INVASION: UPRISING (Invasion Series Book 3)

by Dc Alden

  ‘They’re gearing up for war, Edith.’

  She didn’t answer straight away. Instead she got to her feet and crossed to the glass wall. Darkness had fallen outside, and she looked south, towards the distant lights on Lambeth Bridge. The view still unsettled her. Everything was gone now; Downing Street, Horse Guards Parade, the Ministry of Defence, Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, all demolished, a thousand years of history bulldozed by the caliphate’s engineers and architects, transforming the cultural heart of London into a desolate, muddy landscape criss-crossed by dumper trucks and lit by clusters of harsh white lights.

  Not everything is gone, she reminded herself. Number Ten was still standing, a forlorn and fragile brick and masonry shell supported by scaffold poles and wrapped in protective sheeting. It was being preserved as a monument, the spot where the Great Liberation of Britain had begun, and Edith was reminded of Albert Speer’s ambitious vision for a post-war Berlin. It was all for the greater good, Edith often scolded others.

  ‘So, the Caliph, peace be upon him, is preparing for war and has sent his beloved general to take charge. These are encouraging signs, Hugh. It means Baghdad is invested in us. That they’re prepared to defend caliphate territory.’

  Davies joined her at the window, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets, watching those same dumper trucks rumbling across the muddy moonscape.

  ‘Or they intend to reinforce temporarily, lay waste to the entire country, then pull back across the channel.’

  Edith looked up at him. ‘Don’t talk such nonsense.’

  Davies’ eyes narrowed. ‘They destroyed hundreds of Irish towns and villages as they retreated. Dublin has been levelled, there’s almost nothing left.’

  Edith swallowed. ‘Have we chosen the wrong side, Hugh?’

  The governor took a deep breath and stared out through the glass wall. ‘On the night of the invasion, Molly wasn’t feeling well so I’d left Westminster early to pick the girls up from school. When things went to hell, we took shelter in the cellar. Molly and the girls held me so tight I could barely breathe. I told them I should do something, try to help maybe, but they wouldn’t hear of it, wouldn’t let me go. So, I stayed, and waited, because like you I’d already seen the writing on the wall. So, I made a decision, not just for me but for the girls too. Embrace the new reality.’

  In the reflection, Edith saw him shake his head.

  ‘I found out later that everyone in the office had either been killed or was missing, which made my decision to hide rather more bearable. And because of that, here I stand today, a former ministerial bag-carrier in Rural Affairs, now governor of the British Territories.’ He fell silent for a moment, rocking on his polished heels. ‘So, in answer to your question, all my eggs are in the caliphate’s basket. I placed them there. My decision. Now I have to see it through.’

  Edith turned to look at him. She’d never heard of Hugh Davies before the Liberation, but as one of the few surviving ministers of Beecham’s government, he’d made the best of a bad situation. He’d cooperated fully and denounced his own. Like her, Davies was a survivor.

  ‘My thoughts exactly,’ she echoed. ‘We could’ve sat back, said nothing, abandoned our previous achievements and queued with the common folk for bread and milk. Our lives would’ve been lived in obscurity, but you and I were born for better things, Hugh. In your case to lead, in mine, to apply the law as our new masters see fit. For you and I, for our colleagues in the National Assembly, it’s vital that we keep a firm grip on things.’ She paused for a moment, then said, ‘It’s why I ordered the crucifixions. To crush any suggestion of rebellion. We cannot afford to lose control, not now.’

  Davies nodded, watching the crowds below hurrying home. ‘To use a gambling analogy, you’re doubling down, right Edith?’

  The chief justice’s thin lips cracked a rare smile.

  ‘Yes. That’s exactly what we must do.’

  5

  Fighting Irish

  A fine drizzle swept in from the sea over Bally Cross, falling through shattered rooftops and across debris-strewn streets. From the bluffs beyond the settlement, visibility was down to two kilometres, but there was little chance of an enemy counter-attack. With each passing day, the coastline was being reinforced with mobile missile batteries, radar targeting systems, and surveillance drones. In the last 48 hours, the tactical situation had transformed, which was all good news for Eddie and the lads.

