‘You should plan for everything.’
‘I don’t have the time, men or resources to do that. I can only plan for what is likely, and currently, I haven’t a clue what to expect from a rematerialised neo-gothic Victorian country estate.’ Thacker gave a tight-lipped smile. ‘Any suggestions gratefully received.’
Dickson puffed away furiously. ‘You’ll think of something.’
‘We’ll end up with standard army procedure: straight down the middle, lots of smoke.’
‘Anything from Porton Down?’
‘Anything new? The grass and tree samples are clear. No known or unknown pathogens or chemical agents. They’re just very, very dead, like they’ve been locked in a dry, dark room for eighty years. Brittle. Just turns to dust. If the wind gets up it’ll be all over the south of England in a matter of hours. A good shower of rain will wash it away. It’s only still on the ground through force of habit.’
‘I have to get back to London tonight. What should I be telling the minister?’
Thacker took off his cap and rubbed at his scalp. ‘You could make something up about how it’s all under control.’
‘That’s the politicians’ job. I’m a civil servant. They’ll get the truth from me.’
‘Good for you, Dickson. Tell him we’re going in at first light with every piece of scientific equipment we can carry and some heavy ordnance just in case.’ Thacker leaned closer. ‘Tell him it’s important that some sort of failsafe is arranged. And a failsafe for that, too.’
Dickson dropped the cigarette butt to the floor and ground it out with his heel. ‘I’ll impress on him the ah, novelty of the situation facing us.’
‘I’d be obliged. What about the Yanks?’
‘The phone cables are running red hot. Sooner rather than later, we’re going to have to tell the CIA. They’ll have satellite photographs within a day or so, and be asking us some very pointed questions.’
‘Fortunately, that’s not my problem,’ said Thacker, ‘though I don’t envy the person who has to tell them one of their airliners has been brought down by an English country house.’
He walked back behind his table, and extinguished the light on the projector. He cleared his throat, set his cap back on his head, and asked: ‘Right. Has anyone got any questions? Sensible ones that I might be able to answer.’
Chapter Two
They were all volunteers, Thacker had made sure of that◦– genuine volunteers, too, not the kind of line up where some vindictive bastard of a senior officer picks the soldiers who’ve clocked up the most charges.
They’d come to him, one by one, and said that they were scared but they’d do it. Thacker would nod grimly and mutter, ‘Good man’, and write a name down on his clipboard. Those too scared simply didn’t show. No blame attached. Every time Thacker looked down the sweep of the hill to the red-brick pile surrounded by nothing but ash and decay, he felt like running for home, too.
He checked his equipment one more time. Full NBC suit. Air-tight save for the heavy respirator strapped hard onto his face.
Thacker had been exposed to all the known war gasses, and many of the biological weapons, in a suit just like this one. He’d survived. He was immune to anthrax and two strains of smallpox. The bubonic plague was treatable with a simple course of antibiotics.
Rifle. Bayonet. Spare clips of ammunition. He had his handgun as well, but he wanted something with a little more punch. Geiger-Muller tube. He turned it on, listened to it crackle away like someone was folding thick brown paper, then off again. There was a dosimeter badge on his webbing. Gas detector. Such a shame there was no biological equivalent. Torch. Night vision goggles he could hold over his respirator eyepieces.
Radio. And a mobile phone for emergencies. Grenades. Standard issue NATO fragmentation, and the not-so standard issue phosphor bombs.
The equipment was piled on a small plastic sled, the sort kids used for two days each year when it became snowy enough, and spent the other three hundred and sixty three days wishing for winter. Being the army, the sled was dark green and ten times more expensive than the red versions sold in the shops.
The instruments he pulled weren’t necessarily heavy, but bulky. Others in the squad had to lug a portable laboratory, complete with blowtorch to seal off glass sample vials. There was a big gas chromatograph in the back of the Warrior armoured car, but it was on wheels and would be out and his men in at the first sign of trouble.
The car had a thirty millimetre cannon and smoke launchers, and the inner compartment had been specially modified to be airtight.
Thacker still didn’t know who, or what, if anything, he was supposed to be fighting. After all those years of hanging around a chemical weapons establishment, he felt more like a scientist◦– at least a competent technician◦– than a soldier.
Only the once had he ever had to put his training to use. That had been a long time ago, and absolutely no one knew about it. Perhaps Dickson did, but Thacker couldn’t ask him.
The sun was coming up. The shapes in the valley were becoming distinct: the dead hands of leafless trees, the rotten walls of buildings. Long shadows were forming across the dust and ash of the estate. It was as dead as it was yesterday.
Thacker pulled his sled to the start of the long gravel drive, and the guards pulled the coil of razor wire aside, taking exaggerated care that the barbs didn’t puncture their own suits.
Behind him he could hear the rustling and rasping of clothing and plastic on stone. The engine of the Warrior started up, a great roar of diesel, and he felt just a little more confident.
When they were all through the gap, and the wire barricade replaced, he motioned for his men to fan out in an arrow shape, the point on the driveway, and the armoured car just a little behind. He started forward, one hand on his rifle, one on his sled rope. Where the soldiers to his left and right walked on what had been, eighty years ago, grass, little clouds of matter stirred up and clung to their legs, coating everything in a fine layer of bone-dry powder.
His radio man waved. He wasn’t pulling a sled, but had a high-powered satellite transmitter strapped to his back. Thacker went over, treading for the first time off the road. It felt like snow under his boots: a soft collapsing compaction that almost squeaked under each footfall.
‘What is it?’ shouted Thacker through his respirator.
‘I’m getting interference. Nothing specific: white noise across most of the radio spectrum. There’s a rough peak around fourteen megahertz, but there’s no transmission.’
‘Is it significant?’
‘No idea, sir. It’s slap-bang in the short wave band, which could foul up our own handsets, but I can still contact Comms. Just thought you ought to know.’
Thacker nodded. Caution was good. ‘Tell me if it starts to affect our ability to talk to base. Otherwise, keep an eye on it.’
It was the first strange thing that morning, and it wasn’t too bad. Thacker assumed his position at the head of the arrow, and taking up his sled, started walking again.
It was, according to the maps, just over half a mile to the hall from the gates. Not far in anyone’s terms. Thacker could run it in less than three minutes, in normal conditions. Conditions were far from normal, but he felt he could break a record or two if he had to.
He was two hundred yards in, when his rifle twisted in his hand like it had suddenly come alive. He had no idea what was happening, but knew he didn’t like it. He dropped the sled rope and brought the weapon up in one quick snap. The gun wouldn’t point straight, and he stumbled back. Now he had control of it.
The other eight men had all crouched down and were scanning the empty land for targets.