Autumn The City Page 0,92

where he had earlier found the jump leads. Cooper took one of the heavier wrenches from him and began to smash the lock. Croft stepped back. The noise the soldier was making was deafening, and the implications were obvious. 'Get into the trucks,' Baxter shouted to the others. As the only non-driver he felt duty bound to carry on working to get the doors open. 'When we get this done there'll be thousands of bloody bodies in here.' Croft and Armitage returned to their vehicles. Paul Castle settled himself in the driver's seat of the smaller prison van which Heath had started. Just ahead of them Cooper continued to batter the lock, feeling it weaken with every deafening blow.

Another thirty seconds and it was released. 'That it?' Bernard Heath asked from close behind. Cooper shook the door and tried to slide it open a fraction. It wouldn't move. 'Must be other restraints,' he mumbled. He took a step back and then looked up and down at the area where the door met the frame. He could see that there were two more locks or bolts, one about a third of the way up the side of the door, the other a third down.

Heath gestured for Croft to bring the van over. The doctor edged the vehicle forward cautiously and stopped just short of the door. The lecturer hauled himself up onto the bonnet of the van and then stepped up onto its roof. 'Pass me something to get this open with,' he shouted down to the others. Cooper passed up a heavy steel lump hammer with which Heath immediately began to batter the metal. His pulse raced with adrenaline, effort and fear as he smashed the hammer down again and again. His arm ached but he didn't stop. He could sense the vast crowd waiting for them on the other side of the metal door but it didn't seem to matter.

He wanted to be away from this place. Directly below where Heath was working Cooper was leaning across the van and had started to try and free the one remaining restraint, prising it open with a metal crowbar. Although this was a secure door it was by no means impassable. It would never had needed to be impenetrable - there had been enough security both outside and around the courthouse to prevent or deter escape.

He guessed that had a prisoner tried to get away like this they would have been surrounded and captured long before they'd got this far. He thought for a fraction of a second about the level of noise they were making and the distance the sound would have travelled. Bodies for miles around would by now be staggering relentlessly towards the courthouse. He felt almost as if they were ringing a bizarre church bell, calling a decaying flock to worship. The door began to move. Cooper had forced the bottom latch open. With the first restraint now released he moved out of the way and looked up at Heath who continued to hammer relentlessly on the metal. Sweat poured from his brow and his right arm was tired and heavy, exhausted by the effort of pounding against the door with the hammer. 'Almost there?' Cooper asked.

'Almost there,' he panted in reply. The soldier readied himself to open the door. By default Phil Croft would be the first driver to leave the building and he tried to visualise his route back to the university. He never used to drive through town. It had always been so busy that public transport had been by far the quickest and easiest way to get to and from work. 'Got it,' Heath finally yelled. Relieved, he threw the hammer to one side and clambered down from the top of the van, gasping for breath. He dragged himself towards the larger of the two prison trucks and climbed into the passenger's seat next to Armitage. Cooper beckoned for Castle and Armitage to move their vehicles as close to the back of the police van as possible. Space in the garage was limited. The two drivers pointed the front of their trucks towards the exit and readied themselves to move.

'Okay?' Cooper asked Croft. The doctor nodded and leant across the van to open the other door ready for Cooper. The soldier opened the loading bay. Hundreds of bodies began to pour into the building, pushing themselves away from the dense crowds behind them and grabbing at the