Aftershock

by Sam Fisher

  Mark said nothing, just stared fixedly at his gaoler.

  ‘You see,’ Mengde went on, ‘such a notion as E-Force goes completely against all that I believe in. Your toy guns sum it up.’ He glanced at the stun pistol on the desk. ‘My view is that if people are so stupid as to find themselves in a disaster, then they should be left to die. Or, if they are strong and find themselves in the midst of a catastrophe, they will find their own way out.’

  Mengde seemed to expect a response from Mark, but none came. He was quite aware of the game the man was playing.

  There was a sound from beyond the door. A soldier shouted. It was followed by a muffled response. Mark thought he could recognise the voice. The door flew open and Fu led the way. Behind him, the soldiers escorted a man wearing a black hood. One of the soldiers removed the hood. The financier, Sigmund de Silva, stood, dazed, blinking under the bright lights.

  Mengde looked at de Silva, then looked again at Mark. ‘So, Mr Harrison. The codes.’

  Mark said nothing.

  There was a sound at the door. It slid open and a soldier bowed and stepped in. ‘Apologies, Commander,’ he said in Mandarin. Then he paced over to say something quietly in Mengde’s left ear.

  Mark heard it clearly, and he understood Mandarin. The man said: ‘Another plane has landed on the surface, sir.’

  Mengde span round to face the soldier. ‘What sort of plane?’

  ‘A very large aircraft, sir. It is another E-Force jet.’

  Mengde held the soldier’s eyes for several beats. ‘Prepare the beam,’ he said, then turned away quickly, flicking his fingers to dismiss the man. The soldier bowed and left the room.

  Mengde took a step closer to Mark. ‘The codes.’

  Mark said nothing.

  Mengde nodded to the soldiers. Between them they pushed Sigmund de Silva to his knees. One of them bound the man’s hands behind his back.

  ‘What the fuck is this all about?’ de Silva screamed. ‘Mark? What...?’

  ‘Shut up,’ Mengde snapped and kicked de Silva in the face. Sigmund’s head jarred back, blood spraying from his smashed nose. He looked pleadingly at Mark.

  With a supreme effort, Mark stood rigid, showing no emotion.

  ‘Oh, you’re such a good man, Mr Harrison,’ Mengde said, and gave Mark a contemptuous look. ‘No doubt you are thinking of the greater good. This man may be sacrificed for your precious technology because that technology will allow you to save many more lives in the future. Am I right, Mr Harrison?’

  ‘Sacrifice? ... What?’ Sigmund screamed. He was shaking, his eyes were massive and black and they held Mark’s.

  Mengde nodded again and one of the soldiers grabbed Sigmund’s sparse white hair. Yanking his head back, with his spare hand he pulled out a Commando knife – 20 centimetres of gleaming stainless steel. With lightning speed, he brought the blade down to Sigmund’s neck, lining up the edge with the man’s jugular.

  ‘Last chance, Mr Harrison.’

  Mark still did not move.

  Mengde started to turn back to the soldier.

  ‘Okay,’ Mark hissed.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Okay. You win. I’ll give you the codes.’

  Mengde tilted his head slightly, and flicked his palms up. ‘Well?’

  ‘Let him go first.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Harrison, I wasn’t aware of your talent for comedy. Another thing to add to your impressive CV.’

  Mark said nothing.

  Mengde’s face fell, suddenly expressionless. ‘No, it doesn’t work that way. Codes first.’

  Mark looked at the floor. ‘Give me pen and paper.’

  Mengde turned to the desk and plucked up a sheet of watermarked paper and a Mont Blanc pen. The soldier with the gun took a step forward nervously. Mark could see his trigger finger whitening slightly.

  Mark grasped the pen and wrote down a series of numbers and letters. He handed the paper and pen to Mengde.

  ‘Very good,’ the Commander said. ‘But of course, I will have to have these checked.’ Then he gave the merest hint of a nod to the man holding de Silva. The soldier drew the knife across the financier’s neck, cutting into his throat almost to the vertebra. Blood spurted in a great fountain and Sigmund’s head fell back, a gaping red and grey wound grinning like an open mouth. His eyes rolled up and the soldier let him fall sideways, blood siphoning into a puddle.

