Day Zero

He was a… friend. But more than that, he was a set of eyes and ears.”
“But not one of us.”
She frowned. “Neither are you, not yet.”
Olly sat. “Then why’d you bring me down here?”
“Because I wanted to talk in private. About what happened.”
He swallowed. “I didn’t kill him.”
“I know. But someone did. And I need to know why.”
Olly stiffened, as a thought occurred to him. “What if they were trying to kill me, and not him?” He imagined the bullet tearing through him, knocking him down. He shuddered.
Liz nodded. “Another reason to get you down here. This is as close to a safe house as we’ve got at the moment.” She leaned back. “Either way, we need to figure it out soonest. So tell me about your day, Olly. Run me through the whole thing. And for your own sake… leave nothing out.”

5: Scene Of The Crime
Danny Hayes shifted in the weight of his tactical vest, and watched the Old Bill work. Scene-of-Crime officers in blue noddy suits scuttled around a field of little yellow flags – evidence markers, probably. Lights were being set up, as the sun rode low in the sky. Danny suspected he was in for a long night. Not the end of the world, but he’d promised his mum he’d be home for dinner – a promise he’d broken twice last week alone.
Uniformed plods watched the proceedings from the side-lines, thumbs hooked into the straps of their lowest bidder stab-vests. One or two of them met his gaze, and looked away, as if he were invisible. He wasn’t sure whether or not he preferred that to the glares.
Albion wasn’t making any friends in East London, that was for sure. Danny wasn’t sure how he felt about that either. He’d been born and raised in a Tower Hamlets council flat. As a kid, he’d wanted nothing more than to leave. And now here he was, patrolling the streets he’d grown up on. Except they weren’t really patrolling, were they?
More standing around, looking menacing. Easy to do, in his tac gear, with his Vector .45 ACP submachine gun and his helmet. He might as well have been on sentry duty back in Fallujah. His Optik display flickered across the interior of his helmet. Targeting data danced over his eyes, reducing his surroundings to a series of threat assessments and obstacles.
In the sandbox, that had been something of a comfort. Here it was annoying – and a bit disturbing. The program didn’t distinguish between jihadis looking to cut off his balls and the officers who he was theoretically working in support of. For now, at least.
Word was, Albion was positioning itself to replace the Met. Danny didn’t even want to think about how such a thing might work. Tower Hamlets was giving them enough trouble. The thought of trying to do the same with the entire city – hell, the country – was mindboggling. He was just a soldier. He followed orders and kept his head down.
“How long are they just going to let him sit there?” Hattersley said. He stood beside Danny. The two of them were stationed outside the armoured patrol carrier. Faulkner was inside, on the comms, checking in. The rest of the squad had been sent to kick around the nearby streets and make themselves seen.
Danny glanced at the other man. Hattersley was shorter than him, and built like a rugby fullback. He’d rolled up his sleeves, exposing tattooed arms. Some of the ink was downright obscene, and Danny often found himself staring. “Until they finish, I guess.”
“They must’ve taken a hundred pictures. How many pictures do you need?”
“As many as it takes,” Danny said, smiling slightly. Hattersley was a champion grumbler. He complained about everything, from the weather to the consistency of fried egg sandwiches. He could keep it up for hours, even on a yomp.
“I think he’s starting to smell.”
“That’s probably you.”
Hattersley gave himself a discrete sniff. “So it is. Cheers.”
“It’s that shitty oatmeal soap you use. Makes you smell like a bowl of porridge.”
“My bird gave it to me.”
“Which one?”
“Sasha – no, wait, Dionna.” Hattersley hesitated. “I think.”
Danny bit back a laugh. That was the one thing Hattersley didn’t complain about. “You should probably figure it out. Before you send a thank you note to the wrong one.”
“I’ll take it under consideration,” Hattersley said. He was silent for a moment. Then, he said, “This is bone. Waste of our fucking time.”
“Could be worse,” Danny said, not looking at him. He’d caught the eye of one the plods – a woman. Young, his age. Fit, too. She worked out. He could tell from the way she bounced on the balls of her feet. Weightlifter? Maybe. That was interesting. Danny preferred a more all-round work out. Big muscles were fine, but endurance and speed were more important when you were ducking shrapnel.
“How?”
“They could be shooting at us.” His admirer was talking to one of the other officers, but her eyes kept straying back his way. Dark hair. Dyed, he thought. Blonde, probably. Was she interested? Or maybe she was just wondering why they were still standing there. In her place, he would be.
Hattersley snorted. “At least we’d have something to do.”
“We are doing something. We’re showing the flag.”
Hattersley looked at him. “Now you sound like a fucking Rupert.”
“Faulkner said it, not me.”
Hattersley grimaced. Faulkner was a lot of things, but not that. “Of course he bloody did. Got a saying for every occasion, does the Sarge.”
“How else is he supposed to motivate us?”
“Money,” Hattersley said. “We’re not soldiers anymore. We’re private contractors. I don’t need speeches. I need paying.”
“From your lips to God’s ear,” Danny murmured. He held out his fist, and they bumped knuckles. Money was why he’d stayed in uniform, when his stint was up. Albion was on a hiring spree – anybody with training was getting offered a contract. They needed boots on the ground. That implied something big was in the works.
“Tell you what,