Authors: Christopher Heffernan
“Because I
looked out of my window and saw him cooking parts of her in the kitchen, okay?
Is that enough evidence for you?”
Something
glinted in the top window, and Michael refocused the binoculars. “There's got
to be somebody else around here. We set a drive way light off when we were
walking up the road.”
“That house is
abandoned. Nobody bothered to turn it off.”
Michael looked
closer at the window. The curtains were split in the middle at the bottom, and
something moved. He blinked, only for it to appear still again, and he fiddled
with the focus, spinning the wheel back and forth, but it made no difference.
“Did your friend
like bird watching as well? She had her own set of binoculars?”
“Yes, why?”
“Because he's
looking at me from her bedroom.” He tossed the binoculars aside and pulled her
away by the arm. “Let's go.”
They ran out
into the hall. “He's seen us. Come on, quickly,” Michael said.
Samantha led
them down the stairs, catching the bannister as she stumbled forward.
“Wait,” Annie
said. She ran back to her room.
“Annie, come
back,” Samantha said.
Michael
continued on to the front door. He raised his gun, opened the door and stepped
outside. He looked left, and then right, but saw only darkness and the light
far down the road.
“Mike, give me a
minute. I'm going to find something I can use to get my keys out the drain,”
Samantha said. She moved deeper into the house.
Her sister came
down the stairs with a tabby cat clutched in her arms. It squirmed and tried to
wriggle free from her hold, eyes glinting in the light.
Michael shivered
from the cold, and he felt his fingers begin to burn.
“I can't find
anything,” Samantha said. She put a clenched fist to her mouth, as if to stifle
a scream.
Michael bent
down by the drain and pushed his torch against the grate. He saw the glint of
the keys, tried to tug at the covering and found the rusted iron wouldn't give.
“We can come back for the car later.”
Gravel crunched
beneath a set of wheels. The man came towards them on a bicycle, one hand
gripping a suppressed submachine gun. He fired, and bullets blanketed the area,
breaking glass and clay plant pots. Michael raised his weapon. A bullet struck
the slide and blasted it from his hand. Pain jolted through his bones.
He cried out,
sinking to one knee, as the man ran out of ammunition. The man skidded to a
halt on his bike. His face was obscured in shadow cast by his hoodie. He tossed
the weapon aside and pointed a pistol at Michael's head, barrel lengthened by
the suppressor screwed onto the end.
A rock struck
him in the mouth, and his finger jolted against the trigger. The bullet went
wide, as he toppled and took the bike down with him. Annie picked up another
rock. The man tried to untangle himself, but she was already at his side,
yanking back his hood. She bashed the rock against his face.
He convulsed at
each blow, screaming, until a spray of blood splattered on Annie's face. She
hit him again and caved his skull in. Steam rose from chunks of exposed brain.
Samantha lay on
the floor, bleeding over the doorstep.
“Sam? Sam,” Michael
said.
“I'm okay,” she
said, with a tremble in her voice.
Michael rolled
her over onto her back. The blood came from her left arm. A bullet had struck
her wrist and ricocheted up the bone, before coming out again at the elbow.
Blue lights flashed in the distance. The cat ran across the road and into the
trees, as they came closer.
Michael followed
the white stripes on the motorway, each one appearing in the headlight for a
flash, before it vanished under the car. He closed his eyes for an instant, and
then blinked as he jerked his head up, slowing down to widen the gap between
him and the car ahead.
Samantha sat
slumped in the seat beside him. She looked out the passenger window so he
couldn't see her face. Her left arm was wrapped in a bloodied bandage. “Hey,
Mike? Thanks. I'm sorry it cost all your money.”
She continued to
stare out the window.
“Don't worry
about it.”
“You're a
terrible liar. I'll figure something out.”
Police lights
flashed ahead on the motorway, and the glare of floodlights blinded him. The
car jolted. Once, twice and then a third time. He dodged the next piece of
debris as his eyes adjusted to the light.
