“One died from contaminated water, the other three from the dogs,” I replied.
“That's four - you said there were only three?”
“I have three bodies. The fourth was locked in a train station full of dogs. I didn't fancy going in after it.”
“I see.”
I sipped my coffee and sometimes dunked my biscuit in it. I loved the chocolate covered ones but these were just the plain type. The Guard finished his paperwork just as his partner returned.
“You're brave,” he said to me, seeing the biscuit in my hand. “Ted will skin you for taking his crackers.”
“Ted won't mind,” I said, taking another from the packet and offering it to him. “I let you stay in my country, it's the least Ted can do to repay me.”
“Well, that might not be an issue for much longer,” said the first Guard.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I'll let the Colonel tell you.”
“He's ready for you, by the way. Go on through,” said the second who gestured to the exit. I toasted them both with my cup and followed him out, grabbing two more biscuits as I went.
The fort was a ring of great concrete walls lifted into place by giant cranes, some of which were sat idle waiting to be loaded onto enormous cargo planes piecemeal. I knew that around this grey perimeter was a kill zone of about 50 metres that had once been lit with strobes and covered by mounted machine guns. For the last eight years those defences had become lazily dismantled due to the almost non-existent threat posed by an empty country. In fact, the last recorded assault on Fort Washington had been by a badger that had wandered blindly into the kill zone sniffing the dead remains of a seagull. True to form, the Americans had jumped into high alert only to discover the attacker had fled into the night.
“That must have been quite a tough assignment,” said the Guard. I think his name was Seb, I couldn't really remember. There were so many doing stints in England that it was hard to keep track of who was who. It was always a good idea to keep on good terms with the Yanks and my Dad must have known a hell of a lot of them in his time. They'd liked him. He'd always bring a boar or the biggest cow he could find to keep in with them. He always worried that one day he'd need them and he didn't want them sitting on their arses because they saw him as a nobody.
“You do what you've got to do,” I replied in my well rehearsed stage voice. It was the attitude I always took when people asked you questions that had an obvious answer. I didn't like to be rude for the sake of it.
“How do you do it?” he asked.
“You switch off,” I replied.
“I'm not sure I could do that.”
“Not many can.”
We walked across the dusty pathway that had been marked with cats eyes taken from the motorway. Someone had also took a few of the road signs and hammered them into the ground. On each of the prefab huts was a street sign taken from the city. I felt a little angry at that. It still wasn't theirs to take but this wouldn't be the first time they'd taken something that didn't belong to them and it sure as hell wouldn't be the last.
We walked on until we reached 'Canal Street' - the HQ of the American forces based in England. I always chuckled to myself when I saw the embossed street sign nailed above the door though none of the Yanks got the joke.
“Here we are,” said Seb who knocked, then opened the door for me. I went in and he set off back towards the gate. As I passed through the entrance my eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness. The blinds had been pulled down and only a few slanting slits of light managed to invade the inky black. It was hot and stuffy too and the reason was sat in the corner, blaring out electric heat from glowing orange bars.
“The Colonel will see you now,” said the man at a desk that served as a reception area. He was reading from a tablet and marking things down on paper. Sometimes the old ways are the best. I turned right into a tight corridor, then knocked on the door marked with a brass plaque.
COLONEL MICHAEL KORBAN
“Come in,” said a voice from behind the reinforced door. I pushed it aside and it wasn't much better in there either. The Americans seemed incapable of embracing the British weather.
“Colonel,” I said, smelling percolated coffee from somewhere within the Stygian gloom.
“Grab a cup, Miller and join us.” I looked around and saw that in a chair opposite the Colonel's desk was a soldier cradling a mug in both hands. My eyes were starting to get their act together and I could make out the Colonel sat behind his long narrow Ikea table with his back to the soldier and me, looking through a slit in the blind. He was wearing combat DPM instead of his dress uniform and his beret was on the table next to a half-eaten sandwich. Tuna mayo I think. “I'm just glad this isn't a brewery,” he said without turning from the window.
“I see you're getting the hang of English idioms,” I said. I found the percolator and refilled the cup I'd brought with me from the Guard cabin. There were no biscuits nearby. I guess Ted would really be mad.
“I've been learning them since they started broadcasting English soaps to the US. What was that street called?”
“Coronation Street,” I replied.
“That's the one. What about that city where all those beautiful women lived?”
“Chester.”
“Yeah. I went there last week. Guess what?”
“What?” I said.
“No hot ladies. Not one. Do you know what I found there?”
“Rubble?” I offered.
“Rubble. Lots of it. It's like the NSU went out of their way to level anything interesting. Do you know what they didn't level?”
“Stonehenge.”
“That's right - stone fucking henge. A bunch of boring rocks surrounded by a wall so you can't see them without paying the toll. What a crock.”
The soldier who was sat in the chair said nothing but kept sipping from the cup every now and then. I drank a little of my own coffee while the Colonel continued to look out of the window. The light that slipped past his tense form splashed onto the desk and stained the mounds of paperwork with gold. After a minute or so he turned in his chair and the light disappeared as he let go of the blinds.
