Christopher Nuttall - Their Darkest Hour

“I’m afraid his ally was too careful,” Rivers admitted. “Our CCTV coverage near Regents Park has never been what it should be — and whoever was behind the blast knew to stay out of the camera’s field of vision. The chances are good that we have some footage of the bomb-maker, but we don’t know it. At least, not yet.”

He shrugged. “The bomber himself, we believe, was Aashif Shahid,” he continued. “He does have a file — he came to our attention after a number of outspoken comments in the mosque about the need to wage war on the Great Satan — but MI5 took a look at him and decided that he was nothing more than a loudmouth. No real contacts with the radicals who could provide explosives or weapons — and no sign that he was trying to build his own. And as for why he decided to attack the aliens…?”

Alan shrugged. “Get a team out to the garage and see if you can pick up any clues that might lead to the bomb-maker,” he ordered. “And then draw up a list of his friends and family. I want them arrested and charged with harbouring a known terrorist…”

“With all due respect, sir,” Rivers pointed out, “there is no evidence that anyone else knew about his plans…”

“Do it anyway,” Alan ordered, sharply. He glanced over at the alien communicator on the table. God alone knew how it worked, but it was quite possible that the aliens were watching him at all times. Fear leaked into his voice as he spoke. “Do you want them to do it?”

Rivers met his eyes in shared understanding, if for different reasons. The aliens could do it, all right, or they might bring in the heavy weapons. It was easy to imagine them calling down strikes on London, blasting entire buildings to rubble just to teach the imprudent humans a lesson. And then they’d be looking at thousands dead and God alone knew how many wounded. And it wouldn’t give them a chance to track down the remainder of the resistance cell. And…

“See to it,” Alan ordered, quietly. “We can’t risk losing control now, or we might lose everything.”

London

United Kingdom, Day 15

From a distance, the old garage looked harmless. Just another old business, struggling to stay afloat in the depression — and perhaps making questionable deals with criminals or terrorists to keep the money rolling in. But Sergeant Terry Graves knew better than to relax. CO19 — the Central Operations Specialist Firearms Command — had broken into terrorist bases before and, no matter how innocent they looked, they often had unpleasant surprises waiting for unwary armed police officers. The irony didn’t amuse him as he beckoned the rest of the team forward, leaving two men behind to watch from a safe distance. They’d been sent into battle unarmed, at least without firearms. The alien ban on human firearms was still firmly in place.

Terry cursed silently under his breath as they crept closer. In an ideal world, he and his team would be fighting the aliens — and they’d had time to conceal a small number of firearms around London in places they could reach them if the shit hit the fan. But for the moment, they had no choice, apart from collaboration. And if they failed to catch the insurgents who had struck out at the aliens, the aliens would take steps of their own. Given their willingness to use indiscriminate weapons fire in the midst of the civilian population, he had no doubt just how bloody and violent their steps would be.

He held up a hand as he inspected the garage’s door. It was quite possible, judging by the blast that had levelled an entire technical college, that they weren’t dealing with would-be terrorists at all. The moron who’d driven the truck could have been told that he would have time to make his escape, or maybe he’d known that he was going to die. And the person behind him, far from being an international terrorist, might be someone trained and armed by the British Army. Terry had seen enough SAS troopers during their cross-training sessions to dread the possibility that one of them might have gone rogue.

The thought made him snort. From what they’d been able to pick up from the internet, the remains of the British military had been ordered to carry on the fight for as long as possible. They weren’t chasing a rogue, but someone intent on carrying out his orders and hurting the aliens until he was finally hunted down and killed. There might be an entire team of Regiment soldiers waiting for them, or perhaps they had already vanished, leaving no traces behind. Terry envied them their freedom of action. His own family had been moved to a place where they were being held — for their own good, of course. And if he turned against the aliens, they would kill his entire family.

They seem to be getting an idea of what makes us tick , he thought, sourly. God knows how long they were watching us from space. They don’t seem to be particularly subtle at all — do as we want or we will kill you. And if you vanish, we will kill your family …

The garage seemed deserted, but he clutched his baton tightly as he pushed at the door. There was a single click and then the door swung open, revealing a deserted interior. It looked as if someone had been busy — there were tools scattered everywhere — but they had clearly abandoned the building. Judging from the skill shown by the bomb-maker, he’d probably assumed that the suicide bomber would have been caught on camera and traced back to his base. Someone from the Regiment would have known just how the Met used the CCTV network to look backwards in time and try to localise a terrorist base. Or catch bad parkers, for that matter.

He beckoned two other officers inside and they spread out, checking for traps while carefully not touching anything that might carry fingerprints or DNA evidence. The pit below where the van had rested was deeper than he expected, suggesting that the original owner of the garage must have been a very tall man. Or perhaps he’d just been an expert at scrambling out of pits. There was no sign of a ladder or any other way back to the ground floor.

“In here,” one of the officers muttered. “I found papers.”

Terry followed his gaze. The back of the garage was a small office, stinking of half-eaten kebabs and burgers. Judging from the smell, the food had to have been decomposing for several days, perhaps a week. London’s endless series of kebab houses had been shutting down as supplies from outside the city tapered off, leaving the population dependent upon the tasteless alien muck. It struck him as odd that an SAS soldier would leave contaminated food behind, but maybe it was intended to deter intruders. He certainly wouldn’t have wanted to go into the office without a gas mask and perhaps a flamethrower. The forensic team were going to have to wear full NBC suits if they wanted to pull anything useful out of the room.

“Maybe they left something behind to tell us where they were going,” the officer said. Terry doubted it. It was rather more likely that the garage’s owner had left the papers behind, wherever he was now. Teams of researchers were already looking through the records to see what had happened to him — maybe he’d registered with the aliens — but Terry wasn’t too hopeful that they would lead the Met to the bomb-maker. It was far more likely that it would be nothing more than a wild goose chase. “Or perhaps…”

He opened one of the drawers, a second before Terry could shout out a warning. There was a second click, followed by a wave of fire that blasted out and into the garage. Terry yelled in pain as his skin burned, even as he stumbled backwards trying to find the way out. The flames were spreading with terrifying speed, suggesting that the entire garage had been rigged to catch fire quickly and efficiently. He felt as if he’d caught fire himself… somehow, gasping for breath, he managed to find his way out without falling into the repair pit. Another officer wasn’t so lucky; Terry watched in horror as he fell, just before the flames roared into the pit. They seemed to be almost crawling across the ground towards the policemen. He heard a scream that cut off seconds later.