Craig Connors stuck his foot on the brake but it was too late. As he shot from the mountain tunnel the road went AWOL to his left while he carried straight on.
To counter it he spun the steering wheel hard but hit a serious skid then heard rubber burn and saw double yellows snake crazying under him. Still the car wouldn’t tango and slewed across the hairpin, screeching blue smoke, towards a cliff.
No chance of correcting now. He smashed through a metal guardrail and headed out to where birds flew. Bits of shit cracked his windshield. Stuff pinged and peeowed as a mile-deep canyon yawned under him.
Car nosedived and Connors saw pines come from nowhere. Ripping through them, he slammed into solid rock. Felt his legs trash as the car crumpled and slid down ass first, breaking up. Engine popped from under its flapping hood. Glass shattered. Fire rolled in. He was being totalled. Stunk himself hamburger-sizzling in his own fat as the fireball ploughed through branches, taking half the Austrian cliff with it. Last thing he saw was a king-size boulder, meteorite-spinning at him CG fast before a mega whiteout topped him.
Or should have topped him, he thought smugly. Neat trick with the cliff the computer had rendered nanoquick. But even while he was being splattered he eyed the dash, where his pulse kept a steady 78—same as when he’d climbed in the simulator. That would piss off the doc. Sweet Thai pixie assistant Chan would be impressed, as she had been by his six-pack when she stuck electrodes to his chest to measure his HB.
Lights came on and the sim whined slickly as it reset, ready for next punishment sucker. Fans blew away toxin-free smoke clogging the cabin. Numerous tiny air jets and skin stimulators that made it feel as if everything hit him and fire had fried him shut down.
Connors shot his harness and slid open the door. Not only had he pushed himself to the edge.
He’d taken off from it.
‘Seventy-eight,’ he shouted, waving a fist at the guys. ‘On the button.’
‘Impossible,’ Doc Hartman’s tinny voice said over lab speakers. ‘Not with settings so critical.’
‘Nothing’s impossible for the US of A’s finest,’ he threw back. Standing up from the sim he gave the bony Brit a straight middle finger salute.
Control booth door slid open and Hartman emerged, yellow-smocked, shaking his head with disbelief. Alex Freeman was in tow. Steel browed. Steel faced. Shiny steel-suited. Always seeming like he needed to be some place else. Chan tagged with an expectant look daubed on her pretty oriental face. Tall Freeman ducked under the jamb as the doc yakked his stuff.
‘The conscious mind knows it’s not real but the subconscious doesn’t. It’s like an optical illusion. No matter how determined we think we are, our senses can’t shut off. And with virtual reality sims being this sophisticated, most folk should black out with settings so dangerous. For it not to faze him indicates an iron will. I’d say this beefy jumped up yank is your man.’
‘So would I, you over-educated pompous English shit,’ Connors said, hearing Hartman’s quip while he clumped down blue Expamet steps.
‘Physical stresses don’t come much tougher,’ Hartman confessed. ‘And I went to a mixed comprehensive you big Arizona tosser,’ he added, punchlining a wisecrack he’d left dangling earlier.
Connors got the joke, showing his teeth while he pulled off his T-shirt and let Chan unpluck electrodes. The Doc had a sense of humour. Ice-cold Freeman didn’t. ‘You’re not perspiring, Mr Connors,’ Chan said, looking up with smiley silver-shadowy eyes. She took time at his bronze chest, tugging at clear-rubber suckers.
‘OK you’ve made your point, Craig,’ Freeman butted in. Tiring of macho tough-speak, he stuck a plastic cup in the water cooler and made it boogie.
To Connors, deadpan English toffs like Freeman always seemed uneasy confronting grunt stuff. This particular lanky streak used to be a bent casino banker before switching to crooked high politics. Conscious of Hartman and the petite broad, he reached for the full cup. Gave it to the American brick shit-house who eclipsed his height and was twice his width if not three times his weight, then filled cup number two.
‘Let’s talk, shall we?’
They headed out to a rooftop garden baking in midday sun. Vapour trails raking blue sky pointed accusingly at Heathrow. After aircon, greenhouse heat of hottest Brit summer since ‘76 got Freeman puffing cheeks. Connors knew heat and strode through it to a glass balcony, sticking on wrapmirror shades, knocking back ice water. Freeman stuck on retro Raybans like specs Oscar Goldman wore when he briefed Steve Austin. He set his laptop on the ledge. Grass everywhere had morphed to straw. Giant steel letters did K-Tech’s logo backwards from their elevated POV. Toy cars parked near admin shimmered through a heat haze.
