A mismatch of old and new lodgings stood side by side when spaces in the older part of the town were utilised. Dotted in amongst the Georgian and Victorian houses, terraces and official premises was the occasional new build which now occupied grassy areas big enough to fit the purpose.
Briggs turned to reach for the camera, then stopped. At first he thought he may have imagined it, but when he looked again he realised he was correct and there was a faint glow coming from the grand 18th century building fifty yards ahead on the right. He reached for the heat detector and pointed the scope at the upstairs window, then smiled when a warm, flickering flush appeared in the centre of the screen.
He returned to the back of the vehicle, popped open the boot and put the camera back into its casing. He unclipped the small LED night vision light and attached it to a strap at the back of the enclosure, then released a large box secured with Velcro tape and opened the lid.
The container spread out into three parts to reveal an array of weapons. First from the box was a belt, which he fastened around his waist. Next was a semi-automatic, which he loaded with a clip and slotted into its housing near the buckle. Two knives followed: the first was a small neck dagger, which was placed into a holster inside his jacket, and the second was a fixed combat blade with a serrated edge along one side, which was slotted into a sheath tied against his leg. Finally, Briggs retrieved a small handgun. He checked the chamber for bullets before holstering it into his coat on the opposite side to the knife. He grabbed a handful of extra clips, popped them into a small bag settled on the belt at the base of his spine, switched off the light and closed the boot. He locked the car, then strode towards the building.
As he drew closer, the glow from the window became more distinct. A soft orange flicker, from a nearby, but out-of-view source, licked up the glass and across the frame. Its effect was pleasing and psychologically it seemed to lift the bitter cold even from the street.
He looked for a way in. The large double doors appeared to be firmly closed, but when he stepped up and tried the handle, he was delighted to find they were actually unlocked.
He pushed against the wood then stopped when a slight groan was amplified by the inner chamber. He continued more slowly, controlling the swing until the door was wide enough to step through before he entered the building, then turned and closed the barrier behind him.
A large open foyer covered in stone tiles was lit gently by the light from a half moon, revealed when the clouds began to clear.
A reception desk was on the left and across the hall two staircases led to the upper floors.
He quickly scanned the area, confirming he was alone, before moving away from the safety of the door and heading up to the next level.
A long passage on the first floor landing led off to the right.
The upper floor was carpeted, unlike the foyer, so he was unconcerned about the risk of being heard. Still, he prowled rather than walked the corridor, carefully placing his feet until he drew close to a door, where he slowed further when a faint glow bleeding beneath the base confirmed this was the room he had seen from the street.
He stopped outside and was just about to ready his gun when, “Who the fuck are you?” came from behind.
Briggs spun around to find a man, carrying a torch, halfway down the passage. Quickly he assessed the situation.
He appeared to be returning from the washroom as he carried a bar of soap and had a towel draped over his left arm. Although he was fully dressed, Briggs could not see a weapon. Despite this he knew he would have to act fast, as there was a chance the man was not alone and might call out to alert his friends that he was being attacked.
He seemed shocked to see Briggs and despite his outward bravado, had stopped for a moment, keeping his distance away from the soldier. He recovered quickly, though, and moved swiftly down the corridor to confront the renegade face to face. “I’m speaking to you,” he said aggressively. “Who the fuck are you?”
His confidence had grown and Briggs guessed there was a chance this indicated there were others nearby, more than likely inside the room. He had to silence the man quickly before he was discovered.
Briggs stepped up, closing the gap between them to just a few yards.
“Stay where you are,” the man ordered. He dropped his toiletries and reached for his belt.
For a moment Briggs saw the glint of a gun, previously concealed by the towel, caught in the light from the torch.
Fumbling briefly, his motor functions unaccustomed to automatically finding the weapon, the man cast his eyes down.
This was the move Briggs was waiting for.
The last of the man’s life was composed of sounds rather than sight. The soft hiss of the blade being extracted from the sheath, the gentle whoosh as it flew through the air and the thud as it impacted his chest, stopping his heart immediately. He crumbled to the ground, hitting his head off the wall as he went down.
Briggs stepped up to the body, placed a foot onto the young man’s chest, gave the knife a twist to release the vacuum and extracted it from the body. He picked up the towel and wiped the blade clean.
“Hey, Rob!” a distant voice called. “You all right?”
Briggs returned the knife to its sheath, unholstered his semi-automatic, moved to the door and stepped into the room.
Chapter Nine
Telford Bridge, Morpeth
Jason drove over the Telford Bridge on his way into Morpeth, stopped at the roundabout and looked right.
“What are you doing,” Sarah snapped, irate. “There’s nothing coming.” She raised her hands, exasperated. “There’s never anything coming, EM pulse, remember.”
He shook his head. “I can’t get used to it.” He slipped the jeep into gear and stalled the engine. “Damn.” Quickly he went to start the car again and was just about to turn the key when the sound of gunfire echoed through the previously silent streets.
The pair looked at each other, panicked.
