by Robin Crumby
“But not those people. Not after what they did. They deserve whatever’s coming to them.”
“But what about the rest of us? Me, Zed and the Professor. We’re not from Porton. Don’t tar us with the same brush, please.”
“When you threw your lot in with those guys, you chose sides, sealed your fate. There’s nothing I can do now. It’s out of my hands.”
“Please, I’m not telling you to take our side. All I’m asking for is a gesture, turn a blind eye, that’s all. Tell me how I get out of here.”
The Doctor tilted her head and stared at Riley. She sighed and shook her head. “I can’t help you Riley. They’d kill me if I tried.”
She turned away and slowly walked towards the door which was locked from the outside. She knocked and waited, facing away from Riley. The guard’s footsteps were heard approaching down the corridor. The Doctor turned and closed her eyes.
“Listen, I’ll protect you as much as I can. I won’t let them do to you what they did to Zed. Okay? Let me talk to the others. We may have underestimated you guys. But no promises.”
“Thank you Doctor,” said Riley, “that’s all I’m asking. And Zed? Look after him, please. Tell him I’m here.”
“Sure. And call me Jen. No one calls me Doctor any more,” she shrugged. “I stopped trying to save people a long time ago.”
“It’s never too late to change,” offered Riley as the Doctor smiled weakly and left.
When the door had closed again, she heard the key turn in the lock and the guard’s footsteps heading away down the corridor. Riley was left to her thoughts. Every time she imagined Zed and pictured his missing hand, she burst into tears, burying her head between her legs to make the mental images go away. Eventually, she lay down on the mattress and drifted off into a restless sleep filled with strange dreams of torture and severed limbs.
She woke to a rhythmic tapping coming from the window. Riley dismissed the noise as the branches of the tree outside, swaying in the breeze. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a movement and there at the window was a pair of eyes looking down at her. It took her a moment to take it in. It seemed so incongruous, yet there it was. The bearded face and features of Sergeant Jones smiled down at her, waving her over so that he could speak to her.
“Been looking all over for you. Where are the others?” his voice just loud enough to be audible through the glass.
Riley shrugged her shoulders and pointed in the direction of the other makeshift cells she had noticed on her way up for interrogation.
“Stay here. We’ll be back as soon as it’s dark. Be ready at midnight. Try and get word to the others too.”
Riley nodded excitedly and then the face was gone. She almost wondered whether she had imagined the whole episode. Sitting back on the mattress, the practicalities of the attempted rescue dawned on her. She was in the basement of a heavily-guarded building with not just Briggs and Copper’s thugs to deal with, but an unknown force who were based here. It could be dozens if not hundreds of them. She knew Jones had five of his guys with them and the Porton Down team had another seven or eight. Even with luck on their side, could that possibly be enough?
Knowing Jones, they wouldn’t risk an all-out assault. They would use all their skill and guile, make use of every advantage afforded by their training and equipment. That would likely mean stealth, night-vision, diversionary tactics. Whatever she might think of Jones and his men, they were professionals and she had to believe that they had done this sort of thing before. As for Briggs and Copper, they had no idea what was about to hit them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Zed regained consciousness with a gasp that made his whole-body flex. The pain in his wrist exploded up his arm as if every fibre in his body was crying out. He rode the wave of nausea, staring down in horror at the stump where his left hand had been.
Blood-soaked bandages covered his lower forearm and wrist. He closed his eyes, retreating into an inner-world. His mind was playing tricks on him. He could feel sensation in his fingers as he tried to wiggle them, but there was nothing there when he opened his eyes.
His head was woozy, his thoughts jumping around as he tried to remember, to make sense of what had happened. The Doctor had given him morphine. He should be grateful for that at least. He recognised a numbness in his very sense of being, a total loss of sensation, of caring. He was experiencing a delicious disconnection with reality and the world around him, but as that protective envelope began to dissipate, pain had broken through. A rhythmic throbbing began to drown out his every thought.
He struggled for mastery of his senses, gritting his teeth. Opening his eyes, he realised it was dark again. He was back in the same bare concrete room in the basement, dimly-aware of the moans and sobbing coming from surrounding cells. Overnight, the world had been turned upside down into a place of torture. They were all now at the mercy of their executioners in chief, Briggs and Copper. Their whims would determine his fate, whether he lived or died. Nothing he said or did would change that. The sense of helplessness was disconcerting, and at the same time, disarming. His father had always told him not to worry about things outside his control. This was one of those times. He must resign himself to his situation, accept its constraints and then work with what he had. Unfortunately, that wasn’t much.
His only hope was that others were in better shape than he was. He had to believe that some of their party had escaped captivity. He remembered little after the crash. He knew from the discomfort that he had been knocked out. There was nothing broken, but he was badly bruised down his left side. That pain was eclipsed by the terrifying sight of his arm, cradled tenderly in front of him. He needed to disconnect somehow, block the agony, stop it from overwhelming his senses again.
He rolled on his side, trying to stimulate his circulation again and relieve the pressure on his injured shoulder.