“Miller, you bring me three corpses. What happened?” he said, rising to fill his own cup before realising I'd already done it for him. He sat back down and offered me the empty seat next to the soldier.
“I tracked them to the city. One broke away before that and went off on her own...” I began. “The other three chose to leave her but for some reason they took her pack off her. The girl had filled her canteen from a contaminated water source and ended up drinking some of it in desperation. I'm no doctor but I suspect it destroyed her insides and when I found her she was dead.”
“No foul play?” I shook my head.
“None that I could see, just an unfortunate accident. They had maps, they had some kind of food, but they weren't well trained. A blind idiot could have spotted the bad water.”
“You said they took her pack? Why?” I shrugged. I was aware that the soldier had turned and was looking at me, following the conversation. It was then that I realised it was a woman and a very beautiful one at that. Her blonde hair was shoulder length and feathered as it came out from under her woolly hat and her figure was well defined, a soldier's body that was used to being kept trim. She wore a simple pair of DPM combat pants and a polo-necked jumper with her I.D badge dangling between her breasts on a loop of webbing. But by far the most stunning feature she owned were a pair of the most amazing eyes - a sky blue colour, round and not marred by squinting and once you fixed your gaze on them it was very hard to tear yourself away from them. The corners of her mouth curled slightly upwards as we made eye contact and I knew that it was a silent 'hello' and one that seemed so natural it felt like we'd been friends for years. It was beauty in its best form - genuine and unsullied by lust.
“I don't know,” I said, sipping my coffee and burning my tongue on it. I suddenly felt very hot and
clammy under her gaze. “There wasn't a single clue I could find.”
“Do you want to hazard a guess?”
“It wouldn't be fair to sully the names of those lads if they'd done nothing wrong. I suspect there'd been some kind of row, a disagreement on what to do or where to go and she'd split from them. Maybe they kept the pack because they'd given it to her or something and they saw it as theirs.”
“Did you look inside the pack?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I emptied the others, I just...” The Colonel held up an understanding hand.
“No need to explain. I’ve known you a long time, Miller. I knew your Dad too. He was 'Old School' and you inherited that, there's nothing wrong with it. In fact, be proud of it because you're damn sure we'll look in that pack.”
“Thanks, Colonel. Anyway, after I found Rebecca...”
“Rebecca?” It was the soldier who interrupted me this time.
“Yes, her name was Rebecca,” I replied. “She had I.D on her. I wrapped her up and took her to the 'Rover, then proceeded to track the others. When I was sure they were going to the City I drove on as far as I could and found their trail on the outskirts. I tracked them into the centre but it was clear that they were being pursued. There was wild dog spoor everywhere and I quickly came upon the remains of the first two lads. From there I was able to track the third who'd retreated inside a train station but had managed to let the pack in after him. He was dead when I got there.”
“Can you confirm that? I'm not being a dick, Miller, but I have to go back to the families with something concrete. You know the drill.”
“I was able to look inside. The dogs had got him but they were trapped behind the shutters with him.”
“That's a run of bad luck they had out there,” said the Colonel.
“That wasn't luck,” said the soldier. “They were badly prepared and poorly trained.”
“True enough,” he replied. “Miller, I want you to meet Claudia Riley, retired US Ranger.” She extended her hand to me and we shook. She had a warm, firm grip. “She's flown over from the States and could do with your help but before all that, I suppose I should come clean with you...”
“You're leaving,” I said. “I heard.”
“I'm afraid so. How aware are you of what's been going on for the last few years?”
“What, just here or on a larger scale?” I asked, not really understanding the question. I made a point of avoiding the news if I could.
“I'm talking across the world, Miller, and judging by your response you know fuck and all about the political situation in this world.”
“I had a rough idea that when the Russians marched on Paris they would start looking this way. Why, what's your angle? Are you afraid they'll invade? They pretty much levelled the place so their only interest must surely be to grab some land before...” I held my tongue. It was obvious what the next Russian move would be and I guess that's why I was starting to be a little concerned that America was so eager to just let them take it.
“It's not the Ruskies the brass are afraid of,” he said like he'd read my mind. “It's what's going on within its own borders that bothers them. There's a lot of talk about revolution on the streets of the major US cities, of a major government overthrow that we can't just put down to crackpots any more. The President is worried. Any kind of trouble he might have to take action against will cost him votes in the upcoming election. He doesn't want to be ejected because deep down he believes he's the only one capable of getting the States through the coming NSU storm.”
“You think they have any control in the US?”
“Oh yeah, plenty!” cried the Colonel. “They've been engineering this recent trouble for decades.”
“Trouble?” I asked.
“Riots, burnings, all part of the uneasiness of the masses. They see the big bad NSU wolf huffing and puffing and they're afraid their house of red, white and blue bricks is about to fall down. They see England and fear what New York would look like with most people dead and gone. L.A. San Francisco. Even Vegas.”
“So they're calling back their troops,” I said.
