Hell on Earth

by Philip Palmer

  The crowds roared.

  The tickertape rained down, forming a crushed river of paper beneath the wheels of the jeeps and APCs.

  Wilson’s tank and the following convoy of armoured vehicles drove past the Pizza Express on the corner, and into Trafalgar Square itself, towards the statue of Nelson.

  St Martin-in-the-Fields with its high stepped tower commanded one corner of the square. Next to it, South Africa House, its golden springboks pronking out of stone slabs. And beyond them both, stretching languorously across the far side of the square, was William Wilkins’ wide-domed London Gallery.

  There were teenagers paddling in the fountains of Trafalgar Square. Pigeons flocked everywhere and pestered everyone. The Landseer lions gazed blankly down upon the tourists taking photographs of their blank gazes. Children were sitting upon the lions’ chill metal backs, laughing.

  As the wind whipped his hair, Wilson took deep pleasure in the way the crowd shouted its appreciation at him. He was not a modest man, he’d be the first to admit it; so all this acclaim felt entirely apt.

  Finally his tank pulled up opposite the broad road of Whitehall. Admiralty Arch was ahead; the spires of Parliament were in distant view. Wilson smiled appreciatively at all the pretty women who had taken their T-shirts off to flaunt their naked breasts at him. Later he would -

  But then his thoughts began to blur. And a terrible fear consumed him.

  Wilson looked again at the crowd but he could only see filthy flesh and ugly faces. These were no longer people; they were cattle to be slain.

  He forced himself to remember that these were his people. These were the Londoners he had sworn to protect. And yet - he longed to kill them. All of them.

  He knew that wasn’t right. But he couldn’t – he didn’t -

  And then he felt it. A mind inside his mind. He wrestled with it - he cursed it - but it was stronger than him. It swamped him. His thoughts began to crumble like ash - he - he - he -

  The Brigadier realised he was, for very nearly the first time in his life, about to lose a battle. And there was nothing he could -

  Abruptly, Brigadier Wilson began to bark out an order via his military-net radio: ‘Whisky One to all Whiskies, are you reading me, over?’

  The chorus of responses was deafening: ‘Reading you, Whisky One, over.’

  ‘Whisky One to all units, this is not a drill. All civilians in this vicinity to be treated as hostile. Consider this a direct order: commence firing at will, no survivors, repeat no survivors, Out.’ he said.

  There was a brief radio pause.

  Then the guns began to fire.

  ‘Fire in the hole!’ yelled the gunner of the Brigadier’s tank. A tank missile spat out of the gun barrel, towards a proud bronze lion at Nelson’s feet.

  The shell arced - landed - exploded. The lion erupted into fragments of spinning metal. The children sitting astride it were turned into a mess of blood and pulp. Another tank spat out a shell and it rocked the ground. A third shell cracked the guest-sculptured fourth plinth. A fifth shell took out the base of Nelson’s column in a single blast, killing all those celebrants who had gathered around it. Nelson himself shuddered.

  The tanks now took it in turns to aim their shells at the stone pedestal; that was the game. The roar of guns shook the air. Flocks of feral pigeons fled en masse, darkening the skies like fearful clouds. After three direct hits, the column began to teeter. And, finally, with a slow groaning noise, the statue toppled, and crashed to the ground. Blocks of stone bounced, and the stone hat and head of Admiral Nelson crashed to the ground and lay there forlorn, like Saddam’s statue on the day Baghdad fell.

  Wilson seized his turret machine gun and with eyes full of madness, he began to fire.

  The massacre of Trafalgar Square had begun.

  Chapter 22

  ‘Have you –’

  ‘I’ve heard,’ said Taff.

  ‘You need to armour up. All hands on deck.’

  Taff nodded. ‘Yes, boss,’ he said to his boss, Chief Superintendent Handford of Limehouse nick.

  Then he left the station and walked down the road, and went into the Dark Angel pub.

  No way was he going through all that again.

  Taff sat at the bar, on his favourite stool, and bought two pints and a whisky chaser. He tried to ignore the big screen plasma telly showing rolling news footage of the massacres. He’d seen it all before. Been there, got the T-shirt, lost a lot of mates, almost got swallowed by a beast from Hell. Never again. Crime he could handle: but not this.