‘You wanted the job, didn’t you?’ Freeman told him, firing the kit, loosening his necktie.
‘I wanted to show I’m your guy,’ Connors said. ‘Under the circumstances you don’t have a choice. I mean to make the hit. Not to hire me for two million bucks.’
‘I think we can take it that you’re our man. Delegating an assignment that strikes at the heart of the British constitution to a kick-ass foreigner with, uh-hum, biceps excites the powers-that-be. But they still feel dirty because of the daringness of the plan.’
‘Glad to know they got feelings.’ Connors sipped his water. ‘I feel like an A-lister, flown in to bring US box office to one of your subsidized little social issue movies about which nobody gives a shit.’
Definitely no sense of humour he decided, as Freeman wrecked his neat silk cuff eyeing his Rolex.
‘Dangers of this mission are—how would you put it?—“awesome”,’ he said, failing to match the observation with enough voice cool. ‘There hasn’t been a serious plot to take out a reigning British Monarch since Francis Walsingham in 1586. It’ll bring the country to its knees, plunging us into a crisis of the first order.’
Connors was amused. For eighteen years governments had hired him to do dirty work, ostensibly for political gain but really so they could stockpile financial booty. Nothing wrong with that. Modern politics was really a kind of upmarket crime. At least guys like Freeman stuck within parameters set by “democracy”. Alternative was abiding by laws of the jungle, which nobody wanted. Guys like Connors provided a service exploiting swift boaters at the top who, come election times, vied to dupe the unsuspecting masses.
He explained his philosophy to Freeman while they watched a Virgin helijet drop towards Heathrow, hotspotting sun. ‘Only thing in your way,’ he added, draining his cup, ‘is stubborn media guys who’ll do all they can to expose your crap-doing.’
‘Speaking of which, or rather whom,’ Freeman said, turning the laptop screen away from the sun.
Up popped two face-grabs.
Good-looking guy, early 30s, thick dark hair, and an older sexy silver-blonde. Freeman zoomed her out to show she’d a decent chest.
‘Don’t be fooled by their looks. You’ll need to give them a wide berth.’
‘Hunter. Ain’t he the TV guy?’
‘Yes he is.’ Touching keys he made stuff pile about the broad down her side of screen. ‘Hunter and Vanessa are shooting a Royal TV doc, unaware that, uh-hum—how would you put it?—“big time shit” is headed their way again. As award-winning TV producers they’ve been granted special access to travel with Her Majesty aboard Amtrak’s new Royal Train. They had to wait three years for the privilege because Royals do their homework before they let anybody breathe the same air.’
‘How come two TV guys are dangerous?’
‘It’s not so much them being dangerous as you needing to ensure the hijack happens before they get to the Queen. They’re not due aboard the train till it gets to Manchester but are shooting trackside flypast stuff first, to supplement their onboard filming.’
‘Choo choo going past camera?’
‘Correct. Meaning we’ve a narrow window to make the Bermuda Triangle thing happen, on the West Coast main line north of Crewe.’
‘So I got the job?’
‘My dear chap,’ he said, slipping back into Brit toff speak. ‘There was never any doubt you’d be our man. Meanwhile, you’ve these to contend with.’ Two good-looking young Asian guys popped on screen. ‘Others plotting to make life difficult for Her Majesty when she takes the train.’
‘Reece told me about this. Shades of 9-11, huh?’
‘Something like that,’ he said, fastidiously smoothing his cuff. ‘If only they were brainwashed simpletons, holed up in a grubby northern backstreet. But they’re not. They’re clever well-bred types festering within.’
‘Go figure,’ Connors said.
‘Yes,’ Freeman agreed, this time with enough voice cool when he slipped into US lingo. ‘Go effing figure.’
Randeep pulled over when he saw Nahid scrimming up through heather at the side of the road.
Midnight in high summer meant daylight still plied the horizon, where South Yorkshire moors rolled up like tundra to kiss it. Verge fell steeply to the massive Dunford Bridge Freightliner rail terminal, its lights blazing in the valley bottom where it looked as out of place as a McDonald’s on the moon.