Traffic slowed,
and the queues followed the bend of the motorway, choked into a single lane by
the police checkpoint. Michael pulled onto the shoulder and stopped short of
the closest fire engine.
“I'll be back in
a minute,” he said.
Samantha nodded.
He stepped out of the car, pausing for a moment to take a breath of air. Police
officers stood watch by the perimeter with their guns. They wore a different
camouflage pattern to Assurer. Bits of metal, plastic and glass littered the
ground, and he crunched a piece of tail light beneath his shoe.
A lorry lay
overturned beyond the emergency vehicles, and ruined cars surrounded it, some
charred to a blackened finish. Workers collected up the remains. One of the
policemen turned to him. The tinted visor on his helmet hid his face.
“You look sick.
Are you harbouring any infectious diseases? There are multiple outbreaks of
Legionnaires in the area.”
“No,” Michael
said. He showed them his identity card. “What happened here?”
The policeman
leaned closer. “Different company, different contract, different jurisdiction.
It means nothing.”
“Forget it,” the
other policeman said. “It's real. Look at the hologram and the chip. If I'm
going to have to stand guard all night in the rain, then I want something
interesting to do.”
“So what
happened here?” Michael said.
“Traffic
accident. Do you want the tour? Come on through,” the policeman said, gesturing
to the lorry.
The lorry had a
red ABR logo on its side, and Michael nodded. The policeman beckoned for him to
follow. They ducked under the security tape and passed through a wall of
emergency vehicles.
“A real traffic
accident, or an arranged one?” Michael said.
“A real one, I
think. You saw the rain earlier? Much heavier, yeah? It got very foggy on the
motorway. Bad combination. I guess the lorry driver lost control, ploughed into
all these cars and then flipped it. Some of them caught fire. Come on, I'll show
you.”
Fire fighters
cut off a mangled car door. The family inside had fused with the remains of the
passenger seats, and the heat had shrunk their lips and left them with
permanent smiles on their faces.
“Toasted. There
were a lot of witnesses; next time they burn their dinner in the oven, this is
going to be the first thing they think of,” the policeman said.
The nearest
fireman tried to prise one of the corpses free. He pulled harder, clenching his
teeth, and succeeded only in rattling the remains of the car. “John Smith here
isn't going to budge; he's wielded to the fucking seat. We'll have to take the
entire thing out. Get me the bolt cutters.”
“Good luck
trying to fit them into a crematorium,” the policeman said.
“It's not a
problem. We have machines that can crush the bones and anything else into small
pieces for cremation, if somebody pays to recover them, otherwise, we just dump
the mess into the lake and let mister fishy have his way. No point wasting time
to incinerate them.”
“Fish eat burnt
people?”
“Not normally,
no. But these are some kind of mutant fish. They think it was a chemical spill,
but I reckon some company abandoned genetically engineered stock in the bottom
of the lake.”
“That sounds
crazy.”
“Yeah, you
should try fishing there sometime. Put a lump of meat on your hook, and it'll
be gone before you can reel it back in.”
Michael walked
towards the overturned lorry. Crates lay smashed open across the motorway, and
he saw dozens more inside the trailer. He bent down and picked up a plastic
packet. CPUs, tiny heat sinks and micro cooling fans. The floodlights revealed
serial numbers and the Eratech logo.
He looked back,
saw the policeman still talking, and pocketed four of the packages.
“Nobody has come
to collect this stuff?” Michael said.
The policeman
jogged after him. “Nope. You know, ABR have a factory off the motorway on the
left here. The driver was probably delivering this stuff to them, at least
until he crashed and killed a load of people, of course. I'm surprised some of
their representatives haven't turned up yet to start giving us shit over
getting their goods back.”
Michael pointed
to the pair of cars pulling up on the other side of the motorway. Men in suits
stepped out into the drizzle of rain, and one of them put up an umbrella.
“Looks like you spoke too soon.”
