Corridors ran off the circular lobby in four directions, and white statues stood against the walls, regarding us coldly.
Spider was physically unprepossessing. Of slightly less than average height, he had blond hair and blue eyes but lacked Brad Pitt’s good looks. He didn’t have that quality of madness about him that Mac or David had possessed, nor the world weary doggedness of Blythe. He seemed kind of ordinary.
I didn’t doubt he’d have killed Jane, though.
Ordinary, then, but dangerous.
“Do you have a surgeon?” asked Jane through gritted teeth. She sat on a chair against the far wall, white as a sheet.
“I’m afraid not,” he replied, seeming genuinely apologetic. “We make do and mend.”
Kate grimaced. “Fine,” she said. “How about antibiotics?”
“Yes, we have those.”
“Good. I want to get over to St Thomas’, I can patch myself up there, assuming any of the equipment still works.”
“I’ll detail one of my men to take you there now.” The boss nodded to a soldier to his left, who stepped forward and helped Jane to stand.
She hopped away but just before she left the lobby she turned and said: “Oh, and Cooper?”
Spider, who had been staring at me intently with a nasty smile on his face, looked away.
“Yes, Kate?”
“If you hurt either of them. At all. I will kill you.”
He laughed. “Oh, Kate, please. You didn’t manage to exact revenge last time. What makes you think you’ll manage it this time?” He paused for effect, then said: “Don’t worry. They’ll still be here when you get back. Probably.”
She limped around the corner and Spider turned to us again. He knelt in front of me.
“Five years I’ve been running things here,” he said. “Five years. I have a team of highly trained, heavily armed special forces at my disposal and an army of daft religious nutters out there who think I’m the representative of the Messiah. In all that time I’ve had plenty of people try to break out of here, but no-one’s ever been stupid enough to break in before. Why on God’s Earth would you do such a stupid thing?”
“Good question,” I answered.
“It wasn’t rhetorical,” he said, allowing an edge of menace to creep into his voice.
“Should I call you Spider or Cooper?” I asked.
He appeared to consider this seriously. “You can call me Cooper,” he said at length.
“Well, Coop, I guess you could say I have a compulsion.”
“What would that be, then?”
“I feel compelled to hunt down murderous bastards and wipe them out.”
He narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips, considering my admittedly weak bravado.
“And how’s that worked out for you?”
“Well, three years ago me and my friends managed to wipe out a cannibal cult that was terrorising the countryside. Not as well armed as you guys, but they were all naked and bathed in fresh human blood, so they were a little scarier, I think.”
“Good for you.”
“And then, of course, there was the Americans.”
“Excuse me?”
“The Americans army invaded a couple of years back. You may have missed the memo.”
“No, no, believe me, I got that one.”
“They didn’t last long.”
Cooper barked a sudden laugh and clapped his hands.
“Are you trying to tell me,” he said, “that you single-handedly fought off the US Army?”
“Not single-handedly, no. I had an eleven-year-old boy helping me. But essentially, yeah.”
“And how did you do that, exactly?”
“We nuked the fuckers.”
“You nuked the fuckers.”
“Yup.”
He stared deep into my eyes. I stared back and smiled.
“You know,” he said. “I almost believe you. And this is how you go about killing bad guys, is it? You wander into their bases with some stupid plan and get yourself captured?”
The soldiers standing around us sniggered.
“Um, actually yeah, it kind of is.”
And then what do you? Manufacture some miraculous escape? Call in the cavalry? Light the Bat-signal?”
More laughs.
“No, I just wait.”
“For?”
“A mistake.”
He leaned in close ’til I could feel his hot breath on my face. “I don’t make mistakes, kid.”
He held my gaze for a moment then asked: “So how do you know Kate? No, wait, let me guess. You’re one of the boys from St Mark’s, yes?”
I nodded.
“I used to go to school there,” he said. Which teachers survived The Cull?”
“Bates and Chambers.”
“Didn’t know Bates. Liked Chambers, though. Maybe I’ll have him over for dinner once I’ve taken the school.”
I shook my head. “Nah, he died a while back.”
“Pity. Where is the school now, by the way? I sent a team there last year and it was just a burnt out wreck.”
“We’re somewhere you’ll never find us.”
“I could torture you. You’d tell us eventually.”
“I was waterboarded in Iraq, pal. Bring it on.”
Again he laughs. “Iraq, now? I can’t decide if you’re a superhero or a fantasist or both. You’re certainly entertaining, I’ll give you that. Final question: how long have you and Kate been together?”
“If you mean Jane, she’s my Matron and that’s all.”
“She may be Jane when she’s at school, but here she’s Kate. Trust me on that. And you’re lying, but I don’t hold it against you. I should probably keep you alive, use the threat of killing you to make her tell me where the school is. But something tells me that you’re more dangerous than you seem. So, firing squad at dawn, I reckon.”
I just smiled at him. Our part of the plan might have failed, but if Tariq and the others kept to their schedule, they’d be here before dawn. I looked sideways and saw the snow falling through a far off window and bit my lip.
