Hit Squad (16 page)

I quickly checked the first room on the left-hand side. As expected, it was a cloakroom containing a rail of coats and a few suitcases on the floor. I checked the picture of the laptop bag we
were looking for, while Harry and Bradley bundled the guard inside the room. Harry took a third pair of handcuffs and chained him to the rail while I ran my eyes over the bags on the floor.

‘It’s not here,’ I said. ‘Let’s go next door.’

We left the guard tied up and moved to the next room. It was some kind of meeting room – slightly larger than the cloakroom, with a central table around which about ten chairs had been
arranged. No phones again, I noticed. A row of small bags stood against the far wall.

‘We’re looking for a dark green computer case with a star emblem on the side,’ I reminded the others.

Bradley nodded. ‘I’m going to have to sit down,’ he said.

I stared at him. His face looked really sweaty now . . . and he was as white as the walls of the meeting room.

‘Are you okay?’ Harry asked.

‘Sure,’ Bradley said, but he didn’t sound very convincing.

‘You were awesome,’ I said, thinking maybe I’d sounded a bit harsh earlier.

See
. . . who says I can’t be generous and encouraging?

‘Thanks,’ Bradley muttered. He sank to the floor and leaned against the wall.

‘There it is.’ Harry pointed to a dark green laptop bag at the end of the line of cases.

I followed his gaze. Sure enough, the side of the bag contained the star emblem Foster had told us about.

‘Dylan, you better check no one’s coming, yeah?’ Harry said.

‘Okay.’ I rushed outside and peered up and down. According to Foster’s information, the politician on whose laptop we were supposed to plant information would be through the
door to my far left – in some high-level meeting. Foster had reckoned we would have about fifteen minutes to get in and out of the building before anyone noticed us. We’d already used
up five of those minutes.

As I raced back inside, Harry was taking the laptop out of the bag.

‘No one in sight,’ I said.

Harry laid the computer carefully on the table. He looked up at me and raised an eyebrow. ‘So did you miss me, Red?’

‘Get on with it,’ I said.

Harry grinned and opened up the laptop. He switched it on and peered at the screen.

‘Any time this century,’ I said.

Harry threw me a sideways glance. ‘Skip it, Red.’

I opened my mouth to retort, then thought better of it. Its not that I wanted to do what Harry told me. I was just aware of the hurry we were in.

Harry bent closer to the screen. He was muttering something under his breath, then he reached forward and tapped at the laptop keys.

‘
Yes
!’ he said softly.

‘You found the right file already?’ I said, genuinely impressed.

Harry nodded. He took the memory stick Foster had given him from his pocket and inserted it into the side of the laptop. He looked up at me. ‘Just two more minutes,’ he said.

I checked my watch. We only had six minutes until the time Foster had predicted the meeting would break up. Bradley was still slumped against the wall by the door, his eyes glazed over and his
face unnaturally pale. He looked almost out of it. Maybe giving him something to do would help.

‘Would you check on that guard in the cloakroom?’ I asked him.

Bradley nodded and struggled to his feet. He didn’t seem that steady as he disappeared out of the room.

Harry gave a low whistle. ‘Done,’ he said. ‘I added all the info we were given to the file. Anyone reading it will think the man who wrote it has committed fraud on a massive
scale.’

‘Fast work,’ I said.

Harry looked at me as he removed the memory stick and placed the laptop back in its bag. ‘I’m good at this, Red,’ he said. ‘
Really
good.’

I could feel my cheeks flushing. ‘Let’s go,’ I said.

Harry put the laptop bag back where we found it and we raced out of the room.

Bradley was just emerging from the cloakroom next door. If anything, he looked even worse than before. I was about to ask if he was all right, when the door at the end of the room opened. A man
in a suit strode in. He saw us straight away, his mouth falling open in shock.

I grabbed Harry and Bradley. ‘Run!’ I shouted.

