Surviving The Evacuation (Book 10): The Last Candidate

by Frank Tayell

  “In a short few days,” I said, “we’ve gone from worrying about holding the first election of a new era to foreseeing the last civil war of the old one? What a world.”

  “And it’s a future we can’t stop, not if the admiral leaves with Mister Mills and his crew. If that happens, we have to go with them. If it happens, and it won’t if Markus doesn’t win the election.”

  “Which means we have to get Dr Umbert elected instead,” I said.

  “The first thing we need to do is find out what kind of man he actually is, what kind of leader he might become. Is he better than a civil war in which hundreds will die? He might not be.”

  “We can’t do that until we get back to Anglesey. If he’s going to be as bad as Markus, we might as well let the admiral have her way, and sail off in search of the sunset.”

  “But if he isn’t,” Kim said. “If Umbert is a better alternative, how do we make sure he wins?”

  “Speak to my brother,” I said bitterly.

  “Better a rigged election than a civil war,” Kim said. “Would it work, though?”

  “Stuffing the ballot boxes? Possibly. Honestly, I’d be worried that we’re leaving it a little late. Markus will want his people watching the votes being counted, and if they watch too closely, we won’t be able to switch out the real ones for the fakes. More than that, if that’s the price of democracy, is it worth paying? Could we even still call it democracy? It would be better to wash our hands of the whole business, and make sure we’re on the first boat to leave. No, if Dr Umbert is a good and honest man, or at least if he seems like a competent and sane one, then I’d rather win him a legitimate victory.”

  “How do you do that?”

  “Not by being on this ship,” I said, standing up. “There needs to be more than a speech or two. I’ll have to think about it.”

  “How did you use to do it?” she asked.

  “Leverage,” I said. “Sholto’s strategy was to find the lever that would trigger a candidate to withdraw, or that, when published, would destroy their candidacy. I’ll admit, that I did that too on occasion, but what I really tried to do was find the policy that could be a lever to move a marginal group within a constituency. The hospital that was going to be closed, or the—”

  I was interrupted by a knock on the cabin’s door. It was Sholto. He had a laptop in his hands, a tired look on his face.

  “What is it?” Kim asked, reading his expression quicker than I.

  “It’s not entirely bad news,” Sholto said.

  “That doesn’t sound reassuring,” Kim said.

  “Let me show you,” Sholto said. He set the laptop down on the narrow shelf that did for a table in the cramped cabin. “This is from the hard drive we took from the bunker. I’ve not been through all the files. Some are encrypted. Of the rest, there are survival manuals, maps, that kind of thing, but mostly, it’s security camera footage. There were cameras inside the warehouse, and outside. That was what the computer was for, so someone in the bunker could watch anyone who approached, and so someone far away could monitor who was inside.”

  “I didn’t notice any cameras,” Kim said.

  “Nor me,” Sholto said. “They must be built into the wall. The salient point is, well, this.” He pressed play.

  On the screen, a woman sat at the small dining room table in the bunker. In front of her was a closed book. It was the same journal that I’d found, and which now lay half-forgotten in my pack. The woman opened the journal to the first page. She bent over it and began to write words that were now etched into my brain.

  “I am Sorcha Locke,” I murmured. “I am alone.”

  “That’s what she wrote,” Sholto said. “And that’s all she wrote for the next few minutes. Let me skip forward.”

  The image jumped. The woman was still writing, furiously scribbling those same words over and over: I am alone.

  “Not far enough,” Sholto said. He skipped forward again. The image jumped. The woman was on her feet, staring down at the book as if she was re-reading the three words she’d filled its pages with. She grabbed the book and hurled it out of frame. Sholto hit pause. The image was grainy, indistinct.

  “Hang on,” he said. “I took a still.”

  “You could have shown us that first,” Kim said. “We didn’t need the theatrics.”

  But when Sholto brought up the still image, I was glad that I’d seen the video.

