by Chris Ryan
Ben turned to look at the old man. The cut and bruises on his face were sore, and there were dark bags under his wild green eyes. He looked to be in a worse state than he had when they first found him, and that was saying something.
'I don't know,' Ben replied nervously. 'Why don't we just try and find someone in charge. Alert them to what's going on.'
Joseph smiled. 'And you think they'll believe you? I've been trying to tell people about strange things happening at Spadeadam for years. Trust me, it's not what they want to hear.'
'Yeah, but I'm not—' Ben cut himself short.
'Not mad?' Joseph asked delicately. 'No, I would have to agree with that. But listen to me: Lucian will be scared that other people know of his device. Believe me, Vortex will be leaving that bunker any time now, if it hasn't done already. And if you want to hand yourself over to the RAF, that's up to you. Just make sure you don't accidentally give yourself up to one of Lucian's stooges. It's difficult to tell the difference between friends and enemies in this place, I've noticed.'
'He's right, Ben,' Annie said. 'We can't risk it. And if we're the only people who know about Vortex, we're the ones who have to stop it.'
Ben closed his eyes briefly. His body ached from being thrown around the uncomfortable chassis of the tank; there were already blisters forming on his hands from where he had been tightly gripping the steering handles. But then he looked at Joseph. The old man was a state, his body beaten and bruised. He had taken more punishment than anyone should have been expected to take, let alone a man of his age. Yet Ben knew from a single glance that Joseph would not be deterred from returning to the bunker and doing whatever was necessary to stop his brother. He also knew that he was in no state to make it there on foot.
'We need to follow the edge of the forest,' he said quietly. 'That was the way we came.'
'Listen to me, you two,' Joseph said. 'You've done enough to help me already. I'm an old man. I can take risks that you two can't. You don't have to help me do this. If you leave now, maybe you can get out of Spadeadam without anyone being the wiser.'
The offer was clearly sincerely meant, but Ben shook his head. 'If Vortex is as bad as you say it is, it's everyone's responsibility.' He looked at Annie. 'Agreed?'
'Agreed.'
'Good. We'll take the tank as far as we can, then continue on foot. Hold tight, everyone.' He pushed his foot down on the throttle, and the tank lurched into movement.
There may have been no planes overhead, but there was a new urgency now — the need to get to the bunker before anything could happen to Vortex. And so Ben sped, full throttle, around the edge of the forest, peering through the viewing hole into the early morning light and hoping that they were heading in the right direction. The other two sat quietly, tensely. None of them knew what was waiting ahead, and a sense of danger seemed to hang in the air around them.
They had been driving for several minutes. Ben's face was creased into an expression of concentration as he did his best to keep to the rough track that skirted round the edge of the forest, when he heard another sound above the growl of the tank's engine. 'What's that?' he asked tersely.
'I'll check,' Annie replied. She held firmly onto the back of Ben's seat, pushed open the circular entrance hatch at the top of the tank, then peered outside.
She ducked back into the relative safety of the tank almost immediately.
'We're being followed!' she yelled. 'Choppers. Two of them. They're overhead!'
'What do we do?' Ben shouted back.
'We have to keep going. They could be regular RAF, but they could be Lucian's men. We can't be sure.'
Suddenly there was an ear-splitting noise, and Ben saw the ground ahead of him explode in a shower of dirt.
'What was that?' he screamed.
'Gunships!' Annie replied. 'It has to be Lucian's people up there! And they're firing at us! We have to get out of the way!' As she spoke, there was another burst of fire from above. 'Get off the track, Ben. Into the woods. They'll hit us any minute, and that's the only place they can't follow.'
Without even thinking, Ben took a deep breath and pulled sharply on the left-hand steering lever. The tank veered towards the forest; as it did so, there was a deafening crackle as bullets ripped into the back of the tank. Ben tried to press harder on the throttle, but it was already fully open: the tank was going as fast as he could make it, and they just had to hope they got under cover in time.
