Aftershock (30 page)

Mark picked up the QBB-97 machine gun and threw the strap over his shoulder, then he yanked an NP42 pistol from the guard's holster, turned to the desk and pocketed the E-Force stun pistol. E-Force did not carry deadly weapons. He knew that of course. He had written the rule. But his training and his sense of self was a more powerful impulse. The gun offered him a feeling of security. He ran for the door.

‘Warning. Station under cyber attack. Warning.' The metallic voice boomed out of speakers along the passageway leading away from Mengde's blood-drenched office. It made him feel good to hear it. It meant Tom was getting into the computer systems of the base. He knew that Tom would eat up the mainframe and spit out the bones. And getting control of the computer network was half the battle.

He ran along the corridor, retracing the steps he had taken as a hooded prisoner. Stopping at the end, he edged slowly round the corner. It was all clear. Twenty seconds later, he was at the door to the storeroom where the others were held. He hit the button on the wall and the door slid open.

‘Christ, Mark!' Pete exclaimed. ‘What the fuck happened?'

‘No time now. Come with me.' Then he turned to Mai, pulled the machine gun from his shoulder and tossed it to her. ‘You stay here with everyone. Keep that gun trained on the door.'

She looked a little confused.

‘I know, E-Force doesn't do guns, but if soldiers come here intent on killing civilians, it's us or them. We can discuss the morality of it all later ... yeah?'

Mai gave him a weak smile. ‘It's a date, Mark.' Then she said quietly, ‘Sigmund?'

Mark just shook his head, turned to Pete, tossed him the stun pistol and led the way out.

The Hummingbird came in low over the water. The late afternoon sun was hot and bright. Josh and Omar took the huge plane in a tight circle and then lowered it to the surface of the ocean. The aircraft settled onto the water directly above the Chinese subaqua base. Tom had located it using automatic beacons built into the cybersuits.

‘So what's Tom got from BigEye?' Steph asked.

They were sitting in the Ops Room behind the flightdeck. Josh flicked a control and a wall screen lit up. ‘The techs at Base One have managed to boost the sensors on BigEye 9. They've got some images of a structure on the ocean floor. It's located at the exact coordinates Sybil found for the source of the tremors. Some sort of subaqua base.'

It was constructed from a collection of 24 cylinders arranged as a flat, elongated cube lying on the floor of the ocean. They could see the E-Force sub
Drebbel
docked to one of the short ends of the building. On each side lay the black shapes of the Chinese nuclear subs. They were docked to the base with fuel lines and power cables running from the wall of the building.

‘There are three cybersuits here,' Josh remarked, and a cluster of three red dots appeared on the screen. ‘Infrared scanners show there are 26 human life signs on the station. A group of them are concentrated in this area.' He pointed to a spot in the western section of the base. ‘I would guess it's some sort of holding cell.'

‘Okay, so I imagine you've already worked out a plan, Josh.'

He looked unusually serious. ‘Well, we still have a few advantages. It's quite possible sensors on the base have detected the Hummingbird, but I think they would have trouble picking up a personal sub.'

‘What makes you so sure?'

‘Tom's breaking into their network as we speak. He's trying to target key control systems. He can't just cut all power – or everyone in the building would suffocate. He's disrupted their sonar and other sensor systems, so if they saw the Hummingbird come in, they won't see it any more.'

‘So we could take a sub down and they would never know we were there.'

Josh smiled and nodded.

‘And you think you're back to 100 per cent fitness?'

‘One hundred and 10 per cent.'

She gave him a sceptical look and shook her head. ‘All right, Josh. Lead the way.'

Mark and Pete ran along the passageway. Mark had pulled the NP42 handgun from his pocket.

The computerised voice started up again. ‘Warning. Station under cyber attack. Warning.'

‘I love you, Tom!' Pete exclaimed as they ran.

Mark stopped and turned to something on the wall halfway along the corridor.

‘What is it?'

