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  At least the sirens had stopped. They were more frightening than the thought of the oblivion to come.

  Jeanette drew in on the cigarette and enjoyed the smoke filling her lungs. Forty a day and it wasn't going to kill her. Her laugh was short, sharp and almost silent. And her looks would never fade. She glanced around the empty hotel room and shook her head in disgust. They lived like pigs and they copulated like pigs. How would they die? No prizes.

  Still, she'd met a few on her Park Lane beat who were real gentlemen, who treated her with respect and a certain amount of gentleness. They were a bonus. These days she had learned to be less choosy.

  Her best years, although they hadn't fulfilled the ambition, were what she termed the 'up-and-down years'. It had worked for a celebrated but unrated actress acquaintance of hers, a woman only famous for being famous, for being recognized because of the big wheelers she slept with. The strategy had landed that particular lady with a millionaire husband, who had soon divorced her, making the venture highly profitable. Countless pop stars and name photographers had added to her notoriety and bank balance. The technique was simple, although it could prove expensive.

  The hotel Jeanette had used (as had her 'actress' friend) was further along Park Lane, its flavour more English than the Hilton. She had booked into the cheapest room possible (which wasn't cheap) and spent most afternoons and evenings riding the elevators. Down the guest lift (from the top) through the huge reception area or lounge, a short walk round the block to the service lifts, up to the top again, then back down via the guest lift.

  She nearly always scored when just one man, or maybe two, occupied the elevator with her. A small, shy smile from them, a word about the weather, an invitation to take tea, or a drink in the bar, perhaps dinner, and that was it. She was home and dry. Of course it didn't take long for the hotel staff to cotton on, but any such establishment, no matter how high-class, allowed a certain amount of licence in such things. So long as there was no trouble, the hookers weren't obvious, no money went missing, the management turned a blind (yet watchful) eye. Jeanette had never got the live one, though. Plenty of almosts, but never the McCoy. Now it was just a little bit too late; her looks were not as fresh, the bait not as succulent. Hence the Park Lane/Mayfair 'beat'. Assignments were often made by phone, but nowadays it paid to pound the pavement. She could do without these sessions with three or more participants, though; they were a little too exhausting.

  She turned back to the window, pressing her forehead against the cool glass. The cries from those below drifted up and her eyes began to moisten. Is this all it amounted to? Is this where it all led? Eight floors up in a hotel bedroom, naked as the day I was born, sore from the abuse to every orifice in my body by the three clients. Some climax, some joke.

  Jeanette pushed herself off the window pane, stubbing out the cigarette on the glass. Maybe there was something better waiting. Maybe there was nothing. Well, even that was better.

  She tried to blink when the world became a white flash, but her retinas had already shrivelled to nothing. And her body and the glass had fused into one as the building fell backwards.

  As the heat wave spread out from the rising fireball, everything flammable and any lightweight material burst into flame. The scorching heat tore through the streets, melting solids, incinerating people or charring them to black crisps, killing every exposed living thing within a radius of three miles. Within seconds, the blast wave, travelling at the speed of sound and accompanied by winds of up to two hundred miles an hour, followed.

  Buildings crumbled, the debris released as deadly missiles. Glass flowed with the winds in millions of slicing shards. Vehicles - cars, buses, anything not secured to the ground - were tossed into the air like windblown leaves, falling to crush and maim. People were luted from their feet and thrown into the sides of collapsing buildings. Intense

  blast pressure ruptured lungs, eardrums and internal organs. Lamp standards became javelins of concrete or metal. Broken electricity cables became dancing snakes of death. Water mains burst and became fountains of bubbling steam. Gas mains became part of the overall explosion. Everything became part of the unleashed fury.

  Further out, houses and buildings filled with high-pressure air and, as the blast passed on to be followed by a low-pressure wave, the structures exploded outwards. Anyone caught in the open had their clothes burnt off and received third-degree burns from which they could never recover. Others were buried beneath buildings, some to die instantly, many to lie beneath the rubble, slowly suffocating or suffering long lingering deaths from their injuries.

  One fire joined another to become a destructive conflagration.

  Police Constable John Mapstone was to remember his fifth day on the Force for the rest of his life.

  He'd always had a bad memory (fortunately, required educational standards for the Force were dropping by the year) but, because his life was only to last for a few more minutes, this proved to be no handicap.

  As soon as he heard the sirens begin their bladder-weakening wail, he knew where the crowds would be headed. He quickly forgot about the two Rastafarians loitering by the outside displays of the jeans shop and made his way towards Oxford Circus Underground station, keeping his stride firm and controlled, although swift. A glance back over his shoulder told him that the Rastafarians had taken the opportunity to snatch a pair of jeans for themselves, plus a canvas shoulder-bag. Good luck to you, he thought grimly. Wish you well and long to wear them.

  He tried to maintain his poise as he was jostled by the crowd, wishing someone would turn off the bloody sirens that were inciting the pandemonium. The red and blue signs of the London Transport Underground were directly ahead and he was already engulfed in a heaving mass of arms and legs.

