Vengeance (Twenty-Five Percent Book 3) (7 page)

It was a rare stroke of luck that Boot had chosen somewhere easy to find to spend the night.

In the absence of any mobile signal, and therefore Google maps, Alex wasn’t sure how they would have found a more exclusive and elusive hotel in the centre of Cambridge. But then again, he assumed the centre of Cambridge was packed with eaters, much like Sarcester had been before most of them left. The university students wouldn’t have been back from the summer holidays by the start of the outbreak, but there were still over a hundred thousand permanent residents in the city. Far fewer than in Sarcester, but that was still a lot of potential eaters.

They reached the rendezvous point Lieutenant Dent had chosen at just after seven in the evening. Although the cloudy sky was still a dull grey with the remains of the daylight, the sun had already set, and driving without headlights to avoid attracting attention was becoming dangerous for Micah.

They pulled onto the forecourt of the petrol station and stopped next to the incongruous armoured patrol vehicle parked in front of the kiosk.

Lance Corporal Adam Ridgewell walked out of the small building carrying a bulging carrier bag, smiling when he saw them. “Oh, good, you found us. Hungry?”

Alex climbed off his bike. “I could eat.”

Sean Hudson, Matt Collins, Will Porter, and Boot’s former bodyguard Rick Hartley, emerged from the kiosk as Ridgewell opened his carrier bag, showing them the contents. It was filled with snack foods, chocolate bars, and packets of crisps.

“Healthy,” Micah said.

“It’s all there is in there apart from rotting packs of sandwiches and sausage rolls,” Ridgewell said. “Are you one of those health nuts who say things like their body is a temple?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Micah said. “Got any mint Aeros?”

“How’d it go with the tank?” Collins said, biting into a Twix.

“Two words,” Micah said. “Tanks. Rock.”

Collins laughed. “No argument from me.”

“They’re not so fun after you’ve been stuck in one for ten hours with three other sweaty guys,” Second Lieutenant William Porter said. “I was a gunner for four years. There wasn’t enough air freshener in the world.”

Everyone turned to stare at Porter who made them all, with the exception of Rick, look tiny.

“How on earth did you fit?” Alex said around a mouthful of Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut.

Porter smiled and shrugged. “On reflection, it may not have been the best choice for someone of my size. I did have to hunch a lot.”

The sound of a high performance engine interrupted their conversation and they watched a silver Lamborghini zoom towards the garage, do a tight handbrake turn onto the forecourt, and finally glide into the spot next to the bikes. Lieutenant Tracey Dent climbed out, a huge smile stretching her face.

She ran one hand over the bonnet. “I love driving this thing. Hello Alex, Micah.”

“Where did you get that?” Alex said, almost salivating at the sight of the sleek, shiny sports car that would have cost more new than he made in, he didn’t even know how many years.

“Found it not far from Omnav. We needed another vehicle with there being too many of us to fit in the APV. And it needed to be fast and powerful.”

“She’s totally hogging it,” Ridgewell said. Then he glanced at Dent. “Which she’s completely entitled to do, being the commanding officer and all.”

“Yes she is,” Dent said, smiling. “Boot is at a small hotel about a mile from here. I couldn’t tell how many people he’s got with him, but there are three helicopters parked at the front so I’m guessing it’s anywhere between twenty to thirty of them. There’s a small horde hanging around too, about fifty eaters.”

“Can we take out the helicopters?” Micah said.

“It would be risky. They’re close to the building and the horde is surrounding them. Plus, there’s no moon and it’s already getting dark and we’re running very low on ammo. We can’t afford any mistakes. The eaters could see us, but we wouldn’t be able to see them.”

“I would,” Alex said.

“But you’re just one man. Even a Survivor can’t take on fifty eaters at once and you’d never do it without alerting them inside. There’s probably someone on watch. They’re not going anywhere tonight. We’ll go in at dawn tomorrow while they’re still asleep, hit them with precision and take out those choppers all at once.”

Alex didn’t say anything, but from the look Dent gave him he suspected he wasn’t hiding his displeasure too well. He knew it frustrated her that she couldn’t order him and Micah around like the rest of them.

But he was just a mile away from the lunatic who had killed Hannah and destroyed his home. Was she really expecting him to wait?

“Let’s get going,” she said, lowering back into the car. “We need to get inside before it gets dark.”

. . .

