by AD Davies
At exactly 7:00 p.m., all six men convened outside. One of them, either Faulkner or Slater, said, “Ready?” When everyone nodded or murmured agreement, they all stepped inside, the door closed, and then nothing happened.
Even when the radar mic operator closed in there was nothing to be heard.
Until that is all the windows blew out, black smoke belched from within, and the first flames licked upwards. It wasn’t a huge noise, not like a gas explosion or an improvised bomb using dynamite or plastique. But Nick had seen these things before, devices made from household items, enough to create a bang, a lot of mess, but not much else.
He ordered his team to break cover, and advance as close as they could to investigate, but to be careful of IEDs and tripwires. Michelle was the first on-scene because she was the closest already. She reported flames and thick smoke. OU12 would not get inside that structure.
So Nick Shepherd, already conscious of the senior officers at the school annexe calling his phone, answered on the tenth or eleventh ring, and confirmed that all six remaining members of the Institute appeared to be dead. Either a mass suicide, or someone planted a bomb to eliminate them all.
All except the only stakeholder not present: Kuno Kae.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Holly Costa had two final jobs. The first was to ensure the black box in her closet was plugged in, and the antenna pointed out of her window. This was the easy one. Her roommates in the four-bed accommodation departed fifteen minutes ago to meet with two of her friends and drink a little vodka before meeting the boys.
As the concept of the prom itself was imported from America, so have many American traditions. Those girls who had not yet parted ways with their virginity planned to do so tonight, either by taking limousines to non-existent “after parties” or by venturing surreptitiously into the woods, where various apparatus had been planted throughout the week—blankets, pop-up tents, cushions, and of course condoms. That the prom took place on the same grounds on which they lived made it more difficult to justify employing limos, and the added security did not help either, but like teens the world over, they would find a way.
Holly, though, made other plans for them tonight.
The machine looked like a black-painted Xbox but with only one switch and a light the size of a pencil eraser that turned from red to green when activated. It was the first step in destroying the fabric of a society that crushed all dissent. And it was the easiest part.
A knock at the door indicated William Donovan’s arrival.
Holly returned to the closet, closed the door, and examined herself in the mirror: flouncy dark blue dress, off-the-shoulder straps, classy inch of cleavage, and hair as spectacular as any supermodel. Although she was self-aware enough to understand she did not quite possess that level of beauty, she was also self-aware enough to put herself in the top ten percent of her school. William Donovan, possibly in the top five percent of guys, had no hesitation in accepting Holly’s invite to the prom. It could have something to do with her personality of course, but William Donovan never dated anything less than ten. He was also more experienced in the bedroom, and was more than likely expecting some action later tonight.
He was not wrong. Just not in the way he expected.
* * *
Alicia had no business being here in the headmaster’s annex. The three senior officers zipped back and forth, mobiles to their ears, all demanding action whilst unable or unwilling to commit to that action themselves. Paulson deferred to Graham Rhapshaw, and he wanted guidance from the tactical team. Without more information, he could not issue any firm orders. It was like he was picturing the enquiry in his head already.
It was the surveillance team that screwed up, not me. I couldn’t possibly have predicted the outcome without better intelligence.
“You know what you have to do,” Alicia told them.
All stared her way. Frowns, as they tried to listen to both their phones and the spunky little lady in their midst.
She said, “It’s misdirection. I don’t know how, but we missed it. Norman Faulkner is the Magician, which I have to say is probably the coolest serial killer name I’ve experienced yet but, that aside, there is no way all this planning was to commit suicide.”
“Which leaves the lawyer,” Paulson said.
“Or her husband,” Stevenson added.
Alicia shook her head slowly, staring at nothing. She popped back to attention and said, “When the firemen get close to that structure, they won’t find any bodies. They’re up to something, and it involves this place. Evacuate the grounds, get the kids over to Catterick Barracks, they’ll be safe with Her Majesty’s Armed Forces.”
Chief Superintendent Nixon lowered his phone and stared at it. “I got cut off.”
Graham also pulled his mobile away from his ear as if he’d been electrocuted. “Me too.”
“Me three.” Paulson stared at her handset. “No Wi-Fi either. It’s starting. We need to alert the men. Get those kids safe. Now.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Holly stopped along the way, giggling to William about powdering her nose, and William was cool with it. “Fashionably late,” he said, and waited outside what they called “the sports bathroom.” This was the facility the girls were supposed to use before swimming or getting changed for PE, not in common use because it was the grittiest, oldest bathroom in the school and no one would deign to use it tonight unless they were smoking something. The school installed the false ceiling here some time ago, cleaned up tiles, re-grouted, but they hadn’t done much with the plumbing or the porcelain. It wasn’t dirty as such, it just gave off that ambience of grime and age.
For that reason, Holly took a chance that it would be empty tonight, and chose it as the best hiding place for the items procured to further her cause.