Suddenly all he could see through the viewing window was a massive thicket of trees approaching them. The rat-a-tat of gunship fire outside came in increasingly frenzied bursts.
Crash!
The tank trampled over several young saplings on the edge of the forest, crunching them to the ground as easily as skittles being knocked over by a bowling ball. Sweat dripping down his face, Ben saw a thick tree trunk approaching fast out of the gloom. He turned sharply to avoid it and continued several metres across the clearing, before having to yank the vehicle in a different direction.
The trunk that they finally hit seemed to come from nowhere — one moment the way ahead looked clear, the next they were thrown around inside the tank with a sickening thump that seemed to penetrate to the core of their bodies. The engine of the tank started to emit a high-pitched scream as it thrust itself against the tree, an unstoppable force against an immovable object, the tracks around the wheels spinning in the dirt. Ben pulled his foot off the throttle, and the screaming instantly subsided.
'Get out!' he shouted. 'We can't carry on in the tank — the forest is too thick.'
Immediately, Annie raised her bruised body and pushed the hatch open, before pulling herself up onto the top of the tank. 'Give me your hand, Joseph!' she shouted. She grabbed hold of the old man's bony hand, and Ben helped push him up through the hatch, before pulling himself up onto the top of the metal beast. He glanced towards the front of the machine: the tank gun had been crushed up against the trunk of the massive tree he had hit, which was itself leaning down at an angle from the force of the collision. He jumped down onto the forest floor, then helped Joseph as he painfully dismounted from the tank, followed by Annie — still lithe despite her sore body.
Above them, they could still hear the roar of the helicopter gunships circling overhead. 'We need to get away,' Annie shouted. 'They could land at any minute, then this part of the forest is going to be swarming with them looking for us.'
Ben nodded, then glanced nervously at Joseph. He was in a terrible state, those parts of his face that weren't bruised a deathly white, his breathing laboured. 'Joseph,' he said clearly, 'we need to move quickly. Are you up to it?'
The old man nodded with determination; Ben wasn't convinced.
'We should still follow the edge of the forest,' he announced. 'My bet is that the guys in the choppers are regular RAF called in to deal with someone trying to steal their tank. They'll expect us to hide deeper in the forest, so it could work to our advantage.'
Annie nodded, and the three of them retraced their steps through the trail of devastation left by the tank, turning away just before they hit the edge of the forest and following the edge of the trees. The buzzing of the choppers — like the sound of enormous wasps out to sting them — grew more distant as they stumbled hurriedly through the trees, occasionally tripping on tree roots, but doing their best to keep going. They couldn't move as fast as they would have liked, however: Joseph was slowing them down. His heavy breathing became more and more laboured, and it wasn't long before his running had become little more than a hurried, limping walk. Finally he misplaced his footing and fell headlong onto the ground.
'Joseph!' Annie cried, but Ben was already there, kneeling down and pulling the old man up.
'Leave me,' he croaked. 'I'm holding you up.'
Ben shook his head. 'No way, Joseph. We've got this far, and we're not giving up now.' He looked over at Annie. 'Help me,' he instructed.
Instinctively she seemed to know what to do. Each of them wrapped one of Joseph's
arms around their necks and they helped him move forward, half supporting him, half dragging him through the trees.
It took a good half-hour of struggling in this way before they saw the ominous sight of the hut above the bunker appear through the trees, which were particularly dense here. They stopped, catching their breath and squinting their eyes to see what was going on. There was movement of some kind, but their view was too obscured to see what it was, so they crept as silently as they could to the very edge of the trees, crouching down behind a low bush as they staked the place out.
There were three people there, each of them armed, and a truck with its rear doors flung wide open. Two of them loaded a heavy-looking flight case into the back of the van, while the third stood watch. Even from this distance, Ben could tell it was Flight Lieutenant Johnson. Once the object was loaded into the van, the two soldiers stood in front of Johnson, listening patiently as though receiving instructions of some kind.
'Is that what I think it is?' Annie breathed.
