by Frank Tayell
Beyond the boxes, two rooms opened onto the hallway, both filled with scaffolding and paint-trays. Beyond those was a pair of double-doors with paper taped to the windows. Beyond lay a musty, dark, triple-wide corridor that reminded him more of a hospital than an office.
“This way,” Nilda said, pointing her torch to the right, and in the general direction of the building on which the shooter had stood. “We want stairs.”
They found them twenty metres down the corridor, but they didn’t lead up. They went down.
“Here,” Locke said, pointing her light at the wall. “It’s a map. Every emergency exit, fire extinguisher, and sprinkler system. This building must be used by emergency responders.”
“Where do these stairs go?” Nilda asked.
“To tunnels,” Locke said. “Ultimately to an underground car park in the north, to maintenance in the east, and to fuel storage in the west.”
“Fuel storage? Remember that for later,” Nilda said. “Can we use the tunnel to get to next door?”
“Yes,” Locke said, tapping the map. “That neighbouring building has a garage on the ground floor, two levels of car parking below, and this tunnel enters that here.”
Chester ran a finger along the map, tracing the route of the tunnel to the neighbouring building. He could be wrong, of course, and his plan was more a hunch than a firm idea, but there wasn’t time to come up with another. “We’re wasting time,” he said. “Down, then along. Go.”
Locke took the lead, Nilda close behind. Chester followed them, a little more slowly, down the wide staircase. At the bottom, as marked on the map, was a single heavy fire door. Locke pushed it open, shining her light along the dark corridor. She stepped through. Nilda followed. Chester reached out, holding the door open, before stepping back, letting it swing shut as he drew the bayonet from its borrowed sheath. He bent down, hammering the blade into the brush-and-rubber seal between the base of the door and floor, wedging the door closed.
Through the thick reinforced glass, he saw Nilda turn around. Saw her puzzled expression. He grinned, turned around, and ran back up the steps.
His idea was still taking form, but one thing was obvious: there was no way into the garages from the tunnel. If there had been, Bran, Leon, and the other soldiers wouldn’t be trapped. The explosion from when they’d dropped that timed charge over the roof, or the secondary blasts of tank shells and fuel, must have collapsed the stairwell. That was his theory, but there wasn’t time to test it.
The sniper on the rooftop had to be firing to summon the undead, and they would only do that if they thought the people below had no other escape. Quite why they were doing it, if there was a reason beyond mad revenge, didn’t matter. He had to do something to save his friends, and the only thing he could think of was a direct attack. The risk was too high for him to let Nilda take it, and so he’d blocked the door to the tunnel. Not for long, he was sure. In another minute, she’d be out. By then, he’d be in the neighbouring building, or he’d be dead.
At the top of the stairs, he turned left, following the corridor to its end. The map had helped him orientate himself, adding to his memories of what he’d seen during the battle to escape the harbour. These officers were almost directly opposite the door by which they’d gained entry to the towering building. And there should be a door here. Except there wasn’t. He shone the light left and right, hoping for— There, a sign for an emergency exit, reflecting green and white in the torch’s glare. It was exactly what he wanted, but would it lead exactly where he needed?
His foot hit something heavy, and he nearly fell. He turned the torch downwards. There were dozens of suitcases, stacked near the door. Some hard-shelled, some soft. Some business-black, others festooned with stickers. Was it loot gathered by the slavers? There wasn’t time to check. A gleam of light escaped around the edge of the door, just beyond the stacked cases. It had been propped ajar with a wooden-handled hammer. He turned off the torch, slid it into his pocket, checked the pistol was still in its holster, took a breath, pushed the door open, and ran.
