World War Moo (11 page)

Frank shrugged. “It's worth a shot, I suppose.”

“You still have the guy who delivered the leaflets in custody?” Frank nodded. “Ask him who's behind this. Find out where they are.”

“I'll take care of it,” Frank said.

Amira put her greasy hand on Tony's. “I'll make this work, I promise. Just don't do anything rash in the meantime, okay?”

“You've just eaten a rat kebab, and you're telling me not to do anything rash?” When Amira didn't smile in response, he placed his free hand over hers. “I promise I'll think it through.”

The conversation lapsed, and the movement of the car lulled Tony into a daze, which he only snapped out of when his phone shrilled.

“Shit,” he said when he looked at the caller ID.

In the madness of the day, and his whirlwind of thoughts about Glen's plan, he'd forgotten about his scheduled call with Piers fucking Stokington, who'd been appointed to serve as the international community's liaison with BRIT. They'd no doubt done so because he and Tony had a personal relationship. Piers obviously didn't mention to his superiors that Tony considered him an egregious cunt. Piers had been an active member of the Tory student association when Tony was studying law at Oxford, and despite the political differences they'd been friends until Tony began to rise fast—he'd been lined up for a ministerial post in the next Labour government—while Piers went nowhere. Jealousy cracked their friendship, which was shattered when Piers made an advance on Margot at a party, telling her he'd long loved her from afar. It had been the one time in his adult life that Tony resorted to using his fists.

Tony raised an eyebrow, took a deep breath, and answered the call.

“Hello, Tony. How's life on our once fair isle?” Piers said.

“Getting better every day, which you would know if you'd stayed instead of scurrying off like a hamster on speed.”

Piers ignored the jibe. “You're being economical with the truth. Our intelligence reports suggest you're struggling to keep things under control.”

“We're getting there. We just need more time. In fact, one of our scientists has come up with an interesting theory about the virus.”

“You mean Tim Roast? I hear he set his assistant's hair on fire with a Bunsen burner a few weeks ago.”

“Tim's a good scientist,” Tony said, almost choking on the words. “He thinks the virus directly targets the amygdalae and believes there may be a surgical or chemical option to control the symptoms. Can you confirm we're looking in the right area?”

“You know I'm not allowed to reveal any of those details.”

“At least tell me if you're getting closer to a cure.”

“We're putting all of our resources into it.”

“Spoken like a true politician. Why don't you just say no?”

“When we have something, you'll be the first to hear. In the meantime, I want to talk about something else. There's been a rather worrying incident. A few days ago, a French outpost on the coast intercepted an inflatable assault boat full of your infected chums as they beached.”

“Intercepted. That's a nice way of putting it. You mean you killed them. Just like you killed thousands of other innocent people on planes, boats, and in the Chunnel. They weren't coming to get you. They were trying to escape.”

“It doesn't matter why they were coming. We couldn't let them get in.”

“You could've turned them back.”

“Not this lot. When a containment team picked up the bodies for burning, they found all five people on that boat had a chalice tattooed on their forearms. Sound familiar?”

Tony's heart sank. The chalice was the symbol of Blood of Christ, the extremist group led by Michael Moran, a former pastor who now referred to himself as Archangel. He claimed the virus was sent by Heaven as a tool to allow the righteous to wipe out the ungodly. As far as anybody could tell, most of Archangel's followers were former members of the radical right English Defense League, which probably had something to do with the fact that under Archangel's interpretation the ungodly were Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, gays, atheists, agnostics, and anybody who looked like they may have read
The Guardian
at least once. Archangel was overlooking the fact that the virus didn't discriminate according to race or religion, but fanatics were expert at selectively picking which logic to apply to justify their doctrine. Tony needed to put an end to the den of nutters to have any hope of proving Britain wasn't full of slavering maniacs. Unfortunately, the security services still hadn't been able to track the group to its base.

Tony somehow managed to keep his voice steady. “It was probably just a wine-tasting club trying to get to Bordeaux.”