  Taff drained the second pint. It went down so easily these days. He swigged the chaser. Now he was mellowing.

  He ordered a fresh round of drinks. The barman, Mick, didn’t blink; he knew Taff of old. Taff drained another pint. Ah! That was more like it!

  The pub was quiet, so he and Mick began to chat. Taff reminisced about the old days, when he was a boxer. And a bloody good one too. He told some tales about his time in the British Army, where he’d been a demolitions expert. Mick listened. He’d heard most of it before, but the stories never got dull. Taff was a natural raconteur.

  Mick’s brother Jake had been a good mate of Taff’s. He was one of a whole gang of mates who’d died on Occlusion Day. That was why Taff had never got barred from this pub, despite many displays of gross intoxication and more than a few car park scuffles.

  Taff was on his seventh pint and sixth chaser when, damn it all, his mobile phone rang. It was his Gina ring tone. Motörhead; Ace of Spades.

  ‘Get your arse,’ said Gina, ‘over here.’

  ‘I’m not doing riot duty,’ Taff slurred, pathetically.

  ‘Nor am I, boyo,’ said Gina, in a mockingly bad Welsh accent. ‘This is war.’

  Skip back an hour and a half. Limehouse Police station. 2pm.

  Dougie was in the conference room, attending a meeting chaired by Chief Superintendent Handford. But it wasn’t really a briefing. They were just fire-watchers with a plasma screen TV.

  Within minutes of the Trafalgar Square shootings, Handford had already given orders for all officers at Limehouse to armour up and stand ready to intervene. There were nearly a hundred detectives working in Limehouse, plus support staff of two hundred, about half of whom had special constable status and could be called upon in case of emergency. But the order to deploy from New Scotland Yard hadn’t yet arrived. So they were stuck here, watching telly.

  Meanwhile, the battle of Trafalgar Square raged. The London Army’s air force was scrambled; and three Harrier jets had opened fire on the rampaging troops of Brigadier Wilson of the Howling Wolf Brigade.

  A few minutes after that, the three Harriers were blown out of the sky. Two zapped by shoulder-launched fire-and-forget missiles, the other by a smart shell fired from the Challenger tank.

  A flock of Apache attack helicopters joined the fray and there were massive civilian casualties when two Hellfire missiles exploded, one damaging St Martin-in-the-Fields, the other hitting the troops who were now massed in Leicester Square. The Odeon Leicester Square caught fire – a photographer managed to capture the surreal image of flames flickering over the movie poster for Die Hard: the New Generation – and soon tendrils of smoke were billowing over central London.

  Wilson’s troops dug in. They had plastic testudos, and they had access to Central London buildings fortified against demon attacks that they could hide inside. They also had civilians who they could use as human shields; which they did without compunction.

  These damned and human troops were obeying orders blindly, without mercy or moral qualms; exactly as they were trained or spell-bound to do. And though Wilson’s army had no air support, the two sides were surprisingly evenly matched.

  Finally Handford got a message from New Scotland Yard: The events of today have been defined to us as civil war rather than public disorder. It is therefore a matter for the army rather than the police. Our legal advice on the matter is: Never try to separate two dogs fighting. Await further instr
uctions.

  Dougie was left sitting on his arse with the senior management team of Limehouse Station, wondering what the fuck to do. On the television was a replay of the Hellfire hitting the steps of St Martin’s. It was a spectacular sight. The church hadn’t fallen; but the windows were shattered and the stonework was cracked from steeple to base.

  Handford flicked from channel to channel. It was the same story on all the London and UK stations. CCTV footage of the massacres. Images of the Harrier jets being blown out of the sky. Amazing footage of the two Hellfires exploding. And huge amounts of commentary, with the same talking heads appearing on every channel.

  ‘ – Outer London is now in a state of war. The UK Prime Minister Nicholas Debussy has issued a statement saying that -’

  ‘ – soldier is fighting soldier –’

  ‘ – so far there have been no Grey-Beards on the scene but –’

  ‘ – here we have Meera Shah, Director of Information for the Metropolitan Police –’

  ‘ – now we’re going back to the studio –’

  ‘ – with me today is former UK Deputy Prime Minster Dennis Mayhew –’

  ‘ – Baroness Cooper can I ask you –’

  ‘ – back to our London correspondent Peter McAllister in the studio –’

  ‘ – I’m sorry we’re experiencing some technical difficulties with that report –’

  Handford switched off.

