The SIG in his right hand, his left hand cupping the base of the grip, arms outstretched, he moved quietly to scout out the terrain. Slowly, his eyes adjusted and what had been darkness became gloom. A steel door to his right was locked. Turning the handle, he pushed hard, his shoulder against it, but it didn’t give. Switching the gun to his left hand, with his right he groped his way along the rough breeze-block wall, trying the steel door further along, but that was locked too.
The place seemed empty, but the hackles on the back of his neck rose, and he glanced upwards. Cameras were fixed around the entire perimeter of the walls. They tilted and turned, tracking him, each one with a small red light. They were recording. Were their movements on an automatic circuit or was someone monitoring him? He had to hope the former.
From what he remembered of Paulie’s floor plan, the only other door out of the space was at the far end of the hangar, but to reach it, he either had to keep to the walls and crawl around the edge of things, which would chew up time he didn’t have, or commit to the gloom and cross the expanse of floor, which would mean tackling whatever obstacles were out there as fast as he could while fully exposed. He screwed up his eyes to try to make out more detail in the dark shapes, cursing that he hadn’t thought to bring night vision goggles. Were they crates? Surely they were too big? Steel containers piled on top of each other? Was this an enormous storage facility? If so, what were they storing? He thought there’d be answers down here, but the only thing he knew for a fact was how little time was left to find Syd. He tried not to think about the irony of Hone releasing Fang’s mum but Fang being too dead to appreciate it.
As he stepped forward, a dazzling white light drenched the space. Rows of neon strip lights revealed what appeared to be street after street after street, all lined with full-size houses and shops. There had to be hundreds of buildings. There were even cars parked up along the streets and lights on in the houses, as well as a pub with a sign that announced it was The King’s Head, and office blocks, a town hall, a hotel, a bank, a small street market and an empty children’s playground with a merry-go-round and a swing on chains that swayed back and forth with the movement of the air around it. There was another clunk and the noise of a city boomed out from speakers he couldn’t see – the rumble of passing cars, pop music and a barking dog, footsteps and chatter, and somewhere the sound of building work as scaffolding was erected. It was a replica town, he realized; an urban environment designed to approximate London streets. His fingers traced holes in the brickwork. There was no glass in the windows, no doors in the frames, and although they’d been repaired and patched up, some of the buildings appeared to have sustained considerable damage. It wasn’t a film set – this was specially built terrain for training in OBUA, operations in built-up areas. One of the most elaborate he’d ever seen.
But the New Army trained on moorland and plains, not in a secret bunker in the middle of London.
All of a sudden, the air around him appeared to shimmer and shift and the replica street filled with holographic boys. A chicken bone of a lad twirled around on the swing till the tortured metal shrieked, before letting go, the chains unravelling at speed, the boy clutching the wooden seat as he hurtled round, whooping. Others chased the merry-go-round faster and faster till it was a blur, before leaping aboard with yells of triumph. A huge lad, his face a mass of pimples, appeared in the window of The King’s Head, before turning and yanking down his trousers to moon at the catcalling boys below. A noise behind him, and North spun on his heel as three of the boys, arms wrapped round each other’s necks, charged pell-mell towards him. A corner of his brain recognized them as holograms just before they ran through him and up through the street. And the auditorium filled with the thrum and laughter of youngsters pumped and raucous at being out of their cells. They were up for a laugh, restless and overexcited – they were trouble waiting to happen, and they were the boys whose torn and shredded bodies he had dug out from the ancient bones of Londoners centuries dead.
North attempted to zone the boys out, keeping his gun raised but his sight lines clear, as he moved through them. The young offenders thought they had the rest of their lives ahead of them. What they hadn’t known was that the rest of their lives would be measured in minutes. They weren’t there, he reminded himself, and he couldn’t warn them. He couldn’t save them. They were stored memory. A trick of the light. He had to focus on what mattered – finding Syd and getting Fang back.
There was a boom from the Tannoy system, which bounced off the walls as an enormous, brightly lit window appeared at the far end of the hangar. ‘You got my invitation then, North?’ The unseen speaker’s gravel-chewing voice cut through the banter and yells as a boy shinned up a drainpipe and another threw himself at his fatter mate in a bid to pull him to the ground – more holographic boys cheering them on. Above it all, Kirkham stood centre stage in his uniform and medals, his hands on his hips with Lilith next to him. Winking at North, she flapped her fingers up and down in a girlish wave, as if delighted to see him.
As he passed a wreck of a Volvo, a red-headed lad scrambled on to its roof and jumped up and down, metal appearing to dent under his boots, his freckled face a picture of exquisite concentration. What did Kirkham mean by ‘invitation’? Wasn’t Lilith double-crossing the General to make a shedload of money? And if she wasn’t double-crossing the General, why hadn’t she shot North and Plug dead in the charnel house? She’d had a gun in her hand, and the opportunity. Why take Fang? Why drag him here?
As if aware of his questions, Lilith leant in towards the microphone. ‘The General wanted to see you die with his own baby blues. Hasn’t worked with me before – real trust issues. Sorry about that, babe.’ She didn’t sound sorry, he thought. She sounded amused. Fang’s kidnap was an elaborate plot to lure him here, and he had played it just like they thought he would. Walked straight into the trap. ‘Where’s Fang?’ he called out.
Through the crowds of holographic boys, a red spotlight picked out Fang, tied to a stake at the far end of the furthest street. Her glittering boots were standing on a massive pile of rubble. Her mouth taped over, her eyes frantic as if she was trying to tell him something. Warn him.