The Necropolis Trilogy (Book 2): The Contained

by Sean Deville

  “Okay, you win, Jesus,” Owen conceded, and the pain subsided.

  “Come to me, come to me, come to me.”

  “Alright. Where do you want me to go?”

  “Follow my voice. Come to me.”

  08.36AM GMT, January 22nd, 2013, The White House, Washington DC, USA

  Abraham had learnt early on that there was no such thing as Democracy in the United States of America. And he had used that knowledge to his ultimate advantage. The votes of the individual did not count for a hill of beans in a system rigged to support the elite, the bankers, and the military industrial complex. All that mattered was how much money you had and how many palms you were willing to grease. For himself, Abraham preferred to stay out of the limelight, to work in the shadows. Even his multibillion dollar corporation was a private entity. He had resisted the temptation to float it on the stock exchange, despite the extra billions in personal wealth that would have given him. He didn’t need the money, he needed the power, and that power only came when he didn’t have a board of directors and shareholders to answer to. The only thing he answered to was the Lord Our God. And besides, he had long ago been taught that the secret to wealth was not actually appearing to have any. His name certainly wouldn’t appear in any gossip columns, or any rich lists. In fact, hardly anyone in the country would even know who he was, even though he employed nearly fifty thousand Americans. And yet within the day, he could amass enough capital to buy a small country, and had under his command whole platoons of elite mercenaries who would follow his orders without question.

  His plan had taken years to grow from its tiny seed, and now here he was at the beginning of his life’s goal. The scientist had been acquired, the virus already past the theoretical stage. The pieces were being moved into position, one piece in particular already firmly in place. He had spotted the fledgling politician early on, saw the truth behind the mask, saw the potential in the man. Without even a second thought, he had given over five million dollars for his campaign, something none of the incumbents could match. The fledgling had arrived on the scene like a locomotive. Young, energetic, handsome, and with a war record that made him look like the reincarnation of John Wayne. He was everything the Republicans wanted, and yet he ran as a Democrat, taking votes from both sides. With that money, he had amazingly won Texas, and with further financial support had held the state. Then it had been onto a host of committees steering laws and bills to favour Abraham’s corporate interests, as well as pushing forward his own political career. Eventually, with the financial backing Abraham provided through trusts and corporate shell accounts, the fledgling matured, eventually becoming House majority leader at a time when the Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate. Now that was power, but not the power Abraham’s protégé wanted. Abraham also demanded bigger things of him. So then the big one, the thing they had always aimed for. President. Twenty-five million dollars had spirited itself across the fibre-optic cables and satellite transmission to help fund that campaign, all from one man, a man who had seen the fledgling’s potential, who had seen the desire and the ruthlessness the man possessed. Abraham knew he could use those traits to his advantage, and he did so mercilessly. The money spent returned itself a hundred times fold. Because there was something else that he liked about the fledgling…Abraham knew his darkest secret.

  And now Abraham was here, for possibly the final time. The White House was quiet at this time of night. Three o’clock in the morning was perhaps a strange time to be having a meeting, but the fewer eyes and ears about the better. Abraham walked escorted by a single Secret Service agent, his credentials iron clad in this place. He was unofficial advisor to the President of the United States, what wasn’t there to trust? Of course, there would be no record of his visit here, there never was, only a select few of the Secret Service even aware of his presence. That was how power worked. To the rest of the world, it was as if he didn’t even exist.

  The secretary wasn’t in the outer office, and Abraham knocked on the door to the inner sanctum. There was a pause, and then a voice, a voice he had heard countless times.

  “Come in.” Abraham did as he was commanded, closing the door behind him, the Secret Service agent staying outside.

  “Good of you to see me, Mr. President.”

  “You know I always have time for you, Conrad. And you know you can call me Damien, right?”

