by Glenn Cooper
“Fuck me,” Kendrick said.
“Glad you came back?” Greene said, snapping back his bolt carrier and sighting his rifle.
Hundreds of men were approaching on foot and on horseback, the closest ones a hundred yards away now. Greene had no way of knowing it, but three rival East Anglian barons from Colchester, Ipswich, and Bury St. Edmunds had buried the hatchet to mount a joint attack on the Upminster crossing point.
“Spread out, every twenty yards!” Greene shouted to his assembling men. “Single shots only! Don’t waste ammo! The ones on horseback are likely the big men! Take them out first! Let’s try to turn them! On my mark, fire!”
The Duke of Suffolk slithered on his belly and fully extended the brass tubes of his spyglass. He was on a hillock overlooking the village of Leatherhead and the surrounding meadowlands. It was midday and though it was not bright in the conventional sense, it was as bright a morning as it ever got in Hell. The first men he saw through his glass were sitting outside a small teepee-like structure fashioned from long branches. They were cooking something over a campfire. He couldn’t be sure but he thought one of the soldiers had a moustache and might be the captain William the forger had spoken of. He shifted his gaze to a pair of men with rifles on slings patroling a featureless patch of meadow and then visually worked his way around a large circular perimeter, spying pairs of soldiers spaced quite far apart from one another.
When he was done he handed his spyglass to the Duke of Oxford and asked for his opinion.
Oxford was subordinate to Suffolk but had made his contempt for his superior apparent. Suffolk had been born to nobility and King Henry inherently trusted a man with a good pedigree. That is why Henry gave him command of all his field and naval assets following the recent demise of the Duke of Norfolk at the hands of John Camp.
In death, the Duke of Oxford had achieved the prominence he had found elusive in life. Absent high birth, he had been a mere major with the 17th Lancers during the Crimean War and had been at the infamous charge of the Light Brigade. In Hell his military skills had caught the attention of Henry who elevated him time and again until he was given the duchy of Oxford and was made Henry’s field commander. Suffolk regarded the pugnacious Oxford as a potential rival and distrusted him immensely. But he had to admit he was an able cavalryman. Suffolk was a navy man and here on dry land he all but admitted his insecurity about field tactics by seeking Oxford’s opinion.
Oxford’s flat, broken nose and thrusting chin gave him a menacing look. He finished his spyglass survey and said with his customary arrogance, “If these guns of theirs are as powerful as we have been given to believe, then it would be foolhardy to mount an attack on foot or horseback. I will bring up my four-pounders and demi-culverins and train them on any group of two or more of the enemy. Once we have thinned the herd we may consider mounting a charge.”
“Very well,” Suffolk said. “You may proceed.”
Captain Gatti was chewing a mouthful of rabbit when he heard the first artillery boom. He stood, spit out the brown meat, and shouted, “Incoming!” before the canister charge loaded with musket balls unleashed a shower of metal at the teepee. The trooper standing next to him fell, his right leg blown away at the knee.
Gatti called for the medic but he realized he was out on perimeter patrol. The captain ordered his men to stay low and ripped off his jacket, using the sleeve as a tourniquet.
“Stay with me,” Gatti told the glassy-eyed young man.
“Captain, I …”
“Don’t talk. We’re going to get you out of here.”
At the sound of another cannon blast, Gatti threw himself over the injured soldier. The canister charge spewed metal over their heads.
Gatti called to the three soldiers nearby who were pressed flat into the tall grass. “We’ve got to evac Everly. Maxwell, you’re going to be the one to do it.”
The trooper protested but Gatti repeated the order.
“I’ll come back,” Maxwell said.
“Don’t worry about that now,” Gatti shouted, “both of you get him close to the HZ and Maxwell, you bring him home.”
Before they were deployed, the squadron had drilled on evacuation plans. “This isn’t a suicide mission,” their Officer Commander, Major Gus Parker-Burns had said. “I expect that critically injured men will be evacuated if at all possible. The boffins tell me it appears that one will be able to re-enter the hot zone from the other side without immediately boomeranging back. Don’t understand it, but I don’t need to.”
