by Mark Robson
‘Or whatever is causing the mysteries deliberately varies its tactics to muddy the waters,’ Tony added.
‘Both good ideas,’ Niamh said, grabbing a sheet of paper and a pen. Drawing two bubbles, she wrote Multiple phenomena? in one and Deliberate variation? in another. She stared at them for a moment and then added another bubble in which she wrote Transported to somewhere remote? ‘Dad used the name the Devil’s Triangle rather than the Bermuda Triangle because he felt it implied intent behind what was happening. If you were going to arrange for all these ships, planes and people to disappear, why would you do it?’
‘Money,’ Tony suggested.
‘Power?’ Carrie added, her voice uncertain. ‘Not “take over the world” type power, but “do it because I can” type power. Some people get a real kick out of that sort of thing.’
Niamh noted both down and then shook her head and crossed out Money. ‘It can’t be driven by money,’ she said. ‘Or if it is, then it’s not in any way I can make sense of. Look – this one says cargo untouched . . . same with this one. Cargo intact . . . cargo intact . . . and on this one a wallet with quite a lot of money in it was found in a jacket left in plain view on the deck. Some of the people who have gone missing have been wealthy, but there are never any demands for ransom money. I can’t see a financial motive.’
She stared at the paper and drew another bubble. In it she wrote To hide something. Staring at the words, a shiver ran down her spine. What sort of secret would justify making thousands of people disappear? And who, or what, would be powerful enough to make that sort of thing happen? Could it be a government cover up? Was Tony right? Was there something of such financial significance out there that it was worth making so many things and people vanish?
Drawing another bubble next to the one she had crossed through, Niamh wrote the word Money again and drew a linking line to the one marked To hide something. Taking another piece of paper she wrote a vertical list:
Why?
How?
Where?
When?
What?
Who?
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Time to really start thinking like investigators . . .’
CHAPTER NINE
‘Boys, we’ve got trouble inbound. Grab anything you don’t want to lose. It looks like we’re gonna need to leave in a hurry.’
Claire’s expression was grim and determined as she swept through the common room and straight on through to the planning room, where the boys heard her repeating the message. Sam jumped to his feet, his chest instantly tightening with apprehension.
‘That sounds serious,’ Callum muttered, adjusting his glasses and staring after Claire.
‘If the Imperium know where we are, then yeah, serious sums it up,’ Sam said, moving to the door that his mother had disappeared through. ‘I guess we stirred the hornets’ nest last night. The Imperium big bosses can’t be happy about losing David. I wonder what he’s making of all this.’
‘He spent quite a while talking with your mum last night. She’s a persuasive lady, Sam. I imagine he’s more onside than he was to begin with.’
‘I hope so. If we’ve got to run, it’ll be a lot easier to take him with us if he comes willingly,’ Sam observed. ‘I doubt Nipper will want to carry him again.’
Almost as if the mention of his name summoned him, Nipper appeared with Grunt at his side. Sam looked at the raptor’s face, trying once again to read it for emotion. If there was anything there to read, Sam couldn’t see it, but he could sense the tautness in the two raptors. They were ready for action.
‘Let’s grab a small backpack or two if you can find them,’ Callum suggested. ‘We’ll fill them with as much food and drink as we can carry easily. We don’t want to have to run with a heavy load if we’re being chased.’
‘Good idea,’ Sam agreed. ‘What about weapons? Do you think Mum will let us have guns?’
‘I don’t know. Do you really want one?’
‘Are you kidding? If Scar and those other Imperium raptors are going to be chasing me, personally I’d like a tank, or a rocket launcher maybe. But I’ll take anything I can get. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to get home in one piece.’
‘You in a tank!’ Callum laughed. ‘Now that would be dangerous. You can barely ride a bike in a straight line!’
‘Ha, ha! Very funny. Come on. Let’s see what we can do to help.’
The two boys followed Claire through to the planning room and found it was already a hive of activity. Nipper and Grunt entered behind them. Claire was barking out orders both in English and in the raptor language. Alex was distributing weapons and ammunition from the big metal cabinet where they were stored. Sherri already had a semi-automatic rifle slung across her back and was busy strapping boot holsters to her ankles for a pair of blocky handguns that she’d laid on the table next to where she crouched.