She stood on the toilet seat lid, pushed up the square of polystyrene or whatever Earth-murdering chemical product they used, and reached for the ancient stone wall that supported the cistern. The first of eight bricks she loosened one evening—hanging up there with ease thanks to her secret rock climbing hobby—came out with a gentle tug, and the others followed. She stacked them carefully on the other side of the false ceiling, then retrieved the hessian sack containing the equipment she bought from the man at the motorway service station. It was important she store it in this sack, so the vendor said, because plastic would cause condensation and perhaps make the device less effective.
She rolled down her dress and strapped the three glass tubes to her stomach—each six inches high, the middle wider than the outer two. One of the smaller tubes contained a clear liquid which would feed into the large central vessel, while the other smaller one held an off-yellow colour, like some ill person’s urine. She attached it round the back with Velcro straps, then plugged in the trigger, but did not yet activate the battery pack. Finally, she pulled up her dress, the flounciness of the material hiding the bulge, and a scarf that she dangled round her neck and down to her middle completed the camouflage.
Anyone looking for it would probably spot that she was indeed packing a deadly payload, but as she exited the bathroom, she flicked her nose with her thumb, and told William she was ready. He raised an eyebrow, smoothed himself down, probably to hide a semi, and she walked briskly ahead of him.
She knew he loved staring at her behind, so it wasn’t until they reached the hall that he hooked his arm in hers. Thanks to the shielded wiring in the battery, they passed through the metal detectors unhindered, the four armed policeman checked their IDs, and the sniffer dogs did not even whimper, unable to pick up—as she had been assured—the dormant chemicals she carried on her person.
Then the hottest couple at Excelsior Academy entered the prom together.
* * *
Alicia simply could not keep up. The car park was halfway between Swank’s residence and the main school, so the non-pregnant contingent rushed on ahead while Alicia continued at her own pace. Murphy said he didn’t want to lea
ve her, but she pointed out she wasn’t the target and they needed as many hands on deck as possible.
It still didn’t make sense, though. How did they get out of the building? Did any of them get out? Perhaps it was only Norman.
Why Norman?
Because he had a cool serial killer name?
Why not Kuno?
Because of the torture. Because of her reaction to Jacob’s actions, to Bill’s confirmation that the cops were not engaged in a witch hunt. Sure, she could have been acting, but Alicia had seen so many sociopaths and psychopaths lie and cheat that if Kuno were one of those, she would be the most competent one Alicia had ever encountered.
Even Richard Hague, when she replayed her time with him—his probing, his sly in-jokes—were clues as to the man who lurked beneath the mask.
But mostly it was because of Norman’s lies, his easy acquiescence to the security services’ demands that he go quietly to prison and maintain the fiction of simply being a sick bastard.
Alicia paused for a rest at the car park. Mobile phones were all jammed, along with Wi-Fi and radio. But Murphy carried a police radio in his vehicle. Alicia, remembering they left the car unlocked, tried the handset.
Static.
She needed keys.
Out of the car, she yelled for Murphy to return. They were fifty metres ahead of her, close enough for Murphy to hear, and he turned.
“The keys,” Alicia called, waving the radio’s handset.
Murphy took a second to twig to what she was up to, then ran back her way. He threw the keys when he was close enough, and they landed near Alicia’s feet. She snatched them up, squeezed behind the wheel, and started up the BMW. Driving to the exit, she tested the radio again, receiving squawks and jitters in reply. At the guardhouse at the edge of the perimeter, she waved to the nice man who let her in and told him, “Be ready for trouble. Someone has cut all communications.”
The guard checked his mobile phone, the landline backup, and agreed.
“I’ll be back in two minutes,” Alicia said.
The guard opened the barrier. Alicia drove through and sped into the road. She travelled for thirty seconds and tried the radio again.
Success.
The operator asked the nature of the call.
“I don’t actually know,” Alicia said. “All we know is we suspect an attack is imminent, and mobile communications have been cut off. We need backup with satellite phones, and a tactical unit. Recall Nick Shepherd’s OU12 team, have them meet us at Excelsior. And…”
Alicia considered how to make her next request.
“Are you able to patch me through to Detective Sergeant Cleaver?”
* * *
With the party in full swing, it was too dark for anyone to really notice the strange shape of Holly’s dress. A handful of people stared at their phones a few seconds before pocketing them, presumably assuming the dead 4G and Wi-Fi were temporary, so their photos and videos would upload to their cloud servers when the signal resurrected. She air-kissed friends as she passed amid the balloons, streamers, and glitter-coated banners. She did that celebrity hug thing where you lean in with your shoulders, hands on the persons elbows, but never really make contact. Then more air kissing, the music too loud for meaningful conversation. Standard pop songs, as discussed with the committee. R&B was acceptable, but rap that hinted at violence or misogyny was not; up-tempo 80s classics, no problem, but anything too cosy—that ancient film Dirty Dancing was name checked—would be cut off immediately. Basically, anything the faculty could not explain away if the pupils’ parents were watching was forbidden.