Maxwell and the other two soldiers picked the injured man off the ground and began running toward the hot zone. Gatti fired off a single shot from his rifle, the signal for the group to muster, and his men began circumnavigating the perimeter of the hot zone, running toward the shredded teepee, keeping low.
Oxford’s cannon continued to rain metal down on the SAS. Gatti signaled for his assembling troops to keep spread out. The captain found his sergeant and sprawled beside him in the grass.
“Their cannon are up on that hill,” Gatti said. “It’s about a quarter mile, well out of our range. We can’t all stay here or we’re done for. Take three men and sweep around from the east. Use the high grass as cover. Have Evans take three men and sweep from the west. I’ll stay down here with the rest of them to draw their fire. On your mark, rake them with crossfire. Now go.”
Gatti looked toward the hot zone. The two troopers had helped Maxwell get Everly over his shoulder and now Maxwell was making his way past the outermost edge of the hot zone.
“Keep going, keep going,” Gatti said out loud.
A cannon shot targeting them landed awfully close. Maxwell fell, dumping Everly.
“Come on, get up,” Gatti said, and Maxwell did just that, slowly lifting the wounded man again.
He kept stumbling forward and suddenly, twenty yards into the hot zone, they disappeared.
Gatti looked into the gray sky and mouthed a thank you.
Suffolk was getting irate. He had been leaning against a tree, using his spyglass to track the cannon fire but he was having trouble spotting the enemy soldiers hunkered down in the dense meadow grasses. Every so often he saw a head pop up and exhorted Oxford to change his aiming point.
“The grass cover is making this devilishly difficult,” Oxford complained. “Perhaps we are striking home, perhaps not. In any event, we must persist. They will be hoping we ….”
A shot rang out and his half of Oxford’s head was gone. Then a volley of persistent AK-47 fire drove Suffolk onto the ground. He began crawling but couldn’t decide which way to go. The gunfire seemed to be coming from all directions.
“Get me my horse!” he screamed. “My horse!”
Suffolk’s soldiers and artillerymen were in disarray, running wildly, trying to escape the withering fire. The SAS slowly and methodically advanced, tightening the pincer vise.
The duke heard a whinny and raised his head, amazed to see that one of his soldiers had indeed fetched his stallion. As the man was about to hand over the reins, he was rewarded for his loyalty by being shot in the stomach.
“Help me,” the man cried, but the duke snatched the reins and mounted the horse.
Suffolk kicked the animal hard and took off, veering around trees, trampling wounded men, and not looking back until he was down the hillock, fleeing Leatherhead at a full gallop. When finally safe he began muttering to himself. “Disaster. Unmitigated disaster. Except of course for losing Oxford. Most welcome, that.”
Ben’s security convoy was approaching Thames House through the empty streets of London when urgent calls began hitting his phone. He had been deep in thought with images of Polly in his mind, cold and dead under her duvet. But the call from Drone Warfare Centre, followed within seconds by a call from the prime minister, wiped the slate clean.
“Yes, sir, I actually have them on hold,” Ben said. “Shall I conference them in?”
When he had both parties on the line he listened to the alarming news. A minute later, hi
s car pulled inside MI5 headquarters and he kept the line open as he hurried down to the ops centre to see with his own eyes what everyone had been talking about.
The aerial view of Upminster showed hundreds of men running and walking down Station Road and St. Marys Lane.
“I’ll wind the clock back five minutes and let you see how this unfolded,” Major Garabedian said.
Ben watched as one man, then three, then a dozen, then more began materializing in the empty town centre.
“Can you give us some magnification?” the prime minister asked.
Close-up views showed men in non-modern clothes, peering into shop windows and cars, some walking in small, uncertain circles, some shielding their eyes from the sun.
“I’d say they’re Hellers,” Garabedian said. “No doubt in my mind.”
