Soft Target 05 - Blister

by Conrad Jones

  “Okay call it in,” she said as she climbed back into the truck. “They’re a unit of part timers. Territorial Army boys, and they’re all dead. The x-ray has shot and killed four men and stolen one of their NBC suits. There are vehicle tracks heading away from the scene on the coast road toward the city,” Grace slammed the door.

  “Roger that,” Barnes said he picked up the coms unit and began to relay the incident to the taskforce headquarters. Grace signalled him to drive while she took the microphone from him. Barnes finished relaying the message and then engaged gear before moving the truck around the abandoned Bentley. He weaved it through the bodies and traffic cones and followed the fresh tracks.

  “Is there any air support available,” Grace asked the Major.

  “Negative Grace, we can’t get anything in the air because of the storm,” the Major replied. “Where are you?”

  “We are following the x-ray toward the north of the city. Tank seemed to think that he was connected to Christopher Walsh and now I’m certain of it,” she explained.

  “What makes you so sure?” the Major asked.

  “The x-ray had a clear run along the beach to the docks and for some reason he chose to take an exit road. He’s taken one of their NBC suits Major which tells me he knows what’s in the air,” Grace checked her watch and wondered if Tank had made it into surgery yet.

  “That makes sense to me. Grace, your respirators will not protect you from the blister agent on their own. You must wear an NBC suit as well,” the Major said. “You cannot head back into the city without protective clothing.”

  Grace slammed her hand on the dashboard. “Stop the truck,” she demanded.

  “What?” Barnes said.

  “Stop the truck Corporal,” she looked at him sternly.

  “Roger that, what’s the score?” he brought the vehicle to a halt as he was ordered but he was confused.

  “We need two of those suits, soldier,” Grace said pointing to the bodies in the road behind them. Barnes looked at the bodies and recalled what the Major had just said. He understood and opened the door to exit the vehicle. In the blink of an eye he had disappeared from sight.

  “We can commandeer two of the suits from the territorial soldiers, Major,” Grace spoke quickly.

  “Are they compromised?” the Major was referring to bullet holes.

  “We can patch two of them up for now using the spare one Major,” she said. “There’s adhesive in the tool box on these trucks we’ll have to make do for now. How’s Tank, Major?”

  “We’re not sure yet, Grace?” the Major hesitated slightly.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Grace said flatly.

  “He was taken straight to the casualty department in Southport. It was still functioning as normal as it’s outside of the perimeter. He was taken down to see the doctors and cleaned up and they left him with the nurses to be prepped for theatre,” the Major paused again.

  “And what?” Grace had an idea what was coming.

  “I’m afraid that he’s disappeared, Grace,” the Major coughed as he finished speaking. “We have absolutely no idea where he is.”

  Chapter Thirty One

  The Explorer

  Brains rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands as he left the tiny laboratory for the umpteenth time that night. Big Gordon had asked for moisture samples to be processed and submitted to the mainland every thirty minutes, which was a real bummer because he had been winning at the card table until then. Brains wasn’t his real name of course, his real name was Brian, but because he was a lab technician the crew called him the brain, or Brains for short. As far as night shifts went this was the weirdest he’d ever pulled. He was officially off duty when the explosions had occurred, but because head office wanted sample analysis completing he had to clock back on. Big Gordon told him that he would make sure that he was paid double time for his troubles. Brains didn’t mind getting double bubble as he called it, and taking moisture samples was hardly rocket science. The funny thing was that the samples he’d been taking were going off the PH scale completely. The last three sets off tests that he had submitted were showing an alkali level that he had never seen before outside of a laboratory environment. He couldn’t explain it. One thing for sure was that his eyes were sore and his throat was dry as a bone.

  Brains walked into the recreation room to a barrage of abuse from the card players.

  “Hey Brains, how come you’ve pulled a double bubble shift and we get Jack shit?” said an engineer called Smokey Pete.

  “If you want to go and run some moisture samples then be my guest, Pete. You know where the lab is,” Brains retaliated and headed for the drinks machine. He slotted a fifty pence piece into the machine and selected a tin of diet coke. His eyes were feeling gritty and he rubbed them again.

  “Ooh! Moisture samples is it?” Smokey Pete teased him.

  “I hear that your missus collects moisture samples while you’re away on the rigs,” Chef shouted.

  “Yes I’ve heard that too. She collects moisture samples from the milk man all over your bed sheets,” Smokey Pete added to the verbal abuse. The men around the table laughed loudly. “She likes to collect as much moisture as she can while you’re working away!”

  “All right Chef,” Big Gordon growled. Sometimes the men’s banter could become too sharp. “That’s a bit below the belt.”

  “Well that’s where all the moist bits are boss,” Smokey Pete retorted. The beer had been flowing and there was little room for sympathy on board the rigs. Big Gordon always told his men that if they wanted sympathy then they could find it in the dictionary in between ‘shit and syphilis’.

