Armageddon Heights (a thriller) (11 page)

‘That what they told you? You’re telling me they have access to tremethelene synthesising, unrestricted access to Armageddon Heights, and they’re not using it for their own benefit?’ He laughed. ‘Face it, Fuller, Sharland duped you. His sole reason for his operation is to get his greedy claws into Lindegaard’s territory and make as much money as he can, and he treats saps like you as cannon fodder. Where is this Sharland now, eh?’ He gestured around the room. ‘Is he here to save you? I don’t see any sign of our mysterious Sharland, do you? In fact, does he really exist anyway? Have you been sold a line, like I was? Yeah, that’s right; I worked for CSL, too, in the early days. But I could smell a rat, which is why I got out early. I’m giving you that chance, too, to see things a little more clearly before you get badly hurt with nasty things that just can’t get put right by a few weeks in hospital and a bunch of painkillers. You get me, Fuller? You listening carefully, because I’m running out of time here?’

‘That’s enough, Villiers,’ Levoir said, going to the door. He tried the handle and was surprised to find that the door was locked. ‘Let me out of here!’ he demanded, his voice a little too shrill, he thought.

‘Sit down and enjoy the show,’ Villiers said, again signalling to Jungius with a flick of his finger. Jungius padded over to Levoir and took hold of his arm, silently dragged him away from the door.

‘When Mr Napier hears about this…’ he protested, but allowed himself to be led to the bed by Jungius. He sat down, his heart racing. His hand went to his coat pocket, but Jungius shook his head.

‘No phones, Mr Levoir,’ the large man said, the calm, gentle voice sounding all the more menacing for it. Jungius returned to stand behind Fuller, whose face was contorted with pain. His breathing was laboured.

‘Okay, Jungius,’ Villiers said, ‘it looks like our friend here doesn’t want to see sense. Make him see it, will you?’

Levoir watched in grim fascination as Jungius came round to Fuller’s front, reached behind the man and untied him. He grabbed one of Fuller’s wrists, encircled by red, vicious welts where the washing line had dug deep in to his flesh, and held the limp hand before the stricken man’s eyes. In a flash, Jungius had taken Fuller’s little finger and snapped it. Fuller screamed and attempted to remove his hand, but Jungius had it in a vice-like grip. With a nod from Villiers he methodically went from finger to finger, the sounds of each digit making a sharp crack, like the breaking of twigs. Fuller’s mouth was wide open, spittle spraying out as he yelled for Jungius to stop. He looked about to faint.

Levoir felt sick, his stomach about to heave up his lunch. ‘Christ, Villiers, stop this! What do you think you’re doing? Let the poor man go! He doesn’t know what you’re talking about!’

‘He knows alright.’ Villiers waved for Jungius to stop. Fuller clasped his twisted hand and sobbed loudly. ‘Shall we try the other one?’

Fuller shook his head slowly, tears racing down his bruised cheeks. ‘No, please…’

‘So are you ready to talk?’ Villiers said.

‘Seriously… I don’t know anything about CSL…’

Villiers nodded. ‘That so?’

‘Yeah… You’ve got the wrong guy…’ He screwed his eyes up in agony.

‘Oh dear!’ Villiers said. ‘You hear that, Jungius? We have the wrong guy!’ He gave an apologetic shake of his head. ‘Gee, I’m so sorry. And here we are breaking your fingers, and all because we got the wrong guy. That must make you real pissed.’ He went closer to Fuller’s contorted face. ‘What’s the name of your wife? Ah, don’t remind me – Mary? No, Margaret, right? Works in a chemist shop. Good-looking woman, too. Nice cheekbones. Shame to get such a pretty face all broken, and all because her husband decides he’s got a bad memory.’

Fuller’s eyes were filled with fear, but his jaw hardened, the muscle there working away like a cat under bedcovers. His lips clamped shut.

