The Perimeter (25 page)

‘Nearly there,’ Jamie murmured.

‘Do you remember your task?’ Matthew asked.

Jamie nodded. How could he forget. He was to kill the one who had taken their Holy Father.

‘When the time comes, you must not hesitate. I will ask and you will act.’

‘Yeah. Yes.’

‘There were many I could have asked to receive this honour, but I chose you. So you may not hesitate. You may not doubt what is asked of you. You must have faith and you will be rewarded.’

‘You can rely on me,’ Jamie said. ‘I won’t let you down.’

‘Good.’

A loud squeal of brakes jolted Jamie and Matthew from their conversation, as their AV slowed and spun out. Up ahead, something glowed red, a soft light permeating the snowy morning haze. Two of them. Jamie quickly realised they were tail lights and, as his eyes focused, he saw more. Their own driver quickly straightened the AV up and they began to give chase.

‘Faster,’ Matthew said.

Jamie squinted into the snow-glare of morning to see the bulk of a hulking great snow-topped truck up ahead. And another. And yet another. They were the same model as the abandoned one they’d seen back on the main road.

‘It’s them,’ Jamie said to Matthew. ‘The ones who attacked us earlier.’

Their brothers in the other vehicles were matching their pace now, leaving the foot soldiers and cavalry behind.

‘Run them down,’ Matthew cried. ‘I don’t want them reaching the perimeter.’

Jamie opened his window, letting in a hiss of frosty air. He aimed his machine gun and began firing.

The trucks sped off ahead, toward the perimeter. Jamie and his brothers gave chase, leaving the rest of their army to catch them up. Within five minutes, the perimeter fence materialised in the distance, silver and white. It seemed bigger than Jamie remembered it. Taller, wider, more imposing. It wasn’t at all how he remembered it. He fired at the trucks, but none of their shots seemed to find a target or slow them down. Jamie wondered what would happen once they all reached the fence.

Chapter Thirty

Spread out across the northern horizon, a massive army marched toward us. It had come too close, too fast. The snowstorm had hidden its progress and now they would soon be upon us. Like gathering clouds, this swarm of men, shrinking the sky and smothering the land.

Death was coming to stay.        

But Luc was still out there. Somewhere. Was he captured? Dead? If Luc was gone, there was no point in anything. FJ would pay. I would kill him myself. Army or no army.

I heard shouts from below. Pa’s voice. The guards. Everybody scrambling to prepare for the inevitable. For several seconds, Rita and I were frozen in place on the platform, staring in horror at the distant army. Bright lights preceded them – pinpricks of yellow.

Headlights.

So FJ had vehicles too.

Of course he did.

The beams grew stronger as the vehicles drew closer. Spread out in front of their army, but still out of our firing range. I’d left my semi-automatic at home, so now I drew out my Magnum. Rita had the same idea and aimed her pistol down through the razor wire, waiting.

Despite the cold, a thin film of sweat coated my breastbone and forehead, my blood pumping furiously through my body. Today was a day that was always going to come, but now it was here, it didn’t feel real. I saw everything removed from myself, like I was watching a movie. But this was no movie. The snow, the enemy, my sweat and heartbeats – they were all real.

The racing vehicles drew ever closer, headlights flashing. The pitter-patter of automatic gunfire, muffled by snow.

‘That’s Eddie!’ Rita cried. ‘Those are our trucks.’

Luc! My heart jumped.

‘I have to tell the others,’ she said. ‘Stay here.’ Rita almost slid down the ladder, calling to the guards, telling them to cease firing.

The whine of engines deepened to a throaty roar as the trucks came still closer. But, through the milky morning, behind our trucks came another bank of vehicles accompanied by the lightning crackle of gunfire. Our people were being pursued. Still too far away to make out their faces through the windscreen. Right then I’d have given anything for my binoculars. Rita came back up the ladder, a battered looking Kalashnikov now slung across her body.

‘They’re being chased,’ she panted. ‘Those Salisbury bastards are firing on them, but Eddie’s lot are giving as good as they get.’