He sighed. “For
Christ's sake. You better get going; you know what these parasites are like. If
you want to take some trophy photos, that's fine, but be quick, yeah? I've got
to deal with them.”
Michael headed
back to the car. Samantha was leaning against the motorway barrier with her
back turned to him.
“Hey, you okay?”
She turned
around. “Yeah, just getting some air. These painkillers make me dizzy. Are we
okay to go?”
Michael touched
the barrier with a hand, leaning forward. The cold metal sent a shiver through
his body and stood hairs on end. A trickle of rain ran down the back of his
neck.
“What is it?”
He pointed to a
red light beyond the woods. “I think it's an ABR factory. ABR are owned by
Eratech. Did you hear the news about one of their chemical plants getting lit
up on the radio?”
Michael pulled
one of the plastic packets from his pocket. “That lorry was carrying hundreds
of these. They're too small for computers, which leaves me wondering what
they're for. See the pins? They don't fit anything kicking about in the shops
or people's homes.”
“Mike, I know
where you're going with this, but I think it's a really bad idea. Maybe it's
legitimate, or maybe it isn't, but if they find you snooping about there,
they'll shoot you. Think about it; none of this is going to help your case, is
it? What's any of this got to do with a gunman wiping out an entire household?”
The rain began
to fall harder, and he rubbed his eyes. A car drove past fast enough to kick up
a spray of water.
“Five minutes,
okay? I just want to take a look. Here, keep these safe,” he said, passing her
the chips.
“Okay, but only
because of tonight. I'll be in the car.”
Michael glanced
at the police checkpoint, saw them arguing with the company representatives,
and jumped the barrier. His shoes hit the ground, then slipped, and wet grass
carried him down. Bushes lashed and scratched at him. He rolled left before a
tree met his groin. His trousers were soaked with damp.
He pushed on,
moving between the trees, grasping at hanging branches to stop himself from
slipping. The red light drew him forward, and soon others appeared. He paused,
resting against one of the trees. A searchlight swept across a field of tree
stumps and muddy ground, and chain-fencing with an electric charge and
concertina wire rose beyond.
Snipers sat
watch in their guard towers, and Michael hugged the tree closer, as he saw the
bulge of thermal sights on their rifles. Hangers blocked most of his view of
the compound. Two security teams mounted up in the back of a truck and drove
out of the main gate, heading for the motorway.
He began to turn
back, only to stop. A vehicle, a little bigger than a dog, rolled past one of
the guard towers on caterpillar tracks. Two technicians followed, and then it
was gone.
Voices drew his
attention. Two silhouettes moved out of the darkness, backlit by one of the
searchlights. They walked across the field, weaving between the tree stumps. A
cigarette end glowed hot for an instant, fading until the security guard took
another puff.
The pair wore
black combat uniforms. Bulbous helmets sat on their heads and body armour
bulked out their torsos. They carried suppressed carbines. A rush of heat ran
through Michael's body. He ignored the stab of fear and crouched down on one
knee, still hugging the tree.
A voice sounded
from a radio, and the guards stopped and looked into the trees, but Michael
couldn't hear the comms chatter properly.
“Negative,
everything looks clear here. What's the status of the crash?” the second guard
said.
The garbled
voice responded on the radio. The other guard tossed his cigarette away and
moved on with his colleague. Wet twigs broke under foot, boots squeaking on the
grass. Michael felt another drop of cold rain slip from a strand of hair and
run down the back of his neck.
He glimpsed
their silhouettes coming towards him with the next sweep of the searchlight.
Michael shifted left, keeping the tree between him and the patrol, until he
found himself with his back to the compound. He looked back, and the
searchlight swept across the field again. A trace of light lit him up for a
second, before the darkness returned.
The patrol moved
into the woodland. He crouched low and followed the sound of their footsteps,
and he saw the embankment coming into view just beyond them. Their steps
trailed off to the right. He waited several minutes to be sure, and then
grasped handfuls of wet grass, as he clawed his way back up the slope.
