Shell Shocked (19 page)

She didn't answer.

“It is in your interests that we stop this plot. If you help us, I can arrange for you to be helped, an arrangement offered.”

“What sort of an arrangement?”

“I'll ask that they not shoot you as a spy,” Mr. Granger said. “Instead you'll finish the war as a prisoner, and at the end of the war you will be released, as all prisoners are released.”

Again she didn't answer.

“I have no time for this. Either you co-operate or we leave you here to die and we go on without you.”

She remained silent.

“Fine!” Mr. Granger said. “Tie her up and let her die for her cause.” He turned to walk away.

“Wait!” she exclaimed.

He turned back around.

“What do you need to know?”

MR. MCGREGOR MADE SURE
the knots were tightly tied.

“Anything more you need to say before I put on the gag?” he asked Juliette.

“No, nothing,” she said. “I've told you everything.”

“Then maybe you should just wish us luck.”

He slipped the gag over her mouth and tied it off so she couldn't yell for help. She'd said all that any of us wanted to hear—and it was worse than we'd imagined.

Juliette knew that at least fifteen buildings—the largest and the ones where the most explosive or flammable materials were stored—had been wired with plastic explosive. What she didn't know was exactly which buildings they were. Mr. Granger could make a pretty good guess at it, but even he couldn't be certain.

All of the explosives and all of the wiring were underground with the pipes in the service corridors. Those
wires led back to the steam plant—when the explosion was triggered, the steam plant would be destroyed too, and anybody in there would be killed.

Juliette had confirmed the numbers—at least two guards, at least five women working on the lines, and she thought two men at the steam plant were part of the plot. All of them knew that the explosion was planned for exactly midnight, and they were to go on with their normal jobs until just before then. At that time they had to get clear of the plant, get away and meet at a prearranged spot on the edge of town. We already knew three agents who weren't going to make that meeting.

Mr. Granger picked up Juliette's gun, the one I'd taken from her, and checked it for bullets. It was fully loaded.

“George, this one is for you.”

“Me?”

He handed it to me. “And I have to warn you—”

“Don't worry, I'll be careful.”

“I know you will … but that's not what I was going to say.”

“You weren't?”

He shook his head. “George, if you need to, you have to use it. Do you think you could shoot somebody?”

I shook my head. “I don't know.”

“That's an honest answer. But if Mr. McGregor had hesitated you'd be dead now.”

“I guess you're right.”

“I know I'm right. You have to remember what's happening here. If you aren't prepared to take a life—possibly an innocent life—you could put thousands of lives at risk here tonight, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who would be put at risk if their source of ammunition was destroyed.”

I gulped. I knew he was right. We now had less than two hours to get to those fifteen buildings and disconnect the wiring, while avoiding being seen by enemy agents. If we were seen, they might set off the explosives with us standing right beside them. I remembered something Bill had once told me about plastic explosives. He said that if a piece the size of your hand was detonated under a car, not only would the vehicle be completely destroyed but also the people in it would be vaporized—they wouldn't even be able to find
pieces
of the bodies.

I held the gun out in front of me and looked at it carefully. If I needed to, I could use it … I hoped.

“Let's get going,” Mr. Granger said.

We slipped into the big hooded coats that he had given us. Employees at the facility who had to work outside wore them; we'd look like everybody else innocently walking around, doing their jobs at the plant. More important, we wouldn't look like us. It was a little bit different with Mr. McGregor. Nobody knew who he
was—at least as far as we knew—so if necessary he could walk into buildings, walk among the other workers and not tip them off.

We opened the door and the wind almost blew it off its hinges. The storm was still raging. If anything, it was stronger than before. I had to think that it was still our ally, working to offer us protection, hiding us from prying eyes. We travelled in a straight line with Mr. Granger leading. I followed behind, then Jack, and finally Mr. McGregor at the end. That was reassuring. I'd seen him in action and I was glad he was on our side.

The snow had settled deeply everywhere, but in places the winds had created drifts that were two to three feet high. I kept to the trail that Mr. Granger created. We circled around to the side of the main building. The evening shift was on, so there was light coming from the windows. As we passed by, hidden in the darkness, I was able to look inside and see the lines working at full speed, women and a few men working away, oblivious to us … to what was going on … to what might happen. And there was no way we could tell them. To warn them was to risk everything. If we tried to evacuate the people from the line, the enemy agents working inside would know we were on to them. All of those people in there were depending on us. They didn't know it, but their lives were in our hands.

“It's right around here,” Mr. Granger said. “Somewhere under the snow.”

He started stomping his feet as he moved around—then there was a metallic sound. He used his feet to clear away the snow and we all helped. I could see metal sheeting, and as we cleared it a handle became visible.

“Step back,” Mr. Granger said.

He reached down and pulled, and the metal sheet came up, revealing the steam pipes and the service corridor. In the darkness I couldn't see the bottom, though I knew it was barely a couple of feet below. We all had flashlights but we couldn't risk using them.

“That looks awfully small,” Jack said.

“It'll be a pretty tight fit,” Mr. Granger said, “but I think I can fit around the pipes and—”

“It's not as tight a fit for me,” I said.

Everybody turned to me.

“I can do it easier than anybody else … I can find the explosives like we discussed.”

Somehow I was hoping that somebody would argue, but nobody did. Mr. Granger took my hand and helped me lower myself in. I had to squeeze by the two massive pipes, and I could feel the warmth from the steam they carried right through my coat. I knew the corridors weren't deep but I couldn't see the bottom and it was a little unnerving to lower myself down. I stretched out my leg …

“I'm touching the bottom … I'm okay,” I said.

