“It is a great pleasure to meet you,” he said with a small bow of his head. A small smile of amusement cracked Dan’s face at Lukas’ overly formal tone, again typical of an educated continental.
“Is breakfast ready?” Dan asked Marie as he played his part in their small pantomime.
“Almost,” she replied with a smile, knowing her role in the play. “May I offer you some food?” she asked the boy, seeing his blatant hunger. Gracefully, nervously, he accepted the kind offer with formality and was led inside.
“See,” said Leah from her unnoticed perch, “you can be nice to people.”
“Shut your face, you,” he said kindly before wandering off to leave the bewildered boy to be fed and cleaned up as Leah’s mocking laughter followed him.
Neil and Mitch returned thirty minutes later with the welcome news of having found a pickup truck which could take some of their equipment and offer seats to five uncomfortable passengers. The knowledge that people wouldn’t have to share the windowless space with the fuel reserves was well received. Their supply situation was discussed and the decision to scout for more food and water was deemed a priority.
Perhaps, thought Dan, their recently acquired local guide could be of some assistance in that matter.
TO TRAVEL IS TO LIVE
Lukas did indeed help with local knowledge. He gave directions to shops which yielded some bottled water and more canned food. Enough to keep them going for a few more days.
The problem with that was the space in the vehicles was even more cramped. Even more so when they agreed to add the boy to their group.
He had not fared well. He was part of his own group until a few months ago. His story was extracted carefully by Marie, and it was not a happy one. His group was small, and unlike them they had stayed in the built up areas and scavenged far and wide. Lukas had been part of a party sent to look for more supplies when they were found by some outsiders, as he called them.
He didn’t go into details, but he did say that he had hidden from the shouting and screaming, and by the time he found his way home there was nobody left. Everyone he had lived with since it happened was either dead or taken. He had wandered ever since, for weeks or months. He couldn’t be sure. It was obvious that he lacked the skills to prosper alone, but Dan doubted that many people would.
For a lack of anything better to do, he came with them. The humanitarian element overrode any sense of taking on a new mouth to feed; they simply couldn’t leave the young man behind to fend for himself. He was full of formal gratitude, but painfully quiet. The women of the group fussed over him until he was cleaned up and given fresh clothes, and joined them with a nervous smile looking like a new man.
There was little excitement over their new recruit, more a feeling of pitiful tragedy at his circumstances. How many others, Dan wondered, had similar stories? How many people could have been saved from the savagery of the new world if only his own morality were mirrored?
He pushed that thought away, scoffing at himself for believing he was a saint. There were plenty of survivors who were dead now because of his morality. Embarrassed at believing in his own flattery, he returned his thoughts to the task in hand.
The lack of preserved vehicles was a concern. By this time everything left exposed to the elements was perished beyond their capability to repair and they had to accept what they had.
With a subdued atmosphere, they set off towards their next objective. Paderborn. The home of the 20th Armoured Infantry Brigade, according to Mitch, with hopes of finding bigger and better vehicles and more supplies.
These hopes fought against the fear of failure inside Dan’s head as he rode a sedate and alert sentry beside their overloaded convoy.
THE COUP
Lexi paced, as she did all too often recently. Only this time it was worse. She bit at her nails as her footsteps fell heavily in the small office. Paul thought she was moving fast enough for it to be classed as exercise, but he understood her stress.
He felt it too, he just didn’t react like she did. He didn’t have the burden of her responsibilities for starters.
“He should be back by now,” she said, for the twentieth time in the last half an hour. “Something’s happened.”
“Try and calm down,” he said, instantly regretting making the fatal mistake of telling a woman under pressure to relax. The look she shot him was only fleeting, but he knew he had said the wrong thing. He fell back on logic instead.
“Rich knows what he’s doing. Shit, he could follow me all day and I’d never know about it,” he tried.
“Exactly!” she said as she stopped pacing to point at him, “so he should be back by now. Something’s happened.”
Her pacing resumed.
Paul watched for another minute in silence, thinking he would have to wait out her anxiety until Rich drove back down the long drive to the house. She surprised him by snatching up the keys to the Discovery and her rifle, and she strode to the door, unable to stay still any longer.
He quickly collected his own equipment and followed her outside to hear a strange noise.
Instead of the characteristic sound of the V6 diesel sparking to life, he could hear a ticking, tortured sound. Lexi wore a frown of pure frustration from behind the wheel as she tried to start the engine again. The same strangled electrical noise sounded.
“Pop the bonnet,” Paul called to her, indicating that she should pull the internal lever to allow him access to the engine bay. As he hoisted the expansive slab of metal on its hydraulic lifters, the cause of the failed start became evident.
Where the fuse box sat was a mess of wires, all torn from their allocated slots. He froze, as did Lexi when she joined him and began to ask the question she could now see the answer to.
Sabotage.
