Berserk

Chapter Thirteen

Natasha had said he was getting warmer. Cole was trusting everything he was doing now on the word of the lying little berserker bitch, and he hated every aspect of that. It was almost four o'clock, and soon the sun would be setting. He didn't think he could go another night without sleep.

His head still hurt from where Roberts had knocked him out. Since then he had crashed a car, been attacked by Roberts and been run over, and his body was not thanking him at all. He supposed he should have accepted the pain as a small price to pay for the bad things he had done that day, but it inconvenienced him, made it more difficult to drive, so he cursed every ache. His thighs, especially the left, were swelling and stiffening, and the longer he sat still in the car the less easy it would be to move when the time came.

"Where are you, you little bitch?" he said, hoping that she would answer. Nothing.

He drove quickly. There was no point in trying to avoid being pulled over; the police were after him anyway, and the faster he drove the longer it would take for the armed response unit to catch up. Once they were on him it would be over, no way to avoid them, no way to outrun them, and as he'd already shot up a police car they would be taking no chances.

Damn you, Higgins! If the major had kept his word and taken Cole along, perhaps they'd already be on Roberts and the girl. Maybe the major already was. If he had a helicopter and contact with the police, the final battle may already be taking place. But I don't think so, Cole thought. And not for the first time he wondered just how much information Natasha could pluck out of his head.

It took ten minutes for the armed response unit to pick him up.

He passed a motorway exit, drove quickly under the overpass and drew level with the entrance ramp when he saw the car streaking down from above. Though unmarked, its speed gave it away, and when Cole looked over he saw two faces pressed against the side windows. They were evidently as surprised as him.

Both men turned quickly away, and that confirmed Cole's fears.

He had only seconds to act. He pressed down on the gas and moved forward, drawing level with the police car as it came down the ramp toward the inside lane. They obviously planned to pull ahead of him and then slow down, perhaps nudge him from the road if he failed to pull over. Cole could not allow that. He had one chance to move on, only one, and that was to disable the armed unit here and now. If he got embroiled in an extended chase there would be others, called in from the surrounding countryside to head him off at the next junction. Cole was a good driver, but he was also realistic; he knew that there was little chance of escaping a police chase.

And if they managed to stop him, he'd likely be shot.

He had seen this done in movies, and it always looked easy. But he was not kidding himself. Making sure his seatbelt was clicked in properly he drifted across the motorway into the outside lane, looked left without turning his head, saw the police car move onto the motorway and pick up speed. And then he turned sharply to the left and broadsided them.

The impact was shattering. The steering wheel jumped from his hands and turned to the right, jerking him back across the road. He passed between a lorry and a minibus filled with pensioners, staring at him with grey disapproval. Horns blared, brakes screamed, and Cole only just managed to bring the car under control before it barreled into the central reservation. It skimmed the metal barrier, throwing out sparks and splinters of metal from its front panel. His door buckled inward and punched his leg, and he screamed out loud as the already wounded limb was subjected to more abuse. He looked left and saw that the police car was still there, its side dented and scraped but otherwise unharmed.

The men were looking across at him again, and this time they did not avert their gaze. Cole smiled and turned hard left again.

They were ready this time, and their driver slammed on his brakes. The police car threw up a cloud of smoke as Cole drifted in front of it, and even before he realised what had happened they accelerated and rammed him from behind. He jerked back in his seat, head bouncing from the headrest, and accelerated away, shifting back into the middle lane as the police car pulled up beside him.

Left again, hard, and he caught them by surprise. Perhaps the police driver thought he'd be too shaken to drive straight into them again. Or maybe he had too much faith in his patrol car's speed. Either way, Cole connected before they could move past him. He kept a tight hold of the wheel this time and twisted it to the left, arms straight, elbows locked, foot pressed to the floor. The sound of tearing metal screamed above the protesting roar of the engine. Wheels juddered as they were Tom the wrong way, and the stench of burning rubber filled the car. Glass smashed, cool air whistled in.

The police car ground over the rumble strip between the inside lane and the hard shoulder and kept going. Cole strained left, forcing them farther, and a second before their nearside wheels hit the gravel strip beside the road he swung the Mondeo back out onto the motorway. How he did not collide with any cars he did not know, but he looked in the mirror in time to see the police vehicle throw up a shower of stones as it started to spin. It completed two complete revolutions before a tire blew and it flipped onto its side.

Cole looked away, concentrating on the road ahead, hoping the men would be able to walk away from the wreck.

Less than a minute later he heard a heavy wukka wukka from outside. He leaned forward and looked up in time to see two Chinook helicopters pass over the motorway from east to west, fast and low and filled with intent.

