March (12 page)

I hoped that the fangs hadn’t penetrated through my jeans and into my skin, and that the sound of the alarm had scared off Sligo’s men. I couldn’t feel anything strange yet, but the alarm had done nothing to scare my enemies—at the other end of the corridor, the two thugs were heading straight for me!

I looked around in despair. Behind me, the snakes. Ahead of me, Sligo’s thugs. I had nowhere to go.

The two thugs suddenly stopped halfway up and I saw looks of horror on their faces.

Death adders, excited by the lights in the corridors, slithered with devastating speed right past me and straight for my attackers!

For once things were going my way. The thugs turned and ran, while I desperately
back-tracked
and looked around for somewhere to hide.

I was hiding in the dark under a sink in a small bathroom not far from the snake room. The security team had arrived and they were checking doors and talking on their portable radios. At one stage, the door to the washroom was opened and someone flashed a torch around, but luckily they withdrew, satisfied with their minimal efforts to investigate the disturbance.

I waited anxiously for time to pass so I could move on.

Everything had been quiet for a while. It was time for me to come out of my hiding place and try to get out of this maze of corridors and levels.

Silently, I climbed out and crept to the bathroom door. I peered out into the moonlit corridor, and right at that moment, a blinding headache hit me. It was so strong and so violent that I fell against the wall. It wasn’t just a headache—my eyes felt pierced by splinters of light that came from somewhere inside my own head. And there was a weakness in my legs that I couldn’t understand.

A powerful nausea doubled me over. Pain throbbed in both of my legs.

Dreading what I might find, I rolled up my jeans.

Two tiny red wounds on the side of my calf, left by the death adder’s fangs, oozed pinkish fluid.

I staggered from door to door, trying to find the room that Jennifer had earlier shown me, with its row of fridges and its store of antivenom. Half-blind from the headache, and doubled over by the waves of sickening nausea, I fought on and continued stumbling from room to room.

Nothing.

If I didn’t find it quickly, I knew I’d have to ring for an ambulance and that would end in my arrest and the last chance to fulfil my father’s wishes would be gone. I couldn’t let that happen.

I had to find that corridor—all I could remember was that it was somewhere near the entrance area. But with a blazing headache and the blinding pain in my eyes, it was becoming more and more difficult to stay focused.

My heart was thumping behind my ribs. Muscles in my leg went into spasm. It was getting hard to breathe; I had to pull air
into my lungs. I stood swaying in a hallway, knowing that I had to get help. I could feel the stiffening of the muscles in my neck. If I didn’t make a decision soon, I would be paralysed, unable to breathe and then it would be too late.

I just made it back to the reception area and somehow, through my blurring vision, I found the corridor we had walked down together. Strangely, the door was slightly ajar.

I practically fell into the room. Leaning heavily against the wall, I switched on the light. The pain in my eyes was almost unbearable. Moving like an old man, I groped my way along the fridges until I came to the one labelled
Death Adder Antivenom.
I pulled the door open, trying to focus. The stiffness in my neck was getting worse—I could barely move my head. My swaying arm knocked several boxes out of the fridge. I grabbed one and tore at the box, ripping it open.

The pre-loaded syringes tumbled out and I managed to roll up my sleeve, stab the needle and depress the plunger. It stung like hell. I slid to the floor.

I tried to sit up. I didn’t know where I was or what had happened for a few seconds, but then things started coming back to me and I realised I’d passed out. Both my legs were hurting but the blinding headache had gone and my vision seemed to be almost normal again. There was no more stiffness in my neck and I no longer felt like throwing up. Slowly I got to my feet. I swayed a little, but I stayed upright.

The antivenom had worked. The alarms had stopped ringing, but what had happened to security?

A groaning sound in the furthest corner of the laboratory made me jump. I was about to try and bolt, when a second low moan made me realise it was a woman. Jennifer! Cautiously, I went over to find her lying half hidden by a pile of cartons.

I knelt down beside her, helping her sit up.

‘What happened?’ she asked me, groggily.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Some people are after me—they must have trailed me here.’

‘Oww,’ she cried, grabbing the back of her head.

‘Here, let me have a look.’

She winced in pain as I moved her forward so I could check for an injury.

Blood was soaking her hair and she had an ugly cut on her scalp. She couldn’t have faked that. Someone had hit her, for sure.

‘Someone must have hit you from behind, then dragged you in here,’ I said, still a little unsure.

She put her hand on the back of her head and winced in pain. ‘Great security we’ve got,’ she said bitterly. ‘They do nothing but strut around. This is the last straw!’

‘Umm,’ I said, about to mention the glass case I’d accidentally smashed. ‘They might have seen something that made them run away …’

Jennifer wasn’t listening. ‘Cal, what about you? Are you all right?’ she asked in a rush.

‘I’m OK,’ I said, glancing at the list of emergency phone numbers on the wall and picking up the phone to make the call, ‘but you were hit on the head. You could have a concussion.’

‘Who are they?’ she asked, ignoring my concern. ‘Those people that came after us?’

‘People who are after the information Dad left me. They were after
me
,’ I said. ‘You just got in their way.’

‘So it wasn’t anyone that had followed
me
?’

‘No, these guys have been on my tail for some time now,’ I said, thinking that it felt like they’d always been after me. ‘But you should definitely stay on your guard, too, I’m afraid.’

The emergency operator answered my call. I told him that we needed an ambulance and that there was someone with a head injury. As soon as I’d given him the details of our location, I hung the phone up—I needed to get out of there before the paramedics arrived.

Jennifer stood up slowly and made her way to a chair. I poured her a glass of water in a paper cup.

‘Cal,’ she said, ‘I understand that you have to go … but I need you to know that your father was very troubled about something. I didn’t realise just how serious it was, or how dangerous … until now. It’s
big
. You must be very, very careful. Please say you will?’

I knew it all too well. ‘I’ll do my best,’ I said, pulling my bag back on, ‘But when do you think you can give me the memory stick?’

‘I’ll call you. Soon, OK?’

In the distance, I could hear the ambulance approaching.

I nodded. ‘You can’t really blame security for getting out of here like they did.’