by A. G. Taylor
“It’s going to land over there,” he said.
Nestor followed the path of the jet as it touched down on a runway heading diagonally away from them. The plane continued to roll for several hundred metres before slowing to a halt.
“Put your foot down, Nestor,” Sarah said. “We’re almost—”
That’s when something thudded against the roof of the truck cab. All three in the front looked up and then at each other with one thought: Bright.
A split second later the major’s hand smashed down on the windscreen, shattering it. Grasping the glass with his fingers, the major pulled out the entire pane and threw it to one side. Bright twisted his head down to look into the cab. His face was red from the fire and his closely-cropped hair burned away at the front, making him look even madder than before.
DID YOU THINK YOU’D LOSE ME THAT EASILY?
Nestor slammed on the brakes and their attacker had to hold on to stop from being thrown off the truck again. As Nestor stepped on the accelerator again, Bright was thrown in the other direction, completely off balance. It was only a momentary reprieve, however, as he started pounding the top of the cab with his fists and feet. Sarah and the others ducked as the frame crumpled around them and the remaining windows imploded.
“We’re not going to make it!” Alex cried, looking at the jet through the open front. It was still a few hundred metres away. “He’ll tear the whole truck apart before we get there!”
“If he doesn’t roll us first!” Nestor replied, struggling to control the wheel. As Bright smashed the top of the truck to pieces, the vehicle rocked right and left, becoming dangerously unstable.
“Roll us,” Sarah said. “That’s not a bad idea.”
Nestor shot her a look.
“Everybody hold on back there!” Sarah yelled through to the rear, before turning back to Nestor. “When I say, pull the wheel to the right as hard as you can.”
Nestor shook his head. “That doesn’t sound like a very good plan, Sarah.”
Sarah put on her seat belt and grabbed the handbrake. Bright’s fist ripped through the top of the cab and his arm snaked in, reaching blindly at them. Alex reared back in his seat away from the grasping hand.
“No time!” Sarah yelled. “Just do it, Nestor! Now!”
Nestor wrenched the wheel round. Sarah pulled the handbrake on full. The truck wheels locked out with a deafening squeal and the vehicle went into an uncontrollable spin. As the brakes stopped the wheels, the conflict of forces flipped the truck onto its top and the momentum sent it rolling along the runway. Sarah held on for dear life as the remains of the cab shattered around her and the world tumbled round and round. Through the window she saw Major Bright thrown from the roof and dashed against the tarmac. He disappeared from view as the truck rolled on.
Then, just as Sarah thought they would all be crushed by the seemingly unstoppable tumbling of the truck, it ended. With a groan of twisting metal, the machine came to a rest, right way up, in the middle of the runway.
“Are we alive?” Nestor asked quietly from the other side of the cab.
Sarah looked round, still stunned. The top of the cab was pushed down at a diagonal angle, obscuring the view ahead. To her right Alex was unclipping his seat belt. His nose was bleeding, but he seemed otherwise unharmed. Nestor was white as a sheet and staring forwards with his hands locked to the wheel.
“We have to get out of here,” she said, reaching past Alex to give Nestor a shake. “Wake up!”
The Colombian boy came to his senses and pushed open the door. Sarah found her own door jammed shut, so she slid across the cab and exited after the others. As they ran round the back of the truck, she took a moment to survey the damage the roll had inflicted. The vehicle was a battered mess and looked roughly half the size it had when they’d started out – as if it had been through some kind of compacter.
“We really trashed this ride,” Alex said with a low whistle.
“Get the back open!” Sarah commanded, but Octavio and Louise were already jumping out. To Sarah’s relief, Robert followed after, still dazed but unharmed by the look of things.
“We need to get out of here,” Alex said urgently, holding out a hand to help Wei down.
Sarah looked at the plane sitting on the tarmac just a hundred metres from where the truck had come to a stop. Then she looked back in the direction from which they had come. In the middle of the runway Major Bright lay motionless, face down, one arm twisted round at an unhealthy angle. In the distance, the Range Rover approached at high speed with Eco behind the wheel.
