Invasion (55 page)

As the doors hissed open, a crowd of Workers spilled out onto the platform and the two boys moved rapidly up behind them, melting into the throng. There were no guards down here and the camera system was old and poorly maintained. The
boys merged effortlessly with the crowd and discreetly slapped at their clothing in order to remove the dust, shuffling towards the wide staircases that led to the upper levels.

A few minutes later, the boys were checked through the basement security point beneath the Chambers of Justice and collected their work cart. Stopping briefly at the basement toilets, the red-haired boy disappeared inside, emerging a few moments later with the thin under-vest rolled up in his hand. He hid it amongst a pile of polishing cloths in one of the cart’s many storage bins and they continued about their chores.

Their work day was much the same as any other until they reached the Inner Chamber. As usual, they started at the dome, while the guard below leaned against the wall and inspected his fingernails. They dusted, polished and cleaned and then the boys went about their separate chores, one heading up the terraced seating while the red-haired boy walked towards the raised lectern in the centre of the chamber.

A shout of alarm followed by a curse brought the guard quickly off the wall. Liquid polish ran freely down the stairs, spreading
across the marble tiers. The guard panicked, taking the steps two at a time, joining the boy on the highest terrace
as he slapped at the spreading puddle, tossing ornate cushions out of its way. Down at the lectern, the red-haired boy clicked the small wiring closet shut and stood up, making a careful show of polishing the glass autocue. The Arabian hissed and beckoned him angrily, and between them they managed to clear up the mess in a few minutes. The grumbling guard ordered the boys to finish their task and then they were dismissed.

They continued along the corridors, pushing their cart before them. A few more hours, that was all. They would finish up their day and take the train from the Victoria Terminus, once more dropping to the tracks and finding their way back to the house in Warwick Square, where they would begin the first leg of their journey to the New World. Their hearts beat fast in anticipation.

In the small wiring recess beneath the lectern, the slender black vest had been crammed inside, the miniature magnetic clamp attached to the correct cable, the wire threaded into the cloth. A quick inspection wouldn’t reveal anything untoward, but a continuous electrical pulse triggered by the human voice would result in a small positive charge being generated and fed into the black cloth.

The
material was American in design, an extremely advanced piece of technology. When enough pressure was applied to it, the subsequent chemical reaction turned the thin material into a solid, pliable mass. That mass was now placed carefully out of sight and wired into the lectern’s
microphone system. What was only moments earlier an innocent-looking
under-vest was now a solid block of extremely powerful explosive, a device that was prepared, charged and armed. All it required now was the microphone to be powered up and the subtle reverberations of the human larynx to detonate it.

The chamber lay empty today, but tomorrow morning an assembly of the High Council would take place; the first speaker on the agenda was the Prosecutor General with his monthly briefing. The man had a reputation as a brutal overlord, someone who enjoyed the suffering and degradation he inflicted on the Workers.

And, according to the Emir, the man had a unique baritone voice too.

The Emir glanced in the Bentley’s rear-view
mirror, watching
the boys’ faces as they studied the passing landscape. The black hills were behind them now and the Emir relaxed a little more, his fingers resting lightly on the steering wheel. There were no mobile patrols this far south, only quiet security posts where the guards enjoyed an easy existence
far from the cities. The chances of discovery now were remote indeed.

The Emir had dismissed his manservant and left Warwick Square earlier that evening. With the boys once again hidden inside the rear compartment, the Emir headed south across the river on the elevated highway. A short time later he reached the Wimbledon checkpoint, where an Arabian escort jeep shadowed the Bentley along the motorway that dissected the wastelands, passing crumbling factories, office blocks and suburbs that lay half submerged beneath a sea of vegetation, a civilisation lost amongst the wild countryside.

Beyond the southern checkpoint, after the escort had peeled away, the Emir pulled into an empty lay-by and let the boys out. They stretched their cramped limbs by the roadside, marvelling at the fresh country air, the soft night breezes that teased the crops in nearby fields. The wastelands were behind them now, the Emir explained. These were the Southern Territories, where the soil was rich and farms and vineyards abounded. For the first time in their short but difficult lives, the boys were in unknown territory.

They drove on, the tarmac smooth, the ride comforting. The
boys had their windows down, watching an unfamiliar world pass them by. They marvelled at the beauty of the terrain, pointed with wonder at the luxury estates and the ornate and well-lit grounds that surrounded them. Soon the houses fell behind them and all they could see were endless, undulating
fields and dark woodlands.

Presently the Bentley purred to a halt and the lights were extinguished. The
boys climbed out of the car and the Emir joined them. They were on a small country lane, on top of a rise, the road falling away in both directions. Not a single light shone in any direction and black woods bordered the surrounding
fields on all sides. Above them, a million
stars littered
the heavens and the breeze, blowing from the south, brought the tang of salt to their nostrils. It was a beautiful evening.

‘There are no patrols this far south,’ the Emir reassured them. He pointed across the adjacent field to a thick copse that crowned a nearby hill. ‘There is your destination. Go now, quickly. The ship will not wait.’

The boys hesitated, bowed as one, then vaulted the wooden fence. The Emir watched them go until their tiny figures were lost in the darkness, then returned to his vehicle. He kept the lights turned off for a mile or so then turned south, towards his coastal residence.

As the kilometres
passed he thought about the boys and what they were about to experience. Nothing could prepare them for it, no words would suffice.