Ben nodded. 'Vortex,' he said. 'It has to be. We can't let that truck leave — at least, we can't let it leave without us on it. If we do, it's over.'
'We need to distract them,' Annie said.
'And quickly,' whispered Joseph. 'Look, they're shutting the doors.'
Ben did it almost without thinking. They needed to get the three soldiers into the forest — that way they could sneak into the back of the truck without anyone noticing. It was a long shot, but they didn't have the time to think up anything more sophisticated. Ben scrabbled around on the ground and found a couple of good-sized rocks; he threw them out of the forest, making sure that they landed near the soldiers.
'Ben!' Annie hissed. 'What are you doing?'
The three men stopped talking and looked around them, their hands moving automatically to their weapons. Instantly they headed in the direction of Ben, Annie and Joseph; as they approached the forest, Ben heard Johnson ordering them to separate. They did so, while the trio crouched painfully still, barely daring to breathe for fear of alerting the soldiers to their presence. It was touch and go — they only had to stumble across them hiding nervously in the bushes and it would all be over — and every tiny sound they made seemed to be amplified a hundred times.
'There's someone here,' they heard Johnson's voice barking. 'Find them!'
There was a rustling of foliage as the soldiers hunted all around, coming perilously close to the trio's impromptu hiding place.
Ben felt his muscles freezing solid with fear.
They were nearly upon them. They were going to be caught.
He closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable sensation of an assault rifle poking into his back.
And then the sound of the men faded away, as they searched deeper into the forest.
'Now!' Ben whispered, and the three of them emerged from their hiding place and ran towards the truck — at least, Ben and Annie ran, while Joseph limped — desperately hoping that the soldiers would not call off their search until they had time to secrete themselves in the back of the truck. As soon as they reached the vehicle, Ben opened the back doors and gestured at Joseph and Annie to climb inside. Joseph, however, shook his head.
'What's wrong, Joseph?' Ben asked. 'We haven't got much time.'
'I'm slowing you down,' the old man replied. 'What you have to do is too important for me to be getting in your way.'
'We're not leaving you, Joseph,' Annie said flatly.
Joseph looked piercingly at them, and for a moment time seemed to slow down. 'You are a brave and ingenious couple. I'm sure you'll find a way to destroy that wicked machine.' His eyes flicked towards the hut. 'Besides,' he said, 'I have other things to deal with. They have left the access to the bunker open. I need to go back down there. There are things I need to put an end to.'
Ben looked towards the forest. There was no time for arguing — the soldiers could return at any moment. 'It's your decision, Joseph,' he said quietly. And then a thought struck him with a dreadful certainty. 'Will we see you again?'
Joseph avoided both Ben's eyes and his question. 'I'm an old man,' he said. 'Who knows what the future holds for me? Who knows what is around the corner?' He looked at the device in the truck. 'Just promise me one thing, Ben,' he said. 'Promise me that you'll destroy that weapon. It must never fall into the wrong hands, do you understand? Never.'
'I understand, Joseph.' Ben held out his hand and the old man shook it, before doing the same to Annie, whose eyes were suddenly glassy and tear-filled.
'God's speed,' he whispered. 'And good luck.' He turned and headed straight into the hut, his back stooped but a new sense of purpose in his step. He did not look back.
They watched him disappear, filled with a sense of foreboding. But there was no time to waste on tearful goodbyes. Joseph had given them a job to do; even if he hadn't, their duty was clear.
Without speaking a word, Ben and Annie jumped up into the back of the truck and pulled the doors firmly shut behind them. The flight case was there, firmly attached to the side of the truck with lengths of sturdy rope.
They were alone in the presence of Vortex. It was only a metal case, but somehow it had an aura all of its very own. An aura of fear. And Ben and Annie were the only two people in the world who could do anything to stop it from fulfilling its dreadful destiny.
Chapter Nineteen
Flight Lieutenant Johnson stood in a clearing of trees, his eyes narrowed and his palm firmly gripping the holster of his gun. He was sure he hadn't imagined it. Those stones had fallen barely a few metres away from him, and they hadn't just appeared out of nowhere.
