by Hatchett
“These are the men I have selected to go with you. All strong, brave, resourceful, reliable and loyal. They have all proved themselves in battle and the heads on poles outside are a testament to their abilities. They are also very skilled with weapons and bomb making and have learnt the art of insurgency.”
There were nine men and one woman standing in front of Mamba, all lined up, staring straight ahead as if waiting for an inspection, all wearing jeans beneath traditional jubbah’s, the three-quarter length all in one smocks. They all looked young, strong and fit and Mamba had no doubt that they were dedicated to their cause, even if it meant them losing their life. ‘Suicide bomber’ sprang to mind and Mamba decided he might want to test this theory at some point.
Mamba got to his feet and walked towards the first person in line and stared at him. Mamba noticed cuts along his cheekbones and forehead.
“That is Temel,” Sully advised. “He will speak on behalf of me.”
“What’s with the cuts on their faces?” Mamba asked, seeing similar cuts on the faces of some of the other men further down the line.
“Each cut represents the beheading of an enemy.”
“Like mine then,” Mamba pointed to his own face which was covered in scars.
“They’re all slim, in their twenties, all between five feet eight and six feet tall as discussed,” Sully continued.
“Might wanna lose the dresses,” Mamba suggested, referring to the jubbahs. “They could get in the way.”
“Let them worry about that,” Sully replied in a stern voice. “You might want to be careful what you say.” Obviously, the reference to wearing dresses hadn’t gone down well.
“I don’t want ‘em trippin’ over when the goin’ gets tough,” Mamba replied.
“Perhaps they should be wearing the same clown outfit that you’re wearing,” Sully replied sarcastically.
Mamba shrugged and moved along the line slowly, looking each of the men in the eye. Sully said their names as he passed by them; Umit, Basir, Emre, Faruk, Khalid, Osman, Mesut and Ismet. Mamba then came to the only female, a stunning looking young woman with no markings on her perfect countenance. With a start, Mamba realised that it was the pretty servant girl from the previous evening, the one he had been looking for and had designs on.
Sully noticed Mamba’s reaction. “Yes, you recognise her. All my girls are more than just pretty faces. This is Ayla. Do not be deceived by her looks. She can take care of herself and will do whatever is asked of her. Do not take her pretty face for weakness.”
Mamba smiled at the thoughts flying around his head. Ayla continued to look straight ahead.
Mamba turned to Sully. “Do you have the vehicles?”
“Yes, they have been sourced together with the equipment you requested and a few additions of our own,” Sully replied. “They are waiting outside. Do not let me down,” he added ominously.
Mamba took this as his queue to leave. He turned to find Ahmed getting to his feet.
“Right. Time we were goin’. Thanks Sully.”
“Don’t thank me yet.”
Mamba headed towards the exit, the rest of them following behind. On the way out, he and Ahmed picked up their weapons.
Once he got outside, Mamba noticed it wasn’t just raining, it was pissing down, with rain droplets bouncing off his green Defender parked on the side of the road. There were two other Defenders, one black and one grey, parked behind it. They must have gone shopping the previous night and it wouldn’t have been easy finding another two long wheelbase versions, even here in London.
Mamba motioned Temel over to him.
“Where’d ya get the wheels?”
“Car park.”
Mamba waited in case any more information was forthcoming but there wasn’t. “Have ya arranged who’s drivin’?”
“Yes.”
Mamba turned to Ahmed. “Talkative ain’t he?”
Ahmed just walked off and got into the passenger seat of the green Defender. OK, so he hadn’t forgiven Mamba yet.
“OK, let’s mount up,” Ahmed ordered. He watched as Temel and Ayla got into the back of his Defender while Umit, Basir, Emre and Faruk got in the black one and Ismet, Khalid, Mesut and Osman got in the grey one.
Mamba walked across to his vehicle, opened the driver’s door then paused. “Wait a minute, I wanna inspect the gear and there’s another thing we need to do. Temel, get yer arse outta the car and get the rest of ‘em out too.”
