The Marching Season

wristwatch, to signal she was running late. She reached the ticket lobby and found an empty automatic dispenser. She fed £3.30 into the slot and pressed the corresponding button. Her European helper appeared alongside and slipped a few coins into his machine without looking at her. He purchased a ticket for £1.10, which meant he was making a short journey, probably somewhere within central London. He collected his ticket and melted into the rush-hour crowd.
    She passed through the turnstiles and took the long escalator down to the platform. A moment later she felt a breath of wind and heard the rush of the approaching train. Miraculously, there were a few empty seats. She left the bag next to the door and sat down. By the time the train reached Earl's Court, the carriage had filled with passengers, and Dame had lost sight of the bag. The train surfaced and sped through London's western suburbs. Tired commuters trickled from the train onto the windswept platforms of Boston Manor, Osterley, and Hounslow East.
    As the train approached the first stop at Heathrow—the platform serving Terminal Four—Dame looked at the passengers seated around her. A pair of young English businessmen who stank of prosperity, a knot of sullen German tourists, a foursome of Americans loudly debating whether London's production of Miss Saigon was superior to Broadway's. Dame looked away.
    The plan was simple. She had been instructed to get off at Terminal Four and leave the bag behind. Before stepping from the train she would press the button on a small transmitter hidden in her coat pocket. The transmitter, disguised as a keyless remote for a Japanese luxury car, would arm the detonator. If the train continued on schedule, the bomb would explode a few
    16 Daniel Silva
    seconds after it reached the platform serving terminals One, Two, and Three. The resulting damage would inconvenience travelers for months and cost hundreds of millions of pounds to repair.
    The train slowed as it approached the stop for Terminal Four. The woman stood and moved to the doors as the black of the tunnel gave way to the severe light of the platform. When the doors opened she pressed the button on the transmitter, arming the bomb. She stepped onto the platform, and the doors closed behind her. She began walking quickly toward the way out. It was then that she heard pounding on the window of the train. She turned and saw one of the young English businessmen beating his fist against the glass. She couldn't hear what he was saying, but she could read his lips. Your bagl he was shouting. You left your bagl
    Dame made no movement. The expression on the Englishman's face abruptly turned from mild concern to complete terror as he realized the woman had left the bag intentionally. He lunged toward the doors and tried to pry them open with his hands. Even if the man had managed to arouse attention and stop the train, nothing could be done in one minute and fifteen seconds to prevent the bomb from exploding.
    Dame watched as the train slipped forward. She was turning away when, a few seconds later, the tunnel shook with an enormous blast. The train lifted from the tracks, and a wave of searing air rushed over her. Dame instinctively raised her hands to her face. Above her, the ceiling began to crumble. The concussion of the blast lifted her from her feet. She saw it all terribly clearly for an instant—the fire, the crumbling cement, the human beings, like her, caught in the fiery maelstrom of the explosion.
    It ended very quickly. She was not certain how she came to rest; she had lost all sense of up and down, rather like a diver too long beneath the surface. All she knew was that she was en-
    The Marching Season 17
    tombed in debris, and she could not breathe or feel any part of her body. She tried to speak but could utter no sound. Her mouth began filling with her own blood.
    Her thoughts remained clear. She wondered how the bomb makers could have made such a mistake, and then, in the final moments before her death, she wondered whether it was really a mistake at all.
    LONDON
    Within one hour of the attacks, the London and Dublin governments launched one of the largest criminal investigations in the history of the British Isles. The British inquiry was coordinated directly from Downing Street, where Prime Minister Tony Blair met continuously with his key ministers and the heads of Britain's police and security services. Shortly before nine o'clock that night, the