  Mark was so shocked he did not move even when Sigmund’s blood sprayed across his face. And then everything suddenly seemed to shift into fast motion. There was a blaring sound, a screaming from a speaker in the ceiling. It took him a second to realise it was a voice, a metallic rasp. ‘Warning. Station under cyber attack. Warning.’

  Mengde turned his eyes from the terrible scene and looked at the ceiling, momentarily confused. The soldier with the machine gun let the barrel droop. Mark snapped out of his horrified stupor, and instinct and years of training took over. In a millisecond, he was leaping forward, diving headlong towards the soldier.

  The guard fell backwards, spraying bullets around the room. In a fifth of second, two 42mm shells struck Fu Tang in the forehead, splitting open his skull. Brains and blood shot into the air, cascading down over his falling body.

  Mark smashed his elbow into the guard’s face, breaking his nose and knocking him unconscious. Spinning on his heel, he slammed his fist into the side of the other guard’s face. The man fell backwards, cracking his head on the edge of Mengde’s desk.

  Mark straightened, surveyed the scene with disgust and just caught a movement at the edge of his vision. Commander Mengde Sun had made it to the door and was disappearing into the corridor beyond.

  98

  Mark picked up the QBB-97 machine gun and threw the strap over his shoulder, then he yanked an NP42 pistol from the guard’s holster, turned to the desk and pocketed the E-Force stun pistol. E-Force did not carry deadly weapons. He knew that of course. He had written the rule. But his training and his sense of self was a more powerful impulse. The gun offered him a feeling of security. He ran for the door.

  ‘Warning. Station under cyber attack. Warning.’ The metallic voice boomed out of speakers along the passageway leading away from Mengde’s blood-drenched office. It made him feel good to hear it. It meant Tom was getting into the computer systems of the base. He knew that Tom would eat up the mainframe and spit out the bones. And getting control of the computer network was half the battle.

  He ran along the corridor, retracing the steps he had taken as a hooded prisoner. Stopping at the end, he edged slowly round the corner. It was all clear. Twenty seconds later, he was at the door to the storeroom where the others were held. He hit the button on the wall and the door slid open.

  ‘Christ, Mark!’ Pete exclaimed. ‘What the fuck happened?’

  ‘No time now. Come with me.’ Then he turned to Mai, pulled the machine gun from his shoulder and tossed it to her. ‘You stay here with everyone. Keep that gun trained on the door.’

  She looked a little confused.

  ‘I know, E-Force doesn’t do guns, but if soldiers come here intent on killing civilians, it’s us or them. We can discuss the morality of it all later ... yeah?’

  Mai gave him a weak smile. ‘It’s a date, Mark.’ Then she said quietly, ‘Sigmund?’

  Mark just shook his head, turned to Pete, tossed him the stun pistol and led the way out.

  99

  Pacific Ocean, 21.7 kilometres off Fiji

  The Hummingbird came in low over the water. The late afternoon sun was hot and bright. Josh and Omar took the huge plane in a tight circle and then lowered it to the surface of the ocean. The aircraft settled onto the water directly above the Chinese subaqua base. Tom had located it using automatic beacons built into the cybersuits.

  ‘So what’s Tom got from BigEye?’ Steph asked.

  They were sitting in the Ops Room behind the flightdeck. Josh flicked a control and a wall screen lit up. ‘The techs at Base One have managed to boost the sens
ors on BigEye 9. They’ve got some images of a structure on the ocean floor. It’s located at the exact coordinates Sybil found for the source of the tremors. Some sort of subaqua base.’

  It was constructed from a collection of 24 cylinders arranged as a flat, elongated cube lying on the floor of the ocean. They could see the E-Force sub Drebbel docked to one of the short ends of the building. On each side lay the black shapes of the Chinese nuclear subs. They were docked to the base with fuel lines and power cables running from the wall of the building.