  Ireland was back in the hands of the Atlantic Alliance, and every day transport aircraft were touching down at the airports of Cork, Knock, Donegal, and Shannon, all loaded with troops and supplies. Ships were on their way too, steaming out from the eastern seaboard, laden with armour and aircraft, fuel, and munitions. Operation Rampart the brass had named it, the mission to build up the country’s defences. Maybe in a few years they could start rebuilding again.

  Belfast and Dublin had both been razed to the ground. The Irish hadn’t taken occupation lightly – never fucking had, Mac observed – and long-buried weapons caches were unearthed and put to use. It had started with ambushes and roadside bombs, until eventually entire areas of Belfast and Derry had risen against the caliphate, resulting in some of the fiercest fighting of the campaign. Tens of thousands of lives had been lost. It had been an ugly and brutal liberation, and Eddie was glad it was over.

  He refocused his mind back to the patrol, leading Three Section south along the high street. They hadn’t been back since the fighting ended, and the cold, damp light of day threw a new, jarring perspective on the damage inflicted. Not a single shop had avoided serious damage, and many had been burned out. Despite that, there were lots of civilians around, townsfolk wrapped up against weather, picking over the wreckage of their lives and livelihoods, trying to salvage what they could.

  As he weaved a path through the destruction, he saw entire families, mums, dads, kids, all mucking in, their hands and clothes wet and filthy, yet despite the hardship, there were a lot of smiles and some laughter. Living near Boston, Eddie knew the Irish were a tough lot, and he saw that now in their faces, in the winks from the old codgers, the motherly smiles from the ladies. Eddie tipped his helmet in response, raindrops tumbling from its rim.

  He turned, walking backwards, watching the rest of the patrol, their spacing, positions. He wasn’t expecting trouble but neither could he relax. None of them could. He watched Digger, Steve, and Mac weaving around piles of burnt timbers, their foul-weather gear slick with rain, gun barrels held low. They’d been patrolling for almost two hours now after the MTVR had dropped the section off a klick short of the village. They’d looped north on foot, hugging the hedgerows, scanning the route ahead with Black Hornet drones, checking abandoned farmhouses and outbuildings. They saw a lot of slaughtered animals, and that upset all of them. War was one thing, but killing defenceless cows and sheep for fun was something else.

  They steered clear of the missile batteries on the bluffs north of town. They were a juicy target for the enemy, and they used their own perimeter security, US Marines with itchy trigger fingers. Eddie didn’t blame them.

  ‘Hey!’

  The shout was loud and urgent. Eddie ducked into the nearest doorway and crouched, bringing his M27 up. Some civvies, men mostly, were hurrying away down the road. Eddie squinted through his optics. A commotion, towards the harbour. A crowd was gathering, urgent voices carried on the chilly breeze. Not urgent, Eddie realised. Angry. He looked back down the street where Mac and Steve were sheltering in a shop doorway. Digger was out of sight, no doubt watching through his scope. Eddie heard Mac’s voice in his ear.

  ‘Talk to me, Eddie.’

  ‘Trouble down the hill. Looks local.’

  ‘Women and kids have held fast,’ Mac observed. ‘We’re heading down there. Rest of the section can watch over the civvies while we take a look.’

  Mac jogged past him, and Eddie followed. Steve and Digger were strung out behind him, weaving through the debris. Up ahead, a sizeable grou
p of men were pushing to get inside a pub. Whatever good humour he’d witnessed earlier had disappeared.

  Mac ordered the crowd to make a hole. Inside, the pub was a scene of destruction. Everything was smashed, the optics, mirrors, pictures on the wall, all of it now churned into a filthy, razor-sharp mash beneath their boots. And the smell was awful. Stale booze, burned timber, and something else, something foul.

  A group of civvies stood around a trapdoor, rough blokes with clubs, knives, and hammers in their hands. Must be the cellar, Eddie assumed. Mac zeroed in on the meanest-looking one, a burly, dark-haired farmer-type with bushy sideburns and big gnarly hands. The look on his face was one of pure hatred, and Eddie wondered if it was his cattle that had been machine-gunned in the fields outside of town.

  ‘What’ve you got?’ Mac asked him, nodding at the hatch.

  The man didn’t seem the least bit intimidated by soldiers. ‘Got a couple of heathens hiding out down there.’

  ‘I heard whispers,’ said the man next to him, a kitchen knife held in his hand. ‘They weren’t speaking English, that’s for sure.’

