by Mark Lingane
She relaxed and Chambers eased the young boy out of her arms and into the protection of a waiting medic. The medic scooted away and laid the boy on a stretcher.
“You go home,” Chambers said. “I think you’ve had enough for the day. I’ll tidy things up here.”
The shock had eventually drained away, leaving Hanson exhausted. Her muscles were aching. Tomorrow was going to be a hamstrung nightmare. When the taxi dropped her off, she struggled up the stairs to her apartment. She fumbled through her pockets, but couldn’t sense her keys. Her fingers felt numb. She rubbed her hands together and patted her pockets. Her keys eluded her, so she knocked.
Rod opened the door. His face was full of thunder, but it was replaced by shock as soon as he saw her. She limped in, covered in blood, dust and dirt, her clothes ripped.
“What happened to you?” Rod said, his face full of concern. He helped her over to the couch, wincing involuntarily as her dirty clothes touched the white fabric.
“Bad day at the office.” She collapsed onto the sofa, laid her head back, and stared at the ceiling for a moment before closing her eyes.
“Was it anything to do with the plane?”
She nodded.
Hanson knew Rod was speaking, but the words swirled around her head before drifting away, unencumbered by comprehension. Eventually she caught the word “clinic” and dreaded what was coming. She knew how disappointed he was that she had missed the appointment, and tried to disarm the situation.
“I’m so sorry, Rod. If there’d been any way in the world I could’ve got there, I would have. When can we get another appointment?”
“They said it would be another month away. But don’t think about that now. You’re in no condition to do anything at the moment, and the stress would be too much.”
“I’m sorry, I know how …” she took a deep breath. “I know how keen you were to go.”
And once again, he was saying words, but her eyes drifted away and she recalled the feelings of the day. She knew he was on one of his martyr talks where, “everything is about you,” although it wasn’t really.
His face went dark when she interrupted him mid-sentence. “Funny thing is, when I had this young boy in my arms and I was running away from the exploding helicopter—”
“The what?”
“Doesn’t matter. I was holding him and it sort of felt … nice, him being secure in my arms.”
“I knew there were some mothering instincts inside of you, hiding.”
She looked into his eyes. They looked happy for the first time in a long while. Her words gave him the kind of joint commitment he had always been looking for.
“We’ll see,” she said. “There’s a big step between holding a child for a moment and going through the process.”
“They say the process is fun.”
“Parts of it. Some say that most of it is suffering, pain, heartache, and regret. And that’s just the night after meeting the future father.”
Hanson, washed, cleaned and patched, lay tucked tightly under the bedcovers, staring at the ceiling. She absentmindedly tapped her fingers on the sheet. A small fan buzzed away in the corner, trying to cool the room.
She checked the news on her phone. Still no survivors. Still no videos of the actual event. She placed the phone back on the side table, finding the lack of information odd. There was always someone lurking around doing nefarious deeds and capturing the event for YouTube. Maybe they were all waiting for the right price.
Her thoughts flicked back to Chambers. Reggie. She smiled. He had looked pretty good with the sledgehammer. He had dark skin and twinkling eyes that you just knew were trouble. It all fitted together well in Chambers, if you were into that kind of thing. But underneath the smart talking and good looks, he seemed like a nice person. It would’ve been good to spend more time with him. He worked well under pressure.
Her phone buzzed twice. Two messages: one from Suzanna and the other from HQ. Dan Holloway. She glanced at the subject. The flight model was complete. She looked over at her man snoring next to her, sighed, and then eased out of bed.
She woke her workstation and opened the emails. The first one was from Suzanna, gushing over the footage of her escaping the helicopter and wondering if Hanson wanted to be interviewed on the BBC Breakfast sofa. It was full of the anchor’s usual abundance of exclamation marks.
A message from Holloway on the internal system contained one line:
>The model is complete, but the results were rubbish.
She glanced out the window at the quiet street below. Just one lone man staggering down the sidewalk and the quiet beeping of a trash truck picking up the local garbage. The black bitumen looked tired and old, with the streetlights highlighting the cracks.
Holloway was still online. She opened the messaging program.
>>Why rubbish?
>Showed the plane falling straight out of the sky. Which is impossible.
>>Send it through anyway.
>No point.
>>Holloway, send it through or I’ll tell Booker about you and Annette and especially what you did on his desk at the Xmas party.
>There’s a reason no one likes you. :-(
Another email arrived, this time with an attachment. She closed the dialog box and examined the data he’d sent. Holloway had pushed the math whizzes, and they had calculated the plane’s flight path from the last communication through to the crash corridor. She looked at the 3D model, rotating it with the trackpad.
“It really did fall out of the sky,” she muttered.
She tracked along the path and examined the nearly vertical line to the ground. She looked at the model from above and noted there was no yaw movement—it had fallen straight down. Something caught her eye. She zoomed onto the drop point, where the plane had begun its fall. Then she zoomed onto the London street map below it. The drop point was directly above the intersection of Brunel and Swan.
