Tom already knew that.
Four months ago, Trent had put him in charge of coordinating the rescue attempt, a task that was no more complicated than his last job collating Dow Jones share trends and compiling weekly briefing documents. Except it had been made difficult by the roadblocks Trent kept putting up. He had been dragging his heels on the resources Tom was going to be allowed to play around with. From the whole mixed-bag fleet of navy and merchant ships, he was down to six cargo vessels and a cruise ship. And absolutely no army personnel whatsoever. None.
Dougie had been clear about that point during their face-to-face a couple of days ago. He had about six hundred pairs of boots ready to hit the ground at a moment’s notice. He wasn’t going to let Tom take a single one of them away on a mercy mission.
‘You want to go find survivors? You’re not going to need any firepower, amigo. Trust me.’
‘Dougie, we’ll need medics! We’ll need organization, military organization. And you know what? If enough people have heard our shout-out broadcast and made their way to those rendezvous locations, we’re going to need troops to keep order!’
Douglas Trent leaned forward and rested his thick forearms on the desk. ‘Tom, I’m gonna be real nice about this, because you and me, we go back. We’re a couple more shitty exchanges away from the Cubans kicking us off this island. I’m going to need my boys. Every last one of ’em. Now, if you want to hold back on this mercy mission until we’ve got things sorted here, then—’
‘Jesus, Doug, we need to go now! Right now! If anyone else out there managed to survive this goddamn nightmare, they’re going to be struggling!’ He banged his fist on the desk.
Trent’s face suddenly hardened. His watery blue eyes glinted sternly beneath his bushy eyebrows.
‘You ever raise your voice like that to me again, I will knock you down.’
‘For Chrissakes, listen to me, Doug—’
‘No, you listen.’ Trent stood up and leaned forward over the desk, bracing himself on his knuckles, his lips parted to reveal a tidy row of small clenched teeth, a primate’s territorial snarl. ‘You saved my ass twenty years ago. I won’t ever forget that. And for that you got your swanky well-paid job and all your connections. You got to live in a real nice neighbourhood, send your kids to nice schools. You got a navy chopper lifting you out of a shitstorm. And –’ he lifted a hand and swished it above his paperwork – ‘you get to sit at Caesar’s table. But my gratitude isn’t an endless eat-all-you-want buffet. Do you understand me?’
Tom stared at him. To nod mutely right now was to bring an end to the relationship they’d had all these years, to acknowledge absolutely his subordinate position.
So he’d walked.
And that’s how he’d left it. He’d decided to give the president a day or two to calm down before attempting to get another face-to-face with him, but since then Trent had been too busy to see him. Tom had sent his young ensign with a handwritten plea to allow Tom the use of the Ford only.
Just the one ship.
Tom looked around at the hum of activity on deck, the red high-vis jackets of the ordnance crew backing away, having checked the jet’s payload; the yellow and green jackets verifying the catapult’s readiness with the pilot, cryptic hand signals and nods exchanged above the din of the engines revving up for a take-off.
At least, for the moment anyway, he had the president’s permission to take a small flotilla of civilian ships.
If he decided to go right now.
They’re over there. They’re alive. Hurry.
Every morning when he woke up, that’s what he assured himself. If there were any survivors left, his two kids and their mother had to be among them. He’d given them half a chance with an early heads-up, and all three of them had been popping pills of one sort or another at the time.
They have to be OK.
CHAPTER 31
‘You say the pain is getting worse?’
Freya nodded. ‘In my hips and legs mainly. It’s obviously much worse when I move, but even when I don’t it’s there, constantly.’
Dr Hahn nodded slowly. ‘Do you remember what type of condition your GP diagnosed?’
‘Just multiple sclerosis, really. I know there are types. My mum did all the googling about it.’ She shrugged. ‘She could’ve told you everything you needed to know about it.’
‘What about your energy levels? Are you feeling more easily tired?’
