“You’ll find out soon enough”, my tormentor said, “talk again and I’ll knock your teeth out”.
By the time I could straighten to look out of the window again, the scene was lost from view in the rolling hills, but I’d seen enough to get my brain working.
The camp, or whatever it was, looked a little like I imagined a beachhead in hostile territory, except that in was in the middle of Oxfordshire and encompassed enough farmland to feed hundreds if not thousands of people.
This must be where they were taking everyone they’d been gathering up, I realised, although whether they were helping them or using them for some other reason I wasn’t sure. We were too far away to tell what was really going on, but I had the feeling we were going to find out sooner than we liked.
We passed through no fewer than four checkpoints before we got to the base, each one manned by half a dozen soldiers with various badges and emblems on their uniforms. I knew they signified different regiments, but without Emily to tell me who they belonged to I couldn’t even hazard a guess.
The base itself was lightly manned, a result of so many soldiers being needed for the massive perimeter, I assumed. The Landrover pulled up in front of what looked to be some kind of administration building, and as soon as we stopped the tailgate was let down and we were pushed out and onto the tarmac before being led inside.
The building was dim, almost gloomy, and smelled of polish and paper. They marched us through a reception area and down a long corridor, finally arriving at a nondescript wooden door.
One of the soldiers knocked and then walked in, leaving us in the corridor guarded by the other three. There was a brief, low buzz of conversation and then he came back out.
“They can go in”, he said, “kit to be left out here”.
Emily was pushed through the doorway and I followed closely behind, not wishing to be propelled by an overeager guard and find myself going sprawling.
None of the soldiers came in with us, instead closing the door behind us and leaving us to look around the room as bright sunlight streamed in through a large window.
It appeared to be a conference room. A large table sat in the middle, a dozen chairs spaced around it, and pictures of various military endeavours graced the walls.
A now defunct conference phone sat in the middle of the table, as well as a jug of water and several glasses, but it was the occupants of two of the chairs that drew my attention.
One of them was a man in his mid-fifties, greying hair neatly cut and matching the colour of his pencil-thin moustache. He wore a camouflage shirt and trousers, the seams still perfectly pressed, and even sitting down he looked unusually tall.
There was something of the school-master about him, a feeling that from the second he laid eyes on me he was judging me, weighing my usefulness.
The second man was a complete contrast. He was about the same age, but there the resemblance ended. His scruffy brown hair was receding rapidly, leaving a few lonely hairs to sprout from the top of his head while the rest hugged the sides and back. He wore a business suit that looked like he’d slept in it for several days running, the white shirt turning a grubby grey and the tie poking out of an inside pocket where it had been stuffed.
He had bags under his eyes that bulged out from beneath his brown spectacles, and he looked very much like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.
It was with a start that I realised that I recognised him. Iron the suit, give him a few hours’ sleep and put him in a photograph shaking hands with someone over a multi-billion pound defence project, and there sat the Secretary of State for Defence, Terrence Harvey-Smith.
I stood there staring, all kinds of crazy thoughts running through my head. Perhaps the government had survived, were rebuilding with areas farmed out to cabinet members to look after. The thought gave me a little comfort, but then I remembered how the civilians we’d seen had been treated and the first tendrils of fear began to tickle in my stomach.
It was the old soldier who spoke first.
“I’m told you’re REME”, he said to Emily, straight to the point.
“Yes sir”, she replied, “Sergeant Morris, 1st Battalion”.
“We need more soldiers, so that’s good for us. I’m also told, however, that you were trying to make off from troops when you were apprehended”.
“We were simply trying to carry on with our journey sir, not running away”.
I looked around the room as they spoke, sizing up our chances of escape and seeing none. Even if we could somehow get free of the room, we were smack in the middle of the base, and besides, the man in front of us might be older but he fairly radiated a calm competency that I had no doubt would extend to killing us both if necessary.
“And what journey is that?” The Secretary spoke for the first time, looking at us both. The soldier frowned at the interruption but let it pass.
“We’re trying to get to Manchester to find my daughter”, I said before Emily could speak, “she’s only eleven years old”.
The men exchanged a glance and the soldier shook his head.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings”, he said softly, “but most of Manchester is in flames. A recon unit came back this morning and the fires are as bad as London”.
My stomach lurched and I felt a sudden urge to throw up. Forcing it aside, I met the old man’s eyes and shook my head.
“She’ll have got out. Her grandparents live south in one of the smaller towns, they’ll have made it to there”. I willed myself to believe it even as I spoke. The thought of it not being true was too much to bear.
The Secretary waved his hand as if the subject was unimportant.
“That’s as may be, but we couldn’t let you go up there at any rate. We’re trying to rebuild civilisation here, we need all the hands we can get, no exceptions”.
“No exceptions? That’s my little girl you’re talking about!” I was beginning to get angry now, and anger felt better than fear so I let it build. “Who gives you the right to take people off the street, hold them prisoner and then dictate what they can or can’t do? Last time I checked this was still a free country!”
