Hellgate London - Exodus Part 6

"This isn't the first armored man who has fallen into our hands," the man said.

Hyde knew that was true. The rescue services had gotten several of them from around St. Paul's Cathedral.

"But this is the first one we've been able to identify. The others were able to escape." The man's face soured. "Or they were dead and couldn't tell us anything."

Anger stirred within Hyde. He'd liked Thomas Cross. The man had brimmed with integrity, and he'd loved his son in spite of the legal difficulties they'd dealt with. "Why are you treating this man like a criminal? He laid down his life trying to-"

"Get himself killed?" The man's eyes curved upward in a smile. Hyde said nothing.

"Trust me, Chief Superintendent: whatever these people are doing, they're doing it to suit themselves. Not out of any altruistic reasons."

"I heard some of the knights were there when the military first engaged the invaders." "Thedemons you mean?"

Hyde firmed his jaw. "Yes."

"How do you know," the man asked, "that these people weren't the ones who brought those bloodthirsty things into our world?"

That wasn't a new thought to Hyde. As a police officer, he was trained to be suspicious of everyone. The first witness, usually the person who called in to report a crime, was always the first suspect. The knights had fought the demons, pouring everything they had into the effort at St. Paul's Cathedral. He just couldn't see them as villains.

"You see my dilemma, don't you, Chief Superintendent?" the man asked.

"No," Hyde replied. "Nor do I see your interest. You've offered me no credentials as to who you are."

"Can't."

"You mean you won't."

The man shrugged. "To the best of your knowledge, Simon Cross is still in South Africa?" Hyde hesitated, then nodded.

"Splendid. Can you identify this picture of him?" The man held up a file and opened it to a picture of Simon Cross's booking photo.

Simon Cross looked young and innocent and worldly at the same time. Hyde wondered how the young man would take the death of his father. Not well, he thought. Children who warred with their parents were often as not very close to them. Hyde had the feeling that the two were close, just in different places in their lives two years ago. They shared the same strong features, the same hint of...n.o.bility. That was the word that came so readily to mind. "Yes," Hyde said. "That's Simon Cross."

"You mean, the man you knew as Simon Cross." Hyde didn't respond.

The man closed the file and tucked it under an arm. "Have a good day, Chief Superintendent. Stay safe." He turned smartly on his heel and walked away.

Four men of average height and average weight stepped away from the back wall and fell in behind them. While they'd been still, they'd almost blended into the room. But now that they were up and moving, they felt dangerous.

In that moment, Hyde knew them for what they were: part of a special operations group. MI-6 or perhaps something even more clandestine.

Occasionally in the past Hyde had encountered such men. Usually at the scene of violent death. Sometimes they'd even committed the murders. But in the end it didn't matter. A quiet letter would get issued from the prime minister's office and the men would disappear as if they'd never existed.

But why were they investigating the knights when the streets were filled with terrifying creatures? And what did they want with Simon Cross?

After the entourage had gone, Hyde turned his attention back to the dead man. "What can you tell me about him, Smithers?"

"Very little, actually. 'E was in good shape. Until 'e ran into whatever it was that killed 'im, of course." Smithers grinned and looked crafty. "I think you'll be better served tryin' to figure out where the armor came from. I'm sure it's more unique than the man."

As Hyde watched, circuitry within the armor pulsed electric blue and died. The armor was amazing, but the chief superintendent didn't think the man who died inside it was any less remarkable.

Five.

CITYLIMITS.

CAPETOWN, SOUTHAFRICA.

Armed policemen and soldiers blocked the road into Cape Town. One of the policemen held up a white-gloved hand and waved Simon over to the side of the road.

His headlights cut through the night, but the big klieg lights on the back of a nearby flatbed truck plucked him out of the darkness like he'd been set on fire. Simon slowed and pulled over to the side of the road.

"What's going on?" That was from one of the clients, packed in the back with the corpses and the elephant tusks. The smell inside the Land Rover had turned ripe. Traveling during the heat of the day hadn't helped.

"I don't know." Simon peered through the bugencrusted winds.h.i.+eld as the policeman, flanked by two soldiers carrying a.s.sault weapons, closed on the Land Rover.

"I need your papers." The policeman was middle-aged, carrying a gut and a no-nonsense approach. His gray-flecked beard stood out against his ebony skin. He kept his hand on his holstered pistol.

As he handed the papers over, Simon felt Saundra tense against him. They sat three abreast in the front seat. None of them had enjoyed a comfortable ride.

One of the men with the a.s.sault rifles played his flashlight through the windows. The light kept reflecting from the side mirror into Simon's eyes. It didn't take the man long to find the tusks. He spoke to the policeman rapidly. The bits and pieces of the dialects Simon had picked up over the last two years weren't enough.

