Children Of The Deterrent (Halfhero Book 1)

by Ian W. Sainsbury

  "He was big, I remember that. Looked a bit like James Bond, only really, really tall. And he hardly spoke. I know he must have been running like a blinkin' Olympic sprinter to get me out of the way of that car, and he had to pick me up, but he wasn't even out of breath. I kept thanking him and thanking him. Couldn't believe I was alive, could I? I managed to ask him his name, though, just before he went. He didn't answer, just said, 'hey, boss,' and walked off."

  The police present at the scene confirm that a passerby, seen by Mr Ward, was being sought as a witness to the crash, and anyone with any information should get in touch with the Metropolitan Police.

  If any of our readers happen to see a ten-foot tall soldier who can run faster than a car, please call us. Particularly if you have a photo!

  I suppose it could have been worse. Mr Needham's sign-off suggests he's not really taking the story seriously, but page four coverage means it will be seen by tens of thousands.

  Hopkins will have something to say about this.

  September 11th, 1978

  An awful day.

  The grapevine has it that Major Harris was summoned to Hopkins' office at eleven am Saturday morning, and was out again at eleven-eighteen, after a bout of shouting that even the supposedly soundproofed doors couldn't quite contain. Apparently, she's been shipped to somewhere miserable. Poor Harris. It was good to have another woman around, however briefly.

  The big change is the addition of a new team member. Captain Harold Carstairs is a military psychologist. Father now answers to him.

  The first I knew of that development was when Father got home last night, later than usual, looking haggard and old. When I gave him his second J&B, he told me to leave the bottle with him. I was relieved it was only a third full when I saw the size of the measure he poured for himself.

  He told me about Captain Carstairs, but only gave me the vaguest of details. I tried to draw him out, but, for the most part, failed. It's clear that Father is wrestling with some dilemma that he will not share with me. I remember all too well the awful few weeks when he had been given Mother's diagnosis and shocking prognosis, but had not yet told me about it. I saw the same haunted look in his eyes last night as I had seen then.

  He's hiding something from me. Whatever it is, it's not good.

  The only hint was something he let slip as I helped him out of his chair before bed. He was muttering to himself. I guided him to the bottom of the stairs, and as he put out a hand to steady himself on the bannister, I heard him say something incomprehensible that sounded like 'psycho farm.' Then he turned and grabbed my hand.

  "I have no choice, Cress, no choice. You have to understand. I can't let someone else take over my role. I can't. I had to agree to go along with it."

  Then he stumbled upstairs to sleep it off.

  This morning, he was pale and grim. At breakfast, I tried to steer him round to Captain Carstairs, but he cut me off and said he wouldn't discuss it further. Deeply frustrating, but I know him well enough not to force the issue.

  I met Carstairs myself today, at lunch. The rest of the team had already made up their minds about him, it seems, as they were sitting at a table on the other side of the dining hall. They all looked subdued, there's no other word for it. Mike is the easiest to read - he seems to have no concept of disguising the way he feels. He looked down at his plate throughout the meal, his shoulders slumped. McKean, Roger, and Father were speaking in low voices, occasionally darting a glance in Carstairs' direction.

  When I took my tray over to Carstairs' table, Father stiffened in disapproval, McKean and Roger looked away, and Mike stared, his mouth open.

  Carstairs was writing in a small notebook with one hand while spooning pasta into his mouth with the other. He's in his early fifties, I'd guess. Salt and pepper hair cropped short, grey eyes, a long, thin face. He nodded as I approached, and I took that as an invitation to join him.

  "You must be Miss Lofthouse."

  He didn't have to be an expert in deduction to reach that conclusion as I was the only woman left in Station since Harris's departure.

  "Cressida," I said. He closed the notebook and looked at me.

  "You've spent more time with Abos than anyone else, I believe? Talking to him, teaching him. How would you describe his mental state?"

