The Hurst Chronicles | Book 4 | Harbinger

by Crumby, Robin

  “You bastard,” whispered Zed, slumping back against the cold floor. “What do you want from me?”

  “Bring down the circus. All of it. Donnelly, Armstrong, Porton Down. Finish what you started. Set the world on fire. Let it burn until nothing’s left.”

  Zed nodded his assent, wondering what he was agreeing to. He had no choice. It was the only way to make this stop.

  Briggs threw open the door, stepping aside as two men came to collect Zed. He tried to fight them off but he had no strength left. He gave into his fatigue, head slumped between his shoulders as his feet dragged behind him like some rag doll.

  Chapter 52

  Riley stared into the darkness, trying to discern the shape of the castle against the night sky. Aboard the Nipper, the mood was sombre. So many had lost friends and crewmates. The modest fishing boat afforded little shelter from the biting wind and occasional spray, the lucky ones huddled behind her wheelhouse. The Nipper’s engines, however, provided a comforting heartbeat to their journey back to Hurst.

  By the time they reached the East Dock, it was after four in the morning. Sam radioed ahead, relieved to hear Scottie’s voice. A few minutes later, the powerful beam of a searchlight fixed to the railing of the lighthouse picked out the Nipper. Pinpricks of light from half a dozen torches danced along the shoreline as a welcome party raced down to meet them.

  Will secured the Nipper’s bowline as the injured were helped ashore, each handed a grey blanket to put around their shoulders. Beyond the lowered drawbridge, several children poked at the embers of a dying fire, piling fresh logs from a wheelbarrow into the pit. Liz handed round mugs of hot tea to the dozens of new arrivals, warming their hands, staring into the flames, clutching a brew. Anders seemed inconsolable at the loss of his ship, home for the last few years. Stirred from his introspection by the arrival of the remaining survivors from the Charlotte’s lifeboat. Anders’s Chief Engineer had prepared a crew roster and began reading from the list, gathering the survivors in close as each name was called out, those with no response met with a shake of the head. In total, seven were missing. A mark was left next to their name on the handwritten list.

  “Do we know how many the Sheridan picked up?” asked Riley, trying to master her emotions.

  “Three. Apparently, they arrived late, after she’d capsized. They volunteered to help the Americans with their sector search.”

  “We need those names,” demanded Anders.

  “I’ll find out. Come with me.” Will led the Charlotte’s Chief Engineer to the radio room within the guardhouse by the front gate.

  Raised voices on the far side of the compound drew Riley’s attention. An animated exchange between David Woods, the former cabinet minister and LaSalle, his European counterpart, arguing about something to do with security. The colonel and Lieutenant Peterson had to separate the two men. It was all terribly undignified as the colonel seemed keen to point out, appealing for calm. Their collective refusal to take any responsibility for the Charlotte’s sinking stirred some deep-seated social injustice in Riley. The political class endlessly squabbling, blaming each other, as the world quietly burned.

  Riley marched over, determined to have her say.

  “This came out of the blue. There was no warning,” explained the colonel, attempting to reassure everyone, but falling desperately short.

  “The Colonel’s right. The Chester was on high alert. Scopes were clear for miles. No surface contacts other than the Sheridan, the Charlotte, the Nipper, and our own RIB.”

  “Then how do you explain what happened to…?” began Riley.

  “We think it was a hull-mounted limpet mine. Remote detonated or set on a timer.”

  “Meaning this was pre-planned. How many people knew about the location of the meeting?”

  “Too many. It’s the reason why we delayed the decision until the last minute.

  “This is a strange play for Armstrong.”

  “What about Briggs?” suggested Riley.

  “Attack his own people?” challenged the colonel. “No, the Charlotte is as neutral as they come. Anders does as much business with the rebels as he does with St Mary’s and Portsmouth.”

  Liz and one of the teenage kitchen assistants emerged from the gloom carrying two more trays filled with steaming mugs of tea for all. “There’s cake too.”