Mamba walked to the back of the vehicle and was met by Temel as the others got out of their vehicles, all wondering what was going on.
Mamba opened the rear door to find an assortment of weapons, packages and liquids.
“What’s all this shit for?” Mamba asked, pointing towards the packages and liquids.
“Making bombs.”
“OK.” Mamba walked to the back of the second vehicle to check its contents, followed by Temel who kept close to him like a dog on a lead. Temel explained what certain things were, then they inspected the third vehicle.
Once he was happy, Mamba turned to the exit and noted the makeshift gates and a group of Turks waiting to open them for the vehicles.
“Open the gates and let two or three zombies in,” Mamba ordered.
“What?” Temel asked. “Are you crazy?”
“Watch and learn, Temel, me ol’ son,” Mamba advised, “and if ya ever question my orders again I’ll kill ya. We don’t have time for ya ta question everythin’.”
Temel nodded to the Turks at the gate and they slowly opened them to reveal a gap which would allow the zombies to enter. It didn’t take long before three had passed through the gap and the Turks quickly slammed the gates shut in the face of the fourth.
Mamba watched the three zombies looking around before they selected a target each and began shuffling in their direction. The targets turned and sprinted off, leaving the zombies to look for new, closer targets.
Mamba watched with a smile on his face.
“What are you doing?” Temel asked, beginning to feel a little uneasy. He wondered whether this was a test for them.
When the zombies began to get uncomfortably close, Temel nodded his head and Ayla, Umit and Basir magically produced traditional Turkish swords with curved and wickedly sharp looking blades from beneath their jubbahs. They stepped forwards and with one clean swipe each, took the heads off the three zombies. They then wiped their blades on their jubbah and returned them to their hiding place beneath their clothing.
The bodies of the zombies crumpled to the floor as the heads flew a couple of metres before landing with a thud on the tarmac. One of the heads landed upright and the face was staring towards Mamba and Temel, the eyes still moving and the teeth still gnashing.
“Didn’t ya know that ya need to kill the brain?” Mamba asked, as if they were stupid. “Shoulda put live heads on the poles outside rather than dead ones. Would’ve been far more effective.”
Faruk, Osman and Mesut stepped forwards and plunged their daggers into the heads.
“That’s the way to do it,” Mamba confirmed, nodding his head. “Now we get dirty.”
As Temel looked on in confusion, Mamba strode forwards, took out his own knife and sliced one of the dead bodies straight down the middle. He then grabbed handfuls of guts and started spreading it over on his motorcycle gear.
“Gonna mess up yer dresses,” Mamba commented. “Come on, get to it.”
The rest of the group moved forwards, sliced the other two bodies open and did as they were told.
“Might have ta keep the windows open,” Mamba suggested, thinking of the smell. “Got any Vick’s vapour rub?”
“No.”
When they had all finished, Mamba was grinning from ear to ear, then he started laughing.
“Look at ya fuckin’ ghouls,” he shouted. “Ya do realise you’ll have ta do it again later. This rain’s gonna wash it all off.”
Temel trudged off in the direction of the vehicles. He’d known i
t was a test all along.
They all followed, heading towards their respective vehicles as Mamba ordered Ahmed to drive and Temel to sit in the passenger seat.
“I wanna find out what else Ayla’s got hidden under her clothing,” Mamba explained with a sly smile on his face.
Ayla showed no emotion as she got into the back of their Defender.
35
Day 11 – 10:00
Dalston Estate, East London
Once they were all in their vehicles, Ahmed started the engine and pulled up to the gates, which swung open as he drew near. He hit the accelerator and ploughed into the zombie congregation outside and was closely followed by the other two vehicles.
As he swung right into Forest Road and saw the gates being closed behind them, he asked Mamba where they were heading.
Mamba was quiet for a moment. He’d been wondering how the Turks had moved his Defender. Then he realised that Ahmed must’ve given them the keys the previous night. He didn’t trust ‘em, the sneaky bastards. They could’ve done anything to the vehicle.
“What?” Mamba asked, coming back to the present.
“I said, ‘where we headin’?’” Ahmed repeated.
