Chapter 28 - The Invisible Destroyer

Calais

 

Outside, the snow lay so thick that neither carpet nor blanket was an adequate description. Cars were half-buried. Windswept drifts had gathered in doorways. Even in the middle of the road, it was already a foot deep. Snow still fell, with the gusting breeze sweeping a fine powder from roofs and frozen awnings, but the clouds above had turned from an inky depth to a dirty grey. The worst of the storm was over. A new one might begin, but not before red blood had spilled over the pristine expanse.

Bill kept close to Flora, peering ahead, but with each frozen sting of a snowflake on his exposed inch of neck, his mind drifted to the future, and to whether he’d ever see Kim again. Flora held up a warning hand. Bill stopped. Then he saw it. Ahead, a shadow moved in the open door of a glass-fronted building. A cafe? The few unbroken signs were covered in too much dirt and ice to be certain. Flora raised the AK-74, but Bill waved the barrel down as the zombie staggered out into the street.

He pulled the hatchet from his belt. The tool was unwieldy in his numb hands, but they couldn’t risk a shot being heard, not yet. Kicking snow before him, he trudged towards the cafe. The zombie, dressed in tattered jeans and shreds that might have been a jacket or a dress, slipped on the ice, falling face first into the snow. It didn’t stop moving, but nor did Bill. As the creature rolled and thrashed, creating a snow-demon in the drift, he raised the hatchet. The zombie squirmed sideways as it realised prey was so close, sending up a plume of fine white powder, obscuring Bill’s aim. He swung down, and the blade bounced off its frozen shoulder. As the clawing hand grasped towards him, he skipped back, slipped, and fell into the snow. Rolling backwards, he spun to his knees in time to see Chester stamp his foot onto the zombie’s neck, then spear the tyre-iron through its skull.

“You all right, mate?” Chester asked, reaching down to help Bill up.

“Thought we shouldn’t risk a bullet,” Bill said, shivering as the damp cloth enveloped his skin, sucking out the last of the remembered warmth. “More fool me.”

“Keep moving,” Locke said. “But zombies are a good sign. Maybe Rhoskovski has already left.”

The prospect that danger might already have subsided galvanised their weary limbs. As quickly as they could, they kicked a path through the snow. Flora’s hesitant directions were replaced with the more certain instructions of bullet-flecked road signs. As the houses gave way to warehouses, they left the road. Skirting loading bays and car parks, moving from one snow-covered wreck to the next, their eyes were alert for footprints in the snow, their noses for the scent of smoke, their ears for an angry shout. What brought them to a halt was a sign at a service entrance to the harbour itself. There was nothing unusual about the sign. In French, German, and English, it advised all commercial traffic to turn around and make their way to an entrance in the north. But on that sign someone had added a spray-painted branch with three leaves.

The gates were sealed tight, three sets of dense wire and concrete that would take hours to cut through. To the right was a guard post with an electric lock that was already broken. Inside, they stopped for a moment, kicking the snow from their boots, brushing it from their clothes.

“I think you might be right, Sorcha,” Chester said. “I think they’ve left. No one’s seen any smoke in the sky, right? If they were still here, they’d surely have lit a fire or three.”

“Not if they were getting their heat from a generator,” Bill said. “Where’s the destroyer?”

“The other side of the harbour,” Flora said. “The north side, at a freighter-berth near the quay. It’s about a hundred metres from the row of small ships. Although… although I don’t know if they have any other operational ships. There are other vessels in the harbour. I only caught a few glimpses of them. Some were half sunk, but the others… I wonder if it’s aboard one of those they’re staying. A lot of ships have a diesel generator for emergency power, and surely sleeping aboard is safer than on land. Sorry, I should have realised earlier.”

“Might work out well if they are still aboard,” Chester said. “It’ll be easier to contain them while we get the destroyer out to sea.”

“Ever the optimist, Mr Carson,” Locke said. “I can spy warehouses, some containers, a few rigs, a few mounds that might be cars. You said they had snipers? Best we get this over with before they return to the high ground.”

Locke took the lead as they left the guard post and security fence behind, navigating a winding path between rusting service vehicles and abandoned containers. She kept them in cover, but no shots came. No shouts were uttered. Finally, they reached the quay, and Bill saw the destroyer.

