Warhead (9 page)

‘I... am sorry, about Tomas.’

The old woman sighed, and it burned Carter to see tears on her cheeks. ‘He was a good man. A good husband ... like you, a good man standing up for what he believed in.’ She reached forward, surprising Carter, and kissed him gently on the cheek.

‘I am not a good man,’ whispered Carter.

‘You have risked your life. You have saved us. That is enough. God and his angels will be the judge of your worth.’

Carter helped the woman and her grandchildren to the Skoda, and lifted the body of Tomas, laying it gently across the back seat. The Skoda, trailing blue smoke, disappeared in a cloud of dust up the hill. Carter threw a glance at the bent and buckled Mercedes, and the corpses littering the ground—including the mangled carcass of the dead Sleeper Nex.

The world stank of death.

I thought I had left all this behind, he thought.

I thought the days of oblivion and destruction had vanished ...

‘Not vanished. Just hidden. You know they will never leave you,’
snarled Kade from the dark side of Carter’s soul.
‘You know you are entwined with death, from the moment you were born to the moment you fucking
die ...
programmed, like the most efficient of computer-generated killers ...’

Carter walked up the dirt track, heading back for his bike and the calming mental sanctuary of his young son.

‘I thought those days were gone for me. I thought that life was finally over.’

‘Never, Carter. Never.’

Carter was stripped to the waist, his old combat shorts stained and tattered above tanned legs and scuffed army boots. Sweat gleamed across his well-muscled and heavily scarred torso as he sawed at the thick plank of rough-cut timber, the teeth of the blade slicing neatly through the grain and filling the air with a scent of resin.

The sun sat, a copper pan nailed to the sky as the engine sound reached Carter and he ceased his work, straightening and wiping a layer of sweat from his face. His gaze moved from the broken fence he was trying to repair to the giggling distant form of Joseph running barefoot across the rocks with Samson bounding behind him to the rear slope at the back of the house from where the sounds of a badly maintained engine intruded.

The battered black KTM spluttered into view, knob-bled tyres churning sand and pulling to a halt on dipping, leaking shocks. Carter shaded his eyes as the old man climbed free, one leg stiff and nursed by a protective hand, and then limped through the sand and up the three steps to the stone-laid path which wound down to the patio overlooking the sea.

‘Sounds like your plugs are in need of some TLC,’ said Carter.

‘If I wanted your opinion, boy, I’d ask for it.’

The shaven-headed old man approached, fearsome and savage-looking. Suddenly his face broke into a beaming smile as his gnarled hand thrust out. Carter returned his grip—surprisingly strong, for the other man was well into his sixties.

‘How’s life, Ed?’

‘I’ve felt better. My bloody leg is giving me real grief.’

‘That bullet still eating you?’

‘Aye.’

‘You could always see a doctor.’

Ed looked sideways at Carter. ‘A
Nex
surgeon? I’d rather have my manhood chewed off by a shark. Anyway, lad, you going to offer an old soldier a beer—or what?’

Carter grinned, and motioned to the nearby table and bench seats. Ed limped towards a seat, steely blue eyes staring off to where Joseph ran through the surf. Carter retrieved two beers, tossing one to Ed who caught the can neatly in one fist. On one set of army-tattooed knuckles was the word TUFF, complemented on the other hand by CUNT. Carter’s gaze drifted, reading the self-inflicted army script. On the back of one hand it said,
‘Too young to die
’ whilst the other read,
‘Too tough to kill’.
Both slogans were smudged and blurred with age, and both wrists had the word ELVIS LIVES inscribed on them.

‘How’s the boy doing?’

‘Well,’ said Carter, sipping his beer. His guts were still churning from the previous night’s whisky and he acknowledged that beer was probably the last thing he needed. ‘He’s a little monster, mind, always getting into mischief. Poisoned my fish the other day—’

‘How did he do that?’ asked Ed.

‘Dumped in a tin of sausage and beans, and a pound of butter. When I asked him what he’d been doing, he said he was giving them breakfast. Killed the whole damned tank!’

‘Aww. But he only had their best interests at heart!’

