Reaper

by Jon Grahame

  He paused when he heard the noise of an engine.

  An open military Land Rover inside the camp was driving fast towards the gatehouse. He shuffled sideways and lay flat, taking advantage of the slight rise in the land before it met the fence. Two men in uniform leapt from the Land Rover and ran inside the building.

  Reaper resumed digging, desperate to get inside and give Sandra support.

  At last he had moved enough turf and loose earth to push beneath the fence on his back, head first. The wire snagged on his vest and equipment a couple of times, but he made it through. He leapt to his feet and ran until he was behind the wall. The gunfire was following a pattern, the two sides taking turns to fire.

  He peered round the corner of the wall near the barrier pole. People were shouting inside the guard house. He cocked both Glock handguns, replaced them in their holsters and then moved silently across the road until he was by the open door.

  ‘You daft bastard!’ someone shouted.

  ‘Fuck!’ yelled someone else, and this time, an extended burst of gunfire was aimed across the road and into the woods where Sandra lay hidden.

  Reaper lay the carbine on the ground and took out both handguns. As another burst was fired, he took a deep breath and stepped inside, guns levelled. The uniformed man to his left turned at the sound of his entry. He was tall and skinny, with a round head like a Belisha beacon, eyes big behind glasses, and a mouth that had dropped open in shock. Reaper shot him in the face, at the same time sending a bullet into the back of the figure leaning against a steel filing cabinet, firing out of a window. The third man began to turn but Reaper shot him before he managed it: two shots, one from each gun; head and back.

  He took a deep breath. The three bodies lay sprawled inelegantly on the floor, blood pooling, gunsmoke the dominant smell for the moment. He took a step forward, careful not to stand in the blood, the guns still ready in his hands, but they were all dead.

  ‘Sandra!’ he shouted. ‘Are you okay?’ He stepped to the windows, two of which had been opened, the others had been shattered by Sandra’s return fire. ‘It’s clear!’

  She stood up and left the cover of the trees and waved. He waved back, an immense feeling of relief sweeping over him. What would he have done if she had been hurt or killed?

  He went outside. The main gate was secured with a padlock and chain. Reaper fired at the lock three times before it burst open. He put his guns in the holsters and opened the gate. Sandra came into his arms and hugged him, then pushed herself away self-consciously.

  ‘That was a bit hairy,’ she said.

  He nodded and turned to stare into the camp to see if anyone else might be coming, but the place seemed deserted. Sandra looked towards the gatehouse.

  ‘Three dead,’ he said. ‘All in uniform.’

  They both stared at the camp. A housing complex for service families was to the immediate left, ordinary detached and semi-detached houses with gardens that could have been a Barrett estate. Military buildings were further on. A control tower in the distance dead ahead, the airfield and hangars and more single-storey buildings to the right. A giant transport plane, big enough to carry tanks, sat abandoned on the far side of the runway. A sign near the gatehouse informed visitors that this was the home of 11 Fighter Squadron.

  Sadly, not any more.

  ‘Who were they?’ Sandra asked.

  ‘They wore uniform and had military weapons, but

  . . . I don’t know . . . Rag, Tag and Bobtail? Looters?

  Muldane’s Army?’

  They exchanged a look.

  ‘Are there any more of them?’ Sandra said.

  ‘We’d better find out. We’ll use the Land Rover.

  Hang on, I’ll get their weapons.’

  He went back into the guardhouse. The three men had been armed with L85 rifles and Browning 9mm automatic pistols. He began unstrapping the belts containing the handguns and realised Sandra had joined him. He was continually amazed at how such a young girl had steeled herself to function under fire, and to accept death and the casualties of battle. Her courage filled him with pride and he knew, without doubt, that he would die for her. She picked up the rifles and took them outside. He got the last of the belts and noticed the half empty bottle of bourbon and the glass that were on a desk. Thank God the idiot who had opened fire had been too pissed to shoot straight.

  Reaper went outside and put the belts and guns in the back of the Land Rover, along with the rifles.

