Tunnels 04, Closer

work on the Chancellor's other hand.
    "Yes, yes, as I said -- awful people. And now I must get on. Thank you, Bismarck. Sterling work," the Chancellor said, as he shook his newspaper open.

23

    TowerBridge flashed by as a pair of leather-clad riders raced their powerful motorcycles through he empty London streets. As they passed the other bridges across the river, they were vying with each other for pole position.
    Once in
    Parliament Square
    , they were forced to skid to a halt at a set of traffic lights. Drake flipped up his helmet visor and gestured at the floodlit Houses of Parliament. "It's said in the Colony that passages lead directly there from the Styx Citadel. People say you have direct access into its basement vaults."
    Eddie lifted his visor. "Not after Guido Fawkes took the fall for our aborted black op."
    "What? You mean the Gunpowder Plot ?" Drake said quickly. "You're kidding me!"
    "The tunnels were filled in after that," Eddie replied, then dropped his visor again. The lights changed and he was first off the mark, leaving Drake behind to wonder at his answer. As Big Ben began to ring five o'clock, he shook his head once in disbelief, gunned his motorcycle, then let out the clutch to speed after the Limiter.
    After parking in St. Anne's Street, they went on foot, taking a right and a left to end up on
    Victoria Street
    . As the western facade of Westminster Abbey loomed in front of them, Drake had no idea where Eddie was taking him. In the event, the Styx led him almost to the abbey, then reversed direction. Now walking more slowly, he was heading toward a row of sandstone buildings, which looked every bit as old as the abbey itself. Between the buildings was a short alleyway and, as Drake shot a glance down it, he glimpsed a square beyond. Although it was around an hour before sunrise, the street lamps in the square allowed him to make out trees and a number of cars parked there. Then he spotted a sign at the entrance to the alleyway. " Dean's Yard ," he read out loud. "I don't think I've been here before."
    "Keep behind me and stay quiet," Eddie told him in a low voice as, halfway down the alleyway, someone in uniform stepped out in front of them. Drake tensed, thinking it was a policeman, but then saw from his uniform that he was some kind of porter. The man was standing beside a small red-and-white barricade designed to restrict vehicles from entering the square.
    "Evening, gentlemen," the porter said. As he looked the two of them over, Drake knew from the way he'd squared his shoulders and had his walkie-talkie ready in his hand that he was expecting trouble. There was no way he was going to allow two bikers clad in leathers into the square at that time of the morning, not without explaining themselves properly.
    Eddie showed no hesitation in going straight up to the surly man and, when he was close enough to him, he spoke a few words in his ear. The porter said nothing back to Eddie, but seemed to immediately lower his guard. He pocketed his walkie-talkie, then rubbed his hands together, opening them a little to blow on them as if he was feeling the cold. Then, to Drake's surprise, he turned to regard
    Victoria Street
    down the alleyway, staring straight through both him and Eddie as if they didn't exist. As the man sang " I did it my way ," in a woefully tuneless way, he simply wandered back to his cabin, whistling more of the song before closing the door behind him.
    Drake came abreast of Eddie as they entered the square. "He's been Darklit, hasn't he? You gave him some trigger words to let us through. What were they -- Frank Sinatra ?"
    "No, they were words you wouldn't be able to pronounce. You may not have noticed it, but I was concerned that the sequence had been changed. Thankfully, it hasn't," Eddie replied, striding straight across the grassed area in the middle of the square.
    "I think I've heard of this place before," Drake pondered, as he scanned the many doorways in the Georgian buildings around them. "There's a famous school close to here, and wasn't the father of the real Alice in Wonderland its headmaster at one time?"
    Eddie didn't answer as he went straight to one of the doors and pushed it open. Inside was a gloomy corridor with a floor of pitted flagstones. They continued down this to another door at the very end, where Eddie took out a luminescent orb so he could use a key. Once unlocked, the door creaked open and Drake smelt the mustiness of the damp cellar below. They