Gray Vengeance (10 page)

You have reached the voicemail service for oh-seven . . .

‘He’s obviously got his hands full at the moment,’ Gray said, disconnecting. ‘I’ll call him back in the evening. In the meantime, contact everyone who’s not already on assignment and let them know we might be needing them in the next twenty-four hours.’

‘Are you still going to try to make it home?’ Smart asked.

‘No, we’ll stay here tonight,’ Gray said. ‘I need to pop to the local shops to get a few things in, though.’

‘I’ll go,’ Sonny said. ‘You don’t want to be taking Melissa out, and I get the feeling you’re not going to be leaving her here.’

‘Thanks, Sonny,’ Gray said. In truth, over the last several months he’d got better at leaving his daughter with others for an hour or two, gradually increasing the amount of time away from her, but the day’s events had put any such thoughts out of his mind. Even the thought of leaving her with his two most trusted friends made his skin go clammy.

He prepared a list of items to get, and asked Smart for some money from the petty cash tin.

‘Five hundred should do it,’ he said. ‘There’s a camping shop two streets over. If it’s still open, get a pop-up tent and some folding camp beds. You can get Melissa’s stuff from the chemist.’

‘Get some food for us, too,’ Smart said. ‘I might as well bunk here tonight.’

‘Fine, but you come with me. I can’t carry all that by myself.’

Smart grabbed his coat from the stand and they left Gray to catch up on the events unfolding on the TV.

Chapter 17

15 December 2014

A light rain began to fall as Smart and Sonny headed towards the parade of shops, the street eerily quiet.

The first store they came to had already pulled down the
security
shutters, and Sonny didn’t hold out much hope of
anything
remaining open. One by one, they walked past locked-down buildings, but when they reached the chemist they heard raised voices.

He peered through the window and saw three hooded youths shouting and throwing items at the Asian shopkeeper, who was cowering in front of a female assistant.

‘Looks like the vultures have smelt blood,’ he said to Smart, who was also watching the drama unfold.

‘It’s people like this who debunk the theory of natural
selection
.’

‘Maybe it’s survival of the thickest,’ Sonny mused as he pushed the door open.

The boys turned as he walked into the shop, and one of them immediately enlightened Sonny and Smart as to the problem.

‘It’s these fuckin’ Muslims,’ he spat. ‘They did these bombings.’

‘Did they indeed?’ Sonny walked over to the counter and looked at the shopkeeper’s name tag. ‘And who told you that?’

‘Me dad.’

‘Then your dad’s an idiot. Mr Singh here is wearing a Dastar turban, which tells me he’s a Sikh.’

Singh nodded fervently, confirming Sonny’s guess.

‘He’s still a Paki,’ another youth shouted, before throwing a packet of sanitary towels at the shopkeeper.

Sonny strode over and grabbed the boy by the throat. ‘He’s from India, you moron, not Pakistan. And even if he was, do you really think he’d set off a load of bombs, then come back here and run a shop?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ the boy shouted, making sure Singh could hear. ‘They’re all the same!’

The kid looked barely fourteen, and it saddened Sonny that parents could still preach intolerance. No doubt the boy would grow up a racist, and any children he spawned would follow the same path as generations before him.

‘Get the fuck out of this shop and don’t come back,’ Sonny snarled into the youth’s face, and pushed him backwards towards the door.

Hitting children wasn’t in his make-up, no matter the transgression, but in this instance, he had no choice.

Instead of retreating, the boy pulled out a knife and lunged at Sonny, who nimbly danced aside and landed a punch to the side of his head. The knife went flying as the kid collapsed to the floor, and Sonny turned to the other two miscreants.

‘Anyone else fancy a shot?’

Both shook their heads, and Sonny guessed he’d taken out their leader.

‘Grab him and get the fuck out of here!’

A minute later, the dazed youth was helped out by his friends, and Sonny calmly pulled out the shopping list.

The assistant rushed to lock the door before picking up the stock that was scattered all over the floor. Smart helped her while Sonny found the nappies and baby food and took them to the
counter
.

‘I don’t suppose you sell beer and pizza?’ he asked, but got a shake of the head from a visibly relieved Mr Singh.

‘Didn’t think so.’

He instructed Smart to grab some cereal bars and pulled out a twenty, but Singh refused it.

‘Take them with my thanks,’ he said.

‘I didn’t do it for a reward,’ Sonny said with a smile, putting the money on the counter. ‘I’ll need a receipt, please.’