  Anders was at her side in an instant. “You’d make someone a wonderful wife,” he purred, squeezing her arm with a wink. “I don’t suppose you have something stronger for a thirsty mariner?”

  “Flattery will get you everywhere,” cooed Liz. “I might have a bottle of cooking brandy I was saving for someone special. Might not be quite up to the Charlotte’s standards, but any port in a storm, eh?”

  “Right now, Swedish schnapps would be welcome.” Like most of Anders’s Danish humour, he left his audience to puzzle over the punchline.

  Riley spotted LaSalle a few paces from the others, admiring the imposing walls of the castle towering above them. He turned and acknowledged her. “I’ve seen many castles in my time, but none quite like this,” he admitted. Riley appreciated the peace offering. She followed the sweep of his arm. “You know, I’ve heard so much about this place. Somehow, I imagined it would be different.”

  “I know it’s not much to look at, but it’s home.”

  LaSalle laughed. Riley would be the first to admit, the castle’s design and construction were functional, to say the least. A squat, grey concrete and stone military fort. A far cry from the fairytale spires and decorative chateaux in his native Belgium.

  “Oh I don’t know. I suppose we’ve all grown up with stories of Henry VIII. The field of the cloth of gold. The opulence of his court. I expected something more like Hampton Court, walled gardens, built to withstand the Spanish Armada.”

  She smiled. “Most of the castle was built much later. To defend against Napoleon and the French.”

  “Ironic, no? And now it defends you from your own military?”

  “Rogue elements, perhaps.”

  “How well do you know this Captain Armstrong?”

  “I’ve met him a few times. Typical naval officer. All brass buttons and starched collars. Stickler for the rules.”

  “But as a man? What do you make of him?”

  “He didn’t strike me as a bad bloke. Just misguided, I suppose.”

  “The Colonel is confident he will come round to our way of thinking, given the right motivation, but after tonight, I’m not so sure. This has gone too far, already.”

  A commotion near the fire pit interrupted their exchange as Will reemerged from the radio room with news from the Sheridan. He made straight for Riley as the crowd fell silent. He embraced her with relief. “They’ve got him.”

  “Thank God,” sighed Riley, burying her head in Will’s shoulder. Gill waited her turn to hug Riley, tears in her eyes. “He’s got more lives than a cat, that one.”

  “Silly bugger. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised,” admitted Will with a thin smile.

  Once they finished their tea, Riley invited the colonel and the others to an upstairs room in the Gun Tower where they could speak in private.

  The minister remained incandescent, needling his European counterpart, claiming to have predicted this entire mess. “Until you have some actual proof that Donnelly’s behind the attack, nothing’s going to change. Armstrong will blame the rebels or find some other excuse.”

  “With respect, Minister, we’ll never win this war playing by the rules,” insisted the colonel. “To beat Donnelly, we need to operate in the shadows. Not confront him head on.”

  “You had your chance, Colonel. Look where that got us,” countered the minister. “No, it’s time we shine a light on the truth and exposed all his lies. Democracy dies without transparency.”

  “The Colonel’s right. It’s time the gloves came off,” suggested Peterson. “Just say the word and Sergeant Jones’s team can sort this out, once and for all.”

  “That’s
not how things get done in this country,” claimed the minister. “Whatever you may think is justified in these extraordinary circumstances, the rule of law remains paramount. Anyone found guilty of wrongdoing will face justice.”

  “Sir, this ends only one way. Tie the hands of our security services too tightly and you set us up to fail,” implored the colonel. “Donnelly’s already proven himself a master at misdirecting our limited resources, diminishing our ability to fight back. He’s evaded justice for years. He’ll never confess to what he’s done. The only way we win is by playing him at his own game. We can’t risk Donnelly and Pegasus’s vision prevailing.”

  “Then perhaps the less I know the better,” said the minister with undeniable sarcasm. “This way democracy risks dying by a thousand cuts.

