by Chris Lofts
37
The lock of Yawlander’s apartment door released. Helix eased the stairwell door closed. He could have moved to the first half-landing, granting him an elevated line of fire. In spite of the chaos and confusion that would have been unfolding on the stairs further down, he didn’t want gunfire drawing attention. He holstered his weapon, gripped the door handle and held it in place. Gritting his teeth, he took the first downward press. A second: firmer, sustained. Muffled words leaked through the door: confused cursing, rather than conversation. Helix assessed the threat. A single expendable dispatched to recce. He released the handle and leapt to the side on the third attempt. The door exploded inwards.
A groan of winded anguish echoed in the void as the flailing man folded over the railing, his hands scrabbling for grip, gravity and momentum pulling him towards the stairs. Helix caught him on the rebound with a left-handed jab to the nose. Stunned but not out, his opponent lunged with a drunken counterpunch. Helix side-stepped and drove his half-clenched knuckles into his throat. The man dropped to his knees, hands to his neck.
‘I’d know those jug ears anywhere.’ Helix spat. ‘Finch. Why am I not surprised to see you?’
Finch wheezed and rolled over. Leaning against the railings, he gasped raspy breaths, dabbing his bloodied nose with his fingers.
‘Where’s Ormandy? Lytkin!’ Helix kicked at his boot. ‘Did you know?’
‘Know what?’ Finch croaked.
‘Don’t play fucking dumb with me, you maggot,’ He dragged Finch to his feet.
‘I was in the reception when she appeared from her office with two of her security detail.’ He gasped a few breaths. ‘She screamed something about a security breach.’
‘And you stepped in, offered your service, her valiant vassal and liege man.’ He grabbed a fistful of Finch’s jacket. ‘Being in that place at that time is way too much of a coincidence, even for a snake like you.’ He hauled him closer. ‘I told you, you should have walked away while you could. You should have vanished the moment I shot that shrink-wrap in Chepstow. You knew I’d come for you, but you thought you could hide in her shadow. Well, guess what, you’re nothing but pigswill to her. That’s why you’re out here and she’s in there,’ he said, nodding towards the door.
‘I’m pigswill?’ Finch laughed. ‘With Ethan, that makes two of—’
Helix exploded forward, heaving Finch over the railings and into the void.
Finch flailed for a finger hold, catching one of the horizontal bars with one hand. He thrashed and swung his body, latching his other hand over a bar. ‘Where is that poison dwarf? Found him yet?’ he said, fighting for grip.
‘Yeah, I found him.’ Helix swung his boot at the railings, grinding Finch’s fingers. ‘We’ll be having a beer later to celebrate. Except we won’t be raising a glass in your honour.’
Finch screamed, his right hand slipping as Helix lifted his boot. His crushed bloody fingers clawed the concrete below the railings, his weight now suspended by his left.
Helix stamped down again. Hollow tubular steel echoes reverberated around the stairwell as Finch fell, his body rebounding from the railings as it plunged into the chasm.
Helix primed himself again. How many remained with Lytkin? He weighed the remaining grenade in his pocket. He could blast his way into the apartment. But somehow destroying even more of Yawlander’s world didn’t feel right, regardless of the prize. He stole another glance down the corridor. The light beneath Yawlander’s door was gone. Had they heard the altercation? Closing his eyes, he pictured the scene inside. He filtered out the image of Yawlander pouring whisky from a decanter, the dog at his side, the cat licking its paws on the sofa. He concentrated on the arch through to the kitchen, the door to bedroom. Beyond the kitchen lay the terrace with balcony. Stepping from the door, he pressed himself to the wall. With his P226 extended in his left hand, he slid along the wood panelling. Crouching beside the door, he swapped his gun to his right hand and gave three solid knocks on the door. A burst of automatic gunfire shredded the wood. Splinters and bullet fragments peppered the facing wall. Maybe it was meant to be two knocks. You can’t win them all. Keeping low, he darted across the door to the opposite side, next to the entry scanner. He scrolled the modes on the grenade, selected flash-bang, steadied himself, pivoted on his right foot and crashed his left boot into the door beside the handle. Firing two two-round bursts from his P226 he tossed the grenade in through the shattered door. The grenade detonated with its characteristic blinding flash. With his ears ringing, he rolled across the floor, coming up in a crouch behind Yawlander’s reading chair. He covered the angles of the sitting room, fighting the wind howling from the unrepaired window, flinched towards a movement in the kitchen, fired twice. Rolling to his right, a burst of fire tore through the carpet and chair at his side.
