“Something’s powering up,” said Sirena. “I think it’s—”
She vanished from the robots’ network.
“Where’s she gone?” said Morph.
Chopper’s night vision zoomed in on the car ahead. Sirena was still on the roof, the microscopic grippers on her thin legs holding her firmly in place.
All the robots could now detect a strange blank spot in their sensor grid.
“He really is extremely cautious,” said Morph.
“We’re less than a hundred metres from the car,” said Chopper. “If we get any closer, we’ll lose communications ourselves.”
“Our sensors will not function either, remember,” said Nero. “Sirena said there may be more booby traps. We’ll be going in blind. Our chances of success will fall dramatically.”
“We have to act fast!” said Morph. “The car is heading up the ramp. It’ll be on the motorway in a few seconds.”
Nero made a lightning-quick scan of the area around them. “I have an alternative plan. Hercules, catch up with the car and deal with the stolen data. Beware of sensor malfunction.”
“Logged,” said Hercules. He shot off ahead.
“The rest of us will land on the roof of that articulated lorry parked outside the cafe on the other side of the road. Its steering and engine are controlled by a computer in the cab. We can hack into the computer and therefore control the lorry. We can chase Blackwater’s car, and remain out of range of the signal jammer.”
Up ahead, Blackwater manoeuvred the car out onto the motorway, which snaked away into the distance supported on massive concrete pillars. His headlights shone onto the stretch of road in front of him. The noise of the car’s wheels against the tarmac rose to a dull roar as he accelerated. Although it was now early evening, there were relatively few vehicles either ahead of him, or behind him.
Meanwhile, an angry lorry driver came running out of the roadside cafe. He yelled helplessly as he watched the back end of his lorry driving away up the motorway ramp.
Ahead, Hercules adjusted his flight pattern and landed lightly on the rear window of Blackwater’s car. His sensors felt dull and swamped, like a human feeling the effects of a heavy cold.
Tiny laser cutters clicked into place at the end of his claw. He rested them against the window and the claw began to rotate. Miniature laser beams sliced through the glass. Seconds later, a neatly cut circle dropped away, and Hercules climbed through into the car’s interior.
“So far, so good,” he added to his internal log.
Quickly, he crawled across to the large trunk. It sat on the folded-down rear seats, and took up most of the space in the back of the car. He paused to consult the data Sirena had sent over, about exactly where the stolen MI6 data was located. He scuttled a little to the right, then began to cut into the trunk with his claw.
Blackwater glanced into his rear-view mirror. The headlights of the lorry reflected into his eyes.
“Wretched lorry drivers,” he muttered. “Driving too close. Come on, then, overtake me…”
The lorry maintained a steady speed, following exactly behind Blackwater’s car. Inside the lorry’s cab, Nero was at the windscreen, looking out at the road. Morph had squeezed himself behind the touchscreen on the dashboard and hacked directly into the lorry’s computer. He relayed data to the others. Chopper, Widow and Sabre were standing by.
“Increase speed by three per cent,” said Nero. “Steering four point five degrees to the right.” The vehicle’s automated systems did exactly as he told them. The large steering wheel turned slightly, and the accelerator rose, as if operated by an invisible man.
“I wonder how Hercules is doing,” said Morph. “Is Sirena OK?”
On the roof of the car, the butterfly made quick movements with her wings, signalling back to Nero. “She’s fine,” said Nero.
The massive supports beneath the motorway were slowly reducing in height, as the road left London behind. Soon it was at ground level, no longer raised above the streets. Instead, it cut through a wide valley, with steep grassy hills to each side. The lorry rumbled along behind Blackwater’s car.
“Traffic density is light,” said Chopper. “Let’s move in on our target.”
The lorry suddenly revved up. Its speed increased and its front bumper moved to within a few metres of Blackwater’s car.
“We mustn’t endanger human life!” said Morph.
“We are far more efficient at driving than any human,” said Nero calmly. “The best way to safeguard human life is to get Blackwater off the road as fast as possible.”
“Make sure we stay at a distance from the signal jammer,” said Chopper.
“Logged,” said Nero.
In his car, Blackwater kept glancing nervously at the headlights coming up behind him. “What’s this fool doing? What’s he doing?”
