Is she annoyed with me? “Err … I just… We’ve tortured a lot of people and, to be honest, the results have never been great.” Oh shit! What have I said?
Olsen raised an eyebrow. “Is that your expert opinion as a battle-hardened soldier who's just out of nappies?”
He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to off—”
“Relax.” The smile was back again. “I’m pulling your leg. Tell me your thoughts behind your plan.”
“Well, I just thought if I could win their trust, they might give me useful information and if that didn’t work, then we could always go down the torture route as a last resort.”
“And did it work, this plan of yours?”
“Yes,” he replied with a smile. “We had the drones doing circuits, and we spotted them heading along the A838. I intercepted them at—”
“Yes, I’m well aware of how we found them and how we intercepted them. I’m asking did the plan work?”
“I was worried for a while. When the drones kept coming, I expected to see a convoy heading around the corner to tell me we were aborting. It took some doing to dodge them.”
“Well, that was on my instructions. I told Carlow to try to keep tabs. After all, if they sniffed you out, we’d have been back to square one, wouldn’t we?”
“I just thought the plan was to keep them up long enough to—”
“Like I said, that was on my instruction.” Josh saw the do not question my authority look in her eyes and did not press any further.
“Yes, Chancellor Olsen. Well, anyway, I managed to win their trust.” He went on to tell her everything he had found out, and with each passing moment he relaxed a little more as he saw the excitement flash in her eyes.
“You did well … very well. You’re going to have a great future.”
He smiled humbly. “We’re all going to have a great future, thanks to you.”
“And this camp ... the theatre troupe, they’re all just living like animals in the woods?”
“Not quite like animals. They’ve been managing quite well. They’ve got shelter and food and—”
“I’ll need you to show Carlow exactly where they are. We’ll send a squad to round them up. That idiot, Marston, lost all the zeefs in East Crovie, it sounds like there are enough there to make up for it.”
“Err…”
“What is it?”
“I told them…”
“You told them what?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Olsen stared at him sternly then her expression mellowed and she leaned forward. “Remember the bigger picture. We can’t be weak. Make no mistake; there are people out there who will want to tear down everything we’re building. When I was in parliament, the hate mail, the trolling, the threats … they were constant, but I believed in the cause and that’s what kept me strong, and staying strong is everything. Staying strong stops our enemies. Staying strong builds on our successes. In two years from now, we’ll have taken back Scotland. In ten years, Britain. We’ll build back better. That was never just a slogan to me, it was my mantra. We’ll have no enemies left. We have over two hundred women who are pregnant right now, and this is just the start, Josh.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“You liked this girl, this Wren.”
“No. I just—”
“You feel guilt. That’s normal. That’s good. It’s what decent people feel. I don’t like killing, nobody does. We’re not maniacs, but make no mistake; everybody out there is an enemy of what we stand for. We all found each other. We share the same ideals, and we built our new society, our new order on those ideals.”
“You’re right,” he replied, looking down to the floor.
Olsen leaned forward in her chair and lifted his chin up. He could smell some kind of sweet perfume on her, and he immediately became enchanted by her eyes as she seemed to look into his soul. “Listen to me. You’re going to be a commander soon enough, and you’re going to be responsible for the lives of others. I’m responsible for everybody’s lives right now, and I take the job deathly seriously. Now, if I decide not to attack this Safe Haven, what happens?”
Josh sat back in his chair and thought. “They get their town back. They get those weapons. They build their defences stronger. They—”
“That’s right. They become more formidable. Maybe they recruit more people, build a bigger army, and by the sound of it, they let anyone into that place. They’re not good Christians like us. They’re not interested in building back Britain, they’re only interested in themselves, their own little town. They’re only out for themselves. They’ll support the weak and the lazy and the degenerates, and they’ll spread like a virus just like they did before. This plague has given us the perfect opportunity. We can just wipe the slate clean. There are resources available in this country beyond our wildest imagination. They’re ours for the taking, but they’re out there for others to take too, and we need to beat them to it. We have a higher purpose, and we must never let our doubts get in the way of that.”
“Your mind … you’re just … I wish I had your strength, your brains.”
She smiled again. “What you did today showed strength, brains and guts. You’re young, Josh. Trust me; you’ve impressed me, and I don’t impress easily. Thank you for what you did. You have no idea how much of a difference you’ve made,” Olsen said, leaning back and standing up. “Now come on over to the table. We’ve got some planning to do.”
CHAPTER 19
The hike back to the camp had felt like a death march. Robyn, Mila and Chuck told the others what had happened while Wren and Wolf went down to the stream to clean up. Long after she had finished bathing Wolf, the pair of them sat on the bank. Wolf leaned into his mistress, and she placed her left arm around him as she began to cry once more.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been there when she was roused from her sadness by a sound from behind. “Just me,” Robyn said, sitting down beside her. They remained there in silence for several minutes before she spoke again. “We need to think about what we want to do next.”
Wren slowly turned to her. Robyn saw that her sister’s eyes looked red raw with all the crying and she reached out to take her hand. “There is no next,” she eventually replied in a throaty rasp.
“There's always a next.”
