Soon the vehicle left the main hub of the town behind and headed south into the suburbs.
Andrews pointed as they rounded a bend and got a clear view of the road ahead. “There it is.”
Briggs accelerated then pulled up sharply, skidding slightly on the frosty road before coming to a halt alongside the abandoned jeep. He stepped onto the tarmac, retrieved the key from his jacket pocket, inserted it into the lock and gave a slight smile when he heard a click as the door unlocked. He opened it wide, slid into the driver’s seat and searched the glove compartment.
In the meantime, Andrews examined the back seat of the vehicle before moving to the boot and popping the cover. “You’re gonna wanna come see this,” he called.
Briggs returned to the road and joined his second-in-command at the rear of the jeep.
“Most impressive,” Andrews laughed. “He obviously meant business.” He pushed the weapons case off to one side to give it room to open out fully, then stopped. “What’s this?” He picked up an A4 booklet bound in red webbing and handed it to Briggs.
Chapter Nineteen
Ponteland, Northumberland
Jason and Sarah froze and stared at the young man pointing the gun directly at them.
It was hard to gauge his age as the debilitating and destructive effects of the radiation on his skin had left it covered in open sores, sallow, and had left his face sunken through a loss of teeth and borderline starvation. Evidence of malnourishment was supported by his clothes, which drooped and hung from his body as though they were at least a size too big.
Jason glanced over his shoulder. “I told you we should have been more discreet,” he hissed.
“Why more discreet?” the young woman standing behind the gunman challenged. “What were you going to do? Kill us?”
She seemed to be fairing little better than her partner and her short cropped blonde hair was thinning and patchy in places.
“No, of course not,” Jason snapped. “There’s something I need in this house. I was just coming to get it.”
“This is our house,” the man snarled.
“You can keep the house, I don’t want the house. I just need something from the basement,” Jason urged. He took a step forward, then raised his hands quickly and froze again when the man became more agitated.
“Stay where you are,” he screamed, waving the shotgun in Jason’s face. “You don’t move unless I say.”
Sarah leaned around to engage with the pair. “We have clean food.” She knew she had said the right thing when they suddenly locked eyes with her.
“Clean, as in not contaminated?” the woman questioned cautiously.
“Yes.”
“There’s no such thing,” the man snorted. “It’ll be just as toxic as everything else. We were forced to come back here because there are too many people moving north and just about everything has been raided. There’s only the food closer to the city left and it’s all contaminated. We had to take our chances or starve.”
The woman moved nearer to her partner. “They might be telling the truth,” she said, her voice hushed.
“We are telling the truth,” Jason stated. “It was protected.”
She stepped around from behind the man. “Do you have clean water as well?” she asked, her eyes abnormally large.
“Protected? Where?” the man interrupted before Jason had the chance to respond.
“It was in a bunker in Kenton,” Jason replied, “and yes, we do have clean water.”
The gunman pointed at Sarah. “I can see she’s looking a bit ropey, but you... Were you in the bunker or something? You’re the healthiest person I’ve seen in a while.”
“I think we’ve told you enough,” Sarah snapped. “We’ll give you the food and water in exchange for access to the basement, then we’ll leave you alone in the house.”
The man stood rigid, holding himself upright. “My thinking is that we’ll take the food and water and keep whatever is so important in the basement as well. It might be good to trade.”
Jason was regretting packing his gun and not carrying it constantly where it could be easily accessed. The incident in Germany which caused the horrific time split had made him reluctant to ever touch a gun again, but still, the damage was done, and to be blasé about his personal protection he now knew was at best stupid and at worst dangerous. “What’s in the basement is no good to you. It’s valuable only to me and nobody else. I’ll take you down and show you.” He pointed at the door.
The young man involuntarily looked in the indicated direction, giving Jason the time to grab the barrel of the gun. Immediately, he turned it off to one side, to make sure it was away from Sarah, and stepped forward to punch the attacker firmly on the jaw.
One of the barrels fired in the process and for a moment drowned out the screams of fury from his companion.
The man, weakened from a lack of food, lurched slightly under the force of the blow. Still, he had at least ten years’ youth on his side and was stronger than Jason anticipated. He firmed his grip on the gun and the two began to wrestle. Twisting and turning, they stood chest to chest, their arms locked, each trying to gain some ground over the other.
The woman moved back to give her partner room and was goading him on with increasing zeal the more she sensed victory.
The man’s desperation made him strong and he soon forced the scientist against the wall.
Jason struggled to keep control of the gun for fear the second barrel would discharge into Sarah. “We don’t have to do this,” he said through gritted teeth. “I only want what’s in the basement.” There was movement out of the corner of his eye and he glanced sideways to find Sarah was gone.
“You’re not taking our stuff,” the man snarled. “Everything in this street is ours.”
In the kitchen, Sarah quickly searched drawers and cupboards for a weapon. She glanced around to see how Jason was doing and found the young woman blocking the doorway. She returned to her task, ignoring the imminent danger, and was relieved to find that the next drawer she opened contained a knife. She removed it, turned and threatened the woman.
“You better know how to use that,” she sneered confidently, moving closer.