“Fuck,” she said aloud, dumbstruck. She paused for a second before making straight for the front door to get another vehicle. This was her proof now; the bloody twins had sabotaged their best vehicle and now Rich was God-knows-where following them. Alone.
Her own shadow stopped her as she neared the doors. Her shadow lit from behind by vehicle lights. She turned to stare at the approaching orbs of light, hoping it was Rich returning safely.
As she stared, the realisation hit her like a punch to the chest.
Four, five sets of lights were heading straight for them.
Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. No sound, just pure abhorrent shock at what she was seeing.
Paul grabbed at her shoulder, pulling her back towards the house.
“We’ve got to go,” he said, fear choking his words. “NOW,” he shouted, dragging her away. She snapped back to reality and turned. She was vaguely aware of Paul shouting at the top of his voice to raise the house.
She didn’t even try. She knew they were doomed to be overrun the second she counted the number of approaching vehicles, and pulled on her emergency bag – her E&E kit as Dan had called it when he taught her how to use the contents. She had time to grab a few spare boxes of rifle ammunition from a shelf and throw it into the top pouch before she threw Paul’s own bag at him.
“There’s no time,” she said, fixing him with a serious look. “We’ve got to go,” she said hoarsely, gripping his arm.
Paul knew she was right. They could never mount a defense now and they had maybe thirty seconds before the first vehicle pulled up on their very doorstep. He nodded, pulled on his bag and followed her to the rear doors. Lexi rounded a corner into the lounge and collided with Chris and Melissa.
“What the fuck’s going on?” he asked.
“No time,” she snapped at him. “Come with us now, both of you.”
They both just stared at her with open mouths. Their decisions to abandon their home and their friends were taken for them as they were dragged out of the building. Only Chris resisted. He pulled his arm free of Lexi’s grip and stood his ground.
“What’s going on?” he snarled angrily.
“We’re fucking finis
hed, that’s what’s going on. In about ten seconds someone’s coming through the front door to take this place. Now fucking move,” she snapped back. Chris had no choice but to obey.
In just the clothes they wore the four of them ran. They abandoned everyone there to the mercy of whoever was coming in superior force to take away everything they had worked to achieve. It wasn’t Dan leaving that ended them; even if he and all the others were here she doubted they could repel that many people if they were armed. The only way they had done it before was because the attack had been foiled before they could surprise them and they had a machine gun aimed at them before they knew what they were driving into.
This time, they were the ones being surprised.
This time, they would lose without a shadow of doubt.
The four of them fled over the grass of the rear lawns and headlong into the woods. They didn’t stop, not even when they heard the shouts of panic and alarm from behind them. They cut their losses, their huge and unfathomable losses, and kept running.
Roused from her sleep by the shouting, Lizzie struggled for a minute to figure out what was going on. Now that Steve was a little better she had taken the decision to self-medicate and try to recoup some of the many hours of sleep she had lost, and the tablets made her groggy. Steve was waking up too, confused by the noise.
An armed man burst in, pointed a rifle at them and told them not to move. The instruction was easy for both of them to follow as neither were medically able to find their feet.
She asked what was going on, only to be told to shut up. She shut up, and even shut her eyes again to return to the chemically-induced sleep she was certain she was still in.
She wasn’t, and slowly that realisation dawned on her.
Eyes wide in terror she looked at Steve, trying to make eye contact and gain some form of explanation for what was happening. All around the house shouts and screams rang out. Too terrified to move, she stayed exactly where she was and waited for her turn to endure whatever was happening to the others.
The door opened again and the twins entered. She couldn’t even place their names but she knew they looked different somehow, like they were only now seen as their true selves and had dropped whatever pretense they wore as a disguise before. Both walked tall and possessed an air of power which seemed new to her.
They were followed by a man wearing a crisp, clean uniform of camouflage material. He walked with purpose, his head held high and aloof. The man dripped with smug arrogance. He glanced at her, dismissed her immediately and walked to Steve’s side.
He leaned down to stare in his eyes. Steve’s pupils locked on to the man’s own and widened with disbelief.
“Flight Lieutenant Bennett,” he said slowly, enunciating each word carefully, “I do believe you owe me a helicopter.”
With that he stood, turned on his heel and walked out.
Major Richards had promoted himself from Captain after he had forcibly relocated his group. He had prospered and added numbers to his ranks with such speed that he needed a larger bureaucratic system and more junior officers to take responsibility. He had found that after amalgamating a half dozen other groups into his own. The sting of Steve’s betrayal was something he refused to let go, and now he had come to swallow up the people and resources from the man who had thought to make a fool of him.
BIGGER BOY’S TOYS
Two days of careful navigation and uncomfortable travel had taken them deep into Germany. Frequent stops were needed due to their cramped conditions, and Phil’s constant travel sickness had caused a medical emergency when he became so dehydrated that Kate called a stop to get potentially life-saving fluids into him by way of a drip.
As they entered the town of Paderborn, finding out the amusing news that it was twinned with Bolton in England, Dan recognised the clear evidence of an army town.