“I think we made it,” Chester said, as they crouched in the snowdrift behind the cover of an abandoned forklift.

“No lights aboard,” Locke said. “No movement.”

“Can’t see the deck,” Flora said.

Bill tried to catch his freezing breath. His left hand felt entirely numb. “Let’s get this done,” he said. “Sorcha, Chester, keep watch on the shore.”

Flora led the way across the snow-covered tarmac to a set of equally snow-covered steps, and down to the quayside.

The destroyer was berthed at a jetty that was only half the length of the warship. The stern towered over them, while the prow stuck out, into the water, perilously close to a wallowing car ferry. What Bill knew about ships had been learned the hard way over the previous few months, but even he could tell there was no way for the destroyer to leave the harbour without colliding with the ferry.

“One problem at a time,” he murmured. Flora had already reached the gangway. Five-feet-wide metal sheeting covered the side up to a height of five feet. A wire grill extended a further three feet above that. On the exterior was a colourful advert for a passenger ferry’s website, suggesting which part of the harbour the gangway had originally come from. On the shore side, the platform was bolted to a small crane. On the ship, it overlapped the side to which it was loosely chained. With no roof, snow had gathered in the walkway, dragged into eldritch mounds by the wind.

Flora took one step onto the gangway, but then paused in a half crouch. Bill scanned the ship, but couldn’t see anyone. He already had his rifle raised, but now he slid his finger around the trigger. He said nothing, but inched sideways, giving himself a clear shot. Flora lowered her assault rifle, then raised it again. She took her left hand from the barrel. Without turning around, she motioned him forward, then took a slow sliding step herself, up the snow-covered walkway.

Bill’s mouth was dry. His heart pounded so loudly he could barely hear the chains clank as a wave dragged the ship up and down. He certainly couldn’t hear any people, but guessed he would hear gunfire first. He slid his feet forward, his eyes on the narrow square of ship visible at the end of the gangway. His finger hovered over the trigger. When Flora stopped, he almost fired. She raised a warning hand, then lowered herself to a half crouch, prodding the rifle at one of the odd mounds. She pushed the snow away with her rifle barrel, revealing a face.

“Liam,” she whispered. Just as abruptly, she straightened, and turned around. “Touch nothing. Turn around. The shore. Go. Move!”

Bill did, nearly slipping twice before he was back on the jetty. “It’s another mine?” he asked.

“Keep moving!” Flora hissed, and didn’t stop until they’d climbed the steps. “We need to change. Change our clothes. Drop that rifle.”

“Why?”

“Trust me, this way.”

She jogged away from the quay, towards the terminal building, and a red door. There she stopped, looking at her hands and the door.

“What is it?” Bill said.

“We can’t touch the door,” she said.

Locke and Chester, seeing them run from the destroyer, had followed, and caught up a second later.

“What’s going on?” Chester asked.

“Don’t touch us. Open that door,” Flora said. “Call it paranoia. Call it caution. Does it open?”

“Sure,” Chester said, pushing it aside. “Smells like a petrol station.”

“This is where they had us bring the diesel,” Flora said. She dropped her rifle, then began pulling off her clothes. “Bill, do the same. Strip.”

“Why?” Bill asked.

“Bodies,” Flora said as she tore off her clothes. “One of the bodies, it was Liam. A few weeks ago, they took us to this garage. There was a corpse inside they wanted us to retrieve. A Russian captain. There were zombies in the building, and I thought that was why they wanted us to go in. I thought it was a game. They didn’t want to touch the body, but told us to carry it out. Then they told us to search it. Still Rhoskovski wouldn’t touch it himself. There was nothing on the body, but after that, they took Liam away. Said they had a job for a sailor. I thought they wanted him to sail a boat through the harbour. His body is on that gangway.”

“They shot him?” Chester asked.

“No,” Flora said. “He wasn’t shot. Bill, wash yourself with the snow. Chester, are there coveralls inside?”

“Looks like it. A few jackets and boots, too.”

“Good thing,” Bill muttered, shivering as he threw snow on his naked flesh. “I could do with more of an explanation.”

