Extinction (26 page)

Well, to hell with it. He was going to run the story anyway.

Still sitting across from the mayor, Rushton pulled out his cellphone and called his office. His deputy editor, Hank Forshaw, answered.

‘Hank,’ he said, ‘I want you to compile everything we’ve got on the story Alyssa’s been working on and get it in this evening’s edition.’ He paused as Hank spoke excitedly on the other end of the line. ‘What?’ he asked in anger. ‘When?’ He listened for a few more moments, then hung up.

Envers looked at him. ‘What’s wrong?’

Rushton shook his head in disbelief. ‘They’ve shut us down,’ he replied.

‘The
Post
?’ Envers asked.

‘All of us,’ Rushton answered. ‘Jeffries has declared a national emergency due to the terrorist threat and ordered a total media blackout.’

‘I don’t believe it!’ Envers exploded. ‘That’s completely unconstitutional!’

Rushton opened his mouth to add his own vitriolic opinion when the large mahogany double doors behind him burst open and armed military police marched into the office.

Behind them, the mayor’s secretary looked close to tears. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘they just walked straight past me.’

They approached Rushton, who jumped up out of his chair and backed away as two of the men reached for him, ignoring Envers’ shouts of outrage.

‘James Rushton,’ the lead officer pronounced, as his men managed to secure the newspaper editor and cuff his hands behind his back, ‘you are under arrest for assisting in the planning and execution of terrorist attacks against your country.’

‘What?’ Rushton cried out as he was escorted from the office. ‘Harry, do something!’ he yelled.

The lead officer nodded to two more of his men, who went round the desk towards the mayor, handcuffs at the ready. ‘Mayor Envers,’ the man intoned, ‘I hereby arrest you for the crime of treason.’

Harry Envers, the anger leaving his body to be replaced with the cold, helpless feeling of total despair, uttered not a further word of protest as the arresting officers led him away after his friend.

The prison bus bounced along the dirt road that led from the well-paved highway to the makeshift internment camp just a few more miles away.

‘Don’t worry,’ Stevens said to Alyssa and Jack from his seat behind them. ‘I know the mayor, known him thirty-four years. There’s no way in hell he’s gonna let anything happen to us. That’s why we got arrested and not just shot. He—’

‘No talking!’ came a shout from the front, and Alyssa watched as a uniformed guard strode down the bus, brandishing a night stick at Stevens. ‘You shut your mouth, you hear me?’ He regarded the three prisoners with contempt; hatred, even. ‘You traitors make me sick,’ he said with true vehemence, following up with a gob of spit to their feet.

He walked away, shaking his head and muttering to himself. Alyssa wanted so badly to speak to Jack but she wasn’t willing to risk the wrath of the guards. They’d obviously been told what she and the others were supposed to have done, and with things as heated as they were right now, it was possible that someone would just lose it and shoot or beat them to death. And so she remained quiet.

But what would happen next? The relief when the handcuffs had appeared and they had merely been arrested instead of executed was wearing off now. Stevens seemed confident of the mayor’s intervention but Alyssa wasn’t so sure. She thought it more likely that they hadn’t been killed because they were being filmed at the time. When the cameras were off, and they were ferreted away in some government installation somewhere, what would happen then?

To make matters worse, in the frantic race for the rooftop, Jack had left the flash drive still connected to the computer in Stevens’ office, leaving them once again with no evidence. She prayed that someone might pick it up and hand it on to the authorities but didn’t hold out much hope.

But maybe the right people had been watching the broadcast from the news helicopter; maybe Rushton, or even the mayor himself. But then again, maybe—

The next thought never materialised in her head however, as an explosion burst from underneath them and sent the bus spinning on to its side, sliding across the wasteland next to the track. The impact knocked the breath from her, and she thought that she must have lost consciousness at least for a short while, because when she opened her eyes, there were masked gunmen on board the bus, coming towards her.

She looked to her left and saw that Jack, too, was only just regaining consciousness, blood leaking from a gash to the side of his head. They both hung down from their tipped-up seats, their hands still secured to the guard rail of the bench seat in front.