Come on, Luc
, I chanted in my head.
You can do it. You can make it home. Not far now
. The lead vehicle was now about five hundred yards away and I was sure I could make out Eddie in the driving seat. He had his hand on the horn, his headlights still flashing. Signalling us to open up the gates and let them in. On the passenger side of his truck, one of our guards was leaning out of the window, returning fire.

As they approached, it was as though everything slowed to a single beat of time. The trucks in a line flashing their lights at the perimeter, FJ’s vehicles behind them and the bright sparks of gunfire. But then something happened, and that single beat of time splintered into a thousand fragments of horror:

I saw a light zip across the sky, lightning fast with a sound like a firework. There was a pause. And then our lead truck exploded into an orange ball of flames. The sound ripping across the sky with a sickening boom, sending metal and smoke out across the snowy wasteland. I turned from the sight of the burning wreckage to look at Rita, her face a mask of shock.

‘No!’ she yelled, her voice lost in the roar of flames and multiple explosions.

Our other three trucks were nearly home, but one skidded out in the blast and now it tilted at an impossible angle before crashing down onto its side in the snow, sliding away from the perimeter gates. It came to a screeching stop, wheels spinning in the smoke-filled air. Behind our remaining two trucks came an assortment of black jeeps, AVs, trucks and 4x4s – FJ’s vehicles.

From our vantage point up on the platform, I saw the outer gates had now been flung open, guards stationed either side, ready to swing them shut again once our trucks had made it safely through. Only they wouldn’t all be coming through now. One was gone and the other immobilised, fallen.

‘Come on!’ I yelled, tugging at Rita’s arm. ‘We have to go down and see.’ Her face was white and rigid, but she followed my shaky progress down the ladder, her machine gun crashing into each rung as she descended.

Was Luc okay? Had that really been Eddie in the lead truck, or had it been someone else? Back on the ground, we ran around to the guards’ house, skidding and sliding on the snow. Although she moved fast, Rita’s face remained rigid, her mouth open, eyes glazed. In my heart, I knew Eddie had been in that doomed truck, but until it was confirmed there was always a tiny ember of hope.

The guards flung open the gates to both the outer fence and the inner wall. The driver’s eyes were wide as he hit the brakes and turned into a skid. Rita and I backed up instinctively, away from the entrance as we heard the truck screech through, scraping the edge of the wall on his way in. The second truck came in at a steadier pace and the guard had to scramble to get the gates shut before the enemy reached us.

FJ’s vehicles were almost at the fence and they pulled up just as our heavily reinforced gates clanked shut, their armoured-steel sections ringing out, setting my teeth on edge.

  As this was happening, a figure came hurtling toward the fence from behind FJ’s vehicles. He wore a guards’ uniform, and I realised it must be one of our guys from the toppled vehicle. But he was on the outside and the gates were shut.

It was one of Pa and Eddie’s friends, a guard called Ethan who had been with us since before I was born. A nice guy. Quiet and hard-working. As he flung himself against the locked gate, he wore an expression of fear and defeat. The guards inside were trying to get the gates open once more, but if they did that, there was no way they’d get them shut again in time to stop FJ’s vehicles getting in.

Ethan must have realised what would happen and he shook his head at them, yelling at them to leave it, but they continued to fumble with the lock. There was no escape for him now. Nowhere to hide – he was blocked in by the fence and cut off by the approaching vehicles. With a grim smile, he turned his back to us and faced the enemy, charging at them, spraying bullets uselessly into the armoured vehicles. Two seconds later he was dead. I covered my mouth to stop myself screaming. They’d shot him down. 

I turned away, unable to believe what I’d seen. He had run toward his death to stop us opening the gates for him and putting the rest of the perimeter in danger. But there was no time to mourn Ethan and his sacrifice. I had to find out what had happened to Luc and Eddie.

Two guards climbed down from the first cab and two from the second, neither Luc nor Eddie among them. My hands began to shake and I thought I might throw up. What if Luc was in the overturned vehicle? Trapped out there among the hostiles. Rita ran toward the two trucks, calling out for her family.

And then I saw him.

I saw him.

He clambered down from the back of one of the trucks, blood cascading down the side of his face. Had he been shot? Rita got to him first.

