“So I understand,” said Porter, blowing smoke from her nose. “Come on, let’s be having you. I can always use more orderlies.”
“Sure,” Hooker replied, making for the Commune. “Gimme a couple of minutes.”
“Okay,” the doctor replied, checking the medical supplies in Samuel’s bag.
Hooker waited until the doctor disappeared inside the trailer. “Samuel, are you OK to stay here?”
“I’d prefer to,” he said. “I’m not here to fight. I’ll help the wounded.”
“When I’m done, I’ll get you out. There’s an extraction plan.”
Brother Samuel looked around, a smile twisting his ravaged features. “I don’t need rescuing.”
Hooker raised an eyebrow. “Give it half an hour. You got a spare fob?”
“Sure,” the monk replied, passing a handset from the collection on his belt. “This one’s an old 5G model. It works, but on a ham cell network. Pretty secure.”
Hooker thanked the monk and ducked into a doorway. He tapped Trashmob’s code into the ancient cell-phone. “It’s Rufus.”
“Fuck off, Rufus, I’m trying to sleep,” Trashmob yawned.
“I’m in trouble.”
“You’re always in trouble.”
“Yeah, but not as much as Leah. She’s been pinched by OCS – I need a favour.”
Trashmob woke up. “Go ahead,” he said sharply.
“My man uptown, Mister Dark Work?” said Hooker, referring to Gordy.
“No names on this line, right?” Trashmob replied. “I know who you mean.”
“Good. Can you get word to him? His comms are being monitored. I need a full Darkwire, nothing that can be traced or hacked.”
“I’ve got someone in the Green Zone who’ll can do it,” Trashmob replied. “How’s Leah?”
“Last time I saw her she was in a torture chamber, Trash. The fuckers have gone too far this time.”
Hooker heard something smashing over the line. Trashmob got his name partly because he liked trashing things. “I’ll fucking kill them,” he growled. “Gimme a name…”
“Not now, mate. Just get this message to my man.” Hooker read geolocation data off the fob’s tiny screen. “Tell him the parcel is believed to be on the top floor of the main block at the following…”
“Fuck me, Rufus, the Crosland? You’re in the middle of a fucking riot.”
“You know GPS code off the top of your head?”
“Everyone needs a hobby. You want anything else passing on?”
“Tell him NatSec have Leah. I’ve got new orders – get rid of the parcel. I repeat – get rid of the parcel, OK? Not deliver it.”
“I’ve got it. Your man will have the message in ten minutes.”
“Thanks, Trash.”
“You need me over there?” asked Trashmob. “I’ll call in my QRF. We’ve got six gun-trucks and a dozen technicals.”
“You could bring the whole of Echo-Seven down here and not make any difference.”
“Okay, but if you need us, just give the word.”
Hooker approached the Commune’s front door. The lobby had been converted into a strongpoint, reinforced with breeze blocks and sandbags. “I need to go inside,” he said to a burly sentry.
“Sorry, brother,” the sentry replied, Kalashnikov shouldered. “No entry – not even for an Answerer.”
“I’m helping at the aid station. The doctor asked me to fetch clean water.”
“Which doctor?” the sentry replied.
“Wessex-woman with red hair. I think her name is Porter.”
The sentry stepped aside. “OK, go quickly…”
A mighty explosion shook the ground, throwing Hooker and the sentry to the floor. His ears ached, something wet dribbling down his cheek. A gout of flame flared on the palisade, pebbles and mud falling like dirty rain. The sentry crawled towards a wall of sandbags. “They’ve let off the IED. The leaguers must have broken through.”
Above them, the sound of cheering. Hooker peered up at the scaffolding that snaked about the Commune’s walls, masked figures anchoring synth nodes in place. Red and black banners unfurled, hoarse-voices singing. “That’s Santa Agueda!” said the sentry, pulling himself to his feet.
The first leaguers began picking their way through the smouldering palisade, stepping over the bodies of fallen comrades. The Trollz bore the brunt, dozens of bodies blown to ragged chunks. They were followed by Yeomen of the Urbanskis and Loyal Brethren, flying now-ragged banners. “Whatever your plan was, it didn’t work,” said Hooker.
“We weren’t expecting so many,” the sentry replied. “I have faith in our General.”
“I’m glad someone does.”
“You’ve got a gun?” said the sentry, watching Hooker pull a rifle from his robes.