  ‘Do you want to drive?’ he said.

  Sandra got behind the wheel, adjusted the seat, and turned the vehicle round and drove along the concrete road. Fifty yards away, a truck was parked with its rear facing the gatehouse. Sandbags were stacked in the back of the truck around a machine gun. Arc lamps were fixed to the top of the truck. Maybe this was a night-time guard post. Sandra drove past and stopped at a junction. The road ahead ran alongside the runway and led to the control tower. He pointed left.

  ‘Let’s try there.’

  They went slowly, Reaper holding the carbine upright and at the ready. The residential housing was off another road to the left, open-plan frontages with gardens at the rear. They kept driving towards a large, handsome red brick building that looked like a small country mansion, with a wide gravel parking area out front. Sandra stopped at the side and they approached carefully, ducking below windows, as they made their way to the open front door. More sandbags and another machine gun nest, also unmanned. From inside, they could hear music playing.

  Reaper took a quick look round the doorpost then pulled his head back. No one in sight. He stepped around the sandbags and into an entrance hall, carbine at the ready, Sandra behind him. Offices to the right, a wide staircase ahead and an open door to the left from where the music came: Elton John. A sign above it said Officer’s Mess. Reaper prepared himself in case he saw another scene like the one he had witnessed in the Imperial Hotel in Scarborough. He exchanged a nod with Sandra and they both stepped through the door, giving each other space and covering the occupants inside.

  The room was large and richly carpeted, comfortable furniture, a bar to the right. A black youth in uniform lay slumped over a table, a can of lager in his hand. A young woman in a summer dress lay on a couch, knees up in a foetal position, asleep, the dress carelessly showing her legs. Two children played on the carpet, a boy about six, a girl about nine. They stopped what they were doing and stared at them with a wide-eyed gaze. A blonde-haired woman in her forties was sprawled in an armchair. She opened her eyes and blinked to focus.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Sandra said. ‘You’re safe now.’

  ‘Safe?’ the woman said.

  ‘Safe,’ Sandra said. ‘No one will hurt you anymore.’

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ she said. ‘Where’s Corp?

  And Billy and Tommy?’

  Sandra glanced at Reaper who felt his stomach lurch into emptiness. Either this was an extreme case of Stockholm Syndrome or they had jumped to a massively wrong conclusion.

  ‘I said who the hell are you?’ The woman spoke with an upper class voice that rang with authority.

  ‘And where are Corp and the boys?’

  Her rising tones had awakened the sleeping girl and the slumped airman. The girl sat up and rubbed her face, the airman squinted in an attempt to focus his thoughts. They both looked to be about seventeen.

  ‘What’s going on?’ the airman said.

  Reaper said, ‘We were fired on. We returned fire.’

  ‘Where are they?’ said the airman. ‘Where are the lads?’

  Reaper saw no point in prevarication.

  ‘They’re dead.’

  ‘They’re dead?’ said the airman, incredulous at such a concept. The girl burst into tears. The woman got to her feet.

  ‘What the hell have you done?’ she said.

  ‘We were fired on,’ Reaper said.

  ‘They were warning shots!’ she said. ‘We never shoot to kill.’

  ‘They came blood
y close to my head,’ Sandra said.

  ‘They didn’t feel like warning shots when I was in the trees.’

  ‘You’ve killed them?’ the woman said.

  ‘Oh my God, what a fuck up!’ said the airman, then looked at the woman in a reflex action and said, ‘Sorry ma’am.’

  ‘That’s quite all right, Clifford. You are perfectly correct.’ She was bristling with rage. ‘It is a complete fuck up. Now. You. Explain yourselves.’

  Reaper realised he was still pointing the carbine. He shifted its position and held it in the crook of his arm.

  ‘It seems there has been a misunderstanding. As I said, we were fired on, without warning, and felt we were in danger. No one attempted to shout to us or warn us off. They just opened fire. When we got into the guardhouse, I found a bottle of bourbon. I suspect whoever started that fire-fight had been drinking fairly heavily. But once the bullets started, we felt we had no option but to fight back.’