  “That’s not Sorcha Locke,” I said.

  “It is,” Sholto said. “That’s what she wrote in the book.” He pointed at the screen. “That woman is Sorcha Locke.”

  “And that’s not the woman I shot,” I said.

  Kim crossed to my pack, and took out the photograph we’d found in the bunker. In it, ten women and two men stared somewhat distractedly at the camera. It wasn’t a staged photograph, but a quick snap taken while they were otherwise unawares. They were all smartly attired, though the backdrop could have been from an opera house, political fundraiser, or some luxury hotel. In the middle of the group, a few inches off centre, was Lisa Kempton. The woman I’d shot was in the picture, but so was the woman in the video.

  “That’s her,” Kim said, pointing at the photograph. “Yes? That’s Sorcha Locke.”

  “Then who did I shoot?” I asked, taking the photograph from Kim.

  “The answer to that lies a little further on,” Sholto said. “I can’t tell you exactly when this was, because there’s a bug on the computer’s internal clock. It resets to January first each time it’s turned on. I assume that’s so, if the bunker was discovered by the authorities, the footage could be challenged in court. Here.” He pressed play.

  The woman was sitting at the table again. In front of her was the photograph. Next to that was an MP5 similar to those we’d found at the house in Pallaskenry. It’s impossible to know what she was thinking in that moment. Perhaps she was steeling herself to venture out into the wasteland, or maybe she was contemplating suicide. Whichever it was, her plans were interrupted by something. She looked up.

  “Give it a moment,” Sholto said.

  A woman appeared in the doorway of the room. Locke stared, stunned. The woman took a step forward. They were talking, but the image wasn’t clear enough to see more than that their lips were moving. The woman looked up, pointing towards the camera. I saw her face. It was the woman I’d shot.

  Sholto hit pause. “That, I think, is the end of the footage. I think the arrival of this second woman is when they redirected the power from the generator. It’s her,” he added, tapping the photograph. “That’s the one you said you shot, right?”

  “That’s her,” I said.

  “You didn’t kill Sorcha Locke,” Kim murmured. “What does that mean? According to the suicide note we found in Elysium, Sorcha Locke was Kempton’s representative in Ireland. According to the recording Captain Keynes left on The New World, Locke ran charities as a cover while she gathered evidence on Quigley. I doubt either of those is more than half true. So did this other woman kill Sorcha Locke?”

  “Or did Locke escape?” Sholto asked.

  “I’m no longer willing to guess,” I said. “We’ll take the photograph back with us, ask around, see if anyone recognises any of the people.”

  “We already know those two,” Kim said, pointing at the photograph. “That’s Captain Keynes, who we found on the ship The New World. And that’s O’Reardon, the gravedigger we found near Killarney. Maybe we could go and ask her.”

  “No,” I said. “We’ll ask the admiral to send some of the Marines who are in Elysium.” I sighed. “Doesn’t that just make it all the more complicated? So, we know what happened to O’Reardon, Keynes, and the woman I shot. What happened to Locke is a mystery, as is what happened to Kempton.”

  “We know Kempton’s not on Anglesey,” Sholto said. “She’s too famous, too recognisable.”

  “Since we know that Locke, O’Reardon, and the woman I shot were in Ireland, and that Keynes came to Ireland, what are the
chances these others were here, too?” I asked. “If they escaped Belfast, they did it by sea. They would have headed south. They knew about the risk of nuclear war, so they wouldn’t have headed for England, but even if they planned to sail all the way down to South Africa, they’d have passed Anglesey. They would have seen the fishing boats. They would have gone ashore.”

  “It doesn’t change much,” Kim said. “We can ask Donnie, George, and Heather when we get back. Maybe ask Scott Higson, see if any of them went into his bakery. Or ask Marcy, in case any went to the hospital. We’ll ask around. Maybe we’ll find them, but whether we do or not, it doesn’t change much.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, my eyes flitting between the photograph and the screen. “It feels important.”