He was staring at a laminated rectangle pinned to the wall. ‘It's a schematic of the station.'

Pete stood next to him. ‘My Chinese is a little rusty.'

‘There,' Mark said after a moment. ‘Down this corridor.' He pointed to his left. ‘Right, left, second right ... Let's go.'

Mark led the way while Pete guarded their rear, eyeing the corridor behind as they ran, sweeping it with the stun pistol. They saw no one and reached the room they were looking for in a few moments. The sign on the door was written in simple Chinese characters: ‘COMMUNICATIONS CENTRE'.

Mark stepped forward, stabbed a metal pad on the wall and the door slid open. All they could hear from inside was the electronic hum of computers and comms equipment. They clung to the wall either side of the opening, listening intently, their weapons raised in front of their noses. Their cochlear implants could pick up nothing to suggest the room was manned.

The computer warning sounded again: ‘Warning. Station under cyber attack. Warning.' The last word echoed along the corridor, and suddenly Mark heard something. Two different people in the Communications Centre. They were trying not to make a sound, but he could just hear them breathing. Pete caught it too. He nodded to Mark, and ducking low they swivelled into the Communications Centre.

One of the soldiers had a pistol drawn. He fired and missed. Pete pulled the trigger of his stun pistol and a beam of intense electromagnetic energy hit the man in the chest. He fell back, unconscious.

The second soldier had more time. He span around, went to fire, but the gun flew out of his hand. It pirouetted in the air and smashed into a control panel close by. He yelped as two of his fingers dislocated. Then a second beam from the stun pistol hit him square in the chest and he was out cold.

‘Sharp shooting, man,' Pete said.

‘Not so bad yourself, Pete. Here, help me tie them up.' Mark had yanked a phone from a cradle on the wall close to the door. He ripped the receiver out of its socket and threw the rest to Pete. The severed mains lead dangled from its rear end. Mark used the coiled lead with the receiver still attached to bind the first soldier's hands behind his back. Pete tugged at the phone end of the mains lead and the wire came free. Dragging the second soldier along the floor, he positioned him against the leg of a bench and tied him to it with the lead. He stood up and slapped his palms together as though cleaning dust from them. ‘There,' he said. ‘Very neat, even if I say so meself.'

Mark was already over at the main desk. ‘Pete, guard the door. Don't hesitate to use the stun pistol.' The console was covered in Chinese symbols, but that did not present a problem for him. He flicked a switch and a crackling sound came from a speaker in the control panel. He leaned in towards a microphone on a flexible stand protruding from the console.

‘E-Force. Come in.'

Nothing but the crackling sound.

‘Tom? You there?'

‘Mark.'

‘Steph!'

‘What's your status, Mark?'

‘I only have a few seconds. Pete and Mai are safe. We have nine survivors from the Neptune. We've been taken captive by some sort of renegade group – Chinese, but I'm sure they're not official military. They're a bunch of murderers led by a man named Mengde Sun. You got that? Mengde Sun.'

‘Yeah, Mark...'

‘Let me finish. Might lose comms any second. Tom's in the middle of a cyber attack – you probably know that. Great distraction, but we need more. If we don't get out of here, Mengde's people will kill all of us. We're going to try to get the survivors back to the
Drebbel
.'

‘Someone's coming,' Pete hissed.

‘Gotta go, Steph,' Mark snapped and cut the comms link.

It was a tiny, two-seater sub, nicknamed the Hot Dog. It was nimble, very fast and almost totally undetectable by conventional sonar. The fact that Tom had culled the system in the Chinese base at Hang Cheng was a welcome bonus.

The Hot Dog dropped out of the Hummingbird. Its single, 900 horsepower engine kicked in and the compact little vessel shot into a diagonal dive, headed straight for the base. Steph was at the controls this time. She had refused point blank to have it any other way and Josh could hardly argue. She manoeuvred the vehicle with consummate skill derived from many hours of practice, and within 60 seconds they were 350 metres below the Pacific. In their cockpits they could each see the base on their screens. The place looked uncomfortable on the ocean floor, a typically ugly communist edifice; all substance, no style.