Bemused, David was sitting by a table at the far side of the room with his hands tied behind his back. He was staring with a dazed expression at the whirlwind of preparations going on round him. Sam tapped Callum on the arm.
‘Why don’t you go and talk to David?’ he suggested. ‘I’ll see if Alex will let us have some firepower.’
Callum was happy to comply. He had been itching to talk with David all morning, but the opportunity had not arisen. The inventor looked to be in his early twenties, of medium build, with dark wavy hair and chiselled features. Callum could imagine girls flocking to him if it wasn’t for the startled rabbit expression on his face. The sustained mixture of surprise and fear was almost comical. His eyes were darting around the room from person to person, as if he expected one of them to attack him at any moment.
‘Hi,’ Callum began. ‘I’m Cal. I saw your flying machine the other day and I’ve been dying to ask you about it. It looked wicked.’
‘It’s not wicked at all,’ David replied, flinching away from Callum’s hand. ‘There is nothing evil about flying.’
‘By wicked I meant it looked cool . . . erm, great, fantastic, brilliant. Sorry.’
‘Oh! Well, in that case, thanks.’ He looked around the room. ‘Do you know what’s going on? This all looks a bit desperate.’
‘I don’t know for sure, but from what I can tell, your friends from the Imperium are getting a bit too close for comfort,’ Callum explained. ‘We’re just preparing in case we have to relocate in a hurry.’
‘You realise they’ll kill you all if they find you?’ David asked. ‘They’ll kill me too, if they think I’ve joined you.’
‘They have to find us first,’ Callum said, grinning. ‘We’re pretty well hidden here. Besides, if they do find us, Claire is a clever woman. I imagine she has an escape plan worked out.’
‘You imagine? You don’t know?’
‘I trust her.’
‘Rather you than me,’ David said, shaking his head. His eyes flicked around the room nervously. ‘I don’t trust anyone any more. Trusting people will land you in trouble. Mark my words.’
Callum laughed aloud. ‘It already has,’ he said, raising his hands. ‘How do you think I ended up here? My friend Sam over there told me it would be fine for us to take his dad’s boat out for a quick fishing trip, and here I am in a strange world being hunted by highly evolved dinosaurs. There are times when I think I shouldn’t have listened to him.’
‘You trusted him and he let you down.’
‘No. I trusted him and things didn’t work out the way either of us could have anticipated,’ Callum corrected. ‘I don’t blame him for what happened. Sam’s a good guy. He kept us both alive through a monster storm. He’s a good friend and I still trust him, even though I know he sometimes makes mistakes.’
‘You’re a fool then,’ David said, his voice dismissive. ‘I try not to make the same mistake twice.’
‘Nice attitude! Have a lot of friends, do you?’
‘No,’ David replied, still not looking at Callum. ‘I avoid social relationships of any kind. They only bring trouble.’
‘So you’re a self-styled Billy-no-mates. That’s pretty sad, you know. Don’t you ever get lonely?’
‘Sometimes,’ David admitted, glancing up at Callum. The fierce intensity in his brown eyes sent a shiver down Callum’s spine. ‘But I’m alive and I have purpose. That’s enough for me.’
A distant, muffled sound of gunfire made Callum look round at Sam, who paused momentarily midway through stuffing a backpack with food. Out of the corner of his eye, Callum noted that David jumped with every report. The man was terrified. But more than that, Callum suspected that he was so paranoid that he was bordering on losing his mind entirely.
‘Time to leave, people,’ Claire ordered from the doorway. ‘Nathan’s engaged the searchers in the tunnels. We don’t have long. Come on. This way. Follow me. Stay close.’