Against the bookcase, he caught his breath. The smell of splintered wood and burned carpet danced in the air, drawn towards the shattered blinds that clattered beside the window frame. He brushed away a splinter embedded in his cheek, ignoring the sting. The bookcase pressed into his back as he got to his feet. Faded tomes exploded on the shelves at his shoulder, soaking up the burst of fire that greeted the movement. It was short, terminating with the unmistakeable metallic death-click of a dry weapon. Helix’s reaction was instant. He leaped into the arch. Fired twice. The man fell. No time to reload. No backup weapon.
Covering the angles, he edged through the arch. Glass ground and popped beneath his boots, like the frozen snow back in the woods where Gabrielle waited. Wind-driven rain pelted the half-open patio doors. Cloud shadows swept across the terrace, the blinds continuing their relentless rattle in the wind behind him. Rounding the granite-topped island unit, the matt-black barrel of the empty weapon came into view. A hand, palm open, fingers limp. An arm, white shirt, black jacket. Helix pivoted slowly, weapon extended, double grip. A pool of blood, black, like molasses in the moonlight formed a halo around the man’s head.
Helix rubbed at the hairs on the back of his neck. A rapid deep intake of breath. Not his own. He spun towards it, gun sweeping upwards. Two shots. Two misses. Glass splinters from the doors. The slender curved blade glinted in the moonlight as it slashed from the darkness in the hands of Ulyana Lytkin.
Helix darted right. He slipped, dropping to his left knee, right arm raised in defence. The blow was heavy, polished steel against titanium and carbon fibre. Driving his arm to the right, he deflected the blade. A red-hot sting exploded across his cheek as the sword’s tip caught him. Ignoring the pain, he completed the move, exploiting Lytkin’s forward momentum. Clamping his hand over her wrist, he twisted and drove his left elbow back. Her body collapsed around the force of the strike, the wind beaten from her. The sword cart-wheeled and clattered across the grey-tiled floor. He brought his weapon to bear as Lytkin writhed, her hands to her stomach, gasping for air. He should have fired. Not yet.
Taking three steps back, he paused, touched his fingers to his cheek, touched them to his tongue between deep breaths. Lytkin stared back at him, an inferno of hate in her eyes. ‘You can have that for my daughter,’ she spat, rolling over and pulling herself back against one of the kitchen units.
‘On your feet.’ He waved her up with his gun, backed away and picked up the sword. ‘In the sitting room. Move.’
Lytkin flinched as she rolled to her knees and climbed up, brushing broken glass from the legs of her black trouser suit. She buttoned the jacket. ‘Going to stab me in the back, Major?’
He followed her through the arch. ‘No. I prefer to leave that kind of thing to the politicians,’ he said. ‘Besides, this weapon is too good for the likes of you. If I was going to stab you, I’d use a spoon, so you could feel it.’ He nodded towards the shattered window.
Lytkin brushed her hair away from her face and folded her arms. ‘How surreal to find us here, in the room where it all began,’ she sneered, looking around.
Helix swallowed the rage. Touching Yawlander’s sword was
bad enough, it diminished his memory and sullied his honour. The horror of what had passed in that room was made worse by the architect of its design gloating before him. He placed the sword back on its display mount above the nickel-plated scabbard over the drinks cabinet, making sure that the attached General’s knot was correctly presented.
‘I didn’t have Yawlander killed out of revenge,’ she said.
‘The reason is irrelevant. He was one of the few decent people left in this…’ He jabbed his hand towards the window, the sleeping city below.
