'Release lock on Echo!'
At the Barrier, the atmosphere is tense. Angus has opted to re-set the Shift and Latch. Almost immediately the attempt runs into trouble. When the lock on Pier 6 is released, the gate starts to oscillate violently in the current. Angus, who is directing operations by radio from the pier, has to call for full power on the hydraulic rams. Two technicians are handling the controls from workstations, while Martin monitors the strain gauges. Lauren watches from the windows but amid the gathering dark it is hard to make out what is happening.
Behind her in the operations room there is another flurry of radio exchanges. It seems the latch mechanism is failing to engage with the new pin. Angus and Martin are divided over what to do. Angus wants to return the gate to its original position; Martin thinks they would do better to leave it where it is.
At this moment the lights of the Orion Trader come into view.

The tanker's captain has just had his first sight of the Barrier. All he can see are the tops of the piers submerged up to the stainless-steel hoods. The gates are completely invisible under water. The tide barriers he is familiar with have been of the drop-gate type. The light arrays that indicate gates are shut are under water. No helicopter has arrived and the fire is at their backs. The ship is a mile away, travelling at ten knots. Stopping is no longer a possibility. In the circumstances it is understandable that all aboard should assume that the Barrier has opened to let them pass.
He selects Delta gate between Piers 6 and 7 and lines the ship up. According to the chart the gap is sixty-one metres; from up on the bridge it looks horribly narrow. The tanker is making too much speed but cutting power to the engines will reduce the bite of the rudder and cost him steering control.
The look-out stationed in the bow calls out that he can see turbulence. That is only to be expected, the captain thinks, with the current funnelling between the piers. He is trusting to the speed and weight of the ship to carry them through. At this rate they will draw level with the Barrier in the next two minutes.
The radio officer comes running onto the bridge. He has been trying to raise the PLA on VHF. The captain pushes him away. He needs all his concentration now. They are close enough to the Barrier to see a figure waving to them from Pier 6.
Up in the operations room, Lauren witnesses the unfolding catastrophe, transfixed with horror. The swirling smoke has concealed the tanker's approach until now it is almost on the Barrier. Martin is the first to recover. Snatching the radio mike, he screams a warning over the pier tannoys.

