Slow Horses полностью

Would Inspector Samms—and the recorded announcement, a coded message to staff that a security alert was taking place, switched off. A human voice took its place:

‘Due to a security incident, this station is being evacuated. Please make your way to the nearest exit.’

He had three minutes tops before the Dogs arrived.

River’s feet had a direction of their own, propelling him towards the concourse while he still had room to move. But all around, people were getting off trains, onboard announcements having brought sudden halts to journeys that hadn’t yet begun, and panic was only a heartbeat away—mass panic was never deep beneath the surface, not in railways stations and airports. The phlegmatic cool of the British crowd was oft-remarked, and frequently absent.

Static burst in his ear.

The tannoy said: ‘Please make your way calmly to the nearest exit. This station is now closed.’

‘River?’

He shouted into his button. ‘Spider? You idiot, you called the wrong colours!’

‘What the hell’s happening? There are crowds coming out of every—’

‘White tee under a blue shirt. That’s what you said.’

‘No, I said blue tee under—’

‘Fuck you, Spider.’ River yanked his earpiece out.

He’d reached the stairs, where the crowd sucks into the underground. Now, it was streaming out. Irritation was its main emotion, but it carried other whispers: fear, suppressed panic. Most of us hold that some things only happen to other people. Many of us hold that one such thing is death. The tannoy’s words chipped away at this belief.

‘The station is now closed. Please make your way to the nearest exit.’

The tube was the city’s heartbeat, thought River. Not an east-bound platform. The tube.

He pushed into the evacuating crowd, ignoring its hostility. Let me through. This had minimal impact. Security. Let me through. That was better. No path opened, but people stopped pushing him back.

Two minutes before the Dogs. Less.

The corridor widened at the foot of the stairs. River raced round the corner, where a broader space waited—ticket machines against walls; ticket windows with blinds drawn down; their recent queues absorbed into the mass of people heading elsewhere. Already, the crowd had thinned. Escalators had been halted; tape strung across to keep fools off. The platforms below were emptying of passengers.

River was stopped by a transport cop.

‘Station’s being cleared. Can’t you hear the bloody tannoy?’

‘I’m with intelligence. Are the platforms clear?’

‘Intelli—?’

‘Are the platforms clear?’

‘They’re being evacuated.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘It’s what I’ve been—’

‘You have CC?’

‘Well of course we—’

‘Show me.’

The surrounding noises grew rounder; echoes of departing travellers swam across the ceilings. But other sounds were approaching: quick footsteps, heavy on the tiled floor. The Dogs. River had little time to put this right.

‘Now.’

The cop blinked, but caught River’s urgency—could hardly miss it—and pointed over his own shoulder at a door marked No Access. River was through it before the footsteps’ owner appeared.

The small windowless room smelled of bacon, and looked like a voyeur’s den. A swivel chair faced a bank of TV monitors. Each blinked regularly, shifting focus on the same repeated scene: a deserted underground platform. It was like a dull science fiction film.

A draught told him the cop had come in.

‘Which platforms are which?’

The cop pointed: groups of four. ‘Northern. Piccadilly. Victoria.’

River scanned them. Every two seconds, another blink.

From underfoot came a distant rumble.

‘What’s that?’

The cop stared.

‘What?’

‘That would be a tube train.’

‘They’re running?’

‘Station’s closed,’ the cop said, as if to an idiot. ‘But the lines are open.’

‘All of them?’

‘Yes. But the trains won’t stop.’

They wouldn’t need to.

‘What’s next?’

‘What’s—?’

‘Next train, damn it. Which platform?’

‘Victoria. Northbound.’

River was out of the door.

At the top of the shallow flight of stairs, barring the way back to the mainline station, a short dark man stood, talking into a headset. His tone changed abruptly when he saw River.

‘He’s here.’

But River wasn’t. He’d leaped the barrier and was at the top of the nearest escalator; snapping back the security tape; heading down the motionless staircase, two deep steps at a time.

At the bottom, it was eerily empty. That sci-fi vibe again.

Tube trains pass closed stations at a crawl. River reached the deserted platform as the train pulled into it like a big slow animal, with eyes for him alone. And it had plenty of eyes. River felt all of them, all those pairs of eyes trapped in the belly of the beast; intent on him as he stared down the platform, at someone who’d just appeared from an exit at the far end.

White shirt. Blue tee.

River ran.