Hanson sat staring at the monitor for fifteen minutes, not seeing anything other than the intersection. Eventually, she pushed the chair away from the desk. The wheels clicked over the tile edges. She checked her watch. Time: 02:48. Heart rate: 97.
She grabbed her keys and quietly left the apartment.
9
THE SECURITY GUARD gave Hanson a suspicious look as she signed the check-in sheet. It was stupid-late, but Hanson’s seniority and slightly deranged appearance managed to convince the guard to allow her through the fencing. Security was now in the hands of the private contractors, G4SX.
The guard gave her a flashlight, which she holstered. People dressed in non-contaminative clothing were sifting through the wreckage. The crash zone was ablaze with multiple floodlights on long poles. The whole place put her on edge.
Hanson skirted the fuselage and made her way down Brunel. It took time and effort. She found herself catching her breath as she struggled over the uneven terrain. As she looked ahead, she could barely make out the road in the dark, and each step was hesitant.
There was a sudden movement to her right and several bricks slid down, startling her. She approached the intersection. There was the sound of metal being moved. She stopped dead. The sound was repeated. She squinted into the darkness and waited. Her eyes had slowly accustomed to the darkness and she was able to make out the shape of the hatchback.
Then she saw movement. Someone was down there. The person was nearly impossible to see in the dark. She tried to step quietly, but stumbled. The person turned. She shone the flashlight’s beam into the face of an Indian man, who froze. He was carrying a small metal box and a long metal bar.
“Hey, who are you?” she called. “Stop and account.”
He turned and fled.
“Stop!” she shouted. “Police!”
He was gone.
She arrived at the semi-crushed hatchback and caught her breath. Power was still flowing in from somewhere; she could feel the buzz of electricity coming from the vehicle.
Her foot kicked a small obj
ect that skipped off over the rubble, emitting light. She went over and picked it up. It was a phone. And it was on. Terror gripped her as thoughts of explosions filled her mind. She closed her eyes and turned off the phone. She didn’t turn into fried chicken. Turning it over revealed CF printed on the back.
Weariness overtook her and she stood still, closing her eyes, feeling the accumulated heaviness of the day. The sounds of excavation, and the occasional shout and reverse beeping drifted away into an echo-y distance. If she lay down, even on the sharp edges of the broken bricks, she would be asleep in moments.
At the edge of her hearing, she caught an unexpected noise. After all the warnings, after all the explanations, barely audible above the occasional snatches of silence she heard a sound that didn’t belong. It was a very faint beep. And it came from under the car. Her eyes snapped open, weariness draining away.
Hanson dropped down onto the rubble next to the vehicle. Without thinking, she placed her hand on the tire. Her brain screamed as thoughts of Bremmer being thrown twenty yards came slamming back. But there was no shock.
She glanced at her watch. Heart rate: 185. But the display was flashing irregularly.
Hanson closed her eyes and tapped the tire. The car began to rock gently. She pushed heavily against the wheel and the car wobbled. Looking into the wheel wells, she saw that the shock absorbers were fully extended, as though the vehicle was trying to leap free of the ground.
There was another tiny beep from beneath the car. She reached under and felt the electromagnetic waves grow in intensity as her hand moved closer to the beeping object. The thought occurred to her that this might not be the most intelligent thing she had done today, which, when she looked back on it, had been full of unintelligent actions.
What if it was a bomb? What if it was a rat’s nest? Gross. It couldn’t be a bomb. Didn’t they tick? Or was that only in the cartoons?
Her fingers gently brushed against something smooth and metallic. Instantly the buzzing stopped and she felt the spikiness fall faster than a scare on the stock markets. The car also fell, the body crunching down over the tires. Hanson held her breath and felt the metal touch, but not crush, her arm. She was trapped.
She quelled the urge to scream as panic gripped her. She took her fingers off the metal device, trying to wriggle her arm free, but the edge of the car bit into her arm. A grinding came from underneath the vehicle. She reached out for the device again and found it deeper in the ground. Her mind raced. She took her fingers off it and the grinding returned. She dropped her fingers onto the metal, and again it stopped. This time it had dug deeper. What was happening?
“Oh, great.” She scanned the area. There was no one nearby. “Er, help.” A few moments of silence drifted past. “Could someone help me? I’m stuck.”
There was still no response. Her eyes became unbearably heavy and she rested her head on the ground. She inhaled deeply and prepared to shout. There was the sudden sound of rubble sliding, and she aimed the flashlight’s beam. A man stuck his head out from behind a fallen sign.
“I’m an officer of the law and require assistance,” she said. “The duty of citizens is to …” Her request for aid wasn’t being as well received as she hoped. The man remained semi-concealed and unmoving. “Okay, that didn’t come out right. I’m extremely tired. Can you help me, please?”
The man edged out hesitantly.
“Would you stop acting like Gollum? You’re freaking me out.”
“What’s happened?” the man replied.
“I don’t know, other than I’m stuck here. The vehicle’s got me trapped.”
He crouched down and looked under the car. “You’ve disarmed the EM source under the car. There was an electromagnetic bomb—”
“Bomb?” Hanson’s heart rate began to climb.