Singh reluctantly rang up the sale and bagged the goods, then showed them to the door, locking it after they had left.

‘I think we’re going to see a lot more of that in the next few days,’ Smart said, as they headed towards the camping shop, ‘especially with the police preoccupied.’

‘You’re not wrong,’ Sonny agreed. ‘Give the scumbags a few hours and they’ll realise they can run amok with impunity. No CCTV, no cops, just a load of shops waiting to be relieved of their stock. They’ll probably test the waters tonight and tomorrow it’ll be full-scale riots.’

‘Then we have to get out of the city tomorrow morning.
It should
be quiet first thing, and we can escort Tom and
Gill home.’

Sonny had forgotten about the receptionist, but luckily she lived a short distance from Gray, so they could travel together at first light.

Down the street, the outdoor centre remained open, capitalising on the power shortages by selling camping stoves and bottles of gas at three times the normal price.

‘Another sign of the times,’ Smart said sadly, as he inspected a portable gas stove that had been marked up from twenty pounds to seventy.

A woman was pleading with a young man in a blue T-shirt about the cost of her items, but the salesman wasn’t relenting.

‘Sorry,’ he said, trying to move on to the next person in the queue. ‘The manager sets the price, not me.’

‘But I have to feed my kids, and I’ve got a baby! I have to sterilise her bottles!’

‘Next!’

Sonny took the stove and approached the counter, where he asked the woman how much she was being charged.

‘He wants two hundred for these, but the real price is only thirty-five,’ the woman sobbed.

Sonny pushed his way to the counter and tapped the customer being served on the shoulder.

‘Mind if I butt in? I’m trying to get him to lower his prices.’

The man stood aside. ‘Be my guest.’

Sonny fixed the shop assistant with a hard stare and read his name tag, but the youngster didn’t appear fazed.

‘Why are you ripping these people off, Brian? Don’t you know what’s happened to the country?’

Brian just looked over at an older man who was busy changing prices with a felt-tip pen. ‘Go tell him. I just take the money.’

Realising he wasn’t going to get anywhere with Brian, Sonny walked over to the manager and grabbed the pen as he was about to mark another item up.

‘Hey! What do you think you’re doing?’

‘I might ask the same question,’ Sonny said. ‘Why are you ripping people off ?’

‘Ripping them off ? It’s called supply and demand.’

‘Is that right?’

‘Yeah, like when airline prices shoot up during the school holidays
. Supply. And. Demand.
It’s not against the law. It’s called capitalism.’

Smart had overheard the conversation, and he could see from Sonny’s stance that he was ready for action. He quickly walked over to defuse the situation.

‘Sonny, leave it. It’s not worth it. When we send out the patrols tonight, we’ll just tell them to skip this street.’

‘What patrols?’ the manager asked, suddenly concerned.

‘We’re in the TA, and they’ve called us up because they expect rioting here this evening. It’s already kicked off in some places.’

The manager looked at them, hoping to see signs of a joke, but both men looked deadly serious.

‘Come on,’ Smart said, tapping Sonny on the shoulder. ‘Let’s grab what we need while he’s still got some stock.’

‘Hang on,’ the manager said. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘I wish we were,’ Sonny said, solemnly. ‘It’s going to get real ugly tonight.’

‘But you have to protect my shop!’

‘No can do,’ Sonny said. ‘Supply and demand, I’m afraid. We have a small supply of troops, and I will demand that they’re elsewhere when the mob starts tearing down your shutters.’

He turned and picked up four folding camp beds, leaving Smart to grab the sleeping bags and other items. The manager chased after them, halting Sonny’s progress.

‘You’re just trying to scare me, aren’t you? Why would anyone want to start a riot?’

‘You’d be surprised,’ Sonny said, picking up a sales tag that had been changed from forty pounds to a hundred and twenty. ‘I would have expected this to bring everyone together, but some people are just in it for themselves.’

Sonny walked to the counter and dumped the items on top.

‘I’ll get this,’ the manager said, rushing behind the till and pushing Brian out of the way. He quickly rang through the sales and came up with a very reasonable price.

‘I’ve added a twenty percent discount, too,’ he said.

‘Why, that’s mighty neighbourly of you,’ Sonny said in his best Texas drawl. ‘I assume that goes for everyone else, too?’

The manager nodded, and handed a pen to Brian, telling him to revert all the prices to normal.

