There was no sign of its driver.
Odd, Wynne thought, but not disturbing. He’d probably gone into the bushes to relieve himself.
Lieutenant Noble raised spoke hurriedly into his lapel mic.
“Well?” Wynne snapped.
Noble shook his head. “Nothing from Captain Hadley, sir.”
Something fluttered in Wynne’s stomach.
Christ. Not again.
No. There would be a simple explanation for his men’s incommunicado. They were probably busy sifting through the debris of the burned-out minibus.
They followed the track into the woods.
An ominous silence greeted them as they made their way through the cool dawn air of the forest. Wynne would have expected to be met by Captain Hadley, high on the success of his mission and eager to report every last detail.
Noble strode ahead, clandestinely speaking into his radio. His lieutenant was spooked, and with good reason. Wynne himself was experiencing the beginnings of a terrible apprehension.
The stench of the burning bus reached them seconds before they saw the blackened carcass of the vehicle in the clearing.
And saw, too, what surrounded it.
“Oh, Sweet Jesus Christ…” Noble murmured.
His Paladins spread out in security formation and stationed themselves around the clearing like the numerals on a clock face, facing outwards.
Dazed, Wynne stepped into the clearing.
It was Derbyshire all over again.
Wynne counted eleven bodies, his stomach churning. You never got used to violent death, however often you saw it and, indeed, perpetrated it. Most of the corpses had been shredded by automatic gun fire, while others had had their throats slit. One belonged to a small, slender woman, unclothed. Her death had been no less brutal than the rest. She was clearly the victim of sustained physical abuse, and Wynne had a feeling it wasn’t the terrorists who had been responsible for that.
All’s fair in love and war, he thought coldly.
He looked across at the smouldering bus. So his men had conducted the missile launch on the vehicle, but then had been surprised by renegades hiding in ambush? Was that it? But why had the gunmen waited until the Paladins had launched their attack before opening fire?
Something was not quite right here––and he soon found out what.
Lieutenant Noble approached the minibus. With the muzzle of his assault rifle he tentatively prodded through a shattered window frame at the charcoaled head of a passenger.
It crumbled, quite unlike a normal skull.
Noble turned. “Sir!” he yelled.
Wynne stepped around the bullet-riddled corpse of a Paladin and crossed to the bus.
Noble was prodding at another blackened body, then another. They fell apart like burnt cardboard at the muzzle’s gentle prodding.
“What the hell, Lieutenant?”
Noble shook his head. “They’re not… bodies, sir. They… It looks like vegetable matter. Plants.”
“Let me see.” Wynne stepped closer to the bus and peered inside. Noble was right. Though the things seated in the back of the bus resembled human beings in shape, they were fashioned from fibrous matter, stalks and vines which––he saw as he peered closer––grew from the remains of compost bags placed in the aisle of the bus.
“I don’t know how the hell they did it, Lieutenant, but this was a setup. And we fell for it.”
“Sir!”
He turned, his heart thumping.
Two Paladins emerged from the undergrowth, assisting a third man between them.
“Corporal Smithson, sir,” one of the Paladins said. “The driver.”
The survivor of the terrorist outrage was in a bad way. He was shaking uncontrollably and tears streaked his face.
“What did you see, Corporal?” Wynne asked.
Smithson gestured pathetically towards his fallen comrades. “I saw nothing, sir. Not a thing. Just heard gunfire. I… I tried to reach Captain Hadley, sir, but not a thing. So I made my way into the woods and found…”
Wynne looked away. It galled him to see grown men reduced to tears.
“And you’re absolutely sure you saw nothing?” he asked.
“Nothing sir. When the firing stopped, it was just silent. Deathly silent. Though…”
“Go on.”
“When I couldn’t reach Captain Hadley, sir, and went for a look-see. Just as I was setting off…” He shook his head. “I thought I saw something in the darkness. Something moving. Fast. A shadow. But then it was gone. I thought I was seeing things.”
Ajia Snell.
Christ, but she would pay for this.
Wynne addressed Noble. “Secure the area. Get the local coppers to throw up a cordon. Keep reporters out. Get the mop-up squad in.”
Again, he thought bitterly.
For the next hour Wynne paced the clearing, wondering how he would go about presenting this latest defeat to Derek Drake.
He would be lucky to still be in post, come noon.
At noon, he had still not contacted Drake.
Lieutenant Noble and the dozen Paladins who had accompanied him up here in the chopper had gathered at the far side of the clearing, their duties done for now. From time to time they cast glances across at Wynne, as if expecting him to address them with a few morale-boosting words.
He couldn’t bring himself to do that, quite yet.
Noble left from the group and diffidently approached Wynne.
“What is it, Lieutenant?”
“The men, sir, they’re…”
“Yes? They’re what? They’re shit scared? Is that it?”
“Sir, they’re wondering what we’re up against. That’s more than thirty good men killed in just a couple of days.”
“Thirty-three, to be precise, Lieutenant.”
“And they want to know what the hell they’re fighting. You see, sir, it helps to know the enemy.”
Wynne sighed. “I know, Lieutenant. I do know that.”
“And another thing…” Noble looked away.
“Go on.”
