Chapter 113
HEARING THE CROWD in the stadium singing ‘Let it Be’, Knight raced towards the base of the Orbit, seeing Jack already there ahead of him, interrogating the Gurkhas guarding the staircase that wound its way up the tower’s DNA-like superstructure towards the circular observation deck.
When Knight arrived, legs cramping and head splitting, he gasped, ‘Was Lancer up there?’
‘They say the only people who went up after three-thirty were some SAS snipers, a dog team, and the two Queen’s guardsmen protecting the—’
‘Can we alert them, the men on the roof?’ Knight said, cutting Jack off.
‘I don’t know,’ Jack said. ‘I mean, I don’t think so.’
‘I think Lancer plans to blow up the cauldron, maybe this entire structure. Where’s the propane tank and feeder line that keep the flame alight?’
‘It’s over this way,’ called the strained voice of a man hurrying them.
Stuart Meeks was head of facilities at the Olympic Park. A short man in his fifties who sported a pencil-thin moustache and slicked-back hair, he carried an iPad and sweated profusely as he used an electronic code to open a door set flush in the concrete floor. The steps beneath the door led down into a massive utility basement that ran beneath the western legs of the Orbit and out under the river and the plaza towards the stadium.
‘How big is the tank down there?’ Knight asked as Meeks lifted the door.
‘Huge – five hundred thousand litres,’ Meeks said, holding out the iPad, which showed a schematic of the gas system. ‘But as you can see here it serves all the propane needs in the park, not just the cauldron. The gas is drawn from the main reservoir here into smaller holding tanks at each of the venues – and in the athletes’ village, of course. It was designed, like the electrical station, to be self-sufficient.’
Knight gaped at him. ‘Are you saying if it blows, everything blows?’
‘No, I don’t …’ Meeks stopped. He turned pale. ‘I honestly don’t know.’
Jack said, ‘Peter and I were with Lancer ten days ago up on the observation deck shortly after he’d finished inspecting security on the cauldron. Did Lancer go down into this basement during that inspection, Stu?’
Meeks nodded. ‘Mike insisted on looking at everything one last time. From the tank and up the line, all the way to the coupling that connects the piping to the cauldron. It took us more than an hour.’
‘We don’t have an hour,’ Knight said.
Jack was already on the steep ladder, preparing to climb down to inspect the giant propane tank. ‘Call in the dogs again, Stu. Send them down as soon as they get here. Peter, trace the gas line up to the roof.’
Knight nodded before asking Meeks if he had any tools with him. The facilities director unsnapped a Leatherman from a pouch on his hip and told Knight he’d send the schematic of the gas-line system to his phone. No more than twenty yards up the spiral staircase that climbed the Orbit, Knight felt his phone buzz, alerting him to the arrival of the schematic.
He was about to open the link when he thought of something that made the diagram seem irrelevant at this point. He keyed his microphone and said, ‘Stuart, how is the gas line to the cauldron controlled? By that I mean is there a manual valve up there that controls the gas flow that will have to be moved for the flame in the cauldron to go out, or will it be done electronically?’
‘Electronically,’ Meeks replied. ‘Before it connects to the cauldron the line runs through a crawl space that’s part of the ductwork in the ceiling above the restaurant and below the roof.’
Despite the pounding in his skull and his general sense of irritability, Knight was picking up the pace as he climbed. The wind was strong now. In the distance he thought he heard the rumble of thunder.
‘Any way to get on the roof?’ he asked.
‘There are two hatches with retractable doors and staircases on opposite sides of the roof,’ Meeks said. ‘That’s how the guardsmen have been climbing up and down for their shifts. There’s also an exhaust grate in the ductwork several feet from that valve you asked about.’
Before Knight could think about that, he heard Jack say, ‘Main tank appears clear. Stuart, we know the max volume and what it’s holding?’
There was long pause before the Olympic Park’s facility supervisor said in a hoarse voice, ‘It was filled again at dawn, day before yesterday, Jack.’
Two hundred feet above the Olympic Park, Knight now understood that underground between the Orbit and the stadium was a mega-explosive device certainly capable of toppling the tower, but also of causing tremendous damage to the south end of the stadium and everyone seated there. Not to mention what might happen if a central explosion set off other detonations around the venue.
‘Evacuate, Jack,’ Knight said. ‘Tell security to stop the ceremony and get everyone out of the stadium, and out of the park.’
‘But what if he’s watching?’ Jack said. ‘What if he can trigger it remotely?’
‘I don’t know,’ Knight said, feeling torn. His personal inclination was to turn around and get the hell out of there. He was a father. He’d already almost died once today. Could he dare tempt fate twice?
Still climbing, Knight toggled on the schematic on his phone, looking for the digitally controlled cauldron valve that was somewhere between the roof and the restaurant ceiling. At a glance, he felt almost sure that that control valve was the most likely place for Lancer to attach a triggering device to the main gas line.
If he could reach it, he could defuse it. If he couldn’t …