by Chris Lofts
Turning to Sofi, Helix said, ‘I told you I don’t need any help. As soon as I’ve reinstalled the PCM you can help the same way that Ethan used to, does. In my ears and behind my eye, but out of my bloody hair and don’t give me any more of the likelihood of mission success bollocks.’
Sofi folded her arms. ‘But you cannot deny the tactical advantage my being in theatre will bring. In your ear or behind your eye I am reliant upon what you are observing. Four eyes are better than two, two heads are better than one and one neural network is better than none.’
Helix wasn’t going to admit it, but she, it had a point, it could act as a spotter, share stag duties while they rested, cover an arc if they got into an engagement. An engagement? What the hell was he thinking? Where they were going, the only thing they might have to face was the occasional shotgun but they weren’t likely to encounter tribes of armed diggers, unless pitch forks, axes and other farm implements counted. Until that moment, he’d been pre-occupied with Ethan and hadn’t given a thought to Gabrielle. His hand gravitated towards his chest, the unconscious way it did when he thought about her and the letter. He closed his eyes, tried to picture what she might be doing. A faint smile turned up the side of his mouth as he remembered SJ waxing lyrical about life outside the cities and how they wore the digger name with pride. To certain city dwellers, like Ormandy’s spoilt little shit of a daughter, they represented a lower form of life to be sneered at. They were there to be mocked, the subject of stand-up routines in comedy clubs: ‘What do you call a digger with a shovel? Doug!’ Cue canned laughter. ‘What about a digger who’s lost his shovel. Douglas!’ Wankers.
He downed the last of his water. Tossing the empty cup into a bin, he crossed to the bench where Mace was laying out the kit. His eyes fell upon each item hoping to find something that Sofi had missed. Disappointed, he dropped his trousers. Mace blew out a long low whistle and bent down, pulling up his white socks to just below the knee.
Sitting on the stool, Helix lifted the flap of false skin at the back of his right calf and inserted the PCM. Closing his left eye, he observed the boot sequence in his right and got to his feet, pulling his trousers back up.
Holding his forearm horizontal away from his body, he squeezed his fist releasing a pair of ten inch ceramic blades: one from between the second and third knuckles of his hand and the second from his elbow in the opposite direction. He relaxed. The blades retracted. Squeezing again he cycled them three more times.
‘Wolverine, grrrrr,’ Mace growled.
Helix parted his feet, turning his right boot out a few extra degrees. A third, shorter blade, sprung from the toe of his boot, retracted and sprung out again. He nodded his approval.
Sofi inserted a clip into each of the P226s, handed one to him and stepped back. He activated the targeting system on the weapon, noted the green status icon in the reticle overlay in his right eye. He welcomed the renewed ease with which he was moving as he strode to an arch in the wall beyond which lay a single lane shooting gallery with a target in the distance. With the centre of the reticle on the middle of the target he pointed the P226 down the alley and pulled the trigger. The smart round found the centre of the target, confirmed as he zoomed in also checking the range finder overlay. ‘Yards or metres, Mace?’
‘One hundred yards, darling. Call me old-fashioned if you must.’
He nodded. ‘Can you kill the lights?’
Two more rounds hit the centre of the target as he cycled through the night vision and thermal imaging functions. ‘Looking good.’
Sofi lifted the AX50 sniper rifle and stepped over to the gallery. ‘Scope settings?’ she said. ‘Ballistic coefficient, drop, wind drift, altitude, coriolic correction?’
‘No need to worry your pretty little head with such trivia,’ Mace replied. ‘Preselected by the scope and automatically adjusted for all conditions based on GPS location. But you have to point it in the right direction.’
She extended the fitted bipod, unfolded the stock, dropped to the floor behind the rifle and cycled the heavy bolt. Mace reset Helix’s target to 500 yards. Fine grey dust erupted from the cement ceiling and floor as Sofi took the shot. ‘Close enough,’ she reported, springing back to her feet, brushing the dust blown back by the muzzle brake from her sleeves.
Helix ranged the target. A single hole remained in the centre. What had been 9mm in diameter had been widened to just under 13mm. He nodded his silent approval. ‘We’ll take a box of Raufoss Mk 211s to go with that, Mace,’ he added as Sofi folded the bipod and stock, before stowing it in the carry bag.
