Overnight Express Page 15

  Then Durham came on the line: Hedge.

  *

  The rear-admiral had come back to the roundabout. He had been, he said, in Portsmouth. He asked if the net had been any use.

  “No,” Hedge said.

  “It may yet be. I’ve come up with an idea. While I was in the south, I went up to Porton Down. You know — biological warfare, and poison gases.”

  “Yes. Filthy.”

  “Filthy to be sure, I agree, but useful in today’s world. Potentially, that is.” The rear-admiral paused, eyeing Hedge with a speculative look. “Could be useful now. Some of them don’t smell.”

  “What? Some of who don’t smell?” Hedge asked disagreeably.

  “The gases. Insidious but unnoticed.”

  “The poison gases?”

  “Yes —”

  “You’re suggesting we poison the train?”

  “No, no. Not poison exactly. Not kill. The gases not being discriminatory, you see, they would attack —”

  “Yes, yes, I follow what you’re saying, Admiral. A non-poisonous gas to be somehow injected —”

  “A paralysing gas. Temporary effect only. While all the hijackers and passengers are paralysed, the troops go in and take the train. It’s so simple really.”

  Hedge stared at the rear-admiral, at the roundabout, at the net, at the ready troops still in their surrounding positions, and up at the train, silently waiting for someone to do something. Through the misted windows faces could be seen dimly, staring down. Gases … it was perhaps a possibility and he wondered now that it hadn’t been thought of before. There was, of course, a snag.

  “How do you get it into the train, Admiral?”

  “Ah, now there’s the rub.”

  “You’ve not come up with a way to do it?”

  “No.”

  Hedge went into normal routine and called a conference in the Sleep Centre: rear-admiral, chief constable, chief fire officer, an expert hastily summoned from the gas works, environmental health officer accustomed to the use of gas against rats, the community physician, the district nursing officer and himself. Many views were given and discussed, all sorts of injection schemes proposed, but it all came down to the one insurmountable barrier: the moment anybody was seen to be doing anything there would be an escalation that might lead to the blow-up.

  “A case for the invisible man,” the chief fire officer said. “With invisible pipe-lines and equipment.”

  Hedge said, “I’ll call the FO.”

  *

  “Gas,” Rowland Mayes said wonderingly. “What on earth —”

  Hedge explained. “I thought someone might have some ideas on injection, Foreign Secretary.”

  “Who would? Frankly, I haven’t.”

  “No, Foreign Secretary. Perhaps Defence Ministry might be contacted. I believe they have inventors, innovators.”

  “That would take time. Unless there’s anything ready made, of course, but I doubt that.”

  “PLUTO?” Hedge suggested vaguely to fill a pause.

  “PLUTO?”

  “Yes, Foreign Secretary. Pipe Line Under the Ocean — last war, Churchill’s idea I rather think. Getting oil fuel across the channel for the Second Front, you remember?”

  “Not in Durham. Not beneath a viaduct. Durham isn’t —”

  “I didn’t mean to be taken literally, Foreign Secretary. Just an idea to get people working along the — the sort of lines required. That was all.”

  Rowland Mayes said, “Well, I’ll put it to the PM, Hedge, then I’ll call back. It’s no use going any further, wasting time, if she doesn’t approve.”

  *

  “I don’t like it at all, Roly. It’s not British. Is it?”

  “Well, no, perhaps not, Prime Minister.” Rowland Mayes hesitated then said, “But, you know, on occasions it could be said that to be British really doesn’t pay —”

  “What rubbish! I’ve never heard anyone say anything like that before, Foreign Secretary, not even the Labour Party!”

  “I’m awfully sorry, Prime Minister.” Rowland Mayes almost tied himself into a knot. “I was merely —”

  “Yes, yes, all right.” Mrs Heffer was now moving up and down the room, an inward look in her eyes as she contemplated something new in the way of a strike-back against hijackers. One should never be too precipitate in rejecting innovations. “On the other hand,” she said, turning to face her Foreign Secretary, “there are times when it’s absolutely necessary to sink to the level of the enemy …”

  “Yes, Prime Minister.”

  “What do you think of it?”

  “It has possibilities. I think it should be tried. Or anyway, the possibilities should be gone into further.”

  “Yes, Roly, you’re entirely right. Please see to it — no, I’ll see to it myself.” The PM strode towards a telephone, a look of determination on her face. While Rowland Mayes sat and waited, she called many people in many ministries, and she spoke to Lord Arkwright of BR and to Porton Down as well. The paralysing gas was effective, and it was safe. That was splendid, if only it could be got inside the train. It would, of course, paralyse Hedge’s man Shard but that couldn’t be helped; and he would recover with the others. Mrs Heffer made her own suggestions to Lord Arkwright about injection: the train would have holes somewhere beneath the carriages, it must have. Lord Arkwright wasn’t too sure: he was a manager, not a builder of rolling stock. Mrs Heffer said that if there was nowhere else there would be the lavatories. From them, via a man placed beneath with a nozzle connected to a tank of gas back along the railway line out of sight from the train, the gas would permeate. Lord Arkwright said that in the circumstances it probably would not.