“They––that is, we––we’re wondering why we’re being sent into these situations. We’re up against things that aren’t normal, sir. Supernatural things. And all we have are conventional weapons which, if you’ll excuse my French, are fucking useless. Thing is, us Paladins were set up to protect the Prime Minister, sir, not fight these… these monsters.”
Wynne considered his words. “And what would you say if I were to tell you that by fighting these so-called monsters, Lieutenant, we are fulfilling our duty to protect Mr Drake?”
Noble thought about it. “Then I’d say, with all due respect, sir, that Drake is ruddy two hundred miles away in the safety of his fucking great mansion, while we’re risking our lives on a wild goose chase. But that’s between you and me, sir,” he added hastily.
Wynne smiled. “Between you and me, Lieutenant. Very well, you’ve made your point very clearly. And, if it’s any consolation, I don’t disagree with you. Go and tell the men that I’ll address them presently.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Wynne considered contacting the Prime Minister on his private line, but, all things considered, he decided to delay the call for a little while longer yet.
TWO HUNDRED MILES away in Derek Drake’s mansion, Drake himself was awaiting the arrival of Dudley Fowler, his tame publicity officer.
He paced his study, going over the finer points of his scheme to spike Premier Vasily Vasilyev’s guns.
Dudley Fowler was instrumental in this plan.
Young Dudley was undoubtedly a PR genius, adept at not only maintaining Drake’s pristine image of Britain’s saviour but blackening the reputations of the Prime Minister’s opponents. Dudley could dig the dirt like no other and, when there was little or no dirt to dig, he was a whiz kid at fabricating it from thin air.
Dudley ducked into Drake’s study thirty minutes later, somehow managing to combine the cocksure and
the subservient in a fidgety, bobbing motion that never ceased. He looked like a schoolboy spiv in a tight suit, or an East End barrow-boy made good and constantly surprised that he’d done so.
“Dudley, my boy. How nice to see you again.”
“Same here, boss. Nice place you got yourself here.”
“You have never been to the Grange before?”
“First time,” Dudley said, fidgeting. He looked uneasy, as if overawed not so much by the Prime Minister’s presence as by the thick pile carpet, expensive leather armchairs, and works of art that hung around the room.
“You have the…?” Drake raised an eyebrow.
Dudley grinned and patted his breast pocket. “Right here, safe and sound.”
“Excellent!”
Drake called the young man his press officer––and he did serve in that capacity––but Dudley’s forte was in the arcane area of what he called “digital manipulation”.
Drake indicated the 24” laptop on his desk. Dudley danced across to it, inserted a thumb-drive, and tapped the keyboard.
“And here we go!”
“I was afraid, Dudley, that you might have got rid of the… evidence.”
The boy grinned. “Never do that, sir. Don’t know when it might come in handy, do we?”
“We certainly do not, Dudley. Well done.”
Dudley set the image rolling and stood back, grinning.
“You really are,” Drake said admiringly, “an artist.”
“Well, I do my best, sir.”
The image on the screen showed a grey-haired old man slipping his engorged penis into the rear end of a young rent-boy, doggy style, and exhibiting an athleticism, and gusto, out of all proportion to his advanced years.
The British public would have been shocked at the predilections of one of the country’s most respected politicians––had the footage ever come to light.
Edward Winterton had always been the longest, and thorniest, thorn in Drake’s sensitive side. He had been one of those long-serving politicians who, after decades of distinguished duty on the backbenches, had earned the hallowed appellation of a “parliamentarian”. He’d joined the Labour Party fresh out of university, risen through the ranks, and then fallen out of favour with the party’s more radical elements, after which he had crossed the floor and joined the Liberal Democrats. A year later he crossed the floor yet again, this time hitching his star to Drake’s emergent Resurrection Party, much to Drake’s niggling suspicions.
Suspicions which, in time, were proved correct.
Last year the old parliamentarian had called at Number 10 and requested a “little word”.
The politician had ensconced himself in a leather armchair across from Drake and proceeded to tell the Prime Minister that he, Winterton, was apprised of all the dirty details behind the so-called “Summer of Terror” a few years back, when a hit-squad of Daesh sympathisers had indiscriminately bombed three public venues in London, Birmingham and Glasgow, killing over three hundred British citizens.
The atrocities had proved that Drake’s anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, pro-British rhetoric had contained more than just a grain of common sense. And it was the act that had been instrumental in persuading the electorate to vote Drake’s Resurrection Party into power a year later.
And Edward Winterton had sat in the armchair and, as calm as you like, purred, “The ‘Summer of Terror’, Derek. I know the truth.”
Drake’s blood had run cold. Blustering, he’d feigned misunderstanding.
“I know that the bombings had nothing to do with Islamic State activists,” Winterton went on. “I know that certain of the more extreme elements in the secret services were responsible for planting the bombs. I know that this outrage was committed at your instigation, with your sponsorship, and that the suspects you rounded up and had summarily executed were illegal immigrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh whom no one would miss, or mourn. A truly despicable act, Derek, which helped to get you where you are today.”
Drake had blustered, of course. He had denied everything and said that Winterton didn’t have a shred of proof––but the backbencher hadn’t taken the bait and disclosed his source.