  Right. This wasn't going to be a get-to-know-you chat, then. Carstairs, as became apparent during our conversation, is all business. He is entirely focussed on Abos. He asked a series of quick questions, paused to clarify a couple of times, then stopped talking once he had what he needed.

  I made one or two attempts to make small talk, but he ignored them. Finally, he held up a hand.

  "Miss Lofthouse."

  "Cressida."

  "Miss Lofthouse, I'm here to do a job. I don't need to tell you how important the discovery of Abos is to this country."

  "To the whole world."

  He ignored that.

  "Colonel Hopkins advised me of your role. I must inform you that, as of today, your interaction with Abos will be limited, and conducted only when I am present. We are in unchartered territory, and I cannot risk an amateur hindering healthy mental development. Your reports will be required on a weekly basis from now on. I expect them to be short, and factual."

  I bristled at the implication that they had ever been otherwise, but mainly I recoiled in shock at what he had said about Abos. Never to be allowed to see him without Carstairs present?

  "What does Abos have to say about that? He's not a science experiment. What gives you the right to—"

  Carstairs was giving me the stare again. With some difficulty, I stopped talking and glared at him.

  "An outburst like this confirms my reservations about you. The Asset is not your friend. He, or rather it, is an unknown life-form. A life-form with considerable power. It is a dangerous individual, Miss Lofthouse. Giving it a cute name changes nothing. You could try keeping a tiger as a pet and call it Tiddles, but that wouldn't stop it ripping your throat out."

  I got up to leave. He had a parting shot for me.

  "Consider yourself on probation, Miss Lofthouse. I will review your position in six weeks’ time. If you wish to continue with this job, you will do as I say. If I feel you are hindering my work in any way, you will be dismissed."

  I would have loved to be able to report that I responded with something pithy, but I'm afraid I simply bit my lip to stop myself crying until I was out of sight.

  Father handed me a schedule this afternoon. I will spend an hour with Abos on Friday morning. I will hand in my report on Monday morning. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays I have been assigned to Hopkins' secretarial staff. I'm so angry I could break something.

  21

  Daniel

  The lights were off when I opened my eyes. There was the distant rumble of a train. I was back at Station. The sound of waves lapping up against the shore came from tiny speakers high in the corners of my room.

  I ran my fingers along the inside of my arm until I found the plaster. Super-toughened skin was all very well, but as long as they put the needle in slowly, I was just as easy to inject as anyone else.

  I felt groggy but rational. For a few seconds, I was just a man lying awake in the middle of the night. Then I remembered. I remembered the woman falling sideways as she bled out, the awful noise she had made. And I remembered what she had told me.

  Station had lied. I was being drugged. The people I had been sent to kill weren't jihadists. They were...

  What was it she had said?

  "Who do you think we are?"

  It was a good question. Although my mind was clearer than usual, I struggled to recall every detail. But what I could remember was enough to make me recoil in horror.

  They weren't terrorists. Only one of them had been armed and there had been no evidence of bomb-making. They had hurt me, but only in self-defence. One of them was able to attack from a distance without a weapon. Another had been almost as strong as me.

 
I reached out and clicked on my bedside light, but nothing happened. There was a switch on the wall for the overhead light. It wasn't working either. As I had never tried to turn on a light during the night, I had no idea if this was Station policy in all sleeping quarters, or only my room. The speakers were working, and I could hear the hum of the air conditioning, so it was no power cut.

  She had known my name.

  Even after I had murdered her friends, the red-haired woman had looked at me with understanding. And she had cut through the killing haze and reached me, spoken to me, brought me back.

  Whatever she had done, it was still working. I'd never woken up during the night before.

  I listened as a voice spoke over the soothing sound of the waves.

  "When you think back to tonight, you will remember only that the mission was a success. You will feel pride in serving the British people. You are keeping your country safe."

  There was a gap of about fifteen seconds, then the voice resumed.

  "Station is safe. Station is good. Station protects this country. Work for Station. Obey Station's orders. Protect your country."

