The street blows.
The whole of the street from the warehouse already on fire to the junction detonates in one solid, rumbling explosion of bricks and tarmac. The whole of it. Every building.
Walls blow out. Concrete chunks, bricks and debris fly in all directions. The operatives left behind at the junction are reduced to molecular form. Dozens of innocent people in the street are killed. Buildings collapse. Huge holes form in the surface of the road. Flaming wood and parts of buildings rain down, causing chaos and panic. Pressure waves blast out down the street, knocking people off their feet. The immensity of the explosive force and the charge of energy makes the very ground seem to heave and shake. The truck rocks on its chassis. Car windows implode from bricks sailing through the air. The plate glass windows in the storefronts shatter into thousands of glittering pieces. Flaming chunks embed into wood. Smoke everywhere. Instant, overwhelming carnage.
The three agents in the back of the truck slam into the sides, falling over each other and the dead bodies of Malcolm and Konrad as the truck slews and bounces. Alpha grips the wheel. His face a mask of focus while he fights for control of the vehicle.
‘What the fuck was that?’ he shouts at Bravo as he steers left to avoid the huge chunk of masonry that just fell in front of the truck.
Bravo leans out to look back, seeing the fireball scorching up into the air and the huge plumes of filthy black smoke billowing up. He sees the debris behind them. Bodies lying everywhere. Cars on fire. It looks like a war zone.
‘Echo, old chap . . . did you do that?’ Bravo asks into his radio, his cultured tones so calm amidst the destruction surrounding them.
‘Negative . . . Not us. I repeat. Not us.’
‘Check those bodies,’ Alpha says tightly as the truck trundles on down the carriageway, ramming other cars and vehicles aside.
‘At least no one is looking at us now,’ Bravo says.
In the back of the truck, Charlie and Delta work the bodies, going through pockets to pull wallets and phones. Society has moved on. People rarely use cash now. Everything is binary code, done by the devices they carry that link to their bank and are used to pay for goods and services. Governments still insist on physical identity cards. Even if they are embedded with chips that record biometric data.
‘Malcolm Phillips, born UK, and Konrad Johans, born Germany,’ Echo transmits, holding the two cards passed to him by the others. ‘Er . . . Alpha, you there?’
‘Go ahead,’ Alpha says from the front.
‘Malcolm Phillips was born on 4 April 2010 . . . Konrad was born on 20 June 2011. . . Neither of these two are fifty years old . . . Both early forties, for sure.’
‘Roger that. Stand by . . .’ Alpha says with a glance at Bravo, who inclines his head. Alpha dials the number and transfers the call to his earpiece.
‘Alfie, darling,’ Mother says in a tone that shows instant worry, ‘are you okay? The news feeds are showing an awful incident going on in Berlin.’
‘We’ve no idea what caused it,’ Alpha says, daring to push the boundary of coded speech in his desperation to tell Mother they didn’t just make this happen. ‘We’re fine, Mother. We’re away from any danger now. Listen, we’ve got our new friends with us. You’ll need their details to book us somewhere.’
‘Oh, that is good,’ Mother says, opening a blank document within the hologram display still hovering in front of her. ‘Okay, I have a pen . . .’
‘Malcolm Phillips, date of birth, fourth of April two zero one zero, and Konrad Johans, twentieth of June two zero one one. They look good for their ages though. I would put at around forty.’
‘Oh, they do sound nice,’ Mother says, holding that pleasant tone while her fingers blur over the keyboard. ‘I shall have a look for you . . . Is it okay if I call you back?’
‘That’s fine, Mother.’
‘Speak soon, darling.’
She works quickly, with a glance to the monitor fixed on the wall of her office that shows the news channel drone footage of Berlin. It looks terrible. A whole street blown apart like something from a war movie. Bodies everywhere. Dead, injured, mangled and writhing in agony as they scream out silently on the muted screen.
The dates of birth put Malcolm and Konrad at fifty-two and fifty-one years old respectively. Her team said they looked forty years old, not fifty. Ten years is a significant time gap in descriptions, and she knows her agents are exceptional at estimating ages from a glimpse alone. She accesses databases, search engines, Interpol and many more. Her hands swipe, lunge and drag to bring virtual screens forward, while others are pushed back or to the side.
An archived news report. She checks the date before reading on. 2052. Malcolm Phillips and Konrad Johans died in a late-night car accident on a motorway in Hampshire, England.
The two men, Malcolm Philips, aged 42, and Konrad Johans, aged 41, both worked for the estate of the late Roland Cavendish. Mr Cavendish was a former government minister and latterly entrepreneur who is believed to have committed suicide in 2046, although his body was never recovered. An early report from the accident investigations unit within Hampshire Police states they were involved in a high-speed, head-on collision. Police are appealing for witnesses . . .
She reads quickly. She processes the information and finds the memory of the news from that time coming to mind. Roland Cavendish walked into the sea. It was on the news because his death saved his family from bankruptcy, but his body was never found. Roland Cavendish worked for the British government and then moved into investments within the private sector. She pushes the virtual screen aside and brings up more search browsers to follow the breadcrumb trail.
Roland Cavendish yields far more results. She filters and discards tabloid or magazine articles. She scans his death reports, the investigation that went on after his apparent suicide and the eventual payout to his family. Family. She reads further, her eyes darting left to right to take it all in. A wife. A daughter. A son. Nothing to indicate the widow re-married. The daughter was seven when Roland died. The son was ten.
Maria Cavendish. Daughter of Roland and Susan Cavendish. Works for a hologram film production company. Mother delves into social media and punches through the weak firewalls and defences to scan the static images, holograms and vids of Maria Cavendish. Bookish in appearance. Straight dark hair. Curvy, bordering on fat. Average. That’s the word. The girl looks entirely average, and she even has the average amount of social networking friends and acquaintances. The average number of replies to posts. The only thing about her that isn’t average is the fact she obviously comes from a very wealthy family.