Another War

Chapter Seven

Henbury and Adams thought that the motorway was a dangerous insanity, and anyone who travelled on it had no regard for their own, or anyone else’s safety. Despite being limited to fifty by the Warrior, and that both men had travelled far faster on trains, they were amazed and appalled in equal measure by the sheer recklessness of the driving.

‘How is all this necessary?’ asked Henbury

‘Someone decided in the sixties that it would be a good idea. There wasn’t half of the traffic volume there is now, and your average car struggled to get to seventy. These days, everyone’s a racing driver, and it’s all so terribly important to get where you’re going quickly.’

‘Is it?’

‘No.’

They passed the sign which welcomed them to Wiltshire, and Thacker’s phone trilled. He checked the dialling-in number, and recognised it as Dickson’s.

‘I think we’ve been rumbled,’ he said to his passengers, and let the voice-mail take the message.

He gave enough time for a furious Dickson to scorch a set of choice expletives into a digital recorder somewhere in Britain, then retrieved the message with some apprehension.

At first, he couldn’t make out what was going on. The sound quality was awful. What he could hear concerned him enough to ask the driver to pull over onto the hard shoulder. The truck and the Warrior pulled in behind the Land Rover, and Thacker pressed his ear hard against the tiny loudspeaker on his handset.

There were screams. Real screams of anguish, of men who wanted to die but couldn’t. There was crying, bitter sobbing that came from the pit of the stomach. And there was Dickson whispering over the top of it all: ‘Come. Worship. Bow down and worship our new god.’

Thacker felt faint and nauseous. Dickson wasn’t one to play a trick, was he? One way to find out. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

‘What’s the matter, Major? You’re as white as a ghost.’

Thacker brushed off Henbury’s concern and ran back to the truck where his men were wedged in with the crates of equipment. ‘Get on the radio. See if you can raise anyone at Henbury Hall.’

‘What’s up, sir?’

‘I don’t know. I think there’s been an accident of some sort.’

The radio operator turned on his rig and searched the airwaves. ‘There’s a carrier, but no traffic.’

Thacker tried his phone. Dickson’s mobile was busy. ‘Okay, listen. We’re going back. We’ll stop just outside the first checkpoint, and see what’s what.’

He told the same to the Warrior driver, and then to his own.

‘Henbury, Adams. I can’t let you go. I’m sorry. We have to go back and see what’s wrong.’

‘What did Dickson say?’ asked Adams. ‘What aren’t you telling us?’

‘I’m not sure it was Dickson. Not anymore. I can’t raise anyone at the site, either. We’ve lost contact with them all.’

He dialled the Ministry of Defence, and explained the problem.

‘Just let us out,’ said Adams as they drove up the slip road at the next junction. ‘Please, Major.’

‘I need you, Adams. I need you to tell me what’s happening back there.’

‘How can we tell you what we don’t know?’

‘I think you do know. I think if you wrack your brains hard enough you can give me the answers I’m looking for. If I were the Ankhani, and I’d suffered wholesale slaughter, what would I do?’

‘You’d run. Lick your wounds. They’re cowards, all of them.’

‘Of course they are. But don’t you think they’d want to take revenge as well?’

‘Yes. I don’t see…’

‘I do,’ said Henbury. ‘And I’ve told you already.’

‘That’s it. You did. You said that Jack thought the Ankhani were going to turn him into a god. I think they have. And they’ve sent him through from their world to ours. Jack Henbury is our new god.’

The checkpoint was deserted. There should have been a couple of bored coppers who waved away journalists with talk of a chemical spill and the possibility of contamination.

The police car was there, but no police. There were outside broadcast vans, too, parked in a field in neat rows. No sign of life from them, either.

Thacker stopped the convoy, and got everyone out.