  “No, this way democracy survives, don’t you see?” insisted the colonel. “The attack on the Charlotte was an act of desperation. The longer we wait, the more evidence Donnelly destroys. We have him on the run now. We must press our advantage. But first we need to drive a wedge between Porton Down and St. Mary’s. Deny Donnelly the support of the military and he’ll have nowhere left to hide.”

  “Then it’s time we showed our hand,” agreed LaSalle. “Declare Donnelly a fugitive from international justice, Armstrong will have no choice but to cooperate. Use Donnelly’s own plot against him.”

  “What about Briggs?” the colonel asked Peterson.

  “Briggs will play ball. He wants what we all want: an end to the fighting,” confirmed Peterson.

  Riley nodded, but was puzzled by what they were proposing. “But surely, if we do what you’re suggesting, Briggs wins.”

  “Then that’s the price we must pay,” admitted Peterson. “Briggs knows he can’t beat the Allies in a fair fight, so he changed the rules, switched sides, made the most of his advantages. Victory means nothing to him. The only thing he cares about is displacing the Allies, securing a return to his precious island and that castle of his.”

  “It’s David versus Goliath and the people love an underdog,” added the colonel.

  “You’re seriously suggesting we need to kowtow to this criminal?” challenged Riley. “He’s a vigilante.”

  “A warlord who’s run rings around us since the beginning,” suggested the colonel. “Who else grasped the importance of winning hearts and minds? Compare his record with our own failures or even those of the United Nations. Our brutality, our lack of compromise, our insensitivity to local sentiment. His is the ultimate deception. Making his opponent believe they were winning, changing the rules just when it counted.”

  “Greater even than your own deception?” asked the minister to Riley’s muted surprise.

  “Minister, if you have something to say, I suggest you say it to my face.”

  “You may think you have us all fooled, but some of us see more clearly than others. We’re not just all marionettes. Performers in your little play. The medals, the rank. This whole charade was LaSalle’s idea, wasn’t it?” Riley held her breath, waiting for the minister to continue. “Why don’t you tell us who you really are?”

  “Did Armstrong put you up to this?

  “He didn’t need to. I’ve seen your file. There’s no point pretending. Why don’t you answer the question once and for all? How you came to be in the UK? You didn’t just stumble out of a bunker and walk into that command post in Gosport and start giving orders. With your uniform and all your ID and paperwork in your possession.”

  “Everything I’ve told you is true,” insisted the colonel. “GCHQ, Cheltenham, my time in Moscow, my rank. Everything. Don’t take my word for it. Others can vouch for me,” he said, appealing to the Secretary General and Lieutenant Peterson for support.

  “For all we know,” continued the minister, “the Colonel is a confidence trickster in a borrowed uniform, a foreign agent masquerading as a British Officer. By your own admission, they can fake service records. We have no actual proof you are who you say you are.”

  “No, Colonel Abrahams’s credentials are bona fide,” insisted LaSalle. “For reasons only now becoming clear, it was necessary for someone in his position to take control and gain the trust of the Allied command.”

  “And as the ranking officer, none of us had any choice but to accept him as our commander-in-chief.” The minister redirected his fire at the colonel. “I see no-one is denying that you’ve been in communication with the United Nations all this time?”

  “For national security reasons, my mission was classified.”

  “How convenient. Then perhaps you can tell us where you were before coming here?”

  “Gibraltar. Before that, a military command bunker in Whitehall.”

  “So while the rest of us were trying to save lives, keep people safe in their homes, GCHQ high-ups hid in some bunker?”

  “We were following pandemic protocols. When we lost London, they evacuated my team to Gibraltar.”

  “How did you get back?”

  “The same way Monsieur LaSalle got here. A submarine dropped me off at Gosport beach.”

  “You mean to say a British nuclear sub is operating in these waters?”

  “French, actually. Le Terrible and the Chester were part of the United Nations’ taskforce deployed to enforce the exclusion zone.”

  “Which explains why the Americans never mentioned a submarine lurking in the Solent?”

  “Minister, for reasons that are now abundantly clear, the Chester’s mission parameters were classified. Until Donnelly showed his hand, we simply didn’t know who to trust. I assure you, we did what was necessary.”

