Escape Velocity

by Mark Walden

  ‘Do you get the impression they’d rather we stayed?’ Otto said.

  ‘It’s certainly beginning to feel that way,’ Raven replied, bringing the car to a screeching halt a hundred metres or so from the exit.

  One of the guards lifted a loudhailer to his mouth and spoke.

  ‘Switch off the engine and step out of the car. If you do not comply I am authorised to use lethal force.’

  Raven turned and looked at Otto.

  ‘Any ideas?’ she said, frowning.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ Otto replied. ‘You see, when I had my little chat with the car I found out some interesting things about it. Seems that it has a few undocumented optional extras.’

  He leant over and pressed a concealed button behind the steering wheel and a section of the dashboard slid back, revealing a control panel.

  ‘Whose car is this?’ Raven said, trying hard not to grin.

  ‘I’m not sure, but whoever they are I suspect they have a licence for more than just driving,’ Otto grinned back at her.

  Raven hit the gas and sent the car roaring towards the exit gate. Immediately the guards standing around the gate opened fire. The high velocity rounds from their assault rifles should have turned a car like that into Swiss cheese, but instead the bullets just pinged harmlessly off the gleaming exterior and windscreen.

  Otto hit a switch on the control panel and a section slid back on one of the car’s wings, a black tube popping out and locking into place. Otto hit another button and a rocket shot from the tube, streaked between the rows of parked cars and blew the security gate that blocked the exit to pieces. Raven tightened her grip on the steering wheel and pressed the accelerator hard to the floor. The car roared between the guards, forcing them to dive for cover, scattering in all directions. It shot through the blazing debris of the exit and powered up the short ramp outside. At the top of the ramp, the car left the ground for a moment as it flew on to the public road outside. Raven spun the wheel hard as the car landed, sending it sliding sideways into the left-hand lane and roaring away down the road.

  ‘I have to get one of these,’ Raven said as the car wove through the night-time traffic.

  Otto twisted in his seat and looked out through the tiny rear window. For a moment he thought they’d got away clean, but then a silver sports car flew out of the exit from the MI6 garage and powered down the road after them.

  ‘We’ve got company,’ Otto reported. He couldn’t make out who was chasing them through the tinted black glass of the pursuing car’s windscreen but he could take an educated guess.

  Raven shot a glance at the rear-view mirror and accelerated harder. The car’s engine roared, turbos whistling like canaries, as she wove through the traffic ahead of them, missing the other cars by just centimetres. In a straight line she knew that this car could probably outrun their pursuers, but there were no straight lines in London traffic, even at night.

  Without warning a black cab pulled out in front of them and Raven swerved hard, fighting for control as the car mounted the pavement, sending pedestrians scattering in all directions. She slapped the horn in the centre of the wheel, trying to warn the people on the pavement ahead that they were coming. After a few seconds she twitched the wheel and sent the car back towards the road, smashing through a closed news-stand. Their pursuers were closer now and still gaining. The silver car’s radiator grille dropped away and a pair of heavy machine gun barrels slid forward and fired. Raven swerved to avoid the incoming bullets, the tracer rounds flying past the car and striking the rear of a double-decker bus thirty metres ahead of them. The bus veered drunkenly as its rear tyres were shredded, and it slowly began to tip over. Raven gunned the engine, sending the car racing past the toppling bus and flying under it just fractions of a second before it smashed to the ground and slid to a halt. Otto looked back to see the driver of the bus clambering from the wreckage and a split second later the top deck exploded in a shower of shattered glass and twisted metal as the silver car ploughed through it, machine guns still blazing.

  ‘They’re still on us,’ Otto said quickly. Clearly the car behind them was built to withstand the same amount of punishment as their own. Overhead Otto could see a police helicopter and he was suddenly dazzled as the high-powered spotlight on the chopper illuminated the car, fixing it in a bright circle of white light.