  ‘There’s nothing we can do. We may as well go home,’ he said. And that was that.

  Dougie went back to the Five Squad MIR. It was deserted. He went looking for One Squad and Three Squad officers – they were all gone too. He e-mailed Gina. Where?

  She e-mailed back: Here, with a GPS link. He checked it; she was two floors up from the Three Squad Incident Room. The canteen.

  He hiked up the stairs to the third floor canteen, where he found most of Five Squad gathered. They had pulled together three tables and had pillaged the chocolate and soft drinks cabinets. The canteen staff had all gone. The metal serving shelves were eerily empty. The room had an echoey feeling. It was like being in the dining room of the Marie Celeste.

  Dougie surveyed the ranks of the last coppers in Limehouse. Twelve in all: the die-hards.

  ‘Did you not get the order?’ Dougie barked.

  ‘We got the order,’ said DC Alliea Cartwright.

  ‘Have some chocolate, guv,’ said DS Catriona Okoro.

  ‘The rats left the ship,’ said DI Gina Henderson. ‘Civilians first, then all of One and Two Squads and Three Squad and Four Squad and Six Squad and all the divisional officers. Also, Vincent and Ian and Bob and Victoria and Tony from our squad have all fucked off –’

  ‘As they were instructed to do,’ said Dougie impatiently. ‘The order is from on high, this is a military action, there’s no role for the police. Go home, be with your families.’

  ‘ – so we thought, sod that, and held a council of war,’ Gina continued, as if Dougie hadn’t spoken.

  ‘There’s no useful purpose to be served in remaining at the station,’ Dougie insisted.

  ‘Plus as you can see we raided the chocolate cabinet,’ said Alliea Cartwright gleefully. ‘Yum. It feels like the teachers have left the school and we have it to ourselves.’

  ‘We are the teachers, sweetheart,’ said Catriona.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ said Alliea. ‘It’s like a Buffy episode. It’s like –’

  ‘Cut the chatter,’ said Dougie.

  ‘It’s the dybbuk, am I right?’ said DC Shai Hussain.

  ‘Of course it is,’ said Dougie.

  ‘It’s jumped bodies? From Sheila Whittaker to Brigadier Wilson?’ DC Andy Homerton asked.

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘Yes it is,’ said Andy. ‘Either that, or the Brigadier is barking mad.’

  ‘Or both.’

  ‘I agree,’ said DC Lisa Aaronovich. ‘I think Wilson is possessed. And let’s face it, we should have thought of that eventuality. The dybbuk has the power to go where it likes. Hop into any body.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Dougie. ‘We’re a bunch of useless fucking wankers, yes or no?’

  A chorus of subdued Yesses followed.

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ said Gina.

  ‘This wasn’t random,’ said DC Hyun-Shik Moon.

  ‘Agreed.’ That was DC Alice Tunstall.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said DC Seamus Malone, a step behind.

  ‘A set up,’ argued Shai.

  Dougie thought about that. He paced. The width of the canteen and back again.

  ‘Surmise: the dybbuk that was formerly Jack the Ripper has jumped bodies from Sheila Whittaker to Brigadier Wilson. Further surmise: the dybbuk intended this all along. The Battle of Mitre Square was just a sideshow. The aim was to get into the head of a senior Army officer and get control of his army.’

  ‘Corollary,’ said Tom. ‘The dybbuk has to be close to his intended target in order to switch bodies.’

  ‘Close, yeah.’

  ‘Close enough to look into their eyes,’ said Hyun-Shik Moon.

  Dougie moved and stood close to Hyun-Shik, glaring down at the little Korean from Plaistow; locking eyes. ‘Wilson was this close to Sheila Whittaker. That’s when it happened.’

  ‘So when –’

  ‘The head. Why did he cut the head off?’

  ‘ – did it happen, when did he jump?’ asked Catriona.

  Dougie continued: ‘At this moment, when she’s this close, looking into the Brigadier’s eyes, she jumps bodies. The dybbuk-as-Wilson then cuts Sheila’s head off, a) to get rid of her and b) because that is Standard Operating Procedure for extirpating dybbuk-possessed bodies, as we well know from our Gogarty days. And the dybbuk knows we know that too - so cutting the poor woman’s head off was done for our benefit. To throw us off the scent, at least momentarily.’

