The Three Most Wanted Read online

  “That’s about it. So we can safely assume that now she’ll tell the Powers That Be anything and everything she can think of and make up the rest, ‘specially with her own neck on the line.”

  Bane snorted again. “When they take that guy to pieces it’s going to be a day of poetic justice all right!”

  “I don’t know about justice,” I couldn’t help saying. “If they dismantled him for being a Facility Commandant all these years that might be justice. But for something he hasn’t done? That’s injustice.”

  “You’re overthinking it, Margo. He’d have seen you all dead. Let him rot.”

  My hand crept to the scars on my forehead, hidden—or mostly hidden—under a carefully applied layer of makeup. Hadn’t mentioned to either of them precisely how I’d acquired that particular injury. I looked again at the picture. The Major’s hands were cuffed behind his back, the Facility in the background. They’d taken a photographer along just to arrest him. A show trial from the very beginning.

  “Shame it wasn’t the Menace,” said Jon. “Oh well, did I hear you buying cakes?”

  “Bane has them.” I folded the page and slipped it into my pocket.

  Skirting an area of hillier forest, we reached another town four days later, buying more food with a blessed absence of any trouble, then heading on. So many backpackers, and who paid attention to photos of fugitives who were supposed to be in the Spanish department with the Resistance?

  Three days later and the sun was dropping below the trees, but we were still walking. All my dressings had been gone for some time now, leaving expanses of red, wrinkly, but thoroughly attached, skin, and Bane called later and later stops.

  Jon tripped and went down, almost taking Bane with him. Usually back to his feet in moments, he sat back on his heels, rubbing his knees and panting.

  “Aren’t we stopping yet?”

  “We can go a bit further.” Bane checked his phone. “Still some daylight left.”

  “It’s dusk! I can hear the wildlife, I’m not deaf!”

  “Just get up, Jon.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or we’ll leave you for the wolves!”

  “Bane, don’t talk nonsense!” With effort, I stopped myself from saying anything harsher. Jon wasn’t the only exhausted one. “Look, don’t you think it is time to stop? We’ve a long way to go. Hadn’t we better pace ourselves?”

  “Great idea, only we really want to reach the Alps before the more deserted passes are impassable. And we... ah... we’re not going quite as fast as I’d hoped.” His eyes flicked guiltily to Jon—harsh words already regretted?

  “Oh.” Hadn’t even thought about Alpine passes. “How long have we got?”

  “Only Mother Nature knows for sure. If we reach them by the beginning of October, we should be safe. Much later and we’ll probably have to take a main road or even a road tunnel.”

  “No! There’ll be checkpoints! We can’t.”

  “Or wait out the winter in the French forest?”

  I bit my lip. We were underequipped, we couldn’t get food from stalls—no one camped out in midwinter. We’d never survive.

  “We have to reach the passes in time!” I tried to steady my voice. “Come on, Jon, we can go a bit further. We’ve got to.”

  “Point taken.”

  Jon dragged himself to his feet and we moved on. But it wasn’t long before there was a crack and a yelp as our “fast” pace let another branch or tree stump slip past the swing of his stick. A smack as he kicked the object in frustration...

  “Ow! What kind of rock is that?” A tap tap as he sized it up with his stick. “Like a stalagmite!”

  I glanced back, as Jon rubbed his knee. A narrow, square stone post stuck up from the ground to about knee height, coated in lichen and with a bit of creeper up one side. Rough patches marred each side about a third of the way down. Something familiar about the damage...

  “Hey, it had crosspieces... it’s a cross!” I moved around to the other side and found a name carved into it. “It’s a gravestone.”

  “What on earth is it doing out here?” said Bane.

  Jon dropped guiltily to his un-bashed knee and ran gentle hands over the recent target of his frustration. “I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” Speaking to God or the stone’s owner, or perhaps both. I put a hand on his shoulder.

  “You didn’t know.”

  “Margo...” Something in Bane’s voice made me look around at once. “Look...”

  I followed his gaze and for a moment saw nothing but forest in the dimming light. Then from the jumble of undergrowth shapes sprang to the fore—stone posts, hundreds of them, thousands—desecrated crosses running in compact ranks away through the trees, lichen-coated and overgrown.