As we raced to the door I extended my force field, making sure all three of us were protected. I didn’t look round. Back into the corridor. Along to the fire door. I burst outside. The car
was waiting, the engine running. The two men Foster had sent with us were sitting where we’d left them in the front. Knife Man was in the driving seat. I dived into the back of the car. Harry
scrambled in after me.

‘Where’s Bradley?’ I shouted.

‘He was right behind me,’ Harry said, wide-eyed.

We both turned to the fire door. Men in suits were streaming outside. One of them had his phone clamped to his ear. Another spotted us and started running towards our car. He drew out a gun and
pointed it at Knife Man. There was no sign of Bradley.

Knife Man pressed on the gas as the man outside fired his gun. It glanced off the bonnet as we sped away. I stared out of the back window. The man who’d run towards us was standing in the
street, still pointing his gun in our direction. We roared around a corner. The helipad was only streets away, but we couldn’t possibly go straight there.

‘We have to go back for Bradley,’ I said. ‘They must have caught him.’

‘Or he fainted,’ Harry said. ‘He looked really ill.’

Knife Man shook his head. ‘We can’t get into a shooting match. Mr Foster’s top priority was to avoid armed conflict.’

‘But—’ I started.

‘Shut up!’ Knife Man snapped.

I exchanged a glance with Harry. He looked as upset as I felt. I mean, Bradley was annoying and in league with Foster, of course. But on the other hand, he was just a kid who I was supposed to
have been looking after.

And now I’d left him all alone.

Foster was waiting for us at the helipad. Knife Man had rung ahead to tell him what had happened. I couldn’t hear Foster’s response, but as soon as I saw him I knew
he was beyond furious that Bradley had been left behind.

After asking us to explain ‘how the hell’ we’d lost him, he ordered Harry and me into the helicopter that was waiting on the tarmac. Through the window we could see Foster
yelling at the two men who’d driven us. I couldn’t catch much of what he said, but it was obvious he was sending them back for Bradley. As the two men roared away in their car, Foster
boarded the helicopter. He neither looked at nor spoke to Harry and me, simply told the pilot to get us out of here as soon as possible.

By the time we arrived back at the little apartment in Lovistov it was dark and I was exhausted. Nico and Ed were still in the living room where we’d left them. As Foster shoved us inside
and locked the door behind us, the past few hours seemed like a dream.

And then – five minutes later – the door burst open again and everything turned into a nightmare.

The four of us had been sitting and talking about what had happened in low voices on the sofas. We still had no idea if Cal had managed to alert either the local police force or Fergus and Avery
back in Australia. But even if he had, we knew none of them would have any idea we’d been taken to this apartment in Lovistov. Neither would Amy with whom Ed had managed, briefly, to make
remote contact when we were still based at the castle.

As Foster and Jack came in, we all stood up. A tense silence fell as Foster looked round at each one of us in turn. He cleared his throat.

‘We’ve heard that Bradley was taken, unconscious, to hospital,’ he said.

‘He said he wasn’t well,’ I said. ‘He—’

‘Leaving him behind was careless,’ Foster interrupted in a soft tone that was all the more menacing for being quiet. ‘I don’t understand how it happened. I thought you
were using your Medusa ability to protect all three of you.’

‘She did,’ Harry said quickly.

I nodded. ‘Me and Harry were in front, Bradley behind . . . when we were running out of the building.’ I thought back to Bradley’s shaking hands and pale, clammy face.
‘It all happened real fast.’

‘And
you
didn’t notice you’d left him behind either?’ Foster glared at Harry.

Harry looked away. I shook my head. It was outrageous for Foster to blame either me or Harry for Bradley’s capture.

‘People were chasing us,’ I said, feeling my anger mounting. ‘It was confusing. We were running fast and Bradley was ill before then anyway.’ I drew myself up. ‘If
Bradley got taken, it’s nobody’s fault but yours.’

Foster glared at me. His grey eyes were like tiny stones, his lips pressed together in an expression of determined fury.

‘How dare you blame me,’ he said. His voice sent a shard of ice into me, but no way was I going to let him see how intimidated I felt.