  Mac held a finger to his lips and backed everyone outside. The big man held his ground until Mac quietly reminded him that whoever was down there probably had guns and grenades. That didn’t seem to bother him either but he left with the others. Steve moved them all back across the street and stayed outside with Digger, covering the trapdoor through the broken windows.

  Mac leaned close to Eddie. ‘I’m going to crack it open an inch. Any sudden movement, empty your mag.’

  ‘Rog.’

  Mac stood behind the hinges and rapped his gloved knuckles on the wooden door. ‘You down there! Listen carefully. I’m opening the hatch! Don’t do anything stupid!’

  Mac twisted the rusted metal ring and lifted it a couple of inches. A muffled voice in broken English stammered, ‘Don’t shoot, please! I have wounded men here.’

  Mac grabbed the lip of the trapdoor and threw it backwards. It landed against the tavern floor with a loud thud. Eddie’s trigger finger tensed. Hands shot out of the hatch, empty. Voices pleaded, but Eddie wasn’t fooled. The Hajis were full of tricks, most of them deadly. He kept his gun trained on the greasy black head of hair he could see. He glanced to his left, saw Digger and Steve aiming their own weapons.

  Then the smell hit him, a rank odour of human shit and rotten flesh. The man who clambered out of the cellar was an officer, quickly followed by two others, Africans, their ebony skin glistening with sweat, their bulbous eyes darting with fear, both of them patched up with bloody field dressings. Digger and Steve hurried inside and slammed the prisoners against the wall. They were cuffed with plastic ties and searched thoroughly.

  ‘They’re clean,’ Steve announced.

  Mac swept the cellar with a torch. Eddie peered over the lip, saw a body lying face-down on the concrete floor. He also saw four rifles propped against the damp brickwork, magazines unloaded.

  ‘He’s dead,’ the Arab officer explained, glancing over his shoulder. Mac lifted his rifle and fired two suppressed rounds into the corpse. The officer swallowed hard.

  ‘Call it in,’ Mac ordered. ‘Three prisoners, two wounded.’

  The Africans had their heads down, eyes glued to the floor. One had a leg wound, the other an injury to the head. Digger stepped close to the officer and sniffed the surrounding air.

  ‘You fucking stink,’ he told the man. Then he turned his attention to the Africans. ‘You two scumbags got anything to do with the bodies we found in the ditch outside town?’

  ‘Digger…’

  He jabbed his rifle into the ribs of the closest one. Eddie saw him flinch. ‘You, fuck-face. What d’you know? Who did it? You? You kill all those animals too?’

  ‘Stand down, Barnes,’ Mac warned. ‘Get yourself outside and wait for the transport.’

  Digger didn’t move, his eyes boring into the prisoner, gun barrel still jammed against the man’s guts. ‘I say we let the locals deal with ‘em.’

  ‘I won’t tell you again,’ Mac warned. ‘Outside. Right now.’

  Digger turned on his heel without another word. Mac watched him go then spread the prisoners’ confiscated possessions out on the bar. ‘There’s fuck-all here. ID cards, a couple of personals, nothing of any intel value. HQ will squeeze ‘em.’

  ‘Taxi’s here,’ Digger yelled from outside.

  Eddie heard it then, the familiar whine of a Land Rover. It squealed to a halt directly outside, triggering an excited murmur from the crowd of civilians. When the Land Rover’s occupants stepped inside the pub, Eddie realised why. Soldiers from the Irish army, probably troops from the initial invasion force. The giveaway was their US military uniforms and weapons, but that’s where it ended. They wore Tricolour flag patches and no helmets, and their kit bristled with spare mags, knives, and grenades. They were older guys too, thirties Eddie guessed, but he couldn’t see any rank. One of them wore a ghillie suit, the stock of his sniper rifle carved with more scratches than Eddie could count. They were bearded and bleary-eyed with exhaustion, and their uniforms were caked in blood and mud. Still in combat mode.

  The leader was a big guy, six-two maybe, with red hair that was cropped to the skull and receding fast. He had a boxer’s nose and sunken cheeks that sprouted a few days of rusty growth. And his eyes missed nothing. He glanced at the hatch, then the prisoners. Finally he looked at Mac, offered his hand.

  ‘The name’s Dee, First Irish.’

  ‘McAllister, Second Mass.’

  The First comprised mostly Irish refugees from New York and Massachusetts, and their reputation for ferocity had reached everyone’s ears. No one had a beef with that. This was their country. Dee turned to his men.