‘This what, Major?’ She looked over her shoulder. ‘Whatever you think it is, it could have been so much better if only you—’
‘Better?’ He snorted. ‘How could what you were planning be better? People haven’t got a clue what to do with themselves, they have no purpose, nothing to live for in this supposed Gaia-gifted utopia.’
‘Utopia. Yes, Major. A utopia free from sickness, free from hunger, free from stress, with an average life expectancy of 93 years, an increase of 11 years in the last 20. Who knows? Perhaps it will be 100 in the next ten.’
‘And just how long do you think it would last? Humans crave challenge, they’re problem-solving machines, they don’t always want machines solving their problems.’
‘Really? How did we get to where we are now? It is we who gave birth to the technology, it will sustain us in our dotage as any child would care for its parents.’
‘When was the last time you left the city? Looked outside. That’s life, that’s living, that’s a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Because if you don’t, you’ll go hungry, you’ll be cold, you will die and so will all of those around you.’
‘So, better to be a digger?’ She shook her head. ‘No, thank you. My vision is for a better humanity, a perfect humanity.’
‘And this Government is going to deliver that?’ He snorted again. ‘It can’t fix itself, let alone the human race.’
‘You’re right again, Major Helix.’ She nodded. ‘It is broken and I could have fixed it. I could still fix it. With your help.’
‘Me?’ he said. ‘You really have got a screw loose.’
‘Yes, you.’ She ran her tongue over her lips. ‘Yawlander was of a different generation.’ She laughed. ‘More like a different millennium. He would have done the right thing, not the necessary thing.’
‘No. I might be years younger than him, but you’ve got me wrong. I was nearer to him than I ever will be, correction, would have been, to you.’ He shook his head. ‘Just out of curiosity, was Wheeler telling the truth about what you had planned? I was going to ask if you really meant to unleash that pathogen in Parliament, but having seen what you’re capable of, I think I know the answer.’
A smiling grimace broke across her face. ‘And what of your future, Major Helix?’
Helix ran his hand over his chin. ‘In the short term—’
‘Your new boss is a different proposition.’ She raised her eyebrows.
‘Ortega? Appointing a yes man, sorry woman, makes sense now.’ He rubbed at the stubble on his jaw. ‘How odd that the first thing she’ll be required to do is craft your downfall.’
Lytkin snatched away a laugh. Pain etched her pallid face. She pressed her hand to her side. Unbuttoning her jacket, she peeled it away from the blooming blood stain on her side.
‘Thought I’d missed,’ Helix said. ‘It’s a flesh wound. Never mind. As I was—’
‘You might think I’m consumed by revenge, Major, but I’m not. Everything was planned, everything happened for a reason. I said you and I were very similar. You killed my—’
‘Wheeler killed your daughter, not me.’
‘Semantics, Major,’ she said, dismissively. ‘You loaded the gun, he pulled the trigger.’
‘Cliché. Is that what this is to you, a clever word game?’ He ejected the magazine from his gun and checked the number of remaining rounds. ‘You’ve made sacrifices before, that’s what you said. Was the life of your fifteen-year-old daughter worth it?’ He exchanged one gun for the other. ‘You might have thought so, half an hour ago.’ He closed the gap between them. ‘Tempting isn’t it?’
She glanced up at him, her brow furrowed. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘The window,’ he said, shrugging. ‘Yeah sorry, General Ortega, I did my best but she jumped. Nothing I could do.’
‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ she said, taking a step towards the shattered window. ‘No investigation, no trial and no embarrassing evidence. No exposing the failures of the security services in not identifying an imposter in their midst.’
Helix sighed. ‘That’s the thing with politicians. Always looking for a scapegoat. Why not try taking responsibility for a change?’
‘Maybe Wheeler was right,’ she said, edging closer to the window.
Her glance wasn’t direct, but enough. He lunged as she threw herself towards the gaping hole. The material of her jacket tail ripped as he dragged her back. Dropping his weapon, he clawed at her back with his right hand, missing the collar of her jacket, catching her hair. Her scream drowned the sound of the hungry wind as he yanked her back from the edge. He wrapped her in his arms, stifling her attempts to claw his face, his eyes. With one hand behind her back, he pulled her arm at the elbow, locking them together, his face close enough to feel the warmth of her breath. ‘You’re right, it would be too easy, too convenient. You were also right about us.’ He gritted his teeth. ‘I am just like you. You were trying to tie up the loose ends, that’s what we do. You’ve murdered the man I looked up to. Killed a good friend. Threatened my family and the woman I love.’
