On Her Majesty's Behalf

by Joseph Nassise

  Drummond pointed to a large, raised roofing area in the southwest corner of the building, which, from Burke’s perspective, was in the back corner to his right.

  “See that raised section?” he asked Burke. “That’s the State Ballroom. The safe room was just north of that, in the corner area there.”

  Burke nodded as if he knew exactly what Drummond was talking about, but the truth was he did not. The palace was huge, easily one of the larger structures he’d ever seen, not counting the skyscrapers in New York City back home. Drummond had told him earlier that Buckingham Palace had 775 rooms, including 19 state rooms, 52 bedrooms, and 78 bathrooms, never mind all the staff apartments and business offices used for the day-­to-­day running of the kingdom.

  Without Drummond’s help as a guide, Burke had to admit that he could probably wander through the building for days before finding the room where the King and Queen were currently holed up for protection.

  “So that’s where they are?” Burke asked. “By the State Ballroom?”

  But Drummond shook his head. “That’s where they were immediately after the Germans’ attack, but we didn’t keep them there for long, especially not after the damned shredders began making an appearance. There’s a series of private apartments above the staff quarters that are occasionally used for diplomatic visitors and we moved them up there. It’s a more defensible position; only one way in and out.”

  Drummond’s remark about the shredders set off a twinge in the back of Burke’s mind. Given what they knew about their behavior, he’d expected to see dozens of them milling about outside the palace and yet he didn’t see one anywhere he looked. There were several in the park, wandering aimlessly among the trees, and they’d passed more than a handful on their way here, but not a single one within a hundred yards of the palace.

  “Where are the shredders?” he asked, more to himself than anyone else.

  Drummond must have heard him, but not well, for he leaned in closer. “What’s that?”

  “Where are the shredders?” Burke asked again, louder this time. He waved a hand toward the palace. “If the rest of your squad has been holed up inside that building for the last week protecting the King and Queen, shouldn’t there be a mob of shredders surrounding the place right about now?”

  He knew he was right and by the way Drummond began swiveling his head back and forth, searching the front of the palace for any sign of a shredder, so, too, did his companion.

  Something was terribly wrong.

  Burke was as sure of that as he was of his own name.

  He could feel Drummond’s anxiety ratcheting upward and was suddenly worried that the other man would break cover and rush into the open, so he reached out and put a hand on Drummond’s shoulder, turning his attention away from the scene before him and pulling him back down to earth before he did something rash.

  “Easy,” Burke said. “We’ve come this far, let’s not do anything stupid and screw it up now.”

  Drummond nodded and took a ­couple of deep breaths, but his eyes were still full of anxiety as he looked out at the palace.

  “How do we get in?” Burke asked, when it looked like the other man was thinking clearly again.

  Drummond pointed to a one-­story extension jutting off to the left of the main building. “Behind that wing is the Ambassadors’ Entrance. It’s half hidden in that thick copse of trees. We barricaded the entrance and posted several men there to guard it. When I left, I slipped out through that door and made my way through the trees to the street beyond.”

  “What about the fence?” Burke asked, pointing to the tall iron fence that separated the palace grounds from those of the Mall.

  Drummond shrugged. “You can climb, right, Major?”

  Provided I don’t have a horde of shredders grabbing at my heels, Burke thought.

  Then again, that might make me climb even faster.

  Aloud, he said, “Sounds good. Let’s do it.”

  He carefully didn’t mention that the presence of the guards, or the lack thereof, would also tell them if the situation inside the building had changed and possibly just how badly things had gotten out of control.

  For a hundred yards before the fence and maybe half that again after it, they would be out in the open, exposed. They could creep a little closer under the cover of the trees they were now hiding in, but they were going to run out sooner rather than later, and when they did, they wouldn’t have any options left. There simply was no way of approaching the palace from this side without crossing that space. When they did, they would be exposing themselves to view from both inside and outside the building at the same time.

  Can’t be helped, he thought. Going around the complex seemed fraught with more danger than the few seconds of exposure in front of it; who knew what was lurking around the other side.

  Yeah, well no one said this would be easy. Get off your ass, Burke, and get moving!

  Word was passed back to the others in the group and when they were ready, they made their move. Burke figured they’d have a better chance of survival if they were all together should shredders decide to break up their little party, so they left the cover of the trees as a group and raced over the open ground to the fence as quickly as they could. Jones, Williams, and Burke stood watch while the others scrambled over the fence and then Drummond, Cohen, and Montagna did the same from the other side while the others joined them.

  Nothing raced out of the building to confront them, nor did anything emerge from the trees in their wake.

  So far, so good.

  They crossed the open space on the other side of the fence and then slipped into the trees governing the approach to the Ambassadors’ Entrance, leery of anything hiding within their shade, but their fears were unnecessary.

  There were no shredders in the trees.

  Nor was there anyone manning the barricade at the entrance.

  As they approached they could see that a pitched battle had been fought just in front of the doors and recently, too. Dozens of shredder corpses lay scattered about, along with the bodies of several of the King’s Guard.