‘Of course I blame you, it’s totally your fault,’ I said, putting my hands on my hips and staring up at him. ‘It’s your fault because Bradley was scared. It’s
your fault because he was inexperienced. It’s your fault because he wasn’t well.
You
made him come with us in spite of all those things. On top of which,
you
gave him the
Medusix in the first place.’

‘That’s probably what made him ill,’ Nico added.

‘No,’ Foster insisted. ‘It made him ill early on, but Bradley had fully recovered.’

‘No, he hadn’t,’ I said. ‘Everything that happened is
so
all your fault. You can’t blame us.’

For a second, Foster looked so furious I thought he might explode. His face was a dark red colour and a vein pulsed at his temple.

‘But I
do
blame you, Dylan.’ Foster narrowed his eyes. ‘In fact, I suspect you saw Bradley wasn’t keeping up with you and left him on pur—’ As he
spoke, his phone rang. He held it to his ear, not taking his eyes off me. A second later he put it down again. ‘My men inform me that Bradley is still unconscious.’

Silence fell. I was suddenly aware of Ed standing beside me and Harry and Nico opposite. They were all looking at me, the expressions on their faces part confusion, part terror.

Jack stepped forward, out of the shadows by the door. I’d forgotten he was even in the room.

‘At least you know Bradley hasn’t compromised the mission,’ he said quietly to Foster. ‘If he’s unconscious, I mean.’

Jeez
, I suddenly saw how frightened Jack himself was of Foster. The thought filled me with dread. Jack was rarely fazed by anything.

Foster ignored him. He was still staring at me.

And then he raised his gun and pointed it at my head.

‘I’m afraid the truth is, Dylan . . .’ he said, cocking the gun, ‘. . . that where there’s a crime there has to be a punishment.’

I looked down the barrel of the revolver. Was he going to shoot me? Because of Bradley? It didn’t feel real.

Then I realised my legs were shaking.

I tried to engage my force field, but the Medutox being sprayed into the room had already reached me. I was defenceless.

‘No.’ Nico and Ed spoke together.

Harry strode towards me. He stood between me and Foster. ‘You can’t kill her,’ he said.

Foster raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t think any of you are in a position to tell me what to do.’

Jack walked forward, so he was right beside Foster. His eyes were on Foster’s gun as he spoke.

‘There’s no need to take things this far,’ he urged. ‘The men can get Bradley out of hospital. He probably collapsed because . . . well, it’ll be just another side
effect of the Medusix. I’m sure it will pass. So . . . we’ll get Bradley back. No one will know what the kids were doing in the conference rooms. They’ll assume it was petty
theft. No one will be looking for data that’s been put
onto
a computer. The mission worked. Everything’s going—’

‘Shut up,’ Foster ordered.

Jack stopped talking immediately, but he moved closer to Harry.

‘Dylan had the power to save Bradley from capture and keep the mission on track,’ Foster said softly. ‘She failed. She must be punished.’ He levelled his gun at me again.
But Harry was still standing between us, blocking the shot. ‘Get out of the way, Harry,’ Foster ordered.

‘No,’ Harry said.

‘Please,’ Ed said, his voice practically hoarse with horror. ‘Please, you can’t shoot.’

Foster swung his gun round, pointing it now at Ed himself.

‘I told you
not
to give me orders,’ he barked. ‘A punishment must be paid.’ He paused. ‘Still, Dylan remains a useful asset. And as Harry was also on the
mission, he is also partly responsible for its failure.’ He swivelled the gun back. ‘So . . . you’re the one I’m going to kill, Harry.’

‘No.’ I put my hand out to protect him, forgetting again my Medusa power was completely gone.

‘No, you can’t.’ Jack was on Harry’s other side. ‘Foster, this makes no sense. Harry’s as useful as the others. I know he wasn’t supposed to follow me
out here, but he can hack into anything and—’

‘. . . and it’s murder,’ Nico added.

Foster called out and Broken Nose came into the room.