A rack of dust-crusted bottles still covered one wall of what had once been General Aeron Kirkham’s wine cellar. The other three were lined with black rubber, and the room was lit by a central metal chandelier covered in small red candle bulbs. Hone extracted a huge black dildo from a display case and raised his eyebrows in the General’s direction.
It had taken three days of watching the General’s ivy-clad manor in the Cotswolds before North found his moment to drop over the high stone wall, slide through the French windows and overpower the General, before opening the front door to Hone. Only someone who believed himself to be untouchable could leave himself so open to attack.
‘Will this do? Any last requests?’ Hone said, nodding towards the display case as North shackled the General’s wrists to the massive steel X-frame bolted to the concrete floor. Kirkham ignored the taunt, focusing instead on North. ‘I’m a soldier. I’ve served my country, as you did. Let me keep my dignity – I’m owed that much.’
North remembered the buzz and swoop of the drones as they circled Fang and himself – the mechanical spiders. The General hadn’t seemed one for mercy then. He leant in closer. ‘If only you hadn’t decided to tidy up all those loose ends. By which I mean – kill Esme Sullivan Hawke. Syd is gone. Esme would have kept her own counsel. She has her own secrets after all.’
‘And you expect me to stake my reputation and the safety of this country on the black widow’s discretion? Trust a woman who killed her own husband?’ The General’s bloodshot eyes were full of scorn and fury. ‘Those weapons are a matter of national security – this is bigger than her. She knows too much. I’ve read your file, I know what you are, North. Surely you can see she has to die for the greater good.’
‘As the Talmud says, “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” Is that right, General?’ Hone’s voice was cold as he approached the shackled man. ‘That was Syd’s advice to my niece when your thug was trying to rape and murder her. They were almost the last words she heard.’
Tiny capillaries crazy-paved the yellow-whites of the General’s eyes as he struggled in his bindings in his desperate need to rip the steel frame from the concrete. He let out a ferocious prolonged roar of frustration that sank into the rubber walls.
Together, North and Hone debated whether to use the black leather mask they found hanging on a peg. North thought not, on the grounds the General should see his fate coming. Hone argued that it would add to the credibility of the story. They settled on a purple silk corset with black trim, which required a firm hand to lace the General into.
‘The mechanics are consistent with a terrible accident,’ Hone said to him. ‘Within an hour, your search history and personal files on every one of your computers will be full of the worst possible pornography. That’s if it’s not there already, of course. I’m afraid you may be a bit of a laughing stock in the mess. Perhaps they’ll name the regimental goat in your honour? After all, there’s history with you and goats.’
The General went still.
‘Men make mistakes, but I don’t need your forgiveness,’ he snarled. ‘I defend my nation as I see fit. Autonomous weapons will save my soldiers’ lives. You’re both Luddites if you think this kind of warfare isn’t inevitable. Look at what’s already out there. We must be ready to fight the next war not the last one.’
‘Tell yourself what you need to, General. But nothing justifies your criminality and immorality,’ Hone said. ‘Not the fact this country is small. Nor that we are “less” than we were, vulnerable to those who are stronger and richer than us. We’ve won wars despite our weakness. We don’t need your killing machines starting an arms race we can never win. That none of us can ever win.’
The General spat on the floor. ‘We’re already in the race whether we want to be or not, you bloody fools. To the death.’
‘One more thing, General,’ North said. ‘This “exercise” in the bunker. This “terrible accident” when the boys were killed. Why were the munitions live? Why wasn’t everything dummied up? You’d have still got the information you needed – the way the kids moved, the way the machines locked on and tracked them. Everything else could have been simulated – including likely fatalities.’
The General’s face contorted, but his lips clamped tight shut.
‘In the bunker, you said “something went wrong”, but you knew what was going to happen, didn’t you? You planned for it to be more than “an exercise” – it was always going to be an operation against an enemy. You wanted to judge the machines’ capacity to do violence. Those boys were always going to die, just as you wanted me to die down there. But you didn’t explain the finer points to Rafferty or Hawke, did you? They thought it was a catastrophic mistake. But you knew those boys were boys who would never be missed. You’d insisted on it, I imagine. It was never a training exercise – it was serial murder under your explicit direction. But even you got more than you bargained for, didn’t you, General, when Syd didn’t just kill those boys but reached consciousness in doing so. If only that hadn’t happened, you could have just carried on with your autonomous weapons systems operating within parameters you set. You have to appreciate the irony of the big fat spider caught in his own web.’
The General didn’t bother to deny it, but, roaring damnation, started struggling again as Hone pulled the plastic bag over his head and North secured the studded dog collar around his neck. The sinews of his neck straining against the collar, the General sucked the plastic bag into his mouth. They could make the end quicker. Altogether less painful. North could snap his neck and it would still look like an accident. He remembered the boys’ bodies buried in the charnel house – the torn and rotting flesh and splintered bones. The boy with the ‘Mam’ tattoo standing to fight a battle he could never win.
No, the General was due his righteous ending.
‘I’d hate to think he was enjoying this,’ Hone said as they stood back to take in the scene of debauchery and mayhem.
‘Purple isn’t his colour – I’m sure deep down he knows that.’
‘Do you want to watch it play out?’
The old soldier’s body was stretched out on the frame. The violated privacy of a man’s most intimate desires among the rubber and leather and metal tools of pain and pleasure.
Turning away, North shook his head. ‘I know how it ends.’