  “What circumstances, Lord Arkwright?”

  “That man from the Foreign Office, Prime Minister —”

  “Mr Hedge?”

  “Yes. He reported the flush not working — no water.” Lord Arkwright coughed into the telephone. “They’ll be blocked I shouldn’t wonder.”

  14

  A face-to-face conference produced a cautious enthusiasm for the idea; in the absence of anything else it was well worth trying and in any case the Prime Minister had now ordered it. The HQ of British Rail became busy under the direction of Lord Arkwright. Plans of train bottoms were brought out and scanned. It was true that the lavatories offered what seemed to be the best hope of success, though not the only one with any luck. An executive suggested air-lines as an initial attack, to blow through the lavatory flushing system and act as an unblocking agent so that the gas would flow freely.

  But the doors would be shut. The toilet compartment doors.

  That, the man from Porton Down said, wouldn’t matter. No obstacle: the gas was very, very pervasive and would leak round any door. One whiff would be quite enough per person; and they knew the train was sealed behind its windows. The gas carried no smell and no-one would suspect it was there until it was too late — by that time they would be immobilised, and would stay that way for around half an hour, plenty of time in which to mount the attack by the troops and police.

  “What about the cab?” Lord Arkwright asked. He was wondering whether or not there was lavatory accommodation for the cab crew but didn’t like to ask directly, since he supposed he ought to know. However, Porton Down spoke again about permeative qualities and Defence Ministry gave its opinion that the cab wouldn’t matter much once the guards along the train had been paralysed and in any case when the hijackers emerged from the cab into the train itself they would meet the gas and inhale it and that would be that.

  Preparations were immediately set in hand in other places. Gas tankers were loaded through pipe-lines at Porton Down, all ready to rumble north. Men from the Royal Engineers were assembled at Catterick and issued with decontamination gear and special gas-masks provided by Porton Down. They were also given metal cutting gear, lasers, high-pressure air-lines and a good deal of boot blacking with which to darken their faces when the time came, which would be two hours after fu
ll dark that very night, by which time they would be assembled in the cutting half a mile south of the Durham viaduct. The gas tankers would be drawn up in the courtyard of a building quite close to the cutting. The air-and gas-lines would be immensely long, and as a result heavy to drag, but that was something that had to be accepted.

  In Durham itself, down by the roundabout, Hedge coordinated from the Homestead Sleep Centre. He was much heartened: the scheme seemed an excellent one with every hope of success and both the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister had been generous in their praise, which Hedge had accepted modestly, not mentioning the rear-admiral.

  Currently he was issuing unnecessary orders and looking immensely busy.

  “The townspeople, Mr Hemingway,” he said to the chief constable. “Nothing must become known.”

  “We’ll be doing our best. Down by the cutting, that’s part of the evacuated area, of course.”

  “Yes, I know. Now — the road tankers. They mustn’t approach the roundabout.”

  “That’s been seen to, Mr Hedge. They’ll come up the A167 from Darlington, into Crossgate and along Farnley Hey Road. There.”

  “Ah yes,” Hedge said, looking at the map. “Yes, that’s excellent. It’s a good plan, don’t you think so, Mr Hemingway?”

  “So long as the gas doesn’t spread downwards.”

  “H’m?”

  “We don’t all want to be paralysed. Especially the troops.”

  “Oh, surely that’s not likely?” A touch of panic: Hedge hadn’t thought of that.

  “Only joking, Mr Hedge.”

  “Oh. Well, please don’t. This is a serious situation, Chief Constable.”

  There was so much to do; Hedge left his makeshift HQ and moved towards the roundabout, spoke to the military officers and more policemen, senior ones. He cast an eye upwards to the train and the troops in position on the roof of one of the station buildings and on the tower arrangement opposite it. They looked relaxed; they had been there a long time now and boredom was setting in. Well — so be it. Just as well; an extra alertness might give something away, and secrecy was still all. Hedge preened as he walked. He knew, now, that he was set to enter the historic annals of the eighties. Just a little bit of luck, and everything going right on the night.

  Then the FO came on the line, demanding Hedge.

  *

  “Hedge?”

  “Yes, Foreign Secretary, what is it? I’m —”

  “The Friends of Hira. They’ve contacted again.”

  “A new deadline?”

  “No, Hedge. It’s leaked.”

  “What has?”

  Rowland Mayes was almost hysterical. He said, “The fact that the terrorists were killed in that road crash, Hedge, that’s what’s leaked!”

  Hedge felt quite weak: one should never, never count one’s chickens. “Oh, my God!” he said. “But of course, in the end it was bound to, wasn’t it, Foreign Secretary?”

  “Try telling that to Heffer,” Rowland Mayes said with unaccustomed disloyalty in his tone. Then he added, “Your man, what’s his name. You said you’d told him. Could he have been made to talk, and the hijackers have passed it on to their HQ?”