It was a bleak outpost, built in the middle of nowhere because of cheap land. Chunky sci-fi container cranes straddled floodlit sidings outside three-mile Woodhead tunnel on the reopened Manchester-Sheffield railway. Randeep knew the line had shut controversially in 1981. Eurorail rebuilt it in 2011, to ease congestion on Trans-Pennine motorways. Concrete-lined tunnel was only one in the UK built to Continental standards. Ironically, tax breaks urged road hauliers to piggyback their rigs through it by train.
Nahid was puffing when he got in the Range Rover. ‘It’s arrived,’ he said. ‘Use the farm track. He’s knocked out infrared sensors along the fence.’
As Randeep set off it struck him that since Oxford ten years ago, thanks to his smart, rich, second generation dad, he seemed to have been picking Nahid up late at night in flashy 4x4s.
Hitting the track he kept company with twin electric security fence, bumping ruts till Gate 5 where they got out and crunched limestone gravel. Triple pointed aluminium palisade they arrived at meant business. Five-metres high. Sizzling with 240,000 volts of lethal live juice, according to pics of a guy getting fried.
Half a mile away a train was being loaded at the hub, meaning it was a good time to sneak into the huge compound. Heavy switchgear oscillated across the hot night as rigs were shoved about like they were on a robo-production line at a factory. Trashed ship containers were stacked five or six high. Partying hazards bounced off every shiny surface.
They spotted an approaching stocky figure, farting unselfconsciously, hawking and spitting as it waddled across. Torchlight flared in their faces when the guy’s feet stopped making noise.
A gruff Middle Eastern voice struggled with English. ‘You got here, huh?’
He had a lecherous look in his dark piggy eyes when he typed at the gateframe and fdunked it open, ushering Randeep and Nahid over to a reefer-trailered rig with its twin vari axles slung off ground. Fancy vinyl self-stick and loud candy stripes cramming the trailer sides hid its black market long-task. A fat Arab paced tarmac in front of it, cigarette-glow waving, gut wobbling. He was more amenable, nodding uncertainly before he shot bolts in the trailer’s nearside door and pulled out some Expamet steps. Randeep followed him up, Nahid and the bonehead tagging.
Inside, a faecal stink of filthy humanity met them. Walk-through clear vinyl door strips split main storage area from bulkhead refrigerator. They squeezed down the side into a compartment where everything had been stripped out to make a secret bunny hole. Humid as a hot-house, air stunk so godawful ammonia-bad Randeep could taste it.
It was like landing in a pigsty.
Maybe a dozen exhausted, unshaven young Indian and Pakistani guys slobbed against the bulkhead. Bonehead swore at them and stuck the boot in.
‘Stand up you bastards,’ he said. ‘Hey, come on. Get the hell up.’
As they shuffled to their feet, Bonehead dragged them roughly into line.
Randeep paced before the sweaty submissive faces. He might be related to the poor bastards back down his bloodline but he felt nothing. No more than slaves, they were lambs for the bloodiest slaughter. ‘I’ll take him, him, and him,’ he said, and turned to leave.
‘You like good-looking guys with beards, huh?’ Bonehead said, seedily.
He smacked Randeep up his backside, squeezing it suggestively before they headed back through to main part of the trailer.
‘Bet you like them nice and hairy too,’ he added, showing rotten buck teeth to goad his handsome young Pakistani guest.
When they were back on terra firma Randeep pulled a fat envelope from his tracker vest pocket and threw it at Bonehead. ‘Three thousand sterling.’
Nahid escorted the three bought guys through the gate. The loitering fat Arab struggled up into the rig’s cab and banged shut his door. Revving her, he stuck her in gear and got hauling, pronto.
‘I thought we said four thousand,’ Bonehead shouted as the rig wiped behind him.
It was a wind-up but Randeep stayed cool. Being educated and English meant you didn’t take it personally if common crap dissed you.
He tailed Nahid through the gate across to the RR. The three guys dived in the back, ransacking the fridge and popping Red Bulls.
Bonehead checked the cash then tough-guyed over to lock up. ‘Hey,’ he said, whacking across a chunky bolt. ‘What you gonna do with those bastards, huh? Train them to kill the Queen of England?’
A bomb might have gone off.
Randeep took a few secs to digest what Bonehead had said. In the background another train noisily arrived at the terminal.
Soon as waiting rigs entered holding area they were shunted sideways onto flatbed loaders. Safety clamps sprang up and locked behind wheels, fdunking falling dominoes fashion along the line. Cool stuff backed up by some serious kit.
Gracefully big.
Energetically clunky.
Like movie SFX happening for real.
Randeep turned to Nahid.
‘Kill him,’ he said.