  'Steady on!' he told the people around him. 'Just take it nice and easy.'

  Perhaps his face was too fresh and pink, his manner too youthful; nobody took notice of his reassurances.

  There's plenty of time to get under cover.'

  He tried to keep his voice low-pitched, remembering his training, but it kept rising towards the end of each sentence. The blue uniform is a mark of authority, the training sergeant had told the recruits in a loud voice that had resonated with that authority. People expect to be told what to do by someone in a blue uniform. This lot obviously hadn't heard one of the sergeant's lectures.

  PC Mapstone tried again. 'Please don't rush. Everything will be all right if you don't rush.'

  The staircase, one of the many smaller entrances to the Underground station, seemed to be swallowing up the mobs, and the policeman was gulped down with them. The clamour below was horrendous and he desperately looked around for colleagues, but there were too many people to distinguish any individual.

  A struggling convergence had been caused by the electronic ticket entrances, but people were sliding and climbing over them as fast as they could. Others were fleeing through the ticket-collecting exits, making for the moving stairs, wanting to be deep below street level before the impossible, the incredible, the 'nobody's-mad-enough-to-press-the-button', happened.

  PC Mapstone tried to turn, holding up his arms, Canute commanding the advancing tide. His helmet was knocked askew, then disappeared among the heaving shoulders. He could only let himself go, moving backwards, his boots barely touching the ground.

  If they would only act sensibly, he told himself. There was no need for all this. But the fear was contagious and soon it would chip away at the fragile barrier of his own calmness. He became part of the herd.

  His back struck something solid and he was dimly aware that he had reached the metal turnstiles. By now, the restricting cushioned arms of the ticket machine had been twisted from their bearings by the immense pressure of the crowds and Mapstone was carried over one side by the bodies streaming through. He managed to turn and land on his feet, and began to push his way towards the escalators, using his arms like a swimmer moving through thick, viscous liquid. The up-staircase had co
me to a halt because of the crowds treading downwards; the down-staircase appeared to be working normally. He was on it now and the movement, slow though it was, almost unbalanced him. He tried to grab the thick band of moving rubber that was the handrail, but there were too many people on either side. A body slid past on the immovable centre between staircases, the man obviously realizing it was the quickest way down. Another followed him. Then another. Another. Then too many.

  A jumble of bodies slid down, going fast, arms flailing, grabbing at anything, trying to hold on to the upright bodies on the stairways. A desperate hand grabbed an arm and held on; bodies piled up behind; the weight was too much; the person on the stairs was dragged forward; the people in front began to fall; those behind began to tumble. PC Mapstone began to scream.

  The staircase, its mechanism no longer able to cope with the overload, suddenly jolted to a stop. And then there was no control at all in the spilling, tumbling mass.

  Many of those on the centre section fell into the people on the adjacent escalator, creating another human avalanche.

  Mapstone, young, strong, but no longer eager, tried to keep upright, using his hands against the bodies in front, grabbing for the handrails on either side. It was no use. He managed to get one hand around the thick rubber band, but his arm was immediately snapped at the wrist by the crush behind. He shouted in pain and the sound was no louder than the shouts around him. His light was blocked out, sudden bright chinks appearing but disappearing just as quickly, creating a twisting, nightmare kaleidoscope in his vision.

  Before the blackness took over completely, before his chest bones and ribs were forced back into his lungs, before his throat was squeezed completely closed by a knee that had no right to be in that position, and before all sensibility left his besieged mind, he thought he heard and felt a deep rumbling that had nothing to do with the chaos around him. A sound that seemed to rise up from the very bowels of the earth.

  Oh yes, he assured himself. That would be the bomb. About bloody time too.

  Eric Stanmore felt his knees slowly give way and he slid, his back against a wall, to the floor.

  Those crazy bastards,' he said aloud, his words and expression disbelieving. No one heard him, for he was alone.

  Above him, standing six hundred and fifty feet over Tottenham Court Road, paraboloid dishes collecting super-high-frequency radio beams transmitted from other, much smaller towers, each one a link in the chain of microwave stations strategically positioned throughout the country. The signals were channelled down to radio receivers at the base of the giant Telecom Tower, to be passed on by landline, or amplified and retransmitted through an identical set of aerials.

  His hands pressed against closed eyes. Had they known? Was this the reason for the sudden stepping-up of inspection and maintenance on all government communications systems? Other threatened hostilities had caused similar drives in the past - more times than the public were ever aware of - and although the situation in the Middle East was grave, Stanmore had considered the latest directive as standard crisis procedure. He knew that the microwave systems would play an important part in the British defence in time of war, for there was no telling what damage other sections of the telecommunication network - underground cables and overhead lines - would sustain under enemy attack. The microwave system, radio beams passed on from one station to the next in line-of-sight paths, would prove invaluable if the normal system broke down. Even if relay stays were knocked out, the beams could be re-directed to others further along the line. The official reason for the system was to provide an unbreakable and economic (so-called) link between the three major cities of London, Birmingham and Manchester, but Stanmore knew that in an expensive operation (in progress since 1953

  and at the time code-named Backbone) the network had been extended to cover many government installations. A good number of S-RCs, sub-regional control centres whose purpose was to liaise and implement orders from the National Seat of Government and the twelve regional seats, were located close to such repeater stations, and Stanmore was well aware that a prime function of the system was to provide a failsafe connection between control centres. One of the most important in peacetime, although not crucial in wartime, was the tower he helped to maintain: the Telecom Tower in London. And it was the most vulnerable of all.

