The Hurst Chronicles | Book 4 | Harbinger

by Crumby, Robin

  Two of Salieri’s men patted down the new arrivals, making sure they were unarmed, before ushering them through to an anteroom decorated with watercolours and oil paintings. If Salieri’s intention had been to impress visitors with his taste for exquisite art, the opulence and splendour of the castle formed a fitting backdrop. Riley commended the Italian’s attention to detail.

  Well-appointed, though sparsely furnished, rooms gave access to a terrace area overlooking ornate gardens. Their escort paused at the entrance and coughed politely before announcing the Hurst group. A rotund figure Riley assumed was Salieri levered himself round in his cushioned seat, dabbing at the sheen on his forehead. A welcoming smile spread across his face.

  “You must be Riley. Please come and sit. I’ve heard much about you,” enthused Salieri, wiping perspiration from his upper lip, patting the seat beside him.

  “Thank you for seeing us at such short notice,” replied Riley, with an awkward half curtsey. “We brought you a small token of Hurst’s friendship.” She fished out the silver necklace and diamond ring the men from Bournemouth had exchanged for food, depositing them in his fleshy outstretched palm. “A gift for a lady friend,” explained Riley.

  Salieri deposited the jewellery on a silver tray with a cursory nod, as if such marks of respect were routine. For one awful moment, Riley wondered whether the necklace had originally belonged to Salieri.

  “Some tea?” he asked nonchalantly. The servant poured them both a cup of Earl Grey. Will and Scottie remained standing at a respectful distance.

  As she added a splash of milk, the china cup and saucer rattled slightly in Riley’s outstretched hand, betraying her discomfort.

  “How may I be of service to you today?” he asked, knowing full well what they wanted.

  “We came to ask for the safe return of our two girls, Heather and Jen.”

  “I see. What makes you think we have them?”

  Riley took a breath, keeping a lid on her emotions. “Mister Salieri, I appreciate you’re a busy man. We are neighbours for the first time. Jack, our founder, always maintained that security is built on trade and reciprocity. We scratch your back, you scratch ours.”

  Salieri seemed amused by the analogy.

  “Good neighbours do not steal from one another.”

  “Steal? We took only what belonged to us,” she lied. “The Bunnies owed us a debt.”

  “Whatever arrangement you had with the Bunnies is of no concern to me.”

  “Nevertheless, we traded with them many times.”

  “No, any obligation died with the Bunnies,” he replied with regal wave of his pudgy hand. “You trespassed on my property. Stole from me.”

  The indignation had made him breathless, chest heaving, his enormous gut spilling over his belt. Sitting so close to him made Riley’s skin crawl. As he waited for her response, his tongue rested furtively on his bottom lip, as if the weight of his jaw kept his mouth permanently open.

  “With all due respect, Mister Salieri, it is in everyone’s interests that we cooperate. The world is still at war with an invisible enemy. We don’t need another foe on our doorstep.”

  The Italian was non-plussed, shrugging his shoulders. “Perhaps our circumstances are different. We want for nothing here at the castle. Everything comes from the west, from Christchurch and Bournemouth. Beyond the orbit of the Allies.”

  “Nevertheless, the Allies would make a powerful enemy. Perhaps we should ask Captain Armstrong to settle our dispute?”

  “Armstrong has no jurisdiction here.”

  “A dispute with us is a dispute with them,” she suggested politely but firmly. “Hurst remains under the protection of the Allies. They control a triangle all the way from Lymington to Portsmouth north to Salisbury. Their sphere of influence grows by the day.”

  “But for how much longer? Our priorities lie closer to home. When the UN gets here, the balance of power will shift again. The Allies are rattled. They’re consolidating, not expanding. Soon their resources will be spread thin. They can no longer protect a vanity outpost.”

  “Hurst remains critical to their plans, protecting the Solent, along with the Needles Battery.”