  Raven cursed in Russian and spun the wheel as a police car shot out into the junction ahead of them, blocking the road. She fought to bring the car under control and after fishtailing for a second roared down the road, knowing that they were almost certainly being herded towards a road block somewhere ahead. Behind them the silver car came round the corner sideways, just avoiding side-swiping the police car, and powered after them.

  Another two police cars screeched to a halt in front of them, blocking the road and leaving only one route. Raven glanced at the street signs as she took the only unblocked road, and suddenly she knew where they were being sent. Ahead stood the magnificent gothic structures of Tower Bridge. They shot on to the deserted bridge, the unusual absence of cars telling Raven that they were exactly where the police wanted them. At the far end of the road half a dozen police cars and vans formed an impassable blockade, trapping them on the bridge. Raven pulled hard on the handbrake sending the car into a perfect 180-degree spin, leaving them pointing back the way they’d come. At the other end of the bridge they could see another blockade forming as more police cars closed the trap. Just in front of the blockade the silver car sat motionless.

  ‘Do we have any rockets left?’ Raven asked, sounding unbelievably calm.

  ‘Just one,’ Otto said, unsure what she had in mind.

  ‘Check your seatbelt,’ Raven said, frowning at the silver car that was a couple of hundred metres away from them.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Otto said, suddenly nervous. He pulled the strap of the seatbelt across his chest, testing it. Raven did the same, revving the engine noisily.

  ‘Ever played chicken?’ she said with a cold smile.

  The black car shot forwards, accelerating hard. At the far end of the bridge the silver car followed suit, shooting forward with a roar on a collision course. Raven tightened her grip on the steering wheel as the distance between the two cars closed at a terrifying rate. Otto braced himself against the dashboard, preparing himself for the inevitable impact. At the very last moment Raven jerked the steering wheel to one side and hit the button on the hidden control panel. The final rocket speared out ahead of the car, blowing the cast iron wall that ran along the edge of the bridge to pieces just moments before the car hit it. Otto gave a tiny gasp as the car flew through the wreckage and vaulted into the void with a deafening roar from the engine. His stomach shot into his mouth as the car plummeted nose-first towards the river below. They hit it in an enormous explosion of water and everything went black.

  Back up on the bridge the silver car screeched to a halt and Constance and Verity leapt out. They ran to the parapet and looked down at the black waters of the Thames. There was no sign of the other car, just a patch of foam where it had hit the surface. Policemen were running towards them from both ends of the bridge. Verity turned to the first officer to reach them.

  ‘Get divers in the river now,’ she spat angrily, ‘before they get away. My authorisation is H.O.P.E. 17 Delta.’

  ‘But, miss,’ the young policeman stammered, sounding confused, ‘no one could possibly have survived that.’

  ‘Oh, you’d be surprised,’ Verity snapped. ‘You really would.’

  Otto came to with a start, the ice-cold water lapping around his chin in the darkness. He struggled to undo his seatbelt but it refused to release. He felt an overwhelming wave of panic as the water rose above his mouth and nose, denying him a final breath. He tugged at the seatbelt, his lungs burning; it was no good. Then suddenly the belt released and as he fell back into unconsciousness the last thing he felt were strong hands pulling him out of his seat and something that tasted of rubber bei
ng forced into his mouth.

  .

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Is there any sign of Ms Leon yet?’ the Contessa asked irritably as she walked towards Phalanx One.

  ‘No, Contessa, but this is a big place,’ he replied, gesturing vaguely at the walls around him, ‘and she is an expert in stealth and evasion. It may take some time, especially with H.I.V.E.mind offline.’

  ‘I don’t want excuses, Commander, just results,’ the Contessa snapped.

  ‘We will keep searching,’ Phalanx One replied. ‘As soon as we have any leads you will be the first to know.’

  ‘Very well,’ the Contessa said impatiently. ‘What have you brought me here to see?’

  She looked at the damaged doors to vault nine that were set into the rock wall just a few metres away.

  ‘Well, a couple of my men have been examining the vault and there are no obvious signs of anything missing,’ Phalanx One explained, ‘but that’s not what’s strange about all of this.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ the Contessa asked.