‘Thank God,’ she cried. And then, ‘Eddie?’

But Luc shook his head, and I had to stand by and watch, as he wept in his mother’s arms for his dead father.

* * *

It took some skillful driving to avoid crashing into the fence. The gates swung shut only seconds before Jamie and his army reached the perimeter. But at least they’d managed to take out two of the enemy’s trucks.

Jamie tried to slow his breathing, using the chant to calm him and channel his thoughts. Their main army was still a way behind. They would have to pull their vehicles back and wait for them to catch up. Perimeter guards had already begun firing on them and although they were in armoured vehicles, there was no point waiting here like sitting ducks.

‘We should pull back,’ he said. ‘Wait for the rest of our . . .’

‘No,’ Matthew cut him off. His eyes glittered with excitement. ‘We are here now and we will get what we came for.’

But then a hail of bullets began to rain down on the vehicles, deafening and relentless.

‘Please, Sir,’ Jamie said. ‘Let’s just pull back out of firing range, or we’re not going to survive this.’

* * *

No time to dwell on the horror of what had just happened. We were under attack. As our guards scrambled to withdraw behind the inner wall, about thirty to forty enemy vehicles parked up outside the fence and began firing with assorted weaponry. Several of our men were hit and had to stagger to safety. But then our guards began returning fire from the parapet, driving the enemy back. In all the confusion, I couldn’t see Pa. Where the hell was he?

I turned as Rita drew back from Luc to examine the wound on his head. He put his hand to his face and stared at the blood on his fingers – he hadn’t even realised he was bleeding.

‘I think I banged my head in the truck,’ he said. ‘I’m fine.’

I took a step toward them, unsure what to say. I went with the obvious choice: ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, cringing at the inadequacy of the words.

Luc shook his head. ‘We were almost home,’ he said. ‘Another thirty seconds  . . .’

Rita suddenly turned from distraught to livid, her face darkening to a thunderous scowl. I’d never seen her so angry. She wiped away her tears, turned and headed for the platform once more.

‘Rita!’ I called out.                                                     

She turned. ‘I’ll kill them for what they’ve done,’ she said. ‘They murdered him. They murdered Eddie.’ And then she carried on walking.

Luc looked dazed. I went to him, put my arms around his body. ‘I’m so sorry, Luc,’ I said. ‘What can I do?’

‘Nothing,’ he said, staring ahead in a daze.

I felt sick for him, but he was right – there was nothing I could do to stop how he was feeling. Eddie was his father. This larger-than-life character who everyone loved and respected. A family man, a grafter, a figure of respect. You always felt safe around Eddie Donovan. And now he was gone.

I realised the gunfire had calmed down a bit. Now that all our guards were behind the wall, the shots were more sporadic. The panicked yelling had lessened as well, turning into barked orders and muffled conversations.

Through the gates, in the middle-distance, the cloud of dark-robed warriors drew closer. They would be here soon. And then what? We would be trapped. Surrounded. Although we’d known this day was going to come, it was a different thing altogether to be faced with it. To see a vast enemy coming across the land to kill you. I tried to clear my mind of the creeping terror and turn it to more practical matters. Like, what I could do to help.

‘There you are, Riley!’ Pa ran toward us. ‘I was on the platforms looking for you,’ he cried. ‘I thought you were still up there.’ He looked at Luc. ‘Is Eddie . . .’

Luc tried to answer but he couldn’t speak.

 I dropped my arms from around Luc’s body. ‘Eddie didn’t make it,’ I said to Pa. ‘He was in the lead truck.’

‘Son of a bitch,’ Pa cried, his face contorting. ‘I’m sorry, Luc,’ he said, placing a hand on his shoulder. He took a moment and then turned to me. ‘Where’s Rita?’ His voice was gruff, brimming with emotion.

I jerked my head up toward the platforms.

‘And your Ma?’

‘Still at home,’ I replied. ‘Liss and Anna are at Luc’s. They’re under guard.’

‘Good. They all need to stay there. You need to join them too, Riley.’

‘I’m more useful here. Put me up on the platforms. I can take out some of those vehicles.’