The pulled muscle in his thigh stiffened as he moved higher and it was with something akin to relief that he finally reached the top deck.
The man was sitting at the front, gazing out at the lights of London, oblivious to Lane's presence. The conductor moved towards him, using the backs of seats as support as the bus lurched on into Piccadilly.
'Fares, please,' called Lane. But still the man didn't turn, didn't even move to reach for money.
He continued staring out of the front window as if mesmerised by the lights, glancing to his left as they passed The Hard Rock Cafe.
'Fares, please,' Lane repeated more loudly as he drew level with the man.
'Where to, mate?' he asked, shifting his weight onto his other leg.
The man didn't answer.
Perhaps he was deaf, Lane wondered. He was in his mid-thirties, his hair short, his face covered by a dark carpet of stubble. The collar of his jacket was pulled up around his neck and there were holes in the knees of his jeans. Don't tell me you've got no fucking money.
'Where do you want to go?' Lane said, more loudly.
The man looked at him, his eyes large, almost bulging in their sockets. Lane could smell the drink on him.
Piss-artist. Great, that was all he needed. He turned the wheel of his ticket machine and cranked out an eighty pence ticket. If this bloke was smashed then he wanted him off at the next stop.
'Eighty pence, please, mate,' Lane said.
The man nodded and reached into his pocket, fumbling beneath his jacket.
'Eighty pence,' he repeated.
He smiled and looked up at the conductor.
'If you've got no money…' Lane began.
'I've got no money,' the man said, grinning. 'I got this.'
He pulled the.357 Magnum free and pointed it at Lane.
'Have you got change?' asked Gary Lucas.
Then he fired.
EIGHTY-SIX
The roar of the pistol was deafening in such a confined space. The muzzle-flash briefly lit the interior of the bus upper deck as the Magnum spat out its deadly load. Lucas fired from less than ten inches. The impact of the heavy grain shell bent Lane double at the waist as the bullet tore easily through his abdominal muscles, destroying part of his lower intestine before erupting from his back, tearing away most of one kidney. A sticky flux of viscera spattered the shattered window behind him and he fell backwards. Lucas got to his feet and fired again at the fallen man, the second bullet powering into his face just below the left eye, punching in the cheekbone and staving in the entire left side of his head. The skull seemed to burst as the bullet exited, greyish-pink slops of brain carried in its wake.
Lucas turned and headed for the stairs, noticing that the bus had slowed down slightly.
He reached the running platform in time to see two of the other passengers rising, obviously having heard the shots from above. One of them, a woman in her early twenties, screamed as she saw Lucas raising the gun.
He fired, hitting her in the left shoulder, the bullet shattering her clavicle. Blood spurted into the air as he turned towards the other passengers. There were four of them.
He shot the older woman in the back of the head, watching gleefully as her grey hair turned red, her skull riven by the bullet. She pitched forward, slamming what was left of her head against the seat in front.
The bus veered to one side and Lucas cursed as his next shot missed its target. Instead it smashed through the window at the front, glass spraying in all directions. He fired again, his next shot hitting a man in the chest, caving in his sternum and bursting one lung.
Two passengers were left, a young couple at the front of the bus.
The youth was already advancing towards him, his face pale, while the girl screamed madly.
Lucas squeezed the trigger.
The hammer slammed down on an empty chamber.
Scarcely believing his luck, the youth ran at Lucas, crashing into him, knocking the gun from his hand. They both fell onto the running platform. However, despite his efforts, the youth was slightly built compared to Lucas and the older man fixed his hands around the younger man's neck, lifting his head up. He brought his knee up into the youth's groin and heard the grunt of pain.
His girlfriend was still screaming.
The bus lurched across the road and Lucas realised it was beginning to stop.
He rolled over, hurling the boy from him into the road, then scrambled to his feet, snatching up the.357. He flipped out the cylinder and pushed in fresh cartridges.
The bus had almost come to a halt now, the driver glancing behind him to see the madness on the bus.
The girl screamed once more, even as Lucas fired.
The bullet entered her open mouth, tore through the back of her throat and practically decapitated her as it pulverised sections of spinal cord. She dropped like a stone, blood spraying everywhere.
Lucas immediately turned to the driver and fired off three shots.
The first crashed through the glass partition and exploded from the front windscreen; the second hit the man in the back, squarely between the shoulder blades. The third took off most of the right side of his head. As his body went into spasm, the driver's right foot was forced down onto the accelerator, and suddenly the bus sped forward at incredible speed, crashing into a car and sending another spinning aside.
It flattened the traffic lights at the junction of Piccadilly and Berkeley Street, picking up speed as it roared towards the front of the Ritz Hotel. The blue-uniformed doormen ran fearfully from the oncoming juggernaut, which bore down on the hotel entrance with the dead driver slumped over the wheel.
Lucas shouted in triumph.
Guests and others outside ran in all directions. The sound of screams filled the air.
Then the bus hit concrete.
There was a massive explosion as the vehicle went up, bursting into flames, portions of it flying across the street like massive lumps of shrapnel. Other pieces, propelled by the force of the blast, stove in great sections of the hotel's front. The revolving doors, with two guests inside, disintegrated as the bus engine was sent flying into them. The sound of shattering glass mingled with the deafening roar as the explosion shook Piccadilly. A searing reddish-white ball of fire blossomed out from the riven bus, a thick mushroom cloud of smoke rising from the inferno. Windows not shattered by the impact were forced inwards by the sheer power of the concussion blast.
Immediately, cars parked outside the hotel, caught in the detonation, began to burn. A Mercedes exploded with incredible ferocity, part of its roof spinning across the street and smashing through the plate glass windows of a chemist's. It was as if the first blast had set off a chain of smaller eruptions as half a dozen cars disappeared beneath shrieking balls of flame. Those running for cover were lifted off their feet by the shock waves; some were hit by flying glass. There were people lying all over the road and pavements, cars immobile as their drivers scrambled to escape the inferno that had filled the road and engulfed the Ritz.
In the shattered, blazing wreckage of the bus lay Gary Lucas, flames slowly devouring his skin, blistering lips still frozen in what looked like a grin.
