Project - 16 (5 page)

2.

Fort Washington was situated a few miles south of what was
once Birmingham before the missiles landed with the level of
destruction you could only achieve through mass bombardment. Nearly
all the major buildings had been levelled and their falling rubble
had brought down a great many others that hadn't. I'd never been
anywhere near the middle of the chaos simply because the slightest
vibration might set off another chain reaction like a line of
dominoes, toppling the fragile remains of a once thriving hub of
existence.

From an elevated position you could see the crumbled skyline,
the odd resilient structure here and there and sometimes the smoke
from some subterranean fire, a burning vat of spilled chemicals or
something. That's as close as I'd ever been - the concrete walls of
Fort Washington and all that was behind them.

The gates were set at the start of a narrow corridor made
from concrete slabs about waist height, interspersed with
barbed-wire barricades set in stages so that anyone driving in
couldn't approach it directly. Two guards stood watching me pull
up, several more waited on a raised platform made of steel girders
where they trained their weapons on me without much
enthusiasm.

I stopped at the gate and the engine spluttered. I was on
fumes and I'd used most of my fuel getting there. I knew that I'd
have to take a trailer full back home if I was to see out the
winter. The gate guard motioned for me to stop with his free hand
and the other began to walk slowly towards me with the effort a man
might have if he didn't give a shit. Which I knew he
didn't.

“
I.D?” asked the guard as he approached the driver's side
window. He was in DPM and wore a heavy looking helmet that covered
most of his face. I passed him my wallet and he flipped it open,
checking the photo against the real me a few times before being
finally convinced I was the same guy. “What's in the back?” he
asked.

“
Three dead,” I replied.

“
Treasure hunters?”

“
Nothing as glamorous as that - but yeah.”

“
Okay,” he sighed, bored with the whole process. “You
armed?”

“
Yeah,” I said. “It's on my hip. Can I get it?”

“
Slowly now.”

I slid the pistol out of its holster with my thumb and index
finger and held it up. I could see his grip tighten around his own
rifle. Bored soldiers tend to make dangerous checkpoint guards. I
slowly began to eject the clip, pulling back the slide and
releasing the single round in the chamber. I passed it all to him
and he nodded to his partner.

“
Please get out of the vehicle,” he said, stepping back. I
opened the door and jumped down onto the tarmac, my hands open and
loose by my sides. He gestured to the Guard cabin set back behind
the far gates, the ones into the compound, and his partner jumped
into my 'Rover, driving it through the barbed-wire
chicanes.

We walked into the small room that served as shelter for
those on duty and straight away I could smell the coffee in the
percolator on the desk, bubbling away with its heady caffeine
goodness.

“
May I?” I asked, pointing to it.

“
Sure,” said the Guard as he opened a small safe and put my
pistol inside it. I took a white ceramic cup from the side and
poured myself some of the hot brew. It'd been there a while but it
was still nice. There were biscuits in a packet on a plate so I
took three when the guard's back was turned. He sat at his desk
filling in the relevant paperwork with a stubby pencil.

“
So how did it go?” he asked without turning to look at me. I
was too busy looking at the staff rota.

“
One died from contaminated water, the other three from the
dogs,” I replied.

“
That's four - you said there were only three?”

“
I have three bodies. The fourth was locked in a train station
full of dogs. I didn't fancy going in after it.”

“
I see.”

I sipped my coffee and sometimes dunked my biscuit in it. I
loved the chocolate covered ones but these were just the plain
type. The Guard finished his paperwork just as his partner
returned.

“
You're brave,” he said to me, seeing the biscuit in my hand.
“Ted will skin you for taking his crackers.”

“
Ted won't mind,” I said, taking another from the packet and
offering it to him. “I let you stay in my country, it's the least
Ted can do to repay me.”

“
Well, that might not be an issue for much longer,” said the
first Guard.

“
What do you mean?” I asked.

“
I'll let the Colonel tell you.”

“
He's ready for you, by the way. Go on through,” said the
second who gestured to the exit. I toasted them both with my cup
and followed him out, grabbing two more biscuits as I
went.

The fort was a ring of great concrete walls lifted into place
by giant cranes, some of which were sat idle waiting to be loaded
onto enormous cargo planes piecemeal. I knew that around this grey
perimeter was a kill zone of about 50 metres that had once been lit
with strobes and covered by mounted machine guns. For the last
eight years those defences had become lazily dismantled due to the
almost non-existent threat posed by an empty country. In fact, the
last recorded assault on Fort Washington had been by a badger that
had wandered blindly into the kill zone sniffing the dead remains
of a seagull. True to form, the Americans had jumped into high
alert only to discover the attacker had fled into the
night.

“
That must have been quite a tough assignment,” said the
Guard. I think his name was Seb, I couldn't really remember. There
were so many doing stints in England that it was hard to keep track
of who was who. It was always a good idea to keep on good terms
with the Yanks and my Dad must have known a hell of a lot of them
in his time. They'd liked him. He'd always bring a boar or the
biggest cow he could find to keep in with them. He always worried
that one day he'd need them and he didn't want them sitting on
their arses because they saw him as a nobody.

“
You do what you've got to do,” I replied in my well rehearsed
stage voice. It was the attitude I always took when people asked
you questions that had an obvious answer. I didn't like to be rude
for the sake of it.

“
How do you do it?” he asked.

“
You switch off,” I replied.

“
I'm not sure I could do that.”

“
Not many can.”