  They could all see it.

  ‘So what do we do?’ said Andy.

  ‘What the hell CAN we do?’ said Gina.

  ‘Three thousand dead in Trafalgar Square,’ Shai pointed out.

  ‘If we can’t fight, we can at least solve the crime,’ said Seamus Malone. ‘That’s what we do.’

  ‘There’s nothing to solve,’ said Lisa Aaronovich. ‘In terms of who the perp is.’

  ‘True. So let’s -’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘ - catch this godforsaken fucking monster and chop its fucking head off,’ said Dougie.

  That got nods of appreciation all round.

  ‘But why?’ said Gina.

  ‘What?’ Dougie asked.

  ‘I mean, why the massacre? That’s not the dybbuk’s style,’ Gina argued. ‘The Gogarty we knew was a serial killer. He murdered his victims one or two at a time. Not – this. Not wholesale massacres. Civil war. Why would it get involved in that kind of shit?’

  ‘Maybe Pruflas has a role,’ suggested Hyun-Shik Moon.

  ‘The demon that loves to sow dissent and incite mobs to commit violence,’ agreed Cat. ‘Good thought, Hyun-Shik.’

  ‘Maybe, but I still think it’s the dybbuk,’ said Dougie.

  ‘Yes you’re right,’ said Tom, with quiet authority.

  Dougie glanced at him.

  Tom said it again. ‘I said, you’re right. I know you are. Trust me. I have an intuition that -’

  ‘This is a modern police force, laddie, we don’t rely upon -’

  ‘I’m a witch, okay?’ Tom pointed out softly. ‘A male witch. I’m connected to - something or other. So when I know in my bones, in my piss, that something is true - trust me, it’s true.’

  Dougie assimilated that.

  ‘Then let’s get going,’ said Dougie. ‘Cut the head off the snake. The snake in that metaphor being that bastard Wilson.’

  ‘Yeah but how do we get to him? He’s in the middle of an army which is in the middle of a war,’ Cat said.

  ‘I’ll think of something.’

  ‘We can take a couple of the vans,’ said Seam
us. ‘The riot vans. I know the code to the garage door.’

  ‘Good man. We need guns, armour, grenades.’

  ‘Have you ever used a grenade?’ Gina asked.

  ‘No. Never.’

  ‘We’ll get grenades,’ said Gina.

  Dougie looked around at the team – thirteen including himself - clustered in the canteen. He realised that someone was missing. A someone that he badly needed.

  ‘Taff. Get me Taff,’ he said.

  Gina dialled on her e-berry. ‘Get your arse over here,’ she said sharply.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Shai Hussain, suddenly aware of something.

  At the same instant, Dougie heard a sound. A scuffle of feet on floor, behind him. He turned and saw a woman, dark as shadows, standing at the open window of the canteen. Her body was backlit by a flash of sun. Her body was lithe and supple. She was dressed in a figure-hugging black ninja suit, no mask, her dark hair loose upon her shoulders. A sword was sheathed in her back scabbard. Her teeth were bared in a snarl.

  It was Fillide Melandroni, clad for war.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘What in fuck are we waiting for?’

  Chapter 23

  ‘Do sit, my dear fellow, it’s such a pleasure to meet you,’ said Brigadier Wilson. His words were friendly, but his voice and body exuded as much charm as a brick.

  ‘Who the blazes are you?’ General Berith asked him.

  They were in the dining room of the Army and Navy Club in St James’s Square.

  Wilson was wearing his London Army Number One dress uniform with a red sash, a sidearm, and one breast adorned with hard-earned ribbons. Berith was naked. The waiter was a living human - not resurrected - and ex-military by the look of it. Whippet-lean, fit, balding, focused. His name, Wilson had already gleaned, was George Allingham.

  The staff at the club been most accommodating when Wilson had asked them to clear the premises for his forthcoming lunch. George, in particular, was courtesy itself. ‘Just let me know, sir. Whatever you want, sir.’ And with a wink: ‘Coup d’état, sir, not before time if you ask me.’

  Today the dybbuk faced the greatest challenge of his career: a war of words, to be fought with a demon from Hell.