Part 6 (1/2)

Tuck took one last look at the Tower. Constance was shooing away the ravens while Hana fed the chickens. Or she thought it was Constance and Hana. It was hard to tell from this distance when everyone wore the same mismatched, ill-fitting clothing, but those two were always among the first to wake. Had there been a few more people up and about, then they could have used the gate, but with no one to close it behind them, they had to resort to the ropes. It was an unwelcome addition to the mornings exertions.

Tuck couldnt sleep inside the castle. The rooms were too small, the ceilings too low, the windows too narrow. It felt claustrophobic and crowded. Instead shed created a bivouac on top of the Wakefield Tower. She didnt sleep much outside either, but from there she could stand up and see the lifeboat when it was tied up. When she sat with her back against the old stone, all she could see were the tops of the skysc.r.a.pers and pretend, if only for a moment, that the world hadnt changed.

She checked her gear one last time, grabbed a rope, and climbed over the wall. At least there were no undead on the river path this morning. When dawn had arrived and shed accepted that another day would have to be faced on a few interrupted hours of sleep, there had been two of the undead lumbering towards the west side of the Tower. Theyd come to a halt at the thick plastic barrier that separated the gra.s.sy moat from the ticket booths and restaurants to the east of the castle, and now stood immobile, almost expectant. What had summoned them, whether it had been a squeal from a pig, a groan from a person, or any other part of the clattering cacophony that heralded the groups attempt to start the day, Tuck didnt know. And it didnt matter. Abruptly, their arms waved and pawed, their necks jerked back and forth, and their mouths snapped open. What had seemed like a glorious morning was destroyed in that macabre reminder that the days work wouldnt be done until more of the undead had been killed.

Her feet hit the ground. She grabbed one of the smaller rafts, pushed it halfway down the worn and river-slick steps, and pulled the cord. Inflated, she found it was much larger than shed thought. McInerys plan, if it could be called that, was to hope they could steer the raft through the wreckage of London Bridge. Tuck was hoping they couldnt, and so there expedition would be brought to an early halt. But if they did make it as far as Westminster, she planned to fly the drone around the rooftops until the battery ran low, and hoped that would be enough for McInery to realise that whatever she was looking for was now gone.

”Careful with that,” Tuck signed as McInery unslung her battle-axe. It was a double-headed affair, with a blade on one side and a long spike on the other. It had been presented to a long-dead king by the long forgotten emperor of somewhere following the battle of somewhere else. Tuck couldnt remember exactly what had been printed on the plaque next to the weapons display case except for the quote at the top, 'To the victor go the spoils. She suspected it was that which had drawn McInery to it.

Tuck used an oar to push them out into the river. The oars had once been giant rammers stored next to the cannon kept in the White Towers bas.e.m.e.nt. Theyd stripped off the thick leather and cloth padding, attaching flat squares of durable plastic in their place. The end result, Tuck thought as she tried to steer the craft towards the widest gap underneath the wrecked bridge, was as c.u.mbersome as the raft. McInery grabbed the other oar and started paddling herself. Soon, theyd established a rhythm.

McInery wasnt shy of work, Tuck thought, but shed noticed that before. There was an expression her old friend, the major, had used to describe his brother, and it seemed appropriate to describe McInery. She was like a part-time preacher whod sell you a car on Sat.u.r.day, G.o.d on Sunday, and run a breakdown service from Monday to Friday. She could be relied on within very specific parameters but never trusted.

A current pulled the boat up and suddenly south, and it took a frantic five minutes of paddling before they were back on course. Tucks arms were beginning to tire, and from the strain in McInerys shoulders, the other woman was feeling the same. The rafts werent going to work, not long-term. That was okay with Tuck, and she hoped it might help persuade McInery to give up on her quest.

Another wave, and this one far larger, caught the craft. It took all of Tucks concentration, and their combined effort, to stop it from cras.h.i.+ng into the floating museum s.h.i.+p, HMS Belfast.

They reached London Bridge an arm-agonising ten minutes later and found it much as it had looked on the drones cameras the day before with the truck still balanced precariously on that thin ribbon of concrete. Water churned white over, under, and around the artificial dam of broken s.h.i.+ps, floating debris, and the still twitching limbs of the undead.

They were halfway through the wreckage when a body fell from the bridge, landing in the middle of the raft. McInery moved with a quick efficiency that hadnt come solely from practice since the outbreak. She slammed the oar down on the zombies knee, then on its back, and then its head. Tuck leaped forward, stabbing her bayonet through the back of its neck, and into its brain. Together, they hauled the motionless creature over the side.