“You haven’t heard the last of this, Derek,” Winterton had said, then swept from the room.
Drake had lost no time and ordered Dudley Fowler to fabricate a mock-up of Winterton with a rent boy. With the incriminating footage to hand––kompromat of his own––Drake had been about to confront Winterton with it, and demand his silence, when the politician had disappeared from his country retreat in Somerset.
Drake had hardly been able to believe his luck.
He had initiated his own private investigation into the disappearance, but to no avail. The politician had vanished off the face of the Earth.
Now he watched the pornographic footage with admiration.
“Yes,” he said, “quite a work of art, Dudley.”
“I try to oblige,” said the man. He hesitated. “Just one thing I don’t get. Winterton having vanished…” He pointed to the screen. “Why do you want it?”
Drake grinned at Winterton’s strenuous pederasty, almost convincing himself that it had actually been the old man going like the devil at the rent boy’s arse, and not a clever computer-generated image.
“That’s not all I want. You have till midnight to create two further scenarios of a similar nature––using, let me see… How about that bloated writer I detest, Victor Shepperton, and that appalling socialist agitator who calls himself an actor, Dan Gerson?”
“Got it!” Dudley grinned, relishing the challenge. “Victor Shepperton and Dan Gerson.”
Drake pulled a thumb-drive from his breast pocket and suggested that the youth take a look.
Dudley replaced his own thumb-drive with Drake’s, then activated its only file.
Seconds later the boy was staring goggle-eyed at the grainy reproduction of Derek Drake shagging the arse off a beautiful blonde bimbo.
“It would appear, Dudley, that the Russians are attempting to emulate your own work of art––though it must be said they could learn a thing or two from you.”
Dudley looked both flattered and relieved. “Phew!” he said, nodding at the screen. “For a second there, sir, I thought you’d been caught in the act.”
“The very idea!” Drake laughed. “No, this pathetic effort is Premier Vasilyev’s idea of a little joke.”
“Ah. I’m beginning to understand where you’re coming from, sir.”
“You’re quick on the uptake,” Drake said. “Tomorrow, once you’ve had your people manufacture the dirt on Gerson and Shepperton, I want you to take this ridiculous mock-up of me and the young lady and release all four of the clips online, along with a press release along the lines of ‘Russia up to its dirty tricks again’. Understood?”
“Loud and clear, sir. Leave it to me.” Dudley took the thumb-drive from the laptop and slipped it into his breast pocket.
“That will be all, Dudley.”
Smiling, he watched the nerdily eager young man skip from the room.
He looked at his watch. One o’clock.
Time for lunch with Harriet, with perhaps a drink or two afterwards, and then a spot of physical recreation.
If anything, Harriet’s passion had increased in the last day or two. It was almost becoming, dare he say it, too much. And with the passion came a… How to describe her sudden, almost girlish devotion? It was almost as if she worshipped him.
Drake smiled to himself.
Well, she had that in common with a good percentage of the electorate, after all.
To lunch!
HARRIET LAID ON the bed, fuming.
She had had six calls from the bastard since breakfast. It was becoming too much. And the texts! The self-pitying, whining words begging her to take him back!
Her phone chimed again, and she snatched it up. The call was from an unrecognised number.
“Hello?” she said warily.
“Harriet,
we need to talk.”
“Wynne? For God’s sake, can’t you take a hint? Is your military skull so thick you can’t see when it’s over?”
“Over?”
“Over. Finished. Kaput.”
“But, Harriet, I thought…”
“Well, you thought wrong, didn’t you? You were only ever a fling, an amusement, pleasant while it lasted. But all things come to an end. Get over it.”
“But I miss––” he began.
“You don’t miss me,” she sneered. “You miss the power trip, the danger, the illicit thrill of it all.”
“Harriet!” he whined.
She cut him off.
A minute later her phone chimed again, this time with a text message. From Wynne. It had an attachment.
She opened it and stared at the selfie of Major Dominic Wynne’s proud erection, accompanied by: See what you’re missing, Harriet.
Typical of the man!
Well, he’d gone too far, this time.
She switched off her phone and stretched herself out on the bed, awaiting her husband’s return.
When Drake finally emerged from the bathroom, minutes later, his face was almost as dolorous as his drooping member.
“Darling?”
He slumped onto the bed. “Wynne called earlier,” he said. “I swear the man’s incompetent. Another eleven Paladins, dead. Wiped out. And no sign of Snell and her mob.”
She stroked his chest. “I think,” she said, “that you ought to sack Wynne, or demote him, or whatever it is you do with incompetent soldier boys.”
“Demote him? I’ll have the bastard strung up by his balls!”
She twirled a strand of chest hair around her finger, considering.
“Speaking of Wynne,” she said at last. “Derek, there’s something you need to know.”
He turned to her. “Concerning Wynne?”
“He… For the past month or two, he’s been making… Let’s say inappropriate suggestions, Derek.”
He sat up, staring at her. “Inappropriate?”
“Touching me, whispering that what I needed was a… a real man. And,” she went on, reaching for her phone. “I had this from him this morning.”
Age of Legends Page 33
