“Do I have your attention?” I asked.
The woman nodded.
“Yeah,” came the nervous reply from one o’clock.
“Would everybody except the soldiers please sit down.”
Silently, all the children and adults sank to the floor. Not much protection if bullets started flying, but it was something. I could see both soldiers clearly now, above everyone’s heads. Time for my big speech.
“I woke up this morning feeling nervous,” I began. “I planned to take two of these children into a hostile, dangerous situation and put their lives at risk. Mine too. I had a plan and I was determined that no-one would get killed. But I should know by now that plans rarely work. As soon as you start waving guns around somebody dies. Somebody always dies.
“But I thought I was doing the right thing. There were children who needed rescuing from bad people, and I decided it was my job to do that. You might think that was arrogant and reckless of me, but no-one else was going to rescue them. Not the police, not the army.
“Anyway, the decision to take action was mine alone. And we rescued those kids. But two people died. Two vicious, evil bastards, but people all the same. And I’m a doctor. It’s my job to save lives, not take them. But you two are the sixth and seventh people today to aim guns at me and I’m sick to the back fucking teeth of it. So here’s where things stand.
“Your C.O. is dead. His second-in-command is dead. Every one of your colleagues is dead. You two are the only surviving members of your team and both of you are in the crosshairs of the telescopic sights of sniper rifles. If I give the word your heads will be blown off. Then we’ll take your corpses to the farm we raided this morning, pile you up outside it, pour petrol over you and set you on fire.
“When your friends come looking for you they’ll find evidence of a firefight and they’ll think you died fighting vicious child traffickers. And when they come here we’ll be ready for them. With tea and cake. Then maybe second time round things will go a little better for everyone.
“To be honest, we’d probably be better off if I killed you now. But I’m sick of killing and I’d really like to go to bed tonight without any more blood on my hands.
“So put your guns down and I promise that you won’t be hurt.”
I had the guy at “I woke up”, his face told me that. But the woman was a different story. Even as she laid her gun on the ground I knew what was coming. I opened my mouth to tell Rowles to shoot, but I was too late. She crouched to lay the gun down and then sprang forward like a sprinter off a starting block, a large knife suddenly in her hand.
Rowles managed a shot but she was too fast. She was on me before I could get out of her way. She led with the knife, going straight for my heart. I managed to turn just in time and the blade nicked one of my ribs and bounced off again. I was wearing a green t-shirt and the blade didn’t snag at all, which told me how sharp it was. I didn’t feel the pain of the cut for a few seconds, just the glancing impact, and by the time I felt the sting I was too busy to scream.
As the knife carried on past me she lowered her shoulder and took me in the midriff, winding me and sending me flying backwards on to the cold, hard cobbles. I went down hard, with her on top of me. My right shoulder smashed into the stones and I was unable to stop my head bouncing off a cobble, which left me briefly dazed.
Some of my old training was still in there, even all these years later, and I heard Cooper telling me to rush a gun and flee a knife. Which was perhaps not the best advice for my subconscious to offer me at that precise moment. The other thing I remembered Coop teaching me was that if you find yourself in a knife fight, the most important thing is to never, ever lose track of your opponent’s blade.
I must have reacted automatically, because when my head stopped spinning I was lying flat on my back with the soldier astride me, both my hands wrapped around her wrist, trying to stop the knife coming down. She was snarling and furious, but controlled. I’d been in fights before, but if this woman really was army trained then I was in serious trouble; she’d know moves I’d never even heard of, and she wouldn’t hesitate to kill me.
I saw Caroline out of the corner of my eye, moving to get up and come to my aid. I shouted at her to stay where she was as I suddenly stopped blocking the knife and instead pushed left with all my strength, shoving the knife aside for a split second and bringing the soldier’s head and shoulders closer. Then I sat bolt upright and smashed my forehead into the bridge of her nose. There was a sharp crack and a crunch then she reeled backwards, blood spurting everywhere, still with her knees keeping me on the ground.