  “Yes, Mr. President.” The president smiled at the man’s stubbornness. Abraham walked further into the room and sat on the sofa offered to him by the ruler of the free world. His face briefly displayed the pain his arthritic joints caused him as he made the manoeuvre. Damien sat down next to him, which was against convention, but this was his mentor, his co-conspirator.

  “So it seemed your plan worked,” the president said. “I will admit I had my doubts. But here I am, the most powerful man in the world.”

  “Doubts are the curse of the believer, and the tool of the powerful. I told you my money and my influence would get you the presidency.” Abraham had been asked to fly across the nation and come here in the dead of night. But why? Spirited in through some back entrance like some nasty family secret that some ruthless patriarch feared exposing.

  “There is a problem, however. Your actions have been uncovered,” the president said, matter-of-factly.

  “How?” Abraham asked, sitting up in his chair.

  “One of your inner circle. He isn’t one of your true believers.” The president picked up a folder from the table in front of him and handed it to Abraham. “The information in there doesn’t name you directly, but the journalist involved is writing an expose on your companies. He’s asking questions, following the money. It won’t be long before he links you to my campaign.” Abraham opened the folder, scanned the documents that had been printed off showing company details, cargo manifests and other details that should not be out in the open. Abraham’s eyes grew wide with fury.

  “How did you get these?” he demanded.

  “My new friends at the NSA have been very helpful. They have apparently been tracking a hacker this journalist has been working with. Together, with the mole in your organisation…well, your business dealings are about to become an open book.”

  “He shouldn’t have this information,” Abraham said defensively.

  “True. Which means people in your organisation have been sloppy.” Abraham heard the accusation in the words.

  “Can you contain this?”

  “I think it would be prudent for you to clean up your own mess. You just need to make the threat disappear like you have so many others before him,” the president said. “I could deal with it, of course, but that would cause questions to be asked by people I don’t yet fully trust.”

  “I have true believers who will defend the cause.”

  “I think you underestimate your enemies in this regard. Your identity has now been compromised. If one person can uncover it, others can too. I can’t have this coming out; I can’t have the world knowing of our arrangement. You understand that, right?”

  “Of course,” Abraham said quietly. To succeed so triumphantly, only to be betrayed after the success. Abraham inhaled deeply, the truth beginning to dawn on him. “I see what this is now. This is my penance, the price I pay for my pride.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” the president said absently. “I trust there is no record of you travelling here today.”

  “You need to ask me that?” Abraham said, visibly shocked. But then he looked down at the document again, saw his own failure bright as day. “Ah, perhaps you are right to. No, there is no record of me even leaving God’s own state of Texas.”

  “Then I leave the matter in your hands.”

  “This is between me and my God. It will be dealt with,” Abraham said. He reached out and gently grabbed his president’s arm with a fatherly hand. “I had always hoped you would see the light of the One True God, Damien.”

  “And I think you knew that was never go
ing to happen, Abraham. You knew from the start that I could never fall under that illusion. You used me just as much as I used you.” Abraham let go of his arm.

  “Thank you, Mr. President. I must be leaving now. I need to attend to this.” Behind Abraham, the door to the Oval Office opened and the same member of the president’s Secret Service detail entered.

  “Goodbye Abraham. Keith here will see you get to your destination safely.”

  Abraham walked back the way he had come, the imposing presence of the Secret Service agent following him silently. Dealing with the journalist would be easy, and necessary. Whilst nothing was technically illegal in how he had funded the president’s long-standing campaign, he couldn’t have his involvement become public. Abraham needed to stay in the shadows, to lurk below the surface. The companies he ran weren’t even officially linked, seemingly separate. Instead, they were a massive Hydra that wormed its way into huge aspects of American and international life. From pharmaceuticals to international arms trading, he made money where money could be made. This journalist needed to be stopped, with extreme prejudice. It would also be an embarrassment for the president who ran on a campaign of transparency and honesty to be seen as being bankrolled by a shadowy figure such as Abraham. This would not do. This would not do at all.

