by Chris Lofts
A familiar angry buzz repelled Helix from the front of the cell as he approached
‘The kill switch is behind the door,’ Ethan said.
Helix holstered his gun and slammed the door. Palming the prominent red button, he turned back as the front wall dissolved. He sprung forward, the toe of his left boot connecting with Dmitri’s side, winding him but more crucially forcing his jaws open. Stepping in front of his brother, Helix flipped the Ukrainian away with his foot. A few more shoves got him into the corner of his own filthy cell. With the fight gone out of Dmitri, Helix turned back to Ethan.
‘You OK, Bruv?’
‘I don’t think he broke the skin,’ Ethan said, tilting his head upwards. ‘I thought that was you earlier.’
‘How’d you know?’
‘The dull thud and lights flickering out.’
‘Where’s Gabrielle?’ Ethan asked.
‘She’s safe.’ Helix went to work on Ethan’s bindings.
‘Safe where?’
‘Back in the woods,’ he said, freeing the hip bindings.
‘What? You came back on your own? Jesus Christ, Nate.’
‘I wasn’t alone. I had help. Just relax. Pressing against the straps isn’t making it any easier.’
‘And Sofi? I take it she found you.’
‘Yep.’ Helix looked away. ‘You’re a dark horse.’ The last strap came free.
Ethan pushed himself upright on his thick arms. ‘I thought you might get on better with something—’
‘Oh, she’s something alright.’ Helix said, getting to his feet.
Ethan’s brow wrinkled. ‘You didn’t shag her, did you?’
‘What? No. She’s, it’s a bloody machine.’ He clamped his hand on Ethan’s good shoulder.
‘Look as much as I want to chat, we need to crack on. She was more helpful than you know. Come on.’
Slipping the rucksack off, Helix pulled his brother’s prosthetics from the bag and handed them to him. Ethan located the concealed Allen key and set about attaching them to the posts grafted into the ends of his fibulas.
Helix went over to Dmitri and flipped him onto his back. The tortured man’s head flopped to the floor, his one remaining glassy eye staring up.
Dmitri’s plaintive howl filled the room.
Ethan looked up. ‘What are we going to do with him?’
Helix pulled his gun from the holster and looked back at Dmitri. Was he nodding? Helix pointed at the gun. Dmitri’s eye blinked. ‘Can he hear?’
Ethan pushed himself up onto his fists. ‘I think so. It was a bit one-sided, but when I spoke to him, he would grunt and nod. Difficult to talk without a tongue.’
‘Jesus,’ Helix said. ‘We can’t take him with us. Archer’s dead, Lytkin’s legged it—’
Dmitri howled again.
‘He does that whenever you mention his missus.’
Helix turned the gun back on Dmitri. The Ukrainian’s eye widened, a series of short grunts and nods followed.
Ethan read the question on his brother’s face. ‘You know what he wants, Nate. You’d be doing him a favour.’
The broken man nodded and closed his eye. Two rapid shots echoed around the room.
Helix closed the door as Ethan bear-crawled past. ‘Have you any idea where this place is?’
‘Have you got any bud in there?’ Ethan replied, nodding at the rucksack. ‘I could murder a spliff.’
Helix crouched next to his brother. ‘Damn. Sorry, Bruv. I knew there was something I’d forgotten.’ He dropped the rucksack between them. ‘You’ll have to make do with this instead.’ He pulled the MP5 from the rucksack. ‘Don’t. I know it’s an antique. It’s got a sliding stock and a three-point sling, should make life a bit easier. Here.’ He handed the submachine gun to Ethan with two 30-round clips.
‘Gee thanks,’ Ethan said, inserting the clip and cocking the weapon. ‘I assume you have some sort of plan as we’re tooling up,’ he asked, applying the safety. He looped the sling over his head and adjusted it.
Helix nodded. ‘Find a way out. Find Lytkin. That’ll do for starters.’ He stepped away from the wall. ‘There’s a Government limo down there. Given it’s still here, my assumption is that she’s still in the building.’ He peered into the shadows. ‘Come on.’
Helix approached the limo, his P226 sweeping the area. Pressed to the side of the vehicle he placed his left hand on the invisible scanner. A green bloom haloed around his palm and fingers. He turned away, aiming inside the roomy passenger cabin. ‘Clear.’ He jogged to the control panel beside the heavy metal access door in front of the vehicle. The thumbprint scanner remained dormant, the door unyielding.