Freya had been. She’d been finding it harder to get up in the mornings, a steadily increasing battle of willpower to pull her body out of bed and get dressed. She’d been putting that down to getting less sleep at night because of the constant aching – that and the fact that every day she was working in the kitchen or doing the laundry. Both incessantly physical tasks.
A cumulative fatigue – that was her own optimistic layman’s diagnosis.
‘Yeah, I guess so.’
Hahn nodded again. ‘Hmmm, this is to be expected, I’m afraid, Freya.’
‘How much worse do you think my MS is going to get?’
‘Obviously proper diagnosis is done in several stages in order to measure the rate of decline. So this is difficult for me to say. Have you experienced any periods of relapse? Or perhaps a plateauing of your condition?’
Freya cast her mind back over the last three years. So much had happened since that morning her doctor had dropped this bomb on her. It was difficult to compare one day to the next. The last three years had included the end of the world. There had been no such thing as a typical day. Not, that is, until the last couple of months.
‘Not really . . . It’s always there.’
‘And you think your condition is worsening?’
She wondered if Leon could answer that better. Would he admit to Dr Hahn that he was finding her speech noticeably more slurred? He hadn’t mentioned anything to her, or was he just being kind?
Freya nodded reluctantly. ‘I think so.’
Dr Hahn gently tapped the tip of her pen on the surface of her desk. ‘Freya, I would say you are very, very unlucky . . .’
No shit, Sherlock.
‘I suspect you have PRMS: progressive-relapsing multiple sclerosis. It is the rarest kind; five per cent of MS sufferers have this form of the condition, and it is the most aggressive.’
‘I’m going to die of it one day, right?’ She remembered asking that very same question a long time ago.
‘Not from MS directly. It is a condition that only affects the quality of life. We can manage the discomfort with painkillers and anti-inflammatories. But the fatigue . . . I’m afraid this is not something I can help you with. You’ll be able to do less and less as your condition deteriorates.’
Freya huffed out a laugh. ‘Well, I’ve always been a lazy cow. So no change there, then.’
Dr Hahn unlocked her medicine cabinet, rummaged around inside and pulled out a box of pills. ‘These are much stronger than the ones we all take.’ She held the box in her hand, seemingly reluctant to pass them over. Her eyes were narrowed, her brow furrowed. Thinking hard about something. The kind of expression Freya liked to think of as the Did I leave the gas on? face. Freya studied the doctor’s thoughtful expression. She noticed Hahn looked slightly different this morning. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was that had changed.
Did her face looked slimmer?
Freya finally cocked her head. ‘Doctor? You OK there?’
‘Sorry . . . I . . .’ Hahn shook her thoughts away. ‘I was wondering if there was another way . . . I . . .’ Hahn shook her head again, that somewhere-else look clearing as quickly as a passing cloud. ‘I am sorry, Freya. I was just . . . My mind was wandering.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I am also quite tired.’ She handed the pills to her. ‘You must take one a day only, please.’
‘Dr Hahn gave me some stronger pills for my hip.’
Grace, Leon and Freya were sitting and watching Gosling and one of the other knights, Royce, working on the truck that had been attacked the o
ther day. The hood was propped up and Gosling was bent over, his head and shoulders inside, cursing and muttering as he tried to replace a length of torn rubber hose with a new undamaged section and a D clamp.
‘I might go see Hahn and ask if she’ll give me something extra too,’ said Leon. ‘My head’s been pounding recently.’
Grace felt herself flinch at that comment. She knew that this – Leon’s migraines, Freya’s MS – could pose a problem. Claudia Hahn had been dutifully handing out those ‘dud’ vitamin pills for six days now, assuring everyone they were just a different brand of painkiller. Another week and hopefully the medicines in everyone’s blood would be diluted enough.
It has to be quick. Very, very quick. When the time came to make a move, Grace needed them all to become infected at the same moment. She needed everyone to succumb as quickly as she’d seen those people fall on the railway tracks.
All at once . . . and no warning signs.
‘You OK, Grace?’ asked Leon.