Sarah dipped the weapon. “Maybe I don’t know how to use that, but I do know how to use this.” She stepped up, closing the gap, moved a can of air freshener out from behind her back and depressed the button directly at the woman’s eyes.
She screamed and flung her hands over her face, stumbling backwards, to evade the attack.
This was the distraction the scientist needed as the man caught off guard by his companion’s cries loosened his grip on the weapon enough for Jason to fling him off and push him to the ground before turning the gun around to keep him at bay. “Stay down!” he ordered. “Sarah, are you all right?”
“Yes, everything’s under control,” she called.
The young woman had fallen backwards and was sitting howling on the kitchen floor, her face cradled in her hands.
Sarah put down the spray, lowered her backpack and opened the zipper.
The woman looked up as she stepped closer. Her eyes, red and swollen, were watering profusely.
“You make one wrong move and I’ll kill you,” Sarah warned. She unscrewed a bottle of water retrieved from her bag and poured some of the contents gently into the woman’s eyes.
She blinked rapidly several times before squeezing her lids tightly shut, then lowering her head and carefully rubbing them to help the cleaning process. “Thank you,” she said hesitantly.
Sarah helped her up then bustled her forward to join her companion.
“Sit down,” Jason ordered. He waited for her to comply, before asking Sarah, “Can you get the semi-automatic and torch from my backpack?”
He waited for the items, then, “Guard these two and shoot them if they so much as twitch,” he instructed.
Sarah nodded, passed Jason the torch and stepped into place.
He lowered the
shotgun, removed the live shell from the chamber, then propped the weapon up in the corner of the hall by the kitchen, dug for his key and opened the door. Jason lit the torch then quickly descended the stairs leading into the basement.
He was relieved to find the machine exactly where he had left it. He crossed to the screen and touched it to activate the display. An icon in the top right corner indicated the power was nearly out. It was into the red and he doubted there was enough left to send anyone anywhere in time, never mind so far back. He returned to the bottom of the stairs. “Is everything all right up there?” he called.
“Yes, fine.”
He went back to the machine and popped open a side panel.
At first, Jason struggled to find the circuit he required; the torch light was limited and the internal connections crowded, until he sat, looking directly into the device. From there he quickly identified the chip and removed it. He wrapped it in a handkerchief to keep it safe, then put it into a zipped pocket inside his rucksack before returning upstairs and locking the door behind him.
He waved the key at the pair. “I’m taking this with me. What’s in the basement is of no use to you and it would be a waste of energy breaking the door down. Now we’re heading out the way that we came. Do not attempt to follow us or we will kill you,” he warned.
Jason and Sarah backed away. They reached the kitchen and had just lost sight of the couple when the sound of an engine was heard in the street at the front of the house.
“That’s the army,” the young woman said. “They’ll help us.” She turned, ran along the passage and flung open the door. “You’ll get your comeuppance,” she called.
Jason and Sarah sprinted through the kitchen, out the door, to the back fence and into the property opposite. The layout of this garden was similar to Jason’s, where a path along the side of the house allowed them access to a neighbouring road.
“That was familiar,” Sarah panted.
“What?” he said, frantically looking around to check they were not being followed.
“The last time I was here with you we also ended up running through the gardens to get away from soldiers.”
“I take it we made it.”
“Yes, but only just. Andrews got a hold of me and threatened to cut my throat.”
Jason looked at her, shocked.
She nudged her head at the scientist and smiled. “But, you saved me.”
“Glad I could help,” Jason said softly.
“He beat me up in Alnwick library’s basement. They caught me when you were looking for information and were convinced I was stealing. Andrews was interrogating me as he could sense I was hiding something. What he didn’t know was, the something was you.”
They looked behind when raised voices were heard in the distance.
“Come on,” Jason urged, “we’d better get going.”
Chapter Twenty
Central Library, Alnwick, Northumberland
Briggs instructed he was not to be disturbed, moved to the library upstairs with Andrews and sat beside the officer, reading through the report. There was no-one else in the room; exactly how he wanted it.
Andrews shook his head as they neared the end of the booklet, his face screwed up like he had tasted something horrid. “It must be a joke.”
Briggs ignored him, turned another page and continued to read.
“Time travel is not possible,” Andrews stated firmly. He crossed his arms and sat back, waiting for Briggs to finish.
A further five minutes passed in silence whilst the mercenary read through every page of the report before he finally closed the booklet, inhaled deeply and pushed it across the table.
Andrews sat forward, leaning around to look at his commander. “Well, are you convinced about the possibilities of time travel or do you think this is some sort of elaborate hoax?”
Briggs’ mouth tightened. He looked at the officer. “Why would anyone do such a thing in the present climate? I could understand if there hadn’t been a nuclear war, but people are fighting for their lives at the moment.” He stood and began to pace. “Nobody has the time or energy to go to such lengths.” He stopped and waved a hand in the direction of the forest. “I mean, where the hell did he come from?”
“So what do you wanna do?”
Briggs returned to the table and picked up the report. “The scientist, Jason, said the machine was in Ponteland.” He thought a moment. “Ponteland is a big place, especially if you have to search every house.”
