Future's Beginning

by Frank Tayell

  “Then there’s nothing in those photographs that will help us?” Sholto asked. “What about in Dundalk?”

  “I found a few smudged fingerprints that might reveal something,” Siobhan said. “The real clue, I think, lies in the plane. I’ve a lead to follow there, but nothing concrete, not yet.”

  “How long do you need?” the admiral asked.

  “A few days,” Siobhan said. “This case will be solved by finding someone who saw someone doing something somewhere they should never have been, and that will take time. I’ll be as circumspect as I can, but this won’t stay a secret.”

  “That might be a problem,” Sholto said. “The specialist warned me that there’s a simmering dissatisfaction among your original crew. He gives it two weeks before it bubbles up into a full blown mutiny.”

  “I’ve heard the same,” the admiral said. “There is little that can be done that we aren’t already doing.”

  A whistle came from the guards on the roof above, followed by the muffled sound of a shot.

  “Zombies,” the admiral said. “We’ve run out of time.”

  Sholto barely noticed the ruins as they made their way back to the harbour. His mind was on the nine missing mines. The entire harbour was one, giant soft-target. Though the saboteurs would know where was safe from the blast, the chaotic panic that followed would bring injury and death no one could avoid. Even so, there was only one reason the other mines were taken, so how would the terrorists benefit? They wouldn’t, not unless their goal was to hasten the moment Belfast was abandoned.

  He was still mulling over the likelihood of that when they reached the checkpoint and discovered half the guards were missing.

  “Where’s the sergeant?” the admiral demanded.

  “It was Mr Fenwick,” the corporal replied. “He called for them to come and help.”

  “Help with what?” Sholto asked.

  “There’s a riot,” the corporal said.

  Chapter 15 - Disorderly

  Belfast Harbour

  “I thought so,” the admiral said as they reached the warehouse in which Markus lived, and which was now being torn apart from the inside. “It’s not a riot; it’s just another drunken brawl.”

  Whitley had gathered two dozen troops, a mix of those who’d been finishing their shift when Sholto had departed that morning, and the more heavily armed who’d come straight from the checkpoint. Half of those now formed a thin cordon on the road, keeping back twice that number of curious onlookers. The rest corralled the brawling drunks as they staggered outside. As each lurched through the wide swing doors, a guard would grab them, drag them across the tarmac, and sit them down with their backs against the wall of the neighbouring building.

  “Report,” the admiral said.

  “Markus opened a new bar,” Whitley said simply. “This is the result.”

  “Where’s Fenwick?” Sholto asked.

  “The infirmary,” Whitley said. “He’ll be fine. Just a nasty cut. There’s another sixty drunks inside. I’ve sent for reinforcements, and was waiting for numerical superiority before launching an assault.”

  A man fell through the door, collapsed to his knees, and had to be carried to the subdued and dazed group by the wall.

  “They almost look like zombies,” Sholto said.

  “And it’s barely sunset,” the admiral said. “Are they armed?”

  A chair smashed through a window. A moment later, Colm staggered through the door, blood dripping from his face. As he straightened and Sholto took a step towards him, the warehouse door swung open again. A man with a greasy beard and lank fringe staggered outside. He raised a hand to shield his eyes and then saw Colm. His hands dropped to his belt, fumbling with his jacket’s zip. As the coat fell open, Sholto saw the shoulder holster, but so did Colm. As the man reached for his gun, the boxer stepped forward, jabbed his left fist into the man’s kidneys, and then slammed his right in an open-palm punch into the man’s chest.

  “Secure that man!” the admiral barked. Whitley and four of his sailors ran over to secure the prisoner, as Sholto ran over to Colm.

  “Are you all right?” Sholto asked.

  The boxer wiped blood from his forehead. “Kallie’s in there,” he said. “She tried to break it up. I told her not to.” And then he ran back into the warehouse with Sholto close on his heels.

