‘John,’ Tomkin said reasonably, placing his drink down on the coffee table between them, ‘I know you are a patriot of the first order. You want what’s best for your country. You want what’s best for your countrymen. Isn’t that so?’
‘Of course it’s so!’ Jeffries exclaimed. ‘But—’
Tomkin cut him off with a wave of his hand. ‘But nothing,’ he said firmly. ‘But nothing. This country is being attacked on all sides. Terrorists everywhere, regimes building their own long-range missiles to wipe us off the map.’ He banged his hand down on the coffee table. ‘And are we going to just sit here and take it? Are we going to let them?’ He shook his head. ‘We sure as hell are not. I can’t even believe you’re faltering at this stage. Don’t you remember what happened to Adam?’
‘Don’t you dare speak to me about that boy!’ Jeffries spat back, but his vehemence was short-lived. ‘Don’t remind me about him,’ he added softly.
Adam Jeffries, John Jeffries’ eldest son, had lost his wife and child in a terrorist bomb attack. Adam had been a fireman and was first on the scene, horrified that it was his own dead family he had to pull from the burning wreckage. He had left the fire service and signed up with the army the very next day. Sent to the Gulf, the young man only lasted three weeks before an improvised explosive device blew both his legs off, leaving him to bleed slowly to death in a ditch by the side of the road, his fellow soldiers unable to retrieve the body because of enemy sniper fire.
Terrorists had taken John Jeffries’ son, daughter-in-law and grandchild in as horrible a way as could be imagined. Tomkin knew all of this, and it was one of the reasons why he had approached his old friend with the plan. Tomkin had needed some real political muscle behind the scheme, and Jeffries was the perfect match.
The trouble was, he was not a military man himself. He was the Secretary of Defence for the world’s largest superpower but he had never fired a shot in anger, nor been shot at himself. He saw things like a civilian, and had a civilian’s weaknesses.
Tomkin understood compassion, but compassion would never win wars. And that was what they were fighting. A damn war.
‘Look, John, I know it’s a morally repugnant act, what we’re doing,’ Tomkin said. ‘Maybe we’ll even be sent to hell for it. But that’s why we need to be strong. You and me. Willing to sacrifice ourselves, even our mortal souls, to protect our great nation.’
Jeffries picked up his glass from the table and took a long drink, then looked across at Tomkin. ‘You said we were going to present Spectrum Nine to the President. It was going to be his decision to use it, not ours.’
‘I’m sorry about that,’ Tomkin said. ‘But we both know that he would never give the go-ahead. The project would just end up being mothballed, never used. Or even worse, the technology would get into enemy hands and then be used against us. How would you feel then?’
Jeffries’ hands tightened round his glass. ‘It would just be. . .’
‘Easier?’ Tomkin finished for him. ‘Of course it would be. Give the responsibility to the other guy. Pushing the button yourself is much harder. You need to be stronger, much stronger.’ Tomkin paused, levelling his gaze at his friend. ‘John,’ he asked, ‘are you strong enough to go through with it?’
Jeffries finished his drink in one action and lifted his eyes to the ceiling as he asked himself the same question. Eventually, he looked at Tomkin.
‘Yes,’ he said evenly. ‘I am. We will proceed as planned.’
Tomkin nodded his head, pleased.
Now he just had to hope that Anderson could find Murray and Durham, and take care of the only two people who could still cause problems.
3
‘SO WHAT DO we do now?’ Jack asked as they sat shivering under the trees.
The forest protected them from the wind, but it was unseasonably cold, chilling them to the bone. They still had on the clothes they had been wearing since the meeting at the train station – jeans, pullovers and thin jackets – which had been sufficient for daytime in the city but were proving to be grossly insufficient for night-time in the forest.
‘Now,’ Alyssa said with chattering teeth, ‘we make a fire.’
She set about telling Jack what type of leaves, twigs and branches to look for, and then they set off to gather what they needed.