So she danced, she drank punch, she even—when sitting and without allowing their bodies to get too close—kissed William a few times. Tongues, too. His hands wandered. She firmly planted them back in his lap. So as not to piss him off too much (he was her best item of camouflage after all), as she brought her hands back from his, she stroked them over his groin, confirming the presence of excitement down there.
He seemed pleased enough with that.
Checking the clock every few minutes, Holly enacted a countdown in her mind. Her Saviour instructed her to do this at exactly 8:00 p.m., although the signal that reverberated across the hills occurred an hour before that.
It was only 7:30 p.m.
Some of her friends, the ones she was called to Swank’s office with, gathered on the edge of the dance floor, while Holly attended to William in one of the darker corners where the chaperones only checked very rarely. But FiFi and Rhi-Rhi’s attention seemed to be on the doors through which the students entered.
Two armed officers ventured inside the hall, something Mr. Swank had assured the prom committee would not happen.
Unless.
Holly expected the “unless” to occur at 8:00 p.m., when she unveiled the true threat to the world. Now was not the time.
Swank and what Holly assumed to be two plainclothed police scanned the room. The guy looked familiar; over six feet tall, aged around fifty or sixty and had obviously been running. Did she meet him a couple of days ago? The other was a black woman with closely cropped hair and big hooped earrings, in much better shape than the old fella. It was a trick her Saviour warned her of.
If they suspected her presence, it was unlikely they knew of her specifically. Armed cops and an intense stare into a crowd tends to spook the cowardly, the unprepared, the unprofessional. She performed to a high standard, did everything correctly, even her hiding place for the tubes was a work of genius, so these police could not possibly be looking for her.
She sat still. Cast her attention on William, and whispered in his ear that she could not wait for ten-o-clock to come.
He breathed in her ear, shouting above the music, “That’s not all that’s going to come at ten-o-clock.”
Either he was drunk, or had no idea how to construct a pun.
Didn’t matter.
When no one ran, Nigel Swank’s shoulders dropped, and even from Holly’s distance she could tell his expression turned grim as he made his way towards the stage.
No.
He was calling off the prom. They were too spooked.
She didn’t have enough time.
The DJ was playing some generic pop music, some bland idiot who won a contest. Not the sexy tune she was going to request at exactly 7:55 p.m.
It was time.
Early.
But it had to be now.
Her Saviour would be able to improvise. He was clever, and he trusted her. He told her, “If anything goes wrong, do what you think is right.”
“Watch this,” she said to William. “Don’t try to join in. Just watch.”
William’s eyes widened as she stood and adjusted the top of her dress. She backed away from him into the throng of dancers, and thrust her arms and legs out in a “star” position. The sudden action startled students around her into giving her space.
Perfect.
She swayed her hips as sexily as she could, bent at the knees, backside pert and mobile. She straightened her legs, arse protruding in the “twerking” stance, and waved her arms in some approximation of madness. She threw her head side to side, up and down, shaking out the hairpins and bobbles that held the strands in place, clawing at them with her hands when needed. Then she screamed. Threw her hair back, and stood upright as tall she could.
Yes, she held everyone’s attention.
Everyone within a ten-meter radius stared at her as the banal music blared. She tried to sway and jive in time, but it was too boring for proper dancing. She lowered her dress at the shoulders, drawing whoops and cheers from a number of the boys, and some of her friends pointed and laughed. Holly heard, “Is she drunk?” and, “She must be high,” and as she allowed her dress to fall to the crooks of her elbows, she showed her bra to even more hoots and cheering from the guys.
William was on his feet, looking around, unsure what to do. A wild child girlfriend is all good and well, but boys of that age do not like to share. Sh
e promised she was his tonight, or at least hinted at it. So allowing others a sneak preview was obviously grating on him.
Then the commotion began.
The armed cops waited at the top of the stairs where the entrance stood, while the black woman and the old dude descended and pushed into the crowd, parting it with cries of “police” and “we need to get through”.
Holly’s tease came to an end.
She dropped the dress completely, revealing the apparatus, flicked the switch. This activated the battery and two green LED lights came on, then she unhooked the handle connected to the main tube, and held it aloft. It reminded her of a bicycle brake; a grip and lever.
The crowd stepped back, the whoops and cheers now gasps of confusion.
Holly pulled the handle, which turned the green lights red and activated the pump. The two liquids hissed and, as the plain clothed officers breached the circle of spectators, the clear fluid and the yellow poured into the central tube, combining as the music died.
She thrust the item gripped in her right hand at the police officers. “This is a dead man’s switch. In here…” She pointed at the now-full central vessel. “This is a chemical that does nothing separately, but becomes highly-volatile when mixed. Can’t detect the ingredients individually. That’s why the dogs didn’t find it. Cool, huh? But it’s also poisonous now. If I let the lid off this, the fumes will kill me instantly, along with everyone within a ten-foot radius, in around five seconds. In an enclosed space, just like sarin gas, it’ll attack the nervous system, and even if you get them out, these bitches—these slaves to consumerism, to their parents’ money and influence—they’ll be lucky to see their eighteenth birthdays.”