  But what to do about the president? As far as Abraham knew, Damien was unaware of the secret file Abraham held on him, former youthful indiscretions that were supposedly buried by judges taking orders from a powerful family. At the age of 17, the man who now resided in the White House had drunkenly raped and almost killed a fellow classmate. A male classmate. The assault and the buggery had been so intense, so severe, that even to this day, the victim resided in a vegetative state in a hospital room somewhere. Being part of a rich dynasty living in small town America, the sheriff, a personal friend of Damien’s father, had agreed to conspire with the judge to find another culprit, pinning the blame on a homeless black man who to this day still resided in prison. Corruption ran deep back in the days before the internet and mobile phones. And it still ran deep, only the nature of that corruption had changed.

  But Abraham knew the truth, had signed death bed confessions from the judge and one of the sheriff’s deputies. It would be enough to cause a firestorm in American politics, possibly enough to get the president impeached. Would he ever use it though? The president had not betrayed him and had always been upfront about his atheist beliefs. Of course, to the public he came across as God-fearing a politician as any in Washington. Abraham had used him to increase his own power base, to extend the reaches of his company’s tentacles. No, he would not use it yet. So long as the president played his part, Abraham would keep the secret under wraps. Until the time came where it was time to make the big reveal. To rip the American political structure apart just at its biggest time of crisis.

  08.32AM, September 17th, Hounslow, London, UK

  Kirk woke from an exhausted sleep and looked at the surroundings around him. After escaping from the hotel, there had been multiple instances of the infected leaving him alone, whilst all around the streets were infested with the screams of those not so fortunate. Eventually, he had found himself a secure location, an empty house on a side street. The door had been opened and the building deserted. It had also possessed a well-stocked fridge and a cabinet filled with enough alcohol to kill a football team. Having eaten and drunken his fill, he had collapsed on the sofa, and for several hours, he was blessed with oblivion.

  He hadn’t even drunk that much, but his body was still recovering from the gargantuan drinking session the night before, combined with the trauma of having to fight for his life. He was sore, and he groaned whenever he moved. But move he did, and he picked up the TV remote control and tried to find a channel to watch. Most of the terrestrial channels were now dead, only the BBC was still broadcasting, and even that was just an information loop. One of the things that had drawn him to this particular building was the larger than normal satellite dish on its roof, and he quickly found he could access a host of foreign channels. All played the same news, that being the death of the UK. For the first time since the crisis hit, he finally realised he was never going to get home. He was stuck here, in a land he was unfamiliar with, away from friends and with no means of support.

  “Fuck.”

  Sitting there watching Al Jazeera, he didn’t hear the back door being opened, didn’t hear the whispered voices and wasn’t aware there were other people now in the house with him until a voice spoke angrily from behind him.

  “You’re not supposed to be here.” Kirk spun his head to see three figures behind him. They had come in through the open plan layout where the kitchen joined the living room. The two black and one white man looked at him menacingly, and he stood, raising his hands up.

  “I’m sorry, I thought this place was deserted,” Kirk implored. He didn’t like the look of these guys. The fact that they were all armed, one with a hammer, one with a baseball bat, and the white guy with a wicked-looking Rambo knife, did nothing to instil in him the confidence that they were not intent on violence.

  “So you don’t live here?” Hammer asked. “That means you’re trespassing.”

  “Strangers don’t get to be trespassing on our new turf,” said Rambo. His dreadlocks were pulled back behind his head, and he waved the knife at Kirk menacingly. The dreadlocks were blond, and there was a single tear tattooed at the corner of his left eye.

  “I’m sorry,” Kirk said. “I’ll leave. I’ll leave right now.”

  “He’ll leave,” Baseball Bat replied mockingly. “You here that, boys? Well it ain’t as fucking easy as that, is it?”

  “No,” said Rambo who took several steps towards Kirk. “It ain’t that easy at all. Man got to pay the toll.”

  “You ready to pay the toll, bro?” Baseball Bat said. He brought the bat up and patted it against the palm of his hand.

