The doctor shrugged. “I’d suggest telling that to the review team,” he said. “They may want to go back and look.”
He looked her up and down, and then nodded. “I’ll have the antibiotics and cream sent up to you,” he added. “We don’t keep them all here, for obvious reasons. And then I strongly suggest that you get plenty of rest.”
Outside, she met a young man who was wearing civilian clothes, but carried himself with a military bearing. “I’m Gus,” he said, with a faint smile. “I was wondering if you would be willing to discuss your time with the enemy with me?”
Alex blinked in surprise, even with the doctor’s warning. Part of her wanted to forget the entire experience, but the rest of her knew that telling the entire world could serve as a warning to other resistance fighters not to get caught. Or perhaps they’d be too scared to resist the aliens when the time came. But that would be their choice — and besides, perhaps talking about it would help her get over it. The headshrinker who’d visited the squadron after they’d lost a pilot to equipment failure had certainly believed that that was the case.
“If you wish,” she said, finally. “I’m afraid I intend to ask as many questions as you.”
Gus led the way into a large room that had once been a living room, with a sofa, a plasma television and a computer placed against the wall. “We have been going through the recordings taken by the collaborators,” he said. He nodded towards the television, which was showing a frozen scene from one of the recordings. Someone — Alex was relieved to see that it wasn’t her — was being whipped. Blood was dripping off his back and down to the ground. “Some of it is for propaganda, but the rest of it is for building a case against them. We have them as prisoners, you see.”
“Shoot them,” Alex said, sharply. She remembered the girl who had tried to help her, after her first session with the torturers. And the others, only half-remembered in the haze her memory had become, who’d been there. “Is there any fucking doubt that they deserve to die?”
“None at all,” Gus said, seriously. “But we intend to put together a series of videos for the internet that will prove them guilty, before we execute them. There’s been quite a bit of debate over the issue, I’m afraid.”
Alex snorted. “They chose to serve the aliens,” she said. “What excuse is there for their actions? They weren’t pushed into collaboration and they didn’t have any noble motives — they wanted to indulge their fantasies. And they did.”
She shuddered as she remembered the feelings of helplessness that had almost broken her, the awareness that she had lost all control over her body. Alone in the dark, she had come far too close to breaking, to begging them to listen to her as she spilled everything she knew. Who knew what might have happened if they’d been allowed to keep working on her for longer?
“We have to prove that,” Gus said, quietly. “And we need your help to do it.”
The next hour passed slowly. Alex watched one of the videos the torturers had recorded, fighting down the urge to be sick. She hadn’t even been the worst-treated person in the underground complex. Two men had been sawn apart by their tormentors, while a girl had been practically raped to death. She told herself that she was right, that the torturers had been more interested in hurting people than learning anything the aliens could use, but it was no mercy. How could anyone indulge themselves by torturing helpless victims?
Alex had known how Third World countries treated their prisoners. She’d always known that being shot down and landing in enemy territory was a possibility. Saddam’s regime had had entire corps of torturers, many of whom were nastier than the people the aliens had found and put to work. Iran and Saudi Arabia tortured dissidents and democrats with equal abandon, but they were both barbaric states. The thought of anyone in Britain willingly torturing someone was horrifying. And it was so pointless!
She recorded a brief interview with Gus, where she explained what had happened to her and how she’d been rescued from the firing squad. Gus proved to be a surprisingly good interviewer, although as an army intelligence officer he’d probably been trained to talk someone into revealing more than they intended. He replayed it for her and she was struck by the sense of hopelessness she saw in her eyes. The video would be put out on the internet and the entire world would see her. She’d never wanted to be a film star, but it was worth it if it turned hearts and minds against the aliens.
“So,” she said, finally. “What happens to me now?”
“You recover,” Gus said. He paused, just for a moment. “Did you hear about the Area Commanders the aliens have been creating?”
Alex shook her head. After she’d been arrested and sent to the detention camp, she hadn’t heard anything new from the outside world. The last she’d heard was that the aliens were handing out seeds and expecting the farmers to plant them and raise crops before the onset of winter. Maybe they could, but Smith hadn’t been too confident of it.
The thought reminded her of her friends. “What happened to the others from the camp?”
“The ones we got out are scattered over the country,” Gus said. “Most of them will go into action units once they’ve recovered from their ordeal. I’m afraid we don’t keep records here…”
“For fear the aliens will capture them,” Alex said. Al Qaida had been notoriously good at keeping records, too good. Documents uncovered by raids on their hideouts had often led to more hideouts. “Who are the Area Commanders?”
“Senior collaborators,” Gus said. He picked up a folder and placed it in front of her. “From what one of our sources says, they’re going to be responsible for integrating Britain’s economy with the alien empire. We believe that the aliens are doing something similar in America and France, but we don’t have any confirmation. I was wondering if you recognised any of them.”
Alex opened the folder and skimmed through the photographs. None were familiar, apart from one she vaguely remembered as having been an MP during the Expenses Scandal. A note beside the photograph claimed that he’d volunteered for alien service, rather than being press-ganged into unwilling collaboration by the aliens. She put the photo to one side and glanced down at the next — and swore.
“That’s Rupert Leigh,” she said, in shock. He’d been one of the few who’d known who she was, and what she had been before the invasion. And he’d known about the resistance movement she’d led even though he hadn’t been an active member. “He…”
It clicked in her mind. “He betrayed me!”
“Almost certainly,” Gus agreed. “From what we have been given to understand, Leigh was offered a chance to rule the entire county — in exchange for his service to the aliens. He probably was the one who betrayed you, along with several others. He’s marked down for death if we ever get a clear shot at him.”
“I want to go after him,” Alex said, sharply. “You cannot deny that I have the right to kill him…”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean that you should,” Gus said. He held up a hand before she could say anything. “The doctor said that you should rest — so rest. There will be time to kill the traitor afterwards.”
The underground chamber was cold, illuminated only by a single overhead light. Chris strode into the chamber and stopped in front of the five chairs positioned in the centre of the room. The men sitting on the chairs had been cuffed to render them immobile and hooded to make sure that they saw nothing, just in case they managed to escape and run back to the aliens. Besides, being blind was disorientating and demoralising. Chris hadn’t enjoyed it during his training and he doubted that any of the collaborators would have enjoyed it either.