Villiers nodded at Jungius, who reached into his pocket and withdrew a small, cordless Dremel power tool, the sort used by hobbyists. It appeared small and inconsequential in Jungius’ massive hand as he lifted it up before his face and flicked the power switch. A tiny drill bit whizzed round in a blur. He grabbed Fuller’s good hand and wrenched it away from the grip it had on Fuller’s mutilated hand. He held it flat on the padded arm of the armchair so that the fingers splayed out like a rudimentary picture of the sun and its rays, and looked expectantly at Villiers.

‘One last chance, Fuller,’ said Villiers.

Levoir stood up. ‘Stop that, Villiers. I’ll have no part in this.’

‘You’re already a part of it, Levoir, whether you like it or not. Napier has seen to that. Go ahead, Jungius.’

The power tool was switched on and the buzz of the drill seemed to fill the room like there was a frenzied hornet looking to escape. Jungius held the drill bit over one of Fuller’s fingernails, holding the hand fast as Fuller struggled to remove it from his iron-like grip. He began to scream again. But Jungius pushed the drill bit down onto the fingernail, the metal eating into the nail and down through flesh and bone in less than a second. The drill bit tore deep into the arm of the chair. Fuller was yelling, pleading, unable to beat off his torturer with his other broken hand. Calmly, Jungius removed the drill bit and started on the next finger, then the next. Levoir had his hand to his mouth, swallowing back the stinging bile that washed up from his throat. Finally, Fuller cried out that he’d tell them all they wanted to know and Jungius released the hand, blood spilling profusely from the holes in the fingernails.

Villiers grinned and took a notepad and pen from his coat pocket. ‘That’s more like it.’ Fuller was slumped down in his chair, his chin resting on his chest, sobbing, his body trembling as if someone had taken a firm hold of him by the shoulders and were giving him a good shake. Villiers, pen poised over the paper, nodded. ‘When you’re ready. Where is CSL’s latest operational base?’ Fuller mumbled something through a mouth foaming with pink spittle. ‘Sorry, didn’t quite catch that,’ Villiers said, putting his ear close to the man’s twitching mouth. Fuller mumbled something again. Villiers wrote it down. ‘That’s good, very good. Now names. Give me names.’ After a second or two Fuller muttered something Levoir couldn’t catch. Villiers scribbled away. ‘Is this reliable? You’re not sending me on a wild goose chase, are you? ’ Fuller shook his head weakly. ‘Excellent. Well done, Mr Fuller. Now – Sharland. Tell me about Charlie Sharland.’

Fuller shook his head again. ‘I don’t know Sharland – I‘ve never met him… But I know
you
,’ he said faintly.

Villiers lifted a brow, put his ear close to the man’s mouth. ‘You do? Who am I?’

Fuller whispered something Levoir could not catch, and Villiers nodded as he listened. He stood upright. ‘That won’t help you, I’m afraid,’ he said.

For the first time, Fuller looked directly at Levoir, his eyes pleading, sensing that Levoir might be able to help him. ‘Please, let me go, you have to believe me…’ It was aimed directly at Levoir.

Villiers rose to his full height. ‘I believe you. I think we have all the information you are able to give us.’ He pocketed the notepad and waved a peremptory hand at Jungius, who stowed away the power tool.

Jungius pulled out a small plastic bag which looked to contain white powder and threw it on the floor near Fuller’s feet. The wounded man’s gaze followed the suspicious-looking package to the floor.

‘Shame to waste high-grade stuff like this, but needs must,’ said Villiers.

Next, to Levoir’s horror, Jungius pulled out a handgun and aimed it directly at Fuller’s forehead. There was a split second when Fuller’s eyes moved from confusion to understanding to terror.

Jungius pulled the trigger and the back of Fuller’s head exploded.

Levoir cried out.