The soldier leaned forward, frowning.
“I don’t think you know who you’re talking to, young man! And besides, if we don’t do something drastic there won’t be a country, never mind a free one!”
“I know exactly who I’m talking to, he’s the Secretary of State for Defence, but that doesn’t give him the right to tell me what I can and can’t do!”
Harvey-Smith stared at me intently, eyes boring into mine.
“I thought you looked familiar”, he said at last, “what’s your name?”
I was so taken aback by this that I forgot for a moment to be angry.
“Malcolm King, I’m a journalist”.
He nodded as if remembering. “About six months ago, you asked that bloody annoying question about the defence deal with the Chinese and the risks of corporate espionage”.
I nodded, amazed that he would remember one journalist out of a crowd of dozens.
The soldier turned to him. “You know him?”
“I wouldn’t go that far, but the question was a pain in the arse, ruffled a few feathers with the Chinese sitting next to me in the bloody room”.
“So what now?” I said, the anger coming back. “Do I get punished for speaking my mind?”
The soldier stood and walked around the table, stopping in front of me.
“Despite what you might think”, he said, “we really are doing what’s best. The cities are dangerous, in a few days what’s left of them will be breeding grounds for disease and rats. Current estimates put about ninety percent of London as presumed dead in the fires, with similar casualty rates for all the large cities. We need to start again, build from scratch, and we need to do it fast. We’re not barbarians, but I understand that you’re worried about your daughter and I want your assurance that if I cut your bonds you won’t try an
d do anything stupid”.
I looked over at Emily, who nodded.
“Fine, I won’t do anything stupid, but you can’t expect me to start hoeing fields while my daughter is still out there”.
He shrugged and produced a pocket knife, sawing through the plastic that bound my wrists, then did the same for Emily as my fingers tingled with returning blood.
“That’s something to be discussed another time”, he said as he moved to the door. “As I’m sure you can imagine, I’m a very busy man. I appreciate your situation, but hopefully once you see what we’re already beginning to achieve here you’ll come on board. We don’t have the time or the resources to let survivors go running around in the wilderness, no matter how urgent they think it is. I’ll have someone escort you both to the lockup, you’ll remain there for today and then tomorrow you can join one of the work crews”.
He opened the door but the Secretary called out before he could summon the guards.
“Colonel Tibbett, leave the Journalist with me for a moment, would you? I want to talk to him about something”.
The Colonel nodded and waved a guard forward from his position in the corridor.
“Take the sergeant here to the lockup, then have her report to admin for assignment”.
The guard saluted and motioned for Emily to follow. She turned and looked at me.
“Are you ok with this?” She asked, ignoring the dark look the Colonel threw her way.
I shrugged and raised my palms in a gesture of defeat.
“I don’t see what other choice we’ve got”.
She hesitated for a moment longer and then nodded, throwing a very brief, wry smile in my direction before she followed the guard out of the door.
The Colonel looked over at me for a moment, then at the Secretary before letting himself out, leaving me alone with the man who, apparently, was running what was left of the country, in whatever way he saw fit.
Chapter 33
“Do you know why I asked to speak to you privately?”
I shook my head, perched on the edge of the chair he’d insisted I sit on, unsure how to feel or what to think. Travelling with Emily, despite all the hardship and horror, had been like a little bubble insulating us from the rest of the world as we made our way towards our destination, but our capture had burst that bubble and now nothing seemed to make sense.
“It came to me as I remembered that bloody question you asked”, the Secretary said, leaning back in his chair and mopping his forehead with the arm of his suit jacket. “And I thought; a man like that really likes to get to the bottom of things, and wants to tell people what’s really going on. Am I right?”
I shrugged. “All that feels like a lifetime ago, now”.
He nodded. “Doesn’t it though? Water?”
I nodded and he poured me a glass himself, sliding it across the smooth wood of the table.
“So here’s the rub”, he continued. “I find myself in a very difficult situation. How much do you know about what happened?”
I took a sip of water before speaking. “There was a Coronal Mass Ejection that hit the planet as well as a flare, and it knocked anything with a processor out and overloaded the national grid”.
He nodded. “You’re very well informed. However, did you know that it’s still happening?”
“I had an inkling, yes. I have a friend who’s an astrophysicist and he thinks there’s something strange going on, and we saw the aurora the second night as well”.
He raised an eyebrow. “Only the second night? What about the other nights since?”
I thought back, then realised that Emily and I had been crawling into the tent before the sun was fully down and sleeping right through, more or less. I told him so and he frowned as if I was trying to hide something.
“Well we have a few experts of our own, although their equipment is mostly useless now, and they’re telling me that what the sun is doing could go on for weeks or even months. Can you imagine what that will do to any attempt to get things up and running again?”