“Hurry and don’t stop at every junction,” Sarah urged, her words catching in her throat. “Apart from us there is nothing else on the roads except for the military.”
He revved up the engine, then floored the accelerator. The wheels for a moment were unable to get a grip and span, stripping rubber onto the road, before finally they gained enough traction for the vehicle to leap forward.
“The military?” Jason called.
The jeep had a very basic design and was equipped with the barest of soundproofing. As a result the compartment was quite noisy.
Sarah filled in the gaps. “When we travelled back to Ponteland a lorry passed us on the road. Because it was so quiet we could hear it coming from miles away. We hid in a ditch until it passed by, but as it drew near we could see into the carriage. The compartment light was on and there were three men inside. They were all wearing white overalls and one of them was obviously injured. He lay with his head against the side window and his chest was soaked in blood. They were driving an army lorry and were towing a trailer behind with some seriously heavy artillery inside: rockets, bazookas, attack rifles, stuff like that.”
Sarah went silent. She felt herself lurch towards the gear stick and grabbed the armrest on the door to steady herself as the car swung sharply left around a tight bend in the road. She looked across at Jason. “You didn’t seem too surprised and appeared to know what was going on. When I tried to quiz you on it you were reluctant to give me any more details, except to tell me that you thought Briggs would be too busy dealing with disgruntled, heavily armed townspeople to be bothering us any more.”
Jason screwed up his face and shook his head slightly. “It’s so weird. You keep saying stuff I know nothing about; stuff I didn’t do, like it was me, when it wasn’t me. I feel like I should know; it’s like I have amnesia or something.”
They rounded another bend and he drew the jeep to a halt.
“Why are you stopping?” She waved a hand at the window. “The Town Hall is in the next stre
et along.”
Jason unbuckled his seatbelt and started from the car. “Parking the jeep at the door would be foolish. It would be obvious we’ve arrived and wouldn’t just give our location away, but that of your counterpart as well. If he still can’t find her, he may just turn his attention to trying to kill us instead. We need to be discreet. We travel on foot from here.”
She stepped from the vehicle, quietly closed the passenger door and followed Jason on to the road. They travelled at a trot through the darkened, silent streets.
“It’s amazing the difference that short sleep has made,” Sarah said as she broke into a run. “What was it..? Twenty minutes, yet already I’ve got a lot more energy.”
“You went straight into a deep sleep,” Jason informed her, “that’ll be why. My only worry was, if you woke up feeling sick,” he glanced around at her, “but you seem OK.”
“Yes, I’m fine.” She smiled. “I could have done with another ten hours, of course, but you get what you can.”
They followed the line of houses and small perfectly manicured gardens, stunted in their emergence from their annual hibernation by the onset of a nuclear winter, which halted the return of spring.
By the time they reached the end of the road, the exertion was catching up with Sarah. “Wait!” she panted. She stopped alongside a narrow lane leading to a string of garages.
Jason halted a few paces ahead, his breathing just starting to quicken.
“We don’t have to join the main street.” She pointed. “We can cut through this alley and it’ll take us out onto the top end of the road, which runs directly in front of the Town Hall.” She led the way.
Refuse was strewn along the narrow lane, where an occasional bin, left out for a collection that never happened, had toppled, spilling its contents onto the ground. A scattering of paper, tins and bottles made the journey through the dark passage extremely hazardous. The noise of waste crunching under foot was interlaced by the clatter of rolling glass and tinkle of metal, when the pair accidentally kicked the debris littering the lane.
“I quickly learned how to get around whilst avoiding the main routes in the early days after the war. I was desperate at first to find other survivors, but when I found the body of a murdered woman down by the river, I became very quiet and did everything I could to avoid being seen from that point on.”
Jason looked at her, shocked. “Were there many people in the area? Do you think there was only one killer or do you think there were a few involved?”
“I don’t know. In the weeks that followed I witnessed a frightening level of brutality. I saw men being beaten and killed for not burying the dead fast enough and a dog being used as target practice by some drunken youths. And then there was Briggs and his second-in-command, Andrews, who took the brutality and horrors up to another level altogether.” She shook her head. “You don’t recover from that.”
“I’ll bet,” Jason said quietly. He waved a hand as they neared the end of the alley. “Slow down,” he instructed.
They slowed to a walk, then stopped just short of joining the road and peered out.
“Which way is the Town Hall?”
Sarah leaned forward and pointed left.
The scientist followed the direction of her finger up the straight road. He paused, then said, “I can’t really see much, but there don’t appear to be any cars parked up the street.” He stepped into the open. “Come on, let’s move a bit closer.”
Jason ran ahead, with Sarah trailing slightly behind. He could see the building’s black outline against the stars. He ran swiftly on his toes to avoid making a noise, until he drew close enough to get a clear view of the road at the front, then waited for Sarah to catch up. “There’s nothing outside.”
“He could have done what we’ve done and parked in a nearby street,” she panted.
“True. We have to go inside; all we can do is be careful. We’ll have to presume he’s there, but hope that he’s not.”