Samantha opened
the door for him. “You're filthy. I hope it was worth it.”
“Not really. I
saw something, but I don't know what it was.”
The alarm went
off at five-thirty in the morning. He sat up. Samantha groaned and covered her
head with a pillow. “Turn it off, Mike.”
Michael slid out
of bed and hit the switch on the alarm. “I need some pick up some stuff from my
flat. I'll be back in time for work with the car.
She glanced out
from the under the pillow, eyes partially shut with sleepiness. “Okay.”
He was showered
and dressed in his muddy clothes in ten, lingering to look at the old photo on
the shelf that Samantha hadn't quite managed to hide the night before. She had
her arms around David Brown, resting her head on his shoulder with a smile.
Michael frowned
and headed outside. He walked down a corridor of chipped blue paint, discarded
food wrappers and neon graffiti. The pounding of dance music escaped from one
of the flats, as he neared the staircase. He passed the heroin addicts in the
stairwell who had crashed for the night, and their stench followed him all the
way down to the ground floor.
The cold air of
morning blew against his skin outside. He saw black smoke rising from a distant
fire against the back drop of a pillar. A handful of city blocks glowed bright
with lights, and wild dogs gnawed at the corpse of a stab victim in the alley
across the road.
Michael weaved
the car between the wrecks on the road. He slowed as the converted warehouse
came into view. Light spilled from his bedroom window, and a silhouette moved
inside. He turned his attention back to the road, swerving in time to avoid
another abandoned wreck. The silhouette looked out onto the street.
He kept one hand
on the wheel, lifting the flap on his holster as he turned the corner and
doubled back into the next road. Foxes scampered across in front of the
headlights. He parked beside a bin overflowing with rubbish, and then jogged
back down to his flat.
The light was
still on. Michael looked up and saw the silhouette was gone. He moved from
wreck to wreck with his gun in hand. Nothing out here had changed; no new cars,
no scrap metal removed, no debris disturbed, as if the person had walked here.
He took a deep
breath, trying to steady himself, before moving up to the front door. The
padlock he'd fitted recently lay on the ground amidst splinters and slithers of
wood, and a chunk of the door frame was missing. He eased the door open.
Darkness awaited him inside as he entered.
Michael
rechecked the replacement slide he'd fitted to the pistol. The sound of
dripping water echoed off the walls, and the familiar smell of damp filled his
lungs. He took the stairs in silence, pausing half-way up to listen. The foxes
shrieked outside, and his stomach knotted with dread.
He pressed his
back against the wall, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and then leaned around
the corner. Something clanked, echoing down the corridor from his flat. He
smelt the rotting odour of his dead neighbour, and the door opened, as a beam
of light pierced the darkness.
Michael darted
across to the other side, and then into the next corridor. He wedged himself
into the nearest doorway and pressed his back against the door.
Footsteps came
down the corridor, disturbing a puddle of water, and he eased his finger over
the trigger. The footsteps stopped. Michael edged his head out. The man was
standing at the junction, back turned as he looked down the stairs. He wore a
trench coat, and a trace of light lit the side of his shaved head.
Michael held his
breath, and he inched out further, just enough to raise his weapon. His hand
wavered, as he tried to align the centre of the sights with the man's head. The
man hurried down the stairs.
He waited for
him to hit the last step, and then padded softly to his room. The door lay on
the floor, still attached to remains of its hinges, and fragments of glass and
plastic were scattered amongst the remains of his possessions.
Footsteps on the
staircase. Michael stumbled out of the flat in time to see the man coming down
the corridor. The main raised his gun, but Michael fired first. He emptied the
magazine at the man's centre mass, lingering long enough to see him go down and
then try to rise again.
He hurled a
chair through his lounge window, followed the by the mattress on his bed. A
hail of bullets followed him as he jumped. Michael hit the mattress hands
first, and pain ran the length of his arms. The man stuck his submachine gun
out the window and fired off the last of the magazine. Bullets ricocheted off
the concrete as he curled inwards.
