Surviving The Evacuation (Book 7): Home (16 page)

She took a step towards them. Why were they here? What was inside? As she took a step towards the cases, she realised the room wasn’t completely empty. There was another door in the far wall with a thick, old table propped in front. Behind it was Graham, his rifle pointing straight at her. She froze. The grenade launcher was angled wrong, pointing not quite at the floor. She’d have to move it fifty-six degrees, and then shoot through the gap between the top of the table and the doorframe. Even with time to aim, over a distance of forty metres, that was going to be difficult.

Why hadn’t he fired? That was the first question that went through her mind. The second was where had he got the rifle? It wasn’t the SA80 she’d repaired back at the Tower but something far newer, with a suppressor and scope.

There was no cover, and that meant only one shot, one chance. Not for her, but for Jay and the children and the others at the Tower. Trying not to let the movement show, she tensed, readying to dive, aim, and fire.

A light went on from somewhere beneath the bulk of the table. It under-lit Graham’s face. For a moment she was puzzled as to why he was making her shot easier. She realised his mouth was moving. He was trying to talk to her. Distance and the weird shadows made it hard to make out what he was saying. Then he moved a hand from the barrel of his rifle, and motioned for her to step forward. She didn’t.

It was a trap. It had to be. Yet if he wanted her dead, he could have shot her as soon as she stepped into the room. She took a step, then another, inching forwards until she could read his lips.

“You understand?” he was saying. “I’m talking about those cases. Do you know what’s in them?”

She stopped, her eyes flicking to the cases, then back to him.

“So you do understand. Good. And you do know what’s inside, right?”

She shook her head.

“Suitcase nukes. Quigley’s last weapon. If you fire that grenade, maybe you’ll set off a chain reaction. You probably won’t, but you will crack the casing. Radioactive debris will contaminate Westminster. The rain’ll wash it into the Thames. That’s what you lot were worried about, wasn’t it, the radiation? Well, if you fire, they’ll all die, and they won’t even know why. So keep that grenade launcher lowered. Understand?”

She didn’t move, nor make any sign that she’d understood. He was almost certainly wrong. From this distance, a grenade probably wouldn’t do more than singe the casing.

“You fire, they all die,” Graham said. “And you don’t want that.”

But she still wasn’t close enough. The gap between the top of the table and the door frame was just over a metre wide, and half a metre tall. She would probably miss, and certainly be caught in the explosion, but he would live. And what if he was right?

“Quigley’s last weapon,” Graham was saying, though she’d missed how that sentence had begun. “It was his fall-back plan if London survived and everything else was ruined.” And then he said something else, but she didn’t catch what.

“Why?” she rasped.

“Because he was a smart man,” Graham said. “And smart men know that if you’ve got a plan B because plan A might fail, then you should expect that backup plan to fall apart as well. Prepare for every eventuality. It turned out to be providential, don’t you think?”

Tuck shook her head. “Why. This?” Her throat burned with the effort.

“He knew it might fall apart,” Graham said, either misunderstanding or choosing not to. “It’s why I came here to…” And he’d moved his head. She thought the next word was ‘London’ and then that he’d said something about a man, and “is a small world, I suppose. The past haunts us all, but if you leave me alone,” he said, “then I’ll leave you and the Tower be. Understand? Westminster and everything to the west of here is mine. You’ve got everything east of the Tower. The land in between is our very own DMZ. You understand?”

She didn’t. Something was off. It didn’t add up.

“Understand?” he asked again.

There would be time for questions later. The room he was in would have more than one door. That was how she’d get him. With slow exaggeration, she nodded her head.

“Go,” Graham said. “Now. Tell them to leave me alone. You won’t like the alternative.”

She nodded, backing away, her eyes looking between him and the room. There were two doors in addition to the one she’d entered by. The light under the table went out, and Graham was in shadow once more. Tuck skipped backwards and out into the corridor, running light footed along it, counting the doors until she reached the fourth one. She gripped the handle. It turned. The door didn’t open. Splinters flew from the frame as Graham shot through the door. He missed her, but she got the message. He’d expected that. He’d expected her. There was another shot. She backed away. Her options were limited. She could retreat down the corridor, fire a grenade at the door, blowing it off its hinges, then… No. The shots hadn’t come anywhere near the lock. It was likely the door had been barricaded. There would be flames and smoke, and she’d be blind. He, on the other hand wouldn’t, and he had at least one other way out of that room. And he seemed to know where she was. Were there cameras, perhaps? She glanced up and down the hallway. Or was she just making more noise than she realised. He could have a thermal imaging for all she knew, and it didn’t matter. She retreated back along the corridor, taking up a position in the stairwell, her eyes on the doorway, the grenade launcher steadied on the bannister.

Minutes passed. There was no sign of him, and no more shots. She ran through her options, but no matter how she dressed them up, it came down to attack or retreat. He’d had time to plan, that was clear, but he was arrogant. She backed down the stairs until the corridor was lost from sight, and then she picked up her pace, heading for the exit. And that arrogance, combined with the confidence that would come from an assumed victory would make him reckless. She reached the door, and kicked it open.

There were no undead immediately outside. She kicked the door again until it slammed against brick. Two creatures moving across an intersection a little further up the block turned towards her. She drew her bayonet and waited.

One was far slower than the other, not quite limping but looking like it was on the verge of collapse. It didn’t matter. When the first was three paces away, its arms stretched out. As its mouth opened, ready to topple forward onto its prey, she lashed out with her foot, kicking its leg from under it. It fell sideways, and she stabbed the bayonet down through its temple. The other was still ten paces away. She grabbed the fallen creature, pushing its body in front of the door, straightening just as the second got within a clawing hand’s range. She speared the bayonet through its eye, adding its body to the other, now preventing the door from closing.