  ‘It seems that all of the evidence points to someone breaking out of the vault, not someone breaking in.’

  ‘There was somebody in here?’ the Contessa said incredulously.

  ‘It would appear so,’ Phalanx One replied. ‘Someone strong enough to force these doors open.’

  ‘That’s impossible,’ the Contessa said with a sneer, studying the heavy doors.

  ‘Nevertheless, that seems to be what happened,’ Phalanx One replied, sounding tired.

  ‘So there is an unknown operative loose in the school,’ the Contessa said angrily. ‘Another loose cannon is not what we need at the moment.’

  ‘At first I thought so,’ Phalanx One said, studying the vault doors again, ‘but my men have turned this place upside down looking for Ms Leon. If there were an unauthorised operative here, we would have found them. Whoever it was, I believe they must have left the island immediately after breaking out of the vault. Unfortunately, without H.I.V.E.mind’s security logs it is impossible to determine for certain if that was the case.’

  The Contessa was starting to think that shutting down the school’s resident AI might have been a mistake.

  ‘I’d like your permission to bring the Professor down here and question him about the contents of the vault. If anyone knows what was in here, he does.’

  ‘Do it,’ the Contessa said quickly, ‘and if he refuses to cooperate tell him that I shall conduct any further questioning myself, do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Phalanx One replied with a nod.

  ‘I want answers, Commander, before we lose control of the school altogether.’

  Franz paced anxiously back and forth within the confined space of his and Nigel’s shared quarters. Their room barely seemed big enough for both of them at the best of times, but now that they shared it with another unexpected resident it felt particularly cramped.

  ‘Can you stop that?’ Nigel said plaintively. ‘You’re making me nervous.’

  ‘You are nervous,’ Franz replied. ‘I am thinking that we all have good reason for the nervousness.’

  Franz looked at the small ball of white fur that was curled up on Nigel’s bed and frowned.

  ‘Those men from G.L.O.V.E. have been searching the whole school. I am thinking that it will not be long before they start searching our rooms, and then what are we doing?’

  ‘We’ll worry about that when the time comes,’ Nigel said reassuringly. ‘For now we just have to sit tight and wait for her to wake up.’

  Ms Leon had been asleep since they had smuggled her back to their room. Nigel felt sure that she would be better off in sick bay, but it was perfectly clear from the way that the Phalanx teams had been searching for her that taking her there would result in them all being captured and punished. He wasn’t sure what form that punishment might take but he suspected that it would be swift and terrible.

  ‘I am thinking that we are not high on the Contessa’s list of favourite people anyway,’ Franz said nervously. ‘This is only going to be making things worse.’

  Franz’s constant moaning might well have become boring but Nigel knew that he was actually right. After they had played an instrumental part in derailing Cypher and the Contessa’s plan to take over the school, they had both felt like heroes. Now he just felt like they had big red bullseyes painted on their backs. Not for the first time in the past couple of days he found himself wishing that Otto and the others were still around. They would have known what to do.

  ‘Mr Argentblum is right. You have put yourselves at risk by helping me. I should go,’ the cat said suddenly, making both boys jump.

  ‘Ms Leon, you’re awake!’ Nigel said excitedly. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Sore but alive – thanks in no small part to you two,’ she said, standing up on the bed slowly and stretching. The livid burn along her spine was painful, but she knew that she was lucky to be feeling anything at all. Her uncanny reflexes had saved her from the worst of the arcing bolt of electricity that had struck her during H.I.V.E.mind’s demise. She walked across the bed and jumped the short distance to the floor, even that small movement drawing an involuntary hiss of pain.

  ‘You’re too badly hurt,’ Nigel said softly. ‘You can’t leave. They’re tearing the school apart looking for you. You wouldn’t last five minutes out there.’