‘Nasty. I might just have the last box to be found outside a museum somewhere.’
‘Many a fine tune played with an old fiddle, mate.’
Mace raised his thickly drawn eyebrows and mumbled. ‘Just like you, honey.’
Helix laughed. ‘Heard that.’ He folded back the flap over the graphene screen in his jacket sleeve. He set a timer ending Thursday 11th November, 11AM and pressed start. Forty-six hours, eleven minutes and twelve seconds. He stared at the display, watching the seconds slipping past.
‘Whose account is this little lot going on?’ the Quartermaster asked, tossing the box of high explosive armour piercing rounds to Sofi.
‘Nobody’s. It’s a private transaction between us,’ Helix said, looking at Sofi.
‘What?’ She shrugged.
‘If you’re going to be here, you may as well make yourself useful and pay the lady.’
Fifteen valuable minutes later, Helix led the way up an identical spiral staircase from the bottom of the fifty metre deep Victoria embankment shaft. ‘Any activity on the surface we need to know about?’ he said, turning to Sofi.
She blinked into the distance. ‘Two police vehicles operating on a routine patrol pattern along the embankment. No air cover. No chatter. What have you got in mind?’
‘Cab west to the perimeter. Rendezvous with the transport and take it from there.’
‘A cab?’
‘Yep. You’ll be paying this time. And seeing as you don’t exist, it’ll be untraceable. Ready?’
Sofi tightened the straps of her bergen and nodded.
Helix cracked the door open, peered through the narrow gap. Snow compacted in their footprints as they crossed the grass, each scanning in opposite directions. Short-lived wisps of steam from dying flakes of snow rose from the pavements and roadways. They paused under the wet leafless trees that stood like bronze sentinels guarding the road. The embankment’s buildings glowed in the gloom, like a perpetual dawn.
Helix craned over the silent lines of slow-snaking vehicles, looking for a taxi while scanning for the two police patrols Sofi had mentioned. ‘Taxi on the opposite side, seven vehicles back,’ he said. ‘Shit. Police vehicle two behind that.’ With nothing approaching from the opposite direction he moved off . ‘We might have more luck at the junction with the bridge,’ he said, heading towards Westminster.
Keeping the trees between them and the traffic, they bobbed and weaved between pedestrians and holo-ads, keeping their eyes downcast to avoid being called out with an exclusive offer for something they didn’t need. ‘There’s a cab coming over the bridge,’ he said, turning to Sofi a few steps behind him. ‘We should be able to nab it at the junction.’ As he turned back, Helix bounced off a dark-suited figure grinning back at him. ‘Finch. Where the fuck did you come from?’
‘Behind that tree,’ Finch said, his eyes darting at Sofi. ‘I know you’ve not been yourself lately, but I’m not invisible.’ He sniffed, wiping his hand below his nose. ‘Ormandy’s put out the word. You’re under arrest for the murder of Yawlander and Blackburn. And her?’ he said, nodding at Sofi.
‘It’s a synthetic, operated out of Northwood. I’m field testing it. You can’t arrest a synthetic, numb-nuts. Didn’t you get the memo?’
‘I’ll take it as evidence.’
‘Whatever. Good luck getting it in an evidence bag.’ He looked past Finch and the taxi passing the junction in the d
istance. ‘Listen, Finch. Just walk away, while you still can. I’m not going anywhere with you. I didn’t kill the General or Blackburn and you know it.’
‘Just following orders. You should try it sometime,’ Finch said, pulling a halo-cuff from his jacket pocket. A pale blue glow shimmered from the device as he extended it with a flick of his wrist.
Once in place the cuff rendered the person mute and compliant, neither of which Helix was in the mood for. He gave a derisory snort. ‘You think I’m going to stand here while you put that thing on my head?’
Finch’s glance left at the police vehicle drawing level with them was twice as long as Helix needed. A muffled crack issued from the officers jaw under Helix’s gloved fist. He followed with a strike to the solar plexus folding Finch onto his knees before a knee to the face put him on his back.