  Salieri laughed, dismissing Riley’s claims. “Somehow I doubt that. Why else would Armstrong leave the job in the hands of civilians?” He drained his cup. “Tell me,” he continued, “why do you place so much faith in this Captain Armstrong?”

  “If you’d seen his plan, you’d understand. It’s the only chance we have of sorting out this mess. They’ve already restored power on the island, running water, secure food and fuel supplies. They have teams of scientists working on a vaccine.”

  “They don’t offer a hand of partnership, but demand allegiance, subservience to their rule. Why would any of us want to give up our independence for that?”

  “Because we’re all at risk until there’s an effective vaccine. If another wave of the pandemic hits, it could wipe us all out.”

  “There is no vaccine, it’s just a placebo,” he asserted sweepingly, rubbing gel into his palms, before offering it to an incredulous Riley. “A grand illusion to reimpose control. We all know quarantine and social distancing are the only defences worth investing in.”

  “Believe what you like. I’ve seen for myself what happened to the Bunnies. Do you really want to take that risk?”

  “The Allies invented the entire scenario. The pandemic has run its course. Everyone who could be infected, already has been. The rest of us are immune. Every group from here to Weymouth is uniting against the Allies. We’ve had enough of being pushed around.”

  “And Briggs? Where does he fit into all this?”

  “It depends what he has to offer. We dealt with his predecessor. Damian King. Look what happened to him. Betrayed and murdered. He underestimated the Allies. I will never make that mistake. Nor should you.”

  “No one wants a return to the carnage of those first few months. Open warfare. Dog eat dog. No one wins in that scenario.”

  “Wrong. I win. Every time. You came here to make a bargain because without fuel and supplies, you won’t last another winter. You need peace. Yet, you can’t trust the Allies either.”

  “Look, we want independence as much as you do,” insisted Riley. “We don’t want to be part of this empire Armstrong’s building.”

  “Power should reside with the many not the chosen few.”

  “Then what exactly do you propose?”

  “A system based on reciprocation and trade. Where hard work gets rewarded. Independent, local groups working together towards common goals: peace, security, prosperity.”

  “This whole region is already a patchwork of land and interests. That makes us weak.”

  “Local land should belong to local people. We don’t want a return to the old politics.”

  “You want a return to a feudal system?” asked Riley.

  Salieri roared with laughter. “Why not? It worked in Italy for hundreds of years. Your way would mean years of chaos and disorder.”

  “It depends what you believe.”

  “The old way destroyed communities. Globalisation and immigration were the real enemies. Throwing open our borders, inviting unlimited migration, it was always a recipe for disaster.”

  Riley was puzzled by the comments of a man who had adopted England as his home. “We’re all immigrants here. You’re saying they should just go home?”

  “No, they have just as much right to be here as any other group. I’m just saying we can never go back to the way things were. We must find a new path that puts the interests of the local community first. The Allies will never be happy until they have resurrected their broken politics. They still cling to old power structures, refusing to adapt. They fail to realise that all their ships, tanks and helicopters are redundant. They’ll never win a war against us. Cut off an arm and two more grow back.”

  “Listen, I used to counsel veterans returning from conflict zones. Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia. I saw first-hand t
he human cost of men’s stubbornness. The emotional and physical trauma is indelible. I’ve seen enough suffering to last a lifetime, I will never be a party to civil war.”

  “No, if you don’t make a stand, you’ll be swept away like King and the others.” Salieri shrugged, as if dismissing her concerns.

  “Whether you like it or not, we are all interdependent. If one falls, we all fall, like dominos. Our collective safety and security depends on it. None of us can stand alone.”

  “The Allies will fail because they’ve learned nothing. They refuse to compromise. Until they come to the table as equals, we refuse to engage with them.”

  “You and I, we are not enemies. We have so much more to gain by working together. I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot. How do I make this right between us?”

  Salieri paused, as if reconsidering Riley’s apology. “Perhaps there is a way.” He gestured to his aide who whispered in rapid Italian. “Very well, Marco will come to collect everything the day after tomorrow. When everything you took is returned, we will consider the slate clean again.”

