Blood, Bullets and Blue Stratos

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Am I still unconscious?

Blackness. That’s all there was.

Am I still alive?

Still just blackness.

Tentatively, he raised a hand to the back of his head. Where Carol had brought the butt of her pistol down on him he felt nothing — no blood, no swelling, not even a dull ache. He flexed his shoulders, and they too felt fine, despite the frightful blow to the spine that had sent him sprawling only moments before.

‘Something’s wrong,’ he said out loud. ‘To feel this right, something must be wrong.’

He peered into the darkness, unsure if the vague hints of colour and form were just his eyes playing tricks on him.

With infinite care, he shuffled blindly forward, feeling the way ahead of him with his foot, wary of obstacles or sudden, cavernous drops. Where the hell was he? Had the R-H-F locked him in a lightless cellar? Had they buried him alive somewhere? Would they be back for him, or was this it? Was he abandoned? Was he doomed to die here, alone in the dark, screaming for a help that would never come, starving, dehydrating, slowly rotting away?

‘Hello? Anybody there?’

The more he squinted, the surer he was that the murky smudge he perceived ahead of him was real, not imagined. It seemed to move independently of him, edging away from him as he drew closer, almost circling him, like a wary opponent in a boxing ring.

‘Hey! Who’s there? Who are you?’

Sam reached out, groping in the darkness. The figure in the gloom stood still and let him inch his way towards it. But as Sam got closer, he began to doubt what he was seeing. Out of what he had taken to be the torso of the figure there glared two wide, narrow, animal eyes. A gaping, snaggle-toothed set of fangs were bared right across where the belly should be. Whatever it was that glared at him silently from the darkness, it wasn’t human.

Instinctively, Sam drew back. But this time the thing in the shadows lumbered forward after him, closing the distance.

‘Stay back! Stay away from me!’

Sam tripped over himself, fell, landed heavily and scrambled backwards on his heels and elbows. The devil bore down on him, its eyes still fixed and unblinking, the mouth unmoving. He felt large, powerful hands clamp around his neck, and then he was clawing at muscular forearms, prising desperately at the implacable fingers that were choking his windpipe and sending the blood ringing through his ears.

Even in his panic, the ringing of his blood recalled to Sam the high-pitched dead tone of the Test Card Girl.

Is that what this is? Another of her bloody nightmares? But this one feels different … It feels worse!

His lungs were bursting. His tongue became fat and bloated with trapped blood. His vision filled up with sickly green light as his brain became starved of oxygen. The strength began to ebb from his clawing hands. And still his ears sang and sang with that interminable whistling tone.

‘This is how I finished her,’ came a deep, male voice, just audible through the suffocating chaos in Sam’s mind.

Who? Finished who?

‘Slowly … I did it slowly …’

With the dregs of his strength, Sam tugged at the iron fingers around his throat, then felt his arms flop limply at his sides.

‘And then …’ The voice went on, ‘when she passed out … I let her go.’

The fingers relaxed, and Sam fell against the hard floor. On the verge of death he gasped and groaned for air, gulping down oxygen into his agonized lungs, feeling it bring the strength back to his numbed and trembling limbs. He choked and spluttered, tried to struggle onto his feet, but suddenly felt those ogre’s hands slipping round his neck once again.

‘And then, when she’d recovered … I’d start all over again.’

The hands tightened. Sam’s windpipe was squeezed shut. Again, he began to claw at the hands around his throat, as hopelessly as before.

‘Over and over … Again and again … For hours … Until her heart gave out.’

Sam’s own heart was pounding crazily within him.

‘So now you know how it ended for her,’ the monster breathed in his ear in its low, guttural voice. ‘Now you know.’

On the threshold of death, Sam was released once more. He fell limply to the floor, choking, gagging, greedily sucking in great lungfuls of air.

‘Don’t forget this, Tyler,’ the disembodied voice whispered, very close to Sam’s ear. ‘I want you to remember it when next we meet — what I did to her, and what I’ll do again, when I come back for what’s mine.’