“Even monks have bad days,” Hooker replied, snapping the FN’s folding stock in place. He peered over the sandbag wall and took aim.
The sentry shouldered his Kalashnikov. “Get ready, brother. Here they come.”
Leaguers began boiling through the breach, led by men with riot shields. Hooker and the sentry fired into the human wall, every casualty replaced by two more warriors. Anarchist snipers swept the plaza from the balconies, gunfire stitching across the killing ground between palisade and Commune. Hooker changed magazines, the sentry providing covering fire. Another rank of leaguers fell, bloodied and groaning. The survivors scattered and took cover, others locking shields to reform their wall. “Drone!” someone hollered.
The stubby-winged Eviscerator was, for a moment, silhouetted against the moon. Cannon-fire strafed anarchist positions, explosions rippling across walls and balconies. A volley of rockets, twisting in the sky like fiery snakes, obliterated the remaining perimeter strongpoints. Wounded defenders stumbled from the rubble, only to be overwhelmed. Axes and spears flashed and bit into flesh, the anarchist’s rifles and SMGs seized and passed around the woad-painted ranks. Hooker watched the drone peel away. “NatSec are giving the leaguers air support?”
“They’re all fascists,” the sentry replied, sliding a fresh magazine into his AK. “Keep shooting!”
The leaguers, emboldened by the airstrike, hurled rocks and petrol bombs at the strongpoint protecting the lobby. A flurry of spears killed a defender, pinning him to a wall. Leaguers swarmed the medical station, tearing it apart with picks and sledgehammers. Injured anarchists were executed by jeering warriors, the captured tacticals on the roof decapitated, severed heads kicked like footballs. In the lamplit courtyard, the doctor fell, dragged into a scrum of warriors. Some yelped and began unbuckling their belts until Hooker opened fire. Three, four… five men fell, but the doctor disappeared inside the writhing mob. Blue-armoured Urbanskis appeared with shields, making another wall.
Hooker saw something glowing, near the edge of the enemy line. A blue flame. Brother Samuel appeared, swinging his fiery staff, a fox chased by hounds. He swung the stave about his head, leaguers swerving to escape its flaming arc. One fell, hair alight, screaming and slapping at his smouldering head. Hooker squeezed the trigger with a calloused fingertip, exhaling as he fired. Again and again. Every bullet found its mark, Samuel’s attackers tumbling like skittles.
“That monk? He’s the craziest bastard,” said the sentry, “magnifico.”
Brother Samuel shook his hood free, the leaguers’ charge faltering as his monstrous features were revealed. The monk turned his head towards Hooker and smiled a lipless smile. “Get inside the Commune, Rufus,” he shouted. “Now!”
Hooker went to climb over the sandbag wall, but the sentry stopped him. “Don’t be a fool, brother.”
Samuel tossed the staff at the leaguers, flames guttering at their feet. He fell to his knees and threw back his head. His eyes were silver as the moon. “I forgive you all,” he called, into the cruel black night.
The leaguers bellowed in triumph as they fell upon him.
Twenty Four
The rain cooled Paolo’s drug-heated flesh, the wind carrying farawa
y whispers. Drone engines. Paolo’s heightened senses divined other aircraft – the subsonic hum of a surveillance plane, different from the churning propellers of the NatSec blimp. The drone worried him most. The Eviscerator. No combat drug or gel-armour would protect him from its nano-munitions or demented AI.
The PROTEX towered before him. Beyond lay a jumble of low-rise housing units, marking the outer edge of the estate. Most were boarded-up by the authorities, to protect the raised motorway from vandals and snipers. His tracker gently buzzed, alerting him to a new comms signature. It was feint, bleeding from a warehouse to the west of the PROTEX. The code AN40 flashed across the tracker – two personal fobs, on a low-frequency encrypted channel. Visible, but undecipherable. Probably a small unit, perhaps a police reconnaissance unit. To the south, other call-signs emitted a babel of electronic traffic. It signalled larger forces, moving on multiple routes. Paolo figured AN40, the smaller signature, made for the path of least resistance. He headed west, towards Alpha November Four-Zero. Then he’d jink south, towards Biggin Hill. If he could, he’d steal or commandeer a vehicle.