Dent had found a large, deserted house a mile from the hotel where Boot was hiding, and the group commandeered it for the night.

After a meal of tinned potatoes and ravioli, with a dessert of chocolate bars from the petrol station haul, Alex and Micah filled the group in on the defence plans for Sarcester, in the event all attempts to stop Boot before he got there failed.

“Assuming we’re all correct about Boot’s intention to rustle up a horde to attack the city,” Dent said, “I think that sounds like a good plan.”

“Why’s he stopping here though?” Micah said. “It’ll take him days to get a horde from here all the way to Sarcester. Why not get closer first?”

“There’s an airfield not too far away,” Collins said. “The choppers refuelled after stopping at the hotel so maybe he’s not planning to take any eaters from here. It could just be a convenient place to stay.”

“Or maybe he wants a really
big
horde,” Alex said. “He starts here, drives the eaters down the A14, picking up more as he goes. Plus, he can go into Newmarket and Bury St Edmunds and get more if he wants to.”

“But even if he only gets a third of the eaters in each place,” Ridgewell said, “that’s going to be, what, over fifty thousand?”

“Probably closer to a hundred,” Dent said.

“Why does he want so many?”

“To prove he can?” Micah said. “To test out the logistics of moving an eater army? Because he’s a lunatic?”

“Or because he’s scared,” Alex said. “We already beat him once and he wants to make sure we won’t ever again.
And
he’s a lunatic.”

They were all silent for a while.

“That’s a lot of eaters,” Hudson said, staring into the flames of the fire they’d made in the open fireplace in the living room.

“That’s why it’s important to do this right,” Dent said. “We stop him now, before he gets his army together.”

“I think it’s a mistake to wait,” Alex said, unable to keep toeing the line. “If we went in tonight, he wouldn’t be ready. We can go in quietly and take him out before he even knows what’s happening.”

“And if we can’t do it quietly?” Dent said. “We’d be blind out there. They can control those eaters. So far we’ve only seen them tell the eaters where to move. What if they tell them to attack? Then we are stuck fighting fifty eaters we can’t see while Boot and his people get away in the helicopters and we lose the only chance we have to take him by surprise. If we even survive that is.”

“It won’t happen like that!” Alex said, his voice rising along with his frustration.

She frowned. “Oh, you can guarantee that, can you?”

“I can see in the dark. I can make sure...”

“You’re only one man. You can’t do everything.”

Alex’s fists clenched. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you can’t protect everyone
and
get Boot.”

Alex should have left it there, but her words hit too close to where he still carried the pain for his failure to save Hannah. “You know what I think? I think you’re scared. I think you’ve seen a lot of people die and I think now you’re afraid to do anything dangerous.”

The atmosphere in the room changed in an instant. Tension rippled around the group of soldiers.

Dent leaned forward, her eyes narrowing. “Is that what you think?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw Micah shake his head. His own small voice of reason told him to leave it, to just shut up. He didn’t listen.

“Yes, that’s what I think.” He stood, his anger at himself turning on her. “I think you’re scared to take any risks in case you lose someone else. You can’t do what needs to be done.”

Hudson stood up abruptly. For a moment, Alex thought he was going to march over and punch him. Instead, he left the room.

Dent leaned back. “I think you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Alex shook his head in disgust and walked out.

Hudson was standing in the kitchen, head down, his fisted hands leaning on the surface of a table. The soldier looked up as Alex passed the door. Alex expected anger on the other man’s face, but what he saw looked like... sadness?

Then Hudson turned away and, with nothing else to do, Alex headed for the stairs.

They’d decided on sleeping arrangements when they reached the house and Alex went to the bedroom he and Micah would be sharing for the night. He dropped onto the lower of a set of bunk beds, rubbing both hands across his face and heaving a long sigh.

“Well, that was as smooth as a toad with acne, Lex,” he murmured to himself, mimicking his older brother’s voice and using the not entirely affectionate version of his name that Graham had called him ever since the first time they’d seen Christopher Reeve flying across the TV screen.

Why was he listening to Dent? She didn’t have any authority where he and Micah were concerned. He was willing to concede that maybe she had a point about the rest of them; in the dark they would be at a definite disadvantage. But not him. She was underestimating him and it could cost him his chance to stop Boot tonight, before this went any further.

He huffed another, more forceful breath, standing and walking to the window. Boot was out there, only a mile away. He could be there in a few minutes.