His private introspection was punctured by a metallic scratching coming from the door. It sounded like someone inserting a foreign object into the lock, testing the handle. Perhaps it was the Doctor coming back to check on his dressing, give him some more morphine to help him sleep. He opened his eyes wider to try and discern the source of the commotion, but the door remained closed. There was a loud thud as if someone was throwing their weight against it and then, with two loud kicks, the lock splintered and gave way, sending its chrome fitting careering across the concrete floor.
A torchlight arced round the room looking for something or someone before arriving at his face. He shielded his eyes with his good arm, squinting back. There was a flurry of movement as someone rushed over and he flinched, expecting an imminent blow. Instead, a female outline he half-recognised crouched down next to him. He gasped in pain as the woman threw her arms round him. Even with his eyes closed, he knew it was Riley. She drew back, hand over her mouth kneeling in front of him, pulling him upright. She leaned in close, supporting his weight as he tried to stand.
“Come on, we’re getting you out of here,” she whispered softly. It was the most delicious thing he had heard in days.
One of Jones’s men joined her on his other side, and between them they got him upright and walked him out the door, propping him up against the wall. There were other torchlights further down the corridor, as the rescuers systematically checked each room for the scientists. They passed the empty cells, Zed’s left foot dragging awkwardly, moving inexorably towards a rusting iron stair case at the far end that led to a fire escape. The door had been crowbarred open. Outside, in the cool dark air, Zed started to shiver uncontrollably, dressed only in a ragged t-shirt. He faltered, his last reserves of energy spent as the soldier manhandled him the rest of the way beyond a footpath and overgrown grass verge towards the tree line and the darkness beyond.
Behind them, Zed could hear voices. A floodlight powered up from high on the exterior wall, bathing the car park and landscaped garden with orange light. Zed heard the Staff Sergeant’s voice shouting to shoot out the light before thei
r pursuers could locate the escaping group. A few seconds later, a short burst of automatic fire, ricocheted off the brickwork and smashed the glass, plunging them back into darkness.
Torches to their right danced across the car park, panning round the back of the building, searching for the source of the commotion. Muffled exchanges of fire and muzzle flashes from the first floor rooms lit up the trees as bullets landed all around them. One of the soldiers to their right went down, clutching his leg. Zed paused to help him, but was dragged onwards. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the man get gingerly to his feet as he limped onwards.
As they reached the tree line, Zed felt damp leaves beneath his bare feet. The smell of wet grass and pine needles was overpowering as they pushed further into the forest, leaving the firefight far behind. Zed stumbled again and nearly fell before Riley intervened, straining against his body weight.
“Not much further. Come on Zed. You can do this big guy,” she urged between gritted teeth.
Two soldiers emerged from their hiding places ahead of them, covering their escape with weapons drawn and Zed recognised the men from Porton Down. One of them took the place of the American, who seemed relieved to rejoin his team leading the last of the hostages away from the building.
“Did you get the drives and the laptops?” shouted a voice ahead of them.
“We’re going back in now to search for them,” said the American.
“They were in the interrogation room on the ground floor,” shouted Riley. “Three rooms down from the lobby. Be careful.”
The American nodded and swung the assault rifle hanging on a strap from behind his back in front of him, jogging back to find the rest of his team. The exchanges of intermittent fire seemed to intensify behind them as shots were heard from left and right, as more defenders arrived from the surrounding buildings.
They headed deeper into the forest. Zed’s vision was clouding again as his head lolled against Riley’s shoulder, his feet dragging behind him as the Porton man on his left struggled to keep Zed upright. His reserves spent, he begged to be set down to get his breath back. He simply couldn’t go any further.
He heard voices ahead of him and a torchlight shone in their faces. Once they had been identified, the torch dipped down and they were escorted the last few meters to the back of the waiting vehicles. Two soldiers took over from Riley, manhandling Zed into the back seat of the Humvee. He flopped back against the headrest, clutching his wrist. Riley climbed in beside him, wrapping a sleeping bag round his shoulders, squeezing his shoulder to let him know she was there for him.
With a groan, his head slid down onto the seat, cradling his arm in renewed agony. The soldier raced round to the other side of the vehicle and Zed could hear him fiddling with a pouch on his webbing as he tore open a medical pack. Rolling up the sleeve and exposing his right arm, Zed felt a small nick as a needle found his vein and delivered a shot of morphine. He felt a numbing warmth spread slowly up his arm and once again overwhelm his senses. He smiled in spite of the pain and gave in to the delicious feeling of floating.
“Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. He’ll be out of it for some time.”
Riley’s face leaned over him and the last thing he heard before slipping into unconsciousness was her soothing voice close to his ear. “Sweet dreams big guy.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The Humvee and the two other vehicles that remained of the original convoy from Porton Down bumped along a narrow farm track in darkness that ran parallel with the main road towards Totton and the outskirts of Southampton. Riley was nursing Zed’s head in her lap, stroking his hair. The morphine shot had knocked him out and for the last couple of hours he had been blissfully unaware of their escape from Briggs’ clutches. She tenderly wiped a damp cloth across his feverish brow, closing his mouth to stop him snoring.
