Unusually, I had been given more detail on this occasion. The briefing had painted an appalling picture of the group I was about to encounter. The targets were home-grown jihadists, intent on committing a terrorist atrocity. If successful, they would kill thousands of innocents.
Hopkins himself had attended my briefing, saying nothing until the end. Then he'd put a hand on my arm and looked me in the eye.
"Daniel, these traitors won't look like soldiers. They have to blend in with society unnoticed. They've been lying to their families, friends, neighbours, and co-workers for years while they prepare for this attack. These people will do or say anything in pursuit of their deluded ideals. Do not give them that chance. Hit them fast, hit them hard, and send a message to others of their ilk that their cowardly acts will only get them killed."
He'd turned to go, then changed his mind, facing me once more. I'd found something to look at on the ceiling. I may be able to crush a house brick between my finger and thumb, but something about Hopkins has always given me the willies. His moustache twitched.
"The good, decent folk of Great Britain can sleep easy, safe in their beds while you're around to defend them. I'm proud of you, my boy."
It was the longest speech I'd ever heard him give. He put out his hand and shook mine gravely and with absolute sincerity. If I hadn't spotted him using half a bottle of hand sanitizer thirty seconds later, I might even have been moved by it.
As I walked towards the warehouse, its dark brick exterior lit by a single lamppost, I wondered again why he'd decided to add his personal authority to the briefing.
I was three yards away from the wall. I slowed, watching and listening. The bricks looked to be the usual grimy, soot-stained variety, their layers of dirt probably dating back to the reign of Victoria. The floor was littered with sweet wrappers, dog shit, newspapers, and cheaply printed leaflets for prostitutes. The only sound was the usual London hum of traffic and a fox screaming a few streets away.
I reached the wall and put one hand on it. Then I waited.
Back in the van, my handler pressed the button that triggered the drug's release into my veins.
My pupils shrank to pinpricks before dilating again.
My awareness of my surroundings dimmed for a few seconds, then everything hummed into raw, vibrant life around me. I saw tiny insects crawling across the wall, I felt the bricks themselves vibrating under my fingers as I took three or four quick, deep breaths.
The power started its inexorable build-up to unstoppable violence and temporary madness.
I wonder if my handlers felt like bomber crews in military planes, the ones who pressed the button and released the payloads. Was there an emotional reaction as that grim piece of death-dealing machinery dropped away from the aircraft? What went through their minds as they dispatched a machine whose only purpose was to destroy everything it encountered?
There were four walls between me and the terrorists in the third room.
I took two steps back, turned my shoulder towards the first wall and ran straight into it.
19
I felt the wall crumble as my body followed my shoulder into the warehouse. The first unit was an empty shell. Rats scurried in panic as I thundered through, picking up speed.
Twelve seconds after breaching the outer wall, I hit the next. The interior walls weren't as thick as the exterior, and I barely slowed as I crashed through.
The second unit was half-full of cars. Stolen cars, I later concluded. There were number plates stacked on a low table at the back, and one corner was set aside for respraying vehicles.
There were three rows of cars between me and the targets - the last row parked against the far wall.
A gap had been left between the cars as a walkway. If I had been capable of making logical decisions at that point, I might have swerved onto the walkway and hit the wall there. As it was, my mind was empty of anything other than the desire to run, to punch and kick, to tear apart, to crush, to pulverise.
Mindfulness gurus might do well to consider what was going on in my brain, as I was a model disciple. When you are washing up, just be washing up. When you are eating your breakfast, just be eating your breakfast. When you are violently maiming and killing people, just be violently maiming and killing people. I don't imagine they'll be featuring me in any commercials.
I jumped as I got close to the first row of cars, then three metal-crunching big paces took me to the wall. It was a freakishly destructive hop, skip, and jump.
After landing on the bonnet of a bright red Mazda, I hopped onto a Ford Focus, then skipped to a Range Rover, in all three cases denting the cars beneath my feet. From the Range Rover, I leaped at the wall.
The element of surprise had been slightly lost by the amount of noise I'd made.
In an explosion of brickwork and plasterboard, I hurtled into the room and landed on the floor, rolling and standing up in a movement Station had made me practise so often it had a kind of balletic grace. Even when I did it.
I scanned the room. It looked like a terrorist cell should look, according to my briefing. Camp beds along the wall, four of them. Rudimentary washing facilities in the near right hand corner. A screened-off area, possibly a shower. A big table in the far right corner with the remains of a meal on it. Two people sitting there, looking up in shock.
To my left, a man rolled off another bed. He was scrabbling around at his feet, reaching for a shotgun. I ran at him before he could lift and aim.
I was almost close enough to swing my first punch when something hit my left shoulder and spun me to one side. I skidded on the concrete floor and looked behind me. Another man had appeared from the screened area. He raised a hand and slapped the air in front of him as if swatting a fly. Ten yards away, I felt a blow to the side of my face that rocked me. I paused for half a second, confused, then roared with fury.