‘He was joking for God’s sake.’ An unlit cigarette bobbed at his mouth.
‘It doesn’t matter. The thought’s in his head. Kill him.’ Saying no more he got in the RR and sent down his window because of the stinking guys.
He watched Nahid walk gravel back to the gate, calling to Bonehead for a light.
At the terminal the loco got ready to haul. Gave a loud throaty roar and shot fumes like a whale spurting through its blowhole.
From that distance noise made by overhead cranes sounded like a construction site. It soaked up the gun’s slick silencered phut but stood no chance when a fat bastard’s head went pop.
It was 2.03am when Bill Martin eased the brand-new Class 68 loco over a maze of tracks into Wolverton railworks. Taking her past the Royal Train prep sheds into a siding, he brought her nearly to the bufferstop, shut her down, and reached for his snapbag.
Unlike the old Class 66 the Class 68 was a joy to drive. Air conditioned. Practical console layout, with a computer that did what the tin said. Bill had been driving for thirty-five years, switching latterly to freight because pay was better and Health and Safety less of a bind. In his time he’d seen kit go from clockwork to microchip. He’d also seen British railways go from Beeching’s leftovers to a few mainline routes. Too many crooks both sides of the Commons had vested interests in road industries. As they had since black-and-white telly days, when an allegedly Conservative Government installed a rail-hating Minister of Transport who owned a motorway building company.
Shaking his head at the memory, Bill climbed down backwards from the cab, bag slung at a shoulder, thanking God he was near retirement and would soon be out of it. Puffing at the sultry night when he hit the ground, he crossed oily tracks.
Wolverton was a hive of activity at such a godforsaken hour because trains needed maintaining 24-7. Southern England was lucky. It had kept some semblance of a railway because of white-collar voting power.
When he reached the Timekeeping Office, Pete Robbins was there with his teenage son who was researching a 6th form college project.
As the lad stood in fluorescent safety togs he’d been given to wear on site, self-consciousness worked his hot spotty face. He was a good kid. Brought up in a typical suburban semi, with Hornby trains in the loft, and respect for Britain’s glorious industrial past, but computer savvy and headed for a life in IT.
His rotund stepdad spent too many nights propping up Wolverton Railwaymen’s Sports and Social Club bar. Wiping his red face he puffed at the stifling heat, nodding for Bill to stick his card in the Payclock.
‘I hear it’s your big day tomorrow, Bill.’
‘My last time,’ he said, slotting in his card. ‘I’m out of it in September.’
‘Off somewhere good?’
‘Tuscany. Pauline’s over there with the brother-in-law and his wife. I couldn’t let the old girl down. Not with it being my last call.’ He took his card. ‘Only told me on Friday. An hour from us getting a cab to the station.’
Pete laughed at mention of the “old girl” and told his son, ‘Bill’s one of a select few who get to drive the Royal Train.’
‘Somebody has to do it,’ Bill said, turning to the door. A loco rumbled past outside, wheels hissing-binding. ‘Trouble is, they don’t let you know till a few days before. Security I guess.’
‘How cool is that?’ the lad said, taking a step back in his dayglow waistcoat.
‘Tell him about the six-inch thing,’ Pete said, sticking his card in the Payclock.
Bill told the lad.
‘To be her driver, you’ve got to be able to stop within six inches of a mark so Her Majesty ends up smack bang in front of posh nobs waiting on the station platform.’ He winked his near eye. ‘Only she knows I can make it closer to an inch.’
‘How cool is that,’ the lad said again, seeming unsure if he was butt-end of a joke.
‘Actually’—another eye wink—‘I do get a bit of help. Somebody stands at the front of the train and holds up a yellow flag. It’s how they’ve done it since Queen Victoria’s time. If I end up in line with the flag, I know I’ve stopped in the right place.’
‘Nay,’ Pete said. ‘You’re spoiling it.’
As Bill shouldered through the door out to the car park, Micra keycard in hand, he swiped away a moth and caught a look on the lad’s face. If kids didn’t sneer at mention of Royalty there was hope for Her Majesty’s sinking ship.
Bill wondered if he’d get chance to tell her, with it being his last trip.
‘Jesus Christ. Slow down Kath,’ Conrad Reece said. Ignoring him, she trod the gas pedal and drove straight into the night, sending the digi-speedo ballistic.