I nodded. “I think so. You can’t begin to rebuild infrastructure because any attempt to make anything more advanced than a simple circuit will get blown again immediately”.
“That’s right. So keep that thought going and tell me what’s going to happen to the population when they run out of food and clean water”.
It wasn’t hard to figure that one out; I’d already seen the first stirrings of what would happen on my travels.
“People will start to die”.
He nodded emphatically, the few hairs on the top of his head waving frantically.
“Exactly. So we’re bringing as many people here as we can and trying to stockpile for the winter, and get the ground ready for planting in the spring. Even in the best case scenario, it could be up to a year before we can turn the lights on again”.
I thought that through for a few moments, imagining just how bad it would get, particularly once the winter set in. Would people stay in their homes and slowly waste away, or would they set out like a plague of desperate locusts, eating everything in their path until they hit the sea or ran out of places to plunder?
“So how do I come into this?”
The Secretary leaned back and steepled his fingers in front of his chest.
“As far as I’m aware, I’m the closest thing to a government this country has anymore, but I only just made it myself. I was travelling back down from Scotland when the flare hit, and it just so happened that I was only a few miles away from here when everything stopped working. I have no idea if anyone else on the cabinet survived, but as they were still in the heart of London, I think it’s safe to assume they didn’t. The only people travelling with me were a police escort and my driver, my assistants were several hours ahead of me in another car so I suspect they got caught up in the London fires”.
He looked at me expectantly but I couldn’t see where he was going with it so I gestured for him to carry on.
“Look”, he said, rubbing his face tiredly, “I’m good at what I do, but I’d be the first to admit that I’m not exactly a people person, and Tibbett, well, I’ve known Tibbett for a long time and he’s an excellent soldier but PR is not his forte. I need someone with me who’s good with words, Malcolm, someone who knows how to get information across without wild speculation, just facts and maybe a little, ah, softening here and there. Does that sound like something you can do?”
The last thing I’d expected in the middle of all this was a job offer, and I blinked at him a few times as I tried to take it in.
“You want me to work for you?”
He shrugged. “Why not? You’ll get food, good accommodation, clean water. In return, I just want you to make sure that the people understand why we’re doing this, understand their place in this new machine we’re building”.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I understand what you’re trying to do but I need to go and find my daughter. It has to be my first priority”.
The Secretary’s face darkened.
“You do realise, don’t you, that we can’t let you leave?”
“Can’t or won’t?”
He shrugged. “Not much difference from where you’re standing. I need someone like you, Malcolm, but I won’t beg. Perhaps a few days in the fields will make you change your mind”.
He opened his mouth to call out to the guards but I held up a hand.
“How about this”, I said desperately, “you let me and Emily go and find my daughter, then we come back and I do this job for you? We’d only be gone a week or so, less if you can lend us a vehicle?”
He barked a laugh. “Do you think I’m stupid? We’d never see you again! No, you either work for me or you work in the camp. Guards!”
Two soldiers hurried in, then slowed as they saw no immediate danger. I sized them up, wondering if I could somehow get past them and make a break for freedom, but one look convinced me that would be madness.
“Gentlemen, take him to on
e of the work parties and get him started on something that will keep him busy, then let me know where you’ve put him. Oh, and warn the guards that he’s a flight risk, we can’t have him being shot trying to escape”.
One of them saluted while the other grabbed my arm in a vicelike grip, pulling me from the room before I could do more than glare at the Secretary.
As they marched me down the corridor and out onto the tarmac, I made the mistake of trying to reason with them.
“Look”, I began, “this is all a… Oof!”
I folded in half as one of them casually slammed a fist into my solar plexus, driving the wind from my lungs and leaving me gasping for air while tears filled my eyes. I couldn’t walk, but they simply lifted me off my feet, carrying me towards the fields and work gangs as if I were nothing more than an annoyance they were keen to be rid of.
Which, I supposed as I fought desperately for air, I was.
Chapter 34
The only stop we made on the way out to the fields was in an old hangar that had been converted into a supply store. Here they stripped me down to my underwear and gave me a baggy pair of olive green overalls that zipped up the front, with no unit markings or other insignia.
Once I was dressed, they marched me past the airstrip and onto what looked to be a playing field, although now it was crowded with groups of people building temporary shelters from canvas, while at the far end three work parties were putting up more permanent looking structures out of wood and corrugated iron.
I didn’t try talking again, instead taking everything in as we walked, desperate to find something that might help me escape.
We finally stopped at the fence line just north of the playing field, where a group of miserable-looking civilians were building a wall, using old planks and bits of ply board to create a more permanent barrier just inside the barbed wire.
There were twenty people in the group, with three soldiers keeping a watchful eye on them, two with rifles at the ready while one approached us with a clipboard.
“Who’s this?” He asked my guards.
“Secretary wants him to work with you for a few days. Keep him busy, but apparently he might try and run away so don’t let him out of your sight”.
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