On Her Majesty's Behalf (16 page)

This one looked up, saw them, and let out the ear-­shattering howl that called the rest of their pack.

The answering bark of Burke's Thompson submachine gun mingled with the boom of Veronica's Webley, and in the next instant the creature went over backward, its mask and skull shattered from both bullets.

But the damage had been done.

The shredders in the courtyard behind them turned at the sound, saw their prey racing away down the hall, and charged after them in hot pursuit.

 

Chapter Twenty-three

W
ITHOUT T
HINKING,
B
URKE
reached back, grabbed Veronica's free hand in his own, and took off running, no longer concerned with trying to be quiet. Behind him he could hear the others follow suit.

Already the shredders were starting to close the distance.

The stairs to the second floor were out of the question now. They would barely make the first barricade before the shredders would be upon them, and they wouldn't have the time needed to scramble over the top to safety. Caught with their backs to the enormous pile of junk the Queen and her troops had previously erected, Burke and his little group would be cut down where they stood.

Burke glanced around frantically as they ran. They needed an alternate route, and they needed it now!

His gaze fell on the double doors at the end of the hallway, the ones that led to the main building, and he headed for them as fast as they could go. They could shoot out the locks and then find something to brace the doors with from the other side against the oncoming horde . . .

Gunfire filled the hallway as Drummond and Morrison began firing into the oncoming shredders, knocking down the front ranks and causing those just behind to stumble over the bodies as they charged forward. It would only gain Burke and the others a few seconds of respite, but even a few seconds might make a difference.

Burke skidded to a halt in front of the double doors, a good half-­dozen yards ahead of the rest of the group. He dropped Veronica's hand and brought up his gun. He was about to fire into the locks holding the doors closed when Veronica stepped in front of them, fumbling with something in her hands. Burke opened his mouth, intending to holler at her and tell her to get the hell out of his way, when he realized that what she had in her hands was an iron ring full of keys.

She started shoving them into the keyhole one at a time, testing each one, hoping to find the correct one before it was too late.

Come on, come on,
Burke thought, willing the next key to be the right one. If it took much longer, they were going to be fighting the shredders hand to hand, and in these tight quarters they didn't stand a chance. Doc Bankowski had already caught up to them and was standing off to the side, taking shots with his Enfield past the forms of Morrison and Drummond as they continued their orderly retreat in the face of the oncoming shredders. Less than fifteen feet now separated the two groups.

The Queen let out a whoop of success as the lock clicked open. Before Burke could stop her, she shouldered the door open and stepped inside.

For one heart-­stopping moment Burke imagined her stepping into the waiting arms of a pack of shredders, but she stuck her head back out a second later, a grin spreading from ear to ear.

“It's clear!” she called to the others. “Hurry!”

Burke and Doc Bankowski scrambled through the open doors, with Captain Morrison and Sergeant Drummond right on their heels. The four men grabbed the doors and swung them shut just as the shredders slammed into them from the other side. Burke was convinced there was no way they were going to hold, that another blow like the last was going to knock them all aside, leaving the door open and them to their fate, but suddenly the Queen was there, a long, thick crossbeam in her hands, and the men were able to get it up and into the slot across the door where it belonged just before the shredders tested their defenses a second time. There was a thunderous crash from the other side as multiple bodies slammed into it, but the door held.

Just to be extra safe, the Queen used the keys to relock the door from their side. It might not add that much more protection, but Burke still felt safer seeing her do it.

They found themselves in the grand lobby of the main building. It featured a wide reception desk and several rows of comfortable chairs for those waiting to see doctors or loved ones. Another set of double doors opposite the entrance led to the east wing, identical to the west but for male patients rather than female.

Burke didn't care about any of that; he had eyes only for the afternoon light coming in through the front entrance. Now was the time to make a break for it, he realized. He could see shredders wandering around the grounds outside the front door, but they had not focused their attention on the entrance yet, had not gathered outside it in a mob so dense that it would be impossible for Burke and company to fight their way through. The time to go was now, while they still had the chance!

He gathered the others about him, speaking quickly but calmly, showing his confidence in voice and deed. They were only going to get one shot at this . . .

“We're going out the front door and through the gate at the end of the drive while the opportunity is still available to us. Don't shoot until you absolutely have to, for the minute we do we'll be calling the others down on our heads. Stay close, keep the Queen in the middle, and whatever you do, don't stop moving. Let's go!”

He didn't give them time to think, just stepped over to the front door, hauled it open, and headed out into the open air beyond.

Thankfully, they all chose to follow.

For the first few seconds it seemed that things might go their way. The steps outside the doors led to a circular driveway that surrounded a large flower garden several dozen yards wide. Grassy lawns and well-­trimmed hedges spread out on the far side of the driveway, ultimately leading to the tall iron fence that surrounded the entire property. A few shredders could be seen milling about the garden and the lawn areas, but if they hurried, Burke thought they might just make it to the main gate.

He led them down the front steps to the crushed gravel of the driveway.

There were two large courtyards on either side of the main entrance, nearly impossible to see from the front steps due to the thick green hedges that covered all but the narrow gates leading into them. The dozen or so shredders milling about in the courtyard, worked up by all the noise coming from inside the building, caught sight of Burke right about the same time he saw them.