  ‘That’s as may be,’ Ms Leon said, the discomfort clear even in her synthesised voice, ‘but Franz was right. It’s only a matter of time before they institute a lockdown of the accommodation blocks and start a room-to-room search. It’s what I would do. For all our sakes I can’t be here when that happens.’

  ‘So what are we going to do?’ Nigel asked.

  ‘I need to talk to Professor Pike or Colonel Francisco,’ she said after thinking for a moment. ‘There is much that we need to discuss. I’m just not sure how I will get to them.’

  ‘We could take you,’ Nigel said quietly.

  ‘We could?’ Franz said, astonished.

  ‘Yes, we could,’ Nigel said firmly. ‘We should be fine if we don’t do anything to draw attention to ourselves.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ms Leon said slowly. ‘I am not sure I can allow you to put yourselves in jeopardy like that.’

  ‘We’re in danger anyway,’ Nigel replied. ‘You’re in no fit state to get to them on your own and we’re going to be in even more trouble if they find you here.’

  Ms Leon looked at Nigel for a few seconds, fixing him with her unnervingly steady feline gaze.

  ‘OK, but you are not to take any unnecessary risks, do you understand? If you are stopped you must give me up immediately. I will tell the Contessa that I forced you to do this. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Perfectly,’ Nigel said as calmly as he could. ‘Let’s get going. If anybody asks we’re just going to the library.’

  Nigel grabbed his empty backpack from the desk and held it open for Ms Leon. She walked over to the bag and peered inside before climbing in.

  ‘So undignified,’ she sniffed as Nigel zipped it shut.

  ‘You have a visitor, Professor,’ the Phalanx guard said, rattling his truncheon between the bars of the holding cell. The Professor slowly opened his eyes and pushed himself up to a sitting position on the cold steel bench that passed for a bed in the detention centre.

  ‘Two minutes,’ the guard said to Colonel Francisco, beckoning him over to the cell. The Colonel gave a brief nod and the guard returned to his seat at the monitoring station on the other side of the room.

  ‘How are they treating you?’ the Colonel asked as the Professor slowly stood up and walked over to the bars.

  ‘I would rather be in my lab,’ the Professor said with a small wry smile.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you would,’ the Colonel muttered, looking around the spartan interior of the detention centre. ‘But nothing seems to be working out quite the way we want it at the moment, does it?’

  The Colonel briefly o
pened one hand to show the Professor the small jamming device that he was holding.

  ‘I thought it best that no one overheard our conversation,’ the Colonel said, jerking his head briefly at the guard on the other side of the room.

  ‘Be careful, Colonel,’ the Professor whispered. ‘The Contessa is quite paranoid enough at the moment without any provocation. I would hate to see you join me in here. We need you out there. Someone has to put a stop to this.’

  ‘That’s just what I came to talk to you about,’ the Colonel said, slipping the tiny electronic device back into his trouser pocket.

  ‘Have they tracked down our four-legged friend yet?’ the Professor said quietly.

  ‘No, but not for want of trying,’ the Colonel replied. ‘Wherever she is, she’ll be captured the moment she shows her face.’

  ‘I wouldn’t underestimate her ability to stay out of their clutches,’ the Professor said with a slight smile, ‘especially without H.I.V.E.mind’s help.’

  ‘Where is he?’ the Colonel asked quietly. ‘We could use his help.’

  ‘He’s gone,’ the Professor said, a sudden note of sadness in his voice. ‘The Contessa had me shut him down permanently. Except . . .’

  ‘Except what?’ the Colonel asked.

  ‘Nothing, it doesn’t matter,’ the Professor replied with a shake of the head. ‘What matters now is how we regain control of H.I.V.E.’

  ‘Agreed. Any ideas?’ Francisco said.

  ‘We’re going to need all of the help we can get,’ the Professor whispered. ‘I suggest you have a quiet word with Chief Lewis.’

  ‘You think he can be trusted?’

  ‘The Chief may be a loyal man but he is not a stupid man. He cannot believe that Maria has the school’s best interests at heart and I know that he’s not happy with having to take orders from those Phalanx thugs.’