Stuart MacBride - Halfhead

‘Oliver, I’ve got-’

‘Targets acquired!’

The screen flickered and an infrared view of the park sixty feet below appeared. Two human-shaped heat signatures filled the centre of the frame, yellow and orange: one lying flat out, the other standing waving.

‘Hit the lights!’

A soft ‘crack’ rang through the hull and a patch of Kelvin grove Park lit up like a very wet summer’s day. Emily toggled the display and got a view from the external cameras: in the foreground rhododendron bushes writhed-buffeted by the downdraught-and just behind them a Bluecoat stood over a body. The body was wearing a filthy dressing gown and looked as if it had taken one hell of a beating. The body was William Hunter.

‘Damn! Control, we have an agent down!’ She stuck her head through into the cockpit. ‘Get this thing on the deck NOW!’

The Dragonfly’s legs hadn’t even touched the ground before Emily cracked open the side hatch and leapt out into the rain. She hit the ground and rolled, coming to her feet with her Whomper ready and armed, sweeping the park like a conductor’s baton, looking to orchestrate a little death and destruction.

‘What are you waiting for, ladies?’ she said. ‘Defensive perimeter, now !’

Behind her, the rear hatch hissed open and four knackered troopers slogged out into the downpour.

‘You!’ Emily’s Whomper was pointing right at the sodden Bluecoat’s face. ‘Hit the deck!’

‘Yes, ma’am!’ The constable dropped her weapon, jumped for the ground and hugged it like a long-lost friend.

‘What happened here?’

‘He’s been attacked and beaten up.’

‘I can see that.’ Will looked as if someone had run over his face with a steamroller. Emily slid in closer and kicked the police-issue Field Zapper just out of reach, keeping her Whomper trained on the Bluecoat. ‘Who did this?’

‘Didn’t get a good look at her-it was dark-but it was definitely a woman. She was standing over him when I got here. I challenged her and she ran for it. Bitch knocked me flying.’

‘You let her get away?’

There was a pause. ‘Not by choice. The victim was still alive. I tried to call it in, but they-’

‘I know: jamming field.’

‘I started to chase her, but the victim looked like he needed assistance so…’

‘You did good.’ Emily stooped down and helped the muddy Bluecoat up. Then started shouting orders: ‘Nairn, Dickson secure the perimeter. Nothing in or out. Floyd, Patterson you’ve got stretcher duty. Move it people, we’re not getting paid by the hour!’

The Bluecoat stared at Will’s battered head. ‘Is he going to be OK?’

Good question. ‘Where’s that damn stretcher?’

Patterson and Floyd squelched to a halt, dumped the stretcher on the wet ground and carefully lifted Will into place. They strapped him in and switched the thing on. It rose into the air, the sensors beeping and humming. Floyd pulled out a couple of blockers and a stim, snapping them into Will’s neck as they hurried him back towards the waiting gunship.

‘Grnnnnnkin insn nnnsnsssnnn…’

‘Easy, Tiger,’ Patterson pushed Will’s head back against the platform. ‘Someone’s kicked seven shades of shite out of you.’

Emily followed them up the rear ramp and into the Drag-onfly’s warm, dry interior. ‘Nairn, Dickson, report!’

‘Nothing out here, ma’am, just a sodding huge bloodstain, two hundred yards from the pickup point. Other than that, nada.’

Emily looked out at the torrential downpour. ‘You found bloodstains in this?’

‘No’ as hard as it sounds, ma’am, there’s a hoorin’ lot of it.’

She stared down at Will’s battered face. ‘What the hell did you do…?’ There’d be time to worry about that later. ‘Nairn, you and Dickson get back here. Next stop Glasgow Royal Infirmary-’

A hand grabbed her wrist. ‘Nnnnrrr Dccccccccctrsssss.’ The stims were starting to take effect.

‘Don’t be daft. Your head looks like an inflatable turnip.’

‘Nnnnrrr Dccccctrsssss. Nnnnrrr timmme!’ He struggled to sit up, but the platform’s restraints held him fast. ‘Whrrrrrssss Jo?’

‘Jo?’

‘Jo! Dtttttttectiffffff Srrrrrgnntttt Camerrrrrrnn.’

The Bluecoat grabbed Emily’s sleeve. ‘Just before you turned up, someone was shouting, “We’ve got her.” They were going on about cutting her face off if anyone opened their mouth.’

Will thrashed against the medistraps. ‘Gtttt me out offfff thizz.’

‘You’re going nowhere till you’ve seen a doctor.’ Emily keyed her throat-mike. ‘Nairn, Dickson, you going the bloody scenic route? Get your arses back here now!’

Two soaked and muddy troopers squished their way up the rear ramp.

‘What kept you?’ Emily slammed her hand on the button, and the rear doors squealed closed. ‘Get us out of here,’ she told the pilot. ‘Glasgow Royal and step on it.’

Will grimaced at his reflection in the hospital mirror. Having his cheekbone welded back together wasn’t something he ever wanted to experience again. A triangular patch of skinglue and bracing pulled his face into a constant, lopsided smile, whether he felt like it or not. His nose had been reset for the umpteenth time and new toothbuds stitched into his gum.

The black eye was already beginning to fade-as were all his other bruises, thanks to a hefty dose of anti-ecchymosis medication-but the sight still wasn’t pretty.

Someone had been dispatched to his flat to fetch a change of clothes and discovered the place in ruins. All the corpses were missing: no dead bodies in the apartment, no dead bodies in the lift, no dead bodies in the park. All that remained were two huge bloodstains on the lounge carpet and some sticky bits of skin on the lift walls. Short of a DNA match they weren’t going to get any names.

‘We need to get back to base,’ he told Emily as she stood watching him dress.

‘You need to get back to bed. You look as bad as you smell.’

He glared at her. ‘We haven’t got time for this! If they’ve got Jo…’ And then he remembered the listening devices sitting beneath Emily’s skin. Everything he told her went straight into the ears of that stumpy wee bastard Ken Peitai. Deep breath. ‘Sorry.’ He pulled on his trousers. ‘It’s the blockers. I’m not thinking all that clearly. You’re right. I need to go to bed.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Oh no you bloody don’t. Come on: “if they’ve got Jo,” what?’

‘Nothing. It’s been a rough-’

‘What is wrong with you Will? Why won’t you talk to me any more? What the hell did I do to you?’

‘I…’ He shut his mouth and forced his arms into the sleeves of his shirt. The blockers cut the pain, but he was still stiff. ‘You’ve not done anything. It’s me. You heard the doctor, too many bangs on the head. Concussion. It’s not…I’m not…’

‘Don’t give me that shite Will. The people who attacked you got DS Cameron. We’re going after her!’

Will smiled; it twisted his face even further out of shape. ‘Thought you didn’t like her.’

The pause was only a heartbeat long, but it was there. ‘She’s on the team. We don’t hang our own out to dry.’

Carefully he pulled on an old jacket and stood, looking at his bruised and battered reflection in the mirror, but seeing Jo: running for her life, dressed in a jumpsuit scavenged from a dead body.

Emily paced up and down the little hospital room. ‘We get them to set off her coffin dodger. We pull in the reserves. We push every button we can until someone squeals. We lean on people. We oil the wheels. We do whatever it takes to get her back.’

A good suggestion, but utterly hopeless. Whoever it was Ken Peitai worked for, they weren’t going to be hanging around in bars, ready to spill their guts for a pint of special. But it would give Emily something to do, and everything she did would be relayed back to good old Ken. Let him know they were getting nowhere.