Axon parked his car well away from Cebro’s main gate. Put on the Stealth Cloak and energised it.
Then noticed a stray dog nearby. To his horror, the dog ran up to him and started barking as he tried to bite the already damaged part of his cloak that the dog could clearly see.
He lifted it up, out of the dog’s reach, and blasted the dog, then kicked its body out of the way.
Then, readjusting his cloak, set off for Cebro’s entrance gate, which was the only access point to their facility.
As he approached Cebro’s main gates, he was pleased to see that they were wide open. With a single black Limo sitting there, waiting to enter.
That’s alright. Just the driver, he thought.
Then he saw the guards. And, noting the type of weapons they held, thought. I’d better not tangle with them.
He tried to do a mental scan but picked up nothing other than several agitated people nearby.
‘That accursed Micky hasn’t arrived yet,’ he thought. That was, of course, good news. It was nice to know that he was here first. That meant he had the upper hand.
Then, knowing that his damaged cloak would be partially visible, and seeming to float through the air. He decided that there would be less chance of the guards noticing him if he walked by on the far side of the car.
But, as he walked on determinedly through the gate, he kept his free hand on his weapon’s butt. Just in case.
His heart missed a beat as the Limo driver glanced in his direction. But he safely passed it with no other reaction from the driver.
The package containing the explosives and proximity detector was on him, and ready to be put in place. Once in place, all he had to do was to switch it on and leave quickly.
‘How difficult could that be,’ he thought as he strolled on towards building K8.
Chapter 33.
On the Edge.
“We’ve been informed of what you have to do sir,” Mr Two Dagger’s said to Micky. Then, taking the empty rifle case off the table, laid a detailed sitemap in its place.
He pointed out some of the buildings on the site. Then said, “This is building K8. The conveyor is located in here. But you’ll be pretty vulnerable as you cross this lawn to get to the building.”
“Yes, I understand.”
“As for you and your buddies, Miss. Building K7, where you need to be, is here,” he said pointing at it.
Then, pointed the route out on the map.
“If you go along here. Then around here. You’ll come in on the blind side of K8 and the conveyor’s inlet,” he paused, then continued.
“Go across here, to this side of K6. Then up this stairway. This will then take you straight up to the gantry that joins K6 and K7. See, here? Then the gantry will give you a perfect shooting angle to help you hit that inlet.”
Micky and Charlie were impressed.
“Good work. You obviously know your site well. Um. Sorry, I didn’t get your name?” Micky apologised.
“Stratton sir. By the way, the test timings have been changed. Lockdown is now scheduled for 11:30 with the test start time still being at 12:00.”
“Thanks,” Micky said sounding surprised. Then paused, his face seeming to show him concentrating on something far away.
He had sensed the killer, for a brief moment.
‘He’s here already,’ he thought.
The clock on the wall read 11:03.
“Ok, Just 25 minutes to get set up before they lock down.”
“It looks as if we’re here first.”
“No, Charlie. He’s already here. Inside Cebro.”
Stratton looked shocked at hearing this, and, with disbelief showing on his face, butted in.
“How do you know that, sir?” he asked.
“Easy, Mr Stratton. I can feel him, I can almost smell him. He’s here, believe me.”
Stratton was gobsmacked and didn’t know how to respond to that, so just said.
“Right. Oh, another thing sir. Hanson left two of our site transceivers for you, so you can both converse directly with him.”
Micky and Charlie took one each.
“Micky. Give Hanson a call, just to make sure they work.”
“Good idea Charlie.”
He looked at the transceiver, it was already switched on, with Hanson’s name showing on the screen.
Micky tapped the name and heard Hanson’s voice straight away.
“Good morning, Micky. Do you have everything you need?”
“Yes, thanks. I’ll call you when I’m inside K8. I don’t know what you think. But I reckon this may be our only chance to finally stop the deadly attacks against Project Acarea.”
“Yes. Are you sure you still don’t want our guards or the police, to get involved?”
“No. I don’t need them at this stage.”
“Very well then, I’ll wait for your report. Oh, and Micky, this is important for you to remember. When the automatic sequence has been started. It can only be stopped by turning it off manually, at K8. OK?”
“Understood.”
“Good. So I assume you also realise that, in this situation, we won’t ’be able to stop it,” he ended.
“Yes, and if I understand it correctly, the computer control system will be working the same way as it would in space. Is that right?”
“Exactly Micky. In real life, the crew wouldn’t be able to go outside the Acarea once the Nuclear drive feeder had started its detonation sequence.”
“Ok, that’s clear enough.” Micky ended, then turned his transceiver to standby.
“So, anything new for us to look out for Sir?” Stratton asked.
“Damn it. Yes. The cloak,” Micky said, sounding infuriated. “I’m sorry. You should have been told what we suspected straight away.”
Startled. Stratton asked, “What cloak?”
“I know this sounds nutty, Stratton. But we’re sure the killer has a Stealth Cloak, which makes him virtually invisible when he wears it.