“Is Bright dead?” Nestor asked at her side.
As if to answer his question, the major stirred, pushing himself onto all fours with a howl of pain. Sarah winced as he wrenched his dislocated arm back into its socket and rose to his feet. His head jerked round at them.
“Run!” she yelled.
The group broke in the direction of the plane. Alex scooped up Wei and threw him over his shoulder while Nestor helped Robert along. Looking back, Sarah saw Bright gaining on them inexorably. The plane was still fifty metres away. The back door was open, steps leading up – but she knew Bright would catch them before they got there.
“Wait,” she cried, grabbing Louise and Octavio’s arms. “We have to slow him down!”
As the others ran on, Louise and Octavio stopped and turned. Major Bright charged towards them like an enraged bull, head down. Exchanging a quick glance, Louise and Octavio had the same idea at the same time. Holding out their arms, they projected an invisible shield dead ahead. Bright ran headlong into the force and bounced off – almost as if he’d smashed into a brick wall.
“Yeah!” Louise screamed, jumping up and down as Bright landed on his back, stunned. “Let’s finish him.”
Octavio caught her arm as she started forward. “Let’s just quit while we’re ahead, huh?”
“Good idea,” Sarah agreed and the three started running to the plane. The engines were howling and the jet was already moving. From the back steps, Nestor pointed to the sky.
“HIDRA!” he cried.
Sarah looked over her shoulder and saw the shapes of three hovercopters approaching from the east, the red-tinted dawn sky at their tails. Reaching inside her pocket, she removed the mobile and tossed it as they reached the back of the moving jet and ran up the steps.
The pilot of the lead hovercopter scanned the scene below as the windshield HUD automatically picked out various targets: the speeding four-wheel drive, Major Bright, the private jet. He glanced at the image of Commander Craig at the HIDRA base on the screen.
“We’ve got a Range Rover moving along the runway, sir,” he said.
“That’s a confirmed hostile,” Craig responded. “Take it out.”
The pilot touched the trigger on his joystick and a burst of tracer fire flew at the wheels of the vehicle. The tyres exploded and the Rover flipped several times. Satisfied, the pilot turned his attention back to the jet, which was picking up speed towards the end of the runway. Directly behind it, Major Bright was giving chase again, arms outstretched as if he planned to grab the rear fins and physically stop the plane.
“The jet is approaching take-off speed,” the pilot informed command. “Shall I target the engines?”
There was a five second pause before the response came – a long time when things were moving fast. The pilot’s finger hovered over the trigger impatiently.
“Negative,” Craig finally replied. “Bright is the primary target. Take him down alive if you can.”
“That’s a go,” the lead pilot answered, pushing down on the joystick. The hovercopter swept in low until it was travelling just a few metres above the runway. The other two pilots followed suit.
As Major Bright desperately tried to latch onto the back of the plane, the lead pilot let loose with a volley of bullets that ripped up the tarmac around his feet. Bright stumbled and hit the ground as one of the rounds almost went through his ankle. Before him the jet sped away,
lifting gracefully into the air at an incredibly steep angle. Bright clambered to his feet, but did not move forward – the jet was airborne now. His powers finally spent after the successive teleports, he watched it rise into the distance helplessly.
The hovercopters drew closer.
“Let’s try out the squirt guns on him,” the lead pilot said, switching weapons on his console. The squirt guns were a new HIDRA technology fitted to all the hovercopters – each was linked to a tank of concrete foam that could be sprayed on a target to subdue it non-lethally. Major Bright looked round. The three hovercopters circled him with a speed and agility impossible in normal helicopters.
“Let him have it!” the lead pilot ordered and all three guns fired at once, dousing Bright in waves of grey foam that smothered his arms, legs and body. The big man struggled madly against the liquid mass, but his movements slowed as the concrete mix snap-dried in the air. Within seconds he was encased in a mound of concrete that was as solid as rock. Trapped from the neck down, his powers spent during the pursuit of the children, Bright threw back his head and screamed in impotent rage.