We walked across the dusty pathway that had been marked with
cats eyes taken from the motorway. Someone had also took a few of
the road signs and hammered them into the ground. On each of the
prefab huts was a street sign taken from the city. I felt a little
angry at that. It still wasn't theirs to take but this wouldn't be
the first time they'd taken something that didn't belong to them
and it sure as hell wouldn't be the last.

We walked on until we reached 'Canal Street' - the HQ of the
American forces based in England. I always chuckled to myself when
I saw the embossed street sign nailed above the door though none of
the Yanks got the joke.

“
Here we are,” said Seb who knocked, then opened the door for
me. I went in and he set off back towards the gate. As I passed
through the entrance my eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness.
The blinds had been pulled down and only a few slanting slits of
light managed to invade the inky black. It was hot and stuffy too
and the reason was sat in the corner, blaring out electric heat
from glowing orange bars.

“
The Colonel will see you now,” said the man at a desk that
served as a reception area. He was reading from a tablet and
marking things down on paper. Sometimes the old ways are the best.
I turned right into a tight corridor, then knocked on the door
marked with a brass plaque.

COLONEL MICHAEL KORBAN

“
Come in,” said a voice from behind the reinforced door. I
pushed it aside and it wasn't much better in there either. The
Americans seemed incapable of embracing the British
weather.

“
Colonel,” I said, smelling percolated coffee from somewhere
within the Stygian gloom.

“
Grab a cup, Miller and join us.” I looked around and saw that
in a chair opposite the Colonel's desk was a soldier cradling a mug
in both hands. My eyes were starting to get their act together and
I could make out the Colonel sat behind his long narrow Ikea table
with his back to the soldier and me, looking through a slit in the
blind. He was wearing combat DPM instead of his dress uniform and
his beret was on the table next to a half-eaten sandwich. Tuna mayo
I think. “I'm just glad this isn't a brewery,” he said without
turning from the window.

“
I see you're getting the hang of English idioms,” I said. I
found the percolator and refilled the cup I'd brought with me from
the Guard cabin. There were no biscuits nearby. I guess Ted would
really be mad.

“
I've been learning them since they started broadcasting
English soaps to the US. What was that street called?”

“
Coronation Street,” I replied.

“
That's the one. What about that city where all those
beautiful women lived?”

“
Chester.”

“
Yeah. I went there last week. Guess what?”

“
What?” I said.

“
No hot ladies. Not one. Do you know what I found
there?”

“
Rubble?” I offered.

“
Rubble. Lots of it. It's like the NSU went out of their way
to level anything interesting. Do you know what they didn't
level?”

“
Stonehenge.”

“
That's right - stone fucking henge. A bunch of boring rocks
surrounded by a wall so you can't see them without paying the toll.
What a crock.”

The soldier who was sat in the chair said nothing but kept
sipping from the cup every now and then. I drank a little of my own
coffee while the Colonel continued to look out of the window. The
light that slipped past his tense form splashed onto the desk and
stained the mounds of paperwork with gold. After a minute or so he
turned in his chair and the light disappeared as he let go of the
blinds.

“
Miller, you bring me three corpses. What happened?” he said,
rising to fill his own cup before realising I'd already done it for
him. He sat back down and offered me the empty seat next to the
soldier.

“
I tracked them to the city. One broke away before that and
went off on her own...” I began. “The other three chose to leave
her but for some reason they took her pack off her. The girl had
filled her canteen from a contaminated water source and ended up
drinking some of it in desperation. I'm no doctor but I suspect it
destroyed her insides and when I found her she was
dead.”

“
No foul play?” I shook my head.

“
None that I could see, just an unfortunate accident. They had
maps, they had some kind of food, but they weren't well trained. A
blind idiot could have spotted the bad water.”

“
You said they took her pack? Why?” I shrugged. I was aware
that the soldier had turned and was looking at me, following the
conversation. It was then that I realised it was a woman and a very
beautiful one at that. Her blonde hair was shoulder length and
feathered as it came out from under her woolly hat and her figure
was well defined, a soldier's body that was used to being kept
trim. She wore a simple pair of DPM combat pants and a polo-necked
jumper with her I.D badge dangling between her breasts on a loop of
webbing. But by far the most stunning feature she owned were a pair
of the most amazing eyes - a sky blue colour, round and not marred
by squinting and once you fixed your gaze on them it was very hard
to tear yourself away from them. The corners of her mouth curled
slightly upwards as we made eye contact and I knew that it was a
silent 'hello' and one that seemed so natural it felt like we'd
been friends for years. It was beauty in its best form - genuine
and unsullied by lust.

“
I don't know,” I said, sipping my coffee and burning my
tongue on it. I suddenly felt very hot and clammy under her gaze.
“There wasn't a single clue I could find.”

“
Do you want to hazard a guess?”

“
It wouldn't be fair to sully the names of those lads if
they'd done nothing wrong. I suspect there'd been some kind of row,
a disagreement on what to do or where to go and she'd split from
them. Maybe they kept the pack because they'd given it to her or
something and they saw it as theirs.”

“
Did you look inside the pack?” he asked.

“
No,” I said. “I emptied the others, I just...” The Colonel
held up an understanding hand.

“
No need to explain. I’ve known you a long time, Miller. I
knew your Dad too. He was 'Old School' and you inherited that,
there's nothing wrong with it. In fact, be proud of it because
you're damn sure we'll look in that pack.”

“
Thanks, Colonel. Anyway, after I found Rebecca...”

“
Rebecca?” It was the soldier who interrupted me this
time.