  “No, the admiral’s important,” Kim said.

  “What about her?” Sholto asked.

  “There’s something we need to talk about,” I said.

  “She wants you, because she wants me,” Sholto said after I’d explained what the admiral had said. “And she wants me because I’ve got the access codes for the satellites. I added an extra layer of encryption,” he added.

  “Why?” Kim asked.

  “Because, for most of my life, people have wanted me dead,” he said. “It’s force of habit more than anything. Those satellites are valuable, more so than almost anything else we have on this planet.” I got the impression that there was another reason, but I was too tired to press the point. “It’s not important,” Sholto went on. “The admiral can bluster and threaten, but Markus isn’t going to win. If he did, Anglesey would collapse, and it’s too important for that.”

  “Which is what we were talking about before you came in,” Kim said. “We need to find a way for Umbert to win.”

  “That’s already in hand,” Sholto said.

  “I don’t want to discuss it,” I said. “Not anymore, not now. Not until we get to Anglesey, then we can speak to Umbert, take the measure of him, decide if he’ll make for a half-decent politician. Until then… let me see that video again.”

  Chapter 4 - Happy Families

  15th October, Day 217, Belfast

  Dean gripped the arrow and pulled. There was a damp snap as the shaft, still partially buried in the zombie’s skull, broke.

  “Told you,” Lena said.

  “I know, I know,” Dean said. “Cut, don’t pull.”

  It was the first zombie we’d had to fight, though not the first we’d seen, but those had been safely distant, staggering along the shore as we’d rowed past.

  Siobhan, myself, and the two teenagers had taken a boat up the River Lagan. It wasn’t a life raft, but an honest-to-goodness reinforced RIB launch that still bore U.S. military insignia on the sides. There had been a few hairy moments getting the craft past the sunken ship at the mouth of the Victoria Channel, but after that it had been plain sailing. Or rowing at least, and for that we had two sailors to assist us.

  It hadn’t been a pleasant journey up the river. The water level was low, the banks high, and frequently all we could see were the tops of tall buildings. Many were glassless skeletons, smoke-blackened monoliths that reached up to the sky. Those that remained whole were worse, acting as a reminder of how many had once lived in this ancient city, and how the two teenagers with us represented a sizeable proportion of all who’d survived.

  We’d left the boat near Ormeau Park, under the guard of the two sailors, and after they’d given us another lesson in how to use the radio. They had a mission of their own, one the admiral hadn’t shared with us, and which they clearly weren’t at liberty to. From their shovels, it was easy enough to guess. The admiral wanted to know the condition of the soil in the park. Whether this was because she planned to occupy the city, or to plant some low-maintenance crop that could be left untended, I didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. Until the zombies were all dead, planting anything there would be a wasted effort.

  Dean carried the broken arrow to a litter bin on the other side of the street, and dropped it in. He glared, daring us to comment on such an obviously futile act.

  “Good habits are important to keep up,” Siobhan said. “Especially now, and at least until we come up with better ones to replace them with.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Dean said. “It’s this way.”

  “Let me just check the map,” I said, taking out the tablet.

  “You don’t think I’d remember?” Dean asked, with a return of the sullenness that had been his defensive strategy since I’d first met him.

  “It’s not that,” I said, though I wasn’t going to tell him the truth. When we’d let Dean lead Kim and I to Belfast Zoo, he’d instead led us to the home of his old piano teacher, and in doing so we’d almost been trapped by the undead. “We found a church yesterday,” I said instead. “It was recently padlocked but not marked on Sorcha’s—” I stopped. “I mean, it wasn’t marked on the map made by the woman I killed. Are there other properties like that? Was the map half-finished, or were places deliberately not included? I want to familiarise myself with the area we’re going through so that, by the end of the day, we might have an answer.”

