‘What were they?’ said Paul Kennedy as Wade passed. ‘What were those creatures?’
‘Beats me. But they’re not something I’d like to meet again.’
‘Have we lost them? I mean, they can’t catch up with us, can they?’
The middle-aged man’s face was pallid, watery eyes glazed with shock. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Is young Steven dead?’
Wade had to answer truthfully. ‘He’s dead.’
‘Are you certain?’ Kennedy pursued. ‘What if he’s wounded, shouldn’t we go back for him?’
‘It’s no use,’ Wade said flatly.
‘He’s a young boy, for heaven’s sake!’
‘Well now he’s a dead young boy,’ Wade remarked tiredly. ‘Sorry, but there really is nothing more we can do for him. Our priority is to avoid the same fate, to stay alive.’ He saw how beat-up everyone was, how petrified. ‘Look, we ought to eat and drink. We’ve had nothing all day. We were about to share out the food when…’ He lowered his head. ‘We need to eat. Martin, you’ve got the bag of food, right?’
‘Eat?’ said Paul Kennedy. ‘At a time like this? When a poor young man is lying dead or wounded out there.’
‘Well I’m famished,’ said Hartshorn. ‘Let’s eat, like the man says.’
‘I thought you weren’t sharing,’ said Amanda.
Hartshorn offered a sickly, apologetic smile. ‘Yeah, well you thought wrong.’ He offered up the chocolate bars and packet of crisps he had stuffed into his pockets.
‘We ought to say a prayer for Steven, at the very least,’ said Paul Kennedy. He looked to his wife for support, but she simply shrugged, her shoulders slumped. ‘A prayer to God to help us would not go amiss at this moment.’
‘Suit yourself,’ said Wade. ‘I’m not going to waste my breath.’
He went to Bolan, who was taking out the meagre contents of the carrier bag and arranging it on a seat. ‘There’s not a lot. Even if we ration this carefully we’ll be lucky if we can make it last two, maybe three days, tops. None of us came on this ride prepared for anything like this.
The man’s hands were shaking, Wade noticed. ‘So you’re a copper.’
‘I am,’ he replied.
‘Sent after me.’
He agreed with a nod. ‘We were going to try to arrest you at the next stop. We had to be careful none of the other passengers got hurt. We knew you were armed, possibly very dangerous. I was put on here to keep an eye on you until such a time as we could separate you out from everyone and make our move.’ He smiled wanly. ‘Guess that’s not going to happen in a hurry.’ Sighing, he ran a tremulous hand over his head. ‘Back there – you saved my life. You were willing to put yourself in danger to help me…’
‘Just years of training kicking in.’
‘I mean it, I owe you one. Look, I don’t know the truth as to what happened with you and your family, all I know is you’re the number one suspect. You ran and you have the murder weapon by all accounts. You made yourself guilty in doing that.’
‘I didn’t run. I was out for revenge.’
‘So who did it, if it wasn’t you?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘Why? Surely if you know the killer you should tell us. We can get him.’
Wade’s eyes stung with tiredness. ‘And have him put behind bars? The man has to die for what he did to my family. And when this is all over he’s going to do just that.’
‘I can’t let you just go ahead and kill someone…’ said Bolan.
‘Out here there’s nothing any of us can do, is there?’ Wade observed. ‘So I guess we have a kind of truce until we end this nightmare.’
‘Okay,’ said Bolan, ‘but as soon as we get rescued I’m arresting you.’
‘And I’m going to try and avoid that. How many bullets have you got left?’ he said, changing tack.
Bolan checked his gun. Four. You?’
‘Three. Not a lot if we meet any more of those things.’
‘You think we will? Maybe we outran them.’
‘And what if they are all over this place?’
Bolan released a breath. ‘It’s a nasty thought. He opened the packets of chocolates, crisps and biscuits and put them into a tidy pile. ‘I know he’s an arsehole, but don’t kill Hartshorn, there’s a good man.’
Wade grunted. ‘I’m not a murderer.’