  ‘There are three cybersuits here,’ Josh remarked, and a cluster of three red dots appeared on the screen. ‘Infrared scanners show there are 26 human life signs on the station. A group of them are concentrated in this area.’ He pointed to a spot in the western section of the base. ‘I would guess it’s some sort of holding cell.’

  ‘Okay, so I imagine you’ve already worked out a plan, Josh.’

  He looked unusually serious. ‘Well, we still have a few advantages. It’s quite possible sensors on the base have detected the Hummingbird, but I think they would have trouble picking up a personal sub.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘Tom’s breaking into their network as we speak. He’s trying to target key control systems. He can’t just cut all power – or everyone in the building would suffocate. He’s disrupted their sonar and other sensor systems, so if they saw the Hummingbird come in, they won’t see it any more.’

  ‘So we could take a sub down and they would never know we were there.’

  Josh smiled and nodded.

  ‘And you think you’re back to 100 per cent fitness?’

  ‘One hundred and 10 per cent.’

  She gave him a sceptical look and shook her head. ‘All right, Josh. Lead the way.’

  100

  Subaqua Base

  Mark and Pete ran along the passageway. Mark had pulled the NP42 handgun from his pocket.

  The computerised voice started up again. ‘Warning. Station under cyber attack. Warning.’

  ‘I love you, Tom!’ Pete exclaimed as they ran.

  Mark stopped and turned to something on the wall halfway along the corridor.

  ‘What is it?’

  He was staring at a laminated rectangle pinned to the wall. ‘It’s a schematic of the station.’

  Pete stood next to him. ‘My Chinese is a little rusty.’

  ‘There,’ Mark said after a moment. ‘Down this corridor.’ He pointed to his left. ‘Right, left, second right ... Let’s go.’

  Mark led the way while Pete guarded their rear, eyeing the corridor behind as they ran, sweeping it with the stun pistol. They saw no one and reached the room they were looking for in a few moments. The sign on the door was written in simple Chinese characters: ‘COMMUNICATIONS CENTRE’.

  Mark stepped forward, stabbed a metal pad on the wall and the door slid open. All they could hear from inside was the electronic hum of computers and comms equipment. They clung to the wall either side of the opening, listening intently, their weapons raised in front of their noses. Their cochlear implants could pick up nothing to suggest the room was manned.

  The computer warning sounded again: ‘Warning. Station under cyber attack. Warning.’ The last word echoed along the corridor, and suddenly Mark heard something. Two different people in the Communications Centre. They were trying not to make a sound, but he could just hear them breathing. Pete caught it too. He nodded to Mark, and ducking low they swivelled into the Communications Centre.

  One of the soldiers had a pistol drawn. He fired and missed. Pete pulled the trigger of his stun pistol and a beam of intense electromagnetic energy hit the man in the chest. He fell back, unconscious.

  The second soldier had more time. He span around, went to fire, but the gun flew out of his hand. It pirouetted in the air and smashed into a control panel close by. He yelped as two of his fingers dislocated. Then a second beam from the stun pistol hit him square in the chest and he was out cold.

  ‘Sharp shooting, man,’ Pete said.

  ‘Not so bad yourself, Pete. Here, help me tie them up.’ Mark had yanked a phone from a cradle on the wall close to the door. He ripped the receiver out of its socket and threw the rest to Pete. The severed mains lead dangled from its rear end. Mark used the coiled lead with the receiver still attached to bind the first soldier’s hands behind his back. Pete tugged at the phone end of the mains lead and the wire came free. Dragging the second soldier along the floor, he positioned him against the leg of a bench and tied him to it with the lead. He stood up and slapped his palms together as though cleaning dust from them. ‘There,’ he said. ‘Very neat, even if I say so meself.’

  Mark was already over at the main desk. ‘Pete, guard the door. Don’t hesitate to use the stun pistol.’ The console was covered in Chinese symbols, but that did not present a problem for him. He flicked a switch and a crackling sound came from a speaker in the control panel. He leaned in towards a microphone on a flexible stand protruding from the console.

  ‘E-Force. Come in.’

  Nothing but the crackling sound.

  ‘Tom? You there?’

  ‘Mark.’

  ‘Steph!’

  ‘What’s your status, Mark?’