But he knew what was coming when the policeman freed his sidearm and pointed it in Simon's face. "Out of the vehicle." The policeman signaled the other men to close in.

Simon opened the door and stepped out. One of the men grabbed him and slammed him up against the Land Rover. He felt the muzzle of a gun burrow into the back of his neck. Confusion swept over him.

He'd never been stopped outside the city like this before, and papers were seldom checked inside Cape Town except for foreign vendors and merchants.

It was bad enough when they'd found the tusks, but when the soldiers found the bodies, things really got ugly.

"That's quite a story, Mr. Cross."

Seated across the long table from a lieutenant in the Cape Town Police Department whose name he hadn't quite gotten, Simon ma.s.saged his bruised wrists. The men who had brought them in for questioning hadn't been gentle. "I don't know if I'd believe it myself."

The lieutenant smiled, but he looked tired and worried. "Luckily, you have the corroboration of several witnesses. And these men you killed were known poachers."

Simon nodded. He'd been in holding for hours, crowded in with several other stinking, sweating prisoners. He'd kept his clients separated from the riff-raff and out of harm's way. Then they'd brought him in to be questioned. He hoped his clients were still all right.

"Those witnesses aren't used to jail," Simon said.

"I understand. I had them taken from holding shortly after I sent for you. Their statements will be taken, identification confirmed, then they'll be released. Just as you are."

Getting released sounded good. Simon wanted a bed in a semi-adequate hotel and a few beers and shots to tuck him in.

"Why was there so much security along the road?" Simon asked.

The lieutenant's forehead furrowed. "How long were you out in the bush, Mr. Cross?" "Nine days. We were scheduled out for two weeks."

"I see. Then you missed all the furor."

Fear tightened inside Simon again. During the long drive back to Cape Town he'd almost convinced himself that the poachers had taken a small story and blown it out of proportion. No one had talked to him at the police station, and none of the prisoners they'd been jailed with had been overly friendly after Simon had knocked two of them senseless for trying to intimidate his clients. "What furor?"

"Apparently aliens have landed in London," the lieutenant said. "The story is all over the news." Aliens."Are you sure they're aliens?"

The lieutenant looked at Simon curiously. "I haven't seen them myself, but I've seen them on the news channels. I'd call them aliens. What would you call them?"

"I don't know. But it just sounds...strange." Simon sat back in the straight wooden chair and wished he were home. He had no doubt that if he told the lieutenant what he suspected, though, he'd be kept for observation and not let out around sane people.

"There's not much footage of them beasties," the bartender said.

Simon vaguely remembered that the man's name was Flynn. He was an Irishman, but he'd come to Cape Town as a mercenary nearly twenty years ago, lost a leg, and fallen in love with an Xhosa woman. They'd started Walter's, a bar that catered to the locals and tourists, and provided back rooms for mercenaries.

They were watching old footage on CNN on the tri-dee over the bar. According to the anchorman, nothing new had come out of England for the last fourteen hours. All electronic communication in the area had been cut off.

Simon felt the need to get up and move, to bethere instead of Cape Town. He'd already called the airport, but no one there knew when flights would be headed into Europe. So far, everyone wanted to stay home.

And that was where Simon wanted to be: home. It surprised him that he felt so strongly. He hadn't been back in two years, and hadn't missed it. He'd made more friends and had more freedom in Cape Town than in London.

The bar was a mixture of recycled, mismatched furniture. None of the pieces looked like they fit together, but the place was packed. Servers hustled between the tables and beer was served in bottles and cans.

After leaving the police station, Simon had checked on Saundra's whereabouts and discovered she was still giving her statement. He'd left a message that he would be at Walter's.

As soon as he'd hit the street, Simon had heard bits and pieces of the stories of the invasion that had taken place in London. If everything was to be believed, nearly everyone there had been killed and half the city destroyed.

Simon kept his eyes glued to the tri-dee holo broadcast above Flynn's head at the bar. Two channels were playing. One showed the news and another covered the soccer champions.h.i.+ps being played in Rio de Janeiro. Unbelievably, most of the bar's patrons were involved in the soccer game, not the news. "Does anyone know where they came from?" Simon asked.

Flynn shook his head. "A mothers.h.i.+p, I suppose. Though n.o.body's saying."

"Why invade England, that's what I want to know," the heavyset man sitting next to Simon said. He was black and had a German accent. "They wanted to cripple the planet, they'd go after the United States."

"The United States is too tough," Flynn said. "You know they'd go nuclear over something like this. It's a wonder they ain't done something already. Mark my words, those aliens make a move to cross the Atlantic, them Yanks will put every British Isle at the bottom of the North Sea."

