Stanmore began to tremble uncontrollably and sobs jerked his chest muscles as he thought of Penny, his wife, and Tracey and Belinda, his two little girls. His house was in Wandsworth, his daughters' school close by. Penny would try to reach the school as soon as she heard the terrible wailing of the sirens; she would never make it, though. They would all die separately, the girls bewildered, not understanding the full importance of the warning sounds, but frightened because the grown-ups around them would be frightened, and Penny would be in the streets, racing towards the school, exposed and panic-stricken.
They had always planned in such morbid-thought moments of their marriage (the times perhaps when neither could sleep, when physical urges had been satiated and there was nothing left but to talk the small hours away) to barricade themselves in their home, to build a cushioned fortress under the stairs in the hallway, to follow the edicts in the local authority's Protect and Survive leaflet as closely as possible, and to stay there cocooned until the worst was over.
Neither of them envisaged - or, more truthfully, cared to admit - that there was a possibility that they would all be apart. They should have known, should have made some arrangement, some pact, to cover such a possibility. Now it was too late. They could only pray for each other and for their children. Let the rest of the world pray for itself.
He pushed himself to his knees and crouched there, his body tucked forward, hands still covering his face.
Don't let it be true, dear God, he pleaded. Please don't let it happen.
But it did happen. The huge tower was split into three sections by the blast, the top part in which Stanmore prayed travelling for a distance of almost a quarter of a mile before crashing to the ground to become unrecognizable rubble. Eric Stanmore had been vaguely and briefly aware of the floating sensation before displaced machinery and concrete had flattened his body wafer-thin.
Alex Dealey was running, his breathing laboured, perspiration already staining his white shirt beneath his grey suit. He hung on to the briefcase almost unconsciously, as if it mattered any more that 'sensitive'
government documents could be found lying in the street. Or among the rubble which would be all that was left. He should have taken a taxi, or a bus even; that way he would have arrived at his destination long ago. He would have been safe. But it had been a nice, warm, June day, the kind of day when walking was infinitely preferable to riding in enclosed transport. It wasn't a nice day any longer, even though the sun was still high and bright.
He resisted the temptation to duck into one of the many office buildings that flanked High Holborn, to scurry down
into one of their cool, protective basements; there was still time to make it. He would be so much better off if he reached his proposed destination, so much safer. Also, it was his duty to be there at such a catastrophic and, of course, historic occasion. Oh God, was he that far down the bureaucratic road that he could mentally refer to this as historic? Even though he was only a minion to the ruling powers, his mind, his outlook, had been tainted with their cold, logical -inhuman? - perceptions. And he had certainly enjoyed the privileges his office had brought him; perhaps the most important privilege of all lay just ahead. If only he had time to reach it.
Someone in front, a woman, tripped and fell, and Dealey tumbled over her. The pavement jarred his hands and knees and for a moment he could only lie there, protecting his face from the moving feet and legs around him. The noise was terrible: the shouts and screams of office workers caught out in the open, the constant belling of car horns, their progress halted by other abandoned vehicles, the owners having fled leaving engines still running. The awful banshee sirens, their rising and falling a mind-freezing, heart-gripping ululation, full of precognitive mourning of what was soon ...
They had stopped! The sirens had stopped!
For one brief and eerie moment there was almost complete silence as people halted and wondered if it had all been a false alarm, even a demented hoax. But there were those among the crowd who realized the true significance of the abrupt cessation of the alert; these people pushed their way through to the nearest doorways and disappeared inside. Panic broke out once more as others began to understand that the holocaust was but moments away.
A motorbike mounted the pavement and cut a scything path through the crowds, scattering men and women, catching
those not swift enough and tossing them aside like struck skittles. The rider failed to see the prostrate woman whom Dealey had fallen over. The front wheel hit her body and the machine rose into the air, the rider, with his sinister black visor muting his cry, rising even higher.
Dealey cowered low to the ground as the motorbike flipped over, its owner now finding his own course of flight and breaking through the plate-glass window of a shopfront Sparks and metal flew from the machine as it struck the solid base of the window frame. It came to rest half-in, half-out of the display window, smoke belching from the stuttering engine, its metal twisted and buckled. The rider moaned as blood seeped down his neck from inside the cracked helmet.
Dealey was already on his feet and running, not caring about the woman left writhing on the pavement, not even mindful of the lost briefcase with its precious documents, only grateful that he had escaped injury and even more anxious to quickly reach his particular refuge.
The Underground station, Chancery Lane, was not too far away, and the sight gave him new hope. His destination was not far beyond.
Too soon the world was a blinding white flash, and foolishly, for he of all people really should have known better, Dealey turned to look at its source.
He stood there paralysed, sightless and screaming inwardly, waiting for the inevitable.
The thundrous, ear-splitting roar came, but the inevitable did not. Instead he felt rough hands grab him and his body being propelled backwards. His shoulder crashed against something that gave way and he was being dragged along. He felt himself falling, something, perhaps someone, falling with him. The earth was shaking, the noise deafening, the walls collapsing.
And then there was no longer burning white pain in his eyes, just the cool darkness of unconsciousness.
The initial nuclear explosions - there were five on and around the London area - lasted only a few minutes. The black mushroom clouds rose high above the devastated city, joining to form a thick layer of turbulent smoke that made the day seem as night.
It wasn't long before the gathered dust and fine debris began its leisurely return to earth. But now it was no longer just dust and powder. Now it was a further, more sinister, harbinger of death.
He kicked out at the debris that had covered his legs and was relieved to find nothing solid had pinned them down. He coughed, spitting dust from his lungs, then wiped a hand across his eyes to clear them.
There was still some light filtering through into the basement corridor; Culver groaned when he saw smoke filtering through with the light.
He turned towards the man he had dragged in from the street, hoping he hadn't killed him in the fall down the stairway. The man was moving, his hands feebly reaching for his face; there was debris and a fine layer of dust over his body, but nothing too heavy seemed to have landed on him. He began to splutter, choking on the fine powder he had swallowed.
Culver reached towards him, groaning at the sudden pain that touched his own body. He quickly checked himself, making sure nothing important was fractured or sprained; no, everything felt okay, although he knew he would be stiff with bruises the next day - if there was a next day.
He tugged at the other man's shoulder. ‘You all right?' he asked, twice attempting the question because it had come out as a croak the first time.
A low moan was the only reply.
Culver looked towards the broken staircase and was