  Brains didn’t feel like laughing much he opened his can of coke and put it to his lips. He took a long swig of the cold fizzy liquid and it eased the soreness in his throat. The men continued to laugh and tease each other but Brains had switched off to the sound of their voices. He tipped the can backward again and drained the liquid until it was empty.

  The door which led from the platform into the crew module opened and snowflakes rushed into the room. The three men from the maintenance watch entered in a flurry of wind and white powder. The card table became silent as the men brushed snow off their high visibility coats. Leaving the platform unmonitored was a taboo.

  “What’s the problem boys?” Big Gordon stood up from the table and walked toward them.

  “We’ve been trying to ring down here for twenty minutes,” an electrician called Sparks growled. He turned his back to the others and headed for the kitchen.

  “The telephone hasn’t buzzed once, has it lads?” Gordon turned to the card table and shrugged his huge shoulders.

  “No it hasn’t rung at all honestly,” Smokey Pete said. He stood up and walked over to the recreation room handset, which was fitted next to the drinks machine. Pete put the telephone receiver to his ear and listened. He frowned when all he could hear was static. “This thing is as dead as a doornail.”

  Big Gordon walked into his office and followed suit. The handset was dead. He punched a few buttons but only got the same result. There was nothing on the line but silence.

  “The system must be down boys I’m sorry. What’s the problem anyway?” Big Gordon asked sternly. Leaving the banks of gauges unmanned was dangerous, and more to the point it was gross misconduct. “You know that you shouldn’t leave your posts.”

  “Twenty minutes we have been trying to get relief from you shower of selfish bastards,” Sparks shouted as he walked out of the kitchen into the recreation room with a bottle of mineral water in his hand. He lifted the bottle to his lips and swallowed hard. Big Gordon noticed that the skin on the back of his hands had reddened. He looked at the electrician’s face and noted the same thing there. His face was red and the whites of his eyes were bloodshot.

  “There something in the air out there, my throat feels like I’ve swallowed broken glass, and all you lot can do is sit on your fat arses and play cards,” Sparks was getting a
ngry. Gordon could see the veins in his forehead pulsing. The electrician drained the mineral water and tossed the empty bottle toward the card table. It landed in the middle of the players with a clatter and then bounced onto the floor.

  “Calm down Sparks or I’ll put you down,” Chef stood up and tensed his muscles ready for conflict. He was deeply offended by Sparks throwing the bottle at him, but he wasn’t sure why he was so offended. Seeing the water bottle had made him thirsty. He just felt angry all of a sudden.

  “Sit down, Chef my boy. No one will be fighting on my watch do you understand me?” Big Gordon seemed to inflate as he spoke.

  “Sorry boss, but he was out of order chucking that bottle at me,” Chef looked wounded as he apologised.

  “Apologise to the Chef,” Gordon gave Sparks a friendly clip behind the ear but the electrician didn’t acknowledge it.

  “Fuck him, I hate his cooking anyway,” Sparks said calmly. “I’m feeling very thirsty.” Sparks seemed to stop and think about the situation for a second before turning around and heading back into the kitchen. Big Gordon looked at the other two members of the maintenance shift and saw that they too had reddened eyes.

  “How are you two feeling?” he asked concerned. “Get them a drink.” Brains went to the coke machine and fed three coins into it. He selected fizzy orange because the coke just hadn’t touched his thirst. The machine spewed three tins out and he gave the maintenance men one each and opened the remaining one himself.

  “I’m not feeling good, Boss,” a pipe fitter called Harvey said. He rubbed his eyes and they reddened even more. “My eyes are burning and my throat is red raw. Look at my hands.”

  “Get these men to the first aid room. You need some eye drops,” Gordon said. Harvey’s cheeks looked yellowish in patches as if water blisters were forming. He grabbed Brains by the elbow and pushed him toward the office. The technician shrugged off Gordon’s grip on his arm and looked annoyed that he’d been touched in the first place.

  “Get off me,” he complained. He drained some of the fizzy orange from the tin.

  “What have your test results been like?” Gordon whispered.

  “Odd to say the least,” Brains said. He paused to gulp some of the orange down. “Sorry Boss, but my throat is bad too. The moisture samples are off the scale. They are indicating that there is a very strong alkaline substance in the atmosphere.”

  “There must be something from those explosions in the atmosphere,” Gordon was no scientist but it appeared to be the only explanation. “Get hold of head office and ask them what their test results are showing. Do you think that the moisture in the air could affect the men?”

  “I’m no doctor Boss, but me eyes and throat have been affected from going outside every thirty minutes to collect samples. The maintenance crew have been out there all the time,” Brains said.