She looked beyond the gunmen and saw the driver and three prison guards lying in pools of blood on the side of the bus interior, executed by the men who were now approaching.

She again peered beyond the men with guns, tensing as she prepared to take the bullets she knew were meant for her, and saw a curious sight: other gunmen, instead of executing the prisoners, were freeing them with bolt cutters.

The masked man nearest to her and Jack now did the same thing, slinging his rifle and using a pair of bolt cutters to free them of their cuffs. He must have seen the quizzical look on Alyssa’s face, and he winked at her over his mask. ‘We’re the Resistance,’ he said conspiratorially.

‘The Resistance?’ Jack asked from beside her, rubbing life back into his wrists.

The man nodded as he moved past to free Stevens. ‘You better believe it. You think we’re just gonna take this federal government crap?’ He shook his head. ‘No way, pal. In that camp up there,’ he continued, gesturing with the bolt cutters towards the windscreen and beyond, ‘they’ve got over two thousand red-blooded patriots, imprisoned illegally. And we’re not gonna take it any more. Soldiers on the streets? Dammit, we’re gonna take the streets back.’

The man released the prisoners behind them and headed back to the front, where he turned to them. ‘Well, what you waiting for, a signed invitation? You’ve been rescued, say thank you and get your asses off the bus!’

Alyssa took the lead, murmuring thank yous as they followed the other prisoners down the sabotaged, half-destroyed bus, careful to avoid the flames that licked at the broken windows.

Out on the road, Alyssa could see the camp in the distance, a huge place for a temporary internment camp, covered with barbed-wire fences and gun posts. She watched as the gunmen made their way towards the camp; some on foot, some in vehicles, but all armed to the teeth.

Alyssa shook her head. ‘What the hell is happening to this country?’

Jack put his arm round her and checked behind for Stevens just as the ground shook beneath them.

Alyssa recognized the impact as being from an artillery shell, and realized that the camp must have seen the ‘Resistance’ coming. She heard Jack gasp and then she turned to look for Stevens too.

But instead of the big, heavy, well-dressed banker, what she saw was a horrific mass of blood, internal organs and widely-strewn body parts. Stevens had been hit by shrapnel from the shell, and the result was devastating.

Alyssa noticed that Jack’s eyes were wide, and knew that the sight of all that blood and gore might well cause panic to set in, and so she grabbed him by the arm and started to run, pulling him with her.

To all sides she saw masked members of the Resistance, along with many of the transport’s escaped prisoners, fall like leaves from the trees under a hail of gunfire; cars, bikes, trucks and people were shredded by more artillery shelling, until the scene was exactly like the worst parts of her tour in the Middle East. It was a slaughterhouse out there, plain and simple.

She thought she saw some of the masked gunmen make it as far as the fences, their impressive numbers making up for their suicidal tactics, but had no time to watch any more; she was leading Jack over the broken wasteland, stumbling over rotten dirt tracks and unused paths until the sounds of battle started to grow fainter and fainter.

They were in a protected lee now, the low lip of the bank providing some much-needed protection. Alyssa had no idea for how long they had been running, but the other prisoners were all gone, either run off in their own direction or killed by the horrendous cross-fire, and Alyssa and Jack were alone, their breathing ragged and hoarse.

‘What are we going to do?’ Jack whispered to her.

Alyssa looked at him with steely determination. ‘I think we should count our blessings,’ she said calmly, ‘and get the hell out of here.’

‘T
HIS WHOLE THING
is getting out of hand, David,’ John Jeffries said, looking his old friend in the eye. General Tomkin stared straight back, until Jeffries had to turn away.

The two men had decided to meet in private and were now ensconced in a duplex apartment which Jeffries kept for his mistress, who was out of town for a few days. The apartment was registered in a false name, and had no connection on paper to either of the two men. Tomkin had still insisted that his own bodyguards conduct a thorough check of the building for both physical and electronic surveillance, but the place was clean.

‘It’s too late for second thoughts now, John,’ Tomkin warned. ‘Way too late. We’re past the point of no return, I hope you understand that.’

