Spiral (19 page)

“And sequence eight, please,” the grille interrupted.

“We’re all frozen to the marrow, bloody hungry, and bloody knackered. If you don’t open up, Finch, I’m going to blast my way into the Complex,” Parry threatened.

There was a pause, then something clicked at the side of the panel, and a crack of light appeared.

“Finally!” Parry exclaimed, heaving the door open so they could make their way down a ramp with rusted iron handrails on either side. They descended into a low-ceilinged room.

“This is the only way in or out of the Complex,” Parry told them, tipping his head at the substantial-looking door that appeared through the dim flashlight beam. “That’s armor plate,” he said. “It would take a ton of explosive to even make a dent in it.” Then he pointed at the gun-sized slits in panels of gray metal set into the concrete walls flanking the door. “And behind those are the twin guard rooms where the sentries would be stationed,” he continued.

“What exactly is this place?” Mr. Rawls ventured.

“The Complex was the base for Operation Guardian,” Parry answered. “It’s so hush-hush that
them upstairs
have probably forgotten that they’re meant to have forgotten it ever existed.”

“So it’s like that fallout shelter Will found?” Chester asked.

“No, it’s more than that,” Parry said. “Back in the years before the Great War, the aristocrats running the country decided that they needed a safe haven. Somewhere to put their families and portable valuables in the event of invasion. So they built the Complex with their own money — I suppose you could regard it as an underground castle for the very rich. Later on, when things were getting sticky for us in the Second World War, the War Cabinet commandeered it, expanding its role to include a command center for the Resistance.”

“Operation Guardian?” Mr. Rawls guessed.

“Precisely. Every town in the southeast and every major region throughout the British Isles had its own pre-recruited Resistance team waiting in the wings. The historians will tell you that the moment the Germans crossed the Channel, each team was to open their sealed orders and follow them to the letter.”

Parry shot a glance at Colonel Bismarck, who merely nodded. “But what the historians don’t know is that these teams weren’t entirely autonomous. Major initiatives were to be orchestrated from the tactical ops room right here in the Complex, known as the Hub. It’s still here, and we still call it that.”

“So what’s the Complex used for now?” Mr. Rawls asked.

“It’s kept ticking over just in case it’s needed at some time in the future,” Parry answered. “And I reckon that time has come.”

He stopped speaking as they all heard a clanking sound. It seemed to be coming from behind the armor-plate door, although it was difficult to tell because it was so distant. The sound came again, only louder this time, then was repeated several more times.

Then the large door in front of them slowly ground open. Chester and Colonel Bismarck shone their flashlights into the square passageway, its walls painted cream white and its floor a waxy green. But their beams didn’t penetrate very far down it, and beyond was an ominous and unbroken darkness.

Then lights came in the far distance.

“How long is it?” Chester asked, as he squinted at them.

Parry didn’t reply as more banks of strip lights flickered on, coming closer each time.

They heard a whirring noise from somewhere in the unlit portion of the passageway.

“What’s that?” Mr. Rawls asked, stepping back with concern.

“The last remaining Knight Protector,” Parry chuckled.

The strip lights came on in the room where they were all standing.

In the same instant an elderly man on a mobility scooter shot into view before them, executing a sliding stop on the linoleum flooring with a squeal.

Stephanie giggled.

Behind him more than a dozen cats, all of different colors and ages, were scampering along the passage as they hurried to catch up with him.

“Sergeant Finch,” Parry said, going over to give the old man a hearty handshake. As if somehow he’d shrunk, Sergeant Finch’s fawn beret seemed to be several sizes too big for him, flopping forward over his bushy white eyebrows. He was dressed in a khaki-colored cardigan, and a pair of crutches was tucked into a sling at the back of his scooter.

“Commander, ’ow very good to see you again, sir.” Sergeant Finch grinned. “Apologies for not getting up, but me legs aren’t what they used to be.”

“You and me both,” Parry said, raising his walking stick.

Sergeant Finch glanced down at a cat that had made itself at home between his feet on the scooter. “An’ apologies for the formalities at the front entrance. You know I ’ave to follow protocol.”

