Down: Trilogy Box Set (137 page)

“Just the two.”

Garibaldi couldn’t contain his excitement. He waved his hands like a youngster and said, “But we need dozens of these, hundreds, thousands. There is nothing we cannot achieve if we have them.”

“Hang on, Giuseppe,” John said. “Making new ones isn’t going to be as simple as that. First of all we’re going to need these two rifles in case we need to shoot our way in to get at Paul Loomis. If and when we make it back, we’ll give you one to break down and make castings. But the harder part will be making the bullets and the primers to set them off.”

“But surely you left the English forgers with the ability to fashion additional rifles,” Forneau said.

“We didn’t take any chances of the technology falling into the wrong hands,” John said. “When we left the forge we melted the rubber molds and smashed the plaster molds.”

Kyle raised his hand like a kid in the back of a classroom. “Excuse me. I’ve got a confession to make.” He removed his backpack and took out a cloth-wrapped bundle. “I probably should have told you this but I kept one set of rubber molds.”

John looked furious. “Why’d you do that?” he asked.

Kyle shrugged, “I don’t know, just in case we got ourselves in a jam. I probably should have run it by you.”

“Let’s talk,” John said. “Just the two of us.”

He pulled Kyle over to one of the arched doorways and slammed him. “Look, if these molds had fallen into the wrong hands then Garibaldi would be crushed like a walnut.”

“But they didn’t, did they?”

“That’s not the point,” John fumed.

“Yeah, it is. If these are the good guys then we’ve just put AKs into the right hands. Are they the good guys?”

“Yeah, I think they are. But will they be forever? You know what they say about absolute power corrupting absolutely.”

“Guess that’s a chance we’re going to have to take.”

“Did you save the bullet molds too?”

“Yep.”

“Well, without primers it’s all going to be moot.”

“I saved a jar of the chemicals too.”

John threw his hands in the air. “Christ, Kyle. I’m glad we’re on the same team. If you were in my unit I’d have you referred for court martial.”

Kyle got up and pushed his face inches from John’s. “Well, I’m a fucking volunteer, so fuck off.”

“Do you also have Professor Nightingale in your backpack? Without him, once your jar’s empty, there’s no more primers and no more bullets.”

“Emily knows how to make them now.”

John shook his head and stepped away to walk off his anger. A minute later he returned and said, “Well, you know what we’re going to have to do?”

“What?”

John smiled. “We’re going to make Giuseppe some rifles and ammo.”

Kyle nodded. “Thought you were going to say that.”

The morning light flooding her windows woke Benona with a start. She wasn’t used to sleeping all the way through the night. Ever since the Heller invasion she had risen every few hours to look out the windows, check the radio news, look in on her daughter.

Woodbourne was fast asleep under the covers, still smelling strongly of the cologne he’d splashed all over before slipping into her sofa bed. His Heller odor was slight. She felt protected and loved for the first time in ages. Something close to a smile softened her face but then she remembered.

Polly.

She’d gone the entire night without checking on Polly.

At first she was relieved to see the girl lying so peacefully under her duvet.

Then she was horrified.

She shook her. “Polly? Polly?”

The girl was unresponsive and red-hot to the touch, her breathing heavy.

“Brandon! Come quick! It’s Polly!”

The big man was fast to wake. He was in the girl’s room in a flash.

“She’s sick,” Benona wailed, “she’s real sick.”

“But you gave her the new medicine, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but maybe it was wrong medicine. I think she’s dying. Polly, please wake up for mama.”

“I’ll go fetch the doctor,” he said.

“The surgeries are all closed.”

“Can you ring for an ambulance?”

“Nobody’s picking up emergency number. The radio keeps saying this.”

“Then let’s take her to the hospital. What’s the nearest?”

“Homerton. I’ll see if they pick up phone.”

Her hands were shaking as she paged through the directory assistance book looking for the number. She punched in the number. The phone rang again and again. She hung up and tried numbers for different departments. Finally she put the phone down and began to cry.

“Tell me where the hospital’s at. I’ll go over there and see if I can find a doctor.”

“Is dangerous, Brandon.”

“I can take care of myself.”