‘We have another situation, potentially worse than the last one. We all saw what happened last night, when those creatures came at us out of the hall. There was a machine inside, built by Robert Henbury’s cousin, Jack, out of parts he found in Egypt. Once activated, that machine opens a gate between two places, two worlds if you like. We stopped the monsters, but something far worse has probably now come through. You’ll know him when you see him and you will shoot to kill.

‘Now, I’m going on alone. There’s no point in risking any more lives than absolutely necessary. I’m reactivating Captain Henbury’s commission, which isn’t normally the done thing, but this isn’t a moment to stick with the book. He’ll need a lot of help, but he’s an officer, and you’ll follow his orders. That all right, Henbury?’

Henbury, on his crutches, swallowed hard and nodded. Thacker handed him his automatic.

‘There’s a village down the road, Isherwood. Take over the church hall, or the pub if they haven’t got one. Evacuate the villagers, at gun point if necessary, and call the Ministry. I hope to God they’re taking this seriously. Give me a radio, and I’ll keep in touch.’

Thacker strapped the radio to his belt, and commandeered a rifle.

‘Right, Henbury, they’re all yours. Good luck.’

‘And you, Major.’ They shook hands awkwardly.

Thacker started to jog down the road to the Hall, keeping next to the hedge to obscure his progress. There was still smoke coming from the valley, a thin reed of soot climbing to the cloud base. The steam of earlier had dispersed.

Round the next corner was the second checkpoint, which should have been manned by soldiers. Thacker crept through the hedge and came up on its blindside.

The concertina of razor wire was still across the road. There was no one else around. The guards had abandoned their post, and there was no sign of any struggle: no bodies, no blood, no shell cases.

Thacker walked on, cautiously, aware that his boots were the only sound he could hear.

He kept on going up to the hedge, peering around it where it was sparse, through the roots where it was not, trying to see into the valley. The land dipped away from the road. He could see the foreslope, but not the site of the Hall unless he started off across country, where large fields made cover infrequent. He’d stick to the road as it was more sheltered, and he could access the camp without being seen from the main drive.

Time to try the radio.

‘Captain Henbury, are you there, over?’

Henbury was clearly fumbling with his handset, receiving instruction on how to use it even as he tried to answer Thacker.

‘We’re in position in the Bricklayer’s Arms. Gratifying to see that pubs haven’t changed much. Over.’

‘I’m on the access road to the camp. The second checkpoint was unmanned as well. So far, so good. I haven’t got sight of the house yet. Over.’

‘There are units of something called the Army Air Corps on their way. They intend to overfly the area in what? A helicopter? No, it doesn’t matter.’

‘I’m coming up to the third cordon. I’ll speak to you later. Over and out.’

The barricade should have consisted of a Land Rover and two soldiers in NBC suits, guarding a pole slung between two trestles. The men had gone, and on the ground was a respirator. That was it. He looked in the windows of the Land Rover, and in the back, and found it untouched.

‘Thacker here,’ he said into the radio. ‘Checkpoint three is vacant. No clue as to what’s happened yet. Over.’

‘This is Henbury. This helicopter is going to be with you in five minutes. They called it an ETA, but I think that’s what they meant. Also, we’ve intercepted a message for Dickson from the British Museum. The machine not only has hieroglyphs on it, but also cuneiform, Sanskrit, something called Linear-A, and Hebrew. They’ve translated some of the Hebrew, and they say it’s a step-by-step guide to assembling the machine itself.’

‘What, ‘part A goes here’ sort of thing?’

‘Absolutely. They’re going through Jack’s notes, but the idiot put sections of it in code. If they uncover anything important, they’ll call me direct.’

‘Right. I’m going into the camp. Don’t call me unless absolutely necessary. I don’t want to give my position away. Any last words, Henbury?’

‘Don’t trust Jack. Whatever happens. Do not trust him an inch.’

‘I’ve every intention of getting rid of him at the earliest opportunity. Over and out.’

