by Hatchett
Mamba bowed his head and counted to ten.
“Well, is it?” Ayla asked again.
Mamba eventually looked back up. “Why would it be a problem?” he asked.
“See, you’re doing it now,” Ayla replied.
“Doin’ what?” Mamba asked, confused.
“Not answering a question but asking another one instead.”
“I didn’t!” Mamba protested.
“You did,” Ayla advised.
“Ya did,” Ahmed confirmed, “but so did she. Yer both as bad as each other.”
They both looked at Ahmed before looking at each other again.
“OK, what was the question?” Ayla relented.
“Can’t fuckin’ remember,” Mamba stropped.
Ayla turned to Ahmed, “What about you?”
“What ‘bout me?” Ahmed replied.
“Not fucking you as well!” Ayla stated in disgust.
Their chatter had interested a couple of zombies nearby, so Mamba jumped off the car’s bonnet and quickly and efficiently stabbed them in the head before returning to his seat.
“Where were we?” he asked. There was no response.
A few seconds later, Ayla said, “My Dad doesn’t like you very much. He warned me about you. What did you do to upset him?”
“What didn’t he do is more like it,” Ahmed replied with a laugh.
“Your Dad and me go way back, but he blames me for things other people have done,” Mamba explained
“Like what?”
“Like the time Mamba ‘borrowed’ a couple of Sully’s men and ended up getting’ ‘em nicked and sent down for a stretch,” Ahmed advised.
“That wasn’t my fault,” Mamba objected.
“Or the time Mamba bought some hash from Sully with counterfeit money.”
“How was I supposed to know it was fake?” Mamba complained. “I was stitched up.”
“Or the time Mamba fucked one of the underage girls on the estate.”
“How was I supposed to know she was underage? She was done up like she was in her twenties and came onto me big time,” he advised. “Gaggin’ for it, she was. Can’t blame ‘er for that though, good taste,” he added.
“Or the time Mamba put Hakan’s nephew in the hospital?” Ahmed advised.
“Now, he fuckin’ deserved that, the lairy bastard,” Mamba explained.
“Ah, so that was you was it?” Ayla noted. “I heard all about that one. So, you are a bit of a bad boy, Mamba.”
“Mostly rumours,” Mamba explained, looking away. “So, what did yer Dad warn ya ‘bout?”
“That you’d shag anything in a skirt.”
“Not true!” Mamba shouted, aghast.
“Nah. That definitely isn’t true,” Ahmed advised.
Mamba nodded his head vigorously in agreement and welcomed the unexpected support from Ahmed.
“Some men wear skirts,” Ahmed added, to clarify his point.
“They’re called jubbahs,” Ayla pointed out.
“Not jus’ them,” Ahmed pointed out. “What ‘bout that David Beckham bloke wearin’ a dress?”
“It was a sari,” Ayla explained.
“Looked like a fuckin’ dress to me,” Mamba advised.
“So, you’re not into men then?” Ayla asked.
Mamba just scrunched his face up in horror at the thought. “I leave that side of things to Ahmed.”
“Fuck off Mamba!” Ahmed retorted.
“So, we know you’re a bad boy who will shag any female in a skirt,” Ayla summarised. “How many people have you killed?”
“Before or after the zombies came? And do zombies count?” Mamba asked.
“Before, and no, they don’t count.”
“Lots.”
“After.”
“Lot’s more.”
“So, we know you’re a bad boy who will shag any female in a skirt, and that you’re a rapist and a murderer. Anything else I should know?”
Mamba and Ahmed looked at each other and thought about it.
“Not that I can think of,” Mamba replied quietly.
“But I’m sure we’ll think of somethin’ before the end of the day,” Ahmed added. “Oh, jus’ thought. I got another one…slaver!”
Mamba looked puzzled.
“Daryl and Jenny?” Ahmed suggested.
Mamba shrugged his shoulders in acceptance.
“You’ve got me all horny again,” Ayla advised, out of the blue, as she grabbed Mamba’s hand and started dragging him in the direction of the camper van.
