HUSH Read online

The police had little trouble clearing the demonstration once the black-clad group had returned to the building. It was as if the scant minutes of heightened emotion afforded by the appearance of the group had sapped the crowd’s energy. Their numbers dwindled quickly, until there was only Jacob, Morris and the core gang of activists. Soon they too were moved along, but Jacob noticed the look on Morris’s face as Janey drove them back into Beckington. He stared at the building until it was completely out of sight, and even then he did not seem inclined to talk.

  Jacob felt the same way. He watched Morris and nodded, almost imperceptibly, in time with the jounce of the van. He smiled to himself, tight and grim.

  Time for action.

  3. Direct Action

  “It’s all such bullshit!” Morris slapped his hand onto the tabletop. Their drinks sloshed in concert and a few nearby faces glanced round. Morris was on a roll riding high at the crest of it.

  “The political ‘system’ in this country just simply isn’t working, and people are despairing as opposed to being apathetic. It’s atrocious! I mean, look, we live in a society where basic human kindness -- fellow feeling for our brother animals -- has become an act of social responsibility. I mean, what’s the nation coming to? It’s a complete failure of the democratic process,” he curled his lip into a sneer. “The only option left open to us has got to be direct action, everything else is bullshit or prevarication. Listen ...”

  Jacob let him run on without paying much attention. Morris was a true zealot, and sometimes his pop-eyed fanaticism left even Jacob cold. Especially on a night like this, without Maria. Without any hope of ever having Maria again. He bit his lip and made it hurt, bit in hard. Angrily, he glanced around the table at the others: Janey, captivated by Morris’s spiel; Liam and Trev talking football as usual; Dogstar Bob rattling out old punk riffs on the edge of the table with his tatty drumsticks; Sondra gnawing apprehensively at her fingernails. What a bunch.

  Apart from Bobwho never drank soft drinks after six o’clockthey were all on Coke or orange juice, though Jacob had barely touched his. Images of Maria spiked at him. Maria poised over the sink, rinsing her hair, twisting it into a slick dark rope to wring the water from it. Maria asleep, her lips parted against the pillow, breathing deeply, her brows creased into dreamy furrows. Maria leaning on a ferry’s railings, gazing out to the sunset, its fuzzy salmon highlights glowing on her cheeks and forehead, the wind loose in her hair... Maria, all Maria.

  Earlier, Janey had tried to talk to him about the break-up, but he found that he couldn’t get any of it out. If it was all his fault then the problem was all his, nobody else’s. It was private, his sacred pain. He grimaced, swilled a mouthful of Coke around his mouth, as if to wash away the taste of his confusion.

  The pub was getting busy. The air filled with smoke. Irritably, he glanced at his watch. Hell. He looked up.

  “Time,” he said tersely. Morris’s face cracked in half with a vicious grin. Moments later they left.

  **

  Janey took them on an intentionally circuitous route to the Hellier labs. She wound right out to the city limits, then crawled laboriously back through the one-way system so that they could approach the Keerling industrial estate from an out-of-town, westerly direction. That had always been the plan, ever since Liam and Trev had reconnoitred their target a month ago.

  Sondra took the passenger seat up front with Janey, nervously smoking straights, while the men lounged in the back. Jacob didn’t join in with their forced camaraderie, but glared out back at the unfurling length of black asphalt. He clenched and unclenched his fists, his nails digging deeper into his palms and making red weals, question marks in his skin. He’d been biting back this anger all day--committing minute acts of emotional censorship--because the thought of Maria still niggled at him. It felt like she was constantly with him, watching his life from the sidelines with a disapproving frown. His cheeks burned. It didn’t even make sense, his affronted pride growled. If his sentiments were right, then they were right--she couldn’t quibble with how he’d arrived at the conclusions. It was senseless! Yet still, her ultimate rejection of him and all his beliefs churned fat and full in his stomach, indigestible and sickening.