“It’s the A10 Kingsland Road at the end, so turn left and it’ll take us all the way back down into the city.”
“You realise we’re goin’ the wrong way down a one-way street,” Ahmed pointed out.
“So, who gives a shit?” Mamba replied as he stared at Ayla as she stared straight ahead. “I don’t think we have ta worry ‘bout any cops.”
Mamba lent over and slid his hand beneath Ayla’s jubbah and groped her right breast. Ayla continued to stare straight ahead.
Mamba pulled his hand back mumbling “jus’ checking” as he did so.
The A10 was similar to the A107 they had driven up to Dalston on; it was single lane in each direction but had a separate bus lane on either side. There were similar parades of shops and restaurants, separated by housing and the odd pub. There were also similar blockages in the middle of the road, but these were no match for three Defenders.
Although the Defenders tended to travel in single file with Ahmed leading, on occasion they all needed to line up side by side to shift an obstruction. The coordination of the task was done by walkie talkie, another thing Mamba had not been told about, like the fuckin’ knives the bastards had under their dresses. What else were they hiding? It confirmed his suspicion that they were sneaky fuckers who could never be trusted. The worst thing of all, the walkie fuckin’ talkies meant that Temel and whoever held the other devices could report back to Sully. Definitely NOT what Mamba wanted, so he’d have to figure out a way to get rid of them.
The answer came to him purely by chance. They had made good progress and had reached the Northern edges of Shoreditch when Mamba saw something out of the corner of his eye. He ordered Ahmed to stop the vehicle and slowly got out, his eyes scanning the sky, trying to figure out what he had seen.
“What’s the matter?” Ahmed asked as he wound down his window.
“Shut the fuck up, Ahmed,” Mamba hissed. The noise had attracted a nearby zombie so Mamba withdrew his knife and stabbed it in the head. He looked back to the sky and realised it had stopped raining. He checked his gear and noticed that much of the gore had been washed away so he quickly knelt down and sliced open the dead zombie and covered himself with more guts. As he was doing so, he could’ve sworn he’d heard something other than the usual noises made by the zombies and the dripping of water from nearby gutters.
Mamba stood back up and continued to watch the sky. Eventually his patience was rewarded when he spotted a speck in the distance, something moving slowly over the city. It didn’t take him long to figure out it was a helicopter and his thoughts flew back to the attack on the armoured truck. How did those fuckers track him down? How did they know where he was going to be? They’d clearly been lying in wait for him the last time because he’d seen nothing to give them away except for the fucking rocket heading towards him. They had technology which meant…fuck! He could see the speck in the sky getting bigger. Not much bigger, but definitely bigger. Which meant it was heading in his direction. Fuck! He looked around quickly.
“Ahmed, pull over to that side road! Quick!”
Mamba ran across to the side road, which was only about thirty metres long and was a dead end. He directed Ahmed to park in one of the empty bays then signalled where the other two Defenders should park before shouting for them all to get out.
The noise had attracted a group of zombies, exactly what Mamba needed at this moment.
“Kill the fuckers quick,” he ordered, “and throw ‘em on the Defenders.”
The Turks looked at Mamba as if he’d really lost it, but did as they were told, knives and swords appearing from the folds of their clothes. They made quick work of the zombies then piled the bodies on top of the Defenders, getting covered in blood as they did so.
Mamba went to the end of the road and looked skywards, trying to make out where the helicopter had gone. He spotted it and saw that it was still heading in their vague direction but was still perhaps a couple of miles away. It didn’t look like it was travelling very fast so maybe they were searching for something, and he had a good idea who they might be searching for.
He ran back to the group, stabbing a couple of zombies in the head on the way. He dragged the last one with him the last few metres and quickly sliced it apart.
“Quick, cover yourselves as much as possible then follow me,” he ordered.
The group sensed Mamba’s urgency and potential danger so did what they were told without question. Then they followed him to the end of the road where he stopped and checked the sky again.