Sam struggled to speak: ‘Who … What are you … What’s the …’

‘For what’s mine, Tyler.’

The leering devil face filled his vision. Was it a huge mask? Was it painted? It wasn’t real. Surely it wasn’t real!

‘Until the next time.’

The monstrous hands that had been choking him now landed heavily on Sam’s shoulders; with a single, powerful push, they shoved Sam backwards — but instead of hitting the floor, he found himself tumbling through darkness, down, down, and still further down, into a pitch black void. Some deep and animal part of him sensed the hard, unyielding ground rushing up to meet him.

I’ll break my back when I hit … Or my rib cage will be shattered … Or my skull …

There was a rush of air, a terrible split second of certainty — this is it, this is it! — and then, with a sudden and shocking impact, he was smashing head first into a hard floor. The power of the concussion seemed to numb him, depriving him of any sense of his body or physical being.

Am I still unconscious?

Blackness. That’s all there was.

Am I still alive?

Blackness — and then pain, tingling first at the base of his skull, then growing, spreading, until it was washing through him in steady, sickening waves. It was pain like he’d never known before.

I’m alive — and conscious. With pain like that, I’m most definitely alive and conscious …

If the devil in the dark had been some terrible fantasy of the mind, what he was experiencing now was all too real. His skull felt as if it had been shattered. Every nerve ending was screaming. With effort, and still unable to see, he tried to make sense of where he was and what shape he was in. Through the nausea of his pain he became aware that he was sitting upright in a hard chair, his hands behind him. When he tried to raise his arms, he felt the hard bite of handcuffs at each wrist, holding him firm. Feebly, he tested their strength.

‘They’re secure,’ said a feminine voice.

Sam tried to speak, but his tongue felt thick and heavy. His lips were gummed together with dry blood.

I’m conscious, I’m alive … But where the hell am I?

With effort, he created a mental picture of his situation. He was manacled to a chair, probably in one of the little sheds or workshops dotted about the compound. He was blindfolded, very tightly. Carol, the girl with the gun and innocently plaited hair, was standing somewhere close by, her semi-automatic either aimed at his head or sitting snug and ready in the holster at her waist. Was she alone, or was that man still with her — the one with the Jason King moustache, the one they called Captain?

‘Mnnnmn … Nanmnmnnm …’ said Sam. His fat, dry tongue moved sluggishly in his mouth. The effort of speaking increased the pain, intensified the nausea.

‘Don’t make a noise,’ ordered Carol. ‘I’m authorized to keep you under control by any means necessary.’

‘Water …’

‘No.’

‘I need water …’

‘Do you want me to hit you again?’

Sam let his head loll on his chest. His dry mouth tasted vilely of beef extract. How much time had passed since his capture? Most likely it was just a few minutes, but how could he really be sure? He might have been stuck in this chair for hours — perhaps even days. And if so, where the hell was Gene? Was he still lurking about outside the perimeter fence? Or had he come climbing into the compound after Sam? And if he had, what had become of him? Was he too sitting in a shed somewhere, cuffed to a chair, blindfolded and under armed guard? Were they working him over before starting on Sam? Or had things turned out very differently for the guv? Was his bullet-filled body packed into the boot of a car somewhere? Were the R-H-F driving him down to the nearest canal, his bloodstained camel hair coat weighted down with rocks?

‘Mary …’ Sam muttered.

‘Are you praying?’

‘Mary … The little girl …’

‘She’s secure, back where we want her,’ said Carol. ‘You wasted your time breaking in here. What did you think you could accomplish all on your own, you idiot?’

All on my own!

Sam felt a glimmer of hope. Wherever Gene was, he wasn’t in the clutches of the R-H-F. Not yet, at any rate.