But, and here’s the good news. It’s possible that some of the cloak’s mosaics were damaged by shots that were fired by Mr Parker, just before he was killed.
If so, your men might see two or three, material like patches of the cloak just floating along.”
“Geeze,” Stratton said.
“And another thing. Whatever happens don’t let your guards try to tackle the killer, OK?
Being cloaked will give him a massive advantage over your guards, and they would surely lose,” he warned Stratton.
“Just make sure that you let me know straight away if they catch glimpses of his cloak. Tell me where he’s been seen. Then let me do my job.”
“As you wish sir.”
“Ok, are we ready to go, Charlie?”
“Yes, Micky,” she confirmed. They looked into each other’s eyes, as they hugged, then kissed for what seemed a long time. Both knowing they might never see each other alive again.
After what seemed ages. Stratton tapped Charlie gently on the shoulder. Then said, “There’s a Jeep around the back Miss. It’ll get you close to K6.”
“Thanks, Stratton,” Charlie replied.
Then Stratton went out to tell the other guards about the killer’s stealth cloak. While Charlie, together with her two burly men Thunder and Dread, left through the rear entrance.
Micky closed his laptop, then checked that his revolver was still in place, before leaving the guard house.
As he went, he sensed that his driver, Chris, was in an emotional quandary.
“What’s your problem, Chris?” He asked when he got to the car.
“Can I get out of this Limo first? I need to stretch my legs.”
“Of course you can.”
Chris got out and stretched. “That’s better,” he said.
“You’ll think me loopy, Micky. But, I heard something. Then I thought I saw something. But my eyes must have been playing tricks on me.”
“So what did you think you saw?”
“Wel
l, two, maybe three, patches of something, but they just floated past me and on up the road.”
“That was our killer, Chris. I’m glad you didn’t try to grab the patches, you’d be dead for sure.”
“Wonderful. Now we can’t even see the target. But why can’t we see him?”
Ignoring Chris’s question, Mickey just said, “Trust me, Chris.”
“Here, take my Laptop. I want you to give it to Cedrick, and I mean, only Cedrick.”
“Of course sir. What about the password, I assume you have one?”
“Yes, Chris. I’ve already e-mailed it to Cedrick.”
“Alright,” he said as he secured the Laptop in the Limo’s boot.
Micky did a soft scan and found the killer’s ‘emotionally confident’ flavour not far away.
“What now Micky?”
“I need you to stay in the Limo, with the engine running and wait for my call.
When I need you, you’ll probably have to drive like never before Chris.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Here, this is my spare Pager.”
Chris took it as Micky took his own Pager out, tapped locate, then Chris’s pager beeped.
“Good. Now let’s check your Satnav system. Get in the Limo Chris and verify that you can pick me up.”
Chris got into his Limo, started it. Then selected, the search, and locate Icon.
“Press your Pager.”
Micky did as asked, then Chris’s navigation display pinged, and Micky’s location appeared on the screen.
“Got you.”
“Good. Just be ready when I call Chris.”
“I will be,” Chris said, putting his revolver in the slot between the front seats.
“Good luck Micky.”
“And you Chris.”
With that, Micky started off towards K8. He knew that he had to be in and out of K8 before lockdown at 11:30.
He checked the time 11:10. He started a continuous scanning of the area, and within a short period was rewarded. He picked up the killer’s thoughts.
He could sense his ‘Almost there’ feeling.
Micky made his way to K8. Keeping in the shade of the buildings as much as possible. He knew that he only had 20 minutes.
Within that timescale, he had to either disable the explosive without the killer realizing it. Or if not, then he would just have to let it go, and hope Charlie was as good a shot as she thought she was.
But, even so, as long as Charlie was lucky, and the fissile material stopped on the outside of K8. Then it wouldn’t matter if the killer’s explosive charge were detonated. In fact, that might even be preferable, he realised.
The killer had now entered K8. Carefully passing the two armed guards who protected the only entrance. They were oblivious to his passing.
Ten minutes later, Micky reached K8’s entrance.
“Hello boys,” he greeted the two K8 security guards.
“Morning, sir. Nobody’s been here yet.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but our target has been and gone already.”
Their mouths dropped open in astonishment.
“But there’s no other entrance sir.”
“Bit of a shit, boys. He walked right past you. Twice.”
As Micky told them that, they both drew their weapons.
“I’m afraid you’re too late. He’s already gone.”
Micky looked at his watch again.
11:20. Ten more minutes, he thought. As one of the guards said. “Ten minutes to lock down sir.”
“I know.”
Micky did another low-level scan and was pleasantly surprised to find that his ‘location-finding abilities’ had improved.
He had located the killer. He was almost half-way back to the main gate.
He quickly opened the door and went inside the container building which was fairly well lit from within, he was glad to see.
He looked at his watch again. If he had any chance of catching up with the killer, he knew he’d have to get a move on.
He could see the conveyor belt. It came through the wall about six feet up.