  Another pause, then the voice was back.

  "When you think back to tonight, you will remember only that the mission was a success. You will feel pride in..."

  I ignored it and sat up. I was thinking clearly for the first time in years. The recorded voice seemed almost laughable now that the drug wasn't affecting me, but I knew this was no joke. If every mission Station had sent me on had been like tonight, they were using me as an assassin. I didn't believe the people in Shoreditch had posed any threat to the country, but they might well have posed a threat to Station.

  I felt a wave of nausea as I remembered again what I had done, the blood on my hands as I put them around the woman's throat. I found the bathroom in the dark before vomiting. I turned on a tap and splashed water on my face, forcing myself to think.

  Pushing the bloody images out of my mind, I focussed on what I needed to do next. Station thought I was safely tucked up for the night, having my memories expunged ready for the next mission. My clearness of mind was either temporary or permanent. If permanent, I could afford to take my time, play along and pick my moment to escape. If temporary, I had tonight, and only tonight, to get away from Station.

  Logically, there was no choice. I could confirm that the effect was permanent by waiting. But if I waited, and the effect was temporary, I would be trapped.

  I had to escape now.

  And so began my first attempt to break out of one of the most secure facilities in Britain.

  I dressed in the dark, then walked up to the door and stopped. I rarely bothered locking my door on the inside, and there was no point in anyone locking it from outside, as I could rip it from its hinges with one finger. But another possibility had occurred to me.

  Slowly, I pressed my ear against the door. My room is near the end of one of Station's dozens of long corridor. It's hardly a thoroughfare, so it was unlikely anyone was around.

  Unless they had posted guards on my room.

  I breathed as slowly and quietly as possible, listening intently. Silence. I was about to move when I heard a male voice just a few feet away. The door was too thick for me to make out any words, but the tone was easy to discern. He was asking a question. A second later, there was an answer from a second voice. Then they both laughed.

  I pictured their positions. One on the right, one on the left. They sounded relaxed. They weren't expecting any trouble during babysitting duty.

  I was going to have to disappoint them.

  My fingers slid down to the door handle. I counted down from three to one and pulled, hard.

  It wasn't locked. The door flew open, and I stepped through smartly, flinging my arms open and back as if I was about to address a huge crowd. This gesture was powerful enough to lift the guards off their feet and slam them into the wall. They dropped to the floor.

  I waited. No alarm went off. All was quiet. Dragging the guards into the room, I tore up my sheets and tied the two men together. Then I ducked back out into the corridor.

  Station is a twenty-four-hour operation, but certain areas are quiet at night, and the lighting was dim. I walked through a monochrome world.

  I passed the lab where Hopkins had said The Deterrent had spent much of his time. It was a gleaming, state-of-the-art room now, full of instruments, test tubes, massive fridges, computers and devices whose function I couldn't guess. A few people were in there, monitoring, making notes. I knew they had blood and skin samples they took from me once a week. Hopkins had intimated that my cooperation with the lab was as important as my help on the missions.

  "If we can find out why you survived when so many others died, we can help those whose power might damage them."

  It had seemed a noble aim. Now I questioned if that was really why they were studying my DNA.

  That question was answered a few minutes later.

  I continued towards the lift. My best chance was the stairs, which were operated by a code combined with a thumbprint scan. I intended operating it with my shoulder after taking a decent run-up. They were strong-looking doors. Probably too strong, but I had no other option.

  I never got close enough to test my theory. As the corridor reached an intersection, I slowed and listened. Hearing nothing, I walked briskly out, doing my best to look slightly irritated, as if I had been summoned to an unnecessary meeting in the middle of the night.

  A door opened and a man and woman I didn't recognise came out. I forced a weary smile onto my face. They barely looked up from the notes they were discussing, the man giving me a cursory nod as we passed.

  I felt my confidence grow a little. This might work.

  Even as that thought entered my mind, the speaker in the corridor crackled into life, and Hopkin's familiar voice spoke.

