"–from President Brand, who is quoted as saying 'The
Sodom and Gomorrah that infested our sacred land are now
burned from the Earth. For the moment, we have no more to
say.' The whole world will be wondering the exact meaning
of those–"
Pandemonium encircled the tables. Atop the fighting platforms, the competitors had put down their knives. Everyone stared at the screens.
Behind Josh, several men and women in suits were gathered, firearms trained on him. One held out ID to the PM's close-protection team.
"Special Branch," she said. "We've got this bastard."
The CP men glanced up at the unreeling disaster on screen.
"Take him."
"–bigger than a hundred Hiroshimas combined, or a
hundred Tunguska meteorite strikes. While the immediate
death toll must be in the millions, no one knows if further–"
Rough hands tipped Josh off balance, dragging him away.
It's all gone wrong.
Not just his plan, but the world.
[ THIRTY-ONE ]
The "Special Branch" team had a large, nondescript van parked in the loading bay. They bundled Josh inside, then climbed in themselves: Suzanne first, then Raj and Hannah, while Vikram went up front with Tony and Big Tel, who was driving. Raj undid his tie.
"I hate wearing suits," he said.
"Really? I think you look handsome, all dressed up," said Hannah.
"Well…"
The van swung into motion.
"Did you all see?" Vikram held up a phone, showing aerial views of cloud cover over California, ash falling from the sky. "You saw the mushroom clouds?"
"Not even Brand is that fucking insane," said Tony.
"Are you sure?"
"Well, no."
Josh opened his mouth, found himself with nothing to say, and just sat there, letting the motion of the van take him where it would. Everything had changed, and whatever would happen, would happen,
que sera, sera,
while he no longer had the energy to do anything but watch.
His arms, he noticed from a distance, were trembling all by themselves.
"Oh, Josh." Suzanne was holding him. "Oh, my God."
"You did good," said Hannah. "Amazing."
Josh blinked.
I feel nothing. It's all over.
Both tiredness and energy were gone, leaving him in a state of nothingness, of neither-nor. His brain seemed to be floating.
How very strange.
"The only amazing thing," he said, "was that I didn't get cut."
Hannah and Raj looked at each other.
"What?" said Josh.
"Darling." Suzanne's eyes were wet. "They cut you to pieces. Can't you tell?"
He looked down at himself, soaked through with what he had thought was water.
"Oh, God."
"Josh, you're going to be all–"
Oh, God.
Blackness grew inside him like a mushroom cloud.
[ THIRTY-TWO ]
Monday, and Richard's first day back at St Michael's. He sat in the back seat for several minutes after the car had stopped outside the gates.
"You sure you're all right?" asked Lexa.
"Yeah. Dad's going to have an interesting day, isn't he?"
"I should think so."
Shareholders to confront, legal coups to make public, revelations that he had already – in secret, via proxies – regained control of his corporations, even before the nose-dive in Tyndall shares across the globe. It would be a day of triumph, muted by the general geopolitical shock of the ongoing disaster in North America, none of which seemed real.
Here, as Jags and Bentley Electros pulled up at the school, everything was weirdly normal. Perhaps the sky was greyer than you might expect, but that was all.
"See you later," said Richard, climbing out.
"Later." Lexa winked goodbye.
Some of the other boys glanced his way, but no one said anything as he walked through the gates. Ahead were the proud old buildings, and he realised he had missed them.
He thumbed his phone, selecting
Opal
from his contacts.
"Hey." A bandaged face smiled at him. "Are you OK?"
"First day back. I'm just going in."
"You'll be fine. Call me later?"
"Sure."
Her image winked out.
Boys jostled him, not deliberately but because he was in a bottleneck. He let himself be carried by the flow, into the old corridors where the parquet floors shone with polish. For some reason, the beeswax smell made him smile. He went through into a quadrangle.
Here, some of the boys were on a bench, comparing notes on homework. Others were moaning about the Knifefighter Challenge being ruined, or talking about the rogue fighter who had done so much before bringing the event to an off-kilter end.
"My father says it's the election that's the important thing."
"There was no election, dummy. They cancelled it. Nothing happened."
"That's what I'm talking about."
Richard thumbed his phone again, selecting
Suzanne.
"Hello, Richard. You must be at school by now. Feeling good?"
"I'm fine. Really fine."
"I did feel confident on that score."
"How's–?"
"Take a look." The image swung to another bandaged figure. "Here's the man himself."
"Hey, Josh."
"Hey, Richie."
Richard grinned at him.
"Can I ring you again tonight, and talk for longer? I've got to go class now."
"Sure you can. We'll talk later, pal."
"Bye."
He put the phone away, still grinning; and that was when the mood changed. The sky above the open quadrangle seemed to darken, but perhaps that was an illusion, caused by the other boy's bulk, and the hardness of his voice when he spoke.
"Well, fuck it," said Zajac. "Little turd's come back, two days
after
we was supposed to meet. How about that?"
From the far side of the quadrangle, Mal James called: "Leave the poor bugger alone, why don't you?"
Richard – no, from now on he was Richie – looked at Zajac from beneath his eyebrows, his chin lowered and his shoulders hunched. Zajac was sneering and smiling at the same time.
"Think you can get away with it, do you, little turd?"
Richie straightened up.
"Not really," he said, his tone light.
Something changed in Zajac's expression, as though the ground had shifted.
"Just because there's gym class today don't mean–"
"Forget it," said Richie.
"Ha. I was right about–"
"Let's do it now."
All voices stopped. Faces grew pale.
"Without armour?" said someone.