He opened his
eyes to see the man falling towards him and rolled out of the way an instant
before he impacted. The weight of him broke the springs in the mattress. Holes
in his trench coat revealed body armour beneath it.
Michael ran back
out onto the street, and he slowed, fumbling with a fresh magazine, only for it
to slip from his hands and clatter across the concrete. The man was gaining on
him. Blood leaked from an injury to his temple.
A stab of pain
filled Michael's chest, and sweat broke from the pores on his skin. His run
turned to a jog, and then a stagger that carried him into the street. The man
had slowed too, bleeding visibly from multiple places now. Headlights
approached through the dark, and the man fired again.
Michael dove to
the pavement, as bullets shattered the windows of the approaching car, punching
holes into the red exterior and destroying a headlight. It squealed to a stop.
The driver didn't move.
He pushed
another magazine into his .45 and unloaded it at the gunman. The man ducked
behind a rusted car wreck, and Michael felt the slide lock in the open
position, as he fired off the last bullet. He ran for the car. The driver lay
slumped at the steering wheel; blood trickled from the man's ear and two holes
in the skull.
Michael wrenched
the door open, hit the seatbelt release and dragged the corpse onto the road.
Another hail of bullets struck the car. He slammed the door shut and bent low.
The assassin jogged towards him, finger clenched tight around the trigger. His
weapon ran out of ammunition again, but he didn't stop, and Michael floored the
pedal.
The car shook as
the man leapt onto the bonnet. He braked long enough to send the man rolling
onto the road, and then accelerated over his skull with front and rear wheel.
Michael saw him still moving in the wing mirror. He tried to sit up, and then
to stand. Each attempt ended with him collapsing on his side.
He reached
instead for his gun, then, and inserted another magazine, taking aim at the
car. Michael turned the corner.
Michael stood
beside Major Harris in the reception waiting area. They watched footage of the
burning chemical plant, and Harris fiddled with his unlit cigarette. A fire
team passed by on their way out, carrying rifles and a can of ammunition.
“I had a patrol
look your place over. No body; a lot of blood, but no body. Somebody picked the
guy up, or he walked out of there himself,” Harris said.
“God knows how
they found me. Nobody lives around there for a hundred meters,” Michael said.
“If some
reporter can find you then it can't be that hard. They'll probably keep your
place under surveillance now. All they need is a camera with a long enough
wireless range to watch it. You got somewhere else to stay?”
“Something like
that.”
“Good. Don't go
back; Corporal Hill grabbed what he could from your place. He got your medicine
as well. It's sitting in one of the lockers whenever you get round to
collecting it.”
Michael nodded.
He watched the fires rage on the television, and the reporter did her best to
sound solemn, but it was impossible not to miss the inflection of excitement in
her voice. He fought off a yawn with the back of his hand.
“This whole
thing is starting to drag out. Cut me loose so I can go and speak to this
journalist. If they've got nothing then it doesn't matter, we can junk the
case, but maybe I'm onto something if there are people turning up at my flat to
kill me.”
The major stayed
silent for several seconds. “Fine. You'll have to operate on your own for now;
I'm short staffed and I've got nothing to plug the gaps. Richard stays on with
the fire teams.”
“I need a car.”
“Get operations
to give you an unmarked vehicle from the car park. I don't want to hear from
you until you've got something,” Harris said. He lit his cigarette and walked
away.
Michael went up
to the detectives' office. He found Richard crouched by the printer, trying to
remove the shreds of paper jamming the rollers.
“Nothing works
in this place, Mike. Jesus. You ready to get going?” Richard said.
“I'm not working
up leads with you today. You're on your own,” Michael said. He slumped in his
chair and picked up the phone. “I'm going to speak to that journalist and see
what he knows.”
“Did Harris
clear it?”
He nodded.
“Shit,” Richard
said. He picked up his coat and went outside.