“Yeah, they are. Home land defence they're calling it. I'd call it drastic measures.”
“When do you ship out?” I asked.
“The end of the week. I'm overseeing the last of the equipment lifts, then the personnel. It'll mean you'll be on your own for a while and there won't be any supplies coming any time soon. We'll leave you what we can including the items you asked for last time.”
“Thanks,” I said with little enthusiasm. I was used to being alone but somehow this was different in a bad way. It meant the loss of my only support, my only contact with other humans. Was I bothered? I hadn't thought I would be until now. Maybe I'd been wrong.
“It's a shit-sandwich,” said the Colonel, returning to the window and lifting a slat with his finger. “And even you have to take a bite. Unless of course you'd prefer to fly out of here with us.”
“I'd considered it,” I said. “But I'm not sure I could. What would there be for me in the States?”
“Your knowledge, your skill, it's teachable and maybe in the coming months it might make the difference to a lot of people who'll need to wise up and survive if things get really ugly.” From the way he said it I could see his expression despite the fact that I couldn't see his face. It was the beginning of the end for his own people and he knew it. He was looking out of the window at desolate England, the old 'Great Britain' and he was seeing New York.
“I'll give it some thought,” I said, finishing my coffee and pouring another.
“You can think about it while you help Riley here,” he said and spun in his seat to gesture to the soldier who nodded and turned to face me, those eyes tearing through me like sunbeams in the dark. She reached into a canvass bag at her feet and withdrew a manilla folder and passed it to me. Out fingers touched as the file was exchanged.
“If you're willing, I could do with your help, Miller. The folder you have there is of my nephew, Alex DuPont, a Marine of some 6 years serving aboard the aircraft carrier, the USS Dauntless, in the Gulf. The story goes that Alex was a model Marine who was average in the class room but phenomenal on the training circuit. His marksmanship, his drills, the whole package was near perfect and if it hadn't been for the poor grades he'd have easily been promoted.”
I was skim-reading the file as she spoke. “It says here he was given a medical discharge? Cause isn't listed.”
“Training exercise,” muttered the Colonel. The soldier laughed.
“Okay, what was it? I asked.
“Severe depression. It's not listed because it wasn't properly identified until he went AWOL. Then the pieces of the puzzle about his odd behaviour fitted into place,” said Riley in her lilting accent.
“How did he manage to go AWOL on an aircraft carrier?”
“He was on shore leave when he stole a taxi and fled north. He wasn't noticed missing until that evening but by then he'd melted into the sand. It was the kind of thing he was trained to do, to disappear if he needed to, escape and evade, that sort of thing.”
“You think he's here?” I said and the Colonel slow-clapped me.
“I told you he was quick,” he said to Riley.
“I have a pretty good idea he is,” she replied, doing her best to ignore the Colonel's chuckling. “I picked up a signal on the way over here, not much of one but a fragment of coded signal meant for someone else.”
“Like who?”
Riley shrugged. “Who knows? We stamp on one faction and 10 more pop up a week later. It was DuPont all right, I could tell from his sloppy Morse code.”
“And you want to track him down?” I said.
“Yes,” she replied.
“Why?”
“Because I owe my sister one and I spent half my life with that boy. I was as proud as she was the moment I saw him in his dress uniform the day he passed out. I felt like I'd contributed to it somehow, that some of the ru
nning and the drills we'd practised before hand had finally paid off.”
“Did you keep in touch after he finished basic?”
“On and off as soldiers with families do. Most of it came through my sister - we used to call each other once a week without fail. She works in D.C, some business exec or something. She would tell me a little about what he was up to but I had to warn her not to say too much over the phone especially after I'd retired.”
“So she was the one who told you about him going AWOL?” I asked.
“Yeah. I was in Africa at the time on contract. I flew home to try and help. That was when we found the letters.”
“Letters? Not email or text?”
“Yeah, that's why they stood out to us. When I arrived in Illinois I asked if I could search his room straight away to see if he'd left a note or if there was some trail I could follow. We went through it like a dose of salts and turned up nothing but a stack of letters hidden in his old kit bag.” She went into her bag again and produced the letters in a zip-loc bag, handed them to me and got up to pour herself another coffee. I took one out and had a look at it.
“Home-made paper and ink,” I said, turning it over in my hands. I lifted it to my nose and smelled the raw quality it had. “Recycled. You're thinking the only reason to do that would be if you had no access to fresh paper or a computer or a phone. Someone living here where there are none of those things.”
“Exactly.”
“How did she post them then?”
“She?” asked Riley. She'd rooted round in the cupboards and found a pack of biscuits. The Colonel was still staring out of the window and hadn't noticed. She offered me the packet after taking three for herself. I took four.
“It's a woman's handwriting. It's a personal letter. Emotional. Pleading. That's why he ran. But how did she send them?”
“We think she had help,” said the Colonel suddenly. “Someone on this base had been sending the letters for her under the guise of our own HR dispatches. They would have gone unnoticed for years.”
“Any paper trail?” I asked.
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