  ‘Take them out back.’

  The prisoners were frogmarched through the wreckage of the pub. An excited cry went up from the crowd outside and the next minute they were pushing and shoving through the bar, following the soldiers and their prisoners.

  Mac watched them piling out back. ‘I guess you’re not the prisoner escort we’re waiting for.’

  The big Irishman shook his head. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, lad.’ He looked at each of them and said, ‘There’s not going to be a problem here, is there?’

  Mac shrugged. ‘As far as I’m concerned the prisoners did a runner.’

  ‘God bless.’ Dee winked, then sauntered out towards the back of the pub.

  Mac watched him go, then said, ‘Time to leave.’

  They filed outside into the rain. It was falling heavily now, and all Eddie wanted to do was get back to the firebase, get some hot food, and a kip.

  ‘Where’s Digger?’ Steve asked.

  Eddie spun around. The kid was behind him as they left the pub. Now he was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Fuck,’ Mac swore. ‘Eddie, get out back and grab that wee fucker. We can’t be involved.’

  He ducked back into the pub and marched through the bar, drawn by the noise of the crowd. There was a cobbled courtyard out back, the walls lined with metal kegs and crates of empties. The mob had formed an unruly semicircle, cursing and spitting, baying for blood. The prisoners stood against the wall, facing the crowd. They’d been stripped naked, their hands cupped around their genitals, shivering in the rain. Dee stood in front of them, a pistol in his hand. Some people were filming the whole thing on their phones, but Dee didn’t seem to care. The gunshot made Eddie jump, and he saw the Arab officer fold to the ground, blood pumping from his head.

  ‘Kill them fuckers! Kill ‘em!’

  The English voice was unmistakable. Eddie saw Digger through the mob, craning his neck to see over their heads. Eddie pushed through them, grabbed Digger by his webbing and dragged him backwards. Free of the mob, Digger turned on him.

  ‘Take your fucking hands off me,’ Digger snarled.

  ‘We can’t be here for this, you fucking idiot! Mac’s waiting. Go!’

  Digger pushed past Eddie and headed back through the pub. As Eddie follo
wed, he heard two more shots, two more cheers. He was glad to be back out on the street.

  ‘Let’s move,’ Mac ordered. ‘Eddie, take point, lead us the fuck away from here.’

  Eddie trotted across the street and headed towards the harbour road at a brisk pace. They’d continue their patrol as planned, a route that would take them south, away from the village and into the surrounding countryside.

  Away from the madness.

  Another hour and they’d be back at base. Eddie couldn’t wait.

  So far, it’d been a lousy day.

  6

  Resistance is Not Futile

  Albert ‘Bertie’ Payne turned the wheel of his Toyota hybrid and pulled into the vehicle checkpoint on Pancras Way. Access into the city was still tightly controlled but not as it once was. Gone were the rolls of concertina wire, the soldiers and armoured vehicles, gone were the signs that screamed Stop! Use of deadly force authorised! Many people had lost their lives to the trigger-happy soldiers who’d manned them, but that was in the old days, the uncertain days. Now the checkpoint was more like a customs check, with hydraulic vehicle traps and well-marked lanes, but it didn’t make them any less dangerous than the earlier ones. Like the one outside the Royal Free Hospital, where he’d been dragged from his taxi and savagely beaten. Where he’d almost died.

  Soldiers still manned the checkpoints, but these days they were run by British coppers, men and women who’d taken their 30 pieces of silver. Bertie had a name for them too – dirty, treacherous, horrible cunts.

  As the Toyota idled, Bertie’s eyes drifted over to the glass and steel entrance of Kings Cross tube station, and he smiled. The station always reminded him of his footballing days as a supporter of his beloved Tottenham Hotspur. Back then he’d often travel out of Kings Cross with the firm, visiting grounds all over the country, packing the away ends, making their voices heard, letting the locals know that the Yids were in town and up for it. Naturally it didn’t always go their way, either on or off the pitch, but that’s what made football the drug of choice for men like Bertie, the fleeting highs and the crashing lows that often lasted for entire seasons. Mid-table mediocrity was all the average football supporter could expect, and Bertie knew that adopting such a mindset was a valuable life lesson; enjoy the good times while you can, because things always turn to shit, eventually.