School's Out Forever (afterblight chronicles)

by Scott K. Andrews

  “But?” she asked, dreading his answer.

  “They’ve decided the south coast ports are getting too dangerous. We think they’re coming in via Grimsby and straight to Manchester.”

  “And that’s a problem, why?”

  “We don’t have anyone on the inside in Manchester.” He looked up at her and took a deep breath. “We don’t think they have a pet doctor up there yet, though.”

  “Right,” said Kate, not quite following his logic.

  “And in the next few days he’s got a massive shipment of girls arriving there, the first to go direct, bypassing London.”

  “Which would mean they’d send for me to help process the girls.”

  “We hope so, yes.”

  “And you’d follow me so I could lead you straight to them?”

  “That’s the general idea.”

  Kate considered this for a moment. “I’d still be in there when you stormed the place, right?”

  Cooper held her gaze firmly. “It’s the only way. You’ll be away from home so they’ll let you sleep the night there, I guess, before driving you back.”

  “Oh great. That’s just what I want, a night stuck in a portacabin with those bastards.”

  “Which is why we’ll take them as soon as you lead us there.”

  “And how exactly will I do that?”

  “You’ll need to carry some kind of tracking device.”

  Kate shook her head firmly. “They frisked me last time. They’d find something like that.”

  “This will be well disguised. Trust me, they’ll have no idea it’s there.”

  “Wait a minute. You’ll take them as soon as I get there? You mean I’m going to be in the middle of a police raid?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be there and I’ll make it my first priority to get you to safety.”

  Kate did not feel reassured.

  “So I should expect to get a phone call in the next couple of days,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  Cooper considered her, biting his lip. “I’ve still not told my boss about you, you know. I’m keeping you completely off the books. With the operation nearing completion, the risk of a leak from within the Met is too great. I still don’t know who Spider’s got on the inside and until I do, I’m playing my cards very close to my chest.”

  “But surely the operation you’re proposing is going to require a lot of manpower.”

  “Yeah. I’m bending the rules a bit there.” Kate waited for him to elaborate, but “it’s not exactly ethical”was all he said.

  “Fuck ethics,” said Kate, suddenly impassioned. “If this works, you’ll be in a position to shut him down for good.”

  Cooper smiled. “Let’s hope so. As they say in all the good movies: so now we wait.”

  “However shall we pass the time?”

  Cooper looked surprised and Kate cursed inwardly. Too obvious. Inappropriate. Stupid. Damn.

  He registered her embarrassment and smiled. “I have an idea or two,” he said.

  KATE LIFTED HER face out off the blue crash mat and groaned.

  “This,” she said pointedly, “was not what I had in mind, Detective Inspector Cooper.”

  Cooper laughed as he bent down and held out a hand. She grabbed it and allowed herself to be helped to her feet.

  “Again, Sanders. And stop going easy on her,” he said.

  “Sir,” said the massive, muscled soldier who had just thrown Kate to the floor like she weighed less than a feather pillow. “Now remember what I said, Miss Booker, duck under the attack, grab, pivot and throw.”

  “Soldier, you’re three times the size of me. I don’t have to duck under your attack, I just have to stand here and let it pass over my head.”

  The soldier smiled and held out his great meaty hands, ready to attack once more. Kate sighed and prepared to meet his attack. She placed her feet wide apart and raised her own hands, practically doll like in comparison. “Come on then, let’s…”

  But he was already moving, and once again Kate didn’t manage even the most rudimentary defensive manoeuvre. She was face down on the mat again before the second was out.

  “Perhaps we should…”

  “No,” said Kate firmly as she peeled her face away from the sticky plastic. “Let’s go again.” She got to her feet. “You really know how to show a girl a good time, Cooper,” she said. The policeman just smiled and waved from the bench at the side of the dojo.

  Five more attacks, five more humiliations until finally, on the sixth go around, she managed to get a hand to his wrist and a shoulder to his stomach. She tried the lift, but it was like trying to topple a solid granite statue. After straining for a few moments, she gave up and allowed herself to be flattened once more.

  “Better,” said Sanders. “Anyone not trained would have been thrown by that.”

  Kate scowled at him. “The men I’m dealing with are ex-Serbian military, Sanders, and one of them is even bigger than you.”

  Sanders cast a curious glance across at Cooper, who nodded once.

  “Right,” said the soldier. “In which case, I think we’re taking the wrong tack. Tell me, Miss Booker, have you ever fired a gun?”

  “She won’t be armed, Sanders,” said Cooper. “Too dangerous.”

  “Still, they’ll be carrying guns, yeah?” Sanders countered.

  Again Cooper nodded.

  “Then it can’t hurt, can it? Come on, Miss Booker, let’s get you kitted up.”

  Sanders led Kate out of the gym and across a sparse concrete courtyard ringed with old single storey buildings. It was about midday but although Cooper had driven her here some hours before, she still had little clue where exactly here was. It was only when she saw a group of men in the distance, running into woods dressed entirely in black, carrying guns, that the penny dropped.

  “Not exactly an engineer,” she muttered as she entered the long building that housed one of the SAS firing ranges.