“Later Ahmed,” Mamba said with a broad smile and a wave of his hand.
49
Day 13 – 19:00
Hilton Hotel, Heathrow
Issy was sitting in the hotel lounge, a pint of coke with plenty of ice sitting on the table before her. Andy sat next to her, nursing a pint of lager and Jack sat opposite with a gin and tonic.
“Where’s the Major tonight?” Issy enquired.
“I think he’s with Tom and Joel in Terminal 3, trying to figure out where Mamba is likely to be,” Jack replied.
“What about the rest?”
“Sean, Travis and Daniel are at the Tower. Sarah has flown up to Manchester with Bear and Irish and about fifty soldiers to help clear the airport. Gina is with Dave in Battersea. How’re you feeling? You look tired.”
“I’m a bit concerned about Mamba, to be honest,” Issy admitted. “Actually, a lot concerned. He doesn’t seem the sort to walk away and we haven’t heard a dicky bird from him since Tuesday and that’s two days ago. He could be anywhere by now and I don’t like the fact that he had bomb-making equipment in those Defenders.”
“Yeah, but you’ve taken all that stuff,” Andy pointed out.
“A child could find replacements if they knew where to look. No, he’ll be trying to source new materials and if he hasn’t been able to do it over the past couple of days, then he’s not the person I suspect he is.”
“So, where do you think he is?” Jack asked.
“He effectively has three targets. He’s already had some fun with the Green Park Estate, so I suspect he won’t be interested in them for the time being. Then there’s the Tower; we all know how well fortified that is, and so does he, so again, I think he’ll leave that for the time being. So, I hate to say it, but my guess is Heathrow will be his target.”
“But, we’re miles away from where he was last spotted. Do you really think he’s that determined?” Andy asked.
“I’m sure of it,” Issy replied. “I think he’s a man on a mission and that mission is to pay us back for taking back the Tower and trying to kill him. And don’t forget, we haven’t seen or heard anything for a couple of days, so he’s had plenty of time to prepare.”
“But, from what we saw on the satellite imagery, he only has a small group with him, so even if he does turn up here, what’s he going to do? He knows about our firepower, especially the Apache’s, so he’s hardly likely to walk right in.”
“Exactly. He’s not going to do that and that’s why he wanted the bombs. He wants to follow the examples of the old insurgents and terrorists who planted bombs to kill and maim, but mainly scare the hell out of everyone here. You don’t know when or where they’ll go off. My guess is that he’ll either be far away when the bombs go off and keep coming back with more and more and try to wear us down, or he’ll try and pick us off when we react to the bombs. Anyone with a half-decent rifle and a half-decent aim could take us out from hundreds of metres away and we wouldn’t know anything about it. I think he’s sly, so this is the sort of thing he’ll try and do.”
“So, we just sit and wait?” Andy asked.
“Hell no,” Issy replied. “As you know, over the past few days we’ve been reinforcing the weaker spots in the perimeter fencing and increasing the number of guards, training up more people. I’ve also put some new protocols in place if anything does happen. The problem is that we’re trying to protect a large area so there will always be weak p
oints, and we’re stretched thin as it is.”
“Why don’t we section off areas of the airport, like in a prison?” Jack suggested. “That way, we can compartmentalise and easily deal with problem areas without the problem spreading.”
“You mean like separating the growing area from the rest of the airport, separating the terminals et cetera?”
“Yes, in a prison, you can’t go into the next section until the door’s unlocked, then you lock the door behind you before proceeding to the next one along and so on. If we did this, it would take longer to get from one side of the airport to the other, but so what? It’s not as if time is an issue. I would suggest safety is more important.”
“That’s a good idea,” Issy agreed, “but we’ll need loads more fencing and it will take a long time to put it in place.”