Once Mamba was certain the helicopter was out of sight and he couldn’t hear any engine noise, he ran across the street, waving at the others to follow him. There seemed to be nothing except Vietnamese restaurants all around but he spotted a Sainsbury’s Local and forced the door open and entered, closing the door again once everyone was in. He then breathed a big smile of relief.
“That was fun!” Mamba said between breaths.
“What was that all about?” Temel asked, the others all listening in for Mamba’s answer.
“Clear the store first,” Mamba ordered, and the knives reappeared, and the group split up to dispatch any stray zombies.
Once they had finished and congregated back near the front of the store, Mamba helped himself to a bottle of warmish water from a refrigerator and indicated that the others should also help themselves.
“Right,” Mamba started, “no more fuckin’ around. Take everythin’ outta yer pockets – and I mean everythin’. If you lie or hide anythin’ I’ll know, then I’ll strip search ya and cut yer cocks off, except ya of course,” he added, turning to Ayla.
The group looked to Temel and he nodded his head. Then swords, daggers, chewing gum, cigarettes, sweets and other items were placed in the middle of the floor.
Mamba saw the cigarettes and suddenly wanted one very badly, but he wasn’t going to smoke that Camel shit that was lying on the floor. Instead, he went behind the counter, slid open the cigarette cupboard and helped himself to a pack of Silk Cut purple. He then removed the cellophane, selected a lighter and lit up.
“Anyone else while I’m here?” he asked.
“A couple of Turks asked for certain brands and Mamba chucked them over before returning to the pile of belongings. He saw what he wanted immediately and bent down to pick up three walkie talkies. He then placed them back on the ground in a line and began stamping on them until they shattered.
“What the fuck are you doing man?” Temel asked. He was tempted to try and stop Mamba but he could see it was already too late to save the devices.
“Anyone got any more?” Mamba asked, ignoring Temel.
There were shakes of the head all around.
Mamba selected Faruk and ordered, “strip off.”
Faruk looked uncertain, then affronte
d, before Temel intervened. “Do as he says.”
Faruk, stripped off, swearing in Turkish as he did so, throwing a look of disgust at Mamba and spitting on the ground.
“If ya don’t fuckin’ speak English, yer no good to me and ya die now,” Mamba threatened, bringing out his pistol. Ahmed also drew his gun and stepped away from the group of Turks.
Faruk quietened down and removed the last of his clothing and stood proudly with his hands on his hips. “Satisfied?” he asked loudly.
“Not really,” Mamba replied. He stamped on Faruk’s clothing, but there was nothing hidden. “OK, ya can put ‘em back on.”
Mamba looked each of the others in the eye, but there was no indication that anyone was hiding anything. But that was no fun, so he got both Temel and Ayla to strip as well. Then, for the hell of it, he got everyone else to do the same.
“What about you?” Temel asked, partway through the exercise.
“I’m not fuckin’ suspicious of myself, you moron,” Mamba shot back.
Once they had all stripped and put their clothes back on, Mamba explained. “The reason I wanted ya all to strip and get all yer belongin’s out was to check there weren’t any more of these,” he said, stamping on the walkie talkies again.
“Trying to stop us reporting to Sully? Gonna double-cross us?” Temel asked, eyeing up the swords on the floor. Mamba saw where he was looking and suspected that they were all doing the same thing.
“No and no,” Mamba began. “I couldn’t give a fuck what ya tell Sully, and I’m hardly likely to double-cross ya when we haven’t even fuckin’ done anythin’ yet. Use yer fuckin’ loaf. Nah, the problem with walkie talkies is that ya don’t know who else is listenin’ in. I’m sure the people we’re up against can monitor ‘em, and for all I know they could be able to trace ‘em, like with mobile phones.”
“How do you know?”
“They found me and Ahmed in a truck and nearly killed us.”
“But that could have been the truck,” Temel pointed out, “could have had a homing beacon or something.”
“Maybe,” Mamba allowed, “but how do ya account for a fuckin’ helicopter headin’ directly towards us? There’s no fuckin’ homin’ beacon in our Defenders so it must be them,” he said indicating the broken walkie talkies on the floor.
