A bright smile greets him. “Evening, Boss!”
“Evening, Sam.” Nate places his laptop case on the desk and sits down.
“What’s up? You look knackered before you’ve even started.”
Come on, Nate. Show some guts! “Nah, I’m fine. Just a bit of paperwork to do before the first job.”
“Ah, paperwork. The downside of being the boss, Boss.” Sam chuckles and returns to the set of screens at his desk.
“Yep. Coffee?”
“Yes, sure, I’ll just-”
“No, I meant, do you want a coffee? I’m getting one for myself.”
“Sure. Thanks.”
Nate heads for the kitchenette, fills the kettle, and flicks the switch.
Sam calls through as Nate takes two cups from the cupboard. “Konstantin called earlier. He said he needs you at his by ten, and not half-past as agreed.”
The mention of the man’s name makes Nate feel grubby as well as anxious. He checks his watch; not enough time to shovel through the mountain of paperwork. “Shit!”
“Yep, I thought you’d say that.”
Nate spoons coffee into the mugs, covers it with milk then adds a spoonful of sugar to each, hesitates, then adds another to his own; he’s going to need the extra energy tonight. He sets the mugs down with a splash and sits in his overly large, executive – what a joke! – chair and stares at the piles of paper and folders on his desk.
“Perhaps we should get Terri back in to help?”
Can’t afford her! “No, it’s fine, Sam. I can manage. I’ll just have to take some paperwork home with me tonight.” He wilts at the thought of taking the papers home, but sits straighter, and takes a mouthful of coffee, the heat stinging his lips and tongue. He grimaces, swallows the fiery liquid, and mutters expletives as he replaces the cup on its stained coaster.
Sam pulls a sympathetic face, before focusing back on the bank of screens. “Nothing much going on tonight.” He yawns, leans back in his chair, hands behind his head.
“That’s the way we like it.” Nate’s mobile vibrates on the desk. He reads the screen, mutters ‘shit’, then leans back in his own chair.
“What’s up?”
“Conroy. He’s called in sick.”
“Conroy? Sick?”
“Yeah, my thoughts exactly. When is Conroy ever sick?”
After a quick glance, Sam stares back at the screens. He shifts in his chair; a sign Nate takes as discomfort. “You got something to tell me?”
Sam coughs, doesn’t look up. Nate waits.
“Well ... he was in here a few days ago, grumbling about not being paid on time, bragging he could earn twice what he’s getting with Newton.”
“Newton Gage?” The image of Newton Gage, Nate’s biggest competitor, suited up, shoes polished to a high sheen, stepping out of his black BMW, gold sovereign on his pinkie, flashes in Nate’s mind. “That scrote?”
“I don’t know any other Newton in the business.”
“He’s just a thug.”
“He’s a second-rate wannabe east-end gangster, all flash and no sparkle. No real class, not like you, Nate.”
“Dunno about that!” Nate has no class to speak of, he’s well aware of that, but he’s no gangster either.
“Gage is all mouth.”
“Seems to be getting him business though.”
“You don’t want to be doing the kind of business he does, Nate. From what I’ve heard, he’s into some heavy stuff.”
Nate’s heard the rumours too, the talk of drugs, prostitution, security that’s more akin to extortion. He takes another swig of coffee, thankfully cooled now.
“Conroy’s an idiot if he’s hooked up with Gage; he’s bad news.”
Nate nods, his lips pressed together; but at least he’ll get paid. Looking down at the pile of papers, a white sheaf with print large and red printed across the top, pokes out. He stacks them neatly again, hiding the final reminder, the demands for monies to be paid. “Aye, you can’t polish a turd.”
Sam snorts as he takes a mouthful of coffee then reaches for his mobile as it buzzes on the desk. “Have you thought about branching out down south? The violence down there is out of control, we could rake it in as bodyguards.”
“Not a chance! I’m not going back down there and there’s no way I’d take my boy.”
“You wouldn’t have to live there.”