Sam tossed Callum the backpack and slung a rifle over his shoulder. Callum inwardly sighed and hoped Sam would not try to do anything heroic. His friend was impulsive and brave, but his luck could not last forever. Watching him fly between buildings on the zip wire last night had been bad enough. As he had watched Sam race out over the deadly drop, selfish thoughts had run through Callum’s head. What if Sam got himself killed? Where would that leave him? Callum desperately wanted to get home, but he didn’t want to go alone. He and Sam had got into this together. They should go home together.
Maybe David has it more right than I know, he thought as he ushered the reluctant young man ahead of him. Sam has his mum now. His motivation to get home isn’t as strong as it was. Perhaps I should be thinking more about what I can do without him.
* * *
Sam felt breathless with excitement and fear. The weight and feel of the rifle against his back added to both. He was under strict instructions not to use the rifle except as an absolute last resort, but that did not take away from the fact that he had been entrusted with carrying a deadly weapon.
He was near the back of the group with Callum and David. Nipper and Grunt formed the rearguard as they dropped down through the trapdoor and into the tunnels. Nipper had been left deliberately unencumbered, but Grunt was carrying two heavy ammunition boxes. Claire and Alex led the way using filtered red torches to minimise the chances of drawing enemy attention with their lights. The whispered order was clear. No one else was to use lights of any sort. They were trying to evade the Imperium agents, not engage them.
The smell of damp, stale water in the tunnels added to the oppressive, claustrophobic feel of being underground. Unlike caves, these tunnels were all neatly squared and often the walls, flooring and ceiling appeared to be made of the same dense plastic-type material that the raptors used for the walls of their buildings, but unlike the clean structures above ground, the surfaces here were covered in slimy mould.
The sudden sound of gunfire made Sam’s breath catch in his throat. It seemed much louder and closer than it had up in the planning room. Sam had learned from the rapid exchanges between Claire, Sherri and Alex that one of the remote alarms the rebels had set up in the underground passageways had been triggered. Given their activities of the previous night, Nathan had offered to investigate and had taken Watson, Crick and Edison with him.
From the sounds of fighting that were echoing through the subterranean passageways, it was not hard to figure out what had triggered the alarm.
‘This way,’ Claire whispered, and they were off, moving silently and rapidly through the labyrinth. The way the sounds of gunfire echoed around them it was hard for Sam to tell if they were heading away from trouble or towards it. All he could do was follow and trust those ahead of him. His foot caught on something and he stumbled forward, bumping into the back of a raptor, though it was too dark to tell which one. His instinct was to apologise, but he clamped down the impulse. No one would thank him for making unnecessary noise.
They wove through the tunnels, almost running along the wider sections, taking turn after turn until Sam began to wonder if they were lost. With an abruptness that took him totally by surprise, the raptor ahead of him stopped and like a caterpillar bunching its body, the group gathered together. A variety of whispered curses, growls and clicks were overridden by one louder one.
‘Damn!’ Claire swore.
Her expletive was followed by a deafening burst of gunfire as first one and then another weapon fired multiple shots. The tunnel around Sam came alive with the strobe effect of the flashing discharges of the weapons. The hulking silhouetted shapes of Newton and Einstein filled the passageway ahead of him. Initially, Sam couldn’t see past them, but he could not resist manoeuvring for a better view. No sooner could he see than he wished he couldn’t. Raptors were charging towards them from ahead. Their vicious teeth and savage expressions were captured in a fragmented sequence of flash images that jerked like a stuttering film, each frame appearing in time with the spitting discharges from the weapons of Claire and Alex.
A loud thump, thump from behind caused Sam to twist and look over his shoulder. Grunt had dropped the ammunition boxes and was crouched ready to spring forward. Nipper was also poised. What had they heard? Were there more enemies approaching from behind? Had they walked into a trap?
‘Your gun!’ Callum urged. ‘Get ready, Sam.’
Sam hesitated a moment before acting. The rifle suddenly seemed clumsy and awkward in his hands and he fumbled with the cocking lever as he hooked his left arm through the sling and pulled the butt into his shoulder as he had been taught. His heart was pounding like crazy and his thumb hovered over the safety catch as he tried to decide which way to point the weapon. He had no clear shot forward as his line of sight was blocked by Einstein and Newton. Nipper and Grunt filled the passageway behind him. His mother had drilled him on the importance of only ever pointing a gun in a safe direction, so he kept the muzzle of the weapon pointing down at the floor. The thought that in the dark and confusion he might accidentally shoot a friend terrified him.
