“Zero, this is Charlie-One-One. Zero, Charlie-One-One, over,” he said in low, robotic tones.
“One-One, Zero, send,” came the female voice from the other end of the ether.
“One-One, target secure. ETA on convoy?”
“Stand by, one,” came the operator’s voice before a brief pause, “ETA one-nine minutes, over.”
Mac glanced at the Boss, who nodded back. Nineteen minutes until the engineers arrived with their armoured escort to stop the plant from going critical. Mac acknowledged the information and signed off to pack up the radio gear. Nineteen minutes came and went in relative quiet, other than the two shambling callers at the gate. The four men still maintained cover and situational awareness, ingrained habits they were unable to switch off after a life of considering incoming enemy fire. They had yet to see a zombie with the ability to bring a weapon to bear, but carelessness, as Mac liked to say, often led to a mild case of death.
The two callers were allowed to come close, then both took single rounds in the skull as they coughed from Dezzy’s MP5 at a distance of twenty feet. They had learned to be economical with their shots, unless faced with one of the rare faster ones that usually denoted a sizeable force of zombies would soon follow. This experience had been earned shortly after their return from the sub to the surface of the water, when told they would be employed for precision missions and would be inserted far behind enemy lines, such as they were. Downes requested a day in theatre for training, as the intelligence briefs held no mention or description of how to fight them.
The powers that be allowed the request after a day of deliberation, evidently deciding that their small team was replaceable should they not return, and the intelligence they could bring back would be worthwhile.
Given that they had already been told that sound attracted them, and that a tiny percentage of them acted differently and were more dangerous, Downes requested the suppressed MP5s. They flew by helicopter to a sparsely-populated region of northern France and spent six hours developing tactics which they reported back to command. Their rules were simple:
Small groups, low noise profile, to use suppressed weapons whenever possible, to avoid large concentrations of enemy and drop the faster ones at distance as soon as they were identified, then to clear out before their faithful followers arrived.
Their tactics were under the radar, invisible, and quiet.
The rest of the time was waited out in silence, until the whistling and squeaking of moving armour tickled the edges of their hearing. Nobody said anything, because they didn’t have to. An armoured convoy was the exact opposite of the warfare that they practised, and although impressive and able to bring a staggering and devastating amount of firepower to bear, they also attracted every shuffling corpse inside of a mile radius just by driving along the road, even before they fired a shot.
The diversionary tactic from the American Apache pilot should have helped, as he flew over fifty miles east before destroying a large road bridge to stem the flow of corpses and contain them. This also served to make a lot of noise and attract anything heading in the direction of the power station away towards the fast-flowing river and the sea beyond where the bridge had collapsed.
As the seven vehicles stormed in and had the gates pushed closed behind them, the four men jogged in to the entrance where the convoy formed a semi-circle and faced their guns outwards. A man wearing a captain’s insignia stepped down from a tracked light tank and met the four men as they arrived.
“Captain Palmer,” he said to the men, who weren’t in the slightest bit breathless after their quarter-mile run from the gate, “Household Cavalry.”
“Captain,” acknowledged Mac as the first man to have arrived, giving Palmer the incorrect assumption that he was the officer leading the group. Downes stayed back from the conversation, waiting to hear what transpired.
“I presume you’ve been inside?” Palmer asked, guessing that the four men with wild beards and piercing eyes were clearly what his men would call sneaky-beaky, and probably wouldn’t have felt it necessary to wait for half a squad of marines to check out an abandoned building.
“It’s clear,” Mac said simply, “you’ve brought the engineers?”
In answer, two men were escorted towards the doors with four marines surrounding each one.
“We’ll take it from here,” Downes said, stepping forward and speaking for the first time. Palmer’s eyebrows rose slightly, indicating that his trained ear had picked up on the educated voice and had clearly misunderstood who the officer was. Given the man’s age, Palmer also correctly surmised in an eye-blink that the man was his senior, and responded accordingly.
“Of course, Sir,” he answered, “I shall set the perimeter and wait for instructions.”
Downes nodded his thanks to him and turned to indicate that the two engineers should follow. The six men disappeared inside after the door was swiped open, leaving Palmer with that cold sense of having been bypassed by some ghostly spirit and unsure of what he had experienced.
“Sinclair? Hampton?” Palmer said loudly, waiting for the army and marine sergeants to report to him.
“The Sultan is to remain here,” he said, indicating a strong point by the doors, “with two Foxes. Take the other two to the gate and switch off the engines. Hampton? Perimeter patrols in opposing directions, if you please.”
The sergeants acknowledged their orders, gave their own to make it happen, and Palmer waited.
~
“There and there,” said one engineer, his accent alien in the English countryside, “we need to access that panel and recalibrate, then reset the coolant flow from up there,” he finished, pointing to a glass bubble on the walkway level above their heads.
The four men of the SAS patrol listened, but in honesty cared little for the technicalities as they wouldn’t be asked to perform the task and thought it better to keep to their areas of expertise. They kept their weapons ready as the two Americans went about their work, draining the coolant and powering down the output to a more manageable level. The mostly-depleted coolant had drained away and the large pipes whooshed as more water pumped in. The two men worked for almost forty minutes, far less time than Downes expected, before declaring that they were done.