  "Daniel, please return to your quarters. You are not well."

  I quickened my pace, shooting a glance up at the security cameras. After trussing up the guards, I had crushed their coms and ripped the phone out of the wall. There was no way they had alerted anyone. I wondered if opening the door had triggered a silent alarm.

  Too late to speculate now. I broke into a jog.

  "Daniel, you are having a reaction to the medication we use to help you control your condition."

  I ran faster.

  "Stop immediately. That's an order."

  "Screw you, you lying, murderous bastard."

  At intervals along Station's endless system of corridors, there are gaps in the floor, ceiling, and walls about four inches wide. If you stood near them, you could feel a breath of cold wind. They were almost like the spaces between carriages on the underground.

  I was just approaching one of those gaps when the lights brightened, and a huge steel door dropped from the ceiling, filling the space with a deafening boom.

  I stopped running. I had few illusions about the likelihood of my breaking through a four-inch steel door, but I gave it my best shot. After backing up, I ran at it full pelt, my shoulder hitting it with all the power I could muster.

  There was a dull thud that rattled the fillings in my teeth. The steel buckled, but not much. Not enough. Given enough time, I thought I could break through. But only by using all my power, resting and eating, then starting again. All Hopkins would have to do was wait until I was exhausted and send in a crew to pick me up.

  No. I was beaten. Unless I could override the system somehow, find some explosives, or hunt for another exit. Station must surely have a back door.

  I remembered the lab. Plenty of material there. Some scientists, too. Maybe I could take hostages, negotiate my way out.

  I turned to run the way I came. As I started down the corridor, I heard another thud ahead. Around the corner, another steel door blocked my path. I was boxed in. I felt myself getting angry.

  When I found the nearest camera, I spoke into the lens.

  "You lied, Hopkins. About everything. Who were thos
e people tonight? They weren't terrorists. Does anyone know what you're really doing down here? Does the government know you're murdering civilians?"

  "Don't be naive, Daniel. Of course the government knows."

  "Well, I'm out. Next person to try and stick a needle in me gets his arm ripped off. Go ahead, keep brainwashing me. I know you're doing it now, so from now on I'll fight it. If it wears off one day, I hope I'm standing next to you, Hopkins, I really do."

  That was kind of a stupid speech, I admit. I should have kept my mouth shut. But I was in shock, not thinking. And I was angrier than I'd ever been in my life. Understandable, maybe, but stupid all the same. Tell the bad guy what you're going to do. Duh.

  Hopkins' voice sounded as businesslike as ever. Nothing seemed to rile the man.

  "Yes, thank you for your thoughts, Daniel, but you work for us. I could release gas to make you unconscious, then send a team to get you. There are still many ways in which you can be useful."

  "I don't think so."

  "I wasn't asking for your opinion. Anyway, you've handed me an opportunity to run a little test. Do you remember me mentioning hybrids?"

  I did. He said it might be possible, by analysing my DNA, to create medicine that imitated my fast-healing ability. It could revolutionise patient recovery after trauma. He referred to the technology as a hybrid. I couldn't see what that had to do with anything. I said nothing.

  Then, out of sight, I heard the first steel door move, opening, grating where I had dented it. There was an echoing crash as the door closed again.

  Hopkins spoke.

  "You are a treasure trove of genetic material, Daniel. Come and meet the result. Let's see how well you fight against a hybrid."

  I turned the corner and stopped dead. Thirty yards away, two figures were facing me. They were short and squat, wearing army issue tracksuits. They looked like twins, their broad upper bodies and huge arms supported by trunk-like legs.

  Their heads...their heads were a mess. They regarded me without curiosity as I got closer. Mouth breathers, the pair of them. They had been given an army buzz-cut, so it was easy to see the lumps and protrusions on their skulls. Their eyes were dull and glazed. One of them had a line of snot running from one nostril. The other one was sucking his thumb.