  Drummond let out a cry and rushed over to the nearest one, but the man was long past help. His head had been nearly severed from his neck by a sweep of a shredder’s claws, and his eyes stared up at Drummond without seeing.

  The same held true for all the rest.

  They’d fought hard, but eventually they’d fallen, and the shredders had made their way into the palace, if the destruction in the hallways just beyond was any kind of evidence.

  Drummond led them through the building, down hallways and up staircases, and everywhere they went they saw the same thing—­scores of shredder bodies lying beside the bodies of a few of the King’s Guard. The soldiers may have paid with their lives, but they’d made damned sure the enemy had paid a high price for each and every one.

  By the time they reached the entrance to the third-­floor apartments where the King and Queen had taken refuge, the hopes of finding them alive had dimmed considerably. Here, too, another pitched battle had been fought, and the dead were piled high in the corridor and around the doors. Shredder and human alike had fought with a ferocity that Burke found disquieting, and he wondered how many other places across the city held scenes just like this one. Was this what all of England was destined for in the days to come?

  It was a horrifying thought.

  They found the King and Queen in the back bedroom, lying side by side on the bed with identical bullet holes in the middle of their foreheads. Slumped against the wall nearby was the body of a British officer, a colonel by the look of the insignias on his uniform, the gun he’d used to blow off the top of his skull still in his mouth.

  It wasn’t hard to figure out what had happened.

  The King’s Guard had fought to protect them as long as they could, judging from the number of shredders
lying dead in the hallway. When it became obvious that there was no way out, the King and Queen had retreated into the bedroom with the colonel in tow. Not wanting to die at the hands of the shredders, the King must have given orders to the colonel and then lain down beside his wife. Steeling himself, no doubt with very little time left, the colonel must have shot the Queen first, then the King, and, after taking a seat beside his now-­dead monarchs, shot himself.

  It couldn’t have happened all that long ago, either, for the bodies had yet to start any kind of significant swelling.

  A day, maybe a day and a half at the most, Burke thought.

  At the sight of the King and Queen, Sergeant Drummond nearly collapsed, and it was only Burke’s quick reflexes that kept the man from hitting the floor. Burke helped him over to a nearby chair and lowered him into it. Tears streamed down Drummond’s face and he couldn’t seem to pull his gaze away from the deceased ­couple. Burke could guess how he was feeling, simultaneously full of grief and the nagging suspicion that the royal family might still be alive if he had returned with help sooner.

  It wasn’t true; Drummond had done all he humanly could have done to rescue the King and Queen, but time and circumstances had been against him from the start.

  Of course, if General Calhoun had not wasted time with staging a massive assault just to make himself look better . . . Burke shook the thought away before it could take hold.

  Nothing he could do about it all now.

  They had done their best, but the mission was a failure through no fault of their own.

  Knowing he couldn’t just leave the bodies of the British heads of state to rot in their bombed-­out and shredder-­infested palace, Burke made the decision to wrap them up in a set of sheets, bind them with ropes, and carry them back to the Reliant for transport back to France where they could be given a proper burial as befitted their station.

  He explained what he wanted to do to the others and they all, solemnly, agreed that it had to be done. Sergeant Drummond seemed particularly grateful.

  “All right then. Doc, why don’t you grab some sheets from the other room? Jones and Williams, you’re in charge of lifting and moving the bodies while Cohen and Montagna will find us some rope to use to secure them.”

  Burke clapped his hands. “Let’s move, ­people. The faster we get their Royal Majesties ready for transport, the faster we can get back to the Reliant and head out of here for good. I’ve had my share of shredders, if you know what I mean.”

  The men snapped into action, and soon they had several sets of sheets laid out on the floor next to the bed. They moved the Queen first, being as gentle with her corpse as they could, sliding it off the bed and lowering it into the center of the sheets for Cohen and Montagna to bundle, wrap, and tie under Doc Bankowski’s supervision.

  But as they stepped up to move the King, Burke noticed something peculiar. The King’s right hand was clenched tightly around something. He could see it, just a hint of white, maybe a piece of cloth or paper, sticking out at the bottom of his palm.

  Doc Bankowski was about to tell Jones and Williams to lift up the body when Burke stepped in their way.

  “Hold on a minute, guys.”

  Burke knelt by the edge of the bed, being certain to avoid the blood that had dripped down from the mattress and pooled on the floor, and then lifted the King’s arm so he could get a better look.

  Yep, definitely something in his hand.

  Holding the King’s wrist in one hand, he tried to pry his fingers apart with the other.

  Nothing. Whatever it was, the King had it clenched in a death grip. If he wanted to get it out, he was going to have to break the man’s fingers.

  Leave it alone, a dim voice at the back of his head said. It’s got nothing to do with you. Probably just the man’s handkerchief anyway.

  But something about the way the King was holding on to it so tightly kept nagging at Burke. It was almost like he wanted it to be found . . .

