Bryant & May - The Burning Man Read Free Page A

outfit calling itself Break the Banks was attracting a younger membership, thanks to its tactic of planning flash-mob demos via social-networking sites. A smaller, more violent splinter group, Disobey, hung back in the shadows of the buildings. They had been denied official recognition and were now arguing among themselves about the best way to be effective. Unfortunately, they couldn’t agree on who was allowed to speak.
    The police had adopted a bait-and-switch approach in their determination to keep all of the demonstrators from returning at the same time, but just after first light the main groups started to drift back into the same areas they had filled the night before. To make matters worse it was now officially Halloween, a time when it was understood – at least by civilians – that wild spirits would be tolerated and even encouraged. But there was a danger that mere mafficking would turn to something nastier and less treatable.
    Before the rush hour had even started a crowd of several hundred people had formed, and would not be dispersed. Some carried placards bearing photographs of Dexter Cornell, the banker upon whom their hatred had found a focus. The chanting began, and as special-interest groups from around Europe (plus a branch from Canada and another from Venezuela) were disgorged from Bank and Monument tube stations to descend upon the Square Mile, the City of London police wearily realized that they were likely to have another grinding day of disobedience on their hands. Every move they made would be recorded, analysed and denigrated by a hostile press, most of whom could see which way the wind was blowing and were taking the side of the aggrieved public. The police hoped the protests had reached their peripeteia, but the demonstrators expected the same thing from an opposite viewpoint, and had the city’s turbulent history on their side. Tonight, they felt sure, the time was right for the forces of anarchy to overwhelm those of law and order.
    It was, everyone agreed, a right bloody mess.
    Crutched Friars is a short, narrow road capped by a dark railway bridge at one end. It houses a couple of pubs, a coffee shop and a handful of financial institutions, one of which is the Findersbury Private Bank. The bank had been closed over the weekend, so the protestors had not assembled outside it, but as it prepared to open its doors for its final week the mob instinctively made its way over there, on the hunt for Dexter Cornell and his cowardly co-conspirators.
    One of the protestors was a fake. He had adopted the name of Flannery, and as he prepared to make his move, he knew that he would have to time it just right.
    There were no suspended black eyes that he could see, although there had to be some CCTV globes tucked around somewhere, so he stayed in the shadows beneath the railway bridge on Crutched Friars, smoking nervously until it was time to act. The sky was so grey with cloud that it seemed unlikely to ever get light. Thick black smoke unfurled like funeral ribbons above the roof of the nearest building, and he could hear angry shouting in the distance. Moving anxiously from one foot to the other, he waited for the right moment.
    Here came the protestors, pouring into the far end of the street. The police were nowhere to be seen. He darted forward, unzipping his tool bag as he ran. He stayed in the gloom that bordered the edge of the buildings until he reached the entrance of the bank, then lit the bottle and threw it.
    The glass smashed, but at first he thought the cocktail had failed to ignite. Reaching the protection of the railway arch once more, he looked back and saw a harsh saffron light pulsing out from the doorway. It grew brighter by the second, and covered the entire entrance by the time the first protestors arrived.
    Riot police were pouring in from the Armed Response Vehicles parked in Seething Lane, so he dropped back beneath the railway arch and made his way down to the river, loping