A voice Ben didn’t immediately recognize came on the line. “I concur.” It was Jeremy Slaine who was at the prime minister’s side in Manchester.
“Upminster was rock-solid until now,” Ben said. “What’s happening in the other hot zones?”
“They’ve been quiet. Just checking again,” Garabedian said. I’m putting up real-time images now.”
Dartford and Sevenoaks were deserted. Then Ben spotted something on the feed from Leatherhead.
“Hang on, could you zoom in on Leatherhead near the white van and the red car?” he said. “Yes there.”
One man was carrying another man on his shoulder. On further magnification, the men were wearing the SAS camouflage fatigues specially provided for the mission. The man being carried appeared to be missing part of his right leg.
Slaine said, “This looks like a wounded man being evacuated. I’ll inform the 3 Commando Brigade outside Leatherhead that they’re coming their way.”
“Right, keep an eye on this,” the prime minister said, “but let’s get back to Upminster. I think this must be very bad news for Captain Greene’s D Group. I can’t help but conclude they’ve been over-run.”
“I’d have to agree,” Ben said.
“What are our orders, sirs?” Garabedian said.
“What assets do we have over Upminster?” Lester asked.
“One Predator overhead, a Reaper two minutes out.”
“Ben,” the prime minister said, “I believe I know my mind on this but I want to hear from you.”
Ben thought about Woodbourne, lying in a pool of blood next to the Polish woman. He knew he’d been a murderer and yet, he’d tried to help that little girl. There had to have been some good in him. And these Hellers flooding Upminster. How many of them were thoroughly and unrepentably evil? Did all of them deserve what they were about to receive?
Ben wet his lips with his tongue and swallowed the moisture so his voice wouldn’t sound too thin.
“I am concerned about how many will get through our security cordon. I fear there’re too many of them to contain. I think we need to act before they disperse.”
“I have to agree, and Jeremy Slaine is nodding his approval,” the prime minister said. “Major Garabedian, you may fire.”
A few seconds later Upminster centre erupted in a fireball that forced Ben to shut his eyes. When he did he saw the image of Woodbourne lying on the floor, his pool of blood merging with the Polish woman’s. Ben couldn’t shake the feeling that Woodbourne’s dead eyes seemed to be staring directly into hers.
27
Angus and the boys were desperately afraid of the dark woods but equally afraid of the road. One held the danger of rovers and wild animals, the other the danger of Bess and Ardmore. It had been Stuart’s idea to prevent getting lost by keeping to the woods with the road never more than twenty yards away. In the pitch dark with all the uneven ground and myriad obstacles achieving that proved difficult. By the time dawn came, the boys were surrounded by woods, the road nowhere to be found.
Fortunately for Glynn, Harry had woken up soon after Angus decked him, and though he moaned all night that his face hurt, at least Glynn didn’t have to carry him for long.
In the meager light of early morning, surrounded by towering pine trees, the boys took stock of themselves. All of them were scuffed and bruised from tripping on roots and vines and bashing into branches but Harry complained more than anyone, rubbing at his swollen jaw and split, blood-caked lip.
Angus couldn’t take it any longer.
“Shut your mouth before I shut it again,” he shouted. Danny shushed him and pointed randomly into the woods as a reminder that Bess might be out there somewhere. Lowering his voice Angus fumed, “Boris is dead because of you and all you can do is winge and cry like a little fairy.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Harry moaned. “I didn’t want to go. If he’d just let me stay none of this would’ve happened.”
“I think you really ought to shut up, Harry,” Kevin said. “You’re pressing your luck.”
“I’m thirsty,” Andrew said. “We’ve got to find some water.”
“We need three things,” Stuart said. “We need water, food, and we need to find the road.”
“Four things,” Danny said. “We also need weapons.” He picked up a long piece of fallen branch and snapped it in two over his knee. “I’ll be in charge of that.”
“We stay together,” Angus said. “If we split up we’ll never find each other again.”
Stuart began examining all the trees in the immediate area and said, “Do you think the moss grows on trees like it does back home?”