‘So, finish the job,’ she said. ‘I’d have already been dead if you hadn’t stopped me.’
‘You don’t deserve to die a martyr. Yes, I want you dead. But the when and how is something you’re not going to control.’ He braced his foot against the edge of the window ‘That was something I promised myself in return for what you started here.’ He relaxed his grip. She hung at his mercy. A wave of exhaustion washed over him. He blinked his eyes open, taking in the skyline, the first hints of morning on the horizon and the fading stars overhead. The hungry wind tugged at him. She grew heavy in his grip. He drew a breath and fed her to the darkness.
38
The sand-coloured walls of the Palace of Westminster glowed in the late autumn sun. The hands of the clock set into the Elizabeth Tower, also known as Big Ben after the famous bell it housed, indicated 10:59. Parliament Street and Whitehall were filled with sombre congregants, poppies pinned to hats or lapels. Vehicular traffic crept to a dignified halt in anticipation of the approaching hour. Hushed conversation ebbed away at the striking of the Westminster quarter bells. The first of eleven strikes rolled through the gorges between Government buildings that enclosed the congregation for the annual Remembrance Day service, centred around the Cenotaph.
Her Majesty Queen Charlotte, accompanied by her brother Prince Louis of Cambridge, took centre stage, overlooking the Lutyens war memorial from a blue-draped balcony of the Foreign and Commonwealth office. Politicians and other dignitaries lined the road in orderly rows alongside the Portland stone monument. Further up Whitehall, Helix and Ethan waited amongst the ranks of wreath bearers, fewer in number with the passing of the years. The 11th of November was the original armistice day to mark the cessation of hostilities at the end of the First World War in 1918. In subsequent years and after subsequent wars the day served to remember all those who fell in service to their country. On this day, there were two more: General Yawlander and Sergeant Blackburn would be amongst their ranks. For Helix, bearing a wreath in remembrance of the General, and Ethan, bearing another in memory of their older brother Jon, the day was poignant.
Helix closed his eyes beneath the peak of his cap, his breath slow and deep as the first notes of the Last Post drifted down the street, marking the end of the two minutes silence. Turning his eyes to the right, he glanced at Ethan standing proudly on full-length prosthetics in hi
s pressed dress uniform with the insignia of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineering regiment. Battling exhaustion, they had escaped the MoHD and made it back to Down Street with enough time to patch up injuries, shower and dress. The death of Julia Ormandy and an explosion near Waterloo station had dominated the news. A thorough investigation was promised. They would report after the service. Helix rested his hand on the hilt of Yawlander’s sword. It had been a last minute decision. He wanted it to be there, even if the General couldn’t be.
The politicians and dignitaries laid their wreaths, the Lord Bishop of London offered a prayer, a hymn followed. A ripple of anticipation ran through the ranks as the band struck up. Hats, caps and jackets were straightened. The brothers came to attention with the rest of their small group and on the command, began their march towards the memorial.
Approaching the monument, Helix limited his thoughts to Jon, Yawlander and Blackburn. But what shape would his own future take? In the distance, the edge of the Victoria Tower, at the south-west end of the Palace of Westminster, came into view. He was glad all of the politicians had scampered back into the warm Foreign and Commonwealth office after laying their wreaths. He didn’t want them looking on as he and Ethan laid theirs.
They came to a halt, turned left and laid their tributes. Taking one step back they snapped to attention and saluted. The threat of tears formed in the warm glow behind his eyes and nose. Enough had already been shed. He wasn’t going to add to them. With their respects paid, they turned and marched away to the dispersal area.
Veterans milled around in small clusters, not wanting to be the first to leave. Helix pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. ‘You OK, Bruv?’ he asked.
Ethan nodded. ‘What are you going to do?’ he said, repositioning his cap.