His words failed him, the collapse of his world hanging heavily on his shoulders. This man had blinded himself to the worst excesses of the people and movements he had promoted, naively trusting in the soundbites they spun, so sure was he in the righteousness of a cause he couldn’t define. Though he may not have called himself an enemy of people like Lucie, he had stood with those who emphatically were, his presence lending credence to the poison others gleefully spread, never objecting to their words, never challenging the injustices; content instead to ride the waves of chaotic populism to a comfortable retirement, until his own interests were threatened. He was a money man, an investor, and it had been his lackadaisical and cavalier attitude towards the running of his own companies that had made WaterWhyte such easy pickings for Butcher and Al-Khatani. Many had suffered because of the indifference of people such as he, yet Lucie felt no malice toward him as he stood broken before her in wordless apology.
Instinctively she reached out and placed her hand on his shoulder.
“Hey,” she began as he looked back at her. “Hand-wringing is no good to anyone; it’s what you do to make it better that counts. Now get these women somewhere safe.”
Whyte nodded and sat back, his eyes displaying the racings of his mind. Algers pushed past him, his face etched in profound concern.
“Are you sure about this?”
“As sure as I can be,” she replied. “Just put your foot down and hope I get this right.”
“And if you don’t?” quizzed Whyte, his eyes wide.
“Then name your next business after me.”
She reached into the pocket of her overalls and pulled from it the grenade recovered by Algers and handed it back to him.
“Here, you’ll need this.”
She turned away from the pair, heading deeper into the hall, Alger’s voice stopping her in her tracks.
“Hey!” her friend called. “I’ll say a prayer for you tonight.”
They were simple words, but powerful to Lucie, and coming from the irreligious Algers, all the more moving.
“Thanks,” she smiled back. “Let’s just hope it’s not the prayer for the dead.”
She watched them as they headed back to the garage, Algers half-supporting, half-carrying his fellow MP as they went, and Whyte doing his best to offer nonchalant ‘good evenings’ to the security patrol they passed. Lucie ducked out of sight of the same patrol and waited until the minibus’s headlights beamed out into the night, followed by the grind of an engine and the crunch of tyres on gravel. Lucie watched the vehicle pull away and strained to see inside the windows at the faces of the women she had come so far and through so much to save, to see if that first glimmer of recovery had bloomed into something more; but to no avail. The minibus gathered speed as it reached the main barrier and despite the shouted commands to stop, drove faster still, splintering the barrier and earning cries of admonishment and an immediate siren call.
The bus grew smaller on its way back to London, and the air filled with the crunch of boots on gravel as security personnel raced from across the complex to the gate, leaving Lucie to heave the deepest of breathes into her lungs, readying her body for its next test.
Slipping back inside the dock hall, Lucie ran to the wall behind the command desk and smashed her clenched fist against the plastic sheet covering the bright red bomb alert button, an intermittent siren echoing immediately around her. She poked her head slightly out of the door and could hear the sound of scurrying footsteps as the security staff rushed to the rendezvous point, cursing what was turning into a night of confusion.
Whyte had told her that M.O.D sweepers would soon arrive to scour the area for bombs, and she had little time to complete her task. Reaching for the lever Jarvis had pointed out, she pulled it down, the colossal double doors sliding open, allowing the sea waters to wash further up the greased rails of the dry docks. The Red Mako was but bare bones and if released to the sea would crumble at once and be lost to the waves, which was precisely what she intended to do. The boat was constructed upon a cradle, designed to ease its passage to the water, and Lucie searched for the switch to send it on its way, but dropped to the floor when the whoosh of a bullet screamed past her head, clanging off the metal behind her.
Two more bullets missed her as she rolled behind an iron strut and peered round to pinpoint her attacker, her gut twisting as she realised who it was. The scrawny man with the Liverpool accent who had taken such delight in her torment days earlier was firing down at her in a furious rage. She broke cover, before twisting mid-run and hurling herself backwards as her crazed attacker fired again. Lucie slipped from the dry dock’s edge and onto the rails by the Mako’s cradle. Stunned, she strained her neck upwards, her assailant grinning down at her, levelling his gun.