“Dear God, you’re amateur,” said Cooper as I glanced back at him. “Never played much poker, did you?”
He stood up then and turned to one of his soldiers.
“These two aren’t the whole story. There’s someone else coming, another attack. They’re supposed to be here by dawn, but he’s worried they won’t make it because of the snow. Spread the word to be ready.”
Cooper looked down at me contemptuously. “I used to be a copper, lad. I know all the tells.”
He turned to Ferguson. “And you, Green Arrow, what’s your story?”
Ferguson didn’t say a word, he just stared straight ahead, jaw clenched tight.
“Smart man,” said Cooper after a moment’s silence. “I’ll tell you what I think. I think you’re one of these Rangers I’ve been hearing reports about. I think you’ve teamed up with these school runts. Quite the little power base. My question is this: is the next attack your lot?”
Ferguson stayed silent.
Cooper clapped his hands once, as if about to sum up at the end of a staff meeting. “Right then. Lock the boy up. Take the man and start chopping bits off him until you find out everything you can about his organisation. When Kate gets back, bring her to me. Double the patrols and issue extra ammunition.”
He turned his back on us and walked away.
“I’m off to bed,” he said cheerily. “I want to be fresh for the firing squad.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CAROLINE FELT LIKE crying.
She’d spent so long fighting these bastards, trying to keep the children safe, trying to avoid ending up exactly where she was now – locked up, weaponless, powerless, cattle waiting to be shipped to the slaughter.
When the lorry had come to a halt she’d given the order for the kids to get their weapons out and be ready. They’d crouched there in the dark waiting for the back of the container to open,
ready to pour out and finally take their revenge. But when the doors swung open she found herself staring down the barrels of about fifteen machine guns. She heard gasps and cries of alarm from the children ranged behind her. There was a moment of stillness during which Caroline was sure they were going to open fire, kill them all there and then. But the moment passed and one of the soldiers ordered them to get out one at a time and throw their weapons on the floor as they did so.
Caroline was at the front, so she got down first and tossed her gun on the ground. She was then frisked and sent to stand in the corner where she was covered by two guns. The children in both lorries went through the same procedure until they were all standing together, penned in, surrounded by guns.
She looked for the adults – Tariq, Wilkes, Green – but they were nowhere to be seen. They must have been taken away the second they arrived. She wondered if they’d been shot already. She tried to reassure the other children, but half of them were from St Mark’s and didn’t know who she was.
“Why should we listen to you?” sulked one boy, and she didn’t have an answer for him.
She wanted to tell them that all was not lost, that they were only half the attack and if they just held their nerve Lee, Ferguson and the kid with the limp would be coming to rescue them. But the soldiers could have overheard her, so she kept her mouth shut.
When the last of the children had been unloaded, the soldiers marched them up the stairs into the Palace of Westminster. They went down a narrow corridor lined with heavy wooden doors and were herded into a big room dominated by a series of tables arranged in a square. Each sitting had a computer screen mounted in it, so Caroline reasoned it was some kind of committee room.
When all the children had been crammed inside, one of the soldiers stepped forward to close the door.
“For you, Tommies, ze var is over!” he said as he pulled the door shut. She heard some of his colleagues laugh as the door slammed shut and the lock turned.
She turned to see her army. An hour ago they were a heavily armed bunch of feral kids ready to kill any adult they encountered. Now they were just a bunch of scared, powerless children, jostling for space in a too-small room.
Behind them, huge leaded windows reached to the ceiling. The first light of dawn broke over the buildings that ranged along the opposite bank of the river.
“UM, MILK, TWO sugars,” said Tariq. And then, instinctively, without thinking: “Thanks.”
Green flashed him an amused look. “Tariq, mate, they’re going to kill us. I don’t think we should be thanking them for putting sugar in our tea.”
Wilkes just glowered.
“Who said anything about killing you?” said the man who entered the room rubbing sleep from his eyes and yawning. He turned to the soldier who was pouring tea for the prisoners. “Bill, did you say we were going to kill them?”
The soldier shook his head. “No, Sir.”
“Thought not. Carry on. Oh, and a tiny splash of milk and one sugar for me too, while you’re at it. Ta.”
The man sat at the head of the conference table and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his hands through his bed hair. He looked at Green. “You’re English, right? And you, your accent is... what?”
“I am Iraqi,” said Tariq, proudly.
The man nodded. “You have a touch of Black Country in your accent, though. Learned it from squaddies, at a guess. Yes?”
Tariq nodded.
“You can call me Spider, I’m in charge here,” said the man as he reached out to take the mug of tea his subordinate was proffering. He stirred it thoughtfully. “You gentlemen would be the second pincer of the St Mark’s attack, am I right?”
The three captives sat silently.
“Yes, I am,” said Spider. “I noticed that when I said that, you gulped,” he nodded at Green, “and you glanced ever so briefly at the table,” he pointed at Wilkes. “Dead giveaways.”