“We're going to set the door back down now,” Mr. Granger said.

“What?” I gasped.

“That way you can turn on your flashlight without the light being visible.”

“Yeah … okay … fine.”

I wriggled by the pipes and spread myself out beneath them. It was a really small space, so small that I couldn't crawl on my hands and knees. I'd have to drag myself along on my stomach. Digging into my pocket, I pulled out the flashlight and rested my thumb against the switch. I wanted it ready. I looked up as the metal sheeting was lowered and the little light that was coming from above was extinguished, leaving me in complete darkness. I flicked on the flashlight and the whole tunnel became illuminated.

I was lying in a little tunnel, with concrete floor and walls. With the help of the flashlight I could see that the tunnel ran on, smooth and straight, for as far as I could see, both in front of me and behind me. Above were the two massive steam pipes. Now, with the outside storm muffled, I could hear them hissing and humming as the steam surged through them.

I ran the flashlight beam along the length of the pipes. If I'd been an enemy operative running wire to trigger an
explosion, that was where I would have put it. I couldn't see anything, though. I reached up and ran my fingers between the two pipes and … bingo! I pulled down two thick metal wires. I pulled harder and a length dropped down. It ran in both directions—toward the building that housed the main production line and also toward the steam plant. Was this the ignition wire? I had to be sure.

I dragged myself forward toward the building. With one hand on the flashlight and the other on the wire, pulling it down, I moved forward. But with each foot forward I moved farther from the safety of the door and the people above it and closer to the explosives. The storm became more muffled, and aside from the sound of the rushing steam, all I could hear were the noises I made dragging myself along and my own breathing.

Soon I began to hear other sounds, though—machinery and voices. For an instant I had a rush of fear—was somebody else in the corridor?—but then I realized I'd crawled so far that I was now underneath the building, and those were the voices of people working on the line. I continued to shuffle forward. It couldn't be much farther. It didn't need to be much farther. I was already under the building and—there it was.

The wires ended and were embedded in a clump of plastic explosive wedged between the pipes. It was at least twice as big as my fist, enough to blow up the entire
building and the people in it. I pulled the wires out. Without an electrical impulse, it couldn't explode. This building was safe. One down, fourteen to go.

It was incredibly difficult to try to turn myself around. I rotated my shoulders and moved up, twisting my body around the pipes until I was able to spin around. I started to crawl away, and then stopped. The wires I found had been removed, but what if there were other wires, inserted from the other side? Or what if someone discovered that the wires had been removed? They could push them back in, or run more wires—I had to take the plastic explosive with me.

I shuffled backwards, aiming the flashlight up at the plastic explosive. I knew it wasn't dangerous any more … but still. I tried to remember everything I knew about plastic explosives. They were like mud. They could be pushed and prodded and actually moulded into a shape, like modelling clay. They needed an electric current running through them to detonate. Without that current, they could be thrown on the ground or stomped on or even have a bullet fired right through and they wouldn't go off. I had nothing to worry about. Nothing. I was sure. Positive. Almost positive.

Carefully I grabbed the clump—it was hot to the touch from the steam pipes. I pulled and it came off in one big chunk. There it was in my hand, enough explosive to
destroy a building. I stuffed it in my pocket. I put the flashlight into my mouth so that I could see my way and have both hands free to move. I hurried along the corridor and almost overshot the trap door before I looked up and saw the three of them standing above me, the trap door partially open and snow flowing through the gap.

“I did it!” I practically yelled. “I got the wires!”

Squeezing past the pipes, I was grabbed by strong arms and pulled straight out of the hole and placed on the ground. The trap door was lowered quietly back into place.

“Where was the charge placed?” Mr. Granger asked.

“It was wedged between the pipes, right under the building.”

“Plastic explosive?”

“Yes.”

“How big was the charge?” he asked.

I reached into my pocket and pulled it out. “This much.” I handed it to him.

“My goodness,” Mr. Granger gasped. “I've never actually seen this much before. We're going to have to get to each of the wired buildings. If they're using charges this big, any one explosion could be enough to blow the whole plant up. But we don't have time!”

“We need to break up into two teams,” Mr. McGregor said. “We can move twice as fast.”

“There still won't be enough time.”

“Then we'll have to move faster!” Mr. McGregor said.

“We can't move any faster without increasing our risk of detection. Besides, we still don't know for sure exactly which buildings are wired,” Mr. Granger said.

“But we have to try! We can't just give up!” Jack exclaimed.

“We're not going to give up. We have only one choice. We have to find the place that the wires all lead to … the place where the detonation will take place. It must be in the steam plant. If we can disarm that … we'll deactivate them
all
.”

“
THERE'S A DOOR
at the very back and another off to the side,” Mr. Granger said. “Mr. McGregor will station himself at the back door, and Jack, you take the side entrance.”

They both nodded.

“From here on in, nobody leaves. Anybody exiting those doors should be considered a threat. If they cannot be captured they are to be killed. Jack, do you understand?”

Jack nodded.

“Better to take one innocent life than to risk thousands. Good luck, men.”

Jack and Mr. McGregor moved along the building toward their positions, and Mr. Granger and I moved along the side of the building in the other direction. Inside were stored thousands—no,
tens
of thousands—of shells. All loaded with explosives, waiting to be shipped out.

Mr. Granger had chosen this building specifically. It was close to the steam plant, but not too close. It had a limited number of people working inside, and it was probably one of the targeted buildings, which meant that there were explosives and wires leading out of it to the steam plant, to the spot in the steam plant where all the wires led, where the detonation would take place. Following those wires would lead to the spot where the wires came together, the point of detonation, and to the people who were going to do the dirty work.