Guys in the back were hidden by a steel partition. They swore as the Transit lurched round a bend, snagging branches. Mean killer Kath—hardnosed, shit crazy, daughter-of-a-bitch Kath—was wearing a black Cody combat vest and fingerless black leather gloves. Flame tattoos raked her muscly arms. When Reece despaired at her mad driving she shunted everybody, making them swear again as she screeched out of a hairpin.
Van headlights shovelled darkness, scattering moths and finding passing hedges and trees. Two miles north of Wolverton, they were nearly at the place where they’d ambush Bill Martin on his way home. Fake cops a mile in each direction would keep away unwelcome spectators. Guys at south end, at Ouse Valley Park entrance, would let only the target Micra through. If real cops showed, North Bucks boys-in-blue might have some real cop deaths to keep them busy.
They skidded to a stop round next bend. Two phoney cop cars were waiting, plastered with hi-viz Battenberg square stuff. Before the Transit’s tyres stopped screeching, Reece jumped out and banged the van side, OKing it for the guys to chop chop.
Back doors flew open and half a dozen bogus, Kevlar-togged cops piled out, like a SWAT team going into action. Unloading traffic cones, plastic barriers, and tripod spots, they started setting up a roadblock. Trained eye would know fine detail wasn’t kosher. Anybody else would get spooked if they hit a corner in the early hours and got caught unawares.
Sweltering night was oppressive. Reece lived dangerously and could take tropical heat when it was chucked at him. A week ago he’d been machinegunning Columbian drugs runners. His tough pockmarked face was scarred from being Northern Ireland’s top dog hero-for-hire, hired by Rambo Connors to take out Her Majesty’s fave choo choo driver. Sweating cobs in Robocop bodykit in flat Middle English scenery was a climbdown. But the money was good and bumping off Royalty carried prestige value.
Kath lobbed him an Uzi before climbing in the back of the van to get changed.
Wondering what gave at the railworks, he bootclumped over to the verge. Dinosaur-like roar of a nearby London express split the night. They’d had to fine-cut their timing. Daylight would also happen soon, meaning they’d be exposed convoying back to base. Reece was Blutoothed ready.
‘Talk to me Mitch,’ he said, swiping moths beelining for roadblock spots.
‘He’s just leaving,’ Mitch said, from the Hummer.
‘Long or short haul?’
‘Too soon to tell.’
‘Tell me he’s taken a left.’
‘Whatever you say, boss.’
‘Stop taking the piss you asshole or I’ll rip your balls off and feed them to my dogs.’
Getting the message, Mitch OK’d, affirming the Micra had driven out from the railworks and done a left on the main road toward town. Other guys patched via open frequency piped up as the Micra joined dots of its home run. Somebody wondered if the driver was using his phone when he bumped a mini roundabout near Tesco’s then went nah, must have been mistaken.
They’d watched Bill Martin (BM) for two weeks, sussing his routine getting to and from work. He lived at Castlethorpe village just north of Wolverton. Sometimes he went home the long way, via the A5 and Northampton Road. They’d banked on him going this way tonight ‘cause he’d done it three times on the trot, after being on lates. BM’s fifteen minutes had come. Less than twelve hours till the Royal Train hit.
If he bunked off home wrong ways they’d have to nail him at his smart chalet bungalow with a FOR SALE board stuck out front. Neighbourhood Watch meant a home blag could be messy.
Reece pulled a stick of Big Red gum when Mitch sang at his ear, in DJ Klub Kool, ‘Showtime. I’m seeing his tails fade to a night-time place where foxes and badgers strut their funky stuff.’
Meaning BM was being a good choo choo driver and taking the Haversham road away from town. Over his headset Reece heard Ouse Valley guys fire their fake cop 4x4, ready to block the road when BM passed and took a corner.
‘ETA your end: middle of next week,’ Mitch added, sounding pissed. ‘He’s one of those annoying folk who do 20mph in a 30mph zone.’
‘Lose yourself,’ Reece told him, not convinced about the slow speed thing.
‘Sure thing, boss.’
Reece was detail conscious. It helped keep him alive. On previous home runs BM broke speed limits like anybody else. One of the guys wondering if he’d pulled his phone near Tesco’s had also got Reece feeling jumpy.
Time to rock-and-roll anyway.
Coolly chewing, he stood in the road facing muggy darkness. Arnie gun slung across Kevlar’d chest. Big pseudo-Goth platform booted feet nicely spread. Temp lightbars stuck to cop car roofs would party for thirty seconds max, either side of the hit. Sixty secs, tops, is all it would take to smash a good guy’s life.