She needed sound. Scowling with distaste, she grabbed a zombie’s leg, and wrenched off a shoe. She pulled the laces free of all but the last two eyelets and knotted them together. She took out the multi-tool, opened the small knife attachment, and hammered the blade into the door. The laced shoe went over the end. She gave it a push. The heel hit wood. The wind would do the rest. Three more creatures were heading towards her. It was far from perfect, but it would do. She scanned the buildings opposite, mentally marking the position of the best window to fire from, then ran along the road, away from it, towards an alley.

A zombie staggered into the road. She punched out, smashing its head against the brick wall, and kept on running, taking the corner, then another, and there, a window two metres above the ground. She climbed in.

She sniffed. There was a smell of damp but not decay. Quickly she went up to the third floor. Careful to keep her back to the wall so she wouldn’t be seen from outside, she found the window with the view of the open door. The blind was half down, giving her enough light to see what she was doing, but enough cover that, if he was watching, Graham wouldn’t see her carefully move the contents off a desk and upend a filling cabinet on top. Inch by inch, she pushed the desk closer to the window. Then she pulled the door to the room closed, moved a desk chair close to the window, and sat down to watch.

When she saw him come to close the door, she would push the filing cabinet through the window, breaking the glass. Instinct would make him look up, and that would give her the time to fire. And he would come to close the door. She saw a zombie slouching down the street, heading towards the sound of the shoe knocking against wood. Yes, he would come. She just had to be patient.

28
th
September

Tuck stumbled in the dark, put out a hand to stop her fall, and felt it brush something off the edge of a desk. A moment later, a light weight hit her foot. Hurry, but don’t rush, she told herself. More cautiously, one hand in front searching for the wall, the other held low seeking further obstructions, she tried to find her way to the other side of the building.

Dusk had come early, with the clouds piling across the sky while the sun was still high enough to cast its light into the canyon of streets outside. She’d sat for uncounted hours, unable to see anything, not even the rain hammering against the window.

In the dark silence, it had felt like she was in a tomb. She’d run her hands across the edge of the table and scraped her nails against the metal of the filling cabinet, just so that she could know the world beyond her own private hell was still there. In one pocket she had three waterproof matches. It was when a treacherous voice kept repeating that there was no way anyone would be able to see the light if she struck one that she forced herself to stand.

She needed sleep. Graham was unlikely to try and close the door during the night, and she was unlikely to see him if he did, not unless he lit his path with a searchlight. It was the time to rest, but before that, she needed water. There was only one source of it nearby. Fear of the dark, masquerading as caution against radiation or disease, had kept her immobile for half of the night. Thirst finally won out, and she accepted that she would either have to drink the rain, or return to the Tower as soon as it was light. And she couldn’t return to the Tower, not until the job was done.

The texture under her fingers changed from wallpaper to wood. A doorframe. She found the handle, opened the door. There was no change to the darkness surrounding her. Right hand brushing the wall, the left grasping out in front and to her side, expecting to touch necrotic skin or decaying clothes, she forced herself along the corridor, taking step after leaden step. Heal to toe, heal to toe, counting each one, knowing that four steps added up to just over a metre. Counting gave her mind something to dwell on other than the rending teeth she would never know were there until they bit down on her flesh.

One hundred and twenty steps from where she started, counting the four steps left, three steps forward, and four right to walk around a desk, her hand touched cold glass. She searched the frame looking for a latch. There wasn’t one. The window wasn’t designed to be opened. Irrational panic grew. She barely had the presence of mind to turn her head and raise a hand to her eyes as she drew her bayonet and stabbed the blade at the glass. The sharp white pain of something cutting through her glove brought her out of her fug. She quelled the temptation to stick her head outside. Instead, she groped around until she found a chair. Standing on it, she ran the bayonet along the frame, clearing the top and sides of jagged shards, only then, and when standing on firm ground, did she lean out and breathe in. The sudden blast of cool, cold, wet air was like balm on a summer’s day.

The moment of calm didn’t last long. Would Graham have heard the sound of falling glass? Would the undead? Or would the storm have masked it? It was too late to worry about it now.

She searched the desk, and then the drawers for something plastic and hollow, instead finding a metal bin underneath. She upturned it and cautiously felt inside. It was dry, dusty, but felt clean. It would have to do. She propped it in the open window, then began the laborious task of making her way back to her lookout point.

What was in those cases, that was the question, and it was one she couldn’t answer from where she sat. Graham believed they were nuclear weapons. Tuck wasn’t so sure. Regardless that the outbreak had been caused by accident, if Quigley could organise a project like that, then researching the miniaturisation of nuclear warheads was entirely possible. But was it probable? Could the cases contain something even more destructive? How many other secret labs did he have? In the dark, with dawn an unknown time away, her mind filled with monsters far worse than the undead. She slowed her breathing, telling herself to think rationally, but it was close to impossible. Those six cases, if they were nuclear bombs, would have a yield large enough to destroy a few blocks, but no more. What was it Graham had said? Something about a backup plan in case all else went wrong. What use would those cases be against the undead?

She was looking at it the wrong way. The outbreak had been an accident. There were no other monsters, nor labs to create them. Quigley had created a plan around the tools he had available: those cases. The details of those plans were immaterial. All that mattered was that Graham thought they were nuclear bombs.

And he’d said something else. Something significant, though she couldn’t remember quite what. She was still replaying the conversation, trying to remember what it was when her eyes caught the sudden twinkling of a raindrop outside. Dawn was on its way.