“Bobbi, this is it. This is the end of everything. It’s all over. The one place that I thought we could live safely, live out the rest of our lives is gone thanks to me. There’s nothing else.”
“Firstly, we don’t know that. From everything you’ve told me, Mike and Shaw and the rest of them have pretty much pounded the hell out of anyone who’s attacked them. What makes you think that they won’t do the same now?”
Wren pulled her hand away. “I know you’re just trying to make me feel better, but don’t. It won’t work. When we left Safe Haven, it had just sustained the biggest attack ever. It was in tatters. Someone with a peashooter could probably finish them off without too much difficulty, so just think what a massive army can do, Bobbi.”
“Okay, suppose that’s true. You feeling responsible isn’t going to help anyone. Marcus had already told them where Safe Haven was more or less. Even if they didn’t get the rest of the info from you, they’d end up going there.”
Wren exhaled deeply. “I suppose you're right. If it wasn’t the infected. If it wasn’t the men from Loch Uig. If it wasn’t the pirates. If it isn’t Chancellor Olsen and her vast army, then it will be someone else. It’s just a matter of time before we all go.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“It’s the truth. Whether we stay here, go back on the road or head into the mountains, it’s just a matter of time before someone or something finishes us off.”
“Wren, you’re scaring me. I’ve never heard you talk like this. You’re always the positive one, the one with ideas.”
“Yeah well. You were right all along, Bobbi. I was wrong.”
&nbs
p; “No. No, I wasn’t, and it was you who showed me I wasn’t.”
“How can you say that? How can you say that knowing what’s about to happen? Knowing what could be happening right now.”
“Because I’ve been in situations that I didn’t think there was ever a way out of, but I found a way. We found a way.”
“And what about Grandad and all my friends? What’s their way out?”
“I don’t have all the answers, Wren. And you’re right, Grandad and Mike and the rest of them have got to face whatever comes next by themselves, and that feels horrible. It feels worse than horrible, but we can’t just give up. We can’t just throw in the towel. We’ve come so far, and if nothing else, we still have each other. I went through a long, dark time thinking I’d never see you again, but here we are. When you’re stuck in the middle of it sometimes, there’s no end in sight. But we will get over this. We will find a way out, somehow.”
“I’m sure I’ve used those words before.”
“Yeah, well, now you know what it feels like to be on the receiving end. I suppose I was listening after all,” Robyn said, taking her sister’s hand once more. “You are the most important thing in the world to me. I can’t have you giving up. It’s not who you are. It’s not who I am anymore. Whatever happens happens. We deal with it together. Good or bad, we share. I was taken in by Josh too. It’s not a crime wanting to think the best of people.”
“No, but it’s stupid. Thinking the best of people will only leave you disappointed because there rarely is a best. They’re just people, and people nearly always let you down.”
“That’s not true. Not all people.”
Wren turned to look at her sister. “No, not all people.” They sat in silence for a while, and as they continued to hold hands, they stared into the stream, allowing themselves to get lost in their thoughts. Eventually, Wren shuffled her hand free, picked up a stone and threw it into the moving water. “We’d better be getting back.”
“So, are we staying here?”
“It’s not like we’ve got anywhere else to go, is it?”
“Do you seriously think we can survive through the winter camping in the woods?”
“I don’t know, Bobbi. I don’t know anything anymore. Maybe we just stop here for a few days and try to figure stuff out.”
Robyn climbed to her feet and offered her hand to her sister. Wren took it and brushed herself off as she got up. “We should head back, have something to eat and get some sleep. It’s been a long day, and my guess is tomorrow will be another one.”
Wren looked up to the sky then to the northeast. “They wouldn’t go without a fight.”
“Sis! You need to stop thinking about it.”
“Gladly. Tell me how I do that, Bobbi. Please tell me how I do that.”
Robyn took hold of Wren’s arm. “Come on.”
They walked back through the forest, barely uttering a word to each other. When they arrived at the camp, the mood was equally sombre. Dinner was a quiet affair, and the two sisters were not the only ones who chose to get an early night. Mila joined them in the tent, but there was none of the joking and camaraderie of the previous evening. They all settled down in their sleeping bags and listened to the fading noises of the camp as others retired.
“Build back better. Build back better. Build back better,” Tommy cried out loudly from the tent next to them.
“Quiet, Tommy. It’s time for bed now,” Ruby said.
“Josh was a liar. He lied to us. Josh was a liar.”
“Tommy. That’s enough. Here, I’ll switch the lantern on. Why don’t you read for a while?”
Wolf settled down beside Wren, and the three girls lay there for a while as the subdued light of the neighbouring tent illuminated theirs. “It sounds like Tommy memorised everything Chuck and I said. There is nothing wrong with his memory,” Mila said in a hushed voice.
“I still can’t believe it,” Wren replied.
“We candy-coated some of it. The story had enough grusel … horror without adding the eugenics part in.”
“What are eugenics?” Robyn asked.
Mila was about to reply when Wren beat her to it. “It’s what Hitler wanted to do—breed out all the imperfections.”
“Ja. The world has always had monsters. There are just more of them now.”