  She took a sip from her cup. Think Riley, think. What would Jack have done? In all likelihood, Salieri would have no clue what items they had taken. For the Italians, it was likely a point of principle, saving face, knowing that someone had taken from them, whether knowingly or unknowingly. A point of leverage to be traded. Roll over too quickly and she risked encouraging him. Jack would never have let another group bully Hurst like this. She made up her mind, turning to face him.

  “What about the girls?”

  “If Marco is happy, they will be released.”

  “He’ll bring them to Hurst when he comes to collect?”

  “Of course. Like you say, we are neighbours, we should not fight.” His change of heart was wholly unconvincing. Her conscience was screaming at her to throw his offer back in his fat face, to demand the girls’ release. She glanced at Will and Scottie for a steer. Their silent nod implored her to take the deal.

  “I have your word that the girls will not be harmed?”

  “They will be well looked after.” His response did little to reassure her.

  The guard from the main entrance appeared in the doorway and Salieri took his cue to finish his tea and rise from his seat with difficulty. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some business to attend to. I’ll leave you in Marco’s capable hands.” Salieri enveloped Riley’s hand in his clammy palms. “Next time you come, we will have dinner, you and I. I make the best seafood pasta on the south coast,” he winked mischievously, not waiting for her answer.

  As soon as the Italian was out of earshot, Riley whispered ‘creep’ under her breath. She couldn’t stand another moment in the company of this patronising, repulsive man.

  Chapter 32

  Time had become almost impossible to track in Zed’s windowless cell, the scratches on the wall the only indication of days passing, though he could be sure of nothing. The bloodied cuticle on his index finger provided the only evidence he’d carved the marks himself and not some previous occupant.

  When he investigated the dull throb in his bicep, he discovered a dozen tiny pin pricks together with vivid bruising from the periodic injections. He half-remembered the twice daily visits by a white-coated nurse who avoided eye-contact. The warm haze, muddled thoughts, moments of clarity followed by stark emptiness. An anguished cry from the next door cell, the stink of cigarettes in an otherwise airless space.

  Each time he gave in to his tiredness, the music, and lights started again. A wailing siren succeeded by thrash metal. Spotlights burning into his retinas, strobing and flashing. Scrunching his eyes shut made little difference. The white light seared into the back of his skull like phosphorus.

  He curled into a ball, hugging his knees as he rocked gently backward and forward on the soiled mattress laid on a bare concrete floor. His head lolled to the side, scarcely able to contain the overwhelming waves of fatigue. Another trickle of sweat ran down his spine, soaking into his underwear. He tried to focus on its path, tracing its progress, trying to remember the names of individual vertebrae. These little mental exercises helped keep his thoughts anchored in the here and now. As soon as his concentration wavered, his conscious mind seemed to lose its bearings and became quickly detached. Wasn’t that what they wanted? A rapid collapse of all remaining defences.

  He found comfort in counting. Two hundred and six bones in the human body, three thousand six hundred seconds in an hour, one hundred and ninety-five countries in the world, give or take, though he could no longer remember all their names. He rotated through these abstract calculation challenges, like some private catechism, chanted under his breath.

  He found comfort reflecting on periods in his life when routine and discipline were foremost. Lesson plans based on the national curriculum, working as a science teacher in a secondary school. It helped to focus on scientific fact, the laws of nature, fundamental truths that no one could undermine. He appointed Newton, Boyle, and Faraday as the guardians of his frail grip on reality. Each time he questioned the truth he would return to their principles and rebuild from there.

  Of course, he realised they put opiates in his food. The psychedelic dreams were disturbing at first, but in time, he came to embrace them for what they were: terrifying and exhilarating. In his daydreams he rejoiced in a private world of his creation, boots crunching along the shingle beach at Hurst Spit, talking and laughing, hand in hand with Heather and Riley, one on each side, blinded by the evening sun.

