Twenty Twelve (3 page)

I see black smoke swirling above me and orange flames snaking towards me like tongues flicking back and forth.

I open the other eye and try to take it all in. Sheets of metal are hanging and swinging like branches in the breeze. Rubble and dust shower down. There are chairs scattered everywhere, mangled and broken.

I try to lift my head, ignoring the pain, and I see it. Through the billowing clouds of smog I can just make it out. A flag. Five rings.

Not Hell, then.

And it all comes flooding back to me. I know that sounds like a cliché but that’s exactly what it feels like. The sights, the sounds, the smells all pour back into my mind, in a raging torrent. Everything mixed up and violent.

Sam was holding out his hand to the boy, urging him to come up to the podium.

The boy, initially so eager, became uncertain. Sam stepped forward.

Then an explosion that seemed to come from miles away and rush at me with the force of a train. It picked me up and slammed me against the wall. It sucked the air from my lungs, squeezing the life from me.

But I’m not dead.

‘What’s happening?’ I call out.

No one answers. I look around me but there’s no one. Where is everybody? ‘Is anyone there?’ I shout.

Only the sound of roaring, like a wild animal, comes back to me.

‘Is anyone there?’ I shout out again.

I realise I am lying at the back of the conference room in the Plaza, which means there is a hundred feet of twisted debris between me and the exit. And the entire place is on fire. I have to get out of here now.

I put out my hands and push up. My head spins, making the room tilt. The taste of acid bile burns my throat. I force my chin to keep steady and focus on the horizon, the flag above the door. I can crawl to it. I can make it.

I take a deep breath and the smell of carbon attacks my nose. I cough and spit to clear my mouth. The heat from the flames bears down on me, burning my cheeks.

I can do this. I have to.

I push myself onto all fours and propel myself forward. My hands scrabble through pieces of concrete and shards of glass. My knees follow, pain ripping through me. All I have to do is keep going. One hand in front of the other, then my knees. Every movement taking me closer to escape.

I make it past the ruined stage, the podium completely gone. Out of the corner of my eye I see something white, abandoned on the ground. It’s a trainer, the Nike tick still visible. My stomach lurches. I turn my head away and focus on the flag. In less than a minute I will be out of here.

Above me there is a terrible groan. Without thinking I look up. There’s a hole in the roof like a gaping mouth, the rafters still attached by no more than a thread. Another terrible heave and a sheet of metal over twenty feet long crashes free. It hurtles towards me and I close my eyes. When it smashes on the ground inches from me I scream. I throw myself forward, desperate to cross the distance to the exit.

I glance up again. What is left of the roof shudders. It’s going to collapse and if I don’t get out of here in seconds it will crush me. I must run.

Whatever’s wrong with me, whatever injuries I have, I must drag myself to my feet and run for cover. If I’m good at anything in life, it’s running. A skill that might just save me.

I take all the weight on my hands and push up onto the balls of my feet. I force myself into a standing position and bare my teeth against the pain. I’m already panting as if I’ve finished a race.

I find my centre of balance and I am ready to go when I hear something else. It could be the rush of the flames or glass smashing in the inferno. It could be the very foundations of the building giving way. Whatever it is I must ignore it and run.

It comes again. I turn to the sound.

‘Help.’

It’s the girl in the wheelchair. The blast has sent it hurtling across the room and turned it over. She’s trapped underneath. Her face is completely black from the smoke. Only her eyes are wide and pale.

I don’t know what to do. Surely it would be better for me to keep going and fetch help?

She opens her mouth, which seems impossibly swollen. ‘Please. Help me.’

My heart is pounding in my chest, the blood banging in my ears. The roof above rumbles and a concrete slab crashes to the floor, missing me by less than a foot. Clouds of dust choke the air. If I don’t get out of here, we’ll both die. That’s certain.

I focus on the flag. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say.

‘Don’t leave me,’ she screams.

‘I’m going for help,’ I tell her.

‘Don’t leave me!’

Torn in two, I run for the door. Each step is agony but I make it. When I am close enough to touch it, the roof rumbles and begins to shake. This must be what it’s like in an earthquake. Everything above you tumbling down. Those people you see on the telly who get trapped for days. The air running out.

I glance back at the girl. Don’t, I warn myself.