‘What’s up?’ Ethan said.
‘Door won’t open.’
‘I could always blast it with this pea-shooter, like they do in the movies,’ Ethan said, brandishing the MP5. ‘Failing that, there’s a lift.’
Helix ran his eyes over the edges of the lift door frame. There was no call button, no direction of travel indicator, no floor counter. ‘I can’t see the EMP screwing it this far out.’
Ethan tugged another door open. ‘Stairs,’ he called.
Helix stared into the dark void between the stairs and banisters above. ‘Nothing.’
‘What are you on about?’
‘Nothing that I can see. My PCM got fried by the EMP.’ He switched the rucksack to his front and crouched beside Ethan. ‘Come on.’
‘You’ll never carry me, Nate.’
‘It’ll take you too long on your stubbies and I’m not bloody leaving you down here. We’re wasting time. Climb on.’
Ethan studied the handrails and the width of the void. ‘I’ll race you,’ he said, heaving himself up on the outside of the stairs. Finding his rhythm, he pulled himself upwards, swinging left and right on his thick arms.
Helix grinned, and set off up the stairs in pursuit, Ethan’s grunts and his footsteps echoing in the stairwell with its weak emergency lighting.
Ten minutes into their ascent, Helix paused on a half-landing. ‘This doesn’t make sense,’ he said, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth. ‘We should have come to another door by now.’ He squinted upwards into the dark. ‘Did you notice anything else?’
Ethan heaved himself over the banister the MP5 clattering against the metal. ‘Nope.’
‘No cameras.’ Helix scratched his cheek. ‘Whoever it’s meant for doesn’t want to be seen using it.’
‘It must go somewhere,’ Ethan said, catching his breath. ‘Either that or the architect had a sense of humour.’
Helix grabbed the banister. ‘Onwards and upwards it is then.’ Hesitating, he pulled his hand back and stared at his palm. ‘Blood,’ he whispered. Looking at Ethan, he pressed a finger to his lips. With his head canted, he listened. Lytkin had lost her shoes in the lab. Stocking feet on concrete. There wouldn’t have been much to hear.
Ethan raised his eyebrows, a silent question.
‘Nothing. Come on.’
‘Whose blood?’
‘Archer’s. Lytkin was plastered in it. I’ll fill you in on the details later.’
Further up, Helix paused again. He’d seen something above. A form in the shadows. Not human. A door. He edged up, his hand held out to Ethan, telling him to slow. With his shoulder to the wall, gun held two-handed, he shuffled up the last few steps to the landing with the door. ‘It’s ajar,’ he whispered. The stairs continued overhead. Roof access. The door wasn’t labelled. He had no idea how far up they were or what lay beyond, but there was more blood on the handle. Turning his hand towards his brother, he leaned into the door, its metal skin cold against his ear as he listened.
Ethan adjusted the sling on the MP5, bringing the weapon around to his front and across his chest as they took up position either side of the door. Helix took the right, Ethan the left. At a nod from Ethan, Helix pressed the handle down and shoved the heavy door inwards. The door cracked open about another three inches and stopped. Jesus it was heavy. Helix too
k a step back, aimed and kicked it with his left boot. Ethan swept the right side of the room’s interior, Helix the left. Empty. Helix stepped through, back to the wall, swept again. Nobody.
He’d been there before, a little more than two days previously. Julia Ormandy’s office. Ulyana Lytkin’s office as it turned out. They had been in the MoHD all the time. Ethan followed, closing the thick door behind him.
Helix glanced through the bedroom door at the bathroom beyond. ‘Clear.’
‘Where’s the lift?’ Ethan said, pausing in front of the drinks cabinet. ‘If I’ve got my bearings correct, the lift was to the left of the stairwell.’
Helix stepped around him, running his fingers down the right edge of the cabinet. He paused, his fingers coming up against an unseen ridge. ‘Got something.’ He applied more pressure. A loud click released the front of the cabinet. It swung outwards on heavy hinges revealing the open doors of a red-carpeted lift. ‘That solves that mystery.’
‘Yep, but where’s Lytkin?’