At that stage, I was still in there somewhere, still able to direct my behaviour. I can't—I won't—pretend otherwise.
"Christ, Carrie," said the one who'd slapped the air, "he's strong. How can he be that strong?"
He raised both hands this time and swivelled as if he were an Olympic hopeful swinging an invisible hammer. As his clenched fists came around, I felt a blow on the side of my head that made me take a correcting step to the side.
And that was when the balance shifted past the point of no return. The firework display began inside my head. All I could do was watch the show. I was no longer in control.
I turned to the nearest hostile. He pumped the shotgun and fired into my chest. I was pushed backwards by the impact. I almost fell and screamed with pain. Shotguns hurt.
My other attacker used this distraction to hit me again with...whatever it was he was hitting me with. I think the blow might have done more damage if I hadn't been pushed out of position by the shotgun. It felt like someone had slapped my ear and something skimmed the side of my head.
I grabbed the smoking shotgun by the barrels. It was still hot. I jabbed at him with the stock and heard his skull crack before he fell. If his brain had survived the force of the blow, it wouldn't be good for much from now on.
I heard a woman's voice screaming something over and over. The other figure at the table with her was standing now, keeping his body between the screaming woman and me.
I turned and ran for the second attacker, picking up anything I could find and throwing it at him as I approached. A mattress, a saucepan, a suitcase, a pile of books, they all flew towards him.
Nothing hit him, despite the speed and accuracy behind my throws. He held his hands in front of his face and seemed to brush them aside before they reached him. Not that it made much difference, because by the time he had deflected the last book, I was on him.
I didn't waste time on niceties. I was here to kill terrorists. Somehow, this man had hurt me. I punched his ribcage through his lungs and heart. His expression as he died was one of shock and frustration.
Now it was two against one. Not
good odds for them. I ran towards the table and met the final man halfway.
My fist was raised when my power-fuelled brain decoded what it was the woman was screaming, over and over.
"Daniel! Daniel!"
For a split second, my brain re-engaged and allowed a coherent thought to materialise. How? How did she know my name?
My hesitation was tiny, but enough to allow my assailant to throw the first punch, which wouldn't normally bother me.
This punch bothered me.
My head snapped back, and I tasted blood. Enraged, and incredulous, I flung myself onto him.
I can't describe the fight that followed. It's not that I don't want, or can't bring myself to detail the struggle between us, it's just that I was on such a power-high that I had no idea what I was doing. I was a raging, screaming, superstrong killing machine with no way of stopping.
He was about my age, broad, incredibly strong. Just not as strong as me.
After a few minutes filled with the savage, grim sounds of a fight to the death I pulled myself up from the floor, my hands wet with blood.
The final target was still sitting at the table, looking at me. She had stopped screaming during the fight. Her expression was numb, but her voice, when she spoke, was surprisingly calm.
"Daniel, I know it's hard for you to hear me, but I need you to try. Daniel, please."
By then, I was at the stage where language had little meaning. As the power surged, my rational mind retreated, until little capacity for thought remained. The power was everything, my self-awareness virtually gone. The final stage was unconsciousness, my strength burned out like a tissue thrown into a roaring fire. I felt a moment of confusion at the fact that I could understand her words.
As I walked towards her, I could sense my power reaching the end of its surge, the heavy, irresistible weariness pulling at the edges of my awareness. I would have to be quick.
"Daniel, I know what Station is doing to you. This is not who you are."
I stopped. A sudden flash of anger, confusion, fear, and shame shot through me. I looked at her properly. She was short, had long red hair pulled back into a ponytail. Green eyes. She looked tired, scared, and desperately sad.
I took another step towards her.
"I know how you felt when your power first kicked in. I know how scared you were that morning when your bed collapsed. When you looked in the mirror and saw a new face appearing. The day you asked your mum to tell you the truth about your father."
I stopped again and shook my head. How was this possible? How could this crazy jihadist know about me? How was I able to think at all? Every other mission had ended with me unconscious after the power had run its course. This was different. Something in her voice had reached through the fog and found me.
I felt the exhaustion tug at me, more insistent now. There was no time. I stepped forward and put my hand around her neck. I could make it quick, at least.
"You're not the only one, Daniel. Think about it. You're being used." She seemed unafraid as I prepared to squeeze. Once again I hesitated.
"You must fight what they're doing to you. They drug you to keep you compliant. Wait."
My hand was still at her throat, but I didn't tighten my grip. Waves of exhaustion were coming faster now. Soon, I wouldn't be able to stand. She looked as exhausted as I felt. She was finding it difficult to speak, sweat breaking out on her brow, her breath shortening. She put her hands on mine.
"Daniel. Look around you."
I looked back at the carnage I had left in my wake. Followed the direction of her gaze. She was staring at the body of the final terrorist. The strong one. His face was swollen and bloody. I felt cold shock numb my senses. When he had attacked me, I had seen a stranger, bearded and wild-eyed. The face of a crazed terrorist, a fanatic. Now I saw him as he was. Underneath the damage I had inflicted, it wasn't the face of a stranger. He looked so much like me, he could have been my brother.