  I’ll admit that I was curious about that, though after what we’d discovered in the church, if we found a padlocked but unmarked building, there was no way I’d let the teenagers inside. They were the real reason that we had come into the city. They wanted to go to Kallie’s old home to retrieve some of the injured girl’s possessions. Personally, I was against it. Actually, I’m not sure anyone was in favour of it, but there was no way of stopping the teenagers from making the journey short of locking them in a cabin. Since that would create more problems than it would solve, it had been agreed they could go, but not alone.

  “It’s nice to have technology again,” Siobhan said, as I tapped at the screen and brought up the photographs of the map. “Even in a small way.”

  “To be honest, I think I’d be happier with paper,” I said, “but we might as well enjoy the pixels while we can. Where are we though?”

  “Junction of Ardenlee Avenue and Ardenlee Gardens,” Dean said.

  “Found it,” I said. “There aren’t that many marks on these properties. I don’t think Locke came as far as—” I stopped. “Not Locke. I’ve got to stop doing that. I just don’t know what to call her.”

  “Unsub?” Siobhan suggested. “Suspect? Murderer?”

  “Nonnemo?” Lena suggested. “It’s Latin,” she added and must have seen the surprise on my face. She gave an expansive shrug that seemed to say that, of course, she’d studied that dead language.

  “Agatha,” Dean said. “That’s the Irish word for someone who’s dead.”

  “You mean éagtha?” Siobhan asked.

  “Agatha will do,” I said. “It’s probably a bad idea to give her a name like that, but I need to keep my thoughts in order. Anyway, there’s a cluster of houses on Onslow Parade that are circled. Otherwise, there’s nothing marked until we get to the Castlereagh Industrial Estate, and then we’re close to Kallie’s home.”

  “Home,” Lena echoed. She started walking. I met Dean’s eyes and nodded that he should follow.

  I’ve not known Lena long, and she is just a teenager, but after Kim, she’s at the top of the list of those I’d want watching my back. But she is just a teenager, and this city was once her home. We’d made the mistake of letting Dean loose, and that had resulted in a fight in which we’d almost died. Siobhan and I took up the rear, but not too far behind.

  “Agatha,” I murmured.

  “Don’t fixate on it,” Siobhan said, as we followed the teenagers up the leaf-strewn road. “You acted on the best evidence available. And you turned out to be correct. You did the right thing, shooting her, stopping her.”

  “Did I?” I asked. “We know Agatha worked for Kempton, but do we know she shot Kallie?”

  “We will when we get to Anglesey,” Siobhan said. “I still have the bullet I extracted from Kallie’s side. When I have somewhere I can test-fire
the weapon you recovered from— okay, from Agatha’s body, we’ll know for sure. The woman’s dead, Bill. You’ve plenty of living problems to worry about.”

  “Don’t I know it?”

  Lena raised a hand as she neared the next junction. Dean stopped one step in front. Siobhan and I hurried to catch up.

  The storm drains on both sides were blocked by months of accumulated debris, leaving the road partially submerged. A pool of foetid, foam-covered water stretched for ten yards, but it was the undead in the driveway of a terraced house just beyond which had caused Lena to stop. There were four of them, squatting motionless. Two wore green, and they might have been uniforms. The other two were in faded but once-bright civilian clothes. None of us spoke, though I’m sure we were thinking the same thing. We were wondering whether the zombies were dead.

  I pointed north, indicating we should avoid a fight. Dean nodded more quickly than Lena, but waited for the young woman to start moving before he followed her. I don’t know precisely what the zombies heard, but the first sound I heard was the damp rustling of cloth followed by the creak of bone and pop of air in desiccated joints as the creatures slowly rose. Dean stopped and raised his bow. I waited until he fired before I pushed him on.

  “We don’t want to fight here,” I said.

  “There’s only four,” he said.

  “There’s not,” I said. It was only a guess, but one based on an eight-month lifetime of experience, and it was correct. As the zombies milled out of the driveway, more joined them from around the back of the house. Two, then four, and I didn’t stop to count the rest.