As he did so, the doors were wrenched open and a handful of soldiers rushed into the dock hall, bellowing orders to freeze and throw down weapons; voices which earned the contemptuous glare of the wiry man, who scowled deeper as they fired warning shots into the air. Lucie pulled herself to her feet and watched in horror as the man pulled an object from his belt and raised his arm towards the newcomers.
“Grenade!” bellowed Lucie who looked frantically around for some way of stopping him. Closest to her was a large metal wrench, and she threw herself towards it, plucking it from its holder and hurling it towards the gunman, striking him on the temple.
The grenade dropped from his hand, leaving him scrambling on the deck. His scream was consumed by the explosion which engulfed the Red Mako, and sent its cradle creaking into a fiery roll towards Lucie, who turned and ran ahead of it. The burning carcass picked up speed behind her as it collapsed in upon itself, and Lucie launched herself headlong into the icy waters, kicking as hard as she was able, hoping against hope that it would be hard enough. And as she kicked, Butcher’s heralded new symbol of Brexit Britain, now a flaming mass of indignant impotence, rolled inexorably towards her.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The explosion stopped presses and dominated bulletins from almost the moment the flames were first seen licking the Portsmouth skyline, relegating all other stories to the status of also-rans. Within minutes the internet had been awash with rumours of who to blame, with concocted stories galore pointing the finger at everyone from Muslim extremists to Remoaners looking to sabotage the glories of Brexit; the absence of any official detail only fuelling the flames of falsehoods.
As far as the authorised story went, the explosion was merely a regrettable accident brought about by ‘human error’, with the actual costs minimised due to the early stage of the project’s development and the damage to the dock hall easily repairable. Rather than catastrophe, the government machine went into overdrive to present the fire as an ‘opportunity’ to refocus and show strength and resilience in the face of adversity. The press were told to expect a personal statement from Adam Butcher himself, who would be flying in to the Portsmouth site on WaterWhyte’s own private Learjet, direct from a conference in Edinburgh.
The cameras followed his arrival and subsequent statement made against the backdrop of firecrews working the scene, and he played to the gallery as he had done a thousand times before; a patriotic comment here, a dog whistle there, and an abundance of soundbites designed to portray him as the iron man Britain so desperately needed. All was going swimmingly for Butcher, and he soon opened up to questions, assured that his regular plants among the assembled journos would stroke his ego as they had so many times before. They proceeded to do just that, until one question shouted from the back made the Minister stutter and blink.
“Excuse me?” Butcher said, uncertainly.
“I asked,” the voice shouted again, “if we could see the damage to the storage depot, too?”
Butcher coughed slightly and grinned insincerely.
“The, erm, the damage I’m assured was limited to the dock hall and the Red Mako, there are no reports of any other areas of the site being affected,” Butcher said, looking around to take
a question from a friendlier face, but still the voice shouted back at him.
“Well the damage from the explosion was limited to the dock hall, yes, but I hear there was quite a kerfuffle at the storage depot too.”
The other journalists began to mutter, and Butcher squinted to see who was putting him under pressure.
“I’m afraid you must be mistaken,” he said, the first beads of sweat beginning to form on his brow. “The storage depot is off limits to press and there was absolutely no ‘kerfuffle’ as you describe it.”
The gathered journos began to part, and from the back stepped Kasper Algers, his weathered face strong and bearing no ill from the previous night’s exploits.
“No?” he replied, the cameras now upon him. “Well I know someone who begs to differ.”
“Really?” sneered Butcher. “What ‘someone’ is that?”
Algers reached backwards and a young woman took his hand and stepped forward beside him, her hair and face bright and clean and her clothes fresh and new. The colour drained from Butcher’s face as the woman stared piercingly back at him, unfazed by the flash of cameras around her.
