by Hatchett
“That is none of your business.”
“Then, you’re going.”
Issy flicked the switch to re-open the bookcase door.
“Now wait a minute!” Sir James shouted. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Then, you’re staying,” Issy said. “Make your mind up!”
She closed the bookcase and grabbed Sir James’s arm tightly and started steering him towards the office door.
Sir James grabbed the side of the desk to give him some purchase, staring imploringly at Jack.
Issy turned back and slammed her fist down on Sir James’s hand and he let go of the desk and almost stumbled as Issy started to drag him towards the door again.
“Jack…” Sir James called, but Jack was just watching and smiling.
“I’d do as you’re told if I was you,” Jack suggested.
Sir James was still squealing as Issy dragged him into the corridor and closed the office door.
Jack was still smiling. God, he loved Issy!
64
Day 24 – 13:00
Corsham
Mamba sauntered back into the lounge at just after one, feeling fresh and ready to go again. There seemed to be a lot of his men around and Kiraz quickly ran over and told Mamba they were operating a skeleton crew at the various sites.
“Only needs one to push the button,” Kiraz explained helpfully.
Mamba had already checked in with his men at the various sites and they had confirmed that everything was quiet, so whether there were four or ten didn’t really matter.
Mamba was surprised to see a welcoming committee waiting for him. Evelyn, Ernie, Chrissy and Natalie were sitting around a table talking, but stopped as soon as Mamba arrived.
Evelyn got up as Mamba approached.
“How’re things, Mamba?” She asked. “I hear that you’ve managed to get what you wanted.”
“Not exactly,” Mamba replied, “But we’re gettin’ there. Where’s Ahmed?”
“We haven’t seen him.”
“Chrissy, go get Ahmed,” Mamba ordered. “I’m sure ya know where his room is,” he added with a leer. “Ernie, how ya doin’ ol’ man?” Mamba smiled.
“Alright for an old codger,” Ernie grinned back. “I hear you’ve been causing trouble as usual.”
“Me?” Mamba asked in mock surprise, “never!”
“Son, you want to be careful. You might have bitten off more than you can chew.”
Mamba chuckled. Where had he heard that before.
“Don’t ya worry. Got it all in hand.”
Mamba sat down, glancing at Natalie, who looked away. He wondered why she had come back, but he really didn’t care.
“We’ve been told that two of your men have killed two soldiers,” Evelyn stated.
“Yeah. Mebbe not the best decision I’ve ever made, but I was tired,” Mamba replied. “I’ll keep ‘em on the leash from now on, unless someone pisses me off.”
Evelyn accepted the sort of apology and hoped Mamba meant what he said. She knew what he was capable of and certainly didn’t want to piss him off, although she was beginning to wonder who was worst; Mamba or the Reverend.
“So, what’s next?” Evelyn asked what was on everyone’s minds.
“We’re leavin’ tomorrow mornin’ dependin’ on what happens,” Mamba said, surprising all those sitting around the table. “I need ya ta get a load of SUV’s or ‘em camper vans, ‘bout ten or eleven. No shit ones. Full of fuel. Spare fuel. A map of where the fuck we are ‘n how ta get back ta London. I want food ‘n water sorted ‘n beers.”
“We can do that,” Evelyn confirmed, perhaps a little too eagerly. “What about Burlington?”
“I got plans.”
The door opened and Ahmed entered the room with Chrissy and the PM following behind.
Although they had been told about the PM being there, Evelyn, Ernie and Natalie stared at the man as if they couldn’t believe their eyes.
Ahmed dragged a couple of seats over and pushed the PM into one while he took the other. Chrissy returned to her original seat.
“Put yer eyes back in,” Mamba said, and Evelyn, Ernie and Natalie looked guiltily away from the PM.
“Evelyn, ya need more people here ta help?” Mamba asked.
“Yes, we could do with more hands. The Reverend got rid of so many good people.”
“Jus’ as well I’m in a good mood then. And ya can thank the senile ol’ git fer this,” Mamba said to confused looks around the table. “I owe him.”
Everyone looked towards Mamba as he turned to look at the PM.
“This could be yer lucky day,” Mamba said, “but only if ya do what I say.”
The PM stared back intently.
Mamba told them exactly what he wanted and an hour later, the PM told Martin what was going to happen.
65
Day 24 – 15:00
Burlington
Martin Lane watched as ten men approached the entrance at Sector 25, five in casual clothing and five heavily armed wearing combat gear.
The metal door was opened, the men entered, and the door was closed behind them. He didn’t really know what was going on. All he knew was what the PM had told him; that ten people would be arriving and should be allowed into the complex. Martin was to follow their orders, otherwise the bombs would be set off and Burlington would become uninhabitable. Then there would be mass panic with everyone running for the trains as their only escape route.
A few minutes later there was a knock on the Command Room’s door and the five in combat gear were shown in with half a dozen of Martin’s men close behind them. Martin wondered where the five in civilian clothing had gone but said nothing.