“It was a story Admiral Popolov told me,” Flora said. “I didn’t believe him. I thought it was just one of those tall tales sailors tell each other during the long, dark nights. He said that Russian sea captains were given a nerve agent. If they had to abandon their ship, but couldn’t scuttle it, they were instructed to coat the deck to prevent it being seized by us, by NATO. I thought it was just a story. But Liam wasn’t shot. Beyond him, there was another body, and next to that was a dead bird. The captain of that ship must have done it. The same captain who mined the harbour. The same captain whose body we had to retrieve for Rhoskovski. It’s why he didn’t want to touch the corpse. I don’t think the captain was trying to stop the English from seizing the ship. I think he was trying to stop Rhoskovski. That’s why Rhoskovski has stayed here in Calais. He’s been hoping the compound would become less dangerous over time. When touching the body didn’t kill me or Liam, he thought it might be safe to board the ship. He still sent Liam first. Clearly it wasn’t safe. Or it wasn’t three weeks ago.”

“Right,” Bill muttered, rubbing snow on his hands more ferociously than before.

“Diesel. Is there diesel inside?” Flora asked.

“A few canisters, yes,” Chester said.

“Bring it out. Hands and face, Bill,” Flora said.

“This will help, will it?” Bill asked as Chester splashed the fuel on his hands.

“Of course,” Flora said. “Trust me.”

So Bill did. Only when he was inside the small vestibule, pulling on a pair of the fume-ridden coveralls did his brain catch up. “If diesel neutralised it, then wouldn’t they have tried that?” he asked.

“Yes,” Flora sighed. “And no, it probably doesn’t help. Nor would the snow, but it’s all we had available, so it was worth a try. Did you touch the gangway? Any of the corpses?”

“No,” Bill said. “I had my hands on my rifle at all times.”

“We’re probably fine,” Flora said. “Sorry for the humiliation.”

“It’s hardly that,” Bill said. “And better safe than sorry. And I think that means we’ve lost both guns and the hatchet.”

“Here.” Chester held out the nine-millimetre he’d taken from Paulo.

Bill waved it toward Flora. “Someone used chemical weapons in Ireland. There’s some circumstantial evidence that it was a Russian pilot. That wasn’t far from where we found The New World,” he added. “And that wasn’t far from one of your Claverton warehouses. I think you might have been the target, Sorcha. Or your people.”

“Why’s that?” Flora asked.

“She’s been trying to stop this since before it all began,” Bill said. “Like I said, the evidence is circumstantial.”

“Liam’s body isn’t,” Flora said.

“We’ve a decision to make,” Chester said. “The destroyer’s no use to us, and we’ve left a trail in the snow leading here. We’re down a couple of guns, and a few hours. On the plus side, there’s been no sign of Rhoskovski or Cavalie, and there’s about eighty litres of diesel here. So what now?”

“One size doesn’t fit all,” Locke said, handing Bill a pair of the heavy-duty boots that had been standing beneath the equally heavy-duty fireproof jackets, on the rack next to the overalls. “I’m afraid you won’t run far in these.”

“My running days are long behind me,” Bill said, pulling the boots on. “There were some small boats out there that looked intact.”

“If we hit a mine in one of those, we’re dead,” Flora said. “The destroyer might have made it. I… I don’t know. But there aren’t any other boats within walking distance. Rhoskovski made sure of that, and made sure to tell us.”

“I say we take the diesel, look for a truck, drive up to Belgium,” Bill said. “Do you have any small craft there, something we can sail across to England?”

“A reinforced-hull inflatable, and more lifeboats than we needed.”

“Too late,” Locke said, ducking down. “Away from the windows. People. Two of them, heading towards us.”

Bill leaned against the wall next to the window, moving millimetre by millimetre until he spied the two figures. They’d emerged from between two warehouses, though he couldn’t tell if that was where they’d come from. “Don’t appear to be heading towards us. No. They’re heading towards the harbour entrance. What’s out there?”

“The pump-room,” Flora replied, her voice equally low.

“If that’s where they’ve gone, if they’ve come to collect fuel, they’ll come here next,” Locke said. She stood, and just as cautiously peered through the window. “I can’t see anyone else approaching. I think it’s just the two of them.”

“Any other way out of there?” Chester asked.

“None,” Flora said.

“In those boots, you can’t move quickly and you can’t move quietly,” Chester said. “Flora, Bill, keep watch for any more of them. If they come, we’ll hear the gunfire. Sorcha, I think we’re up.”

“I’m right behind you,” Locke said.