The door to the bedroom opened and Micah walked in. The room lit up with the light from the candle he was carrying and instead of staring at the trees outside, Alex was suddenly looking at his own reflection.

Micah placed the candle on a chest of drawers with flowers painted all over it.

“Which bunk do you want?” he said, eyeing the messed up covers where Alex had been sitting.

Alex shrugged, still staring at the window.

The bed squeaked a little and a mattress bounced.

“I haven’t slept in a bunk bed since I was twelve,” Micah said. “This feels closer to the ceiling than I remember.”

Alex glanced at him lying on the top bunk then looked back at the window. 

“You know, Dent and the others are trained in this kind of thing...”

“Don’t,” Alex said, cutting him off.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t start being all sensible and reasonable and logical. I don’t need to hear it.”

Micah rolled onto his side to look at him, propping his head up on his elbow. “Okay.”

Alex stared out the window as if he could see Boot out there. “He’s there. He’s right there. I don’t know how you can be so calm about it.”

Micah sat up, his relaxed demeanour vanishing. “Do you think this is easy for me? I’m every bit as angry as you are. Because of him, Lucy...” He stopped, his voice cracking, and looked away.

Alex sighed, closing his eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean... I know you want to get him as much as I do. I just feel like I’m crawling the walls in here.”

“Just a few more hours,” Micah said. “To do this right, to make sure we get him, we can wait a few more hours.”

Alex didn’t think he could. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Well now you’re making me nervous.”

Alex looked at his reflection in the window and was surprised to see a smile on his face. “It’s the stress. I’m not thinking straight. I’ll get over it.”

Micah lay down again. “Get some sleep, we have to be up early. And put out the candle before you get into bed. We don’t want to burn the house down.”

After a couple of hours, Alex gave up trying to sleep.

He lay on the bed staring up at the underside of the bunk above, listening to Micah’s slow, regular breathing as he slept. He seemed to be able to fall asleep anywhere, no matter what was going on.  Alex envied him. He had no idea how he was always so calm. Alex was a bundle of tension and nervous energy.

What if Boot decided to leave during the night? What if when they got to the hotel there were so many eaters they couldn’t get near him? What if when they got there Boot was ready for them and they were all killed and no-one was left to defend the people back in Sarcester? It was too much for him to wait all night, not with Harvey Boot so close.

For everyone else it would be dangerous to go there in the dark, but not for Alex. He could go, make sure Boot wasn’t going anywhere, and keep an eye on the place until the others arrived for the dawn raid. He wouldn’t mess up Dent’s plans; he’d just ensure they went smoothly. She couldn’t possibly object to that.

Being extra careful not to bounce the bed and disturb Micah, Alex got up, opened the door, and slipped out onto the landing as silently as he could. He stood and listened for a few seconds, but heard nothing. Hudson and Porter were downstairs so going that way was out, but there was a window at the end of the hallway. Alex opened it and peered down into the back garden. Despite the lack of illumination on the overcast, moonless night, there was more than enough ambient light for his Survivor’s eyes to see that the garden was empty.

He climbed through the window, lowered himself until he was hanging at arm’s length from the sill, and dropped to the ground. He crept around the side of the house, flattening himself against the wall when he reached the corner and peering round. There was nothing to see, but he knew Porter would be watching through the window of the living room. In the darkness he didn’t know if he’d be seen, but he didn’t want to risk anyone being alerted to what he was doing, so he returned to the back garden, scaled the fence, and set off in the direction of the hotel.

It took less than ten minutes at a fast jog to reach his destination. Crouching amongst the bushes surrounding the hotel’s car park, he studied the front entrance. There were around twenty eaters clustered at the covered front entrance with another thirty or forty milling around the three black helicopters sitting on the tarmac.  Not wanting to alert anyone inside, Alex moved away to circle around the building to check for back doors.

The left side of the building had one ground floor fire exit which warned of being alarmed. Alex could tell by the only sporadic low lighting inside that the power was off, but he didn’t know if the alarms needed mains power. There was every possibility they had battery backups. It was too risky to try.