Angus has seen the ship too. He knows it is too close to stop or turn away. There is just one chance left. He yells into the radio to control to drop Delta. Without waiting for an answer, he runs down into Pier 6 lower machinery room to knock off the latches.
Martin freezes. He grasps Angus's meaning; if they can lower the gate enough in time, there is a chance the ship will skim over without striking it. But to engineers the Barrier is a sacred charge. Their duty is to defend London against a surge, a duty backed up by Parliament. By law, anyone opening gates without authority is liable to fourteen years' imprisonment.
The rest of the team gape at him. Beyond the windows the tanker is closing the gap, water foaming under its bow. Above the wind comes the sound of its horn. The whole room hangs on his orders.
Martin takes hold of himself. Angus is right, a smashed gate is no use to London. His arm goes out, snapping his fingers to the technicians on the gate controls. 'Unlatch Delta. Full power on all hydraulics. Start emergency opening countdown!'
The room leaps into action. Martin picks up the direct-line phone to Agency Headquarters, praying it still works and he doesn't have to try the radio. To his relief there is an answer. In seconds he is through to Dave Wilcox. 'Warn Triple-C that a main gate is going down now!'
He hears a gasp. Then, 'Once the ship is through, can you raise it again?'
'Negative,' Martin replies. He is watching the screens on the desk opposite wishing that Angus was here. The latches are off and the power packs showing ready. The technicians catch his eye. Does he really mean this? Martin gestures to them. Go! Go!
Listen, he tells Wilcox. The gates are being strained beyond all limits as it is. We'll be lucky if they don't all shake themselves to pieces. Once Delta's down, it has to stay down.
'Delta lowering!' a voice interrupts.
There is no more time to argue. Martin drops the phone and darts to the windows. His heart sinks; the tanker is right on the Barrier. It must strike the gate in seconds. Water is swirling between the piers. As the gate descends the increased flow is sucking the current through, actually pulling the ship faster towards it.
'Delta point five of a metre off top,' the voice calls out again.
The gate is dropping, but it's not fast enough Martin realises with a sickening sensation. The tanker's bow wave has reached the piers. As he tenses for the impact, he sees the prow rear up suddenly and the whole vessel shudder. An instant later the boom of the collision reaches the control tower like the sound of a heavy wave breaking against a sea wall.
It is a tribute to Erich Hausser's seamanship that the Orion Trader hits Delta gate exactly on the mid-point. The tanker has a deadweight of 20,000 tonnes fully laden and draws five metres. When it strikes the gate it is travelling at approximately six metres per second. Its momentum is such that the point of the bow rides up over the sloped hump of the gate. The gate leaf is constructed from strips of 5-centimetre steel on a box-girder frame. With the strain of overtopping it's already supporting twice its design pressure of 9000 tonnes.
As the tanker ploughs on, piling its enormous weight onto the gate, the inner frame crumples, bending inwards. The gate is supported at either end by massive disks, weighing 1100 tonnes apiece, that rotate around trunnion shafts, short stub axles set into the piers. The force of the impact wrenches the gate end on Pier 6, twisting it violently inwards and jamming the bearings. The trunnion shaft is a forged steel billet bolted to a flanged steel pipe embedded in concrete and running right through the pier. Shaft and bearings are designed to support a hydraulic loading in excess of 5000 tonnes. The shaft withstands the collision but the strain shears the bolts connecting it to the support structure. With a ringing crash that jars right through the pier, the gate end rips clean away.
On the tanker's bridge the force of the crash has thrown every man to the deck. As the captain staggers back to his feet he can feel the ship judder violently, corkscrewing and twisting all along her length. Sounds of tortured metal, tearing and scraping against the hull, reach his ears. The bow of the ship pitches downwards and for a moment he thinks they are holed and sinking. There is another hideous shuddering, from astern this time, followed by a second heavy impact that rains debris on the decks. The after section of the tanker's hull has rolled into the side of Pier 5, sending a two-metre wave cascading across the concrete deck.
And still she ploughs onwards. A throat-gagging stench of raw gasoline envelops the bridge. The twisted wreckage of the gate must have punctured the double hull forward. Smoke billows through shattered windows. Bells and sirens are shrieking. Toxic gas alarm, radio short alarm, main fire alarm, every whistle and klaxon goes off. The bridge is filled with panic noises. The captain grasps the microphone and stabs the button for the engine room. 'Stop all engines! Evacuate below decks! Execute CO2 drench!'
With sparks filling the air it is vital to snuff out any fire before it can take a hold. The ship is more than halfway through the Barrier now. Her bow plunging down at so steep an angle that the entire forward section of the tank deck is completely buried for several seconds. Then she starts to rise again, but slowly, listing over to starboard as she does. At that moment a very strong vibration runs through the ship and the whole rear accommodation structure whips like a springboard. The lights go out and power failure leaves the instruments and controls useless.
Up in the control tower, Martin is frantically trying to raise Angus. Alarm bells are sounding here too. Delta is down; Echo is in trouble and now red lights are flashing on the monitors covering Charlie gate. Staring down at the scene, he sees the ship slide clear of the piers. It looks to be down at the bow and listing badly, surrounded by an iridescent patch of leaking fuel. The gate has disappeared completely, the ends torn bodily away, leaving the surge foaming triumphantly through the gap.
Martin relays the news to a stunned Dave Wilcox. Grimly he spells out the facts. Delta is gone, smashed in the collision. The strain gauges on the bearings for Charlie gate are jumping off the scale and the controls for the Latch mechanisms don't respond. Echo gate is in bad shape and they can't reach Angus.
Before Wilcox can answer, pandemonium breaks out around the monitors.
'Pier 6 Shift and Latch has broken. Echo is swinging free!' a technician shouts.
Lauren is at the windows. The black lip of the gate rears above the water for an instant then dives again. The river is thundering around the piers, water breaking confusedly across the gap. There are cries from behind her. 'The bearings have gone!' Through the gloom Lauren glimpses a huge object like the humped back of a whale. The gate has broken free at one end and rotated up to the surface. Another violent commotion ensues and it disappears from view.

The Cabinet Office Briefing Room swarms with officials. Messengers run in and out. Most people are in shirtsleeves and the phones ring constantly. Thick rubber power cables snake over the carpet. Army signallers have brought in radio sets and laid on extra phone capacity but they can't keep up with demand. Deputy Prime Minister, Venetia Maitland, sits at the head, with permanently open lines to the emergency services strategic control rooms - Police, Fire, Ambulance and Military - in front of her.
Thirty men and women are squeezed in around the main table, which is half buried under laptops and binders, directories, heaps of files. Down the centre runs an immense map of central London and the Thames estuary out as far as the Dartford Crossing. Two assistants are marking the surge's progress with coloured flags: blue for flooding; red for fire; black for an incident involving loss of life. The blue flags extend all the way up-river as far as the Thames Barrier, indicated by a broad band of yellow. North and south of it, the flood is shown engulfing Woolwich and the City Airport. Now Mary Lucas watches as an assistant leans over to plant a blue marker at Canning Town on the western end of the Royal Docks.
There are other markers indicating evacuation centres, troop concentrations, receiving hospitals and emergency control centres. Most ominous of all, though, is the line of red flags advancing westwards along the river towards Woolwich that marks the vanguard of the burning oil slicks.
Into this comes an urgent call from the Environment Agency. It is Dave Wilcox for Venetia Maitland. 'Two gates down at the Barrier?' her voice cuts through the babble around.
The entire room freezes. All eyes go to the map. Then frantic activity breaks out. Conversations are broken off in mid-sentence. Hands grab for phones and radios: 'Stand by for urgent message!'
Nikki Fuller scribbles calculations. Each main gate measures 61 metres by 20. The tide is moving at six knots. With two gates down, 7000 cubic metres of water will flow into the upper pool every second.
Greenwich and the Isle of Dogs will be swamped and fifteen minutes from now the tide will be half a metre above the walls at London Bridge.