  Going from bright daylight into the dark interior, he was momentarily blind. His eyesight adjusted in time to see the chair sailing towards his head. He ducked underneath, and then skipped a hasty step to the left as a fist sailed towards his neck. Shifting his weight, he swept his leg out, hooking his foot around his assailant’s shins. The woman fell face-first and hard, landing on the concrete floor with a crack of breaking teeth. Almost instantly, all fight went out of her. She curled into a ball as her hands covered her bleeding mouth. Sholto stepped around her, his fists raised, trying to make sense of the chaos.

  It was a brawl, not a riot. There were no obvious sides or alliances, nor any obvious prize or perceived transgression over which the multi-sided battle was being fought. The third of the room furthest from the door was filled with trampled sleeping mats, broken camp beds, and torn-down sheets and curtains that had offered a modicum of privacy to those who’d called the warehouse home. A few of them, presumably sober, were still there, huddled in the furthest corner. About twenty, he thought, who’d not dared risk the dash through the melee to the building’s only escape. The middle of the room was taken up with a mismatched collection of tables and chairs, half of which had been broken, and a quarter of which were now being used as impromptu clubs. Against the wall closest to the door were a quartet of trestle tables, arranged in a U-shape, on which were a smattering of still-intact bottles and glasses.

  A guttural yell came from his right. Sholto turned, and saw the man fling the bottle just in time to duck. As it sailed over his head, a woman jumped on the man, knocking him to the ground. Sholto took a step towards them, about to haul one from the other when he sensed movement to his left. He spun around, but it was only Colm.

  “Where’s Kallie?”

  “The bar!” Colm said, pushing his way back into the melee, and towards the U of tables by the wall. The teenager stood inside the U, swinging her cane at head-height, but she was shorter than the trio of men shoving at the table, and her head only reached their shoulders. Her cane slammed into a man’s arms, and he brushed it away. She changed her grip, stabbing the walking stick up and forward, aiming at his skull, but this wasn’t a zombie. The man grabbed the cane and dragged it from her, raising it up as Colm dived forward, arms wide open. His flying tackle knocked the man with the cane, and the assailant next to him, to the floor. The man with the cane stopped struggling almost instantly, raising his hands in front of his face. The second man, though, had plenty of fight left in him. He jumped onto Colm’s back. The boxer roared, reached up and around, grabbed arm and neck, and flung the man into the crowd, spinning around to face the third, and last, man by the bar just as Sholto caught up. The third assailant stood frozen, immobile, his hands raised with the barrel of Kallie’s pistol an inch away from his left eye.

  “It’s all right, boys,” she said. “I’ve got this under control.” But then, calm bravado gone, she yelled, “Sholto, behind you!”

  Sholto spun around, shifting his weight so the clenched fist cracked into his shoulder. His assailant winced, seemingly shocked by the pain. Sholto slammed both palms into the man’s chest. He fell over and didn’t try to get up, but crawled away.

  “This is weird,” Sholto said, stepping backward until he had the bar behind him. “What the hell happened here?”

  “Beats me,” Kallie said, ducking as a bottle smashed against the wall behind her. A moan came from near her feet. Sholto spared a quick glance around and down, and saw Markus. The barman was behind the bar, curled up in a tight ball, hugging a half-full bottle.

  “This is your area more than mine, Colm. What do we do now?” Sholto asked.


  But before Colm had to answer, the doors swung open, and Whitley led the sailors and Marines inside. They didn’t fight. In pairs, they simply grabbed the closest brawling rioter and dragged them to the doorway where they were passed to a second rank. Those people weren’t in uniform. They were dressed in civilian garb. Either passers-by or onlookers, they’d become the admiral’s newest recruits.

  Ten minutes later, those who could stand had been hauled outside to sober up in the cold winter’s air, with the more serious cases taken to the infirmary. Those who’d been cowering in the warehouse’s far corner had been taken outside to give a statement. Aside from Markus, that still left three inside, unconscious.

  “What happened?” the admiral asked Colm as she knelt down to examine the nearest of the fallen. “Pulse is weak,” she said, addressing a corporal. “Possible head trauma. Get a back-board. Colm?’