‘Drop site located,' Steph said, and the sub pulled rapidly to starboard, turned and dived incredibly quickly. A moment later, it was purring along, 3 metres above the ocean floor, following the contours of the strange marine landscape. They stopped 15 metres from the north-east corner of the base, cut the engines and floated silently.

Josh's fingers played over the controls of the Hot Dog and a panel opened in its underside. A retractable metal arm slid out. Nestled in the metal claw at the end of the arm was a cylinder about a metre long, half a metre in diameter. It was a Distractor – a box of electronics that could simulate any form of seismic disruption required. It was a classic decoy. All you had to do was assign it a disruption level, set the timer, put it in place, and let it do its job. And best of all, it caused no real damage, just a lot of fuss and noise.

The retractable metal arm lowered the Distractor to the seabed and folded itself back into the underside of the sub. The door of the little sub's cargo hold slid shut, and for a moment nothing more happened. Then slowly the cylinder lifted a few centimetres from the ocean floor, hung there for a second and moved towards the wall of the base.

A metre from the wall, a steel tube shot out from the end of the Distractor. A sucker unfolded itself from the end. It looked for all the world like a very hi-tech toilet plunger. The pad attached itself to the wall and the device stuck fast.

‘Excellent,' Steph said into the comms. ‘Couldn't have done it better myself, Josh.'

‘I know that!' he retorted. ‘It's set for six minutes. Let's get into position.'

The Hot Dog sped away from the drop site and swung around the edge of the base, its powerful motor churning the water as it went.

‘The door is dead ahead,' Steph said into her comms.

Within two minutes they were suited up. They let the Hot Dog hover a few metres from the base and jumped on a two-seater scooter attached to the outside of the mini-sub. Reaching the door to the base, they killed the engine of the scooter, slid off and held onto a pair of handles cut into the wall.

‘Let's hope Tom's done his bit,' Steph said.

Josh turned a lever on the door and pulled on the handle. It swung outwards.

Inside the lock, they sealed the door. On the wall was an electronic panel countersunk into a rubber rectangle. The buttons were rubber. Josh tapped in a combination he had downloaded from Tintara and the water started to drain from the chamber.

It took three minutes to empty. A signal sounded, a high-pitched whistle to indicate the chamber was ready to be unlocked. Steph stabbed at a pad on the inner door, and it slid open.

They were inside the base.

The voices were coming from the passageway to the right of the exit from the Communications Centre. Mark and Pete dashed along the corridor in the opposite direction, back towards the storeroom and the others.

They reached the end of the corridor, hung a left and found themselves in a long passageway with doors leading off to each side. The storeroom was ahead, around a bend to the left.

‘Pete?' They both stopped in the corridor. ‘You go back to the room with the others. Get them ready to move out.'

‘What're you doing?'

‘I need to find the cybersuits.'

‘I should come too.'

‘No. Mai needs help. There are nine survivors. It'll be easier for me to move on my own. Besides, I don't want both of us running the risk of getting caught.'

Pete held Mark's eyes for a moment then nodded. He turned and sped down the corridor. Stopping at the end, he peered around, then ran on, stun gun ready, gripped in both hands.

Mark had remembered the schematic of the base down to the last detail. He was in what translated to Corridor B. He raced on, past the turning that led to the storeroom. The passageway curved to the right. A short way along, he stopped, then took a left. The Main Control Room lay directly ahead.

He could hear voices – half a dozen different people. There were other sounds too, machines whirring, computer crosstalk, a man pacing. Then, cutting over it all, the warning from the computer blared again. Mark leaned back against the wall to the right of the sliding door, and took a deep breath. His left hand was poised over the door's release button. He gripped the pistol with his right. Pushing away from the wall, he thumped the release.

‘Drop the gun,' a voice shouted in Chinese.