Martin wasn’t sure what he should do. He certainly didn’t want to shake their hands, so he opted for offering them chairs and something to drink. Only one sat while the other four remained standing.
“My name is Basir,” said the one who had sat down.
“Martin.”
“We have a lot to do, Martin,” Basir started, “if you want your people to live.”
“You do realise that we could just take you prisoner and ignore your leader’s demands. If he then exploded the bombs, all of you would also be killed.”
Basir pointed to his ear.
“Mamba can hear every word you say, so be careful,” he warned. “And anyway, we have no fear of death. We all look forward to the virgins we will receive in the afterlife.”
Martin stared at the man and didn’t doubt he meant every word he said.
“You will take these four to the entrance of the train station,” Basir indicated Dev, Umit, Kiraz and Serkan. “They all have comms so I will know if anything happens to them.”
Martin nodded to his men standing behind the Turks and they all left the room.
“Now what?” Martin asked.
“You tell all your soldiers and their families to go to the train station. Then you tell all service personnel and their families to leave this place via the entrance in the train tunnel above ground. They will be met and escorted to the town.”
“Service people?”
“Yeah. Maintenance people, engineers, cooks, cleaners, doctors, nurses. People who do the work down here. Not the posh spongers who sit on their arses all day ordering people around. If any of the posh lot try leave before we say, they will be shot.”
Martin thought about it, then used the tannoy system to relay the orders.
“Is that it?” Martin asked, when he finished giving the directives to his soldiers and the service personnel. “What about the politicians and Royal family?”
“What about them?” Basir replied. “We’ll deal with them later. Time for a coffee now, while we wait.”
66
Day 24 – 15:30
Burlington
The service personnel and their families heard the orders come through the speakers and were both surprised and scared.
They quickly turned equipment off and left their jobs
, assuming that Burlington might be about to come down around their ears. They’d heard the blasts and sirens earlier that morning and all the rumours that had been flying around, and most feared being buried alive far more than what might await them above ground.
They hurried back to their accommodation, arranging to meet up with their family members and pick up as much of their personal effects that they could carry. Then they headed across the complex to Sector 14, joining thousands of others doing the same thing.
When they reached Sector 14, there was already a large queue despite people using both the lifts and stairs to head up to the surface and the entrance in the Box Hill tunnel. Despite their concern, the thought of fresh air spurred them on.
They had done exit drills during the past three weeks or so a number of times, not that they actually opened the outer doors and emerged from the complex. Usually they just went to the nearest exit, which were all clearly signposted on the various tunnel walls. It was unusual that they were being directed to one specific exit this time, but perhaps the other exits were compromised or the ground above this particular exit had been made safe.
The first people to reach the heavy metal doors and step into the tunnel were still very uneasy. Speculation had been rife in Burlington and cold hard facts were hard to come by. Still, they did as they were told, trusting those in power. However, it was highly unusual that the soldiers they had encountered on their journey were going in a different direction rather than herding them along as usual. They briefly wondered if this was just a ruse to get rid of them while the soldiers, the wealthy and the politically connected got to the trains without hindrance and disappeared to safety.
A group of four men were the first to slide open the locks and open the large metal doors and enter the tunnel, keeping their families well back and making sure that they were able to slam the doors shut again quickly if there were any unwanted surprises to greet them.
To their relief, they were met and welcomed by a cheery middle-aged woman called Evelyn and a few others who assured their safety and who directed them along the torch lit tunnel towards the East. They started moving in the direction indicated and soon there was a large column of people looking like refugees, like Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt to the Promised Land, except it was a bit colder in the damp tunnel.
The closer they got to the light at the end of the tunnel, the greater the anticipation and the greater the concern. There had been no zombies in the tunnel, and although many of these people had never seen one in the flesh, they believed the news and horror stories they had heard. For all they knew, there could be zombies further along. Maybe zombies just didn’t like the dark.
Their concern grew as they exited the tunnel and found about ten heavily armed men, watching them warily and directing them further along the tracks.
The first people in the line saw that they needed to walk roughly a kilometre and could just about make out more figures in the distance. They walked along, breathing the fresh air deeply and marvelling at the overgrown vegetation and cloudy sky. Many hadn’t believed they’d ever see this again, and it put the underground city into perspective; yes, you could survive in the concrete jungle, but was it really living?
They reached the point where the Corsham station used to stand and, although there were more heavily armed men directing them up a small lane away from the train tracks, they could see their first zombies another thirty metres further up the tracks, held back by a line of cars.
Despite being told to continue off the tracks, a few of the hardier souls told their families to stay put while they approached the horde of zombies, a couple of armed men following them.