‘I think you’re wrong,’ Jeffries replied. ‘I don’t think we’ve gone too far yet. The weapon’s been tested, yes. But we still haven’t gone ahead with the plan. We don’t have to.’ He shook his head. ‘We don’t.’

Tomkin sighed inwardly. He had been waiting for this moment; it was bound to come sooner or later, and he was surprised it hadn’t been sooner. The week’s events had been enough to test any man. First, the repercussions from the testing of the device; not only the strange phenomena themselves but the chaotic, violent backlash that had been unleashed across the globe as a result. People were literally scared for their very lives, thinking the world was about to end. Tomkin sympathized with Jeffries on that score; there was a hell of a job on to control the rioters and protesters.

And then there were those two fugitives that Anderson was chasing, the only people who had so far made the connection. The newspaper editor and the mayor had been taken care of, and bits of Ray Stevens had been identified scattered about the wasteland near the prison camp, after an unsuccessful attempt to liberate it by a group calling itself the ‘Resistance’. The existence of such a group was another major worry, of course, but of more concern was the fact that no remains had so far been found of Alyssa Durham or Jack Murray. He had to assume that they were still alive, and potentially dangerous.

Still, at least the media was now under control. Tomkin relaxed into one of the comfortable leather couches which dotted the apartment’s oak-floored living area. With the mayor under arrest, Jeffries had been worried about the political implications, but the attack on the internment camp had played right into their hands. ‘Evidence’ was fabricated that linked both Envers and Rushton with the resistance movement, and they had since been transferred to a tactical base for further investigation, a decision backed by the President himself. Other figures, in media and politics, would be scared to move against the authorities now, even if they knew anything, which they probably didn’t.

So, while Tomkin understood that the past few days had been testing, he did not see the problems as insurmountable. In fact, a lot of it played into their hands; when the entire thing was over, his country would have not only a military grip on the rest of the world, it would be able to claim the moral and even spiritual high ground.

Tomkin knew what was really bothering his friend. He took a sip of his drink. The fact was, Jeffries was getting cold feet about the agreed utilization of Spectrum Nine. Tomkin knew that it was one thing to talk about things in the abstract, but to see the results – as they had with that little island recently – tested the mettle of even the strongest man.

‘John,’ Tomkin said reasonably, placing his drink down on the coffee table between them, ‘I know you are a patriot of the first order. You want what’s best for your country. You want what’s best for your countrymen. Isn’t that so?’

‘Of course it’s so!’ Jeffries exclaimed. ‘But—’

Tomkin cut him off with a wave of his hand. ‘But nothing,’ he said firmly. ‘But
nothing
. This country is being attacked on all sides. Terrorists everywhere, regimes building their own long-range missiles to wipe us off the map.’ He banged his hand down on the coffee table. ‘And are we going to just sit here and take it? Are we going to let them?’ He shook his head. ‘We sure as hell are not. I can’t even believe you’re faltering at this stage. Don’t you remember what happened to Adam?’

‘Don’t you dare speak to me about that boy!’ Jeffries spat back, but his vehemence was short-lived. ‘Don’t remind me about him,’ he added softly.

Adam Jeffries, John Jeffries’ eldest son, had lost his wife and child in a terrorist bomb attack. Adam had been a fireman and was first on the scene, horrified that it was his own dead family he had to pull from the burning wreckage. He had left the fire service and signed up with the army the very next day. Sent to the Gulf, the young man only lasted three weeks before an improvised explosive device blew both his legs off, leaving him to bleed slowly to death in a ditch by the side of the road, his fellow soldiers unable to retrieve the body because of enemy sniper fire.

Terrorists had taken John Jeffries’ son, daughter-in-law and grandchild in as horrible a way as could be imagined. Tomkin knew all of this, and it was one of the reasons why he had approached his old friend with the plan. Tomkin had needed some real political muscle behind the scheme, and Jeffries was the perfect match.

The trouble was, he was not a military man himself. He was the Secretary of Defence for the world’s largest superpower but he had never fired a shot in anger, nor been shot at himself. He saw things like a civilian, and had a civilian’s weaknesses.

Tomkin understood compassion, but compassion would never win wars. And that was what they were fighting. A damn
war
.