His head itched from the lice that infested him, and he scratched almost on automatic. Blinking the sleep out of his eyes, he looked out at the main street from the deep recessed doorway he had recently claimed as home. He wasn’t quite sure he understood what he saw, but he understood what he heard. He knew screams; he had lived screams during twenty minutes of hell on the road to Baghdad all those years ago where his Land Rover had been blown off the road by what later turned out to be some idiotic Yank A10 pilot who couldn’t distinguish a British flag from that of Saddam’s cronies. He’d lost an arm in that friendly fire incident, along with a third of his platoon and most of his sanity. Of course, the sanity didn’t leave him straight away; it bled away slowly over the years of PTSD. The alcohol he used to quiet the noise in his head took the rest. He lost his wife, he lost his kids, and he lost his mind all for Queen and Country. Only the Queen didn’t give a fuck, and neither did the country. He recently read in a discarded newspaper that the country’s prime minister had promised to have the ability to put ten thousand troops on Britain’s streets in the event of a terrorist attack, and Jock had laughed out loud, earning stares and chuckles from the so-called normal folk around him. There were already nine thousand of Britain’s finest living rough on the streets, so that was a promise the bastard might actually be able to keep.
The streets were his home now. Quiet begging with an air of respectful subservience kept him fed, and kept him in cheap booze, which kept the demons anesthetised. And his thousand-yard stare kept troublemakers away. Nobody messed with Jock, absolutely nobody. Even the police tended to leave him alone so long as he didn’t get too drunk. He still found himself spending the odd night in the cells, but normally he behaved himself. And sometimes the cells were his choice, especially in the snows of winter.
And now the screams grew. In the darkened recess, he went relatively unnoticed by those experiencing the chaos of Scotland’s largest city. There were people fighting, people running and people standing in obvious stunned shock as to what was going on. Instinctively, he rolled his sleeping bag up and gathered it together with his rucksack which contained his few meagre possessions. He needed to piss bad, but that would have to wait. Jock knew danger when he saw it.
This was more than a riot. Riots generally didn’t have people lying bleeding out on the floor, didn’t have children being grabbed from their parents and thrown through shop windows. He flinched as he heard a shot, and looking around the corner, he saw two armed police officers, firing off into a crowd approaching them. Jock smiled. This was what he knew would always come. He spent his days watching humanity, watching the human race slowly degrade into depraved beasts. He saw how people treated each other, how they raced through life chasing the almighty pound, trampling over their fellow humans for the slightest advantage to get that promotion, that new car, that pathetic shiny trinket. He saw how people reacted to him, mainly with fear, some with pity. Some with disgust. But he saw everything and found himself glad to no longer be a part of the rat race. He would sit and watch them, share stories with his fellow homeless, and drink himself into oblivion until the day he didn’t wake up. That would be a blessing, but Jock now suspected that day wouldn’t come. Because this was what he knew would come, and this was biblical. He had spent hours dreaming of this. Society had sent him off to fight and left him a broken ruin. And when they had deemed him unfixable, they had abandoned him to the streets. So if this was what he thought it was, it served the ungrateful fuckers right.
10.10AM, 16th September 2015, Whitehall, London
Funny, Croft seemed to remember sitting in a seat very similar to this some eight or so years before. He had been made to wait then, and he was made to wait now, which was actually a first for the COBRA committee. They had never made him wait before. He heard raised voices from conference room A, and a visibly shaken civil servant left, closing the door behind him. He walked off at pace, giving Croft a momentary glance. What the hell was going on? Well, Croft probably had the answer in his pocket. He took out his smartphone and went onto the internet.
It is a little-known fact that there is a countrywide WIFI network in place for people such as Croft. Using an encrypted network that piggybacks off all the conventional networks, reliable and secure 4G was a perk of the job. It was over this network that Croft accessed the BBC. Instantly, his alarm rose when he saw the reports of riots and police shootings. He hit the latest live feed video. On screen, the solemn-faced BBC anchorman was interviewing a reporter in the field. The reporter was stood behind a barricade, and a line of riot police could be seen about twenty metres behind him. Three armed officers ran across shot, and the reporter, who was looking behind him, turned back to face the camera. Just as he was about to hear what the reporter had to say, the door the civil servant had just left from opened, and the home secretary stormed in, a host of lackeys following in her wake. Croft switched the phone off.
“Croft, get in here,” she said as the door to conference room A was opened for her. Always one to follow orders, he stood to follow, but was distracted as the other door opened again. Savage walked through, and he waited for her to reach him. There was a concerned look on her face.
“I don’t think we will be having that lunch today, Major.”
Croft was the last through the door, and he closed it behind him. He wasn’t important enough to have someone to do that for him. The room was packed, and the wall display was showing the very BBC live feed he had brought up on his phone. There was nowhere for him to sit this time, the home secretary taking the last seat, so he stood to the side next to Savage, right next to the door he had entered by.
“Lucy, what the hell’s going on?” he said bending down to speak into her ear. She turned her head and looked up at him, just the hint of fear glinting in her green eyes.
