Chapter 3

I awoke in the morning to the sheer joy of having a beautiful woman snuggled in to me. We had merely kissed goodnight, or rather Maryam had kissed me and then we had simply cuddled until she, then finally I, had drifted off to sleep in each other's arms.

It didn't take too long before Maryam herself roused from her slumbers and glanced up at me with a slight smile that became a grin when she saw I was awake.

"Good morning, Alec," she finally murmured. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yes, like a lamb. No dreams that I can remember either," I replied. "Did you sleep well too?"

"Yes. I've missed the company of a man in my bed to cuddle," she replied in turn.

There was a slight tapping at the door and both Zena and Tahira stuck their heads around it.

"Mama Alec is not here ... oh ... ooh!" Zena said, her voice increasing in volume and pitch as she took in the view.

"See, told you he'd become our new Papa," Tahira giggled making us both blush.

"Much too soon," Maryam replied, echoing my earlier statement and blushing as deeply as I had at being 'caught' by her daughters.

Both girls however leaped on the bed to give out cuddles and kisses and I found myself becoming overwhelmed with emotion and tears began to stream down my cheeks.

"Why are you crying, Alec?" Zena asked when she noticed.

"Because I'm happy little one. I don't think I can remember being happier," I replied pulling her in tightly.

"Mama must be happy too, then," she replied as I glanced over to see tears in Maryam's eyes as well.

"Seems so," I said and used my free arm to give Maryam a squeeze feeling her reciprocate too.

"Anyway, 'tis breakfast time and we need to take your mama to the Veterans' centre to show her her new job," I said.

"Ooh yes. Can we have porridge?" asked Tahira.

"Um, yes," I replied, pretty certain I had some somewhere.

"I'll start it, you sort yourself out, then get the girls washed, please Alec," Maryam responded.

It didn't take long to sort myself out, shaving being the most onerous task. Both girls were more than able to take care of themselves so, other than being ready to fend off any questions, I stayed outside and watched Maryam bustle about in the kitchen looking relaxed and happy, a big change from the previous days.

"I can feel your eyes on me, Alec," she chuckled.

"They're entranced by you," I chuckled in return, watching her blush slightly.

"Sure you aren't undressing me with them?" she asked saucily.

"Prefer to wait for reality, not guesswork," I replied watching her blush deepen.

"I'm no prize, Alec," she finally said.

"That's for me to decide, not you and from my perspective you couldn't be more wrong," I said seriously.

"Thank you," she said in tones barely louder than a whisper.

We were joined by the girls and we all sat down to porridge sweetened with a little honey that Maryam had found amongst the debris of her belongings that Zena and I had brought to my flat.

I have to admit I was impressed; God alone knows what military chefs do to oatmeal when they make porridge, but this was ambrosia itself compared to that.

Maryam then slipped off to change whilst the girls and I set up our formation dishwashing team and soon had things tidied up and away. Afterwards we strolled down the street to the Veterans' centre and Maryam's new employer.

"Muzsymp!" came a voice from behind us as we turned the corner and I paused and looked back at the group of snitches lurking and generally being a nuisance.

"Tell you what boys," I said ominously. "You get yourselves down to the recruiting centre and join up and I don't kick the shit out of you for insulting a veteran," I finished holding up my arm to show the tattoos.

"Alec, language, the girls," came Maryam's quiet voice next to me.

"Sorry, my Lady," I apologised. "But these ... children need to be dealt with before they suffer a fatal accident one night."

"Of course, Alec. Come along girls; you don't need to see this," she replied and led Zena and Tahira around the corner.

"What's it to be boys, one at a time or all at once?" I intoned, watching them like a hawk for any tell-tale cues, whilst dropping my hands into my pockets to grasp a few tools of the trade.

"You don't scare us, muzsymp!" came a voice (as ever) from the back of the pack and would have sounded a lot better if it hadn't cracked into a falsetto half way through.

"Really? You ought to be because under the new compact I can kill you and claim you were acting unpatriotically. Veteran's right don't you know?" I said with a grin worthy of a shark.