Too late. I’m sprinting back towards her. With the sky falling in around me, I hurdle over upturned chairs and slabs of concrete.

‘I’m coming,’ I shout above the din, hoping she can hear me.

When I’m at her side she’s crying uncontrollably, her body wracked with sobs. ‘I thought you’d left me,’ she gasps.

I throw the wheelchair to one side and pull her into my arms. ‘I would never do that,’ I say.

She throws her arms around my neck and burrows her face into my shoulder. She weighs almost nothing, yet I can hardly lift her. I stagger backwards, almost losing my balance.

There is one last almighty rip and the roof begins to cave. I have seconds to get us to safety.

I tip myself forward and run faster than I have ever run in my life. Faster than all those training sessions and all those races I won. With the girl in my arms I can’t pump. With the pain in my head I can’t think. It doesn’t matter. I barrage through what I’ve decided after all
is
Hell and I let out a shout from the depths of my belly.

As I burst through the door, the room exploding behind me, I’m still shouting. I don’t stop until I am outside and clear. Not until I feel cool drops of rain falling onto my face. Not until a policeman prises the little girl from me.

Then I stop. And I throw up on my shoes.

Deano and Steve were glued to the screen, leaning forward on the edge of the ratty sofa, mouths open, cans in hand, but Miggs kept sneaking a glance at Ronnie. No reaction at all.

The picture showed in full Technicolor every grim detail of the disaster. People were running out of the Plaza building screaming. Blood was running down one woman’s face. Miggs wouldn’t like to ken how many people were in there. The beer tasted stale on his tongue and he had to force it down. He flicked the ring-pull with his thumb, making a soft metal twang. Ronnie appeared not to notice.

‘Unbelievable.’ Deano shook his head. ‘Totally un-fucking-believable.’

Police cars and fire engines darted across the screen. A helicopter was circling, disappearing in and out of the columns of smoke.

‘Turn it over,’ said Ronnie.

Steve flicked the button. Every station was running the same story.

Deano jumped to his feet, knocking into Miggs.

‘Watch it,’ Miggs warned.

But Deano didn’t care. He was doing some stupid fucking dance, hopping from one foot to the other. Soon Steve joined him and the two of them pranced around the sofa like the couple of twats they were.

Miggs risked another look in Ronnie’s direction. There wasn’t even the smallest hint of emotion.

‘Tell me this isn’t happening,’ said the prime minister.

Christian Clement didn’t look up from the television screen, watching as the last person managed to stagger out of the burning building. It was that young civil servant. The one who used to be a runner. Clem had met her briefly when he handed over the security assessments. Her face was screwed up in agony as she carried a young girl to safety.

Simon Benning snapped the remote and replayed the scene, finally freezing the scene on Jo Connolly’s tortured face. ‘This is a disaster,’ he said. ‘A complete and utter disaster.’

Christian Clement took a deep breath. As one of the most senior officers in MI5 he was used to difficult customers, but Benning, the PM’s publicist, adviser and general fixer, was one of the trickiest, slipperiest bastards he’d ever met. Give Clem a Taliban sympathiser any day of the week.

Outside the PM’s study a hundred phones seemed to be ringing and three mobiles on his desk vibrated like angry wasps.

‘What do I say, Clem?’ he asked. ‘Was it an accident? Please tell me this was a freak accident.’

‘We don’t know,’ Clem replied.

Benning filled a plastic cup with water. ‘Not good enough.’

Clem gave him a hard stare. He despised men like Benning. An unelected suit who spent his time ensuring the red-tops were on message.

‘I’m sorry about that.’ Clem’s tone made it clear he was anything but sorry.

There were lines etched across the PM’s face. He’d been a handsome bugger when he’d first got elected. Full head of hair. Bright smile. The worst recession in twenty years, an endlessly bickering coalition government and all-out rioting in the streets had put paid to that.

‘It’s your job to know these things,’ Benning told Clem.

‘And I will know as soon as we can get access to the scene,’ he replied.

The PM glanced at the TV screen. ‘What could cause an explosion that big? A gas leak?’

‘Possibly,’ said Clem.

‘Possibly?’ Benning shook his head. ‘We can’t deal in possiblys.’

