what mixture of gases the fires were now feeding on.

‘HMX,' he said. ‘Probably a hybrid, though, with HMX as the main ingredient. Definitely a nitroamine explosive.'

‘Wouldn't have needed much of it.'

‘No, but there's no telling what could happen next,' Pete responded.

Mai knew exactly what he meant. If there were fires around in a confined space and there had already been one explosion, it was quite possible there could be another at any second. ‘Let's check out the wreckage as quickly as possible, then head straight for the Maintenance Hub. I've got a bad feeling about this,' Mai said.

They found the first bodies in the rear carriages – frozen, contorted forms. The scene reminded them immediately of the dead of Halabja, the town in Iraqi Kurdistan that had been attacked by Saddam Hussein's forces in 1988.

The bodies laid scattered randomly. A few of the victims had suffered head injuries, but most of them seemed untouched and there was very little blood around considering the number of dead. Only their stiffened poses and the blue hue to their faces marked them as deceased. Some had collapsed over others, limbs twisted, heads in imposs- ible positions for the living. Many were well-dressed business people – men in suits and women wearing smart twin sets.

The worst sight was the dead children. Mai counted five small corpses, a mother clutching a baby, a couple of toddlers and two older children, one sprawled, face down on top of the other.

Mai looked away and took a deep breath. It was always the worst thing about the job. She would never get used to it, never wanted to. Her only consolation was that by doing what she did, what all the team did, they were able to reduce the number of children killed in accidents or in heinous terror attacks such as this.

‘Come on,' Pete whispered into his comms. He was close to Mai's side.

The further on they went, the more obvious was the damage. Halfway along the train there were only body parts and charred remains.

Pete noticed the door in the side of the tunnel. ‘This must be what Josh described.' He checked his wrist and sensors were able to pick out the beginnings of the corridor leading off to the Maintenance Hub. ‘This is it . . .' he began and froze. ‘What was that?' he turned, looking towards the rear of the train, his cochlear implants working hard to interpret the sound.

Mai was staring in the same direction. ‘Don't know.'

It came again. This time it was clearer – a muffled voice calling for help.