I whipped back again, kneeling though, offering a smaller target, and sent off a shot towards them. They scattered, two of ‘em taking cover behind a St John Ambulance van, three more scuttling back to the other side of their own vehicle. I broke cover, running low, gun hand pointing in their direction just to give them something to think about. They knew well enough not to take chances, so they kept out of sight, a head bobbing up occasionally to check on me. I sent another bullet their way to let’em know they were behaving sensibly.
I didn’t have much of a plan ‘cept to keep moving, using all the cover available to me. A bullet whanged off metal close to my head and I almost dropped to all fours. Another shot shattered the windshield of a nearby taxi. Traffic on this side of the square was thin and I knew I’d soon be running out of cover. Some of the Blackshirts were growing bolder, slinking through metal alleyways like beads of oil through conduits.
A wide expanse of emptiness opened up ahead of me, beyond it the steps to the National Gallery, a museum that at one time had contained some of the world’s finest and most valued works of art. Most of the paintings and sculptures had been shipped out to less vulnerable places than a building in the heart of war-torn London, although some had been returned when the battle (or so it was thought) was almost over, and I’d been in and out of there plenty of times, so knew it was a maze of rooms and corridors, just like the palace. I’d thought that one day it might come in handy as a means of escape; it looked like that day had come.
So there was my plan: get inside, lose these neo-Nazi clowns, find a way out on the north side. No problem – as long as I could make it inside without having my legs shattered by enemy gunfire when I sprinted across open ground.
I waited until the Blackshirts had discharged another volley before setting off again, firing back at them just as wildly, but maybe a bit more effectively. They kept out of sight, aware that any kind of wound could prove serious without the right medical attention, and medical attention was just what the whole fucking world lacked.
I pounded road, running towards the flight of steps leading up to the gallery’s entrance, which was behind a façade of high pillars (the English liked their pillars). A ragged line of bullets raked the wall ahead of me and I fell back, losing balance and going down on my butt. I swung the Colt round, holding it with both hands, and returned rapid fire, sweeping the area from a sitting position, trying to at least scare the bastards if I couldn’t kill ‘em. Again, the ploy was effective – they hid, afraid to show an inch of flesh as glass exploded and metal punctured around them. Effective, that is, until the firing pin hit empty.
The clip was all used up and I couldn’t reload sitting there in the middle of the road. I had to get into the shelter of the gallery before they realized I was theirs for the taking.
Ears deafened by gunfire, I scrambled to my feet and rushed the last few yards to the steps.
Stopping dead when I saw the figure watching me from the top.
Hubble had never been handsome, but I guess he had that arrogance of features that had some allure for the weak-minded. Pencil-thin moustache, beaky nose, he could have been a shorter version of his own hero, Sir Oswald Mosley, the leader of England’s very own Fascist party, a megalomaniac who’d spent most of the war years locked away in Holloway Prison. No, Max Hubble – Sir Max Hubble – was never handsome, but on this summer’s morning he looked a thousand times more unattractive, as though he were only a short distance from death. His stance, once stiff-backed, shoulders squared, chin jutting, was now bent, shoulders hunched, jawline sunken into a loose neck. The swagger-stick he had once used for Field-Marshal effect had been replaced by a stout walking cane, which he used like a third leg, and the uniform – black shirt and jodhpurs tucked into knee-length boots – seemed two sizes too big for him. The smudges beneath his eyes, the drained paleness of his skin emphasized by patchwork areas of broken veins, the swollen darkness at the ends of his fingers, confirmed what I’d already guessed. The disease in him was accelerating.
We exchanged looks but nothing more. I understood the all-out effort to capture me that day.
I was Hubble’s last-chance saloon. His final throw of the dice. His only hope. That is, my blood was his only hope.
One of his men stepped from behind a large poster advertising a Myra Hess piano concert (a regular event at the gallery during the grimmest days of the war), just outside the entrance, carrying with him a portable radio transmitter. I guessed that Hubble had used the gallery as his HQ that morning, directing operations from there, trying to drive me in this direction. Well, it couldn’t have worked out better for him.