‘Yeah, not quite the way I saw it when I lost my entire stock. Anyway, listen, Ed, the Nex came sniffing around here last week. Masked and heavily armed. They are going to impose registrations on the island. Left me forms to fill in, the paper-pushing bastards.’

‘From assassins to fucking civil servants.’ Ed nodded, grinning maliciously. ‘Pieces of shit, the lot of ‘em. We could always hire a yacht; sail off to sea, avoid the fucking paperwork that way.’

‘Well, that’s always an option. Although listening to the engine on your bike, I don’t think I’d entrust my life to any mechanical skills you might claim to possess. You fixed your boat yet?’

‘No.’

‘Thought not.’

They paused, and Samson’s bark drifted over to them as Ed cracked his tattooed knuckles and turned his glittering eyes on Carter. Ed’s face was worn, creased with age, battered by too many battles and a war that would never end. An ex-pat, he had already been living on Cyprus when Durell had conquered the world—when, with the aid of the QIV military processor, he had decimated the Global Army and a huge number of cities with tactical nuclear strikes. When Carter had arrived, a fugitive, in exile as the Nex searched out and murdered those survivors from the Spiral army that they could find, Carter had shunned the company. And in the five years he had lived
(hid,
whispered Kade with mocking laughter) on the island, one of the few men he had allowed through his mask of suspicion, hatred, frustration and horror, had been Ed. Formerly King’s Regiment, serving in Northern Ireland, Africa, Germany, Egypt, Hong Kong and finally China, this ex-sergeant had retired to Cyprus looking for peace and tranquillity. A retirement from battle. An end to war and death.

Then the Nex had arrived. And brought their own version of hell with them ...

‘Have you heard from them recently?’ asked Eddie.

Carter stared hard. He sipped at his beer, then shook his head. ‘Spiral? No.’

‘Not even Nicky?’

Carter grinned nastily. ‘Straight to the point, eh? No beating around the bush for you, you old donkey.’

‘No point, lad. Bushes are like GPS systems—only for pussies. So then? You had no contact at all with Spiral, or any of its operatives?’

‘Nicky called. Maybe two months ago. Why the sudden interest? Is something going down that I need to be told about?
Should
I be expecting a visit?’

Ed reclined and watched Joseph and Samson down by the edge of the sea. Waves were rolling gently over the rocks and Joe seemed to have found something which he was inspecting closely.

‘He safe down there? On his own like that?’

‘He’s safe, Ed. Come on, spill.’

‘The Nex caught somebody. A Spiral terrorist, so-called. It was plastered all over the news last night—I thought you might have seen it.’

‘Who was it?’

Ed’s eyes met Carter’s stony gaze. ‘A big black guy. Been at the forefront of Spiral activity since Durell’s big push five years ago. He’s a friend of yours. Man by the name of Justus.’

Carter said nothing. He turned his head slightly, gaze fixed on his son splashing in a rock pool and poking at something with what looked like a stick.

‘He was a good friend, yes?’

Carter nodded, sighing. ‘Yeah. The best a man could have.’

‘It is a great shame,’ said Ed sombrely. ‘Your companions are being picked off one by one. Durell and the Nex are compromising the SpiralGRID. Soon, Spiral will have nowhere left to run—or hide. There will be nothing left for them.’

‘I’m no longer part of Spiral,’ said Carter softly, standing and moving to the rail where he grasped the sturdy timber with both hands, gazing out over the gently rolling sea. A breeze ruffled his short brown hair, soothing his skin, making him shudder slightly as within the dark recesses of his brain a million dark and twisted images flickered a nightmare reel of murder.

‘It’s not my problem any more,’ he said.

Carter slept badly again that night after a shower and some calming cuddles from his now dozing, gently breathing child.

Once Joe had been put to bed, Carter tossed and turned, sleeping fitfully; haunted. He had a dream. In the dream Natasha appeared to him, her naked body grey and withered, her eyes empty black holes which expressed despair and an eternity of suffering and horror. Carter awoke at dawn, groggy and with his head pounding. Pulling on shorts and battered trainers, and checking quickly on his son, he jogged down to the rocky beach with Samson leaping around his feet. He pounded along the wet sand, leaping shallow pools and narrow crevasses sea-worn from the dark jagged rock.