‘So you keep saying. How do you want to do this?’ he asked, looking down at the alarmingly small mound of food. ‘Not that I think anyone is particularly hungry now.’
‘Let’s stretch this to four days’ worth of rations.’
‘That’s going to be difficult. You really think we’ll need four days?’
‘Personally, I think we’re stuck here for far longer than that. But if people think we have only four days to get through it will give them hope.’
Bolan narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. ‘And after four days?’
‘Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it, eh?’
‘Sure.’ He touched Wade’s arm. ‘Seriously, I have to thank you…’
With a twitch of the shoulder Wade stood and looked back down the bus’s aisle. Paul Kennedy had everyone, including Hartshorn, gathered around him. They each had their eyes closed and heads bowed in prayer, and Kennedy was mouthing something Wade couldn’t hear.
At least it put a lid on the mounting hysteria, Wade thought. He caught Kennedy’s eyes as he looked up from leading the prayers.
There was a surprising heap of distrust and uncertainty in them.
17
A Nice Ring to It
She pulled out a small torch, shone it on the map, careful not to let any light stray out to betray her position. It should be around here somewhere, she thought. Her breath drifted out in voluminous, wraith-like clouds, wrapped itself around the map and vanished. The air was freezing, and her combat gear, whilst designed to protect the wearer from below-zero temperatures, was finding it difficult to cope with the sudden drop. An icy wind blasted her face, rustling the dry bushes and causing her to flinch at the sound.
Was there something moving out there?
Her nerves on edge, she turned off the torch, pocketed the map and slid her assault rifle off her shoulder and released the safety, the cold of the metal felt through her gloves. The engine of the motorbike grumbled away to itself, like a dog waiting impatiently for its master. She could smell the exhaust fumes wafting over to her, acrid and yet faintly comforting, never failing to be amazed at how substantially heightened all the senses were out here in the Heights. She lowered her night-vision goggles over her eyes and scanned the flat horizon, the stars in the night sky burning so bright and pin-sharp through the goggles they were almost dazzling in their fiery intensity.
She began to shiver. The cold was beginning to find its way through her clothing far too fast for her liking. She had to find shelter soon. It wasn’t wise to stay outdoors at night any longer than necessary, for if the intense cold didn’t get you – and as night progressed it would drop even colder – then there was always the chance that a bonesnapper or two might find her, and then, caught out in the open and on her own, chances are it really would be all over. And what’s more, she wasn’t entirely certain she’d lost her pursuers.
Was it Lindegaard’s men? Or other combatants? Other than the two armoured vehicles she hadn’t encountered anyone else out here, as if the sector was on lockdown, swept clean except for herself and her pursuers. The only thing that made sense was that Lindegaard’s team had spotted her presence and sent in the Sentinels to flush her out before she could do any damage. How on earth had they managed to pinpoint her entry in the Heights? She’d assured everyone everything would be fine this time, especially following a number of near misses.
But the one saving grace was that they can’t know where she is now or they’d be swarming all over her like flies around shit. So they’d lost her signal, perhaps for good, but she couldn’t afford to believe that. She’d have to remain vi
gilant.
Were they aware of Samuel Wade, figured out he was her next target? What if they were simply waiting for her to show up at the coach? And could she reach him before the coach entered that godforsaken patch of land known as Cain’s Territory? If the coach blundered blindly into one of Cain’s patrols that could make things doubly difficult for her.
The wind tore across the land. Presaging a sandstorm, she thought. Though that wasn’t always the case in the Heights. You never took anything for granted, not even the weather – especially the weather. But it was hellishly cold. She needed that cover now.
She put away the night-vision goggles, mounted the motorcycle, rode it some way over the rough terrain and down into a dried river gully that had not seen a river in decades, heading to where the map said she’d find the bolthole. She dismounted the bike and shone her torch at the steep bank ahead.
It had to be here somewhere.
The temperature was falling rapidly, and the wind-chill didn’t help matters any. The hand that held the torch was shaking violently now. Come on, girl, are you blind or what? Jesus, they did a great job of hiding this particular bolthole – too good a job, in fact.