“Of course you do,” Parry assured him.

Sergeant Finch was looking around at everyone. His gaze came to rest on Colly, who’d taken several tentative steps from behind Mrs. Burrows to sniff at one of the more courageous cats. “That’s not a dog, is it, Commander? Can’t ’ave no dog running loose down ’ere. Not with my c —”

“Don’t worry — she’s a cat, too. Just rather a big one,” Mrs. Burrows spoke up.

It was odd to watch Colly towering over the other cats who, smelling one of their own, were rapidly overcoming their fear. They began to throng around her, rubbing themselves against her and mewing.

“What will they think of next?” Sergeant Finch exclaimed. “’Ad no idea that cats like that were being bred back in the world!” Shaking his head, he leaned forward in his seat to take some clipboards and a batch of cheap ballpoint pens from the pannier attached to his handlebars. “First things first. I need you each to sign this form in triplicate before I can allow you to go any farther.”

Parry made a face. “Oh yes, I forgot all about the paperwork.”

“So what is this?” Mr. Rawls asked as he took a clipboard and scanned the form.

Sergeant Finch wagged a finger at him. “No, no, sir — you can’t read it. You’re not permitted to read it. It’s the SOSA — the Special Official Secrets Act,” he explained.

“What?” Mr. Rawls burst out. “If I can’t read it, then how do I know what I’m agreeing to?”

“You don’t,” Parry said, smiling. “It’s so top secret that you’re only allowed to read it
after
you’ve signed it.”

“Barmy,” Mr. Rawls muttered, dashing off his signature, then turning to the next copy on the clipboard.

After everyone had completed the requisite forms to Sergeant Finch’s satisfaction — including Mrs. Burrows, who had to be shown where to sign — they all followed him down the passage. It was several hundred feet in length, and along the sides were racks of battered metal helmets, gas masks, bicycles that looked as though they dated from the 1940s, and similarly old-fashioned radios in canvas haversacks.

As they went, Sergeant Finch used a control on the handlebars of his scooter to activate the section doors in the passageway behind them. With a press on each numbered red button, another slab of heavy metal would grind across with the clanking noises they’d heard before, sealing the way out.

“So Danforth’s here already?” Parry asked.

“Yes, the Professor’s in the Hub, sir,” Sergeant Finch replied. “He’s been connecting up his new gizmos.”

Parry nodded. “We’d better go and check on how he’s doing.”

“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Finch acknowledged, the wheels on his scooter squeaking on the linoleum flooring as he picked up speed down the slight incline. Colly trotted along quickly in front of the human contingent, all the cats flocking after her in a herd. The Hunter seemed to be more animated than she had been in a long time, but that was probably because a playful kitten kept attempting to jump on her with its tiny claws extended.

Danforth barely glanced up as they entered the Hub, transfixed by the screen of his laptop. “You need to see this,” he said. “It’s the main item on all the US channels.”

The Hub was a large circular space, and in the middle were five banks of long desks that supported old telephones and oak boards dotted with clunky-looking dials. Down one whole side of the Hub were Perspex screens, which extended the full height from floor to ceiling and on which various maps of the British Isles had been painted in heavy black outlines. Chester hovered by one that showed the south of England and right across the Channel to the French coastline.

Danforth was at the very front of the room. From a panel in the wall next to him spilled a tangled spaghetti of cables, and these twitched as he fiddled with something behind his laptop. “If I can just get this redundant piece of junk to work,” he muttered, waving a hand in the direction of a large screen on the wall above him, “we’ll all be able to watch in glorious Technicolor.”

The screen suddenly swam with rapidly moving jagged lines. “Almost got it,” Danforth said as the image of a person loomed from the static, then was gone again. Changing a setting on his laptop, Danforth announced, “And if we apply a little attenuation . . . hey presto!”

“CNN?” Parry asked as he frowned at the picture on the screen — a news anchor behind a desk — although as yet there was no sound. “Is this what you wanted us to see?”