“Don't be facetious, Tony, it doesn't suit you. They almost managed to get out this time. You told me you were on top of the situation.”

“We're going to take them out this week,” Tony said, aware that, as ever in these calls, he was telling a lot of lies.

“I don't know if I can trust you on that.”

“You're talking about trust when you're planning to kill us all?”

“Let me assure you that any military plans are only contingencies to be used in the event you fail to keep your people under control or try anything silly.”

Lying bastard
, Tony thought. He could always spot when Piers was telling big fibs: he slowed down, speaking in measured tones to ensure he didn't slip up. And he'd also “assured” Tony that he harboured no designs on Margot, right after he hit on her and just before Tony hit him in response. Tony, feeling his anger levels nudge up towards the red, played his trump card. “And let me assure you that the intercontinental nuclear missiles we have at our disposal will only be used should you fail to keep your people under control or try anything silly.”

Piers fell silent, as Tony had known he would. Piers didn't know how precarious the nuclear deterrent was. When the virus came down, two of the four Trident submarines that carried the nuclear missiles were at sea. They didn't return. The third had smacked against the seabed under the control of enraged submariners—a fact Tony needed to hide at all costs. As long as the world believed that there were two submarines and that one was prowling unseen beneath the seas while the other was in dock at Faslane, they would think twice about coming in all guns blazing. If they found out there was only one sub, it would be a simple matter of blowing it up when it came in to resupply.

“We're not going to do anything,” Piers said finally. “You have my word on that.”

“And you have mine,” Tony said.

He hung up. “And so we're both liars,” he said softly.

 

10

Even as she sprinted at the old man, Ruan noted that he remained utterly still, his brown eyes calm. With the virus clawing at his brain, he should have erupted into a frenzy by now. Still, she hadn't survived this long by indulging in analysis when it was time to kick arse, so she put the incongruity aside. Blood coursed through her veins, feeding her muscles for the swift sword stroke that would clear her path. At school, her fencing lunges had been so rapid that almost nobody could parry a perfectly timed attack—particularly one aimed at the balls of the many sexist boys who assumed a woman would be easy meat. Fast as she was, though, the old man was faster: before she could bring the blade arcing forward he swiveled, went down on all fours with his bum in the air and shot his back leg straight up. His heel smacked her funny bone, and the sword slipped from her numb fingers. As she crashed into him he wrapped his legs around her trunk and used the momentum to flip backward. Ruan somersaulted through the air to land flat on her back with a jarring thud.

She'd been lucky enough to fetch up on a patch of grass still soft from recent rain, so she suffered no serious damage. That was as far as her good fortune went: before she could scramble to her feet, the occupants of the camp had surrounded her. She looked straight up into a dozen hairy nostrils. As the last thing she would see on this earth, the view lacked a certain poignancy. She felt no fear, just anger at being so stupid as to walk blithely into a den of infected.

Instead of setting to frenzied work with teeth and nails, they backed away to make room for Fanny, who held the dropped sword. “We aren't going to hurt you. Think about it. We could have killed you a dozen times over already.”

“But you've got the virus,” Ruan said, getting her feet under her.

“We control it, not it us.” Fanny held out the sword, hilt first. “Take it.”

Ruan snatched her weapon. The point waggled as she swung it around the circle. “Just let me go.”

Fanny leaned forward and placed her throat against the point. Ruan grew still. “Nobody here will harm you. If you have to kill me to prove that, do it.”

Ruan had killed three times, not counting animals. Each time it was done in the heat of the moment, when she needed to fight with every ounce of her being or die herself. This was different. She'd spoken to this woman, who seemed relaxed despite the sharp blade tickling her jugular vein. The camp followers were still retreating, leaving Ruan with a clear route to the exit. She looked at them all in turn, trying to process what she saw. Smoldering joints were being transferred to lips at regular intervals. The average carrier of the virus couldn't last a few milliseconds in her presence without transforming into a rabid beast, yet these people were keeping themselves in check. All the fight went out of her. She still knew fleeing was the sensible option, but she was so tired. And what did she have to run to?