As he looked around him, his two colleagues stumbled upon the clearing. 'Anything?' he asked them curtly, though he needn't have. The very fact that corporals Clarkson and Hildred were here empty-handed made it clear that nobody had found what they were looking for.
The two corporals shook their heads. 'Maybe it was a bird, sir. They drop things from the air sometimes.'
Johnson looked up to see the cloud-scudded sky high above the clearing. Birds — it was certainly a possibility. Even more reason for shooting the pesky things when he saw them. Not that he'd have much more opportunity for that. Vortex would be delivered in a matter of hours; Johnson, Lucian, the two corporals and the handful of others who knew about it would have gone AWOL by then, on a flight out of the country, their bank accounts considerably swollen. No, he had shot his last bird in the Spadeadam countryside, of that he was sure.
'All right,' he mumbled. 'Get back to the truck and start moving. I don't want you to be late.' The three of them hurried back through the forest towards the vehicle, which was just as they had left it.
'You know what to do?' Johnson asked the two men. They nodded. 'Get on with it, then,' he told them, before turning on his heel and heading back into the hut, momentarily cursing himself for leaving the access down to the bunker open. Sloppy, he told himself. Still, soon it wouldn't matter.
Corporals Clarkson and Hildred climbed into the cab of the truck. 'He's one Rupert I won't miss when this is over,' Clarkson moaned as Hildred fired up the ignition.
'Is there any that you will?' Hildred observed, and his colleague laughed ruefully.
'Good point,' he said. He dug his hand into a pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes and a cheap plastic lighter. He lit one, took a deep drag, then placed his cigarettes and the lighter on the dashboard as the cab filled with a choking cloud of smoke.
Their instructions were clear: to take their cargo across country to a warehouse near the port in Newcastle. Once they had handed over the device as arranged, they would dump the truck and immediately take a ferry to Amsterdam, then on to a private airfield where false passports would be waiting for them, along with a plane that would transport them to South Africa. Once they were there, they would be on their own.
But first things first: they needed to get out of Spadeadam without attracting the attention of their idiot RAF colleagues, and onto the open road.
They drove in silence, dreaming of the money that was about to come their way, and the things they would do with it.
'What was that?' Clarkson asked suddenly.
'What?'
'Something's banging.'
Hildred listened. 'I can't hear anything,' he said. But even as he spoke there was an unmistakable knocking sound from the back of the truck.
'Hear it?'
'Yeah, I heard it.' He put his foot on the brake and the truck pulled gently to a halt. 'Did you strap the thing in properly?'
'You saw me do it,' Clarkson replied.
'Well, maybe it's come loose. We'd better check.' They left the engine turning over as they jumped down from the cab and walked to the back of the truck.
Clarkson put his hand to the door handle and clicked it open. 'It's probably noth—'
As he spoke, his side of the door sprang open and crunched harshly into his face. He shouted in pain as he put his hands up to his face and felt blood instantly pouring from his nose; he was barely even aware of the other door bursting open and whacking Hildred equally hard. Blinded by the sudden pain, they couldn't see who it was that had suddenly attacked them; but they were certainly aware of the flurry of kicks and punches that landed on their knees and in their stomach, forcing them onto the dirty ground, groaning in agony.
'They're down!' a female voice shouted. 'Get in the front!'
'No!' another voice barked — a male this time, but young. 'Get their guns first.' Another blow in the stomach, and their weapons were forcibly taken from them.
They heard the doors slam shut, and with a shock of realization the implication of what was happening dawned on Clarkson. 'Vortex!' he shouted, pushing himself up to his knees. But his eyes were full of blood and he could barely see, let alone do anything about what was happening. And as he scrabbled around in the dirt, a billow of exhaust fumes blew into his face, causing him to cough and splutter.
'Stop them!' he heard Hildred shouting.
'Stop them!'
But it was too late. The engine of the truck had roared into life, and by the time either of them could see again, it had already driven off, and was speeding into the distance.