Clem was about to explain that certainties were as rare as rocking-horse shit when it came to MI5 when there was a rap at the door, and a woman with an earpiece attached to the side of her head leaned into the room.

‘The American ambassador has been on hold for fifteen minutes, Prime Minister,’ she announced. ‘He says if you don’t speak to him in the next ten seconds he’s going to jump in a taxi over here.’

The PM shut his eyes. ‘What do I do?’

‘Tell him the truth,’ said Clem. ‘Tell him we don’t know what happened.’

‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ Benning shouted. ‘This is the Olympic Games. The single biggest event in the UK since the royal wedding – and I don’t mean Wills and his fucking Waity Katie. Everyone from Barack Obama to the Dalai Lama is due to arrive at any moment and you want the prime minister to say he doesn’t know what caused that?’ He pointed at the screen. ‘Are you completely out of your mind?’

‘Are you suggesting he lie?’ Clem asked.

‘He wouldn’t have to, if you were doing your job properly.’

Clem squared his shoulders. For the smallest excuse he would enjoy punching Benning’s lights out and screw the pension.

The PM got to his feet. ‘This isn’t helping.’

Benning opened his mouth to speak again but the PM silenced him with an open palm.

‘I’ll stall them.’ He turned to Clem. ‘But you must have a definitive answer for me within the hour. Time is not on our side.’

‘My people are on standby at the scene as we speak. As soon as it’s safe to go in, we’ll get the full picture,’ said Clem, then stepped outside the study for the PM to placate a hundred hysterical dignitaries. Not a job he’d have liked to do in a hurry.

The woman with the earpiece strode past him, clipboard in one hand, a burger in the other. The smell made Clem’s stomach rumble, but the scales that morning had told him what the doctors had been saying for years – it was time to lose some weight.

When Clem went back into the study, the PM was as pink as a slice of supermarket ham. Clem almost felt sorry for him.

‘How’s the minister?’ he said.

‘Not in a good way,’ replied the PM.

‘Who will take over?’ asked Clem. He prayed it wasn’t that Scottish bastard McDonald. The man was so conniving he made Lady Macbeth look shy.

‘It’s got to be someone who can come across well in the press,’ said Benning. ‘This situation is going to be headline news around the world.’

Clem looked at Jo Connolly’s face still filling the screen. ‘Hasn’t she been running the show behind closed doors?’

‘Joanna Connolly couldn’t run a bath,’ scoffed Benning.

Clem furrowed his brow. ‘She was Sam’s second in command, wasn’t she?’

Benning sighed as if he were having to explain something very simple for the seventh time. ‘There is no second in command.

There is no first in command. Downing Street run the show but we needed Sam to do some smiling into the cameras and Connolly was chosen to assist because the public still adore her dinosaur of a father. The daughter’s a lightweight but we figured she couldn’t do too much damage.’

Clem caught the use of the word ‘we’ and so did the PM.

‘Actually,’ the PM interjected, ‘I appointed Jo because I thought her background in sport would bring some expertise to the table.’

Benning opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it.

Clem looked again at Jo’s face. There was a strong determination there. Fear, yes, but not hysteria – considering she’d just narrowly escaped death. Clem would have paid to see Benning’s reactions in the same set-up.

‘I’d say that the twelve million viewers watching the news won’t think she’s a lightweight.’

Benning and the PM turned to the screen as if seeing it for the first time.

‘Clem’s right,’ said the PM.

Benning scratched his chin. ‘Connolly, the national heroine.’

I’m still shaking as security rush me into Number Ten. I’m not sure what the hell I’m doing here as we pass the Cabinet Room and I’m bundled into the PM’s study. It’s cramped and old-fashioned, a velvet sofa in need of re-covering pushed against the wall and the PM squeezed behind the heavy desk in a mahogany chair.

‘Jo.’ The prime minister gets up. ‘Come in, come in.’

He holds out his hand. I go to do the same but I notice mine is black with soot, the knuckles ragged and bloodstained.

‘Sorry,’ I murmur.

He takes it anyway, covers it with the palm of his other hand. ‘I can’t tell you how glad we are that you’re all right.’ He looks me squarely in the eye as he says this.

Everyone agrees that this is what’s magical about him. His ability to make you feel important. From the Pope to a hospital porter.