Kingdom: The Complete Series (48 page)

“
Trespasser
One, ready.”

“
Gary.
Yep.”

Jamie sees the same
white van slow at the entrance into the car park, and turn. Its lights wash
over the old building, a dilapidated old carpet warehouse or something equally
miscellaneous. Boarded windows mark the front, with a car park sprawled in
front like a huge doormat, marked only by the two burnt out cars left there by
the Destroyer's attack.

Nobody has bothered to
clean the ash from the gravel, and it mixes with the rain to make a thick grime
that the van leaves tire trails in.

“
This
is Trespasser One,” comes the voice in Jamie's ear. “People getting out the
van.”

Jamie stays still,
tense and ready to move if the K-word is said, but nothing comes through the
ear piece save the silence of held breaths.

“
This
is Jamie: Trespasser, any sight of the King?”

“
Nothing.”

“
Who
is it, then?”

“
Four
men, armed. They're moving towards the building.”

Jamie hears the slam of
the van's doors echo through the night. Trespasser One keeps them updated.

“
There's
someone waiting for them at the door. Wearing a suit -”

“
Is
it him?” blurts Jamie.

“
No.”

“
It's
midnight, team,”
says Chloe.

“
They're
inside. Move in,” says the Trespasser. “Take down the van's tires on the way.”

“
Got
it,” says Jamie, and speaks through the phone to his team. “You heard the man.
Move in.”

Mark sits on a bench
behind Chloe as she types away at three different keyboards, a series of
speakers hooked up to different phones plugged into other computers with
monitors displaying maps, timetables, and other readings that may as well be
hieroglyphs to him. Stacy sits across the other end of the room, watching from
afar.

“
I
don't like this,” says Mark, his hands clasped in front of his head.

“
They'll
be fine,” says Chloe.

Mark lets out a tense
breath. “Chloe, you remember the first time we met?”

“
Yeah,”
she says, distracted as she tip-taps away on a laptop. “Me and Jamie were about
to be gunned down. Then you blasted through a wall in your pants and punched
everyone.”

“
And
you remember that I had Jamie by the collar ten minutes later, because he was
going to shoot the King's body double?”

Chloe stops typing, and
turns around, looking at him over her shoulder.

“
What's
your point?”

“
If
the King is there, Jamie isn't going to bring him in alive.”

Chloe stares at Mark,
then over at Stacy, and gives a little shrug.

“
Good.”

“
Chloe
-”

“
The
King was going to sell me into sex slavery to pay our debt, Mark.” She silences
him with a steady glare. “We locked him up once and he just walked out – then
nearly killed you. Twice. Then nearly killed Jamie and Tony; then
actually
killed
a lot of people, and is now planning some more insane bullshit. If Jamie had
just shot him when he had the chance we wouldn't be here.”

She turns around and
goes back to her work. Standing up, Mark escapes the hot air around her and
sits beside Stacy in the cool darkness.

“
What
are you doing over here?” he asks.

“
I
don't like sitting next to all the tech,” she says. “I can feel it all. Feels
weird, like someone tickling my brain.”

Mark throws her a funny
look. “I forget your power sometimes. You ok?”

“
Yeah.
I'd feel better if we were there helping.”

“
You
said -”

“
I
know I said I'm useless in a fight, but...” she shrugs. “If they're taking the
King down, it'd be nice to be there. I've never seen him in the flesh.”

“
Pray
it stays that way.”

She gives him a curious
look. “Don't you wish you were there to put him in cuffs yourself? I mean, this
guy
did
do some pretty dark shit to you.”

He grunts. “I'm past
it.”

“
Oh
you've forgiven him? That's cute.”

Mark scowls at her.
“What?”

“
We
both know that's bullshit, Mark. If you wanted to go punching criminals, you'd
have to drink.
That's
why you're not out there.”

“
So
much for having my back,” he says, leaning forward and looking away from her.

“
Hey,
man, I've always got your back, you know that. I just don't think
you've
got
your back.”

He looks up at her.
“The hell does that mean?”

“
It
means don't be so hard on yourself. You use your powers to help people. If you
were diabetic, I wouldn't think you were strong for not taking insulin, right?”

Mark huffs, turning
away again.

“
Especially,”
she continues, “if insulin gave you superpowers. Nothing wrong with taking
medicine for a condition – and in this case, your condition is that you're
bloody superman.”

“
I'm
not a superhero -”

“
Shut
up Mark,” she sighs, and reaches over to squeeze his forearm. “You properly
saved the world a few months back. You couldn't have done that sober.”

She reaches into her
pocket and pulls out a few nuts and bolts, and threads them together. As Mark
watches, she cups them in her palm and lets them wind their way up and down
over and over. It's hypnotic; Mark finds himself drifting away on his thoughts
as the bolts roll around her palm like stones on glaciers, the nuts winding up
and down the threads like little wheels.

“
Do
you ever imagine what we could do,” she whispers, squeezing his arm again with
her other hand, “if we weren't so afraid of ourselves?”

Jamie jogs past the
van, keeping low, and smiles at the pop-hiss behind him as Gary slashes the
tires. Gary's squeaky, thickly accented voice comes through the phone a second
after Jamie hears him say it:

“
Van
is fucked.”