  After an hour in the van the lab came into view. Jacob experienced a flutter of disorientation as they approached from the opposite direction to last time, when the only thing on his mind had been the coming demo. Now, a myriad of new concerns were nagging at him, crawling beneath his skin. And the stakes were so much higher.

  Janey drove very cautiously here, in case the police had left any cars dawdling in the demo’s slipstream, but they saw no other traffic. She turned away from the service road which snaked around to the front of the lab and bumped over the curb. She flipped off the lights, heading directly for the rear of the complex. After a few sightless, heart-in-mouth moments they coasted to a standstill halfway through the horseshoe-shaped copse of trees which bordered the labs. The security fence was just visible through the undergrowth, but essentially they were hidden from view.

  Jacob glanced at his watch: 11.50. He grunted and folded his arms, attempting to try and find a more comfortable settle for his vigil. With a few muttered curses his companions followed suit. Dogstar Bob had even brought pillows.

  **

  A few hours later the cramped confines of the van had become stale with the accumulated funk of their bodies: sweat, deodorant and sour breath. The air was thick with anticipation, with fear.

  Jacob was convinced he could detect subtle crackles of static whenever he rearranged his jacket, or shifted his head. While outside the night pushed at the window panes, the wind groaning, gasping and puffing like a man struggling to catch his breath. An occasional gust rocked the vehicle on its suspension and vibrated the back doors in their frame. The fingers of nearby branches bowed close to the van, their tips scratching noisily at the metal walls.

  “I think--” Trev said suddenly, then caught himself. “Well, it’s time, isn’t it? I mean--” He looked imploringly at the others for guidance, particularly Morris and Jacob. Someone to ratify his permanently tentative opinions. No one moved.

  “I can’t believe we’re doing this again,” muttered Janey weakly.

  “Spiky, spiky, spiky,” Liam whispered under his breath. “You do not wanna get yourself caught tonight.” He whistled through the gap in his teeth. “Tonight means time inside, no messin’.” His voice was impressively level but his hands were trembling. After a moment he sat on them.

  “Come on, let’s get ourselves ballied-up,” hissed Morris. Everyone donned Balaclavas or hood and scarf combinations, all except for Jacob, whose gaze remained pinned, unblinking, on the high fence. Morris nudged him. “Hey,” he said tightly.

  Jacob started and turned sharply, as if jerking out of a trance.

  “Ready?” Morris growled.

  Jacob nodded. There followed a subdued commotion of shuffles and brisk activity as everyone checked their gear, rifling through their kit bags one last time. Trev took a very deep breath to accompany him outside, then slipped through the back doors. He carried a sealed plastic freezer bag--which Sondra had prepared that afternoon--and two lengths of rope with hooks sewn into their tips. Once he’d gone Janey performed a deft about-face, carefully manoeuvring the van so that it pointed out towards the road and a swift route of escape.

  Then they waited, staring into space, chests tight with anxiety.

  Jacob debated whether to wipe his steadily dampening hands on his trousers, decided against it.

  Sondra scratched frantically beneath the frayed black tent of her sweater, her thin shoulders poking sharply through the material. “Eczema,” she confided, miserably. “Stress-related.”

  Jacob wondered if she was going to cry, and this brought on a fresh volley of Maria memories to unseat him. He cursed, sotto voce.

  Ten minutes later there was a hurried rap on the back door and Jacob cracked it just enough to admit Trev. “Well?” he demanded once the younger man was inside.

  “Done,” he confessed breathlessly, looking worried.

  “Rock your own roll!” announced Morris and launched himself out of the back of the van. One by one the others followed, all except Janey, who remained in the driver’s seat to keep the motor turning over.

  “Good luck,” she hissed after them, but Jacob didn’t even turn.

  They darted through the trees towards the fence. Thorns snagged at their clothes, scrabbling for purchase in the folds. It wasn’t too difficult to fix on their destination, though-- the Hellier labs burned through the matted branches, bathed in the lemon-tinged radiance of five or six banks of sodium lamps.

  As soon as they reached the security fence, Morris and Liam went to work on the sturdy links with heavy-duty bolt cutters. Within seconds they had created a sizeable gap in the chainlink, and they all tumbled eagerly through onto the grassy verge beyond.