“Major Bright is ready for collection by the ground team,” the lead pilot said into the comm with a chuckle. “Just tell them to bring a hammer and chisel.”
The jet climbed fast, engines roaring as it gained altitude. The interior was all plush leather and mahogany – more like the inside of a hotel room than any plane Sarah had been on before. In the middle of the carpet, an M for Makarov stood out in gold thread. Finally off the ground, the group slumped in the plush seats.
“That was too close,” Nestor said breathlessly.
“Cool,” Octavio commented, looking around the cabin as he put his feet up on the seat opposite. “Look at the size of that TV. Do you think they’ve got Blu-ray?”
“Definitely Blu-ray,” Alex replied with a nod, dabbing at his bloody nose with a tissue. “This place has everything. Told you this guy is mega-rich.”
Sarah rose and stood before him. “Where’s Makarov?” she demanded. “Where are we being taken?”
Alex held up the iPod and shrugged. “It’s gone quiet.”
Sarah grabbed it from him and put one of the earphones in her ear – nothing.
“Calm down,” Alex said, trying to placate her. “He’ll be in touch. The main thing is we escaped Major Bright, right?”
“But escaped to what?” Nestor said.
Sarah moved along the cabin towards the front of the plane, fighting the angle of ascent. Determined to get some answers, she grabbed the cockpit door and threw it open. What she saw made her gasp in surprise.
The cockpit was empty. The joysticks moved as the jet began to even out, but there was no one in the pilot or co-pilot’s seats. The control panels were a mass of blinking lights and computer readouts. Ahead was empty sky.
“How’s that possible?” Nestor asked, appearing at her side.
Before she could venture an answer, Louise gave a yell from the back of the plane. Sarah looked round to see yellowish gas pouring out of the air vents around the cabin.
“Cover your mouths!” Sarah commanded, but it was no use. Louise and Wei had already fallen to the floor unconscious. Octavio was succumbing too, sliding out of his chair to the floor. Sarah ran over to Alex, holding her breath to stop from breathing in the gas.
We’re being drugged! she cried. I thought you said Makarov was a friend!
Alex shook his head helplessly. “I don’t understand—” His eyes rolled up into his head and he slumped back in his chair before he could finish the sentence. By the cockpit Nestor hit the floor. That only left Sarah and Robert. Fighting the urge to inhale, she stumbled to her brother, who was still half-asleep from the drugs Bright had given him earlier.
You have to teleport out of here, Robert, she said. Do it now while the jet is still over the ground.
“No way, Sarah,” he replied dully. “We stay together. Right?”
Sarah grabbed her brother’s shoulders and shook him. I said, go!
Robert shook his head. “Not leaving you.”
Before Sarah could protest any further, his eyes closed. Grabbing one of the cushions from Robert’s seat, Sarah moved to the nearest vent and tried to block it. For a second it seemed to work, but then the gas billowed round the edges of the cushion in a great cloud that enveloped her face and made her choke violently. Dropping the cushion, Sarah staggered back and placed her hand against the side of the cabin. All around, her friends lay unconscious – helpless. Her head spun as she took another breath of gas-filled air.
As Sarah leaned against the wall and slid down into a sitting position, an old saying ran through her mind:
Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
Her eyes closed.
16
By mid-morning a heavy summer downpour had started in Melbourne and showed no sign of stopping. HIDRA operatives sheltered under umbrellas around the airstrip and looked for excuses to get inside the airport buildings.
Rachel Andersen’s staff car pulled up by the terminal, which had been taken over as a temporary base of operations. She emerged before her driver could get the door and ran through the rain to the lobby of the building, where Commander Craig was waiting for her. In the corner of the room, a scrawny kid in his late teens sat in a chair, with his left hand cuffed to the armrest.