“But there’s no hurry,” Andrews said nonchalantly. “Things have obviously altered.”
Briggs’ brows furrowed. “How?”
“He said he was passed by the civilians on the road, just outside of Morpeth, as he returned to Ponteland. It’s a, what..?” Andrews threw his head back, his mouth turned down as he thought a moment. He returned his attention to Briggs. “Three hours’, four at the most, walk to Ponteland from there. Everything else happened in the early hours of the morning. We’ve been fighting here with the rebels for the past twenty-four hours or more. If the change was going to happen, it would have happened before now. Something else has altered in the meantime.”
“Yes.” Briggs flung his hand towards the forest again. “Him! But that doesn’t mean it’s going to stay changed. It could just mean he’s delayed it. The only way to be sure is to either find that machine in Ponteland...”
Andrews pointed at the report. “He said it was low on charge.”
Briggs nodded. “Or go find out how that fucker got here.” He pulled a key from his pocket and studied the fob. “I suspect we’ll find the answer in Kenton Bank Foot.”
“The Territorial Army base in Kenton has a nuclear bunker beneath it.”
Briggs lifted his head. “Ahh...! It’s all beginning to make sense. I think we definitely need to pay a visit there.”
“What about the rebels?” Andrews asked as Briggs started from the room. “They were to be killed in the morning in the town square in front of their families.”
The mercenary stopped and threw his hands up, exasperated. “Damn! I forgot about them.” He paused, thought a moment, then continued to the door. “Come on, we’ll sort it now.” He led the way from the library. “There’s no time for goodbyes. Instead, we’ll make an example of their bodies.”
Andrews followed Briggs to a weapons store.
Briggs opened the door, retrieved two semi-automatics and some extra clips. He handed one to the sergeant, loaded the gun, removed the safety and headed to the stairs.
There were two guards watching five men tied to chairs in the basement.
“You have no right to hold us here!” one of the men yelled the moment he spotted Briggs.
Andrews immediately recognised him as one of the three men who had been sent on the mission to retrieve food from the bunker beneath the Town Moor on the northern edge of Newcastle.
The sergeant had warned them to get in and out as fast as possible as the radiation levels, although not deadly at this stage due to the rapid half-life deterioration of such high levels of emissions, would still prove fatal if they were excessively exposed. He figured specific instructions on how to enter the bunker would be enough to get them away from danger as fast as possible, but did not count on the diesel engine in the otherwise silent streets alerting another group of renegades who had also been waiting for the rads to fall enough to enter the stores.
Andrews had not been so naive as to give any of the men guns, but he figured when they entered the bunker they obviously found more than just stocks of food, water, dried fruits and grains amassed in the massive underground shelter.
The three had planned to return with more than just weapons, but the renegades arrived just as they were starting to pack the food.
Supplies were dwindling in all areas and neither party was willing to share. The gunfight that ensued led to the serious injury of one of the men, who died soon after he returned to Alnwick.
Their arrival back in the
ancient town was literally explosive, when a rocket was launched at the library, which was being used as a temporary headquarters by Briggs and his men. It was a day and a half before the troops took control of the town again, after that initial failed attack, at the cost of a number of lives, not all of which were just civilians.
Andrews stepped up to the man and swiped the flat of his hand across his face.
His head cracked off to one side, the sound of the slap as painful as the impact. He looked back at the officer, his face a grim determined mask, a red, hand-shaped welt already beginning to form.
“We warned you that your families would be the first to starve if you didn’t come back with the food,” Andrews snarled. “You haven’t got a clue what you’re doing.” He waved a hand at Briggs and the soldiers standing behind. “We’re keeping people alive.”
The man laughed. A short sharp, contemptuous laugh. “Keeping people alive! Don’t flatter yourself. You’re just a bunch of butchers. Captain Harrison was keeping people alive. You two,” he looked at Briggs, “are just a couple of vultures. You’ve got people doing your dirty work because there’s no protective suits, then if they don’t work fast enough, hard enough, to a certain standard, their food and water is withheld, or worse, they’re killed.”
Andrews leaned forward until he was eye to eye with the man. “It’s called martial law,” he said. He stood. “If the bodies aren’t buried, there’ll be disease, you do as you’re told, and yes, there have been some casualties, but there would have been a lot more if you’d been left to your own devices.”
“Captain Harrison was protecting us,” the man spat. “He was looking after the town and had the best interests of the people in everything he did.”
“Enough!” Briggs barked. He stepped around, pushing Andrews back, out of the way.
For a moment a look of horror crossed the men’s faces as the threat dawned, then the mercenary opened up with the gun, with carefully controlled shots. Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh! For a few seconds the noise was deafening in the enclosed basement whilst the men, still tied to their chairs, jumped with the force of the single bullets pumped into their hearts with the precision of a surgeon. Finished, Briggs spun on the soldiers standing behind. “Take their bodies to the town square and hand them over to their families. Remember to warn them if anything like this ever happens again, I’ll not just kill the perpetrators, but two other family members as well.”
Time Split - Briggs Page 10