Pulling on the twisted sections of rebar and pus.h.i.+ng against the broken masonry, they reached the deeper water beyond the ruined bridge.

Tuck resheathed the bayonet. It could be cleaned later, but the scabbard would have to be destroyed. That was a shame. Like the knife it was an antique, but there were plenty of them, and it would be a waste of wood and water trying to sterilise it.

”Another mile, another bridge,” McInery said, turning to face Tuck. The soldier didnt reply. She just picked up the oar and started rowing once more.

They were finally stopped half a mile from the ruins of Parliament at the remains of the Hungerford Railway Bridge. Rails and sheet metal jutted out of the river. Around them, white water danced and dashed against a staircase that, in better times, had led to a floating restaurant. The stairs now lay at right angles to the river, thudding against the broken rails with each surging wave. They secured raft by steps that led up to a giant stone obelisk.

”Cleopatras needle,” McInery signed. ”Looted from Egypt, centuries ago.”

Tuck nodded, but her interest wasnt in the hieroglyph-covered monument but in a building beyond. The walls of the embankment were high, the river low, and most of the buildings roof and upper floors were gone, but she thought it had once housed the Ministry of Defence. She moved closer to McInery so she could see the map.

They were on that section of the river that ran north to south from Embankment down to Vauxhall. The M.O.D. wasnt marked, nor were any of the government buildings except for Downing Street. As she followed McInerys finger tracing possible routes through the political heart of London, Tuck noticed that it kept hovering on, or close to, Buckingham Palace. For a second, she a.s.sumed that was where the woman wanted to go, then realised that it was probably a ploy to distract Tuck from wherever her real destination was.

”A supply dump would be established in an open s.p.a.ce,” McInery signed. ”Buckingham Palace, St James Park, or somewhere like that.”

”And those are beyond the drones range,” Tuck signed back, and to forestall any further conversation, handed McInery the 'copter.

She smoothed down the waterproof cover a large transparent sack Jay had insisted the laptop stay inside at all times due to the terabyte of sitcoms hed discovered on its hard drive turned the rotors on, and flew the drone straight up.

Tuck fixed her eyes to the laptops screen and the small window that showed the image from the camera. Along the road, almost as if theyd been parked, were an odd mix of refrigerated delivery trucks and armoured security vans. The software had two other windows, both blank, that would have shown the drones position on a street map had the GPS been working. To navigate, she had to rely on the image from the small camera, the clock, and the battery indicator. From experience she knew shed be relying on landmarks and guesswork to match the drones path to the map McInery clutched in her hands.

The 'copter kept rising, and the image changed to that of a broken window surrounded by smoke-blackened stone. Another window, this one unbroken and through which Tuck could see that the floor inside had collapsed. Up again, until the wall was replaced with a rooftop filled with aerials and satellite dishes, except at the northwestern end where there was nothing but a gaping hole.

Tilting the drone so the camera took in the skyline, she rotated it until she found the Shard. That gave her a position for London Bridge. A few more degrees of a slow turn, and the screen showed the shattered remains of the London Eye. She looked over her shoulder at the broken Ferris wheel on the southern bank of the Thames and the other side of the ruined bridge.

”It must have been deliberately targeted,” she signed.

”Probably by a submarine captain whod spent half a day queuing for a ride,” McInery replied. ”Watch the battery. Theres time for sightseeing later.”

Tuck turned her eyes back to the screen. Shed forgotten whom she was sitting next to. She kept the drone rotating, mentally noting where Big Ben should have been, and then the building-free expanse that she took to be St James Park. Though the screen was small, and the window showing the cameras image even smaller, something about the park looked wrong. She tilted the drone until the camera was facing down and slowly piloted it forward.

The building she thought was the Ministry of Defence was now mostly a crater. Some of the thick, repeatedly reinforced walls were still standing, but very little of the roof was.

”Theres nothing there,” she signed, looking up at McInery.

The older woman nodded and seemed uninterested. Tuck turned the drone east. Out of the corner of her eye she caught McInery sign, ”Where are you going?”

Tuck jabbed a finger down towards Charing Cross Station. She was reminded of Dev and his obsession with train stations. Not for the trains themselves, but for the storerooms that supplied all the fast food outlets. Whilst she wasnt sure they could really call it food, they had found a lot of calories there, and Charing Cross was close to the river. Had been. The train station had been destroyed, not by a missile strike, but deliberately collapsed to form part of the government barricade.

