Stephen Leather - Cold Kill

Two stewardesses were wheeling a trolley down the aisle in carriage ten. Shepherd squeezed past. He pointed back towards the rear of the train.

‘A man down there’s been hurt,’ he said. ‘Can you get a first-aid kit, then go and deal with him?’

The women seemed paralysed.

‘Now!’ hissed Shepherd. He hurried along the aisle, pushed open the yellow fire doors and went through to carriage ten, where the toilets were empty. Carriage nine: occupied. Shepherd tapped on the door. ‘Billets, s’il vous plait. Tickets, please.’

The toilet flushed and an elderly man opened the door. Shepherd excused himself and hurried on to the next carriage.

The door to the secure room in carriage eight was still closed. Shepherd didn’t have time to check on the two French cops and their Liverpudlian prisoner. The toilet next to it was unoccupied.

Shepherd went into carriage seven. The train was swaying and he had to steady himself on the headrests as he hurried down the aisle. A group of Indian women were playing cards. Businessmen were tapping away on laptop computers or fiddling with their Palm Pilots. Others were holding mobile phones, waiting impatiently for the signal to return, annoyed that their lifeline to the outside world had been cut.

Shepherd pushed through the doors at the end of the carriage and checked the toilet. Occupied. He knocked on the door. ‘Billets, s’il vous plait. Tickets, please.’

There was no answer. Shepherd pressed his ear to the door. He could hear someone moving inside and knocked again. That the woman had attacked Sharpe with a screwdriver suggested the terrorists had no firearms. ‘Billets, s’il vous plait,’ he repeated. He inserted the key into the lock, took a deep breath, twisted it and pushed open the door. The man was sitting on the toilet, with an open hard-shell suitcase, gaping at Shepherd and showing several gold teeth. It was the man he’d seen at Ashford.

‘Don’t move!’ snapped Shepherd. His eyes flicked to the suitcase: two detonators had been inserted in the body of the case. The wires had been connected to a nine-volt battery and a trigger. There was a screwdriver on the floor.

The man lunged forward. Shepherd realised he was going for the trigger, and fired his weapon twice. A double tap. Two shots to the head. The first entered the man’s left eye and tore off the top of his skull. The second ripped through his mouth, splintering teeth and severing his spine. He pitched forward and fell across the suitcase. The body twitched and was still. Shepherd shut the door and ran towards the next carriage.

Button helped the Saudi to his feet. He could barely walk so she supported him as he staggered to the chair. He slumped down on it, blood trickling from his nose. She gave him a plastic tumbler of water but he threw it away.

Button walked round the table and sat down. She interlinked her fingers and leaned forward. ‘Look at me, Abdal-Jabbaar.’

The Saudi wiped his nose with the back of his hand again. His entire body was shaking.

‘Abdal-Jabbaar, look at me.’

Slowly the Saudi lifted his head.

‘We know everything,’ she said quietly.

The Saudi said nothing.

‘We know about Joe Hagerman. We know about the Eurostar. All this is for nothing.’

The Saudi’s eyes flicked to the clock on the wall.

‘It’s over,’ said Button. ‘We caught them before they got on to the train.’

The Saudi sagged in his chair. ‘Then let my sister go,’ he said.

‘That’s not my call, Abdal-Jabbaar. It’s out of my hands. They want details. They want names. They want a confession. And this will continue until they get that confession.’

The Arab eyed her suspiciously. ‘How did you find out?’

Button looked at him with a slight smile on her face. ‘We were on to Joe Hagerman,’ she said. ‘The Uddin brothers work for us.’ The lie came easily and she forced herself to smile confidently.

The Arab cursed.

‘You can’t trust anybody,’ said Button. ‘You know that. Hagerman is talking and talking fast. He doesn’t want to be sent to Guantanamo Bay and he knows his only chance is to be prosecuted here.’

The Arab looked up at the plasma screen. ‘Let my sister go,’ he said.

‘Confess,’ said Button.

‘You already know everything,’ said the Arab.

Button looked at the two-way mirror. She could only see her reflection, but she knew that Yokely would be on the phone. She glanced at the clock and prayed they would be in time.

Shepherd ran down the aisle, holding his gun under his pea coat. His ears popped again and he swallowed to equalise the pressure. Frowning faces turned to him, but he ignored them. He had no idea how many more bombers there were or when the deadline was, but he was sure that the explosions would take place in the tunnel because that was where the bombs would do the maximum damage. He looked at his watch as he ran. They had been in the tunnel for eight minutes.

Carriage six was the buffet car. Half a dozen French students were drinking bottled beer. He pushed past and one swore as Shepherd jogged his drinking arm.

Carriage five was the first of the standard-class accommodation. There were two seats on each side of the aisle, while in first class the configuration had been two on one side and single seats on the other. The toilet in carriage five was empty. An overweight man with a walking-stick was blocking the aisle and Shepherd shoved him out of the way. The man waved the stick at him, lost his balance and fell against an American tourist. Shepherd reached the fire door and hit the handle to open it. He pushed through the gap and opened the next. The toilet in carriage four was occupied, but as Shepherd was about to knock on the door an elderly woman came out, apologising in French. Shepherd hurried into the next carriage.

The toilet in the third from the front was empty and Shepherd went through to the second. He stared at the small red oblong in the door. Occupied.

He pressed his ear to it. He couldn’t hear anything. Then a click. Metal against plastic, maybe.

He knocked. ‘Billets, s’il vous plait,’ he said. ‘Tickets, please.’

There was no reaction. He knocked again. ‘Billets, s’il vous plait.’ He pressed his ear to the door. This time there was silence.

Shepherd inserted the key and twisted. It met resistance. Shepherd frowned. Whoever was inside had interfered with the lock.

He took a step back from the door and held the gun with both hands. Time was running out. If the person in there was an ordinary passenger, they would have reacted to his knock. It must be Hagerman. It couldn’t be anyone else. And if it was the American, he’d be in there with his suitcase full of Semtex and the trigger circuit.

Shepherd aimed at the lock. He wasn’t sure how many shots it would take to destroy it. He had slotted in a fresh magazine so he had more than enough rounds – but how far had Hagerman gone in arming his bomb?

He tightened his finger on the trigger. Then he hesitated. If Hagerman had armed the bomb, he would detonate it as soon as Shepherd started shooting. There was no time to shoot out the lock. No time to slide the door open. His only option was to kill Hagerman before he had chance to press the trigger. Shepherd slowly raised the gun. The toilet was a confined space: there were only a few places where Hagerman could be and, more than likely, he was sitting on the toilet. Shepherd had twelve rounds in the magazine. More than enough.

Joe Hagerman was sitting on the toilet, suitcase open on the floor in front of him. He’d inserted the detonator into the Semtex and was attaching the battery when the ticket collector had knocked at the door. He looked at his watch. It was less than a minute before he was due to detonate. He didn’t have time for any interruptions.