He put down six miles at an intense pace which left Samson trailing miserably behind him, head down, tongue out, eyes pleading for his master to halt.

Reaching home, he found Joseph sitting on the porch, eating cereal. Carter pounded up to the wooden boards and stood, hands on hips, face red from exertion, allowing his body to calm as Samson slunk off to bury his head in his wide ceramic water bowl.

‘You OK, lad?’

Joe nodded, munching. ‘Nicky called on the telephone. She said she was coming.’

Carter silently cursed, and moved inside to shower and change quickly. He returned wearing knife-cut combat shorts, boots and a tattered Che Guevara T-shirt and stood, leaning against the porch and giving in to his craving—much to Joe’s frowning disapproval. He lit a cigarette, and stared out over the sea, eyes searching for the Manta. Eventually he spotted it, glinting darkly, sleek and mean as it sliced through distant drifting clouds. The tiny matt-black fighter banked sharply, jets rotating smoothly to allow it a neat vertical landing a hundred metres away from the house.

The cockpit canopy slid to one side and Nicky stood, stretching, and waved at Carter with a beaming smile.

He gave a short wave back, finishing his cigarette only to light another immediately. Nicky climbed down from the Manta, shouldered her pack and jogged towards him over the black, volcanic-like rocks, jumping nimbly from one outcrop to another.

Joe ran across the porch as Nicky came close, and she scooped him up in a big bear hug, throwing him into the air. He giggled, rubbing his face in her hair, against her neck, and she slapped at his bottom. ‘How’s my favourite little man doing?’

‘I’m being a good boy.’

‘Have you stopped daddy smoking yet?’

Joe frowned.
‘Nobody
can stop daddy smoking. You should know that.’

Nicky, protesting at Joseph’s recent weight gain, put the young boy down. There followed a few minutes of small talk. But all the while Carter was watching her eyes—and he could read something there. A word which taunted him with the initial letter M. M for Mission.

Finally, Joseph ran down to the beach with a yapping Samson. Carter and Nicky sat on oppose sides of the table, Nicky’s pack between them on the rough-cut pine boards as Carter poured two cups of coffee from a jug. Nicky took her coffee black, whilst Carter added cream and three sugars to his.

‘You’ll get fat.’

‘I am fat. Now, what do you want?’

Nicky pouted. ‘What makes you think I want anything?’

‘I can read it in your eyes. And I’ve got a horrible feeling it’s not something I’m going to like.’

Nicky nodded, accepting a cigarette from Carter, and then a light from his Zippo. She allowed her smiling mask—a mask held in place for the benefit of the young boy—to drop.

‘We have a problem.’

‘We?’

‘Spiral.’

‘Yeah, but I’m not Spiral any more.’

‘You’ll always be Spiral, Carter. In your heart. In your soul.’

‘Not true,’ he said, looking away, gaze drifting to where Joseph played beside the rolling surf. The sea boomed behind him. ‘I have different priorities in my life.’

‘Such as?’

‘Survival.’

‘You think Durell’s domination of the world is conducive to your survival? You’re living in a dream world, Carter. Durell has filled the cities with Nex and JT8 murder squads. He’s nuked the hell out of us, then dumped HATE over every damned patch of non-urban landscape the world over—or so he would have us believe via his HIVE Media system of shite—and all to hem in the people like prisoners in the largest concrete prisoner-of-war camps ever devised. If it wasn’t for the Spiral labs churning out anti-HATE drugs there would be no way we could operate outside the cities—and that’s why Durell needs us seriously
dead..’

Carter shrugged. ‘I played my part, Nicky. I risked my life, countless times. But it was no good—Durell was too strong, too resourceful, too powerful. As you’ve just described.’

‘What is this shit?’ Nicky frowned, her pretty face twisting in anger. ‘This isn’t the Carter I know! This isn’t the man who stood by his friends, stood by the people who had fought alongside him ... this isn’t the
soldier
who I know and love!’