  There, they came across the evidence of Trev’s expertise: a trio of slumbering Dobermans with the remains of the steaks Sondra had drugged still hanging in shreds from their froth-speckled jaws. The team stood nervously around the gently twitching bodies, while Trev detached hooks from the meat and coiled up the lengths of rope he’d used to lob the steaks over the fence.

  “How long exactly?” Morris demanded.

  Sondra looked as if she might be sick at any moment. She was staring down at the dogs, shivering, hands by her sides, fingers virtually hidden by the concertina sag of her raggedy sleeves.

  “Sondra?” Morris pressed.

  When she looked at him her skin--above the scarf lashed across her mouth--was lacquered a freakish yellow by the sodium lamps. “Er, thirty minutes, tops,” she managed.

  “You know what to do. Stay here and make sure,” Jacob t
old her sternly. Then the men set off across the compound.

  They made directly for the clutter of outbuildings tacked onto the main bulk of the lab. Their angle of approach had been carefully chosen. Coming through the fence at this point meant that the brow of the roof shielded them from the CCTV ‘cam scanning the rear of the complex. However, once they got past that blind spot they’d be instantly spotted and recorded for posterity, to be reeled in by the law a few days later.

  Which was where Dogstar Bob came in.

  He dropped to his knee and -- with a snake-like motion -- drew out his custom-built crossbow. He carefully drew a bead, and let fly with a bolt. The missile thunked directly into the camera’s eye, disabling it instantly.

  So far everything was going according to plan. However, now Jacob felt fear dash handfuls of crushed ice into his guts. The next few minutes--potentially, the most important of his life--were to be ruled by raw, uncut chance. There was no way they could properly plan for this next stage: they had to make it to the security station on the opposite side of the building, before the night-duty guard decided to investigate the camera malfunction. It was a slippery variable they just couldn’t calculate. The race was on.

  Morris sprinted ahead and Jacob matched him as best he could, while the others fanned out behind. As his feet whispered across the grass, Jacob weighed up their chances: if the guard was too slow then he could lock himself inside the office and simply phone the police; if he reacted too quickly then he’d have a real chance of spotting them halfway across the hardstanding and could radio for help. The plan really was madness, Jacob reflected, but Morris had hit the nail on the head-- they had to try and make a difference. Had to.

  They cleared the corner in a hail of scattered gravel, and caught sight of the postage stamp of light which marked out the location of the security office

  But there was already movement inside! A crisp black shadow turning against the frosted glass. Jacob’s heart stuttered. Morris was still thirty paces away!

  No!

  Their reprieve was as swift as it was unexpected. The shadow paused, as if its owner had suddenly remembered something important, and then swung out of sight. As it did so, Morris cleared the final metres and caromed into the wall next to the door. He began scrabbling around feverishly in his sports bag. A beat later the door opened and the guard stepped out. Jacob was bang in the centre of his field of vision. The man’s jaw fell clownishly open

  Morris lunged. He smothered the guard in a choking bear hug, bringing him down and clamping a gag over his mouth all in one movement. The cloth was impregnated with chloroform. The guard kicked and bucked, but the deed was done. Just in case, Jacob skidded over and threw himself across the man’s thighs.

  Eventually the guard’s struggles dwindled, allowing Jacob and Morris to kneel up and whoop for breath. Liam, Trev and Bob skidded up, then between them they dragged the unconscious body back into the vacant cabin.

  Most of the space inside was taken up with a bulky command deck, housing various CCTV screens showing multiple feeds from cams all around the complex. One screen was dark. Suddenly Jacob remembered the woman with the digital camera, pinning him with her lens, the zoom nosing in. He shook his head to clear the unwelcome memory.

  Morris set about tying the guard to the radiator with Trev’s rope, while the others wrecked the equipment as quickly and quietly as they could manage. From Liam and Trev’s reconnaissance they knew that the other guard was stationed by the gate at the far end of the compound. Luckily, the dog pen was not far from the office. So, the plan was to rouse the remaining dogs and get them as excited as possible, then when the second guard came to investigate overpower him in the same manner.

