The Catalyst

by Helena Coggan

  James considered this for a second, and then grinned. “You’re a genius, Rose,” he said. David rolled his eyes exasperatedly. Rose looked between the two of them in mild confusion.

  Loren, who had been staring darkly back at the War Rooms throughout most of the conversation, blinked and returned his attention to David. “Sorry,” he said. “What are we doing?”

  David sighed, and brought the walkie-talkie to his mouth. “Ground Control, request orders as to proceedings of attack.”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” said Terrian. “Blow the entrance wide open and drop in explosives from there. When they come out, shoot them.”

  David put a hand to his face and grimaced at Rose, whose jaw had dropped in shock and anger. Had Terrian seriously just given them orders to kill seven hundred people on sight?

  James clearly felt the same way about this, and seemed to be on the verge of grabbing the walkie-talkie from David’s grasp. David put up a hand to stop him.

  “Ground Control —”

  “Stop calling me that!”

  “Ground Control,” David repeated, making sure to properly enunciate every syllable, “permission to speak freely.”

  Terrian sighed. It came over the intercom as a wave of static. “Permission granted.”

  “With all due respect,” David said, “we don’t know the layout of their base. We could be dropping explosives two feet down. We’d blow up the street.”

  “Then send troops down to check the depth.”

  “Send fifty troops,” David said quietly, and only then did Rose begin to realize just how angry he was, “down into darkness with explosives where seven hundred enemy soldiers are known to be hiding?”

  James had his walkie-talkie out and seemed to be trying to locate Terrian’s frequency. Loren was watching David narrowly.

  “Do you have any better ideas?” Terrian asked tightly.

  “Not only do I have better ideas,” David said, “I am fairly sure you do. I doubt any of them involve fifty troops attacking an embedded and well-defended enemy base with explosives, alone and outnumbered fourteen to one.”

  Silence.

  “Connor, please listen to me. This is suicide. Pull out. Give the order. Or the blood of God knows how many people will be on your hands, and your hands alone.”

  More silence.

  Terrian said, “I will await the attack progress report,” and disconnected.

  All four of them groaned.

  Someone stamped to attention behind Rose. She whirled. It was the squad member who had handed out the walkie-talkies.

  “Awaiting orders, sir.”

  “Orders received from Connor Terrian of the Department,” David said. “Detonate devices by the entrance and send soldiers down to check depth before detonating lower. Shoot on sight.”

  The soldier seemed slightly surprised by this, but saluted and turned anyway. At the last moment, Rose remembered.

  “Wait!”

  He turned, surprised.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “There’s a girl,” she said. “Seventeen years old, blond hair, gray eyes. Her name’s Amelia Rodriguez. Don’t shoot her.”

  The soldier saluted again. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She turned back to the others. David was already talking.

  “All right, everyone, since we’re all fairly good shots, we may as well get on the roof and help with the sniper fire. Loren and I will cover the back entrance. Rose, James, you cover the front.”

  Loren raised his eyebrows at David. “You’re asking for trouble there,” he muttered.

  David made a shushing gesture at him. Rose stared at him, bemused.

  Loren and David walked away toward the fire escape stairs of the nearest building. James and Rose headed toward a large office block just to the right of the War Rooms. They looked up at the wall. There were no stairs here.

  “All right,” said Rose uncertainly, “do we have a plan for this?”

  “Can you levitate?”

  She looked at him. “Umm . . . yes. Where is this going?”

  “Up, I hope. Come on.”

  And with that he closed his eyes and began to float upward. Rose blinked.

  The trick to moving yourself upward was to imagine that you were remaining perfectly still and the world was moving downward. Rose realized she was already ten feet off the ground, and tried to push the image of falling nine stories onto the tarmac below from her mind. It refused to budge.

  James landed on the roof before she did. She moved herself a few feet forward, so there was no chance of her slipping off the edge, and dropped. Something unexpected cracked in her ankle and she gasped, stumbling in pain. James caught her.

  “Are you all right?” he asked anxiously.

  Rose gritted her teeth and flexed her ankle. She was fine: it wasn’t broken, just twisted. “Yeah,” she said. “Thanks. It’s all right, I can fire lying down anyway. Come on, they’re setting the bombs.”

  They knelt at the edge of the roof and took out their guns. The squad teams had moved back now, away from the explosives that leaned against the bricked-up entrance to the War Rooms. Sparks of light on the pavement tiles indicated that the fuses had been lit.

  “Good luck,” James said to her quietly. She looked at him.

  And then the bombs went off and everything descended into chaos.

  There was a great, heavy, rumbling boom. The entrance to the War Rooms crumbled into smoke. When it cleared, the great dark hole in the ground was empty of enemy troops. There was not a single form, living or dead, to be seen through the mist.

  But there should have been, Rose realized, in slowly rising panic. There should have been. Where were Regency’s soldiers?

  “This isn’t right,” James muttered under his breath. “This isn’t right at —”

  They heard shouting from below, and the Department troops emerged from the building beneath them. Twenty soldiers, all carrying bombs, vanished into the hole to find any surviving enemy. Rose looked over the rooftops at her father and Loren. From what she could make out, they had not yet relaxed.