“You remember Aga, of course Adam,” said Algers, loudly. “She’s keen on asking you why you saw fit to keep her and her friends locked up in the storage block.”
More chattering followed as Butcher began to shake on his podium.
“But,” he stuttered, “but, Whyte said…”
“Yes, Jarvis told you on the phone that the fire was contained to the dock hall and that the rest of the site was uncompromised, but let’s face it, that was a pretty white lie compared to what your lot put on the side of that bus, don’t you think?”
“But…” For the first time in his career, Butcher had no words. Nothing had prepared him for this moment and even the friendliest faces in the crowd were now staring at him in a mixture of confusion and disgust.
“And while we’re chatting about that,” Algers continued, “maybe you could shed some light on this.”
He pulled out the chemical grenade retrieved from the Mako the previous night and held it up for the cameras to see.
“I’m sure everyone here would be fascinated to know why you intended for the Red Mako to fire chemical weapons into Yemen.”
The murmers of the assembled press turned instantly into chaos, with microphones thrust into the panicking Butcher’s face and demands for answers pounding at him from all sides. Shooting a look of pure hatred towards Algers, he pushed his way through the crowd and ran as fast as he had in his life back towards the small airstrip and the Learjet on which he had arrived. As he drew level, an armed military officer blocked his path.
“Excuse me sir,” said the young lieutenant, “I think there’s call to discuss the matters just raised in more detail…”
The sentence went unfinished, Butcher striking the young man hard in the midriff, and clattering his fist against his temple as he dropped. The youngster fought back but Butcher kicked at him viciously, freeing himself of his grip and fumbling to grab the sidearm the officer carried, firing it into the air above the pursuing army of press. With nowhere else to run, Butcher climbed the airstair to the jet and kicked it away. As he wrenched closed the heavy main door, the pilot stepped from the flight deck and started towards the politician, an expression of pure confusion on his face.
“What’s going on?” he quizzed, “did I just hear a gunshot?”
“You’ll hear another if you don’t get back there and get us off the ground.” Butcher swung the weapon towards the pilot, who froze for a second, staring at the gun in incredulity.
“But…”
“I said fucking move!”
Butcher roughly grabbed the man’s arm, turning him around and pushing him back towards the cockpit.
“We don’t have clearance!” the pilot objected as Butcher pushed him down into his chair.
“Do I look like I’m waiting for clearance? Take off!”
Butcher pressed the barrel of his gun against the pilot’s cheek, who stared back at him in fear before flicking the switches and pulling the levers that heaved the plane into life.
The rising roar of the engine drowned out the shouts and protest from outside and the cries to block the runway. The plane was already moving, and Butcher watched through the windscreen as people scurried quickly from its path as it built momentum and hurtled down the runway, followed by the wail of pursuing police sirens.
Reaching reluctantly for the thrust lever, the pilot eased the plane high into the air, wiping sweat from his frowning brow as they rose. Butcher, the gun still pointed at the man’s head, clung on with white knuckles to the back of the pilot’s chair as the increased g-force threatened to knock him off balance.
“What’s our heading?” shouted the pilot as he began to level out the flying metal beast.
“Just head out to sea.”
“To sea? We don’t have the fuel for a long-haul flight!”
“Just shut up and fly! If you turn us around, you’re a dead man!”
Butcher stepped from the flight deck into the main fuselage, the sweat of his palms making the gun slippery in his grip. Pulling with his other hand at his suddenly tight collar with such force that he pulled the top button from the shirt and dragged the shining red tie scruffily low around his chest. This couldn’t be happening, not to him. Everything until now had been so easy, he held one of the safest seats in the country, he was the darling of the Brexiteering Right. The PM was on the brink and he had been the man standing behind her with the crowd bellowing for him to push. And now? His face was full of blind panic, his mind feverishly racing and his eyes flashing back and forth.
