When he next looked round at the captain, he got a shock. The captain was slumped in the chair, his right arm dangling on the ground like an ape’s. He was twitching as though he was trying to get up but had no control over his body.
The cigarette fell from the fingers of his left hand. He didn’t move to pick it up.
Henrik moved quickly over to him. ‘Sir? Sir, are you all right?’
The captain tried to move. Again he only managed a fitful jerk, as if the swinging arm was a lead weight keeping him down.
‘Sir, what’s the matter?’
‘I can’t move. I can’t see. Help me.’
Henrik wasn’t sure if he’d heard him right. The captain’s voice was slurred, as if he’d just been to the dentist. ‘You can’t see?’
The captain was staring ahead. He blinked as if he was trying to clear his vision. ‘I can’t see.’ He tried to shake his head but he only managed another twitch. One side of his mouth didn’t seem to be working.
Henrik suddenly realized that the captain’s strange behaviour reminded him of his grandmother after she had had a stroke.
He reached towards a big button on the console. ‘Emergency, emergency, first aider needed on the bridge! Hello?’
And then he heard a sound he didn’t want to hear. A wail like a siren.
The collision alarm.
Henrik looked at the radar. A big glowing blob showed at the top of the screen.
A voice answered him. ‘Henrik? What’s the matter?’
‘Captain needs help. I think he’s having a stroke.’ Henrik steered hard right. It didn’t stop the collision alarm. Maybe it would stop in a moment. He peered out of the window but could see nothing — just the grey rain and the far-off twinkle of lights through Vaseline.
‘Keep his airway open,’ said the medical officer. ‘I’m on my way up.’
Henrik dropped down on one knee beside the captain. The captain stared at him, his watery blue eyes big and scared. He was breathing fast, like he’d run a race. But he was still breathing.
Henrik patted him gently on the shoulder. ‘They’re on their way, sir.’ He went back to the radar again. The big glowing blob looked closer.
Another voice came out of the console. ‘Henrik? What’s going on up there? The collision alarm’s going off. That’s the Thames Barrier out there.’ It was the guys in the radio room.
‘Can you get me a helmsman?’ said Henrik. ‘We’re in trouble up here.’
The hatch from the stairwell opened. ‘Where is he?’ It was the medical officer.
Just as he was starting to examine the captain, they heard a great grinding crash. Henrik was thrown to the floor and rolled into a corner. He stopped when he hit the wall and looked up groggily. The floor was at a crazy angle and the control panel was alive with red lights like a Christmas tree. The captain had tumbled out of the chair and was lying on the floor, mumbling. The medical officer had been thrown into the wall. His head was gushing blood. Alarms and sirens wailed around him like wounded animals.
In the Thames Barrier control centre on the south bank of the Thames, the air was also wailing with alarms. Looking through the window, the engineer could scarcely believe what he had seen. Everything had been normal, the row of silver metal shells containing the machinery that raised the flood gates stretching across the river like a chain of silver hoods. A large container ship had been coming towards them, but these vessels usually judged the width of the navigation channels just right.
However, this one had rammed into the concrete plinth at the waterline, ridden up it like a car mounting a pavement, and penetrated the barrier like a spear.
The engineer was so stunned that for a few moments he stood looking at it, at the metallic hood buckled like tinfoil, the sparks spewing like fireworks into the rain and the hulk of the ship still shuddering from the impact.
Then he snatched up the telephone. ‘Code Red! Code Red! The Barrier is out of action!’
Chapter Three
The rain was still coming down hard, making the roofs look glossy and grim. The guard’s voice came over the tannoy. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are arriving at Milton Keynes. Thank you for travelling with us today. Please be careful on the wet platforms.’
The train stopped. Rachel got to her feet and went to the door. The window had never properly closed again after the youths had kicked it. Rain was trickling down the inside, making a puddle on the floor and streaking paths through the graffiti they had left.
Rachel gave Ben a hug. ‘Try to stay out of trouble.’ She put up her hood and stepped down. The platform was swimming with water.
Ben handed her her bag. ‘Good luck with the interview.’
‘Have a lovely day with your mum.’ Rachel slammed the door and splashed away on tiptoe.
As the train pulled away, Ben looked at his watch. Another three-quarters of an hour and he should be in Euston, then he would get a Tube to meet Bel. He got out his phone. He’d better let his mum know how long he would be.
He got her message service: ‘Life’s too short for regrets. This is Bel. Say what you need to say.’
Typical Beclass="underline" a bit abrasive, a bit embarrassing. He wished she’d change that message.
‘I can see your eyes are starting to glaze over. Yeah, you know all about global warming. People have been talking about it for years. Everyone in this room knows all that stuff. We’ve burned too much fossil fuel over the years so now we’re getting floods, severe storms and all that. Silly us … blah blah blah … global warming, the same old record. When I was at school in the seventies people were talking about it. And still it seems nothing has changed.’
In the conference centre in Whitehall, Bel stood at the lectern. Her speech was on notes in front of her, but she didn’t refer to them. Auburn hair fell in a neat straight curtain to her shoulders; her clear blue eyes searched the faces in front of her. She was wearing a dark purple suit that was slightly crumpled, as if looking smart didn’t come easily to her. Her audience was made up of industry leaders, government representatives and journalists. Some of them were taking notes, others were looking at her patiently. A good half of them had detached expressions — they looked as if they were thinking about something else: possibly the buffet lunch that waited under clingfilm on the platters at the back of the room.
Rain splashed against the big windows of the conference centre, forming a constant hiss behind Bel’s voice, like interference on a radio. Outside, the traffic rumbled to and from Trafalgar Square, a blur of red brake lights and white headlights. It was lunch time but it was dark enough to be dusk.
Bel continued. ‘We talk about terrorism being the biggest threat facing us today. We put millions of pounds into making our airport security safer, putting more police on the streets, upgrading surveillance in our cities. About three thousand people died in the Twin Towers, less than a hundred died in the bombing attempts on London. But thirty thousand people died in the earthquake in Iran and two hundred and eighty-three thousand died in the tsunami in South East Asia.’ She paused and searched the faces of the people in the front row. ‘These are the casualties nature can inflict in a war. And it is a war.’
The journalists had woken up and were scribbling again. Nature at war: that was a good quote. That would go in the headlines this evening.
One of the journalists put his hand up. ‘Should the government have more green policies?’