by Seth Patrick
Jonah shook his head, and Never nodded slowly and left him to deal with it his way.
‘Why did they leave me?’ Jonah said to his reflection. He hit the wall with an open hand and swore.
* * *
Back in his flat, Jonah wanted to get straight to bed, but he made himself eat. He knew that underneath the exhaustion, he was hungry. He’d sleep better with something in his stomach, so he threw a spaghetti meal in the microwave. As it heated he cracked open a beer.
He gulped it down, but it just seemed to make him more thirsty. He filled a mug with water and started to drink that too. Then he stopped.
‘Shit,’ he said. The thirst was overwhelming, left over from Harker’s revival, and nothing that water could quench. He sat down and controlled his breathing, trying to relax until the sensation subsided.
The microwave pinged and made him jump.
He wolfed down his meal, pausing only to feed Marmite when the cat came to pester him. He tried not to think about his day’s work. It was a skill he’d cultivated well in his years as a reviver. Don’t think about it. Zone out.
But it all came back, and he could see Annabel Harker’s face, and hear his broken promise. And the question that still had no answer.
Why did they leave me to die?
Through the kitchen door, in the main room of his apartment, he could see a shadow on the wall that made no sense to his eyes. A patch of darkness, but nothing causing it. He felt a sudden cold. Absently he itched at his neck.
He closed his eyes, took another deep breath and opened them again. There was nothing there.
18
Detective Ray Johnson sat in an uncomfortable built-in plastic chair in the cramped rear of a command van, Bob Crenner to his left. It was almost three in the morning after one of the longest days of his life, and he needed some coffee. In a second van parked in front of them, an armed anti-terrorist unit was preparing to raid a house two hundred yards away, the house that he, Crenner and the other detectives on the case had managed to locate after Daniel Harker’s revival.
In front of him, an array of screens showed streamed images from the helmet cameras the armed officers were wearing. They looked sullen, waiting to be given the go. The moment approval had come through for a rapid armed response had probably been the most exciting point of his police career, but that had been six hours ago.
One thing he’d not expected of a rapid response was how damn slow it had turned out to be; he’d spent the best part of three hours sitting by the roadside a five-minute drive away from the target, before waiting another hour for the reconnaissance officer to report the last light in the house had gone out, then another two hours before closing in. That level of tension for so long just didn’t sit well with him.
Harker’s revival had given them plenty. The name Tobias Yarrow was linked to Afterlifer protests five years previously, minor felonies during demonstrations.
The shipping label Harker described had sounded like a bull’s-eye, but five US companies had names that were considered close enough to ‘Alpha Chemicals’, and between them there were almost two hundred dispatched items on the relevant date.
Given what else Harker had said, about the ‘failed firework’, Bob Crenner made some calls to get a list of possible red-flag ingredients, freely available chemicals that could be turned into weapons.
It took good old-fashioned hard work to narrow the field as quickly as they had, and in the end they found it.
Alper Chemicals, and a consignment of six boxes of aluminium powder to a new customer, ordered online. The same credit card had been used to order a selection of different chemicals from other companies over a two-month period. All of them chemicals on Crenner’s list, used to make explosives and incendiary devices. All to the same address: the house they were about to raid.
It had been time to call in the specialists, and Anti-terrorism wanted to move fast before news of Harker’s discovery got around. Rapid-response unit, full force, Bob and Ray getting to tag along and observe. After all, there was still a murder to clear up.
The rear door of the van opened and the unit captain stepped inside.
‘They’re go in five,’ he said.
Ray’s tension level ratcheted up another notch. The time crawled.
At last, the response team van pulled away. Ray watched the camera footage as the van reached the house and the officers streamed out in silence. One officer carried a door ram, and with two strikes the front door gave way. The team was inside, the lead heading upstairs, when a single gunshot sounded. Ray heard a woman’s yell. A rattle of return fire. The officers took positions under cover.
‘Talk to me, West,’ the captain said.
‘Swan’s down, sir,’ said a man’s voice over the radio. ‘I’m getting her out.’ Ray watched the feed from West’s camera as he grabbed the arm of the downed officer and pulled.
