Sudden Death: A Zombie Novel (6 page)

A lar
ge map of the borough had been sellotaped over the projector screen. On it, a section of Mill Hill covering several streets had been ringed in red marker pen, with another ring in blue pen around that.

“The red line
,” the Inspector continued, “represents the inner cordon we are currently attempting to establish and maintain. TSG officers and those who are level two trained are tasked with manning this perimeter, attempting to subdue the crowds and apprehend offenders. All other officers will be manning the outer cordon, your main role being to prevent people from entering the containment area.”

“Great. All hell is breaking loose and I’m gonna be stuck on a cordon,” Kieran grumbled.

“Our main current concern is crowd control. I’d rather we didn’t lose too many officers from the scene due to arrests, but if you feel the detention of certain individuals will assist in calming the crowd, then so be it. With that in mind, we’re currently in the process of opening all the custody suites on the borough in the anticipation of an influx of prisoners. Other boroughs are also standing by to assist with their own detention facilities.

“I don’t know how long this is going to take to clean up, so I’ll thank you all in advance for your efforts and patience, and thank you to the
Hertfordshire officers and those from other boroughs for assisting us tonight.”

“Guv’,” James Milligan, ‘Spike’ to his mates
, a PC from team three piped up. “How many are dead?”

“I really couldn’t begin to speculate on the number of civilians killed or injured at this time.”

“No, I mean how many coppers have been killed?”

Inspector Carver frowned heavily now and seemed lost for words for a few seconds. “We have several officers who are currently not answering their radios, despite repeated efforts at contacting them. We’re getting the positions of their radios triangulated by satellites and locating them is one of our primary concerns.

“Now, report to your team Sergeants, for further briefings on your postings.”

Outside the front of the building, the press and gathering local membe
rs of the public were being pushed to one side by hastily erected barriers. A growing number of police officers bunched together on the grass. They waited impatiently for the mini-buses and carriers, which were frenziedly ferrying people to their cordon points, to return and pick them up. A group of men stood apart from the rest, checking the straps of each other’s helmets and MP-5 assault rifles.

“Hey, are they SO19?” Kieran asked.

“I guess so,” Muz answered.

“You know what, if my application for Dogs goes nowhere, I’m going to try for that,” Kieran told Muz, who was hardly listening to him. “I bet they’ve got some war stories.”

As the next bus arrived, Sergeant Sparks herded Muz, Kieran and other officers from team one aboard, ticking them off against his list.

As soon as the sliding side door was slammed into place, the weary and stunned looking driver flicked on the blue lights and spun the bus around, speeding back along the road towards NW7.

“Hey, Mark,” Zoe called to the driver from the back seat of the bus. “What’s going on down there?”

Mark stared fixedly on the road ahead, almost trance-like. “It’s fucked up,” was his only response.

He was an officer of some eighteen years service who had chosen to stay on core team the whole of that time, a rarity to say the least. He had seen some horrific things in his time, but nothing like this.

“Driver, is the handbrake on, ’
cos my granny drives faster than this?” Harshil, a skinny Bangladeshi officer, jibed. He was the kind of person who annoyingly often thought himself to be funnier than he actually was.

Mark ignored him, so with a smile to the others seated around him, Harshil made anoth
er attempt at winding him up.

“What happened to drivin
g to the system? Thumbs on top. Ten to two. Feed the wheel.”

These kind of remarks made at the driver’s expense were usually the norm when on a
carrier, and everyone aboard would join in.  Harshil however didn’t seem to grasp the gravity of the situation, which was playing on everyone else’s minds, and that no one was in the mood for humour.

“Do you want me to feed you the bloody wheel?
” Mark snapped.

“Was that a bite?” Harshil asked, happy that he had got a response. “I think that was a bite.”

“I’ll give you a bite,” Mark said, glowering over his shoulder.

“Shut up, Harshil,” Muz said.

“Ooh, I didn’t know you two were noshin’ each other off,” Harshil then said, turning on him instead. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that. The Met embraces alternative life choices.”

“Harshil, shut up,” Sparks now but
ted in.

Harshil went suddenly and sulkily quiet.

“Right, everybody listen,” Sparks went on to say. “As you know, we’ve got officers from elsewhere manning us up, so remember to use your full call signs.

“You may only be posted as outer cordon control
, but you’re still going to have to keep your wits about you. The situation is not yet fully contained, and despite the guvnor’s ambiguity, it seems we’ve already lost officers.”

The bus went silent then, as that statement sunk in. It was the radio blurting out that finally broke the hushed tension.

“CCTV from IBoss, receiving?” It was the Sergeant in the IBO office.

“CCTV receiving. Go ahead.”

“CCC are getting multiple calls regarding Mill Hill East LT station on Bittacy Hill? Do you have cameras that cover it?”

“Yes,
we do,” said the CCTV operator with a strong Nigerian accent.

“What have you got down there?”
the IBoss asked him.

“Definitely an affray
, but we cannot make much sense of what is going on. People we originally identified as innocent victims caught up in the violence are now turning out to be aggressors, joining in and turning on other victims.”

“Thanks
, we’ll put a call in to get the tubes stopped on that stretch of the line and let BTP know.”

“Are you listening to this?” Kieran asked Muz.

“Yeah. Nobody’s got a friggin’ clue what’s going on,” Muz replied.

A new voice could be heard on the radio now.

“Sierra X-ray One from Sixty Two Uniform?” It was a TSG Skipper.

“I’m listening. Go ahead,” the Inspector replied.