What had I done?
The woman's voice reached me as if she was speaking from the end of a long tunnel. With a huge effort, I wrenched my attention back to her.
"Your masters at Station are not your friends, Daniel. You are not helping your country. Look around you. What did Station tell you? Who do you think we are? We're—"
She stopped, then took two quick, horrible rasping breaths, before her head fell backwards. That was when I saw the bullet hole in her neck and the hot red blood arcing away from the wound, spattering the table and the pages of the book she had been reading as she slumped sideways, her life ebbing away.
I sank to my knees, the unstoppable debilitation finally claiming me. I fell sideways to the floor and, through a curtain of red rain, watched my handler walk towards the table, his cold eyes focussed somewhere beyond me, his right hand holding a pistol.
20
Cressida
September 9th, 1978
The news broke this morning. No photographs, so much of the piece comes across as conjecture, but still. It's unhelpful. Whatever Abos is, or may become, he's not ready for the intense attention that would ensue if his existence were to become common knowledge. I just wrote 'if', but it's 'when.' A secret this big is too big for even the most secret of the British secret agencies. One day soon, everyone will know him.
And I will have lost him.
The piece, by Justin Needham, may make his name when the rest of the world catches on, as the first documented public sighting of Abos. Although, if Mr Needham is serious about his career as a journalist, he will have to go easier on the wild speculation. It's almost laughable. Almost.
I have the newspaper clipping.
The Daily Herald. Saturday, September 9th, 1978
A REAL SUPERHERO...AND HE'S BRITISH!
By Justin Needham, Crime Reporter.
A dawn raid on Hoxton's, one of Old Broad Street's most exclusive jewellers, ended in dramatic fashion yesterday when a mysterious superhuman figure intervened. A police chase had closed in on the two thieves' getaway vehicle in Finsbury Circus when they crashed into a refuse lorry on its morning round.
The two suspects in the robbery, Barry Gregory, forty-two, and Kevin Innes, twenty-eight, were taken to nearby Royal London Hospital, where they were treated for whiplash and minor injuries, before being remanded in custody.
This is the third raid on a London jewellers in the last four months, and a police source confirmed they were 'confident' the pair were behind the earlier crimes.
However, the crash that ended the criminals' spree has an incredible twist, which would be almost impossible to believe if it were not for the presence of witnesses.
Council worker Fred Ward, fifty-one, was standing directly in the path of the getaway car when it drove around the south-west side of Finsbury Circus at speeds approaching sixty-five miles per hour.
"I left it too late to run," Mr Ward told me, minutes after the incident. "I knew my number was up. I closed my eyes and waited for the car to hit me."
What happened next was seen by two independent witnesses.
Before the car hit Mr Ward, a man ran from the park, lifted him off his feet and brought him across the road to safety. An amazing act of heroism but there's more to this story. No one saw the man anywhere near the road before the crash - in fact, all three witnesses insist he wasn't there. The speed at which he ran was so fast that no one actually saw the moment he saved Mr Ward. And, although there is some confusion about what this mysterious stranger looks like, on one point all accounts agree: he is the tallest, biggest man they've ever seen.
Mrs Sylvia Lewis, sixty-three, watched from her bedroom window as the car approached. She described what happened.
"I can still hardly believe it, to tell you the truth. If it had been night time, I bet you'd have thought I'd been drinking, but at that time in the morning, well, sober as a judge, I was. As a judge. I saw the car hit the bin lorry, and I thought to myself, 'well, that's it, Syl, he's a goner, isn't he? He'll be all squashed and suchlike.' Awf
ul. So I had a good look, but I couldn't see him at all, just the car all smashed up. Then, stone me, but I look down, and he's on the pavement underneath my window. Chatting to this big bloke, he was, thanking him, like. And I'm telling you, as God is my witness, the big fellow wasn't there when I first looked out of my window. I swear it. I reckon that binman had a guardian angel, and I saw him."
Terry Gannon, thirty-one, is a colleague of Mr Ward's, and had just collected the bin from number thirty, Finsbury Circus. He was on the other side of the lorry when the thieves' car crashed into it.
"I didn't see nothing cause the lorry was in the way, right, not until Fred appeared on the pavement with that massive bloke. I mean, you got to understand, this bloke is huge, right? You ain't ever seen nothing like the size of him. That Giant Haystacks on the telly would look like a midget against this bloke. About ten-foot high, I'm telling you. Almost as wide, too. Built like a brick, well, you know, like a brick...like a brick. He talked to Fred for a minute, then he walked off. I reckon he's a science experiment by the army or something. He was wearing green, like a soldier, Maybe he's, you know, one of them test tube babies or something. Have to be a bloody big test tube, mind you."
Mr Ward got the closest to his mysterious benefactor, but admitted he was so shaken up that he 'couldn't take it all in.'
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