  “Oh, most unlikely, Foreign Secretary. My man’s dependable, very.” Hedge didn’t say this with too much conviction, because if anything went wrong, as now it seemed to have done in fact, a scapegoat would be useful; on the other hand, it would reflect upon him if Shard was not dependable. It was something of a quandary, but the Foreign Secretary fortunately didn’t dwell upon it.

  He said, “Anyway, we have to accept that the hijackers themselves will know by now — their HQ will have been in touch even if it didn’t come internally. We —”

  “Surely we can issue a denial, Foreign Secretary?”

  “A fat lot of good that would be now!”

  “We could —”

  “There’s something else as well, Hedge: that man Wakeford, TUC. Somehow or other he’s got wind of the truth about the road crash, don’t ask me how — he wouldn’t reveal his sources, but obviously someone’s blabbed, in fact he contacted me before the Friends of Hira got in touch, so —”

  “You don’t think they could be his contact?”

  “What? Oh, no, no. Positively not. Wakeford isn’t in the least disloyal or disaffected, he’s just out for electoral advantage. He’s made it plain he believes the Establishment, acting for the Tory party, killed the men deliberately, in cold blood, arranged for them to be mown down so they couldn’t be handed over. We’re blatantly sacrificing the hostages. And do you know what?”

  “No, Foreign Secretary?”

  “The NUR have called a strike, as already threatened.”

  It never rained but it poured, Hedge thought gloomily but didn’t say it. He went out again into the open and passed the information to the brass. The Foreign Secretary, he said, had announced no change in the gas plan, so, unless Defence Ministry issued a cancel order in the new circumstances, it would go ahead. The chief constable said he personally saw no reason for any alteration, not unless there was some sort of final announcement from the hijackers. If there was, they might have to jettison the gas, make the prearranged signal to Shard, and stand by for a shoot-out.

  Half an hour later a small group of persons was seen leaving the railway station, coming down the steps of the short cut towards the roundabout. One of them wore a peaked cap, or kepi: railmen.

  Hedge called out, “You, there. What’s the idea?”

  “Official strike, mate.” The speaker jerked a hand upwards and to his rear. “Pickets on the gate.”

  Hedge put his head in his hands and moaned.

  *

  As forecast by Rowland Mayes the hijackers did indeed know now about the terrorists they had asked for. As the strikers were leaving the station the hijackers were broadcasting to the hostages.

  “You will all listen. Your government are murderers. They are steeped in much, much blood. They have killed the men, the patriots, whom they had imprisoned with false and vicious accusations. These men were freedom fighters. Now they are dead, slaughtered by your Mrs Heffer and her lickspittles. Thus our plans change, and we shall show no mercy now, which we would have shown. Now you will all die.” The disembodied voice paused for a few moments. “There is just one chance. One last chance only. Our minds are made up. If your government hands over the two remaining judges asked for, then you will live. Otherwise not. The charges laid along the train will be blown. Then there will be nothing left.”

  The intercom gave a buzz and a whine and then fell silent.

  Shard caught the eye of Ian Costermaine. “No time indicated. No deadline.”

  “Is that significant?”

  “Not particularly. Just — tension-creating! And makes it harder to plan a strike-back.”

  “Could come at any moment?”

  “Right. And I’m supposed to wait for the signal from the ground.”

  “Are you going to?”

  Shard said, “That’s my quandary. I don’t want to foul up anything they’re aiming for.”

  Costermaine said nothing further. They sat in silence, waiting, wondering what the reaction from the ground would be, what it could possibly be other than an all-out assault and a hope and a prayer for the best possible ending. But it would be doomed if the hijackers meant what they said about the blow-up and Shard was more than ever convinced that they did. He was also convinced that neither Judge Orp nor Judge Bessell would be handed over. He turned in his seat and looked back along the coach: the armed guard was back to his old vigilance and from now on it was going to be harder to move along the train to contact the persons he knew he could rely on. He had managed to sort most of them out into his own vicinity but not so the badge boys, the tearaways from Birmingham or wherever. They were some way back along the train.

  Across the aisle from Shard and Costermaine and Lady Cross, Jean Fison now sat with the two MacAllisters. Shard noticed that she was crying quietly into a handkerch
ief. He remembered the dying mother up in Edinburgh. It was unbelievably cruel that she hadn’t been allowed to go with those released earlier. As Shard looked across, she turned and caught his eye and managed a smile.

  “Silly, aren’t I?”

  “By no means. It’s natural.”

  “I’m sure mother’s — gone. I feel it inside. We were always close spiritually … in spite of hard words in the past. We sometimes didn’t agree, you know.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I, now. I realise I’ve never had anyone else, just mother, after father died. I had such big ideas. Now she’s gone I don’t mind dying. Not in the very least. All I wish is that they would hurry up. That’s all. Mother will be waiting, you see.”