Hit Squad (6 page)

Ed shook his head. ‘Jack could have hacked into Harry’s phone. Harry wouldn’t have needed to say anything.’

‘Well done, Ed.’ Jack’s voice echoed out from the front of the truck. ‘Got it in one.’

I froze. So did the others.

‘He can hear us,’ Ed whispered.

‘You’re a genius,’ came Jack’s reply.

‘I told you Harry didn’t say anything deliberately,’ Dylan said.

‘Sssh,’ Nico ordered. We all lowered our voices.

‘What are we going to do?’ I whispered.

‘Okay, listen. The Medutox will wear off after thirty minutes,’ Nico hissed. ‘We have to keep trying our powers. Hopefully there’ll be a few minutes when they don’t
realise we can use our abilities. That’s when we have to act.’

‘That’s right,’ Cal added quietly. ‘When we get wherever we’re going, look out for air vents, skylights . . . places they might not think we can use. We don’t
know how much this Jack Linden knows about our skills.’

I looked at Ed. Dylan gave a low snort.

‘Jack knows
everything
about our skills,’ she said.

‘Not mine,’ Cal protested.

‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that,’ I said. ‘Jack’s smart.’

‘And ruthless,’ Ed added.

‘The important thing is that we stay together,’ Nico whispered.

A few minutes later, the truck stopped and we got out. We were parked in front of a huge grey castle with a lake to one side and pine trees on the hill beyond. I looked round
at the windswept landscape. There were no other buildings in view.

The area was completely deserted.

‘Man, what a place.’ Nico looked up at the turrets on top of the castle. It rose gloomily over us, an intimidating presence against a steel-grey sky.

Tania huddled next to me. I put my arm round her shoulder.

‘We here before,’ she whispered. ‘Bradley here too.’

Jack and the two guards herded us inside. We stood in a hall, high-ceilinged and made of grey stone. It was virtually empty – no lights, no furniture. Our voices echoed around the cold,
damp room.

‘Why are we here?’ Nico demanded.

‘What are you going to do with us?’ Dylan said. ‘Is Harry here too? Is he okay?’

‘Harry’s not here but he’s fine.’ Jack gave her a charming smile. ‘He’ll be pleased to know you were asking, that’s if I can ever get him to speak to me
again.’

‘How are you involved with Medusix?’ I asked.

To my surprise, Jack stopped and turned to me. ‘We’re hoping to make it work. Now you’re here, things should get easier.’

‘What d’you mean “make it work”?’ I said. I glanced at Tania, remembering what she’d said about the other boy, Bradley. He’d been given Medusix and was
now sick. ‘You got that boy to take it. Didn’t it work with him? You said someone had been performing telekinesis earlier.’

‘Ah,’ Jack said. ‘We’ve had some complications on that front. I told you that Medusix makes adults unconscious for a few mintues. Well, it knocks kids out too. The upside
is that children show signs of psychic ability first. The downside is that they don’t regain consciousness so easily.’

Tania gasped. ‘So . . . Bradley is
unconscious
.’

‘Who is this “we” you keep referring to?’ Nico added. ‘Who else is involved?’

Jack raised his eyebrows. ‘I can’t tell you any more now, but please understand we have no plans to hurt you. We’re just trying to work on the drug.’

‘Are you going to experiment on us as well?’ I asked.

‘Of course not.’ Jack looked surprised. ‘We’re going to learn from you.’ He beckoned to the guards to lead us away.

At first I thought we were all being taken to the same room, but once we had gone through a couple of heavy wooden doors, Jack and Knife Man took Ed and Nico away. I opened my mouth to protest,
but they were gone too fast, leaving Cal, Dylan, me and Tania with Broken Nose. He forced us down a steep flight of stone steps to a narrow corridor where we had to walk single file. Cal was in the
lead. I could see his head darting this way and that, clearly looking for an escape route, but the walls looked a metre thick, and there were no windows whatsoever. After a minute or so of walking
like this, down more steps and along another corridor, we reached a cell.

Broken Nose shoved us inside. Scowling, he took swabs from inside our mouths, plus a scraping of skin from our arms. Nothing that hurt. It took a few minutes, after which he locked the door and
left.