“We’re at the forward RVP and it’s at risk of being compromised. I’m suggesting we move it further South to the Peel Centre.”

As the Sergeant was speaking, voices could be heard in the background, screaming
, and officers were shouting at people to get back.

“R
eceived,” the Inspector replied. “From the noise, it sounds like you’re too close to the action. Pull back to the Peel Centre and await SO19 and my arrival.”

“If they’re moving the RVP,” Sergeant Spar
ks commented, “they must also be being forced to expand the cordons.”

As Mark’s driving over speed bumps and tearing round corner’s rattled the others
around in the bus, Spark’s was on his radio, attempting to get a decision from IBO on the best place to set up new cordons.

“Yeah, all received,” he said at last into his
PR, then leant forward to speak to the driver. “Mark, first drop off is Engel Park, junction with the top of Bittacy Hill.”

Mark had them there less than a minute later and Muz and Kieran
jumped out. Sparks threw a roll of cordon tape at them.

“Tape of
f both roads,” he told them. “Anyone coming down The Ridgeway is to be instructed to do a U-turn. No one is allowed down either Engel or Bittacy. Okay?”

“Understood, Skip,” Muz answered.

“Listen in to your radios. You shouldn’t get any trouble up here, but if you do see any fighting, don’t get drawn into it. Just leave them to it and call up for assistance.”

“You’re lucky,” Mark said, hanging his head out the window. “You’ve got a quiet road.”

The van sped off, leaving the two officers stood in the middle of the empty road.

“Did he just say the ‘Q’ word?” Kieran asked.

“Yep,” Muz replied.

He tried
to peer through the darkness of the night down Bittacy Hill, in an attempt to see any of the trouble that CCTV had reported was going on down at the bottom. The long arc of the road and the treeline made it impossible to see that far though.

“Everybody knows you never say
the ‘Q’ word,” Kieran moaned.

“Well, that’s us fucked then,” Muz said with a wry smile. He didn’t subscribe to that common superstition. “Come on, help me tape off.”

The two of them tied the red and white cordon tape between lampposts on opposite sides of both the roads, as close to the junction as possible. They may as well not have bothered, Muz thought. Not a single vehicle or pedestrian came their way for a long while.

“How’s your missus doing?” Kieran asked.

“Yeah, good thanks,” Muz replied distractedly. “We had the first scan the other day. I couldn’t make out a bloody thing, to be honest, but the Doctor said it was all good.”

They stood there
, standing out against the gloom in their florescent jackets, feeling more than a little impotent, as their radios went crazy with people desperately trying to transmit their messages. All the while, the area they were covering remained completely silent.

Off in the distance
, the rotor blades of the Air Support Unit could be heard cutting through the air, as it circled above the ensuing melee. The occasional sound of someone screaming and the screech of tyres broke what should have been an early morning calm, and at one point, the two officers heard a loud bang.

“Was that a gun?” Muz asked.

“Sounded like a shotgun to me,” Kieran answered.

The sound was followed by a succession of sharp cracks that were the unmistakable rapport of handguns.
Both Muz and Kieran’s radios beeped repeatedly, as officers elsewhere were pressing their emergency buttons one after another.

“Shots fired! Shots fired!” someone called out over their PR.

The voice of the CCC operator grew higher in pitch, as he struggled falteringly to keep on top of it all.

“This is total bullshit,” Kieran said, trying to sound annoyed at being stuck so far from the action
, but Muz heard the unmistakable tremor of fear in his voice.

After what seemed like a dragging
age, the growing light in the eastward sky became noticeable and birds in the trees took up their morning chatter, as day began to break. Muz looked up. From the early warmth and the clear sky, it was already looking like it was going to turn out to be a pleasant day, as far as the weather was concerned anyway.

Eventually
, they heard the sound of an engine coming towards them along The Ridgeway and a silver 3 Series BMW appeared over the brow of the hill. Kieran put up his hands and directed the car to stop beside him.

The lone occupant of the car was a white man in his late thirties, though his salt and pepper swept back hair made him look older.

“What’s going on, officer?” he asked, with an affected air of superiority. “I need to get through.”

“Sorry, Sir,” Kieran replied. “We’re not able to let anyone
through at the moment. There’s been...”

“Why not? What’s going on?”
the man demanded to know.

“To be honest, your guess is as good as mine. All I know is that it’s some kind of public order incident.”

“Well, that’s not really good enough, Officer,” the driver responded with an exaggerated sigh of frustration. “I need to get through. I’m going home. I live on Tavistock Avenue.”

Kieran turned to Muz and raised his eyebrows. On every cordon he had ever stood on, there had always been at least one idiot who demanded to be let through, not seeming to comprehend that police were obviously there for a reason.

“Sorry, that whole area is closed off,” Muz said now, with an element of finality.

“Well, how long is this going to bloody take?” the man barked back.

“Sir, I don’t know,” Muz told him, keeping his voice level and calm.

“Look, I understand you guys are just doing your jobs,” the man said now, changing his tactic, trying to sound reasonable and friendly. “Can you not just let me through though?”

“No.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” the man snapped, reverting back already to his angry, aloof manner.

“All I can suggest,” Kieran offered, “is that, for your own safety, you get well out of the area. Go to a family member or a friend’s place for a few hours until all this blows over.”

“I don’t believe this,” the man said. “Have you any idea how much of an inconvenience this is?”

“Sorry.”

Putting his car in reverse, the man performed a rapid U-turn, glaring at the two police officers as he did so.