They hurried up the steps leading into the building and quietly slipped in through the front door.
They scanned the foyer to check it was empty, whilst Jason retrieved his gun, then headed for the stairs when they were satisfied there was not an ambush taking place.
“If anything happens let me deal with it,” he whispered.
“You’re a pretty good shot with that gun,” she confirmed, “but you’re not so good with your fists.”
Jason glanced at her, bemused. “Fists?”
“I got captured in the library in Alnwick, by Briggs’ men. I was tied up, beaten and interrogated in the basement. Then you rescued me.”
The corners of Jason’s mouth twitched as a rush of pride caught him off guard. He had never considered himself a coward, but would never describe himself as being brave, but here he was being told how, despite serious danger, he had saved Sarah from pain, torture and possible death.
“We got to the top of the stairs, had just left the basement and we were attacked,” she continued.
Then the bubble burst.
“You tried to punch your way out of it, but despite swinging your fists three times you only ever hit air. Andrews easily dodged you, it was almost like he was playing, before he got bored and knocked you out.” She looked at Jason deliberately. “Do not try to take this man on,” she said firmly. “He is a professional killer, we will run, hide, do anything, but please don’t think you can take him on in a fight.”
Jason nodded slowly. “OK.”
They stopped just short of the landing and Jason leaned forward to check it was clear. He moved back, mouthed, ‘it’s empty,’ then stepped off the stairs.
Sarah grabbed his arm. She pointed left when he looked around, then moved behind as the scientist led the way from the hall and entered a passage running off the landing.
A small amount of light had illuminated the upper level from the narrow windows running along the top of the walls, but as they entered the corridor they were plunged into almost complete darkness. Jason moved on a few more paces then stopped and rummaged through his bag before finally emerging with his torch.
“You can’t use that,” Sarah hissed, “we’ll be seen.”
“I’m only going to switch it on briefly to see if there’s anyone hiding at the end of the passage,” Jason whispered. “We’d be trapped and an easy target if we were to go down there and discover someone was waiting. Get ready to run,” he warned. He held his finger poised over the torch switch, then touched on and off in close succession. The wall at the far end lit up dimly, for just a moment, but enough to see that the remainder of the corridor was empty.
They passed a number of rooms on both sides of the hall and she felt Jason twitch in anticipation every time they closed in on another door. Each time she urged him on with a gentle push on his back until they drew near to the end of the passage. “It’s the last door on the right,” she whispered close to his ear, her breath gently tickling the nape of his neck.
He stopped outside of the indicated room and grabbed the door handle. He looked back. “It’s freezing.”
Sarah reached around and touched the wood. She looked up. “I always kept the fire going to keep the room warm. This door feels stony cold. I suspect there’s been no heat in that room for some time and I’m not talking hours, more like days.”
“Get behind me,” Jason instructed. He waited until Sarah moved before he turned the handle and stepped into the room. He wanted to go first, not just because of the danger, but more from fear of what they might find.
His eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the corridor so the office seemed bright in comparison.
The moon had emerged from behind its cloudy shroud to illuminate the curtainless room to the level of dusk.
Shadowy images from chairs and tables were cast like monstrous fingers across the floor towards the door as if there was an attempt to escape the deathly cold within.
“The fire’s out.” He stepped away from the frame, moving a little fur
ther in. “Wait here.” He took a good look around, confirmed there was no-one hiding, or otherwise, then beckoned Sarah in behind.
She crossed to the fire, picked up the poker and shoved it amongst the ashes. “I can’t say how long it’s been out, but it doesn’t look like it’s been used today.” She returned the rod to its stand beside the hearth and turned to face the scientist. “A group of lads that were looking for anything to use as target practice after they raided the gun shop at the top of the high street made me nervous when I heard them firing their guns off near the Town Hall. The food was starting to run low and I think they were hunting in the grounds out back. A family of deer were getting brave now that the streets had gone quiet and I’d seen them one morning wandering through the supermarket car park, which was near the woods. If I’d seen them, there’s a good chance the guys with the guns had seen them as well.”
“How many were there in the group?”
“I never saw more than five together, but there might have been more. Either way, when I realised they were hunting nearby it made me nervous so I decided I’d be better off moving to the other side of town. There was a mock castle-style Tudor mansion, with a heavily fortified front door which appeared to still be empty. The chimneys looked like they were in use, some of these old houses had their fires boarded up because they were just a source of draughts, so I would have been able to warm the rooms.” She looked around. “And, unlike this place, which was designed as a public building from the start, this was a family home so therefore there would have been bathrooms. Although I wouldn’t have had hot running water, I could at least have a proper bath, heated with a boiled kettle, and would be able to sleep in a bed again instead of trying to get comfortable on these couches every night.” She dropped her eyes, her mouth quivering. “My health was going into decline; I hoped if I could at least get a decent sleep it might help some.” She looked up and gave a slight smile. “Then you came along,” and just as quickly, it was gone, “but this other Sarah never met you and she would still be fighting to survive alone.”
Time Split - Briggs Page 5