Others emerged from the entrance and from behind pillars, a ragbag army of the damned. Jew-baiters, niggerhaters, corrupt in their minds and now corrupt in their bodies. These days they had someone else to hate. Me. I was their Jew and their Black all rolled into one.
Okay, I was stunned seeing Hubble standing there, sick and hunched up, but I hadn’t lost all sense. I pointed the gun at them and they all ducked, including their leader, who practically sank to his knees. I hadn’t forgotten the Colt was empty, but it seemed they had – unless they hadn’t even noticed. Waving it in the air gave me the chance to start running again. I managed no more’n three, maybe four, steps though.
Bullets from a Sten gun bit into the road before me, forcing me to leap back, a hasty two-legged hop, arms in the air as if in surrender. I just caught sight of a Blackshirt launching himself from between two pillars of the entrance terrace above me, swooping like a bat from rafters, expecting me to cushion his fall. I sidestepped, but he caught my shoulders, bringing me down with him. He must’ve winded himself, but even so, he managed to get me in a neck-lock. He squeezed tight, attempting to choke me into submission.
First I used an elbow, driving it hard into his stomach, then, with the same arm, I clipped his face with the gun barrel, bringing it up like a smart salute. Spittle dampened my cheek and neck as he blew a forced breath, and his grip relaxed just enough for me to break free. I twisted, swiping him with the gun barrel once more so that all opposition left him. He collapsed sideways and I scrambled to my feet.
His friends were hurrying through the vehicle alleys and more poured down the gallery’s steps, all of ‘em hollering banshee-like, eager to get at me and teach me a lesson or two. So what if Hubble wouldn’t let them kill me right off? I’d be dead sooner or later, and all in all, I think I preferred sooner. It looked like I’d have to force the issue.
I reached inside my jacket pocket for another clip, ejecting the used one from the automatic in my other hand as I did so. I noticed some of the Blackshirts were already pausing to lift their weapons and take aim. This was it, then, I told myself. The moment had been a long time coming, but I was more than ready. What was so good about living anyway?
A goon had already reached me as my hand came out of my pocket with the spare clip, screening me from the others. I regret to say it was a woman, hair cut nastily short, face and teeth smeared with grime, eyes red with shot blood vessels; regret, because I whacked her hard, fist wrapped around the metal clip, and I don’t like hitting women, never have. Hell, I never had.
Her teeth broke under my knuckles and she crumpled without a murmur. Her place was immediately taken by another Blackshirt and I knew it would take more than a punch in the mouth to deal with this mean-looking bruiser. Yeah, we’d tangled more than once before and one time he’d even introduced himself. McGruder was his name and he was Hubble’s first-lieutenant or captain of the guard, or whatever fancy and meaningless title Hubble had bestowed upon him. He was tall, six-three or more, built like an ox and, as far as I could tell, a long way off from the Blood Death. Big hands reached for me.
I moved back against the terrace wall, afraid to take my eyes off him, Colt and new clip of ammo still separated because of the previous distraction. By staring into his eyes I seemed to be delaying the final rush; taking my gaze away to reload would break whatever goddamn spell we w
ere both under. He, and the others, drew closer.
The black Ford I’d seen earlier came out of nowhere, tyres squealing, brakes screeching, one of its four doors open wide so that it hit the big man with a force that sent him sprawling. I caught sight of two faces peering out at me from the open car door and a female voice yelled:
‘What are you waiting for? Get in, you daft bloody ape!’
The passenger, a man, had already slammed his door shut again but was indicating the rear door through the open window. The scattered Blackshirts were already moving in, some of them thumping on the Ford’s triangular hood with their guns and fists.
‘Get bloody well in!’ came the woman’s voice again and I guess it was her cursing that shocked me out of my stupor.
