Aftershock (26 page)

Cole Harrington sat in his cell in H.I.V.E.’s detention wing trying very hard not to think about what the future held for him. He had no idea how Otto Malpense had managed to transfer the stolen H.I.V.E.mind files to his Blackbox but he knew that whatever Nero might have in mind for him it would not be pleasant. He looked up as the door to his cell hissed open and Chief Dekker walked into the room.

‘What do you want?’ Harrington snapped bitterly. ‘If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be in here.’

‘Whatever do you mean?’ Dekker asked with a smile.

‘You’re the one who told me what Malpense and those other Alphas were up to. You were the one who told me that you could sell H.I.V.E.mind’s source code for so much money. It’s because of you that I’m in this situation. Well,you’re going to get me out of this somehow or I’m going to tell Nero all about your part in this. I’m not taking the fall for this alone.’

‘You know, it’s really very sad,’ Dekker said, shaking her head.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You obviously couldn’t live with yourself after betraying H.I.V.E. so badly,’ Dekker continued. ‘You confessed everything to me, of course. How you’d found the proposed location for the Hunt amongst the files you stole from H.I.V.E.mind and then how you covertly transmitted the information to your contact. You even told me exactly where in your quarters you hid the covert transmitter that you had paid one of the security guards to smuggle into the school for you. During the course of my questioning I explained to you that the information you had unwittingly provided to the Disciples had been directly responsible for the massacre at the Hunt. You told me how you had no idea that anything like that would happen and that you desperately regretted your actions. Sadly you obviously just couldn’t live with the guilt. If I’d realised that you were a suicide risk I would have kept a much closer watch on you. Such a shame.’

‘Suicide? What do you mean suicide? I’d never . . . oh God no.’

Dekker walked towards him smiling nastily as the door hissed shut behind her.

chapter eleven

‘Are you guys going to be OK in here?’ Otto asked. He looked around the interior of the fake church and was struck by just how much attention to detail had been used when the building was constructed.

‘Don’t worry. We’ll be fine,’ Laura said, helping Tom lower Nigel on to the floor behind the altar.

‘How are you feeling, Nigel?’ Otto asked. His friend looked paler and his breathing seemed more laboured.

‘I’ve felt better,’ Nigel said quietly. ‘I don’t think I’d really recommend getting shot, to be honest.’

‘It wasn’t actually that high on my list of things to try,’ Otto said with a smile. ‘Don’t worry, help will be here soon.’

Otto handed Laura one of the Disciple assault rifles.

‘I know you don’t want it but take it anyway. If they get past us, then it’s up to you and Tom to protect Nigel and Penny.’

‘Hey,’ Penny said with a frown as she sat down next to Nigel, ‘I’m not that badly hurt.’

‘I know but you’re not in any condition to go running around outside either,’ Tom said. ‘Don’t worry, Otto, we’ll be fine.’

‘OK, I need to get back outside and make sure that Wing and Shel know what they’re doing,’ Otto said. ‘See you guys soon.’

Otto and Laura walked back towards the church doors together. Otto pulled the door open but Laura pushed it shut and pulled him towards her.

‘Good luck,’ Laura said and then she kissed him. It felt just like he had hoped it would. It felt right. Otto pulled away from her and stared into her eyes. There was something there that he hadn’t expected – she looked afraid.

‘Hey, don’t worry,’ Otto said, ‘we’re going to get through this. In a few hours we’ll all be back at H.I.V.E. wishing we had something more exciting to do.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ Laura said with a sad smile.

‘’Course I’m right,’ Otto said with a grin as he pushed the door open again. ‘I always am, remember.’

The Disciple commander examined the enormous rusted doors. There was no doubt that the beacon signal was coming from somewhere on the other side of them.

‘The gunship’s reporting that there’s some sort of glass dome hidden between the peaks up there,’ his comms officer said, pointing up to the rocky slopes that loomed above them. ‘They’re saying that there’s some sort of artificial lighting inside and what look like buildings.’

‘What is this place?’ the commander asked with a frown. ‘It’s not on any of the maps.’

‘That’s not unusual for the Russian military,’ the comms officer replied. ‘At least that’s who I’m assuming built this.’

‘I want this door taken down,’ the commander said. ‘Get a demolition charge set up.’

‘Yes, sir, it’ll take a few minutes.’

The commander walked back down the road towards the two transport helicopters that had brought him and his troops up the mountain. Minerva waited as he approached.

‘We should be inside shortly,’ the commander reported.

