Dark as Angels: We are the Enemy Read online

  Hooker was counting in his head. 62… 61… 60… “I was a Taskforcer. Ain’t no secret, Marku.”

  “A Taskforcer?” Marku replied. “I heard about them. What sort of country puts its soldiers in prison for defending it?”

  “This one,” Hooker replied. “It’s a funny old place.”

  The pimp’s hair glistened with oil. “Then maybe you’re a NatSec informer. They say you never really leave the pigs.” Marku wrinkled his nose, “I must say, you’ve that stink.”

  Hooker smiled. Some of his teeth were yellow, and some where gold. More than a few were missing. “Really, Marku? Callin’ a man a grass? That’s fightin’ talk where I come from. Did you ask me here to fight?”

  Marku studied his pistol, too big for his spindly fingers. The weapon was a bulbous-barrelled Walther, extended magazine jutting from the grip. “Perhaps I did, Hooker. This is my turf, I do as I wish.”

  Hooker had lost his appetite for violence, but the scent of bad blood reminded him why he used to enjoy it. “Then fight or do businesses, Marku. You know what I’m here for. We agreed five-hundred RDs each.”

  Marku smiled. A man-with-a-gun smile. “Only a half-thou? I think not. Far too generous a price.”

  “No, you agreed on five-hundred,” said Hooker. “A deal’s a deal. You’ve got a reputation to maintain.”

  “My reputation says seven-fifty RDs apiece. A new rate, but not unreasonable.” Marku licked his top lip, eyes bright. Hooker noticed a film of white powder under the pimp’s nose.

  Eduardo pulled the club from his belt. “Pay up, Rufus. We know the Americans pay decent money for the meat.” The giant stomped to the doorway, whispering to somebody at the top of the stairs in Babble.

  Hooker spoke Babble just fine – just pretended he didn’t. Timor! Marku’s screwing Hooker over. Bring me a gun. Make sure you’ve got one too...

  Marku pointed the gun at Hooker’s chest. “Tell me, why do the Americans buy whores from you? Rotten meat? It’s like buying corpses. Are you a necrophiliac?”

  Hooker shrugged, Marku’s features blurred mauve in his goggles. “The Americans at the Red Cross are Evangelical Christians. They believe in God and salvation.”

  “God? Now, that’s funny,” the pimp chuckled. His teeth were sheathed in a golden grid, studded with rubies and diamonds. “God turned his back on this world.”

  “Make you right, but I ain’t interested in religion. Just business. They said you were a man of honour among the Clans. They were wrong.”

  “Watch your mouth,” Marku hissed, chest puffed out. A leather-clad cockerel. “Remember, I am a Chieftain.”

  Hooker made a show of examining the basement, lip curled. “Really? A Chieftain? Of what? A shit-heap?”

  Marku snarled, jabbing the pistol into Hooker’s forehead. “Your mouth is too big.”

  Hooker grinned. “Do it, king-of-shit. Explain to your Over-Chief why you’re four grand down this week, an’ still with extra mouths to feed.”

  Four seconds…

  Marku pushed the gun harder into Hooker’s skull. Cold metal on hot skin. The pimp’s finger wormed inside the trigger-guard. “You talk shit, Hooker…”

  Three

  Two…

  Clunk.

  The room turned black, lights dying. Hooker jinked left, goggles flickering to night vision. Marku’s pistol flared white, bullets slicing the air next to Hooker’s ear. The ex-Taskforcer balled his fist.

  Snick.

  The punch-blade in Hooker’s glove was razor sharp, protruding from his knuckles like a monster’s fang. He struck once, piercing the pimp’s throat.

  “Marku?” Eduardo’s voice, booming in the darkness.

  The lights flickered back on, bathing the room red. Marku lay dying, eyes bulging, blood pooling beneath his body. Hooker aimed the pimp’s Walther at Eduardo. “Weren’t his cleverest moment, was it?”

  “What did you do to the lights?” asked Eduardo. He winced when he saw Marku’s body. As if the dead pimp were a tricky plumbing problem, or a flat tyre.

  “Who knows? Maybe it’s magic,” Hooker replied. The lights were Leah’s idea – she bribed a maintenance engineer to kill the local grid. Or maybe she’d threatened the guy. You could never tell with Leah. “Do the right thing, Eduardo. Or I’ll kill you.”

  The big man picked up the telephone. “Get the merchandise ready. Yes, now!”