Reaching the cinderblock warehouse, he climbed onto the roof. Below was a grey BMW, two men lounging against the hood – one skinny and white, the other bulky and black. The skinny guy was smoking, the other drinking from a flask of coffee. Paolo parsed the evidence – cigarettes, coffee, cheap suits and a ride neither looked like they could afford.
Cops.
The Crimson Brigade agent crept, gecko-like, across a pitch-covered roof. Craning his head, he picked up snatches of conversation. “Where’s Hooker’s fob pinging?” said White Guy.
“Looks like he’s inside the Commune footprint,” Black Guy shrugged. “Relax, Chisholm. I’m even beginning to think the fucker’ll pull this off.”
“Nah, don’t like it. Too convenient, losing our fob like that. And his story about the monks?”
Black Guy shrugged beefy shoulders and swilled coffee. “You saw the feed with your own eyes. That explosion in the tunnel looked real enough to me. Or do you think he hired a giant Arab to blow himself up?”
Paolo winced. The mission was compromised by NatSec?
White Guy fished a fob from his jacket, briefly revealing a shoulder holster. “It’s Bliss,” he said, wandering in a nervous circle. Paolo couldn’t hear what was being said, but White Guy wasn’t happy.
“What’s occurring?” said Black Guy.
“The technicians. They damaged the Martinez girl.”
“They started the treatment already? Why?”
“Bliss, innit? He don’t need no reason, does he? Maybe he wanted Hooker to know he weren’t bluffing. Or he thought the girl might know something.”
Black Guy whistled through his teeth. “Did she cough?”
White Guy shook his head. “Nothin’ we didn’t already know. Their ‘mancer is a cripple, lives in Wandsworth. Ex-army infowarfare operator. We’re sending a team to bring him in, maybe he’s got something.”
“Makes sense,” Black Guy replied, “but harming Martinez? Bad idea.”
White Guy ran a hand through thin, greasy hair (Paolo could smell the styling wax). “It’s Bliss, ain’t it? He’ll do what he likes.”
Black Guy shook his head. “If I was him, I’d make sure Hooker dies up there.”
“If the man wants your advice, Bailey, I’m sure you’ll be the first to know.”
Paolo’s skin itched. They’ve got an agent inside the Commune, looking to rescue Lottie Rhys. He’s being coerced. Someone called Hooker.
White Guy checked his watch. “Anyhow, we’ve been here too long. Let’s move somewhere else.”
Paolo jumped from the roof, weapon ready. He shot White Guy, a bullet grazing his shoulder. Another whistled through Black Guy’s upper arm, a clean in-and-out. “Drop your weapons,” Paolo ordered.
Two handguns clattered on concrete. Hands behind heads, the cops sank to their knees. “I’m Chisholm, NatSec OCS,” White Guy hissed through gritted teeth. He took in Paolo’s uniform. “You’re Apex?”
“It’s fancy dress,” Paolo replied, shooting him in the thigh. The secret policeman rolled into a ball. “That’s the femoral artery. Now you require urgent medical attention.”
“What d’you want?” the cop groaned, hands trembling, blood pooling beneath him.
“Identify your asset inside the Commune. What is his objective?”
“Rufus Hooker,” said Black Guy, hands clasped behind his head. “He’s a bounty hunter, knows the Goons inside-out. We’ve sent him to find a kidnapped girl, a Green-Zone kid.”
“But you intend to betray him?”
“That’s down to our boss, okay? He’s a proper bastard,” Black Guy replied. “For Christ’s sake, don’t shoot me.”
“Describe Rufus Hooker.”
“He’s a black fella, built like a brick shithouse – two metres tall, one-hundred-fifty kilos, crazy eyes. Scary-looking fucker.”
“How did you know where to look for the girl?” Paolo felt the Blue Force tracker buzz on his wrist. Fresh call-signs slid across the screen, converging on his position.
White Guy saw the tracker. “Reinforcements. That’s fucking delicious...”
“I’ll concede your point,” Paolo replied. The night was laden with clues – the scent of vehicle fumes, weapon oil and testosterone. Well-armed men, psyched-up for violence. The chug of diesel engines carried on the wind, the static squelch of comms. He shot White Guy between the eyes, the nano-munition blowing off the top of his head. His body toppled forward, the sludge inside his skull spilling onto wet tarmac.
Black Guy threw up. “What do you want to know?” he coughed, a stain darkening the crotch of his trousers.
“The girl. What led you here?”