  And then Regency’s bombs went off.

  There was a deeper, louder boom, and then twenty successive, deafening booms, shaking the building James and Rose were kneeling on. The possibility of death roared in Rose’s ears. She listened to it numbly, immobile.

  When the ground was still again, she looked over the edge of the building, coughing. She could hear screams. James had gone white.

  “Oh God,” he said. “That wasn’t — That wasn’t us . . .”

  The Department soldiers would never have detonated their explosives at such proximity. This was Regency’s counterstrike. In the chain of fire and crumbling earth, in the unimaginable noise, in the rubble of the square lurking behind the gray smoke, Rose could feel them. Aaron’s cold laugh echoed wildly in her head.

  James was whispering.

  “No, no, this can’t be . . . This can’t . . .”

  The rest of the Department soldiers were screaming and running. Some were running toward the hole, yelling the names of comrades who Rose knew would not yell back. Some were running away.

  And that was when the second lot of Regency bombs went off.

  “All right, so whose bloody fault was this?”

  Nine o’clock the following morning. In the twenty-two hours since the failed attack on Regency, the names and faces of the lost troops had been broadcast by every channel in the country, adorned stickers and protest boards, made the headlines in five national newspapers, and featured on what seemed like every major news bulletin in the world. The reasons for their deaths had not yet been pinned on the Department. Many were calling this an attack by a group of lone terrorists. Which was not, of course, a million miles from the truth.

  The data had been collected and the reports had been written up. The details were too painful to recount, but the gist was this: Regency’s hidden bombs had collapsed the square, taking thirty-eight Department squa
d members with it. Rose had their names memorized. So, apparently, did the British press’s headline writers.

  The ACC had sent in Evelyn Wood, the woman who had interrogated David, to interview the Department in order to isolate the cause of what was, by general consensus, an unmitigated disaster. By the looks of it, she had no more love for the Department now than she had last time. In part because of this, Loren had left Tabitha at their house. Numerical reinforcement came in the form of the Department’s newest member: Nate had received his conscription orders yesterday, and was now officially on staff. He still wasn’t talking to Rose, though. Or indeed looking at her.

  “Answer me,” Wood repeated, staring round at the six of them, seated at the meeting-room table. “Someone has to be responsible.”

  David, Loren, Rose and James stared pointedly at Terrian, who cleared his throat. Rose tried and failed to ignore the way Nate was glaring at her.

  Wood watched Terrian as he straightened up.

  “I sanctioned the attack, yes,” he said. “However, the troops were under Major Elmsworth’s control at the time.”

  James and Rose both jumped to their feet in outrage. Wood gestured impatiently for them to sit down.

  “Major Elmsworth,” she said. “Can you answer to this accusation?”

  “I can,” David said calmly. “The day before the attack, Colonel Terrian and I had a . . . professional dispute, regarding our preferred methods for taking down Regency. The Colonel wished to — what were his words? —‘bomb the bastard.’ I suggested we take a more discreet course of action.”

  “And he overrode you?”

  “Overrode doesn’t really cut it,” David said icily. “Overrode affords it a veneer of civility. Colonel Terrian felt he had the authority to dismiss the opinion of a Major, despite that Major’s experience and track record within the Department — which, might I add, is considerably better than his own.”

  Wood glanced between him and Terrian, who looked furious. Nate was glowering at David and James. Rose, however, kept her eyes fixed on Wood. She noticed that Loren did the same.

  “But you had control over the troops at the time,” Wood said to David.

  “Colonel Terrian was giving me orders from the Department building. Given his adverse opinion of my caliber as a strategist, he had severely limited my freedom to interpret those orders. I had fifty troops — nowhere near enough to take down Regency — and a lot of explosives, and I was under the impression that I would be forced to remain at the site of the attack should I attempt to leave.”

  “And do you confirm this account?” Wood asked Terrian.

  Terrian, it seemed, did not: he was nearly speechless with rage.

  Even Nate looked slightly dubious at this blatant lie. For the first time, David looked angry.

  “Apart from the words of everyone around this table,” he said coldly, “no, I cannot prove it.”

  “He can, actually,” James said. They looked at him. “The office is under constant video surveillance. If you’ll let me, Ms. Wood . . .”

  She nodded. He took his laptop out from his bag. There followed a few very tense seconds as he accessed the Department security database and brought up the footage. Then he spun the screen round so the rest of them could see it. It showed David standing between Terrian and Rose, with Loren and James standing warily to the side. James turned up the volume so they could all hear what Terrian was saying.

  “All right, then, Major Elmsworth. You think you can just defy a senior officer, in a time of crisis? All right then. This department is going to bomb the War Rooms tomorrow and go in with two hundred army troops, and you, you, you and you can lead them. I’ll sit here in Westminster and watch you make fools of yourselves. Then see how eager you are to defy me.”

  There was a long, very pregnant silence. Wood turned slowly to face Terrian. Nate had his face in his hands.

  “Well, Colonel Terrian,” she said calmly, “do you have anything to say?”

  He opened and closed his mouth helplessly like a fish drowning in air. Then, finally, he said: “Yes. Rewind the footage thirty seconds back.”