Mark turned and saw a soldier at the corner. The man ran straight towards him keeping his machine gun trained on Mark. Two more men emerged from the room. Behind them stood Mengde Sun. ‘Oh dear,' he said in English.

The door slammed behind him as Mark was shoved into the store-cum-prison. He tripped and landed heavily. Pete walked over and helped him up. Mark gazed around the room and saw all the survivors were there. The Xavier children looked petrified. Hilary was holding Nick close to her and Michael had his arm about Emily's shoulders, whispering words of comfort. Kristy sat against the far wall, her head down on her raised knees. Harry, Miguel, Jim and Archie formed a small group close to the door. They looked utterly drained.

‘You've still got the weapons?' Mark asked urgently.

Pete patted his hip and Mai nodded towards the machine gun on the shelf at the back of the room.

‘I thought I said you should use it, Mai.'

‘I know you did. But I didn't, Mark. Okay?'

Mark gazed at the floor. ‘I got a message out,' he said.

‘Yeah, I know.' She nodded at Pete.

‘What's that?'

‘What's what?'

Then Pete and Mai heard it.

Mark turned and saw vapour appearing from under the shelving unit in the wall furthest from the door. Harry Flanders had seen it too. ‘What the fuck's that?' he exclaimed.

Mark and Mai strode over to the shelves and crouched low near the source of the vapour, trying to find the inlet. They both started coughing and pulled back.

‘Oh fuck,' Jim said. He looked round at the others. ‘They're poisoning us!'

Everyone started talking at once.

‘Okay, people,' Mark snapped and raised his hands. They quietened down, but he could see in their faces they were all petrified. They had been through so much, the strain was showing.

‘I know it's hard, but we have to keep calm. Try to not to breathe any more than you have to. My colleagues are on their way. Please, try ... try to remain calm.'

Mark ripped at the sleeve of his boilersuit, and Pete took his lead. Mai found a bottle of water that had been left with some food a couple of hours earlier. The sleeves were ripped into smaller strips, Mai drenched them with water and handed them out.

Hilary Xavier, her face drawn, almost skeletal with stress, took two lengths of cloth and told Emily and Nick to put the fabric over their mouths.

‘Any idea what the gas is, Pete? Mai?' Mark asked.

They shook their heads.

‘Odourless, just about visible as a white vapour. Could be anything,' Pete concluded.

‘It's lighter than air,' Mai added and nodded towards a wispy trail ascending to the ceiling. ‘Buys us a little time.'

Michael and Jim started to cough.

‘Get to the floor ... Everyone,' Mark commanded. Hilary pulled the kids down. Emily started to cry. Hilary shushed her. ‘Don't, Em ... please.'

‘Okay, everyone, breathe only when necessary. Shallow breaths,' Mai told them and threw herself to the floor.

Mark scrambled under the shelving at the back of the room. He had a damp cloth pushed up against his nose and mouth, but the vapour was still getting through. He waved the gas away, searching for the inlet. He shuffled forward on his belly, alternately pushing himself against the floor and trying to clear his vision with his spare hand. His eyes were streaming.

His whole body was under the shelving unit before he found the source and, when he did, his heart sank. It was not a single opening, but dozens of small nozzles tucked up inside a cavity under the crossbeam of the shelving support. There was nothing they could do to stop the gas coming in. He swung around, coughing into the damp rag. Pete was crouching down and helped him out.

‘Hopeless,' Mark said, his voice muffled by the wet cloth.

Pete nodded towards the floor. The civilians were all unconscious.

Mark felt a movement behind him. He turned just in time to see Mai's head slump to one side. He lowered her gently, making sure the wet cloth was tight about her nose and mouth. Then, straightening, he shuffled towards the door, his head swimming. He caught a glimpse of Pete drop unconscious beside him. His vision started to go and he felt the room start to shake. Was he imagining it?

‘Fight it!' Mark mumbled. ‘Fight it...'