‘Good, the longer that beacon is transmitting the more likely it is that G.L.O.V.E. forces will detect it. We cannot afford a direct confrontation at this stage,’ Minerva replied. ‘Nero must be weakened first.’

Minerva and the commander watched as two of his men worked quickly to attach shaped charges to the metal door. After a couple of minutes they both hurried back towards the helicopters. The man holding the remote detonator looked at the commander and he gave a quick nod.

‘Fire in the hole!’

‘How did this happen?’ Nero asked angrily. ‘Why wasn’t he searched more carefully when he was detained?’

He and Chief Dekker watched as two security guards carried a sheet-covered body on a stretcher out of the detention block.

‘I’m sorry, Doctor Nero,’ Dekker replied, ‘it never occurred to me that he might have some sort of suicide capsule. It must have been smuggled to him by his Disciple contact. We know that they had equipment brought into the school for him by his contact. We found a covert transmitter hidden in his quarters. It seems that there was an awful lot about Cole Harrington that nobody knew.’

‘What about his accomplices, the Henchman students?’ Nero asked. ‘Are they working for the Disciples as well?’

‘No, I don’t believe so,’ Dekker replied. ‘I think they were just unwitting pawns. In their case, very unwitting. I don’t think either of them would even be able to spell “Disciple” much less leak information to them.’

‘That still means that there is somebody inside the school who is working for the Disciples,’ Nero said with a frown. ‘It has to be somebody that has permission to leave the island or they wouldn’t be able to get this equipment in the first place. Which means that we’re either looking for a member of the teaching staff or someone on the support staff. Either way we’re going to have to try and flush them out. We can’t afford a traitor in our midst, especially at the moment.’

‘I shall start conducting interviews with everyone who has been off the island in the last six months,’ Dekker said. ‘This isn’t going to be easy. That’s a lot of people when you consider how many of the teaching and support staff have taken leave during that period.’

‘I suggest you start immediately, Chief. We have no time to lose.’

‘Understood. I will schedule the first interviews for this afternoon.’

‘Good. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to head back to the control room to see if there have been any developments in the search for Raven and the surviving Alphas.’

Nero walked out of the detention centre and headed up the corridor towards the control room, his mind racing. Things were moving too fast. He was used to dealing with casualties in his line of work but he had never found it easy to accept the death of one of his students. The fact that the Disciples had murdered or captured almost an entire year of Alpha students was unbearable. Despite that, he knew that he had to stay focused. If he dwelled too much on the scale of the unfolding tragedy in Siberia he would be of no use to anyone. Raven and the remaining Alphas were still out there somewhere and he would do absolutely everything in his power to ensure that they were returned to the school unharmed. He walked into the control room and one of the communications technicians hurried over to him.

‘Doctor Nero, we’ve just received a transmission from Colonel Francisco,’ the tech said quickly. ‘They’ve picked up a Shroud distress beacon in the mountains to the north of their current position. They’re trying to get a fix on its location now.’

The Disciple troops picked their way through the twisted remains of the metal doors in the mountainside and headed down the tunnel beyond with the commander and Minerva just behind them. Enough of the lights in the ceiling were working for them to see that this was clearly a military facility of some kind. There were rooms that were unmistakeably barracks and mess halls. The Disciple troops moved slowly and carefully, alert for any sign of booby traps or an ambush. They knew that they could take no chances, especially considering the prey that they were hunting. Eventually they arrived at the control room at the end of the passage. The soldiers took up defensive positions around the room as the commander and Minerva looked down through the huge window at the bizarre scene below them.

‘A slice of apple pie in the heart of the motherland,’ Minerva said. ‘I had heard of such places existing but I had never seen one before today. I expect the Americans had an artificial Russian town just like this hidden away somewhere too.’

‘It may be a fascinating relic of the cold war,’ the commander said, ‘but it is also a problem. They could be anywhere down there.’

‘Then I suggest you start your search immediately, commander,’ Minerva replied. ‘There is no time to waste.’

‘OK. We’ll head for the town square first,’ the commander said, addressing his men, ‘then conduct an expanding sweep search from there. Let’s move out.’

The commander headed out on to the gantry and followed his men down the stairs to the cavern floor. They made slow but steady progress down the main street towards the centre of the town, checking carefully for any sign of a trap.

‘How far to the beacon?’ the commander asked as his men reached the town square.

‘It seems to be coming from the church,’ his comms officer replied, waving a small electronic device back and forth in front of him.

‘OK, I want four-man fire teams there, there and there,’ the commander said, pointing to positions around the outside of the square. ‘Overlapping fields of fire. I want this square to be a kill box.’