‘Uh-huh.’ She smiled quickly for him.
‘You looked like you were miles away there.’
‘I was . . . just thinking about Dad.’
‘You think he’s still alive?’
She shrugged. ‘I hope so.’ She looked up at him, relieved for the change in conversation. ‘What do you think, Leo?’
‘Dad?’ He frowned. ‘I think if anyone else survived, he’d be one of them. You know what he’s like.’
‘You know what I think?’ cut in Freya. ‘Of course others survived. Actually, I think a ton of people must have survived.’
‘So where are they?’ Grace looked up at the sky. For once there were enough patches of blue to call it a nice day. ‘Surely we’d have seen a plane or something by now. Or heard something on the radio?’
‘Well, we’re here,’ said Leon, ‘and who knows about us, right? We’re not broadcasting on all frequencies.’
‘Precisely.’ Freya nodded. ‘I’m thinking, you know, at least one complete country somewhere must have survived.’
‘It came down everywhere, didn’t it?’ said Grace. ‘Those flakes. I don’t think a whole country, no matter how small, would have escaped it.’
‘There was that message,’ said Freya.
Leon shook his head. ‘I think Everett’s right. That probably got sent in the weeks after the outbreak. It’s old, old news now.’
‘What message?’
They looked at each other and both realized at the same time that no one had mentioned it to Grace.
‘Me and Freya, we thought there was a rescue fleet coming.’ He shook his head at how naive and hopeful that sounded. ‘We came across this radio station and heard a message being broadcast.’
‘What was the message?’
‘Rescue ships, Grace. Coming to Southampton.’
Freya looked at Leon. ‘You know what I think?’
‘I suspect you’re going to tell me.’
‘I think Everett’s full of crap.’
‘Why?’
‘I think he knows we’re right, but he doesn’t want everyone bailing out of his little kingdom.’
‘That’s crazy.’
‘Is it?’
‘You make him sound like Hitler.’
‘Maybe he is. Maybe he’s a total power junkie? A weirdo with a total hard-on for being the Sheriff of Nottingham.’
Leon made a face. ‘Or maybe he just doesn’t want people peeling off on their own and heading out and then getting jumped by snarks?’
‘Yeah, right. Leon, you do know the only radio in this castle – the only one – is sitting in his study?’
He saw where she was going with this. ‘Oh, come on.’
‘That’s what Naga told me. The other radios the knights have are shortwave or something, but the one in his study is, like, a proper one.’
‘And you think he sits in there every night tuning in to radio stations around the world?’
‘Maybe he does.’
Leon snorted at the thought. ‘So if you think he’s keeping that from us, go and ask him.’
‘You mean go up and say Mr Everett, I think you might be a power-mad sociopath who’s been lying to us all. Can I check your radio, please?’
‘Well, not like that. But . . . just ask him nicely.’
‘Seriously?’
Leon nodded. ‘I’ll come with you. We’ll just ask him if we can try out his radio.’
‘Jesus, think about it, Leon. If he has been lying to everyone here, what do you think that’ll achieve? Where do you think that will lead?’
Leon clupped his mouth shut and pursed his lips thoughtfully.
‘Exactly. We get kicked out on our own. And then we’re totally stuffed.’
‘So what do you suggest we do?’
Freya hunched her shoulders. ‘I don’t know. I’m not suggesting we do anything. All I’m saying is that maybe that signal, that message, wasn’t old news. Maybe that signal is still going out, every day. And we’re a bunch of idiots sitting here in this fake castle waiting for those snarks to finally figure out how to get in.’
CHAPTER 32
He sleeps in there.
Grace listened carefully to the sounds of the castle at night. Even after the last of the women had finally stopped whispering and dropped off to sleep, the place seemed alive with noises. The gentle thrum of the generator outside, the soothing shhh of the breeze stirring the distant treeline. The men’s and women’s dormitories playing an orchestra of snores and wheezes.
The building itself creaked, the floorboards across the gallery particularly so.
