Hit Squad (20 page)

Fergus tied a gag round the man’s mouth. As I ran up, Cal pushed the guard to the ground. He shrank away, clearly in a state of complete shock.

‘Sorted,’ Cal said with a grin.

‘Like taking sweets off a couple of toddlers,’ I said, grinning back.

‘That’s all very well, but those men had proper guns,’ Fergus said disapprovingly. ‘Any one of you could have been seriously hurt.’

Ignoring him, I turned to Ed. He was gazing into space, clearly attempting remote telepathy once more.

‘Come on,’ I urged. ‘Has Amy told you where the labs are yet? We need to get there as fast as possible.’

‘Wait.’ Ed held up his hand. He looked worried.

I rolled my eyes. Honestly, he was as big a fusspot as Fergus.

Cal’s eyes were shining. ‘That was awesome, bro,’ he said.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Everything’s going totally to plan. This mission’s going to be a breeze.’

‘No it’s not.’ Ed turned to me, white-faced. ‘I can’t make contact with Amy.’

I stared at him. ‘Are you sure?’ I said. ‘Maybe she’s just focusing on being Foster . . . maybe—?’

‘No.’ Ed shook his head to underline his point. ‘No, you don’t understand. I think she’s been sprayed with Medutox.’

‘But that means—’ I looked at him in horror.

‘That means she’s been found out,’ Ed said.

A tense silence fell over us.

I gritted my teeth. ‘Then we have to go in and get her back,’ I said. ‘Come on. We’ll find the labs after.’ And without looking to see if the others followed, I set
off through the gate towards the complex.

I crept past the gate. The CCTV camera at the front of the complex was positioned just above the front door, about twenty metres directly ahead of me.

Cal, Ed and Fergus raced over.

‘Let me fly us in,’ Cal said. ‘It’s a flat roof. Maybe there’ll be a door down to the main part of the building from there. If not, I can fly us off.’

I hesitated. It was a risk – Cal’s flying was likely to attract attention. On the other hand, if the CCTV showing the front of the building wasn’t disabled, then we
wouldn’t stand a chance trying to get inside by breaking a window or attempting to storm in through the front door.

‘I don’t like this,’ Fergus said. ‘It sounds really dangerous.’

‘Cal’s excellent in the air,’ I said. ‘He can fly us in and out super fast. I think it’s a good plan.’ As I said the words, it occurred to me that if Ketty
were here, we wouldn’t need a plan – she’d be able to see into the near future for us. I met Ed’s eyes and knew he was thinking the same thing.

A beat passed. The pain weighed like a stone in the pit of my stomach.

‘Well,’ Ed said with a sigh. ‘I hate to agree with any proposal that involves flying but Cal’s right. It’s the only option.’

‘Why don’t we go in through the ground floor?’ Fergus asked.

I looked over at the complex. ‘Because all the entry points there are under surveillance. We’re too vulnerable. We’ll be seen and captured.’

‘I’m not sure we should be going in at all,’ Fergus added. ‘It’s too risky. Perhaps we should wait until Ed manages to make contact with Amy?’

I stared at him. ‘If Amy’s been sprayed, that isn’t going to happen. Ed’s really good at remote telepathy. If Amy was reachable, he’d be able to reach
her.’

‘Well, what about Dylan?’ Fergus insisted, a frown creasing his forehead. ‘Try contacting her. See if she knows what’s going on.’

‘I have,’ Ed said patiently. ‘I can’t reach either of them.’

‘We can’t wait,’ I said.

‘No.’ Ed nodded his agreement. ‘We have to go after Amy.’

Fergus opened his mouth to protest again, but I grabbed Cal’s wrist.

‘Fly us onto the roof,’ I said.

Cal reached for Ed’s wrist. The three of us stood in line. Fergus took a step back.

‘Let’s just wait a second and think this through,’ he said.

Cal and Ed both looked at me.

‘There’s no time,’ I said.

‘But—’ Fergus started.

‘Fly!’ I ordered.

Cal zoomed high into the sky, Ed and I on either side of him. The wind rushed past my face and I had that exciting, slightly off-balance feeling of leaving my stomach behind on the ground. In
seconds we had soared so far off the ground that Fergus was just a tiny dot below us and the complex like a toy building.

‘We shouldn’t leave Fergus,’ Ed said, looking past Cal towards me.

‘No choice,’ I said. ‘He’s too hesitant. He’s not cut out for missions. Having him with us risks everything. For him. For us. And for the others.’

Cal whooshed us across the sky. We were now hovering directly above the complex. I looked down.
Yes
, there was a raised structure on the flat roof . . . with a door that must lead
below.

‘Put us down,’ I said to Cal.

Seconds later we’d landed on the roof beside the door. Immediately I released Cal’s wrist and studied the door. It appeared to contain at least three different kinds of locks. A
metal padlock – that would be easy to spring open – plus an electronic bar
and
an alarmed laser field.

My heart sank. It was going to take all my skill and experience to get through those last two locks, especially the laser field – I’d never faced anything like it before. I twisted
my wrist and released the padlock. That, at least, was straightforward. Ed pushed at the door but of course it was still shut fast.

‘This is going to take some time,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘I need to visualise the two locks on this door and they’re both state of the art.’

‘What about the card Jack gave us?’ Ed asked. ‘Maybe it’s a key card for opening doors.’

‘Maybe, but it won’t work on this door.’ I shook my head. ‘It doesn’t use that kind of system.’

‘Try it anyway,’ Cal urged.

I took the card out of my pocket and let Cal wave it around the frame of the door but, as I’d suspected, the door stayed shut.