He’ll have seen the lights come on in the compound, heard the shouting, and figured I’ve been taken captive. He’s a half-psychotic, alcoholic bastard with the sensibilities of an overgrown adolescent, but he’s not stupid. For once in his life he’ll have no choice but to follow procedure; he’ll call for back-up, get an armed response team deployed on the site, and ensure the safe release of his fellow officer. He’s probably already radioed through for support and is sitting tight just outside the compound waiting for them to roll up.

Just hang on in there, Sam. Put your faith in Gene Hunt.

That last thought sent a tremor of doubt through him.

You’ve got no choice. You’ve got to trust that Gene will do the right thing, that he’ll get you out of here. Have faith. Just keep buying yourself time and have faith.

Sam worked his mouth to get some feeling back into. He felt the flakes of dry blood on his lips crack and break.

‘Carol,’ he said. ‘It is Carol, isn’t it?’

‘I said be quiet.’

‘What time is it? How long have I been here? Carol, you can’t blame me for trying to get my bearings.’ His voice was broken and rasping. He sounded like a man who’d just crawled out of the desert. ‘If you won’t let me have water, Carol, what about taking this blindfold off?’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘Please, Carol, what’s the point in doing this to me?’ No answer. ‘Carol. Please speak to me, Carol.’

‘Stop using my name like that,’ she said. ‘I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to establish a rapport. You think it’ll make you safer. You think it will make you seem more human to me.’

‘I’m a policeman, Carol. I’ve had training. Anyway, you’d do the same in my position.’

‘Actually, I wouldn’t,’ Carol said, her young voice sounding chipper and perky, as if she were discussing her favourite pony. ‘I’d keep my mouth shut, except to spit at the fascist policemen who were torturing me.’

‘I told you before, I’m not a fascist,’ said Sam. ‘I wonder if you even know the meaning of the word.’ Keep her talking. Build a bridge between the two of you, however slight. Just keep her talking! ‘What is it that’s made you so anti the police? Did you get busted for smoking dope at uni? Is your dad chief constable or something?’

Carol laughed. Under different circumstances it would have been a delightful, tinkling, girlish laugh. But here — handcuffed, blindfolded, with a mouthful of blood and the dark threat of torture to come — it sounded cold and cruel.

‘What’s so funny?’ Sam asked.

‘You,’ said Carol. ‘You’re funny, for a fascist.’

Good. Let her find me funny. No matter the reason.

‘I’m just some fella,’ Sam said. ‘I’m just trying to do my job.’

‘Like I’m doing mine. Except I’m on the side of the good guys. And I don’t do it for money.’

Away to Sam’s left came the sudden clatter of boots, and the sound of a door being flung open.

‘The compound’s secure,’ came a man’s voice, as young and educated-sounding as Carol’s. ‘No sign of any other intruders. Looks like he really was alone.’

They’ve just finished searching the compound — that means I can only have been unconscious for a few minutes. Gene’s probably on the radio right now this minute, yelling for the armed response team to get their arses down her double-pronto. Just hang on in there, Sam!

‘The Captain will be over shortly,’ the man in the doorway said. ‘You happy looking after the pig until then?’

‘More than happy,’ said Carol.

The door pulled closed and the boots tramped away. Sam heard Carol moving about the shed. She ran a tap and filled a glass. The sound of water sharpened Sam’s terrible thirst unbearably.

‘Are you doing that to be cruel?’ he asked.

To his surprise, he felt the glass touch his dry lips. Foul, rusty water poured across his tongue, but he was grateful for it.

‘Thank you,’ he said when the glass was withdrawn.

‘You won’t thank me when the poison kicks in,’ said Carol.

‘You didn’t poison me. You wouldn’t do that.’

‘What makes you so sure?’ she asked. ‘I’m more than prepared to shoot you. Why not slip you a little something and watch you die?’

‘You need me alive, at least for the time being,’ said Sam. ‘Your Captain wants to interrogate me. He might even try and use me as a hostage to coerce the police — though he’d be wasting his time playing that game. I’m completely at your mercy, Carol. There’s no point in poisoning me.’