The cell was just a few metres square. No furniture, no windows. A single lantern, complete with sputtering candle, stood beside the column that rose through the centre of the room. It cast
spooky shadows around the room. It was still early morning outside, but down here it felt like the middle of the night.

Tania sank onto the cold stone floor. Tears were leaking out of her eyes.

‘Bradley is really ill,’ she wept. ‘This is not what Mr Jack promised.’

I bit my lip, feeling sorry for her.

Dylan looked at her with far less sympathy. ‘Well, that’ll teach you,’ she snapped.

‘I wonder who Jack’s working with,’ Cal mused.

‘It’ll probably be a scientist,’ I said. ‘Jack knows a lot about IT, but he’s no expert in genetics. Whoever is trying to make the Medusix work would need to
be.’ I paused. ‘If only we knew what they were trying to do with it.’

Cal walked over and squatted down in front of Tania. ‘Hey, that boy – Bradley – who was given the Medusix drug . . . what did he do after he’d taken it? Anything . . .
odd? I mean, before he was taken ill?’

Tania looked over at me, confused.

‘Odd? What kind of odd?’

I thought back to the news item Ed and I had found – about the car that seemed to moving telekinetically across the car park and the workman’s tools dancing around each other.

‘Could he move things?’ I said. If we knew more precisely what the boy had done, we might be able to work out what Jack and this other man planned to do with us all. ‘You know
. . . could the boy they gave the Medusix to move something without touching it?’

Tania stared at me as if I were mad.

‘If we hadn’t been sprayed, we could just show her,’ Dylan said gloomily.

‘We’d need Nico to demonstrate telekinesis,’ I muttered.

‘We don’t need Nico,’ Cal said. ‘Pretend to move that lantern, Ketty. I’ll lift it up – normal style – to show Tania what we mean.’

‘Go on, Ketty,’ Dylan urged.

‘Okay.’ I shrugged. I couldn’t really see how us acting out a bit of telekinesis was going to help, but I supposed anything that might prompt Tania to give us more information
was worth a try.

Cal had picked up the lantern and stood out of sight behind the column.

‘Ready,’ he said.

‘Okay.’ I turned to Tania. ‘Look at the lantern. Could the other boy do this?’ I pointed my hand at the lamp then lifted my palm slightly, as I’d seen Nico do so
many times. ‘See, I’m not touching the lamp,’ I said.

On cue, Cal – his hands out of sight – lifted the lantern into the air. From where we were sitting, it did look like the lantern was moving without support . . . that
I
was
making it happen.

Tania frowned. ‘You think other boy do this for real?’

‘Yes,’ Dylan said excitedly. ‘Did you see him do something like that?’

‘No.’ Tania shook her head for emphasis. ‘No, I never seen.’

Dylan sighed. ‘Maybe they’ve been experimenting on this other boy separately.’

I nodded, feeling despondent. We were no closer to working out what was going on than before.

Across the room, Cal set the lantern carefully back down. I wandered over to him. The guards had taken our backpacks before shoving us into this cell. All our food and drink were inside them and
I was hungry and thirsty, as well as freezing cold.

‘We have to get out of here,’ I said.

‘I know.’ Cal moved closer to me. ‘I’ve got an idea but . . .’ He hesitated. ‘It’ll mean all of us working together.’

‘We can do that,’ I said. ‘What’s the idea?’

‘Attack Broken Nose when he comes back,’ Cal said. ‘I know it’s obvious, but it’s our only option. I can’t see another way of getting past the locked door
– once we’re through, we just need to hide out for a bit then our powers will come back and I can fly us out of here.’

‘What about Ed and Nico . . . and this boy they’ve been using the Medusix on?’ I said.

‘I’ll come back for them,’ Cal said. ‘I think we can do this . . .’ He moved nearer to me again. ‘You know, you and I are good together, Ketty . .
.’

I was suddenly aware of just how close he was standing. I gulped. I liked Cal. I’d liked him as soon as I’d met him, but I didn’t think of him in
that
way.