As he made his way towards the rear of the hotel, a silhouette in one of the rooms on the top floor of the two storey building caught his attention. Even through the curtains he could tell it was a woman. Boot must have brought his PA, Valerie, with him. The silhouette looked different than Alex remembered her, more slender, but then he’d only seen her on a couple of occasions and at the time he’d had more important things to pay attention to than her body shape. He wondered what she got out of following Boot around. Or maybe she was as scared to leave as Brian, Ben and Rick had been. Whatever was the case, as long as she didn’t get in Alex’s way, once Boot was dead she could do whatever she wanted.

Continuing around the building, he came to a metal staircase leading up to a first floor fire exit. Beyond the stairs was a back service entrance which looked like it probably led into the kitchen. There were no mentions of an alarm this time, only five eaters huddled outside, and no lights on in any of the nearby rooms. It was almost perfect.

Alex stared at the door. All he’d intended to do was check Boot was here and make sure he stayed here until the morning when they launched their attack. Going inside hadn’t necessarily been on the agenda, but there it was, a way in. He could sneak in, find Boot, put a spiker between his eyes and get back out again without anyone being the wiser. No-one would have to risk their lives except for him. It was the perfect solution.

Only hesitating for a moment, he took two skull-spikers from his pocket and stepped out into the open. It was pitch dark where he was and no normal person would have seen him in the shadows. The eaters, however, spotted him straight away. At first they simply stared, no doubt thinking by the colour of his eyes that he was just another one of them. He waved at them and hissed, “Come here!” Still they remained where they were, kept there by Boot’s fake pheromones. Except for one.

A large woman wearing a filthy pink nightdress and a dressing gown stained red on the front shuffled towards him, moaning. Alex darted forward to shut her up. As soon as she went down, the other four eaters followed her. Ten seconds later, the area was clear of live eaters.

Alex waited for a few minutes in case anyone inside had heard. When he was sure it was safe, he crept up to the building and peered through the window next to the door. As he’d assumed, it was a kitchen. It was also empty. He moved to the door and tried the handle. Unsurprisingly, it was locked. Without Boot’s personal horde to keep guard as they had at Omnav, he was obviously a little more careful about security.

Alex briefly thought of abandoning his plan, then berated himself for considering giving up because of a locked door. After some thought, he decided to simply go for the obvious. After all, what would he normally do when faced with a locked door?

Stepping up to the door, he knocked.

When no-one showed up after fifteen seconds, he knocked again.

A dim light appeared in the kitchen. Alex moved out of sight to the side of the door as it opened. A candle preceded a tall form in a black suit.

“Where are...?”

Alex punched the man. He collapsed to the ground, falling onto the candle and snuffing it out.

Easy.

“Simmons?” said a voice from inside.

Okay, maybe not so easy.

“Simmons, where are you?”

Alex retreated to the side of the door again and did his best impression of a pain-filled moan. It was very convincing. He’d had a lot of practice in the last few weeks.

Footsteps approached across the kitchen. “Simmons? Are you all right? I can’t see a damn thing in here. Simmons?”

A light flared just inside the door, illuminating Simmons’ unconscious body. “What the...?”

Alex lunged around the doorframe and punched the man in the face before he could react.

He dragged both men into a walk in pantry off the kitchen before they regained consciousness. There was no duct tape anywhere, but there was some thin, blue plastic rope in a storage cupboard. He bound Simmons and the second security guard, who he vaguely recognised from the Omnav headquarters, to a shelving unit bolted to the floor and ceiling.

Simmons’ eyes fluttered open as Alex was in the process of ripping off one of his jacket sleeves.

His eyes flicked blindly back and forth in the dark. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“You know what I want,” Alex said.

Simmons’ eyes widened. “I know you. You’re that white-eye Boot is so pissed at.”

Alex tutted. “White-eye? How would Mr Boot feel if he heard you say that?”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“Only if you give me a reason. I’m just here for Boot. Tell me where he is and I’ll come back and let you go afterwards.”

There were a few seconds of silence. “And if I don’t tell you?”

“I’ll find him anyway, kill him and let the eaters in. Then I’ll come back here and open the door so they have a nice, immobilised snack.”

Simmons paused. “You wouldn’t do that.”

“Are you sure about that? Because you’re on your way to attack my home and kill me and my friends, so right now I like the eaters way more than I like you.”

There was another long pause before Simmons spoke. “Fifty-eight.”

“Good choice.”

Scrunching the sleeve up, Alex wound it around Simmons’ mouth, his protests lost in the material. Alex repeated the process on the other guard as he came to, then left the pantry and closed the door.

