Authors: David Wingrove
‘Oh god… does Kate know?’
Jake shook his head. ‘Like everyone, she knows there’s been a bit of trouble… but not the extent of it.’
He turned back. On the screen now was a picture of a man in his early twenties, taken some thirty-odd years ago. He was a Han… or maybe he was Japanese. It was hard to distinguish in this
case. But from the caption this was Chao Ni Tsu, and the piece that followed related how he had qualified from Cambridge with a double first in Computing Science, then gone on to write his doctoral
thesis at eighteen. Aged twenty-three in the picture, he had now formed his own company.
Jake smiled, then magnified the face, so that it filled the screen.
So there you are…
Any doubts he’d had were gone. This was his man. This was the enemy they had to fight.
Cambridge graduated, eh?
Jake cleared the screen, then turned to face Charles again. The older man was watching him now.
‘You fancy a brandy, boy? A large one?’
Jake nodded.
‘Good… because I most certainly do. And while we drink it, I want you to tell me everything. From start to finish, leaving nothing out.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And it’s Charles, boy. If I’m going to be your father-in-law then I’m having none of this “sir” shit, all right?’
Jake smiled. ‘Yes, Charles…’
‘Jake?’
‘Yes, my love?’
‘Come to bed.’
He turned and looked across the room at her. She had pulled back the sheets and was sitting up, her small, perfectly formed breasts revealed by the moonlight.
Jake sighed. He didn’t know what the coming days would bring, but at least he was lucky enough to have this.
He went across and, slipping from his robe, got in beside her, taking her in his arms and kissing her.
They made love, quietly, as of old, conscious of her parents, there on the other side of the wall in the bedroom next to them. And afterwards they lay there, Kate’s head on his chest, her
hand laid gently on his shoulder, while his arm lay about her back. As if nothing were wrong. As if the world hadn’t changed between the last time they had lain here and now.
After a while he could hear her gently snoring. She was asleep. But Jake couldn’t sleep. There was too much going on in his head.
Careful not to wake her, he slipped out of bed and, putting on his robe again, went out onto the balcony, looking out across the enclave towards the City.
You couldn’t see it properly from this far out, only a vague kind of glow on the horizon, but the noise of rioting went on, muted but still there, on the edge of hearing.
After Kate and her mother had gone up, Charles and he had had another drink and watched some news.
If you could believe what was on the media, things had calmed. The PM had announced that the Market would open in a week, and that measures had been taken to stabilize the situation. And maybe
that was so. Only Jake didn’t believe it.
Charles, after what he’d told him, had been subdued. He had tried to put a brave face on it, but what Jake had told him had clearly sapped his spirit. He had looked ashen.
They had agreed not to tell the women just how bad things were; to play it by ear and see what the next few days brought.
‘We’ve a country place we could go to,’ Charles had said, ‘down in Dorset. We could load up the car and go down there.’
Only Jake wasn’t sure that’d be any better than here. At least here they had a well-stocked freezer and a larder full of food. And the enclave itself had sturdy walls. There were far
worse places one could be in times like this, and there wasn’t the added risk of travelling halfway across the country.
No. If he could, he would persuade them to sit tight and ride things out. And who knew, maybe the world
would
organize against this threat.
One thing nagged at him, however, and that was how easy he had found it to locate Tsao Ch’un’s man – his Go-playing computer expert, Chao Ni Tsu.
Wouldn’t the man have hidden himself? Or at least made it much harder to find out who he was and what he looked like?
Knowing how devious the man was, how adept at anticipating, Jake would have expected no less. The man liked to leave smoke trails wherever he went, so why not this?
What if it
were
misinformation? Stuff he’d put online to satisfy his enemies’ curiosity without revealing anything real.
A faint breeze blew across the garden, rustling the branches of the trees. Within it was the sound of voices, shouting, closer than before.
Jake frowned, looking over to his left, past the scattered rooftops towards the nearest gate, less than a mile distant. It sounded like it was coming from over there.