  ‘You could have gone away,’ the woman said.

  ‘We were under fire. Our car had been shot to pieces.

  If we had run away, we would had have been in open sight of our attacker.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have shot you.’

  ‘We couldn’t know that. We saw our only way of surviving as fighting back.’

  ‘And you killed them,’ she said, all the anger suddenly leaving her. She sank back into the armchair.

  Reaper kept his voice low. ‘I’m sorry but there was no communication. No shouted warning, no explanation. Just bullets.’

  ‘Three young men,’ she said. ‘Three good young men.’

  The airman at the table suddenly threw the can that he still gripped at the bar behind him.

  ‘Bastard!’ he said, not at them it seemed but at the situation. He dropped his head into his hands and burst into tears.

  ‘Who are you?’ the woman said. Her tone was almost conversational.

  ‘My name’s Reaper. This is Sandra. We’re from a community near Scarborough. About two hundred of us. They’re good people. We were on a scouting mission. We went to Catterick first. Thought there might be a military government of some kind but it was deserted.’

  The woman gave a tired and dispirited laugh.

  ‘So we tried here on the way back.’

  ‘Why here?’

  ‘The same reason.’ He caught her look and knew he should be honest. ‘And to see if there were any weapons or ammunition.’

  ‘Weapons. To kill more people?’

  ‘We had some bad experiences at the beginning.

  Rape and killing. And there’s a bloke at Whitby who has set himself up as a warlord. He takes women as sex slaves. We need to be able to defend ourselves.’

  The woman finally nodded, as if accepting what had happened. Her eyes glazed and she looked away, perhaps remembering the three young airmen. Reaper knew none could have been older than their early twenties.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Sandra and I escaped from a city. Law and order had broken down. Those who were left were taking what they wanted. Including women. We have seen terrible things, experienced terrible things. We have been conditioned to react the way we do.’

  Her eyes refocused and she looked at them again, first at Reaper and then at Sandra.

  ‘How old are you?’ she asked Sandra.

  ‘Eighteen.’

  The woman shook her head slowly in despair.

  ‘Emily,’ she said, ‘stop crying and make some tea.’

  Chapter 16

  THE WOMAN WAS CASSANDRA CAIRNCROSS, THE wife of a Squadron Leader. Her husband and most of the people on the base had died from the virus. The most senior surviving airman had been Flight Sergeant Harry Babbington. He had arranged for the service personnel to don plastic coveralls and face masks and search all the buildings on the airfield. Bodies had been removed and placed together in a hangar at the far end of the camp, which had been primed with aircraft fuel and an explosive device. He had moved the survivors into one accommodation block near the officers’ mess. He had, it seemed, done a good job.

  ‘We never intended to stay here,’ Cassandra told them. ‘The plan was to move out in strength and find others. Before we went, we would set the funeral pyre.

  Then we got a Morse code radio message. It said an emergency government was being formed in Windsor.

  Prince Harry had survived and people from Whitehall and the Services were gathering in Windsor Castle.

  Flight Sergeant Babbington held a meeting and told everyone what was happening. A vote was taken.

  Everyone wanted to go.’ She smiled. ‘Prince Harry. It was like a clarion call. The Flight Sergeant had twenty-seven service men and women, nine women civilians and six children.’

  She turned her head and looked at the boy and girl who were playing on the carpet.

  ‘And then these two became ill. Everyone was worried at first, thought the virus might have returned, but it turned out to be only a childhood thing. Some sick-ness and diarrhoea. Anyway, Emily and I volunteered to stay behind with them. Corporal White and three airmen volunteered to stay with us. We were to follow the main party to Windsor when they were better. They left in a convoy of trucks and took whatever equipment they could.’

  ‘The children look fine now,’ said Reaper.

  ‘They are. Bursting with health. Have been for three weeks.’