This was their first ever encounter with zombies and the reality was far more terrifying than they could ever have imagined. To see bloodied body parts and dead bodies lying haphazardly on the tracks on the way to the cars was bad enough, but seeing what used to be human beings in tattered clothing, covered in blood, trailing body parts and doing nothing but mindlessly gnashing their teeth and attempting to reach past the cars to the humans was truly frightening. They could see unemotional, unblinking, blank eyes staring back at them but the collective noise they made was enough to give you nightmares for the rest of your life.
“You don’t want to get too close,” Walid, one of the armed men, suggested. “It might excite them.”
One man kept going and only stopped once he was almost touching the vehicle between himself and the zombies. He stood there, unblinking, lost in his own little World as the zombies strained even harder to get to him. He could have reached out his arm and touched them.
“You better come back,” Walid suggested, but the man didn’t move.
“They killed my family,” the man whispered, looking like he was going to climb on top of the vehicle.
“Stop!” Walid shouted.
The man looked at Walid as if seeing him for the first time. He shook his head and looked back at the horde then back to Walid.
“It’s like they hypnotise you,” the man said. “Can you kill one?”
Walid considered the request for a moment as another group of men came up for a better look.
“No,” Walid replied. “If I shoot one, the noise will scare everyone else and bring my friends running. And I’m not getting on there to stab one. You’ll get your chance to kill one yourself after you’ve had a bit of training.”
The man seemed to accept Walid’s explanation and turned to look back at the long line of people streaming away from the train tracks.
“Where are we being taken?” the man asked.
“Into town,” Walid replied.
“Is it safe?”
“Yes,” Walid confirmed, and the man started walking back.
The other newcomers had also seen enough and followed.
67
Day 24 – 15:30
Burlington
Dev, Umit, Kiraz and Serkan were escorted to the entrance to the train station in Sector 12 by six of Martin’s men who were unsure what was going on until Martin’s announcement came over the tannoy.
They suspected that they now knew why these Turks wanted to be at the train station entrance, but not exactly what was going on or where they themselves fit into the picture.
The soldiers couldn’t believe what was happening if they were honest. They far outnumbered the aggressors above ground and had fully expected to have the chance to fight back. However, it appeared that they were caught quite literally between a rock and a hard place. If they fought back, the aggressors would just explode the bombs they had planted, and Burlington would become a massive and expensive underground tomb. So, they had little choice but to go along with whatever was happening. At least for the time being.
They were even more surprised to hear their boss telling all service personnel to go to Sector 14 to be taken above ground.
A few minutes later the first soldiers and their families started appearing and waited in line, asking what was going on.
One of Martin’s men approached the Turks and asked what was on everyone’s minds.
“Can you tell us what we’re doing here?”
Dev looked at the man as if considering whether to answer and what to say. He realised that he needed these six soldiers to be onside for this to work, so he decided to fill them in.
“All the soldiers and their families are being evacuated,” Dev confirmed. “It’s either that or staying here and dying.”
The soldier stared at Dev, wondering if this was some sort of trick.
“If I was you, I’d help get them on the trains. If they stay, they’ll die. And you don’t want to be around when Mamba gets down here and loses it.”
The soldier had heard mention of Mamba, but not a lot else. Eventually his training took over and he accepted what his boss, Martin, had ordered. Martin wouldn’t have agreed to this unless it was the right or best option available. He nodded briefly.
“OK. What’s happening?
“Th
ere’s six trains,” Dev said. “Three going North, three going to London. They need to get on the trains heading North. Half of them should leave their guns here, but they can all keep their knives.”
The soldier nodded and frowned. Six trains? He thought one had gone, but when he looked across the huge concourse there were six. The sixth must have automatically found its way back.
What he didn’t know was that on arriving at Whitehall, Sir James had purposely pressed the Burlington button and quickly hopped off the train before it set off, trying in vain to hide what he had done and where he had gone. He didn’t know that the missing train had already been spotted.
The soldier made sure that his five colleagues understood what was happening. Then they all spread out along the ever-increasing line of people telling them what they needed to do.
The doors to the passage leading to the massive concourse area were opened and the soldiers and their families were allowed to move forward, the Turks checking that half were leaving their firearms behind and making sure they only boarded the Northern trains.
The specially built trains looked like the Japanese bullet trains, all sleek and shiny. They were fully automated and as such had no drivers or driver compartments. They each had nine carriages with a car containing a toilet at each end and a first-class carriage with its own private toilet in the centre. They could accommodate just over six hundred and twenty seated people and could carry up to fifty percent more if people were standing or sitting in the doorways and aisles.
Burlington currently held just over eight thousand people, made up of one thousand eight hundred soldiers and their families, one thousand two hundred and fifty politicians and their staff and families, just under fifty royals and one thousand one hundred of the rich and famous. The others, just under four thousand, were the service personnel and their families who were heading above ground to Corsham.
68
Day 24 – 16:00
Corsham
Mamba watched as the crowd in the square grew and grew. Basir had mentioned that there were around four thousand people coming up from below ground, so Corsham could become a proper town again. He just hoped that Evelyn wasn’t taking on more than she had bargained for.