The enormous volume of water released from the Barrier moves upstream in a hump that spreads out across the banks at either side. Torrents pour through Charlton down towards the Greenwich Peninsula. The force of the flood washes containers from the truck park beside the Barrier into neighbouring factory premises, collapsing walls and bringing down the roof. Half a dozen employees are trapped inside and drowned.
The flood rushes between the business parks on the south side of Woolwich Road, sweeping all manner of wreckage before it. A gang of youths who have been looting among the warehouses flee across the sports ground and only escape drowning by scaling the fence around the tennis courts. Along Bugsby's Way the level rises five feet in the space of two to three minutes. In the Millennium village, ground-floor residents take refuge on their kitchen worktops with water chest deep around them.
Out on the Dome pier a hundred or more have yet to board the ferry and the handful of Dome staff by the entrance are struggling to maintain control. Frightened people are jamming the long narrow bridge and the pressure is forcing those further along onto the pontoon. The ferry's crew is doing its best to get passengers aboard quickly but it's not easy with a high sea running and the deck of the pontoon awash.
Raikes radios Lamar to send reinforcements and sprints over to take charge himself. There is jostling and shoving by the gate. Children are crying and punches being thrown. Idiots, Raikes thinks. This is what he has been trying to avoid. He shoulders into the mob and is trying to reach the gate when a seventy-knot gust comes tearing up the estuary.
The wind catches the back slope of a wave, whipping it up into a lashing grey mountain, driving it onwards against the peninsula. The two-metre avalanche hits the crowded pontoon broadside on, swamping it from end to end. Those passengers waiting to board by the ferry's gangway have no chance. There is not even time for a warning shout before they are waist deep in surging water.
Raikes hears the screams and forces his way to the edge. The breaker has swept the pontoon clear like a broom. The safety rail at the rear has broken away, crushed by the weight of bodies piled against it. A few fortunate ones were close to the toe of the bridge and have managed to cling on, but the rest are gone, washed over the side. Raikes can see heads bobbing in the river. A woman in a red jacket has a child strapped to her back. Her arms flail the water in a desperate attempt to get her head above the surface but the weight of the child keeps forcing her under. Before anyone can reach them mother and child sink out of sight. There is a glimpse of the child's white face straining upwards, then the water closes over them.
Pandemonium breaks out on the pier. People are screaming with horror. Among those on the bridge there is an ugly rush back towards the shore. There are screams from the ferry too; quantities of water have poured in through the open hatch, drenching the passengers inside and causing panic in the cabins.
Raikes unclips a life preserver fastened to the rail and throws it in the direction of the nearest survivors. He gets onto the radio and sends out an urgent distress call, trying to count the number in the water. It looks like twenty plus overboard but in the poor light the victims are hard to track. One or two have managed to swim back to the pontoon and are being helped aboard. Seamen from the ferry are pulling some out too. But others are being swept under the pier or are drifting out of reach into midstream. They will drown quickly in the freezing water if they aren't rescued.
The people still on the bridge are stumbling over one another in their haste to reach the bank again. Raikes pushes past them and fights his way down onto the pontoon. The ferry-master knows his business; he has an inflatable in the water and another being made ready. More shocked survivors are being pulled out to collapse coughing and retching on the deck. Raikes climbs down a ladder into the water to go to the help of a woman. She is holding a child in her arms; a boy of six or seven, so limp Raikes fears he is dead. But when he lays him down the boy vomits copiously and starts to wail. Raikes hauls the mother out and she falls on her son, weeping hysterically.
He rescues another man who is gasping under the weight of his sodden overcoat. It is astonishing how heavy people are. Raikes himself is soaked through to the skin. He takes another quick headcount. Twelve have been definitely saved so far and one of the boats is heading back with figures huddled in the thwarts. More have been pulled onto the ferry. Rescuers are giving CPR. Overhead there is a thudding of rotor blades; a helicopter has picked up the Mayday call and joined in the rescue.
There is no time to count the dead. The last passengers are herded aboard without ceremony and the warps cast off. Raikes watches anxiously as the ferry backs away from the pier and turns broadside on to the wind and current. With over a thousand aboard she lies deep in the water, the spray breaking over the glassed-in superstructure. Her bows come round, the wake froths under her stern as the engines are put ahead and she disappears northwards into the gathering dark.

Raikes stumbles away from the pier, wading back through the flood into the Dome. The wind tears at the steel rigging, filling the tent with an eerie droning sound. Spray rattles on the sides and roof, water is streaming in under the doors. There is no sign of life. The lights are failing and the vast arena is deserted. It is a strange feeling being the only person left.
Water is running knee deep out in Main Square. His helicopter is waiting on the roof of the administration block, its rotors turning. He scrambles aboard and it lifts off, wheeling away across the swollen river.

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