“In the meantime, we could put in place more layers in the outer defence,” Jack suggested. “So, we have a row of vehicles about twenty metres from the fence all the way around. That would give us a twenty metre ‘no man’s land’ and we will be able to see anything coming towards us. We’re not going to run out of vehicles and it will also clear up the nearby roads a bit and make them more accessible.”
“I should have started doing something like that over the past couple of days,” Issy admitted. “Instead, I’ve been hanging around waiting for Tom and his team to find him. I wanted to be able to react quickly, which is a bit difficult if you’re in the middle of parking a car on the far side of the airport.”
“Not your fault, Issy. There’s plenty of Leaders around here including myself, so any one of us could have come up with this suggestion earlier and done something about it. We’re all tired and overworked and we’re still trying to find our feet in this new world, so don’t be so hard on yourself.”
Issy finished her drink and stood up. “I’m going for a walk,” she advised as she headed for the exit.
“Want me to come?” Andy asked.
“Not this time Cowboy,” Issy replied over her shoulder.
50
Day 13 – 20:55
Multi-Storey Cark Park, Heathrow
In the dark, Mamba had moved to the airport-end of the cark park and sat down. Still on the middle floor, he could see all across the Northern side of the airport and had an almost straight-line view down the Northern Runway heading towards the West.
Ayla sat to his left and Ahmed to his right as he zoomed in on the terminals in the distance with his binoculars.
They took it in turns to have a look around but none of them spotted any suspicious activity or any alarms ringing. It looked like their luck was holding and it only needed to last a few more minutes.
Mamba looked at his watch for about the fiftieth time in the last couple of minutes. The second hand seemed to be moving in slow motion, but it wouldn’t be long now. The previous few hours had passed relatively quickly, especially as a lot of it had been spent with Ayla in the camper van. However, the last hour had been a nightmare and Mamba had struggled to sit still or concentrate on anything. He just prayed that the other groups had been successful, but more importantly, fucking Basir knew what he was doing. If the bombs failed to go off, Mamba would go back to the pub and chop his bollocks off. And, that was just to start with.
Mamba was dying for a cigarette but didn’t want anything to give away their position, so he sat there stewing and continually looking at his watch.
Ayla didn’t really know what to expect. She’d never seen a bomb go off so had no comprehension of what it would be like. She didn’t know the people in Heathrow and cared even less. If they were Mamba’s enemies and it could make her father more powerful, then that was all that mattered.
Ahmed didn’t really care about anything. This was what Mamba wanted so it was what Ahmed wanted too. As the last few hours had crawled along at a snail’s pace, and all he could hear were the grunts and groans coming from the camper van, he knew that he needed to find himself someone like Mamba had. He appreciated that Mamba treated him like a brother, but he was also painfully aware that Mamba wouldn’t really notice if he was no longer by his side. Mamba just liked having him around so that Ahmed could do all the shit stuff for him. For the first time since the truck crash around five days earlier, Ahmed started thinking about his people and the Green Park Estate; they seemed happier now than when the gang had been in charge. Many of the gang members seemed to have swapped sides as well, not least Samata, Isaac, Zak, Nelson and even Mamba’s own niece, Grace. The people in the Tower and from Heathrow had welcomed the newcomers with open arms. On top of that they had lost good friends like Dodge, Bird and Smiley yet Mamba didn’t seem too concerned. And who knew what had happened to the Judge and Jury. No real loss there as far as Ahmed was concerned. What did he really want? He wasn’t sure, but he knew he wasn’t very happy.
Mamba looked at his watch again and saw that it was almost 9pm. He noticed the date read ‘13th’ and thought ‘unlucky for some’ as he set aside his binoculars and waited.
The first bomb planted by Mamba next to the trading estate a few hundred metres directly opposite them went off just after 9pm. The explosion was massive, and the blast wave still hit them hard this far away. Mamba hadn’t considered this when he’d selected their vantage point, but now all their ears were ringing, some of their hair was singed and there was little to see except for a huge cloud of smoke with wisps of flame poking through. Debris had been thrown in all directions and they’d been lucky they hadn’t been hit by flying shrapnel, although Mamba had felt a slight sting on his cheek and raised his hand to find he had a small cut with a trickle of blood seeping out. The bombs were more powerful than Mamba could ever have imagined. Within seconds the alarms in the airport were sounding and Mamba was a little disappointed that they had gone off so quickly. He expected chaos and death, but it was still early.