She turned the drone, and then abruptly stopped it. The image juddered before settling on Nelsons column. It, at least, still stood. She was glad of that. Not out of any martial pride, but from relief that something of the past remained in a place that had been a living museum as much as a city.

That gave her a direction. From there she headed southwest to Whitehall. She brought the drone to another hovering halt, her interest not in the government ministries, but in the long row of double-parked tanks lining both sides of the street. Treads had been dislodged, turrets dismounted, barrels bent, and there was no mistaking the impact marks on roadway and armour from high-velocity rounds. Nor was there any mistaking the shambling figures moving slowly down the road towards the drone.

McInery was trying to catch her attention. ”Can you drive one of those?” she signed.

”A tank? No,” Tuck replied. It was a lie. She had been through the training course and driven one under fire, albeit only for a harrowing mile and a half, but if she revealed that, she knew full well what McInerys next question would be. ”Besides,” she added. ”I dont think any of those would be going anywhere.”

”Pity. What about the Foreign Office, can you get a view of that?”

Tuck looked back at the screen, the camera was pointing down the length of Whitehall. The grey stone buildings all looked identical to her. She just shrugged and flew the drone up to take in the rooftops once more.

”Stop. There,” McInery signed. ”Ninety degrees east. There. Thats the Foreign Office. It looks intact, dont you think?”

”That corner took a direct hit,” Tuck signed. ”And those windows have gone.”

”Yes. Yes,” McInery said. There was an odd calculating look on her face.

Deciding that shed had enough of circ.u.mspection, Tuck tried a more direct approach. ”What do you think well find there?” she signed.

”Probably nothing,” McInery replied, ”just like everywhere else. If you turn it a hundred and eighty degrees well see Downing Street.”

The 'copter, an overpriced novelty from the toy store on Regents Street, was devilishly difficult to change direction when it was in mid-flight. Whenever Tuck tried, the drone ended up pointing in completely the wrong direction. She stuck with flying it in a straight line, bringing it to a hover, and slowly turning it around until she found Nelsons column, then orientating herself accordingly. As such, she overshot Downing Street. A small part of her regretted that. She was curious to see what the garden behind the Prime Ministers house was like, but the battery indicator on the software was at seventy percent. It would have to wait for another time. She steadied the drone and aimed the camera down.

They were over Horse Guards Parade. The old, open s.p.a.ce, home to jousting in the days of ancient kings, had been turned into a vehicle park. There were more tanks, a Corps worth of construction equipment, and in the corner close to the Old Admiralty Building were a dozen parked lorries.

Tuck didnt need McInerys finger stabbing at the screen to know to have the 'copter descend, circling the vehicles, looking for damage. There was none that she could see.

A wave caught the raft, and as they were bounced up and down, Tucks finger nudged the controls. The image started to rotate. She jabbed at the keyboard, getting the drone to rise. By the time the boat had steadied itself, the 'copter was fifty metres up. Tuck breathed out, brought the drone to a halt, and then into a descent, as curious as McInery as to what might be inside those lorries.

A finger tapped the screen. Tuck blinked. Shed been so focused on the vehicles shed not seen what was now heading towards the drone. A long thin line of the undead, coming from the direction of Whitehall, had followed the soft whir of the rotors. Tuck shrugged, levelled off, and checked the battery level. Sixty percent.

”Next trip,” she signed. Ignoring McInerys finger still pointing at those parked vehicles, Tuck turned the drone up and west to get a view of the park. She realised why the image had seemed wrong. The gra.s.s had gone. More construction vehicles, though these with a distinctly civilian paint scheme, had been abandoned next to huge mounds of earth.

”Graves?” McInery signed.

Tuck shook her head. ”Fields,” she replied. And somehow, that was worse. Inexpertly dug, incompletely finished, and improbably excavated with bulldozers, it wouldnt have mattered if this redoubt hadnt been destroyed during the attacks, the people inside would have starved long ago. Then she remembered the tanks and the only purpose to which they could have been put. Those people had no intention of being farmers.

The battery light flashed fifty percent. Tuck took that as a sign their aerial tour was over. She rotated the drone until shed found the Shard and started piloting it back. It was halfway along a canyon of curving road when the light jumped from an orange forty-five percent to an ominous, narrow red line. Tuck had barely enough time to steer the drone into the middle of the road before the image blurred, and then went blank.