Woodbourne left her in Polly’s room, pulled his ragged clothes on and ran out onto the street. Glebe Road was deserted and so was Richmond Road. It was about two miles to the hospital and he flat-out ran. In a weird way he was fitter in death than he was in life. He had been a big smoker in the 1930s and ’40s and never walked when he could hop in a motorcar. There were no smokes in Hell and frequently he had to run to save himself from soldiers, rovers, and villagers he had robbed. Now, his legs churned under him and his coat billowed behind as he sped down the middle of the carless road.

Ben was in the loo at MI5 headquarters when his mobile went off. He fished it out of the trousers around his ankles and saw it was the Drone Warfare Centre at RAF Waddington.

“Wellington.”

“This is Major Garabedian, sir. We’re tracking a target and we’re going to require your firing authorization.”

“I’m just away from the ops centre. I’ll ring you back in two minutes. Is the target imminently threatening known civilians?”

“I think we can wait two minutes, sir.”

Ben washed his hands and hurried to the lifts. He’d been chained to the office ever since the prime minister put him in charge of drone-kill authorizations. Every time he had given the nod he had felt diminished, made smaller and cheaper by self-doubt. Had he killed any civilians? Would he ever know for sure? There weren’t enough soldiers deployed throughout London to do an after-action evaluation on each missile strike.

“What have they sent us?” Ben asked on arrival.

“Putting it on the big screen now,” one of the techs said. “You’re on speaker with RAF Waddington.”

“This is Wellington,” he said. “Just this one man?”

The zoomed-in image showed a solitary figure with a billowing coat running down the middle of an empty street.

“Just the one, yes,” the air force major said.

“Hardly worth the fuss,” Ben said.

“We were concerned because he may be closing in on a civilian hospital. He appears to be continuing on that course.”

“Which hospital is that?”

“The Homerton University Hospital.”

“Where did you pick him up?” Ben asked.

“We started tracking him on the Richmond Road in Hackney.”

“Kip, do we know if there are any medical staff remaining there?”

The young analyst said he’d check and quickly came back to say that no one was responding at the casualty department.

“The hospital might be fully evacuated,” Ben announced.

“It’s your call, sir,” Major Garabedian said. “From his clothes we’re making the call he’s a Heller.”

“Yes, thanks for that,” Ben said curtly. “Which street is he on?”

“It’s Fenn,” Kip said. “If he makes a right on Homerton Ave the hospital’s right there.”

“Stand by,” Ben said. “You do not yet have my authorization.”

Woodbourne ran to the end of Fenn Street. To his right he saw the low, tan-brick hospital buildings and a sign for the casualty entrance. He turned down the empty Homerton Grove, his lungs aching.

From Drone Warfare: “He appears to be about to enter the hospital. Do we have permission to fire?”

Ben studied the image of the speeding man. If he was going to the hospital, why was that? What would possess a Heller to run as fast as he could through Hackney toward a hospital neither pursuing nor being pursued?

“Do we have permission to fire?”

Ben watched the man veer into the casualty forecourt and then he was gone from view, presumably inside.

“Target lost,” Garabedian said. There was a crackling sound from over the speaker then Garabedian again with a different, less professional tone saying, “Hope to fuck he doesn’t kill any innocents.”

The staff at the ops centre looked away from Ben in discomfort.

“What did you say?” Ben demanded.

There was a brief silence as Garabedian realized he hadn’t hit the mute button properly. “Sorry, sir. Slip of the tongue.”

“Don’t second-guess me again, Major. It won’t be good for your career. Keep eyes on this area and let’s see what develops if anything.”

Woodbourne got to the sliding glass doors of the casualty department and tried pushing on them. When that didn’t work he tried pulling them apart. Pounding on the doors with his fists didn’t raise anyone. In frustration he put his shoulder against the door once, twice, three times and then for the fourth try he stepped back and hurled himself at the safety glass which shattered into thousands of rounded pieces.

He stepped through and was at the reception desk.

“Hello?” he called out. “I need a doctor.”

His words echoed.

“Anybody?”