Mile after mile of mind-numbing similitude. Bleak, flat, scorched desert carpeted with the same low-lying grey-green stubby, gorse-like vegetation stretching out like a sea of ash to distant, heat-fuzzy mountains that never seemed to get any closer. The sun crept across the sky so slowly that to Samuel Wade it seemed as if the orb was reluctant to let go of its daily dominance, defiantly staying high and hot for as long as it possibly could. It defied even the laws of physics, as everything about this nightmare did. Surely it should have been far lower in the sky by now. It cannot stay noon forever, he thought.

Wade massaged his tired eyes. How long had he been at the wheel now? Two, three hours? It was so difficult to tell. Not one watch was working, and everyone’s phones and tablets had turned off in a blink almost as soon as the coach started to move, as if they’d all had the same power surge and blown. Now they were all useless pieces of plastic and burnt-out microchips, yet some of the passengers still insisted on trying to switch them on over and over again, to Wade appearing far more afraid of being without their instant packages of communication than fearing the rolling desert outside. None more so than the young man called Steven Lindsey, who looked almost bereft, in grief over the loss of his phone.

The coach lurched over the uneven road, at some points Wade having to slow to a crawl to negotiate deep potholes that had opened up; he wasn’t sure if the coach’s suspension would survive too heavy a pounding. Through his rear-view mirrors he made out the thick cloud of reddish-coloured dust that spewed from the back of the bus; it lingered long in the still, baking air, as if just like the sun it refused to fall back to earth in a hurry. The coach’s windows were soon caked in the fine powder and he had to spray the windscreen with screenwash and set the wipers going to clear the fog.

He checked the fuel. They were doing okay, but the needle was creeping down a little too fast for his liking, especially when he squinted through the windscreen and couldn’t see an end to the arrow-straight road spearing off into the heat haze. Nothing out there but more road, more desert and the mountains that remained fixed at the same size on the horizon.

His eyes were burning with having to stare out at the glaring landscape. No one had brought sunglasses with them. Why should they? It was February, for Christ’s sake! Or should be… Hell, he was tired, his mind becoming numb. He guessed the act of driving was providing some relief from the question as to how they ended up here. The same for everyone else. The fact that they were driving – doing
something
– gave everyone hope that soon their bizarre ordeal would be over, because they were headed somewhere. They had a goal, even if that goal wasn’t immediately apparent.

He was surprised at how calm they’d all become, relaxed into their own private thoughts, sitting in the same seats the bus company had allotted them, secure in their own little private places, almost turning off from each other. Those who were displaying signs of fear were carefully avoided by those who didn’t want to become infected by it. Wade noticed how quickly they were making small alliances. Amanda Tyler and the Kennedy’s appeared to gain support from each other; Martin Bolan and that kid Lindsey – Bolan assuming a kind of father figure to the youngster; the young couple, Jack Benedict and Lauren Smith, kept themselves pretty much to themselves; no one seemed to want to bother with Keith Hartshorn and his shivering, blubbering girlfriend Cheryl, his cold countenance and equally abrupt manner forcing even Amanda away when she approached the couple to ask after the distressed Cheryl. They were left alone and Hartshorn appeared to prefer it that way.

‘How are we doing?’ said Martin Bolan to Wade, peering into the cab.

Wade shrugged. ‘Doing fine, I guess, if you mean we’re still able to drive along this damned road. There were a couple of times the old girl hit potholes when I thought the axles would go. But she’s holding up fine, all things considered.’

‘I meant you,’ Bolan said. ‘How are you doing? We’ve been on the road hours. Well, I say hours. Who knows exactly, eh? But it feels like a pretty long time and you must be tired, thirsty and hungry. In fact we all are. Maybe we should pull over and grab something to eat and drink.’ He glanced back down the coach. ‘On a more practical note, the on-board toilet is starting to smell – I think it was due for emptying when we reached Edinburgh and maybe it’s starting to reach capacity.’

‘Great,’ said Wade. ‘Just what we need. Are they getting restless again?’

Bolan nodded. ‘Yeah. There’s only so much looking out the window and sleeping you can do. And nobody’s really been sleeping. Everyone’s too wound up, even though they don’t say so.’