  Morris, Bob and Liam slipped out while Trev remained with Jacob, and at length they heard the dogs begin to howl.

  Trev sat with his back propped up against the desk, relief spilling from every pore of his being. “Jesus, my heart!” he laughed, palm against his chest. “You gotta come on over here and feel it,” he invited. “Man!”

  At that moment the second guardwho had crept through the open door as they chattedstruck Trev full across the face with his nightstick. He went down in a falling shower of blood and lay still.

  The guard rounded on Jacob.

  He was a burly, lumpish thug with close-set eyes and bad teeth. The nightstick was clamped in his left fist, its dripping tip held menacingly low. He grinned wickedly before hurling himself across the narrow room.

  Bad move, thought Jacob. Previously, the face of cruelty had merely been a blank for him. Rarely had the enemy been so focused, so easily distilled from a nebulous catalogue of unknown politicians, scientists and calculating exploiters into one tangible adversary. Now, this man served as an embodiment of all the things that Jacob hated in the world.

  The rage came up out of him. A scalding cascade of terrible violence, dragging in its volcanic slipstream all the frustration he feltover the break-up, over Maria, over his own failures and inadequacies. Everything. Everything he’d been suppressing erupting in one white-hot blast.

  The guard caught him a heavy blow across the shoulder, but Jacob barely registered it. He cannoned through the attack as if it wasn’t there, his whole weight thrown against his enemy. The sheer ferocity of Jacob’s assault immediately drove the other man onto his back, his skull thunking sickeningly on the flooring tiles.

  Soon, both men were was screaming: the guard, because he was being kicked in the head; Jacob, because he could not stop kicking him.

  It took all of his companions’ strength to tear Jacob away from the unconscious body, and another ten minutes after that to finally calm him down.

  **

  When Trev came to, he was groggy and nauseous, staring around the office with the astonishment of a newborn. The awful gash across the bridge of his nose pulsed weak sputters of blood whatever rudimentary attempts at first aid they made. Morris decided that Bob should escort Trev back so that Sondra could take a look at the wound in the relative security of the van.

  It was debated that they abort, but eventually the remaining team members voted to press on. Jacob abstained. He was terrified of what he might suggest.

  Once they had removed the guards to the dog pen and secured them there, they sprinted, with their requisitioned keys, to the main entrance.

  **

  The reception area was a disappointment. Jacob wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but certainly something more impressive than this cold, bare box.

  A rank of scoopy moulded orange seats faced a single U-shaped desk, which was loaded down with a stack of pristine electronicana: silent PC; flatbed scanner; printer and fax machine; photocopier; a startling arsenal of phones. But, fundamentally, the same stark utilitarian aesthetic that made the exterior of the building so forbidding, also ruled the decor here. No carpet, bare walls, lots of scuffed plastic and stucco. Evidently no pampered CEOs or captains of industry were expected to tour the plant in the near future.

  One door led off to the (unisex) toilets; a set of double swing doors was the only other route out of reception. Ideal for security. Once through the swing doors the saboteurs were confronted with a three-way choice, each corridor leading off to another single door and--seen through an inlaid porthole--a gallery of cages beyond that. Jacob led, looked about and sucked his lower lip.

  “Right, once we get into the labs proper, the silent alarms get tripped. From then on in, we’ve got fifteen minutes before the cops arrive. Simple as that. Stay in any longer, boys, and go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred pounds.”

  “I still don’t see why we can’t release some of the animals,” Morris snarled. “I mean, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? They’re really why we’re here in the first place. So, fifteen minutes is easily long enough to open the front gates and shoo as many of them out as possible. “

  “You don’t hurt international pharmaceutical companies by letting puppies out onto the streets to starve,” Jacob answered. “You sting them by cutting their profit margins. You wreck millions of pounds worth of delicate monitoring equipment. Hit them in their wallet, not their heart. They haven’t got a heart.”