‘Where’s the shooter?’ said the captain.
Then a muffled shout. Heads turned to the top of the stairs and the shout came again: ‘I’m coming down.’
‘Hands on your head,’ yelled a man’s voice. ‘Come down slowly. Slowly.’
One step at a time in the dark; beams of light from the officers’ gun-mounted flashlights trained on the man as he descended.
‘He has something,’ came another voice.
Ray saw it. The man brought his hands away from his head. In one he was holding a small plastic tub. The other was a closed fist.
‘Stay where you are,’ an officer shouted.
The man stopped, then opened his fist so they could see what he held. Some kind of remote.
‘Pull back outside,’ the captain ordered. ‘Now!’
Standoff, Ray thought, but the man had other ideas. Before the squad had evacuated, the plastic tub he had been holding burst into light. Some kind of incendiary gel erupted from it, engulfing him.
‘Drive!’ the captain shouted to the front of the command van. Ray held on.
Shouts over the radio: ‘Some of it’s on me. It’s eating through my fucking shoe!’
Thumps came, explosions.
The command van stopped. The captain picked up an assault rifle and got out.
‘Stay inside,’ he told them.
Ray looked past him and saw the house across the road, already an inferno.
It was going to be a long night.
* * *
Jonah shaded his eyes from the morning sun as he got out of the car, staring at the devastated house. ‘It didn’t go so well, then,’ he said.
The suburban street consisted of homes that were widely spaced, with large, long-established lawns, the foliage giving plenty of privacy. Now, both ends of the street were sealed off, residents evacuated. A news helicopter buzzed overhead.
Hugo Adler came around to his side. He screwed up his face. ‘Christ, that stinks.’
Jonah nodded. Underlying the harsh smell of smoke was a strong petrochemical taint, but it was the reek of burnt flesh that hit the hardest.
Jonah’s night had been an unpleasant mix of exhaustion and fear. The least of it was the continuing episodes of thirst and the itching at his neck. Far worse was the blending of old nightmares with new. He had dreamed of past revivals, of his mother and of Lyssa Underwood; in each case the subject had twisted into Alice Decker, leaving him staring into her devastated face and the terrible life in her dead eyes.
He’d gone to the office early. After the revival the day before, he would have been given time off if he’d asked, but it was his first official day back following his enforced leave. He had plenty to get on with. Besides, the night had left him uneasy about being on his own.
At nine-thirty that morning, a call came in from Bob Crenner requesting a pathology liaison to assess a corpse that had turned up in a home in a well-to-do Gaithersburg neighbourhood. The situation was already on the national news but details were scarce. No information on casualties or arrests; confusion and contradiction from the local residents interviewed.
Even before the call came, Never had connected the situation to Harker’s revival when he spotted Bob Crenner’s face on the news.
FRS North East had ruled themselves out again; none of their best people would be back off tails for another twelve hours. Crenner had gone to Hugo, giving fair warning: it was probably a waste of time, but there was interest from his superiors, and pressure to attempt a revival would be strong.
With Stacy and Jason both now available, Hugo had agreed to consider it, as long as a preliminary assessment was made by one of the four Richmond liaisons. He would send Beth Sheridan, and as he was unwilling to put his staff into that situation unsupported, Hugo would go with her.
Jonah’s reaction was to go straight into Hugo’s office and include himself in the trip, one more observer to back up Beth’s decision.
‘When did you get proactive?’ Never asked him as he was about to set off, and Jonah gave him a rambling answer that didn’t even convince himself. The simple truth was, he wanted to see it with his own eyes.
Once they arrived in Gaithersburg, Jonah, Hugo and Beth ducked under the police tape around the border of the charred house. Jonah saw Detectives Crenner and Johnson, and caught Bob Crenner’s eye. He waved and the two detectives headed towards them. Looks like they slept less than I did, thought Jonah, which was saying something.
‘Morning,’ said Bob. ‘If you can bring this one back, Jonah, you must be Jesus.’