  “Oh my...” My neck and scalp tingled as all my hair tried to stand on end.

  “What is it?” Jon lurched back to his feet.

  “There’s more of them.”

  “A lot more.” Bane still sounded strangled. “Thousands.”

  “What is this place?”

  “It’s a cemetery!” said Bane. “From one of the Great Wars of the Twentieth Century. Gravestones weren’t exempted from the Religious Symbols Act, were they?”

  “Even though the forest had grown over them. Libera nos, there’s so many.”

  “They killed off half the young men in Europe,” said Bane grimly.

  “At least they saved what was left of the Jews in the end.”

  “Yeah, for the EuroGov to try to finish off! Don’t people learn? Sacrifice half a generation to overthrow an evil power and then just sit back and let another one in. Doh!”

  “This one crept in so gradually,” I said. “Now people don’t know what to do. So it’s easier to do nothing. But consciences can’t be suppressed forever, so sooner or later... Wouldn’t like to say when, but I reckon it’ll be quite sudden and I just hope to God peaceful.”

  “You wish.”

  “It’s happened before. If every person in the bloc stands up and demands change there won’t need to be a shot fired.”

  “Yeah, but in reality half of them will hide under their beds, so the other half will have to start shooting to make up for them.”

  “Hope you’re wrong.”

  “History’s on his side. Mostly.” Gloomily Jon knelt again to trace his fingers over the chiseled writing. “Huh, this guy was our age. I can’t read his name.”

  Bane stood staring out at the sea of graves with an unquiet brow and Jon went on crouching apologetically by the headstone of the nameless soldier of our age, long dead. May they all be with you, Lord, especially this guy here...

  “Come on,” I said quietly. “Unless we want to camp here.”

  Jon got to his feet at once and took hold of Bane again—they’d barely started forward when Bane threw an impulsive arm around Jon’s shoulders.

  “I wouldn’t really leave you for the wolves, mate.”

  “Nice to know.”

  Jon threw an arm around Bane’s shoulders in return and they went along like that for a few steps until Bane said, “Watch out, tree.”

  Two more days brought us to Peronne, as we made sure to pass well below the more populous regions of Douai and Cambrai. Exiting the town on the other side of the river, we turned towards Guise, our next intended point of resupply, with luck only four days away on this flat terrain.

  On the second day it rained. Heavily. Swathing ourselves in our worth-their-weight-in-gold waterproofs, we tried to ignore it, but even the most expensive waterproofs in the world couldn’t entirely stop water going up sleeves and down necks.

  We spent the next morning drying off, then had to take a little detour around a wolf in a clearing that didn’t seem inclined to get up and move—a den site?—so it was afternoon on the fifth day when we finally reached Guise. The next town small enough not to have police was eight days away so we collected all the food we could carry.

  We stopped while it was still light for what�
��d already become our normal post-resupply treat. As Bane set to work with the stove, I put the bulging food bag beside me and unwrapped the first item, scanning the page of newspaper front and back. Nothing of interest. I rewrapped the cheese and put it to one side, picking up the next.

  “Labrador saves child?” I offered.

  “Go on, then.” Jon’s head rested on his knees. How many articles could he stay awake for?

  “Okay. ‘Jeanette Paquin from Nancy, French department, had a narrow escape on Thursday when she fell into the river at the bottom of her garden. The five-year-old, who is unable to swim, was alone except for the family pet, plucky Labrador Remy, who went in after her, towing her to safety.’ Well, that’s a nice little story for a change.” Though it was ironic how the press could lavish praise on a dog for saving a child, yet villainize us for saving seventy human lives.

  I read out “More strikes in the German department”—(“Good,” grunted Bane, “give the EuroGov something to think about other than us”), “Man finds diamond in burger”—(“Hope it was worth enough to get his teeth fixed!” Bane sniggered), and ‘Fifteen Underground members executed after Madrid raid,’ at which Jon stirred enough to murmur, “Requiescat in Pace.”