‘No, you’re right, there isn’t,’ Carol conceded. ‘Later, maybe. Poison, or … Something more imaginative.’

‘You’re playing mind games with me,’ said Sam. ‘Increasing my sense of vulnerability. Softening me up for questioning.’

‘You’d know all about that, being in the police,’ said Carol. ‘When we bring down the government, we’ll shoot all the policemen and pull down all the prisons.’

‘Carol, just listen to yourself. You’re too smart to be playing revolutionaries with that bunch of losers out here. How the hell did you get tangled up with them in the first place?’

‘I read the papers and watched the news. I saw the way the country was going. I could see that things have to change — and the R-H-F could see that too. Are you aware how many people work more than fifty hours a week and still can’t afford their own home?’

‘I’m just a copper,’ shrugged Sam. ‘And you should see my place. It’s hardly the Ritz.’

‘Ordinary people can’t afford to live anymore. While the idle rich enjoy their luxuries, the workers struggle to survive.’

‘I don’t suppose it’s ever been any different, Carol. But that’s no excuse to start planting bombs.’

‘The government’s veering way off to the right,’ Carol went on. ‘It knows it’s losing control of the country, that the common people — the decent, salt of the earth working men and women who make up the backbone of our society — won’t stand for peasant wages and sky-rocketing inflation. Already the forces of reaction are being armed and assembled to subdue the proletariat by brute force and wanton oppression.’

‘You sound like you’re reading from a student pamphlet,’ said Sam.

‘We’re not students, we’re serious,’ Carol said, primly, and Sam suddenly realized that she was reading from a pamphlet — no doubt one of the R-H-F’s homemade fliers, or perhaps its private manifesto, typed up in student digs somewhere by some adolescent have-a-go Garibaldi with a head full of Marx.

Carol read on. ‘Crippled with strikes and civil unrest, struggling with a crumbling socio-industrial infrastructure, and facing a groundswell of public protests and mass civil disobedience, the generalissimo of the fascist junta has started to respond.’

‘Ted Heath? "Generalissimo of a fascist junta"?!’

Even in these horrible circumstances, Sam had to laugh.

But Carol ploughed on regardless. ‘Hiding behind the facade of its so-called ‘democratic mandate’, it is already entrenching itself behind a barricade of riot police, rubber truncheons, and state-sanctioned terrorism.’

‘This stuff might sound great in the bar at the student union, Carol, but out in the real world it’s — ’

‘Trades unions have been infiltrated with secret policemen. Telephone lines are routinely tapped. Mass surveillance is being insinuated into the fabric of society right under the unsuspecting noses of the population …’

‘Carol, I’m too old for this sort of thing.’

‘The media pumps out its diet of lies and distortions masquerading as the truth, and fills the heads of the impoverished workers with desire for the decadent capitalist playthings they can never hope to afford.’

‘You’re going to love the stand-up comedians ten years from now, Carol, believe me.’

‘You’re part of the fascist machinery,’ Carol said, matter-of-factly. ‘And no, I’m not reading this bit out. The country’s falling apart. The government is turning to more and more extreme measures to stay in power. There will be swastikas flying over the Houses of Parliament any day soon, you’ll see. And you, Mr. CID-man, you are part of that regime. You’re a Nazi stooge. You’re the Gestapo.’

‘But here comes you and the Red Hand Faction to seize the day and save the workers,’ said Sam. ‘More fun than cramming for your Eng Lit, is it?’

‘You’re like my daddy. You’d have me back in the Chichester Academy for Young Ladies, all dressed up in my pretty frocks and making eyes at suitable boys.’

‘Is that so bad?’

‘If you think it was fine for Emperor Nero to sit playing the fiddle while Rome burnt all around him, then no,’ said Carol. ‘But you see, Rome is burning. Our Rome. And it’s time to take sides. The pretty frocks had to go on the fire, along with all those bourgeois schoolbooks and everything else that kept me tied to the corrupt capitalist system that brought about our current state of crisis in the first place. The revolution is just around the corner. It needs soldiers, not debutantes.’