  “Then it was you who ran the misinformation campaign against the Allies?”

  “It was the Colonel’s idea. It was necessary to create division, to foment discord within your command structure. To feed the paranoia about the rebels and the UN, to pit one side against the other.”

  “Then the radio blackout?”

  “We needed to isolate Armstrong. Sever lines of communication between disparate groups.”

  “In future, you’ll excuse me if I treat everything you say with a pinch of salt,” warned the minister, frustrated at being kept in the dark for this long. He yawned, rubbing his eyes. “Sorry, it’s been a long night.”

  “I can find you somewhere to rest,” offered Riley.

  “Thank you, but there’s no time. There’s a boat coming for us at first light. We need to strike while the iron’s hot.”

  Chapter 53

  The sound of footsteps from the deck above his cabin woke Zed from a restless sleep. It took a moment to get his bearings. Blackout blinds, teak furniture, and deep-pile carpet suggested a junior suite on board Briggs’s luxury powerboat, gently rocking at anchor.

  He inspected his fingernails. After months of manual labour at the castle, all the pencil pushing at St Mary’s had made his hands soft again. They were spotlessly clean, no trace of fuel oil nor any physical evidence of a chaotic escape from a sinking ship. His entire body smelled incongruously of coconut soap. His limbs ached like crazy, though he was used to that morning ritual by now.

  Lying perfectly still, he attempted to piece together everything that had happened: the explosion, the flash fire, and the rescue. Why hadn’t the Nipper picked him up with the others? He sat up straighter, remembering. What day was it? How long had he slept? The convoy could be here at any moment.

  A movement to his right made his heart skip a beat. “How are you feeling?” asked Terra, shifting in her seat, realising he was awake.

  “Fine. How long have I been here?” he asked tersely.

  “A while,” she replied, checking her watch. “It’s just after nine. I thought you could do with the rest,”

  “What happened to the others?”

  “They’re safe. Back at the castle.” She reached over and pressed a button on the remote control. The blinds angled open as an electric motor gently whirred, revealing what looked like a steep-sided harbour wall.

  “Where are we?”
/>   “At the wreck site.”

  “Why?”

  “Victor is desperate to retrieve some personal items from his old cabin. He’s taken a salvage team on board to explore the sections of the ship that are not under water.”

  “You couldn’t pay me enough to go back on that ship,” said Zed, stroking his bruised shoulder. When he closed his eyes, he could still picture the nightmarish maze of part-submerged corridors, wreckage blocking their escape. He rested his head back against the pillow, enjoying the sensation of freshly-laundered cotton against his skin. A wardrobe door creaked open in the gentle swell, revealing a hanging rail with designer clothes. This must be Terra’s cabin.

  “You don’t remember, do you?” asked Terra, noticing his confusion. “You were seriously out of it.” Zed wondered what he might have said. “You kept talking about Gill,” she sniggered. “Which one is she? The geeky one in the lab coat? Your dirty little secret’s safe with me.”

  Zed ignored the attempted provocation, noting the clean blue and white striped pyjamas and towelling dressing robe he was wearing. “Who cleaned me up?” he asked, feeling suddenly self-conscious.

  “I asked one of the crew to do it. Didn’t want oil on my sheets. I left clean clothes on the chair. They might be a bit big.”

  “Why wasn’t Briggs at last night’s meeting? Or need I ask?”

  “Victor said it was something to do with Anders. Some long-standing disagreement. I’m not sure. He’s like a spoilt child sometimes. If he doesn’t get what he wants, he walks.”

  “It doesn’t look good for him.”

  “I don’t believe he had anything to do with it,” she replied, clearly offended by the suggestion he might murder his own people.

  “No one’s forgotten what he did to King.”

  “That was different. Not his style. Look, he’s a sadist. Killing quickly serves no purpose.” Zed fell silent. “Can’t you see what he’s planning?”

  “Can anyone? Why didn’t he just kill me when he had the chance.”