Evidence to Dan that was, having spent years in similar places. The fences were straight and neat, the roads wide and smooth. The grass was overgrown however, and signs of disrepair were starting to creep in. Never would the British Army allow such sloppiness, he thought to himself with a wry smile.
A suitable building was found on the outskirts and a halt called for everyone to unload and relax. Dan allowed himself a brief respite as his cramped muscles burned from days spent in the saddle of an uncomfortable motorcycle. When he gauged that the others were refreshed, he took Mitch and Leah out on foot to assess their surroundings.
Moving carefully to avoid detection by the innumerable possible enemies he feared constantly, the three worked their way closer and closer to the British forces base. Only to find it completely deserted.
Had their luck finally changed, he thought? Would they get something they needed without having to fight for it?
Like all true cynics, Dan refused to believe that such a goldmine would be totally undefended and that nobody else realised what this place held.
Ever since the end of the Second World War, the majority of the Western world’s military might had been held in storage in Germany. Since before the Berlin wall fell, throughout the height of the Cold War, the British and the Americans, mostly, had been responsible for the huge infrastructure which made it possible to roll their tanks straight into Russia at a moment’s notice. Now he refused to let himself to be fooled into thinking that nobody else would want what was here.
He wasn’t greedy; he had no intention of taking tanks. He just wanted some well-maintained and fully fueled trucks capable of getting them to Africa, and if he allowed himself a little artistic license then some new hardware wouldn’t go amiss.
Forcing himself to concentrate, he ordered an observation point set up to watch the camp. The three of them lay still all day only a short distance apart. They saw nothing. No movement, no patrols and nothing to suggest that they couldn’t walk in and take what they needed.
He made himself go slow. Watch and wait, he told himself, watch and wait.
When it neared sundown he called the quiet withdrawal, and he and Leah returned to the others to rest and start again in the morning. Mitch, the ever alert Mitch, offered to stay and keep watch throughout the night and promised to make radio contact at first light or in the event of a problem.
Dan knew him well enough by now to trust his instincts and have faith in his uncanny ability to go without sleep.
MILITARY DICTATORSHIP
The next three days were spent under constant guard. People were summoned, interviewed and returned to their designated holding areas until called for. Thorough searches were conducted and every item that could be used as a weapon was taken.
People were set to work loading all their carefully stockpiled supplies into a series of green army trucks. Any questions were met with stonewalled ignorance, any dissent with instant punishment. Ewan had suffered badly, being the ill-tempered Welshman he naturally was. Lizzie had to treat him for a raft of minor injuries after he had disagreed with three of their captors; each one of them alone outweighing him and at least two heads taller.
After the second day people started to be called by name. They were told to bring their belongings, and they were ordered into more trucks.
The farm animals were loaded into every bit of available space in their own cattle transports; those that had no space were left in situ to starve.
Richards had taken over Ops as his command post for the assimilation of the group, with his junior officers and NCO’s coming in and out as tasks were issued. He was pleased with himself. He told his small army that it was their duty to take these simple people into their fold, to protect them from the harsh world and establish order.
Above all, he craved order.
“Do we have them all?” he asked a young man wearing a uniform a size too big for him.
“Sir,” he stammered, “we believe that four got away, probably in the patrol vehicle we lost during the assault.”
“And the two men of that patrol?” he enquired acidly.
“Don’t know, Sir.
”
Richards glared at the boy, enjoying the feeling of power as the younger man quailed under his gaze. An irritated wave of the hand dismissed him, and he ran gratefully from the room.
The victorious Major leaned back in the chair, placed his feet carefully on the desk to avoid scuffing his boots that he had ordered polished to a high shine, and opened the drawer next to him. Pulling out a nearly empty bottle of single malt, he examined it with evident amusement before uncorking it and pouring the contents triumphantly into the thin carpet.
As the final stages of their hostile takeover drew to a close, he had one last event to enjoy. He rose, straightened his uniform, and strode purposefully into medical as one of the two guards posted at the door flanked him wordlessly.
“Bennet,” he announced arrogantly, “don’t get up.” A humourless chuckle escaped his mouth as the joke he had planned came out just as he intended. He had no sense of comedy timing, due largely to the absence of any likeable traits of personality.
Steve didn’t answer. As Lizzie had lost control of their supply of medication the pain had worsened and a permanent prickle of sweat beaded his pale and clammy face. He lay on the bed in a constant sea of pain as Lizzie watched over him, powerless to ease his suffering.
Richards stood at the end of the bed with his hands on his hips, staring down at a broken man.
“I told you that you owed me a helicopter,” he said with open scorn on his face, “but I see you somewhat squandered that gift.”
When no answer came he was forced to move the conversation along himself. He didn’t like it when the script he had rehearsed in his head had to be altered.
“I can offer you medical treatment at our new base,” he said. Again he was frustrated at receiving no answer.
Hope: After It Happened Book 4 Page 15