‘You’re preaching again,’ said Sam. ‘I’ve heard speeches like this before. Where I come from, there’s too many people talk like you do. They use different words, and different languages, but they’re saying the same thing. They say the world needs to be pulled apart and remade, and to do it they put bombs in buses — and saw people’s heads off — and fly planes into cities.’

‘Planes into cities!’ Carol cried out, delighted. She even clapped her hands together, like an excited girl at a gymkhana. ‘Only a fascist would think of that!’

‘I didn’t think of it. God, I didn’t think of it! It was …’

‘But you know, it’s not a bad idea. Just imagine it, all those pampered capitalist leeches, strapped into their seats, howling and hollering as down they go!’

‘If only you knew what you were really saying.’

‘And then … Kaboom!’ Carol mused, enjoying her fantasy. ‘Smash, crash, right into — where, do you think? The Houses of Parliament? Buckingham Palace? Or what about the Chichester Academy for Young Ladies! Ah, yes please! Or am I letting pleasure get in the way of business? Whatever. The point is, a revolution’s coming whether you like it or not. You know that. And the R-H-F will ensure that it stays on track.’

‘Carol, Carol,’ sighed Sam, shaking his blindfolded head. ‘I know I’m going to come across sounding like your dad, but you’re throwing your life away. You should be back at college, studying for your exams and making new friends and getting ready for the rest of your life.’

‘The Red Hand Faction is my university,’ said Carol, predictably. ‘Its soldiers are my friends. And the rest of my life will be spent in furtherance of the revolution.’

Sam gave up. It was like debating with a Dalek. She was drunk on idealism, with the cast iron self-assurance that only comes with youth and ignorance. Sam imagined her with a Che Guevara poster pinned up on her bedroom wall, worshipping him the way others girls her age worshipped Lennon or Bolan or the Bay City Rollers. No doubt she envisaged the revolution as some sort of freewheeling rock concert, with crowds surging and chanting and cheering, the air buzzing and crackling with joyous excitement. The bad guys would be vanquished and the red flags of freedom would be unfurled across the land. And after that? After that, the sun would be shining every day, and there would be justice for all. The kids would all be barefoot in the park, forever. And the grown-ups would not be there to spoil things.

‘You know what I hope, Carol?’ said Sam. ‘I hope you don’t get yourself killed before you grow out of all this nonsense. I really do hope that.’

‘That’s big of him.’

Sam recognized him the man’s voice at one. It was that swaggering fool with the moustache. The Captain. At once, Sam tensed. He yearned to rip the blindfold off, to at least be permitted to see what guns were leveled at his head, what instruments of torture were being prepared.

‘Has he been giving you any trouble, Carol?’ the Captain asked.

‘He’s been talkative,’ said Carol. ‘He keeps trying to make friends with me.’

‘Well he would. He’s in a pickle and he knows it. Getting pally with us is his only hope. Still, he seems to have gone a bit quiet now, though, hasn’t he.’

‘Take this blindfold off,’ Sam boldly demanded. ‘Whatever you’re going to do to me, at least be man enough to look into my eyes while you’re doing it.’

‘He’s trying to assert some sort of authority over us,’ the Captain, said, sounding amused. ‘No doubt they train them to do that in Gestapo school.’

‘I said take off this blindfold and face me like a man!’

There was a pause, during which Sam could hear nothing but the sound of his own rapid breathing. Then, without warning, he felt somebody tugging roughly at the knot of the blindfold. The cloth was yanked away, and at once harsh light flooded Sam’s vision, burning into his retinas. He screwed up his eyes in pain, felt renewed waves of agony pulsing through his brain from where Carol had whacked him. His eyes smarted, pouring tears down his blood-caked face.

‘He does look a bit of a state,’ he heard Carol say.

‘If you think he looks a state now,’ laughed the Captain, ‘just wait until we’re finished with him!’