"There are eight of us and only one of you," said one of the ones at the front, whom I suspected of having a knife hidden in his coat.

"True. Well, I can wait till you get a few more to even the odds," I said, watching them pale as they realised they weren't intimidating me at all.

The one who'd spoke leapt forward, presumably to stab me with the hidden knife but had made the mistake of not drawing it properly and it got caught up in the folds of his coat. I'd stepped inside his move anyway and used my trusty knuckleduster in an uppercut to smash his jaw, dropping him to the ground and followed up to the next one rushing in with a kick to his gut which missed and caught him in the groin making him scream in agony. One of them meanwhile had grabbed me over my shoulders presumably to hold me whist the rest set about me but was rocked back as I threw my head back to break his nose and slipped away out of reach, leaving him simply holding my coat. A swift turn to the right allowed me to dodge a spiked club of some kind though enabled another attacker to slam me with an old police truncheon on my shoulder which hurt but didn't have the force to break anything. I drop-kicked the one doubled over holding his crown jewels, putting him down, following up with a swift jab to the eyes of the club wielder which forced him back, clutching his face and I disarmed the truncheon holder by reaching in and dislocating all the fingers in his right hand. Spinning and ducking I swept the legs from under the next onrushing attacker, knocking the breath out of him, leaving him moaning on the ground with what looked like a shattered kneecap and realised the rest were running away leaving three injured and moaning on the ground.

"Told you, you needed more help," I said as I picked up various assorted weaponry.

I was then startled by a smattering of applause and a few mild cheers as I hadn't realised, so focussed as I was on my opponents, that I had an audience of fellow citizens on the street.

"Good on yer, sojer boy," came a cackling comment from an old guy. "Those scum have been making people's lives a misery for a couple of years now, 'arrasing an stealin' from innocents and pissin in the alley."

"Well, come the local elections, vote Veteran and trust us. We'll rid the streets of them," I said slipping into election mode for the first time ever.

"Veteran?" asked a timid looking woman.

"New Party. Good people who won't put up with this sort of thing," I replied.

"You standin'?" asked the old guy.

"Aye."

"Got my vote then, sojer boy," he said with a toothless grin as I spotted Derek approaching.

There was a murmur of agreement before the crowd dispersed; enforcers were feared, and not popular.

"So they were stupid enough to try something in daylight?" he chuckled pulling out an ancient mobile phone.

"Yes, clueless twats," I chuckled stamping down hard on the hand of the moaning knife wielder who was reaching out for his weapon for some unknown reason. He screamed piteously before losing consciousness again.

"I'll sort this out, Alec. Your good lady and the girls are waiting for you up near the next corner," he said as he started punching in numbers.

"Re-education?" I asked.

"Yes, I'll round the rest of the gang up later when they go to ground. Been waiting for them to step out of line for weeks now, but people were too scared to report them," he said with a grin.

"They'll pay in blood."

"Till they exist no more," he answered, waving me off.

Grabbing my coat I hurried round the corner to join up with Maryam and the girls who made a fuss of me but were simply happy to see me unhurt ... mostly, as I suspected my shoulder was going to be very sore for a few days.

Our trip to the Veterans' club was without further incident and we or rather Zena and Tahira were greeted with joy by the few veterans hanging around.

"Ah Maryam, good to see you," greeted Jimmy, who as far as I could tell lived in the place. "As you can see your girls have become our mascots."

"Thank you, Jimmy," she replied still looking slightly amazed. "I'm struggling to believe all this."

"Oh, believe it," he replied with a grin. "Now this is our 'nerve centre', a sorry sight you'll have to agree."

The room he indicated was filled with ancient networked computers and I swear one of them was running Windows 98 for God's sake. Maryam however simply nodded and asked who their operators were.

"Couple of vets who ran our comm's on the battlefield," Jimmy replied. "We'll find others as we need them."

"Good, you will," she replied. "But for the moment you'll need the electoral roll databases as well as some sort of electioneering slogans, flyers and leafleting. You'll also need to set up a series of street corner speeches and canvassing."