‘So, you’ll be around here tonight?’

‘That we will,’ Smart said, handing over the cash before heading out of the store. Sonny hung back to make sure the woman got her stove at the correct price, then followed him out into the street.

‘Sonny, why are you looking at my arse?’

‘Just checking to see if your pants are on fire.’

‘It was a little white lie,’ Smart said, ‘and he asked for it.’

Sonny told him to wait while he checked the area for other open shops, and returned after ten minutes with a bag full of food. Loaded up, they trekked back to the office, where Gray was still glued to the TV.

‘Any problems?’ Gray asked.

‘Nothing we couldn’t handle,’ Sonny said, looking up at the screen. ‘What’s the latest?’

‘The talking heads say fifty towns and cities have reported attacks. Whoever did this knows enough about our infrastructure to hit us where it hurts. They say the worst is over, but I wouldn’t be too sure.’

‘Why not?’ Sonny asked.

‘When you attack your enemy, you have one goal.’

‘Hit him hard and fast,’ Smart confirmed, ‘and make sure he goes down.’

‘Or does some bloody stupid things standing up,’ Sonny put in.

‘Exactly,’ Gray said. ‘You certainly don’t stand back so they can get up and retaliate. They’ve brought the country to its knee
s, b
ut the clean-up process has already begun. If that’s the end of it, then the roads will soon be cleared, power restored, and people will be back to work in a couple of days.

‘If I was behind this, I’d want to dissuade anyone from pitching in and helping out. We’ve already seen the power workers being targeted, and I don’t think that’s the end of it. We’ll probably see more and more attacks on the emergency services, and the hospital bombings could be just the start. Expect further attacks on the police, fire service and any armed forces brought in to help.’

‘To do that would take hundreds, maybe thousands,’ Sonny said as Smart began digging through the bag of food and pulled out a loaf of bread and a tin of Spam. ‘I can picture one or two slipping past immigration, but not that many. To be honest, Tom, I think we’ve seen the last of it.’

‘I was just hypothesising,’ Gray said. ‘I hope I’m wrong.’

What should have been a ninety-minute drive turned into three hours on the road, and when Harvey arrived at the gates to the country home, he wondered if he’d made a mistake. The wrought-iron gates were covered with rust, and the large house beyond looked like it hadn’t seen an inhabitant in decades. The grounds were overgrown, with weeds and grass standing over a foot high.

He spotted an intercom system on one of the gateposts and pressed the button.

‘Remove your helmet,’ a tinny voice said.

Harvey complied, as did Thompson, and seconds later the gate clicked open.

‘Bring the bike up.’

Thompson pushed the gates open and Harvey started the engine, easing through the gap and waiting for her to climb back on board. He slowly made his way up the weed-infested
driveway
, and as they neared the front door, it opened. A man dressed in black slacks and white shirt came out to meet them, and instructed
Harvey
to park the machine at the rear of the house.

Harvey drove slowly around to where a large garage held half a dozen cars and a few more motorcycles. He secured it inside and they walked back round to the front, where the man was still waiting.

‘You must be Sarah and Andrew,’ he said, holding out a hand. ‘I’m Tony Manello. Welcome to Brigandicuum.’

Manello looked to be in his mid-thirties, and the accent reminded Harvey of his trips to New York. The NSA agent led them into what had once been a grand hallway. Years of neglect had taken their toll, and cobwebs hung from the ornate coving. Protective sheets had been thrown over the few pieces of furniture, and a thin layer of dust covered everything, giving the room a deathly, grey feel.

‘Housekeeper’s week off ?’ Harvey asked.

‘All the action takes place downstairs,’ Manello said, leading them into the library, where thousands of books still adorned the shelves that lined three of the walls. The other wall housed a goods elevator, and Manello entered a code on a keypad. The doors whirred open and they walked into the huge compartment.

‘You guys don’t do things by half measures, do you?’

Manello smiled at Thompson. ‘In this case, size
does
matter. We had a lot of large equipment to install, and this was the only way to get it a hundred yards below the ground.’

Manello hit a button and the conveyance dropped at a sedate pace. Within thirty seconds they hit the basement and the doors opened onto a scene straight out of a science fiction mov
ie. Th
e cavern was a lot bigger than either of them had expected. O
ne wal
l was dominated by a set of eight giant screens that must have been more than a hundred inches wide. On the main floor, at least two hundred personnel were sitting at monitors, working feverishly.