“Not as in exploding bomb.” Randeep tried to calm his own voice. “It explodes, but with EM waves, electromagnetic waves.”
“I got my tech people to run a model on the flight path, and this is where the plane fell. Could this device have been the cause?”
“To be honest, if it wasn’t, then I’d surprised,” Randeep said. “But you’ve disarmed it and you’re still alive. How did you do that?”
“I don’t know. I just touched it and it turned off.”
“Interesting.”
“And when I untouch it, it burrows into the ground.”
“Self-disposing ordinances. That’s a clever idea. I wonder if it converts to a landmine.”
“Don’t say that!” Her sudden outburst startled Randeep and he began to hedge away. She softened her voice. “What’s your name?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Yes, you can. I’m a police officer. You must assist me with my investigations.”
“If there’s a crime, I’ll help where I can, but I’m limited in what I can say. I’ve signed the Official Secrets Act.”
“That sounds like something you say a lot.”
“I have little else in my life that makes me interesting. It’s been a lonely five years.”
“Yes, well, we could chat amiably like this until the sun rises, but I’m afraid I would lose my arm. Can you find some way of lifting the car?”
Randeep disappeared into the darkness, and returned with a long pole and a damaged trashcan. He laid the can down near the rear of the car, and slid the pole over it and under the chassis. He tested the pole, but it slipped straight out.
“I’m no expert at this,” Hanson said, “but I’m guessing the power that was coming out of whatever I’m touching would levitate this car if it wasn’t for the great chunk of metal stapling it to the ground.”
“My calculations would agree with your hypothesis.”
“I saw a video on YouTube once about a frog being levitated using magnets. Is this similar?”
“Yes.” He repositioned the pole and tested the weight. This time it stayed in place.
“Who has this kind of technology?” Hanson asked. “Americans? Russians?”
“Yes, they’ll both have something hypothetically similar. Everyone does.”
“So, who’s responsible for this?”
“Someone we don’t know.”
“A … new enemy? Someone working in secret?”
“In this field, no one works in secret. There are great rewards for those who achieve the most. So far, we in the UK are the best.”
“How do you know so much?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Are you saying we planted this?”
“No, we’re nowhere near this level of technology. This is hyper-advanced. But we’re in the early stages of developing similar things.”
“But you said we’re the best.”
“Yes.”
She gave him a long stare as she absorbed what he was saying. “I don’t like what you’re saying, so I’ve decided you’re clinically insane.”
“Get ready. I’m about to lever the car up to get you out.” He heaved and the vehicle lifted up fractionally. There was just enough space for Hanson to strengthen her grip on the object and withdraw her arm.
“Okay, I’m clear,” she shouted.
He released the pole and the hatchback collapsed onto the rubble.
Still sitting, Hanson examined the device in her hand. It was shaped like a metal rugby ball—oval with pointy ends. On the side was printed CF-555. She put it down and released her grip. The ends started spinning, exposing sharp blades that began to dig into the ground. She placed her hand on the safe middle section; the ends stopped spinning and the blades disappeared.
Randeep had come around from the other side of the car. He stepped closer and Hanson moved the CF-555 out of his line of sight. Their eyes met and she could see the hunger of knowledge in his eyes.
Hanson snatched at Randeep’s leg, grabbing his ankle. She shouted for help. He kicked out and his shoe connected with her temple. The shock went through her and overloaded her system. Her body shut down and unc
onsciousness claimed her. The CF-555 rolled free of her hand. It spun into life and within moments had buried itself into the ground.
“Oh, no, so sorry,” Randeep said. “Oh, dear.”
Several figures in white suits were making their way toward them over the mountains of debris. Randeep’s eyes flicked between Hanson and the approaching people, who were now pointing at him.
“Sorry,” he said. He swooped down and grabbed his phone, then ran off in the opposite direction.
Consciousness came knocking and Hanson took bearing of her surroundings. She was on a stretcher in a small tent. It was still dark, although she could make out the multiple floodlights through the tent material. There was no one here; all activity was happening elsewhere. Shadows flickered on the outside of the tent as people continued to search.
Her head swam as she sat up, forcing her to lie back down until the tent stopped spinning. She took several deep breaths and sat up again, then made her way out. Her vision blurred and refocused. The scene in front of her could have been the moon.
She made her way back to the entry point and the crash-zone security guard, and demanded to see the register. There were dozens of names.
“Get someone to check this list against your authorized personnel,” she told the man. “Contact me if you find someone who doesn’t belong.” She handed him her card and staggered off back to her home.
10
HANSON’S LEGS ACHED to the point where she was finding it hard to bend them without wincing, but she felt upbeat. Fuelled up on a caffeine dosage that verged on lethal, she struggled up the small set of steps into the Central HQ, clutching the report in her hand.
She had spent the morning writing up her notes, the information flowing out of her as though a dam had been opened. There had been so much to say. She wasn’t entirely sure, but she suspected she could have trimmed it slightly. It was a good report, detailed and honest, full of observations, deductions, and interjections. It was the kind of document that could not be ignored; one that showed the command what she could do. The emotional release as she had emailed the early copy had been exquisite.