  A runty kid ushered a gaggle of youths downstairs. Four boys, four girls. They wore stained robes, eyes dark-ringed and arms track-marked. One was the crop-headed African girl who’d badmouthed Eduardo earlier. “My name is Hooker. I’m taking you someplace safe.”

  Runty kid was a mono-browed thug in a muscle vest. He wore gaudy jewellery, a pistol stuffed in his waistband. He saw Marku’s body and scowled. “Să te ia dracu!”

  “Don’t do it,” Hooker warned.

  The kid went for his gun.

  Hooker fired. The spent cartridge bounced on the floor, making a smoky pirouette. Runty kid lay dead, the top of his head missing. Several of the kids cowered, covered in gore. Eduardo clicked his fingers, as if a djinn might appear. “That was the Over-Chieftain’s nephew. You have brought hell upon you, Hooker.”

  Hooker sucked on a tooth. “D’you want a war, Eduardo? Zone Clans versus PROTEX Companies? Echo-Seven is honour-pledged to me, and they’re pledged to a dozen others. You’d get the shit kicked out of you.”

  The African girl suddenly grabbed the runty kid’s pistol. Eduardo raised his club, but she shot him between the eyes. The giant fell to his knees, dead, but the girl kept firing. When the magazine was empty, Hooker prised the weapon from her fingers. “What’s your name, girl?”

  “Mercy.”

  From outside came the whip-crack of rifle shots. Mercy ducked behind Hooker. “It’s okay,” he said. “The shooter’s with me. She’s taking out the guards.”

  Leah checked in, voice crackling in Hooker’s ear. “Okay, they’re down. Where d’you want me?”

  “Front door,” Hooker replied, stowing Marku’s pistol in his pocket. Heading upstairs, he retrieved his weapons and herded the kids outside.

  An armoured truck rumbled around the corner, a six-wheeler shrouded in oily smoke. Leah’s fingers rested on the steering wheel, face hidden behind a hockey mask. “Get in,” she ordered. “There’ll be an army of these goat-fuckers here any minute.”

  “You bet there will,” Hooker replied, jerking a thumb at the girl. “Meet Mercy, who just slotted Eduardo of the Pogradec Titans. I did for Marku and one of his boys. Over-Chieftain’s nephew, apparently.”

  Leah shrugged. “Did he try to skank you?”

  Hooker nodded.

  Leah revved the truck. “They never learn.”

  They motored along the PROTEX, the protected expressway that soared over the No-Zone. Leah wove through a convoy of lend-lease American plant, the armoured truck belching smoke. The Americans, displaced NordAnglos from the Secession states, swore and shook their fists. A PROTEX guard, sprawled in the back of a gun-heavy technical, recognised Leah and waved. “Where are you taking us?” said Mercy suspiciously. “Another shop?”

  Hooker shook his head. “You’ll go to the Red Cross station at Essford.”

  Mercy’s lip curled. “Red Cross? Americans? What can they do for us?”

  Leah peeled off her mask. Her hair was short and dyed red. “Aid program – they’ll check you for STDs, give you meds and test you for HIV. There’s rad screening, clean clothes and food. Then you’ll go to a Displaced Persons’ camp.”

  “The Red Cross ain’t too bad,” Hooker agreed. “Better than a shop, anyhow. Just put up with the prayin’ and shit and you’ll be fine.”

  “Praying isn’t shit. I believe in God,” Mercy replied solemnly.

  “So, you’re ahead of the game,” Leah replied. “They’ll love you.”

  The kids conferred among themselves, whispering urgently in Swahili and Pashtun and Urdu. “Five of us will go to your Red Cross,” Mercy tra
nslated. “Two want work in better shops. And I go my own way.”

  Hooker pulled a face – only five bounties. It was still a crazy waste of money - the clans trafficked hundreds of kids every week, recycling those who’d run away from the DP camps back to the sex-shops. Yet the American churches still paid. Led by penitent Archangels, they said. Saving the world, soul-by-soul.

  “Okay, Mercy, what you gonna do?” said Leah.

  “The Harlot sits on a Scarlet Beast, so it says in The Book. It is The End of Days - I make my own way and wait for the Lord.” Mercy pulled a wooden cross from her vest and kissed it.

  Hooker studied the girl. Fifteen, maybe sixteen. Wiry and lean, eyes hard. She wiped away lipstick with the back of her hand. Hooker dabbed a smear of Eduardo’s blood from her cheek with his sleeve. “Okay, Mercy. Maybe I know someone who’ll give you a job,” he said.

  “I am not fucking anyone,” Mercy replied, making a gun of her fingers. “The only time I will go to a shop again is to return pimps to hell.”

