Siege by Simon Kernick

meeting point in the event of a fire or related emergency was on the slip road next to the taxi rank on the southern side of the station. He also knew that having reached what they thought was a place of safety, most people would then stay put, wanting to be near enough to the unfolding drama so that they didn’t miss anything.
    Which was exactly what he wanted them to do.
    When it came to his turn, he hurried through the turnstile, following the barked commands of the police officers as they ushered him to the right, towards the exit.
    His last walk on Planet Earth.
    It wasn’t particularly inspiring, taking in the giant overhead signs carrying the arrival and departure times of the trains, the information centre, the bland-looking shops … all temples of a western consumerism he despised.
    He wouldn’t miss this place. A far better one awaited him, as it awaited all good warriors.
    He thought of his childhood. Playing football in the street outside his home with his brother Khalid and his friends; Friday lunch with the whole family, when everyone would be laughing and happy; his grandma bringing him and his brother candies hidden in the folds of her skirts. He missed Grandma, who’d been gone almost ten years. He missed his father, who’d been gone four. And he missed Khalid – dear, handsome Khalid – who’d been incinerated by a NATO missile fired by some coward hundreds of miles away as he fought against the mercenaries and traitors trying to divide and destroy his country. He hoped to see them all in paradise, God willing. Soon now.
    Very soon.
    A crowd of people were waiting on the slip road outside the station, many of them already on their phones telling others about what they’d just seen and heard, while a far smaller number of station staff in fluorescent jackets tried to keep them adequately marshalled.
    The young man reached round behind his back and gently tugged the detonation cord free from his rucksack. His whole body throbbed with anticipation. His palms were lined with sweat, and he could hear nothing except the steady drumming of his heart . For the first time, perhaps in his life, his whole world was in perfect focus.
    The crowd seemed to part naturally, allowing him to move inside it. One of the staff urged him to keep moving.
    But he didn’t. He slowed right down. He was in the middle of it now, only feet away from a man talking loudly into a phone pressed hard against his ear. But he hardly saw the man. He hardly saw any of them. It was as if he was watching them through a rain-drenched windscreen.
    This was it. The time.
    He stood up ramrod straight, the detonation cord gripped firmly in his hand.
    Someone saw him. A middle-aged woman with bleached blonde hair. No more than five feet away. She cried out. One single, howled word: ‘Jesus!’
    The man on the phone looked round and seemed to realize what was going on. Instinctively he moved towards the young man, his hand outstretched.
    But he was too late. The young man was ready.
    ‘For God and my people!’ he cried out, and yanked the detonation cord with all his strength, embracing the eruption of noise and light as he was torn to pieces.

Twelve
    THE VAN WAS just passing Notting Hill Gate tube station when Fox heard the faint boom of the explosion through the open window.
    That’ll be the train bomb, he thought.
    He took a quick breath as the enormity of what he was involved in was brought home to him. In the van, everyone was quiet. Even Wolf had stopped drumming his fingers on the dashboard – something he’d been doing for most of the journey – as he waited for what they knew would happen next.
    They were moving faster now, the traffic easing up, probably because they were heading away from the earlier blast at the Westfield and the numbers of emergency vehicles moving towards it had temporarily thinned out. The new explosion would stretch them even further, and trigger the first real signs of panic in the capital. It was,