“Hooker figured it out. He traced a smuggler called Natly Hare to the Goons. He managed to link her to the Crimson Brigade.”
“Thank you.” Paolo replied, shooting Bailey in the heart.
Two armoured carriers rounded the corner. Paolo scrambled into the cops’ BMW and hit the ignition, fast-reversing, arms braced on the wheel. His ear implant picked up snatches of radio traffic – Suspect vehicle – NatSec-flagged BMW Urban. It’s showing a covert Blue Force callsign, Alpha November Four Zero. At least two officers down. Request ADVENT call-signs ASAP…
Roger that, Delta Zero Actual, ADVENT is guns-free and will be on station in sixty seconds…
ADVENT. The callsign for the Eviscerator.
Paolo motored towards the PROTEX, bullets splashing harmlessly off the BMWs armorglass windows. He fobbed Rourke. “NatSec have an operative inside the Commune, a man called Rufus Hooker. He’s looking for Lottie. The Answerers are helping him.”
“Today just gets better,” Rourke sighed.
“Hooker’s described as well-built, black…”
“Paolo, I’ve got a problem here… I think Caleb knows.”
“About what?”
“The girl,” said Rourke. “About her pregnancy. Who she is.”
“How?” said Paolo.
Sorcha’s voice was a husky whisper. “I think he heard us talking. Before the drone strike.”
“I’ll deal with it when I return. But you must warn the General about the intruder.” In the rear-view mirror, headlights grew larger. Paolo drove hard. His tracker buzzed, the screen showing a red triangle vectoring towards him.
The Eviscerator.
Paolo mashed his boot into the accelerator. 200kmh. The PROTEX split – right for Croydonia, left for the border. He chose the border, roaring down an exit ramp and onto a pot-holed road. Shanties flashed by, suspension rumbling. Gaslit and quiet, nobody on the streets. Paolo glanced at his tracker as the Eviscerator’s icon, at an altitude of two kilometres, began to merge with his.
He stood on the brakes. The speedo flickered, the BMW shuddering as it decelerated. 60kmph. The red triangle overshot, banking hard to correct its speed.
40… 25...
Paolo rolled from the car, remembering hi
s jump training at airborne school. Making a ball, rolling on hard ground, the BMW trailing flame. Nano-munitions swarmed the 4x4 like fiery hornets, peppering the car as it screeched into a dumpster. It rolled once, burning, landing in an abandoned shop front. The entire building warped, as if punched by a giant fist, volleys of rockets slamming into the walls.
Paolo was on his feet, already sprinting through back streets and alleys, scattering feral cats and mangy foxes. He stuck to the gas-lamps, knowing they’d blur his heat signature. The tracker on his wrist showed him in a place called Petts Wood, twelve kilometres from Biggin Hill. He navigated fallow fields and scrubby woodland, respirocites burning through his veins.
Finally, beyond the walls of a long-abandoned factory, a razor-wire fence. Lights blinked beyond, neatly spaced and burning white. Signs warned of electricity and dogs, of being shot on sight. There was a concrete gatehouse, protected by sandbags and blast barriers. The sign outside read –
NATSEC (No.1 Region) AIR SUPPORT UNIT
Pulling on a navy-blue beret, Paolo stamped the mud from his boots. His ID showed him as Inspector Nordstrom of NatSec Apex Team 7. Apart from the coveralls, his kit was non-issue, but Paolo knew Apex commandos wore what they damn well liked. A Land Rover rumbled towards him, headlights glowing. Paolo waved it down. “Evening, sir,” said the driver, a young NatSec technical officer in fatigues. He wore an air support flash on his sleeve, a helicopter inside a sky-blue triangle. “You okay?”
“Been fighting, over in the Goons,” Paolo replied. His English accent was flawless, with the glottal stops typical of the south. He wiped his brow with a sleeve. “My vehicle broke down in Petts Wood. Fuckin’ ‘lectric piece of shit.”
“Petts Wood? How d’you get over here?”
“I ran, son.”
“You’re Apex? I knew you lot were meant to be fit…”
“Yeah, I’m Apex 7. Special Projects. I’m on combat stims, but I’ll be coming down soon. I need to speak to your duty officer – I’m on a classified piece of work.”
The officer nodded, glancing at the tomahawks on Paolo’s back. “Yessir. I’ll have to check you in with the gatehouse, though.”
Dark as Angels: We are the Enemy Page 19