Simon didn't doubt that. The U.S. had involved themselves in a lot of wars and hadn't won much international support. But they had to be respected. Or feared. Simon still wasn't sure which way he'd call it.

In the tri-dee presentation, a British fighter plane battled a flying demon that Simon recognized from the ancient texts he'd been forced to study.They're real. That thought kept slamming into Simon over and over again.They're real. That's a Blood Angel.

On tri-dee, the demon looked bigger than Simon had imagined. Its wingspread was huge and bat-like. The demon landed on the jet's nose and began tearing through the metal s.h.i.+elding. A few seconds later, it shattered the canopy and reached inside for the pilot. Arms wrapped around its hapless victim, the demon leaped into the air and unfurled its wings only seconds before the jet ripped across the top of London Bridge in a shower of sparks. Chunks of stone tore free under the impact, then the aircraft went down in what Simon believed were the India Docks. An explosion immediately erupted, throwing flames and debris high into the air.

The scene s.h.i.+fted back to the anchorman for brief commentary, then moved into another scene of street carnage that Simon had seen before. This time, a huge demon strode through the gates at Buckingham Palace. One of its arms was withered, while the other was ma.s.sive and had a huge fist.

Tanks rolled to attack, firing on the go. The sh.e.l.ls burst against the demon's chest, knocking it back, then it lashed out with that huge fist and tore the turret from the top of the tank. It breathed acidic vapor into the crew compartment, killing anyone who might have survived.

A pack of blood zombies, looking like they'd been flayed alive so that muscle and bone stood out in sharp relief, trailed after the great demon. They devoured all the fallen soldiers that tried to protect the palace. Bullets had little effect on them and hardly slowed them.

"Can you get in to England?" Simon asked.

Flynn looked at him as if he'd sprouted a second head. "Whatever would you want to go to that place at this time for?"

Simon sipped his beer. "I've got family there."

Without a word, Flynn reached under the bar and brought out two clean gla.s.ses. He poured two fingers of Bushmills in each one. Hoisting one of the gla.s.ses, Flynn said, "To the saints what watch over us and them far from us."

Simon clinked gla.s.ses and sipped the whiskey. "Can I get to England?"

"All the commercial flights into Great Britain have been held up," Flynn answered. "They've declared a quarantine over the whole area. Something about alien bacteria. Even got stories about the dead rising up and walking." He looked at Simon and his normally hard gaze softened. "Sorry, mate."

Glancing at the tri-dee, Simon watched men, women, and children running through the rubble-strewn barriers that had been set up long ago. The demons chased them, running them down in the streets.

It was horrible to watch.

But more than anything, he needed to be there. He sipped his drink again, feeling the burn at the back of his throat. Then soft fingers touched his neck. He turned and looked up at Saundra. "Hey," she said.

"They let you go."

"Finally." Saundra grimaced as she looked up at the tri-dee. Worry tightened her eyes as she looked at him. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah. Just tired is all." Simon glanced back up at the nightmares taking shape on the tri-dee. He wasn't just tired. He was feeling scared and guilty. He should never have left London. He should never have doubted his father.

Saundra pulled on his arm. "I've got a room. Let's get out of here."

Simon nodded. He tried to settle his tab, but Flynn waved his money away. The bartender even threw in a bottle of Bushmills.

"It'll keep away the nightmares," the bartender said.

Simon didn't think it would, but he took the bottle anyway.

In the modest hotel room, Saundra showered first while Simon ordered room service. Normally they'd have shared the shower, but they hadn't talked much. Simon wasn't sure if it was the fact that he'd killed the poachers that had created the barrier between them, or all the news about London. Either way, he wasn't a big fan of personal contact at the moment, either.

He stood under the shower under the hottest water he could stand, letting it almost scald him. He scrubbed with soap and shampooed, but didn't feel clean. Visions of demons, his father's patient voice, all kept bouncing around inside his skull.

He kept repeating the process till Saundra knocked on the door and told him the food had arrived.

Wrapped in a towel, seated on the bed, Simon ate from the tray. Saundra sat beside him as they watched tri-dee. The segments kept looping, showing the same horrific images over and over. They drank Bushmills with the meal, and Simon felt the alcohol and the food drain the energy from him.

"I can't believe this is really happening," Saundra whispered.

"Neither can I," Simon replied.And I've been told it would all my life. "Your father lives in London."

"Yes." Simon made himself eat. He needed his strength. He was a warrior, trained by warriors, and he'd slipped back into that mind-set far easier than he'd ever thought he would. He would eat when he could eat, sleep when he could sleep, and fight every chance he got.

"He's probably all right." Saundra ran her fingers through Simon's hair.

"If he was all right, he would have called." Simon made himself say that, to remind himself what he was probably facing.