As Alyssa searched in the undergrowth which bordered the clearing they had found, she suppressed a smile, despite their situation. Jack was such a city boy, she didn’t think he’d ever had a night outdoors before. Luckily for him, she’d had plenty. Yet another thing that she and Patrick had liked to do together; nights out camping went hand in hand with the adventure sports they had always enjoyed.
Alyssa could at last think of Patrick without guilt; she was with Jack now. Through circumstance perhaps, but she was with him nevertheless, and she was finally able to accept it.
She and Jack had walked – or rather limped in exhaustion – for the entire day, careful to avoid roads and any other signs of civilization. She didn’t know how far they’d gone, but estimated their pace as no more than two miles per hour; twelve painful hours would have put them about twenty-four miles from the internment camp. Not far enough, to her mind. An attack on a federal internment camp? A resistance movement in her own country? And the response from the camp! Returning gunfire was one thing, but the use of artillery shells on native citizens was just too much. She truly never thought she’d live to see such a thing.
She had no idea where they were now, but assumed they’d made it to one of the vast national parks that bordered the city. Wherever it was, they should be safe for the time being. Nobody would be out here now; there was a curfew in place, and it wasn’t likely that people would be allowed out of the city.
They were lucky in a way, she considered as she brushed aside some surface leaves to gather the dryer leaves below. If they hadn’t been arrested and transported to the internment camp, they might never have made it out of the city. She paused, thinking about Ray Stevens. It was a shame he’d not been so lucky.
‘Alyssa!’ Jack called. ‘Alyssa! Get over here!’ He clearly didn’t seem to consider the fact that other people might hear him.
She found him kneeling by a tree, his hands hidden down some sort of large hole.
‘You’ve got to see this,’ he said, beckoning her over with a muddy finger.
The hole Jack was looking down seemed to be man-made and out of it he was lifting wallets, mobile phones, car keys, money.
Alyssa bent down to look at the cache. There were passports, driving licences, social security cards for a whole host of people, men, women and children, probably about two dozen in all.
Jack looked up at her. ‘I was looking for dry wood, like you said, and I found a big pile right here. I started to pick it up,’ he pointed to the stack of branches and twigs he’d placed to one side, ‘and then found this hole, covered with a bit of earth on top of a tarpaulin.’
‘What does it mean?’ Alyssa wondered.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, pocketing two of the wallets, along with car keys and some cash, ‘and I don’t care. But now we’ve got ID, transport, and money. That solves a lot of our problems. I’ve got IDs for a man and a woman, about our age and description. The photos are no good, but we can work on that later. I’ve no idea where the cars are, but we might get lucky.’
Alyssa knew it made sense, although she felt guilty about taking other people’s things. And that was another thing, she thought. ‘Never mind the cars,’ she said to Jack, ‘where are the people?’
‘Who cares?’ Jack said.
‘Why would they bury their ID and money out in the middle of a forest like this?’ she wondered out loud. ‘The only reason would be if they wanted to leave their old lives behind, start afresh.’
‘Why not burn it then?’ Jack asked.
‘In case they need it again. Once the threat has passed.’
‘What threat?’ Jack asked.
‘The end of the world. I w
ould guess these people have escaped into the woods to get away from what they think might be coming. They must be survivalists, maybe even extremists of some kind. You know the sort,’ she said. ‘But they don’t know for sure if it’s really true, so they’re hedging their bets.’
All of a sudden, Jack looked unsure. Scared. ‘They probably . . . They probably wouldn’t go too far from where they buried it, would they?’ he asked nervously.
‘I’m not sure,’ Alyssa answered, looking around the small clearing anxiously. ‘But—’
She never finished the sentence, interrupted by the supersonic blast of a large calibre handgun echoing from the trees behind them, and the spray of wood bark as the tree in front of them erupted from the bullet’s heavy impact.
‘Get the hell away from there!’ an angry male voice shouted from the woods and then Alyssa could hear other voices too – Did you get them? – Where are they? – Come on! – There!
