Whistler was frozen, open-mouthed. Eventually he spoke. ‘It’s Paris. Full nuclear alert.’
Blackburn’s thoughts were a blur. Just when he had reached the point where he was seriously doubting his sanity, Paris was happening. New York was next. Blackburn looked at the men in the ski masks, the gurney waiting for him. The news had gone through him like a lightning bolt. His whole body jolted into life. No, he said to himself. This is not as far as it goes.
He lunged forward and with both arms outstretched shoved the gurney hard so it slammed against both the ski mask men, pushing them over. Then, twisting to the right, he snatched up the nightstick and swung it at Gordon, smashing it against his skull so hard that he dropped on to the floor in a heap. Whistler was in a corner, nowhere to go. He reached into his jacket but Blackburn landed the stick right on the back of his hand and his M9 dropped to the ground. He lifted his other to protect himself. Blackburn kicked the gun towards himself, grabbed it, and was about to land the stick hard on Whistler’s nose when he paused.
‘What’s it to be, Whistler? You don’t want to be the guy who did nothing while New York was wiped off the map?’
He didn’t respond.
‘Paris is probably burning already. Walk me out of here, you could be the man who helped save your city. Unless you’d rather be found dead in a black ops torture chamber.’
After the institutional greys and khakis of the various rooms he had been incarcerated in, the frenzy of glitz and flashing colours was an assault on Blackburn’s senses. He stood at the north end of the square, a few yards from the red ‘M’ of the subway entrance, wearing nothing but the tunic he had been flown to New York in — under the biker kit Whistler had ridden to work in that morning. Whistler had been a good choice of accomplice. He had enough imagination — just — to give Blackburn the benefit of the doubt. That was generous, since Blackburn knew he could still fail. What did he expect — to find the second shiny suitcase parked next to the Good Morning America studios? The zipper news crawl on the side of the building made no mention of Paris.
He made another tour of the area. It was full of people: tourists, shoppers, commuters, families with children. He thought of his first visit — as an eight-year-old with his parents. His mother had steered him away from a doorway below a lit-up picture of a girl in a bikini holding a cocktail. He’d thought she looked pretty. Now the doorway and the whole block had been replaced by the M&Ms store. It was getting towards rush hour. He would stay here till midnight and beyond if necessary.
A half hour passed. The stream of people heading for the subway was getting bigger. Through the throng of departing office workers a giant clown waddled towards him, leering madly. Blackburn moved to the left. Whoever was inside the suit thought it would be funny if he moved the same way. Blackburn turned away and the clown mimicked his move a second time. A little girl giggled and pointed. Wired to snapping point, Blackburn felt like punching him to the ground. Instead he turned a full 180 degrees just in time to see a familiar figure pause at the top of the 40th and Broadway subway entrance in front of Citibank. Their eyes locked briefly. Blackburn scanned the face, the black eyes, the high cheekbones and the heavy brow.
And then Solomon dived down the stairs into the darkness.
100
Paris
Dima still had no plan. And just five minutes left. Just keep going, keep going, and thinking. The Seine now on his left. He could ditch in there if he could get to it — but the barriers — he’d have to find some kind of ramp. Quai Saint-Exupéry now, passing Pont d’Issy-les-Moulineaux. Barges moored along the river. A police Peugeot in the mirror closing in on him. They wouldn’t risk firing, there was too much traffic. A round slammed into the rear window. Wrong.
He wove between cars and trucks, came up on the nearside of a transporter laden with Toyotas. The cop Peugeot was on the other side of it. Dima floored the accelerator as far as it would go, got ahead then jammed on the brakes. The transporter driver swerved to the right, his trailer jack-knifing across the carriageway and tipping its load on to the road, one of the Toyotas smashing on to the cops’ roof.
The Quai du Point du Jour turned into the Quai Georges Gorse and curved west following the river’s tight turn at Ile Seguin, once the site of the Renault factory — the whole crescent-shaped island given over to the plant. Five thousand workers had churned out cars day and night. Now it was deserted, the factory walls flattened. A connecting bridge was coming up — no intersection. Dima threw the Transit into a right which took him north, then a left, and then another. Ahead now was the bridge to the island, with gates across it. At least that meant nobody was home. He braced himself and charged at the gates, bouncing over them as they burst and fell — then headed for what he guessed was the centre of the island and slammed to a halt.
Five minutes left. Five minutes to live. Five minutes to try and stop it. He opened the rear doors, climbed in, and with all his force pushed the copier out on to the dirt. It fell on its side, bursting the casing and exposing the device. No detonation. He kicked the shards of the copier away, then grabbed the electrician’s tool bag: now concentrate, Dima, and get to work.
All his emotion was shut down now — his mind just a processor, making choices, decisions, not even thinking about Adam Levalle.
The shiny aluminium casing gave no apparent sign of a way in. No labels, no serial numbers, no clues of any kind. Inside would be a tube with two pieces of uranium. When rammed together by a detonator — that would cause the blast. With some sort of firing unit to do the business and a timer to tell it when.
On one of the narrower sides he found a rectangular panel. He got a chisel from the tool bag and prised it open. He’d defused IEDs in Afghanistan but that was a long while ago. And he’d been trained to do it with the skill and patience of a watchmaker — but there was no time for craftsmanship. The timer was under the panel, an LED display —‘04.10’. Four minutes, ten seconds. Solomon — obsessed with timekeeping — no wonder the rest of the world had made him so full of hate.
Three minutes, fifty seconds. He grabbed a claw hammer and tried levering out the timer. It wouldn’t budge. Solidly welded to an inner frame, it looked like high tensile steel. It might only be small, but even this size was enough to devastate the city and everyone in it.
He thought about Blackburn: had they finally listened to him? If this went off maybe they’d believe him — but you never knew with Americans. Once they’d made up their minds about something, or someone, they didn’t like to change them.
Okay, forget the timer: go for the detonator. He jumped back into the van. More tools — but nothing that looked useful. Wait — the van itself. He fell into the driving seat and turned on the ignition. Nothing. It was on a slight incline. He pushed his whole weight against the thing and moved it a few metres away, then set the van rolling, with just enough momentum to get over it. Push and steer, and just hope to God it worked. The rear wheels met the outer casing, dented it and split a seam. Good enough. He worked on that with the claw hammer for a full thirty seconds. Sirens now, a whole squadron, coming down the Rue Troyon. What took them so long?
01.50. One minute fifty seconds on the LED. Get to the detonator now — fused solid to the tubes. Someone really didn’t want this tampered with.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a row of blue flashing lights. One or the other — not long now. At least he’d have company for the end. He got the claw hammer between the detonator and the tubes. It wasn’t moving though. Come on Dima! 00.48 now. One more idea. The cop cars were on the bridge. He looked down, and wondered if, just maybe, your focus gets that little bit sharper when you’re sure you’re going to die. He threw the hammer away, grasped the detonator in one bare hand, the rest of the device in the other, squeezed the detonator and twisted. 00.09, 00.08. Tighter! The whole detonator — it was attached like an oil cap on an engine — it turned a fraction, then some more. 04, 03, 02. .