Helix went back to the bedroom. ‘In here,’ he called, crossing to the pile of blood-soaked clothes. The red-smeared basin in the ensuite showed more evidence of a hasty clean up. A wardrobe door hung open, clothes tossed onto the bed. ‘She changed. Not surprising. I doubt even she could explain her way out of being drenched in gore,’ he said, turning to Ethan. ‘Can you get access to all your shit from her desk? We could get Sofi to track her.’
‘All my shit?’ Ethan replied, feigning indignance as he pulled himself into Lytkin’s office chair. He rubbed his hands together. ‘Let me see.’
36
A handprint scanner pulsed in the middle of the Home Secretary’s glass desktop. Ethan flexed his fingers and flattened his hand inside the boundaries of the rectangular reader and waited. The red-edged halo around his palm and fingers throbbed.
Helix wandered to the window. ‘Any luck?’ he said, looking out over the moonlit London nightscape. ‘Come on, I’d have thought you would have been in by now,’ he added, looking over his shoulder. ‘Whassup?’
‘Bollocks!’ Ethan’s hand shifted to the MP5 on the desk at his side. ‘Houston, we—’
The problem manifested itself in a series of audible clicks as the office doors locked automatically. Helix drew one of his guns and rushed at the main door. He tugged the handle and shook his head at his brother.
Ethan made for the hidden lift. ‘The lift’s locked out too.’ He shifted to the left. ‘And the stairwell.’
The doors were armoured and a charge sufficient to breach them would take them out in the process if they were in the same room. Rummaging through the rucksack Helix pulled out a grenade. ‘Get in the bedroom, Ethan.’ He checked the timer on the device, activated it and balanced it on the door handle.
Ethan followed Helix into the en suite bathroom, throwing the door closed behind him. With two doors and the bedroom between, the odds were in their favour. Dust cascaded from the bathroom ceiling with the detonation. The wall mirrors shattered. Helix leaned back against the bathroom door, holding it closed against the shock wave. ‘You ready?’ he said, P226 in hand.
Ethan nodded and selected auto on the MP5.
Choking dust filled the bathroom as Helix threw open the door, grimacing at the ear-splitting fire alarm.
Ethan covered the angles in the bedroom. ‘Clear,’ he called.
The bedroom door hung by a single hinge. Helix scanned the devastated office dropping to his knee as the beams of two laser sights pierced the dust and smoke. Blinking through the fog he took aim at the hole where the office door used to be and paused, his temples pounding. The first shadow approached cautiously. Helix took aim at centre mass. In the absence of smart-ammo he had to be sure. The shadow paused. Helix fired. The man jerked back from the door, a muffled grunt confirming a hit. Automatic shots poured into the room from a second shooter. Ethan unleashed three short bursts from the MP5. The second man fell, the laser sight pointing lazily at the buckled ceiling of the office. Helix sprinted forward, firing two rapid taps into each man on the floor.
Turning back to check on Ethan, Helix glanced out of the window. A pair of bright navigation lights moved amongst the stars. ‘Aircraft inbound,’ he shouted over the alarm.
‘She’s going for the roof,’ Ethan yelled, his thumb jabbing upwards.
Helix edged over to the fallen door and into the debris-filled hallway. The evacuation strobes throbbed through the dust in concert with the klaxon. With the lifts disabled by the fire alarm, he made for the stairs. Ducking back inside, he abandoned the idea as panicking residents from the apartments above filed down the stairs. Time was limited. Armed security details would have been deployed following the explosion. They would be elbowing their way up the stairs amongst the evacuees. Helix smashed his elbow into a fire cabinet on the stairwell wall and pulled an axe from its retaining clip. ‘We’ll never make it through that lot,’ he said, pointing back over his shoulder. ‘We’ll use hers.’
Helix located the edge of the door leading to Lytkin’s private staircase. He holstered his P226 and swung the axe at the door. ‘We’ll take the stairs to the roof, cut her off,’ he said, levering the axe free. Polished wood splintered under the blows. Sparks flew from the metal lock as he ripped the door apart. The axe jammed. Stepping aside, he twisted it. The door gave. A further blow finished the lock, freeing the door. ‘Come on.’
‘Would she really have gone up rather than down?’ Ethan asked.
‘She won’t join the great unwashed on the stairs if she can fly from the roof.’
Five flights further up, they paused at the door to the roof. ‘What’s up,’ Ethan said, looking at his brother.