Sofi tossed a tactical EMP grenade under the police vehicle, its silent, small radius shockwave disabling it, trapping the officers inside. She launched a second at the vehicle approaching from behind, but the officers were already dismounting. The two women rushed towards them, their weapons drawn. Sofi drew her own. The bulky handgun whined into life as it left her thigh holster. Two rapid shots to the knees dropped the officers.
‘I thought you said there was no chatter,’ Helix said, turning towards the bridge. ‘Where did fuckwit Finch come from?’
‘If there’s nobody issuing orders over the net, I’m not going to see or hear it,’ she said, holstering her weapon. ‘Finch got lucky. He was in one of the AVs, must have spotted us.’
A faint beep in Helix’s ear distracted him. The panel in his sleeve gave the origin as he hailed the taxi and climbed in. ‘Home Secretary.’
‘Where the hell are you, Helix?’ Ormandy said. ‘You were expected in my office for a disciplinary ten minutes ago.’
‘You know where I am,’ he said, crossing his feet at the ankles. ‘You sent Finch.’
‘Who the hell is Finch? I sent two officers to collect you from that café in St Swithin’s Lane.’
‘After telling me to report in one hour.’
‘Yes. But you are you. And who is that woman who put them in hospital?’
‘Dawkins.’ He turned to Sofi. ‘She’s on secondment from G squadron.’ Apart from him, Ethan and Gabrielle, nobody else knew of Sofi’s existence and he wanted to keep it that way. ‘A pain in the arse, but she has her uses. General Yawlander assigned her.’
‘So, she was following your orders?’
‘Do you have any update on the location of my brother? My assumption being that the department is doing everything it can to find and release him. Who have you got working on it?’
‘We don’t negotiate with terrorists, Helix. We never have and never—’
‘Who said they were terrorists?’
‘We have all of the usual procedures in play, but it isn’t easy. Your brother’s paranoia means that there is little or no monitoring available to us in or around the Observatory. All we have is footage from the cameras on the old Naval College showing the explosion.’
‘And Stepper? How do you intend to proceed with her location and detention?’
‘Helix, you appear to have a very short memory. You are suspended—’
‘You mean wanted on suspicion of murder. Finch said you’d issued orders for my arrest.’
‘Your refusal to follow orders, Major Helix, leaves me with very few options. What else am I to think? General Yawlander and Blackburn have been murdered. Your brother is apparently missing and those holding him have told you to find Gabrielle Stepper. And then what? Who are you working for, Helix? Who’s behind all of this?’
‘What? Are you completely insane? I’m not working for anyone.’
‘No? Well, if I have my way, you will soon be unemployed and in a long tube with a lot of other miscreants in halo-confinement. If you choose not to surrender, I will issue orders to have you shot on sight.’
‘Listen. You want Gabrielle Stepper. I need to find her to get Ethan released. Let me bring her in.’
‘Bringing her to me won’t help your brother, will it? Sorry, Major. No deal.’
Helix clamped his hand over his mouth. That was the hard part. He wasn’t going to surrender Gabrielle, but he wasn’t going to let that lunatic Lytkin butcher his brother either. Locating Gabrielle should be easy enough. Getting her to come back to London was a different matter. But she thought the world of Ethan. She’d do anything to help. Wouldn’t she?
‘Who’s holding your brother, Major?’
‘I have to go.’
‘This is your last warning, Helix. I’m—’
‘And this is yours. Stay out of my way.’
12
Julia Ormandy pushed her chair back from her desk and crossed her legs. Gripping a hair band between her teeth she gathered her damp hair into a bunch and tied it. She pressed her fingers to her lips and made a mental note to amend the legislation that had given Yawlander and the others of his ilk the right to remain in post for the length of their natural lives. That same legislation protected any of the General’s appointments and that included the Helix brothers. But Yawlander was dead and she intended to exploit the vacuum. The new legislation would go through on the nod, as it always did, and then she would have the authority to appoint, promote or retire anyone, including Cardinal Generals and insubordinate Majors.
‘Gemma, how do I get connected to the operations centre?’ she said over her shoulder. ‘I don’t have a speed dial.’