Here, in Marlow, they were at the north-western edge of one of the larger suburban enclaves. Within its walls, everything was fine. To the south, however, lay Maidenhead, an unprotected
zone.
Not now, surely?
he thought. But why should the mob keep civilized hours?
He stood there a moment longer, craning his neck, trying to hear. And once again, as the wind gusted, so he heard it: closer now, louder.
There was no mistaking it. A mob of people were heading their way.
He went inside and, dressing quickly, took the gun from his bag. Outside Margaret and Charles’s room he hesitated, wondering whether he should wake Charles, then hurried on.
There was a key to the back door, hanging on a hook in the kitchen. He took it, slipped it into his pocket, then went out, running silently across the garden and out through the lattice gate
that led onto the lane, heading for the gate.
Others joined him as he ran, having pulled their clothes on hastily. Some had guns, others makeshift weapons, but all of them had a look of grim determination.
At the gate more than a hundred of the local residents had gathered, along with a handful of security guards. The older men, Jake noticed. No doubt the younger ones had fled already.
One of the residents – a big, middle-aged man – had climbed up onto the back of a truck and was busy organizing things, shouting and pointing, clearly in his element.
Jake looked about him. The fencing was solid steel, twenty feet tall, topped with razor-wire. There were men up on the walls, their guns pointed down the approach road. As for the mob, you could
hear them clearly now, a great roar of sound coming closer by the moment.
He went across, nodding to people as he went. Some looked excited, others scared, but no one was going anywhere. They were going to turn the mob back here, at the gate. No one was going to get
past.
‘You!’ the man on the truck yelled, pointing to Jake. ‘You got a weapon?’
Jake showed him the handgun.
‘Good. Then go to the gate. We want as much firepower as we can there. You need more ammunition?’
Jake nodded.
‘Okay… then see Will… over there…’ And he pointed just beyond the truck.
Jake went across. To his surprise, Will seemed to have half a gun shop in the back of his vehicle.
‘What d’you need?’ the slightly-balding man asked him. ‘Here, give it to me… I’ll find you something suitable…’
Moments later Jake came away with a whole pocketful of flat, thin cardboard packs of bullets.
Enough to start a war…
Looking through the wrought-iron bars of the gate, you could see the mob now, surging towards them, their torches flickering in the dark; a great mass of bodies impelled by hatred.
The sight terrified him.
This was the world they’d made. This awful world of have and have-not.
Nearby, one of the men was doubled over, heaving his guts up. Looking along the line of men, Jake could see that all of them were frightened now. They may have imagined doing this, may even have
talked about it these past few days, but this was for real now. It was kill or be killed, and for many, it was the first time in their lives that they’d had to make such a choice. They had
always been the lucky ones. But tonight their luck had run out.
With the mob still some way off, the first few shots rang out.
‘Hold your fire!’ the guy on the truck yelled. ‘Wait till you can see their faces clearly!’
‘Fuck off, Napoleon!’ one of the men to Jake’s right murmured, and there was laughter. Relieving, strengthening laughter. All of them tensed now, waiting for the order.
‘Okay… let ’em have it!’
A great volley of shots rang out, and as they did, the whole of the front row of rioters fell.
Just like in the movies…
The mob surged on, breaking into a run now, meaning to take the gate by storm, but the gunfire was creating havoc and they were still a good fifty yards off.
It was then that the hopper flew over them, sweeping in from their left.
Jake turned, following its flight, watching where it went and wondering if it were for him. It was certainly setting down somewhere near the house.
For a moment he hesitated. It would look bad to leave the line, but he had to know. If it was Hinton, he’d have to go.
He backed away a pace or two, then turned and began to move quickly through the press of men.
‘Hey… what the…?’
The man on the truck began to yell at him, then crumpled, clutching his gut.
So the rioters had guns too…
But Jake was running now, back through the streets, heading for the house.
He was coming round the corner, into the lane, when he heard footsteps crunching on the gravel up ahead.
