Heads or Hearts

by Paul Johnston

‘I’ve interrogated the deputy supply guardian,’ Doris said. ‘He didn’t say anything about this.’

  ‘He wouldn’t volunteer his involvement, would he? You’ll have to go back to him. Did he admit anything else?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said, a steely glint in her eye. ‘Knowledge of drug-trafficking and the treasure trove in the Pleasance, and tolerating gang involvement in his directorate. He’s for demotion and the mines.’

  ‘Are the outsiders still here?’ I asked.

  ‘The Orkney and Shetland governors have left, but the Glaswegians and the Lord of the Isles are in Edinburgh for another two days.’

  I thought about that. I had the distinct feeling something bad was about to happen.

  ‘Have your people turned up any more arms dumps?’

  ‘No. We’re still checking likely places though.’

  ‘Good.’ I got to my feet.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To eat.’

  ‘All right. I’ll see you in the command centre afterwards.’

  But I never got to the canteen, let alone Guardian Doris’s home base. Neither did she.

  Davie and I were on the cobbles leading to the canteen when the first explosion happened. We ran to the ramparts. The rain had stopped and a red glow came from the north-east.

  ‘It’s at Easter Road,’ Davie said after calling the command centre. ‘The Hibernian stadium.’

  ‘Let’s get down there,’ I said. We were halfway to the esplanade when the second blast went off. This time it was to the west.

  Davie made another call and held the line open for a report. Meanwhile, we kept running.

  ‘Tyneside,’ he said as we reached the ranks of 4×4s.

  ‘The Hearts ground?’

  ‘Where else?’

  ‘You take Easter Road, I’ll go to Tyneside.’

  He frowned, but accepted my decision. ‘Take some of my people with you.’

  ‘Ditto.’

  There was chaos as Guard personnel skidded over the wet asphalt, their hobnailed boots as useful as slippers in a snow storm.

  When I had a driver and two guardsmen, I gave the order to set off. Davie immediately called.

  ‘There are reports of machine-gun and small-arms fire. I’m sending more people after you. Wait at Bank Street.’

  I didn’t pass that on – no time to lose.

  The driver used his lights and siren and we made it to the Dalry Road in ten minutes. The traffic was backed up there, so I told the guardsmen to follow me on foot. They had Hyper-Stuns and service knives, while I was unarmed. For some reason, that didn’t make me think twice.

  As we got nearer to the football ground, we heard screaming between grenade blasts and the rattle of automatic weapons.

  ‘We should wait for backup, citizen,’ one of the guardsmen said.

  ‘You wait if you want. People need help up there.’ I ran on, the breath rasping in my throat.

  The guardsmen overtook me easily, which was a tonic. Then a crowd of citizens came towards us and we had to fight our way through them. Some had their hands to their heads, blood leaking between their fingers, while others were holding children and helping old people.

  We were near the road that leads to the stadium when there was another explosion. My ears rang as part of the east stand roof canted over and crashed to the ground. I was pulled down by a guardsman. Flashes of light came from the windows facing us.

  ‘At least six shooters,’ another guardsman shouted. ‘We need to wait for support.’

  I knew that wouldn’t make much difference, given that the castle’s armoury wasn’t well stocked with machine guns or explosives. The Council had preferred to invest in Hyper-Stuns, which are fine for close-quarters fighting but of limited use in full-on combat, which is why almost all the Public Order Directorate’s guns are on the city line and border.

  So I crawled on, taking cover between vehicles riddled by bullets. I managed to make it to the far right of the car park. Then I saw a black-clad figure smash a window above me and throw a grenade.

  It bounced off the roof of the nearest car – an official club vehicle with the emblem of the heart from the Royal Mile on its door – and came straight towards me.

  TWENTY-SIX

  My experience in the Guard, rusty though it was, kicked in. I caught the cylindrical metal object and threw it back. It exploded outside the window. There was no one there when the smoke cleared. I made a dash for the wall. No one fired at me so I went for the door at the end of the building. It was unlocked, but that was hardly a blessing. I wasn’t safer inside than out unless I could do something about the shooters.

