Gil shouted ‘lights’, and immediately two voice controlled lights were illuminated. They were rated at five hundred watts each and they cast their light widely. Obviously the areas closest to the lights were the most brightly lit, but even the far ends of the platforms were visible, albeit barely.

Slowly Gil rolled off the debris of her landing pad and set her feet on the ground. She removed her coat, her Kevlar vest and the ceramic shield. All were ruined, and when she saw the slugs trapped between the two layers of protection she could see why.

Only two parts of her plan had been outside of her control; would Tim go for a headshot at such close distance, even though he had always been a useless shot? And, would he then report her demise before he himself passed on? Clearly Tim had played safe and placed three armour-piercing shots in her chest. As useless as the grouping of the shots might be, any one of them would have been fatal. In any event, he would have tipped her injured body into the lift shaft and let gravity finish his job. Gil could only hope that he would report in as soon as the job was done. She relied on her understanding of the psychology of agents who rarely ventured into fieldwork. They tended to become rather excited and the excess adrenaline pumped them up until they had to tell someone about their success. Tim was just such an animal, and so she was confident that Thames House now believed she was dead.

Gil’s gaze swept around the old platform; some agents had found it a little scary but she had always found it interesting. When the platform had been stripped and sealed after the Second World War, they had uncovered original Victorian ironwork and even some old advertising that must have predated 1917. If there had been enough time, Gil would have unscrewed the painted tin advertisement board, which, although very faded, showed a lady in Edwardian dress carrying a parasol and recommending Swann & Edgar’s Department Store at Piccadilly Circus. In an odd coincidence, the department store was damaged by the last ever Zeppelin raid over London in 1917, the same year these platforms were last used for tube travel. But the Chameleon simply did not have time for nostalgia. She had work to do if she was to escape from the UK and build a new life for herself elsewhere.

It had taken time to prepare the old platform for her purposes, but her hard work appeared to have been rewarded. As soon as the meeting had been planned she had known what to expect, and set about surviving the attempted assassination. First of all she loosened the brickwork that sealed off the old platform by placing a detonator into a mortar joint and triggering it remotely. Detonators of the type Gil used have a small explosive charge of their own called a primary charge. This is enough to set off a more stable explosive material like Semtex 10, but in many cases the detonator charge alone is enough to do a small job, and it removes the need to procure hard-to-get plastic explosive material such as Semtex or DHX.

As she had calculated, the brickwork had loosened enough in the centre of the wall for Gil to knock it through with a two-kilogram brick hammer. She expected the air to be fetid and un-breathable, but the lift shaft obviously provided enough ventilation because the air inside was slightly stale but not overly unpleasant. Gil didn’t worry about filling the hole she had created, as no one had been down this tunnel for decades, probably because the ancient sign at the entrance bluntly stated that the tunnel was a ‘Dead End’.

The Chameleon had known that if she was to survive she would need some supplies, and so she arranged for one of her greeting card delivery drivers to deliver twenty flat packed cardboard boxes to the side entrance of the tube station. If he was puzzled by this instruction he didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look particularly puzzled when his Managing Director appeared at the side door of an abandoned tube station covered in dust to take possession of them. Gil collected the lights and the other items herself, and delivered them under the cover of darkness in the early hours of the morning.

By the time she had finished Gil had filled the base of the lift shaft with three layers of large, empty cardboard boxes rising to above her head height. Three inches of latex foam covered the boxes, and the same material had been taped to the concrete wall surrounding the landing base. A first aid kit, also enclosed in foam, was wedged against the wall.

The lights, and the boat batteries which provided their power, had been carefully lowered down the shaft where earlier the foam and the cardboard boxes had been allowed to free fall to the bottom. Satisfied with her precautions, Gil retired to the Waldorf Astoria where her luxurious bathroom and bed were calling her. She managed five good hours of sleep in her executive room before she had to dress, don her armour and wait for Don to remove the safety bar.

When Tim had shot her she looked genuinely pained, because it hurt a good deal more than she had expected. Nonetheless, if she wanted the performance to be convincing she had to follow up with a seventy foot fall to her apparent death. Falling seventy feet, even onto her landing pad, was likely to be injurious, if not fatal; stuntmen had died falling shorter distances. So, as soon as she tumbled into the lift shaft, she grabbed hold of the recently replaced rope with her lined leather gloves, the stopping forces almost pulling her shoulders out of the sockets. She then slid and rappelled down the rope as fast as she could into the beckoning blackness. Gil was less than thirty feet from the platform when the rope gave way and she fell. Quickly she folded her arms across her chest and crossed her legs whilst lying as flat as possible. She had screamed, and not just for effect, when she hit the bottom. As planned, the foam absorbed the initial impact and then the boxes collapsed under the weight and momentum of a falling body. Despite the relative softness of the landing, Gil was shaken badly and had passed out with a mild concussion. Given the alternatives, it had been an acceptable outcome.

***

Having concealed her debris and equipment in the old platform office, Gil brushed herself down and smiled as she made one addition to the old platform which was now back in the state it had been for decades.

Moving through the formerly sealed tunnel, Gil climbed through the hole that Don would reseal shortly, at the same time he replaced the safety bar on the rails and the lift shaft cover that Gil had rolled into the loading bay.

Rather than exiting through the side door, the Chameleon left via the tunnel, wary of the live rail. She passed what she believed to be the remains of Tim, who looked as though he had been thrown onto a bonfire, and opened the door leading to the secret Aldwych staircase. Picking up the remaining pieces of the ‘flash bang’ grenade, she threw them down the tunnel onto the unused track and closed the door behind her.

Ten minutes later she was in her hotel room, discarding her bullet holed clothing and dropping onto the bed, planning her future in the comfort of the pale grey hotel room. In five more minutes she was asleep, dreaming of her upcoming expedition and what she might find.

Chapter 30

Vastrick Security, Nr 1 Poultry, London. Tuesday 11am.

Simon yawned, opening his mouth so wide that his jaw clicked, and for a moment he thought it had locked. He massaged the sides of his face just below his ears with his fingers until the muscles relaxed. As he had predicted, he had been up all night, spending only three hours in the tiny bedroom at the end of the corridor. In an hour or two he would make the journey home and crash out until tomorrow morning, but for the moment he still had work to do.