And then a strange unearthly silence. After the boom and searing flash and shockwave had died away, it settled over the wreckage of broken bodies and falling debris, illuminated by a single stuttering fluorescent tube hanging crazily from its bracket. It lasted a couple of heartbeats, this dreadful silence in the flickering semi-darkness. Long enough for the horror of what had happened to sink in, for the brutal fact of it to penetrate the numbed brain of the injured and the dying. Not as bad though, nowhere near, as the screams and moans and cries for help that now went up, a shrill, piercing, endless cacophony of human anguish.
A tongue of yellow flame licked. It lapped up the walls, touched the curtains, turning to orange, and raced upwards in a sheet of bright crimson.
As if this was the signal, the real panic started.
CHAPTER 2
'Come on, Malone, get back in there!'
In a white fury, Dillon wrestled with the big man who had burst from the cubicle, all around them was mayhem, and Malone, even after swearing the pub was clear, seemed frantic to save his own skin, pushing Dillon backwards, as he tried to do a runner out the side entrance to the carpark. Dillon screamed at Malone to follow him back into the pub, but Malone was herding the crush of people jamming into the narrow passage, all of them struggling hysterically to get out. His bellowing voice yelling, 'Move… move keep it moving. This is my bloody job, Frank,' and he pushed and half carried out the screaming teenagers, as Dillon gave up on him, and now fought against the tide, pushing bodies aside in a frantic effort to get back inside. His lads were in there – maimed, mutilated, perhaps even dead. His head still rang with the tremendous boom of the explosion, which had sounded in Dillon's ears like a door slamming in the bowels of hell. And then, even worse, the terrible screams and moans and cries for help.
Squirming through, Dillon saw blanched faces crisscrossed with bloody streaks from flying glass, eyes wild with terror and blank from shock, desperate to get clear before the upper floor collapsed and buried them under tons of masonry. The girl with blonde frizzy hair stumbled into him, hands covering her face, blood pouring through her fingers and soaking the crochet top. 'Help me… somebody please help me, help me…' Behind her, a teenage boy with half his scalp ripped away, eyebrows and eyelashes burnt off, staggering blindly forwards, hands outstretched. 'Can't see, oh God I can't see…'
Dillon struggled on against the wall of human panic, the babble of voices all around, mingled with weeping and choking screams as the horror of it all sank in. 'My wife, where's my wife'… 'Brian, where are you'… 'Me sister's in there somewhere'… 'I lost me handbag'… 'Get out, gotta get out'… 'Johnny help me, please, please'… 'Where's me shoes'… 'Meg, Meg, MEG!'…
There came a soft whooosh, a sudden brightening of flames from the darkened interior of the bar, and a coil of smoke like an evil black tongue writhed through the gap where the door had been blown off its hinges.
'FIRE!… FIRE!… FIRE!…'
Above the pandemonium Dillon heard the braying wail of sirens – fire engines, ambulances, police – racing along country lanes, converging on the pub from all directions. But there wasn't time to wait for them. Minutes, seconds, were vital. He had to get in there now! Dillon had almost given up, raging and despairing that he'd never make it, but suddenly, magically, a space appeared and he dived for it, head down through the smoke, crouching low, eyes tight and stinging as he scanned the carnage of what five minutes earlier had been a roomful of happy young people enjoying themselves, having a great Saturday night to the sprightly rhythms of the folk group and the pounding of Jerry Lee's piano.
Now, to Dillon's right, the smashed juke-box lay on its side, a dim glow blinking feebly from its innards. In the lurid light of flames he saw Harry, legs braced apart, holding aloft a table to shelter those underneath from the debris showering down from the jagged, gaping hole in the ceiling. Directly above, one of the severed oak beams, a good half ton of it, made an ominous groaning sound and started to slant down. A chunk of concrete hit the table-top and Harry's legs buckled. Somehow he held on, gritting his teeth and yelling for help. Dillon scrambled towards him. But Jimmy, red hair now totally white with plaster, eyes raw-rimmed, was nearer and got there first. The muscles on his tattooed arms bulged as he gripped the table's edge, back-to-back with Harry, the two men straining to shield the injured beneath as they tried to drag themselves clear.
A couple of them managed to, the third couldn't, lying face down with his legs trapped. 'Get him clear!' Jimmy shouted, coughing and spitting out dust. 'Somebody-'
Hands reached for the man, gripped his collar, and he screamed in agony as they pulled him free.
Jimmy glanced down. 'Is he clear?' His face tautened under its mask of plaster. He could see legs. A girl's blood-streaked legs through torn and shredded tights – Christ Almighty! He looked round for help, saw Dillon through the smoke, but Dillon was twenty feet away with a mountain of tangled wreckage to climb first. More concrete and brick thudded down on the table. Any second now the whole bloody roof was going to cave in. Harry again took the entire weight on his back, sweat dripping off his chin, and snarled at Jimmy, 'Go on, move her – I can't hold on much longer. Move her!'
Alive or dead, or just concussed, Jimmy didn't know, getting an arm around the girl's waist and lifting her, limp as a rag doll, from the debris of splintered tables and chairs.
'Jimmy… Jimmy!' Harry's legs were giving way, his body doubled over under the terrible strain. 'For chrissakes, I can't hold it, I can't…'
The table shuddered as another load fell, split in two, and as Harry went down, scrabbling on hands and knees to get out from under, Jimmy executed a swift side-roll straight out of the para landing technique manual, the girl clasped in his powerful arms.
It was a miracle, Steve thought. A total freak that the kid, young Billy Newman, had survived and was still alive, if barely, after sitting right on top of the bomb that had killed his five companions outright. Somehow Billy had been thrown horizontally instead of vertically by the force of the blast, and when Steve had found him and hoisted him onto his back, the boy had been groaning and muttering something about his jacket, he was wearing a new jacket, 'Is me jacket torn? Is me jacket damaged?' His eyes were unfocused, childlike, and he seemed unaware of his injuries. A terrible gash down the left side of his face, the pale cheekbone exposed through the ragged open wound; his left arm hanging uselessly like a tube of jelly; both legs charred to a black crisp, giving off the sweet sickly stench of barbecued human flesh. Cowardly murdering swine… choking hatred burned in Steve's throat like stale vomit. Round up all the IRA scum, stand 'em against a wall, have done. What the fuck did the politicians know, the bleeding-heart, so-called 'human rights' groups? What about Billy Newman's human rights?
'Steve… Steve!' Dillon was at his side, sliding his arm across Billy's back, taking half the weight. 'That front wall's going to give any second, get out this way…' Dillon swung round, bellowed through the smoke: 'EVERYBODY MAKE FOR THE BACK… STAY CLEAR OF THE FRONT ENTRANCE!'
Above their heads an ominous creaking and splintering as another oak beam tore itself loose and canted down, teetering in mid-air.
'Taffy!' Dillon yelled. '- Taffy!'
Scrambling through the debris, the big Welshman got his broad back underneath the beam as it came down, bringing with it a snowstorm of plaster and shredded laths. Hands clamped to his knees, Taffy heaved upwards, giving Dillon and Steve the space to duck underneath with the injured boy. As they dragged him towards the bar at the back of the room, Dillon knew for certain – once that beam went, the entire front wall would go, taking half the ceiling with it. Only one escape route. One chance any of them would come out of this alive.