I wanted to move across the cell. After all, Broken Nose could come back any second. We needed to get the others ready. But there was something about Cal’s presence that held me where I
stood.

What about Nico?
I said to myself. Truth was, right now I wasn’t sure where things stood with Nico. He’d been distant and critical since we’d left the ranch in
Australia. And before then I’d hated the way he’d pretended he liked Amy, acting all flirty with her just because he liked the attention.

I looked up at Cal. He would never behave like that to get a girl to notice him. I mean, there was something a bit reckless about him . . . a dangerous edge even, but he was definitely steadier
than Nico. More . . . dependable.

Cal was gazing down at me. He was still standing very close. I took a step back. Turned round. Dylan was watching us. She raised her eyebrows at me.

‘What?’ I said, more forcefully than I meant to. ‘Cal has a plan. Listen.’

We beckoned Tania, then Cal went through the detail of what he thought we should do.

About two hours passed. Medutox was obviously being released into the room from somewhere, because none of our powers came back. I could feel the odourless mist on my face and clutching at the
back of my throat.

We didn’t talk much. I couldn’t stop worrying about Nico and Ed – and whether Cal’s plan would work. At last footsteps sounded along the stone corridor outside. I peered
through the thick reinforced glass panel at the top of the door. Broken Nose was heading towards us. Cal leaped up, his body tensed for action.

‘Get ready,’ I hissed. ‘This is it.’

‘Okay?’ Cal whispered.

‘Yes.’ I glanced round. Dylan was, as arranged, lying curled up on the floor across the cell from the door. The lantern stood beside her, creating dark shadows across her face. Cal
and I waited on either side of the door. Tania huddled behind Cal.

Broken Nose wouldn’t be able to see us unless he came right into the room.

We had ripped the bottoms of our T-shirts off earlier. I held one of the strips of material in my hand. The footsteps grew close. Broken Nose was right outside the door. I could hear his wheezy
breathing as he positioned the key in the lock.

Dylan gave a low moan.

‘What is matter?’ Broken Nose asked Dylan as the door creaked open.

Dylan bent over her stomach and groaned more loudly. ‘Aaagh, it hurts.’ Her right hand rested lightly on the lantern.

I held my breath.

‘Where others?’ Broken Nose was edging into the room now, his hand on his gun. He craned his neck trying to see into the dark corners on either side of the door, where Cal and I were
hiding.

Dylan moaned again. ‘Aaagh.’ She sounded completely convincing.

Broken Nose looked around. He muttered something in his own language that I didn’t understand. I pressed myself flat against the wall behind the door as Dylan, right on cue, smashed the
lantern onto the ground.

The light went out. The room sank into darkness.

‘HEY!’ There was a note of panic in Broken Nose’s roar. We had to shut him up. And take his gun.

‘Now!’ Cal yelled.

I rushed towards Broken Nose, just able to make out his outline in the dark room. I grabbed his arm. Wrenched it back.

Broken Nose yelled out, pushing me away. I clung on. Cal grabbed the man’s other arm. Tania rushed to help me. Dylan jumped up. A moment later she and Cal had the man’s arms behind
his back and were tying them together.

‘Shut him up,’ Dylan ordered.

I reached up with my T-shirt strip and wound the cloth round his mouth. Broken Nose’s yells were instantly muffled. Tania was clamped round one of his legs. Cal bent down and wound a third
strip of material around his ankles.

Dylan pushed Broken Nose to the floor. ‘Done,’ she said, panting.

‘Everyone okay?’ My heart was beating fast.

‘Awesome,’ Cal said. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’

We ran through the open door and into the corridor. The stairs that led up to the ground floor were to our left. Voices drifted down towards us.

We turned right, away from the voices. We ran along the corridor. Around the corner. We passed a couple of windowless cells like the one we had been kept in. A few seconds later we arrived at
the end of the corridor and a narrow set of stone steps that led down to the floor below.

‘Come on,’ Cal said.

‘No.’ Tania tugged at my arm. ‘Way out upstairs.’

‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Think about what Tania’s saying. We won’t get out if we go down these stairs. We’re already in the basement. We need to be going up to the
ground floor.’