Thacker half ran, half scuttled to the gate that led to the camp. Heavy vehicles had churned the ground into a sea of mud, waves of dirt pushed up by fat tyres and dried into place. He crouched down, and checked his rifle. He listened carefully. At the limits of his hearing he could hear the clatter of a low-flying helicopter, drifting in and out as the sound echoed around the valley.

He ran through the mud to the first tent. He burst in, and found nothing but empty camp beds. On a hunch, he rummaged through a couple of the packs and came up with a small pair of binoculars. He slung the cord around his neck, and left the way he had come.

There was no one in the camp. The mess tent still had half-eaten food on the abandoned plates. A big Burco boiler rumbled, full of steam.

Thacker followed the track down to where the main drive started. He hid behind the decontamination tents. The roar of rotor blades was suddenly very loud, and a black shape flashed overhead. The downdraft shook the canvas hard, and Thacker took the opportunity to call Henbury.

‘Thacker. In the camp. Still no one. Helicopter is checking. Over and out.’

He watched the helicopter hug the ground into the valley, so low he all but lost sight of it. Then he made a low, crouching run to the first of the dead trees that lined the drive. He crossed the drive, and ducked out of sight again. He could see people now, assembled in a crowd in front of the smouldering pile of rubble that had been Henbury Hall.

He held the binoculars up and tried to work out what they were doing.

There were a mix of people: uniformed soldiers and policemen, white-coveralled technicians, and a good number of civilians. They were all either on their knees or prostrate on the ground in front of a bizarre star-shaped statue.

The helicopter crew clearly couldn’t understand it either, because having made one high speed pass, they turned for another go.

Thacker looked again at the statue. On closer inspection, it was vaguely humanoid. Ludicrously long legs splayed, planted on the ground, and arms raised up high. The neck was stretched to impossible lengths, with a tiny head balanced on top, and they were all joined by a torso that struggled to keep the limbs under control.

The statue was moving. The statue was Jack. And the people in front of him were paying him homage, abasing themselves and surrendering their wills to his.

The thought of it made him nauseous. As he scanned the crowd, he saw that every so often, there was a twisted, blackened corpse, still part of the congregation of the damned, but no longer taking any part in the infernal worship.

The helicopter hovered overhead, turning slowly, and Jack turned his baleful gaze upwards. He shifted his stance, ponderously moving one leg, then the other, and he reached up high. The aircraft was out of reach by a good fifty feet, but that didn’t seem to matter to Jack.

The fuselage stretched. The tone of the air chopped by the rotors deepened and boomed, and the blades themselves shattered. The helicopter melted in strands of metal and plastic and flesh, dribbling and freezing solid, snapping and clattering to the ground.

In seconds, it was over, and Thacker forced himself to blink. The crowd moaned and cried and wept at the power of this spindly-limbed monstrosity.

‘You doubted Me,’ said Jack. Not using words, though. The phrase formed complete inside Thacker’s head, and made his nose bleed. He choked down his rising gorge.

The people cried and wept more fiercely, desperate. There were shouts of ‘No!’ and ‘Never!’

‘Some of you wanted Me to fail.’

There was screaming, and Thacker had to clamp his hand over his mouth to stop himself crying out. The pain was sudden and startling.

Jack reached down and picked up a shrieking man by the neck, as easily as he would pluck a rabbit from a hutch. The man exploded, sending out a shower of blood and offal as an anointing. Jack threw the head aside, and assumed his original star-splayed stance.

‘Worship Me.’

Thacker hit his head against the dead trunk of the tree, once, twice, three times. He now had blood seeping from a gash on his temple and flowing into his eye, but the new pain worked against the old, and freed him from the strange, compelling grip.

He wiped away the blood with his sleeve, tossed the binoculars to one side, and raised his rifle. He leaned over the weapon, sighting carefully, stilling his trembling hands with deep draughts of air.

