Mad Dog - No More Heroes Ch. 04

4 - The Bunker:

It's early. I's dark. It's only to be expected in February I suppose.

When I fired up my BMW R1100GS motorbike I suppressed the desire that the big one-point-one litre twin boxer engine would wake up the neighbours. I'm just malicious like that, especially at this godforsaken hour.

I do the run into work on autopilot. Let's face it, I've done it every day for the last eighteen sodding months. I probably shouldn't do the journey with my eyes closed, but I could, the route's pretty much ingrained by now.

I take the meandering back country route. In the summer its a nice run, with the sun rising through leafy lanes in the heart of the English Midlands. But for the other nine months of the year it's mostly wet and windy. Like today.

I turn left off Weston Road just before Beacon Barracks. Mirror, indicate, and pressing my right knee into the fuel tank the bike banks smoothly onto a driveway.

This is clearly a former military base. Once part of RAF Stafford, and while the old air force maintenance unit is now an army barracks, this is not part of that establishment. It's still owned by the Ministry of Defence though.

The red-and-white barber striped barrier pole's down. I bring the bike to a halt. Next to it is a grey plastic sentry box. A security guard steps out, he has the same powerful build and heavily-jowled face as a bulldog.

The security guard looks like a surly bad tempered sod. That's because he is.

"You work here?" he spoke with a gruff northern accent.

"You know I do Dave."

"Can I see your ID?"

I fumbled to pull my gloves off, unzipped my jacket and showed him the smart ID card on the lanyard round my neck.

"Take your helmet off."

I raised the flip front instead.

"No, take it off."

"Oh c'mon Dave mate," I sighed, "we go through this every sodding day."

"I aint your mate!" he snaps, "and you should know to take your helmet off by now."

I comply. Like I have a choice. He compares the image on the ID card with my face, grunts and returns to the guard box as I put my helmet back on. The barrier is raised and as I cruise slowly over the threshold.

"Every fucking day," I mutter, "what a sodding jobsworth!"

At the end of the drive there's a bungalow set among a small clump of Hawthorn bushes. A hundred metres behind is a low grassy mound. This is the office. Well, sort of.

My ID card has an RF chip built in. Contactless entry, I tap the ID on a sensor pad on the door frame and am rewarded with a chunky clunk as the door unlocks.

Inside there's a dark corridor with scuffed parquet flooring. The place has a distinct odor; pine floor cleaner and furniture polish. Black-painted doors pierce the corridor along its length. Each bears a plaque with a neat inscription: director, kitchen, conference room - that sort of thing.

At the end of the corridor there's a door with another chip and pin lock. This time the door is solid steel and blast-proof.

Beyond it is the locker room. The lockers are the standard tall, narrow, grey metal boxes. They differ from the run of the mill by have electronic locks again keyed to RFID chips in our ID cards.

The doors are randomly painted with single blocks of colour and a stencilled number in either black or white - whichever contrasted best. We aren't supposed to have personal lockers, but instead pick the first one available. Because the lock's keyed to your ID card, the locker door springs open automatically when you leave the building.

No personal electronics are allowed in the bunker, so my iPhone joins my leather biker jacket, helmet and boots in the locker. I slip on an old pair of Doc Martens Chelsea boots from my Bergen back pack and I'm ready.

I descend a flight of stairs and head down a musty concrete tunnel lit by buzzing neon tubes. The corridor leads me to a set of double doors. I press the doorbell button by the door.

"Yes?" a voice buzzes out of the metal box on the wall by the door.

I look up at the CCTV camera smile and wave, "it's me VJ."

"Oh, morning Mike."

The door hums and I push through.

You remember that weird 'sixties TV show The Prisoner? It didn't know whether it was James Bond or Doctor Who. Well my going to work routine reminds me a lot of the opening credits to that. All that's lacking is the Lotus 7 sports car and a dwarf undertaker squirting knock out gas through my keyhole. Even Dave the security guard's daily inquisition reminds me that I am a number and not a free man.

Beyond the last door I stand on a concrete landing. Beneath me is a large open plan office space with desks partitioned by free-standing cubicle dividers. This is the Bunker with its troglodyte civil servant inhabitants.

The bunker's walls are painted in bright pastel tones. There are even sofas dotted round the break area by the galley kitchen. Evidence that at least one of the men from the ministry had a partner whose interior design consultancy needed the work.

A couple of guys who'd evidently pulled an all-nighter were crashed out on the sofas, but everyone else was unmoved by the soft furnishing's delights.

The Bunker prided itself in on its un-civil service trends in fashion, so the troglodytes who inhabit the place dressed with deliberate variety, and their style indicated which tribe they owed their allegiance.

The Fanboys dressed in distressed jeans and t-shirts for their favorite band, comic book franchise or computer game.

The Hipsters wore cargo pants, Converse high top trainers, check shirts and braces.

The Geek Girls wore denim jeggings, baggy t-shirts (not all of them with the Ramones emblazoned across the chest), cardigans, woolly caps and heavy-framed eyeglasses.

A slack handful of people cluster around the corner where the kitchen area's located. Despite all the fashion statements we're still British civil servants, we can't function until we've had that first cup of tea.

During the Cold War this had been a ROTOR radar early warning bunker. A place where the RAF could scan the skies and, if somebody pushed the big red nuke button, watch the end of the world.

The bunker's still run by the MoD. If anybody asks we take care of the ministry's specialist security support needs. In reality we do more than that. Much more.