Life on the road had taught her there was fat chance of making it out of the country. Any time she trudged along the coast, helicopters buzzed back and forth beneath a crisscrossed pattern of jet contrails. If the day was clear, she could sometimes see the outlines of the warships the helicopters had taken off from. The beaches were studded with the splintered remains of boats, and occasionally a fragment of aircraft fuselage would wash up. She was trapped on this island, where it was only a matter of time before her luck ran out. Nor could she return home. That life was gone. It was a life she'd thought she hated: stuck at home with her well-meaning dad, who cringingly tried to relate to her by learning what he thought was cool teenage speak; fighting with Bryan over her desire to play One Direction, which he called Wanked Erection to annoy her, at ear-splitting volume; suffering the indignity of her mum's insistence on picking her up after training even though all her friends got the bus home on their own. She'd wanted nothing more than independence, to go to university to study something easy like social studies while she worked at becoming a professional athlete, and assumed the adulthood that was being denied her. Now she had that independence and all it had brought her was a life as a fugitive, running in every direction but home, holding on to a useless smartphone and writing stillborn messages to a friend who was probably dead. These people might represent the closest thing to a normal life she would ever have. She lowered the sword.

“What in God's name was that?” Ruan said, looking at the old man who'd proven to be as far from the weakest link in the chain as possible.

“Combat yoga,” Fanny said.

“There's no such thing.”

“Sometimes when the mind does not want to hear, only the body truly listens,” the old man said in a soft voice rich with Eastern tones. When Ruan looked at him blankly, he switched to a Scottish accent. “Tell that to your bruised arse.”

Stoned giggles rippled around the audience. Ruan scowled, forcing herself not to rub her injured bum. She wasn't used to being bested so easily and wouldn't give her conqueror the satisfaction of seeing she was hurt.

“Let me introduce everyone,” Fanny said. “This is Nayapal: originally from Nepal, longtime resident of Cumbernauld, and now our spiritual advisor and martial arts coach.”

Ruan gave Nayapal a cool nod. She'd made the same mistake that countless men had made when facing her on the fencing piste: she underestimated an opponent. If they ever went into combat again she wouldn't be taken so easily.

“This,” Fanny said, indicating a man with deep angled lines that branched from his nose to form a shallow triangle filled with a bushy grey moustache, “is Andy Dunlop. In his previous life, he was the president of the World Egg-Throwing Federation. Now he's responsible for our crop cultivation.”

Andy raised a bushy eyebrow in greeting, sending his wrinkled forehead bunching up. The woman with wavy brown hair who'd handed Ruan the pamphlet was introduced as Eva Gilliam, a former public relations officer for Oxfam who now drew up the copy for the commune's leaflets. Tom Dixon, an Englishman in his early thirties with a chirpy demeanour, was next up. He was in charge of leaflet delivery. Hannah Campbell, a tiny woman who peeked out from behind a thick fringe of blond hair, introduced herself as a general dogsbody. Scott she already knew. Finally they reached the youth who'd hidden behind the stack of pamphlets.

“This is Rory, one of our newest recruits from across the water,” Fanny said.

Rory lifted his hand slightly in greeting but refused to look at Ruan. She noticed that only Fanny appeared comfortable enough to come close. The rest hung back, whether to set her at ease or because they didn't fully trust themselves, Ruan didn't know. They hadn't attacked her so far, but that didn't mean they wouldn't lose their cool at some point. She resolved to keep her wits about her. The door would be locked at night, from the inside this time, and her weapons would always be at hand. If there were any signs of twitchiness, she would take off.

“Now that we all know each other, let's get back to work, shall we?” Fanny said. As everyone turned to go, Fanny plucked Andy's sleeve. “Can you finish the tour for Ruan? I've got some stuff to do.”