“Thank you,” Hazel said, as Ustinov appeared as well. The older Russian looked grim. “What’s the matter?”
“We have an interesting opportunity,” Ustinov said, seriously. “We may have to leave you alone for a while.”
Hazel winced. She didn’t want them to get the impression that she would be delighted by them being out of the house… and, truthfully, if she had been wrong, she would be trapped if something like a fire happened. Stuart hadn’t been too worried about fires in their house, but normally they didn’t even play bondage games. They had three ways out on the ground floor, but only one way out of the basement.
“Don’t worry,” Ustinov reassured her. “We’ll be back in a couple of hours and we have turned off the gas. What could go wrong?”
Hazel smiled. “What’s the news?”
Ossetia smiled darkly. “The European forces are crumbling and our forces are sweeping towards the English Channel,” he said. “Hamburg and Berlin have fallen, while the French are fighting barbarians and ignoring us. Victory is certain, don’t you think?”
Hazel wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth. “I don’t know what to think,” she admitted. “Has the power come back on permanently?”
“Yes,” Ustinov said shortly. “Didn’t it occur to you why the lights were on?”
Both Russians laughed. “We’ll show you the news later today, or perhaps a movie,” Ossetia said. “That assumes that you understand the news…”
Hazel flushed. Let them think of her as a dumb blonde if they liked. “I do,” she assured him. “I would like to see it.”
“Later,” Ustinov said. He held her eye for a long moment. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
She waited patiently until they both left, closing the door behind with an audible slam, and then forced herself to wait for ten minutes, listening very carefully for signs that one of them had remained in the house. She wouldn’t have put it past one of them to have tried to trap her, even if they knew she was trapped; neither of them seemed particularly stupid… but there was nothing. She shrugged off the blanket and considered the pipe carefully, remembering what Stuart had said when they had taken the house. The pipe looked as if it were firmly in place — and Ustinov had made certain she couldn’t just slide the handcuff off the pipe — but she knew that it was very lightly fixed behind the plaster walls. She took a breath, lifted both of her feet to the wall, and pushed as hard as she could. She held the pipe and pulled, her legs pushing against the wall, feeling something starting to give…
The pipe disintegrated with an audible crack. She fell back and landed hard on her rear, feeling her bottom bruise under the impact, but she was free! It was a matter of moments to pull herself together and run for the stairs; as she had known, there was no lock on the basement door and the Russians hadn’t had time to fix anything to add to her woes. Why should they have? They had known that she was firmly secure and at their mercy. The house no longer felt friendly, or welcoming; she half-thought about trying to find one of Stuart’s guns before remembering that the two men had locked them away. She had had days to plan what to do; she grabbed her coat and fled out of the house, onto the streets. The street was almost deserted, as always, but she knew her way; she had to find a police station and find help.
She slowed to a walk as she rounded the corner and lost herself in side streets. Part of her… didn’t want to betray Ustinov, although Ossetia was a danger to everyone in Edinburgh. Ustinov had spared her life; Ossetia, she was mortally certain, had wanted to rape and kill her. She paused to think, trying to decide, but the thought of her husband forced her mind to focus; what would Stuart want her to do? If Ossetia had been telling the truth, Stuart, like her, was in the middle of a war zone; he might even be dead. Cold rage burned at her, forcing her onwards; the police station wasn’t that far off from where she was. All she had to do was keep putting one foot in front of another and… she would reach them. She would find help.
An old man appeared in front of her. She sensed him wrinkling his nose; after so long without a proper bath, or even proper sanitation, she had to smell pretty bad. He wasn't a fine-smelling person himself; the absence of water supplies for a day had probably had all kinds of nasty effects…
But his voice was kind. “Are you all right, love?”
“Yes,” Hazel said shortly. He couldn’t help her; the police station was right in front of her. It dawned on her suddenly that she had no proof, nothing that she could show them; would the Police believe her when she told her story? She staggered into the police station and came face-to-face with a grim-looking Police Sergeant, his face scarred by some great heat; he looked as if he should be in hospital. “Constable, I…”
Her legs buckled and she collapsed on the floor. “I’ve got you,” the Policeman said. His voice sounded as if it were coming from a far distance; her vision blurred, and then stabilised as she pulled herself back together. “I’m Sergeant Adams, of the Edinburgh Police, recalled to duty since the war began. Are you all right, love? I can call the nurse if you want, or even a doctor, although our doctor has been tending to victims of the airplane and we might have to take you to hospital.”
Hazel burst into giggles. Adams reacted smoothly and called a nurse from the depths of the police station, who tended to Hazel’s arm, which had been squeezed tight by the handcuffs, as she told her story. They didn’t believe her at first, until the nurse pointed to the injuries on her throat and wrist; she was still covered in plaster dust from the wall and the pipe. One of the older Police officers had some experience with Special Forces and recognised the injuries… and then the Police got very interested indeed.
“Form a line with your documents and national insurance card,” a voice bellowed, in front of the job centre. Ustinov watched dispassionately as thousands of young Scottish men, some of them old enough to be doing a real man’s work, lined up as if they were about to be put in front of a wall and shot. The grim face of the Scottish Sergeant standing near the side of the building was easy to read; the young men could use some military discipline. Some of them were listening to music on their headphones, others were looking around as if they were searching for a way to escape; their nightmare was hard work and people ordering them about.
He carefully pulled himself back from the window before he was seen. The radio broadcasts on the emergency channel had been clear and to the point; every young man who had been on the dole was being conscripted into work battalions to help repair the damage that Britain had suffered during the first stage of the war. Failure to respond to the call was not an option; a welfare-dependent person — as the radio had put it — would receive no rations or other supplies if they failed to report for duty, or even face arrest. There had been the promise of a week to report, but Ustinov was pretty certain that most of them would be bending their minds trying to think of some way out of the nightmare; they were trying their hardest to avoid the sergeant’s disgusted gaze. The thought of actually being shot at…
He nodded once as Ossetia appeared at the end of the stairwell; they would have to move quickly if they were to take advantage of the opportunity. A simple bomb would destroy the job centre and the recruits; Moscow had been very clear on the need to hit the British where they lived. Britain, he had been told, was unique; they would have a chance to pull themselves back together before it was too late, something he hadn’t understood until he had seen the news reports of Russian armies grinding their way into Europe. The very fabric of British society had to be attacked… and if the young men who were conscripted felt that there was a chance that they would be blown up… they would be more reluctant to report. Even better, more of the population, normally law-abiding, would be reluctant to force them to report.