  He knew there was no sense in trying to reach its base where adequate shelter was provided against such a world mishap - he almost smiled at the understatement, but his mouth and jaw had become rigid with tension - for the descent, even if he could get a lift to collect him, would take too long. The sirens had stopped now and he knew there wasn't much longer to go. His whole future spanned a matter of moments.

  Stanmore began to tremble uncontrollably and sobs jerked his chest muscles as he thought of Penny, his wife, and Tracey and Belinda, his two little girls. His house was in Wandsworth, his daughters' school close by. Penny would try to reach the school as soon as she heard the terrible wailing of the sirens; she would never make it, though. They would all die separately, the girls bewildered, not understanding the full importance of the warning sounds, but frightened because the grown-ups around them would be frightened, and Penny would be in the streets, racing towards the school, exposed and panic-stricken.

  They had always planned in such morbid-thought moments of their marriage (the times perhaps when neither could sleep, when physical urges had been satiated and there was nothing left but to talk the small hours away) to barricade themselves in their home, to build a cushioned fortress under the stairs in the hallway, to follow the edicts in the local authority's Protect and Survive leaflet as closely as possible, and to stay there cocooned until the worst was over.

  Neither of them envisaged - or, more truthfully, cared to admit - that there was a possibility that they would all be apart. They should have known, should have made some arrangement, some pact, to cover such a possibility. Now it was too late. They could only pray for each other and for their children. Let the rest of the world pray for itself.

  He pushed himself to his knees and crouched there, his body tucked forward, hands still covering his face.

  Don't let it be true, dear God, he pleaded. Please don't let it happen.

  But it did happen. The huge tower was split into three sections by the blast, the top part in which Stanmore prayed travelling for a distance of almost a quarter of a mile before crashing to the ground to become unrecognizable rubble. Eric Stanmore had been vaguely and briefly aware of the floating sensation before displaced machinery and concrete had flattened his body wafer-thin.

  Alex Dealey was running, his breathing laboured, perspiration already staining his white shirt beneath his grey suit. He hung on to the briefcase almost unconsciously, as if it mattered any more that 'sensitive'

  government documents could be found lying in the street. Or among the rubble which would be all that was left. He should have taken a taxi, or a bus even; that way he would have arrived at his destination long ago. He would have been safe. But it had been a nice, warm, June day, the kind of day when walking was infinitely preferable to riding in enclosed transport. It wasn't a nice day any longer, even though the sun was still high and bright.

  He resisted the temptation to duck into one of the many office buildings that flanked High Holborn, to scurry down

  into one of their cool, protective basements; there was still time to make it. He would be so much better off if he reached his proposed destination, so much safer. Also, it was his duty to be there at such a catastrophic and, of course, historic occasion. Oh God, was he that far down the bureaucratic road that he could mentally refer to this as historic? Even though he was only a minion to the ruling powers, his mind, his outlook, had been tainted with their cold, logical -inhuman? - perceptions. And he had certainly enjoyed the privileges his office had brought him; perhaps the most important privilege of all lay just ahead. If only he had time to reach it.

  Someone in front, a woman, tripped and fell, and Dealey tumbl
ed over her. The pavement jarred his hands and knees and for a moment he could only lie there, protecting his face from the moving feet and legs around him. The noise was terrible: the shouts and screams of office workers caught out in the open, the constant belling of car horns, their progress halted by other abandoned vehicles, the owners having fled leaving engines still running. The awful banshee sirens, their rising and falling a mind-freezing, heart-gripping ululation, full of precognitive mourning of what was soon ...

  They had stopped! The sirens had stopped!

  For one brief and eerie moment there was almost complete silence as people halted and wondered if it had all been a false alarm, even a demented hoax. But there were those among the crowd who realized the true significance of the abrupt cessation of the alert; these people pushed their way through to the nearest doorways and disappeared inside. Panic broke out once more as others began to understand that the holocaust was but moments away.

  A motorbike mounted the pavement and cut a scything path through the crowds, scattering men and women, catching

  those not swift enough and tossing them aside like struck skittles. The rider failed to see the prostrate woman whom Dealey had fallen over. The front wheel hit her body and the machine rose into the air, the rider, with his sinister black visor muting his cry, rising even higher.

  Dealey cowered low to the ground as the motorbike flipped over, its owner now finding his own course of flight and breaking through the plate-glass window of a shopfront Sparks and metal flew from the machine as it struck the solid base of the window frame. It came to rest half-in, half-out of the display window, smoke belching from the stuttering engine, its metal twisted and buckled. The rider moaned as blood seeped down his neck from inside the cracked helmet.