I yanked open the rear door and the Ford immediately took off, giving me a split second to hop onto the white-painted running board. I looped an arm through the lowered front window, gun still held tight in that hand, the other quickly tucking the clip into my pants pocket before grasping the top of the open door, and hung on for dear life as the Ford’s rush dispersed the Blackshirts again. A hand reached out from inside the car, grabbing my belt and trying to pull me in. That became more difficult as the Ford gathered momentum and the open door pressed against me, trapping me on the running board.
One of the goons had decided to stand his ground and I groaned when I saw him raising his Sten gun as we sped towards him. It was a stupid move on his part, taking his time to get a bead on me when he should have shot from the hip, because the car was on him before the gun was even chest-high. Self-preservation gave me the strength to push the door wide again and it caught the Blackshirt straight on, lifting the Sten and sending him spinning round, bullets spraying the air and busting the top windows of a nearby bus. The door’s recoil crushed my chest, the sudden pain causing me to drop my right arm and lose hold of the Colt It fell somewhere inside the car.
‘Will you get in here!’ came the woman’s voice again, frustration more than anger giving it its pitch.
Instead I almost lost my grip and tumbled into the road as she steered onto a kerb to avoid a truck blocking the way. I forgot my own manners, aiming a cuss at her that would’ve turned her cheeks red under any other circumstances. I hauled myself up and threw myself onto the back seat, the door slamming shut behind me of its own accord. Wheezing from the pain in my bruised chest, I sprawled across the lap of the other person sharing the back seat with me, the owner of the hand that had grabbed my belt moments earlier.
I noticed her sweet scent first, and then her gentleness as she tried to hold me steady. Breathing hard and shaking some, I looked up into her shadowed face. Her smile was as sweet as her perfume, and kind of, well, demure too. Leastways, that’s how it struck me. A line of sunlight through the window on her side shot sparkles of gold through her light brown hair.
The car bumped again as it left the kerb and I was jolted against her small breasts. Just as quickly I was pitched back into the other corner. The girl held on to the front seat, looking ahead over the driver’s shoulder, her face anxious.
As I steadied myself I took note of my fellow travellers. Oddly, the man in front of me wore a brown trilby and a tweed jacket despite the heat of the day. His attention was on the road ahead too, so there was no chance to catch his features. I noticed, though, that his straggly hair (with no barber shops around any more we all had bad haircuts, although I kept mine reasonably short with sharp scissors and guesswork) did not quite manage to cover the burn scars that fingered their way up the back of his neck from beneath his shirt collar.
My angle was better to take in the woman – the girl – driver, and as I studied her she threw a quick glance my way.
‘Who are you?’ she said, her voice raised, but no longer shouting. Her accent was pure London, but not from the smarter end.
Before I could answer, something – debris of some kind, I guess – struck the windshield, cracking the glass. The girl wrenched the steering wheel round, hissing something tight and nasty as she did so, and the Ford executed a squealing curve into the broad, littered and ruined street that was the Strand. Past taped shop windows we sped, avoiding small craters or foetal bundles that were carcasses in the roadway. Bullets thunked into metal behind us and I felt the girl beside me flinch. I took a peek out the rear window and saw the Bedford truck was back in the game; the Blackshirts in the rear section had lifted the front flap of the canvas roof so that they could lean on the cab’s top and take potshots at us. Luckily, the metal-encased spare tyre fixed to the Ford’s trunk was taking most of the strikes.
‘And just who the hell are those people?’
The driver wasn’t looking my way – she was too busy avoiding a Griff Fender removal van and a Shank’s open-back truck that had collided with one another years before and had remained locked together ever since, blocking most of the road’s centre – but there was no doubting who she wanted answers from. Before I could say anything a bullet shattered the rear window, whistling between the heads of me and the girl I shared the back seat with and finishing the job on the windshield in front. I pulled her down into my lap and crouched over her. The driver let loose some more curses as fresh air rushed through the car.