  “But I don’t have anything.” Kirk backed up even further, trying to edge his way towards the door that led to the corridor and freedom, but Rambo jumped in that direction, blocking off any retreat.

  “You’ve got plenty,” Hammer said, “and we’re going to take it all.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “This is the new world, asshole. We make the rules, and the rules say you’ve got to pay the toll.” Hammer put his weapon down on the sideboard and stepped towards Kirk. “Now get on your knees.”

  “What?” Kirk couldn’t believe what was happening and took a further step backwards, his back hitting the window, his hands finding the cold glass.

  “I said get on your fucking knees,” Hammer roared, storming up to Kirk and grabbing him by his shirt. “You will do what we tell you, motherfucker. Do you understand me?” Kirk just looked at him open-mouthed, the reality of the situation seeming to elude him. The slap across his face changed all that. “I said, do you understand?”

  “No,” Kirk almost begged. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

  “Oh you know, because I bet you dream about it every night, you fucking little slut.” Hammer grabbed Kirk by the throat and brought his face right in close. “Now get on your knees.” Reality dawned on him. Oh God, not that.

  “So wait, if I do this, you’ll let me go, right?” There was laughter from behind Hammer.

  “Maybe. But you better be good, slut, because otherwise, I will beat you ‘til you bleed.” Hammer took a step away from his newfound prey and nodded for Kirk to kneel down. At the same time, Hammer started to undo the belt of his jeans.

  “Dude loves raping those white slut mouths,” Rambo said, clearly amused by the whole scene. He turned to Baseball Bat. “You never been into that shit, have you, bro?”

  “Nope,” Baseball Bat said. Kirk looked at him briefly, but he could see there would be no help from that direction. The man would happily stand there and let his friend do whatever he wanted. Kirk did the only thing he felt he could do and got on his knees.

  The
seven infected heard the noise from a street over. Their hearing was so acute, the altercation between Kirk and his assailants was like a symphony to them, and they descended on the house silently so as to take their breakfast by surprise. Three went around the back, and four crept up to the front of the house. They would coordinate their attack and share the spoils. There was enough meat in there to satisfy them, at least temporarily, and they could smell the blood that they would drink and almost taste the sweat of the men. But there was something wrong. One of the humans had an aura around him, and the infected didn’t know why, but they knew they couldn’t touch him. Something about the feel of him told them he was out of bounds, almost taboo. But that was fine, there were still three others.

  Hammer looked down at the kneeling man and dropped his trousers, which fell and collected around his ankles. He was already erect, probably not even from sexual arousal, more from the power he could now wield in a world without the police and the judiciary.

  “Fucking hurry up, dude. We haven’t got time for this,” Baseball Bat said. Hammer laughed.

  “That’s up to him,” Hammer said. “He knows what…” Hammer stopped mid-sentence and suddenly fell backwards. He had tried to walk, but had got tangled up in his own trousers. He impacted the carpet with a thud, his head saved by the softness of the sofa it fell against. Frantically, he started working to pull his trousers up.

  “Dude, what the fuck are you doing?” Rambo asked.

  “Infected,” Hammer whispered, “there are fucking infected outside.”

  “Fuck.” That was Baseball Bat. Kirk, now forgotten, watched as the man with the baseball bat ran over to the window and looked outside. The front garden was bordered by a stone wall and a gate, and baseball bat looked on in horror as three infected easily jumped the barrier.

  “Out the back,” Rambo screamed. Hammer, now on his feet, followed his friend the way they had entered the living room, Baseball Bat close behind. Kirk was left there kneeling, his heart beating with exaggerated ferocity. It felt like he was having a panic attack, and he tried to control his breathing. He almost jumped out of his skin when something slammed into the window pane behind him, his head jerking around to see the upper half of a woman who had slammed her blood-stained hands onto the glass. She looked at Kirk, almost quizzically, and then came the sound he knew would come.