“
Neutralised,”
whispers Jamie. “The word is
neutralised
, Gary.”

“
Van's
fucking neutralised,” comes the reply.

Jamie sighs.

Another voice cuts
through their chatter as they cross the grimy, ash-soaked gravel.

“
This
is Trespasser One,” he says. “You're all clear. Remember your training.”

They meet at the door,
and Jamie slips the lead pipe out from the inner lining of his jacket, grasping
it by the duct-taped handle. Looking to his left, he finds Gary standing with
his back against the wall, giving him a thumbs up, and Cathy behind him, her
tazer clenched in both hands as though she's afraid of dropping it.

“
If
anything happens,” he whispers, “just do your thing and let me do mine, ok?”

They both nod.

Jamie turns and grasps
the door handle; the cold metal stings through his gloves, and he eases it
open, wincing at the creaking, and disappears into the gloom with his team.

The interior opens up
like a supermarket, with a dingy lobby covered in shattered glass from a pair
of sliding doors that no longer work. Jamie steps through them, glass crunching
underfoot, and lets his eyes adjust to the gloom.

Rows of shelves like
trenches are spread before them, lined with whatever the looters left. Rolls of
carpet, clinging onto ash and dust like hoarders. Jamie motions for the others
to follow him and, holding his breath, pushes into the darkness.

There are voices in the
distance, so he moves towards them, creeping down aisles devoid of customers
and light. Only the faintest silver glow comes from the moon outside, let in by
the smeared, greasy skylights above them.

Somewhere in the
building there's a voice, speaking with such low, fierce power that it sends
shivers through the team. It sounds as though the voice is giving a sermon,
calling followers to worship.

“
Cathy,”
he whispers. “Take a look, see what we're dealing with.”

She shakes her head. “I
can't see for mist and fog and stuff when I go invisible -”

“
Shit,”
he whispers. “Ok, I'll do it.”

He crouches at the end
of the aisle and inches his face around until his right eye is almost pressed
against the edge of the flimsy metal. In the distance, he sees that two
electric lights are on, illuminating one corner where men stand in a circle,
watching some figure in the middle.

Jamie strains his eyes,
but can barely make out the man speaking, or what he's saying. Someone steps
out from the circle, into the centre, and kneels. Like a priest granting a
blessing, the shrouded man in the middle touches his head and says something in
a low murmur, before allowing the man to stand.

“
Cathy,”
whispers Jamie, “get us close, we need to hear what this guy is saying.”

Cathy nods, and holds
her hands out. Like a mother walking two children across the road, she takes
their hands and heads for the light. Before they leave the aisle, mist
envelopes them like a storm, and when it dissipates they are much closer to the
sound.

The light casts shadows
here, and the team shy away from it like animals from fire, pressed against the
aisle as the minister around the corner delivers his sermon.

“
Ok,
I'm taking a look,” says Jamie, and flexes the muscle in his mind. The arrow of
time crashes straight into a wall formed by his willpower, and everything
stops, the colour draining like paint in water.

He steps out and walks
towards the group, lifting the revolver from his pocket. There are at least
eight men, all armed with fierce looking assault rifles. They stand like mourners
at a funeral, heads bowed and hands clasped, their guns cradled like children
in their arms. In one corner are stacks of crates and boxes, one of them opened
to reveal the metallic mass of weaponry inside.

Jamie steps around, and
gasps. In the centre, stands a suited man with eyes like black holes, a
constant sneer of superiority painted across his face like a tattoo.

The King.

He looks at the
revolver, and then back at the King.

Raising the gun, he
points it at the King's sneering face. Cursing, he takes a breath to steady his
aim, his palms growing slippery with sweat. The barrel shakes with his body,
throwing his aim off.

Teeth chattering
together, Jamie looks the King in the eye and tries to pull the trigger. It
creaks and squeaks, and the hammer starts to move.

Then it comes down
again, too heavy for him to lift.

“
The
hell is wrong with me,” he whispers.

Cursing under his
breath, he pockets the revolver and returns to the aisle.

He lets time flow
again, and raises his his phone-pocket to his mouth. As he breathes in his
nostrils are coated with the scent of old, dry air, as though the place has
been burned from the inside out, leaving nothing but a husk that he's inhaling.

“
This
is Jamie,” he whispers. “Get in here. It's him.”

The sermon continues.

Trespasser One appears
like an apparition, Donald crouched in his ill-fitting armour behind him. With
nothing more than hand signals, Trespasser One tells them what he wants them to
do. As he motions towards each of them in turn, the sermon drones on.

“
Son,”
drones the King, his voice trembling and swaying like a shaman lost in the
fumes. “You have ensured your place in the Kingdom, and a place for your wife,
your two children, and your brother's family. You have done the right thing. Do
you swear fealty?”

“
I
do, my King,” comes the timid voice, thick with a London twang.

“
Then
stand, and count yourself amongst my men.”

The sermon goes silent,
then there is the clatter of another man getting to his knees, and the same
things are said, altered slightly to reflect his situation: this man has
ensured that his parents will be counted in the Kingdom, they hear.

Trespasser One finishes
signing his instructions, and hands Jamie a single metal canister; a stun
grenade for him to drop in the centre of the sermon before they move in and
subdue the targets.