‘We’d have pinched an open-top if we’d wanted the wind in our hair,’ I heard her shout over the noise.
‘Keep going!’ I advised, my own voice a little louder than hers.
She said something that I didn’t catch.
‘I said, any idea where we should go?’ she yelled when I leaned close and pressed her.
‘Keep heading east. We’ll lose ‘em if you can pick up speed.’
‘Hey, you a Yank?’ She risked a glance over her shoulder, and I got a better look at her face.
Her eyes were a hazel-brown and she was pretty enough, although the thinnest of scars cut diagonally across her cheeks, rising over the bump of her nose. Her lips were unrouged, but still nicely shaped, and her jawline was firm, indicating some stubbornness in her nature. Her dark hair, curling over her forehead, was tucked neatly into a snood at the back of her head. Why I was noticing these things about the two women at this point of time, I had no idea; maybe I’d spent too long on my own and their effect on me was overriding more urgent considerations. I don’t know; but that’s how it was though.
‘Watch the road,’ I told her and she turned away, only just managing to pull round a two-toned Austin.
When she’d straightened up again, I said, ‘D’you have any weapons?’
At that time I had no idea of what had happened to my Colt
Now the man with the trilby, its brim slouched low and shading his eyes, craned his neck to look at me. He shook his head, saying nothing, and his appraisal was cool.
‘Why would we need weapons?’ the girl driver called out ‘The war ended three years ago.’
I didn’t answer her. We were passing the narrow street that served as forecourt to the Savoy and I was tempted to tell her to pull into it. We could have left the car and run through the hotel to its riverside entrance, easily picking up another vehicle parked on that side (I kept several there, keys in the ignitions). It might have been too risky though: our pursuers were close and probably would’ve caught up with us on foot Besides, the Savoy was one of my ‘home bases’ – I had my own grand apartment right up there on the third floor overlooking the Thames – so I was reluctant to bring the enemy so close to a sanctuary. Better to lose the Blackshirts before going to ground.
We passed blitzed buildings, some of them destroyed by the Luftwaffe’s bombs, others ruined later by gas explosions and electrical wires burning, still more by fallen cigarettes, lighted candles, or any manner of domestic accidents caused by victims of the Blood Death dropping dead in their tracks. The damage to the city was not yet over: gas mains still blew, waterpipes continued to burst, and bomb-hit buildings still toppled long after they’d been struck. London was a dangerous place, even without this army of lunatics roaming the streets.<
br />
Strangely, no epidemics had spread after that black day of Vergeltungswaffen – vengeance – despite all the rotting corpses left lying around, but maybe that had something to do with the nature of the Blood Death itself and its effect on human and animal body systems. An attempt to clear up the place had been made by those who had the Slow Death (and didn’t realize it) until eventually even they were gone. Leaving just the crazies behind.
Oh, and there was one other danger, but that hadn’t happened for a little while, so maybe it was over.
We entered the Aldwych, the gutted shell that had been St Clement Danes just visible beyond the logjam of traffic ahead.
‘Swing left!’ I ordered, checking on our pursuers as I did so. The Humber station wagon was catching up with the Bedford truck, but both were having a tougher time than the smaller Ford finding their way through the tangles behind us. The girl did as she was told, sweeping round into Kingsway, tyres bumping over tramlines. She had to reduce speed to work round a huge crater in the road.
I turned in surprise as the girl next to me spoke, her voice quiet but easily heard now that we were travelling more slowly.
‘Are you the same as us?’ she said.
I knew immediately what she meant. The man in front looked at me again, his eyes full of interest beneath the brim of his hat, and the driver stopped muttering curses for a moment to hear my reply.
‘AB negative? Yeah, I’m one of you,’ I said.
‘Well, welcome to the club.’ The driver tossed me a quick grin. ‘And how about these loonies chasing us?’
I shook my head. ‘Slow-dying. They’re finished, but they won’t accept it.’
‘Is that why they’re pissed off with you? Y’know – why them and not you?’