I let go of her wrist and hit her as hard as I could, pushing her broken nose into her face with the heel of my hand, releasing a small explosion of blood and making her scream.
Before I could press my advantage her left elbow slammed into the side of my head and then I felt something swipe past my face. The knife. As it swung out on its arc, trailing blood from my cheek, I brought both arms to my chest and shoved up and forwards with all my strength, knocking her backwards. Then I pulled my legs in, toppling her on to the cobbles.
There was a shot and I felt something tug my shirt. My attacker grunted as Rowles’ bullet hit the ground an inch from her head.
“That nearly hit me!” I yelled.
“Sorry,” he shouted back from the roof of the main building where he was lying safely at the roof’s edge. “Just trying to help.”
“Do me a favour and don’t.”
But the distraction had enabled the soldier to regain her footing as well.
The shining blade formed the centre of a circle as we sidled around each other looking for an opening. Then she took me by surprise, darting sideways to grab a girl by the hair, pushing the point of the knife into her throat.
The girl’s name was Lucy. She was ten and had long red hair and freckles. She wore thick specs and had buck teeth, but she sang like an angel and was nobody’s fool. She went rigid with fear as the soldier threatened to slit her throat.
“Up,” said the soldier. Nervously, Lucy rose to her feet. The soldier wrapped herself around the girl, keeping her as a human shield between herself and Rowles.
“Anybody follows us, the girl dies,” she snarled.
I nodded.
“Barker, get your gun, we’re leaving,” she said.
The male soldier slowly took his hands off his head.
“Don’t move, Barker,” I said. He stopped, unsure which way to jump.
The woman pressed the knife just a bit harder and Lucy yelped.
“I fucking mean it, bitch,” growled the woman.
“The second she dies my boy on the roof will end you,” I said, then I walked, as casually as I could given that I was shaking like a leaf, over to Barker the squaddie. Our eyes locked as I reached out and removed his sidearm. The look on my face must have been convincing, because he didn’t resist. I felt the cold metal thing nestle itself into my hand as I turned back to face the girl I’d sworn to protect, and the woman who was threatening her life.
I was through with talking.
Without even thinking I raised the gun and fired a single shot, taking the soldier right between the eyes and spraying her brains all over Mrs Atkins’ best floral pinny.
The soldier’s legs crumpled and she fell in a heap on the floor as Lucy screamed and screamed and screamed.
It was the first time in my life I’d ever killed someone and enjoyed it. I felt a glow of satisfaction. It felt good.
The vomiting quickly put an end to that.
When I’d finished spraying my lunch all over the cobbles I turned and walked back to Barker, wiping my mouth with my sleeve and noticing that it came away covered in blood from the gash on my cheek.
“On your fucking knees,” I said.
Barker knelt down and begged for his life.
He fell silent when I pressed the gun barrel into his forehead.
“It’s in the best interests of everyone here for me to s
hoot you. You know that, right?”
NEXT MORNING, I sat in front of the school and waited.
It was so silent. All the kids had left, the staff too. I lay on a glorious lawn, in the warm spring sunshine, listening to the birds and the first crickets. There were rabbits nibbling the grass not twenty metres from where I sat, and sometimes the breeze carried the distant cry of a peacock from the gardens behind the house.
I lay back on the grass and closed my eyes, rested my hands on the cool ground. I tried to visualise how fast I was moving – around the sun, around the Earth’s core. It sounds strange but it’s the closest I’ve ever come to meditation. Lying on grass and trying to feel the Earth move calms me down.
I needed a lot of calming down.
I thought back on my decision and I knew in my heart that I’d done the right thing. With everyone relocated and in hiding, all the blame for the slaughter would fall on me. It was the only way to make sure everyone was safe. The buck stopped here, and that was only fair. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t scared to death.
So as I lay there, a row of bodies draped in sheets beside me, waiting for the rumble of army vehicles, I felt okay with my choice. I was ready to accept the consequences.
