by Frank Tayell
In the middle of the room, lounging on the cheap chairs, halfway through a game of poker, were an older man and a younger woman. Despite that both were dressed in gear taken from the nuclear constabulary’s stores, both were clearly U.S. Marines.
“This is Sergeant Khan and Private Kessler,” Bill said. “And this is Chester Carson.”
“How do,” Chester said.
Kessler gave an indifferent nod then returned her attention to her cards.
“Your brother is in there now,” Sergeant Khan said. “But this morning, she had a visitor. Isabella Garcia.”
“Which one?” Chester asked. “There are three,” he added. “It won’t be the granddaughter. Was it the mother or the grandmother?”
“I’d say she was probably a grandmother,” Khan said. “She said she wanted to check Locke was being treated well.”
“Was she here for long?” Bill asked.
“About five minutes,” Khan said. The sergeant threw a pair of aces down on the small table between himself and the private. “Beat that,” he said.
“I can’t,” Kessler said.
Khan scooped up the pile of banknotes between them.
“Do you have cameras?” Chester asked.
“In her room? No,” Bill said. “She’s not really a prisoner and I don’t want to treat her as such.” He sat down on an easy-chair. “We’re walking an odd line here. On the one hand, we’re trying to ensure the survival of our species. On the other, we’re trying to maintain, or perhaps create, a democratic society of laws. Do we have the right to invade Locke’s privacy? Upon what do we base that right? She can’t be held responsible for what happened before the outbreak. At the same time, her involvement can’t be ignored.”
“There wouldn’t be much point in cameras,” Khan said. “She thinks she’s being recorded, so if she does say something, would you trust it? Not that I’m complaining, this is a better duty than patrolling the docks in Belfast, right, Private?” Private Kessler gave an indifferent shrug. “But if you want constant surveillance of her,” Khan continued, “it’ll take more than just the two of us.”
“I’m not sure there’s much point,” Bill said.
“So what is it you want from her?” Chester asked.
“Ideally?” Bill said. “That she takes the sailing boat we’ve got tied up below the cliffs, and sails away. Failing that, I’d settle for information, but I’m not sure she has anything to tell us. We have Lisa Kempton’s ship. We have her satellites. We even have a list of… I suppose safe-houses is the best description. In Elysium, Kim and I found a list of addresses. One of those was near the Shannon Estuary, a place called Pallaskenry. We went there and found a bungalow with bulletproof windows, a load of unused sleeping bags, and some submachine guns. There was nothing else. As far as we can tell, the plan was for these people to rendezvous in places like Elysium or Pallaskenry, then make their way to the coast where The New World would collect them. It would be nice to know where they were going next, and whether that was somewhere like Birmingham. But if it is, how much help would that be? I doubt it’s near the coast. If it were, then wouldn’t the captain of The New World have sailed there? Wouldn’t Locke? No, it’ll be inland somewhere, which means the effort involved in retrieving those stores will be greater than flying Scott Higson to Australia.”
“He wants to fly to Australia?” Private Kessler asked. “Then why can’t we just fly home?”
Sergeant Khan’s eyebrows raised a fraction, as he picked up the cards and began a methodical shuffle.
“Without a landing site, it would be a one-way trip,” Bill said. “Better we send a ship to the U.S.”
“And the admiral has said we’ll go,” Khan said. “She’s given her word, and you can trust that, Private.”
“So if you don’t trust anything Locke says,” Chester said. “And if anything she does say, even if it’s true, isn’t of much use, what do you want from her?”
“Honestly? That she’ll leave,” Bill said. “I’ve offered her a boat, with supplies, and asked that she just disappear. The reason she’s being kept here, the reason the sergeant and private are here, is for her protection, not ours.”
“She joined us on a run this morning,” Khan said. “I asked her, when we got to the coast, why she didn’t sail away. She said the time wasn’t right. You want me to deal you in?”
The door at the far end of the corridor opened. A broad-shouldered man with as much salt-and-pepper stubble on his head as his chin stalked out. There was a similarity in his appearance between him and Bill, though he was older, slightly taller, and broader across the chest. Chester had briefly met Thaddeus Sholto the previous evening, and had instantly recognised a familiar soul.
“Did she say anything?” Bill asked.
Sholto looked as if he was going to speak. He took in Chester, then the two Marines. “Nothing of interest to us. Nothing but history,” he said.
“Chester?” Bill said.
“I’m up, am I? Well, I’ll give it a go.” Chester stood, walked down the corridor, hesitated, and then knocked at the door.
“Come,” he heard Locke call from inside.
He opened the door. The room had a bed, a desk and chair, and a window that looked out over the car park. It was smaller than a hotel room, but larger than a prison cell, though not by much. Locke sat at the desk, a pen in hand, a slim exercise book in front of her.
“Ah, Chester, hello,” Locke said without looking up. “I’ll be with you momentarily.”
Chester forced himself not to smile. The window gave Locke a view of anyone arriving at the power plant. The walls were thin, and he had just knocked at the door. It was the same set of petty mind-games that McInery had used. Little tricks that had awed him at first, cowed him, intimidated him. After he’d realised what McInery had been doing, those tricks had simply frustrated him. Now, he didn’t care. He sat in a blue-cloth armchair and closed his eyes, his mind on the impossible choice between Belfast and Kenmare Bay.