“Looking for a way out, Adam?”
Butcher’s arm swung up at once, pointing the gun in the direction of the voice, and he laughed in disbelief as his eyes settled upon the woman who emerged from the galley, her tied back hair dirty and her flesh and clothes stained and bloodied.
“There’s only one way out that I can see,” said Lucie Musilova.
“Whiskey and pistol time, eh?” Butcher answered in soft disdain, the panic that had etched onto his face giving way to a pure and unsullied contempt.
“We can skip the whiskey if you like, no point hanging around. You’re screwed, Butcher, there’s no coming back for you. Papers and TV all over the world are reporting on you, Al-Khatani and your little ‘harem’; even the British press can’t ignore it now. You’ve nowhere to run.”
The smirk twitched as she spoke, even now his voice imbued with a potent vibe of arrogant mockery.
“You’re so sure of that aren’t you,” he laughed, his eyes displaying to Lucie the tell-tale signs of a man whose grip on his own senses was growing looser by the second. “You’re so sure you’ve got me beaten.”
“It’s looking like it to me.”
“I’m not surprised,” he snapped, “you’re so two dimensional.”
“And what are you, a fucking Time Lord?”
“In a manner of speaking. Or more accurately we’re all children of our own time. This isn’t the nineties, people don’t give a shit anymore about the morality of politicians, as long as they tell it like it is.”
“You mean as long as they pander to the prejudices, as long as they give simple soundbite answers to complex problems.”
“It’s the same thing! You’ve done me a favour in a way,” he said, his pupils widening as he spoke. “What have I done apart from win a money-making contract for Britain and get rid of a few uppity foreign bitches along the way. Whether you and your filthy Remainer friends like it or not, there’s a big audience for someone prepared to fight for Britain’s prosperity, and who doesn’t balk at stepping on a few insects on the way. And they’ll do anything to see that person reach the top. The Party might wash their hands of me but there’ll be others queuing up to knock on my cell door, just waiting for the day I get out of prison. You take me in, and you make me a hero.”
“Who said I’m taking you in?” repl
ied Lucie.
“Oh, so you’re here to kill me, are you? Another mark on the bedpost for the Overlappers. Well tough shit, my dear, I’m the one with the gun.”
“Who needs guns?” Lucie answered, “When you’ve got brains instead?”
“Brains?” he sneered. “In just a few short years we’ve turned Britain from the gateway to Europe into a land where the front pages of newspapers decry anyone who questions the legitimacy of the referendum we blatantly corrupted as an enemy of the people. You don’t do that without brains, Lucie.”
“No,” Lucie answered, still facing down the gun with measured calm. “It wasn’t clever, what you did. Cunning, yes, Machiavellian even, but not clever. It may take them a while, but people will open their eyes one day soon and see what you’ve done, and when they do, they’ll demand an end to the perverted mess you’ve made of their democracy. And you, your Red Mako and your pervert’s Playpen will be a distant memory that nobody gives the slightest shit about.”
Butcher twitched, and for a moment Lucie thought he would pull the trigger. Instead, the MP took a step closer, shaking his head at her in apparent frustration.
“You just don’t understand, do you?” He spat, contemptuously. “You don’t get representation with your tax receipt these days, not anymore. Since 1832 people have tried to expand the franchise, but now it’s about restricting it. Little by little, both at the ballot box and online.”
“What?” Lucie quizzed in confusion.
“It’s easy,” Butcher answered, relishing his control of the exchange. “We restrict the electorate and we push those left in the way we want them to go. People put their lives online and wherever they are, we are, inside their minds, inside their souls; we know how you think, and that knowledge is power. A little twist here, a little advert there, and before you even know it, you’re dancing to our tune and would vote against your own mother if we told you to. We’re already half way to convincing the country that you don’t buy your vote with tax anymore you buy it with your blood; British blood. And yours is decidedly watered down…”
Sealed With A Death Page 20