Where to aim for? The head, of course, but the target was tiny. He’d trained with a rifle, kept all his certificates up to date, but he wasn’t the surest shot in the army. The torso, then. The hydrostatic shockwave would be enough to dismember Jack, if he got enough bullets into him.

He settled down, adjusted his sights for range, and selected bursts of three. It was the first time he’d ever attempted deicide.

Jack stepped out of the way of the first shots, moving his body slightly to the right even as Thacker pulled the trigger. The second three were stopped in the flat of Jack’s outstretched hand.

Thacker switched to fully automatic, and let the god have it all. He missed with every last bullet, or at least, did not hit with a single one.

Then Jack was striding towards him, and he turned tail and ran. The pressure in his skull was threatening to burst his brains.

‘Worm. You dare strike me?’

Stumbling along with his hands pressed to the sides of his head, Thacker gasped. ‘I’ll dare a bloody sight more, you freak.’

‘Blasphemer. Die.’

‘Not today.’ He gained the camp, and tripped through the forest of guys and pegs.

Jack was slow, as uncertain of his steps as a new-born deer. Whilst each pace took him twenty feet, he had to steady himself before taking the next. Thacker ran as if the hounds of hell were at his back. But the god’s terrified worshipers were driven by more than naked fear. They charged after Thacker, hoping to bring him down, present him as a sacrifice, and gain a moment’s rest from a life that now promised nothing but torment.

Many of them were fitter than Thacker, younger than Thacker, plain faster than Thacker. The only thing in his favour was that he had a head start.

He made it into the front seat of an armoured Land Rover, reached across and locked the passenger door, then his own. Jack Henbury loomed large, and his minions flocked around his ankles, desperate to show their devotion and not be left behind.

Thacker prayed for the first time in a long time, and the Land Rover started. He threw it into first and hurtled up the slope to the hedge. He kept waiting for Jack to stop him, to conjure a wall for him to drive into, or melt the vehicle like he’d melted the helicopter and its crew. He could see him in his rear view mirrors.

He was through the hedge. The engine nearly stalled, and Thacker fought to save it, stamping on the clutch and gunning the accelerator. The front wheels bounced across the roadside ditch and hit tarmac. He threw the Land Rover around, tyres screeching, then worked his way through the gears until he was doing a flat out fifty-five.

Jack receded from view.

Thacker roared past the third checkpoint, and didn’t even slow for the second, snapping the wooden pole across the road cleanly in two. The first, he had to brake for. Unlocking his door, he brushed the razor wire aside, and didn’t bother shutting the door on his way back in.

A signpost for Isherwood flashed by, and Thacker took the turning, just.

He still had the radio on his belt. One hand on the wheel, he called Henbury.

‘Thacker. Lost the helicopter. Crew dead. Barely made it out myself.’

‘It’s Henbury. Where are you?’

‘On the road to Isherwood. I’ve got Jack and about a hundred, hundred and fifty crazed fanatics chasing me.’

‘It is Jack then?’

‘I have to assume so. He’s now thirty feet tall and can kill by thought alone.’ Blood was starting to obscure his vision, but he didn’t have a free hand to wipe it away. ‘Excuse me a moment.’

He put the radio down on the seat next to him and used an oily rag from the dashboard to mop himself up with.

‘Thacker again. I shot Jack repeatedly. He either anticipated where the bullets were going, or caught them in his bare hand. But there’s a limit to his powers. I got away by running very quickly, so I’m guessing his influence doesn’t extend so far.’

‘The Air Corps are here. With more helicopters.’

‘Tell them to stand off and fire as soon as they acquire their target. Too close, and they’re toast.’

‘How close is too close?’

‘Good question. Look, it’s difficult to drive this thing and talk at the same time. I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes. Over and out.’

He could make out a church spire and some red tiled roofs a few fields away. His vision was starting to swim, and he had to shake his head to get rid of the disturbance. Rather than crash at breakneck speed in a narrow country lane, he started to bite his lip, hard.