Michael waited
for the door to shut, and then tapped in the phone number. The dial tone
sounded, and it went on and on. No answer. He slammed the receiver down and
sighed, and then the phone began to ring.
“Yeah?” Michael
said when he picked up.
“Sorry, things
are a tad hectic around here at the moment. I couldn't get to the phone in
time,” the journalist said.
“I know; it
happens to me all the time. When can we meet?”
There was a
silence at the other end. “Like I said, there's a lot going on at the moment.
Will five this evening do?”
“Look, my time
is valuable. I've got no personal stake in this case what so ever. If my
commander scraps it, then that's fine, I don't care. We either deal over the
phone, meet somewhere now or we don't meet at all.”
“I thought you
wanted to solve your case?”
Michael exhaled
into the receiver.
“Okay, okay,
getting frustrated isn't going to be beneficial to either of us. I'll talk to
my boss. I can be down at the main entrance to the Wood Lane shopping centre in
an hour and a half. Good enough?”
“Fine, I'll see
you there.”
Part of the
Upper London platform here was incomplete, revealing the grey-black skies
above, and he paused to watch a helicopter gunship fly over the gap. Anti-tank
missiles and flechette rocket pods hung from stub wings.
A trio of
military contractors sat on the roof of their armoured patrol vehicle, sipping
bottles of water. He joined the flow of people advancing towards the main
entrance, those too poor for the platform above but too rich to mingle with the
commoners on the street. Bodyguards accompanied small time South African bank
workers and Arab women in burkas and jewellery.
Another
contractor stood to the left on top of scaffolding, shouting commands into a
loudspeaker, as he read from the script in his hand. He repeated the lines each
time in a different language.
“Hey, over
here,” a man said.
Michael looked
back and saw the journalist beckoning to him with a hand.
“Come on,
there's a little café around the corner.”
They pushed
their way through the flow of the crowd until they got back out onto the street.
“We were meant
to meet at the entrance.”
“It's not worth
the hassle of clearing the security checkpoints. This place reminds me of the
Middle East,” the journalist said, leading him down the road.
“The Middle East
doesn't exist anymore.”
“But if it did,
it'd probably look like this.”
They crossed the
road, then turned left into a pedestrian passage. A green-tinted glass roof
shielded them from the elements, and small shops filled out the buildings
either side of them. Just beyond was a café with outside tables and chairs that
showed the first signs of rust.
James went
inside and motioned to one of the tables, where a woman with dark hair sat
across from them, late thirties. She straightened her jacket as Michael pulled
in his chair. James sat to the left.
“I'm glad we
could finally meet, Mr Ward. Do you want something to eat or drink? It's on the
house,” she said. Her voice carried a certain confidence in it, smooth and
slightly smug.
Michael shook
his head. “No, we've got business to discuss.”
A thin smile.
“That we do. Obviously you're somewhat acquainted with James here, so I'll get
straight down to the matter at hand.”
James waved one
of the waiters over. “Can I get this toasted sandwich?” he said, pointing to
the picture on the menu.
“What can you
offer me? It has to be something good if you want access to the Assurer police
database,” Michael said.
“We can get
information from Eratech employees. Maybe from government civil servants as
well, depending on how things go, but you have to provide a show of good
faith,” the woman said.
“None of that is
useful to me. Give me something that will lead to the killer, otherwise, we
have nothing to discuss.”
The woman took a
sip from her coffee. “What about your boss? People talk, you know, and I've
heard he's pretty obsessive about this case. Anyone else would have dropped it,
and yet here he is, still sending you on errands in the hopes of catching the
killer. Ever wonder why?”
“Do you know
why?”
She shook her
head. “No, that's something I don't have an answer to. But it's odd, isn't it?
We hear lots of things where I work, but neither of us can give you exactly
what you want. We can help you, though, and you'll get further with us than
without. This is the best chance you'll get. It might even stop your commanding
officer from getting you killed.”
Michael tapped
on his thigh with several fingers, hesitating for a moment. “What do you want
for an advance?”