  “Okay, get the mainland on the blower and find out what their results are showing,” Gordon walked toward the office door.

  “The system is dead,” Brains reminded him before he could leave.

  “Use e-mail, your mobile telephone or fucking smoke signals, but I want to know what is wrong with my men,” Big Gordon slapped a pudgy hand on the technician’s back as he walked out of the office and into the recreation room. “I want three volunteers to cover the maintenance shift while we sort these guys out. Put respirators on in case there is something in the smoke from those explosions. I don’t want you lot suing the ass off the company when we get home.”

  Three of the crew from the card table stood up without questioning the order.

  “Are we on double bubble, Boss,” one of them joked as they pulled on their platform clothes and high visibility jackets. Gordon forced a smile as they put on their yellow hard hats and opened the platform door. The wind rushed in and blew the cards off the table as the men stepped out into the strange smelling mist. The ace of spades landed face up on the floor next to Big Gordon’s safety boot.

  “Hey Boss,” Brains shouted from the office.

  “What now, Brains,” Big Gordon said under his breath.

  “The e-mail is down, in fact there is no internet connection at all, and my mobile is dead as a dodo.”

  Big Gordon reached into his jeans and pulled out his Samsung. The lights were on but the screen displayed that there was no signal.

  “What the bloody hell is going on?” he whispered to himself. He swallowed and realised that his throat was sore too. He was still staring at his cell phone when Sparks stepped out of the kitchen into the recreation room. He had a full tray of bottled mineral water under one arm, and a three foot fire axe in the other. His lips were chapped and cracked and his eyes looked bloodshot and sore. There was a skittish look in his eyes as he looked around the room from one man to another, but there wasn’t any recognition in them until he focused on Chef. Sparks dropped the tray of water onto the floor. He raised the fire axe above his head with both hands and launched himself across the rig.

  “Come on Chef, let me see you put me down!” he screamed as he swung the axe down in a wicked arc.

  Chapter Thirty Two

  The Terrorist Task Force

  Chen and his team approached the docks and were presented with a scene of absolute chaos. He had two teams of six men who had been split into three Land Rovers. The Land Rovers were kitted out with enough hardware to conquer a small country. The mechanics that serviced the machines had fitted snow chains to the tyres before they had left the bunker. It was a journey of less than five miles from the headquarters to the docks. When they arrived there was a line of traffic leaving the port as far as the eye could see. Coaches packed with tourists who had been evacuated from the cruise liners that used the port, stood next to articulated lorries loaded with scrap metal. Hundreds of men trudged out of the gates through the snow on foot, sent home by their respective employers when the sirens had gone off and the evacuation orders had been broadcasted.

  Chen and his teams were wearing black NBC suits over their combat gear. Communications were to be maintained via individual earpieces linked directly to the control centre beneath the city. Chen held a detailed plan of the harbour and its maze of docks and canals.

  “Do we have any sightings of the lightship, Major?” Chen asked.

  “The last sighting that we have was from a Russian container vessel which was leaving port. They reported automatic gunfire coming from the direction of Seaforth Docks,” the Major answered.

  “There is no hope of any air shots?” Chen asked hopefully but he already knew the answer. The cloud cover was too thick for satellite cameras to be of any use, and the snowstorm was too heavy for helicopters to fly.

  “Nothing I’m afraid, you’re on your own,” the Major confirmed his doubts.

  Inside the gates the Land Rovers approached a security hut which operated a barrier system. The men inside the hut were suited in NBC gear and were members of the Territorial Army drafted in to guard the evacuated shipping from looters. The driver of the Land Rover flashed his ID and the barrier was raised to allow them access onto the docks. Chen studied the plans and decided to head for the smaller berths to the north of the harbour. He pointed to a fork in the road and when there was a gap in the traffic that was leaving the port, the two vehicles branched right.

  It was nearly an hour later when they began to leave the commercial berths behind them. The section of the docks that they had entered was on the periphery of the cargo terminal. The evacuation was complete and it was deserted. Chen studied the plans and tried to correlate what he could see before him. To the left was the river and the quayside was lined with giant cranes. On the right hand side there were acres of derelict warehouses. They were five storeys high and built from dark sandstone blocks. Once upon a time they had been packed to the rafters with cotton bales and grain, timber and leather and fine teas and spices from the Far East. Directly in front of them was a series of oblong inlets which had once been used to service the boatyards and the warehouses beyond them. Ch
en looked at the plans again and then raised his hand to signal the driver to bring the vehicle to a stop. He picked up a night sight and scanned the docklands and boatyards, which were laid out in symmetrical patterns for a kilometre or so. There were ships and boats, barges and buoys of all shapes and sizes moored to the quaysides. Chen signalled both teams to exit the vehicles. He climbed out of his Land Rover and walked to the front of the vehicle where he spread the plans out on the bonnet.