The second bomb Mamba had placed in the hangar was the next to go and the entire structure disappeared before their very eyes. Mamba needn’t have worried about the smaller bombs being too far away from the main bombs as they erupted as planned. He also needn’t have worried about targeting any planes; the bomb which had demolished the hangar and set off a smaller bomb nearby had thrown burning material onto a couple of planes sitting across the road on the tarmac. They were now on fire and it wasn’t long before their fuel ignited and turned them into fireballs, exploding just like the bombs had done.
It was like watching a firework display as the bombs went off along the Northern perimeter one after the other. One of the bombs further away went off before one of the nearer ones, so it was clear the timers weren’t 100% accurate. But, they were still good enough.
The bomb near to the utility vehicles managed to set the fuel trucks alight and the additional explosions helped disable most of the vehicles in the vicinity.
Some of the gaps between the explosions were longer than others and again, Mamba put this down to the cheap timers. However, he suspected that a couple of the bombs hadn’t detonated. Probably the ones Ahmed had built, the useless git!
Mamba continued to watch with his eyes wide open and his mouth hanging open in astonishment. Despite a couple not going off, this was far better than he could ever have wished for.
As he began to wonder what had happened to the other teams and why nothing else had gone off in the Southern part of the airport, there came several loud explosions from that direction and Mamba saw the flames rising into the air from the other side of the buildings. Mamba smiled. The other teams had done their bit.
In all nineteen large bombs detonated, and presumably a similar number of the smaller ones, although it was hard to tell if they had all gone off with the amount of noise and chaos.
The three of them sat in awe, watching to see what would happen next. As the smoke drifted away on a light breeze, Mamba began to see that the perimeter fence had been obliterated where the bombs had been placed and he could see zombies beginning to move towards the fires springing up all over the airport
. It was at times like this he was thankful that there were so many of the fuckers. A little present for the bastards in the airport. Planes burnings, fuel trucks burning, no protection against the horde. Fucking brilliant! He just wished he had a rifle to start picking off some targets as they emerged.
51
Day 13 – 21:00
Hilton Hotel, Heathrow
Jack and Andy were still seated in the bar continuing their chat when the first bomb went off on the Northern Perimeter.
“What the fuck was that?” Andy asked rhetorically, already realising that it must’ve been a bomb going off. “We better get moving.”
Jack clicked his earpiece. “Tom, you there?”
“Here Jack.”
“Sound the alarm, status Red.”
“Will do.”
A few seconds later the alarm started sounding. Anyone outside would now be making tracks to get inside as quickly as possible and making sure all building doors were closed and secured. Those with proper training would be heading to the various arsenals to gear up and the pilots would be heading to the Apache’s and getting them off the ground as soon as they could.
Jack knew that he couldn’t get to the Security Command Centre without taking risks; he could get to Terminal 4 via the connecting tunnel from the hotel but then he’d have to cover open ground to get to Terminal 3. At this stage, they had no idea what was happening, so they needed to stick to the protocols they had agreed.
“Tom, any of the Leaders with you?”
“I’m here,” came the response from the Major.
“Sit rep?” Jack asked, as more bombs went off. He looked out of the lounge’s window and could see the explosions in the distance and fires lighting up the night sky.
“Bombs going off along the Northern perimeter,” the Major replied, “and each one is taking out the CCTV’s. We’re almost blind on that side, but the main building ones are still working. I can’t see much but smoke at the moment.”
“I’m going to find Issy,” Andy advised, rising to his feet, but was waved back down by Jack.
“No. You don’t know where she is, and we don’t know what’s happening, so you need to get armed and lead whoever you find getting geared up.”