‘Where’s the quad? It’s too quiet,’ Helix replied. ‘Anyway, here we go.’
They executed the same door exit routine, Helix covering the left, Ethan the right. The only turbulence on the roof was from the wind but it wasn’t enough to mask the rapid burst of automatic fire that greeted their entrance onto the roof. ‘Fuck!’ Helix cursed, taking a shot in his right calf, grateful it wasn’t the left. More shots ripped and ricocheted into the paved roof as Helix rolled behind a satellite array. He came up in a crouch as Ethan returned fire from inside the doorway with the MP5.
He needed to get a fix on the shooter. Bobbing from cover, another burst of fire located the source behind a vent. The meshed framework supporting the circular landing deck offered cover but no route across. As Helix looked for an alternative, the shooter gifted him his location by ducking and rolling across to a neighbouring structure. Helix got off a shot. He missed. A shower of sparks burst as the bullet pinged from a metal stanchion. With a better fix on the shooter’s location, Helix pulled one of the three remaining multi-mode grenades from his jacket. He set the delay, sprung up and skimmed the device across the smooth surface of the landing area towards the hidden shooter. The resulting flash silhouetted the man as he leaped onto the platform to escape the explosion. Ethan provided insurance with a rapid burst from the MP5. The man fell dead.
Catching his breath, Helix checked his leg. The damage wasn’t serious. He completed a cautious circumnavigation of the platform to make sure the shooter was acting alone. On the leeside of a satellite array, he paused and listened. Wiping the wind-whipped drizzle from his face, his attention was drawn towards the roof of the Justice Ministry. In between gusts, the whine of the quadcopter’s engines was carried out of the dark. ‘Maybe that bird wasn’t for her after all,’ he said, crouching next to Ethan. ‘Unless it’s waiting for a green light.’
‘We could wait,’ Ethan said. ‘See if she puts in an appearance.’
‘Hmm. I’m going to go back down via the public stairwell,’ Helix said, rubbing his chin. ‘You cover the private one and the lifts.’
‘And if she appears?’
‘Shoot the bitch. She’s not going to walk, talk or fly her way out of this one.’ He handed Ethan one of the remaining grenades. ‘If anything lands on the pad, put it out of action with th
is.’
‘Happy hunting.’ Ethan nodded. ‘Nate?’
Helix turned back from the door. ‘What’s up?’
‘I didn’t say thanks. Thanks for coming back for me.’
‘You’d have done the same for me, Bruv.’ He nodded. ‘Stay sharp.’
Helix cringed as he stepped into the public stairwell and into the unrelenting blare of the fire klaxons. Four flights of stairs later he was at the first door, the 55th floor. He paused, not necessarily out of caution. It was more out of memory. The memory of the last time he’d stood at this door on this floor. Ignoring the pounding in his head from the alarm, he eased the door open. The magenta carpet and the wood panelling pulsed in the fire alarm strobes, the only source of light in the corridor.
Stepping onto the carpet, he froze as the klaxons fell silent, leaving only the strobes. Yawlander had sole occupancy of this floor. The door to the General’s apartment was approximately five paces from the stairs, seven from the lift. All of the other floors above the MoHD offices had smaller apartments with more residents, most of whom were now somewhere in the stairwell with any night-duty office staff on their way to ground level. Tight against the wall, Helix approached the door. He stopped. He was wasting time. Yawlander’s apartment would still be cordoned off, pending completion of the investigation.
The stairwell filled with the throaty clatter of a quadcopter attempting to put down on the roof. The roar of the engines competed with the wind before relenting and sliding into their whining wind down. Helix hesitated, one hand on the bannister. A distinctive EMP crump brought a powdery cloud of dust down from above. He primed himself, ready to ascend at the sound of gunfire. There was none. The copter must have been unmanned or Ethan had taken the pilot without a fight.
He cracked the door to Yawlander’s corridor open again. If Lytkin was in there, or anywhere else, the quad’s arrival would flush her out. He watched and listened. No movement. With his eyes closed, he took a tour of Yawlander’s apartment in his mind, the strobes flaring through his eyelids, a rising tide of anticipation rolling in his stomach. Had he missed it the first time? Staccato light danced down the corridor. In between beats, a thin blade of still light escaped from beneath Yawlander’s door.