giggled and the mother smiled.
They don’t have a clue, Cole thought. He had just killed his friend for them. For their safety. For the little girl’s future. That’s what all this was about. After six years spent living in one bed-sit after another, drawing the meagre Army ‘pension’ they had awarded him after letting him go, picking up crappy menial jobs as he watched for signs of the berserkers’ re-emergence, it had all come to this. He was convinced that he was doing right, and yet sometimes he had to remind himself, to reinforce his conviction.
Because Cole was not a bad man. Cole was a good man.
He had left the Army six years ago, three months before killing Sandra Francis. They had refused to let him pursue the escapees, saying that they were gone and that was that. Gone back to wherever they came from, the brass told him. They’ll not worry us now. But he had never forgotten the wagon that rolled in one June morning under cover of darkness, ‘Robinson Fresh Foods’ painted across its sides. The sounds he had heard from within had stayed with him forever. And then, seeing those things as they brought them out, his view of the world had changed in seconds.
The woman in the park reminded him of the scientist, Sandra. She had been attractive, her red hair hiding a stunning intellect behind Barbie-doll looks. And that had been Cole’s mistake. His sexism had made him believe that it would be easy to persuade the truth from her.
What did you do to the girl?
I can’t tell you.
What makes her special?
I can’t tell you.
You have to —
No, I don’t.
What was in the syringe? Did you help them, did you make them immune to the silver?
I can’t tell you.
Did you help them escape?
A silence, long and loaded. And Sandra never shifted her gaze from Cole’s eyes.
You did. You did! Why? You have to tell me. Really, you do, because I need to know, and I’ll find out one way or the other.
Then it’s the other.
More talking, more pleading, but however tightly he’d tied her to the chair and however much he threatened, Cole could not bring himself to torture her. And really, looking back on it, he believed that nothing would have made her talk.
Because she was scared.
Please, tell me or —
Or you’ll shoot me?
And perhaps that had been mistake: not believing that he would. her
Cole marked this as the point when he had grown up. Leaving the Army had turned his purpose into a private crusade. His shoulders had bowed under the weight of guilt and responsibility, and he spent many waking hours convincing himself that he was doing everything right. There were no voices, no jealous gods giving him their time, but there God, present at every twist and turn of his life and listening to his fears and hopes. He knew what Cole was doing, and He knew why, but that did not make the remorse and doubt any less difficult to bear. was
Cole let go of the balustrade and smiled as the woman glanced across at him. She smiled back, and went back to playing with her children.
I’m doing all this for them, he thought, patching any holes in his conviction. He had just killed a friend. He shook his head to dislodge the memory and it slipped down through the gratings in his mind, under the skein of reality he had created over the past ten years, finding itself prisoner with so many other memories, ideals and discarded morals that he worked so hard to keep subdued. That false vision of reality kept them all hidden away. The memory would come back, he knew that, haunting him forever, just as the memory of Sandra Francis’ death haunted his dreams. But even as Cole walked along the landing and down the outside staircase, Nathan King became a man he had once served with at Porton Down, a fun friend, a good soldier. He was a million miles and ten years away from that corpse already cooling in the filthy flat.
Cole climbed into his Jeep. Salisbury Plain was about two hours away. He could be there by dusk.
* *
They don’t have a clue, Cole thought. He had just killed his friend for them. For their safety. For the little girl’s future. That’s what all this was about. After six years spent living in one bed-sit after another, drawing the meagre Army ‘pension’ they had awarded him after letting him go, picking up crappy menial jobs as he watched for signs of the berserkers’ re-emergence, it had all come to this. He was convinced that he was doing right, and yet sometimes he had to remind himself, to reinforce his conviction.
Because Cole was not a bad man. Cole was a good man.
He had left the Army six years ago, three months before killing Sandra Francis. They had refused to let him pursue the escapees, saying that they were gone and that was that. Gone back to wherever they came from, the brass told him. They’ll not worry us now. But he had never forgotten the wagon that rolled in one June morning under cover of darkness, ‘Robinson Fresh Foods’ painted across its sides. The sounds he had heard from within had stayed with him forever. And then, seeing those things as they brought them out, his view of the world had changed in seconds.
The woman in the park reminded him of the scientist, Sandra. She had been attractive, her red hair hiding a stunning intellect behind Barbie-doll looks. And that had been Cole’s mistake. His sexism had made him believe that it would be easy to persuade the truth from her.
What did you do to the girl?
I can’t tell you.
What makes her special?
I can’t tell you.
You have to —
No, I don’t.
What was in the syringe? Did you help them, did you make them immune to the silver?
I can’t tell you.
Did you help them escape?
A silence, long and loaded. And Sandra never shifted her gaze from Cole’s eyes.
You did. You did! Why? You have to tell me. Really, you do, because I need to know, and I’ll find out one way or the other.
Then it’s the other.
More talking, more pleading, but however tightly he’d tied her to the chair and however much he threatened, Cole could not bring himself to torture her. And really, looking back on it, he believed that nothing would have made her talk.
Because she was scared.
Please, tell me or —
Or you’ll shoot me?
And perhaps that had been mistake: not believing that he would. her
Cole marked this as the point when he had grown up. Leaving the Army had turned his purpose into a private crusade. His shoulders had bowed under the weight of guilt and responsibility, and he spent many waking hours convincing himself that he was doing everything right. There were no voices, no jealous gods giving him their time, but there God, present at every twist and turn of his life and listening to his fears and hopes. He knew what Cole was doing, and He knew why, but that did not make the remorse and doubt any less difficult to bear. was
Cole let go of the balustrade and smiled as the woman glanced across at him. She smiled back, and went back to playing with her children.
I’m doing all this for them, he thought, patching any holes in his conviction. He had just killed a friend. He shook his head to dislodge the memory and it slipped down through the gratings in his mind, under the skein of reality he had created over the past ten years, finding itself prisoner with so many other memories, ideals and discarded morals that he worked so hard to keep subdued. That false vision of reality kept them all hidden away. The memory would come back, he knew that, haunting him forever, just as the memory of Sandra Francis’ death haunted his dreams. But even as Cole walked along the landing and down the outside staircase, Nathan King became a man he had once served with at Porton Down, a fun friend, a good soldier. He was a million miles and ten years away from that corpse already cooling in the filthy flat.
Cole climbed into his Jeep. Salisbury Plain was about two hours away. He could be there by dusk.
* *
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