  The next sheet—a FrenchDaily front page—sent my eyebrows heading up towards my hair. A small boxed headline at the top of the page, advertising an opinion piece inside the newspaper, read:

  ARE YOU ENJOYING NEW ADULTHOOD, MARGARET V.?

  Willem von Leffers on the escaped reAssignees unexpected ‘New Adulthood’… p. 22

  I read it to the other two.

  “Weird,” said Jon.

  “People must be very interested in you,” said Bane shrewdly, “if they’re writing silly little pieces like that. I mean, it must be pushing it a bit, with the government censors.”

  Turning over the page, I scanned the inside. “Can I borrow your phone?”

  “Here. Why?” asked Bane.

  “This thing’s totally untraceable, right?”

  “Oh yeah. Or I’m going to have to get my money back from the Salperton cell. Why?” Belatedly suspicious.

  Biting my lip, I typed a couple of lines. “Thought I might answer their question.”

  Holding up the newspaper by my face, I took a picture. Nope, it showed my roots. Tried again. Good, just my face, no hair, no background, and just the little box, not the newspaper title.

  Bane watched in alarm. “D’you want them to know we’re in the French department reading French newspapers?”

  “They won’t.” I showed him the inside page. “The article’s written by a DailyNewsCorp news service journalist from Germany. It’s a wire story—it will have appeared in every Department by now.”

  Bane looked slightly reassured.

  “What are you going to say?” asked Jon.

  “‘We are all enjoying New Adult life very much. Thank you for asking. M.V.’”

  Bane’s brows drew together as he analyzed this. “S’pose it doesn’t let on we’re not with the others.”

  “Short and sweet,” said Jon.

  “Well, then.” I held up the phone, identity-proving photo now inserted into the text. “Send, don’t send?”

  “Where does it end?” Bane threw up his hands rather dramatically.

  “When there are no innocent people sitting around in Facilities waiting to die.”

  He scowled, so I added, “You started it all by sending me the flyer about the postSort novel competition,” and looked at Jon.

  After a moment Jon turned his ears from Bane’s frustrated breathing, back to me. Spoke almost inaudibly. “Send.”

  Bane threw up his hands again. “Fine, keep stirring the pot. Doubt the EuroGov can get much angrier at this point.”

  I pressed send. No way to know if DailyNewsCorps received it. Or dared to print it. Still. Felt like I was doing something.

  A more cheerful article, now? I rustled through several more bits of paper...

  “Oh dear... obituaries... cheerful, don’t expect there’s anyone we...” I broke off. For a moment I couldn’t tear my eyes from the picture... “Nope, boring.”

  “Who is it?” asked Jon.

  “Oh, no one important...” I tried to wrap the page back around its sausage but my hands shook so badly I failed to evade Bane’s grab. “No...”

  I lunged after the page—he swung it out of my reach, laughing. Smoothed it out and looked. The laugh dropped from his face. He handed it back to me, avoiding my eyes. Picked up a fork-spoon and began stirring the warming water.

  Jon frowned into the silence. “Who on earth is it?

  I took a deep breath. “A dismantler. Um... Doctor Richard, actually.”

  Jon’s brow cleared. “Oh, that’s okay. I was worried.” The frown came back. “Didn’t know he was dead.”

  “Um... I s’pose I’d better read a bit of it... er, ‘Doctor Richard Werrick, forty-eight, was brutally murdered during the mass breakout from Greater Salperton EGD Facility last week. Newly appointed Com...’ Ugh! Um, sorry... ‘newly appointed Commandant of Greater Salperton Facility, Major Gladys Wallis, spoke of Doctor Werrick’s genuine dedication to saving lives through his work...’ and blah, blah, blah. Saving lives, I like that!”

  “Yeah,” snorted Jon. “By carving up other lives! Huh. The Resistance must’ve got him after you were rescued. Well, what d’you expect from murderous dogs like them?”

  Bane’s face crumpled, his teeth sinking into his lower lip. He dropped the fork-spoon and his hand clenched around something inside his jacket. His eyes found mine at last—yeah, more bothered by this than he’d been letting on...