  I almost wet myself when the door banged open again. Two of the guardsmen piled in, Hyper-Stuns in their right hands. They shook their heads when I asked about their comrade.

  ‘What do we do, citizen?’ asked one of them, a middle-aged man with a bald head – he’d lost his beret.

  ‘Well, Geoffrey—’

  ‘Geoff,’ he corrected. Diminutives weren’t allowed on name badges.

  ‘Right. Were you seen heading here, Geoff?’

  ‘We were,’ said the other guardsman, who was younger and called Rufus.

  ‘They’ll be coming for us,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, we need to get away from here now,’ said Geoff.

  We ran down the passage, past changing rooms and equipment stores.

  ‘Stop!’ I said, going into a well-equipped gym. ‘See anything we can use?’

  Rufus picked up a fork with a long stock. ‘How about this?’

  ‘Better than nothing,’ I said, taking it.

  ‘These might be handy,’ said Geoff, picking up a dumbbell.

  ‘Bloody right.’ Rufus took another. ‘We’ve got our knives too.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ I muttered, looking round the door and pulling my head back quickly. ‘Two men in black combat gear and balaclavas, both armed with two machine-pistols.’

  ‘Since they didn’t fire, they mustn’t have seen you,’ whispered Geoff. ‘Stand by.’

  The door was open and I had a flashback. A grenade came in and I managed to catch it, throw it back and crash to the floor with my hands over my ears. The blast was still shattering.

  The guardsmen got to their feet and we moved slowly to the passage. Blood and other body matter were splattered over the walls.

  Rufus picked up one of the machine-pistols. ‘Useless,’ he said. ‘Pity.’

  The same went for the other weapons. We didn’t bother searching the ravaged bodies. I did pull off the balaclavas, but couldn’t make much of the facial remains.

  ‘Shit,’ said Geoff. ‘I know that guy. He’s in Hume. Used to serve on the city line.’

  A guardsman. It made sense. Members of the Public Order Directorate had been turning blind eyes or worse since the first heart had been put in place.

  ‘What is this?’ Rufus said. ‘A revolution?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said, calling Davie. He didn’t answer, which made my heart pound. Had he been hit or was he in the heat of battle?

  ‘We need to move on,’ Geoff said, leading us down the passage.

  It ended at the club’s reception hall, team photos old and new all over the walls.

  Bullets ricocheted around us as he pulled his head back.

  ‘Fuck!’ he said, moving backwards. ‘There are at least four of them.’

  ‘What do we do?’ Rufus said.

  My years in the Guard took over. ‘Draw them to us,’ I said. ‘When they’re close, we can deal with them.’

  ‘What about grenades?’ Geoff said.

  I smiled. ‘Leave them to me. Right, get off some blasts with your Hyper-Stuns.’

  They did so, provoking a prolonged blast of fire. I opened the door to what looked like a ticket office – there were narrow windows with circular grilles in the centre.

  ‘Grenade!’ Rufus yelled.

  I turned round and managed to kick it through the doorway. After it exploded, I couldn’t he
ar anything. I signed to the others not to return fire. I watched as a grenade came through the air in front of me and managed to deflect it into the room with my hand. I motioned to the others to stand flat against the wall of the ticket office and nodded at the dumbbells. They got the message.

  After a couple of minutes the first shooter came cautiously down the passage. The second he turned towards us, Rufus swung the dumbbell against the side of his head. He went down and was instantly hauled into the room. The guardsmen took his machine-pistols.

  ‘All clear?’ another of the shooters yelled. My hearing was muffled but at least I heard it. I nodded to Geoff.

  ‘Clear!’ he shouted. It was a standard response – if our attackers were Guard personnel, they might buy it.

  ‘I want them alive,’ I said. ‘Use your Hyper-Stuns, but not on maximum.’

  They nodded.

  The next man to appear was more cautious than the first, but Rufus got him the split-second he saw us. How many more were there? The shooting had stopped throughout the stand. Maybe they were making a getaway. I passed that thought on to the others.

  ‘We need to get after them,’ Geoff said. ‘Let’s do it.’

  I exchanged the fork for a machine-pistol, while the others put down the dumbbells.