He was halfway across the road before he spotted the door on the opposite building, and it wasn’t as directly in front as he’d remembered. He zagged left, jumping over the body of a dead zombie, wondering whether it was one he’d killed, or if it had been felled by Bran or Leon. And that thought vanished when he heard the gunshot. It didn’t hit him, though he thought he heard a soft thump of a bullet passing through thick ice before hitting hard asphalt. He ran faster, nearly losing his footing on the slippery roadway, skidding into the door just as another shot was fired. He dived inside, mace swinging, but the vestibule was empty. After the briefest second to check he hadn’t been shot and another to confirm it, he smiled. His plan had worked. More or less. So far. The sniper knew someone was coming for them. They’d panic now. They’d run. Tuck and the rescue party would be safe. Nilda would be, too. Bran and Leon could now take care of the undead and leave wherever it was they were trapped. Assuming he kept up the pressure on the sniper, and made sure they ran and kept on running.
He crossed to the door that led to the stairwell, pausing as he reached for the handle. In the building opposite, in the corridor with the suitcases, there’d been a hammer holding the door open. A door that led to a corridor that led to tunnels which ran throughout the artificial harbour. This was the sniper’s escape route. Those tunnels could well be where they’d been lurking. And this stairwell was the one they’d use to escape. He clipped the mace back to his belt, drew the Colt .45, fished out his torch, but didn’t turn it on. He opened the door.
The stairwell was dark, but he found the bannister-rail, letting his fingers brush against it as he quietly climbed, his head turned upward, watching, listening for the merest movement, the softest whisper.
Far above, light flooded the stairwell as the sniper threw the roof door open. A battering clang marked when the door hit the wall. Feet stomped downward. A light came on. Chester stepped back, but his pistol knocked against the railing on the other side of the stairwell.
A shot came from above. The bullet ricocheted off concrete. Now keeping away from the light well, his back close to the wall, his gun raised, Chester climbed up. A second shot came. Then silence. He heard heavy footsteps taking the stairs two at a time. Wood splintered, and a door creaked open, then squeaked closed.
The sniper had gone through one of the other doors leading from the stairwell. Chester barrelled up the stairs, switching the light on, stopping when it shone on fresh splinters around a broken lock. He switched off the light, took a breath, opened the door, and dived forward, gun raised. He hit the ground hard, spinning around as he rolled across musty carpet, uncertain where the killer was lurking. But there was no one in the corridor beyond. There was light, though, coming through the windowed walls of the meeting rooms on either side.
He swept the gun left and right, peering through the child’s spectacles, looking for the sniper. There was no one there, and he was presenting an obvious target. What he did see, when he looked down, was a damp boot print, then another, leading along the carpeted floor towards the corridor’s end.
The footprints led to an elevator, and then beyond. Not to a stairwell, but to a narrow metre-tall door with no handle, just a keyhole. Cautiously, he opened it.
In front of him were cables. It was an access point for the lift shaft. To the side, recessed into the wall cavity, was a ladder. He peered upward. No one was there. Rather, he couldn’t see anyone, and no one had shot at him. From below, far, far below, metal clattered. The sniper had gone down.
Chester sighed. “Should have stayed on the ship.” He holstered the gun, pocketed the torch, and clambered through the door and onto the ladder.
He climbed as quickly as he could. As quietly, too, though he was a sitting target if the sniper only turned around. He reached the bottom without being shot, his feet clattering onto a wire-mesh walkway. He fished out gun and torch. In front was another door, this one made of chain-link and steel plates.
Beyond, through the wire, he saw the light from someone else’s torch. He turned his off, and leaned back, flush against the wall.
He was in a wire cage at the bottom of a lift shaft. There was no cover, little chance he’d be able to climb back up the ladder, and even less that someone might come to his aid. The light outside went off. They’d heard him. He had to do something. Shoot or speak? But what could he say? Something in French? He couldn’t remember a single word.
“If you’re with the cartel,” a voice called from the shadows, “we’re with Lisa Kempton. We need to talk, not fight.”
Oh-so-slowly, his brain accessed his memory. “Sorcha, is that you?” he replied.
“Chester?” Nilda said.
Chester switched on the torch, and headed out into the corridor as Nilda and Sorcha appeared from the other end.