Riley tuned into the conversation of those around her. They had sustained three additional casualties in their rescue attempt, bringing the total wounded to five, two of them serious needing urgent medical attention. They had been stabilised but one needed surgery to remove a bullet lodged in his shoulder. Another had received a knife wound to his abdomen which had been patched up by the medic from Porton Down, assisted by Riley. Out of the eight hostages, they had returned with seven. The Professor was missing. No one had seen him since the ambush. They had searched all the other holding cells in the basement without success.
Their only hope was that the Professor was being held somewhere else, in a different building, according to his elevated status. Riley wondered why they wanted him so badly and remembered her interrogator’s questions about his role on the council and the research facility he had established on the island. To her, he was simply a bumbling, wire-haired, bespectacled academic, but she was beginning to believe he could have been Briggs’ target all along.
Behind them in the Land Rover and the other Humvee beyond, she could see Sergeant Jones in the passenger seat, relaxed but alert. His attention was fixed on the rear-view mirror, making sure that they were not being followed. As daylight broke, they had put several miles between Briggs and them, passing a green-painted corrugated metal church hall in the sleepy village of Bartley just south of Cadnam, sticking to minor roads, making slow but steady progress.
A voice on the radio broke the conversational lull in the Humvee.
“Newtown, this is Sea lion. Can we get an update on your ETA?”
The co-driver in the front grabbed the microphone and relayed their position with a noticeable smile. Another couple of miles and they could expect to be met by the advance party from the island, who had made the crossing to secure their designated rendezvous point. The Chester’s helicopter was on standby to provide air support in case of further attempts on their group.
Colonel Abrahams seemed furious. Scattered around him on the bench seat towards the back were boxes of folders and documents recovered from the APV. Many of them were soaking wet, their sheets stuck together, or worse still, burned beyond recognition.
“How bad is it Colonel?” asked Riley, turning to face him. “Did we recover everything that was taken?”
“Only what they left behind in the APV. They took the laptops and a couple of external hard drives. We’ve lost Terabytes of research data. Those are still missing. Our search team checked the ground floor but found nothing.”
“Did they check the interrogation rooms? The box rooms nearest the lobby? That’s where I saw them last.”
“Briggs and his group had superior numbers. Once we’d lost the element of surprise, we were outgunned and had to retreat. There were too many of them. We got the scientists, that’s the main thing.”
“I’m assuming you have back-ups of all that stuff.”
“We do back at Porton Down, but there’s no way we’re going back there now. It’s too dangerous. I’m not running that gauntlet again. At least we know where they are, should we need them.”
“So what happens now?”
“Our escorts are waiting for us at The Anchor Inn at Eling on the Test River. There’s a shallow draft passenger ferry plus a couple of fast launches ready to take us to the island.”
He checked his watch. “High tide is in just over an hour, so our window of opportunity closes quickly after that. Eling is tidal, so we have to be there within an hour of high tide or there won’t be sufficient water to get us out. Corporal, how far to go?”
“Sir, it’s touch and go right now We’re going as fast as we can, but the roads round here aren’t great. We could save some time diverting back on to the main roads. But after what happened last time, we’re keen to stay off the beaten track.”
“Very well, just let them know that we’re on our way and to wait as long as they can. If the worst comes to the worst, we’ll have to set up base at The Anchor and hold out until the next high tide. But that will mean taking our chances with the locals in broad daylight.”
In Riley’s lap, Zed was stirring, his head writhing from side to side. She
stroked his forehead to sooth his pain, reaching for the damp cloth. His eyes flicked open suddenly, grabbing her wrist in alarm, his body tensing.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay. I’ve got you Zed,” reassured Riley.
“Where am I?” he said, straining to look out the window.
“You’re safe. You’re in the Humvee with me and Colonel Abrahams, heading for the coast.”
Zed threw his head back and harrumphed as if that was some kind of a joke. He groped around him with his good hand. “Where’s my rucksack?”
The Colonel shook his head. “We didn’t find it, I’m sorry, there wasn’t time,” said Riley.
“Oh that’s just great. That had all my notes, all the research in it. Do you have copies of the documents you shared with me?”
“Not with us, no hard copies I’m afraid. The electronic copies will be back at Porton.”
Zed rolled his head back, cursing their bad luck.
“Why, what was it? Was there something specific in there?”
“Just some archive documents. The Wildfire reports I told you about.”
He gestured to Riley for a drink and she handed him a plastic gallon container half-filled with water which he glugged from greedily.
“I need those documents, Colonel. There were transcripts of interviews with the Iraqi scientists we interrogated. I had underlined all references I thought might be relevant. I found a couple of mentions of a flu virus, nothing substantive though. What I wouldn’t give to get five minutes with that Iraqi now. Find out what they were planning…” his voice trailed off as his eyes closed, grimacing against a surge of pain, sinking back again.
“Relax Zed. Don’t work yourself up,” cautioned Riley.
“For now Zed,” said the Colonel, “I’d keep any discussion about Project Wildfire under wraps. The last thing we need is people getting the wrong idea, that the virus was man-made. The repercussions could be unthinkable. Any conspiracy theories could fuel discontent, potentially start a rebellion against Camp Wight and the Allies. Perhaps that’s why Briggs was so keen to get his hands on the research. It would hand him a smoking gun.”