Then the torch beam landed on something that caught her eye. She stepped over to it, her hand reaching out and touching camouflage netting. With a sigh of relief she pulled it back to reveal a rusted metal door. Swiftly, she tapped a code into the keypad near a small handle. There was an audible click as the door lock slid reassuringly open.
The noise at her back caused her to swing round rapidly, her assault rifle immediately at the ready, her body tensed.
The growl to her left caused her insides to freeze over. Then another throaty rumble to her right somewhere. Bonesnappers. Their distinctive heavy breathing plain to hear, the soft brushing of their bodies against unseen shrubs, the sprinkle of stones as one of them descended the bank immediately to her right. Another sound on top of the bank behind her, above her. They were surrounding her. Four or five of them at a guess.
Her mouth dry, she reached back and clasped the door handle, giving the hefty door a sharp tug to open it. The hinges were rusty and gave a squeal in protest.
More movement, this time ahead of her. She shone the torch into the pitch-black. It lit up the reflective green eyes of a monstrous bonesnapper. Galvanised by the light into action it lurched forward, its movement neither animal nor human but somewhere in-between, the beam lighting up its wide red jaws lined with murderously sharp dripping teeth as it roared loudly.
She dropped the torch, opened fire with the rifle, a number of bullets ripping into the beast’s broad torso, causing it to stagger and veer to its left. But with a yelp it checked itself and locked onto the woman again, dashing towards her. She fired again, the flashes of the gun lighting up other bonesnappers preparing to lurch into the attack.
The creature dropped to the ground a foot away from her, its body thrashing madly in its death throes. She hauled on the metal door and swung it open just as another beast dropped down from the bank above her. She backed into the narrow passage beyond the door, sending a sharp burst of bullets into the animal, the noise deafening in the confines. It shrieked in pain, backing off just enough for her to pull the door shut on it as it gathered its senses and launched itself at the metal barrier. She locked the door, listening to the wild screeching beyond, the rasping of claws and the mad beating of bodies against it.
She sank to her knees in the darkened tunnel, her legs weak, her breathing rapid. There was the smell of gun-smoke in the air, the assault rifle’s barrel hot against her gloved hand.
‘Oh Jesus,’ she declared, ‘that was too close…’
She groped in the dark and found the switch for the light on the wall. The two bare bulbs lit up a long, narrow passage, the walls and low ceiling constructed of large concrete blocks. Doing her best to ignore the frenzied commotion outside, she moved swiftly down the passage, which opened out onto a small, square room. There was a metal-framed bed in one corner, no pillow, a coarse woollen blanket the only bedding. To her left was a stack of wooden crates that reached halfway to the ceiling, to her right dark-green metal boxes of various sizes. It was these that attracted her attention. She went over to one of them and unfastened the clips on the lid. Inside were a number of small arms and boxes of ammunition for them. Closing it up, she moved the box aside and started on another. Grenades. She took a number of these and put them into her backpack, quickly moving to another long box where she found an AT4 anti-tank weapon wrapped in a bed of straw. It looked old and tired, battle-scarred, but she lifted it out all the same, taking some comfort from it as she carefully checked its black tube-like length. Yet another box contained an FN MAG machine-gun. Model 60-20, she thought. There were ammo belts sitting inside the same box. Being too heavy and bulky she’d not be able to lug this along with her, which was a pity, she thought, as it could prove very useful. But she knew she could only take so much with her, grateful for the replenishing of her meagre stock of weapons.
There was a small gas stove, which she fired up, glad of the tiny amount of heat it gave out, and then she searched the crates for food. She quickly found bottles of water, packets of biscuits and dried noodles, tins of beans and meat – basic but sufficient, all of which she set about with gusto, thinking that the Heights even had an effect on the depth of her hunger, and that a simple tin of corned beef had rarely tasted so good.