‘If we go ahead I’m not doing the revival, Detective. I’m just here to advise.’
‘And by the sound of it I’m here on a technicality,’ said Beth.
Bob nodded and looked at Hugo, smiling. ‘So why are you here?’
‘Moral support,’ said Hugo. ‘Thanks for the heads-up, Bob.’
Bob shrugged. ‘My pleasure. Long way to bring you out for a rubber stamp job, but the stakes are high. I’d ruled it out the second I saw him, but what do I know? Take a look. The one we’re querying is under the white plastic sheeting around the side. Be discreet.’ He nodded to the news team prowling the edge of the exclusion area.
‘So what happened?’ Jonah asked as they walked, and Bob filled them in.
‘The fireworks were spectacular,’ Bob said when he’d described the raid. ‘Christ knows what it was, but the whole place was an inferno in seconds. A few small explosions too. It took six hours to get the fire out. The only thing even resembling a body is under that tarpaulin.’ He yawned. ‘Long night.’
They reached the plastic sheeting.
‘How many were there?’ asked Beth.
‘Five,’ said Ray Johnson. ‘This one managed to jump from an upper floor window, covered in the incendiary substance they’d been manufacturing, but my God, he was conscious every second. The fall didn’t even knock him out. He was lying there, screaming for help, but the heat from the house meant we couldn’t get close. He’d gone quiet by the time the fire trucks got here.’
Beth bent down and grasped the tarp. ‘Here we go,’ she said, and raised the plastic sheeting just enough to give them a clear view.
From the chest down there was nothing but charcoal, blackened bone visible at the bottom of the rib cage; from there to the neck, it was clothing melted onto skin. Much of the face was intact, shielded somehow. That was probably the only reason they’d thought a revival was possible. The rest of the head was roasted and charred, the hair gone.
‘Shit,’ said Beth. ‘Definitely not talkative. Jonah?’
Jonah was staring at the corpse. ‘It’s the one Harker called Ginger,’ he said.
‘Are you sure?’ asked Bob. ‘I’m not sure Ginger would have recognized himself.’
‘I’m sure.’ He found it troubling, and caught Hugo’s concerned glance, but there was no denying it: that face made him angry, just as it had made Harker angry. He wasn’t recognizing it from Harker’s description. This was far more deep rooted.
‘So definitely no chance?’ said Bob.
‘No way,’ said Beth. ‘Just too cooked.’
‘I wasn’t expecting anything else.’
‘So what next?’ asked Hugo.
‘We need to work out the target for their little venture. We have a preliminary ID for three of them but confirmation could take time. We’ll go public with Harker’s death soon, and then we have to track down anyone else involved. Everyone we’ve got an ID for had Afterlifer involvement, so I’m guessing FRS offices will have to up their security until we know.’
Beth laid the plastic back down, and Jonah found himself thinking that if there had even been the remotest chance of reviving that devastated flesh, he would have championed it. Without that, Harker’s last question would always remain unanswered.
* * *
Beth, Hugo and Jonah walked to the car.
As Jonah went to get in the back, something caught his eye. On the far side of the road, he saw someone standing in the shade of a tree, facing his way. With the sun high and behind them, it was too dark to make out much: a hunched figure, arms by the sides, long coat. Jonah looked harder and felt the hairs on his arms prickle, cold air on his neck. The shape was watching him, unmoving. He could feel its eyes, staring, and thought of Alice Decker’s twisted face. But this wasn’t Alice.
‘Come on,’ Beth said from inside the car.
Jonah glanced at her, then back. The shape had gone.
* * *
Jonah spent the next morning taking some trainees through footage from six revivals. Only one of them had been his, from four years before: an armed robber, shot dead by police and mishandled at first by Jonah. The atmosphere had been tainted, the dead man’s colleagues having escaped and severely wounded a civilian and an officer in the process. Anger and retribution had surrounded the revival, and Jonah’s approach to it had been too aggressive.
He winced as the footage played, watching his own errors, his younger self missing the signs that his tactics were failing. It was hard to watch, but as it was one of the cases he intended to use for his talk at the symposium at the end of the following week, he would have to get used to seeing it.
