"Get out of the way, you fool!" Dunning shouted.

When the land ironclad did not slow down, the man tried to dodge into a doorway, but the lumbering vehicle filled the narrow street. The young constable was caught between the treads and went down. His scream was cut short with a wet, squelching sound under the increasing roar of the demonic engines.

The tank moved onward, without pause.

Sickened and angry, Dunning ran to his comrades aid, but he arrived too late. Courageously — though futilely— he beat the metal monster with his baton and his fists. He made barely a mark on the thick plating.

Ignoring him, the land ironclad rolled on down the street.

Dunning ran after the machine, not knowing how he might stop its inexorable progress. The street opened up, away from the crowded slums, grimy pubs, and dim opium dens. Ahead stood a particularly impressive building with an ornate multistoried facade of marble columns, graceful statues, and stately blocks of gray-white stone.

Dunnings stomach clenched as he glanced up at the deeply engraved words BANK OF ENGLAND on the lintel over the building's main entrance. "Not the Old Lady," he muttered, hardly able to conceive of such a violation.

The tank rolled toward it, picking up speed.

The privately owned bank, often referred to as the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, had been established more than two centuries earlier. In the past two hundred years, the Bank of England had become more than simply a financial institution: The Old Lady was a symbol of England itself.

The juggernaut smashed into the bank's broad central door. Columns broke apart and tumbled down; the massive locked door collapsed inward.

And the mammoth machine kept moving forward all the way into the financial fortress, undeterred.

The tank's heavy treads, now bloodstained, clattered down a flight of marble steps that groaned and cracked under the immense weight. Picking up speed, the land ironclad ground its way across the polished marble floor of the lobby.