‘Okay, I’ll pull over for a while.’ Wade applied the brakes, turned off the engine. He closed his eyes and flexed his shoulders.

‘Why have we stopped?’ said Hartshorn, walking down the aisle to the cab. Everyone looked at him. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing’s wrong,’ said Wade. ‘We all need to stretch our legs.’

‘Well I say we carry on as long as we can, while it’s still daylight.’

‘It might have escaped your notice, Mr Hartshorn, but the man is tired and needs a rest, too,’ Bolan said.

‘Then let me drive. I’m fine. We shouldn’t stop. We have to get out of here and stopping ain’t going to make that happen, is it?’ He barged past Bolan.

Wade stepped out of the cab. ‘We’re stopping,’ he said.

‘Give me the keys, I’ll take over,’ Hartshorn demanded.

‘And in your hurry to get us somewhere fast we’ll probably end up in a ditch with busted axles. We’ll all benefit from a little rest.’

‘Listen, Mainwaring, you don’t call the shots here.’ He faced the other passengers. ‘He doesn’t call the shots, does he? And you all want to get out of this place, don’t you? I can drive this thing if he runs through the gears and things. I mean, we can’t have the one driver can we? What if something happens to him?’

‘We need a rest,’ said Amanda, rising from her seat. ‘I for one need to stretch my legs.’ She pushed gently by Hartshorn, casting a glance at Wade, who opened the doors for her.

‘Don’t spend too long out there,’ Wade advised. ‘The sun is still high and the temperature gauge here is off the scale. And don’t go far from the coach. There may be more of the things that killed the bus driver still lurking out there.’ He turned to Hartshorn. ‘Maybe your girlfriend needs a bit of fresh air, too. She doesn’t look too good,’ he said.

Hartshorn snorted and strode off to his seat. Everyone else decided to take a step outside. Paul Kennedy stopped by the driver’s cab. ‘It looks just the same out there as when we set off.’

‘It’s a big place, that’s for sure,’ Wade replied. ‘You okay?’ Wade asked, the old man’s face still ashen, though he was trying to cover up his concern.

‘As okay as I’ll ever be given the weird circumstances,’ he said. ‘Are we going to eat soon? It’s been hours since we last ate anything.’

Wade nodded. ‘Yeah, just as soon as everyone’s stretched their legs.’

The man didn’t move on. He hung about like he had a question to ask. ‘I dozed off back there, for a while. When I woke up I thought all this would have gone away. I thought we’d be close to Edinburgh. But instead…’

‘We’ll be fine, don’t worry,’ said Wade.

‘There has to be civilisation somewhere, doesn’t there? I mean, there’s a road and roads have to be built and maintained, and they also have to lead from somewhere on their way to someplace else. Right?’

‘That’s what I figure,’ Wade said. ‘But the road looks pretty beat up in places, and with the amount of shrubbery taking hold it’s my guess it’s not been travelled on much recently. No sign of tyre tracks or anything.’

‘So what does that mean?’ Kennedy said.

Wade offered a shrug. ‘I just intend to keep on driving until we find some kind of meaning.’ He got out of the driver’s seat and clambered stiff-legged out of the cab. ‘Guess I’m going to join everyone else out there for a few minutes.’

The tiny knot of people gathered in the shade near the bus’s doors, their voices hushed, as if everyone were afraid to wander further away from the sanctuary the vehicle offered. Samuel Wade wandered to where the jagged edge of the road gave way to the sweeping desert. He shaded his eyes with his hand, looking to the sun as it smouldered in a cloudless blue sky. It was finally headed down, the shadows growing longer, the air not as oppressively hot. But its slow passage through the heavens still seemed to defy all natural laws.