“Did you see the sniper?” Chester asked. “I was chasing… her, I suppose. I didn’t get a look at her, but it has to be that woman in white.”
“We saw no one,” Nilda said.
“They came down the lift shaft,” Chester said, shining his light along the corridor. It was a lot narrower and grubbier than the one above. Three doors led from it. All were storage rooms, and all were empty with no other way out. Chester returned to the lift shaft, and shone his light upwards. “Must have climbed out on a different floor,” he said.
“She got away,” Locke said.
“What was that you called out, about Lisa Kempton?” Chester asked.
“If they are members of the cartel, I thought it was a name that might cause them to pause before firing,” Locke said. “However, from what we saw and what Captain Fielding said, most, if not all of them, joined the organisation since the outbreak. It’s unlikely the name would be of much interest to them.”
“And what were you trying to achieve by wedging that knife under the door?” Nilda asked.
“I didn’t want you following me as I ran out across the road,” Chester said.
“Very gallant,” Locke said, “trapping us down in the tunnels.”
“We couldn’t get the door open,” Nilda said.
“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t have time to think.”
“No comment,” Locke said. “But speaking of which, that sniper has had more than enough time to go to ground. In another few minutes, she’ll have a new vantage point, and we will once again be targets. It’s time we left Calais, this time for good.”
Chapter 18 - A Final Answer
The New World, At Sea
“And that’s when we went looking for Leon, Bran, and the others,” Chester said, finishing his recap of the story.
“Um…” Annette began. “Um, I think Bill’s asleep.”
Chester and Nilda looked over at Bill, as Kim stood and made her way across the swaying deck to the bed in which the patient uncomfortably lay. “Yep,” Kim said. “He’s asleep.”
“We’ll get out of your hair,” Nilda said.
“I’ve not much of that left,” Kim said, raising a hand to her recently shaved scalp, but turning it into a grab for one of the slings hanging from the cabin’s ceiling as the ship bucked and rocked through a wave. “Besides, I’d like to know what happened next.”
“Me, too,” Annette said, her pen hovering over the page.
“Next come the casualties,” Nilda said. “Three of them from Bran’s squad, two from Leon’s. No fatalities, though, which makes it good news. But why don’t you go to sickbay and get the story straight from them, Annette? It would do them good to talk it through.”
“You think?” Annette asked, looking to Kim.
“It won’t hurt,” Kim said. “Not any more than being shot did, and the doctor will turf you out if you’re getting in the way.”
“You didn’t want her to hear the rest?” Kim asked after Annette had left.
“We’ll have to tell everyone,” Nilda said. “And I told Mary I’d tell the entire ship just as soon as we’d spoken with Bill. Which means, when we leave here, I’ve got to say something, but I’m really not sure what to say just yet.”
“What did you see?” Kim asked.
“That’s just it. We’re not sure,” Nilda said. “Chester?”
“First time we were in Calais,” Chester said. “First time we were escaping those slavers, Bill told me he saw something on the roof. He thought it was a radio mast. I can’t remember his exact words, and he told me after he’d been shot, when he was in shock. At the time, I thought he was delirious. Except this time, before we returned to the ship, we went up to the roof and checked. There was a mast. About fifteen feet high. At the base was a rectangular metal cabinet. The door was open. There were cables and wires inside. Whatever had been plugged into them was missing.”
“It was three metres?” Kim said. “How high was the roof from the ground?”
“About thirty metres,” Nilda said. “We took some photographs, and Sorcha’s taken them to those programmers of yours.”
“Mirabelle, Dee-Dee, and Ken,” Kim said.
“And because of that,” Nilda said, “because we can’t keep this quiet, I’ve got to include it in my announcement to the ship, one which will be transmitted over the sat-phone to the people in Dundalk and Elysium.”
“And you need to figure out what to say,” Kim said.
“And what not to say,” Nilda said.
“How far away is Creil?” Kim said, though more to herself as she opened a thin bag and pulled out a bundle of maps. “About two hundred kilometres. Far beyond the horizon. I suppose the next question is how were they transmitting. Was it in FM, AM?”