A set of swinging doors on the other side of the kitchen opened into a dark, empty dining room. The place was a mess. Tables and chairs were scattered haphazardly, half eaten, rotting meals abandoned on plates or spilled on the floor.

Alex wended his way around the furniture to another set of double doors in the far wall and peered through a small window into the lobby. A single candle burned on a table next to one of two brown sofas. Lounging on the sofa was one of Boot’s gorillas. He looked familiar and Alex wracked his brain for a name. He was pretty sure it was either Jim or Tim. Or Tom.

Anyhow, with his long legs stretched out on the sofa and a book over an inch thick in his hand, Jim/Tim/Tom looked like he was settled in for the long haul. Alex sighed, moved away from the window, and leaned against the wall.

He had three choices; one, wait in the hope that at some point Jim/Tim/Tom left or at the very least fell asleep; two, rush out from the kitchen and hopefully be on him before he had time to shoot or call for help; or three, use his pistol from the door and then go through the hotel, gun blazing, and find Boot before he could escape. He could have also given up, but he discounted that as an option. He was committed to taking Boot out while he had the chance, he wasn’t going to back down now. Plus, there were already two men tied up in the kitchen and someone was bound to find them at some point. He needed to get to Boot before that happened and things got awkward.

Alex had just settled on option two when voices drifted from the lobby. He peered out the window again to see another of Boot’s guards coming down the stairs beyond where J/T/T was lounging.

“They okay, Tim?” the new arrival said, jerking his chin at the eaters visible through the two sets of glass doors leading to the outside.

Tim
. Alex remembered now he knew.

“Aside from creeping me out, fine,” Tim said, closing his book and standing. “Have fun. There are magazines over there.” He gestured with his book at something Alex couldn’t see.

“Nah, I’m all right. Jess will be taking over in two hours anyway.”

Tim shrugged and headed for the stairs. The new guard settled onto the sofa, stretching his legs out and closing his eyes. Five minutes later, he was snoring.

Alex pushed the door open and crept towards the stairs, eyes fixed on the snoozing guard draped across the sofa. Looking back one last time as he stepped onto the stairs, he noticed the eaters outside were silently watching him through the glass doors. Suppressing a shudder, he tiptoed up to the first floor.

The corridor at the top of the staircase ran to the left and right, with signs on the walls indicating which rooms were in which direction. Fifty-eight was to the right. It was just as dark up here as it was in the kitchen, although weak light was filtering from beneath a handful of doors. Alex wondered how many people had come with Boot in the three helicopters. If all three were full, he estimated around twenty-four people could be in the hotel. He hoped they were all asleep.

The sound of a door opening came from behind him. He darted around a corner into the shadows, then peered back the way he’d come. About halfway back to the stairs an older man emerged into the corridor. It was Chester. Alex had no trouble remembering
him
. He turned back as Valerie, dressed in nothing but red, lacy underwear a little too young for her age, walked out behind him. Smiling, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him with more squishy enthusiasm than Alex cared to see or hear. Back at Omnav Alex remembered Brian mentioning Chester’s family and he wondered if that included a wife. He briefly considered giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming he’d just meant his children. Then he remembered Chester was Boot’s right hand man and decided he was simply a lying, cheating bastard.

Fortunately, when the lip suction came to an end and Valerie closed the door, Chester headed away from him. Alex watched until he headed down the stairs out of sight, then turned and continued along the corridor.

He’d gone ten feet before it occurred to him that Valerie wasn’t in the same room as where he’d seen her from outside. Maybe Chester wasn’t the only guard she was keeping company.

He’d gone another ten feet before it also occurred to him that Chester might be going to the kitchen. Worried, he picked up speed.

The hotel was arranged in a square around a central courtyard and Alex found room fifty-eight close to the next corner, facing the outer edge of the building. A faint light filtered from beneath the door. Alex pressed an ear to the wooden surface, but couldn’t hear anything. When he tried the handle, there was no resistance.

Skull-spiker ready in his right hand, he pushed open the door quietly and slipped inside, closing it behind him.

The room was empty, a candle burning on the bedside table the only source of light. The covers on the double bed were turned down. In the en-suite bathroom a toilet flushed and a tap ran. Alex barely had time to flick out the spiker and look threatening before the door opened and Harvey Boot walked into the room.