  Why didn’t they just kill him and be done? It could only mean he knew something they still needed, something they feared. He dismissed Donnelly’s claims of espionage as a smoke-screen, some subterfuge to conceal his true purpose, probing his defences, wearing him down. He knew that if he dropped his guard just once, there would be no way back. The voice inside his head kept repeating ‘hold on, one more hour’. He wondered whether Gill was in a cell like this. Whether she had been as resilient, resistant to their demands. He hoped not.

  On the occasions he refused to eat or stuck fingers down his throat to purge the contents of his stomach, the punishments came quickly. What he craved above all else was a clear head, time and space to think, to systematically deconstruct all the fragmentary intelligence that resided in his head. To piece together the mental jigsaw. His interrogators seemed intent on frustrating that clarity. To force-feed him a diet of alternative facts and figures until he could no longer determine what was real or fake. Everything he knew turned upside down.

  His defences had begun to fracture, conceding ground, little by little. He told them what he guessed they wanted to know, hoping that would buy him precious time. He reserved a private mental space, disconnected and separate, locked away from his conscious thoughts and memories. It was a technique he learned from an MoD colleague years ago. A trained psychologist, expert in counter interrogation techniques, gleaned from years of research, based on interviews with enemy combatants in successive wars from Vietnam to Iraq, Syria, and Iran, yielding simple defence strategies Zed had deployed with limited success. His interest had always been academic. Never for one moment did he consider he might ever have to use them to stay alive.

  A familiar jangle of keys in the corridor brought him back to the here and now. The unpainted door creaked open on rusting hinges. A guard checked the room before making way for Major Donnelly. Zed could smell his stale breath up close before he blinked open his half-seeing eyes.

  “Give him something to wake him up,” ordered Donnelly, patting the prisoner’s cheek. The nurse prepared a syringe of colourless liquid, plunging the needle deep into Zed’s bicep. The effect was instantaneous. Pure adrenaline surged through him like electricity. He sat upright, gulping air, staring wild-eyed towards the light from the doorway.

  “Leave us now,” instructed Donnelly, waiting for them to be alone.

  “I can’t move my legs,” grimaced Zed.

  “Paralysis is temporary, it will pass.”

&
nbsp; “What did you give me?”

  “We call it ‘Bonfire’, a psychotropic compound used by the KGB. Very effective at unlocking forgotten memories. The paralysis is a regrettable side-effect we never could figure out.” He forced a laugh. “Untraceable, far less messy than all that waterboarding nonsense. Not that you’ll remember any of this tomorrow.”

  “Make the dreams stop.”

  “Just say the word and this can be over. You’re here only as long as you need to be.”

  “I’ve told you everything.”

  “And never the truth. Perhaps a man like you is incapable of telling the difference. You call yourself an analyst, an investigator, a dealer in fact, but your judgement is just as warped as the next person. Your view of reality has been indelibly coloured by the endless conspiracy theories, urban myths and fabrications you deal with. You tilt at the moon, questioning whether man really landed there in 1969. You can’t accept the truth because you don’t like what it’s telling you.”

  “Truth is a choice,” croaked Zed. His voice sounded distant, different somehow. The opiates emboldened him. “There are so many different narratives, it depends which version you prefer.” There was a defiance about his response that warranted punishment. Donnelly slapped him around the face, bringing Zed’s thoughts back into focus. He bared his teeth, a kaleidoscope of colours clouding his vision. “You’re the one that’s scared of the truth. Why else would you keep me here?” continued Zed.

  “The path you are on leads nowhere. More false trails and dead ends, like so many others. You’ll be remembered as the ‘boy who cried wolf’. Your reputation forever tarnished.”

  “I gave up any aspiration of a career years ago. Reputation means nothing to me.”

  “Good, then you’ll have less baggage. The sooner you accept logic and reason, reject this fantasy, the sooner we can all get back to moving science forward, not looking over our shoulders at past decisions.”