“Holy shit!” Wren said, leaning up on her elbow.
“What?” Robyn and Mila said in unison.
“The TrueBrit party.”
“What?” Robyn replied.
“The TrueBrit party. Y’know, the far right-wing whack jobs who praised the neo-Nazi movements in Austria and Norway.”
“What about them?”
“The leader was called Olsen. Bernadette Olsen. She had these mental ideas about not labour camps, but labour ships for illegal immigrants. Having these floating factories where they could be put to work. She wanted the closure of all mosques, synagogues, temples, anything that wasn’t a church. She said we are a Christian country and those who don’t want to live by our beliefs should go back to where they came from. The scary thing was how much support she got. Not just support, but adoration. It really was like a cult.”
“Yes. Yes. I remember this woman,” Mila said, leaning up onto her elbow too.
“I don’t.”
“Yeah, well, I’m guessing she didn’t feature heavily in Keeping Up with the Kardashians, but she was all over the news right up until the infection hit.”
“It’s a bit thin, though, isn’t it? All you’ve got to go on is her surname. There are probably lots of Olsens.”
“Actually, there probably aren’t that many, and that Build back better thing has been bugging me all day. That was their slogan. Build back better. Build back stronger. Build back Britain.”
“Dummkopf!” Mila blurted.
“Hey. It’s not my fault,” Robyn said. “I was never really into current affairs.”
“Not you, me. I was the same, Wren. It sounded so familiar, and now you say it, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.”
“Oh God! I knew she was mad; you could see it in her eyes every time she was on TV. I didn’t think she was this mad.”
“Mad or not, she has a giant army, and they are taking over.”
“I think I feel sick.”
“Yes. I think I feel sick also.”
“None of us will ever be safe.”
“Josh said if we stay here, we can live out our lives,” Robyn replied.
“Not that I’m inclined to believe anything he said, but for the sake of argument, say that’s true. We will literally have to stay in this forest. Sooner or later, they’ll take over all the towns and villages. If we poke our heads out, we’ll lose them. We’ll be lucky if the tents last through the first winter. What happens then?”
“And now we’re back to our conversation on the riverbank.”
“No, we’re not. I’m saying we can’t allow this. Grandad used to tell me stories of his dad in World War Two. He was a decorated hero. He fought to stop this kind of tyranny.”
“Yeah, but he didn’t do it by himself.”
“Well duh. But my point is he did fight.”
Robyn sat up. “Okay, I don’t know if this is part of the whole grieving thing, but you’re not making any sense.”
“Guerrilla warfare.”
“Oh God,” Robyn said, scooching back down into her sleeping bag and covering her face with her hands.
“It would prove we don’t accept their ideology; that we’re willing to put up a fight. It would—”
“It would be madness, Wren.”
“Nein. It is a good idea. I like this. We would not be giving up,” Mila interjected.
“I’m stuck in a tent with two crazy people,” Robyn began. “Look, I know you two are a lot smarter than me, and you can probably give me a thousand examples of when this sort of thing has worked in the past, but let’s just have a reality check for a second. Mila, your weapons are currently two rolling
pins with nails hammered through them. Wren, you’ve got a mop handle that’s been broken in two. Now, I don’t pretend to know the ins and outs of what our great-grandad got up to in the war, but I’m pretty certain when he stormed that machine gun nest, he didn’t do it with something Mary Berry had been using fifteen minutes before.”
“Well, obviously, I’m not saying we get out of our sleeping bags now and start an insurrection this minute. But we should work towards it. We’d have a purpose; we wouldn’t just hide like frightened mice letting the ravages of winter take us one by one.”
“You’re absolutely right. I’d much prefer to get shot for some pointless cause. Goodnight.”
“It’s not a pointless cause, Bobbi.”
Robyn leaned up on her elbow again. “I really don’t understand you. A little while back, you were all doom and gloom; this is the end of it all, and all that crap. And now you’re planning a revolution.”
“Yeah well. I’ve had a bit more time to process, and they’re going to pay for what they’ve done to Grandad and my friends. They’re all going to pay,” she replied, nestling back into her sleeping bag and turning onto her side.
The light in the other tent turned off, leaving them in darkness, and Robyn could hear her sister quietly crying once more. She turned onto her side and moved up behind her, kissing her on the back of her head. “Love you, Sis.”
Robyn waited a moment, but there was no reply. She held on to Wren for a few more minutes before eventually drifting off to sleep.
CHAPTER 20
Josh looked nervous as the rest of the ten-strong squad climbed into the minibus. The Luton van he had brought back had been emptied of its bounty, and he would drive that while Carlow rode shotgun. “You’re going to be fine,” Carlow said, placing a reassuring hand on his back. Even in the periphery of the vehicle lights, Josh could see the warmth on his companion’s face. Carlow’s normally stern expression broke into a smile.
“I didn’t expect this.”
“Olsen sees something in you. Things move quickly in this new world, and talent has to be nurtured not hidden away. I’m coming along with you, but this is your op. She wants me to be there just in case, but let me tell you now, she likes you, boy, and you're on the fast track.”
The End of Everything | Book 9 | The End of Everything Page 15