“We got him, sir,” Craig said with obvious pride, referring to the capture of Major Bright.
“Who’s this?” Rachel asked, referring to the sorry-looking kid.
“One of Bright’s lackeys,” Craig responded, looking round at Eco.
“He made me do it!” Eco protested, his voice strained, as if he was about to cry. “Bright said he’d vaporize me if I didn’t drive the car for him.”
“Shut up and speak when you’re spoken to,” Commander Craig said, before leaning in to speak to Rachel confidentially. “He’s been whining like that since we pulled him out of the wreck of the Range Rover. We’ll question him and then transfer him to the local authorities. Records show he’s got a juvenile rap sheet as long as your arm.”
Rachel sniffed. “Sarah and the other children?”
Commander Craig looked embarrassed. “They were picked up by an unidentified jet seconds before our copters got here. We couldn’t stop it without putting their lives at risk.”
“Where did it go?”
“North. We managed to track it for about three hundred kilometres, but then it just disappeared. Where it headed after that is anyone’s guess.”
Rachel frowned. “It flew under the radar?”
“No, sir,” Craig said decisively. “It was at high altitude when it vanished. We think the jet was fitted with some kind of stealth device. The airport security cameras picked up these shots.”
He handed her a series of grainy printouts showing the mystery jet on the runway. “That doesn’t look like any private plane I’ve ever seen,” she said. “Any leads on who it belongs to?”
Craig shook his head. “There’s no obvious registration mark on the side. The control tower didn’t even know it was here until the plane was on the ground. The only marking is that logo near the wing. We’re still following up on that.”
Rachel held one of the photos closer to her face and made out the shape of an M set inside a circle. “Makarov,” she said quietly.
“You know what that is, sir?” Commander Craig asked with interest.
“I could be wrong, but it looks like the logo for Makarov Industries. It’s a Russian company that manufactures scientific equipment. The director, Nikolai Makarov, developed the sleeper caskets we use to keep the victims of the fall virus.”
“That’s quite a coincidence,” Craig said pointedly.
“Or no coincidence at all. His name also came up in connection with the meteorite strike in Russia six months ago. Makarov owns the region in which the object hit – which was one of the reasons why our people weren’t allowed access to the strike site. Follow up on that and inform me
the moment you find anything. We need to locate Sarah Williams and the others.” She handed the photographs back. “Now, where’s our prisoner?”
Commander Craig nodded to a door flanked by two HIDRA commandos. “We’re holding him in the airport manager’s office.”
Rachel started in that direction, but paused when Craig gave an embarrassed cough. “What is it, Commander?” she asked impatiently.
“Forgive me, sir,” he said, “but we have a HIDRA interrogator being flown in from the Pacific Mobile Base. Bright isn’t going to be as easy to question as that kid. He’s a dangerous criminal and should be handled by a professional—”
Rachel held up a hand to silence him. “Your concern is noted, Commander,” she said. “But time is of the essence. Do you have a sidearm?”
Craig patted the pistol on his hip by way of a response.
“Very good,” Rachel replied. “If Bright tries anything, you have my permission to shoot him.”
Commander Craig looked at his boss, trying to work out whether she was joking or not. Rachel turned and strode across the room past Eco, whose face had drained of all blood and who was staring at her with an expression of sheer terror. Craig gave him a wink as he followed Rachel into the office and closed the door.
Bright sat in the middle of the room, wrists and ankles cuffed to the legs of a metal chair. Tape had been placed over his mouth. His blue eyes flashed in silent fury as Rachel walked over to him and inspected the bandaged burn marks and cuts on his skull. She nodded at the HIDRA commando stationed in the corner of the room to leave. The man went without a word. Rachel turned back to Bright, gripped the edge of the tape and ripped it away from his face.
“Hello,” she said.
Bright grinned at her. “Long time, no see, Dr. Andersen. I heard General Wellman put a scientist in charge,” he said with a contemptuous sneer. “What a joke.”