Maybe it was Charles, coming for him. But instinct made him stop, made him step to the side and hide behind the hedge.
And not a moment too soon, for down the path came two heavily-armoured men, both of them carrying semi-automatics. Han… they were Chinese.
Jake swallowed. He watched them out of sight, then hurried on, along the path and through the back gate.
And stopped dead, gasping, staring with disbelief at the back of the house.
The house was on fire. The whole of the kitchen was blazing away. Even as he took a step towards it, the windows blew out, scattering glass across the patio.
Jake looked about him. Where was the craft? Had it set down? Or had it just dropped the men and gone?
He ran across the lawn. The key was no use now, but there was a flight of wooden steps going up the side of the house. He went up them quickly and, at the top, used the gun to smash the glass
pane, then pushed through into the box room.
The smoke was getting thicker. He could taste it now in his mouth.
Only hours ago he had sat here at the computer console…
Jake ran through, not daring to call out in case one of them was still there, waiting for him to return. Pushing the door to her parents’ room open, he saw at once just what he’d
feared. They lay there, side by side, sightlessly staring at the ceiling.
Jake took a step closer.
Christ… they had been garrotted.
He felt sick just looking at them. His legs felt weak.
Jake staggered through, knowing now. She was dead. His darling girl was dead. And all because he’d been curious. Had needed to know if his hunch was correct.
There was no other explanation. No other way they could have found him so quickly.
Kate had put up a fight. She had been woken by them – no doubt to ask her where he was – and she had fought them. Even so, the sight of her, doubled up on the floor, the thin flex
round her throat, pulled so tight that it had drawn blood, made him whimper.
‘Oh, Christ…’
He would kill them. He would find the cunts and kill them.
Downstairs the fire was spreading. Smoke was pouring up the stairs now. He ought to be getting out of there, before the ceiling downstairs gave way. But he couldn’t go. Not yet. Kneeling
beside her, he gently touched her cheek, then bent forward and kissed her farewell.
‘Goodbye, my darling girl…’
For a moment he couldn’t move. Couldn’t leave her. Then, tearing himself away, he stood and, drawing his gun, stepped out into the hallway.
And almost walked straight into him.
The man was wearing a mask. Even so, Jake could see his eyes. See what he was.
He shot him. Once in the chest and once in the head.
Jake stepped over him, where he lay, and reached down to pull off the mask. The Han was still alive, gasping for breath but still living.
Jake put the barrel in the man’s mouth and pulled the trigger.
He straightened up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. It didn’t matter now whether he lived or died. Nothing mattered now.
As he went slowly down the steps, the kitchen ceiling came crashing down.
The heat was fierce now. As Jake crossed the garden he could feel it at his back.
The first of them came running through the gate at speed. Jake shot him, watched him fall.
The noise from the fire must have masked the sound of the shot, for the other came through the gate a moment later, unaware that he was there.
Jake fired at him and missed.
The assassin swung his gun up.
Jake’s second shot hit his shoulder and span him round, sending his gun flying away from him.
Jake walked towards him. Raised his gun again and pulled the trigger.
There was nothing. Just the click of an empty chamber.
He saw the Han’s face. Saw that the man thought he had a chance now.
Jake threw himself at him, using the handgun as a club now, hitting out blindly, forcing him down onto his knees, then hitting him again and again and again until his face was a pulp and
Jake’s hand was sticky with blood.
As the Han gurgled away his last breath, Jake straightened up. He was straddling the man, sitting on his chest.
Jake stood, then looked across at the other one. He lay there, kicking, holding his throat. A moment later he grew still.
Jake walked across and picked up the assassin’s gun.
Was that all of them? Or were there more?
Right then he felt like killing dozens of the bastards. Hundreds. Just bring them on. He’d kill them all. He’d fill the world with dead Chinese for what they’d done.
Jake turned, looking back at the house. It was totally ablaze now. Great sheets of flame leaping up twenty, thirty feet into the air. The heat from it was almost too much to bear. Slowly he
stepped back, away from it.