He paused the footage to allow the class to comment. They got the general idea, and when at last they saw the approach shift, they seemed genuinely impressed as Jonah’s gentle coaxing became a conversation, establishing trust and a mood of confession, turning it around as precious seconds passed. The dead man gave away enough for the police to find his colleagues.
At lunchtime, Jonah ate at his desk, letting his mind go blank as he stared out the window.
Across the road, deep shadows were being cast by the afternoon sun. Under the awning of the bakery where he’d bought his sandwiches that morning, in the deepest of the shade, a figure stood. It was little more than a variation of the dark, and he had to look for a few moments to be sure there was anything at all.
But then he felt the hairs rise on his arms and neck. He knew it was there. He knew it was the same figure he’d seen the day before. He leaned further towards the window, straining to see it, feeling ridiculous for the thought that crossed his mind, the thought that said, Don’t let it see you.
The figure looked up. Jonah snatched himself back from the window, far enough to be out of its line of sight.
A hand fell onto his shoulder and he jumped. ‘Christ!’
‘Whoa!’ said Never. ‘What’s up with you?’
‘Nothing,’ he muttered, moving back toward the window and stealing a glance. The darkness in the shadow was gone.
‘O-kay … Just wondered how it went this morning? The training?’
‘Went fine,’ said Jonah, his eyes and his mind still bolted to the place the figure had been. He shook it off and looked around. ‘When do you get to babysit?’
‘I’m due to take three of the trainees onsite later, if anything comes up.’
‘Well, they seem capable enough, they’ll behave.’
‘Yeah, it’ll be fine … So, uh, Beth mentioned the house? Yesterday? Pretty extreme. News is still vague about it, and there’s no m
ention of Harker yet.’
‘I hope it won’t be long before they go public with it. The curiosity’s killing me.’
‘So do they know who those guys were targeting?’
‘There’s speculation that it’s an Afterlifer campaign. Maybe involving arson. Hugo’s looking into temporary additional security here. And when…’ He had a sudden urge to look at the bakery again. He glanced and froze. The figure was back. ‘Look out there. Please.’
‘Where?’
‘The baker’s. Can you see someone in the shadows? Standing outside?’
Shading his eyes, Never looked to where Jonah was pointing. As he did, the figure looked up, and Jonah could feel its gaze. He wanted to pull away from the window again, but this time he stayed where he was.
‘Do you see it, Never?’ It was clearer now, hunched shoulders, long coat. He wasn’t imagining it.
‘Nobody there, mate.’
Jonah continued to stare.
‘You look exhausted, Jonah. Are you OK?’
Jonah took a deep breath and looked Never in the eye. ‘I’m not sure I am. I think…’ He looked back to the street, to the shadow where – now – there was nothing. ‘I think the Harker revival’s catching up with me.’
‘Then you should get home. You’re all done here, right?’
‘I’ve got some odds and ends to get through.’
‘Come on, that shit can wait. Go home. Maybe take a few more days off. I’ll let Hugo know.’
‘But what about the trainees?’
‘We can cover it, Jonah. Go.’
When he left the FRS building, Jonah crossed to the bakery and stood in the shadows he had been watching, feeling nothing at first. Then he looked up to the window by his office desk.
The figure was there, looking out at him.
* * *
As he walked home he sensed eyes at every corner, and caught glimpses of the figure in patches of darkness along the route. He lowered his head, his pulse quickening and cold sweat dripping from him by the time he reached the door of his apartment. He entered, and his cat padded toward him, unworried and purring.
Eager for calm, Jonah spent the rest of the afternoon reading the paperback of David Copperfield that Sam had bought him for Christmas, and which hadn’t been picked up in three months. He tended to read books in occasional bursts; it was only when work was quiet that he found himself in that frame of mind, and work was rarely quiet for long. Given how tricky Harker had been, he thought it would be at least a couple of weeks before Hugo allowed him to do another revival. He suspected he’d get more reading done, if nothing else.