"What's the matter, Zajac?" Richie stared into his target's eyes, aware of the pulsing throat, the solid body, even the position of the feet. "Are you scared?"
"No, I–"
"Back off," called Mal.
"No." Zajac ripped his knife free. "You've had it now, Broomhall."
"Richard," said Mal. "Run inside to a teacher."
"My name is Richie." He drew his own blade, scarcely hearing the gasps. "And I'm fine here."
This is it.
He began to circle Zajac. Around them, boys formed a perimeter, defining a fighting arena. From the distance, Richie might have heard Mr Dutton's voice calling for them to stop; but he could not be sure, because his hearing was filled with a hiss like surf. This was a sure sign of stress, and he knew it was natural, so he could continue.
Zajac leaped forward and Richie spun away.
"I knew it," sneered Zajac. "Cowardly little f–"
Richie's blade sliced open the back of his hand. Zajac screamed.
It's called defanging, you bastard.
Then Richie slammed his hilt inside Zajac's right wrist while slapping the back of the hand with his left. Zajac's knife spun away and was gone, clattering to the flagstones. Then Richie's foot stabbed into a knee, and Zajac was down.
Got you.
Richie held his blade against Zajac's throat, preternaturally aware of how soft the skin looked, how easy to slit open, and what it would look like if he did.
"This," he said, "is the carotid artery. One and a half inches to penetrate. Five seconds till loss of consciousness. Twelve seconds to die." He shifted the knife to Zajac's arm. "Brachial artery. Penetration, half inch. Fourteen seconds, unconscious. Ninety seconds dead. Radial artery–"
A third of the way through the Timetable of Death, Zajac fainted.
Good.
There was a long, extended pause; then everyone in the quadrangle cheered.
"What's this?" Two teachers finally pushed through. "Broomhall? What's happening?"
"Nothing, Mr Dutton."
"It doesn't look like–"
"Hush, Jack." The other teacher, Mr Keele, touched his sleeve. "It doesn't matter."
"What do you mean, it doesn't matter?"
Mr Keele stared upward, then down at Richard.
"You're off the hook this time, Broomhall. Just this once, all right?"
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
On the ground, Zajac, bizarrely, had begun to snore.
"Cool," murmured someone, and several boys laughed. But Mr Dutton was looking up, just as Mr Keele had.
"You're exactly right," he said.
The two teachers stared at each other. Then Mr Dutton addressed the boys.
"I'd say global cooling is here."
"Salvation?" said Mr Keele.
"Or a different kind of doomsday." Mr Dutton smiled. "Maybe a cup that's half empty or half full."
Now everyone's attention was on the lead-grey sky. And then…
It's not possible.
… Richard held out his hand, and felt the specks descend upon it. They were so soft, when they touched his skin, that he felt nothing, nothing at all.
What does it mean?
The air was hushed as the sound-deadening, soft cascade intensified like thickening snowfall, darkening the world, changing everything.
Black snow.
Acknowledgments
The late Bob Bridges (aka Rob) formerly of 22 SAS, software guru and teacher par excellence, gave me one of the key events in this book, and with it the character of Josh Cumberland. May you walk among the stars, my friend.
Ghost Force
is the title of a blistering and controversial history of the SAS, written by Ken Connor. It is also the name of his proposed replacement for the Regiment, the hi-tech special forces operatives of the future. In acknowledgment, I have used the same name, although my fictional Ghost Force is an addition to the world's most famous military élite.
I gained insight into covert operations from
The Op
erators
, James Rennie's terrific account of life in 14 Company, aka 14 Int, aka Det.
The bodyweight exercises used by Josh are from Matt Furey's Combat Conditioning system. I use the system myself. (So, apparently, do instructors from the US Marine Corps Martial Arts Program.) Josh's groundfighting drills come from MMA coach (and fighting legend) Steve Morris. Petra's combat class derives heavily from the Morris Method and from Geoff Thompson's realitybased training.
The fictional fighter called Mad Mick Foster bears absolutely no relation whatsoever to my good friend, sensei Mick Foster, fourth dan. Ahem.
Scary but true: the Timetable of Death was devised by a surgeon on the prompting of WE Fairbairn, founder of WWII commando training and co-inventor of the Fairbairn-Sykes commando dagger. The figures are in Fairbairn's classic book
Get Tough!
I got the term "Timetable of Death", along with the historical background, from Pat O'Keeffe's excellent
Combat Kick
Boxing.
Suzanne's therapeutic techniques are real, though I've omitted certain details, particularly from hypnotic inductions. They derive from NLP, and are currently used by medical doctors that Suzanne would approve of (and by less scientific practitioners too).
Nexus by Mark Buchanan is a great description of complex networks and small-world connectedness. Check out books by Steven Strogatz, and (for complexity theory) Stuart Kauffmann, and the incomparable Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart for further reading.
I owe an immense debt to all my martial arts teachers over the decades, in particular the late Enoeda sensei, ninth dan. He truly was the shotokan tiger.
Finally, endless thanks and unbounded love to Yvonne, who has suffered through all my books, whichever name they appear under.
Oh, and I have a view on edged weapons…
The place for a knife is in the kitchen.
About the Author
Thomas Blackthorne is the pseudonym of science fiction writer John Meaney, author of
To
Hold Infinity
, the Nulapeiron sequence,
Bone
Song
,
Dark Blood
and the Ragnarok trilogy. His works have been shortlisted several times for the British Science Fiction Award, won the Independent Publishers Best Novel award (in SF/Fantasy), and been one of the
Daily Telegraph
Books of the Year.