  ‘Use one of them as a shield,’ I said.

  Rufus picked up the man he had almost brained and moved slowly towards the end of the passage. Then he pushed on, ducking behind the unconscious man. Nothing happened.

  ‘Clear!’ he shouted.

  I recalled times when the drugs gangs had lured us into advancing. ‘No!’ I screamed.

  There was a blast of fire and Rufus fell back, the shield on top of him. They’d both taken shots to the head and chest.

  ‘Fuck!’ Geoff yelled. Then he put his hand round the edge of the wall and loosed off the entire magazine of a machine-pistol. He waited, then did the same with another of the enemy’s weapons.

  I looked at him, then nodded. We ran into the hall, heading for the staircase. On the way I saw a black-clothed man sprawled over the railing and another at the bottom of the steps.

  ‘Down!’ Geoff screamed, taking a round in the shoulder before he managed to fire back.

  I saw a man in black run out of the doors to the left, heading for the pitch. I grabbed Geoff’s Hyper-Stun and went after him. He wasn’t moving too fast – perhaps he’d been hit – and by the time he was on the grass he was struggling. I wasn’t in the mood to play games, not least because he had a machine-pistol slung over his shoulder. I couldn’t remember what Davie had said about the Hyper-Stun’s range, so I waited until I was about ten yards behind the fleeing attacker. Then I let him have it. He flew through the air horizontally, like a footballer going for an outrageous header, and hit the ground hard, his weapon detaching itself and landing several yards away.

  I looked around the remaining stands and saw no one through the rain. Either the attackers were all out of action or the survivors had escaped. I pulled off the stunned man’s balaclava and got a major shock of my own.

  The eyes of Brian Cowan, the education guardian, stared unseeingly up at me.

  A few minutes later reinforcements arrived, led by Guardian Doris. I pulled Cowan’s balaclava on so Guard personnel wouldn’t recognize him and told her to send a squad round to the rear of the stadium, and others to set up roadblocks all around. My phone rang.

  ‘Quint. Are you OK?’

  ‘Yes, Davie.’

  ‘Why are you shouting?’

  ‘Hearing’s messed up. What’s going on at Easter Road?’

  ‘It’s quiet now, but there was a lot of shooting until a few minutes ago. Get this – some of the dead are guardsmen and women.’

  ‘Same here.’ I decided to keep quiet about Brian Cowan until I’d spoken to Doris. ‘I wonder if the others are Glaswegians.’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘Have you blocked all the neighbouring roads?’

  ‘What do you think? I’m not sure if any of them got away.’

  ‘Casualties?’

  ‘I lost three good people and two are wounded. I’m going to crucify the fuckers we didn’t kill.’

  ‘You didn’t have your Hyper-Stuns on maximum?’

  ‘Unfortunately not. We captured some of their weapons.’

  ‘Same here. You are, of course, carrying out a full sweep of the facility.’

  ‘You can, of course, kiss my hairy arse. Out.’

  The guardian came up. ‘I’ve got squads going through the entire place,’ she said. ‘Was that the commander?’

  ‘Yes, he’s doing the same at the Hibs ground.’ I told her about the casualties, both Davie’s and mine.

  ‘Who the hell are these people?’ she said angrily.

  I beckoned to her to kneel down and removed Cowan’s balaclava.

  ‘What?’ she said, her eyes wide. ‘This was Brian’s doing?’

  ‘With the help of his friends in the Guard. And maybe from outsiders as well.’

  ‘I don’t believe this,’ Doris said.

  ‘I never had the education guardian down as football mad either.’

  She gave me a sharp look. ‘This isn’t funny, Quint.’

  ‘Am I laughing?’ The adrenaline rush that had kept me in one piece was now receding and my hands had started to shake.

  ‘I’m finished,’ she said. ‘The Public Order Directorate will have to be purged.’

  ‘Not to mention the Education and Recreation Directorates. Still, Fergus Calder’s good at that kind of thing.’ When he’d taken over at the Supply Directorate, the senior guardian had demoted over twenty auxiliaries. Then again, Adam 159 – Uncle Joe – hadn’t been nailed. Maybe the entire Council needed to be hauled over the coals.