  “What happened? They got drunk,” Colm said, as the admiral moved to the next recumbent rioter, and the corporal ran to get a stretcher. “The first we knew about it was about half an hour ago. Maybe forty minutes. It was when Mr Fenwick ran into the command centre, his face covered in blood. He said there was a riot. Said he’d tried to stop it. He… he sort of took charge. He’s shaping up, that man. John had taken his people to…” Colm paused, looking at Markus then at the medics by the three prone drunks. “Lieutenant Whitley had gone to secure the armoury. Mr Fenwick went to the checkpoint to gather a few more guards. Kallie and I came straight here.”

  “You ran into a riot, alone and unarmed?” the admiral said. She turned back to the medic. “This man needs his stomach pumped. Move him, now!” She stepped aside as her medics hurried the man from the room. The admiral crossed over to Markus.

  “I had an axe-handle when I first came in,” Colm said. He shrugged. “This isn’t my first bar fight. When Mr Fenwick told us where it was, I guessed what the cause might be. We knew Markus had talked about opening a bar. He’d even asked me how he’d go about applying for a licence. I told him to wait a few more days, until things settled down. Clearly, he didn’t want to wait. No, this wasn’t my first bar fight, though come to that, this wasn’t a bar fight like any I’ve ever seen. They were really ripping into one another. Let me rephrase that. I’ve seen fights in bars like this, and I’ve seen fights like this, but not the two together, and not at this time of day.”

  “Even so, you should have waited for support,” the admiral said. “Markus will live. He should come in for observation overnight, and will have a few bruises to accompany a headache tomorrow.”

  “What support?” Kallie replied. “You and Siobhan had gone into Belfast. Everyone else is busy looking for—”

  Colm coughed.

  “Everyone else is busy,” Kallie said. “Whom should we have waited for?”

  “Fair point,” Sholto said loudly before the teenager began a shouting match with the admiral. “When did it begin? About half an hour ago?”

  “It’s been about thirty minutes since Fenwick came into the command centre, give or take,” Colm said. “But by the look of ’em, they’ve been drinking all day.”

  The admiral crossed to the last prone figure. “He’s dead,” she said. “Stabbed, by the look of it. There’s no sign of the knife. Where’s Siobhan?”

  “Outside, ma’am,” the corporal said. “Taking statements.”

  “Does anyone know this man’s name?” the admiral asked.

  “Giovanni Marcano,” Colm said. “He was from Milan. Just outside, anyway. He was a wood-carver by trade. That’s not what he called it, but it’s what it came to. He made decorative surrounds for the interiors of luxury boats. That’s how he survived the outbreak. The owner flew Giovanni out to his yacht, along with a few others from the shipyard. He didn’t just want a crew, but people who could keep his boat afloat. What he forgot were supplies. When food ran low, Giovanni and all the others were thrown into a lifeboat and set adrift, but the Vehement found them.”

  “He survived all that to die here?” the admiral said. “I need to be a doctor for a time. Corporal, get Siobhan, then get a stretcher for this man. I don’t want it widely known that someone has died.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’ll help you with that stretcher,” Colm said.

  Sholto went back to the improvised bar. Markus still lay beneath it, clutching a bottle.

  “Hey, Markus?” Sholto said. “Time to face the music. Markus? Markus?”

  Markus groaned.

  “Is he injured?” Kallie asked, having followed Sholto over.

  “The admiral doesn’t think so,” Sholto said. “He’s just drunk. Or insensible, at least.” He had to tug to pull the bottle from the man’s arms. “He’s only drunk half of it. And it’s wine, not anything stronger.”

  The door opened. Siobhan came in. She headed straight for the corpse, and gave the deceased a brief examination. She took out the smart phone that Sholto had given her less than an hour before, took a string of quick photographs, but then put the phone away.

  “There’s not much we can do,” she said, coming over. “There’s no point collecting DNA, since we’ll never be able to process it. I think it was an accidental death. Someone threw a punch, forgetting they had a knife in their hand.”

  “You could do a cast of the wound, can’t you?” Kallie asked.