  Jon’s head turned slightly to one side, his unseeing eyes intent and not at all sleepy. “What did I say?”

  “What on earth d’you mean?”

  “I just said something... wrong? Something. What?”

  “Nothing...”

  “No, it’s okay,” interrupted Bane. “No secrets. I killed him, Jon.”

  Jon blinked; his eyes widened. “Oh. Uh... why?”

  “He was chopping up Margo.”

  “Good for you, then. Um, what happened?”

  “I went in there and there he was, chopping up Margo, as I said. He raises this razor-thing to stab her and... well, I don’t remember deciding to do anything, but one moment I’m by the door and the next moment my knife’s going into him and then he’s dead. Just like that. S’pose perhaps I could’ve stopped him without killing him, I don’t know. It happened very fast, and I kinda saw red.”

  I saw red... Is that what Major Everington had said after killing the abusive guard? The uncomfortable thought popped into my mind—I pushed it out again. Could Bane have stopped Doctor Richard without killing him? Maybe. If he’d been able to sit around beforehand and plan what to do. “I wouldn’t start playing ‘what if’, Bane.”

  “Wasn’t planning to. Just saying.” Just being honest with Jon.

  “Well, it sounds like an unpleasant job that needed doing,” said Jon firmly.

  “If I had to do it again I dare say I would, but it doesn’t stop it feeling a lot like bloody murder. Brutal murder, as the paper would have it.”

  “You think you should’ve let him kill Margo?”

  “No. Never.”

  “Well, then.” Jon rested his head back on his knees again. “What’s next, Margo?”

  “Um...” I skimmed down the page and stopped suddenly. “Wait, there’s a bit at the bottom under all that eulogizing... Just says, ‘The previous Commandant of Greater Salperton Facility, Major Lucas Everington, remains in custody charged with Category One Sedition. It is believed he will plead Guilty. No trial date has yet been set.’ Believed he will plead Guilty, huh? Oh, really. So why no date?”

  “Bet he’s pleading Not Guilty with everything he’s got,” said Jon. “They can’t have enough evidence to convict him; he won’t confess unless he wants to die.”

  “Which he will soon enough,” said Bane, “though that appears to
be taking them a little longer to achieve than they anticipated.”

  I folded the sheet and put it in my pocket, feeling slightly sick. One commandant to be added to the tally after all, only far more lingeringly than any of the others. How long would it take them to break him?

  Lord... What prayer could I offer for this doomed man? This man I’d said I forgave. Lord, he hasn’t done anything... My hand crept to my forehead. Okay, he’s done plenty, but he hasn’t done what he’s accused of. Let his suffering not be unnecessarily prolonged?

  We stretched the fresh food to five days, then it was sachets the rest of the way to Vouziers, though Jon found mushrooms one evening, his wonderful nose!

  “But are they safe?” I asked him.

  “Yeah, we don’t have a stomach pump,” said Bane.

  “Relax, you two,” he told us. “My parents were always serving the mushrooms I gathered to the guests at home.”

  Vouziers was much like all the other towns, down in a river valley and most of the surviving buildings old and beautiful. Backpackers thronged the food stalls and we had to wait to be served. High hiking season now.

  The stall displayed the usual selection of French basics, bread, cheese, meat, with nice looking sausages. One of the New Adults in the group in front was probably the blackest person I’d ever seen, his skin like ebony.

  I looked away so I wouldn’t stare—a stall further on had a very large selection of pies, perhaps we should go there, the line wasn’t any longer...

  My eyes crept back to the guy in front and I glanced away again. There were hardly any British B (black people) left in Salperton—or British A (Asians like Jane), for that matter. The Registration Laws had made it so hard for them to find partners of their own exact genetic category that most had moved out of the Bloc several generations ago, or at least to the big cities. The EGD still claimed it was an unintended consequence...

  My heart froze. Two men in uniform, a little further up the street, just before the bridge... They stopped a group of three laughing New Adults, who laughed on as they pulled out their IDs and swiped them through the policemen’s hand scanner. The policemen joked with them and let them go by. Pistol butts protruded from their holsters... NonLees. I’d just spent four months looking at just that type.