“There wasn’t much grime inside the cabinet,” Nilda said. “It hadn’t been left open for long, so I assume that what was taken was removed after the outbreak. And so we can assume it was installed then, too. Your programmers will hopefully be able to confirm that.”
“But you have a theory?” Kim asked.
“We know some survived the explosion,” Nilda said. “Leon found tank tracks and the snow pushed aside by a plough. Some went east, some headed north, but he only travelled a few miles from the harbour. Either someone came back, or not all of them left.”
“You only saw one person there?” Kim asked.
“Saw, yes,” Chester said. “I don’t think there were more up on the roof or I’d have caught up with them while they climbed down that lift-shaft ladder. Yeah, I’d say there was only one on the roof, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t more in the town. But I don’t think it was one of the women in white, those snipers that Captain Fielding told us about. Not if all our people lived. But however many there were, they set up an escape route using the tunnels to the underground parking facility, and I’d guess those tunnels are how they got around. They could have stayed there, after the others left. Or they could be hiding there now.”
“And we didn’t destroy the diesel stored underground,” Kim said. “That is frustrating.”
“Everything about this is frustrating,” Nilda said. “Have we heard from Captain Fielding?”
“All is quiet in Belgium,” Kim said. “Wherever those tanks went, they didn’t go there. Could they have gone to Creil?”
“I suppose,” Chester said. “But why would they want to? The town’s deserted, and the occupants, by now, will be in the Pyrenees.”
“Maybe the slavers don’t know that,” Kim said.
“They would if Cavalie is among them,” Chester said. “We know the cartel, if it can still be called that, is split into separate groups. Cells, I suppose. There was that bloke, Dernier, down in Creil. Rhoskovski in Calais, and Cavalie somewhere between the two. And as far as we know, she was in charge. She had the women in white watching over Rhoskovski and… I can’t remember who. She mentioned someone other than Dernier. I can’t remember the name. Point is, she had people watching these other cells. They were in contact by radio, and Cavalie has, or had, enough diesel for those tanks and snowploughs.”
“And we don’t think those vehicles were stored in Calai
s,” Kim said. “Logically, then, they were kept somewhere within range of that radio on the roof of the terminal. In turn, they were in range of Creil. We’re looking for a radio mast, then. One within twenty or thirty kilometres of the harbour.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard to find,” Chester said.
“It could be an airport, a commercial radio station, a military facility, anything,” Kim said. “Since they’ve got tanks, I would guess a military base is most likely.”
“Leon will know where the military bases are around here,” Nilda said. “We can ask him.”
“To what end?” Kim asked. “We don’t have the resources to mount an expedition inland, and we don’t have the weaponry to defeat tanks. The Vulcan cannons on the Courageous are hardly portable. We’ve some grenades, but tanks have machine guns and armour. And we’ve only a few thousand rounds left for the assault rifles and submachine guns. Unless we can find a weapons cache, we can barely fight the undead, let alone people. No, I don’t see any reason to go after them. We’ll just continue north to Belgium, and wait there until we know what Thaddeus finds in Faroe.”
“Which only leaves me figuring out what to say to everyone,” Nilda said.
“I tell you what I want to know,” Chester said. “Why did the sniper start shooting? If she went up to the roof to get something from that box, and if she was hiding in the tunnels beneath Calais, why shoot at us?”
“To make us leave so they could retain access to that diesel,” Kim said. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“Not… only thing,” Bill whispered, his voice low and hoarse.
Kim hauled herself across the rolling deck to the bed. “Bill, you’re awake!”
“Haven’t slept,” he whispered. “Bone keeps grating.”
“You need a proper cast,” Kim said.
“Need dry land,” Bill muttered. “The sniper. Orders.”
“The sniper was following orders?” Kim said. “You think that was why she stayed behind.”
“Well, there’s a terrifying thought,” Chester said.