“Hopefully not what I think.” As she said that, the prime minister stood up, and, holding the remote control, raised the volume so that the display screen could be heard by everyone. The voices in the room died down.
“… shooting just moments ago. There are dozens of wounded officers,” the onsite reporter said. He had been full screen, but the CGI shrank him down and placed him alongside the studio anchor. The heading under the reporter showed his name to be Adrian Cunningham.
“What caused the rioting, Adrian? Has there been any official word?”
“No word as yet. We have been told the civilian shot was attacking a child and that the officer felt it was the only way to protect civilian life. The rioting isn’t a result of the shooting from what I have seen – that was already happening.” Behind him, an officer stepped into the shot and fired a projectile over the police line.
“Adrian, are they using tear gas?” the anchor asked visibly shocked.
“Yes, several canisters have been fired off…” The sound went mute. Behind Adrian, a woman was seen running at the police line from behind. She looked enraged.
“Can someone tell me what the FUCK is happening?” the prime minister shouted, slamming the remote on the conference table. The impact caused the battery cover to fly off, along with one of the batteries. Unseen by him, one of the home secretary’s aides was taking a phone call, and he handed the mobile to his boss. She listened intently and put her hand over the phone, directing her attention to the PM.
“That was Sir Milnes; he says the situation cannot be contained. He wants permission to use baton rounds. And there’s been more shooting at King’s Cross.”
“But baton rounds have never been used on the British Mainland.” That was Mitchell Tanner, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The PM turned to him. On the screen, the police line broke, and the crazed-looking woman charged at the BBC reporter.
“For fucks sake, Mitchell, they’re shooting real bullets. Do you think the plastic ones are going to be any worse?” Osbourne said wearily.
“Oh Christ,” Savage said loudly. Heads turned to her, saw her staring at the TV display. The enraged woman had been tackled by an officer, an
d the camera had panned down, running in close. Her eyes were bleeding, bulging from her head. As the camera got close, the woman bit into the police man’s hand. The officer tried to push her off, but she was relentless. As fellow officers came to his aid, he started punching the woman in the face. All this live on one of the world’s biggest international news channels.
Sir Andrew Kirslake, the Head of the Civil Service, had a very strict routine. Being an ardent Socialist at heart, he objected to the trappings of office, and whilst he accepted the huge pension that was one day promised, he did not believe in being ferried around by underpaid drivers. He was better than that, and was much more comfortable taking the train in to Waterloo Station. Kirslake always liked to walk across Westminster Bridge, no matter the weather. When asked, he always hid his true intentions behind a need to get at least some exercise for the day. The real reason was he liked to feel himself amongst the masses, the people he felt it was his duty to keep a check on the madness that was today’s politicians. How he despised the Tories, but hid it well behind a veneer of officialdom. And of course, he always availed himself of a large chai latte from the same coffee house on Waterloo Road.
Alone in his office, nobody was there to see the infection take hold. They didn’t see him collapse into his own faeces, didn’t see him convulse and bite through his tongue. They didn’t see him rip a chunk of his own hair out, or see his eyes start bleeding. The man that was five weeks away from retirement was reborn a new entity, with only one thought in mind. To feed. Pulling himself up from the soiled carpet, there was no sign of the arthritis in his bones, but there was also no real consciousness left to register that fact. A new pain lived in him now, a hunger that could never be fulfilled, could never be quashed. Kirslake looked around his office, his head moving in jerky movements. He could smell them, could smell their blood, their flesh, and he pounced onto his two-hundred-year-old antique desk, knocking over the picture of the woman he had loved more than life itself. He crouched there a moment, sniffing the air deeply, getting a sense of where his prey was in this fortified building. Leaping off the desk, he landed by the door to his office and licked it inquisitively. Residual memory, deep within what was left of his mind told him the thing on the door opened it, and it creaked as he snaked through into the outside office.
Fortunately for his secretary, she was not there, and he made his way out into the corridor which was also deserted. He smelt the air, hunting for meat, and a sudden spasm hit his neck and it cracked as the bones reset themselves. Kirslake grew several inches as his stooped posture corrected itself. “We must feed,” the voices said. He turned right. He knew where the flesh was.
There were five stages of grief, Croft knew. The first, denial, was being displayed by the majority of people in the room. Savage had just put forward the notion that the woman on the BBC news was displaying the symptoms shown by those at the Hirta disaster, but the majority in the room weren’t having any of it.
“Captain,” said General Marston, “perhaps it is premature to be making that determination based on one video feed.”
“With respect, General, it is my professional judgement as a doctor and a scientist that we are looking at the virus that wiped out the research facility a year ago. And if that’s the case, we need to get you and the prime minister out of here.” Croft, standing by the door, heard something fall in the outer office, but ignored it due to the commotion in the room. He saw the home secretary’s aide take another call, and again, she bent down to talk to her boss. The home secretary said something and leant forward, pressing a button on the speaker at the centre of the table. Sir Michael Young, not present at the briefing, came on the line.