"There you are," he said. He drove on, heart racing, pain from his legs keeping him alert, silently calling to Natasha.

And eventually she answered.

We need to turn west.

"Is this nearly it? Is it almost over? I can't be your daddy forever, not like this. You don't need me forever."

I need you now. And even if it does only last days, what you've done for me will be a lifetime. Just because we may not be together, that doesn't mean you won't still be my daddy. Just like you and Steven. You never stopped believing, did you? You never stopped being there for him?

"I still don't know if Steven is alive or dead."

Natasha paused again, that telling silence. We need to turn west.

Tom glanced across at her body beneath the old blanket. She seemed to have shifted slightly, as if making herself comfortable, though it could have been the movement of the car shuffling her corpse down in the seat. He had seen her moving, he had listened to her speaking, yet still he found it difficult to believe. "Is Steven as alive as you?" he asked.

I don't know, Natasha replied.

Tom turned off at the next exit. The road curved up and away from the motorway and joined an A-road, aiming west toward where the sun was melting into the horizon. He thought of them driving that far—reaching for the sun—and though the idea was foolish, it felt right. They were heading toward impossibilities. Natasha was leading him out of the world, and he was following willingly. Because however much she said she needed him, Tom knew it was Natasha doing the leading. It always had been. If he turned the car around now and headed back south, he guessed he would be dead from his bullet wound by sunset.

The road curved through the countryside, passing between low hills and bare fields. Trees and hedgerows caught the sun and burned slowly in its dusky glare, their leaves licking at the air with each breeze. Tom loved autumn. It was a time of death and decay, but also a time of survival. Plants shed their flowers and retreated beneath ground for the winter. Squirrels stored nuts in secret caches to see them through the harsh weather. And though dead leaves spiraled down to rot, their cousins would bloom again in a few short months. Autumn was beauty in death, the future in decay. Tom wondered what Natasha thought of it, this autumn that was her spring.

"Will you become alive?" he asked.

I already am alive.

"You know what I mean. Will you move? Will you … grow? Change? Fill out?"

You've seen me move and you've heard me speak. It hurts when I do both, but it feels good as well. It reminds me what being alive means.

"What does it mean?" Tom asked, and as the question left his lips its import struck him like another bullet. What does it mean? It was a question that he had asked many times before, both out loud, and more often silently. He would often lay awake at night, watching shadows expand across the bedroom ceiling as the moon phased across the sky. The shadows were slow; they had plenty of time. The question would pose itself again at the strangest of moments, and he was never quite ready for it, never prepared to suffer its weight. It would send him into a daydream of confusion, or a spiral of depression. Not because he could not find the answer—he guessed that nobody ever could, not really—but because he believed any chance he had of even guessing was long since past. He was growing old without really knowing what life meant for him. He despaired at that, and the despair only served to cloud his thinking more.

Now, though… for the first time in decades, he believed that the possibility of truly considering the question would soon be open to him. Here he was surrounded by life, death and whatever lay in between. Over the past two days he had been living and witnessing extremes—Jo's death, Steven's life, and his own battle to forge on whilst understanding neither. And here beside him the antithesis of logic: a living dead girl. A human, but a berserker. A child, but one with such old wisdom. An innocent who had done so much bad.

It means so much, Natasha said.

"I'm not sure …"

Being sure of that is what completes your life.

"But you're so young. Just a girl. How can you be sure?"

I've had a lot of time to think about it.

Tom closed his eyes, but he could not imagine ten years beneath the ground.

It's not far now, Natasha said. Lane tells me there's an industrial estate a couple of miles farther on. It's small, secluded. We'll wait for them. They'll be there soon.

"And then what?" Tom asked.

Then they'll take me home.

"And me?"

You'll be fine, Natasha said. I'll make sure. I'll look after you. And there it was, the admission, the proof that it was Natasha who was in control. She went away, withdrawing from his mind and leaving him alone.

Tom drove on, even less sure of the meaning of his life than ever.

You've nearly lost us, the little bitch was saying. You're too far away. Always been too far. Too stupid to find Sophia and Lane, too stupid to kill me, and now you're going to lose, and you'll be worth even less than you think. You'll be worth a spit from my mouth, a shit from my arse. You'll be worth nothing, Mister Wolf, and nothing is what you'll get.