He wandered through casualty, the empty patient cubicles, the trauma room, all neat, tidy, and empty. The sun streaming through the large panes in the corridor leading to the wards stung his sensitive eyes. He had to blink and squint to read the directory. The Starlight Children’s Unit was on the first floor.

Exiting the stairwell, at first he thought the unit was as vacant as everywhere else but then he heard a whooshing sound and followed it. It took him to the open doors of the pediatric intensive care unit. In the closest glass-lined room to the doors he saw a small boy, motionless in bed, a tube down his nose, a ventilator bellows rising and falling.

“Excuse me, may I help you?”

The voice was a woman’s, urgent, authoritative, challenging.

“Help me? Yes. I need a doctor.”

The nurse said, “You’re not supposed to be here. The hospital’s closed. How did you get in?”

“There’s a girl. She’s very ill.”

The nurse seemed to suddenly focus on the things about him that were wrong: his clothes, his furtive, darting eyes, his body odor.

She started walking backwards, a hesitant step at a time. “Are you …?”

“I need a doctor,” he said matching her, step-by-step.

“George!” she screamed. “George, I need you!”

A tall, lanky man with heavy stubble and a stethoscope draped around his neck appeared from another room.

“What’s the …”

He didn’t finish the sentence because he saw Woodbourne and he too must have recognized the nature of the threat.

“Listen,” the doctor said, “we don’t want any trouble. We've got three very sick children here who were too ill to be transported. We’re the only ones left in the hospital. If it’s food you want, we can let you have some of ours. Then we need you to leave.”

“Are you a doctor?”

“Yes I am. Dr. Murray.”

“There’s a sick girl not far from here. Her mother’s with her. I need you to come with me to sort her out.”

“I’m confused,” Murray said. “You don’t seem to be from …” He paused, appearing to search his brain for the right way to put it. “You don’t seem to be from around here.”

“I’m not. But I used to be.”

“What’s your name?”

“Brandon. Brandon Woodbourne.”

The doctor’s tone turned soothing but it didn’t come across as genuine. “Brandon, may I call you by your first name?”

“I don’t care.”

“Brandon, our understanding from what we’ve heard from the authorities is that there are no children from where you’re from.”

“You can call it by its name. Go ahead, say it.”

“Yes, well, Hell, I suppose. Hard to fathom it.”

“The girl’s from here. So’s her mother.”

The nurse asked, “We didn’t think …”

Woodbourne interrupted, “Didn’t think that Hellers did anything good? We’re not all animals. The girl and her mother—they mean a lot to me.”

“Terrible things are happening in London,” the nurse said. “We’re all scared.”

“You should be scared,” Woodbourne said. “You should be scared of me. I was a murderer. I am a murderer. But I need your help and I won’t hurt you. I promise.”

“What’s the matter with this girl?” Murray asked.

“She had a bad earache. Her mother gave her medicine last night but it didn’t help. Today she’s got fever and won’t wake up.”

“How old is she?”

“I don’t know children’s ages. She’s about this high.”

He held his hand at his waist.

“I see,” Murray said. “Do you know what medicine she was given?”

Benona had given him a capsule. He showed it.

“We’re seeing a lot of resistance to amoxicillin lately,” the doctor said, handing it back. “It may be that the infection has spread to her brain and spinal cord. She may have meningitis.”

“Is that bad?”

“It can be very bad,” the nurse said. “She probably needs to get a different antibiotic via a drip.”

“I agree,” Murray said. “You’ve got to bring her here.”

“No. I want you to come with me,” Woodbourne said.

“Neither of us can leave,” Murray said firmly, though his voice had a quaver. “These three children are far too ill for one person.”

He turned menacing. “I can make you come.”

“Here’s the thing,” Murray said. “Even if I went with you, even if both of us went with you, this girl sounds too sick to care for at home. She likely needs more than medicine. She may need to be on a breathing machine and a vital signs monitor like these. She may die at home. She may live if you bring her here.”

“If I do, will you promise to treat her?”

“Yes, I promise,” Murray said.

“If you don’t, you know I’ll kill you.”

“Yes, I believe you.”

Woodbourne rubbed his face as he thought. “All right. I’ll bring her here.”

“How far is it?” the nurse asked.

“About two miles.”

“How did you get here?”