Cal made a face. ‘This sucks
,
’ he said, handing the card back to me.

‘I know.’ I focused on the lock again. ‘Give me some space, okay?’

Cal and Ed retreated a couple of metres across the roof and sat down. I carried on trying to visualise the electronic bar and the laser system. Thoughts of Ketty kept creeping into my mind
again. The stone at the pit of my stomach weighed heavier than ever.

I told myself I should be concentrating on dealing with the people who were still alive: Amy and Avery and Dylan and Harry. Each one of them was important to me. In spite of her sharp tongue,
Dylan was a good friend – and what I’d seen of Harry so far made me sure he would become one. Amy was a sweet kid and as for Avery . . . well, I’d only recently found out Avery
was my biological father. We still had a lot of catching up to do.

They were all important to me. So why was it Ketty who still filled my thoughts? Ketty . . . whose image in my mind threatened to distract me from my focus on this door in front of me . . .
Ketty, who I missed so much that it hurt.

Ten minutes passed. Then fifteen. I turned away, taking a break. Cal and Ed looked anxiously on. I turned back to the door and tried again. Something in the door released – the electronic
bar, I thought – but it still wouldn’t open. ‘Nearly there,’ I muttered.

Time ticked away until we’d been on the roof for almost twenty-five minutes. From where we were standing it was impossible to make out the guards, still tied up behind the checkpoint, and
though we could see the gate, Fergus was no longer in sight.

I was desperately aware that anyone – Foster or one of his Lovistov men – could turn up at any moment. As soon as they found the guards we’d tied up, our cover would be blown.
That’s if it wasn’t blown already, with Ed still unable to reach the others inside.

As I turned to focus on the door again, footsteps sounded on the other side.

I froze. Cal grabbed my arm. He was already in flight, Ed on his other side. We zoomed around the jutting structure on the roof, hiding behind the wall to the side of the door.

I held my breath as the door opened. Cal kept his hand on my arm, poised to whisk us all into the air again if needed. I tensed myself, ready to disarm whoever was there.

A slow, single footstep across the flat roof. And then Dylan’s face peered round the wall.

I lowered my hand. Cal released my arm.

‘Dylan?’ I said.

‘They’ve got Amy,’ she whispered. ‘Come on, follow me.’

‘How did you know we were here?’ I said.

‘Sssh.’ Dylan put her finger to her lips, then beckoned us after her.

Ed, Cal and I followed her around the wall and through the door that had proved so hard for me to open.

Dylan crept on ahead. She had wrapped a blanket over her shoulders which seemed odd – though it was certainly cold in here. Down a flight of winding concrete steps. Something was wrong.
Something to do with Dylan and that blanket. We reached the bottom step. Through another door into a white corridor. Round a bend . . . and then everything happened at once.

Dylan ducked. Two guards appeared out of nowhere. Before I could move or speak, one pointed his gun at my face. The other sprayed me with Medutox, then pulled me towards him, reaching to spray
Ed who was right behind me.

As Cal was captured straight after, I glanced over at Dylan. She was being sprayed too. Straightaway she started changing . . . transforming . . . her dark red hair fading to brown . . . her
body shortening and fleshing out . . . until Amy stood there. In tears. She dropped the blanket and I could see that, underneath it, she was still dressed in Avery’s suit, with the trouser
legs rolled up.

‘I’m sorry, Nico,’ she said. ‘They made me do it. They’ve got Avery. They’re going to kill him if we don’t do what they say.’

Amy was still apologising as the guards ushered us along another corridor and into a side room. Bare and windowless, the door was locked with a similar kind of alarmed laser
field as the roof door. Even if my Medusa abilities hadn’t been taken away from me, I’d have struggled to open it. And I could see straightaway that Jack’s card wouldn’t be
any more use here than it had been upstairs.

‘Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry.’ Amy’s bottom lip trembled and she sank to the floor. ‘I can’t believe it’s all gone so wrong.’

‘It’s okay, we’re here now.’ Ed put his arm round her.

I squatted down on the floor in front of her. ‘What happened, Amy?’ I asked.

‘Where’s Avery?’ Cal demanded.

‘I was being Foster,’ Amy said breathlessly. ‘I’d just ordered them to turn off the camera at the checkpoint. I’d said that it wasn’t working properly . . .
that there was some electrical fault and they looked like that was a bit weird but they did what I ordered and then I was about to tell them to leave the room so Avery and I could work out where
the labs were when Foster called. The
real
Foster. And the guard who spoke to him realised I was really me and Foster ordered him to spray me with Medutox and . . . I changed back to
me.’

‘What about Avery?’ Cal’s face was deathly pale.

‘They took him away. I don’t know where. And I don’t know where Dylan and Harry are either, but . . . but as soon as Foster heard they were in the building, he sent someone off
to spray Dylan too.’

I clutched my forehead. This was bad. This was
really
bad. Far from rescuing the hit squad children and destroying Foster’s ability to make Medusix, we were now all prisoners
ourselves.

‘But . . . you came to us disguised as Dylan,’ Ed said, looking confused. ‘Why did Foster order that?’

‘I wouldn’t tell him about the rest of you, but as soon as he knew I’d ordered the checkpoint camera to be switched off, he worked out you were coming. There’s a camera
on the roof which isn’t normally used but Foster got them to check it and he could see you all up there, trying to get through the door. When my Medutox wore off, Foster insisted I came up to
get you back. He said you’d get away if he just sent the guards and that Dylan and Harry and Avery would die if I tried to trick him.’ Amy’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Did I
do the right thing?’

‘Of course you did,’ Ed said reassuringly.