“I’m writing my memoirs,” Locke finally said.
“Oh?” Chester said, without opening his eyes. “About when you worked with Lisa Kempton?”
“Partly, yes,” Locke said. “And the true story of the outbreak. I read Mr Wright’s account. It is entirely lacking.”
“I think I’d prefer a good murder mystery,” Chester said. He opened his eyes, but she was still looking at the page in front of her. “They’re treating you all right?”
Locke gave a grudging nod. “Better than I expected. For now, at least.”
“You don’t trust them?” he asked.
“There are few I trust,” she said. “How are the Isabellas?”
“The grandmother is fine. The mother is recovering. It’s the infant they’re worried about.”
“How worried?” Locke asked.
“Hard to say. They’re moving her to Kenmare Bay. That’s where most of the medical staff are going.”
“To Elysium? Interesting. And Eamonn?”
“He’s going there, too,” Chester said. “It’ll be months before he’s properly recovered.”
“Ah. He is a good man, Eamonn Finnegan,” Locke said. “And you, Chester, where are you going? London, I assume.”
“London’s doomed,” Chester said, and as he spoke the words, he knew they were true. “London is doomed. That leaves Belfast or Kenmare Bay, or… or I don’t know. They’re giving us boats, so we could reach an island, I suppose. We could reach France. Would we find it any different to Britain? I doubt it. That’s why I’m here, more or less. It’s to ask if you’ve got any suggestions.”
“Somewhere other than Elysium or Belfast? Britain held on to civilisation longer than anywhere else.”
“I’m not talking about countries, and you know it,” Chester said. “I’m talking about bunkers. Kempton’s facilities. Do you want to tell me where any of them are?”
“You’re the friendly face, are you? They hope I will give you the answers I wouldn’t give th
em. And if I don’t, will they send the children in next?”
“I think they’re running out of patience,” Chester said. “So am I. You think this is a game. You think that knowledge of these facilities gives you leverage. You don’t want to give it up until you know the price will be paid.”
“And if you know all that, then why are you here?” she asked.
“Because I said I’d try,” Chester said. “They’re not bad people. This information could help them. It could help us.”
“Not bad people? Really?” she said. “No one told my jailers not to talk to me, so I talked with them. I learned of what happened here since I escaped. Their election that was almost a coup; did you hear of that?”
“I did,” Chester said.
“And still you say they are not bad people? Mr Wright and Mrs O’Leary have grand ideas of democracy, but this is not the time for elections. They have almost lost power twice. To Bishop, and to Rachel Gottlieb. There will be other challengers. Other coups. What I tell them, what I tell you, will end up in the hands of someone I am certain will become an enemy.”
“So, you want there to be a clean hand-over of power before you talk?” he asked. “You want election monitors, that kind of thing?”
“If that boat had not gone to London,” Locke said. “If, instead, you had set out alone. If you had arrived here and found Bishop in charge, would you have told him where you came from? That is what you are asking me to do. That is the information you are asking me to give up. It is likely that my employees, my co-workers, my friends, are all dead. But, it is possible that some are still alive. In which case, you are asking me to lead the wolf right to their door.”
“Fair point,” Chester said. He gestured at the wall. “I don’t know them, but they seem decent enough. Smart, too, some of them. They know you have a bunker in Belfast, and they’ve got your mansion in Kenmare Bay. Are you certain there’s no clue left there as to where these other places are?”
“Positive,” Locke said.
“I don’t know whether to believe you or not. Look at it this way, then. All they know about your co-workers is that their boss, Kempton, was part of the conspiracy that caused all of this, and that, when they went to Belfast, they were shot at.”
“By Jasmine Cotter, yes,” she said. “I would have warned them of her, but I was abducted before I had the chance.”
“I understand that you’re worried about them killing any of your friends that are still alive. They’re worried that, if they go to any of these bunkers, they’ll be shot at themselves. Trust is what’s missing here, so how do we build it?”
“Trust? You say you don’t know these people,” Locke said. “I do. I know one of them. I know Tom Clemens, the man calling himself Sholto. He sent spies into Lisa’s organisation, and then he rigged the U.S. presidential election. Is that whom I should trust?”
Chester shrugged. “You know I had a hand to play in the apocalypse?”
“I’m sorry?” she asked, and he could tell that he’d piqued her interest.
“Not as much as you or Kempton,” Chester said, “and I didn’t realise it at the time. I grew up with this guy called Cannock. He was one of Quigley’s bag-men. A few years back, he needed some data stolen. He came looking for me. I was working with a crook called McInery. We were paid to steal some files from politicians. I didn’t think much of it. It was just another job, and when someone like Cannock asks you, you don’t say no. Then came the outbreak, the evacuation. You know what Quigley did? He asked us to round up everyone we knew. All the criminals, the crooks. He said he wanted us to run London after the evacuation. What I thought was that he wanted to keep all of us crooks and cons out of the enclaves. He was lying and I was wrong. He gave us the vaccine, you see, and we handed it out. They all died, all except me and McInery.”