‘Back up! Back up!’ Claire ordered, her strong voice carrying over the sound of the weapons fire.
Nipper growled a warning. Was something moving behind them?
‘I don’t think we can!’ Sam yelled back. ‘It looks like there are more coming up behind us. We’re trapped!’
‘We’re going to die,’ David groaned.
Sam felt a surge of anger at the dark pessimism in the man’s voice. There was something about people who moaned at every turn that set his teeth on edge. He was tempted to snap at him, but as he opened his mouth to speak, something caught his eye. Was that movement Sam could see in the dark passageway behind them or was his imagination playing tricks on him? A muffled growl was answered by a sequence of clicks. Raptors were definitely approaching, but it was impossible to tell how close they were.
‘Sherri! Cover the rear,’ Claire ordered, firing another burst. ‘We need space. Get us moving back. There’s too many of them ahead.’
‘Got it.’
Sam felt the raptors shift aside to let Sherri through and she pushed past him without apology as she moved to support Nipper and Grunt. Holding her rifle with her right hand, she raised her filtered torch in her left and played it along the passageway behind them. Initially, there was nothing to see. The passageway looked empty. With cautious speed, Sherri, Nipper and Grunt began to move back the way they had come. Suddenly, they stopped again. Caught, reflected in the red light of Sherri’s beam, Sam could see raptors’ eyes coming towards him at speed.
CHAPTER TEN
‘There’s some seriously weird stuff in here,’ Tony commented. ‘Have either of you read the section on UFOs and USOs yet?’
Niamh looked over the top of her screen at him. The three of them were now working on separate computers – Tony on his laptop, Niamh on Carrie’s laptop and Carrie on an old laptop of her dad’s that she’d found tucked away in a cupboard. Pieces of paper were spread all over the kitchen table, covered in notes.
‘No,’ she answered, glancing across at Carrie, who also shook her head.
‘I’ve heard o
f UFOs, but what are USOs?’ Carrie asked.
‘Unidentified Submarine Objects,’ Niamh explained. ‘What have you found, Tony?’
‘It’s hard to believe some of these reports, but there are so many! I got shivers running up and down my spine just readin’ ’em.’
‘What sort of reports?’ Carrie asked, getting up and moving round to look over her brother’s shoulder.
‘Navy ships trackin’ underwater objects movin’ at speeds of 150 miles per hour. Military and civilian pilots reportin’ flying objects that seem to stalk them in the sky. Weird clouds and fogs that don’t follow the laws of nature. Here, let me read you this one. I love this! It’s a direct quote made by the Director of Civil Air Defense at Lajas, Puerto Rico, who says he saw an object being chased by a military jet in April 1992. He said:
‘ “The saucer was metallic, silvery and highly polished, and it seemed to be playing with the jet. It would continually stop in the air suddenly, then just as the jet was about to catch up it would move away quickly.”
‘There’s more, but you get the gist. Apparently, he was one of several witnesses. It’s hard to imagine someone in that sort of job puttin’ his reputation and career on the line unless he was pretty certain of what he saw.’
‘Flying saucers!’ Carrie scoffed. ‘So you think Niamh’s brother and his friend have been abducted by aliens? I don’t get it. How would a UFO steal the boat? And if it did, then why for Pete’s sake? I mean, some of the aircraft and ships that have disappeared have been massive. It would take a damned big UFO to pick up somethin’ like the USS Cyclops. I’ve just been readin’ about it. That thing was over 500 feet long and weighed about 20,000 tons before you start adding cargo!’
‘I didn’t say I thought that was what had happened. . .’
Niamh closed her eyes and concentrated, remembering again what it had felt like at the moment she had first experienced the strange tearing separation from her twin brother. Carrie and Tony continued to bicker, but their voices faded as once again she relived the moment in the pool.