There was another loud crack, and Alyssa pushed Jack aside as the tree trunk exploded just where they had been crouched, more wood splinters hitting them even as they raced for their lives into the forest, angry screams and gunfire pursuing them all the way.
Five minutes later, Alyssa and Jack crouched low, motionless behind a long row of ferns. After an all-out sprint through the forest, they were struggling to control their breathing, trying to keep as quiet as they could. They hadn’t heard the sounds of feet crashing through undergrowth for a while now, and hoped that the survivalists had either gone the wrong way, or given up altogether.
‘Do you think it’s safe to move?’ Jack asked, his voice strained from the chase.
‘I’m not sure,’ Alyssa whispered back to him.
‘It ain’t safe to move, darlin’,’ came a cold, hard voice from directly behind them.
Alyssa and Jack turned to see a large bearded man in a camouflage bush jacket staring at them, a wicked-looking hunting knife in his hand, the serrated blade ten inches long.
‘I’ve got ’em!’ he called out loudly. ‘Over by the stand of ferns!’
Alyssa felt her heart rate quicken even more as the sounds of people moving through the forest reached her once more. They were running out of time.
‘Damned government pigs,’ the man drawled through his thick beard. ‘How the hell did you find out about us?’ When his captives didn’t answer, he inched towards them menacingly. ‘Ain’t no matter,’ he said. ‘Ya goin’ tell us everything anyway.’ He turned his knife to admire the blade. ‘Ol’ Carol-Ann’s gonna see to that, ain’t ya, darlin’?’
He was talking to the knife, Alyssa realized with a sick feeling. She heard footsteps getting closer, and knew that she had to act.
The man was still admiring his knife and Alyssa surged forward, her fingers snaking out towards his face. She ignored the knife, knowing she wasn’t strong enough to wrestle it from his grasp. Instead, she drove her thumbs into the inside corners of his eyes, gouging deeply, the way she had been shown by some of the special ops soldiers she’d worked with in the Gulf.
The man screamed and dropped the knife. Alyssa ignored her feelings of disgust as she continued to drive her thumbs in, before turning them outwards, scraping the eyeballs from their sockets.
Clear, warm liquid ran down her thumbs on to her hands and wrists; one thumb slipped out with the fluid, whilst the other one came out with the eyeball itself, still attached by the slick, greasy optical nerve.
The man continued to scream as he went into a seizure, jerking in Alyssa’s hands. She let go, disgusted with herself, and felt no satisfaction as the man fell to the floor, writhing in agony.
Jack just stared in stunned amazement. Alyssa picked up the hunting knife, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away from the ferns.
She pushed through bushes and leapt over small streams and scattered branches, her mind on nothing at all but getting out of there alive. She could hear gunshots now, from different weapons – a big handgun, what sounded like a small-calibre hunting rifle, even a shotgun – but the rounds never found their mark. They came close once or twice, but mainly Alyssa could hear the bullets impacting trees well wide of their mark.
The darkness of the forest, occasionally punctuated by the light from the stars and moon whenever they reached a clearing, was both an advantage and a disadvantage. On the one hand, they couldn’t see very well where they were going, which meant that they tripped up over logs or found themselves wading through muddy bogs too many times for a fast getaway. On the other hand, their pursuers were equally disadvantaged and the likelihood of their hitting anything was remote. They were probably aiming towards the noise that she and Jack made as they crashed through the forest, but sounds could be deceptive in such an environment. Anyone aiming a weapon would also have to stop to listen and then take aim, which would slow them down. The shotgun, whose scatter-shot effect covered a large area, was a worry, though. These guys also would undoubtedly know the forest much better than she and Jack did; it was possible some of their group was circling round to some known point ahead of them to cut them off. But what options did they have? They had to keep on running, it was as simple as that.
She could hear Jack’s ragged breath next to her. At least he was keeping up. She had worried about his condition before, when they were working their way up the skyscraper’s stairwell. Sheer terror was probably doing the work for him now. Sure, there had been armed men chasing them back in the city, but out here, things were different; the alien environment and irrational, unseen pursuers ratcheted up the terror to a whole new level.