The lorry suddenly swerved to the right. With its engine roaring, it raced ahead and quickly drew level with the car. Blackwater watched in alarm as the lorry’s huge wheels moved up alongside him.
“Widow,” said Chopper calmly.
“I’m live,” said Widow. She swung herself out of the lorry’s cab. Leaping from lorry to car and back again, she spun a broad web between the two, its threads thinner than a human hair but stronger than steel cable. Seconds later, once the car was firmly tethered to the lorry, she swung back into the cab again. “Web binding completed.”
Blackwater hadn’t spotted what Widow had done. All he knew was that as the lorry moved, so did his car. His rusty hatchback was no match for the enormous power of the lorry.
“Take him off the road,” said Chopper.
Nero sent instructions into the lorry’s computer. The vehicle began to drift to the left.
Blackwater was panicking. “Hey!” he screamed at the non-existent lorry driver. “You maniac! You’re going to hit me if you’re not careful! Oi!”
He pressed the car’s brake pedal, but as he did so the car lurched violently. It was tied to the lorry so securely that the lorry simply dragged it along.
In the lorry’s cab, Nero’s millisecond-by-millisecond driving compensated for the drag of the car. The hatchback bumped and bashed against the side of the lorry. The signal jammer bounced off the seat beside Blackwater. It clattered around until it hit the gear stick and broke apart.
“What’s going on?” screamed Blackwater. “Stop! Stop!”
Nero gradually guided the lorry off the motorway onto the hard shoulder, dragging the car along with it. Clouds of grit flew up around the wheels. The car scraped across the ground and one of its tyres burst with a deafening bang.
The lorry continued to steer left. It drove off the hard shoulder onto the grass beyond, rumbling over the bumpy surface. Blackwater’s car did the same.
At last, the lorry came to a halt. The car, its right side badly dented, juddered until its engine cut out.
Blackwater leaned across the passenger seat and scrambled through the glove compartment. “Something’s going on… This is them… They’ve tracked me down, somehow… Well, they’ll be sorry! They’ll be sorry!”
He found a smartphone he’d hidden underneath a stack of computer printouts. He sat up in his seat again, tapping gleefully at the phone, chuckling to himself.
He stopped mid-tap. The smile dropped from his face. Perched on the car’s steering wheel were a butterfly, a spider, a scorpion, a dragonfly, a mosquito and a centipede. The human and the robots gazed silently at each other for a moment.
“You?” gasped Blackwater. “How?” His smile returned. “You’re too late!”
He raised the smartphone up in front of them. A large round button on its screen glowed red. “Now, all that data goes public. It uploads to the internet. It’s bye bye, peace and harmony, and there’s nothing you can do about it!”
He pressed the button. An error message appeared:
CONTACT BROKEN. DATA CANNOT BE FOUND.
He pressed the button again. And again. Then he bashed the smar
tphone against the steering wheel until it smashed into half a dozen pieces. He buried his face in his hands, and yelled angrily at the top of his voice.
Hercules appeared on the headrest beside Blackwater.
“The stolen data is completely wiped off the USB stick?” said Chopper.
“I bombarded it with magnetic radiation about two minutes ago,” said Hercules. “Sirena’s directions were perfect. I tunnelled in a direct line through two laptops, and there it was.”
“You’re welcome,” said Sirena.
“Message sent to SWARM HQ,” said Nero. “Agent K will be here to arrest Blackwater shortly.”
“Sabre,” said Chopper.
The mosquito buzzed in mid-air for a moment. Blackwater looked up, scowling with rage. He was just in time to see Sabre dart forward and inject a memory-wiping pellet into his neck.
Blackwater yelped, and slapped a hand to his neck. Sabre darted forward again, and injected a freezer sting into the other side. Blackwater yelped again, then toppled over sideways.
“He won’t remember us at all,” said Chopper. “SWARM remains secret.”
The following day, in the laboratory at SWARM HQ, Queen Bee brought her team up to date. The robots were all in their metallic nests, raised above the workbench. The residue from the garage explosion had been cleaned off them, and they were recharging their power cells.
“Drake’s safely under lock and key, then?” said Alfred Berners.
Queen Bee nodded. “And Blackwater too. MI6 have been able to assure the world that their data is secure again. Mind you, there are a number of governments who want to ask them some awkward questions, but I think we can leave that to them.”
“Why did Drake do it?” said Simon Turing. “What was he hoping to gain?”