“That’s it?” he asked them.
“Sure, all we had to do was drain the system, power it down as much as possible and top off the tanks,” he replied, “This place is only kicking out about thirty percent of normal, but it’s good for almost a year before we have to do anything to it. It ain’t like there are a lot of folks around here using their microwaves, right?” he finished with a laugh.
“Nah, mate,” Smiffy said acidly, “because most people in our fuckin’ country are dead, so show a bit of respect.”
The man shut his mouth, packed up his tools, and waited to be led back outside.
“Captain?” Downes said as he looked up to where Palmer was sprouting out of the hatch on the Sultan.
“Sir?”
“Is your man linked to your base?” Downes asked, wanting to know if they had open radio communication.
“He is,” Palmer told him.
“Could you trouble them for our transport to be sent?” Downes enquired politely.
Palmer frowned, “Of course, but,” he said hesitantly, “aren’t you hitching a ride back with us?”
“They are,” Downes said as he gestured to the engineers, “we’re not.”
He said nothing else, telling Palmer that the subject was, at least as far as the irregular soldiers of the special forces were concerned, closed. Palmer instructed his radio man to make the call and received his own orders to return to the island. Palmer offered to remain until such time as the helicopter arrived for the four-man team, but Downes quietly embarrassed him by pointing out that anything following the noise trail would be after them and not the aircraft it would never find. He didn’t embarrass himself further by enquiring where they were going, but wished the men well as he recalled his convoy t
o prepare to depart.
“Don’t worry, Captain,” Downes said with a chilling smile that was probably meant to seem reassuring, “something tells me we’ll be meeting again soon.”
~
Long before the convoy returned, Johnson found himself summoned by the new commander of their island to deal with a civilian matter. He entered the room to find Colonel Tim looking remarkably flustered and the three men of his entourage seemingly powerless to assist.
“Thank God for that,” said a young woman who appeared to be the spokesperson for the three civilians sitting at the table, “someone with some sense at last. Mister Johnson, would you please explain to this man that we aren’t soldiers and that the army doesn’t own us?”
Johnson turned to his new commanding officer and saluted, which seemed to please the man.
“Miss Perkins, perhaps if I understood the issue better?” he said gently, meaning that he had no damned clue what was happening.
“This gentleman,” Kimberley said as she gestured towards the rather deflated-looking Colonel, “wants us all herded up and catalogued. Perhaps we should have serial numbers tattooed on our arms to make life easier for you?”
“Sergeant Major,” Colonel Tim interrupted in what he thought was a placatory tone but in fact bathed the room in arrogance and condescension, “all I simply said was that we need to record the details of every civilian living under our protection here so that we can properly establish who can be of service.”
“That’s not what he said,” Kimberley explained in a mirroring tone of talking down to him before glancing back at Johnson, “he said that we are all, what was it? Suckling at the military teat? And that we have to show our gratitude.”
Johnson understood. He understood the point that both people were trying to make, and was firmly of the opinion that the elderly buffoon had no concept of speaking to an audience that wasn’t disciplined and dutybound to call him Sir and follow his orders.
“Perhaps, Miss Perkins,” he enquired politely, “if the Colonel and myself could discuss military matters in private for a moment?”
Kimberley understood, gave a nod to the two men there in support of her, who looked similarly offended, and retrieved a cigarette and lighter from her purse before stepping outside.
“May I, Sir?” Johnson asked, gesturing at a vacant chair.
“By all means, Johnson, by all means,” the Colonel responded.
Johnson sat, cast a cold glance at the two orderlies, which clearly translated as a polite request for them to make themselves scarce, and smiled at the officer. His aide, a Lieutenant who probably had an advanced qualification in senior officer babysitting, and a tenuous family connection to the royals which elevated him above his years and rank, remained standing behind his Colonel.
“Sir, I don’t want to overstep, but if I may offer a solution to dealing with the civilians that would save time and allow you to concentrate on command matters instead?” Johnson said. The Lieutenant smiled, acknowledging a fellow smooth-talker.
“What do you have in mind?” Colonel Tim asked, leaning forward in anticipation.
“It’s just that an officer from my squadron had done all the legwork before you arrived, Sir, and if you’ll permit me to say, Sir, it’s more of a junior officer’s job, so that you can keep a tactical awareness of the situation as a whole, Sir, and be ready to lead us instead of being bogged down with the why’s and wherefores of the rank and file, let alone the vagaries of civilian management,” he said, baffling the man’s brain with what seemed like the witchcraft of the working classes. He had used this trick more than once in his career when dealing with officers, and spouting total rubbish with a confident tone and a hopeful smile at the end of his official-sounding waffle never failed to confuse any senior officer.
“Ah, I see,” the Colonel said as he leaned back and gave a theatrically conspiratorial wink, “so you think this man would be better placed to smooth the waves, eh? Manage the herd a little?”
