trapped underground with an awful lot of very awful people out to kill us? There are times when I think that in his own way Tim is as mad as Johnny Powers. This was one of them.
“Tim!” I whispered. “Have you quite finished?”
“Sure, Nick.” He clutched the vase to him. He was actually smiling. It meant that much to him, finding it.
“Then do you mind if we go?”
“Ya’re not going anywhere!”
Powers was standing only a few feet away. He hadn’t seen me, but he had seen Tim. And now he’d gotten both of us. The six armed men formed a semicircle around us. They were all holding guns. They looked like an execution squad. In fact, they were an execution squad.
“Ya’re finished, Diamond,” Powers snarled. His face was distorted with hatred. “I should’ve plugged ya when I had ya before. But this time I’m not making any more mistakes. I’m gonna do it now.” He giggled. “And I’m gonna enjoy it.”
He raised his weapon.
I knew it was the end. But I still didn’t expect it to happen so quickly. And it wasn’t the end that I’d expected.
First there was a gunshot. But it wasn’t Johnny’s gun. It came from the end of the corridor. The gun was torn out of Johnny’s hand, clattering on the floor. The six men wheeled around. My eyes followed them.
Chief Inspector Snape of Scotland Yard stood there. He was alive. He was armed. There were about twenty uniformed policemen with him.
“All right, Powers,” he said. “Come on out with your hands up. I’ve got this place surrounded. You haven’t got a chance.”
Then the roof collapsed.
I suppose it had only been a matter of time. Powers had spoken of a problem in the building of the tunnel— the tunnel that was now the Fence’s headquarters. Something to do with the limestone. Whatever it was, it had been a splinter that had just been waiting for an excuse to turn into a yawning chasm—and the explosion had been that excuse. The whole complex shook. Then about a ton of bricks and broken stone crashed down on Powers, burying him. I didn’t see what happened to the six men, because a second later the Thames followed. All of it.
If I hadn’t been standing to one side, I’d have been killed there and then. Even so I was hurled off my feet. The last thing I saw was Tim, clasping the Purple Peacock. Then I was swept away, carried in a torrent of racing, foaming water. Somebody screamed.
Another section of the ceiling smashed down. A column tottered and collapsed, plowing into a grand piano and reducing it instantly to matchwood. Televisions and video recorders surged past, spinning in the current. Everything was spinning. The water was roaring in my ears.
I’m going to drown, I thought. This is it. Prepare to meet your Maker. And don’t forget to ask Him why you got such a raw deal.
But then a hand grabbed me and pulled me up into the air. It was Snape. He had formed a human chain with the other policemen. It reached back to the metal grille, which was also the way they’d come in. After the initial impact, the flow of the water eased off. It was about six feet deep. The
“Tim!” I shouted.
For there he was, swimming toward me with one hand. It was incredible. He wasn’t only alive. He still had the Purple Peacock. And despite everything—the explosions, the falling masonry, the flood, it was still in one piece.
“This way, laddie,” Snape said.
I was too exhausted to do anything for myself anymore. I allowed Snape to pull me through the water. I still couldn’t believe he was alive. And how had he found me? But explanations could wait until later.
Two more policemen took hold of me and a moment later I found myself sitting on dry land. Then Tim was pulled out to join me, still holding the Purple Peacock.
We were on a sort of wooden platform. It was behind the metal grille, which Snape now closed. All twenty policemen were there, along with Tim, Snape, and myself and you could still have found room for more. There were two buttons set in a box on the wall. One was red, the other green.
“This had better work,” Snape muttered.
He pushed the green button.
There was a whir of machinery and the platform began to move, sliding upward into blackness. For thirty seconds I couldn’t see anything, but I could feel my stomach sink. And now I knew, of course. It had reminded me of an underground parking garage. Because the platform was nothing less than a huge elevator.
At last it broke into the light of the early morning. I looked around, blinking. And then I wanted to laugh. We had traveled up a shaft, up through the water. And I knew where we were. I should have known all along.
We were inside the
“All right, Snape,” I said. “Spit it out. How come you’re alive? How did you get here? What’s been going on?”
I was sitting on a bench near the river, wrapped in a blanket and holding a tin mug of hot tea. The Purple Peacock was in a cardboard box beside me. It was eight o’clock in the morning and for once Wapping was a hive of activity. There were police cars everywhere. A mobile canteen had been set up, supplying tea and bacon sandwiches. There were also two ambulances. I was fine, but Tim was being treated for shock.
The banks of the Thames were lined with constables holding nets. They were more like fishermen than policemen. For the past hour all sorts of treasures had been floating to the surface to be caught and taken away for identification. And they weren’t the only things to fall into the police net. Ma Powers had been arrested, trying to escape through the station, and now she was being bundled into a police van.
By the time she got out of jail, she’d be Great-grandma Powers, and do you know, I almost felt sorry for her? After all, she’d only been looking after her boy. Which was more than my mother had ever done for me.
Johnny Powers and Nails Nathan were never found. Maybe they both drowned, but I have a feeling they both got away. It’s certainly true that later that day two Japanese tourists got knocked out at the Thames Barrier and woke up minus their clothes, cameras, air tickets, and credit cards. Maybe that was the two of them and maybe even now they’re out there, continuing their life of crime in Tokyo. If so—I just hope they stay there.
But the worst of it was that it had all been for nothing. We hadn’t gotten the Fence. He hadn’t been in the underground complex at the time and it was unlikely now that he would show up. The whole area had been cordoned off. Crowds of journalists and television cameras were being held back behind the barriers. The river police were patrolling the Thames and helicopters buzzed overhead. The whole of London knew what had happened, was being told about it on the morning news. By now, the Fence was probably miles away.
“Where do I start?” Snape asked.
“How about with the way you framed me?” I growled. He might have saved my life a few minutes ago. But that didn’t even the score. If it hadn’t been for him I’d have still been happily at school—or at least, as happy as you can be when you’re in a dump like mine.
Snape wasn’t even a little bit apologetic. “I had to frame you,” he said. “You wouldn’t play along otherwise.”
“But that’s criminal!”
“No. That’s police work. But don’t worry, my old son. All the charges against you will be dropped now. And I did my best to look out for you. I was never far behind.”
“Yeah. How come you showed up like that?” I sipped the tea; it was warm and sweet. I wouldn’t have used either word to describe Snape.
“You were bugged,” Snape explained. “I had you on radar every minute of the day.”
“Bugged? How?”
“In your shoes.” Snape pointed. “Your prison shoes. There’s a powerful tracking device in each of the heels.”
“So . . .” Suddenly it came to me. “That night on the railway tracks in Clapham. It was you who cut me