Harry didn’t seem sure if he was allowed to speak so he raised his hand first.
“There’s no direct sunlight here because of cloud cover but since the geography seems to be the same as in Earth, my guess is that the solar system in this parallel world has the same configuration. After all there are similar light and dark cycles. Since we’re in the northern hemisphere, there still should be some subtle differences in the temperature on one side of trees than the other.”
“Does anyone have any idea what Shitley just said?” Nigel asked.
“He said that moss ought to be growing on the north side of the trees,” Stuart said, “which means that way is north.”
Angus looked around the forest. “The farm was on the north side of the road and we definitely never crossed the road last night. London is northeast of Devon so the road has to be southeast of us.”
“That way,” Stuart pointed.
“All right,” Angus said, “Danny, you’re in charge of making everyone a walking and fighting stick, Stuart, you’re the outdoorsman, so you need to find edible mushrooms and berries, that type of thing, and all of us need to listen for the sound of running water as we go, and the first one to spot the road gets a gold star. No, I take that back. Stuart gets the gold star for letting the sheep out of the pen last night.”
To laughs and whistles, Stuart took a deeply appreciative bow.
They walked for hours without finding water or anything remotely edible, though Danny did make a half-hearted attempt to club something under a bush he thought might be a snake or a rabbit. Each boy except for Harry, who declined, did wind up with a stout stick and a pocket full of rocks. And it was a beaming Andrew who finally claimed the prize for spotting the road.
It was empty.
They were so tired of walking on boggy, uneven ground, weaving through trees and thorny bushes that they allowed themselves the luxury of tramping for a while on the hard, flat road. Their luck seemed to be changing, for shortly afterwards Glynn heard a gentle gurgling noise which they followed back into the woods, throwing themselves on the ground to gulp beautifully cold water from a small creek.
After they could drink no more, Harry sent them into paroxysms of laughter by asking whether they thought the water was safe.
They rested for a few minutes until Angus exhorted them to get moving again.
“We should stick to the woods now,” he said.
“Oh, come on,” Glynn said. “Just a while longer on the road. I’ll keep an eye out to the rear if you watch the front.”
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“All right,” Angus said, “but the last thing we need is to run into Bess.”
“Maybe she isn’t even following us,” Nigel said.
“She’ll be coming,” Kevin said. “Know how I know?”
“How?” Danny asked.
“Because she’ll be missing her little Harry bedtime stories.”
“Did you tell her your favorite ones?” Nigel asked. “Goodnight Moon? Ant and Bee?”
“No, that’s not it,” Glynn said, “It was probably shit about the universe in a Stephen Hawking computer voice.”
“Leave me alone,” Harry shouted, “just leave me alone!”
He ran off crying toward the road, his face getting whipped by the branches he failed to deflect.
“Come on, Harry, we didn’t mean it,” Nigel shouted. Then to the others he giggled, “Yes we did.”
“Let’s go after him,” Angus said.
Harry kept running, ignoring Angus’s calls to wait up. Angus yelled again for him to stop and as the woods gave way to the road, Harry turned to shout back, “Leave me alone!”
The huge black horse hit the small boy, throwing him into the air and as he landed in the road, the front and rear hooves trampled the life out of him.
Angus and the others emerged from the woods and stopped to stare in mute horror. It was impossible to know which was worse, the sight of Harry’s broken and bloody body or Ardmore, swinging his leg off his black horse and drawing a pistol from his belt.
Bess climbed down from her wagon, ran to Harry’s side and knelt beside him.
“He’s dead,” she said. Her tone wasn’t sorrowful, it was angry. She pointed a bony finger at Angus. “This is your fault, Angus. Now you’re going to pay. Shoot him, Ardmore. Put a bullet into his hateful face.”
Angus couldn’t seem to move. Ardmore’s arm was raised, the pistol at pointblank range. The other boys also were frozen in fear.
There was a high-pitched sound, a crescendo of a whine, as if the air was being parted. Ardmore dropped his pistol. Though cocked it didn’t discharge.