Yes, she thought as they continued to race along, terror would keep Jack right by her side.
After all, it was having the same effect on her.
Five minutes and two terrifyingly close shotgun blasts later, Alyssa and Jack came bursting out from the forest’s undergrowth into bright moonlight.
They could hear rushing water, just feet away. ‘A river!’ whispered Jack. He tugged at her arm. ‘Come on!’ he said. ‘Let’s go!’
But Alyssa could hear that the river was strong; they would have no chance crossing it. Instead, the current would simply take them downstream – to where? There might be rapids, and she imagined their bodies being smashed to pieces on the rocks.
‘Have you got a better idea?’ Jack asked, taking her hands and looking into her eyes. ‘Come on, we’ve got to do this. It’s our only chance.’
Alyssa was still reluctant. Maybe they could make their way down the river bank instead? But then another shotgun blast sounded, and Alyssa felt the passage of warm air over her shoulder as the wide-spread pellets barely missed her.
She knew he was right. She gripped his hands, nodded once, and then they turned and threw themselves into the crashing river.
The two bodies were carried downriver at a frightening pace, swept along by the violent current.
Alyssa kept trying to find Jack, grasping hold of him before losing him, time and time again. She struggled to keep her head out of the freezing, surging waters, gasping for breath in the small moments she had before the water came crashing down on her again.
The channel narrowed, the pace quickened and swept them towards huge boulders that glinted in the moonlight. But they came through unscathed, the path of the water guiding them straight down the middle, between the rocks which would have meant instant death if they’d come too close.
Alyssa lost all sense of time as the river swept them along, and was starting to lose all sensation in her body too. Somewhere in her mind, she realized she was starting to become hypothermic. She looked across the dark river for Jack, and found him moments later. Was he still alive? Spun this way and that by the current, it was hard to tell.
They would have to leave the river soon, she knew that in her befuddled mind. If they didn’t, they would die.
‘Jack!’ she called out, swallowing river water as she was taken under by the current. Her head pulled free and she called again. ‘Jack!’
‘Alyssa!’ she h
eard him call back, a huge wave of relief flooding her. ‘We need to get out of this river!’ he shouted.
‘Start to head for the left-hand bank!’ she yelled back. It was the closest, and would also put them on the other side of the river to their pursuers.
‘OK!’ Jack shouted back, and she watched as he started to struggle sideways against the current. She did the same, pushing hard against the seemingly solid wall of water.
They weren’t going to make it. It was just too fast, too powerful, and she was too weak now, her body failing after all it had been through.
‘I can’t do it!’ she heard Jack call through the dark night, hearing the struggle in his voice as he continued to try and push towards the riverbank.
‘Me neither!’ she answered. She closed her eyes. Was this the end? After coming so far, would they die in this cold, dark river?
But then the sensation of the river changed ever so slightly, seeming both to widen out and get even faster at the same time; and then she heard the roar ahead of her, a sound that began to fill her head completely.
She was carried forwards faster and faster, only able to get small breaths now and again when she forced her head up out of the water. She thought she could hear Jack screaming but couldn’t make out his words.
And then the vista opened out ahead of her, the moonlight showing the river coming to an abrupt end just twenty feet away, and she understood.
‘Waterfall!’ she heard herself screaming, even as she was pulled under and her mouth filled with cold water. Her mind went blank as she was pulled inexorably over the edge, her body plummeting two hundred feet into the watery abyss below.
4
IT WAS OVER three hours later when Alyssa finally awoke, coughing and spluttering as her eyes opened, still convinced she was drowning.
But then she saw Jack, his arms wrapped close around her, and her anxiety eased. But where were they? She felt warm, at least. Then she realized there was a fire. She looked around her and saw they were inside a small shelter made from branches lined with ferns. Maybe Jack had more of an idea of what he was doing than he let on, she thought idly.
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