  “Sergeant Drummond, could you come here, please?”

  Drummond, who had been watching the proceedings from the far side of the room, came over as he’d been bid.

  “Major?”

  “I believe King George has something in his hand, Sergeant. Something important, though I can’t really explain why. As the only representative of the British Crown here at the moment, I’d like to ask your permission to retrieve it. Before you answer, understand that I’m going to have to break one or more of the King’s fingers in order to get it out.”

  To Burke’s surprise, the sergeant didn’t even hesitate. “If you don’t mind . . .” he said, then held out his hands as if to take the King’s forearm himself.

  Of course.

  “Certainly, Sergeant. And thank you.”

  Drummond nodded but didn’t say anything as he sat on the edge of the bed and laid the King’s arm across his lap. Holding the dead man’s wrist securely with one hand, he took hold of the King’s thumb with the other hand, took a deep, calming breath that everyone in the room could hear, and then snapped it with a dull crack.

  When that didn’t prove sufficient, he repeated the same action with the King’s index finger.

  In the end, the King didn’t want to give up his secrets lightly, and it took three broken digits before Drummond was able to slide the piece of paper King George was holding free and pass it to Major Burke.

  Burke opened the slip of paper and read the two words that were written there in a hurried scrawl.

  “What the hell is Bedlam and who is Veronica?” he asked aloud.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Bedlam”

  Bethlem Hospital

  London

  THE OBJECT OF Major Burke’s attention was at that moment staring out the window of the third-­floor ward for female patients, wondering how she was going to get her men down three floors and out of the building proper without losing them to the horde of ravaging undead that still wandered the hospital grounds.

  Frankly, she didn’t have the bloodiest idea.

  No pun intended.

  Veronica Windsor, princess of Great Britain and Ireland, continued loading rounds into the cylinder of the Webley Mk VI revolver she’d picked up from a dead soldier as she pondered the question. She knew they were running out of ammunition as well as food and wondered which staple would ultimately be their undoing.

  Would they die of starvation or fall victim to the rampaging creatures that had once been their friends and fellow workers?

  Neither opportunity sounded all that enticing, actually, but without a plan she was effectively stuck for the time being.

  Which was all the more frustrating, as she shouldn’t have been here in the first place.

  On the morning of the attack, her mother, Queen Mary, had been due to make a planned visit to Bethlem Hospital. More commonly known as Bedlam, the hospital was both a medical facility and a sanatorium for patients with various medical afflictions, and the Queen’s visit was to show her support of the changes the hospital board had made in recent months to improve the facility’s reputation. Having awoken with a severe headache, the Queen asked Veronica to come in her place. She was halfway through the tour when the bombing started.

  At first the leader of her protective detail, a Black Watch captain from the King’s own Guard named Samuel Morrison, hadn’t wanted to expose her to the danger presented by the bombs hammering the city streets. “We’ll stay here, hunker down, and return to the palace when the attack has passed,” he said. By the time they realized that the green gas that was starting to flow through the city streets was a far greater threat than the bombs themselves, many of the patients and staff inside the hospital had been exposed to the chemical agent through the windows that had been broken in the bombing run and had become infected. Within minutes dozens of them had been transformed into flesh-­hungry ghouls who then fel
l on their comrades, ripping and tearing their flesh with their teeth and bare hands.

  Veronica had never been more terrified in her life.

  None of the protection detail had been carrying gas masks and there were a few frantic moments spent assembling makeshift ones from portable respirators and oxygen tanks in a supply room off the main ward while two of her guards stuffed wet towels into the cracks around the door in an effort to keep the gas out.

  Their efforts had given the others time to get their masks in order, but the two soldiers had paid the price, transforming right in front of Veronica into horrible, undead creatures like those she’d heard roamed the battlefields of the Continent.

  The next several days had been a blur, with Captain Morrison and his men doing their level best to protect her from the ever-­increasing number of creatures wandering about the hospital grounds. Each time they thought they’d found a safe haven to hide and let their wounds heal, the damned zombies found them again. It was almost like they were sniffing them out, like hounds on a fox!

  Her protection detail started with six men, plus Captain Morrison. Now they were down to her, Morrison, and three others. All of them had suffered minor wounds of one kind or another, mostly cuts and bruises from fending off the undead, but Veronica knew it would only get worse as they grew weaker from lack of food and water.

  After noticing the zombies seemed to be a bit less active in the bright sunlight, Veronica and her team had waited until the middle of the day and then had slipped away to the third floor. They had piled several corpses in front of the first set of double doors and then retreated behind them, locking several sets of double doors between them and the entrance in the hope that they might manage to escape notice until they could figure out what to do next.

  Thankfully, their plan worked.

  Now, days later, they had exhausted their supplies and needed to make a decision about what to do next.

  “I think we should stay put,” Morrison said, his voice intense despite the whispering. “Someone is eventually going to come looking for us, and if we start wandering around, we might miss the rescue team when it comes.”