  “Yes, yes, I suppose we could, but everyone carries a knife. A lot of people have more than one. It would be an utter nightmare trying to check each blade, and if the killer is aware of what they did, that knife will now be in the sea. If it was accidental, we’ll get a confession. If it was deliberate, we’ll have to rely on witness statements. Right now, those witnesses are all outside, and in no fit state to identify themselves, let alone anything they saw.”

  “They’re that drunk?” Sholto asked. He lifted the half-empty wine bottle he’d taken from Markus. “That drunk on wine?”

  “Just because it’s in a wine bottle,” Siobhan said, “doesn’t mean there’s wine inside.”

  Kallie pointed at a tumbler with an inch of liquid still in the bottom. “It looks like wine. Red wine.”

  “A Beaujolais, according to the label,” Sholto said. He pushed the tables apart, stepped over Markus, and picked up an empty bottle. “It’s the same on this label.” A little further along the improvised bar was a green plastic crate containing another ten empty bottles. Sholto picked up one and then the next. “It’s the same on all of them. Looks like…” He scanned his torch left and right. “Looks like twenty-two— No, twenty-three empties. Sixteen unopened. Two open and partially full, counting the bottle Markus was hugging.”

  “But how many broken bottles?” Kallie asked.

  “At least five,” Siobhan said. “Maybe ten. Most of the broken glass is clear, not tinted. It’s from drinking glasses, not bottles. Kallie, check outside, see if there are any more empties in the rubbish pile. On your way back, grab the corporal. We’ll need a couple of people to help carry Markus to the… to the infirmary, I think. Quick as you can.”

  Kallie left. Siobhan walked across the room, playing her light across the broken chairs and overturned tables, then on the bedrolls and bags in the furthest corner of the room.

  Sholto turned back to Markus. The man had curled up into an even tighter ball. Sholto picked up the tumbler with the inch of red liquid still inside. He gave it a sniff. “This doesn’t smell right.”

  “You’re a wine drinker?” Siobhan asked.

  “Not really,” Sholto said. “But viniculture was a reliable icebreaker at high-end fundraisers. I might not know much, but I knew more than the people from whom I was trying to squeeze a donation. This smells far too chemical.” He gave another, more tentative, sniff. “If I was served this in any bar, any restaurant, I’d send it back.”

  “Did you see that film a few years ago, The Enemy Among Us?” Siobhan asked.

  “The alien invasion thing? I saw the posters. Saw the trailer. Didn’t have time to see the movie.”
>
  “Due to tax breaks, they filmed most of it in Ireland. There’s a scene where the president’s Chief of Staff is revealed to be one of the alien imposters. The scene takes place in the wine cellar beneath the White House, but they filmed it in a golf club in County Cork. That was my patch at the time. In the film, the wine cellar was supposed to contain the most expensive and rarest wines, and the props people went overboard on verisimilitude. The bottles were an exact copy of the real thing. Label, cork, foil. Now, a month later, when filming had finished and they were closing the set, the props manager noticed that two hundred of those bottles had gone missing. Not much was made of it at the time. A report was filed so the insurance could be claimed, and then it was forgotten. Six months later, the police were called to a racetrack on the other side of the county where a man refused to pay his bill. He’d ordered a bottle of the most expensive wine on the menu and said it was a fake.”

  “It was one of the props?”

  “The assistant who’d ordered the wine bottles for that particular scene had deliberately arranged for the overly accurate fakes with this fraud in mind. The original contents were water and red dye. She’d syringed those out and replaced the liquid with supermarket plonk, and had sold it for five hundred euros a bottle.”

  “How much was the restaurant charging?”

  “Two thousand euros a bottle. We recovered four more bottles from the racetrack, fifteen bottles from the woman’s home. The rest had been sold, and drunk.”

  “An interesting lesson in human behaviour,” Sholto said, bending down. “There’s another three empty bottles here. Can’t see any more, though.” He stood, stepped over the now groaning Markus, and across to Siobhan. “I don’t think the story is relevant to this situation. Who here would care if someone might once have paid five thousand dollars, or only five dollars, for a bottle?”