Cole did not answer. That she was talking to him, luring him on, was good enough for him. He was used to her ranting and raging—he'd heard it ten years before, and even though it was now all in his mind, he was already used to it again—and he was happy for her to continue, lose control, even though his prime instinct was to cringe away from the unnatural monster. He felt her down in the dark places, stalking his mind as if looking for somewhere new to surface. Perhaps she would drag up another pseudo-ghost to try to scare him. The echoes of Lucy-Anne's dying voice still haunted him, false though they were. He pictured her pale thighs and black panties, shook his head to clear the image, heard Natasha giggling in the caverns of his mind. Bitch! he thought, and he felt her brief spurt of anger.

He smiled. And she was luring him on. He questioned why, but did not let that stop him. Nothing would stop him. Cole nursed the .45 in his lap, silver rounds nestling in the magazine.

"These are for you," he said. "Every single one of them for you."

Couldn't do it before, won't do it this time.

"I will," he said, "without a doubt, without a twinge of guilt, and without an ounce of regret at never knowing how the boffins at Porton Down changed you."

Natasha was silent, her presence huge; speechless.

"So, I know something you didn't think I knew," he said, smiling.

I'll tell you more, she said. I'll tell you all of it, if you want to know. Do you want to know, Misterwolf?

"Fuck you!" he said, and Yes, he thought, yes, I want to know.

I'd tell you what they did, if only you could catch me, Natasha said, laughing as she pulled away.

How Cole wished he could fire a bullet after her retreating mind.

The others, Lane and Sophia and their children … he was trying not to think about what had happened before. It got in the way too much. It obscured his purpose, threw up a roadblock between him and the bitch he was after, and he did his best to keep that past down in the underground with all the other ghosts. Yet he could not shake the memories of their escape from Porton Down, and the things he had found afterwards. The syringes. The strange drugs. The antidote to the silver that Sandra Francis had made for them.

His only way to skirt past the roadblock was to believe that their antidote had worn out.

Five miles from the motorway Natasha told Tom to turn again. A minor road curved down into a shallow valley, ending at the entrance to the industrial estate Lane had told her about. It was five thirty when they arrived there, and they drove into the main car park against the flow of traffic. Most people were leaving for home, and a few scattered lights remained on in several buildings. The sun had settled in the west and spread an orange glow across the hilltops. Sunlight caught stray clouds and lit them like Chinese lanterns. The car park quickly emptied until there was only the BMW and two other cars. One industrial unit still had its roller door open, and a man and woman were working on a large piece of furniture inside. Their radio gave dusk a classical theme.

Tom opened the window and turned off the engine. He breathed in deeply, enjoying the fresh air, relishing the coolness that seemed to light up his body as the sun illuminated the clouds. Beside him Natasha sat still, silent, away. He wondered where she was. Talking with them, probably, the other berserkers. Planning, scheming, working out the best way home. He pulled down the blanket and looked at her face. There was nothing to see.

He heard a car engine somewhere, but it faded and stopped without him seeing its lights. He tensed in his seat for a few seconds, wondering whether Sophia and Lane were here already. All he knew of them was what he had seen in Natasha's memories, and he had not liked anything he saw. They had abandoned Natasha and her family; why would they come to rescue her now? Because I'm a berserker, she had said, but she also told him that they were simply another species of human. And humans were always prone to betrayal and deceit. Perhaps they would not come at all. Maybe they would give the police an anonymous call, lead them here, and sit back in their home—wherever that may be—knowing that the last trace of their past at Porton Down had been destroyed.

"Natasha?" Tom said, but the girl was still away. Her frozen face offered no clues. He reached for her, fingers outstretched, but he could not bring himself to touch that leathery skin. There was some of him in her now, he knew, and the small wound in his chest prickled at the thought.

His back itched. Itched when it should have burned, annoyed when it should have killed. Yes, there was some of him in her, but there was some of her in him as well. Perhaps much more than he knew.

He closed his eyes and sought out his rage, fearing what he would find.

Natasha came back just as Tom heard the sound of something approaching.

"No!" Natasha said, her voice the grind of swallowed grit.

"What?" Tom asked. The sound grew louder, a regular, fast beat.

I never believed Cole would give us to someone else, she said in Tom's mind. I always thought he'd want us for himself. Daddy … I'm sorry.

"What are you on about? I don't understand. Are they here, are Lane and Sophia and the others here?" Tom looked around the industrial estate car park. The man and woman in the open business unit had downed tools and were standing at the door, shielding their eyes against the fading sunset, looking south down the valley. The woman lifted her hand to point and the noise suddenly grew louder.

Tom recognised that sound. Helicopters. And he suddenly understood Natasha's anguish. Mister Wolf had yet to catch up with them, but he had spread the word.

"Now what?" Tom asked. Pain speared into his back, Natasha began to cry, and their whole world exploded into action.