“Sir Michael, what does MI5 have on this?” asked the home secretary.
“Through liaising with GCHQ, we have determined that the situation we are experiencing may be coordinated.” Seconds later, his face appeared on the display, replacing the open melee that was now occurring in London’s financial district. “We analysed facial biometrics and traffic cameras, and we have the same car and the same people cropping up in multiple locations across London.” A map of central London came up on the screen, with a line joining up six dots. Two faces and a car registration appeared at the corner of the map. “Each of the dots represents a coffee shop where that car stopped and those two men got out. We’ve analysed the reported breakouts and as you can see,” circles appeared around the dots, “those seem to be the epicentres of where this is all happening.”
“You think this is a terrorist attack?” the PM asked.
“We don’t know, but look at the map. Apart from Canary Wharf, they visited major transport hubs. Nobody needs to drink that much coffee. We don’t know who the younger man is yet; the computer is still searching for him in its database. But the older gentleman is someone we have down in our inactive files. He was a radical preacher for a religious cult several years back. They called themselves the Children of the Resurrection, but we haven’t had any intel on them for several years. We had assumed they had disbanded.” Listening to this, Croft heard something impact softly on the door to the conference room. He turned his head, saw the door handle start to depress.
“They were seeding the virus,” Savage said. “It’s the only explanation that fits the facts.” There was more murmuring and consternation at that. A Whitehall staffer passed across in front of Croft, just as the door to the conference room opened.
“Find me that car. I want those who caused this brought in for questioning,” the PM demanded.
The man who people used to call Sir Andrew pushed up against the door, blood smearing its surface. The blood was from the body on the floor, a policeman who was bleeding out, his carotid artery severed by teeth. Kirslake heard the voices of his prey inside the room, could hear their hearts beating, the sweet nectar of their blood coursing through easily accessible organs and vessels. He inhaled deeply, savouring their narcotic scent like he had once savoured a fine wine.
“We will feed.”
His hand found the door handle, and he rested it there a moment, confusion seeping into what was left of his mind. He placed his forehead against the door, vestiges of memories and thoughts seeping into this waking moment. Where was he? What was he doing here?
“WE WILL FEED,” the voices roared, and the last of his humanity was stripped from him. He turned the handle, swinging the door inwards, and stood on the threshold for only a moment. A man in front of him turned, surprised by his dishevelled, blood-stained appearance.
“Sir?” Andrew Kirslake slanted his head to one side then launched himself at the man.
Croft took in everything and his training kicked in. Blood drenched, bulging eyes, teeth clamped on the arm of the hapless victim, the man who had just entered needed to be dealt with. He knew what this was; he had seen it over and over in the videos he had watched of the poor sods at Hirta. The attacker released the arm of his victim, flinging him to the ground with the strength of a madman and turned towards Croft, who manoeuvred quickly, planting a foot in Kirslake’s chest. He kicked with all his might, sending the elderly man back out through the door, where he fell and sprawled for a second.
“We will feeeeed,” Kirslake said, springing back to his feet with inhuman agility. Croft almost hesitated, surprised at what he was witnessing, but his brain wouldn’t allow the training to be forgotten, and he slammed shut the door, putting his weight behind him. He heard the latch catch.
“Get diplomatic protection up here,” he roared, jolting from the impact that suddenly hit the other side of the door. “And someone help me with this fucking door.” There was an animalistic howl from outside, and a fresh impact, the wood of the door denting inwards. General Marston leapt to his feet, and with the help of Savage, they both pushed themselves against the door. The wood splintered more, the impacts like a battering ram.
“How did he get so strong?” Savage cried over the noise. Nobody answered, and Croft thought he heard someone in the room authorising a
kill order. Then the wood cracked in earnest, a hand coming through, clawing, searching. There was a commotion outside, and the hand withdrew just as the sound of semi-automatic fire filled the conference room. Crimson streaks were painted around the door’s breach. Careful to avoid the blood, Croft peeked through the hole in the door and allowed relief to wash over him. He opened the conference room door, his hands raised, two dead bodies visibly painting the floor.
“Jesus,” the armed police officer said, his gun pointing towards the new motion.
“Easy,” Croft said, hands still raised. He stepped out of the conference room, closing the door behind him. The officer turned from him and pointed his gun back at the target he had just put four rounds into.
“Is that … is that Andrew Kirslake?” the officer said, visibly shaking. Croft knew that reaction well. He’d seen it many times; the shock of taking a human life for the first time could be devastating. “Did I just kill the Head of the Civil Service?”
“Looks like it. What’s your name?” Croft said.
“Baker, sir, Jack Baker,” the officer responded, but he continued to look at the body.
“Baker, look at me,” Croft insisted. The officer did, although it seemed he was reluctant to take his eyes off his trophy. “What you did was necessary.” There was the sound of running feet from the corridor outside. “You probably saved some very important lives today, mine included.” Croft backed away, and Baker did also. Two more armed police entered. Croft turned to them just as Savage exited the conference room, closing the door behind her. She turned to one of the police officers.
Cobra Z Page 16