  Doris put the Guard on full watch and a curfew was applied in the citizen suburbs. A story was put round the tourist zone that old buildings had been demolished and the opportunity taken to carry out military exercises. No one in their right mind would have bought that, but the tourists had other priorities and there wasn’t any obvious unrest. That made me wonder what it would take to distract Edinburgh’s visitors from their fun and games. Then again, Brian Cowan and whoever was working with him had chosen not to stage attacks in the city centre. Yet.

  When things were stable at the football grounds, Davie and I went back to the castle. His face was blackened and his hands grimy. Then I saw myself in a mirror. At least my hearing was almost back to normal.

  We exchanged combat stories.

  ‘Bloody hell, you were lucky with those grenades,’ Davie said.

  ‘Luck had nothing to do with it, my friend. Years fighting the drugs gangs saved my skin.’

  ‘I thought you’d forgotten all that.’

  ‘Tried to forget it, more like. Just as well it remained in my subconscious.’

  ‘Once a guardsman, always a—’ He broke off when I raised Cowan’s machine-pistol.

  ‘Don’t mess around with firearms.’

  ‘Magazine removed, nothing up the spout. Besides, I only lifted it as high as your groin.’

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said Guardian Doris, her face the colour of a corpse. ‘I’ve been advised by the medical guardian that Brian Cowan has come round. Let’s get over to the infirmary, Quint.’

  ‘Has Sophia informed the senior guardian?’ I asked.

  ‘I asked her not to. This directorate’s got most to lose in the aftermath of the attacks. Before I report, I want to squeeze everything out of the bastard.’

  ‘That’s certainly an enticing prospect.’ I turned to Davie. ‘You’d better come too. I want the attackers who are Guard personnel identified. Then we’ll know which of them are outsiders.’

  We went down to the esplanade, the guardian accompanied by her pair of gorillas.

  Davie followed her 4×4 off the esplanade.

  ‘What the fuck’s this all about?’ he said.

  ‘We’ll see what we can get from Cowan – pity that truth drug still hasn’
t turned up. As for the attacks on the football grounds, it’s pretty obvious he’d be anti-football, especially with the gambling scheme having been revealed. You know how forceful he is about the virtues of Edinburgh independence.’

  ‘I don’t follow.’

  ‘Well, the original Enlightenment banned football. Plus, hearts were left in other cities. He must have seen that as some kind of attempt to tie Edinburgh to the rest of Scotland.’

  ‘In advance of the referendum.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So you think he was behind both the hearts and the heads?’

  ‘He’s suspect number one. Let’s see what Doris can, as she put it, squeeze out of him.’

  Davie turned into the infirmary courtyard. ‘I’ll tell you what I don’t understand. Why isn’t the senior guardian, let alone Jack MacLean, more involved in getting to the bottom of this?’

  ‘Probably keeping a strategic distance so they aren’t soiled by association.’

  ‘If Cowan’s dirty – which he obviously is – the present Council’s up Excrement Creek without any form of propulsion.’

  I laughed. ‘You’d think so. But don’t forget that Fergus Calder’s got the support of Glasgow and other cities and regions.’

  ‘Who gives a shit?’ Davie said, his nostrils flaring. ‘Fucking outsiders.’

  ‘So you’ll be voting against joining a reconstituted Scotland?’

  ‘Won’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know. Plenty might change before we get to make our crosses.’

  We got out of the 4×4 and ran through the rain. There was a heavier Guard presence than usual, which pleased me. I didn’t want anything to happen to Sophia.

  Then again, if there were dirty Guard personnel, who was safe in the city?

  Guardian Doris called me over and said she’d been called to a meeting with the senior guardian. I hoped she wouldn’t ask me to go with her. She didn’t.

  We found Sophia in her office. She looked exhausted, rubbing her eyes.

  ‘You survived,’ she said to me, as if it was an accusation. ‘What were you doing playing soldiers?’

  ‘Excuse me for trying to save the city.’

  ‘Um, I’ll wait outside,’ Davie said.

  ‘No, stay here, commander,’ Sophia ordered. ‘Tell me what happened.’