“I see. And what happened to Mrs McInery?” Locke asked.
“Her? Oh, she died a few months ago. Greta shot her. It was in Quigley’s old office, of all places.” Chester frowned. “Why do you ask about her?”
“I knew of her. You were lucky.”
“Lucky to be alive, I know.”
“No, lucky not to be in jail,” Locke said. “Though I think that would have been a death sentence, too. You worked with her, then you’ve heard of the Rosewood Cartel?”
“They’re a myth,” Chester said.
“What about Javier Cordoba?”
“Him, I know. A narco-baron muscling his way into London a few years ago. He had about ten percent of the business. We steered clear of it. The risk never matched the profit.”
“He runs the cartel now. Or he did. The investigation had taken ten years, but they were moving towards breaking it. Guess the name of the British connection.”
“McInery?”
“Exactly. The sting was to take place in March. The organisation was going to be rolled up. No doubt you would have been arrested, too, though you weren’t important enough for your name to be known to me.”
“Huh. I was arrested. Well, no, I was under arrest when the outbreak occurred. They caught me red-handed, more or less, but they kept questioning me. I wondered why. I suppose they were deciding whether to throw me back. How do you know about this?”
“We weren’t the villains, Chester. We didn’t rig presidential elections. We didn’t steal information on our political enemies. We tried to save the world, which meant working in the shadows. It meant working with the worst people this world was plagued with. We passed that information onto our contacts in law enforcement because, Chester, we were the good guys. Cannock? I don’t know the name. I can imagine the type. Once arrested, would you have lived? Would Quigley have allowed it, or would we have destroyed him before he had time to sign your death warrant? It is hard to say, and hardly important.”
“Huh. Well that’s food for thought,” Chester said. “So what do you want to do now? You don’t want to leave. You don’t want to tell them where the other bunkers are. What do you want?”
“To finish my memoirs,” Kempton said.
Chester went back outside. The two Marines were still playing cards.
“The brothers are outside,” Khan said. “Did she say anything?”
“Nope,” Chester said. “Nothing useful.”
“Told you,” Private Kessler said. “Pay up.”
Khan opened a fishing tackle box by his chair, took out a stack of fifty-pound notes, and counted them out. “Ten thousand. There you go.”
“You’re really playing for banknotes?” Chester asked.
“Matchsticks are too valuable,” Khan said.
Chester laughed. He couldn’t help himself. And then he went looking for the two brothers.
They were downstairs, by the front door to the block, watching the rain fill a pothole.
“What did she tell you?” Sholto asked.
Chester hesitated, but there was no point in lying. “That Kempton was one of the good guys. That she was trying to save the world.”
“Well, that’s a lie,” Sholto said. “And a similar one to that she told me. Anything else?”
“Not really,” Chester said. “She wants us to think that there are bunkers, somewhere. Whether that means there are, I don’t know.”
“And that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Sholto said. “Trying to figure out what game she’s playing is only wasting our time.”
“Personally,” Chester said, “and absent of any hard information, I’ve got to work with what’s available, and that’s a string of boats that need to get to London. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”
“No, you did all you could,” Bill said. “The boats are in Menai Bridge. Heather Jones is waiting. Do you need me to show you the way? I know I said I would, but there’s a few things I need to do here.”
“No, that’s fine,” Chester said, “I know where it is.”
He didn’t go there straight away. First, he went to the hospital.
Greta stood outside, standing under the awnin
g by the entrance, watching the rain.
“You all right? Is it Eamonn?” Chester asked.
“He’s fine,” she said. “Unchanged, anyway. I just needed some air, some time. It’s so hard looking at him. I have to smile, but there’s only so many times I can say it’s going to be okay. How are you, Chester?”
“Ah, you know me. I’m muddling along.”
“Have you had your eyes checked? You really should.”
“I’ve got it on the list,” he said. “How’s the baby?”
“Isabella? It’s too early to say.”
“Ah.” Chester leaned against the pillar. “I spoke to Sorcha Locke.”
“Oh? And?”
“I think she knows of somewhere. Maybe a bunker like Birmingham.”
“Phoebe thinks it’s in Portugal. Damien thinks it’s in America. Isabella, the older Isabella, she thinks that it’s both, and there are lots of others. I’m inclined to agree.”
“Locke won’t tell us where,” Chester said.
Greta shrugged. “She thinks she’s surrounded by enemies, Chester. I’d speak to her myself if there was time. There isn’t. We’re leaving. This afternoon.”
“So soon?” he asked.
“The weather’s worsening,” she said. “I… well, I don’t have a say in it. They said we’re going to depart, and so we are. What are you going to do?”
“They’ve allocated some boats for London. I’m on my way to take a look at them.”
“And then?” she asked. “Where will the boats go?”
“London is doomed,” Chester said. “Nilda looked along the Kent coast for somewhere we could make a home, but without any luck. Long-term, I like the sound of the Mediterranean. Somewhere warm, but for now, the only options are Kenmare Bay or Belfast. I’m inclined toward the former, since that’s where you and Eamonn will be, along with more military personnel than civilians. Unless Locke can tell me of somewhere else.”