  “I like the kid,” said Leah, “and you have to admit, the bible-bashing adds an extra dimension. Give her a gig.”

  “We ain’t got a vacancy,” Hooker replied. “Trashmob might have.”

  Leah made a snaggle-toothed smile. “We’d have a vacancy if you honoured our deal.”

  Hooker grimaced. Leah never gave up. “Not now, Leah.”

  Mercy’s eyes swept Leah’s armour and weapons. “I work harder on my feet than on my back. I know how to use weapons – Glock, HK, Kalashnikov, Hanyang, RPG, M4-series carbine...”

  “I saw,” Hooker replied. “Leah, we’ll go to Essford then Echo-Seven, okay?”

  Leah crunched gears. “Essford then Echo-Seven, you got it.”

  Mercy threaded her way past Hooker, sitting between him and Leah. She touched his cheek, finger tracing welts and scars. “Are you from Africa, Mister Hooker?”

  Hooker smiled. “Nah, Woolwich. My dad was from Liberia and my old lady was Moroccan-Portuguese. Mebbe a bit of Irish too.”

  “Everyone’s got some Irish,” Leah added. “It’s the law.”

  “I am from Sierra Leone,” said Mercy. “Nobody can go back there. Not now.”

  Leah raised an eyebrow. “I’m from Brighton. It’s only sixty miles down the road, an’ nobody can go back there either.”

  “True.” Hooker nodded. “Ain’t nobody got the monopoly on fucked-up places nowadays.”

  “Then the Book is right,” Mercy replied. “It is The End of Days. This is the New Babylon, and will be destroyed. It is written.”

  “Why did we rescue her?” Leah smirked.

  “The reward,” Hooker lied.

  Leah stopped on the road to Essford, north of the flood plain called the Goons. Two of the kids, a boy and a girl, jumped down from the truck. With a wave, they scurried into a warren of plastic-roofed shanties. “They will be back in a shop by dark,” said Mercy. “They are fools.”

  Essford Red Cross station lay inside the old Olympic village, where a woman in khakis and face-mask ushered the kids towards a medical tent. She asked no questions of the hard-eyed girl with the rifle, or the careworn giant in the leather coat. “There’s your money,” she said, handing over a wad of Reconstruction Dollars.

  Hooker counted the cash, handing Leah half the plastic banknotes. “Fifty-fifty, right?”

  Leah stuffed the money inside her armour. “Generous, seein’ how you took the risk on that one.”

  “You’re a better shot with a rifle.”

  Leah shrugged. “I’m a better shot with everything.”

  Returning to the truck, they crossed the Thames into Lagoon City. Leah headed for a fortified compound, blast walls and wire, amidst a cluster of burnt-out buildings. The compound’s gates were painted with the sigil of the PROTEX Escort Companies, a stylised wheel on a shield. “What is this place?” said Mercy suspiciously.

  “The neighbourhood? Kidbrooke, but we call it Echo-Seven,” Hooker replied. “Keep your mouth shut, unless someone talks to you first.”

  The gates opened, a sentry nodding when he saw Leah’s wagon. She parked next to a row of gun-studded technicals and climbed out of the cab. A wiry man in fatigues smoked a roll-up, watching a mechanic tinker with an engine. “Yo, Trashmob,” said Leah.

  “Yo yourself, Martinez,” Trashmob replied, gifting her a lazy salute. “You been fuckin’ with those No-Zone Albanians again?”

  “I think they were Romanians. Word travels fast.”

  “Romanians, Albanians, whatever. Anyhow, their radio discipline is shit.” Trashmob was scrawny and bearded, hair greying at the temples. He wore a pistol on a webbing belt, a knife tucked in his boot. “Rufus, when you gonna give up this good deed bullshit? It’s a waste of talent and money.”

  Hooker shook his head. “Not again, Trash. Got some karma to claw back, ain’t I?”

  Trashmob kicked an armoured car’s tyre. “Think of the coin you’d make. This private detective stuff is bullshit.”

  Hooker shook his head. “The PROTEX? Been there, done that. I’m too old for convoy work.” Hooker ushered the girl forward. “But Mercy here? I make her a prospect.” Mercy climbed down from the truck, ragged and barefoot.

  “I got socks older’n her,” Trashmob sniffed.

  “Just watched her melt six bullets into a man’s head,” Hooker replied. “Looks like she ain’t no stranger to the work.”

  Trashmob summoned Mercy forward, the girl sweeping him with heavy-lidded eyes. “She’s got attitude,” he said. “Think she can take orders?”