‘Damn, that’s a bit high’ he thought, looking around for something to stand on.
He saw some boxes in a corner well away from the test bed. He went over, and seeing that they were sturdy enough, emptied one out on the floor.
Then took it and placed it on the floor below the conveyor belt, then stood on it. He still wasn’t able to see the explosive charge, so took a small pencil torch from his pocket. Then, holding it in one hand, he reached up with his arm and extended it sideways as far as he could, with the torch’s beam directed at the conveyer’s underside.
The killer’s explosive charge could now faintly be seen. So he moved closer in until the angle between the torch and his eyes were beyond the reflective limits of the object.
He kept moving his pencil torch around so that the beam gave him different perspectives of the object, enabling him to quickly work out the component parts of the explosive package.
He looked at his watch again, only six minutes to lock down.
‘Damn,’ he thought. Then called Hanson on his transceiver.
“Hi. What have you found Micky?”
“Well, he’s been very smart. He seems to have used some of his cloak’s mosaics. Quite ingenious actually. He’s got what looks like a battery pack running the stealth component. Ah, yes, there is a proximity detector on the package.”
Micky was now almost touching the unit.
“I don’t recognise the type of explosive, and…,” he stopped speaking then gasped.
“Wow. It’s booby-trapped.”
There was silence for a moment. Then Hanson spoke.
“So you won’t be able to disable it. Is it safe to let it detonate?” He asked, his voice solemn.
“There isn’t enough time to even try to disable it now. No. You're right, we’ll have to let it detonate. Besides, he’ll be expecting an explosion.”
“So, Micky. Am I right in thinking that you never intended to disable it anyway?”
“Absolutely right Hanson.”
“Then you’d better get out now…. There are only three minutes left till shut-down.”
“OK. Has anyone seen him yet?” Micky asked as he started to move.
“No.”
“Now you can see why I wanted to have a dummy charge set in front of the real one, Hanson. It’s the only way we can make the killer think his plan has worked.” Micky said as he got closer to the door.
As he came out of K8, he shouted at the two guards standing at the entrance. “Leave the area. Go. Now.”
Micky was almost running as he hurried back towards the main gate.
Then, hearing Hanson’s voice, reminded Micky that the transceiver channel was still open.
“Micky, he’ll soon realize there’s no radiation at all,” Hanson said.
“Hopefully, it won’t matter Hanson. At least it won’t delay the project.”
“True,” Hanson replied.
Micky found his pager and while running, tapped the screen to call Chris.
“Ready,” came back the acknowledgment.
He was slightly out of breath by now. He knew he was definitely in need of exercise. But he also knew that it didn’t really matter anymore.
Then he remembered that Doctor Henning had given him some tablets to improve his failing energy.
He fumbled in his pocket while trying to run. Found the strips of tablets and managed to get one off each strip. Almost falling over in the process.
He placed both tablets under his tongue. Almost immediately, he felt better.
The difference was incredible. It was partly psychological he knew, but if it gave him an energy boost now when he urgently needed it, so much the better. He’d have a second helping of the tablets once he was in the Limo.
He had almost reached his Limo when he picked up the killer’s mental emotions, which showed that he was moving relatively slowly.<
br />
‘The murderer hasn’t reached his car yet,’ he thought. Surprised but buoyed up by this info.
‘So, there’s still a chance that I’ll get to my Limo before he reaches his car.’ he concluded, grinning slightly.
Chapter 34.
Unwelcome Advance.
Charlie, laying on the gantry of K7, had watched Micky through her rifle’s scope, as he left K8 at a trot.
Mr Thunder, as she now called him, was on watch at the bottom of the stairway leading up to the gantry and was holding a revolver in each hand. While, Mr Dread knelt beside Charlie at the top of the gantry.
She had taken the six bullets from her pocket and laid them on the gantry close to her right hand.
Mr Dread placed his revolver with the box of spare ammunition on the floor beside him. Just in case Charlie kept missing the connector and used up her extra rounds.
“You look sexy, Miss, laying there like that. I feel I should be giving you something,” Dread suddenly said, out of the blue, while looking at her with a leering look on his face.
“Just don’t try your luck on me Dread,” she snapped, sensing his hand approaching somewhere where it shouldn’t be going.
“Sorry Miss,” he murmured. But still put a hand on her backside then squeezed one of her cheeks.
“Feels firm to me Miss,” he said, giving it a hard squeeze before removing his hand.
Charlie tried to ignore him, almost swearing under her breath.
“If I wanted sex with you,” she growled, “and I don’t. I’d be on my flaming back.”
“I’ll remember to oblige you when I see you on your back then,” Dread whispered in her ear.
“Your manhood would be in the dustbin, along with the rest of you. Now shut up and concentrate on what we’re supposed to be doing.”
Death of Time (SpaceFed StarShips Series Book 4) 2nd Edition.: A thrilling, psychological, Mystery and Suspense, sci-fi detective thriller. (SpaceFed StarShips Trilogy) Page 22