She saw Hahn waiting for her outside Everett’s study door, as they’d arranged. Grace held out her hand and grasped the doctor’s wrist. As their skin touched, it began to liquidize and meld together. The vein at the base of Grace’s thumb opened and spilled information across the join between them into an artery in Hahn’s wrist.
Information exchanged in perfect, still silence. They both closed their eyes to concentrate.
Freya says he has a big radio in there.
It is an old army one, Grace.
And it could be picking up messages from many other survivors?
Everett has said there has been nothing on it for over a year.
Freya thinks he’s lying.
Why would he do that?
He is afraid. Too afraid to leave the castle.
Hahn was no longer a frightened and confused guest in this new microcosmic world. There was no need to construct the familiar environment of the infirmary. Her fluency in the chemical language was improving, if not yet complete.
Claudia. We/they have to know for certain if there are other survivors. Especially enough others to be able to put together a rescue plan.
There was mention of a message when those two first arrived. But Everett was certain it was old. What if there are other survivors, Grace? Can’t they be left alone?
It’s important. They have told all of us that their work could be destroyed, undone, by survivors if there are enough of them. Those who are left could still be dangerous.
What are we going to do?
I need to know if there are radio messages.
Everett was dreaming about the good ol’ days. Not about the time before the virus came, but the time five years before that. When he’d been a somebody. A self-made rags-to-riches man.
Good times while they’d lasted.
His woolly consciousness slowly spun itself together. He was vaguely aware someone was talking. At first he was certain it was the tail end of his dream. But then he heard the soft, almost whispered, voice speaking to him again and he realized he wasn’t alone.
‘Everett?’
He blinked his bleary eyes open. The room was not wholly dark. A glow from the floodlight outside leaked in through the lead-lined window and cast diamond shadow patterns across his study.
‘Who—’ he started to grunt.
A hand clapped tightly over his lips and a small dark figure loomed
over him.
‘Shhhh . . . It’s me, Mr Everett.’
The voice was small and childlike . . . and familiar.
‘Yes, it’s me. Grace. Stay still,’ she answered his widening eyes. ‘Claudia, is there a light?’
A moment later the lamp on his ‘campaign’ desk clicked on and Everett jolted in his bed.
It was the girl, all right, crouched down beside his cot and leaning over him, her face so close he could feel her breath on his cheeks.
But she was transformed horrifically. The burn-scarred side of her face appeared to be melting, as if the flames that had once caused those marks had returned. Strands of pastel-pink flesh were dangling from her cheek and jawline like drizzled icing from a cake, swinging and finally dropping in thick gelatinous globules on to his bare, hairy chest.
‘Jesus . . . B-bloody . . . You’re a bloody krak—’ he started to say. She pushed her hand more firmly against his mouth, shutting him up.
‘You have to be very quiet,’ she chided him softly, ‘or you’ll wake the others.’ Another hand came into view. It was a hand only in the sense that it was located at the end of her wrist. He tried to focus on it to comprehend what he was seeing.
Where a young girl’s pink Mini Mouse watch strap might have been, her skin had changed from a pale hue to an angry inflamed septic red. Where the ball of her thumb should have been, the skin had torn as if she’d been stabbed by a serrated blade, and dark rivulets of blood were trickling from the wound.
The ragged flesh of the cut moved with a will of its own, parting like theatre curtains as something bulged and pushed its way forward. He could see it emerging, a growth small and lumpy. For a second he thought he was witnessing the knobbly end of her ulna bone pushing through. He’d seen something like that during a rugby game once: a shattered knee cap and the shards of a femur poking through the skin.
The thing emerged from the wound and continued extending towards his face. He struggled under the girl’s small hand, but she was surprisingly strong.
Another figure came into view. It was Dr Hahn. ‘Don’t resist,’ she said. ‘You need to sit very still, Major Everett.’
The bloody protuberance unfolded, flower-like, in turn giving birth to a tiny spine that glistened cleanly and swept forward to rest just a few centimetres short of his bulging eyes.