“Still, no chance. It’s not the same down there now.”
“You heard any more ... about the attacks?”
“Nope, but after we talked the other day, after that meteor hit London, I got to thinking. Seems to me, that where these meteors hit, violence goes off the scale.”
“That struck me too, but there’s been nothing much on the news about it—no one putting two and two together. This morning, the best they could come up with was some old academic on the news spouting off about social deprivation and ghettoes perpetuating and escalating knife crime in London.”
“They should try prosecuting the scrotes—that’d learn ‘em.”
Nate knows the figures, less than one in ten prosecuted for violent crime leading to conviction. “True, there’s no deterrent, but knife crime was bad before the meteors. After they hit, every other news story was a violent attack—at first.”
“You noticed that, then? How those stories dried up?”
“Yeah.”
Sam’s eyes glitter as he continues. “It was the same with Paris—I’ve seen videos online that’d make your hair curl, but nothing on the news.”
“You think they’re covering something up?”
“I reckon so. Just seems to me that the stories that were coming out from the cities dried up, and you can’t tell me that crime has suddenly taken a downturn. And I’ll tell you something,” his voice is conspiratorial. “I do know that the BBC had a D-Notice about France, because of the riots earlier in the year.”
Nate grunts, remembering Josh’s ‘get your head of out of your arse’, his insistence that news was being covered up. So much for being the director of M & M Penrose Ltd. Surveillance and Security Consultants. He was ridiculously unaware, living in a fog of un-knowledge, too wrapped up in his own difficulties, no wonder the business was going down the pan. “The Yellow Vest riots?”
“Yeah. Take a look.” Sam thumbs his mobile’s screen then passes it to Nate. “It was posted in a group. I saved it. Proof the BBC are colluding with the government to keep information suppressed, and fabricating stories that it’s the Far-Right causing them.”
Nate takes the phone and reads the screen-captured image:
‘Anonymous. ID: HR1ByfiK Mon 03 Dec 2018 09:56:29 No. 1876226
>>197647373
I work at media city (BBC) north of Manchester. I can absolutely confirm that the British media has been handed a D-Notice (legal gagging order to prevent reporting on ‘inflammatory’ incidents such as injured/killed protestors, not allowed to even mention the word ‘France’ or ‘French’ on the main page of the BBC news website) against reporting on the Yellow Jackets for ‘national security’ reasons. It’s not fully legally binding but the director general has enforced the D-Notice.
The government is treating this as a security threat to all European governments and are trying to prevent a ‘European Spring’ type situation and preparing multiple pre-written stories in case a major incident forces them to break the D-Notice, and it involves framing it as far right, portraying the violence perpetrated by NF supporters, Russian fake news fuelling it etc.
A big spider-web diagram brief on a projector is in the world politics writers room pre-empting what type of incident might occur and what pre-written articles will follow. They’ve assigned a social media team to update the projector board in real-time. This level of pressuring is fucking unprecedented even compared to 2014 and 2016.’
“Unreal! The fucking deceitful bastards. Traitors every last one of them!”
“Yeah, and if that’s what they’d do over riots in France, then we c
an expect the same for the riots over here. Perhaps not such a coincidence that Paris was the first city to be hit.”
“Ah, come one! That’s a conspiracy theory too far for me, Sam.”
“Maybe. I’m just sayin’, the cities that were hit were the ones where mass demonstrations were taking place against the globalists. Who else would have pockets deep enough to do this? Those meteors may not even have come from outer-space. What if they’re from some EU military base? They’ve got them, you know—out in Africa. Beggars fucking belief. And they’ve dragged our lads into it. I’ve got photos of that too—our lads, EU insignia on their arms, returning from a stint in Sarajevo this year. What the very hell is a trading bloc doing with its own army? I’ll tell you why, Nate! Because it never was a trading bloc. Its sole purpose was to destroy the sovereignty of its member states and create a single point of military command. I’ve got the proof. I’ll show you.”
“Yeah, but ...”