“Absolutely, Sir,” Johnson said with a smile, happy that the man had seen the logical suggestion in his utter nonsense.
“Very well, I trust you’ll see to that?” he asked as he craned his neck up to his aide.
“Of course, Sir, I shall seek out this…” he trailed off as he shot a questioning look at Johnson.
“Lieutenant Simpkins-Palmer, Sir,” he answered, investing the objectionable, jumped-up brat of an officer’s name with as much aristocratic idiocy as he could muster.
“I shall find him right away, assuming he can be spared from his duties,” the aide replied.
Johnson was dismissed, and watched as the Colonel stepped outside and slipped on his cap to clasp his hands behind his back and enjoy a relaxing stroll back down the hill, seemingly without a care in the world. Johnson followed, stopped next to Kimberley Perkins and glared at the two orderlies, who were also smoking and standing close to the civilian woman.
“Well?” he asked them, “Off you fuck, lads.”
They scurried away after their Colonel, eager to flee the big warrant officer even if they didn’t fall directly under his command.
He turned to face the three civilians as soon as they were alone.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said formally.
“That’s quite alright, Sergeant,” said a man who Johnson guessed was perhaps in his early fifties. He bridled at the unintentional demotion the man gave him and tried to ignore it.
“You’ll have Lieutenant Palmer back acting as a buffer between yourselves and the new Colonel,” he said, feeling as though he was betraying his beloved British Army ever so slightly, “but I rather suspect that the man wants to feel more useful…”
“We understand, Mister Johnson,” Kimberley said to mollify the conversation, “and I apologise that you were called into that, but I suspected it might have got out of control had we not sent for you,” she said as she self-consciously brushed her hair down over the left side of her face, as she did often.
It was only then that the Squadron Sergeant Major, a man who prided himself on being astute and living in the world between the lines, realised that the Colonel had not sent for him to control the unruly civilian population, but rather that the civilians had sent for him to assist them. He wasn’t entirely sure what that meant for the time being, so he squared it away until he could figure it out. He opened his mouth to say that he would provide Lieutenant Palmer with specific instructions, but his words were stopped in his throat.
“Sergeant Major,” Kimberley said as she watched him out of the right side of her face, turning the left side away self-consciously, “we are having an informal meeting tonight to discuss matters. I wonder if you would join us? The Royal Arms at five?”
Johnson was taken aback by the sudden invitation but managed to keep his face from showing it. He regained his composure and said that he would try to make it if duty allowed.
Embarrassed, he made his way to find the younger Palmer and tell him exactly what he needed to do.
Chapter 18
Peter and Amber woke again that morning and went through the same routine of eating breakfast and feeding the cat, who had returned undetected at some point. The house itself was comfortable and secure, and there was enough food for another two days at least, but the water situation meant that they would be forced to find somewhere new that day.
He told Amber this, and thought it was remarkable how such a young kid could take bad things happening in her stride without complaining. She didn’t cry, she didn’t complain or refuse to help, she just nodded and got on with everything.
Peter filled his water bottle before they left, using a small cup to decant the water from the toilet cistern to pour it in a bit at a time, and then he asked Amber if she needed to use the toilet one last time before they left.
She screwed up her face in thought, rolled her eyes up toward her left brow, and pursed her lips before finally nodding that she did. Peter smiled at her, finding her silent ways of com
municating with him both funny and endearing, and placed a hand on her head without thinking as she walked past. She didn’t respond to the touch, and Peter didn’t even register that he had done it, such was the strength of the protective bond he felt for the girl already.
It was as though she was more than just another person who had survived, it was as though he had saved her life, which he reckoned he had because there’d been one of the things coming for the door when he’d found her, and that somehow made her his responsibility.
She was his burden, but not with any sense of regret or reluctance. Her survival had somehow become his life’s mission overnight, and the thought of abandoning her or failing in that mission was simply unthinkable to him. Amber was now his sole purpose in life, as he didn’t seem to have any other pressing engagements on his calendar.
His musings had gone on so long that she had returned downstairs from the bathroom and stood level with his stomach and smiled up at him briefly.
She was ready to go.
Peter had fed the cat, unloading two cans of food onto plates for it to give it a head start after they left. The window was left partly open, and they shut the back door after themselves when they left. The cat hadn’t come back after breakfast to say goodbye to them.
Peter had loaded up his backpack with as much of the heavier stuff as possible, leaving Amber with the shopping bag to manage. That kept his hands free to wield the pitchfork and he crouched low to stalk along the rear path and around the side of the house. They saw nothing moving in the village, but Peter thought their luck had been pushed sufficiently to warrant moving on. Plus, he couldn’t guarantee that there was any more water in the other houses. He looked up into the overgrown hedge, lifting the weapon to move a sprig of a leafy branch out of the way of the road sign.
Fingerboard, his mind told him out of nowhere when he saw it. He guessed that name, wherever he had heard it, made sense as it was like a finger telling him how far it was to the next place and in what direction.
Toy Soldiers (Book 2): Aftermath Page 15