Shaun Hutson: Knife Edge

'I won,' Neville grunted.

'Fuck you,' hissed Doyle.

He shot Neville three times in the face, each impact causing his body to jerk wildly, every bullet staving in another portion of his features.

'Cunt,' Doyle rasped at the corpse.

He turned towards the bike, running across to it.

Could Neville be bluffing?

He doubted it.

He pulled open the top box.

The entire cavity was filled with long white packages. Doyle drew a finger over the nearest and sniffed. He recognised that marzipan smell of plastic explosive only too well.

He tugged one of the panniers open.

More Semtex inside.

Doyle dragged the bike upright, shouting in pain as he was forced to put pressure on his left shoulder but he finally managed it, opening the other pannier.

That too was filled with Semtex.

He could only guess at where the rest of the explosive was.

Packed inside the fuel tanks? Hidden in the frame itself?

That didn't seem to matter.

What did was that the whole fucking lot was going up in five minutes.

Come on think. What do you do?

His head was spinning, he was having difficulty breathing, as if the raging fire was sucking all the oxygen from the air.

Think.

There was only one chance and that was slim. But it was all he had.

As the first police car pulled into Grosvenor Square, Doyle swung his leg over the Harley Davidson and started the engine.

Doyle saw a policeman gesturing wildly at him as he swept past on the Harley.

Maybe the man thought he was Neville, he mused, twisting the throttle harder, trying to coax more speed from the bike.

His shoulder hurt like hell.

More pain.

But he seemed able to grip the handlebars tightly enough and the sight of blood running on to his left hand didn't bother him.

He had other things on his mind.

Or, more to the point, under his arse.

One hundred and thirty explosive fucking things to be exact.

If he didn't make it he'd be vaporised. The equation was simple.

They wouldn't need a coffin to bury him in next to Georgie, a fucking matchbox would probably do the trick.

He sent the Harley Davidson screaming along

Brook Street, the fire from the blazing remains of the helicopter still sending shrieking plumes of fire into the sky. He passed several fire engines travelling towards the carnage. Ambulances too. They'd find Neville. It might take a little while to identify him with most of his face blasted off, thought Doyle, but by the time they did identify him, it might not matter anyway.

If he couldn't reach his desired destination in time then fuck all would matter any more.

Across New Bond Street, through Hanover Square towards Regent Street he sent the bike.

This had to be the quickest route.

The needle on the speedo was nudging seventy and, when he couldn't get a clear run on the street, Doyle guided the bike up on to the pavements.

Where he could he gestured wildly for those blocking his path to get away. If they didn't he'd ride the stupid fuckers down.

Time?

He couldn't even look at his watch. He could only guess at how close to oblivion he was.

Could only surmise how long he had before the one hundred and thirty pounds of explosives beneath him went up.

He roared into Regent Street, saw the crush of traffic and, again, mounted the pavement.

All along the route people screamed as they tried to get out of his way.

Doyle looked down at the speedo as he sped through Piccadilly Circus, running a red light, almost going under a bus which was moving ponderously towards Shaftesbury Avenue. The driver hit his horn but Doyle barely heard it as he went roaring down the Haymarket.

More blocked traffic.

Again he took the bike up on to the pavement, each jolt causing fresh waves of pain to throb in his shoulder and arm.

He noticed with concern that his left hand was now quite numb. It felt as if someone had dipped the entire appendage in iced water and the feeling was spreading inexorably up his forearm to his elbow. He realised that the bullet must have severed a nerve or tendon somewhere and there wasn't a fucking thing he could do about it except hang on. Grip tightly to this vast moving bomb which he straddled like some suicidal cowboy.

His long hair flowed out behind him, the wind chilled his face and made his eyes water and, all the time, the numbness crept further up his arm.

He shot across Cockspur Street, past Trafalgar Square, Admiralty Arch on his right.

It should have finished there less than an hour ago. It should never have come to this. But it had, hadn't it?

But very shortly it wouldn't matter.

He chanced a look at his watch and wished he hadn't.

He was about to swing into Whitehall when he realised that Northumberland Avenue would be quicker. It would take him straight to the Victoria Embankment.

Straight to the Thames.

Straight to his only chance of saving himself and Christ knows how many more around him.

He worked the throttle, looking down to see the needle on the speedo touch ninety.

It was as he did that he saw the needle on the other dial.

The one on the fuel gauge.

It was hovering over empty.

Not now, you bastard.

Doyle looked down at the fuel gauge again.

'Not now,' he roared, still twisting the throttle as hard as he could.

How far to the river?

Half a mile?

Less?

The bike was running on fumes. The needle had dropped into the red by now.

The speed was dropping.

Eighty-five.

Doyle was standing, the embankment coming into view. He gripped the handlebars and lifted himself up on the footrests, as if removing his weight from the bike slightly would cause it to gain speed again.

Still the speedometer showed a slowing of speed.

Eighty.

But he was close now.

Don't look at your watch.

Time was running out.

It may even have run out.

Any second now there would be one vast, apocalyptic blast and that would be it.

Seven hundred yards to the Embankment.

Doyle saw people in front of him.

He bellowed at them to get out of his way.

Six hundred yards.

The bike juddered. The speed fell to seventy-five.

Five hundred yards.

He could see a train moving across Hungerford Bridge, could hear it rumbling away, even above the roar of the Harley's engine.

Four hundred yards.

Ahead of him he could see the Hispaniola. The old ship anchored there in the Thames for ever now. A tourist attraction.

There was a ramp leading up to it, a sloping gangplank which allowed visitors access.

Three hundred yards.

'Come on,' Doyle roared to no one in particular.

If he'd believed in God he might have said a prayer.

The Harley was screaming along at seventy now.

It was still fast enough. That fucking fuel gauge needle was still dropping but, Doyle thought, not fast enough to stop him.

Was it?

One hundred yards.

He heard more screams. Somewhere in the distance he heard more sirens.

He missed a man by inches as he wrenched the throttle one last time, rising again from the saddle of the bike like a cavalry officer leading his men into battle.

Into hell?

He hit the ramp doing sixty-five.

The bike hurtled up the slope and went flying out over the Thames.

Doyle let go, felt himself falling.

The bike was still hurtling through the air, spinning over and over on its upward arc.

Doyle was hurtling towards something.

Water? Earth?

Who cared?

The bike was at the highest point of its arc when it exploded.

Doyle struck something solid and lay still.

The explosion was deafening. An eardrum-shredding eruption of noise which was joined, simultaneously, by a blinding flash of white light. It was as if a supernova had exploded over the Thames and the entire sky seemed to turn first white, then yellow, with the intensity of the blast.