The Emir had made the trip once, as a boy, and would probably make it again when the noose tightened and he could operate no more. He remembered his own journey to a woodland clearing, his fear of the dark countryside, the men who waited for him, their uniforms that bore the stars and stripes, the advanced aircraft that barely made a sound, that climbed effortlessly into the heavens and landed him safely in the New World a short time later. How lucky he’d been. How lucky the boys were. But they would return, when the years had passed and their training was complete, to fight again.

As he had returned.

The Emir reached his coastal residence some time later, a well-appointed two-storey villa that sat on a prominent bluff overlooking a wide bay. He retired upstairs
to his private study, throwing open the French doors
and inviting a gentle sea breeze into the dimly-lit room. He took a seat on the terrace, watching the wind ruffling the tall grasses, listening
to the hiss and sigh of the tide beyond the sand dunes.

The meeting in the Inner Chamber would begin at ten the following day and the bomb would detonate
shortly afterwards, killing the Prosecutor General and many of the High Council. Naturally, the boys would be the main suspects, and the police would soon discover that they lived together in the Workers’ enclave in Vauxhall, that they had no blood relatives nor friends with whom they socialised, that their employment at the Chambers of Justice had been secured by a man who’d died over a year ago, the victim of a hit and run accident that bore no witnesses. The Emir himself had carried out the repairs to the paintwork of the Bentley.

But there would certainly be reprisals. It would be the first attack within the city limits for over twenty years, a deadly assault aimed at the very heart of Arabian power. The prison cells would soon be full, no stone left unturned as the investigation followed every twist and turn.

It was possible
the Emir’s
behaviour might eventually be questioned, the unusual stop near Mousa’s statue, or the boys’ shadowy figures seen entering
his dwelling the previous evening. Deniable of course, yet maybe his loyal manservant Ali would betray him. Maybe they no longer shared the same loyalty to the cause; maybe Ali sought allegiance with a new master. So many possibilities. Still, he would know soon enough. If the net began to close he would hear of it and make good his escape. But he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He was, after all, a fighter.

The Emir recalled his own long-buried past, how he’d
killed as
a boy, escaping to the New World then returning with an education, with money, documents and training. How he’d mastered his orphan cover story, his fluency
of Arabic, honed his business acumen to become a valuable friend and patron to his enemies.

Yet, despite his new life, despite the respect and privilege he’d earned over the years, it was the legacy of his family’s resistance that provided his true motivation
;
his father killed in the New Forest battles when the Emir was a baby, his mother tortured to death in the cells of the Khali detention centre before his second birthday. He himself had been spirited away before the authorities could snatch him, taken in by distant relatives and reared as one of their own. Nothing survived the bulldozing of their family home, nothing but the items he kept hidden in his study.

The Emir walked back inside, closing the French doors behind him. He went to a bookshelf and reached for one of the heavier gold-leafed volumes on the higher shelves. Crossing to a deep sofa he sat down, placing the volume carefully on his legs and gently turning its thick cover. The book was a study of Arabian culture through the ages, but he skipped past the historic distortions and blatant propaganda until he reached the back sleeve. Carefully, he peeled away the outer layer of the cover and retrieved the small plastic envelope secreted within.

The Emir extracted the photograph and the faded, handwritten note it held. The note explained much, yet left so many questions unanswered. He laid his mother’s fragile missive to one side and held up the photograph, a digital image of the only family members he’d ever seen. The Emir reached for a magnifying glass and studied the photo intently,
as he always did. He was approaching
his sixtieth year and had scrutinised the snapshot hundreds of times, yet it always held a unique fascination for him. It represented his past, a tangible link to events that had shaped his personal history and the history of his country.

It was a group portrait, taken on a summer’s
evening in front of an old-fashioned farmhouse, sometime during the Great Invasion. The woman was very pretty, with dark hair and olive skin, the camera lens picking out her soft brown eyes and wide smile. Her husband was a little more reserved, a handsome man, tall with short dark hair. There was another man in the photo too, an Arabian by the name of Khan, but the Emir could only speculate on the relationship between them. Everybody smiled at the camera but he thought the cheerfulness a little too strained, the eyes reflecting some inner sadness. But perhaps he was wrong.

He studied the young couple again. Alex and Kirsty Taylor, the names of his distant, long-dead
ancestors
. The Emir smiled; Taylor was a proud English name, too. He was fortunate to have been bestowed such heritage.

He carefully returned the items to their hiding place and put the book back on the shelf. He sat down and poured himself a cup of sweet tea and leaned back into the sofa’s deep cushions. Tomorrow would indeed be an eventful day. Many
would die, as others had died over the years, but if the operation brought justice for his people one day closer then it would be worth it.

The Emir wasn’t a terrorist, or a fundamentalist, or any of those other words used to label a just cause with the stain of criminality. Throughout
history there had been many examples of wars against oppression, wars that pitted ordinary men against the ruthless power of the state. Almost every country on the planet had, at one time or another, been witness to similar struggles, struggles that had spilt the blood of many a loyal citizen, yet ultimately led to the downfall of such regimes. The Emir’s cause was no different.

He was a patriot, a freedom-fighter, a man who simply loved what his country had once represented, a place where liberty and justice were once valued over all other things. A place where they would be treasured again. And he would do anything to achieve it.

Now where was the crime in that?

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Invasion
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