“He was ruthless and ambitious,” said Queen Bee. “But he’d also, in the past, made errors and enemies. He’d even been made to look a fool by this department, don’t forget. He wasn’t exactly thought of as MI5’s finest, but he badly wanted to get ahead. He wanted to get promoted to a better job, and above all he wanted to be thought of as a hero.”
“So he cooked up a plot to make himself look good,” said Simon.
“Exactly,” said Queen Bee. “He found someone on MI5’s watch list, someone with a grudge who might be turned into a terrorist.”
“Blackwater,” said Simon.
“Drake erased records to allow Blackwater to remain hidden, and supplied him with secret MI5 equipment, and information about MI6, in order to help him create a serious threat. He thought he could easily control Blackwater. He underestimated Blackwater’s determination and his intelligence. Drake thought he could allow Blackwater to set his plan in motion, then sweep in and arrest him at the critical moment, before any major harm was done.”
“So that he would look like the most brilliant secret-service agent ever, the genius who’d cracked the world-shattering Firestorm case,” said Simon.
“Drake didn’t really think Blackwater would get a chance to release that MI6 data,” said Queen Bee. “He genuinely thought he could contain the situation. He was wrong. That’s why he was so keen to take charge of the investigation. He thought he’d be given it automatically and never realized it might end up in our laps! He made some disastrous mistakes.”
“Sad, really,” said Alfred. “Blackwater’s case is a sad one too.”
“Yes, I think you’re right,” said Queen Bee. “It seems he was driving off to hide out in the countryside, for when the bombs started dropping. From some secret hideout in the middle of nowhere, he thought he could dangle the threat of World War III over the government. Although, I can’t imagine it would have been for long, can you?”
“It doesn’t make sense,” said Simon. “Did he seriously want to cause a war?”
“Sense was the last thing on his mind,” shrugged Queen Bee. “He was raging against the world. I’m not sure he knew what he wanted himself, deep down.”
“Well,” said Professor Miller, “one thing we do know. Drake and Blackwater both underestimated each other.”
“That’s true,” said Nero, from the workbench. “And they both underestimated SWARM too.”
The interrogation room at MI5 was small and grey. A single dim light was set flat into the high ceiling. Ex-agent Morris Drake sat at a small table, leaning back in his chair, staring defiantly at the man opposite him. This man was tall and thin – a professional interrogator.
“There’s no way out of this, Drake,” he said softly. “Your only chance is to make a full confession, and face the consequences.”
“Prison?” grunted Drake. “Disgrace? No, I’ll give that a miss.”
“You can’t. You know you can’t.”
Drake leaned forward. Shadows lengthened down his face. “Yes, I can. I know about certain … foreign projects. Things you’re going to want to know about too.”
The interrogator shifted uncomfortably. “What … things?”
“Things that are coming,” said Drake in a whisper. “Dangerous things.”
About the Author
Simon is the award-winning author of the Saxby Smart and Jeremy Brown series. Simon’s ultimate dream is to go the moon, but in the meantime, he lives in Warwick with his wife and children. He writes in a tiny room, not much bigger than a wardrobe, which is crammed with books, pieces of paper and empty chocolate bar wrappers. His hobbies include fixing old computers and wishing he had more hobbies.
www.simoncheshire.co.uk
Copyright
STRIPES PUBLISHING
An imprint of Little Tiger Press
1 The Coda Centre, 189 Munster Road,
London SW6 6AW
First published as an ebook by Stripes Publishing in 2015
Text copyright © Simon Cheshire, 2015
Cover illustration copyright © Peter Minister, 2015
Cover background and inside imagery courtesy of www.shutterstock.com
eISBN: 978–1–84715–578–8
The right of Simon Cheshire to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any forms, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
www.littletiger.co.uk
A top-secret device with the power to bring down the world’s electronic communications has been stolen.
It’s a race against time for SWARM to locate and retrieve the dangerous weapon before the thieves crack the encryption code protecting it. Can the SWARM team stop the villains before it’s too late?
SWARM suspect that a scientist at the country’s top research laboratory has gone rogue.
The SWARM team uncover a sinister underworld and a deadly poison that is about to be unleashed. Can they foil the criminal’s evil plan before the world is changed forever?
Code Name Firestorm Page 9