  He jabbed a finger at James. Wood raised her eyebrows. Rose’s heart sank. She, James, David and Loren all glanced at one another nervously.

  “All right,” Wood said calmly, “rewind the footage then, Private Andreas.”

  Reluctantly, James did so. He made sure to rewind it far enough back to get in Terrian’s insult to David. Nothing, however, could draw attention away from Rose’s violent reaction. She flushed hot and sick with shame as she watched herself blast Terrian back into the desk, then sweep it out from under him and point her gun at his head.

  Now it was her turn to be scrutinized by Wood.

  “You can’t say I wasn’t provoked,” she said defensively. “Nate would have done the same if Dad had said that to Ter — the Colonel. I’m sorry about it, and I wouldn’t do it again, but given the Colonel’s retaliation . . . Well, would you call sending us on a suicide mission in revenge reasonable? Especially given what happened.”

  Wood nodded.

  “Ms. Wood,” Terrian protested, “you can’t seriously —”

  “Shut up,” she told him sharply. “Your incompetence has caused thirty-eight deaths. Your career is in enough trouble as it is. Don’t make it worse.”

  She stood. Rose looked around the table. James looked satisfied, Nate furious. David and Loren were watching Wood narrowly.

  “All right,” she said. “Luckily — and unfortunately, in my view — I can’t fire any of you, given the particularly low staff numbers at the moment due to . . .” She coughed. “Recent events.”

  How quickly had the news of the manner of Laura’s death reached the ACC? Rose exchanged a worried look with David. It would benefit neither of them if the Supergrass panicked and started asking Parliament to brief the public on how to spot suspected Hybrids.

  “But after seeing how badly you lot messed this up, the ACC — with the full backing of the Ministry of Defense — has decided to go ahead with our own plans, whether you lot welcome them or not. No”— as David started to protest —“not even you, Elmsworth. Though you’ll be glad to know that our plan should meet your criteria for subtler methods.”

  They waited, tense. Wood leaned forward and put her hands on the table, looking round at all of them.

  “We’re sending in a spy,” she said. “One that fits the template you described for Regency recruits. Young, preferably teenage; good fighter; high IQ; previous contact links with law-enforcement agencies —”

  David realized about a second before Rose did. He was on his feet immediately, and real fury darkened his face for the first time. “No,” he said. “Absolutely not.”

  Loren looked from Wood to David to Rose and then it hit him as well, and he stood up so fast his chair toppled over. “Send Rose to Regency?” he said, outraged. “Are you mad?”

  “What?” said James in horror. “No. No way.”

  Even Nate got to his feet, feud apparently forgotten.

  “Why does it have to be Rose?” he said angrily. “James and I both fit that description, we can go —”

  “No you cannot,” Wood said. She was watching Rose carefully. Rose met her gaze with all the calm she could summon. “It has to be Rosalyn.”

  “Why?” James asked furiously.

  Why seemed perfectly clear to Rose; and, by the looks they were giving Wood, it was obvious to David and Loren as well. While the fault for the War Rooms disaster lay undoubtedly with Terrian, the government still did not quite trust David, and they certainly didn’t trust Loren. Having Rose in constant jeopardy — dependent entirely on the mercy of the army to rescue her if anything went wrong — would keep the Department in check nicely.

  Rose tried to breathe evenly and keep her eyes fixed on Wood.

  “I will not let you,” David said in a very soft, very dangerous voice. “If you lay a hand on my daughter I swear I will make you regret it. I will make you wish you
were never born.”

  Wood switched her gaze from Rose to David. “Oh, but you will let us take her,” she said. “Unless you want your circumstances to change drastically.”

  David laughed harshly, mirthlessly. “You think I’d give up my daughter for the sake of my career?”

  “Oh no,” Wood said. “But I do think you’d give up your daughter for the sake of your lives.”

  That stopped David cold. The look he gave Wood was one of icy hatred. He was very pale, but hatred radiated from him so strongly it was almost palpable. Rose burned with shock and anger; she had never seen David threatened like this, never seen it affect him this way, but of course Wood was right. The Government would never let him go. He was too dangerous to set free, knowing all that he knew, especially if he left with a grudge against his old employers.

  Wood looked at James.

  “The same goes for you, Private Andreas,” she said. “We wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to your brothers, would we? And as for you”— here she turned to Loren, who appeared just as furious as David, and looked him up and down scornfully —“I’m sure we can find some incentive for you. We had your niece in custody once already, didn’t we?”

  The temperature in the room appeared to drop ten degrees. If Loren had had a gun with him then, Rose was sure that Wood would not have survived another moment.

  Terrian was still sitting, openmouthed, at the table, staring around at them all.

  “I warn you,” David said in that same low voice, “we are not good enemies to make.”

  “Oh,” Wood said, smiling, “that’s what we’re counting on.”

  She brushed past him, walking toward Rose, who kept her eyes locked on Wood’s. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw David and James reach for their guns. Rose gave a tiny but unmistakable shake of the head, and their hands stopped inches from their weapons. She could, and would, handle this on her own. The liberties, and indeed the lives, of everyone else in the room were in dire enough straits already.