Finally, the sound of the animals outside the door subsided as they gave up and slinked away. Her motorcycle was still out there, but she knew it was suicide to go back outside to check on it until dawn. It was her only means of transport, and she hoped the bonesnappers, in their wild frustration, hadn’t taken it out on the bike and badly damaged it. They’d been known to attack anything that was out of the ordinary.
There was a faint and almost relaxing hum from a small generator sitting in another corner of the room as she sat down on the bed and checked the map. Cain’s Territory was still a number of miles off, so she needn’t worry too much about that, and she wasn’t certain if the coach had enough fuel on board to even get that far, or whether they’d attempt the hazardous drive at night. But if they did she might not be able to catch up to them in time to prevent them from wandering over the border into Cain’s Territory. She couldn’t move until dawn. Between them, the cold and the bonesnappers had seen to that. All she could do was sit the night out. Not something she could do with any degree of patience, and that was a commodity she’d always been pretty short of. She’d never been patient – her pants full of ants, her father used to say. Always having to be on the move, never settling on one thing long enough. He’d often said it jokingly, but she guessed he’d secretly despaired of his daughter ever achieving anything worthwhile. How many degrees had she attempted and flunked? Three? Girl, he’d say, you must buckle down at some point. He praised her for her passion, though, once fired. Like a terrier with a rat, he would tell her.
Some would call her a fanatic. She preferred to call it being zealous. She was aware how very real the threat to her life was, more so out here in the Heights. But she guessed deep down that this almost constant nearness to death was also part of the thrill that, perversely, kept her feeling alive.
So was that it? Subconsciously, deep down, at heart, whatever you’d like to call it? At a fundamental level do you do all this simply for the thrill? Or because you want to escape being who you really are?
She’d asked herself this many, many times. An argument building up inside her head in which principles and basic humanity vied with pleasure and thrill-seeking. Like two warring gods throwing shards of lightning at each other and bringing on another headache that even the strongest tablets couldn’t keep down.
Forget it, she told herself. It does you no good keep going over it like you do. Concentrate solely on the mission.
She finished her food and washed it down with water, filling up her water bottle with the remainder from the two-litre bottle. Out of curiosity she
checked the name on her dog tags.
Lieutenant L. Keegan.
She wondered what the L could stand for. Linda? Lorraine? Lucy? She settled on Linda.
Linda Keegan. It had a nice ring to it.
18
Cobalt
‘Let me get one thing straight, Villiers, you and me, we’re headed for a showdown if you ever pull a stunt like that again. You’re damn lucky you aren’t already paying the price for your stupidity.’
‘Stupidity?’ Villiers raised an eyebrow, but that was the only sign he allowed to flag up that he was even marginally bothered by what Robert Napier was saying. He also knew that his coolness was bothering Napier terribly, and that the man couldn’t do a thing about it, not with Lindegaard watching his back. It felt good to see the powerful second-in-charge squirm with something verging on helplessness, blustering on like he did with all the ferocity of a kitten’s mewling. ‘It was hardly stupid. I got us the results Mr Lindegaard wanted,’ he responded calmly.
‘He didn’t want someone’s brains blown out in a crummy hotel room.’
‘It was all cleared up. No one will ever be able to trace what happened back to us. With due respect, Mr Napier, I don’t see Mr Lindegaard complaining.’
‘I’m complaining, Villiers,’ Napier burst, a little too loudly, revealing his inner anger. ‘You murdered someone, Villiers.’
Napier knew he had to play this carefully. Something else was playing out here and, even though it seemed unlikely, this snivelling little toe-rag Villiers was a tiny part of it. Exactly what that part was remained a mystery. What was Lindegaard doing supporting the actions of this loose cannon? It went against the grain, surely. Where did Villiers fit into the grand scheme of things? Lindegaard would never have suffered such an indiscreet, off-the-bat action before. So maybe he was desperate, so desperate as to resort to desperate measures, anything to crush CSL, the organisation that had become his own private little demon. Anything that yielded results pounced upon with glee. But murder? It sickened Napier, but he knew he had to hang in there a little while longer.
Armageddon Heights (a thriller) Page 15