A weak breeze blew up and caused the dry leaves on the bushes to hiss, and just as quickly the breeze dropped and all was still and silent again. The heat on his neck and shoulders stirred memories. He began to breathe quickly, short shallow breaths. He was immersed in the dreadful, cloying heat of that house again…

John Travers moved his hand slowly to the curtain that covered the doorway. There was the sound of a child laughing outside, at odds with the tension inside the mud-brick dwelling. Travers glanced back at Wade, signalled for him to watch the exit. He quickly pulled back the curtain, and a thick pall of dust fell from it as the cloth came loose from its hangings to fall to the straw-covered floor, revealing another, smaller room beyond.

It was empty.

Wade instinctively turned his head to see watch Travers. A split second, that’s all. No more than that. His attention momentarily diverted. A moment in time that would have disastrous consequences for all concerned.

A man appeared at the exit – nothing more than a shadow flitting by – and before Wade could respond, raising his gun, a cry of alarm on his lips, he was aware of something small and black being thrown into the room.

There was a deafening explosion and he was blown across the room, hit something solid and crumpled up on the floor, a searing pain tearing through his legs. He cried out a warning, but he could not hear anything except the dull pounding of waves on some faraway cliffs. An acrid, familiar smell stung his nostrils as he struggled to lift himself and see through the billowing smoke that filled the room.

That shadow at the doorway again, holding a machinegun, the sharp rat-at-tat and staccato flashes piercing his fogged mind, dust flying from where bullets ripped into the dry-mud walls, dirt spouting from the floor in aggressive little fountains beside him. Another burst of pain in his side.

He saw Peterson collapse like a shop-window dummy that had accidentally been knocked over. He fell heavily across Wade, causing Wade to scream out in pain. More firing, penetrating the fug of his blast-befuddled hearing. The shadow – now more than a single shadow, at least three people in all – dashed into the room, and Wade saw Travers’ body being dragged across the floor. He appeared to be dead.

Blinking away the pain and dirt that clogged his vision, Wade reached out for his gun that lay where he’d dropped it after the blast, but Peterson’s lifeless body pinned him down.

‘Travers!’ Wade yelled, watching helplessly as his friend and comrade-in-arms disappeared, taken from view into the bright, scorching sunlight outside. ‘Travers!’ He screwed his eyes up in agony as he attempted to remove Peterson from him, realising with horror that Peterson’s body had been riddled with bullets and he was almost certainly dead. He thought himself fortunate, for he too might also be lying dead, if Peterson’s lifeless form hadn’t acted as a shield against the insurgent’s wild, indiscriminate firing.

Wade collapsed onto the floor again. He was about to pass out, and was fighting the hot, numbing feeling that was creeping into his head. ‘Travers!’ he shouted again, the strength ebbing from his frame.

Just before he succumbed to the faint he saw two young boys enter the house. Wade watched them as his world became blurred, as if the lights were dimming down. The two boys came up to him and began to unfasten his helmet. One of the boys put it on his head; it looked comical and precariously balanced on his tiny skull. The other boy picked up Wade’s fallen gun, pointed it at the helpless soldier. The boy made a sound like all boys make when imagining they are firing a gun. The kids laughed and ran out of the house, taking their trophies with them.

Wade mouthed the word help, but he could not resist the piercing pain anymore, and his world clouded over completely.

‘Penny for your thoughts.’

It was Amanda Tyler standing at his side.

His head snapped round, his eyes momentarily glazed over. A tiny trickle of sweat ran down to his eye, which he wiped away with his index finger.

‘Are you all right?’ she said.

‘Huh? Yeah, fine…’ He let out a quick breath, shoved his hand in his pocket to hide its trembling.

He watched as young Steven Lindsey stepped off the road and wandered into the scrub, still trying to get his phone to work. He put his earphones into his ears, messed some more with his phone and gave up, whipping out the cords in frustration and stuffing them into his pocket. He scuffed at a pile of stones with his shoe and looked expectantly at the horizon, as if staring would make something appear there.

‘We don’t seem to have gotten very far,’ Amanda said. ‘It still looks the same, as if we haven’t moved at all. It’s a big place…’

‘That’s an understatement,’ Wade said.

‘Are we going to have enough fuel to get us out of here?’