My thoughts went back to that day at the swimming pool, all the ideals Kate had when she’d started medical training. The Hippocratic Oath seemed like a sick joke to me now. I wondered what the woman at the swimming pool would have thought of me, lying here surrounded by bodies. The thought caused a sharp pang of loss.
“Your cheek looks a lot better. I don’t think it’s going to be a bad scar,” said the man sitting to my right. “You stitched it really well.”
“Thanks, Barker,” I said. “But I don’t really think I’m going to have to worry about my good looks much longer, do you?”
He didn’t answer and I didn’t open my eyes to see the look on his face.
“I’ll tell them what really happened,” he said.
“But you weren’t there, were you? Not in the cellar, not in the surgery. I appreciate the thought, but your word’s not going to carry much weight when you stack it up against all these corpses.”
He didn’t say anything else, so we sat and listened to the birds.
“Do you ever think things will get back to normal?” he asked eventually. “I mean, telly and buses and elections and stuff?”
“Not in our lifetimes,” I said.
“The king says it will.”
“The what?”
But before he could answer I heard the sound of tyres on gravel.
“You’re on,” I said.
I heard him get to his feet and begin walking away, towards the fellow soldiers he’d radioed yesterday. I just lay there, eyes closed. I caught snatches of conversation, and the sound of boots on gravel, then someone walking towards me.
I sighed. Time to face the music.
“Miss Jane Crowther?” The man’s voice was deep and strong, the voice of someone accustomed to being listened to and obeyed. I’d tried to develop a voice like that over the last few months, but my efforts in the courtyard suggested I’d probably failed.
The voice was also oddly familiar.
“That’s me,” I said, and I opened my eyes. The soldier was standing over me, and the sun behind his head made a halo and shadowed his face. I winced at the brightness.
“No, it’s not.” The voice had changed. It was softer, surprised, almost friendly. And definitely familiar.
“Pardon?” I said, as I sat up. I rested my weight on one arm and raised a hand to shield my eyes so I could get a look at the man who’d come to serve justice on me. It took a second for my eyes to adjust.
“Hello, Miss Booker,” he said. “What have you got yourself into this time?”
CHAPTER TEN
KATHERINE LUCY BOOKER – Kit to her family, Kate to everyone else – died five years ago in a warehouse on Moss Side.
Then she gave herself a bit of a makeover. She dyed her hair, got that nose ring she’d always secretly craved, dumped the Jigsaw wardrobe and went a bit more casual. She even started listening to different kinds of music – out with Kylie, in with Dresden Dolls – and stopped watching thrillers and horror films altogether, preferring inoffensive romcoms and bodice rippers. She walked differently too, but only because she stopped wearing heels.
Her sleep patterns altered. She used to sleep like a log for eight hours straight, preferring early nights and cosy jim jams. Now she was more likely to crawl to bed in the early hours in her knickers and t-shirt, cuddling a bottle of chianti, before waking, sweating and alarmed after four hours fitful rest.
She moved to a different part of the country, broke contact with all her friends and family, abandoned her career as a doctor and became a far less illustrious type of medic, ministering to spotty boys and institutionalised teachers with bad breath and nicotine fingers.
Kate Booker became Jane Crowther.
Then, one day, lying on the grass surrounded by corpses, Jane was visited by the ghost of Kate.
And I couldn’t think what to say to her.
“I’M SORRY, DO I... do I know you?” I stuttered as the ground, which had been so solid beneath me only a moment ago, began to spin.
“Lieutenant Sanders, Miss,” he said cheerily. “I was part of the team that oversaw your training.”
I wracked my brains. Sanders? I didn’t remember any Sanders.
He reached down a great paw. I took it and he pulled me up without the slightest effort. The man radiated strength.
Once I was upright the spinning was even more pronounced and I stumbled a bit. He caught me in his arms like I was some kind of swooning schoolgirl. I blushed red with embarrassment. This, of course, made it even worse. I shook him off firmly and regained my composure with a brisk cough.