“Yes,” Danforth replied. “The item’s running on all the news channels over in the US CNN, Fox, ABC — take your pick.”

Sergeant Finch was gawping openmouthed at the picture. “Is this the TV? I’ve never ’ad the TV down ’ere before.”

“The whole electricity pylon up top was designed to be a powerful radio antenna, but there are also a couple of satellite dishes concealed in it. I managed to tap into the feed from one of them,” Danforth said. “And . . . with a bit of Heath Robinson ingenuity . . . finally . . . we should have sound.” There was an earsplitting screech from the speakers around the walls as he tweaked another setting on his laptop.

Everyone had gathered before the large screen except Mrs. Burrows, who was kneeling beside Colly as she kept the overzealous kitten away from her.

The anchor wore a grim expression.
“Only now are details being released by the Department of Homeland Security about the explosion that killed three members of the Senate and four other people outside a government building on Capitol Hill late yesterday. Erroneous reports had been circulating that a car bomb was responsible for the explosion.”

There were shots of American military personnel manning a barricade across a road. Then the camera zoomed past them for a close-up of several burned-out cars around which people in white forensic suits were milling.

“But this is now known not to be the case. Security footage has revealed that the explosive device was carried by a middle-aged man who appears to have been operating without accomplices.”
The anchor came on-screen again.
“A few hours ago at a press briefing, Homeland Security released this statement.”

A woman was at a podium, a sea of reporters in the long room before her.
“The alleged bomber has been identified as an American citizen —”
A loud ripple of amazement went through the reporters as hands shot up.
“Please — I’ll be taking questions in a moment,”
the spokesperson said, and waited for the reporters to quiet down again.
“Thank you,”
the woman continued as the clamor subsided.
“Identified as an American citizen who has resided in Great Britain for the last five years, where he worked on television documentaries.”

Mrs. Burrows was on her feet.

“A recent photograph of the alleged bomber has been released,”
the spokesperson continued as a picture flashed up on the screen.

“Can you see him? Will you describe him? Please!” Mrs. Burrows demanded anxiously.

Everyone in the Hub was looking at her, except Parry.

“Late thirties, about two hundred pounds, longish curly hair, beard . . . ,” Parry began.

“Ben,” Mrs. Burrows gasped, realizing it had to be the American television producer she’d befriended in Highfield.

Parry didn’t need to complete the description as the spokesperson continued.
“According to the passenger logs at JFK, Benjamin Wilbrahams arrived on a flight from London in the early hours of yesterday morning, and then drove a rented car from the airport to Washington, DC. Although all commercial flights to and from the United Kingdom have been suspended for the past two weeks, Wilbrahams was on one of the special US Air Force repatriation flights. He was subjected to a full security check before being allowed to board. A device was not detected in his luggage or on his person; however, it is believed that he might have had it concealed inside his body, similar to the Human Bombs dispatched from England to other European countries, which have been all too numerous in recent weeks.”

The reporters at the media briefing in the long room were now completely silent.

The news anchor reappeared on the screen.
“Following the oil spill debacle on the American Gulf Coast, hostility toward Britain has never been higher than in the past few years. And this incident, in which one of our own citizens has somehow been coerced into perpetrating a horrific act of terrorism on US soil, has taken anti-British sentiment to a new high. There have been demonstrations outside the British Embassy in New York and several British consulates across the country.”

The picture switched to a heaving crowd bristling with placards.

“Our American sons gave their lives to help England conquer Germany in the last war. And this . . . this is how they repay us!”
a man fumed as he brandished a fist at the camera.

“Just look at all the terrorist factions they’ve let into their country. This was going to happen — it was only a matter of time,”
another man said.

Then a woman began to chant,
“Nuke the Brits! Nuke the Brits!”

“Very clever. The Styx have made sure there’ll be no help coming from our cousins across the Atlantic,” Danforth said.

“That’s enough,” Parry decided. “Turn it off.”

As the screen went dark, everyone turned to Mrs. Burrows. “They used Ben. He must have been Darklit to oblivion,” she said quietly, her head bowed. “He didn’t deserve to die like that.”