  “WHY DID YOU do that?” Kate asked as they pulled out of the driveway, several hours later.

  She had been thrown and chased, beaten and bruised, and taught how to shoot a variety of weapons. She had, she reluctantly admitted to herself, rather enjoyed firing guns. The power of it was exciting.

  “If anything goes wrong, you could find yourself in the middle of a firefight. It’s important you be ready.”

  “Of course I’m not ready. You think a day like that is all it takes to get me ready for a warzone?”

  “No,” replied Cooper quietly. “But it’s all I could think to do.”

  Kate blushed, ashamed. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “So were you one of them, them, in the army?”

  “If I had been, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. And if I were to cash in some favours by asking old friends to give you a workover, then it would have to be a very well kept secret indeed if I wanted to avoid having my bollocks cut off and fed to me by big men in balaclavas.”

  Kate couldn’t tell whether he was joking or not. “My lips are sealed,” she said.

  “Good. But remember what you learned here today. It could save your life.”

  “You promised me…”

  “That nothing could go wrong. I know. And it shouldn’t. But there are always factors that can’t be foreseen.”

  “Cooper, can I ask you something?”

  He nodded, keeping his eyes on the road.

  “Why is my brother really working for Spider?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s a student. He’s nothing special. He has no special skills or contacts. There’s nothing he can do that one of Spider’s normal henchmen can’t. I’m a doctor, I understand why I’m useful to him. But James?”

  There was a long silence as Cooper kept his eyes on the road. Eventually he said: “Spider is gay. And he likes them pretty.”

  Kate hadn’t thought anything about this business could make her feel any more wretched. She had been wro
ng.

  They drove the rest of the way home in silence. Cooper pulled up outside Kate’s building as the clock on the nearby church struck eight.

  “Home sweet home,” he said.

  “Want to come in for a nightcap?”

  He turned and looked at her, lips pursed, appraising. “No, Kate. Best if I don’t. Maybe once this is all over…”

  “Right, yes, of course. I only meant a coffee anyway. I’ll see you soon, I guess.”

  “Definitely.”

  “Okay, off I go. And thanks for today.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  FOUR DAYS LATER, Kate was sitting in the back of a Ford Focus on the M1 north. The giant was crammed into the front passenger seat and the yellow toothed man who kept smiling at her was driving. The stereo was playing some awful Euro-pop.

  The rain was coming down in sheets and the windscreen wipers were barely able to cope as they weaved in and out of the traffic. She didn’t envy anyone who was trying to follow them through this deluge. She resisted the urge to check the mobile phone in her pocket. The transmitter inside was working, Cooper had checked it himself yesterday. All she could achieve by fingering it was to draw attention to it, which was the last thing she wanted.

  Somewhere out there in the downpour, Cooper and his team were gathering, ready for the kill. After her visit to Hereford, Kate had a suspicion that she knew what Cooper had meant by ‘bending the rules’. She had seen footage of the Iranian Embassy siege. She knew what to expect and she knew what to do. She was pretty sure that she’d be seeing Sanders again by the end of the day and that thought reassured her; he inspired confidence somehow, even more so than Cooper.

  Everything was going to be fine, she told herself. This has all been planned by professionals. Nothing can go wrong.

  The giant turned in his seat and looked back at her. He held out his hand.

  “Give me phone,” he said.

  “Sorry?” she asked, taken by surprise.

  “Phone.”

  “Why?”

  He didn’t say anything, just kept his hand held out, impassive.

  Kate gulped and reached into her pocket, removing the phone and handing it to him.

  “Careful with it, eh. That’s top of the range,” she joked, trying not to reveal her sudden terror.

  The giant wound down the window and tossed the phone out onto the motorway. The window closed with a soft buzz of internal motors.

  “What the fuck was that for?” she yelled.

  The giant turned again and held up a little black plastic box with a small LED that flashed red. “Boss not like bugs,” he said, matter of fact. Then he turned back and returned to staring out at the lorries as they sped past, each carrying a cloud of spray behind it.

  Kate sat there knowing with total certainty that she was a dead woman.

  Two hours later they pulled up outside a huge Victorian warehouse in Moss Side. Kate knew where they were because the giant had not told her to look at the floor and had not bothered with the sleep mask. That they didn’t take such rudimentary precautions confirmed to her that she was not going to be allowed to walk out of wherever they were taking her.

  The giant unfolded himself into the street and pulled her door open, ushering her inside the warehouse through big black wooden doors. The rain was still pouring, and the air was saturated with the hoppy aroma of a nearby brewery.

  The ground floor was massive and unsegregated. Racks of cheap clothing stretched away on all sides into the gloom. The giant led Kate to the stairs and they went up two storeys. The second floor was also full of cheap clothes, this time in piles on tables, being sorted by a small group of women, Kate guessed Somali but she couldn’t be sure. This floor had a wall running across it, and the giant led her to a small door which, incongruously, had a keypad lock. He typed in the code and the door clicked open.

  The other side of the door was a different world. Kate walked from a low rent sweatshop into a plush corridor decorated with velvet wallpaper, laid with deep red carpets and decorated with modern art prints and photographs, all soft core, nothing too obvious.