Sam’s words are lost as a boom fills the room and the desk vibrates, windows creak and rattle, glass cracks as the entire room shudders.
“Jesus! What was that?”
“Felt like an earthquake!”
Outside, the high-pitch of multiple car alarms fills the night. The pile of papers shifts, slides, then falls to the floor. Nate strides over to the window. In the street, flashing brake lights throb in time to the car alarms. A car sits stalled in the road, its driver opening the door to stare around the empty street. Finding nothing, he gets back in and slams the door. “I can’t see anything.”
“You won’t, if it’s an earthquake.”
“Could have been a bomb? Or a meteorite?”
“Most likely a bomb. It’s been a while, guess the religious nutters were getting itchy again.”
Nate agrees. In the past years, they’ve come to expect irregular, but relentless, terrorist attacks somewhere in the country. “Maybe. The bastards have started hitting random places, maybe it’s just our turn. Time the government took real action against these fucking extremists instead of inviting them in to live among us – wolves among sheep, Sam, and it’s the shepherd who’s let them in! He’s tucking into lamb stew in his hut whilst the wolves slaughter his flock.”
The office falls silent, the room still. Sam checks his mobile, scrolling through social media for any uploads that will explain the noise and vibrations. Nate picks up the papers, resisting the temptation to thrust them into the wastepaper bin at the side of his desk.
“Got it!”
“Let’s see.”
“Bloody hell!”
Nate peers at the small screen, and watches as a flash of light blazes through the sky. A voice excitedly narrates the events, complete with expletives and shouts of ‘Oh, my God!’. It’s a scenario he’s seen a dozen times in recent weeks.
“It’s an old video, Sam.” Nate turns back to his desk.
“No, this is it; this is what caused the blast.”
“A meteor?”
“Yes! Right here. In town.”
Josh! “Where did it land?”
The recording ends with a blast of bright light, debris and horrified shouts. Sam reads the comments. “The Four Stacks.”
Nate sighs with relief. The four tower blocks that rise up to dominate the skyline, and known locally as The Four Stacks, are on the other side of town. Josh is safe.
Sam continues to scroll through his feed. “And looks like one hit the hospital.”
“Bloody hell!”
CHAPTER SIX
The explosion had jolted Barbara ‘Fat Babs’ Fitch as she’d walked back through to the living room with a tray of hot tea and a fresh pack of Garibaldi biscuits—no chocolate ones today, being that Jez was on a diet, albeit one that he was unaware of. The solid white mugs with their green ‘Made in Scunthorpe’ logos had seemed to levitate then spray their contents across the room as she’d been blown back against the kitchen door. Scalding tea had spattered over the newly painted cream wall along with Jerry’s socks as his feet had parted company with the settee’s leather armrest. He’d yelped, landing with a thud as the blast had rolled him onto the carpet. Brown stains bloomed from a Jackson Pollock-like spray of tannin across his grey-white sports socks and work-worn jeans. Within that second, the windows of their third storey apartment had shattered, slicing through the fabric of Barbara’s drawn, faux-silk curtains, and sending shards of angled glass shooting across the room. A large, triangular piece had stabbed into the back of the settee just as Jerry’s robust – Barbara would have said fat – frame rolled to the floor.
Pain bursts in Barbara’s skull as a high-pitched squeal blocks out all sound. Jerry, lying prone next to the low coffee table, belly protruding above its flat surface, stares at the ceiling. “Babs!” His shout is muffled, hidden beneath the ringing in her ears. The television screen dims then blackens.
“Jerry!” Barbara pushes herself up from the floor. The side of her face feels wet, a slowly raised hand touches her temple and dips into warm liquid. Staggering forward, her legs tremble, and she grabs the sofa. Bloody fingerprints smear across the cream leather. Jerry rolls to his side, his face red beneath a speckled covering of grey, his shoulder crunching down on a bizarrely perfect flush of Garibaldis. His mass sways as he rights himself to kneel on all fours.