“It’s been a long time since a man’s made me dizzy, Lieutenant,” I joked.
He laughed awkwardly as I took a closer look at him. He had the tanned skin of a man who spends time outdoors; thick black eyebrows topped deep-set brown eyes that sat either side of a classic Roman nose. His large chin jutted out slightly, making him look like a weird mixture of toff and bruiser. It was a striking face rather than a handsome one.
“Wait a minute,” I said, as realisation dawned. “I do remember you! You were one of the soldiers Cooper took me to train with out in Hereford. You were the judo guy, weren’t you? Spent a whole day throwing me round a gym like I was a, oh, I don’t know what.”
“That’s me, Miss. I was part of the assault team at the warehouse as well. Nasty business. I’m sorry about... you know.”
“Yeah, right. Wow. It’s, um, it’s been a really long time since anyone’s called me Miss Booker. You threw me there for a minute.”
He nodded. “What exactly is the reason for the name change, Miss?” The shift from friendly reminiscence to polite officialdom almost went past me. Almost.
“Witness protection,” I replied. “They made me into a boarding school matron, would you believe. I was only supposed to be here ’til they caught up with The Spider, but I never heard anything. And then, The Cull, obviously.”
“Kept the name though.”
“Kate’s a distant memory now. It’s Jane who looks after the kids. I’m not sure Kate would have been up to this kind of thing.”
He was looking at me oddly, trying to suss out whether I was delusional or just weird.
“I know,” I said. “It just helps me if I keep them separate in my mind, lets me focus on the here and now. And it would only confuse the kids if I introduced them to Kate after everything we’ve been through. They trust Jane, they might not be so sure about Kate.”
He nodded again. “I’ve been undercover, Miss, I get it. So, Lance Corporal Barker says you’ve evacuated the school and he doesn’t know where they’ve gone. That right?”
“Yes.”
He looked at the row of bodies and his cheeriness faded. Our surprising reunion lost its novelty and the reality of his
job re-asserted itself.
“It was just an awful misunderstanding,” I said.
He regarded me coolly. “I’m sure it was, Miss. But it’s not me you’ve got to convince, it’s Major General Kennet.”
More soldiers had arrived now, and Sanders set them to carrying the bodies into one of the three trucks they’d brought, expecting to have to transport all the children and staff to safety.
“What’s he like?” I asked as we walked away.
“I’ve served under worse,” he replied.
“But you’ve served under better?”
“Oh, yes.”
We reached the first truck and he took a pair of handcuffs from his pocket.
“I don’t want to cuff you, Miss,” he said. “So if you promise that...”
“I promise.”
“And I’ll keep an eye on her, Lieutenant,” added Barker, who was already sitting on one of the hard wooden benches that lined the metal-bottomed, canvas-topped transit vehicle.
“All right then,” said Sanders briskly. “We’ve got a long journey ahead of us. A lot of the road has been cleared but not all, and there are some unswept areas on the way. We took some fire on our trip here, but nothing too serious. Of course they could be waiting for us on the return journey, but we’ll vary our route, just in case. If we do run into trouble, then Barker, your job is to look after Kate here. I spent a lot of effort keeping her alive once upon a time. I’d hate all that work to be wasted.”
“Sir,” replied Barker, resting his rifle on his lap.
“What do you mean, unswept areas?” I asked.
“I’ll let the C.O. answer that, Miss,” replied Sanders. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”
Sanders left and I could see him poring over a map with the three drivers, plotting a route.
“Where are you lot based, Barker?”
“Operation Motherland HQ is at Salisbury Plain,” he replied.
“Operation Motherland? What’s that?” I asked.
“Top secret,” he replied, tapping the side of his nose. “Look, I was expecting you to get some pretty rough treatment, but the Lieutenant was all pally. You got really lucky, knowing him, otherwise you’d be on the floor, in shackles with a sack over your head.”
School's Out Forever (The Afterblight Chronicles: The St Mark's Books) Page 38