  The next door led into a lobby area that felt more like a lounge or a bar. Leather sofas and armchairs dotted the room, ringing small round tables with table lamps on them, casting a soft glow. There was an unmanned bar in the far corner..

  “Sit,” said the giant without looking at her. She did so as he left by a small door beside the bar, going deeper into this hidden world.

  Kate sat there, collecting her thoughts. The transmitter was gone, so all Cooper knew was that she had been taken. He’d have no idea where she was now unless he’d been able to physically keep the car in sight at all times. She figured the torrential rain made that unlikely.

  She was on her own. There was no cavalry coming.

  Worse than that, Spider would know by now that she had betrayed him. He might react in a number of ways. He could kill her outright, but she thought at the very least he’d want her to examine the new intake first. Alternatively, he could disappear her into his system, send her to some dank cellar or a dungeon somewhere to be kept on ice ready for a client who fancied a girl who’d put up a fight. That seemed most likely. After all, she was a resource he could use to turn a profit.

  She told herself to stay calm and clear headed. As long as she was alive, there was a chance she could find a way to alert Cooper.

  The wild card here, she knew, was her brother. What might Spider do to him?

  She didn’t have to wait long for an answer.

  The internal door swung open and Spider entered. He was wearing a different but equally well cut suit, this time of dark purple. His face was impassive and he moved with controlled, almost robotic precision. He walked behind the bar without acknowledging her, took a glass from beneath the counter and poured himself a whisky before looking up at Kate.

  “Drink?” he said.

  Kate considered for a moment before nodding. “Red wine, please.”

  He took a wine glass down from a shelf and began to open a bottle.

  “I thought we had an understanding, Miss Booker,” he said as he pulled the cork out with a soft pop.

  Kate thought it best to stay silent.

  “I thought that you understood the consequences of betrayal,” he continued, pouring the wine into the large glass.

  “My lieutenant thinks I should give you to him. He thinks it would be fun to rape you while strangling you. Although he enjoys fucking them, I think he does not like women very much. He likes to cut them with the bayonet his grandfather used in the Second World War. He keeps it very sharp.” The glass full, he put the bottle down, walked over to Kate and handed her the drink. “Does that sound like an appropriate punishment to you, Miss Booker?” he asked.

  She took the glass and had to put it down immediately, as her hands were shaking too badly to hold it steady.

  Spider remained standing, looking down on her. “I worry, though, that if I were to let him have his way with you, you would not learn your lesson.”

  The internal door swung open again and Kate stifled a cry of fear as she saw her brother being led into the room by the giant.

  He saw her and smiled. “Hi Kit,” he said. Then he registered the fear on her face and the single minded focus with which Spider was regarding her, and his step faltered.

  “I think,” said Spider quietly, “that a different punishment would be better.” He turned to James and smiled. “Hello, Booker.”

  “Hi Boss,” said James, giving the most unconvincing smile Kate had ever seen.

  “James, how long have you been working for me?”

  “Ooh, six months now, I reckon.”

  “Six months.” Spider nodded. “You have been a good worker.”

  “Er, Boss,” said James, trying not to let his fear show. “What’s up?”

  “Your sister has betrayed me to the police. She tried to bring a transmitter here with her.”

  Kate met James’ eyes and she saw
all the hope vanish in an instant, replaced by total despair. Spider reached into his jacket and pulled out a huge hunting knife, shiny and sharp. He turned and walked over to James and caressed his cheek with the sharp edge, tenderly.

  “I like you, James,” said Spider.

  “I, I like you too, Boss,” James stammered.

  “You have kept me amused far longer than most lovers, but I don’t think you do like me. Not really,” replied Spider, who was now standing close to James, pressed up close to him. “I think you are scared of me. And that is how I like it. The one thing my lieutenant and I have in common is that we both know there is no enjoyment to be had from fucking someone who is not scared of you.”

  Kate found her voice at last. “Stop this. Please,” she said, rising to her feet. “He’s done nothing wrong. It’s me you’ve got the problem with, Spider. There’s no reason to hurt him.”

  “What do you think, James?” asked the Serbian, standing behind the terrified young man, chin resting on his shoulder, knife pressed up against his temple.

  James had nothing to say.

  “Do you think I should kill you? Or perhaps your sister?” There was no reply. “Petar wants her. You know what he would do to her.”

  Tears began to stream down James’ cheeks but still he stayed silent.

  “You still need me to examine the new shipment of girls,” said Kate, desperately.

  Spider shook his head. “Once I learnt of your betrayal I diverted that container. To the bottom of a river.”

  “I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” said Kate, using the only bargaining chip she had left. “I know the policeman who’s running the operation. I can lead you to him.”

  “Do you mean DI Cooper?” he laughed. “We know all about him. What else you got?”

  Kate had nothing else.

  “Thought so,” said Spider.

  Then he pushed the knife through the thin bone plate on the side of James’ head, straight into his brain.

  SHE DOESN’T REMEMBER what happened next. All that survives is a sound; a low keening that goes on forever and ever. The second the knife went in, the world went black and her mind stopped creating memories.