  ‘I only have a few seconds. Pete and Mai are safe. We have nine survivors from the Neptune. We’ve been taken captive by some sort of renegade group – Chinese, but I’m sure they’re not official military. They’re a bunch of murderers led by a man named Mengde Sun. You got that? Mengde Sun.’

  ‘Yeah, Mark...’

  ‘Let me finish. Might lose comms any second. Tom’s in the middle of a cyber attack – you probably know that. Great distraction, but we need more. If we don’t get out of here, Mengde’s people will kill all of us. We’re going to try to get the survivors back to the Drebbel.’

  ‘Someone’s coming,’ Pete hissed.

  ‘Gotta go, Steph,’ Mark snapped and cut the comms link.

  101

  Subaqua Base

  It was a tiny, two-seater sub, nicknamed the Hot Dog. It was nimble, very fast and almost totally undetectable by conventional sonar. The fact that Tom had culled the system in the Chinese base at Hang Cheng was a welcome bonus.

  The Hot Dog dropped out of the Hummingbird. Its single, 900 horsepower engine kicked in and the compact little vessel shot into a diagonal dive, headed straight for the base. Steph was at the controls this time. She had refused point blank to have it any other way and Josh could hardly argue. She manoeuvred the vehicle with consummate skill derived from many hours of practice, and within 60 seconds they were 350 metres below the Pacific. In their cockpits they could each see the base on their screens. The place looked uncomfortable on the ocean floor, a typically ugly communist edifice; all substance, no style.

  ‘Drop site located,’ Steph said, and the sub pulled rapidly to starboard, turned and dived incredibly quickly. A moment later, it was purring along, 3 metres above the ocean floor, following the contours of the strange marine landscape. They stopped 15 metres from the north-east corner of the base, cut the engines and floated silently.

  Josh’s fingers played over the controls of the Hot Dog and a panel opened in its underside. A retractable metal arm slid out. Nestled in the metal claw at the end of the arm was a cylinder about a metre long, half a metre in diameter. It was a Distractor – a box of electronics that could simulate any form of seismic disruption required. It was a classic decoy. All you had to do was assign it a disruption level, set the timer, put it in place, and let it do its job. And best of all, it caused no real damage, just a lot of fuss and noise.

  The retractable metal arm lowered the Distractor to the seabed and folded itself back into the underside of the sub. The door of the little sub’s cargo hold slid shut, and for a moment nothing more happened. Then slowly the cylinder lifted a few centimetres from the ocean floor, hung there for a second and moved towards the wall of the base.

  A metre from the wall, a steel tube shot out from t
he end of the Distractor. A sucker unfolded itself from the end. It looked for all the world like a very hi-tech toilet plunger. The pad attached itself to the wall and the device stuck fast.

  ‘Excellent,’ Steph said into the comms. ‘Couldn’t have done it better myself, Josh.’

  ‘I know that!’ he retorted. ‘It’s set for six minutes. Let’s get into position.’

  The Hot Dog sped away from the drop site and swung around the edge of the base, its powerful motor churning the water as it went.

  ‘The door is dead ahead,’ Steph said into her comms.

  Within two minutes they were suited up. They let the Hot Dog hover a few metres from the base and jumped on a two-seater scooter attached to the outside of the mini-sub. Reaching the door to the base, they killed the engine of the scooter, slid off and held onto a pair of handles cut into the wall.

  ‘Let’s hope Tom’s done his bit,’ Steph said.

  Josh turned a lever on the door and pulled on the handle. It swung outwards.

  Inside the lock, they sealed the door. On the wall was an electronic panel countersunk into a rubber rectangle. The buttons were rubber. Josh tapped in a combination he had downloaded from Tintara and the water started to drain from the chamber.

  It took three minutes to empty. A signal sounded, a high-pitched whistle to indicate the chamber was ready to be unlocked. Steph stabbed at a pad on the inner door, and it slid open.

  They were inside the base.

  102

  Subaqua Base

  The voices were coming from the passageway to the right of the exit from the Communications Centre. Mark and Pete dashed along the corridor in the opposite direction, back towards the storeroom and the others.