That's when all hell broke loose. The shredders didn't hesitate; they came charging forward with the relentlessness of the tide, spilling through the gate and across the lawn toward Burke and his small company.

Burke brought his Tommy gun up, his finger already pulling back the trigger, only to have the weapon cough out a few shots and then fall silent. Thinking it had jammed, he hauled back on the charging handle, only to find an empty chamber; he was out of ammunition!

He tried not to think of how quickly the shredders were closing on them as he hit the release, dropped the empty drum magazine to his feet, and jammed another in its place, noting that it was his last.

As the others continued to fire, holding the shredders at bay, Burke used the moment it gave him to look around. More shredders were closing in from the front now, as well as the side. Not seeing any way forward and worried that the shredders would get around behind them and cut them off, he was about to order them all back inside when the sound of a racing engine reached his ears.

He looked forward, over the heads of the oncoming shredders, and watched in surprise as the black iron grille of a truck came into view through the front gates of the hospital complex. The engine was whining, sounding as if it were being pushed too hard, but the driver didn't let up; if anything, he pushed it even harder.

Burke glanced away long enough to put a bullet through the skull of a shredder that was trying to flank Captain Morrison while he was otherwise engaged with another of its ilk, and then he looked back in time to see the truck smash through the gate without stopping.

Iron fencing crashed to the ground, pinning several shredders beneath it as the truck roared over them, leaving still corpses in its wake.

Due to the afternoon sun reflecting off the glass, Burke couldn't see who was inside and a sudden surge of fear washed over him as it occurred to him that this might not be help at all.

What if it was that German special ops team Colonel Nichols had mentioned?

Thankfully, he didn't have to find out, for even as the truck raced toward them, someone clambered out the passenger-­side window, raised a rifle to his shoulder, and began shooting the shredders that were drawing too close to Burke and his group.

The unerring accuracy of the shots brought a smile to Burke's face; he knew only one man who could shoot like that, never mind doing so from the front of a speeding vehicle.

Corporal Jones.

The noise of the truck caught the attention of the shredders, and several of them paused in their headlong rush toward Burke and company to look back at the oncoming vehicle. Jones took them out like ducks in a shooting gallery.

The driver swerved to deliberately run down three shredders on the edge of the road and then bounced over the curb into the flower garden forming the centerpiece of the circular drive. Earth and flowers went every which way as the churning tires tossed them aside, and then the truck was bouncing over the curb and slewing to a stop in front of Burke and his bewildered crew.

Jones looked down from his perch on the passenger door with a grin.

“Need a lift, Major?”

For once, Burke didn't find the need to yell at him for disobeying an order. “Don't mind if we do, Corporal,” he said with a grin of his own.

The canvas flap in the back was thrust aside as Cohen and Montagna made an appearance, adding their firepower to that of Sergeant Drummond and Captain Morrison and making short work of the closest shredders. Graves, meanwhile, was leaning out the back, extending a courteous hand to the Queen and helping her up into the rear of the vehicle. As soon as she was situated, Burke gave the order to retreat, and the rest of the squad turned away from the fight and scrambled into the back. They'd barely settled into place before Williams put the pedal to the metal and got them the hell out of there as fast as the truck would go.

 

Chapter Twenty-four

En Route to the
R
ELIANT

London

H
AVING SEEN THE
photographs detailing what had happened to Brigadier Calhoun's column when he'd brought motorized vehicles into the city, Burke was understandably worried about their use of the vehicle salvaged by Corporal Williams. He knew the trip back to the Thames was a short one, however, and decided that getting the Queen to the
Reliant
as quickly as possible was worth the risk of attracting shredders with the engine noise.

Besides, after spending an entire day in the city, he was starting to think the vast majority of shredders had headed elsewhere the minute the easy food supply had grown scarce. With all the ­people living in the city limits at the time of the initial gas attack, he would have expected there to be massive hordes of the creatures roaming the streets. Instead, they'd only encountered a few individual creatures here or there or, when they did run into a larger group, it was as a result of a living survivor having attracted them to that locale.

Lieutenant Colonel Ellington's words came back to him.
We have the perimeter secured and the threat contained.
Now, more than ever, Burke believed that to be untrue and he wondered just where the hell the shredders had gone if they were no longer in the city.

At least, not the part of the city they'd seen so far.

As Williams drove, Major Burke had Cohen fill him in on how they came to be riding in a salvaged lorry in the first place.

“Corporal Jones had us scout the area around our position, which is how we came across the truck,” Cohen told him. “It was parked just up the street and, miraculously, hadn't suffered any damage during the bombardment or in the days thereafter. Figuring you might have need of a quick escape, Jones, Montagna, and I pushed it back to our position, at which point Corporal Williams had a go at the engine. Didn't take him long to get the thing running at all!”

No, I don't suspect it did,
Burke thought. Williams, as well as knowing his way around explosive devices, was a genius with anything mechanical. He probably could have gotten the truck started even if half the engine had been missing.