  “I’m vouching for her,” Hooker replied, arms crossed.

  “Me too,” said Leah, resting a hand on Mercy’s shoulder. “Give the kid a break.”

  “Fucking hell, what’s happened to you two?” Trashmob replied. He began rolling another cigarette, a lop-sided smile on his face, “Mercy, see that shack over there? Go and ask for a guy called Three-Guns. Tell him Trashmob sent you. He’ll find some armour for your bones.”

  Mercy smiled, revealing a row of gappy white teeth. “Then I have work?”

  Trashmob lit a cigarette. “You’ll ride shotgun on the London-to-Dover run, which is a fucking nightmare. On probation, just to see how you get on. Okay?”

  Mercy nodded. “Do I pay for food, like in the shop?”

  “No, food is part of the deal. You get a clean bed and fresh water. Nobody’ll lay a finger on you. If they try, tell me and I’ll break the fucker’s legs. Pay is twenty RDs a week, rising to thirty when you’re confirmed. Then you’ll also get a share of squadron war-spoils.”

  “Spoils?” said the girl. “Like, ruins?”

  Trashmob laughed. “Loot. Plunder. Y’know? When the Bloc or scavengers attack us, or bandits? We kill the fuckers. Then we take their stuff. Gold, weapons, ammo, tech, petrol. It’s how you’ll earn most of your pay.”

  “This sounds like Freetown,” said Mercy, offering her hand. “I will take your job, Mister Trashmob.”

  “It’s Captain Trashmob to you,” he replied, taking it.

  “God bless you, Captain Trashmob. He will have mercy on your soul, and pluck you from Hell come Judgement Day.”

  Trashmob laughed. “I’m glad some fucker will.”

  Hooker pulled Marku’s gun from his pocket. “Mercy, you take this – Walther Type-28 personal defence weapon. Thirty-round magazine. Solar-charged optics. Keep a blade for back-up. Always. Understand?”

  “I understand, Mister Hooker.” Mercy stood on tip-toes and kissed him on the cheek. Handling the gun like a pro, she padded towards a sand-bagged bunker.

  “Ain’t nuthin’ like that moment you give a kid her first proper assault weapon,” Leah dead-panned.

  “I got me a warm fuzzy too,” Trashmob chuckled. “Another thing, Rufus. There’s a message for you. Came over the Darkwire, ‘bout an hour back.”

  Hooker frowned. “From who?”

  Trashmob pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket, squinting as he read. “It’s from Gordy Rice, request
ing an audience up in The Smoke. Urgent. There’s a Green Zone pass waiting for you at the North Greenwich gate. You’ve gone up in the world.”

  Hooker shrugged. “Gordy? He’ll want dark work doing.”

  Leah slapped Hooker’s back. “That means coin, right? What you waitin’ for?”

  Three

  Leah drove to the border with the Green Zone, bullet-pocked signs warning of mines and unexploded ordnance. She shook her head at a pack of sharp-eyed scavengers, perched on the roof of a burnt-out supermarket. The younger ones threw bricks at the truck. “They need a softer target,” she said.

  “True,” Hooker replied. “I reckon we’re safe from rocks.”

  “Or mebbe they need an airstrike?”

  Hooker shrugged. “We tried it back in the day. Did six years in prison for that kinda shit.”

  They neared the city, twenty-metre blast walls protecting the cloudscrapers beyond. Towering over it all was a screen, a two-kilometre expanse of cobalt omniglass. The BluSky, projecting a high-definition summer day. Images of butterflies and bees fluttered across it, puffy clouds limned with golden sunlight. “Why don’t they call it the Blue Zone?” said Leah.

  “Fuck knows. And when’s the last time you saw a bee?” Hooker replied.

  The truck jolted, a wheel rolling in and out of a pothole. Leah cursed. “Yeah, why spend money on clean water or electricity, when you can put up a giant omni and show endangered species instead? Makes perfect sense.”

  “It just sits there, taking the piss,” said Hooker darkly.

  “Yeah, like, this is what it’s like over in Wessex, you sad No-Zone motherfuckers,” Leah replied. “Why don’t we shoot it with an RPG?”

  “Waste of a good rocket.”

  Everyone hated the BluSky.

  They reached a bunker, guarded by black-armoured tacticals. Hooker unloaded his pump-gun and lowered his goggles. “I’ll Darkwire you soon as I’m done. Wait here, okay?”

  “Got it,” Leah replied, stopping the truck by the roadside. “I’ll refuel the wagon.”