Dark Winter

44

I stood rigid, my head still cocked towards the ceiling.

I closed my eyes to concentrate harder, but the noise didn’t come again. All I got was the drumming of the rain, and the odd splash of traffic.

Two or three minutes passed. I was sure the sound had come from my right, over towards the Pentonville side of the ceiling.

Still nothing. Finally I headed for Suzy, lifting my feet carefully to avoid making the same mistake as someone upstairs. Squeezing her shoulder, I gestured towards the right side of the ceiling, then shrugged questioningly. She moved her hand more towards the centre, wiggling it to show she wasn’t certain.

But wherever it had come from, we both knew it was definitely human.

We were wasting time: there might be locks up there, obstructions to find a way past or early-warning alarms to defeat. No need to tell her that, she was already moving towards the still open door. I just turned round slowly, butt in the shoulder, thumb checking single shot, and followed on.

I veered to the right of the frame and bent down until I could see about half-way up the stairs. I adjusted my cheek on the steel rod of the butt and flicked my eyes across to the sight. The circle and dot were reassuringly in place. As I moved on to the landing and up the left side of the stairs, Suzy came through behind to cover me.

I stopped every few stairs and paused to listen before taking a few more. The light from below was just about good enough to allow me to make out the second-floor landing. This time it extended left and right.

As my head came level with the top step, I dropped my left hand, weapon up towards the ceiling, safety catch back on to avoid an ND [negligent discharge]. What I wanted now was a good firm position from which to look left and right along the landing. It ran about five or six metres in either direction until blocked at each end by a solid fire door with a big aluminium handle. The creasing rubber of my overboots squeaked gently as I lowered myself on to the stairs and beckoned to Suzy. I didn’t know what was on the other side of these doors, but I’d already made a pretty good guess, and I wanted her alongside me before we continued.

Soon she was lying beside me on my right, pointing her thumb left to indicate the way she thought we should be going. I motioned agreement and headed left on to the landing, keeping my weapon up. I didn’t want it banging into her or, even worse, the metallic clash of two weapons. Suzy took up position behind me, covering the other entrance and the stairs until called for.

The door was fitted flush against the wall, hinged on the left, with a pressure arm, and would open towards us from the right. I moved closer, the SD back in my shoulder, eyes on rapid blink to try to clear them of sweat before I got my head against the door. To avoid banging the wood with my canister, I used my right ear, just below the handle, at the point where it met the frame. For several seconds, it was like listening to a big shell and hearing nothing but the sea; then, somewhere on the other side, I heard a door creak, and footsteps, coming towards me.

I took two swift paces back and hunched over the weapon, eyes straining, no more blinking. What if two came through together? What if there was only one, but covered by someone behind? It all boiled down to the same thing: if anybody came through the door, I had to go for it. No time to check on Suzy: she’d know the score from my reaction and would be backing me.

The footsteps got closer. I took up first pressure.

The footsteps stopped. I took a breath and stared at the door, ready to drop whoever appeared through my head-up display.

Still nothing.

Then, from just the other side of the door, came a familiar sound. The bastard was pissing into a bucket.

It seemed to go on for ever. Sweat flowed down inside my right glove and dripped off my left eyelid, stinging and blurring my vision.

I took another breath and heard a murmur. It didn’t come from whoever was having the piss; it came from further back. The stream slowed and, after a few short squirts, finally stopped.

The footsteps retreated. I released first pressure, and returned to my position against the door, safety on, finger along the trigger guard. I heard a cough, then nothing but the sound of the sea once more.

The bucket was good tactics. Even if the water supply hadn’t been cut off, they wouldn’t have been flushing toilets.

It was time to get in there. I moved backwards away from the door, until I got my head level with Suzy’s. She was leaning into her weapon and covering the other way.

I could hear her sucking air through her canister. I held up my middle and index finger, gave her a thumbs-down, pointed at her face, and then the door handle. She turned and moved towards the target door as I got into a fire position, giving my head a quick shake to try to clear the fucking sweat out of my eyes.

Keeping left, Suzy made a final check with me and slowly pulled open the door. The pressure arm creaked, not much, but it sounded to me like a pistol shot.

The moment there was enough room I slipped slowly through into the darkness, hunched down. There were no windows, just solid walls each side of me. My face was soaking wet, my throat parched as I inched forward, eyes wide, trying to breathe slowly to control noise. I heard the gentle click of the fire door closing under Suzy’s supervision, then felt something soft and slippery beneath my boot. They’d done more out here than just piss.

There was mumbling ahead of me, voices maybe ten metres away, perhaps further. I froze. I couldn’t see anything apart from the soft glow of the SD sight, even though my eyes were starting to adjust. I leant forward to listen for more.

Three or four minutes passed and I began to make out a closed door a few feet away on my left. I edged nearer. What if they weren’t together? What if they were split, in different rooms? There was no light coming from the crack beneath the door.

I could hear muffled sounds from further down the corridor: two, maybe three voices talking in low tones. I couldn’t make out the language, but what the fuck did that matter? I didn’t know if Suzy had heard what I had, but if I went static so would she. Time to get the hoods on.

Pointing the weapon to the ceiling, I rotated slowly, so as not to cut into her arc or bang into anything.

I’d only taken two paces back towards her when Suzy was flooded with light from behind me. As it flared off her eyepieces I dropped to my knees to give her more arc. I was still turning back the way I’d come as the pressure wave of her burst hit the side of my head.

Thud thud thud.

The light came from another doorway, no more than ten paces away to the left. No body on the floor, just a dropped hand-light, and smoke curling into the corridor.

A barrage of screams and shouts erupted inside the room, and Suzy was already ahead of me as we ran towards the light, weapons up. No time to mince about, she went straight in and turned right.

There was a blur of a target: she moved towards it.

I ducked left as she let off another three-round burst.

Big room. Pools of light from the floor. Hazy with cigarette smoke. Lots of shadows. Stuff all over the place. Writing on the walls. Target left – coming from behind a pile of plasterboard, left of another door.

Everything slowed. He was no more than ten metres away. I stopped breathing. My eyes followed him as he ran left to right, not looking about, just hunched up and focused. I followed him, left foot forward, leaning into the weapon, swivelling with him, checking safety was on single shot as I brought the weapon up the last two inches, first pressure already taken as the sight broke into my line of vision and the target hit the screen, but still moving right. I caught him up, watching the circle come from behind his body until it was centre of body mass.

Thud thud.

The double-tap took him down. Real time returned.

Breathing now, I moved towards him, double-tapping again, into his back.

Then I saw what he’d been going for. On the floor, behind a box, were the bottles.

A body hit me from the left, grabbing at my SD. We both went down.