Jones and Williams were a formidable team, it seemed, and Burke made note to put them both in for a medal when they returned. Without a doubt, the truck had saved the Queen's life and that, at the very least, deserved some notice.

Satisfied that things were well in hand, Burke shot a glance in Veronica's direction. She sat between Captain Morrison and Dr. Graves, her head back against the canvas side of the truck and her eyes closed. A dark smudge ran across one smooth cheek—­Gunpowder? Grease? he wondered.

She must have felt his scrutiny at that point, for her head came forward and she opened her eyes, catching his gaze with her own and smiling slightly.

Burke felt the jolt of her stare right down to the base of his bones, so strong and so unsettling that he had to turn away. It had been many years since a woman had affected him in such a way and to experience those feelings here, amid the ruins of a once-­great city, with a member of the British royalty no less, felt completely surreal. He had no idea what to do with those feelings and so he did what man, from time immemorial, had been doing in such situations.

He ignored them.

To get his mind off Veronica, he got up and made his way forward, squatting down just behind the two front seats so that he could talk to the driver, Williams, and look through the windshield at the same time. He could see Westminster Bridge, with the skeleton of Big Ben looming over it, coming up ahead of them.

“How are we doing, Corporal?”

“Good, sir,” Williams replied. “Another five minutes or so should bring us back to where we left the boat.”

“Excellent. Any sign of gathering shredders?”

This time it was Jones who answered from his overwatch position in the passenger seat. “None. If I didn't know any better, I'd say they've all flown the coop, Major.”

They arrived at the point where they'd beached their boat just a few hours earlier, parked the truck, and cautiously climbed down, looking about. The riverbank seemed deserted and the noise of their truck didn't appear to bring any shredders out of the woodwork, for which Burke was thankful.

Shielding his eyes against the afternoon glare, he looked out across the water, to where the
Reliant
was anchored.

He could see several figures moving about on the deck of the
Reliant,
and more than one appeared to be wearing the characteristic uniform of a British sailor, but something about them just didn't seem right.

It took him only another moment to focus in on the quick, jerky nature to their movements to realize what he was looking at.

Shredders.

Burke didn't know how it had happened, but somehow, the sub had been lost.

He stared across the water in shock, his thoughts a chaotic mess.

What the hell were they going to do now?

That boat had been their lifeline, their transportation home, and without it they were now in serious danger. Everything they needed was aboard that vessel, from fresh food and water to the communication equipment necessary to report back to headquarters. Hell, they couldn't even let anyone know they'd rescued the Queen, never mind set up an alternate plan for getting her out of London without that boat!

Beside him, Jones raised his Enfield, intending to take out the shredders on the deck of the boat. Burke reached out and pushed the barrel of the man's weapon down before he could fire.

“Save the ammo,” he told Jones. “We're going to need it.”

Ammo and a hell of a lot of other things, including food and water, before this was over. Thank God they'd taken the time to replenish their supplies before going to Bedlam.

He didn't notice the Queen standing at his elbow until she spoke up.

“I take it there's been a change of plans, Major?”

He nodded, gestured across the water to where the
Reliant
was bobbing gently with the tide. “Shredders have taken the
Reliant
.”

She glanced that way and then back at Burke. “Can you and your men take it back?”

“Yes,” he told her and it was the truth. He didn't relish the idea of fighting in those close quarters, but it could be done. There was no sense in doing so, however. “Yes, we could take it back, but doing so won't help. None of my men are sailors; we'd never get out of the Thames, never mind back across the English Channel with what little we know. We'd be lucky if we didn't drown in the first five minutes.”

He wouldn't say it to the Queen, but they were pretty much fucked. He stared at the shredders lurching about on the deck of the
Reliant
and, not for the last time, found himself cursing their very existence.

He had no idea what they were going to do next.

Veronica, however, wasn't at such a loss.

“There's a wireless set at the museum.”

Burke blinked, then slowly turned to face her, not certain that he had heard correctly.

“I'm sorry?”

“There's a wireless set at the British Museum. We can use it to let your ­people know what's happened and arrange for some other means of rescue.”

The British Museum. Where she'd wanted to go in the first place.

She was persistent, he had to give her that, but her suggestion also made sense, Burke thought. The wireless would be invaluable, both in bringing Colonel Nichols up to speed on the latest developments as well as allowing them to consider options open to them to get the Queen out of London safe and sound.

He glanced at the chronometer on his wrist and noted that there were still several hours before nightfall. They had plenty of time to make the trip, even if they were to do so on foot. He knew the men must be feeling the same sense of hopeless despair at the loss of the sub, knowing just as he did that the boat had been their ticket home. He needed to keep them occupied, keep their minds off the ugliness of their situation. Sure, they were effectively marooned in the midst of the city, surrounded by legions of the undead, but they didn't need to worry about that, did they? No, that was his job. The museum would give them a target and a focus, both of which were in high demand right now.

Besides,
he thought,
they were going to need a place to hole up for the night. Someplace they could reasonably defend with a group their size. There had to be an office or an exhibit hall inside the museum that fit the bill.

Burke was nodding to himself as he turned to the Queen and smiled.

“All right, Your Majesty, the British Museum it is.”