A rustle of silk bedclothes being tossed aside in the bedroom was followed by bare feet padding towards her. Ormandy tilted her head, feeling the PA’s warm breath on her neck as she leaned over her shoulder.
‘Like this,’ Gemma said, running her long fingers across the virtual keyboard. ‘There you go,’ she added, kissing the Home Secretary lightly on the neck.
‘Thanks,’ Ormandy said, stroking her assistant’s forearm. ‘You better get dressed.’ She drummed her fingers on the desktop as she waited for the comms to connect. Major Nathan Helix VC DSO. How dare he tell her to stay out of his way?
‘Good morning, Captain,’ she said as the call was answered. She steepled her fingers. ‘What can you tell me?’
‘I wish I had better news, ma’am.’ The Captain cleared his throat. ‘We’re no further forward in discovering the whereabouts of Ethan Helix. There’s been no activity with his login credentials since the explosion at the—’
‘His official credentials, Captain.’
‘Yes, ma’am, but if he has any other accounts we’re not in possession of the details.’ He straightened his tie. ‘He, how shall I put—’
‘I know.’ She held her hand up. ‘He wrote the manual. I’m growing tired of hearing about that particular legend.’ She sighed. ‘I’ve just spoken to his brother. What I don’t have is his location.’
The Captain straightened a little. ‘Slightly better news there, Home Secretary. As of around ten minutes ago, he was on the Embankment, close to the Houses of Parliament—’
‘I sense a but coming, Captain.’
‘He got in a taxi with a young woman and we—’
‘Lost them?’ she said, raising her eyebrows. ‘Dawkins,’ she added. ‘The woman’s name is Dawkins. Apparently assigned by General Yawlander, on secondment from G squadron.’
‘Dawkins?’ the Captain repeated. ‘I’ll check, ma’am, but I don’t recall anyone of that name being—’
‘Here’s another name for you, Captain. Finch. Does that one ring any bells?’ The fingers of her right hand joined in the drumming.
‘Finch.’ The darting of his eyes said what his voice didn’t. ‘He’s, erm—’
‘So, that is a name you’re familiar with.’ She stopped drumming and leaned closer to the screen. ‘You can tell me, Captain, I have all the necessary security clearances.’
The officer straightened his tie again. ‘Finch is currently dark, or meant to be.’
‘Not dark enough it would seem,’ sh
e said. ‘According to Major Helix, he was also on the embankment, not so long ago. Helix seemed to think I’d sent him.’
‘I’ll reach out to him, Home Secretary. I’m sure there’s an explanation.’
‘It would be nice to have an explanation for something, Captain.’ Ormandy nodded in mock approval. ‘You can add him to the list of people of whom you have no idea about their whereabouts.’ She dismissed the call.
Documents and data feeds shimmered over her desk, amongst them Helix and Ethan’s personal files. They’d revealed nothing of any use apart from reiterating that Nathan Helix’s attitude towards those in authority, particularly politicians, had been an area of concern during his evaluations. Concerns that Yawlander had dismissed. Leaning forward she swiped files aside, looking for the letter that Gabrielle Stepper had written to Helix in the aftermath of Justin Wheeler’s denouncement. She read it again, rekindling the same nauseating fear that she’d experienced as she’d watched from the back of the stage as Helix and his cohorts destroyed Wheeler’s career, piece by piece. But arrogance had assuaged the anxiety. All they had was a minor scandal. An affair between two high profile politicians, one of whom was the husband of a simpering celebrity scientist. Ormandy missed the sex. There had been others before Justin and there were others now.
She glanced up at the real-time video feed of her daughter surround by study texts as she sat cross-legged on the library floor. Outside of politics, Christina was the only permanent fixture in her life, her only connection to what some would call normality. The spat that Helix had witnessed was one of many. In time her daughter would grow and mature and take her place beside her mother and the ruling elite. Gaia willing.
Helix wasn’t as invisible as he might think. He’d stepped into the light before. People remembered a face. It was time for another trip into the media spotlight. She tapped the desktop again. Yes. The Broken Broadcasting Corporation. Something else she needed to fix, but it had its uses. She scrolled through her directory, selected the number for the Director General and hit dial.