He took a sip of tea. “So let me fill you in,” he said. “Your advance team botched it. One of them is floating out to sea, the other two – Lee and one of your colleagues”, he indicated Wilkes, “are in custody as we speak. My men have been torturing the Ranger but he’s stayed silent. So far. Master Keegan is languishing in a committee room, contemplating his fate. I intend to have them shot in,” he glanced out of the window at the pink light bleeding across the rooftops, “ooh, about half an hour.”
The soldier placed mugs of steaming tea in front of the three captive men.
“You three have a chance to avoid being executed,” continued Spider. “If, and only if, you answer all of my questions quickly and completely.”
Tariq folded his arms and shook his head. “No chance,” he said.
“But they’re quite simple,” replied Spider. “For example, number one: were you really responsible for the destruction of Operation Motherland and the American army at Salisbury?”
“Oh, hang on, wait a minute, I know this one,” mugged Tariq, scratching his head, scrunching his eyes up and thinking hard. Eventually he opened his eyes and beamed in triumph. “I know. The answer is: yes we fucking were! How many points do we get? I want lots of points for that one!”
Green stifled a laugh. Wilkes continued to glower.
“And you, funny man, would I be right in thinking you met Lee in Iraq?”
Tariq nodded.
“So, not a fantasist after all,” said Spider thoughtfully, sipping his tea. “Good. Next question. I understand your role in this abortion of a plan. Trojan horse, army of children. Very Lord of the Flies. But what was the role of Lee and his team? I know your attack was planned for dawn, so what were he and the Ranger going to do during the night? What trap were they planning to spring? Or were they just a diversion in case you couldn’t get in the gates?”
Tariq smiled smiling, holding Spider’s gaze, giving nothing away. He shook his head slowly.
“Sorry mate,” he said. “Don’t know that one. Ask me something about movies. I’m good with movie questions.”
“All right,” said Spider, putting down his tea. “Here’s one: you know that moment in the final act of an action movie, when the wisecracking hero gets captured by the bad guy who interrogates him but, realising he’s getting nowhere, tells a lackey to kill the supporting character and then leaves the room, enabling the hero to overpower the lackey, escape, and win the day?”
Tariq’s smile faltered for a moment, and something behind his eyes changed. Then the smile returned, although it was sadder than before, knowing and resigned. He took a deep breath and nodded.
Spider put his tea down, reached into his trouser pocket, pulled out a handgun, raised it casually, and shot Tariq right between the eyes.
“My question is this,” said Spider as the gun smoke drifted across the table. “Why does the bad guy never just shoot the hero himself?”
The Iraqi sat there for a moment, his eyes wide with surprise, the smile still fixed on his frozen face. Then he crumpled forward, his shattered skull hitting the table with a solid crack. Blood pooled around his head as it shook and juddered then eventually lay motionless.
Spider moved his arm slightly to the left so the gun was pointing at Green.
“I’ll ask again,” he said. “What was their role in your attack?”
Green sat transfixed, staring at his dead friend, tears pooling in his eyes.
Spider reached up and ostentatiously chambered a round.
“Diversion,” whispered Green after a moment. “They had a bag of grenades. They were going to set off some explosions at the south end of the complex when the kids came through the gates. Draw your forces away.”
Keeping the gun trained on Green, Spider turned his gaze to the soldier by the door.
“We didn’t find a bag of grenades, did we Bill?” he asked.
“No,” replied the lackey. “But the one who went out the window, he had a big kit bag with him. That was probably it.”
Spider lowered the gun and nodded satisfied. “Good,” he
said. “Now if only your smartarse friend there had told me that earlier he could have enjoyed, oh, another half an hour of breathing.”
Spider stood up and walked to the door. “Put these two in the Moses Room with the boy, then assemble a firing squad on Speaker’s Green.”
“And the body, Sir?”
Spider glanced at Tariq’s corpse absent-mindedly as he walked past. “Oh, toss it in the river.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I SAT BENEATH the huge fresco of Moses bringing the tablets down from Mount Sinai, and made an accounting of all the ways in which I had fucked things up. It was a pretty impressive list. Dad was missing, Jack was dead, Ferguson and I were prisoners, and Matron had been shot. With our part of the attack prevented and Cooper expecting trouble, there was a very good chance Tariq and Caroline’s forces would be wiped out the second they arrived.
It looked like Tariq was right. I would shortly be getting everyone killed.
“Feeling sorry for yourself, Nine Lives?” Mac whispered in my ear. “Don’t be pathetic. Take your lumps. This is the third time you’ve gone strolling into enemy territory. The third time you’ve baited the bad guy in their lair. How did you think it would end? Did you really think you were invincible? Frankly, I’m surprised he didn’t shoot you dead in the Member’s Lobby. He looked the type.”
I paced the room, ignoring my internal heckler, looking for a way out. But the place was buttoned up tight. There were guards outside and nothing in here I could use.
Eventually I sat down in the chairman’s seat at the head of the huge square of tables, put my feet up on the polished desk surface, and tried to sleep.
I couldn’t think of anything else to do.
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