“What the bloody hell was that?” Jerry gasps.
“Terrorists! Oh, Jerry, what if it’s a terrorist attack?”
“Here?” He coughs as dust tickles his throat. “It’ll be one of them comets.”
“They said on the news that there weren’t going to be any more!”
“A gas leak then. The council were here last week doing work, bet they’ve cocked something up, wouldn’t be the first time.” Jerry reaches out a hand. His bulk sways against the settee. “Give me a hand, love.”
As the minutes pass, Barbara helps Jerry to sit then stand. They stagger in a stupor of confusion to the broken window, navigating the shards of glass with tentative steps. Shouting, and doors slamming, fills the corridors.
“Smoke! I can smell smoke.”
Jerry grunts and peers to the grass below as he leans against the empty window frame. “There’s no alarm going off. If the building was on fire, it would be going off.”
“We have to stay here anyway. That’s what the fire regulations say.”
Jerry grunts. “It’s not on fire.”
“How can you be sure?” Barbara’s voice rises an octave. “Shall we get wet towels at the door?” Blood trickles down the side of her face, tracing a crease to her jowls. She wipes at it, soaking up the blood with her sleeve.
“There’s people on the grass. They’re looking at something.”
From the third floor, the grass and the gathering crowd are clearly visible, the residents’ shouts clearly heard. In the middle of the lawn, so carefully maintained by Jim Croxley from 18A on the second floor, is a large and messy crater. Its circumference reaches from the tarmac path to what is left of a slender silver birch. The tree lies skewed towards the road, tapered canopy hanging over the kerb, the white of its wood laid bare to the night, its trunk snapped like a matchstick.
“There’s summats down there!”
“Poor Jim!”
“Jim? It’s not Jim, you daft bitch. It’s a ruddy great hole.”
“No, I meant poor Jim-”
“Poor Jim? What are you waffling on about now? There’s a ruddy great hole in the middle of the lawn and you’re banging on about Jim Croxley.” Jerry turns with a frown. “Why you so bothered about Jim? If I find out-”
“Oh, shut your jealous head up. As if he’d look at me!” Barbara bridles; the thought of any man finding her attractive – she looked every one of her fifty-six years and then some – was ridiculous to her. “He planted that tree on top of Mildred’s ashes after she was killed in that crash. Don’t say you’ve forgotten! Up on Mortal Ash Hill, right next to the cemetery. Don’t you remember? You should do. You bitched about it being closed for long enough.
Poor, old Jim! He’ll be upset about Mildred.”
“Mr Perfect’s more likely to be pissed off about his precious lawn being damaged.” Jerry grunts. “Anyway, I’m just sayin’, if he’s been sniffing around-”
“For crying out loud, Jerry! She’s not been under that tree for two years yet.”
“You’re my woman, that’s all.”
Barbara huffs, but can’t help a smile despite the carnage on the lawn and the blood still trickling to her ear. She slides an ample arm across Jerry’s back. “And you’re my man.”
Jerry grunts. “Let’s go down and see what it is.”
Still trembling as adrenaline courses through her heavy frame, Barbara grasps the bannister and makes her way down the stairs, unwilling to take the lift, ‘just in case’.
The echo of clattering footsteps fills the stairwell as residents make their way outside. Barbara welcomes the cool air as she steps into the night. At least twenty people are now gathered at the edge of the crater.
“It’s a rock.”
“One of them meteors. It clipped the edge of the building.”
Barbara looks up, following the imagined trajectory of the missile. The right angles of the tower block’s roof are jagged, and a debris of cladding and shattered slabs of concrete lies scattered across the road and grass beyond the crater. A fine mist rises from the hole, obscuring the view to its bottom. She pushes forward to get a better look.
Cheryl Bentley, from the floor above Barbara’s, takes a step to the crater’s edge, her foot dislodging soil. It rolls down the sides as her husband pulls her back. “No, love. Don’t get any closer.”
Mortal Skies Omnibus Page 3