  ‘So why didn’t you follow?’ asked Reaper.

  ‘Another radio message. Very brief. It said: Returning.

  Stay where you are. Imperative, stay where you are.’

  Reaper thought before he spoke. ‘This was Morse code?’

  ‘Yes. Morse code may be basic but it is the most reliable radio communication when others fail. The RAF teaches it as a fail safe for pilots and air traffic control. Presumably, the other services make it a requirement in their signal corps.’

  ‘But so far no one has returned?’

  ‘That is correct. We have been getting anxious.

  Particularly as we have had five visits in the last eight days, one of them last night. That is why Clifford was sleeping. That is probably why Tommy was drinking.

  Nerves were shredding, Mr Reaper.’

  He nodded and said, ‘Just Reaper. It makes sense now, the fire pattern he put down. You are right, it was meant to deter. Not kill. But we didn’t know that.

  And perhaps he panicked because we returned fire.

  Had that happened before?’

  ‘A shotgun was fired at us once. And last night, someone had a pistol and a rifle. But bursts from the machine gun we have mounted as secondary defence, deterred any entry.’ A tired tip of her head indicated a mental shrug. ‘It is a big perimeter. There are easier access points. But we thought if we made a show of strength at the main gate, it would make any attacker think we were defending in force and send them away.

  Until now, it had worked.’

  ‘But after last night, everyone was on edge?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘I’m sorry. We’re sorry.’

  She shook her head. ‘Not your fault. An accident waiting to happen. Friendly fire. Casualties of war. A fucking cock up.’

  Reaper let the silence settle. It was Sandra who eventually broke it.

  ‘What will you do now? You can’t just wait. No one may come, except the people from last night. They may try to get in somewhere else. It would be best if you came with us to Haven.’

  Cassandra smiled sadly. ‘What beautiful irony. You kill us to save us.’

  ‘Things sometimes happen that way,’ said Reaper.

  Leading Aircraftman Clifford Smith insisted his comrades should be buried. He didn’t want them to go to the hangar with the other bodies. Reaper agreed.

  Besides, he could guess that opening the hangar would not be pleasant after all this time. He volunteered to help with the task.

  ‘Body bags.’ said Clifford.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We have body bags in the bunker.’

/>   ‘What bunker?’

  ‘The nuclear bunker. It was built in the sixties. It’s used for unusual storage.’

  Body bags would qualify, thought Reaper.

  They drove in the open Land Rover to the far side of the field along a perimeter road that followed the contours of the fence. The bunker was a rectangular lump in the turf about three feet high. Air ducts and a door were the only visible parts. Clifford used a key to open a set of doors, went down steps and opened another set of doors that were air-locked. He switched on lights that were as grey as the interior. They were in a complex of low ceilinged rooms: lavatory and shower block, steel bunk beds, steel tables, steel cupboards; a command position and store rooms. And a lot of missiles.

  ‘What are these, Clifford?’

  ‘It’s the stuff for the planes,’ he said, wincing at his name. ‘I’m usually known as Smiffy.’

  ‘Except by Mrs Cairncross and your mum. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Okay, Smiffy. Now explain. The stuff for the planes?’

  ‘There are eight Eurofighter Typhoons in the hangars and no one to fly them. The Flight Sergeant thought it best to store their armaments somewhere safe.’ He glanced around at the ordnance, as if ticking them off from a list in his head. ‘Air-to-air missiles, cruise missiles, anti-radar missiles, Paveway III guided bombs, ammo for the machineguns.’

  ‘It’s a lot of stuff,’ said Reaper.

  Smiffy nodded and led the way to a storeroom at the back that held tins of paint, cardboard coffins and body bags.

  ‘This place may be obsolete,’ Smiffy said, ‘but it could still save your life in a nuclear attack. Unless it took a direct hit, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  They collected three body bags and Smiffy carefully locked the doors behind him as they left. Reaper was amazed at the amount of armaments he had just seen.

  A nuclear bunker was probably the best place for it.