"Lot of it will have to be done by hand," Jimmy sighed. "We have some funding, but it's limited and our opposition, such as it is, gets its money directly from the State."

"All your candidates and their help will need cheat sheets giving the major points of your manifesto and areas not to stray into. The New Coalition candidates will mostly have the Army Council and the press on their side and any mistakes will be broadcast far quicker than the good and any retractions will come after the elections," Maryam added.

"Our guys know the manifesto by heart; we've been planning this a while," I said.

"This is a different sort of war," Maryam said fiercely. "You can't turn your guns on the 'gentlemen of the press' despite them being on the State's payroll. You'll also need radio and TV time, though if you have no money, I doubt you'll get much."

"We have a few talk radio friends who will allow us a say on their programs. But that's about all. They are too well monitored by the State and there are no independent stations any more," said Jimmy, who was looking increasingly impressed with Maryam. "Mostly though we'll be relying on word of mouth. We have a good few bodies to carry the message and we have a slogan to try."

"Slogan?" Maryam asked.

"Deeds, not words," Jimmy said.

Maryam looked thoughtful and then nodded. "You need to emphasise the run down nature of the boroughs and get a few of your men busy in renovations of parks and areas to turn the decay around and use the slogan on advertising boards and pamphlets," Maryam advised.

"That at least we can do, before and after and, if necessary, after again if it gets trashed," Jimmy said. "We can also renovate the widows and orphans' housing."

"Sounds like a plan," Maryam said. "Now leave me to see just what you have here and how to turn it to our best advantage."

"Yes Ma'am," Jimmy replied with a chuckle.

It took the authorities and their lap-dogs, the press, a week or so to realise that they had a 'slight' problem with the new Veterans' Party. There's a quote by Mahatma Ghandi that sums up pretty much what happened. 'First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.' At first the Council candidates tried to ignore us and were advised not to engage with us on the streets. This was proving problematical as the Veterans were well organised and we had a few surprises up our sleeves in the way of public voluntary work which made the Council's look bad, incompetent or just plain corrupt. We were also popular enough in our own districts to talk to the folk in them and get a good idea on public sentiment and where we could score the odd coup in getting them on our side, mostly to do with confronting the snitches. The press finally let loose with a broadside in trying to take our manifesto apart and telling any that would listen that it was simply far too costly and they did not quote any official reply, save only the old 'anonymous source' who was definitely not one of our own. Maryam however had been busy and our volunteers hand delivered our rebuttal to all the houses in our districts showing how we could afford our reforms. Indeed Maryam was far more important to the Veterans than I was now and she and the children were adored and protected by all who came into contact with them in the Party. In her admittedly sparse spare time Maryam would come out canvassing with me and would, along with the girls, stand next to me when I gave the odd speech in the ward I was contesting. We were often heckled and mocked during these speeches, but I had a thick skin by now and had answers for pretty much everything and it was becoming clear in our internal poll's that we were more than holding our own in popularity, despite what the press were putting out.

We realised that we were winning when the gloves came off during a rally in the central park of our town and an attempt by supporters, or rather the hirelings of the State, to cause a riot and disrupt the process (and no doubt blame us for it too). Fortunately we had a few friends in high places and the veterans themselves were no strangers to violence. We were able to nip the trouble in the bud by doing a search for weapons at the entrances and swiftly removed any who sought to add physical violence to verbal taunting.

Maryam also had her team of helpers go through the electoral register and identify all the voters and gave the names to the enforcers who, with the help of the local veterans, made sure no ringers or double voters could get near the ballot boxes. We also made sure that there would be no ballot box stuffing going on by insisting (as was our right under the new compact) that each polling station had an enforcer watching the procedure at all times.

Although Maryam and I were run off our feet, our home life remained the same, we slept in the same bed and we tried to give Zena and Tahira as much time as we could. Sex as yet was still off the menu, though we grew ever closer and both girls now occasionally called me papa, particularly when Maryam and I were together. We both of course knew what they were hinting at, but both knew that this was something that we were in no hurry for, inevitable as it now had become.